Last Breath (13 page)

The twin bed was still a twin bed, though. They'd never bought the queen-size bed they'd talked about once with so much hope, speaking of a daughter-in-law and grandchildren. The bedspread was different though. His wife had gotten rid of the “ratty” NFL spread and replaced it with a peach-colored chenille.

But otherwise, the room was still the same. The same nicked wood desk was in the same corner, still bearing the scars of careless youth and one angry attempt to carve something nasty into it when Tom was eight. The shelves still held the books Tom had left behind, from Dr. Seuss to
Cliff Notes.
A copy of the King James Bible, battered from years of being carried to Sunday school and Bible study groups.

The room looked dingy and sad. But mostly it looked empty.

Sometimes when he sat on the edge of the bed, the annoying sound of the TV muffled by the closed door, he thought he could hear his son's voice, could hear his laughter, and his impatient, angry teenage retorts. Could hear him announcing with such pride that he'd joined the navy. It was as if the room had captured those sounds and held them, cherishing them.

He let the sorrow come to him, let it fill him and spill wetly from his burning eyes. His throat tightened until he could barely breathe, each gasp sounding pained.

I’ll get him for you, Tom,
he vowed silently, anger fueled by his anguish.
I’ll get him for you.

Then he sat there and sobbed like a baby.

The watcher sat in the cheesy hotel room — the big guys always got the slightly better hotels, while he wound up in the cheapest motel in the area — and stared at the telephone. He'd done it, he'd pushed the cannon, but he wasn't at all sure he was happy about it.

Sitting there, he did some painful thinking. It was rare that he allowed himself to do so, because painful thinking seldom led to answers, but it often led to exactly that: pain.

However, the choice of cannon in this instance was really beginning to bug him. It wasn't that he questioned the goal of his organization. After all, you couldn't fight terrorism with mealy-mouthed platitudes and endless investigations. No, you needed to fight them head-on, with every bit as much threat and weight as you could put behind your words. The business in Afghanistan was a surprising but welcome step in the right direction. However, the real nest of vipers was being overlooked.

So you gave a little push and shove in the right direction. All perfectly well and good. He approved of that.

He also understood the need to use a cannon that couldn't be traced back to them. But their choice this time …

He shook his head. He'd questioned it from the outset, although not too loudly, since loud complaints could bring the hammer down on his head. But he'd questioned it even then. Now the cannon had killed a kid, and was plainly running his own agenda. Not good. Not good at all, even if the big guys
did
say that it would make the cannon look even more like a crazed killer working for his own reasons.

The problem was, the cannon
was
a crazy man working for his own reasons. That made him difficult to control. That meant he might do something else stupid, something that could get him caught before he got the target.

Shit.
He was going to have to keep a closer eye on this guy than he liked. He was going to have to expose his own back.

And that's why he didn't like painful thinking.

Chapter 11

“Nothing,” Phil said to Chloe. “There's absolutely nothing.”

The two women were on the church basketball court. The team Phil coached had finished practice and disappeared to their various homes and other activities. She and Chloe were alone, tossing free throws for the heck of it, working up a good sweat, as the westering sun bathed the world in a golden glow. Dominic was with Brendan in the church hall, along with three hundred kids, who were getting their weekly dose of religious education.

It turned out that shadowing a priest wasn't the most difficult job in the world. The man was rarely alone.

Chloe dribbled the ball, then swished a three-pointer. “Then who's making this connection?”

“Darned if I know. I mean, Brendan's file is clean. All it says is that he went into retreat for two years after leaving the navy. Whatever the reason was, that was kept solely between him and his spiritual advisor.”

“Hell.”

“Tsk,” said Phil, more out of habit than because she was offended. Older kids used four-letter words all the time, and she habitually voiced disapproval. The automatic response of fifteen years as a teaching nun. Dribbling the ball, she ran around the court and shot from behind Chloe. The ball sailed over the other woman's head, then bounced off the backboard.

“Sheesh,” Phil said, “I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn tonight.”

“Try again.” Chloe headed for the bench and the towel she'd left there. The chilly air had gone as fast as it had come, and the night hinted at the humid, hot summer to come.

