ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) (20 page)

“
Rona’s pushing the race issue,” Miller said, “took some swipes at Norris. But he deserves it. Only thing he had on the latest brother, Rashad’s big and black and works at a health club that two of the victims used.”

“
Think he’ll file a lawsuit?”

“
That kind of thing? Not worth it. Man, this case creeps me out, everybody on edge, black, white, doesn’t matter. Rona’s right about one thing, though. Not many black priests around here.”

He opened his mouth, on the verge of telling Miller about Father Timothy Krauthammer, but Miller said, “Gotta go, Frank. I gotta check the kids’ homework. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“
You got it, partner.” He punched off and began to run.

_____

The sun was an orange-red ball hovering over the horizon when the sinner took the highway exit that dumped him into New Orleans East, a predominantly black area. He had to hurry. The light was fading fast. He’d told Monsignor he was visiting Mrs. Fontenot at the nursing home, which meant he had to make a pro-forma appearance there, too.

Zigzagging through side streets lined with modest bungalows, he came upon a redbrick school house with a blacktopped playground. A group of black teenagers in long-sleeved T-shirts and baggy pants shouted wildly as they clustered under a basketball hoop with a frayed net.

He drove on, anxiously gripping the wheel. Four blocks later the character of the neighborhood changed. Now there were graffiti-sprayed tenements, row upon row of them. He turned a corner, then another and came upon another basketball court. A lone black teen in baggy pants and a raggedy blue T-shirt was shooting hoops in the fading light.

The sinner parked his car and watched him. The kid was tall and muscular, Rasta-hair flapping each time he leaped for a rebound.

He left his car and wandered onto the basketball court. Thud-thud-thud went the ball as the kid dribbled toward the hoop, shot and missed, shot and missed, shot and made it.

“
Nice shot,” the sinner called, walking toward him.

The boy looked over, eyes wary, sweat glossing his unsmiling face.

“
Pardon me for interrupting, but could I ask you for a favor?”

“
Umh.” An unintelligible grunt.

He put on a smile. “It’s a tough job, but I’m sure you could handle it.” No reaction from Rasta-hair, so he added, “I’ll pay you twenty dollars.”

Interest flickered in the boy’s eyes and he slouched closer.

“
I need you to catch a blackbird for me.”

Rasta stared at him, expressionless. “Whut you want a blackbird fo'?”

“
Don’t worry about that, son. Just catch me the biggest blackbird you can find.” He took out a ten dollar bill. “Here’s half. Another ten when you deliver the bird.”

A dark-skinned hand reached out and snatched the bill. “That be it? Catch you a blackbird?”

“
Right. Meet me . . .” He mentally reviewed his schedule. He had an appointment at nine tomorrow. “Meet me here tomorrow morning at eleven and I’ll give you the other ten.”

“
Can’t keep the bird till then. Ain’t got no cage.”

He stifled a smile. “I don’t need a
live
bird.”

Understanding blossomed in Rasta’s eyes. “No problem.”

The kid walked away, bouncing the basketball, thump, thump, thump, broke into a trot and took a shot at the hoop.

“
Tomorrow morning at eleven,” he called, but Rasta ignored him.

He returned to his car and drove off, pleased.

One problem solved, but he still needed a delivery system.

CHAPTER 13

Tuesday 10:15 A.M.

The sinner parked beside a vacant lot strewn with rusted car parts, bald tires and crumpled food wrappers and walked around the corner to Gentilly Florists. No window on the brick-front façade, just a scarred wooden door with a picture of a red rose thumb-tacked above a yellowed scrap of paper listing the hours of operation. He didn’t want anyone remembering a priest buying flowers so he’d worn a navy-blue open-necked polo shirt instead of his black shirt and Roman collar

A bell jingled as he stepped inside a tiny shop filled with the sickly-sweet odor of lilacs. Behind the counter a wizened black woman with kinky salt-and-pepper hair looked up and smiled, exposing yellowed teeth.

“
Mornin’, suh. Help you?”

