The Apostle

“Got a case I need to hit hard in the early a.m. You don’t want details. You off tomorrow night?”

It seemed tomorrow would work out fine and I drove to Viv’s home, a lovely two-story in Coral Gables, the walls’ white expanses broken by vibrant art and photography. When we’d began dating, I’d figured her home shone with so much life because her work held so much death.

I started to pull the case files again, but their horror seemed discordant in Viv’s home, so I mixed a drink and reviewed them beneath a lamp in the back yard, nothing above but the lonely stars, which I figured had seen it all before.

4

Harry Nautilus was half-reclined on his couch and listening to a YouTube upload of a performance by jazz great Billie Holiday and thinking her voice was a trumpet, the words not sung as much blown through that life-ravaged throat, some notes low and growled, others bright as a bell on a crisp winter morning.

Fifteen years ago, give or take, Nautilus had sat in this same room with a half-baked man-child named Carson Ryder when the kid had asked Nautilus why he listened to “all that old music”. Nautilus had dosed the kid with Waller, Beiderbecke, Armstrong, Ellington, Holiday, Henderson … they started at sundown and met the morning with Miles.

Along with the intro to jazz, Nautilus convinced the kid his degree in Psychology and eerie ability to analyze madmen would be a gift to law enforcement. The next week Carson Ryder signed up at the Police Academy, blowing through it like a firestorm, impressing many, pissing off as many more. He’d put in three years on the street before solving the high-profile Adrian case, advancing to detective and Nautilus’s partner. They’d been the Ryder and Nautilus Show for over a decade. But today Carson was in Florida and Harry Nautilus was a retiree.

The show was over.

And tomorrow morning, Harry Nautilus was going to the home of Pastor Richard Owsley to meet the man’s wife and try for a gig as a driver. Last week’s interview with the Pastor had taken all of fifteen minutes, the man like a thousand-watt bulb in a room that only needs about a hundred, pacing, smiling, gesturing … all assurance and zeal and – like Southern preachers everywhere – stretching one-syllable words into two and often using larger words than called for, which Nautilus ascribed to latent insecurities perhaps caused by going to schools like West Doodlemont Bible College rather than Harvard Divinity School.

It had all happened so quickly that Nautilus realized he knew little more about Richard Owsley than the stacks of books he saw at local shops, the man smiling on the cover with bible in hand.

He took another sip of brew, set his computer on his lap, and checked YouTube for the Pastor’s name. There were several dozen hits, sermons, it seemed. In his youth Nautilus had been dragged from church to church by a procession of severe but well-meaning aunts, and figured he’d had enough sermonizing for a lifetime. He continued scanning the videos until he found a six-minute piece titled, Highlights: Richard Owsley on Willy Prince Show. Prince had a talk show out of Montgomery and was a regional favorite, a smug little fellow in his forties with shaggy, fringe-centric hair, and a slight mouth permanently puckered toward sneer.

Nautilus hit Play and the screen showed two men sitting at a round table in a television studio dressed with a pair of bookshelves and artificial plants. Nautilus figured someone once told Prince that slouching would make him look more like William F. Buckley, so he resembled a boneless puppet dropped into a chair. Prince sat on the left and was speaking.

“… then to recap, Reverend Owsley, you hold that Jesus wants people to have fine cars, boats, luxury items?”

Pastor Owsley was to the right, a dark-suited figure with narrow shoulders and a touch too much weight at his waistline, slightly pearish. His round and cherubic visage was topped by back-combed black hair. He looked pleasant and not particularly commanding, a small-town insurance salesman whose ready smile is part of the tool kit.

“Jesus wants people to enjoy abundance, Willy,” Owsley said in a Southern-inflected tenor and pronouncing the word in three distinct syllables, a-bun-dance. “In biblical times, abundance might mean having a donkey, chickens and a warm hearth. Today, it might be a new pickup truck and a house with a white picket fence.”

A chorus of handclaps and Hallelujahs from the audience. A raised eyebrow from Prince.

“Or a Mercedes-Benz and a mansion in Miami Beach?”

“If that is your yearning and you honor God, God will hand you the keys to the Benz, the keys to the mansion and then, finally and best of all, the keys to His Kingdom. It’s in John 10:10: ‘There I am come that they might have life, and they might have it more abundantly.’”

