JF Gonzalez - Fetish.wps (47 page)

Father Glowacz nodded his confirmation of this again. Although he looked nervous, he appeared to be weathering this quite well. “I'm sure. A lawyer would only mess things up. I want to get what I have to tell you off my chest."

“Do you mind if I tape it?"

“No. Go right ahead."

Daryl pressed the RECORD button on the tape recorder.

Taking a sip of his water, Daryl leaned forward over the table, trying to collect his thoughts. He had everything he wanted to ask the priest in his head. Four simple questions. He fired off the first one. “Tell me about Charley's childhood. As much of it as you recall. He's five years older than you, correct?"

Father John Glowacz nodded, sipping his water. He appeared to think about what he was going to say, his brow furrowed in concentration or struggle. “When Charley was born, our parents weren't doing very well. Our father was an alcoholic, a rather violent one, and ... well, Charley wasn't a wanted child. At least that's what I learned years later from our mother. They fought a lot and he used to beat her up. Used to thrash the two of us around as well. We moved to the house in Highland Park when dad got a promotion—

he was a foreman at a construction company—and he put in the addition on the house right away. He did that himself. About a year later he finally left the family. It drove my mother to tears."

Daryl let this sink in, trying to imagine what it had been like for the two young boys. As a cop he had often seen the first hand results of children in dysfunctional families. It was the worst thing he had ever seen, worse even than the murders and the gang crimes he came to live with as a homicide detective. When children were the victims of their parent's neglect and cruelty it was enough for one to question the nature of the universe, to wonder why God would allow such things to happen. How could any parent kill their children, abuse them like that? It was something he could not understand.

“How old were you when your father left?"

Father Glowacz's brow furrowed. “Oh, I guess I was ... eight years old or so, and Charley was twelve or thirteen. By then he was very self-sufficient. He was a good brother to me. He kept me away from our folks when they were fighting, kept me entertained with different games we'd make up. He took me to church a lot. We went to church every Sunday as a family, but Charley took me to St. Anthony's when we lived in Boyle Heights, and later Our Lady when we moved to Highland Park. The church became my sanctuary."

Father Glowacz covered the formative years pretty quickly. Charley became the man of the house after their father left, and took care of young John while their mother worked two jobs to keep the mortgage paid and food on the table. Their father never supported the family, and neither boy was stricken with grief when he died five years later from alcohol poisoning. When Charley graduated from high school he took a job as a butcher at a grocery store, which he held for three years. He worked various second jobs during this period as well. By the time John graduated from high school, Charley had left the grocery store and was working at Acme Insurance as a file clerk, while their mother had left her second job permanently and settled into a secretarial position. John got an academic scholarship to Notre Dame University.

Daryl's ears perked up at this bit of information. “You went to Notre Dame?"

“Yes,” Father Glowacz said, taking a sip of his water. He still appeared to be fumbling through the interrogation, as if he was struggling with some inner turmoil.
He's
probably feeling as if he's betraying his brother
, Daryl thought. “It was a good school. I did quite well there,” John said.

“Where did you live? In the dorms on campus, or in town?"

“I had an apartment in town,” John said, fidgeting in his chair, obviously nervous now. “It was nice, a split level duplex. I ... I had a roommate, a young woman who lived on the lower floor. I lived upstairs and—"

“Did your mother or Charley ever come out to visit you?” Daryl was leaning forward, very interested in this bit of information.

Father Glowacz's brow furrowed again in thought. “Yeah, a few times I suppose.

“Do you remember when?"

John shrugged. He appeared to slump in defeat. “God, I really don't know. I suppose ... let's see ... Mom visited me during my first semester, and my brother came out a few times after that. Then they both came out at least twice, and then my brother came back out to visit two or three more times."

“Try to remember dates for me,” Daryl said. “It's very important."

