Pious Deception (2 page)

Groaning with pleasure, Ezra let his feet slide out to the side and sank to the floor.

From the doorway came guffaws. A six-four, 240-pound ex-lineman nearly filled the doorway. His wiry sun-bleached hair and deep tan testified to his unfailing morning beach runs. At twenty-eight, two years after he’d been carried off the field with three ruptured discs, he was back in shape physically. He was one of the few men in San Diego who could make the huge dog appear manageable. Walking between the two of them Kiernan looked, as Sam Chase had said, ridiculous. That amused her. It was why she had chosen Ezra—the biggest, undeniably ugliest puppy in the litter. Brad Tchernak was another story. He might try coaching football, as he threatened almost nightly. Or broadcasting. But the sudden fall from stardom to rehab patient and the discovery that no amount of toughness or determination would ever get him back in an NFL uniform had been devastating. He needed “space” while he reassembled his life, he’d told her when he showed up in answer to her ad. And, he’d assured her, he was a great cook, he’d be a great houseman, and a lot more diverting to have around than anyone else who might apply for the job. She’d hired him. Seeing the phone in her hand, he made chopping motions and pointed toward his half of the duplex.

“So you’ll take the case?” Chase asked.

“I didn’t say that. I’d hate to be the one to get the Catholic Church out of a jam. On the other hand I may discover things that are worse than the ones they’re worrying about.”

“That’s their problem.”

Kiernan kneaded Ezra’s neck. “Okay. Give me the specifics on the deceased—the priest.”

“Austin Vanderhooven, priest at Mission San Leo, outside of Phoenix.”

“Friction with superiors or other priests?”

“You’ll have to assess that yourself. Dowd sounded overwrought. But he pulled himself together enough to avoid that issue.”

Kiernan leaned back again, balancing on the chair legs. The air was just beginning to have the briny smell of low tide. “So what Dowd’s telling us is there was friction and he figures Vanderhooven was in the wrong.”

“You’re not jumping to conclusions, are you?”

“I don’t jump, Sam, at least not to conclusions.” Smiling, she glanced through the French doors at the statuette on the bookcase. The statuette was missing an arm. The inscription read: “State Gymnastics Competition, 2nd prize.” She had kept the statuette with her, furious at the “2nd” each time she came across it, yet unable to throw the thing out. It had become her symbol. In medical school in San Francisco there had been plenty of frustrations: hospital rules, the unwritten etiquette of the medical hierarchy, and the reality of pain and death that even modern medicine couldn’t cure. After each clash she had yanked out the statuette and flung it across the room. Then, abashed, she would glue its arm back on. During her residency there had been only two or three occasions when she had she come home angry enough to vent her frustration on the little chrome gymnast, and in her four years as a forensic pathologist with the coroner’s office she hadn’t flung the statuette at all. Not until she was fired. Then she hurled it into the fireplace; the arm was beyond repair.

“Sam, if Vanderhooven had been a prize priest, Dowd would have been happy to tell you. If he had been a defender of a just cause, a cause that Dowd subscribed to, Dowd would have told you that. So, it’s reasonable to assume neither is true. Maybe Vanderhooven was involved in something Dowd didn’t like. Now, what about the body? How long has Vanderhooven been dead?”

“Dowd found him last night.”

“Autopsy findings?”

“None. There was no autopsy.”

“No autopsy? What are they doing about the authorities? And where do they have the body?”

“Dowd called the doctor, who called the mortician. The body’s in his fridge.” Chase exhaled slowly. “Kiernan, if you take this case, I want to know as little as possible.”

“Really, Sam, on a case you said would intrigue half of Arizona?”

“I nurture professional disinterest. Philip Vanderhooven, the priest’s father, is an important financier here and in Phoenix. I’ve done business with him. I’d like to again. I don’t want to know the shade of his family linen.”

“What’s his relation to this case? Is it Bishop Dowd who’ll be my client, or Vanderhooven too?”

“It’s muddy. Dowd’s paying. But Vanderhooven must have made the referral. Philip Vanderhooven is not the hands-off type. When he hires men he sets strict limits and reacts strongly if they exceed them. He’s not a man used to hearing no. But then, neither is Bishop Dowd. What’s your decision?”

