Strangers (74 page)

He left the windowless office, crossed a windowless outer chamber, walked a windowless hall, and entered the windowless communications center, where Lieutenant Horner and Sergeant Fixx sat at a table in one corner. “Tell the men they can hit the sack,” Leland said. “It’s off for tonight. I’ll risk another day to see if the situation at Sharkle’s house gets resolved.”

“I was just coming to you,” Horner said. “There’s a development at the motel. They finally left the diner. After they came out, Twist brought a Jeep Cherokee in from the hills behind the motel. He, Jorja Monatella, and the priest piled in it and drove off toward Elko.”

“Where the hell are they going at this time of night?” Leland asked, uncomfortably aware that those three might have slipped through his fingers if he
had
ordered his men to move against the motel tonight, for he’d been certain the witnesses were settled down until morning.

Horner pointed to Fixx, who was wearing headphones and listening to the Tranquility. “From what we’ve heard, the others are going to bed. Twist, Monatella, and Cronin have gone off as…as sort of insurance against us getting our hands on all the witnesses in one quick clean sweep. This had to be Twist’s idea.”

“Damn.” Massaging his throbbing temples with his fingertips, Leland sighed. “All right. We aren’t going after them tonight, anyway.”

“But what about tomorrow? What if they split up all day tomorrow?”

“In the morning,” Leland said, “we’ll put tails on all of them.” To this point, he had seen no need to tail the witnesses everywhere they went, for he had known that, in the end, they would all wind up at the same place—the motel—making it easier for him to deal with them. But now, if they were going to be spread out when the time came to take them into custody, he would need to know where they were at all times.

Horner said, “Depending on where they go tomorrow, they’re likely to spot any tails we put on them. In this kind of open country, it’s not easy to be discreet.”

“I know,” Leland said. “So let them see us. I’ve wanted to stay out of sight, but we’re at the end of that approach. Maybe seeing us will throw them off balance until it’s too late. Maybe, scared, they’ll even get back together for protection and make our job easier again.”

“If we have to take some of them at a place other than the motel, say in Elko, it’ll be difficult,” Horner said worriedly.

“If they can’t be taken, they’ve got to be killed.” Leland pulled up a chair, sat down. “Let’s work out surveillance details now and have the tails in position before dawn.”

3
Tuesday, January 14

At seven-thirty Tuesday morning, in response to a telephone call from Brendan Cronin very late the previous night, Father Stefan Wycazik prepared to set out on a drive to Evanston, to the last known address of Calvin Sharkle, the trucker who had been at the Tranquility Motel that summer but whose telephone was now disconnected. In light of the enormity of last evening’s developments in Nevada, everyone was agreed that every possible effort must be made to contact the other victims who had thus far been unreachable. Standing in the warm rectory kitchen, Stefan buttoned his topcoat and put on his fedora.

Father Michael Gerrano, who was just sitting down to oatmeal and
toast after celebrating sunrise Mass, said, “Perhaps I should know more about this whole situation, about what on earth’s wrong with Brendan, in case…well, in case something happens to you.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” Father Wycazik said firmly. “God hasn’t let me spend five decades learning how the world works just to have me killed now that I’m able to do my best work for the Church.”

Michael shook his head. “You’re always so…”

“Certain in my faith? Of course I am. Rely on God, and He will never fail you, Michael.”

“Actually,” Michael said, smiling, “I was going to say: You’re always so bullheaded.”

“Such impudence from a curate!” Stefan said, winding a thick white scarf around his neck. “Attend thee, Father: What is wanted of a curate is humility, self-effacement, the strong back of a mule, the stamina of a plow horse—and an unfailingly adoring attitude toward his rector.”

Michael grinned. “Oh, yes, I suppose if the rector is a pious old geezer grown vain from the praise of his parishioners—”

The telephone rang.

“If it’s for me, I’m gone,” Stefan said.

Stefan pulled on a pair of gloves but was not quite able to make it to the back door before Michael held the receiver toward him.

“It’s Winton Tolk,” Michael said. “The cop whose life Brendan saved. He sounds almost hysterical, and he wants to talk to Brendan.”

Stefan took the phone and identified himself.

The policeman’s voice was haunted and full of urgency. “Father, I’ve got to talk to Brendan Cronin right away, it can’t wait.”

