Harlot's Moon (22 page)

"You're just a kid."

Smirks. "Well, I guess I'll just have to show you how much of a kid I am."

She's been crying again and her nose is red. "But this'll just make it worse. Now I'll be cheatin' on Sam with two guys."

"I guess you won't mind it then if I give Sam a call tonight. . ."

Then he reaches out and touches her breast. Her first response is to close her eyes, as if she's enduring great humiliation.

The eyes stay closed. "It'll only be this one time, that we do it, I mean?"

"Just this one time," Frank says.

"I only do it with my first husband cause I still love him."

"What time you say Sam gets off?"

She opens her eyes again. "I'm on the pill so that part's all right."

And then he knows he's got her.

"Just this one time, you promise?"

"I promise."

"And you won't tell Sam?"

"I won't tell Sam."

"Cause it'd just kill him. And he don't deserve that."

All the time he's on top of her, she's crying. But that doesn't bother Frank.

He plans on making this a long-term kinda thing. He'll see to it that she not only quits crying, she'll move that body of hers a lot more, too. Beautiful body like that and she just lays there like a corpse. Well, next time they get together, things are gonna be different.

Very, very different.

F
ather Ryan said eight o'clock Mass. I knew this because I was there. I hadn't been to Confession in years so there was no Communion for me.

I just knelt in a rear pew smelling the incense and looking at the Stations of the Cross and watching the sweet old women make their arthritic way to and from the Communion rail. God had been so vivid to me when I was a boy. I knew what He expected of me and I knew what I expected of myself. I still believe in some kind of god, some guiding cosmic force, but I couldn't tell you anything about he/she/it. I especially couldn't tell you why it is so imperative that the forlorn lost tribes of this planet must endure so much heartbreak.

After Mass, I waited on the walk between the church and the rectory. The coos of pigeons echoed between the buildings. The air smelled good and clean and new. The sun was shining and I felt ridiculously young and strong, as only spring days can make me feel.

Father Ryan came out of the side door of the church in his cassock.

"Morning, Mr. Payne."

"Morning, Father."

"If you're looking for the Monsignor, he's downtown. One of his committee meetings."

"Actually, it was you I wanted to see."

He smiled. "Now that doesn't sound very good."

"Just take a few minutes, is all."

He checked his wrist-watch. "If you're serious about it being just a few minutes, why don't we swing over to the school cafeteria? I've got a religion class to teach in fifteen minutes, but that's time enough for a quick cup of coffee. How's that sound?"

"Sounds great."

As we headed back toward the alley, and the two-story red-brick school on the other side, he said, "That's all they talk about."

He nodded to a group of grade-school girls who were jumping rope. They wore plaid school uniforms with white blouses and blue knee-high socks.

"Why somebody would murder a priest, I mean," he said. "I taught six classes yesterday and that's all they talked about. And I didn't know what to tell them."

The cafeteria had pretty much emptied out by the time we sat down with our coffee. This was a big, echoing gym that could be converted into a cafeteria quickly. Sunlight angled through the long, rectangular windows behind the bleachers.

The smell of cafeteria food took me on another time-machine ride. I saw myself as a small kid with a big tray and an even bigger appetite waiting calmly in line while all around me other kids shoved, goosed and slapped each other. I hadn't been the perfect kid, far from it. I just had this huge appetite. Luckily, I burned off the calories quickly.

"You know, this school almost closed down about ten years ago," Father Ryan said, looking around at the dozen or so empty tables and the bright buff blue walls. "Then private education came back into fashion, and now we're actually turning some students away. We're booked solid. And a lot of that's due to your friend, Monsignor Gray."

"You seem to have a lot of respect for him."

He nodded. "I do. I mean, priests are just human beings with a special calling. They have all the same foibles and shortcomings as any other human beings. I was at a parish for several years where all the man did was try to push his career ahead. The Monsignor isn't like that. He has a genuine concern for people — of all ages and all occupations. You run into a lot of priests who are snobs. They only want to know people like the Wilsons. You know, wealthy and involved in the parish. But the Monsignor ministers to everybody. He's a very impressive man."

I looked at him carefully, keeping my voice as steady as possible. "He have any secrets?"

He smiled. "We all have secrets. I have a few that would curl your toes."

"Serious secrets, I mean."

"The Monsignor? Not that I know of."

A gray-haired woman in a pink waitress uniform came over and refilled our cups.

After she'd gone, Father Ryan said, "I feel sorry for Monsignor Gray."

"Oh? Why?"

"He really deserves a much bigger parish than this one. More important, I mean. But this is a very political diocese and the Monsignor has never hidden his dislike of the Archbishop."

"What's he got against the Archbishop?"

"Too media-savvy," Father Ryan said. "The Archbishop is a bit of a showboat, I'm afraid. Plus, nobody would ever accuse him of being a particularly intelligent man."

"Steve ever have any run-ins with him?"

He smiled. "You don't have ‘run-ins.' You have memos. The Archbishop is always sending memos."

"He sent Steve one?"

"One? One a month is more like it. The last one had to do with a newspaper article about the Monsignor. The reporter asked Steve about forgiving penitents — was there a sin so bad he couldn't forgive it? And Steve said, "'As a priest, I have to grant absolution to all those who make a good Confession. But that doesn't mean I can forgive them as a man.'"

