Sacred Sins (21 page)

“Yeah.” Ed smiled a little as he eased into the passenger's seat. “Lousy bastards.”

“We could give them a break, or we can go see the ex-con.”

Ed considered a moment, then pulled out the rest of his trail mix. It should hold him until he could get a meal. “I've got another hour.”

T
HERE
were no fresh flowers in the one-room apartment in South East. The furniture, what there was of it, hadn't been polished since it had been bought from the Salvation Army. A Murphy bed no one had bothered to tuck back into the wall took up most of the room. The sheets weren't clean. The unpleasant odors of sweat, stale sex, and onions hung in the room.

The blonde had an inch of brown root showing in her frizzed mop of hair. She opened the door with the slow, wary stare of the knowing when Ben and Ed showed their badges. She wore snug jeans over a well-shaped rear, and a pink sweater that was cut low enough to show breasts that were starting to sag.

Ben gauged her to be about twenty-five, though there were lines already dug deep at the sides of her mouth. Her eyes were brown, and the left one was set off by a bruise that had rainbowed into mauve, yellow, and gray. He judged she'd taken the hit three or four days earlier.

“Mrs. Moore?”

“No, we ain't married.” The blonde dug a cigarette out of a pack of Virginia Slims. You've come a long way, baby. “Frank went out for beer. He'll be back in a minute. Is he in trouble?”

“We just need to talk to him.” Ed gave her an easy smile, and decided she needed more protein in her diet.

“Sure. Well, I can tell you he's been keeping out of trouble. I've seen to that.” She found a pack of matches, lit her cigarette, then used the pack to squash a small roach. “Maybe he drinks a little too much, but I make sure he does it here, where he can't get in trouble.” She looked around the pitiful room and drew deep on the cigarette. “It don't look like much, but I'm putting money aside. Frank's got a good job now, and he's dependable. You can ask his super.”

“We're not here to hassle Frank.” Ben decided against sitting. You couldn't be sure what might be crawling under the cushions. “Sounds like you've got him pretty much in line.”

She touched her bruised eye. “I give as good as I get.”

“I bet. What happened?”

“Frank wanted another five for beer on Saturday. I've got a budget.”

“Saturday?” Ben came to attention. The night of the last murder. The woman facing him was a blonde, of sorts. “I guess you two got into it, then he stomped out so he could go down to the bar and bitch with the boys.”

“He didn't go anywhere.” She grinned and tapped her ash into a plastic dish that invited you to PUT YOUR BUTT HERE. “He got a shot in, and the neighbors downstairs were beating with that damn broomstick on the ceiling. I got a shot right back.” She let the smoke trail lightly out of her mouth and up her nose. “Frank respects that sort of thing in a woman. He likes it, you
know. So we… made up. He didn't think about beer anymore Saturday night.”

The door opened. Frank Moore had arms like cinder blocks, legs like tree trunks, and stood maybe five feet five. He was wearing a black trench coat that had moth holes in the shoulder, and was carrying a six-pack of the King of Beers.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. His free arm was already flexed.

Ben pulled out his badge. “Homicide.”

Frank dropped his arm. Ben noticed the inch-long scratch on his cheek as he leaned over to read the badge. It was scabbed over and looked every bit as nasty as the blonde's bruise.

“The system eats shit,” Frank announced, and slammed the six-pack onto the counter. “That slut tells the judge I tried to rape her, I end up doing three years, then when I get out I got cops hanging around. I told you the system eats shit, Maureen.”

“Yeah.” The blonde helped herself to a beer. “You told me.”

“Why don't you just tell us where you were last Sunday morning, Frank,” Ben began. “About four A.M.”

“Four in the morning. Jesus, I was in bed like everybody else. And I wasn't alone neither.” He jerked a thumb at Maureen before he popped the top on a Bud. Beer fizzled through the opening and added one more smell to the room.

“You Catholic, Frank?”

Frank wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, belched, and drank again. “Do I look Catholic?”

“Frank's daddy was Baptist,” Maureen supplied.

“Shut your face,” Frank told her.

“Kiss ass.” She only smiled when he lifted an arm. Ed had taken only one step forward when Frank dropped it again.

“You want to tell the cops everything, fine. My old man was Baptist. No cards, no drinking, no-fucking-around Baptist. He kicked my ass plenty, and I kicked his once before I left home. That was fifteen years ago. A two-bit whore railroaded me into prison. I did three years, and if I ever saw her again, I'd kick her ass too.” He pulled a pack of Camels out of his shirt pocket and lit it with a battered Zippo. “I got a job washing floors and cleaning toilets. I come home every night so this bitch can tell me I only got five dollars for beer. I ain't done nothing illegal. Maureen'll tell you.” He swung a loving arm around the woman he'd just called a bitch.

“That's right.” She took a swig from her beer.

He didn't fit the description, not the physical one, nor the psychiatric one. Still Ben persisted. “Where were you August fifteenth?”

“Jesus, how am I supposed to remember?” Frank chugged the rest of the beer down and crushed the can. “You guys got a warrant to be in here?”

“We were in Atlantic City.” Maureen didn't blink when Frank tossed the can and missed the trash bag by inches. “Remember, Frank? My sister works up there, you know. She got us a good deal at the hotel where she does housekeeping. The Ocean View Inn. It ain't on the strip or nothing, but it's close. We drove up on August fourteenth and spent three days. It's in my diary.”

“Yeah, I remember.” He dropped his arm and turned on her. “I was playing craps and you came down and started bitching at me.”

