Chapter 5: Temple of Death
The first time we drove into the city to meet with Women’s Health Corps President, Joanna LaObliger, we drove away from the meeting with no answers, and I felt the need to take a shower. I drove to the nearest church, ducked into confession, and our car promptly blew up. So far, no one had been arrested for that particular attempt on our lives. To be honest, given how many people were actively trying to murder us at the time—such as MS-13 and the demon—we shouldn’t assume that the WHC had tried to kill us. Though when we had a conversation with her later in the DA’s office, she certainly cooperated fairly quickly.
I knew for certain that my faith made the WHC people twitchy. For all I knew, the bomb could have been planted by any employee worried that we’d discover a random secret or sideline.
The Margaret Sanger Health Center looked more like a bunker than anything to do with “health”—it was ugly brown concrete, but at least the windows opened. There was a bright pink banner outside that read “Health care happens here.”
I slid into park in front of a fire hydrant. I took our police placard and placed it on the dashboard so we couldn’t be towed.
“How do you want to play this?” I asked.
“Hit them hard, hit them fast,” he answered. “These people tried to blow us up. I object to that.”
“Actually, I meant if one of us should stay with the car this time.”
Alex looked at me closely. “Is this about the smell?”
I winced. I had been trying not to think about the last time I walked into the building. The scent of evil had nearly knocked me over. It was worse than the MS-13 leader, and as bad as the demon. It was like a Southern body farm that had been left unattended for summer. I had to work not to vomit. I had explained it away last time as a genetic quirk. Alex had remembered and put it together. Last time, I decided that if God granted me these gifts, then I had to stand up and roll with it. That hadn’t changed.
“Actually, I was worried about someone trying to blow up our car again.”
“Oh. Yeah. That would be a problem.” He frowned, then reached forward and grabbed the radio. He called in, gave our call sign and our position, and asked for the nearest available officer to come and meet us.
Within two minutes, we had a police officer on a bicycle skid to a stop next to us. We explained the situation, and he gave us a nod. “Nothing goes boom today.”
“Thanks.”
I turned towards the building, nearly running into a pregnant woman. She was a pale brunette who was only slightly pregnant (slightly referring to the distention of the belly. It was either a small baby bump or the oddest beer belly ever). “Sorry, ma’am.”
She blinked. She looked at me, confused, as though nothing had happened. After trying to meet her eye for a moment and saw that they wandered all over the place, I took her by the shoulders, placed her on the hood of our car and smiled.
“Hi, ma’am, are you okay?”
She blinked, clearing her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling very well.”
I looked down and decided it wasn’t a beer belly. “Well, you have to be careful and take all the prenatal medications.”
“What medications? I wasn’t told I had to do anything different until the baby was born.”
It took me a moment for this to sink in. I glanced over my shoulder at the building. “You weren’t coming here for care of the baby, were you?”
“I have an appointment in a few minutes. Why?”
This was the moment where I had to resist the urge to open the trunk of the car, grab the long gun inside and kick open the doors of the Women’s Health Corps with a witty 80s movie line like “And I’m all out of Bubble Gum.”
Instead, we spent the next fifteen minutes together. I walked her through everything I remembered about Mariel being pregnant with Jeremy while one of the bike cops played gofer.
Alex patiently waited for me to be done with her – her name was Melissa, she was 21, married, and desired to keep her baby, the latter being something I suspected the WHC to be firmly against.
When she was more stable, Melissa waved us away and told us to go to work. I called up the contact information of Mariel’s doctor and gave it to her before we did.
I grabbed the door, held my breath, and pulled it open. It stank just as badly as before. I had not lost the knack of smelling evil after all. Yay, me.
I let out the breath slowly and committed to sticking to shallow breaths until I could get used to the smell. With a normal scent, we smell it for a bit, and then our nose kind of goes numb to that scent and one really stops smelling it unless it is brought to your attention. No such luck for evil. The last time I was in the building, I smelled it at full strength all the time.
Alex identified us at the front desk. “Hello. I’m Detective Packard; this is Detective Nolan. Tell President LaObliger that we want to talk to her.”