“I’m afraid he’s away,” Stefan said, “out at the other end of the country. What’s the matter? Can I be of assistance?”

“Cronin,” Tolk said shakily. “Something…something’s happened, and I don’t understand, it’s strange, Jesus, it’s the strangest craziest thing, but I knew right away it was somehow related to Brendan.”

“I’m sure I can help. Where are you, Winton?”

“On duty, end of the shift, graveyard shift, Uptown. There’s been a knifing, a shooting. Horrible. And then…Listen, I want Cronin to come up here, he’s got to explain this, he’s got to, right away.”

Father Wycazik elicited an address from Tolk, left the rectory at a run, and drove too fast. Less than half an hour later, he arrived in a block of identical, shabby, six-story, brick tenements in the Uptown district. He was unable to park in front of the address he had been given and settled for a spot near the corner, for the prime space was occupied by police vehicles—marked and unmarked cars, an SID wagon—whose radios filled the cold air with a metallic chorus of dispatchers’ codes and jargon.
Two officers were watching over the vehicles to prevent vandalism. In answer to Stefan’s question, they told him the action was on the third floor, in 3-B, the Mendozas’ apartment.

The glass in the front door was cracked across one corner, and the temporary repair with electrician’s tape looked as if it had become a permanent solution. The door opened on a grim foyer. Some floor tiles were missing and others were hidden by grime. The paint was peeling.

As he climbed the stairs, Stefan encountered two beautiful children playing “dead doll” with a battered Raggedy Ann and an old shoebox.

When he walked through the open door and into the Mendozas’ third-floor apartment, Father Wycazik saw a beige sofa liberally stained with still-wet blood, so much that in some places the cushions were almost black. Hundreds of drops had sprayed across the pale-yellow wall behind the sofa, a pattern that evidently had resulted when someone in front of the wall had been hit by large-caliber slugs that passed through him. Four bullet holes marred the plaster. Blood was spattered over a lampshade, coffee table, bookshelf, and part of the carpet.

The gore was even more disgusting than it might ordinarily have been because the apartment was otherwise extremely well-kept, which made the areas of bloody chaos more shocking by comparison. The Mendozas could afford to live only in a slum tenement, but like some other poor people, they refused to surrender to—or become part of—the Uptown squalor. The filth of the streets, the grime of public hallways and staircases, stopped at their door, as if their apartment was a fortress against dirt, a shrine to cleanliness and order. Everything gleamed.

Removing his fedora, Stefan took only two steps into the living room—which flowed without interruption into a small dining area, which itself was separated from a half-size kitchen by a serving counter. The place was crowded with detectives, uniformed officers, lab technicians—maybe a dozen men altogether. Most of them were not acting like cops. Their demeanor puzzled Stefan. Apparently, the lab men had completed their work and the others had nothing to do, yet no one was leaving. They were standing in groups of two or three, talking in the subdued manner of people at a funeral parlor—or in church.

Only one detective was working. He was sitting at the dinette table with a Madonna-faced Latino woman of about forty, asking questions of her (Father Wycazik heard him call her Mrs. Mendoza), and recording her answers on legal-looking forms. She was trying to cooperate but was distracted as she glanced repeatedly at a man her own age, probably her husband, who was pacing back and forth with a child in his arms. The child was a cute boy of about six. Mr. Mendoza held the child in one burly arm, talking constantly to him, patting him, ruffling his thick hair.
Obviously, this man had almost lost his son in whatever violence had occurred here, and he needed to touch and hold the child to convince himself that the worst had not actually happened.

One of the patrolmen noticed Stefan and said, “Father Wycazik?”

The officer’s voice was soft, but at the mention of Stefan’s name, the entire group fell silent. Stefan could not remember ever seeing expressions quite like those that came over the faces of the people in the Mendozas’ small apartment: as if he were expected to deliver unto them a single sentence that would shed light upon all the mysteries of existence and succinctly convey the meaning of life.

What in the world is going on here? Stefan wondered uneasily.

“This way, Father,” said a uniformed officer.

Pulling off his gloves, Stefan followed the officer across the room. The hush prevailed, and everyone made way for the priest and his guide. They went into a pin-neat bedroom, where Winton Tolk and another officer were sitting on the edge of the bed. “Father Wycazik’s here,” Stefan’s guide said, then retreated to the living room.

