Smaller and Smaller Circles (7 page)

Saenz1911: But we'll keep going anyway?

Saenz1911: In spite of that?

JLucero: You lead. I'll follow.

Nearly twenty-five years earlier, Saenz had tried to befriend the young Jerome, tried to understand what had been going on in his life and his home. But while the boy responded in small ways—he became more active and attentive in Saenz's classes—he never fully opened up to his teacher, nor gave a complete picture of the troubles in his family. The school year ended, and Saenz was soon caught up in other things, eventually leaving the country to begin doctoral studies in France.

When he returned to Manila to research and to teaching several years later, Saenz was pleasantly surprised to encounter Jerome—now a young man—in his theology class at the university. He was even more pleased to learn that he was now a Jesuit novice.

Saenz could tell that Jerome was still working through many issues from his past and did not trust people easily. They built their friendship slowly—at first, mostly through study and work. As mentor and student, they found common ground in their intellectual curiosity and their thirst for social justice. By the time of his ordination, Jerome had already chosen clinical psychology as his field of study. When Saenz began to do volunteer work to help identify the murdered victims of the dictatorship, Jerome was drawn in as well, providing free counseling for the families left behind. From there, their individual work took deeper turns into the study of violent crime. Jerome is now a clinical psychologist and at thirty-seven has already written a number of landmark papers on sexuality, violence and crime in the Philippines.

The friendship between the two has deepened significantly; they have developed an extraordinary rapport more closely resembling the tie between father and son. Although no two men could be more different in character and temperament, they find themselves on either end of a baffling mutual affinity. It is so strong that sometimes they startle themselves by finishing each other's sentences and thinking similar thoughts almost simultaneously. In the last two decades, they have become each other's consciences and sounding boards.

Jerome shares Saenz's views that serial killing is not a solely Western phenomenon and that the inadequacy and sloppiness of local police methods and intelligence techniques stand in the way of its detection.

Saenz1911: Thanks.

Saenz1911: These boys—it's almost as though they don't matter.

Saenz1911: Nobody is watching.

JLucero: “Could you not watch with me one hour?”

Saenz1911: Matthew 26:40?

JLucero: I'll watch with you.

7

The sky is
overcast, and the puddles on the streets reflect thick piles of clouds, rolling slowly where the winds take them.

Green is the only color that rain intensifies; the grass and the trees look as though they have been retouched with a giant brush by some great, invisible hand. Natural smells are heightened: the scent of flowers, of turf, of moist, peaty soil.

After the rain, life—earth, foliage, frogs—momentarily reclaims human attention from those things which are not life. Everything else—the cars, the buildings, the dingy shop signs and crumbling waiting sheds, the garlands of electrical wiring that line the streets, the rusting metal and concrete and plastic that jut out singly or in masses to stab the city air—everything else recedes into a damp and quiet dullness.

The dead things know their place.

In the laboratory, a watery daylight weaves through the vertical blinds. It settles on the floor and the furniture in an uneven wash of gray.

Gus Saenz slides a computer chair forward on its casters and motions for Jerome to sit down.

“Let's go over it again, Jerome.” The older priest now begins taking notes on a fresh pad of ruled yellow paper.

“Okay.” Jerome takes the chair, straddles it and leans forward so that its back cushions his chest. He tilts his head down and closes his eyes, beginning the latest in a series of nightmare journeys through the Payatas of his mind.

“Statistically, the odds are that it's a man. And it's a safe bet, given that he's apparently not afraid to go into the landfill, that he knows the area well and probably lives or works in or around it. Since he doesn't seem to have aroused any suspicion after all this time, it's also likely that he's a familiar figure in the community.”

“Or has made himself one,” Saenz fills in. “He's no longer a stranger to anyone; he's become part of the everyday pattern.”

Jerome nods.

“Go on.”

“He waits for victims of opportunity. The watching and the waiting are as important to him as the act itself.”