As we went through the building, unlike last time, I kept praying continuously. Though like the last time, I couldn’t narrow down where the smell came from. Was it the abortions themselves? Or the people performing them?
And once more, when I noted a massive spike in the stench, was as I walked into the office of the President, Joanna LaObliger. She was tall, bone-thin, Botoxed, and her hair was dyed purple. If chins could kill, she’d be arrested for possessing a lethal weapon, and her nose long and sharp enough to use as a farm implement.
Given our last conversation with Joanna LaObliger, the first thing I did before we left our precinct boundaries was to stop and get a body camera. Recording on my phone worked well enough the last time, but now that we both knew just how hostile this was going to be, I wasn’t going to take any chances. Besides, killing babies was LaObliger’s day job. Perhaps lying to the police would be effortless in comparison... Yes, I know that’s a gross exaggeration, but I couldn’t pinpoint what about her was evil, I could only smell it. Was she a sociopath in a business suit, a “snake in a suit” that would be evil, even if she were running a bakery? Was it the job she had or the person she was?
“What do you two want now?” she barked as soon as she saw us.
“So glad you remember us,” Alex snarked as he tossed himself into one of the guest chairs. I was surprised it didn’t crack, but he certainly gave it his best attempt.
“You ruined a whole day of my life in September. It’s hard to forget.”
I sighed and shook my head. On the one hand, I knew that there was no real need to be politic, unlike last time. On the other, letting Alex and LaObliger snipe at each other would eat up our time and her tolerance. I wanted some questions answered before she lawyered up.
“Listen, Miss LaObliger,” I began. Last time she had wanted to be called Doctor—she wasn’t one. I had settled for “President.” Now, I wasn’t worried about showing all due respect; if I matched her attitude towards me, I could be investigated by IA. Again. “You recall Christopher Curran, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. One of our doctors that you railroaded with murder charges.”
I held up a finger. “One, he wasn’t a doctor.” A second finger. “He was the murderer who nearly killed my wife and child. We have him on video. Now, did Curran have any close friends or relationships within the WHC?” I couldn’t call her business the “Women’s Health Corps” with a straight face.
“No,” she answered. “He was a loner. He did his job and went home.”
“To his basement full of dead kids,” Alex drawled.
“I told you this last time,” she sniped.
“Only because we hauled you down to the DA’s office in cuffs,” he shot back.
“President LaObliger,” I started again, straining to keep cool. Between her attitude and the hellish stench coming off of her, I had trouble keeping it together. I already felt ill. I needed to get through it and get out. “Christopher Curran left markings behind at his crime scenes. Last night, men wearing these same markings attempted to kill someone who worked on the case that indicted him. This implies he was part of a larger organization. One that is interested in getting payback. Are you saying that you know of no one who fits that profile?”
She crossed her arms in front of her in a huff. “Of course not.”
“Has there been anyone in the WFC who may have expressed an interest in Curran’s activities?”
“Everyone is on alert against your persecution,” she growled. “We all saw what you did to him in Rikers. Could you have murdered him in a more medieval fashion? Impaling him? Why not crucify him?”
Alex scoffed. “Too good for him.”
I didn’t roll my eyes, sigh, or anything else I was tempted to do. “Are you a fan of anthropology?”
That caught her. She flinched, taken aback at the change of topics. “What do you mean?”
“Do you or anyone you know possess an interest in ancient cultures or religion? Carthaginian? Aztec? Druidic? Anything like that?”
“Cult of Moloch,” Alex snarked. “After all, he is full of bull, making him perfect for politicians.”
LaObliger snarled. “No. I don’t. And no one else I know does, either.”
“Is that it?”
“Of course,” she sneered. “Now get out. It was offensive enough you came here at all. Now this? This is intolerable. You can be assured that Mayor Hoynes will hear of this harassment.”
