Galileo

by Ann McMan

  “What can I do?” Kayla asked.

  Julia handed her a corkscrew. “How about you start by opening the bottle you and Dan brought? I’ve got some hors d’oeuvres ready, too.”

  “Sure.” Kayla took the corkscrew from Julia but immediately set it down on the kitchen counter. “This one has a screw cap.” She held up the bottle. “I’m sorry. But as hard as I try, Dan clings to his proletarian tastes when it comes to wine.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m certain it’ll be delicious.”

  “I admire your optimism.” Kayla cracked open the bottle.

  Julia studied her without being too obvious. She really was a pretty young woman. Striking, actually, with her long, fair hair and athletic build. It was easy to see how she’d turned Dan’s head. The bigger surprise was how much gravitas she had. Julia felt confident that Kayla’s journalistic aspirations would pay off eventually—especially with a boost from the powerful connections Dan had on Capitol Hill.

  It was that very suspicion that kept hamstringing Evan. As much as she tried, Evan said she couldn’t shake her fear that Kayla—whether wittingly or unwittingly—was using Dan as a stepping-stone to greener pastures. She didn’t want that for Dan, and she certainly didn’t want that for Stevie, who seemed genuinely to be forming an attachment to Kayla.

  Julia chose to adopt a more sanguine point of view. She saw no evidence that Kayla was not genuinely attached to Dan—although she was the first to admit that she’d spent little focused time with either of them since they got married. She hoped that would change now that she’d be living here with Evan and Stevie.

  That thought made her smile.

  Kayla noticed. “You seem lost in thought.”

  “Do I? It’s my turn to apologize for allowing myself to be distracted.”

  Julia carried a tray loaded with wineglasses over to the counter where Kayla had set the open bottle of wine. “Maybe we should go ahead and fill these?” she suggested. “Give it a chance to breathe a bit.”

  Kayla laughed. “Are you kidding? Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation wouldn’t help this wine. Want my advice?”

  “Sure.”

  “I say let’s fill Dan’s glass with this vinegar and open something else. He’ll never know the difference, and I have reason to suspect that you and Evan have better palates.”

  Julia was amused. “Did some little bird tell you that?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Kayla nodded. “My hope is that this is not a characteristic Stevie inherits from her father.”

  Julia went to Evan’s small wine refrigerator and drew out a nice Cotes du Rhone. It was a good drinker—a Vacqueyras. Jammy, but not too spicy. It was one of their favorites. She held it up for Kayla.

  “How about this one?”

  “Hell to the yes.” Kayla nodded energetically. “Gimme.” She fluttered her fingers toward the bottle.

  Julia passed it over to her. “We’ve got a few more of these, too, should we need them.”

  Kayla was already cutting the foil. “Trust me, we’ll need them. He’s in a mood today. It’s this damn Cawley business.”

  “Evan said the timetable is pretty compressed.”

  “That’s one way to describe it. It’s probably the world’s worst-kept secret that Cawley was making the rounds on Capitol Hill all last week. The judiciary committee is planning to vote on his nomination as early as Thursday or Friday.”

  “Next week?” Julia was surprised. This would not be welcome news to Evan.

  “Uh huh. Those fossilized assholes want to be sure to get their hand-picked ideologue on the court before they blow town on the 17th.”

  “Does Evan know this?”

  “The date?” Kayla asked. “I think so. I know it’s part of what Dan plans to talk with her about today. That’s why he acted like such a jerk when we arrived and she wasn’t here.”

  “I really do expect her any minute,” Julia reiterated. “It’s not like her to be late . . . for anything, really.”

  Kayla nodded. “Stevie talks about that proclivity of her mother’s with fondness.”

  “Fondness?” Julia quoted. “I don’t doubt she talks about it, but I suspect it’s with something other than fondness.”

  “You’re right. I lied.” Kayla began pouring the Vacqueyras. “Good god, this is gorgeous.” She gave Julia an intent look. “Can we just keep this for ourselves?”

  “Works for me.”

  The door to the back porch opened, and Stevie erupted into the room with her customary flourish. Tim, Dan and Evan followed behind her more sedately.