“What about the time of the attacks?”

“Given what we now know of the days and the dates, he strikes on the weekends—most likely Saturday evenings. Most of the men are drunk on Saturday evenings—those paid their wages at the end of the week still have money to burn.”

Saenz shifts in his seat and taps his pen against the pad. “Victims?”

“All boys, eleven to thirteen years old. Small for their age; he likes them small. He stuns them first, just one heavy blow on top of the head, most likely with a rock. Maybe he's not very strong. Maybe he needs to immobilize his victim first, and quickly; if the boy were able to call for help or fight back, he might panic and run.”

Saenz turns to look at a sheet of paper taped up on the upper right hand corner of the huge whiteboard; it's a photocopy of a partial impression of a shoe. It was found and correctly processed by a particularly sharp SOCO officer in the mud near the site where the sixth victim's body was discovered. Saenz had made certain the man's superior knew he had done well.

“Men's size six,” he says, nodding. “Ordinary rubber rain boots.”

“Very cheap, very common.”

“And very washable.” Saenz rolls his chair over to a nearby desk and rummages through a pile of papers, photocopies of police reports for the Payatas area in the last seven months. “No reports of any unconsummated attacks on boys in our age group. He's been really lucky so far.”

“Not so much lucky as skillful. His timing is excellent, and s
o is his choice of victim and circumstance.” Jerome opens his eyes but does not look up, and then rubs his chin with his thumb—something he does when deep in thought. “He prob
a
bly doesn't find them in the dump, and he doesn't kill them in the dump, that's almost certain; it's too open, too accessible. Wherever he catches up with his quarry, he immobilizes him and then takes him away, somewhere he's certain he won't be disturbed.”

“And the injuries?”

Jerome pauses. “He stabs the victim. Once or twice; that's all he needs to finish him off. The evisceration, the mutilations—are all postmortem. He's not torturing them. He works neatly around the heart, the other organs, the genitals. We haven't found any of these at the scene; it seems likely that he's keeping them as trophies and probably has a container or two ready to hold them.”

He rolls his chair over to Saenz's desk and, without standing, reaches for the pile of case folders they've compiled on the killings. He opens them one by one, each time focusing on one of the photographs in them. He swivels the chair around so that he can see Saenz. “Six killings so far. Given what we've seen of the last three, and if we're to believe the case reports on the first three, the bodies bear no physical evidence that the killer obtained some sort of sexual gratification from them.”

“But with the removal of the genitals, Jerome—there must nevertheless be some sexual dimension to the killings.”

“I'm not discounting the possibility of that, no. I'm just stating the fact that there is no trace evidence that indicates that he violated the boys before or after death.” Jerome taps the folders against the edge of Saenz's desk. “In accounts of serial killings throughout the world, the removal of hearts and other organs isn't new.”

“But neither is the excision of genitals or the mutilation of faces.”

“No. But in these cases we're looking at, the mutilation of the faces is very specific. He slits the throat just under the chin, from ear to ear. He slips his fingers into the slit and peels the skin back over the bones, with the aid of a knife and some other instrument.” Jerome shakes his head. “The flaying of the face is not a random act. It's significant to him; he's done it consistently over time, with six different victims. In most killings similar to ours, this is an act of depersonalization.”

“So you think that's what he's doing?”

“Yes.” Jerome bites his lower lip, his forehead creased in concentration. “But is he depersonalizing his victim? Or is he, in some way, projecting himself onto the victim? Is he depersonalizing himself
through
the victim?”

Saenz stops to consider this, and then turns to the board and writes it down:
DEPERSONALIZING VICTIM? OR SELF?

Jerome waits for Saenz to finish scribbling, then slumps forward more heavily, like someone coming out of a trance exhausted. He puts his hands over his face. His eyeballs are throbbing, blotches of dull red pulsing through the black behind his closed eyelids.

“Tell me again, Gus, why do we do this?” he asks aloud, not really expecting an answer, palms cold against his warm forehead.

