Show of Evil

Stenner.

'Who were they? What did they have to do with this?' St Claire asked.

Vail snuffed out his cigarette and went to the urn for a cup of coffee.

'You have to understand, ten years ago, Archbishop Richard Rushman was known as the Saint of the Lakeview Drive,' he began. 'He wasn't liked, he was revered. He was also one of the most powerful men in the state. There was as much Richelieu in him as there was John the Baptist; as much Machiavelli as Billy Budd. But to the average person on the street, to your average juror? He was a man who awed.

'Aaron Stampler came here from a squalid little town in Kentucky. He was a true anachronism, a kid with a genius IQ and an illiterate mother and father, living in abject poverty in the coalmining hills of western Kentucky. He had to sneak to his teacher's house to read books - his father wouldn't permit books in the house except for the Bible. His father also insisted that he work in the place he feared more than anything else in the world. The hole. Shaft number five -I can still remember him talking about it - the deep-pit mines. When he finally escaped that prison, he came here. Rushman met him, took him in at Saviour House, which was a home for runaways and homeless kids. Stampler and the bishop grew very close.

'Then Aaron got himself a girlfriend. They decided to live together. And that's where the story started getting fuzzy. Jane Venable contended that the bishop was upset because these two were living in sin, so he threw them out. They were living down on the wharves in a terrible warehouse called the Hollows - it was demolished years ago. The girlfriend left Sampler, and in anger and despair he went to the church and carved up the bishop like a Christmas goose.

'Our story? Stampler left voluntarily. There was never any dispute between him and the bishop. He was in the library, thought he heard arguing up in the bishop's apartment, went up to check. When he looked into the bedroom he sensed that there was somebody else there. Then he blacked out, went into what's called a fugue state - he did it quite often, particularly under stress - and the next thing he knew, he was hiding in a confessional with the murder weapon, soaked with the bishop's blood. The girlfriend was Linda Gellerman.'

'But that wasn't the real motive,' said Stenner.

'No, there was another motive, much darker - both Venable and I knew about it - but neither of us used it in the trial.'

'Which was?' Flaherty asked.

'The bishop was a paedophile. His victims were a group called the Altar Boys. The bishop would direct movies of the Altar Boys seducing a young lady. Then he'd turn off the camera and step in and do the girl, the boys, whatever suited him. Aaron Stampler was one of the Altar Boys. Linda was the girl.'

'Why didn't that come out in the trial?' Parver asked.

'Too risky. And Venable and I agreed to destroy the tapes when the trial was over,' said Vail.

'Why?'

'To protect the bishop's good name,' Stenner said.

'Christ, a paedophile?' St Claire said. 'Why protect him?'

'You weren't there,' Stenner offered. 'He was loved by everybody. Raised millions for charity every year. Incredibly powerful man.'

'And he was dead,' said Vail. 'The tape we both had was very risky. The bishop did not appear on it, it was just his voice. Too risky for either Venable or me to introduce it. It could've been construed by the jury as a desperation move and the backlash might've lost the case. Besides, I didn't need it. Our case was that Stampler suffered multiple personality disorder—'

'Split personality?' said Flaherty.

'A misnomer, but yes. Like Sybil. His alter ego was a madman who called himself Roy. Stampler was this sweet, almost naive backwoods kid. Roy was a psychotic killer. When Stampler became agitated or was abused in some way, Roy was triggered. He came out and did the dirty work. Stampler was in a fugue state and didn't know what was going on.'

'So Roy was the other person in the room when the bishop was killed,' St Claire.

Vail nodded. 'Venable was cross-examining Aaron and she triggered Roy. He came out of the witness box like a skyrocket, tried to choke her right in the courtroom.'

'You set her up, Martin,' Stenner said.

'Did she say that?'

'I say it.'