All the Dead Fathers (14 page)

“It's no use,” Mollie said. “He's in the middle of settling two cases. I try to put calls through and he won't even answer. I guess I could go down there and—”

“No,” Kirsten said, “that's all right.” She considered going next door for Mark Brumstein or one of his people, but it was Dugan she wanted.

*   *   *

When she got there Dugan had his back to her, looking out his office window with the phone to his ear. “Hey,” she said.

He turned and waved her in, but kept talking into the phone. “Don't be silly, Julie,” he said. “My guy will prove he earned seventy thou, and if you prove he only reported thirty-five to the IRS, half the jury will ignore it and the other half will give him extra points. I mean, the guy's got five major fractures and a punctured lung, for chrissake. And three kids.” He paused, obviously listening.

“Dugan,” Kirsten said, “I'm in a hurry.”

He grinned at her and, still listening to whoever was on the phone, gestured her toward one of his client's chairs. When she made no move to sit down, he just shrugged.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he finally said. “I know, I know. But if I don't hear from you in a week, Julie, I'm sending the case out to Milt Tunney to try the damn thing. You could lose big on this.” He listened some more. “Uh-huh, love you too. 'Bye.” He hung up, and at once his phone rang.

“Don't answer it,” Kirsten said. “Period. We're getting out of here.”

He stared at her, but he let the phone keep ringing and grabbed his suit coat from the back of a chair. “Yeah, I think a
nap
nap is a great i—”

“
Stop
that, dammit! I need you for something. Let's go.”

On their way out Dugan told Mollie he'd be back “sometime this afternoon.” Mollie just shook her head and they walked on through the suite and out into the corridor. Kirsten didn't like admitting it to herself, but she felt better—no, dammit,
safer
—in Dugan's presence. Not physically safer, exactly, but psychologically.

They waited for the elevator and Dugan said, “I know I shouldn't say this, but you seem … well …
scared,
or—”

“That's bullshit.”

“I was going to say ‘or
concerned.
' How's that?” She didn't answer. The elevator came and they stepped inside and rode down. “It's not too early for lunch,” he said, as the doors opened onto the lobby.

“We're going to my office. I want to see if … if you notice anything.”

*   *   *

It was a walk—actually, nearly a run—of only a few blocks and neither of them said anything on the way. At her office she unlocked the glass door but didn't open it. “I want you to step inside and close the door,” she said. “Just stand there. See if anything's … unusual. And then come back out. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” He went in and stood in one place and looked around.

When he came back out she said, “Well?”

“There's the odor, right?” She nodded and he went on. “It's … don't know if it's cologne … or perfume. But it's a pretty common smell. To me it almost smells like soap or something.”

“But is it a scent I ever wear?”

“No,” he said. “Maybe a cleaning person?”

“They only come in once a week. That'll be tonight.” She felt a little better knowing he'd smelled it, too. She locked the door again. “Let's go get—”

“And the magazine on the table,” he said. “The
Smithsonian.
Part of the cover's been cut off.”

“You're right,” she said, peering back in through the glass.

“So you think that's where the mailing label on your
HERE I COME
postcard came from?”

“I … I guess so.”

“Is it possible the magazine's been there all along and you just overlooked it before today?”

“Not a chance.”

“I believe you,” he said, but she wasn't sure he did. “So then, how did it get back in there? You always lock the door when you leave, right?”

“It's not that great a lock. There's nothing in there worth stealing. But yes, I always lock it.”

He took her arm. “Let's get some lunch.”

She walked with him but doubted she'd be able to eat.

At the elevator he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side. “You're probably surprised I got 'em both, huh?” he said. “The smell
and
the magazine?”

“Yes, I am,” she said.

What she didn't say was that just twenty minutes earlier, when she left to get him and bring him back, there'd been no
Smithsonian
magazine on that table.

24.

Debra stood on the crowded sidewalk beneath the el tracks and watched the two of them come back out of the building. She was too far away to hear what they said, but she knew they'd been up to the bitch's office and found the magazine. The bitch was hiding it well, but she'd gone at once for her husband … and she was afraid. Debra smiled.

Fear was a darkness that had clouded Debra's days as a child, crept into her dreams at night. But as she grew older, the shadow of fear was slowly replaced by anger. And anger became rage that grew and glowed red, until the day came when, still in her teens, she struck for the first time to take her revenge. By then she felt no fear at all. And now, though determined not to be caught, she still felt none. Or none for herself, at least, but only for Carlo. He could not survive without her.

As she crossed the street a train roared past overhead and she closed her eyes against the grit and dust that fell from the tracks above. When she reached the sidewalk she turned and headed for where she'd parked the van. No need to follow those two now. God had already turned another disappointment into a blessing.

She had intended to take Father Stieboldt back home with her, where she could help him atone fully for the pain and terror he had inflicted. But he was cowardly, weak. While she was removing something from him to leave behind, to show that she had taken him and he hadn't just wandered off, his heart gave out and he died right there in her van. She'd been upset and angry at first, almost in tears. Then, though, she remembered that the pervert's premature death was obviously God's will, so something good would come of it.

