Chapter 20

March 25, 1998, 1:30 p.m.

Los Angeles, CA

Father John Glowacz was sitting on a bench watching a basketball game at the Our Lady of Guadalupe recreation center. The recreation center had been set up for the area youths. He was dressed in a pair of black jeans and a black t-shirt with his clerical collar on, watching as a scratch basketball game was underway. He was laughing, calling out to urge the kids on, clapping his hands when somebody shot a basket or when a good defensive move had been made. The kids playing on the court were all neighborhood kids, skin-headed youths in long, baggy shorts and tennis shoes, shirtless for the most part, sweating it up and getting their frustrations out on the basketball court. John had picked the teams himself: one team was comprised of a few neighborhood kids and members of both the 18th Street gang and Tortilla Flats, while the other team was comprised of 18th Street, Los Compadres, and some more area kids. The gang members were kids that came to the church and attended Danny Hernandez's youth services. Good kids for the most part that wanted to better themselves. Father John Glowacz did all he could to give them a little bit of hope and pride in their communities.

He jumped up when Team #2 made an impressive basket courtesy of Sparky, a fourteen-year-old shaven-headed kid from Los Compadres. His teammates immediately high fived him, including the 18th Street gang members. There were big smiles of pride over how well they were playing flashing all over the court. Father John Glowacz clapped. “Good going, guys! Keep it up. You're looking real good out there. Real good!"

It was on days like this, when he could get the rival gang members to play basketball together and have them congratulating each other on a game well played, that made Father John Glowacz's day. It was days like this when he felt it was worth it to come work at this parish despite the long sleepless nights he had spent four years before sweating over the decision to accept the position.

Running footsteps heading his way made Father Glowacz turn his attention from the game. A young boy named Pedro Rodriguez was running toward him with a panicked look on his face. Father Glowacz frowned; Pedro Rodriguez was a little on the small side, and had been recently hanging out with members of the Los Compadres street gang. His older brother was one of the boys playing basketball. Father Glowacz had been surprised to not see Pedro with his brother when the older boy didn't shown up, and he hoped the lure of the streets hadn't called him. But as the younger boy ran up to the priest, panting heavily from the exertion of his run, he could see that something was troubling the youngster. “Father Glowacz!"

“Yes, Pedro. What's the matter?” Father Glowacz rose to his feet and put a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder.

“I've...” the boy was hopping from one foot to the other, as if he had to go to the bathroom, but Father Glowacz saw that the need to evacuate his bladder wasn't the problem. The boy was scared. “I've just ... ah, shit!"

“It's okay, Pedro,” Father Glowacz said, smoothly. “Just take your time."

The boy nodded and waited until he had caught his breath. Father Glowacz checked quickly to see how the game was progressing. It was still in progress, thank God.

He turned his attention to the young boy. “Okay, feel better now?"

Pedro nodded. “Yeah."

“What do you want to tell me?"

Pedro seemed to pause for a minute, then looked up at the priest. “Is ... is it a bad thing to tell something bad about ... well, about another person here from the church?"

Father Glowacz felt his nerves tremble. “That depends, Pedro. If it's something like hearsay, a rumor you might have heard about a person but have no proof of, then yes.

It's called bearing false witness. You'll learn that in CCD if you haven't already."

Pedro nodded. “This isn't ... hearsay, whatever it is you call it. It's something else.

Something I saw."

Father John Glowacz frowned. “Is it something that might hurt one of the members of the parish?"

Pedro Rodriguez shook his head. “No ... well, yeah, it might be ... it's just that—"

“Just that what?"

“I think I saw the killer,” Pedro blurted suddenly.

This stopped Father John Glowacz cold. He looked down at Pedro, a growing sense of numbness spreading through his body. He felt his mouth grow dry. “You saw...?"