She gazed at the statuette, recalling the events that had led her to seek escape in gymnastics, practicing back flip after back flip through a haze of fear and anger that never lightened. The events that had led her to forensics.

As if reading her mind, Chase said, “I know the Catholic Church isn’t your favorite institution. But the job will only take a few days; it’s
got
to be done by Monday, before the funeral. And Austin Vanderhooven wasn’t your ordinary priest.”

“How so?”

“You may find that in some ways you’re not unlike him.”

She laughed. “Now what exactly does
that
mean? Did he have fresh bluefish and tomatoes flown in from the East Coast, or a houseman polishing his Triumph?”

“The similarity runs a little deeper than that. I’ll leave it to you to assess. There’ll be a background packet waiting for you at the airport, if you can tear yourself away from your houseman. He is just a servant, isn’t he?”

“I’ll leave that for you to assess, Sam.” She laughed and gave Ezra one last scratch, pushed his head off her stomach, and stood up. “You know I can’t commit myself till I talk to Dowd and see the body.”

Chase sighed. “You’re booked on American Eagle flight five-oh-four-nine. It leaves at five forty-seven.”

F
ROM THE WINDOW OF
the descending airplane, Phoenix looked like a prospector’s pan. Rugged brown hills formed the edges. Shining snakes of blue—canals that brought water from the Colorado River—slithered past the green of lawns and parks. And in one clump, like nuggets of hope, stood the tall buildings of downtown. The Valley of the Sun, they called it.

Kiernan finished reading Sam Chase’s report as the plane taxied in to the terminal. She was still pondering it as she hurried through the airport. According to Chase, Austin Vanderhooven, thirty-two, had been born in Manhattan but moved to San Diego early on. There he had attended three high schools—two private ones that had expelled him and one public school whose staff would have liked to. His college career was similar, until his last three semesters, when the Ds and Fs were replaced by As. He’d gone on to graduate school, at Columbia, in economics, finished his first year in the top ten of his class, and left—for the seminary. Why this sudden change? Why had Vanderhooven abandoned rebellion for economics and as suddenly dropped economics to become a priest?

She stepped out into the parking lot; hot dry air seared her skin. At seven-thirty at night, with the sun setting, it felt as hot as noon. The rental Jeep was waiting. She checked the map and headed for the Maricopa Freeway.

Chase’s report raised another question. The dead priest had had a juvenile police record. That record had been sealed, and the nature of Vanderhooven’s crime or crimes with it. But that the son of a man as rich and influential as the elder Vanderhooven had a record at all—now, that was suspicious.

At eight-fifteen she turned off the Pima Freeway at the last exit before the Gila River Indian Reservation and made a left by a blue-and-yellow gas station into a housing development. A left at the next corner brought her outside the brightly lighted palm-lined courtyard of Mission San Leo.

A man hurried down the path toward her Jeep. Bishop Dowd? In the sharp shadows of the courtyard lights, he looked more satanic than priestly. His ruddy skin had a coating of tan that only years of exposure to the sun could have brought. His reddish hair looked faded, but his thick eyebrows were still dark. As he came closer she noticed hollows in his cheeks, surprising in view of his girth.

“Miss O’Shaughnessy? I’m Bishop Dowd,” he said as he opened the gate. “I suppose you want to see where I found Father Vanderhooven.” Abruptly, Dowd turned and started down the path toward the white adobe church.

“I will,” she said, more sharply than she had intended, “but first there are a few things we need to clear up.”

He stopped. She could see his jaw tightening.

“Legalities,” she added. “The contract. I understand there are variations in this case. It’s always best to be clear from the beginning. Our agreement states that by Monday—”

“The funeral is Monday,” he whispered. He glanced nervously around the lighted courtyard. Even though it was clearly empty, he continued to whisper. “I have to know about him before that. He died in a, well, questionable manner, you see.”

To ease his obvious discomfort, she said, “I have a general picture of how he died.”

