The Guilty hp-2 Read online

Page 21


  He nudged the prone body on the floor, gave her a little kick. She shifted, uttered a muffled cry through the rag soaked through with saliva.

  William knelt down to her, gently shook her until those eyelids-crusty with eyeliner and mascara-fluttered open.

  The pupils took a moment to register, but as soon as they did fear came racing back to those pretty hazel eyes. The very eyes that had once gazed upon Henry Parker with an intense love that she still felt for him. Mya had made that clear in Paulina Cole's article. Surely Henry still felt something for her, too. Perhaps he could still feel her pain. They'd find out soon enough.

  The Boy smiled. He gently stroked Mya's cheek with the back of his hand. Her face trembled, lips quivering, blubbering.

  "Don't be scared, Mya." William's fingers traced soothing circles over her forehead until her trembling lips began to calm. "You have no idea how important you are."

  41

  Jack sat perched on the corner of my desk, swaying slightly, like a column debating whether or not to tip over. It was barely ten in the morning. After catching one whiff of his butane-flavored breath, it was clear that Jack was either coming off a night of wicked drinking, or that his wicked night of drinking hadn't yet ended.

  "What you need to do now," Jack said, "to follow up on today's article, is start full court press into this Willian Henry

  Roberts's background. What did his parents do? Are any of his childhood friends willing to say he was 'the quiet type' or pulled the wings off of insects? You need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this psychopath is in fact the greatgrandson of Billy the Kid. You planted the seeds, Henry, now you gotta water that sucker."

  I leaned back in my chair, looked out across Rockefeller

  Plaza. Tried to let my mind wander, because when it did it usually ended up in the right place. The police had finally pulled their surveillance off of myself and Amanda, convinced my injury was just a warning and the officers would be better suited hunting than guarding a guy who sat at his desk typing while his eyesight got progressively worse.

  And it was just as well. I needed to look into Roberts's birth certificate, family history, anything that could prove who he was and who he knew. He had parents-they would know if their son showed early signs of violence. Or if he had a preoccupation with family history. Perhaps a predilection toward antique weaponry. Or maybe he just spent a few too many hours with his Nintendo playing Duck Hunt.

  I knew who William Henry Roberts was. Knew where he was from. When he had committed his atrocities in this city.

  What kind of monster he was.

  "I need anything you can possibly help me with, Jack. I want to talk to anyone who's ever been in contact with William Henry Roberts. Schoolteachers, classmates-"

  "Neighbors, pets, yada yada, I know the drill." For a moment Jack teetered on the edge of my desk before planting an unsteady hand on my keyboard to steady himself. He looked at me, a quick splash of embarrassment appearing and then vanishing. Like it never happened.

  "Jack?" I said.

  "Yeah, kid?"

  "Are you okay?"

  Jack looked at me incredulously. "If by that statement you're asking whether I am in perfect health for a man of my age, with the virility of a tiger and countenance of a Viking- then, yes, I am very much okay."

  "No," I said, my voice pressing a little harder. "Are you really okay?"

  This time Jack didn't answer so quickly. The veined hand left my tabletop and mounted itself on my shoulder. Jack gave a warm smile as though flattered that I cared so much about his mental and physical state.

  "I'm fine, Henry. People are full of bull. So don't believe everything you hear."

  I blinked when he said this. Everything you hear?

  My concern for Jack was based solely on what I could see right in front of me. His too-sweet breath. His slightly offkilter equilibrium. His refusal to acknowledge any problems whatsoever. Nobody had said a word to me otherwise, and I had no clue if it was being discussed on the news floor. Obviously others were aware of the problem, as was Jack. Not that he cared one way or another.

  We both stood up. Jack began to walk back to his desk.

  "So," I said, "did you go out last night?"

  Jack barked a laugh. "Go out? Kid, when you're my age going out means ordering in Chinese food and hoping they remembered the sesame chicken."

  "So you stayed inside."

  "Same as I do every night."

