Night Sins (40 page)

He dug out his wallet and tossed some ones on the table. Megan followed suit. The bartender waddled out from behind her post to scoop up her booty as they headed for the door.

“You folks come again,” she called in a voice that sounded like Louie Armstrong with a bad head cold.

As they stepped out onto the sidewalk, the cold nearly took Megan's breath away. Not even the warmth of the whiskey in her belly could keep her teeth from chattering.

“Jesus, Mary, and J-Joseph,” she stuttered, digging her car keys out of her pocket. “If it weren't for Josh, I think I'd be
hoping
to get fired. Humans weren't meant to live like this.”

“Get tough or die, O'Malley,” Mitch drawled without sympathy.

“If I get any tougher, bullets will bounce off me,” she tossed back as she slid behind the wheel of the Lumina.

She began the ritual of coaxing the car to start, her gaze on Mitch as he climbed into the Explorer. The streets of Deer Lake were deserted, the Blue Goose the only business open. Watching him drive away gave her an empty feeling inside, as if she were the only human left on the planet.

There were worse things than being alone. But as she sat there alone in the cold, dark night with a child missing and her future hanging by a thread, she had a hard time thinking what they were.

J
OURNAL ENTRY
D
AY
8

They found the jacket today. They don't know what to think. They don't know which way to turn. We can smell their panic. Taste it. It makes us laugh. They are as predictable as rats in a maze. They don't know which way to turn, so they turn on each other and they grasp at anything, hoping for a clue. They deserve whatever fate befalls them. The wrath of God. The wrath of colleagues, of neighbors, of strangers. Wrath rains down on the heads of the guilty and the fools.

Should we give them something and see where it leads them? All scenarios have been mapped out, far beyond the immediate moment. If we give them A, will it lead them to B? If it leads them to C, what then? On to D or E? We can't be surprised. We have planned for all contingencies, all possibilities. Ultimately, we are invincible and they will know that. The game is ours. The suffering is theirs. Deserving victims of the perfect crime.

CHAPTER 29

D
AY
9
8:00
A.M.
         -23°         
WINDCHILL FACTOR
: -51°

T
he ground search resumed in the gray light of a sunless morning. The governor had volunteered cold-weather gear from the National Guard, and a pair of military trucks sat in the alley behind the old fire hall to dispense Arctic mittens and thermal ski masks to any volunteer in need.

With the discovery of Josh's jacket, the panic level around town had soared. More volunteers than ever crowded the briefing room in the fire hall, anxious, desperate to help. They flocked to the focal point of the search with the zeal of the mob storming Dr. Frankenstein's gates. They were angry and terrified and tired of the waiting. They wanted their town and their lives back, and they wanted to believe determination alone could win the day.

Mitch sat in his Explorer and watched the search teams and search dogs disperse. Most cases had a feel to them, a rhythm that picked up as things progressed and clues came in and leads were followed and evidence built. This one had no rhythm, and the only feeling he got was bad. The deeper they went into this maze the more lost and disoriented they became.

Maybe there were two kidnappers. Maybe Olie had been one of them. Maybe not. Maybe Paul was involved, but how and why? Maybe Albert Fletcher was a suspect. Maybe he was insane. Had he known Olie, or was the accomplice someone they hadn't even considered? Was there an accomplice at all?

A stocky sergeant from the Minneapolis K-9 squad directed his German shepherd into the stand of cattails. The dog loped up onto the bank, tail wagging, nose to the snow. Uniformed officers herded volunteers out of the dog's path. Mitch's heart picked up a beat. The dog seemed to have a scent. He trotted south, away from the houses, along the snowmobile trail and up onto Mill Road, which ran east into town and west to farm country. He stood there, looking toward town, looking toward the field across the road where ash-blond cornstalks stood unharvested, row upon row, in testament to the wet fall and early winter.

The scent was gone. Like every other scrap of hope they had been given, this one was snatched away. Mitch put the truck in gear and headed for Albert Fletcher's house, less than a half-mile away.

By daylight the Fletcher home was an uninspired square, one-and-a-half stories high, painted a somber shade of gray. No remnants of the Christmas season decorated the door or the eaves. Albert apparently refrained from garish displays. Mitch recalled hearing something about a brouhaha in St. E's over decorating during Advent. The ladies' guilds were for it, the deacon was against it. Mitch hadn't paid much attention. His Sunday mornings were spent beside his daughter and his in-laws at Cross of Christ Lutheran, where he spent every sermon doing math in his head as an act of rebellion.

He rang the doorbell and waited for the sound of footsteps. None came. No light escaped through the drawn shades. He hit the bell again and bounced on the balls of his feet in an attempt to shake off the cold. Earmuffs clamped his head like a vise. The hood of his parka stemmed the flow of body heat out the top of his head.

