All the Dead Fathers (6 page)

9.

“Hey, Doogie pal.
¿Qué pasa?
”

Dugan, startled, looked up from his desk. Kirsten had left two hours ago and he was deep into a client's tax returns. “Jesus, Larry. Try knocking, huh?” He'd long ago given up trying to get Larry Candle to can the “Doogie” crap.

“What's to knock on? Door's wide open, partner.”

“We're not partners.” He'd never give up on that. “You
work
for me.”

“Figure of speech, pal. Figure of speech.”

Larry was incorrigible. He was also short and round, with a head the shape of a bowling ball and covered with lots of curly black hair—certainly permed, probably dyed. He had a bottle of beer in each hand.

“It's not six o'clock yet, Larry. We made a—”

“Think fast!” Larry yelled, and tossed one of the bottles across the office. Dugan caught it with two hands before it hit him in the face.

Larry balanced himself on the edge of one of the client's chairs—probably so he could see what was on Dugan's desk—and twisted the top off his beer. A Berghoff Dark. Larry loved microbrews, and he had taken over the beer buying from Mollie, Dugan's office manager, whom Larry liked to call “the Enforcer.” Mollie always bought Miller's or Bud, whichever was on sale.

“I'd watch out for that,” Larry said, pointing at Dugan's beer.

Dugan swiveled away from his desk, held the bottle away from him, and twisted the cap just enough to let a little beer fizz out and drizzle down over his hand and into the wastebasket. He swiveled back and lifted the bottle and drank. You couldn't fault Larry's taste in beer, anyway. “I'm, uh, kinda busy here, Larry. What's up?”

“Whatcha got there? Myron Tarkington's tax returns?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I can see the defendant's lawyer now. ‘Well, Mr. Tarkington, you testified that you lost seventy thousand dollars because you couldn't run your car repair business for a year. So tell the jury, are you lying
now?
Or have you been lying to the
government,
since you've never reported more than thirty-five thou in your life?'”

“Don't worry,” Dugan said. “This'll never get to trial.” Dugan handled only injury cases, lots of them, and his goal was to settle and
never
go to trial. But he also never lowballed a client. If he couldn't get a fair offer from an insurance company he referred the case to another law firm to take it to trial, and they split the fee. Saved Dugan a lot of headaches. And if a court appearance was required
before
he could send the case out, he had Larry handle it. Larry loved arguing with lawyers and judges, and he never got headaches. He gave them.

“Not to change the subject,” Larry said, “I saw Kirsten here a while ago.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But she got away before I could talk to her.”

“Uh-huh.” Larry irritated the hell out of Kirsten, so she avoided him.

“She gonna try to help those priests?” Larry asked.

“What're you talking about?”

“Hey, don't forget. I'm the one called her on the phone that morning after the first guy got it. Y'know, on I-90? Kanooski, Kanowski, whatever. Anyway, then there's this one in Minnesota. Guy messed with some little girls, they say. Now he's dead. And I'm thinking Kirsten might get involved, you know, because her uncle was on the same list in the paper along with those two, and—”

“How do you know all this stuff, Larry?”

“Hell, I pay attention, read the papers, ask around. Do that for twenty-five years and you get to know things … and people. I told Kirsten I knew someone who could give her some facts on that I-90 murder, but she blew me off.”

“Who do you know?”

“Just the detective in charge of the goddamn case, that's all. Winnebago County Sheriff's Office. Ex-client of mine. Years ago I got him off on a police brutality rap when he was with the Cicero Police Department. He owes me, y'know? 'Cause to get him off I hadda—”

“Wait.” Dugan raised his hand. “Don't tell me.”

“Anyway, his name's Danny Wardell. He's a sergeant now, I think. She can use my name. He owes me.”

“I'll, uh, I'll see if she's interested.”

“She sure as hell wants this guy caught before he gets down the list as far as her uncle.”

“No one even knows if those two killings are related. It could be a coincidence.”

