Harlot's Moon (19 page)

"Oh Bob, for God's sake," Ellie said. But there was fondness and tolerance in the voice, not derision.

I closed the front door behind me and walked out into full star-scattered night.

I could still hear him in the house, laughing.

Suddenly, the air up here didn't feel anywhere near as clean as it once had. This was a family with some secrets I probably didn't want to know about. Maybe being a rube sometimes isn't so bad after all. Maybe it's a form of protection.

And they'd succeeded in getting me too riled to remember to ask why Wilson didn't take the earring with him the first time he was there.

I'd need to do some more thinking about that. Right now I didn't want to ask.

I
didn't want to go home. I didn't want to get in an argument with Felice. I didn't want to see Vic again, or be shushed because he was sleeping.

I went to my office at the law firm, got out a yellow legal pad, and started doing what I was trained to do. On paper, this time, not on the computer.

I was going to create a psychological profile, that wasn't going to be worth jack shit because I couldn't get my hands on a tenth of the information I needed.

One murder. Father Daly.

Father Daly was a womanizer. Steve told me he'd had affairs with two women. Women he was counseling, which made it a violation of two different codes of ethics.

Other people had told me about more women. Ten or twelve. Or more ass than a toilet sees.

I'd never know how many women he'd been with. I doubted he knew himself.

Father Ryan heard him on the phone with a woman about 11:00 P.M. Daly was still home at midnight. He checked into the motel shortly after midnight.

Who'd been in his room? Ellie Wilson. Bob Wilson. And probably somebody else. Maybe several somebodies else.

Ellie's earring was there. Her husband didn't take it the first time he was in the room. He took it after I'd seen it, and Steve had seen it. Why?

How did he know Steve would be called at all? For all he knew, the police might have been first on the scene. If they were, then he wouldn't stand the chance of a snowball in hell of ever getting the earring back.

Why didn't it matter if the police saw the earring, but it did matter if Steve and I did?

Well, that made sense. He didn't know me, but he knew Steve, and Steve might recognize the earring.

The other earring falls out of her purse. Wilson grabs it from me and puts it back in the purse. He knows I've seen both earrings and doesn't care, so long as I didn't actually have them in my custody.

Were there two earrings?

Or was this the only earring, and did she and her husband both want me to think it was two earrings, so she dropped her purse on purpose?

Why?

Because Bob Wilson was the murderer, and the earrings — or earring — were supposed to make me think Ellie had done it, and then after I'd told the police and Ellie had been arrested, Ellie was going to pop up with a perfect alibi?

Because Bob Wilson had left the earring there on purpose to suggest to the cops that a woman was the killer?

Then why would it be okay for the cops to see the earring . . .

I shook my head. I was thinking in circles.

Back up.

Tawanna Jackson was stabbed to death in Bowker Park. Her eyes were gouged out. She occasionally attended services at St. Mallory's with her family; her mother had been a devout worshipper there.

Ronald Swanson was stabbed to death behind a bar. His ear was cut off. He was the father of three children. He went to church at St. Mallory's . . .

Father Daly was stabbed to death in a motel room. His tongue was cut out. He could have been the father of some natural children — it wasn't impossible, but nobody had mentioned it to me, and amidst all the other scandal I had been told about him, somebody would have mentioned it. But he was called Father.

He was a priest at St Mallory's.

He was a counselor. But neither Jackson nor Swanson had been in counseling.

No. But it was inevitable that at some time, they had visited the confessional . . .

What was Tawanna Jackson not supposed to see? Or, alternately, what had she seen that she shouldn't have seen?

What was Ronald Swanson not supposed to hear? Or, alternately, what had he heard that he shouldn't have heard?

What was Father Daly not supposed to tell? Or what had he told that he shouldn't have told?

The confessional.

He wasn't allowed to tell anybody what he had heard in the confessional.

But whoever killed Ronald Swanson, whoever killed Tawanna Jackson, might not trust him.

He had known something that he couldn't be allowed to tell.

And recently, somebody had bearded him in the cabin about it, and he and that somebody had quarreled. He'd said — what was it Kevin Ward told me? —
This is insane. This is really insane. Don't you know that? Don't you realize what you're doing?

He knew who had done the other killings. Had quarreled with the killer at the cabin. But wasn't murdered there. Why? Who would have known he was at the cabin?

Father Ryan. Steve. Jenny? Bernice?

Ellie Wilson? Bob Wilson?

And what about Michael Grady, who had drowned? Was he a piece of this puzzle or a piece of another puzzle altogether?

Did Father Daly just collect clippings about people he knew?

Or — and this is rare, but not unheard of — did I have two serial killers working together, using different methods of operation?

Or two serial killers working at the same time but not working together?

And Father Daly knew about both of them?

This was stretching too far even for a hypothesis. Except — the confessional. What might Father Daly have heard in the confessional? I kept going back to that.

All right, say it was two people working together.

Say it was Bob Wilson and Ellie Wilson . . . They were screwed up enough, that was for sure. But why, and how — and which one of them did the screwy murders and which one did the ordinary ones?

Ellie Wilson could not have cut out a man's tongue. Of that, I was sure. Bob Wilson could have, but was his mind screwy enough to dream that up? I didn't really think so. A simple bashing - yes, he was capable of that. But this murderer — or these murderers — were too subtle for that.

