Roman numeral references, foreign phrases, capitalized abbreviations, and words like Masoretic and Septuagintal. Lee might make sense of it, Kate thought, but for someone who hadn’t done any scholarly reading in too many years to count, it did not look like easy bedtime reading.
Thumbing through the thick document, Kate spotted a few pages that were not text. Some were reproductions of archaeological reports, alternating with pen-and-ink sketches and photocopies of photographs. One picture showed a sculpture of a female head and torso with glaring eyes, her sharp teeth pulled back from a grotesquely long protruding tongue, with a variety of objects in her four hands. The caption said “Durga,” and Kate figured she was an Indian goddess like Kali because of the multiple arms. Not a warm and friendly goddess, though. Even Mutton would hesitate to give those hands an affectionate tongue-bath.
The door opened and Roz came back in. Kate let the thesis fall shut and moved away so Roz could resume her place and her breakfast.
“Sorry, Kate, but Jory is not the most competent secretary I’ve ever had, and I have to have a report together by this afternoon. Look, I’m really sorry about going over your head. I just didn’t think.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kate heard herself saying. “I’m sure it’ll work out. Finish your breakfast, your granola will get soggy.”
“Granola never gets soggy,” Roz pointed out, taking up her spoon. “It’s like wood fiber, needs to go rotten before it gives up its cellulose. Did you come to see me about Pramilla Mehta? And what can I do—to help rather than hinder?”
“Just back off, and I’ll call if you can help. No, it’s not specifically about her, though it may have to do with her husband’s death. I wanted to ask, what do you know about a Web site called ‘Womyn of the evening’?”
Kate, watching Roz carefully, saw the wariness descend.
“I’ve heard of it,” Roz told her, which Kate decided meant that she knew the site but hesitated to admit it until she could see where this was heading.
“Your church’s site and that one are linked through a third site that gives information on self-defense for women. Dirty self-defense—eye-gouging, breaking eardrums, biting off various body parts.” She was being deliberately abrasive, but Roz did not react, merely responded.
“It’s a nasty world.”
“And attackers deserve to lose ears and penises, and habitual abusers deserve to be killed.”
“Is that what their Web site’s line is?” Roz said evenly. “If that’s true, I may have to ask them to sever the link with our church.”
“Roz, you can’t expect me to believe that there’s a Web site with a provocative name two steps away from yours that you haven’t visited.”
For a moment Kate thought that was precisely what Roz would assert, which meant that unless Kate could get a warrant to find what sites Roz’s computer had visited, and she could prove that only Roz used the computer, she might as well walk away now.
But Roz relented. “Yes,” she said. “I have glanced at the Web site.”
“I have three murders on my hands whose names were on that site. I’m not going to ask you why nobody happened to bring this to my attention, not at the moment anyway, but I’m troubled by the fact that the only link we’ve been able to find between two of the men is that Web site. A Web site that your church is closely tied to.”
Roz finally flared up. “Neither the church nor my own parish has anything to do with that list. You can hardly hold us responsible for the killing of three men just because we share a link on the Internet.”
“I don’t hold you responsible,” said Kate evenly. “But I think you should brace yourselves for when the media finds out about it.”
Roz half rose in her chair, putting both palms on the littered desk as if about to come over the top of it at Kate. “You wouldn’t. If you dare to leak any of this—”
“I won’t have to leak anything, Roz, you know that. It’s surprising that no enterprising reporter has come up with it already.”
“Kate, if I find that you—”
Kate’s composure abruptly snapped. “Don’t, Roz. Do not threaten me.”
They glared at each other over Roz’s life’s work, and in the end the minister gave ground before the cop. Her gaze wavered and Kate could see her decide that this was not the best way to handle the situation. Her hackles went down, her palms came off the desk and went back to her lap as she settled down in the chair. She even tried for a crooked smile.
“No. Sorry, I know you wouldn’t do that to me. God—you of all people wouldn’t turn a friend over to the media sharks. I apologize.”
“Actually, Roz, they may be the least of your problems. Because of the Internet aspect, the FBI is now going to take over a large part of this investigation. Al and I are still involved,” she added with satisfaction— Roz Hall was not the only skilled manipulator in the room—“but it’s out of our hands now. I’ll do as much as I can to run interference with them, but they’ll want answers, and if I can’t get the answers for them, they’ll come to you direct. One of the things they’ll ask you is, Do you know who submitted the names of James Larsen, Matthew Banderas, and Laxman Mehta to the Web site?”
“No,” Roz answered—too quickly, Kate thought.
“Would you tell me if you did?” Kate demanded.
“Probably not.”
“But you do know who has been responsible for the actions of the group known as the LOPD.” Kate made it a statement, and Roz did not try to deny it outright.
“I may have heard some rumors, but they are not connected with these deaths, Kate. I swear I do not think they are.”
“Give me their names, I’ll ask them. Myself, not just handing the names over to the feds,” Kate offered, but Roz was shaking her head before the sentence was finished.
“I can’t do that, Kate, I’m sorry.”
“You’re willing to play God, condemn to death men even the courts can’t? To be an accomplice?”
“I told you, I don’t know who put their names on the list, I don’t know who killed them.” This time Kate let the silence stretch out, until Roz gave way and broke it. “As for playing God, it works the other way, too. Even if I knew, it would be playing God to turn the killers in. If what you’re saying is true, they’ve chosen to become judges in a society that refuses to take that responsibility. I’d have to think long and hard before I could decide they were wrong.”
“Judge and executioner,” Kate pointed out.
“Judge and executioner,” Roz accepted. “The ultimate in responsibility.”
“I thought God wanted us to practice forgiveness.”
“There are times when God would have us practice justice instead.”
“Or revenge?”
“There are times to turn the other cheek, and times to get out the whip and overturn the tables of the corrupt in the Temple. This may be one of the second.”
“And you wouldn’t tell me who’s doing it.”
“If I knew, I would regard it as privileged information.”
“The FBI is going to turn you inside out.”
“They can try.”
“There are better causes to choose if you want martyrdom, Roz.”
“Not very many. Kate, my church does not have ritualized, formal confession like the Roman Catholics do, but if someone were to tell me of their involvement in this, as an ordained priest I would regard it as inviolable. To you or to the FBI.
“All of which,” she hastened to say, “is theoretical. Since I don’t actually know anything.”
“Tell me about your Ph.D. thesis.”
“My what?” Roz asked, thrown off balance by the abrupt change in direction.
“Your thesis. About women’s rage.”
Roz flushed, an interesting reaction. “In the Old Testament,” she said with force. “It’s largely about how the pre-Israelite goddesses influenced the developing cult of Yahweh. It’s a Ph.D. thesis, for Christ sake. You should