And it did. With the pervert Stieboldt carefully wrapped in plastic in the back of the van, she'd had the time and opportunity to play with the woman's mind again. She'd very nearly been caught, too, but even then she hadn't been afraid. She would simply have killed the bitch on the spot if she'd had to. Of course, what a disappointment that would have been! One far greater than Father Stieboldt's too-hasty death.

Now, though, she had to drive home, feed the hungry hogs, and be all the way back by tomorrow morning. She had never felt stronger or more energized, and she would give these people no rest. Three priests still to go, and the woman, and time was growing short.

25.

At lunch Dugan started talking again about taking a trip somewhere, but Kirsten made it clear that whatever this “here I come” business was about, the issue had to be faced. “Besides,” she said, “I can't run out on my clients.”

“Clients?” Dugan shook his head. “Those priests? A bunch of despicable losers who hired you by default and—”

“Stop, dammit!” She could hardly believe how angry she suddenly was. “Michael's my
uncle.
Someone wants to kill him. Don't you
get
it?”

“No, I don't ‘
get
it.' For one thing, you said you'd bodyguard him, and you've got Cuffs doing that.”

“But that can't go on forever. Michael will never be safe until the killer's actually caught.”

“Which is why we have police. Meanwhile, if you're so worried, send him to Idaho, or Ireland, or some damn place. I'll give you the money.”

“Don't be ridiculous. What would he do somewhere else? He wants to stay a priest. Here. That's why he's putting up with being almost in jail, for God's sake, while he appeals to Rome. He wants them to let him act as a priest.”

“Do you think he
should
act as a priest? Jesus, a child molester?”

“He did a terrible thing. But how can you keep saying he molested a
child?
What he admitted was having sex with a—” She gave up. “Look, I'm going to help him, whatever you or anyone else thinks.”

“Kirsten, your uncle and those others, they created the problem they have. But you have a problem of your own right now. And you don't owe them, or your uncle, a goddamn—”

“You have no idea
what
I owe Michael.” She should have woken him up in the car last night and told him about Florida. But right now she was too angry. “You just … you just don't understand.”

“Maybe I don't,” he said, “but this business of someone sneaking into your office is serious. You have to—” He stopped, then reached across the table and took her hand. “Look, I didn't mean to make you mad. You don't
have
to do anything. Not for me. I just don't want something to happen to you.”

“I know.” She felt her anger fading, as quickly as it came. She withdrew her hand from his. “But nothing's going to happen. I know how to keep my eyes open, watch my back.” She saw the expression on his face and quickly added, “Don't say it! I know I didn't see anyone follow me to Rockford Tuesday. But … maybe that's because I was wrong. Maybe there wasn't anyone.” She didn't believe that for a minute. “Anyway, I'll be careful, and I'm better off with someone else's problem—like Michael's—to worry about. To keep me from obsessing. Nothing bad's going to happen. Believe me.”

“I guess I'll have to,” he said. “And I'll also have to let you do what you do, because you're never going to change. But…” He shook his head.

“Yes?”

“Just don't expect me to like Michael … or any of those others.” He waved at the waitress, asking for the check. “I don't even
want
to like people like that.”

He clearly wasn't looking for a response, and she didn't give one. Those other priests, did
she
want to like them? She knew almost nothing about any of them. Only that they were priests who she had to assume had abused children … or minors, anyway. It was easy to despise them all. Of course, none of them had hurt her like Michael had. He should have told her what he'd done, right from the start, down in Florida. She could have absorbed it and then could have decided whether she still wanted to be his friend.

But he'd kept it from her. And now, though she
wanted
to love him like she had before, she couldn't. He'd been her hero, her friend, almost like a father. And now there was a gulf between them that couldn't be crossed. She wished she
could
cross it. She wanted her uncle back.

*   *   *

They went to Dugan's suite, and he gave her an empty office to work in temporarily because a crew from Renfroe Laboratories was already on its way to her own office. They'd check for signs of someone picking the lock, and they'd install a new one. They'd retrieve and examine her wayward magazine, and dust and comb and scrape the place for fingerprints, fibers, shoe residue … anything and everything. Renfroe even had some sort of new “sniffer” that might identify the scent. But she doubted he'd get anything more helpful than he'd get from the postcard she brought him earlier that day. Which, she was certain, would be nothing.

She would do everything possible to protect herself, short of running. But still, she wouldn't let her own concern distract her from Michael's problem. She dug into the folder with the information he'd given her about the priests. It consisted mostly of his own handwritten notes. One sheet held the same two alphabetical lists he'd put on the chalkboard in his room at Villa St. George:

She paused a moment, then drew a line through Carl Stieboldt's name, too. The only question was when and where his body would surface.

The
Tribune
article Michael had given her, the one that included Emmett Regan's picture, reported that Regan had been accused of unspecified “sexual abuse” involving at least ten teenagers, all boys. That was all Michael's notes said about him, too. Regarding Stieboldt, the notes said he had been accused of exposing himself to a twelve-year-old altar boy during a picnic. Stieboldt claimed he was merely changing into swimming trunks, and hadn't known the boy was nearby.