The audience again expressed satisfaction with the answer. “Perhaps the abundance comes in the afterlife, Reverend,” Prince said. “In Paradise.”

Owsley nodded vigorous agreement. “Our prosperity in Heaven is boundless, Willy. We’re also supposed to taste of it in this life. Proverbs 15:6 … ‘In the house of the righteous is much treasure.’ Then there’s John 1:2 … ‘Beloved, I wish above all that thou prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers.’ When your soul prospers, so shall you.”

“So why did Jesus hang around with poor people, Pastor Owsley? I mean, Jesus wasn’t prone to spending his days with the wealthy, right?”

“Of course not, Willy. He treasured the poor.”

“But you just said—”

“Jesus Christ loves the faithful, Willy. If you have ten billion dollars and believeth not in the Lord, you are as poor as a cockroach. Conversely, if you have nothing and turn yourself over to the Lord, you have wealth beyond measure.”

“But you’re still poor, pocket-wise.”

“‘Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.’ That’s Deuteronomy 29:9. It’s said even more directly in Proverbs 28:20: ‘A faithful man shall abound in blessings.’ Do you know the Greek translation of the word ‘blessings’, Willy?”

“Oddly enough, no.”

Owsley’s pink hands came together in a thunderclap. “Happiness! Blessings are happinesses. God wants His faithful children to abound in happinesses. It’s a three-step process, Willy. One, surrender your soul to Christ. Two, cast your bread upon the water. Three, watch the bread returneth a thousand-fold.”

A chorus of amens and hallelujahs. Prince studied the audience and turned to the preacher with an uplifted eyebrow. “You have a lot of followers here tonight, Reverend. Did you pack the crowd, as they say?”

A split-second pause from Owsley, followed by who-me? innocence. “I noted on my website that I was to be a guest. That’s all.”

“Really? I’d like to go to some video we took earlier in the day outside the studio, if that’s OK with you.”

“It’s your show, Willy,” Owsley said. The smile stayed as toothy as a beaver, but Nautilus detected irritation as the screen behind the interview table filled with two large buses emptying to the pavement a block from the studio, an attractive woman with a haystack of blonde hair organizing the passengers into a queue.

“All those folks went directly from the buses to the studio. I’ll ask again: Did you pack the crowd, Reverend?”

Murmurs of irritation from the audience. Owsley replayed the innocent face. “All I can say, Willy, is that I’m delighted so many faithful Christians chose to honor me with their presence.”

Applause. Whistles. Amens.

Prince tented his fingers and frowned in apparent confusion. “Faithful Christians, you say, Reverend Owsley. But what about people of other beliefs? Can they not be equally faithful to the creator of the universe?”

Owsley smiled benignly. “I can only preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, who I hold to be the creator of all that is and ever will be.”

“So other religions are wrong?”

“I judge not, lest I be judged, Willy.”

Prince shook his head. “You’re a hard man to pin down, Reverend.”

“No, Willy, I am not. It’s all in my owner’s manual.”

“Owner’s manual?”

Owsley reached to his side and picked up a bible, holding it high with both hands, the thousand-watt grin ramping up another hundred.

The audience went wild.

“Thanks, Mama,” Teresa Mailey said, patting her child on his pink forehead as her mother pulled the baby blanket closer around Robert, just seven months old the day before. “It might not be like this much more.”

Jeri Mailey thumbed graying hair back under the red headscarf and smiled. “Like I care, baby.” Her voice was husky, a smoker’s voice.

“Me waking you up at four thirty in the morning when I come to pick Bobby up?” Teresa said.

“Hush up that stuff. I go right back to sleep.” Jeri paused as her smile shivered and her eyes moistened. “I never thought I’d have days like this, baby.”

“Come on, Mama, not again,” Teresa said, her voice gentle.

Her mother brushed a tear from the corner of an eye. “I’m sorry, baby. It’s like every day has been a gift this past year. Taking care of you and Bobby is a gift from God.”

Teresa kissed her mother’s cheek. “It’ll keep giving, Mama.”

Teresa’s mother nodded and pulled Bobby tight as she crossed to the door. “See you later, baby. Have a good one.”

“Thanks, Mama.”