Dowd nodded. “I can’t bury a suicide in hallowed ground. I have to know how he died. But”—he shook his head sharply, as if to clear it—“this investigation must be strictly confidential. We can’t allow this to become common knowledge, have everyone wanting to know how he died, young and healthy as he was, or we’ll have a full-blown scandal here.… If you can’t find out how he died by Monday you won’t be any use to us. And at the rates you charge …” He glanced pointedly at her silk jacket. A man used to sizing up his adversaries, Kiernan thought, but one less than subtle about it. It didn’t fit the picture of the canny, ambitious bishop Chase had painted. She looked at Dowd’s hands; his fingers trembled ever so slightly.

“I’ve altered the contract to state that my fee is contingent on that. I’ll start with examining the scene of his death, and his body. If I don’t think I can clarify this situation, I won’t take the case.”

“You don’t waste any time, do you?”

“I don’t plan to,” she snapped.

Her retort seemed to stun him. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke it was with the voice of the canny, ambitious bishop Sam Chase had described. “Now, Miss O’Shaughnessy, I understand you
used
to be a forensic pathologist. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Right.”

“And that you, eh,
left
the department—”

“I believe the phrase you’re looking for is ‘was fired’? And the answer is yes. I was fired.” She fought to keep her voice from betraying her.

“Surely, you agree I have a right—”

“If you have second thoughts about hiring me, we can settle up now.”

Again his brows lifted, but this time his eyes seemed to sink back into his head. “No, we need to get rid of the odious questions about Father Vanderhooven. That’s the important thing. You’ve been a medical examiner. You can look at his body and see what happened.”

“Well, sometimes. Mostly, the body just shows me the discrepancies. I don’t work miracles.”

“I’m not asking for miracles, just to have Father Vanderhooven’s name clean.” He veered to the left toward a one-story white stucco building. Pulling open the dark wooden door, he motioned her into a foyer. To her right was a shabby room with a rose-print broadloom carpet and old green leather office chairs with sharp-edged circular depressions in the seats. Kiernan could feel her shoulders tensing. They were all alike, these rooms where Catholics waited while their priests finished mass or sipped their postprandial liqueur. After the death of her sister, Moira, she had sat in one of those sagging green chairs in Father Grogan’s study. She had dug her fingernails into the green leather arm rests, jamming her teeth together as the priest told her to stop lashing out at the Church. She had been twelve years old.

Dowd motioned her down the hall and opened a door to a study, itself a mixture of two cultures—Old Priest and Old West. The chairs obviously had been a tax-deductible gift, like those in the anteroom, but the floor was covered by a Navaho rug with a geometric pattern in black, brown, and white, and on the walls were Indian sand paintings in the reds and oranges of the desert sunsets. Kiernan knew little about Indian art, but the paintings looked like originals. Apparently, Father Vanderhooven had given some thought to this room he worked in and where his parishioners came seeking comfort.

Before Dowd could take the seat of authority at the desk, Kiernan settled herself on the couch. Dowd hesitated, then moved to the other end of the couch and sat down.

She handed him the contract and watched with surprise as he ran a finger down the margin and skimmed the document. She had expected him to look at it, but she doubted he could take much in now. How devastating had the shock of finding Vanderhooven been? she wondered.

Dowd leaned more heavily back into the sofa. His foot tapped an irregular beat. When he put down the contract, she asked, “Have you notified the police yet?”

“No. Of course not. I thought you understood everything, with all the time you’ve spent putting every fine point in this.” He waved the contract.

“I do realize your fears about publicity.”

“It’s not publicity I’m worried about. It’s Father Vanderhooven. I have to preside over his burial. Where am I going to bury him? He can’t be laid in consecrated ground if he’s a suicide. You know that, Miss O’Shaughnessy. Surely you’re a Catholic.”

“
Was
a Catholic. But about the police—”

“
I
have to make the decision that stamps Father Vanderhooven’s memory. I can’t leave that decision to the police. I have to know before I call them in.”

Kiernan hesitated. Dowd seemed much more in control now. There was an element of truth in his explanation, but how much? And how much was he just interested in avoiding scandal? She knew the ramifications of a Catholic suicide only too well. “I take your point. Nevertheless, you must notify the authorities immediately. It’s a criminal offense to conceal a crime.”

His ruddy face paled. “Crime?”

“Suicide’s a crime. Attempted suicide, too.”

“It could have been an accident,” he insisted.

“Bishop Dowd, the only way it could have been an accident is if Father Vanderhooven strung himself up there and couldn’t get down.”