  "Any company?"

  Jack's eyes closed as he tried to understand what I was asking. "What's all this about?"

  "I just want to know if anyone is there to, you know… just in case."

  "Just in case what? "

  "In case you need any help…anyone to talk to. If anything, you know, happened."

  "Help?" Jack said. "What I hear, you need help more than I do. Don't think I didn't hear about Frank Rourke and his infamous crap-in-a-sack. You'd better work on your interpersonal relationships with the other reporters before you start asking if I'm okay. Otherwise that won't be the last bag you get.

  Help yourself, kid. There are only so many hours in the day."

  As he left, I tried to think of something to say. Jack clearly had a problem, and if it were anyone else they would be confronted, put on leave, made to do something to right the ship.

  But Jack O'Donnell was a living institution. You didn't take the Michelangelo in for a cleaning until the marble was covered with so much grime you couldn't tell its ass from its elbow. Jack was still Jack, pumping out quality stories, but it was only a matter of time. And from the look of things, this wasn't an issue about to go away on its own.

  I needed to focus. I still had a job to do, and there was still a killer out there. Maybe if I could uncover more information about William Henry Roberts, I could save more lives than just Jack's.

  I logged into LexisNexis and performed a search for

  William's parents, John and Meryl Roberts. I found records of them owning two homes-one in Hico, Texas, and another in Pecos Valley, New Mexico. Pecos Valley, if I remembered, was where John Chisum ended his famous cattle drive which began in Paris, Texas, and where Billy the Kid wreaked havoc during the Lincoln County Wars. Hico was where Brushy Bill

  Roberts had died.

  I searched for all newspaper articles in the state of Texas containing references to either John or Meryl Roberts. Aside from previous known addresses, there were half a dozen other clippings. I clicked on the first piece.

  It was from the Pecos Valley News, a local paper from a town sleepy enough that high-school football was front-page material. The article had run in the Church Briefs section of the paper, and was about the baptism of the Roberts's newborn son, William Henry. A photo accompanied the article, a robed priest holding an infant, nestled in between folds of cloth. I could just make out William Henry's eyes, which were peaceful, closed.

  It was hard to imagine that this child, renouncing evil, would eventually become a servant of the devil.

  The second article was also from the Pecos Valley News, and it was written in 1995. The article was titled "Roberts Family

  Sells Home, Wish Them Luck in Texas!" An accompanying photo showed John and Meryl with their young children standing in front of a For Sale sign in their yard. The parents looked young, vibrant, like they were about to start a new chapter of their lives. An eight-year-old William stood to the side with an expression on his face that showed neither happiness nor sorrow. It was a blank slate, as though he was simply going along because there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  I clicked on the third article. It was from the Hamilton

  Herald-News out of Hamilton County, Texas. It was dated

  August 23, 2004. The headline read Five Dead in Deadly Hico

  Blaze: Family Of Four Trapped Inside Their Home, Die

  Along With Beloved Chaplain.

  The accompanying photo showed the charred embers where a house once stood. There were police cars, ambulances and f
ire trucks spread out with abandon. Men and women in white jackets with filters over their mouths combed through the wreckage.

  I could see at least one body draped with cloth and another, uncovered, lying among the timber.

  My stomach clenched. I read further, my pulse quickening as I read the awful details.

  Late last night John Roberts, his wife Meryl, their two children William and Martha, and beloved Pastor

  Mark C. Rheingold died in a four-alarm fire at the Roberts ranch in Hico, Texas.

  …bodies were burned beyond recognition…

  …unknown how the fire began…

  …Rheingold had just returned from a thirty-city tour for his latest book and was set to break ground on a new

  15,000-seat church in Houston…

  …the Roberts family had just moved to Hico three years ago…

  …joined John Henry Roberts's father, Oliver…

  …William Henry and Martha James had recently graduated from Hamilton High…

  …police have not ruled out arson…

  I read the rest of the article, stunned. It was impossible.