But Phil tossed the ball into the corner of the court, with all the other balls, and joined her at the bench, mopping her face with her own towel. “The thing is, Chlo,” she said, keeping her voice down, “you're probably going to have to ask Father about this. He's the only one who knows what really happened, if anything did. Well, other than Crowell and whoever is pouring poison into his ear. And they're not going to talk.”

“Shit.”

This time Phil bit back the automatic sound of disapproval. “Well, it seems to me if you want the real skinny, you need to go to the horse's mouth.”

“What if the horse doesn't want to talk?”

“Then you get nothing. Same as you've got now.”

Chloe sighed, wiped her face again, and took a deep draught from her water bottle. “I don't want him to feel like he's being hounded.”

“He
is
being hounded.” Phil sat on the bench and plucked her damp St. Simeon Saints T-shirt from her skin. “Worse, he's being hounded by someone who probably wants to do the same thing to him that they did to Steve. God, you know, it hurts even to think about that.”

“Yeah.” Chloe sat beside her and rested her elbows on her knees.

“You got anything from the cops?”

“They're still waiting for lab reports. And they're still wondering what the relationship was between Brendan and Steve.”

“Right.” Phil reached for her own bottle of water. “Anybody with eyes can see how Brendan looks at you. He's het, or he ain't nothing.”

“Yeah, that's what I told Brendan.”

The water bottle paused halfway to Phil's mouth, and she gaped at Chloe. “You didn't.”

“I did.”

“Oh, my word …” Then a shriek of laughter escaped Phil. “Oh my, oh my. He must have looked like a deer caught in headlights.”

“He did.” Chloe shrugged. “Too bad. He's not obvious about it. He doesn't make me uncomfortable.”

“No, but you've probably made
him
uncomfortable.”

“Well, I was trying to get his attention.”

“I bet it worked.”

“I don't know. That man walks around in a haze of true goodness so thick I don't think he'd believe it if he had a dagger sticking out of his back. He'd convince himself he must have somehow bumped into it.”

“Yeah, he's amazing, isn't he? Very otherworldly.”

“It must be, because he doesn't strike me as pathetically naive. Not at all. It's an odd twist, the way he seems to have a good understanding of human nature, but seems unable to believe the worst about anyone or anything. I guess it's like I told Matt. He truly believes in redemption.”

“Yes, he does.” Phil sighed and sipped her water. “I’m pooped. Wanna clean up and get dinner?”

“Sure. But first let me check and make sure Father Brendan doesn't go wandering off on his own somewhere.”

They hadn't even made it across the parking lot to the hall before Matt pulled up beside them in his nondescript sedan. The women stopped walking and turned toward him as he rolled down his power window and smiled.

“How are you ladies this evening?”

“Fine,” Phil said, smiling back.

“Hot, sweaty, and tired,” Chloe answered. “Do you have something for me?”

“I need to talk to you.”

Phil looked at Chloe. “You go ahead. We can catch dinner another time. I’ll just check on Father.”

Chloe hesitated, but only briefly. “Thanks, Phil. I’ll call you later.”

Smiling, Phil waved and walked away.

“Hop in,” Matt said.

“I wasn't kidding about being sweaty. You want that on your car seat?”

“You don't want to know what's been on my car seat. A little sweat won't hurt it.”

So she climbed in on the passenger side, and felt the blast of air-conditioning turned on high. Almost at once her damp T-shirt felt like ice against her skin. Matt turned out of the parking lot, onto the residential street in the direction of Dale Mabry, one of the busiest streets in town.

“What's up?” Chloe asked.

“Let's get something to eat. I haven't had an encounter with food since early this morning.”

“I’m not dressed for a restaurant.”

“You'll be dry in five minutes, and anyway, I wasn't thinking fancy. I was thinking drive-through.”

Typical cop, Chloe thought. Fast and greasy. It was a wonder any of them made it to retirement age. “As long as I can get some vegetables with it.”

“No prob. I give you your choice. Fried chicken and coleslaw, or a sub.”