John sighed heavily and rubbed a hand over his face. “Well, let me see.” He appeared to think about it for a moment, and after about five minutes he was able to confirm a series of visitation dates: a visit from Mom in November of 1982; a visit from both Charley and Mom in May of 1983; a visit from Charley in October of 1983; a visit from Mom again in February of 1984; a visit from Charley in September of 1984, and two more visits from Charley in April and September of 1985. Mom came back for another visit in March of 1986, and again in May when he graduated. Charley never did come back.

Daryl nodded along, taking it all in. The last three dates of Charley's visits corresponded to murders committed in the South Bend area. It was almost too good to be true. “Did you always live in the same place in South Bend?"

“No. Like I said, I had that nice duplex with my roommate, a girl named Stacy Temple. But for my freshman and sophmore years, I lived on campus in the dorms. In my junior year Stacy and I rented an apartment four blocks from downtown. It was a great place. Horrible neighborhood, but a great apartment. Stacy had the basement, and I had the upper floor. It was an old, three story Victorian home that had been chopped up into apartments. It was perfect for a couple of college kids.” Father John Glowacz smiled.

“Did this ... Stacy Temple ever meet your brother?” Daryl asked.

Father Glowacz nodded. “Several times. The first time Charley and mom came to visit us at that house, Stacy had to move back to her own quarters for awhile. We—"

“Why's that?” Daryl asked. He was jotting down notes.

“We were dating,” John said, trying to sound casual. “Living together, I guess you could say, and—"

Daryl Garcia looked at the priest in surprise. “So you weren't attending Notre Dame with the intention of being a priest? You were actually living a secular life?"

Father John Glowacz nodded. “Y-yes. I ... I was rather confused about where I wanted my life to go. Stacy was, too. We just sort of ... threw ourselves together and had this mad, passionate affair. She was just as confused as I was."

“I bet your mother wasn't that happy with it,” Daryl said.

“She never knew.” Father John Glowacz sighed. “That's why whenever she came Stacy moved back into her downstairs apartment. Later, when we graduated and she came out here to California and I entered the priesthood, we still managed to stay in touch. I even helped her out for awhile when she moved to California. Mom was hurting for money and that back house was livable space, so Stacy rented it for awhile from my mother."

This was news Daryl wasn't expecting. He leaned forward over the table. “How long did she live there?"

“I ... I don't know.” Father Glowacz rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand.

He looked nervous. “A year, maybe a little more."

“Charley lived at the house the whole time she was living in the back house?"

Father Glowacz nodded. “Y-yes."

“When did she move out?"

John shrugged. He sighed. “I don't know. Three years ago maybe. Sometime in late ‘95."

“Have you heard from her since?"

“No."

Daryl detected a hint of sorrow in that last answer. He regarded the priest calmly, noting his body language and posture.
He's nervous about something
, he thought.
He's
nervous about something and I'll be damned if I know what it is
. At least he had a name: Stacy Temple. He could do some checking on her, try to have her located and questioned to see if her story corroborated Father Glowacz's. As to why Father Glowacz was so nervous, perhaps even embarrassed about mentioning her, Daryl had his suspicions, so he decided to try a different tactic of questioning.

“Both you and Charley were raised in the Catholic faith,” Daryl asked, trying to find the right words to formulate his next question. “Tell me more about the kind of values you and Charley were raised in."

Father Glowacz frowned. “We were raised with good values. We had a good Catholic upbringing. Our mother raised us well."

Daryl tried to backtrack; he could see that he had offended Father Glowacz, but he didn't give a shit. The priest had just revealed why he had been so nervous whenever he mentioned his old lover Stacy Temple. “Humor me, Father. What kind of values specifically? Did she teach you that you weren't to take the Lord's name in vain and to go to Church every Sunday? Did she tell you that if you looked at a girl with lust that you would fry in the Big Hot Place? What kind of values?"

Father Glowacz's frown deepened. “Charley and I were raised to respect our mother, to respect the church and God. We were raised to be good Catholics. Are you Catholic Detective Garcia?"