Pedro Rodriguez nodded, speaking rapidly now. “I was coming up Sixteenth Street, going to the grocery store for my mother when—"

“Quiet!” Father John Glowacz hissed, turning around quickly to see if anybody had overheard. The game was still in progress, and a group of other kids were playing handball further down the recreation center. In the recreation center's office, Father Robert Ames was sitting behind the desk talking to one of the after-school volunteers, probably discussing church history again as he always liked to do. Nobody had overheard them. He turned back to Pedro and bent down so that he was at eye level with the boy.

“Are you sure you are telling me the truth, Pedro?"

Pedro nodded, his features grave.

“Have you told anybody about this?"

Pedro shook his head. “No, Father."

“I want you to quietly tell me what you know,” Father Glowacz said, his voice lowered now, leaning toward Pedro as if they were secret conspirators. “Tell me very quietly, okay?"

Pedro looked out at the playground, as if assuring himself that those around them playing hoops were too distracted to hear what he was about to divulge. Then he turned to Father Glowacz and leaned forward, cupping his hand around his mouth and whispering into the priest's ear. Father John Glowacz listened, the knot in his stomach growing tighter as the boy's story spun out, a rivulet of sweat breaking out on his brow as Pedro Rodriguez identified the Eastside Butcher. When the boy was finished it was all Father Glowacz could do to contain his fear and the shakiness in his limbs.

“Good boy,” he said, rising again to his full height. His arm around the boy's shoulder, he led him toward the church and the administrative offices. “I'm going to my office to make a phone call to a detective I know. Why don't you wait in the lobby for me, okay?"

Pedro nodded and the two walked toward the church as the basketball game continued behind them, unheeded.

Father John Glowacz and Pedro Rodriguez were waiting in Father Glowacz's office when Detective Daryl Garcia showed up forty-five minutes later. He rapped sharply on the door then opened it, peering in. His eyes were alight with curiosity. “Father Glowacz? You wanted to see me?"

“Yes...” Father John Glowacz rose from behind his desk and met the detective at the door. “Please, come in. And close the door behind you please."

Daryl complied, his eyes flicking from the priest to a young boy sitting in a chair by the priest's desk. “I came as quickly as I could. I was sorta busy when you paged me."

“That's okay.” Father Glowacz regarded Detective Garcia through his wire frames, noting that the detective was dressed in his street clothes: a pair of blue jeans, a blue chambray shirt that looked a trifle rumpled, and white tennis shoes. His hair looked slightly ruffled, as if he had been interrupted in the middle of something. “I'm sorry to bother you."

“That's quite all right,” Daryl Garcia said. “When I told you that you could call me on any matters relating to this case, I meant it.” Father John Glowacz nodded, reflecting on this fact; Detective Garcia had questioned him on matters relating to the case three times, all of them in regards to victims that had attended his parish. He found the detective to be a dedicated, intelligent, hard working, honest man. When Detective Garcia had passed him his card and told him he could call him on his cellular phone or have him paged at any time in matters relating to the case, he'd filed the card away in his rolodex.

But when Pedro told him what he knew about the Butcher, he knew he had to give the detective a call. This would be an important lead, one he was sure the detective would want to follow up on.

“Why don't you have a seat?” Father John Glowacz said, motioning to a chair in front of his desk, next to Pedro.

Detective Garcia sat down, his gaze trailing from the priest to the boy. “Okay, so what have you got?"

“This is Pedro Rodriguez,” Father John Glowacz said, indicating the boy with a nod of his head. “His older brother is a Los Compadres street gang member and is attending Danny Hernandez's youth group here at the church. Both boys attend my services here at the church. Pedro is the one that came across this ... rather disturbing information and ... well, I think it might be best for you to hear it from him."

Detective Garcia turned to Pedro and smiled. “Okay.” He held out his hand to Pedro. “Hi, Pedro, I'm Detective Daryl Garcia. Nice to meet you."

“Nice to meet you, too.” Pedro Rodriguez returned the handshake limply.

