by Alex Kava
“Any plans for tomorrow?” she asked instead.
“Actually, a friend called this morning and we’re thinking about trying out that new nightclub. How about you?”
“I’m hoping to catch up on some rest.”
“That’s probably a good idea. You’ve been looking kind of…well, not quite yourself. Are you okay?”
“Yes, of course. Just a bit tired. I need a day off.”
“Okay. Well, I hope you have a restful day off.”
“Thanks, Dena.”
“I’ll see you on Monday. Oh, wait, I almost forgot.” She left the door open and Gwen could hear her scurry back into the reception area, probably to her desk. Seconds later she came in with a manila envelope.
“This was left for you.”
Gwen watched her place the envelope on the corner of her desk. She could see there was no return address, no indication who it was from, but already she knew, and immediately she felt as if the air had been knocked out of her.
“Did you see who left it?”
“No. It must have been when I was fixing coffee or maybe when I stepped out to make copies.”
“What time?”
“Excuse me?”
“What time did you notice it?”
Gwen tried to get rid of the alarm from her voice, but she may not have been as successful as she’d like to be, because Dena was looking at her with concern.
“Gosh, I’m not sure exactly. It was between Mr. Rubin’s and Mr. Campion’s appointments.”
Gwen tried not to stare at the envelope. Of course, he must have brought it with him. But wasn’t that a bit risky, or perhaps ballsy was a better term? Would he actually bring it with him and simply place it on her receptionist’s desk? Could he have slipped this time and left his fingerprints on it? Surely he wouldn’t have worn gloves in the July heat.
“Is it something important?”
Gwen had briefly forgotten about Dena and did her best not to let it show on her face. She shrugged as if it were no big deal. “I doubt it. If it was important, the person who left it wouldn’t have just placed it on your desk without an explanation, right?”
“I suppose. And I really wasn’t gone that long to make the coffee, although that new contraption you bought takes a little more time.” She smiled as if to make sure Gwen knew she was only joking, giving her a hard time about the fancy gourmet coffeemaker Gwen had made a fuss over. “So I’ll see you on Monday.”
But Dena stayed in the doorway and when Gwen didn’t respond, she added, “Maybe you should take off and get started on that relaxing time.”
Gwen glanced up at the girl and returned her smile. She was the first one she had hired in years who seemed to have a genuine concern for her. Others had been wonderfully precise—not one of Dena’s top skills—but they lacked what Gwen could only describe as warmth, something she believed essential for the person outside her office door who greeted and cared for the mentally fragile patients who sometimes came through those doors.
“I’ll take that under serious consideration. Now, go get out of here and enjoy what’s left of your weekend.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
And she left, gently closing the door behind her. For a moment Dena had almost made her forget about the envelope.
She picked it up by a corner with only her forefinger and thumb, careful in case there were fingerprints. She hadn’t noticed the slight bulge at the bottom. With her other hand she reached for a letter opener and tucked it under one of the flaps, holding firm as she slit the envelope open. Then she took a deep breath and turned the envelope over, letting the contents slide to the top of her desk. This time there was no note and she even peeked inside to make sure it didn’t get stuck to one of the sides. The only thing in front of her was the bulge, a plastic bag, zipped shut, the contents of which looked like a single gold earring.
CHAPTER 19
Omaha, Nebraska
Nick knew he should wait.
He grasped the steering wheel a bit too tight, took the left turn a little too wide. He wasn’t even sure why he was angry, but he knew he should wait until he calmed down. It would be better if he and Tony sat down across a table from each other, over a cup of coffee or maybe even a beer. It would be better if he waited.
He glanced at Tony who was staring out the passenger window of the rental car. That was one bad thing about his trips back to Nebraska. He missed his Jeep. There was a lot of thinking a guy could do taking the long way home in his Jeep. He could let off some steam by getting off the beaten path, kicking up some dirt, feeling the challenge of some rocks and mud beneath him. It just didn’t work in a rented Oldsmobile Alero.
The Jeep wasn’t the only thing he missed. Over the last several years there were plenty of things that made him feel as if he was split between two homes, maybe even two worlds. Some days his move to Boston felt like the right choice, the best thing that had happened to him. It had allowed him to get out from under his father’s shadow and expectations. Besides, he liked his job as deputy prosecutor for Suffolk County. He had met some incredible people, including Jill. But on days like today, it felt as though he had never left Nebraska, that it simply wasn’t possible when there were still so many connections, so many pieces of himself that had stayed behind. So much of who he used to be still floated to the surface, despite his attempt to change and to move on. His impatience—as he was certain his sister, Christine, would be happy to agree—was one of those flaws.
“What the hell’s going on?” Nick blurted out, deciding he couldn’t wait.
“Pretty weird, huh? That something like that could happen?”
“No, what’s weird is that you think you can pull something over on me.”
“Excuse me?”
Finally he had his friend’s attention diverted from the passing scenery.
“Detectives Carmichael and Pakula might have let you get away with all that dancing around because they don’t know you. I know you, Tony. You’re not fooling me. And you know what, you didn’t fool those detectives, either. They’ll be bringing you in again for more questioning.”
“What are you talking about? I already answered all their questions.”
“Oh, yeah, you answered their questions, all right. You know what it reminded me of?” Nick tried to calm his anger down a notch. “Remember in sixth grade when we kidnapped Mrs. Wilkes’s antique vase off her desk because she always made us come up with those stupid poems about it?”
“They were supposed to be haiku.”
“Yeah, well, see, that’s even more lame.”
“I remember,” Tony said, but from the look on his face Nick could tell he had a different memory of the event, one that didn’t instill shame and guilt like Nick’s.