Alex and I exchanged a glance. I tried not to laugh. Alex snickered. Mayor Hoynes was an anomaly for New York City in that he was a semi-(big-L) Libertarian. He was less anomalous in that he was a loudmouth who wouldn’t know how to shut up if the city depended on it. But seeing Hoynes involved at street-level policing was absurd.
While, as a left-Libertarian, Hoynes was all for abortion on demand, he also made a point of staying out of the way... but like all big-L Libertarians, that didn’t stop Hoynes from opening his mouth at every available opportunity. It was a problem of the Libertarian. While I’m an NYPD Detective, I was a small-l libertarian—I believed in letting almost every available virtue and vice be available, as long as it didn’t hurt anyone else. I could politically justify outlawing abortion because it denied life to a child, interfering in his or her freedom. Big-Ls, however, like Hoynes, preached “freedom to think for yourself,” then browbeat and bullied anyone who disagreed with him.
Okay, on second thought, maybe Hoynes would be stupid enough to interject himself into the situation.
“Hate to tell you,” I said aloud, “we do our job without influence, fear, or favor. That’s the mayor’s office or the New York Times. It doesn’t matter. You’re just going to have to rely on your innocence to get you through.”
I can only presume that there was direct intervention by God Himself to allow me to make that statement with a straight face.
LaObliger narrowed her eyes at me. I had seen more humanity in the eyes of a shark. “There’s no such thing as innocence, Detective Nolan,” she said at a low, even tone. “That would imply that there is a right and wrong, good and evil. There isn’t one. There is only what I want, what you want, and who can get it. Laws are merely an exercise in the powerful subjugating the weak. You can’t touch someone at my level. Or anyone in government above the rank of Lieutenant. Trying to enforce the law on anyone is just acting as a tool of your betters. If you truly believe otherwise, then you’re more ignorant than I could possibly fathom. Get out of my office. Now. Get out of my building. And stay out of my way, lest you find yourself stepped on like the bug you are.”
I nodded slowly, my features set in a semblance of thoughtfulness. It was the best way I could avoid looking ill. I almost thanked her for the belligerence. If she had been helpful and kept us there to have an extended discussion, I most likely would have been sick all over her office.
I stood, ready to go. “You know, LaObliger, I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone talk like that outside of the movies. Funny thing, though? I only ever heard a monologue like that delivered by the bad guys. And they always end up losing. Good day, Miss LaObliger.”
She stood so suddenly that I was worried that she was going to leap over the desk and assault us. It would have been strange, but no stranger than fighting demons. “The Mayor will hear from me, Nolan,” she screeched like a harpy. “Just you wait!”
As we made good time down the hall, Alex told me, “Wow, and I thought I was cynical. She could etch chrome with her attitude. And that’s just her personality.”
I sighed, which was a bad move since that meant I had to take one extra breath. “I know. I’m not a fan.”
Alex gave me a sidelong look. “You think she’s guilty. Don’t you?”
I shrugged. “Of something? Certainly. But of what? Can you see her ordering an assassination? Really?”
“No,” Alex answered. “But I can see her doing someone in herself.”
“Also my problem. I can’t reconcile it.” I breathed heavier as I talked and walked and felt ill. “Let’s get out of here. You never know who might be listening.”
As we walked down the hall to the elevator, rode it down, and walked out to the front doors, we said nothing.
Alex chuckled as we passed through the front doors and onto the sidewalk. “You never know who might be listening? Are you paranoid now?’
I took a deep refreshing breath, outside of the smell of nightmares inside. “It’s not paranoia if people really are out to get me.”
Alex smirked. “Tell it to the DSM.”
I gave him a sidelong look. “Depending on which year's edition you read, belief in God is a disease requiring talk therapy. Some ‘diseases’ get there to be reimbursable under health insurance, like smoking cessation. ‘Being a teenager’ is a medical condition they can prescribe drugs for.”
He cackled. “You mean it isn’t?”
I groaned. “Get in the car.”
This time, the car did not blow up on us. I thanked the bicyclist and drove off.
It was time for our next and final stop, which was the Bellevue Psychiatric Center. It was time I finally came face to face once more with Rene Ormeno of MS-13.