Prayer (17 page)

She was a tall woman with shortish red hair and plucked eyebrows. Well-endowed, she wore a plain purplish dress, too much green eye shadow, and a large gold crucifix around her freckled neck. There was an indignant aspect to her not unattractive face, and from time to time, when she refused to answer a question, her unevenly shaped chin would adopt a pugnacious cast. She would blush deeply and within a few seconds her long pale neck would turn blotchy, as if she’d swallowed something hazardous, such as a truth that she wished to conceal. To that extent, she was easy to read. She couldn’t ever have played poker; everything on her broad shoulders was one big tell.

“On Friday evening you informed two HPD police officers that you murdered Philip Osborne,” I said. “What made you tell them that you’d murdered him?”

“I made a mistake, okay? When I heard the siren, I don’t know why but I really thought they were after me. Which is why I ran the red light. After I hit the other car, I was pretty shook up, I guess.”

“So it was on your conscience. Osborne’s death.”

“Yes,” she said. “But it was the police I told and not the FBI. I can’t see why you should think this is a federal matter.”

“That’s our affair,” I said.

“I think I have a right to know why you and not the HPD are questioning me. Since I’ve waived my right to legal representation—for the moment—there’s no reason not to tell me, is there?”

“You seem very well informed, Gaynor. These finer points of jurisdiction are sometimes confusing even to us.”

“I’m a court reporter at the Harris County District Court on Franklin Street.”

“The Bureau is involved in this case because Philip Osborne had received several threats against his life from extreme right-wing organizations. That’s the kind of thing we’re obliged to investigate.” I was lying about that. But I couldn’t see that anyone listening to the tape would have a problem with this. “Now, perhaps you might like to tell us why you murdered Philip Osborne. And then perhaps you might explain to us exactly how you did it.”

Gaynor Allitt shook her head.

“For the benefit of the recorded tape,” said Blunt, “the subject is shaking her head.”

“I’m sorry, but isn’t that what you told those cops?” I said. “And Police Inspector Blunt, here? That you murdered him? Or have I made a mistake?”

“I never said anything about anyone being murdered; Philip Osborne wasn’t murdered,” she insisted. “He was killed because he was an ungodly man.”

“Why do you describe him as ungodly? Is it because he was a prominent Democrat? Or because he was prominently gay?”

“It wasn’t the main reason.”

“Oh? What was the main reason he was ungodly?”

“Because of the things he wrote and the things he said. And by the way, Agent Martins, you’re wrong about his politics; he was no Democrat. Lately, he was something of a hawk. Certainly as far as Iran is concerned. His ungodliness stems from something else. Because the fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no room for God.’ Psalm 10:4.”

“Is that all? He was ungodly because he was a fool?”

“Because Philip Osborne was an atheist who actively tried to turn others away from God. We’re talking about someone who had made it his life’s work to defame God, to ridicule the followers of Jesus Christ, to undermine Christian teachings and Christian morals. Philip Osborne was killed because he was a wicked man, Agent Martins.”

“The jails in Texas are full of wicked men. Most of them much more wicked than Philip Osborne.”

“But not as dangerous. And after all, they’re behind bars. That man believed in everything that was opposite to God’s law. In Revelation 21 it says that the cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolators, and all the liars shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. That’s what is meant by ungodly.”

“And yet if you killed him, that makes you a murderer, too, doesn’t it?” I said.

Gaynor Allitt colored. It was clear I’d touched a nerve.

“God’s laws take precedence over anything enacted by us. We must obey God rather than men. Acts 5:29.”

“You sound like you must read the Bible a lot, Gaynor,” I said.

“Yes.”

“But the power that rules this country is ordained by God, isn’t it? And if you really did kill Philip Osborne, that makes you a criminal not just in the eyes of the law but in God’s eyes, too.”

“God’s law is unchanging,” said Gaynor. “Man’s laws can change from one day to the next. And if there is a conflict between God’s law and man’s law, a Christian is best advised to keep God’s law.”

We went on in this vein for at least another ten minutes before I tried to get down to some real facts.

“Let’s suppose for a moment,” I said, “that you did kill Philip Osborne. Are you confessing to us now because you feel guilty about it?”

“In a way, yes,” she said quietly. “I’m not strong enough to do God’s bidding without feeling the human weakness of remorse. I don’t want to have any more deaths—I mean I don’t want to have his death on my conscience.”

“It’s a little too late for that, isn’t it?” said Helen. “He’s already dead.”

“Let’s talk about how you killed him,” I said. “At the moment, the police aren’t actually treating his death as suspicious. Sudden, perhaps. But not suspicious. Would you care to tell us what the police might have missed that would make Osborne’s death the subject of a criminal investigation?”

“No, I would not.”

“Come on,” said Blunt. “Give us a break here, Gaynor. We’re only human, you know. Perhaps there was something we missed with Philip Osborne’s death.”

“I’m not confessing so that I can help you,” she said simply. “Frankly, I figure that you ought to be able to do your own job without my help.”

“Ah,” I said. “Now I get it. You want our help.” I smiled and sat back on my chair. “Yes, I begin to see everything.”

“How’s that?” Gaynor Allitt was looking annoyed with me now.

“Something is weighing on your conscience and so you figure that you need to talk about it with someone. So that you can feel better, perhaps.”

She didn’t answer.

“But we can’t help you unless you help us first, Gaynor. With some basic information.”

Again she remained silent.

“Maybe you think you can confess and that’ll be it,” I said. “You’ll have got what you wanted, and because we have absolutely no evidence against you, we’ll have no choice but to release you.”

Gaynor Allitt looked away and sighed. “That’s not it at all,” she said.

Blunt leaned forward on his chair and examined his fingernails.