Saenz caps his pen and tosses it, along with the yellow pad, on top of the papers on his desk. He leans back in his seat and folds his long-fingered hands together. “Boredom?”

The younger priest spins himself around slowly in his chair. “I have an interesting life.”

“You think you have an interesting life. And for the most part, you do. You teach, you say Mass, you conduct research, see patients. Travel. Lecture. You do everything you're supposed to do the way it's supposed to be done. Once in a while, there's a chance to do more. And you take it.”

Jerome snickers. “Right. I get it. My life can't just be
interesting. It has to be
meaningful
.” He feigns a kind of wounded solemnity, as though he were baring his soul to a sympathetic talk show host, and Saenz cannot help but chuckle.

“Something like that, yes.”

Jerome stops his slow spinning and looks at Saenz, at the
planes and angles of his face, the grey advancing
against the once-blue-blackness of his hair. Odd how this familiar face can calm him, even now that he is no longer a schoolboy.

“I'm no crusader, Gus,” Jerome mumbles, then presses
the heels of his palms against his aching eyeballs to relieve the
strain.

Saenz shakes his head. “No, my boy,” he says, so quietly that the other man does not hear him. “You're just an ordinary man.”

8

The director arrives
at the television network with little fanfare—so little that his vehicle is held up at the gate while security checks take place. He waits patiently in the back seat, but his driver is bristling.

“They shouldn't make you wait like this,” he grumbles.

“Relax, Peping. I'm sure it won't take long.”

Peping used to drive the director's predecessor around; he's used to having an armed escort, to gates and doors opening without question—to basking in reflected glory. What's that old saying?
Ang langaw na nakatuntong sa kalabaw
,
the fly standing on the water buffalo's back.

“Maybe, sir, you should consider reinstating your escort. After all, you're an important official, doing a dangerous job. Bad things have happened to people less important than you. It's like tempting fate.”

This is not the first time Peping has made this most helpful recommendation; the day the director told him he would be doing away with the escort and using his own personal vehicle, Peping looked as though the sky had caved in on his head. Over the last few months, the driver has continued to put forward his view, gently at first, then with increasing zeal.

“It's just a suggestion, of course. I mean, who am I to tell you what you should and shouldn't do? I'm just a driver. You're the one who knows best. You—”

“Tell me, Peping, has Human Resources given you a date for your transfer?” The director has known for several weeks that Peping has applied for a transfer to the staff of one of his deputies, a holdover from the previous administration. That deputy has an armed escort and a nice, sleek, government-issue vehicle—much more Peping's speed.

The trouble is, the director isn't supposed to know about the transfer application. The idea was that a new driver would simply turn up at his home before work one day. Peping goes pale, then beet red.

“Sir, I—well, they haven't
. . .
I hope you—”

At this moment, a woman in a wildly flowered blouse and black leggings rushes over to the gate and begins to berate the security guard on duty. The director recognizes her—Lally or Lilly—as one of the producers of the talk show he will be appearing on in about half an hour's time.
She waves frantically to Peping, then ducks her head to peer through a window and into the back seat. When she sees the director, her face brightens in recognition, and she
waves even more frantically, then turns back to the security guard. He scurries to draw the gates open for the director's vehicle to pass.

When they draw up level to the woman, she motions for Peping to roll down the window on his side, and she peers into the car.

“
Naku
, sir, I'm so sorry!” she says, breathless with exertion. “I already sent a visitor advisory to security, but this guard is new; he's not familiar with procedure.”

“That's all right,” the director replies calmly.

She turns to Peping. “Boss, you can park in the visitors' parking area behind Studio Two. You remember where that is, right?”

Peping nods.

“Okay, sir, I'll see you inside!” she sings out as the car begins to move away. “Sorry that you had to wait!”

“It's not a problem.”

They drive to the back of the studio in silence. When the director steps out of the car, Peping is quick to offer assistance with his briefcase.

