The Famous and the Dead (10 page)

R
ovanna stood outside Neighborhood Congregational and read the weekly message off the marquee:
HE KNOCKS BUT WE MUST OPEN.
He followed the cement walkway to the front door of the church, which was set deep within a roofed portico. It was evening and already dark and through the wheel window above the transom he could see the colored spokes of light coming from within the church. He turned and scanned the street behind him. The traffic was sparse. An older woman stopped beneath a streetlight so her dog could do his business. Rovanna drew the Love 32 from his Windbreaker and knocked on the door of the church with the sound suppressor. He waited, then tapped again.

He turned the knob and found the door unlocked and pushed it open. He backed flush against the wall and saw the dog woman watching him. She stared a moment, then yanked the leash and the dog sprang out of its squat after her. Rovanna saw that the woman ran stiff-legged and that her shoes had thick, low heels. A long moment later he pointed the machine pistol up, then swung himself inside. The door shut behind him. The narthex was poorly lit but he could make out the worship program holders on the walls and the coatracks and the line of yellow light between the push-handled double doors. He passed through and stood inside the sanctuary, saw the pews waiting, the chancel with its simple railing, the altar overseen by a wooden cross that was lit by hidden spotlights in the ceiling above.

“Hello. I'm Lonnie Rovanna. Is anyone here?” He heard the echo of his voice and thought the choir must sound good here. He heard the muted squeak of his sneakers as he walked the polished hardwood aisle toward the front of the sanctuary. He stopped where the pews began. “Is anyone here?”

He heard a thump from somewhere behind the pulpit, where the choir would sit, and a man stood up and looked at him. He was young and stocky and dark-haired, dressed in jeans and a short-sleeve white shirt. He wore tiny reading glasses that sat far down his nose and he held a screwdriver in one hand. “Yes. Good evening. Can I help you?”

“I've come to . . . ask a question.”

“Oh? Well, I'm trying to get this outlet rewired before tomorrow, but I'd be happy to take a break and talk. I'm Steve Bagley, one of the ministers here. Lonnie, did you say?”

“Yes.”

The minister set the screwdriver on the communion table, slipped the readers into his shirt pocket and replaced them with a full-size pair of eyeglasses. He raised his head a little for a better look at Rovanna. “Oh, Lonnie, what is that you have in your hand?”

Rovanna looked at the machine pistol. “This?”

“Put it down. Or away. Is it real? Why is there a silencer on it?”

“Don't be alarmed. It's only for self-protection. There are some very bad men who want to do bad things to me. Five of them, to be exact.”

“Put the gun away. It is not necessary or welcome here.”

Rovanna opened his Windbreaker, slid the Love 32 between his belt and his jeans, then snapped the coat up again He looked down at the conspicuous protrusion of the handle and the big curved magazine against his jacket.

“Are the police after you?”

“No, sir. I have committed no crime.”

“This is very unusual.”

“Trust me,” said Rovanna. In the good light from above he saw the changes of emotion playing across the minister's face. The last one to register was a skeptical optimism.

“Okay, please sit,” said Bagley, extending his hand toward the pews.

Rovanna sat in the front row, first bench to the left of the aisle. The minister sat on the first of two landings that separated the sanctuary from the chancel. He rested his elbows on his knees and the light from above reflected off his glasses and Rovanna thought of Stren.

“I'd like to know why God won't answer me,” said Rovanna.

“Perhaps he has.”

“I've prayed almost every day for my whole life. Quietly, mostly to myself, but sometimes out loud. Starting when I was a boy. Sometimes in church and sometimes just wherever I happened to be. I always prayed for a good job and a good woman and to be a good man and to do God's will and for peace on earth and for peace in my own mind. And I haven't heard one peep back. I don't have any job at all now, and I'm insane, and I'm twenty-nine years old. I haven't been with a woman in four years and before that it was three. A good man? I don't feel that I am a good man. I served my country, honorably, in Iraq, but does this make me good? I killed men I didn't know. I have no idea what God's will might be, unless it's the things that happen every day right in front of me, but when I look at those things I don't see anything close to peace on earth. What I pray for the hardest, and maybe this is selfish, but it's for peace in my own mind because my mind has always been a mess. Filled with voices and visions and ideas and most of them are not happy or good. But God never sent me any peace of mind. He just sent more voices and visions so far as I can tell. Now, I got this thing I want to do. It involves this gun. There are plenty of reasons to do it. It has to do with taking back the country. Our country. And I want to know if God wants me to do it or not.”