I set down my coffee cup. "I'm having a little trouble of my own in the forgiveness department."

"Oh?"

"My stepfather."

"Those can be very bad relationships, very destructive, stepparents and stepchildren."

I told him the situation.

"And he wants to stay with you?" he said.

"He says he wants to make up for all the years we lived together, when he never took much interest in me. But what's really going on is he's lonely and scared. The way he blusters and brags all the time, he doesn't have any friends left from the old days. I think he was the kind of guy who probably hit on the wives of his friends."

"Even when he was married to your mother?"

"Sure."

"He's a sinner and he's asking for forgiveness."

"Yeah, I suppose he is."

"How do you feel about that?"

I shrugged. "I don't like him very much."

"Well, then, I'd very gently suggest that you and he try to find a decent nursing home for him."

"That isn't what Steve would do, is it?"

"Probably not," he said. "Steve would probably let him stay."

"But you're not Steve."

"No, I guess I'm not. I function on the belief that God gives us only what we can handle. It may not seem like it all the time, but it's true. And it doesn't sound like you can handle Vic being there. You've got a lot of resentment toward him."

"That simple?"

"That simple."

"But Steve wouldn't do it that way?"

"The Monsignor," he said, "is a special man. Very Christ-like, as I said. And I don't mean pious or sanctimonious. He's an old farm boy and always will be. Sanctimony embarrasses him, as a matter of fact."

A bell rang in the hall outside the gym.

"That's for me," Father Ryan said. "My religion class."

He walked me to the back door where we'd come in. "I don't think Bob Wilson killed Father Daly."

"I don't, either."

"But I certainly don't think the Monsignor killed him, either," he said. "In case that's what you're thinking."

"Right now, I don't know what I'm thinking, Father. I really don't."

Even with the profile I'd created, that was true. There were people the profile fitted; there were people it didn't fit. But it wasn't complete, because my information wasn't complete.

Like flying in fog. A small plane, you fly by sight, just like you drive a car, and you can't fly it in fog. A bigger plane, you might fly blind, fly by instruments. But if you were in the fog, even if you did have instruments, if you didn't have the right coordinates you might come down dead.

I had the instruments. I'd honed them over thirteen years. But I didn't have all the coordinates.

We said goodbye, and I walked back to my car.

J
ust as I was starting to slide into my car, I heard somebody call my name. I looked over and saw Bernice walking towards me, waving.

This morning she wore a pink blouse, royal-blue cardigan sweater, and royal-blue slacks. She also wore large sunglasses which gave her a slightly sexual edge she didn't usually have.

"Do you think he did it?" she said breathlessly.

"Bob Wilson, you mean?"

She nodded.

"I don't think so."

"Then why did the police bring him in for questioning?"

"They probably know some things we don't. They certainly wouldn't bring him in on a whim."

"He's an important man."

"Exactly." Then I said, "Say, I was going to ask you to do me a favor."

"Be glad to." She smiled. "Nice-looking young man like you."

"I left all my quarters at home. Afraid I don't have anything to tip you with."

"Here I go flattering you, and all you can talk about is tipping me."

I leaned into my car and picked up a manila envelope into which I'd slipped copies of all the newspaper clippings.

"I wondered if you'd check these for me," I said.

"Check them how?"

"Can you get into Father Daly's office?"

"I suppose so."

"I've been trying to figure out why he kept these clippings. You know about them?"

She nodded. "I heard he kept some clippings about people getting killed. Father Ryan and the Monsignor were talking about them. But I haven't seen them. Is that what these are?"

"Yes. And I started wondering if he knew the victims more than casually. I'd like to see if he knew them through his counseling."

Father Ryan had told me he didn't. But Father Ryan fit the profile. So he might not have been telling the truth.

She took the envelope. "I may not be able to get to it until later today, maybe not until this evening. Today is errand day at the rectory you see. I'm usually gone most of the day."

"Fine. My number's on the envelope there. Just call me when you find out. I'd really appreciate it. Oh, and don't mention it to Father Ryan. I don't want to worry him anymore."

She nodded.

We stood in the sunshine. Between church and rectory, the pigeons were still cooing. The school kids were back inside, having taken their laughter with them.

"It's interesting to watch a detective's mind at work," she said. "So if he was seeing these people professionally, and later on they were murdered, what do you think it could mean?"

"It could mean just about anything — or nothing."

"It is sort of funny, though, isn't it, the way he kept these clippings?"

"Yeah, it is."

"But there was always that part of him."

"What part of him?"

"You know how, with some people, you can kind of get to know them real easy?"

I nodded.

"You never had that feeling with Father Daly. In fact, I always had the opposite feeling. I was never sure how he was going to react to things. He was very mysterious sometimes, and a little scary."

"Did you ever see him lose his temper?"

She waggled a finger at me. "You're thinking what I'm thinking, aren't you?"

"And what would that be, Bernice?"

"That maybe Father Daly killed these people. In the clippings, I mean."

"I didn't say that."

"No, but you were thinking it."

"Why would he kill them?" I said.

"Oh, no. You're the detective. You tell me."