“Could be, I guess. But it's a hell of a coincidence, Doogie pal.” Larry drained what was left of his beer. “Because this afternoon? It was on the news. They found priest number three. As dead as the first two.”

*   *   *

Five minutes later Dugan had managed to get Larry out of his office. He wished Larry hadn't told him anything at all. He didn't want any part of helping Kirsten get more deeply involved in a series of homicides, or in helping a bunch of creeps who … Damn! He punched out her cell phone number.

“Hello?”

“It's me,” he said. “You in the car?”

“Yes. Taking Michael home. What's up?”

“You have the radio on?”

“I did,” she said, “but Jesus, it's all Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. I put in a CD. Why?”

“Larry Candle heard on the news that a third priest got murdered. Or ex-priest, I guess. The guy was on the list.”

“You mean they
said
that?”

“No, but Larry's got a copy of it.”

“Why would—”

“Says he likes to stay on top of things. Anyway, it happened sometime early this morning. In the victim's apartment, somewhere on the northwest side. Name's Emmett Regan. That's all I know.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Right.”

“Okay, then. I guess I…” There was a pause, and then she said, “Larry told me two weeks ago he knew someone with information about … you know…” She obviously didn't want to talk with her uncle there in the car with her.

“About the first murder, yeah. He told me that today, too. A detective with the Winnebago County Sheriff. A sergeant. Name's Danny Wardell. Larry says you can use his name.”

“I give the guy Larry's name, he'll throw me out the door.”

“I don't know. Larry says Wardell owes him.” Dugan wondered why he was encouraging her, for God's sake. “Anyway, why would you need to talk to some police investigator? You'll just be providing security, right?”

“Uh … yeah. Right.”

“Plus, you don't want to get so wrapped up in this that you forget that other problem. You know, that ‘Here I come' note?”

“I'm thinking that was bogus,” she said. “I've put it completely out of my mind. You should, too.”

“Yeah? Good. Okay.”

He hung up, then realized he'd forgotten to ask what time she'd be home that night. But he didn't call back. Wouldn't want her to think he was worried, right? Or that he wanted to clip her wings, or anything.

10.

Kirsten slipped the phone into her purse. Michael was too polite to ask what Dugan had said, and she didn't tell him. Any hope that the murders of two men on the list might be merely coincidental was gone now, and she wasn't ready to deal with his reaction. He'd hear soon enough, and maybe he'd get a night's sleep first. Plus she'd had a long day herself, and it looked now like it wasn't over.

Heading north from the city on the tollway, they got off at the exit near Lambs Farm and drove to a Wendy's, where they both ate salads. Then Michael directed her to Villa St. George, tucked away on the campus of the University of St. Mary of the Lake. Driving through the gate and down a long, empty road, she thought how odd it was that he'd been living here for going on two years now, and she'd never once been here, not to pick him up, not to visit him. “It's a big place,” she said, “this university.”

“A thousand acres, mostly untouched woods and lake,” Michael said. “None of us priests, though, calls it a ‘university.' We all just call it ‘the seminary.' That's the only major school on campus. They put it here back in the nineteen twenties, because they wanted it smack in the middle of nowhere.”

Now, though, the seminary was an island of calm in a sea of suburban sprawl, about an hour's commute from the city. It was very dark out, but she asked Michael to give her a driving tour of the grounds, and he seemed delighted. Other than what he called “the main chapel,” a flood-lit redbrick church that looked like it had been lifted from the green of a Vermont village, she didn't get much of a view of the various buildings he pointed out. But they all seemed large, brick, and colonial-style, with white pillars lined up everywhere. They drove across several bridges and even through one small tunnel. The whole place looked pretty deserted, though they did see a few other cars coming and going.

One encouraging thing was the obvious presence of a private security force. She saw two different patrol cars in the half hour it took to follow Michael's guided tour, navigate the dark winding road around the lake, and finally arrive at the narrow lane that led into the retreat house, Villa St. George. By then she'd also seen two motionless deer, a fat, waddling raccoon, a half-dozen joggers in reflective vests—all male—and a blur that streaked past her headlights and might have been a fox.