  “Too late,” Julia whispered to Kayla. “We’re busted.”

  “Busted about what?” Stevie promptly began counting wineglasses. She looked at Julia with disappointment. “There’s one missing.”

  “Yeah,” Julia held up a hand. “You’ll have to ask your mom about that one.”

  “Seriously?” Stevie sighed dramatically. “Beloved Mama Uno?” She addressed Evan. “May I please have a glass of Dad’s wine, too?”

  Evan walked over and gave Julia a quick kiss. She shook Kayla’s hand warmly. “I’m so sorry I’m late. It’s really good to see you, Kayla.”

  Kayla handed Evan a glass. “No sweat. Stuff happens.”

  “Mom? Hello?” Stevie snapped her fingers between the two women. “May I please have some of Dad’s wine?”

  Evan examined the two open bottles. Then she chuckled and looked slyly at both Kayla and Julia. “Sure, honey. You’re welcome to have a small glass of your dad’s wine. Right, Kayla?”

  “Absolutely. Stellar idea, Evan.” Kayla picked up Dan’s nine-dollar bottle of . . . something, and held it aloft. “Grab a glass, young lady.”

  “Yeah,” Dan groused. He faced Evan. “I hate to be the one to break up this little love fest, but since you’ve finally consented to join us, I need about twenty minutes of your time to talk shop.”

  “Can it wait two seconds, Dan?” Evan asked.

  “No. It fucking cannot wait two seconds. If it could, I wouldn’t need to talk to you right now, would I?”

  “Geez, Dad. Throw a rod, why don’t you.” Stevie sniffed her glass of wine and promptly made a face.

  “Drink your wine, Stevie,” Dan said dismissively. “We’ll be right back.”

  Kayla handed Evan a glass. “You’ll need this,” she said. She also handed Dan the glass she’d poured from his bottle.

  Dan took it from her, then grabbed Evan by the elbow and steered her out of the kitchen.

  “I guess we’ll be in my office,” Evan called over her shoulder. “Don’t say anything important until we get back.”

  Tim munched on some canapés Julia had made. “These little blended family gatherings are always so much fun.”

  “This smells like piss.” Stevie put her glass down, then shoved it another two feet away. “Like day-old potato salad that’s been left out in the sun.” She faced Julia. “Mom did that on purpose.”

  “Hey.” Kayla took Stevie’s discarded glass to the sink and dumped it out. After giving it a good rinse, she brought it back and refilled it with the Rhone. “You saw nothing,” she cautioned.

  “Yeah.” Tim laughed. “No worries, Kayla. When it comes to hooch, she’s a regular Sergeant Schultz.”

  “Who’s that, Timbo?” Stevie sniffed her new glass of wine and made happy sounds. “This is more like it.”

  “Sergeant Schultz was a character on . . . Who cares? You still won’t know what it means.” He picked up another canapé. “These things are great. Where’d you get ’em, Julia?”

  “Prepare yourself for a stunning revelation, Tim. I made them.”

  “Really?” Tim seemed genuinely surprised. “Evan says you can barely boil water.”

  Julia rolled her eyes. “Evan thinks anyone who cannot properly dice an onion is some kind of simpleton. But however challenged I am in the culinary arts, I do have some modest claims to fame when it comes to the preparation of appetizers. Credit my miserable youth and the endless weeks I
spent at summer camp.”

  “You went to summer camps that taught you how to make appetizers?” Stevie was incredulous. “We just learned how to roll joints and use condoms.”

  Julia laughed. “You say tomato . . .”

  “Nothing beats a Catholic education,” Tim commiserated. “So, is there any more wine that Dan didn’t bring?”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  It only took Evan about five minutes to bring Dan up to speed on what had happened since they last spoke after Ben Rush’s trip to North Warren. She could tell he was concerned about the Joey Mazzetta development, but he was unwilling to pass any of the information about her suspicions along to the senators leading the opposition against Cawley’s nomination.

  “At this point, it’s nothing but supposition,” he said. “Without any kind of corroboration or hard evidence, it’s nothing we can use.”

