Smaller and Smaller Circles (28 page)

48

“At least wear
the vest.”

Jerome shoves the heavy, black bulletproof vest toward Saenz, but the older priest makes a face and waves it away. It still smells of all the bodies that have worn it before.

“No, no. It will only slow me down. I'll go as I am or not at all.”

“Pity you can't be excommunicated for pigheadedness.” Jerome uses his bare hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. He cannot understand why he should be perspiring so when the rain has been pouring for half an hour, the wind dipping low every now and then and whipping furiously around them.

They are in the covered porch of the parish church, and a few of the agents are gathered around them, preparing for the apprehension of Alex Carlos.

Jerome blows a puff of air out of his mouth, scratches his head and turns back to Saenz, searching the older man's face for reassurance. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”

“To begin with, I didn't think the priesthood was such a good idea, but here we are,” Saenz quips. He reaches out and playfully rumples up Jerome's hair to annoy him, as he used to do when he was still his student.

Then, as Jerome smoothes his hair down, Saenz clutches the wooden crucifix hanging from its cord down to his chest, closes his eyes and says a brief prayer.

Arcinas walks toward them. “Okay, everybody's ready. We can go.”

There are three unmarked cars waiting for them. Jake Valdes is standing by the first with three other agents; Arcinas and another set of agents are climbing into the last one. Saenz sees the familiar faces of agents Ed Borja and Norman Estrella through the windshield of the middle car.

Norman, who's at the wheel, waves at Saenz. “Over here, Father.”

Saenz waves back. As he and Jerome enter the car, he sees two familiar figures in the rearview mirror, also entering another car parked some distance away—a woman and a man. He doesn't mention it to Jerome.

“It's too bad we haven't seen the interior of the gymnasium,” Jerome says.

Saenz is looking straight ahead, at the rain lashing against the windshield.

“He won't be inside the gymnasium.”

“Where, then?”

“You're the psychologist. Think about it. He wouldn't feel safe inside the gymnasium; it's the place where he was violated. No. He'll make his stand in the one place where he feels he's safe, in control.”

“The mobile clinic.”

“We know enough about the killings to know that he left very little blood at the sites where the bodies were found. Remember what we were saying? Someplace easy to clean. A garage. A bathroom. Possibly a vehicle.”

“And a converted bus would be a logical place.” Jerome pauses. “He tidies up afterward. The rubber boots. Everything can be washed.”

Saenz nods. “If his safety zone is violated, he'll be forced to act.”

“I don't like the sound of that.”

The older priest sighs. “Get in line.”

“Joanna, where the
hell are you?” Wally Soler's voice booms over the cell phone.

“I'm following Arcinas and his boys. They've got Saenz tracking Alex Carlos.” The woman has her hands full steering through the rain, keeping the phone balanced between her right ear and shoulder.

“Why didn't you bring Manny along?” The man's voice is a snarl. “You know you're not supposed to do these things alone.”

She smiles. “Aw, Wally Bally FoFally, are you worried about me? No, really, that's okay; you can tell me. I'm touched.”

“Shut up and give me your exact location, Bonifacio. I'm sending Manny to meet up with you.”

She grimaces in the darkness. “Manny is old and slow. And smells bad. Anyway, I've got Leo with me.”

At the mention of his name, Leo grins widely, his teeth the most visible part of him in the darkness of the vehicle.

“Leo is small and can't protect you.”

“It's okay, Wally. Why you know, come to think of it, maybe my mission on earth is to protect Leo,” she chortles, as Leo's grin turns into a pout.

She can see her boss now, standing by the phone with his sleeves rolled up, rubbing the bridge of his nose in weary resignation.

“Joanna, what am I going to do with you?”

In the past, sitting on the staircases and in the living rooms of houses she grew up in, Joanna has heard this same telephone conversation many times, with her dead father's voice in place of her own.

The voice at the other end of the line was always Wally Soler's.

“Worry about me, Wally,” she says quietly. “Just like you did for Papa.”

The man has nothing to say to this, and she knows that at this moment he is remembering his best friend, a big, tall, solemn man with a deceptively gentle face and manner. Many years ago, on a night very much like this one, Antonio Bonifacio went out on an assignment and did not come back alive.

Wally Soler will not lose the daughter the same way; no, sir, not if he can help it.

Ahead of her, the NBI cars slow to a stop.

“Have to go, Wallykins,” she says with forced cheeriness. “Buy some doughnuts for when we get back.”

When the line goes dead, Wally hangs on for a moment.

If anything happens to the stupid, mule-headed bitch, I'll skin her myself, dead or alive, God help her.

God, help her.