“By the way, sir—about my transfer
. . .
” he starts.

The director wordlessly declines the offer of help and begins to walk away. “Don't worry, Peping. I won't stop you. You should work with people who understand you.”

Peping watches as the director disappears into the studio. Then the driver whips out his cell phone and dials a number.

“Old man's in the studio now.”

Even though this
isn't his first time, he's still a bit intimidated by the lights, the equipment, the flurry of activity in a television studio just minutes before the start of a live program.

“Director Lastimosa?”

He glances up. “Your Eminence.”

Cardinal Rafael Meneses clasps the director's hand with both of his own. “I was very pleased to hear that they'd invited you tonight as well. How are you?”

“I am good, thank you.”

“Awfully busy, I suppose?”

“As I imagine you are.”

Cardinal Meneses is a small, rotund man in his late sixties. As a prominent religious leader, he is powerful, charismatic, well loved. His public persona is benevolent and jovial, and he is always ready with a smile, a joke, a pat on the back. But the director knows that beneath the affable exterior is a cunning mind and a steel backbone. Along with other cardinals and members of the Church hierarchy, he has stood up to a dictator and witnessed his downfall. As one of the Church's most influential voices, he denounced the regime's excesses from the pulpit in carefully crafted sermons and pastoral letters.

But as an old-school cleric with extremely conservative views, he has also smilingly held off advocates of church reform and reproductive health. And, if gossip and speculation are to be believed, he has spearheaded the Church's damage control efforts in the wake of allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct by several of its priests all over the country.

The cardinal comes closer to Director Lastimosa now, gently tugging on his arm and leaning in so that he can speak without being heard by anyone else.

“I understand that one of our brothers is assisting you with a case.”

Ah, there it is.
He had wondered if it was going to come up in conversation, and now it has. “Yes, indeed.”

That smile now—kind, but with a hint of displeasure at the edges of the mouth. “Gus Saenz is one of our best minds. You couldn't have chosen a better man.”

The director nods. “So I've gathered. He has quite a solid reputation, here and overseas.”

“Hmmm, yes. We're very proud of him.”

The director blinks once, slowly, as though he's putting the Cardinal into sharper focus. “I suspect that certain events of the last few months have given him cause to doubt that.”

“Events of the last
. . .
I'm sorry?” The smile fades from Cardinal Meneses's face. “I'm afraid I don't understand.”

The director looks down at him sadly. “Neither do I, Your Eminence. Neither do I.”

But before the cleric can say another word, Lally rushes toward them, a panting ball of relentless energy. She turns first to the director, then to the cardinal. “Sir, Your Holiness, makeup first and then places on the set!”

The cardinal tears his gaze away from the director and puts on his usual kindly smile for Lally's benefit. “You've promoted me,” he jokes. “I'm not the Pope.”

“Not yet,” the director says under his breath as he walks away, heading to the makeup room.

The talk show
is
Harap-harapan
, and tonight's discussion revolves around the case of a German priest who had been arrested for the sexual abuse of several children in Palawan several months before. By the second segment, the discussion has turned to how the Catholic Church disciplines errant priests.

“Well, you have to understand that there are well-defined processes and procedures for reporting cases of misconduct by our priests to the Vatican,” the cardinal says.

The host, veteran anchor Vergel “Gil” Salceda, seems unconvinced. “But Cardinal, how do you address concerns that such incidents are ignored by Church authorities, or possibly even covered up?”

Director Lastimosa has come to expect it: the way the smile stays plastered on Cardinal Meneses's face but leaches out of his eyes when he's forced to talk about something he finds disagreeable. “Well, Gil, I admit that it may seem that way because most investigations conducted within the Church are confidential. But I want to assure you and your viewers that the Church authorities—the superiors of the priests involved, our bishops, our cardinals—we are all obliged to report such incidents to Rome.”