“
Good morning,” he said, returning her smile. “I’d like a dozen roses in a gift box, please.”

“
Red ones? Yellow? White? We got all kinds.”

“
Red would be good. In a nice box. They’re a gift.”

“
Sho’ thing. Be right back.” The woman turned and ambled into a back room.

He waited impatiently, eyeing an old wind-up alarm clock with cracked glass on the counter. Five interminable minutes later the woman returned with long-stemmed red roses wrapped in green tissue paper. She sniffed the buds and held them out for him to do the same.

“
Sho’ do smell sweet. Yo honey like these f’sure.”

“
Thank you, they’re lovely. And the box?”

“
Yassuh, got one right here.”

She set the roses on the counter as gently as if they were Waterford crystal and bent down behind the counter. Straightening with a grunt, she placed a piece of shiny-white cardboard on the counter. With gnarled fingers, she folded it into a long, narrow box. “Sorry it ain’t got our name on it. We out of those. New batch comin’ next week.”

Perfect
. “That’s quite all right,” he said.

With infinite care, the woman lined the box with green tissue-paper. Placed the roses inside. Slid on the cover. Scratched her nose with a forefinger. “That be fifty dollars.”

The amount startled him. Earlier he had withdrawn eighty dollars from an ATM, but he needed some of it for his other errands. He couldn’t put the flowers on his credit card. Reluctantly, he took out three twenties and set them the counter. The woman rang up the order on her register and gave him his change. Now he had only thirty dollars. He hoped it would be enough.

“
Do you have a ribbon to tie around the box?”

The woman chuckled, exposing her yellowed teeth. “Yo honey must be sump’n special.” She opened a drawer, took out a roll of crinkled-pink ribbon and wrapped it around the box. Scratched her nose. Tied the ribbon in a bow. Smiled at him.

“
Excellent. Thank you.” He took the box and hurried to the door.

“
Have a nice time wit yo honey,” she called.

I certainly will, but not the way you think.

_____

Ten minutes later he parked near a dumpster behind a Winn Dixie, got out and opened the trunk. Grasping the green tissue paper that enclosed the thorny stems, he removed the roses from the box. They were already wilting in the fierce heat. Maybe he’d give them to Mrs. Fontenot next time he visited her. By then of course the roses would be dead. So might Mrs. Fontenot, though he hoped not. Then he would have to find another comatose patient to use as an excuse for escaping the rectory at night.

He dropped the roses in the smelly dumpster and checked his watch. Mickey’s white-gloved hands pointed to eleven o’clock. Rasta was probably there already, shooting hoops while he waited, eager to collect his ten dollars.

But when he pulled up to the basketball court with the tattered cord dangling from the rusty hoop, there wasn’t a soul in sight. It’s early, he reassured himself. Rasta wants his money. He’ll be here.

For ten minutes he studied the graffiti-sprayed tenements with raggedy window shades across the street. No Rasta. He got out and paced around the car, head down, hands clasped behind his back. What if the idiot didn’t bring him the blackbird? He lengthened his stride as he circled the car, checking with Mickey after each revolution, his frustration mounting.

His plan was useless without the bird, and time was precious. He couldn’t miss his noon appointment with Ida Thierry. If the old biddy complained again the Monsignor might report him to the Archbishop, and before he went to see her, he had to deliver the bird. If Rasta didn’t show in five minutes, he would have to devise a new plan.

“
Yo!” called a voice from behind him. “Got yo’ bird.”

Rasta-hair strolled up in his baggy pants and dirty T-shirt. In his hand was a plastic grocery bag. But when the sinner reached for the bag, Rasta jerked it away, his eyes cold and calculating.

With an insolent smirk, he said, “Show me the money.”

“
Let’s not get excited,” said the sinner. Rasta was a lot bigger than he was, bigger and stronger. From his billfold he took out a ten and showed it to the insolent boy with the dead-flat stare. “Where’s the bird?”

Rasta upended the bag and a large blackbird tumbled to the ground.