“I think this whole bullshit story is just a piece of attention seeking,” he said. “I’m surprised that Agents Martins and Monaco are being so patient with you, Miss Allitt.” He laughed. “If you weren’t a court reporter, I’d be inclined to have a doctor come and give you a mental examination. Or charge you with obstructing justice. Maybe I will charge you anyway. That’s a serious offense in this state, lady. Under the Texas Penal Code, it carries a maximum penalty of twenty years. I shit you not.”

“I know what I know,” she said. “And please refrain from the use of bad language. It’s not necessary and I find it offensive.”

For a long moment, silence reigned; Blunt was reaching for the tape to conclude the interview when Helen spoke.

“Wait a minute,” she told him. And then she quietly said to Gaynor Allitt, “Gaynor, I think I really do believe that you want our help. And you know we can help you, but if that’s to happen, then you really have to trust us.”

Allitt sighed and wiped a tear away from the corner of one eye and then the other. Then she produced a handkerchief and wiped her reddening nose.

“I’m afraid,” she said.

“Of whom?” asked Helen.

“I can’t tell you.” Allitt smiled bitterly and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Agent Monaco. I really can’t. But I don’t want to go home. Especially today.”

“What’s important about today?” Helen asked.

“It’s Sunday. I don’t want to be at home on a Sunday. I feel God’s presence with me more on a Sunday. And when I’m alone.”

There was something in her demeanor that reminded me of the way I’d been feeling the previous evening at the diocesan house in Galveston. A sense of nervousness.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Gaynor,” I said, “you sound like you’re telling us you’re afraid of God.”

“Let’s just say that there’s more reason to fear God than perhaps you can possibly imagine.”

“So when you say you fear God, you don’t mean it in a respectful way,” said Helen. “In other words, it’s not a manner of speaking, the way a pastor in a church might utter that phrase. You mean it in a real way. Is that correct?”

“Yes. That’s right. And I do fear him, very much. I fear Almighty God as I would fear his hurricane or his flood or his plagues or the power of radioactivity. I fear God’s angel. I fear the Lord’s power and his wrath. I do fear him, yes, very much so.”

It was almost as if her fear was infectious, because for a moment all of us fell silent; then I realized where logically all of this was heading—at least by the logic of what she believed.

“Was it God who killed Philip Osborne?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said.

“Did you ask God to kill Philip Osborne?”

“Yes.”

“How?” I asked. “How did you ask him?”

“If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it,” she answered. “John 14:14.”

“Let me be clear about this, Gaynor,” I said. “Are you saying that you prayed to God for Philip Osborne’s death?”

“Yes.”

“And God killed him, in what way?”

“I’m not sure. But I think God probably sent his angel of death to do his bidding. Just like in the Book of Exodus, chapter twelve.”

“Jesus Christ.” Blunt uttered a profound sigh and looked up at the ceiling.

“No, not Jesus Christ,” she insisted. “God. There’s a difference.”

“Right,” muttered Blunt.

“The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” said Allitt. “James 5:16.”

“You’re saying that you killed him with prayer?” I said.

“Yes. He was killed by my prayers.”

“That’s quite a claim, Gaynor,” said Helen. “And you’ll forgive us if we find it a little hard to believe.”

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

“Maybe that sort of thing was easier in biblical times than it is now,” objected Helen.

“Nevertheless, it’s quite true. I mean, it would explain a great deal, wouldn’t it?”

“How do you mean?”

“The circumstances of Philip Osborne’s death weren’t normal either, were they?” said Gaynor Allitt. “The only thing the newspapers said after that incident at the Hotel ZaZa was that he had suffered a breakdown. But we know he ran away from something he was very afraid of.”

This was true. Out of respect and admiration for one of their own, the newspapers had only reported Osborne’s “breakdown”; nothing of his acute fear in the moments that led up to his collapsing in the fountains or in the minutes before his subsequent death had ever appeared in print.

“And until he died,” she went on, “he was in a state of catatonia that his doctors couldn’t explain. Isn’t that correct? Something terrified him. And something killed him, too, eventually. But it wasn’t a revolver, was it? And it wasn’t poison. No, it was something much more powerful than any human weapon.”

Blunt was rolling his eyes; and I could hardly blame him for that. What Gaynor Allitt was saying sounded mad. And yet there was something about the way she said it that made it seem almost believable.

After Gaynor Allitt had been taken back to the holding cell downstairs, Police Inspector Blunt collected his coat off the back of his chair and put it on wearily.

“That woman is whacko.”

He was grinning broadly and shaking his head with the air of someone who had thought he’d seen and heard it all—at least until he’d seen and heard Gaynor Allitt.

He had my sympathy. But I wasn’t smiling—not yet; and neither was Helen.

“What do you make of her, Gil?” she asked.

“I really don’t know what to make of her, Helen. In some ways she seemed rational. Even perceptive. Did you notice that when I deliberately described Osborne as a Democrat she pointed out, correctly, that on many issues of foreign policy he was actually ultraconservative? It was
what
she said that sounded fucking crazy. Not the way she said it.”

“But not everything she said sounded crazy,” objected Helen. “She certainly seemed to know things about Osborne’s death that weren’t in the papers.”

“She could have found out that shit on the Internet,” objected Blunt. “You can find anything on the Internet. The other day I even saw my own wedding video on YouTube. Haven’t seen that fucking horror movie for twenty years.”

“Maybe she did,” said Helen. “Maybe not.”

“Come on,” said Blunt. “You can’t kill someone by praying that they will die. Not even in Haiti. If prayer worked, my second wife would weigh a hundred pounds less than she does now.”

I checked my notes and leaned across the desk to the tape machine. “About twenty-two minutes in, Gaynor Allitt said something else that was interesting and then corrected herself.” I started to wind the tape back. “I made a note of the position. Here we are.” I hit the play button.