“Do you think you can tell me everything you told Father Glowacz?” Detective Garcia asked.

Pedro nodded. “Yes."

“Good."

Pedro told him. Father John Glowacz sat behind his desk, waiting for the change of expression on the detective's face. He wasn't surprised by the reaction: when Pedro told him what he knew, Detective Garcia's features changed from interest, to disbelief and shock. Which was just how Father Glowacz had felt.

“You're sure about this now?” Detective Garcia asked. He had taken out a small notepad and pen and jotted down some notes.

Pedro nodded vigorously. “Yes sir! I swear to God, I saw it with my own two eyes!"

Detective Garcia glanced at Father Glowacz, and the priest thought he detected a glimmer of hope in his eyes. The kid might be on to something. It sounded like an important enough lead to summon Detective Garcia as soon as possible, and now it looked like that phone call had paid off.

“I'll check it out,” Detective Garcia said, replacing the note pad and pen in his back pocket. “In the meantime, until you hear from me I'd like to ask you to keep this to yourself, Father."

“Of course,” Father Glowacz murmured.

“You're sure about this address, Pedro?” Daryl asked the boy.

The boy nodded. “Yes, sir."

“Okay.” Daryl Garcia rose from his seat and headed toward the door. Father Glowacz got up and saw him to the door. “I'll give you a call later today if anything pans out. Thank you, Father."

“My pleasure,” Father John Glowacz said, shaking the detective's hand. “In a way, I ... well, I wish ... this isn't the man you're looking for, but ... if it is, I hope it ends it."

“I feel the same way,” Detective Garcia said. He looked at the priest with surprised, haunted eyes, then turned and headed down the hallway of the church's administrative wing to check out the lead that Pedro Rodriguez had supplied.

Danny Hernandez was in the embrace of Hector Miguel when the front door to Hector's apartment burst open with a resounding bang, and the sound of running feet thundered through the apartment amid the shouts of “Freeze, police!"

Danny stiffened at the sudden loud intrusion, and instinctively pulled out of his lover and rolled off the bed. He grabbed his shirt and jeans from the pile of clothing on the floor and was heading for the window, oblivious to what Hector was doing, when they were in the bedroom swarming over him. Strong bodies tackled him to the ground, a hard knee pressed into the small of his back. “Freeze, asshole! LAPD!"

Danny froze as the sounds of the officers also subduing Hector echoed in the din.

“You! Freeze! Freeze your ass, motherfucker!"

Danny felt his arms being wrenched behind his back, a pair of iron cold handcuffs slap on his wrists. A rough hand gripped him by the shoulder and hauled him to his feet.

“Sit down!” a rough voice barked. Danny sat his nude butt down on the worn mattress as the sounds of Hector Miguel being handcuffed cut through his system. “Jesus Christ, thank God they make us wear latex gloves now. It's not every goddamn day we bust a pair of faggots shit deep in action with each other."

Danny felt his face turn red with embarrassment. His penis shriveled and tried to retreat into his groin. A familiar voice called out his name. “Danny!” He turned toward the voice.

It was the detective that had questioned him a few times about the various Butcher murders. Daryl Garcia. He looked menacing, pissed off. Danny's face turned redder and he turned away from the accusing glare of the detective.

Daryl stood in front of him, his imposing figure glaring down at him. “Hey, Hernandez! Look at me. I'm talking to you!"

Danny Hernandez looked up.

Daryl Garcia looked down at him, a smug grin on his otherwise handsome face.

“Looks like you got a lot of explaining to do, homes."

Danny was going to respond with something—he didn't know what—but his mouth was dry. He knew Daryl's record of harassment and physical abuse from some of the other homeboys, and he knew it was wise to keep silent. He shut up and looked down at his nude form. He managed a small squeak when he did speak. “Well, if you're taking my ass downtown, don't I at least get to put some clothes on?"