“
Got youse a big one, like you said.”

Appalled, he stared at the carcass. The bird was big all right, but its feathers were matted with a dark stain. Blood, he realized.

“
Me ‘n my buddies shot up half dozen. This the biggest one.” Rasta smiled, as pleased as if he’d shot down an enemy fighter plane.

All the better, he thought. A large blood-soaked blackbird with a gaping hole in its gut would send a message no sane person would ignore. He took out his wallet, exchanged the ten for a twenty and held it out to Rasta.

The boy’s eyes lit up. He grabbed the twenty and dropped the plastic bag on the ground beside the bird. “Y’all need sump’n else, park here, I see you from my room.” He gestured at a dilapidated two-decker across the street and sauntered away.

The sinner scooped the blackbird’s carcass into the plastic bag, dropped the bag in his trunk and drove off. Everything was going perfectly. Now all he had to do was find a delivery person.

_____

Leaning against the rear wall, Sean Daily observed the throng of priests milling about the low-ceilinged basement room, sipping coffee and munching cookies. Two rectangular tables held metal coffee urns, Styrofoam cups and platters of pastries. The caffeine would keep them awake during Archbishop Quinn’s pronouncements; the cookies were sweet substitutes for the repressed desires they preferred not to confront. The Archbishop was nowhere in sight. Quinn and his favored assistants were inside the rectory across the street, Sean assumed, partaking of finer fare.

“
Hello, Father Daily,” said a voice behind him. “This should be a wonderful convocation. I can’t wait to hear what the Archbishop says.”

Recognizing the sanctimonious tone, Sean faked a genial smile, but his heart was thumping his chest. “Hello Father Tim. How are you?”

“
Just fine. And you?” Gazing at him with a holier-than-thou smile.

Sean detected a challenge in those dark eyes, eyes that held him in an implacable gaze. “Can’t complain,” he said with a casual shrug.

“
What do you think? Do you think this disgusting killer is a priest?”

“
Maybe,” he said with a jocular smile. “Could be anyone, even you.”

Frozen in a posture of astonishment, Father Tim stared at him, his left eyelid twitching in a spasm. He rubbed his eye and turned on a smile, a predatory smile that raised hackles on Sean’s neck. He’d seen that sort of smile in his youth, right before a thug beat his victim to a bloody pulp.

“
How’s Aurora? Are you two as close as ever? I wonder what Archbishop Quinn would do if he knew you and Aurora were so …
intimate
.” Maintaining his predatory smile, Krauthammer turned and stalked away.

He felt like a horse had kicked him in the stomach. He watched Krauthammer join a group of priests near the coffee urns, cursing his stupidity for the fatuous remark.
Could be anyone, even you
.

His stomach churned with acid. He mopped sweat from his brow as the Archbishop’s assistant mounted a low platform and told them to gather upstairs in the sanctuary. But the church offered him no sanctuary. If Renzi reported him to the feds, his Roman collar wouldn’t protect him. Joining a long line of priests, he mounted the creaky wooden stairs that led to the sanctuary, gripping the handrail as if it might somehow bolster his courage.

The sanctuary was ablaze with flickering candles, and organ music from the loft wafted through the room, an uplifting chorale. Setting the scene for the Archbishop, Sean thought. Pompous ritual was what the Church did best. The men at the top had no idea of the day-to-day problems that beset their parishioners, or the humble priests who served them, good men for the most part, doing their best to minister to their flock.

He took a seat in back to the left of the center aisle. Nodding to the priests along the pew, he folded his hands and assumed a pious expression, which did nothing to calm his inner turmoil. Tonight he would lie awake again, worrying about what Renzi would do. Turn him in, probably. George Dillon had fled New Hampshire to save his own ass, with no regard for anyone else, including Mary Sweeney, he thought, with a pang of regret.

The organ music swelled as the stragglers took their seats. He saw Father Tim slip into a pew on the other side of the aisle three rows ahead of him. There’s something sinister about him, Sean thought, sinister and spiteful and dangerous.