The door closed and Teresa Mailey was alone in the tiny first-floor apartment, the bulk of the rent paid by a charitable organization that helped the fallen regain their feet. She looked out the window and watched her mother put Bobby in the child seat in the rear of her blue Kia Optima and snug him tight. Just before her mother closed the door, Bobby waved goodbye.

OK, only a waggle of his arm, but it looks like he’s waving bye-bye to his mommy.

Teresa went to the mirror and straightened her uniform, the fabric flat and wrinkle-free, the uniform immaculate. Satisfied that she was a suitable representative of her employer, she glanced at the clock, 9:32 p.m., and headed to the door. Pausing, Teresa ran back to her bedroom and grabbed her necklace, a tiny gold chain holding a small cross, and put it around her neck.

I’m ready for this again.

Teresa exited to a third-hand Corolla. She had to be at work at ten, and the Publix was twenty minutes distant. She was to do night restock until four a.m. Yesterday her supervisor had spoken of moving Teresa to daytime as a permanent deli worker. Permanent!

“You’ve gotten noticed by a lot of people upstairs, Teresa,” the super had said. “Your attitude, work ethic, ability to shift positions … we’d like you as a permanent member of the team.”

The year had been a gift, Teresa thought as she drove through the warm Miami night. Of finding out who am I, and that I have worth.

The traffic was thick with homecoming day workers, but Teresa pulled into the Publix lot with eight minutes to spare, aiming toward the far edge where the employees parked. She grabbed her purse, exited the vehicle, and started for the store when she felt a tingle on the back of her neck, like eyes were watching.

Teresa turned to see a light van parked three slots distant, a hard-worked vehicle judging by the dinged body and dented hood. A man was sitting in the driver’s seat, face hidden behind a newspaper, the halogen-lit lot bright enough for reading. He was tanned and ropy and shirtless, a line running across his upper chest, a weird tattoo.

No … not a tattoo …

A nasty, puckery scar.

The man shifted in his seat and the scar stared at Teresa. Feeling an odd void in the base of her stomach, Teresa turned and hustled toward the supermarket.

5

It was eight a.m., the oblique sun lighting a soft mist that rose from a brief morning rain, giving a ghostly cast to the tree-canopied streets of Spring Hill, Mobile’s finest old neighborhood, many of the homes dating back to antebellum times. Harry Nautilus pulled to a two-story house set back a hundred feet from the avenue, a square, white, multi-columned Greek Revival monster Nautilus thought as charmless as it was large, redeemed by the landscaping: oaks and sycamores standing in hedge circles further bordered by azaleas and bougainvillea. Lines of dogwoods paced the high fence of the side boundaries.

He blew out a breath and pulled into the long drive. His red 1984 Volvo wagon had recently expired at 377,436 miles and he’d found a 2004 Cross Country model truly owned by the little old lady who only drove it on Sundays, the odometer registering 31,000 miles.

Nautilus parked behind a gleaming red Hummer with smoked windows and was rolling his eyes when he realized it was probably what he’d be driving. He exited the Volvo wearing the suit he’d worn to the interview with Richard Owsley, coal black, the suit he wore to court and funerals. His shirt was blue with a button-down collar and the tie a red-and-blue rep stripe. The whole drab get-up was already beginning to itch.

Nautilus patted his hair, a one-inch natural with a sprinkling of gray, licked an index finger and smoothed his bulldozer-blade mustache, took a deep breath and walked to the front door. The knocker was a cast-iron version of the three crosses of Golgotha – currently unoccupied – hinged to slam the base. Nautilus gingerly lifted a thief’s cross and let it drop.

A harsh metallic clank. Nautilus stood back as the door opened to reveal one of the most impressive stacks of hair he’d seen in years, a cascade of blonde-bright ringlets that bounced atop the shoulders of a slender, and apparently confused woman in her early forties. Her make-up was old-school-thick, early Dolly Parton, but her face was model-perfect, with high cheekbones, a pert nose and lips like pink cushions. With her dress, white and embroidered with creamy flowers, she looked part porcelain angel, part country singer from the seventies. Nautilus immediately recognized her from the Willy Prince Show, the woman organizing the bused-in audience.

“Mrs Owsley, I’m Harry Nautilus. You’re expecting me, I’m told. Or hope.”

The woman stared, as if Nautilus was a unicorn. “Mrs Owsley?” Nautilus said, resisting the impulse to wave his hand before her wide, blue-shadowed eyes. “Did your husband tell you I’d be by today?”