“I can assure you that God doesn't want you to use that gun on any living thing.”

“Why won't he tell me that himself?”

“Lonnie, the Lord doesn't always answer directly. And he doesn't always give us the answers we want to hear. What the Lord offers is steadfast love. This never wavers. It is constant and manifest in all the things around us, in every living thing and things not living. It is our duty on earth to listen, and to hear God. He speaks in a voice that is not always a voice we understand.”

“I've had terrible dreams lately.”

“Satan can send dreams as well as the Lord.”

“The Bible says, ‘To he who has much, much will be given. And to him who has little even that shall be taken away.'”

“This a statement of faith, not of material things.”

“It's an accurate statement of the way God has treated me in this life.”

Rovanna heard the double door open behind him and he turned and looked the length of the sanctuary. A young man in a dark brown suit walked in and nodded, then sat in the back row, followed by another young man—same suit, shirt and tie, same face. Rovanna felt his heart break into a gallop and he wiped his eyes with both hands but the men remained.

“Are you alright?” asked Reverend Bagley.

“Don't worry. I've seen them before.”

“Who?”

“The men in the back row. There are five of them and they are identical.”

“Are they there right now?”

“They follow me for coffee some mornings. They sit on my patio furniture in the backyard when the weather is good. They crowd into my living room when it's cold out because I have a space heater. But you know what? They never used to come around when I had my guns. They only come out when they think I'm not armed.” Rovanna smiled conspiratorially and tapped the gun butt through his coat.

“Would you be willing to see a doctor?”

Rovanna glanced at the men in back—all five were now seated in the ultimate row. Then he turned to the minister and whispered, “I have doctors. Too many. They prescribe medicines that do nothing but cloud my mind even worse than it's already clouded.”

“You need more help than I can give you.”

“I came here to speak to God, not you. You can go back to fixing the outlet if you want.”

“I want to pray with you, Lonnie.”

Rovanna looked at the men, then at the minister. He gestured toward the door beyond Bagley, at the back of the chancel. “Does that lead outside?”

“To the sacristy first. Then, yes, there's a door to the courtyard and the banquet hall and classrooms. Close your eyes. Let us pray together. Our Father who art in heaven, hear the prayer of Lonnie Rovanna, and grant him the sound of your blessed voice and the comfort of your love . . .”

Rovanna listened and closed his eyes and ran down a dark path between dark trees under a black sky suddenly bursting with fireworks of many colors, some huge and some very small, but all of them were flowers made of sparks. The sky writhed in color. Then the sparks fell into the shapes of faces and these began to turn slowly within the wheel of heaven and they looked down on Rovanna but he could see by their expressions that these faces were preoccupied with the cares of giants because in fact they were giants, so they could not see him and they did not know he was here . . . a
nd grant to Lonnie Rovanna some of the great peace only you, in your forgiveness, can give . . .

Rovanna heard the Identical Men moving behind him and he stood and opened his eyes to see three of them coming up the center aisle toward him and the other two splitting off for the far sides and every one of them brandishing a gleaming orbitoclast. He leapt forward and pushed Reverend Bagley to the floor of the chancel, then dragged him by his shirt collar to the communion table and told him to stay down. He turned, unsnapping his coat and pulling the Love 32. He fired a short near-silent burst into the closest man in the center aisle, blowing his feet out from under him and landing him on his back. Rovanna heard his sharp cry and the wallop of his body hitting but no more than a muted tapping sound from his gun, followed by the twinkling bounce of the empties on the floor. The Identical Men moved fast. He found the next one over his front sight and fired three quick single shots, which sent him sprawling back into the fourth row pew, kicking a hymnal and a batch of tithe envelopes into the air. The third center-aisle man tried to stop but his shoes slipped on the worn wooden floor and he slid toward Rovanna with the orbitoclast catching the light and Rovanna put him down with a rattling ten-shot fusillade.

Rovanna looked down at the writhing Identical Man, then turned to the minister, who stared up at him wide-eyed from under the communion table. The Reverend Bagley aimed a thumb back toward the door to the sacristy. “Don't shoot, Lonnie. I'm going for that door!”

