Prayer (16 page)

G
od and BP have a lot to answer for in the Gulf of Mexico. But calling Galveston a ghost town was misleading. Even the ghosts looked like they’d jumped on a train across the Galveston Causeway, retreating inland and north back up the Gulf Freeway for a more congenial city to haunt, such as Houston or Dallas. Most of the ghosts anyway; about the only place that seemed as if it might still be home to a spook or two was the Catholic diocesan house where Bishop Coogan had taken me the previous day—the place where it seemed I was going to live for a while, in the absence of something rent-free that was any better.

From the outside, things did not look promising. It was a turn-of-the-century three-story wooden house with a corner turret roof, wraparound balconies and verandas, and a white picket fence. The house was much larger than I had imagined, and like a lot of old places in Galveston, it belonged properly in a less congenial part of Amityville. I’ve seen creepier-looking houses, but only on the cover of a novel by Stephen King.

Inside, however, things were very much more agreeable. The place was spectacularly clean—Coogan hadn’t exaggerated about that. And the house was as well-appointed as he had promised it would be, with a wide-screen television, a well-stocked wine cellar, and a handsome library; it was nicely furnished, too, with a large and very comfortable bed, some fine Spanish rugs, and lots of leather furniture. I even liked the framed prints that were on the walls, although many of these pictures were of religious subjects. Coogan said they were by an English painter called Stanley Spencer, whom I’d only vaguely heard of: his
The Resurrection, Cookham
was pleasantly ordinary, while his
Angels of the
Apocalypse
looked like a group of wives heading home from a Weight Watchers meeting.

In spite of these creature comforts, I did not sleep well on my first night. The tree out front was perfectly shaped for a hanging—an effect enhanced by a piece of ancient rope that was tied around the sturdiest bough; it was badly in need of pruning and, stirred by the Gulf breezes that had once made Galveston a better place to live than Houston, the branches tapped against the upper windows all night long. Being made entirely of wood, the house creaked like a wrecked schooner as it cooled after the high temperatures of the day, so that there were several times during the night when I felt obliged to get up and check what I already knew—that I was the only person in the house.

I wasn’t just the only person in the house. The general ghostly effect of my new home was enhanced—if that’s the right word—by the fact that most of the other houses in the neighborhood were boarded up and empty. I could have fired a whole clip out of the window and no one would have turned a hair. Galveston was getting back on its feet was the rumor at the local gas station but not so that anyone would have noticed. I’ve been in noisier boxes of cotton than Galveston.

Every time I looked out of a window I had the idea I might see a bunch of zombies coming along the street. At the local bodega on Strand Rear Street, by the greenish harbor, the guy behind the cash register was from some shit-hole town in Russia’s Arctic Circle; he joked that Galveston reminded him of home, and I believed him. I couldn’t have felt more cut off if I’d been manning a camp at the North Pole. And that particular Sunday morning, when I drove out of Galveston, I never thought I’d actually be glad to be heading for Lakewood Church.

I wasn’t long off the island across the causeway when my cell rang. It was Helen Monaco.

“Where have you been, Martins? I was ringing you at home all day yesterday,” she complained. “And you weren’t answering your cell or your e-mails.”

“Gee, Helen, it sounds like you were worried about me.”

“Where the hell are you, anyway?”

“Galveston,” I said. “It’s where I’m living, as of yesterday. That’s why you couldn’t reach me at home. I’ve moved out. I should have called the office and let them know but this is my first day off since Ruth left me.”

“Galveston? What the hell are you living there for? Are you tired of life or something?”

“It’s actually quite a nice house, in the day. And rent-free, too.”

“If I’d known you were that desperate, you could have had my couch.”

“Ah, that’s what you say now. But late at night, when we’d had a few drinks and you started coming on to me. Well, who knows how that might turn out?”

“And here I was, feeling sorry for you, sir.”

“Don’t. I’m doing just fine feeling sorry for myself all on my own.”

“You’re in the car. I hope I’m not going to spoil your Sunday.”

“Every day feels like Sunday in Galveston. That’s why I’m driving back to Houston.”

“Yesterday morning I got a call from a guy I know in HPD. On Friday night they busted a forty-one-year-old Caucasian woman named Gaynor Carol Allitt for causing an automobile accident after she ran a red light on North Post Oak and Woodway. It was nothing serious. Just a couple of fenders bent is all. It seemed as if she might have been spooked by a patrol car that was heading for Memorial Park to check out this latest murder. At least that’s what the two patrolmen thought. But when they questioned her, she became almost hysterical and told the two officers she wanted to confess to a murder.”

“To the serial killings?”

“To the murder of Philip Osborne.”

“But she’s a loon, right? She has to be.”

“That’s what the police thought. So they fluttered her. And the polygraph said she was telling the truth. That’s when they called me. And when I spoke to her last night, she sounded pretty reasonable; like she was in earnest. She didn’t give any details, but she’s sticking to what she told HPD. She told me she heard about Osborne’s death from the TV news and felt guilty about it. Which is why she confessed in the first place.”

Suddenly the idea of going to Lakewood did not seem so very important. Besides, I already knew in my gut that I was probably wasting my time. Texting Ruth that I was out of her house on Driscoll Street looked like the easier option—one that wouldn’t have required me to wear a tin hat.

“Where is she now?”