There are things you learn from what you see at the crime scene. There are things you learn from what you don't see at the crime scene — and this concept is hard for a lot of people — even cops — to understand.

This killer would be, in some ways, the Ted Bundy type: intelligent, suave, charming, probably living with his family or in some other settled lifestyle. Probably he'd been harshly disciplined in childhood, but the results of it wouldn't show on the surface. This profile looked more and more like it was fitting Ellie — except how would she have come across the other victims? By their serving with her husband on the parish council? Even so, why would she have killed them?

He — or she — or they — would get along well in the real world. The crimes would have been planned, not impulsive. The crimes would be the result of a situation.

He might be chosen by God to wipe out all Catholics, or he might be trying to cover up some other crime, but the reasons would make sense to him. And to anybody else who accepted his logic.

He'd be likely to return to the crime scene. He'd be likely to get along well with the investigators, to offer whatever information he had or wanted the investigators to think he had, maybe even to call the police himself (but each body had been discovered, and reported, by someone different).

And he — or she — had some very strong connection with St. Mallory's, and specifically with the rectory. Which meant that was where I was going now.

Fast.

Before he invented a fourth wise monkey: know no evil. And that wise monkey, come to think of it, might turn out to be me.

I'
d start with Jenny, I thought, because of all the possibles she fit the profile the least. She wasn't suave. She wasn't mentally well-organized. She'd be more likely to kill out of impulse than to plan. She hadn't been placed at any of the crime scenes even once, much less twice. So she could, perhaps, answer some more questions for me.

Of course, she was the only one who had tried to stab anybody. I'd better keep my wits about me.

I parked in back of the rectory and went up the walk on the side and knocked on the back door.

Through the glass, I could see Bernice talking to Father Ryan. He was drinking a can of 7-Up. She was shrugging into her coat.

At my knock, she walked over to the door, peered out, saw me, and opened up.

"Just in time for a late dessert," she said. "I made the Fathers an apple pie, which is my specialty. If I do say so myself."

The kitchen was a friendly place, warm and well-lighted against the falling darkness. The linoleum was old and faded but the appliances were shiny new.

"She's being modest," Father Ryan said. He wore a plaid shirt and jeans. "Her apple pie is world-class."

She winked at me. "He has to say that if he wants me to make another one tomorrow."

She glanced around the kitchen. "Well, everything seems in shape here. I guess I can go now. Jenny is here if you need anything, Father."

Those were her words. Her meaning, given the tone of her voice, was that Jenny was a poor substitute for the real thing, that being Bernice, of course.

"Night, Father."

"Night, Bernice. Thanks for everything."

"My pleasure, Father. Night, Mr. Payne."

"Night, Bernice."

After she left, Father Ryan said, "I was just about to call the Monsignor down for a piece of pie. Care to join us? There's plenty"

"Thanks, anyway, Father. Actually, I came to talk to Jenny, if that's possible."

"She's got the room in the basement. There's a bell you can ring to let her know you're coming down. I can show you where it is."

"Great."

He led me out of the well-lighted kitchen halfway down a hall to a door.

"The basement," he said. Then he pointed to a small aluminum circle. "And the bell."

"Thanks again."

"If you need anything, we'll be in the dining room, which is right down the hall."

I rang the bell twice, opened the door, clipped on the light switch, and went down the stairs.

The basement was big but standard, furnace in one corner, washer and dryer in another, twenty or so cardboard boxes piled up next to the large wooden room built against the east wall. The floor was dry, the walls showing no signs of moisture or mildew. The basement even smelled clean.

Jenny came out of the room's door in a nubby pink terry-cloth robe. She wore no shoes. Her feet were small and cute, like fetching little animals. She was drying her wet hair with a white towel.

"This is a surprise," she said. "A nice one."

"I just wanted to talk to you a little bit."

She looked disappointed. "Oh. I was hoping you'd come to see me. You know, just because you liked me. But it's about Father Daly, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid it is."

"Well, maybe we could spend a few minutes talking about him, and then spend a few minutes talking about something else."

Her one-room apartment was surprisingly cozy. There was a handsome couch that could be made into a bed at nighttime, a 19" color TV on a stand, a small bookcase packed with Star Trek paperbacks, and one of those portable man-high closets made of pressed wood. The lone table-lamp next to the armchair cast flattering shadows over the room. The one problem was the cigarette smoke lying gray and harsh on the air.

"This is a nice place."

"That's why I don't want Bernice to get me fired."

"I don't think Bernice wants to get you fired."

"I thought you were on my side." Betrayal was strong in her voice.

"I'm not on anybody's side, Jenny. But I don't think Bernice is trying to get you fired."

I saw a brief moment of junkie madness in her eyes, that druggy paranoia that never fails to impress or frighten me. "She got to you, didn't she?"

"I guess I don't know what that means."

"Sure you know what it means, Robert. Told you her side of the story. Made herself out to be this long-suffering saint and me to be this little slut who was always coming on to Father Daly."

"Were you always coming on to Father Daly?"

"I was going to invite you to sit down, Robert. Now I don't think I will."

"Will you answer my question, Jenny? Were you always coming on to Father Daly?"

She sighed. "I wanted to sleep with him. That, I admit. And that was probably wrong. I mean, in a weird way, he really did take his vows seriously." She sighed again and looked me straight in the eye. "I suppose a few times I did come on to him. You want to sit down?"