Other guests chime in—one, a lawyer, expressing agreement with the need for confidentiality in such cases; the other, a representative from a women's advocacy group, demanding that the German be denied extradition and tried in the country.

Gil then turns to the director and asks for his opinion. He considers the question a moment and then says, “You know, I've always believed that the Church—well, any church, not just the Roman Catholic Church—is entitled to discipline members of its hierarchy or its flock for misconduct in a manner consistent with the principles of the faith.”

He sees, out of the corner of his eye, a broad smile spreading over the Cardinal's face. “However, I think there is a clear difference between mere misconduct and crime.” Within the span of a single sentence, the smile turns sour: a not-smile. “I think as soon as a priest crosses the line into molestation and sexual abuse, it becomes a civil matter, a law enforcement matter, and a matter for the country's courts. That's the best way, I think, to put an end to these accusations, these concerns of any cover-up.”

The cardinal clasps his hands together on top of his belly. “Oh, come now, Director Lastimosa. You think putting such cases through the mill of the justice system will allay such fears? If anything, it will make them worse.” His eyes narrow, even as the not-smile remains fixed on his face. “The Church
enjoys the trust and confidence of many Filipinos. It has its defects, its failings—no institution is without them—but it has credibility. Certainly more, I think you will agree, than our courts or our law enforcers, no?”

The director crosses his long, thin legs and clasps his hands together in a perfect though unintended imitation of the Cardinal's pose, no doubt angering him even more. “But Your Eminence, is it a credibility built on what people don't know, rather than what they do know? If it is, that isn't really credibility at all, is it? When you quietly move a priest from a diocese where he has victimized two or three young parishioners to a new diocese where he is at liberty to do the same thing again, you're not building up your credibility; you're just postponing the day when you lose it.”

“Well, Director Lastimosa, if you're speaking of any specific cases, I would be happy to discuss them with you after this program and demonstrate to you that we are doing our best to address any transgressions that are brought to our attention.”

It's a veiled challenge.

Director Lastimosa looks down at his clasped hands. “Forgive me, Your Eminence. I was speaking in generalities. But I think, and I'm sure you will agree, that some things are better dealt with in the cleansing light of transparency and openness rather than in the darkness of secrecy. What's true of the government is also true of the Church, yes?”

The cardinal shifts restlessly in his seat. “What you call secrecy, Director, we call confidentiality, and it is aimed at protecting the innocent. And the innocent can either be the victims or the wrongly accused.”

At this point, Gil calls the last commercial break, and the smile disappears completely from the cardinal's face. Without looking up, he pretends to fiddle with the cord of his lapel mic as the other guests exchange banal pleasantries with Gil.

It's during the end of the commercial break that the director notices the studio has grown unbearably cold—which is strange because he finds that he is sweating. He fishes out a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wipes away the tiny beads of sweat that have formed on his brow. By the time the program is in its last few minutes, his mouth is dry, and he is short of breath. Gil is asking questions of the panel, and they answer one by one, beginning with the cardinal. The director can barely comprehend what they're saying; the studio lights seem terribly intense, and he is now feeling a sharp pain, similar to indigestion.

Gil turns to him last, and he manages to crank out a suitable response without stalling or stammering. But he knows that he is in serious trouble when he begins to feel pain shooting down his left arm. He grips the armrests of his chair and struggles to hold on until Gil wraps up the show. The theme music comes on, and the credits roll.

He's vaguely aware of Gil and the other guests rising to their feet and shaking one another's hands. The cardinal turns to him and holds out his hand.

“Director, always a pleasure.” His tone of voice indicates that the past hour was anything but a pleasure for him.

The director rises unsteadily to his feet, fingertips still touching the armrests. For a split second, he allows himself to think that it is going to be all right, that he remains fully in control of his aging body. He lifts his right arm to take the cardinal's hand, but the studio lights begin to dim, until they dwindle into little pinpricks of light, until they fade into the darkest of nothing.