“I’ll take the sub.”

He stopped at a place to get her a veggie sub, before hitting the chicken drive-through for his requisite dose of saturated fat. Then he pulled into a parking place behind the restaurant and suggested they sit at one of the picnic tables. Chloe was glad to; it had taken only a few minutes to make her feel that she was in danger of becoming an icicle.

“Okay,” she said, as they sat facing each other and eating, “what's up?”

“Not much. King is so squeaky clean it's hard to believe. We tracked down his friends, his teachers, and even his mother. The only unkind words we heard was that he was too clean. Too straight. Sometimes a wet blanket because of it.”

“I’ve heard of worse character flaws.”

“Yeah, me too. Too serious, maybe, for his age, but given his background, not surprising.”

“Anything else?”

“I got a look at the prelim on the autopsy. Still waiting for toxicology and all that, but physically there was one other interesting thing.”

“What's that?”

“If he was gay, he was a virgin. If you know what I mean.”

She knew what he meant. She put her sandwich down and looked at him. He was biting into a chicken thigh with obvious relish. “So when are you going to give up on the idea that Father Brendan may have had something to do with his death.”

“Oh, I gave up on that. Unfortunately, now I’m wondering again.”

“Why?”

He wiped his chin and took a drink of cola. “Because I’ve been hearing rumblings that another young man of his acquaintance died under mysterious circumstances.”

Chloe's heart skipped a beat. “Where are you hearing this maliciousness?”

He grinned. “From your frigging close-mouthed chancery, that's where.”

“Really.” Chloe's face as usual betrayed nothing. She'd practiced a wooden look for a long, long time. But her heart lurched, and her stomach sank. “From whom at the chancery?”

“I don't reveal sources.”

“You know, Matt, I absolutely
hate
it when you're gleeful.”

“Me, gleeful?” He grinned again. “What in the world makes you think that?”

“You've got that Cheshire-cat grin again.”

“Sorry. I’ll frown.”

“Don't bother, it's too late. So some unnamed person is spreading nasty rumors. Big deal.”

“Hey, this was from the chancery.”

She leaned toward him, her sandwich forgotten. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Smarty-pants Detective. The chancery has nothing on Father Brendan.
Nothing?
”

Now he did frown. “How do you know that?”

“Because I have sources who checked his personnel file. There's not a peep in it about this so-called incident.”

“Then somebody knows something unofficially.”

“No, somebody knows a nasty rumor. And I’ll let you in on another little secret. Somebody at the chancery has a big grudge against Father Brendan.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just know.” It was her turn to favor him with a Cheshire-cat grin. “Trust me on this.”

“All right, then what's the grudge?”

“I’m working on that. I’ll let you know.”

“Grudge enough to kill?”

Chloe let her gaze wander away from him, to some distant point amid the trees that separated the restaurant from the houses behind. “I don't think so. But anything is possible. At this point, I’m not going to rule out anything.”

“Except Father Brendan.”

She looked straight at him. “Matt, if you knew the man at all, you'd realize he isn't capable of this crime. But you know what? I’m not ruling him out. I just consider him to be the least likely possibility of all.”

“Fair enough. Truth to tell, I’m inclined to agree. There was something about that phone call I got about his past. …” He shook his head. “I can't put my finger on it. But I’m still going to look into it.”

“Well, you won't get anything official out of the chancery. So let me try.”

“Try what? Why should you get any further than I can?”

“Because I’m going to talk to the horse's mouth.”

“Horse?”

“Father Brendan.”

“Oh.” Another smile lit his face. “You
do
like to take the bull by the horns. That's what I always liked about you, Chloe. Where angels fear to tread, and all that.”

“Sometime,” she said, wrapping up the remains of her sandwich for later, “you might try reminding me what I ever liked about
you.
”

His laugh had always seemed to her to be warm and attractive. It still was.

That night at ten, Brendan thought he was done for the day. He even thought he could slip out alone and shoot some hoops without one of his shadows following him, and the good Lord knew he needed the time.

He didn't, however, make it five steps across the grassy parking lot toward the court before a voice accosted him.