  Evan was as frustrated as he was. “You think I don’t know that? I’m trying to follow these leads, but they keep expanding so fast, I can’t keep up with them. It’s like playing Vatican whack-a-mole.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Evan ticked the items off. “The bishop. The relationship between the boys on the St. Rita’s basketball team and Cawley’s club. The odd coincidence that Edwin Miller showed up in the photo of Cawley at the club with both the bishop and some of the team members. The fact that the only people who might be in a position to clarify any of this keep managing to turn up dead. And while we’re on it, let’s not forget the special insights I got from my anonymous little pen pal, Moxie.”

  Dan held up his hands. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that this stinks, Dan. There’s some way Cawley is more involved with the bishop and those kids that extends beyond his dropping off the occasional check for new sports equipment or bus rides to basketball camp. I know it. We’re talking about kids who were routinely targeted for sexual favors by their damn priest—and God knows who else. Szymanski used this parish like it was some kind of private game preserve. And let’s not diminish the fact that this reprobate is now a bishop in the Philadelphia archdiocese—one who probably has a lot of motivation to keep his extracurricular activities under wraps. And that’s especially true now, after the grand jury report came out and started naming names.”

  “I get that. But what has this got to do with Cawley? And don’t tell me about your fucking women’s intuition. That shit won’t stop his nomination, and you know it.”

  She did know it. And that made her angrier than she was already.

  “Screw you, Dan. I’m doing my best to try and nail it down. But it’s a little tough when all the damn witnesses end up dead.”

  “Will you fucking sit down?”

  Evan dropped into her desk chair with a huff. “The homicide detective I talked with this morning told me that Mazzetta went to Cawley’s private club before he was killed. He was drunk and started mouthing off in the dining room about some of the members.” She glared at Dan. “You think it’s some kind of happy coincidence that Szymanski happens to be a member of the same private club as the judge?”

  “Look.” Dan’s tone was a tad more conciliatory. “I agree that this stinks. And if you ask me, the slimy fucker is in it up to his comb-over. But unless or until you can get somebody on the record, or come up with photos of some kid sitting on Cawley’s face, he’s gonna sail through that senate committee less than a week from now, and take his seat on the high court—forever and ever, amen.”

  Evan was sickened by Dan’s comment. Even though she knew him, it was still possible for her to be shocked by such a callous demonstration of his empathetic myopia.

  “These were kids, Dan. Kids who were betrayed and sexually abused by someone they should’ve been able to trust. Their lives were changed forever. Some of them will never recover. Some of them, like Joey Mazzetta, will never even get the chance to try. You might think about that the next time you decide to dismiss their lives out of hand because they can’t be useful to your cause.”

  “Hey. Back the fuck off. It’s not just ‘my’ cause. You think any of their lives will be improved if assholes like Cawley get lifetime judicial appointments? To be good at this job, I have to have ‘empathetic myopia,’ as you call it. Otherwise, we’d never win at anything. And, P.S? Don’t bite the hand that fucking feeds you.”

  “Right,” Evan said, sarcastically. “You’ve got a great track record, Dan. Except for a few tiny lapses now and then—like back in Pennsylvania, when you didn’t stop Marcus from concealing the unsavory truth I’d uncovered about Edwin Miller.”

  Dan was plainly beyond pissed at her. His face was turning purple. He slammed his glass down on an end table so hard the stem snapped and cheap wine went everywhere—including all over his trousers.

  “Godfuckingdamnit!” He jumped up and brushed wildly at his pants.

  Evan bolted to her feet and rushed over to where he stood. All she could see was red liquid flying all over the place, and she wasn’t sure if he’d managed to cut himself in the process of dropping what was left of the wineglass.

  “Jesus, Dan! Are you all right? Did you cut yourself?” She reached for his hand. There were no visible signs of cuts. “God. Let me go get some towels.”

  She turned to head toward the downstairs powder room, but he caught hold of her hand to stop her.

  “I’m sorry, Evan.” He looked like he meant it. “I do care about what happened to those kids. If somebody did that to Stevie, I’d kill them with my bare hands.”