Daryl motioned to one of the officers that had burst into the apartment. “Get both these fairies dressed and book ‘em. Let's go!"

And with that, Danny Hernandez's secret was now out of the closet.

It had been almost ten years since Danny Hernandez had seen the inside of an interrogation room at Parker Center. Now dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, he sat with his hands still cuffed behind him in front of a large, scarred oak table. The room was bare, a single sixty-watt bulb casting a yellowish glow over the room. He had just been escorted to this room after spending an hour and a half in a holding cell—not with Hector, either—and then gone through processing. Now they had deposited him in the interrogation room, presumably for Daryl Garcia to speak to him. Danny's stomach fluttered. Ever since the bust his nerves had been on edge. He'd been so careful to hide this other part of himself, and he wondered what it was that led them to him after so many years.

The door to the interrogation room opened and Daryl Garcia stepped into the room. He gave Danny a hard scowl as he crossed over to the other side of the table and sat down. The two men looked at each other for several seconds that seemed like minutes to Danny. Finally, Danny looked away.

“What's the matter, Hernandez?” Daryl asked. “Can't face the music?"

“I don't know what you're talking about."

“Sure you do."

Danny took in a quick breath and clenched his teeth. He could feel his anger building and he willed it to simmer down. “I have no idea what I'm in here for. Until now, I had no idea that being gay was against the law."

“Are you gay, Mr. Hernandez?"

Danny shot Daryl a quick look. “What the hell do you think?"

Daryl shrugged. “It's not for me to pass judgement. Just because I stumble across a man who is pretty well known among his homies to be a ladies man in the barrio and to be a big, bad, macho former gang banger, a veteran loco who all the younger homies look up to, and I see this same big and bad tough gangster in bed with another man—shit, it ain't my position to presume."

“Well, now that you're finished with your smart ass remark, maybe you can tell me exactly what the hell I'm in here for,” Danny sneered.

Daryl looked pleased. “Ahh! So we want to cut to the chase, eh? Forget the cut and dry as to why you were caught in bed with another man when you're supposed to be a role model and a good and upstanding Catholic and all that happy horseshit!"

Danny clenched his teeth. “So you found out I like men, too. All right. Big fucking deal. We all have a taste for the forbidden, Detective Garcia. Some men like to dress up in their wive's panties and masturbate; other men like to be spanked by a dominatrix. When the mood hits, I like to fuck other men. Got a problem with that?"

Daryl shook his head and leaned over the table, elbows resting on the scarred oak tabletop. “To tell you the truth, no. I don't."

“Then what's the deal? Listen, aside from straying off the straight and narrow path when it comes to my religion and stuff, hey, I'm guilty. Okay, so I sinned in that respect.

But I been clean on everything else. I haven't broken the law on anything that—"

“Let's talk about that,” Daryl said, interrupting him. “Breaking the law."

Danny started and sat stiff straight in his chair. His heart hammered in his chest.

“Okay, man. Shoot."

Daryl leaned over and started counting off on his fingers. “One, you haven't been totally clean. We searched your apartment an hour ago and found some marijuana. Bad decision, Danny.” Daryl shook his head. “Very bad decision. An ex-con possessing drugs can revoke your probation."

“I've been off probation for five years now,” Danny sneered, condescendingly.

“There were a couple of balloons of heroin we found, too,” Daryl continued and now Danny's jaw dropped. Daryl noticed it but his expression didn't change. “It could be enough to charge you with trafficking—"

“Bullshit! You fucking planted that heroin in my place! I haven't touched smack in ten years! Jesus Christ! ” Danny leaned back, his face growing hot.

Daryl leaned forward. “Then you're going to have to cooperate with me on this, Danny."

“Cooperate in what?” Danny cried.

Daryl started counting off on his fingers. “One, Louis Hernandez. Two, Rick Perez. Three, Javier Ramirez,” He paused and looked Danny straight in the eye. Danny looked straight back and willed himself not to break his gaze. His heart beat faster.

