‘What if you felt as though you’d sacrifice anything to achieve your goal? What if all concern for the victim, along with your duty to society, suddenly vanished? What if you were willing to sacrifice your livelihood? The only woman you’ve ever loved? What happens when it becomes entirely personal?’
‘Are you asking me for absolution?’
‘Can you be forgiven for a sin you know you’ll commit again?’
‘God doesn’t ask you to guarantee the future. He only asks you to try.’
‘Trying is not an option at the moment. Later, perhaps, after I do what I have to do.’
‘Then you can’t be absolved.’
‘That’s what I figured before I came here. But it’s okay. I accept the sin and whatever punishment follows. I can do that because I’m certain that the end I seek is good.’
‘Certain that the end justifies the means? Is that it?’
I reached down into my briefcase to withdraw the last arrow in that particular quiver, a full-body shot of Plain Jane lying on her back with her abdomen split open.
‘In this case, Father,’ I said as I laid the photo on the table, ‘it surely does.’
I sat back in the chair, leaving Father Stan to contemplate the gruesome reality. I knew all the words likely to be running through his mind at that moment — ghastly, horrid, ungodly, frightful, hideous, evil — as I knew those words would lead to other words, like sadist and serial killer. I also knew the reality, that Jane’s evisceration had come after her death, wouldn’t occur to the priest. That was because, in an odd way, harvesting a dead woman’s organs in order to remove her fetus is even more evil than murdering her for pleasure.
‘Can you still remember her voice?’ I asked when the priest finally raised his head. ‘I mean the sound of it when she whispered her sins to you in the confessional? Was it breathy, husky, musical? Did she have an accent? Did you speak Polish?’
Father Manicki responded by stacking the four photos and handing them to me. ‘I cannot be forced to violate the seal of the confessional.’
‘Forced?’
‘By the law.’
I laughed out loud as I accepted the photos. ‘You think I’m going to get a subpoena?’
‘No,’ he admitted, ‘that’s not your way.’
‘It’s not my way and I’m not going to vanish, either.’ I held up the photos, fanning them out like a deck of cards before stuffing them into my briefcase. ‘Because the man who did this will kill again. He has to be stopped and I think you’re the only one who can stop him.’
‘Think?’
The subject never controls the interview, even when the interviewer stupidly phrases his remarks. I simply ignored the question.
‘Tell me, Father, have you ever heard of a priest named Joseph Towle?’
Father Stan’s involuntary recoil was quickly replaced by a grudging smile as he echoed Sister Kassia. ‘I underestimated you, detective.’
‘Does that mean you’re familiar with the details?’
‘Every priest in the country is familiar with the details.’
The facts were simple enough. In 1987, two teenagers from the South Bronx, Jose Morales and Rubin Montalvo, were convicted of murdering another teen, Jose Rivera, then sentenced to life in prison. Two years later, in 1989, a fourth teen, Jesus Fornes, approached a street priest named Joseph Towle, asking for guidance. In the course of the private conversation that followed, Fornes told the priest that it was he who’d killed Jose Rivera, and that his conscience was troubling him. Only at the very end of this conversation did Father Towle give Fornes absolution for his sins. For the next twelve years, Father Towle sat on this information while Rivera and Montalvo sat in prison. Then, in 2001, after consulting with his superiors, he finally came forward to inform the appropriate authorities. By that time, Jesus Fornes, the actual murderer, was four years dead.
The law in New York State forbids a minister, priest or other member of the clergy from disclosing a confession or a confidence in a court of law. Father Towle overcame this burden by asserting that Fornes had come to him for counseling. The absolution part was a mere afterthought.
I’d known all this going in, of course. Still, I listened patiently while the priest recounted the various excuses offered by Father Towle. Then I asked a pair of questions.
‘If what Jesus Fornes told Father Towle wasn’t a confession, why did Father Towle wait twelve years to come forward? Why did he leave Montalvo and Rivera to rot in prison?’
‘Those are good questions, detective, ones I’ve asked myself.’
‘And what was your answer?’
‘That the questions are irrelevant to this conversation. You see, there’s a major difference here. Your victim’s confession took place in a confessional. As such, it was formal from the beginning. Every word she spoke falls under the seal.’
‘You’re right about the difference, Father, but there’s another difference, too, and one major similarity. The other difference, of course, is that Jesus Fornes was a killer and Jane Doe was a victim.’
‘And the similarity?’
‘Fornes was dead when Father Towle came forward. Jane Doe is dead even as we speak. Wherever they were headed, to heaven or hell or oblivion, they’re already there. Nothing Father Towle told the court, and nothing you tell me, can harm either of them.’
Father Stan’s mouth opened, but I cut off his response. ‘And by the way, Father, just in case you’re worried about revealing her sin, I already know she was pregnant.’
I crossed my legs and let my eyes wander to the portrait on the wall opposite my chair. The Madonna was looking at the infant Jesus, her head twisted down and to the right, the angle so unnatural I knew she couldn’t assume it unless her neck was broken. Still, the line that ran from the hem of her robe, over her son, then around the semi-circle of her hood was compelling. To create her alive would have been to ruin it.
‘Tell me what you want.’ Father Stan finally said.
‘I want to know where she worked and who she worked for.’ I spoke without taking my eyes off the painting. ‘I want to know who made her pregnant. As I said, I’m not interested in her sins.’
‘That distinction is meaningless in the context of the confessional.’
‘Why, Father? Why should where she worked be kept a secret?’
‘Penitents come to the confessional expecting secrecy. They have to trust us.’
‘Ah, I see. Well, if that’s your problem, let me put your mind at rest. Nothing you tell me will ever be repeated in public. First, because the Criminal Procedure Law forbids a priest revealing information obtained in the course of a confession. And second, because what you were told in the confessional is classic hearsay. It cannot be used in a trial.’
‘Then how did Father Towle testify?’
‘Father Towle testified at a hearing where the rules are a lot less strict.’ I finally turned to look into his eyes. ‘Listen to what I’m telling you, Father, because I mean it from the bottom of my heart. All I want you to do is give me a push in the right direction. I’ll take it from there and your name will never come up.’
By then, Father Stan was sitting with his arms folded across his chest, his legs crossed at the knees. He was telling me that his mind was closed, but I still had cards to play.
‘What I’m gonna do now,’ I continued, deliberately breaking eye contact, ‘is run through a scenario I’ve created in my own mind. The sequence appears logical on the surface, but I could be way off. That’s where you can help me.’
‘I’ve already told you that I can’t comment.’
‘I’m not asking you to comment. In fact, what I’m going to assume, unless you correct me, is that I’ve got it right. You don’t have to say a word.’
Again, putting a stop to the conversation was the priest’s best move. I’d made my argument and he’d responded, so long, see ya later. But he merely sat there, his eyes jittery with indecision.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘let’s start with the pregnancy. I’m not thinking rape here, because there’d be nothing to confess if she was raped. I’m thinking that a young girl in a strange country, a girl whose opportunities were few and far between, made a big mistake in the name of love. I’m thinking she became pregnant with an inconvenient child, that she was pressured to have an abortion, by her employers and by Aslan Khalid. I’m thinking that she was confused, that she sought counseling from the only counselor available. That would be you, Father.’