  Evan gave his soggy fingers a squeeze. “I know that. I’m sorry, too. This business is really getting to me.”

  She hadn’t even told him the part about Julia’s father—or Tim’s struggle with leaving the Church.

  And now she was nearly out of time. Four more days? It was insane. She’d never be able to deliver any hard proof before the Senate voted to send Cawley on his merry way.

  Hard proof? That was a joke. Hard proof of what? That was the confounding part. She didn’t even know what questions to ask to find what ‘hard proof’ there was to find.

  But she agreed with Dan about one thing: Cawley was wrapped up in all of this.

  And she was running out of time to prove it.

  “Screw this mess,” she said to Dan. “Let’s go get more wine.”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful.

  Tim stayed on for another hour after Evan and Dan rejoined the group, then made his excuses and headed back to St. Rita’s.

  “I gotta work tomorrow,” he said. “And it might be a good idea to shave before I show up for Mass.”

  “Yeah,” Stevie nodded. “That whole Wolfman Jack thing you’ve got going on ain’t a-workin’.”

  “Wolfman Jack?” Tim asked. “You have no clue who Sergeant Schultz is but you know about Wolfman Jack?”

  “Of course,” Stevie declared. “We stream him on Spotify.”

  Tim squinted at her. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Nope. That voice kept meat and potatoes on Mrs. Wolfman’s table for years.”

  “And with that,” Tim said, “I am outta here.”

  “Shoot us a text when you get home?” Evan asked.

  Tim nodded at her. “Thanks,” he looked at Julia, “both of you. I mean it.”

  Stevie’s cell phone rang as Tim was leaving.

  “It’s Des,” she said. “I’m taking this one upstairs.” She answered the call. “Hey. Lemme call you right back—I’m saying good-bye to Dad and Kayla.”

  “You are?” Dan asked.

  Stevie disconnected. “Well, yeah. Aren’t you picking me up on Tuesday?”

  “Yes, we are,” Kayla replied. She nudged Dan. “Say good-bye to your daughter.”

  Dan got to his feet so he could hug Stevie. “Why am I always the last one to know what’s going on?”

  “Because you’re clueless.” Stevie hugged him back, before walking over to kiss Kayla on the cheek. “See you on Tuesday.
We’re still doing Alice Glass, right?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Kayla nodded. “I’ve already got the tickets.”

  “Sweet.” Stevie headed for the stairs, which she took two at a time.

  Dan faced Kayla. “Who the hell is Alice Glass?”

  Evan answered for her. “I think she’s the musical love child of Joan Jett and Morrissey.”

  Kayla leaned forward and high-fived Evan.

  Dan still looked confused.

  “More wine, Dan?” Julia asked.

  He looked at his watch. “No. Thanks, Julia. We need to shove off, too. I gotta be on the Hill by seven.”

  Kayla stood up beside him.

  “I’m so happy you both got to come by today,” Julia said. “I know it meant the world to Stevie.”

  Dan looked up the stairs. “All appearances to the contrary.”

  “Stop sulking.” Kayla elbowed him. “She’s going to be staying with us the rest of the week. You can put her cell phone in the freezer . . . with mine.”

  “I don’t put your cell phone in the freezer.”

  Kayla looked at Evan. “This is my struggle.”

  Evan laughed. “Been there, bought the T-shirt.”

  “I never put anybody’s cell phone in the freezer . . .” Dan continued to complain.

  Kayla took him by the arm. “Let’s go, Heathcliff.”

  “You let me know what you find out tomorrow night.” Dan said to Evan. “Time is money.”

  She nodded. She’d earlier filled him in on the after-hours visit she and Ben had planned to the office of the attorneys who set up the pro-Cawley PAC.

  Dan and Kayla made their way outside and climbed into Dan’s ancient Chrysler. The big engine nagged a few times before thundering to life and belching a dense cloud of black smoke into the air.

  Evan grimaced. “That thing is a damn menace. I don’t know how it keeps passing inspection.”

  “I guess he knows people in high places,” Julia mused. “Or there’s always the classic approach men are prone to take to protect the things they love.”

  “What’s that?”