No one came to the door. Of course, Albert was the only known resident of the house. Mrs. Fletcher was dead and the deacon had never been linked romantically with anyone. Despite the fact that he had had a successful career as comptroller of BuckLand Cheese and was probably comfortably well off, the ladies apparently did not consider him a catch.

Doris wasting away might have had something to do with that, Mitch thought as he made his way along the neatly shoveled path to the garage. As far as he had been able to discern, no one had suspected Albert at the time of his wife's illness and subsequent death.

The garage was immaculate from what he could see through the window. The doors were locked. The only car in residence sat beneath a dust-laden canvas cover. It looked as if it hadn't been moved or touched in years. Garden tools were lined up neatly along the wall. Peg-Board above the workbench displayed a neat array of Joe Handyman stuff—wrenches, screwdrivers, hammers.

Clutching the chemical hand-warmer packets in his coat pockets, Mitch headed around the back of the house to check the basement window.

His temper boiled at the memory of how close Megan had come to getting caught snooping around here the night before. What if Fletcher was insane? What if he had found her there alone?

Mitch looked down at the foundation of the house, at the thick plastic sheeting that obscured the basement windows.

The staples had been replaced.

A
t the church Mitch found Father Tom kneeling with two dozen women, chanting the decades of the rosary. A wall of votives flickered and saturated the air with the thick vanilla scent of melting wax. On the wall beside the tiers of candles, the catechism classes had taped handmade posters. Carefully printed messages in colored marker on newsprint paper—
Jesus, please keep Josh safe. Lord, please bring Josh home.
Crayon drawings of angels and children and policemen.

All eyes turned to Mitch as he hesitated beside the priest's pew. They looked to Mitch for some kind of deliverance, for some news he couldn't give. Father Tom rose and slipped out the end of the pew. The leader of the prayer dragged the rest of them on with her droning monotone.

“Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee . . .”

“Is there some news?” Father Tom whispered, his voice as taut as a guy wire. He let out a breath as Mitch shook his head.

“I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Let's go in my office.”

Father Tom led the way, genuflecting hastily at the foot of the altar before moving on. In the office he motioned Mitch to a chair and shut the door. He looked as priestly as Mitch had ever seen him, with a clerical collar standing up stiffly above the crew neck of his black sweater. Comb tracks suggested he had even made an attempt to style his unruly hair into submission, though sandy sprigs sprung up defiantly at the crown of his head like wheat stubble. The pope gazed down on him from an oil painting on the wall behind him, looking more skeptical than benevolent, as if the collar didn't fool him in the least.

“What's the occasion?” Mitch needled, pointing at his throat. “Is the bishop coming to town?”

Tom McCoy gave him a sheepish look. “One of those little deals we make with God. I'll try to be a better priest if He'll give Josh back to us.”

Mitch sensed an underlying motive but didn't press. He knew Father Tom well enough to golf with him, not well enough to act as confessor to a man rungs above him on the spiritual ladder.

“Unfortunately for all concerned, I don't think God kidnapped him,” he said. “How was Hannah when you left last night?”

The priest frowned down at the Game Boy on his blotter. “She's doing the best she can. She feels helpless; that's unfamiliar territory for her.”

“Paul isn't exactly helping.”

Father Tom's jaw tightened. “No. He isn't,” he said shortly. He drew in a slow breath and raised his head, his gaze glancing off Mitch's left shoulder. “I suggested she take up one of the news magazines on their request for an interview. I think it might help her if she can present her story in a way that could benefit other mothers, help prevent this kind of thing from happening to someone else. That's the role she's most familiar with—helping others.”

“Maybe,” Mitch murmured, thinking of his own role as helper/protector and how he had retreated from it after his crisis.

“You said you had some questions?”

“Is Albert Fletcher around?”

Father Tom's brows pulled together. He tucked his chin and sat back in his swivel chair. “Not at the moment. I think he's at the rectory. Why?”

Mitch gave him his deadpan detective face. “I need to talk to him about a couple of things.”

“Is this about Josh?”

“Why would you ask that?”

Father Tom gave a laugh that held no amusement. “I believe we already had this little chat. Albert had Josh for server instruction and religion class. Doesn't that automatically make him a suspect?”

Mitch let the defensive tone slide. “Fletcher was teaching classes the night Josh disappeared. Why? Do you think he could have done it?”

“Albert is the most devout man I know,” Tom said. “I'm sure he secretly thinks I'm doomed to perdition because I had cable installed at the rectory. No.” He shook his head. “Albert would never blatantly break the law—secular or holy.”

“How long have you known him?”

“About three years.”

“Were you around during his wife's illness?”

“No. She died, I believe it was January ninety-one. I came here that March. I got the impression he must have been close to her by the way he turned to the church for solace afterward. The way he immersed himself, he must have had a big void to fill.”