“I have you covered!” The words were scarcely out before the minister jumped to his feet and ran through the door and slammed it behind him. Rovanna turned on the last two men. They had stopped and seemed uncertain what to do. Rovanna felt his soldier's heart take over and was not one bit uncertain what to do, charging the man on his left, who was closest, taking him down with a short burst, then cutting through the row of pews toward the last Identical Man who had turned and fled for the exit. He had just gotten his hands onto the door bar when Rovanna cut him down. He slumped and Rovanna saw the tight pattern of .32-caliber ACP rounds left in the white door among the sloppy red halos. Silence fell and Rovanna heard nothing but the beating of his heart in his ears and the short rapid draw of his breath.
Speak to me speak to me speak to me. Help us help us help us.
He closed his eyes and listened to the slow deceleration of his heart and the gradual settling of his breathing, but he did not hear what he had come to hear. There was no voice from God, not even a whisper, only the silence of his great indifference, followed by the whine of a distant siren.

H
ood watched the
News at Eleven
segment on the malicious defacement of an El Cajon Congregational church by an apparently delusional man with a machine gun.

“He walked right into the sanctuary with the gun drawn,” said Reverend Steve Bagley to the camera. “I was there doing some electrical work before going home. I asked him to put the gun away and he put it inside his coat and zipped it up. We sat and talked. We tried to pray but he claimed he saw five men enter the church, but there were no men. I crawled under the communion table when he started shooting. The gun was almost completely silent. I didn't know what he was doing at first, until I saw the plaster and wood flying where he was aiming the gun.”

The story cut to close-up footage of the bullet-riddled sanctuary door, then the bullet-pocked walls, then a pew chewed by automatic fire. The reporter was a tall blond woman who held a mic in one hand and pointed out the holes with the other.

“Now, the gunman identified himself to the minister here as
Lonnie Rovanna.
A check of the
phone
book
here confirms that a man with that name
does
live in an El Cajon neighborhood within
walking distance
of Neighborhood Congregational Church. San Diego police have not been able to locate the man and they are urging anyone with information to call nine-one-one or San Diego police at . . .”

•   •   •

One hour and twenty minutes later Hood cruised Rovanna's street in his Charger. Lonnie had not answered his phone and Hood had left three messages. Overhead a San Diego police chopper circled and dragged its beam of light across the streets and yards and rooftops. He saw a stakeout plainwrap parked in front of the main house and another across the street, two men visible in each car. He slowed but didn't stop.

There were still cops and news crews there when Hood walked into the roofed portico of Neighborhood Congregational Church. A detective stopped him at the door and Hood produced his badge. “You guys find him yet?”

The detective eyed him. “No. ATF. You didn't sell him the machine gun, did you?”

Hood smiled. “You're not half as funny as you look.” He walked past the detective. In the sanctuary Reverend Bagley answered more questions and squinted into a videographer's floodlight. Hood stood in the middle aisle, halfway to the chancel, and saw the pattern of bullet holes in the main door and another on one wall. The hardwood floor was marked with small circles of white chalk where the brass had been found and photographed and booked as evidence. He knelt and let his gaze wander beneath the pews but the light was poor and he didn't find what he was looking for.

When the news crews hustled out, Reverend Bagley sat down with a sigh in one of the pews near the back. As he approached, Hood saw him stifle a yawn. “Long night,” said Hood, sitting down the pew from the reverend.

“Took an hour for my heart to quit racing.”

“I guess it's a semi-happy ending.”

“I never thought he was going to kill me. Funny. I just never thought that about him. What I thought was,
damaged goods.
”

“Young guy? Tall and slender? Blue eyes and thick blond hair?”

“Yes, yes, and yes. I've described him a dozen times tonight. And he still hasn't changed!” Reverend Bagley studied Hood's badge in its holder. “I didn't know the feds had diamonds in their teeth these days.”

“They're optional.” Bagley smiled. “Reverend, just one more time. Tell me everything that was said and everything that happened.” Hood set a small digital recorder between them.

Half an hour later the Reverend Steve Bagley set his hands on his thighs and looked down at his watch. “I believe I've done my heavenly and civic duties today.”

“Tell me again what he said he was planning to do. It's very important.”

“He was vague. I can't remember the exact language, but he said there was something he wanted to do that involved his gun. He said he had many reasons to it. He said it was about taking back the country. Our country. And Lonnie wanted to know if God approved of his plan or not. And I said God does not approve of you turning that gun on any living thing.”

Hood considered these words and what they might mean. Political, he thought. Take back the country. Everyone was saying that, it seemed. Back from the left. Back from the right. Back from godlessness. Back from religious zealots. But not everyone had a silenced machine gun. A public slaughter? An assassination? With permission from God to open fire?

“What do you make of it?” asked Bagley.

“It sounds ominous to me.”

“Me, too,” said the minister. “The man was seeing things. Using a machine gun on imaginary enemies. Do you know him?”

“Some. We've met.”