49

Just minutes after
they leave the church, the agents' two-way radios crackle to life. It's Valdes. Ed responds, trying to keep his voice low, but it's clear something's wrong. He looks over his shoulder at Saenz.

“
Tanods
found the missing boy not far from here. Side of the landfill nearest the school.”

“Alive?” Jerome asks, but from the looks Ed and Norman exchange with each other, the answer is obvious.

“So we're heading there.” Saenz says it not as a question but as a matter of fact.

“It's just up the road.”

It's not long before they see the flashing lights of police vehicles. A checkpoint has been set up, manned by
barangay tanods
and policemen, and the three NBI cars are waved through. They all come to a halt near the line of police and
barangay
cars.

Valdes steps out, motions for Ed and Norman to follow with Saenz and Jerome. They leave the car, walk bareheaded in rain that has dwindled to a drizzle. The smell of the garbage is overpowering. The ground is wet with rain, streaked with mud.

Valdes stops to talk to a uniformed policeman. After a few seconds, the policeman points toward the dump, and Valdes turns to make sure they're all following before heading in that direction.

It's less than two minutes before they see the body.

“It'll be at least half an hour before Rustia gets here,” Valdes says.

Saenz nods. Tonight they cannot wait.

Somebody—Ed or Norman—hands him a large flashlight, and then everyone else steps back. Saenz switches the light on and then bends to examine the ground around the body.
Two black rats, their fur glistening with droplets of rain, turn toward the light but boldly stand their ground. Jerome hisses, a sharp and threatening sound, and the rats scurry away, startled.

Saenz moves the flashlight's beam so that it traces the outline of something in the mud: a footprint. “Men's size six?” he asks, seeking another opinion.

“Looks like it,” Jerome answers. “Same garden-variety plastic rain boot.”

Satisfied, Saenz steps carefully toward the body. He feels more than a bit ashamed of the way excitement and anticipation are warring with the sorrow and horror and revulsion within him. The shame feels like sand in his mouth, rough and gritty, and he wishes he could spit it out.

This is important; this is the closest they have ever come to him. They're separated from this young boy's death and the presence of his killer by a mere hour or two.

The body is lying facedown in the mud. Saenz holds up an open palm, and Jerome knows what he wants. He unzips a small plastic case and fishes out a pair of disposable gloves. He hands them to Saenz, who gives him the flashlight and quickly pulls the gloves on.

He lays a hand on the dead boy's back, between the shoulder blades.

“It's still warm.” Saenz shakes his head, as though clearing away cobwebs in his brain. “I mean,
he's
still warm.”

The two priests look at each other a few seconds in mutual understanding. How easy it is to see the dead person as a body, a thing, a piece of evidence.

Saenz holds the corpse by the shoulders, turns it over gently on its back.

The face is gone.

Jerome backs away; it is the first fresh corpse they have seen in this series of killings, and although he has seen dead bodies before, he is not fully prepared for the raw, bloody pulp above the child's neck. The yellow glow from the flashlight and the headlights of the police vehicles enhances, rather than diminishes, the ghastliness of the sight.

“You all right?” Saenz glances up at him just as a beam from one of the police cars' flashing lights catches Jerome's pallid face. “Why don't you go back for a while? I can handle things here.”

“No. I'm fine,” Jerome says, more to convince himself than Saenz.

Saenz turns his attention back to the body.

Domine, dirige nos.

With his gloved forefinger, he tilts the chin up and traces the clean horizontal slash he had expected to find there.

The boy is still wearing shorts. He has been stabbed several times in the chest. This time, aside from the flaying of the face, the body bears none of the usual injuries—the evisceration, the removal of the heart and the genitals.

Saenz sees a tiny glint of metal in the mud. He reaches out with a gloved hand, wiping away as much mud as he can to expose the object but leaving it where it lies. It is a dental elevator with a rubber grip. He moves aside a bit so that Jerome can see it.

The sense of his presence is so strong, like the unsettled air in his apartment when the two priests arrived there earlier. Saenz remains absolutely still, listening as though he might still catch his voice or footfall receding in the darkness.

The rats begin inching closer to the body again, watching the men with eyes like small, shiny beads. One rears up on its hind legs unsteadily, sniffing the air.

“Gus, look,” Jerome says, gesturing toward the body with the flashlight.

Saenz follows the path of the beam. On the inner side of the upper arm, two thin, deep, blood-caked circles, a small one on top of a slightly bigger one: the number 8.

The priests' eyes lock again, a terrible understanding passing wordlessly between and through them, like a thin shaft of glass.

Saenz stands up, peeling his gloves off.

“What are you thinking?” Jerome asks.

Saenz shakes his head. “He falls outside of the normal pattern somewhat.”

“Because of the absence of the other usual injuries.”