“Yes,” Daryl answered. He didn't want to get into why he hadn't attended Mass in nine years, so he quickly brushed the question aside. “But still, humor me, Father. When I was a kid going to catechism, some of my buddies who came from good Catholic homes were encouraged by their fathers to chase as much skirt as possible, while my grandmother, God rest her soul, told me that to do so was a grave sin in the eyes of God.

Same faith, two different perspectives on it. Which perspective were you and Charley raised with?"

“The right one."

“And which one was that?"

Father Glowacz fidgeted in his seat. It was obvious that the nature of this question was uncomfortable for him. “I'll spell it out for you then. Our mother taught us that sex outside of marriage was a grave sin. The Catholic Church teaches this, and is rather strict about it. My mother, God rest
her
soul, was only trying to raise Charley and I in the best way she could."

“Yet it appears you broke that little rule there when you were seeing this Stacy Temple person. Right, Father?"

“That was
before
I took my vow of celibacy and that is between
myself
and
God
!”

Father John Glowacz thundered, pounding his fist on the table. Daryl was startled at the priest's sudden outburst. His face was flush, the veins standing out along his neck, his eyes livid with anger.

Daryl nodded, already shifting gears. It was obvious that Stacy Temple was a sensitive issue. But then so was the topic of his mother. He tip-toed back down that particular subject. “How did your mother discipline the both of you, Father? Was she strict?"

Father Glowacz nodded, breathing hard and heavy. “Yes, but no stricter than any other mother."

Daryl let this sink in, and now his mind turned to the report his partner Steve had turned in to him thirty minutes ago. Steve had questioned a couple of the neighbors in the neighborhood, two of them who had lived there long enough to recall when Father Glowacz and Charley were still kids. Both neighbors were unanimous in their recollections that Evelyn Glowacz had been a domineering, strict woman who ruled over her boys with an iron fist. One of the neighbors, a retired man named Ngyuen Phan Houng, recalled that he used to hear Evelyn scream at the boys for the kind of things he and his friends in school used to take for granted—mainly an interest in girls. Something told Daryl that Evelyn had found out about John's relationship with Stacy Temple and she had given him holy hell for it. “So, in other words when you so much as
talked
to a girl, your mother would go apeshit. Is that correct, Father?"

Father Glowacz reacted as if he had been slapped. “I beg your pardon?"

“Come off the moral high horse, Father,” Daryl said, leaning over the table, eyes locking with the priest's. “With all due respect for you and your religion—and believe me, I ain't trying to knock it—your mother was more than just strict. She was a damned titan.

She was a repressed, domineering woman who ruled over both of you with an iron fist."

“I take great offense at the way you just described my mother.” Father John Glowacz's features were red with rage.

“My apologies.” He meant them. Evelyn Glowacz was the woman who had made Charley a monster by transferring her repressed views onto her son. He couldn't go on the full attack because the woman was dead, and her son, a respected Catholic priest, was sitting in front of him. Christ, he hated it when he blew up like that and lost control of his emotions. “I'm really sorry, Father,” Daryl said, still angry, but meaning every word of the apology. “Please forgive me."

“I forgive you,” Father Glowacz said, but the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes suggested that he really didn't.

Daryl switched gears quickly. To continue on with this track would only make the priest defensive of his brother. “What happened after Norte Dame? You apparently attended seminary somewhere, right?"

Father Glowacz nodded. He paused for a moment, as if calming himself down.

When he answered his voice was calmer, steady, yet still retaining that bit of anger from his outburst before. “I attended seminary in New York. I did missionary work in El Salvador from 1990 to 1994 and came to Los Angeles a month after the Northridge earthquake. I was appointed to Our Lady Of Guadalupe right away, and became assistant pastor in ‘95."

“And you live at the rectory?"

“That's correct."

“And Charley continued to live at home?"

“Yes."

“And this old girlfriend of yours, Stacy Temple, when did she live in the back house?"

“She contacted me four months after I arrived in Los Angeles,” Father Glowacz said. “She needed a place to stay, and I knew mother needed the extra money, so I arranged for her to live in the back house.” She probably moved in around April or May of ‘94."