“I can't believe he lives just a few blocks from here.”

“Reverend Bagley, I'm going to ask you four last questions.”

“I am tired.”

“Tell me once more what the gun sounded like.”

“It made a rapid chattering sound. But muffled. It sounded toylike.”

“How many shots did he fire? I realize it's only a guess.”

The reverend stood and looked at both walls, then the door. “Fifty. One hundred.”

“Did he reload?”

“Not that I saw.”

Hood wrote down the numbers, then put his pen and pad back in his pocket. “Where do you turn on the lights for this sanctuary?”

“There are switches up there, by the sacristy door, and on the other side of the double doors, back in the narthex. I need to lock up now, Agent Hood.”

“I want to turn the lights up high for just a minute or two.”

“I'll do that while I lock up.”

Bagley went through the bullet-pocked double doors and a moment later the lights on the sanctuary came on strong. The reverend came back in and watched him. Hood slowly walked Rovanna's route, as the reverend had described it. He stopped at the little circles of chalk on the floor and he looked under the pews again. Then he walked all the way around the pews to the other side, where Rovanna had fired the second time. At these circles Hood knelt and put his face low and looked along the plane of floor. He stood and looked across the pews to the first shooting station. He squatted again and let his vision roam the flat horizon of the hardwood floor, studded with pew feet bolted to the floor. “That's where he cut through,” called Bagley. “That's about right. I was watching at that point.” Finally Hood's gaze landed on the shiny brass object of his desire, having rolled, as casings sometimes do, surprisingly far from where the cartridge was fired. A moment later he had it on the end of his pen—.32-caliber ACP—a relatively small center-fire load, common and affordable. Just as he had feared. He let it slide into his coat pocket. “Thank you, Reverend.”

“Good night, Agent Hood. I hope you find him. Soon.”

•   •   •

Hood backtracked to Rovanna's neighborhood and parked across from the main house. The surveillance cars were still in place and Hood could see the outlines of the lawmen inside. The police helo was still in the sky. He dialed Rovanna's number again and got the recorded message.

Tapping his phone lightly on the steering wheel, Hood waited and wondered if Lonnie Rovanna had used a Love 32 for his rampage. Reverend Bagley's description certainly fit the Love 32, and it was chambered for the .32-caliber ACP cartridge. If so, where had he gotten it? Hood pondered the confluence of Rovanna's Love 32—if that is what he had used on Neighborhood Congregational—and Rovanna's visitation a week earlier by Mike Finnegan posing as a doctor with the power to return Rovanna's confiscated guns.

Hood took out his voice recorder and found the part he wanted to hear again.
“He said it was about taking back the country. Our country. And Lonnie wanted to know if God approved of his plan or not. And I said God does not approve of you turning that gun on any living thing.”

He set the recorder on the seat and rolled down the window when one of the detectives walked up. Hood held out his badge holder and used it to push aside the flashlight aimed into his eyes. “Easy, Detective.” With the light out of his face Hood saw that the cop was tall and wore an SDPD Windbreaker and his shield on a lanyard:
BENSON
.

“Hey, a real G-man.”

“No Rovanna?”

“I don't see him. Do you? Let me guess—you're after his silenced machine pistol.”

“Good guess.”

“Do you know him?”

“I interviewed him two days ago. Part of an ongoing investigation. Do you?”

“Local color. The state hospital cut him loose a few years back, some new program. He was quiet for a while, then he roughed up some Jehovah's Witnesses who knocked on his door. We took away a dozen guns. Apparently we missed one. Somehow he'd flown through the background checks with flying colors. Now he walks around with a baseball bat. We told him, one bit of trouble and the bat goes, too. He's actually a nice guy until something sets him off. Must have been a doozy, based on the what he did to the church. The reverend was lucky he didn't catch a bullet.”

“His car is gone. How long did it take your officers to get here?”

“Not long once they talked to the minister and found out it was Rovanna. By then, though, no man and no car. How come ATF is interested in him?”

“Connections to some bad actors.”

“We don't see silenced machine pistols every day.”

“It amazes me what people can get their hands on,” said Hood. “And, Benson, don't make some dumbass comment about letting guns walk.”

The detective shrugged and looked back at his unmarked car. “Maybe three's a crowd here, Agent Hood.”

“Yeah. Good luck.”

“You got a card? I'll give a courtesy call on this if you want. I got an ex-brother-in-law with ATF. You guys earn your money.”

Hood wrote his cell numbers on the back of an ATF card and handed it to the detective, who gave Hood one of his cards in return.