  Either I'd made a huge mistake, or something was terribly wrong. Because according to the newspapers, William Henry

  Roberts had died in Hico, Texas, nearly four years ago.

  42

  The next three articles were all follow-ups to the story of the tragic fire that had claimed the lives of four of Hico's newest residents, as well as the life of one of the state's most beloved religious servants.

  According to Sheriff Chip Youngblood, experts determined that the fire was electrical, and may have been exacerbated when one of the Roberts children foolishly attempted to extinguish it with water. According to the local energy supplier, there was a small spike in the Roberts family's electrical usage around the time the fire was believed to have started.

  The county held a small, private ceremony for the burial of John Henry Roberts, his wife and their children. A photo ran of the burial. There were about twenty people in attendance, including several reporters from local papers.

  The funeral service held for Pastor Mark Rheingold, however, was a very different story. The proceedings were held in Rheingold's old church in Houston, a ten-thousand seater that was filled to capacity for the ceremony. Ushers were needed to corral the crowds. At least four people were confirmed to have fainted. Another tried to drown himself in the hopes of meeting Mark Rheingold in heaven.

  I came upon hundreds of photos of Mark Rheingold taken during his various pilgrimages in various newspapers, pamphlets and photo-ops. Rheingold was a thin man, not skinny but lean, with the lithe physique and stretched facial muscles of a jogger. His jet-black hair was always slicked back in a neat coif and his suits, like his wife's jewelry, were decent but not gaudy. Every photograph bore the pastor's thousand-watt smile. Though I did wonder why a man of God needed veneers.

  Cards and flowers arrived from all fifty states and thirty foreign countries. Numerous politicians paid their condolences in person. Rheingold's closest friends and pastorial acquaintances read passages from his bestselling books. Rheingold's wife and young son remained stoic in the front row. The governor of Texas declared the day one of statewide mourning.

  The following year, Rheingold's wife was given her own daytime talk show. His ten-year-old son published a book called Never Too Young to Follow the Lord, containing prayers and motivation for grade-schoolers.

  There was very little reporting on the burial of the

  Roberts family. A grainy photo showed the four caskets being lowered. Two larger ones, for John and William. Two smaller ones for Meryl and Martha. John was noted as the grandson of Oliver P. "Brushy Bill" Roberts. Everything else was journalism-by-the-numbers.

  One line from the article, though, threw me for a loop.

  The Roberts family was buried in a closed-casket service presided over by Reverend Bert Brown. During his concluding remarks, Reverend Brown asked the heavenly father that the bodies of these four souls be looked after in heaven, and that any earthly remains not in these coffins find that everlasting peace.

  Any earthly remains not in these coffins…

  I immediately picked up the phone and dialed information for Hico, Texas. An automated voice answered.

  "What listing?"

  "I'd like the main number for the Hamilton County coroner's office."

  "One moment, please."

  Muzak played in the background. I tuned out the newsroom chatter. Frank Rourke walked by the mail drop, turned and eyed me for what seemed like minutes, then kept walking.

  "Hello, sir?"

  "Yeah, sorry," I said. "Who is this?"

  "Well, my name is Helen, but I'm afraid there is no coroner's office in Texas."

  "Do you mean Hamilton, Texas, or Texas as a whole?"

  "I'm afraid that would be Texas as a whole."

  "Then who's in charge of supervising wrongful death cases?"

  "That would be the Justice of the Peace, sir."

  "Then can I be connected to the office of the current Justice of the Peace?"

  "Ab-so-lutely."

  A minute passed as the line rang. Another woman picked up, her voice cheerful.

  "Office of Justice Waverly, this is Brenda, how may I assist you?"

  "Hi, Brenda," I said, trying to make my voice sound as young as possible. Brenda sounded to be either in her late fifties or late teens. An aunt type. And aunts loved their young nephews. "My name is Henry Parker, and I'm with the New

  York Gazette. I'm a junior reporter."

  "Oh, a junior reporter all the way up there in New York?