“You'd lost twenty-five bucks.”

“I'd've won it back, and twice that much, if you'd left me be.”

“You stole the money out of my purse.”

“Borrowed it, you cunt. Borrowed it.”

Ben jerked his head toward the door as the argument heated up. “Let's get out of here.”

As the door closed behind him they heard a crash over the screaming.

“Think we should break it up?”

Ben looked back at the door. “What, and spoil their fun?” Something solid and breakable hit the door and shattered. “Let's go get a drink.”

M
R. MONROE
, I
appreciate you coming by to talk with me.” Tess greeted Joey Higgins's step-father at the door to her office. “My secretary's gone for the day, but I can fix us some coffee if you like.”

“Not for me.” He stood, uncomfortable as always in her presence, and waited for her to make the first move.

“I realize you've already put in a full day,” she began, not adding she'd put in one of her own.

“I don't mind the extra time if it helps Joey.”

“I know.” She smiled, gesturing him to a chair. “I haven't had many opportunities to speak to you privately, Mr. Monroe, but I want to tell you that I can see how hard you're trying with Joey.”

“It isn't easy.” He folded his overcoat on his lap. He was a tidy man, organized by nature. His fingers were neatly manicured, his hair combed into place, his suit dark and conservative. Tess thought she understood how inscrutable he would find a boy like Joey.

“It's harder on Lois, of course.”

“Is it?” Tess sat behind her desk, knowing the distance and the impersonal position would make it easier for him. “Mr. Monroe, coming into a family after a
divorce and trying to be a father figure to a teenage boy is difficult under any circumstances. When the boy is as troubled as Joey, the difficulties are vastly multiplied.”

“I'd hoped by now, well…” He lifted his hands, then laid them flat again. “I'd hoped we could do things together, ball games. I even bought a tent, though I have to admit I don't know the first thing about camping. But he's not interested.”

“Doesn't feel he can allow himself to be interested,” Tess corrected. “Mr. Monroe, Joey has linked himself with his father to a very unhealthy degree. His father's failures are his failures, his father's problems his problems.”

“The bastard doesn't even—” He cut himself off. “I'm sorry.”

“No, don't apologize. I know it appears that Joey's father doesn't care, or can't be bothered. It stems from his illness, but that isn't what I wanted to speak with you about. Mr. Monroe, you know I've tried to discuss intensifying Joey's treatment. The clinic I mentioned in Alexandria specializes in emotional illness in adolescents.”

“Lois won't hear of it.” As far as Monroe was concerned, it ended there. “She feels, and I have to agree, that Joey would think we'd abandoned him.”

“The transition would be difficult, there's no denying that. It would have to be handled by all of us in such a way that Joey understands he isn't being punished or sent away, but offered another chance. Mr. Monroe, I have to be candid with you. Joey is not responding to treatment.”

“He's not drinking?”

“No, he's not drinking.” How could she convince him that the alleviation of one symptom was far from a
cure? She'd already seen in their family therapy sessions that Monroe was a man who saw results much more clearly than he saw causes. “Mr. Monroe, Joey is an alcoholic, will always be an alcoholic whether he drinks or not. He's one of twenty-eight million children of alcoholics in this country. One third of them become alcoholics themselves, as Joey has.”

“But he's not drinking,” Monroe persisted.

“No, he's not.” She linked her fingers, laid them on the blotter, and tried again. “He is not consuming alcohol, he's not altering his reality with alcohol, but he has yet to deal with his dependency, and more importantly, the reasons for it. He is not getting drunk, Mr. Monroe, but the alcohol was a cover-up and an offshoot of other problems. He can't control or blanket those problems with liquor anymore, and now they're overwhelming him. He shows no anger, Mr. Monroe, no rage, and very little grief, though it's all bottled inside of him. Children of alcoholics often take on the responsibility for their parent's illness.”

Uncomfortable and impatient, Monroe shifted in his chair. “You've explained that before.”

“Yes, I have. Joey resents his father, and to a great extent he resents his mother because both of them let him down. His father with his drinking, his mother with her preoccupation with his father's drinking. Because he loves them, he's turned this resentment onto himself.”

“Lois did her best.”

“Yes, I'm sure she did. She's a remarkably strong woman. Unfortunately, Joey doesn't have her strength. Joey's depression has reached a dangerous stage, a critical stage. I can't tell even you what was discussed or what was said in our recent sessions, but I can tell you I'm more concerned than ever over his emotional state. He's in such pain. At this point I'm doing little more than
soothing the pain so that he can get through the week until I can soothe it again. Joey feels his life is worthless, that he's failed as a son, as a friend, as a person.”

“The divorce—”

“Divorce batters the children involved. The extent of which depends on the state of mind the children are in at the time, the way the divorce is handled, the emotional strength of the individual child. For some it can be as devastating as a death. There's usually a period of grief, of bitterness, even of denial. Self-blame is common. Mr. Monroe, it's been nearly three years since your wife separated from Joey's father. His obsession with the divorce and his part in it isn't normal. It's become a springboard for all of his problems.”

She paused a moment, and linked her hands together again. “His alcoholism is painful. Joey feels he deserves the pain. In fact, he appreciates it in the way a small child appreciates being disciplined for breaking the rules. The discipline, the pain, makes him feel a part of society, while at the same time, the alcoholism itself makes Joey feel isolated from society. He's learned to depend on this isolation, on seeing himself as different, not quite as good as everyone else. Particularly you.”