She thought the private police force might explain why, of the three men from the list who'd been murdered, none had resided here. Unlike Michael and the others living here, those three had chosen—if indeed each of them had the choice—to walk away and make no appeal to Rome about being stripped of their priesthood.

They broke out of the trees and approached the retreat house, which was also colonial-style, surrounded by lawn and shrubbery. “Well,” she said, “if you're gonna be put in dry dock somewhere, you could do worse.”

“Oh, it's a beautiful setting all right,” he said. “Great for prayer and study. But none of us wants to be here, you know? Not day after endless day. So it's hard not to turn a paradise into a prison. And now, these killings. It's terrifying.”

*   *   *

Earlier that day, during lunch at the Art Institute, Michael had told her how he and the other priests were afraid the authorities wouldn't put serious effort put into apprehending a killer whose only targets were men a lot of people thought deserved whatever they got.

“We're not even sure there
is
such a killer,” she had said then. “But I told you all along, I won't abandon you. One of the things I do is provide security services for people. And I could do that for you. I could—”

“Oh no,” he objected. “I wasn't implying you should do that.”

“I could put you up in a safe place.”

“But I'm supposed to live at Villa St. George, and—”

“I know, but they'll make an exception under the circumstances.”

“Even if they did, Kirsten, what about the others? I mean, it's gotten so they look to me … for encouragement.” He seemed embarrassed. “Anyway, I'm not going anywhere.”

“Fine, then I can provide extra security right there.”

“No, there's the expense. I can't ask you to do that.”

“You don't have to ask. You were there for me when I needed it, and I owe you.” And this might be her chance to finally get that debt off her back.

“You don't owe me anything,” he said. “What I did for you was … well … it was a long time ago. And I didn't
do
that much. Anyway, listen to me.” He leaned across the table and sounded almost angry—or like someone
trying
to sound angry, anyway. “I want you to stay out of this.”

“Sorry,” she said. “But what
you
want has nothing to do with it.”

She meant that, and she could tell that he knew it. They finished lunch in silence and hadn't spoken again of her involving herself.

They'd gotten very good at not speaking about things.

*   *   *

Now she pulled to a stop near the building entrance. Michael opened the car door, then closed it again and turned to her. “I really don't want you to get caught up in—”

“Like I told you at lunch,” she said, “it's not about what you want.”

“But—”

“Wait.” She took a deep breath. “Dugan told me there's been a third killing … from the list.”

“My God, what—”

“I don't know anything more and I don't want to discuss it now. I'm going to do what I can.”

“Well then, at least…” He was having difficulty talking. “At least you should be paid. I'll talk to the others about … I guess … putting our money together.”

She sat in the car and watched him disappear into the building. His earlier statement, that he hadn't
done
much for her, just wasn't true. She was the only one who knew. She'd never told a single person about what happened to her in Florida. It was so … stupid … and embarrassing. She always knew she should at least tell Dugan but could never get herself to do it. She'd kept it a secret so long, and it just never seemed to be the right time.

*   *   *

It had been only a few weeks after she'd graduated from high school. She'd been struggling with her parents for years and, finally, after a huge fight with her mother, she took the Greyhound to Fort Lauderdale—literally ran away from home—with a girlfriend. She was eighteen, after all, and they refused to treat her like an adult. She took her graduation money and the two girls planned to party awhile, then get an apartment and get jobs. What could be simpler?

What actually happened was that the friend got homesick and went back, while Kirsten—suddenly free of a lifetime of rules—threw herself into a whirling blur of beaches and volleyball and all-night parties. She got drunk way too often and got way too little sleep. Then one night, in a bar, she met the most wonderful guy. He was older, like thirty or something, but he was single and had his own business—a real estate office. His father's business, really, but his father was retiring soon and he would be taking it over. He seemed so wise and sophisticated—not immature and irresponsible like the guys her age. This man actually listened to her, tried to understand what she was
about.