Suddenly he made the connection. Jesus Christ, man! He thinks I killed them!

Instead, he tried to be nonchalant about it. “What about them?"

Daryl chuckled. Danny felt his soul start to evaporate. “You say that as if you don't know what I'm talking about. But I can tell by the way your hands are shaking behind your back that you are nervous as shit. I can see the sweat bead along your forehead. Your pupils are wide, your breathing is heavy. That's a sign of nervousness, Danny. What are you nervous about?"

“I'm not nervous,” Danny said, licking his lips and swallowing.

“Sure you are. You just licked your lips and swallowed, more symptoms that you know very well what I'm talking about. And as far as I'm concerned we can stay here all night if you want. Because you will tell me about all three of them before the night is over, Danny. All three of them, and maybe some others as well."

And Danny knew then that the reason Hector's place had been raided, knew the reason why he had been brought into this interrogation room and asked about those three homeboys, was that they had been doing more than just checking up on him. They had been following him. And they knew that the comment he'd made before about not breaking the law was pure bullshit. Danny felt his skin grow clammy. Christ.

“What made you think...” Danny began, “that ... that I... "

Daryl appeared to know what Danny was getting at. “What made us think that you might be the killer? Let's just say a little bird observed some strange behavior from you the last few weeks and gave us a call."

Danny's mind whirled. Let's just say a little bird observed some strange behavior

... Who? And for how long? My God, had he been that obvious?

Daryl sat back in his chair, his gaze resting on Danny. He smiled. “Now, why don't we just start from the beginning by telling me where you were on the evening of September 12, 1995..."

March 25, 1998, 11: 48 p.m., Central Time

South Bend, Indiana

Rachael Pearce was ecstatic. Had been since she pulled back into one of the parking garages downtown and began hiking back up to the university district. Her mind was racing madly. Using the stopwatch function on her Timex, she had conducted a series of experiments earlier that evening. Starting on the corners of where both Alice Henderson and Howard Manheim had both disappeared at roughly the same time they were reported last seen, Rachael had driven away from the scene and cruised around the downtown area for several minutes. She noted the traffic flow, which was no less heavy than it was on Sunset Boulevard at this time of night on a weekday. Foot traffic, too, was normal to light. There were people walking home from work or gathered at bus stops to carry them home; there were young mothers walking children, sometimes pushing a baby carriage. The area was predominately black, but there was a sprinkling of Caucasians as well. Most of the people could be easily tagged as lower class. Closer to the university lots of college kids were about, all looking for thrills in either the restaurants, bars, pool halls, night clubs, or coffee bars. Sprinkled among all this were the homeless people begging for change, the occasional street prostitute (who mainly stuck in the alleyways and side streets), and, further down in the seedier sections of town, the drug dealers and hustlers.

Rachael drove around the downtown area for several minutes, noting all of this.

The main strip was seedy, sporting the majority of the bars, pool halls, and the X-rated bookstores and peepshows. All of the shops and restaurants were on the bottom floor of large buildings that spanned ten stories or more. The tallest buildings were in the center of the downtown district, and Rachael could make out corporate logos in some of them advertising phone companies and financial institutions. There were several apartment buildings peppered around the downtown district, and as she drove around she saw a residential section, populated mainly by duplexes and more apartment buildings. Further south were lower class neighborhoods sporting small homes. She doubled back and headed north to the downtown area, her mind searching for a link. It was quite feasible that their killer had lived very close to here. He had to have lived within at least a few minutes of where he had picked up Alice and Howard. If that was the case, where did he spend his days? Did he perhaps work downtown as well?