“You’re black,” she said, just shy of a gasp.

“Since birth. Is something wrong?”

A brief pause and the woman’s startled expression flowed effortlessly into a glittering smile, teeth shining like marquee lights. “Goodness, no,” she said, reaching to touch Harry’s sleeve and tug him over the threshold. “It’s just such a surprise. All my other drivers were, well … do you folks prefer the term white or Caucasian?”

“It doesn’t really matter, ma’am. It’s more what you prefer to call yourselves.”

She canted her head in thought, followed with a tinkly laugh. “Of course. Come inside, Mr Nautilus, please.”

She led Nautilus through the wide entranceway and into an expansive living area, the walls a soft peach, the French Provincial furniture having matching cushions and looking delicate and expensive. The room was vaulted, twenty-feet tall, a pair of ceiling fans whisking high above. One wall held family photos, one the front windows. The third held a cross of dark and rough-hewn beams, a dozen feet tall, eight wide. It had been thickly coated in shellac or varnish and gleamed in the in-streaming sun.

Nautilus said, “You have a beautiful home, Mrs Owsley.”

“God gave it to us,” she said, looking to Nautilus as if expecting an amen.

He said, “Indeed and fer-sure, ma’am,” and found his voice failing. “Might I trouble you for a drink of water? I seem a bit dry.”

“Right this way.”

The kitchen was straight from Architectural Digest: beaten copper sinks, twin refrigerator-freezers, an island with a maple chopping block. The countertops were richly textured marble. Above, an eight-foot rack was hung with cooking implements.

“There’s water, of course,” Celeste Owsley said. “I also have sweet tea.”

“Tea then, please.”

A crystal vase of tea was produced from a refrigerator seemingly sized to hold sides of beef. Celeste Owsley poured a glass and handed it to Nautilus. He sipped and studied the vast kitchen.

“You must truly like to cook, ma’am.”

The woman frowned at the rack festooned with pots, pans, colanders, whisks. “They all do something, but I’ve no idea what. Thankfully, our cook likes to cook. You’ll meet Felicia, I expect. She’s a precious little Mexican girl.”

“Girl?” Nautilus asked. “How old is she?”

Ms Owsley canted her head sideways, perplexed. Somehow the huge beehive ’do remained centered. “I never asked,” she said, a scarlet talon tapping a plump lower lip. “Forty? Fifty?”

Girl, Nautilus thought, holding back the sigh as Celeste Owsley gestured him toward the wide staircase. “Now let’s meet our daughter and see how she is today.”

Owsley clicked the high heels across the floor to the foot of the broad staircase and clapped her hands as if summoning a pet poodle. Seconds passed and Nautilus heard a door opening upstairs, looked up to a teenage girl staring down, her brown hair shoulder length and a pouty look on an otherwise sweet face.

“What?”

“Well, come on down.”

The girl sighed dramatically and headed down the steps. Nautilus knew she was sixteen – research again – and her name was Rebecca. Owsley’s face lit to a zillion watts as she pointed to Nautilus like he was door number three on a game show.

“This is Mr Nautilus, hon. He’s our new driver.”

The girl scowled. “But he’s bl—”

“He’s your Papa’s choice,” Owsley interrupted, “and that means he’s the best there can be.”

The girl stared at Nautilus. A smile quivered at the edge of her bright lips.

“Fuck,” she said.

“Becca!” Owsley snapped.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” the girl said, looking pleased. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck …”

“Get upstairs! Now!”

The girl slowly climbed the stairs, repeating her mantra until it ended with the slamming of a door. Owsley sighed and turned to Nautilus.

“I’m sorry. It’s a stage. I can’t wait for it to be over.”

The meeting seemed to have reached a conclusion, Owsley leading Nautilus back to the front door. Her hand was on the knob when she turned, her eyes searching into Nautilus’s eyes.

“You have been saved, of course, Mr Nautilus.”

The same question had been asked by Reverend Owsley, early in their meeting, as if, answered improperly, the interview would be over. Ten years back he and Carson had been chasing a trio of murderous dope dealers through a dilapidated warehouse, their leader a psychotic named Randy Collins. Nautilus had been following Collins down a rotting flight of stairs when they collapsed, Nautilus tumbling ten feet to concrete, gun spinning from his hand as the maniac spun and lifted his weapon, the nine-millimeter muzzle staring straight into Nautilus’s chest as a tattooed finger tightened on the trigger.