“He's in a hurry, then. Dispensing with the rest of the ritual because he knows we're getting close.” Saenz studies Jerome's face. “You all right?”

“I'm good,” he replies, but Saenz can feel his profound disquiet when he asks, “We can stop here, right? And leave the rest to Valdes and Arcinas? There's nothing more we can do for the boy.”

The rats begin squealing at each other, restless to have their turn at the body. For some reason, this makes Saenz unspeakably angry. “Not for this boy, no.” He turns in the direction of the school. “But perhaps for the other one—”

“Gus. I really don't think—”

“Father Gus?” a voice calls out. A small man emerges from the tight huddle of NBI and police personnel and comes up to them. He is carrying a large, powerful flashlight in one hand and what looks like a heavy black toolbox in the other.

“Ading? That you?”

Rustia waves his flashlight in response, taking care not to shine the beam directly in their eyes. “Yes, Father.” He moves forward with deliberate slowness, checking the mud around him as he goes. “We've got the tracks of a very large vehicle coming up this way. Something like a big bus.”

“Good man. We saw a print or two near the body. Looked like rain boots.”

“Hmmm. Okay. I'll deal with it. Anything else?”

“Dental elevator.”

“Hmmm. Right. Did you handle anything much?”

“Used gloves and turned the boy over to see the injuries. Otherwise left as much as we could undisturbed.”

Rustia pauses to consider the situation. “Not ideal, but okay. We'll be extra careful.”

50

It is
11
p.m.
on the first Saturday of September.

The cars pull up to the gates of the school: a drab, boxy three-story building with rows of darkened windows—all the same size and shape, all blankly looking out to the school yard like soulless eyes. There's a spindly flagpole right in front, surrounded by pots of dead or dying shrubbery. The gate has been busted open.

When Saez looks through the car windows at the people in the other NBI vehicles, they're all staring at the building, as if momentarily frozen. Even Ed and Norman are sitting stock-still, both peering warily through the windshield as though confronted by a colossus.

He finally decides to make the first move, popping the lock on the door with a loud click. “Wish me luck,” he says to Jerome, swinging his long legs out of the car.

The drizzle getting stronger now, the wind picking up speed once more.

“Luck, nothing.” Jerome says it sharply, his expression stern. “We'll be right behind you.”

Saenz walks forward, his shoes squishing in the mud. As he approaches the gate, it becomes clear that a large vehicle has been rammed through it. The metal tubing, which frames rusty chicken wire, is crushed in places, and there are wide, deep tire tracks in the mud. He glances behind him, just as the other NBI personnel begin leaving their cars.

Valdes approaches Saenz, Jerome following close behind him. “You sure you want to do this?” Valdes asks, and Saenz can sense the concern beneath his usual detachment. “With the boy dead, there's no reason why we can't sweep in and make this arrest ourselves.”

“I'm not making an arrest, Jake,” Saenz says quietly. “Look, we have an opportunity here to understand what really happened. Why he killed those boys. What intervention might have prevented him from killing, and at what point. But that can only happen if we bring him out alive. Will you give me your word that you'll hold off doing anything drastic until there's no other option left?”

“That's a promise I can't make, Father. You know that.”

“Jake. We've come this far.”

Before Valdes can answer, they hear the wail of several sirens, and then several police cars, their lights flashing, come screeching up the road, encircling the three NBI cars.

“What's all this?” Jerome asks.

Confusion, understanding, and finally, anger, flicker across Valdes's face in rapid succession. “Police backup.”

“Did you ask for that?”

Valdes makes a huffing, impatient sound, then smiles a cynical little nonsmile. “It just arrives sometimes, unasked for.”

Saez understands at once: it's a turf thing. And right now, not his problem. He turns and begins walking away from them until he has crossed the schoolyard. He can no longer hear their voices. For a moment, he has to reassure himself that the fact that he cannot see Jerome and the others does not mean they are not there.

He glances upward without knowing why. The moon is three-quarters full in a murky sky, broad, grey scars across its sickly, yellow face.

The mobile clinic is parked just outside the gym, beside an old acacia with a gnarled trunk. One side of the converted bus is wedged against the trunk, the metal warped, the windows shattered. It's clear the vehicle was driven to this spot at high speed, so forcefully that it clipped some of the tree's lower branches. They lie in a tangled mess on the vehicle's roof, their wet leaves clinging to its sides and windows like seaweed. In the darkness, it seems to Saenz as though some massive, sinister creature has caught hold of the clinic, wrapping it in a grotesque, unbreakable embrace.

He walks over to the clinic slowly. The soft squish of his shoes in the mud seems too noisy.

The door creaks when he opens it. With a deep breath and a prayer, he takes his first step inside.