“They transferred her to Travis Street. That’s where they did the polygraph. Apart from that, the only reason HPD is still holding her is because I asked them to. In their opinion, she just doesn’t look right for murder and belongs in a hospital. After all, it’s not like Osborne was actually murdered. At least as far as we know he wasn’t.”

“You want to meet me at the Coney Island on the corner of Dallas?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“I’m on my way.”

Surrounded by other tall modern buildings, 1200 Travis Street was thirty stories of honey-colored stone already hot to the touch. The ground-floor lobby was enclosed by tall plate-glass windows with big logos and outsize community slogans. Except for the cops going in and out of the front door in their sky-blue shirts and navy blue pants, the general impression was of an international advertising agency rather than the headquarters of the Houston Police Department. I parked the car, and peeling the shirt away from my back, I flung my jacket over my shoulder and headed for the Coney Island on the opposite corner. I wasn’t much of a cook, and with nothing in my refrigerator after just one night in my new home, I was ravenously hungry.

Inside, Helen was at a corner table. Her blond hair hung loose about her powerful-looking shoulders, which were left bare by the light sleeveless dress she was wearing. I sat down opposite her and nodded affably at a half-eaten fat pill and an empty coffee cup.

“Looks like you’ve been here awhile, Agent Monaco.”

“Not really. But I could use another cup of coffee.”

The waitress came over, poured some more coffee and some water, and I ordered greedily. I handed the sticky plastic menu back and, as soon as the waitress was gone, I took out a little bottle of antibacterial hand gel and rubbed some into my hands.

Helen smiled.

“Same old Gil Martins.”

“What?” I said.

“I wouldn’t worry about the germs. The cholesterol in your order’ll kill you. That or those cigarettes you’ve started smoking again. I can smell them on your clothes.”

“You know, with a nose like yours, you should work for the FBI.”

My breakfast arrived and Helen did a good job of restraining her horror while I ate it.

Helen said, “Don’t mind me. I love to watch people make pigs of themselves.”

“Sorry, but I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon,” I explained. “There’s no real food to be had anywhere in Galveston.”

“What’s the house like?”

“Creaks a lot. Especially at night. But otherwise quite comfortable. Cops expecting us?”

“At eleven o’clock. The detective’s name is Kevin Blunt.”

When my breakfast was over, I fisted my chest and paid the check.

We went outside where the heat hit us like a prairie fire, crossed the street into the cool of the HPD building, and announced ourselves to the Bratz doll who was the receptionist.

A few minutes later, Inspector Blunt came down and took us to a windowless interview room. He was the heartless authority-figure type with a neat line in crusty dialogue that lived up to his name. He was wearing ostrich-skin cowboy boots and a blue linen blazer with gold buttons that had little rattlesnakes on them, probably good likenesses of his children.

“You ask me, you’re wasting your time,” he said, inviting us to be seated. “A murderer?” He shook his head. “I’ve worked homicide for twenty years and in my opinion this woman’s got JDLR stamped on her forehead. JDLR for murder, in case there’s any doubt.”

JDLR is one of those acronyms in law enforcement’s glossary that are—most of them—designed to stop the great American public from knowing as much about us as they’d like to know; it means “just doesn’t look right.”

“If you feebees think it’s worth it, then go ahead and be our guest,” he grumbled. “Hell, we love to cooperate with the Bureau. It actually makes us feel like we’re important. But in the absence of any evidence other than Miss Allitt’s improbable confession, I can’t hold her after today. Hell, we’re not even treating Philip Osborne’s death as suspicious. And I’ve got better things to do on a Sunday than chaperone an interview with a woman who is frankly delusional.”

“We’re certainly grateful for your cooperation, Inspector,” I said.

Wearily, he picked up a telephone and asked someone on the other end of the line to bring Gaynor Allitt along to our interview room.

“You want to know what I think?” Blunt said after a while.

“You’re the homicide expert, not me.”

“Only a few months ago we had a guy in who confessed to a murder and he seemed to know a hell of a lot of details about the case; we fluttered him the way we fluttered Gaynor Allitt, expecting the polygraph to show that he was lying, right? Only he wasn’t lying. Not according to the machine. He really thought he’d done it. And so, for a while, did we. They say you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. But then we did because the DA told us to. And it turned out the guy had a gold-plated alibi for the murder. So that was that. And a little later on we discovered he’d taken some medication and fallen asleep in front of the TV. Slept all the way through a rolling news station and twenty or thirty news bulletins about the murder. So many that when he woke up he was convinced he really had killed someone.”

I nodded.

“I’m just saying that fooling yourself is what being human is all about, right? It’s the price we pay for having the kind of brain that invents explanations for stuff. I believe in human gullibility and not much else. The only wonder is that we don’t get more of this kind of Looney-Tunes shit. Crackpots who confess to murders they didn’t commit.”

I smiled patiently but I was getting a little bored with Blunt’s Dr. Phil show. I looked at my watch and drummed my fingers on the table until I remembered the number of lowlifes who had probably touched it.

Blunt shrugged. “This is a big building,” he said. “It can take a while to bring a sub all the way up here.” He looked at his watch and was speaking again when the door opened.

After a few routine questions and answers that were supposed to try to make her feel comfortable, I asked Gaynor Allitt if she wanted an attorney present. She declined, as she had done the previous day; and because at this stage neither Blunt nor the FBI was inclined to believe that she had committed anything other than a traffic violation, it hardly seemed necessary that we find her legal representation.