Or he had already been in love with the church and wanted Doris out of the way so he could pursue his obsession with full zeal. Mitch kept that theory to himself.

“He had a funny way of showing his affection for her,” he said. “It seems to be fairly common knowledge that he didn't want her to seek treatment for her illness. He claimed he wanted to heal her through prayer, and he wasn't too pleased when Hannah intervened.”

A frown curved Father Tom's mouth. “Mitch, you're not suggesting—”

“I'm not suggesting anything,” Mitch said, getting out of his chair, hands raised in denial. “I'm fishing, that's all. I'll throw back a lot of chubs before I catch anything for the frying pan. Thanks for your time, Father.”

He started for the door, then turned back. “Would Fletcher have made a good priest?”

“No,” Father Tom answered without hesitation. “There's more to this job than memorizing scripture and church dogma.”

“What's he lacking?”

The priest thought about that for a moment. “Compassion,” he said softly.

M
itch had never been a fan of old Victorian houses with their heavy dark woodwork and cavernous rooms. The St. Elysius rectory was no exception. It was big enough to house the entire University of Notre Dame football team, whose photograph hung prominently on the wall of the den above the evil cable box.

He wandered through the rooms of the first floor, calling for Albert Fletcher and receiving no answer. The smell of coffee and toast lingered in the kitchen. A box of Frosted Flakes sat on the table. Beside it squatted a half-empty coffee mug, a souvenir from Cheyenne, Wyoming. The
StarTribune
had been left open to a story about the plight of the Los Angeles quake victims and the reprise of the old fake-priest scam—con men impersonating clergy and collecting cash donations intended for those left homeless.

“Mr. Fletcher?” Mitch called.

The basement door opened and Albert Fletcher emerged from the gloom. Gaunt and pale, he looked as if he had been held captive down there. His black shirt hung on shoulders as thin and sharp as a wire hanger. A black turtleneck showed above the button-down collar—a reverse image of Father Tom's clerical collar. The dark eyes that met Mitch's were bright with something like fever, but opaque, hiding the source of their glow. They were set in a face that was long and sober, the skin like ash-white tissue paper stretched taut over prominent bones, the mouth an unyielding line that seemed incapable of bending upward. Mitch tried to superimpose this face over the featureless composite drawing of Ruth Cooper's visitor. Maybe. With a hood . . . with sunglasses.

“Mr. Fletcher?” Mitch held out his hand. “Mitch Holt, chief of police. How are you today?”

Fletcher turned away to close the basement door behind him, ignoring the pleasantry as if pleasantry were against his personal beliefs.

“I need to ask you a couple of questions, if you don't mind,” Mitch continued, sliding his hands into his pants pockets.

“I've already spoken with several policemen.”

“It's standard procedure to follow up interviews,” Mitch explained. “New questions come up. People remember things after the first cop is gone. We don't want to miss anything.”

He leaned back against the work island and crossed his ankles. “You can have a seat, if you'd be more comfortable.”

Apparently comfort was also a sin. Fletcher made no move to find himself a chair. He folded his long, bony hands in front of him, displaying the evidence of his trip to the basement. The deacon looked down at the dirt-streaked backs of his hands, and frowned. “I've been going through some church artifacts in the storage room. They've been down there a long time.”

Mitch called up a phony smile as he straightened. “Must be quite a basement under a big old place like this. Mind if I take a look? These old Victorian houses fascinate me.”

Fletcher hesitated just a second before opening the door. Then he descended once more into the bowels of the St. Elysius rectory. Mitch followed, quelling a grimace at the scent of mold.

The basement was exactly what he'd expected—a chambered cave of old brick and cracked cement. Rafters hung with festoons of cobwebs. Bare bulbs gave off inadequate light. The chamber beneath the kitchen held the water heater, the furnace, the electrical circuit box, and an ancient chest-type freezer. In the next section was junk—old bicycles, a hundred battered folding chairs, a stack of collapsible tables, row upon row of green-painted window screens, a squadron of rusty little wire carts loaded with croquet equipment, a forest of bamboo fishing rods.

The room Fletcher led him to was crammed with statuary from the days when church icons came complete with human hair and everyone in the Holy Family looked amazingly Anglo-Saxon. The moldering relics stared unseeing into the gloom, their limbs and faces chipped and cracked. An old altar and baptismal font gave testimony to the rise and fall in popularity of cheap blond wood veneer. A jerry-rigged rack hung down from an exposed water pipe and displayed the fashion in clerical vestments through the years, the damp rotting the garments on their hangers. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined three walls of the room. The shelves and all available flat surfaces were stacked with boxes of old church records and curling photographs. Decaying books gave off a musty sweet aroma.