She had tucked that thought in the back of her mind and caught Interstate 31

heading north, out of town. The onramp was right off the main drag, Lincolnway West, and she saw how easy it would have been for him to pick his victims up, perhaps drive a few blocks south to his house or apartment with the prospect of sex, kill them, then pack them back in his car and drive through the downtown district to catch the Interstate. She made a note to check the on-ramps in the residential areas surrounding downtown. She headed out of town and within thirty minutes found herself parking in the little grove off the side of the road where he surely must have parked—she saw how concealed it was in the darkness—and trotted through the woods with her flashlight. She stopped fifty yards into the woods. It was cold, her breath misting in front of her as she exhaled. She checked her stopwatch. From the moment she'd left the downtown area and gotten on the freeway it had taken twenty minutes.

As she drove back downtown she turned this little experiment over in her mind.

What she wanted to do now was wait until perhaps well after midnight and make a similar run, although this time from the residential areas surrounding downtown, and drive straight out here. The reason was obvious: if he had abducted his victims around seven-thirty in the evening, he surely didn't set off to dispose of the bodies until well after midnight. She quickly nixed this idea. He would have been too smart for that. He would know that there would be a heavy police presence in the downtown area at this time, setting up sobriety checkpoints, and just being on the general lookout for the usual crimes that went with a lot of drinking and the other things peepshows and the like spawned.

There was no doubt that their killer had been careful, that she was sure of. But then, both Alice Henderson and Howard Manheim had disappeared on weeknights, and it was more plausible for him to have killed and disposed of his victims on the same night. Made sense. Police presence wouldn't be as heavy. It also gave her more insight to who their killer might be as well.

She parked her rental car in the parking lot and set off back to the university district. Assuming she was right in her deductions, he had to work some kind of job that was out of the norm of most means of employment. Howard Manheim disappeared on a Tuesday night, Alice Henderson on a Thursday. This indicated that if he spent the entire night killing them, doing God knows what with their dead bodies afterward, then driving them out to the woods later that night to dispose of them, theoretically he was awake well into the morning. From her reading on the subject of serial killers, she knew that this entire act would keep him high and sustained until the wee hours of the morning, after which he probably sacked out and slept. He would have woken up feeling fulfilled and refreshed. It was the only methodology she could think of that could account for the long time gap between murders; if he had a normal nine-to-five job, he surely could have called in sick to his job the following day. But no, she was 99 percent certain that he didn't have a normal nine-to-five job, that his employment might have been sporadic, or perhaps a graveyard shift somewhere. Or maybe ... ?

She was stepping onto the street, heading toward the main drag as these thoughts went through her mind. She was concentrating on them so much that she almost didn't notice the college kids until they almost collided with her. She pulled back, startled, and they did likewise. “Excuse me,” she said, stepping around them. It was a group of three guys and three girls, all dressed in heavy lettermen jackets and blue jeans, hoods pulled over their heads against the bitter cold. One of them, a pretty blonde girl, smiled at her in acknowledgement as they passed her. Rachael continued on her destination and had almost put the college kids out of her mind when it hit her.

She stopped and looked back at the college kids, who were retreating into the doorway of a pool hall just past the parking garage. Their laughter drifted back to her.

Rachael stood on the sidewalk for a moment, watching as they went into the pool hall, then she looked out at the foot traffic on the street and noticed more of them.

College kids. All of them either heading toward the pool hall, the bar across the street, or the coffee shop on the corner of Grand and Central. Or leaving those spots toward the parking garage or toward their apartments.

A sudden thought occurred to her. A tall, gangly kid of twenty walked past her, head bent down in concentration. She stopped him by tugging at his jacket. “Excuse me,”

she said. “Are you a student?"

He stopped, startled, his eyes growing wide from behind the coke bottle thick glasses that straddled his face. “Yeah, er ... why?"

“What school do you go to?"

The kid looked puzzled, but answered her. “University of Indiana."

“How far is it from here?"

The kid shrugged and pointed in the direction she was heading. “About five miles that way."

“Thanks.” She headed in that direction, paying no heed to the puzzled look of the college student, intent only on following this new lead which burned at her nerves.