Until the front of Collins’ face disappeared, Carson firing from forty feet away, a perfect shot in the shadowed warehouse.

“Yes, ma’am,” Nautilus replied, just as he’d done with the mister. “I was saved years ago. It was a beautiful day.”

Nautilus returned to his vehicle thinking about his interview, the written part and subsequent face-to-face sessions with Owsley. A good third of the questions had – in veiled fashion, mostly – been about his discretion, the ability to handle secrets. He’d answered truthfully, meaning that he didn’t disburse private information. There would have been other vetting, he now realized – probably a private-investigation firm – but even his enemies would have said something akin to, “Harry Nautilus doesn’t carry tales.”

Twenty bills an hour, he told himself as he buckled into his car. Drive ’em around, stay uninvolved, cash the checks. The gig is worth it, right?

6

I awoke at eight twenty with the vague recollection of dreams made of flames and punctuated by screams. Breakfast was strong coffee and stale churros and I was at the department an hour later, hungry to track down the maniac who’d killed Kylie Sandoval. Roy was in his office, the muscular Miami skyline looming outside the windows of his twenty-third-floor office, Biscayne Bay visible to the east.

I gave him an anything happening? face, meaning Menendez.

He shook his head. “I figure this will be solved by snitches and shoe leather. It’ll come. Like Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part.” He gave me a curious look. “I take it you haven’t been to your office yet.”

“No, why?”

He closed his eyes and began whistling “Rule Britannia”.

Wondering if my boss had gone around the bend, I headed down the hall to my office, finding the door ajar. I used to share space with Ziggy Gershwin, but Zigs had impressed Roy enough to get his own office and assignments last month, so I was the sole occupant, generally leaving it unlocked.

I pushed the door open quietly, seeing a light-skinned woman of African heritage sitting in the chair opposite my desk, her back to me. She was leafing through a book I had contributed to some years ago, The Inner Cultures of Sociopaths, more for academic than general audiences. She wore a taupe uniform and though only a small portion was visible, I recognized the shoulder patch of the Miami-Dade PD.

I cleared my throat and she jumped, the book skidding from her lap to the floor.

“Bloody hell,” she said, standing. “You scared the piss out of me.”

Her voice sounded closer to London than Miami. I scooped up the book from the floor and set it back on the shelf, then sat, head cocked. My visitor was a petite woman in her mid-to-later twenties, brunette hair tugged back in a ponytail. Full lips framed a small mouth that was now pursed tight. Her eyes were large and brown and watching me as intently as I was watching her. I had the feeling I was being weighed.

“And you would be?” I ventured.

“Holly Belafonte. I’m an officer with the MDPD.”

I didn’t point out that, as a detective, I’d already deduced it by the uniform, though the accent seemed misplaced. “Did I mis-park my car, Officer Belafonte?” I said, a shot at humor that went wide, judging by the narrowed eyes.

She nodded to the chair. “Can I sit?”

“I suspect you can, since you were sitting when I entered.”

The stare again. Humor didn’t seem her métier. “Please,” I sighed. “Sit. And tell me why you’re here.”

She sat tentatively, reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope.

“I’m told this will explain things.”

I opened the envelope and saw Vince’s card clipped to two sheets of paper, the top one in his jagged handwriting.

Hey Buddy – Meet H. Belafonte, your official departmental liaison on the Sandoval case. She’s all I could scratch up on short notice and I picked her because she knew the vic personally. I cleared this with the Chief – at least I shoved it under his nose while he was screaming at everyone. The head of Investigative signed off as well, so you’re clear to proceed and I’ll lend a hand whenever possible. This place has gone nuts.

The second sheet of paper was typed:

This document authorizes Of. H. Belafonte to serve as official contact between the Miami-Dade Police Department and the Florida Center of Law Enforcement in duties relative to Case 2015/6 –HD 1297-B.

Below that was a hastily scribbled signature, the line tailing off the paper, like the signer was running while signing. Even the top brass at MDPD were in sprint mode due to Menendez.

“You know what this stuff says?” I asked Belafonte. “The notes?”

A prim nod. “We’re to work together on the Kylie Sandoval murder.”