  That's wonderful. How can we help you, Henry?"

  "If it's possible, I'd very much like to speak with Justice

  Waverly."

  "Oh now, Justice Waverly is eating his breakfast and he doesn't like being disturbed during breakfast. Do you know that man can eat an entire stack of blueberry pancakes in one sitting? I swear I ain't seen nothing like it ever."

  "That's fantastic, Brenda, really, but it's incredibly important I speak with him. We've had four homicides here in New

  York. And I think they might be related to an old case involving deaths in Hamilton County. Hico, to be exact."

  There was silence over the phone as the word homicide seeped into Brenda's thoughts. As much as she wanted to protect Justice Waverly's breakfast routine, a good old gal like her couldn't bear to let such atrocities simmer.

  "Now, Henry, Justice Waverly will get mighty upset if I barge in there, make him get all messy and syrupy and this isn't an emergency of the important kind."

  "Oh, I promise, Brenda, this is an emergency of the most important kind."

  Brenda sighed as the Good Samaritan in her kicked in.

  "Hold on just a sec."

  Rather than put the line on hold, I heard a clang as she placed the phone down on her desk. I heard the sound of a door being opened, then the voice of a man none too happy about being interrupted. There was a brief spat, the sound of someone yelling with food in their mouth, and then more footsteps as Brenda returned to her desk.

  "Hello, Mr. Parker? Justice Waverly will be right with you."

  "Thanks, Brenda, you're a doll." Brenda giggled politely.

  I heard a click as the line was picked up by another party.

  "Hello?" a deep, male voice intoned.

  "Is this Justice Waverly?" I said.

  "Brenda, I have it, hang up now." I heard a click as Brenda hung up her end. "Mr. Parker, Brenda tells me you're calling all the way from New York, that right?"

  "Yes, sir. Justice, sir. I'm with the Gazette. I appreciate your taking my call."

  "I didn't take no call, Brenda threatened to give me that terrible puppy-dog look all day if I didn't. She tells me you said something about a homicide up there in the big city."

  "That's right."

  "Well, if I'm not mistaken, you New Yorkers have quite a few homicides every year and you don't go calling me for
all of those. So what makes you think my office can help with this one?"

  "Well, sir, if I might answer a question with a question," I said,

  "were you the Justice of the Peace of Hamilton County in 2004?"

  "I most certainly was," Waverly said. "I have been justice of this county for ought seventeen years."

  "Then you probably recall notable criminal investigations during that time."

  "I have a mind like an eagle, son. What are you getting at?"

  "Well, Mr. Eagle, sir, then you'll remember the deaths of

  John Roberts, his family, and Pastor Mark Rheingold just a few years ago."

  I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end. And I knew I'd just pulled a big, dangling thread. I waited thirty seconds for a response. Waverly was still on the other end, but it was clear he wasn't dying to talk about the fire.

  "Justice Waverly, are you still there?"

  "Yes, Mr. Parker, I'm here."

  "So you do remember those deaths?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "So you don't remember the alleged electrical fire that killed five people, including the most famous pastor in the state of Texas."

  "I didn't say that, either."

  "Justice Waverly, I'm not the police," I said. "I'm a reporter trying to find out why four people have been murdered and how they might be connected to a fire that killed five people several years ago."

  "I don't know how any of your murders are my concern,

  Mr. Parker. Now if you'll excuse me I have a meeting in just ten minutes and I still haven't had my coffee."

  "Fine by me," I said. "Because my next call is to the FBI. I know Mike Sellers down at the Houston branch pretty well.

  And one thing he hates is red tape and bureaucratic doublespeak. So I hope you're not stringing any of that tape up for me."

  I had spoken to Deputy Michael Sellers once, over e-mail.

  He had given me a terse no comment, though complimented me on a previous story about the treatment of prisoners at

  Rikers Island. I figured that brief correspondence was as good an opportunity as any to name-drop.

  I heard a pounding sound, like something hitting wood.