Tolk was sitting bent forward, his elbows on his knees, his face hidden in his hands. He did not look up.

The other officer rose from the edge of the bed and introduced himself as Paul Armes, Winton’s partner. “I…I think you’d better get it directly from Win,” Armes said. “I’ll give you some privacy.” He left, closing the door behind him.

The bedroom was small, with space for only the bed, one nightstand, a half-size dresser, one chair. Father Wycazik pulled the chair around to face the foot of the bed and sat down, so he could look directly at Winton Tolk. Their knees were almost touching.

Removing his scarf, Father Wycazik said, “Winton, what’s happened?”

Tolk looked up, and Stefan was startled by the man’s expression. He had thought Tolk was upset by whatever had happened in the living room. But his face revealed that he was exhilarated, filled with an excitement he could barely contain. Simultaneously, he seemed fearful—not terrified, not quaking with fear, but troubled by something that prevented him from giving in completely, happily, to his excitement.

“Father, who is Brendan Cronin?” The tremor in the big man’s voice was of an odd character that might have betrayed either incipient joy or terror. “
What
is Brendan Cronin?”

Stefan hesitated, decided on the full truth. “He’s a priest.”

Winton shook his head. “But that’s not what we were told.”

Stefan sighed, nodded. He explained about Brendan’s loss of faith and about the unconventional therapy that had included a week in a police patrol car. “You and Officer Armes weren’t told he was a priest
because you might’ve treated him differently…and because I wished to spare him embarrassment.”

“A fallen priest,” Winton said, looking baffled.

“Not fallen,” Father Wycazik said confidently. “Merely faltering. He’ll regain his faith in time.”

The room’s inadequate light came from a dim lamp on the nightstand and from a single narrow window, leaving the dark policeman in velvet gloom. The whites of his eyes were twin lamps, very bright by contrast with the darknesses of shadows and genetic heritage. “How did Brendan heal me when I was shot? How did he perform that…miracle?
How?
”

“Why have you decided it was a miracle?”

“I was shot twice in the chest, point-blank. Three days later I left the hospital. Three days! In ten days, I was ready to go back to work, but they made me stay home two weeks. Doctors kept talking about my hardy physical condition, the extraordinary healing that’s possible if a body’s in tip-top shape. I started thinking they were trying to explain my recovery not to me but to themselves. But I still figured I was just really lucky. I came back to work a week ago, and then…something else happened.” Winton unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it open, and lifted his undershirt to reveal his bare chest. “The scars.”

Father Wycazik shivered. Though he was close to Winton, he leaned closer, staring in amazement. The man’s chest was unmarked. Well, not entirely unmarked, but the entry wounds had already healed until they were just discolored spots as big as dimes. The surgeon’s incisions had almost vanished—thin lines visible now only on close inspection. This soon after major trauma, some swelling and inflammation should have been evident, but there was none. The minimal scar tissue was pale pink-brown against dark-brown skin, neither lumpy nor puckered.

“I’ve seen other guys with old bullet wounds,” Winton said, his excitement still restrained by a rope of fear. “Lots of them. Gnarly, thick. Ugly. You don’t take two .38s in the chest, undergo major surgery, and look like
this
three weeks later—or ever.”

“When’s the last time you visited your doctor? Has he seen this?”

Winton rebuttoned his shirt with trembling hands. “I saw Dr. Sonneford a week ago. The sutures hadn’t been removed long before, and my chest was still a mess. It’s only been the past four days that the scars melted away. I swear, Father, if I stand at a mirror long enough, I can
see
them fading.”

Finishing with his shirt buttons, Winton said, “Lately, I’ve been thinking about your visit to the hospital Christmas Day. The more I’ve gone over it in my mind, the more it seems your behavior was peculiar. I remember some of what you said, some of the questions you asked about
Brendan, and I start wondering.…One thing I wonder about—one thing I’ve got to know—is whether Brendan Cronin ever healed anyone else.”

“Yes. Nothing as dramatic as your case. But there’s another. I’m…not at liberty to reveal who,” Stefan said. “But this isn’t why you called the rectory, Winton. Not to show Brendan how well you’ve healed. Your voice was so full of urgency, even panic. And what about all these policemen with the Mendozas…? What’s happened here, Winton?”