“We hated that ugly vase,” Nick continued. “We wanted it gone. But we really were just going to hide it in the closet for a while. Make her sweat, then find it and be her heroes.”
“Still sounds like a brilliant idea,” Tony said, laughing.
“Yeah, brilliant. Only you dropped it.”
“It slipped out of my hands.”
“And it shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.”
“It was an accident.”
“Principal Kramer called us into his office,” Nick said, now pleased that Tony’s renewed memory was not quite as pleasant as his initial one. His sudden defensive tone was accompanied by his arms crossed over his chest, and his interest in the scenery was no longer convincing. “He asked if we stole Mrs. Wilkes’s vase. You told him no. It wasn’t a lie because we called it kidnapping. He asked if we broke the vase. You told him no. That wasn’t a lie either because you accidentally dropped it. I felt like we were back in Principal Kramer’s office again. You sidestepped all of Detectives Carmichael’s and Pakula’s questions.”
He took a long glance at his friend, catching his eyes if only for a brief moment. “I gotta ask, Tony. What the hell are you lying about?”
Nick expected more sidesteppin
g. He expected Tony to get angry with him. Instead, he simply said, “I can’t tell you, Nick.” And he looked away, to stare back out the window, closing the subject and keeping Nick completely in the dark.
CHAPTER 20
Omaha, Nebraska
Gibson didn’t realize he had been sitting staring at the computer for what must have been hours. The game had come and gone and he had watched, not participating, not really even paying attention. It was the first time ever that he hadn’t played.
He heard the front door slam and searched for the time in the lower right-hand corner of his computer—5:25 p.m. His mom would be pissed. She’d go on and on about how worried she was that he was cooping himself up in his room. That he’d become a recluse like Emily Dickinson and die without anyone really knowing him. This week it was good ole Emily because his mom’s summer college class had been discussing dead poets. Several weeks ago she had compared him to some fourteen-year-old Palestinian boy terrorist whose tearful parents described him as always being so quiet and smart and keeping to himself until he walked into an Israeli café with enough dynamite strapped to his body to kill fifteen innocent people. There seemed to be a new comparison every other week.
His mom wasn’t like this when his dad was alive. At least Gibson didn’t remember her being like this—worried all the time about the littlest of things, the stupidest things. So tense and nervous that she couldn’t make a decision or stand up to even a rude grocery clerk who wouldn’t give her a discounted price. And now she cried all the time. At least she did at first. Maybe not so much anymore, not since the Zoloft.
He didn’t remember her ever crying when his dad was still alive. But then his dad had a way of making them all feel safe and secure. They didn’t need to worry as long as he was around. He just took care of things. He had been the strongest and most confident…the best man Gibson had ever known.
For Gibson it hadn’t just been about knowing that his dad could and would fix his broken bike or that he’d not be afraid to tell Mr. Fitz, the Nazi English teacher, that Gibson and the rest of his class needed more time for their assignments. It was more. It was a feeling that everything would be okay. A feeling of just plain old happiness. A feeling Gibson hadn’t felt since.
But then his dad had to go and get himself killed, getting in the way of some frickin’ drunk driver. And that’s when Monsignor O’Sullivan started calling Gibson into his office at school, claiming to be worried about him, wanting to make sure he was okay. He’d make Gibson pray with him. They’d recite the Our Father while the monsignor told him how special he was. He’d stand behind Gibson, leaning in against him so that sometimes Gibson could even smell the alcohol on his breath. He’d rub Gibson’s shoulders, his neck and then not just his shoulders and neck. The first time it happened, Gibson could hardly believe it.
He shook his head and pushed away from the computer. He didn’t want to think about it. It wasn’t right, no matter what the bastard said. It just wasn’t right. And he knew it. Why else would he insist Gibson tell no one? Only, who would he tell? He didn’t have anyone he could tell. Nobody’d believe him. Nobody, except The Sin Eater.
He heard firecrackers in the distance. Someone down the block. Maybe Tyler and his buddies. He couldn’t believe he had almost forgotten tomorrow was the Fourth of July. It used to be one of his favorite holidays. Now it was just a lot of irritating noise.
CHAPTER 21
Omaha, Nebraska
Nick smiled and waved, disguising his relief. Jill evidently didn’t notice. She climbed back into the BMW packed with four of her old college girlfriends. Her high from the engagement party continued. He’d never seen her like this—almost giddy. Maybe it was just being around her old friends. Whatever it was, Nick was quickly learning that he played a small role in this week’s events.
“So I guess you’re stuck with me tonight,” Christine said, coming out onto the porch of their parents’ farmhouse. She let the screen door slam behind her and handed him one of the two longneck beers in her hands.
He took her offering, moving over and making room for her next to him on the old wooden porch swing, setting it creaking and swinging. The beer was cold, the condensation wetting his fingers. It was just what he needed. He guzzled half the bottle before Christine’s sudden laughter made him stop.
“Is the prospect of spending an evening with your big sister that bad?”
“It’s been a helluva day,” he told her, but now he rolled the bottle between his hands, watching the amber liquid swish against the inside of the bottle. “How ’ bout I take you and Timmy out for pizza? Mom, too.”
“You can ask, but I think Mom’s pooped. And Timmy went with a couple of his friends to a movie.”
“What movie?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even care. It’s bad enough I had to bribe him to go. He’s been spending way too much time alone in his room on his computer.”
Nick glanced over at his sister, seeing her frustration. He knew it had to be tough raising a teenage boy all by herself. Christine complained about many things, but Timmy was rarely one of those. After her husband, Bruce, cheated on her a second time, Christine threw him out again, but this time with little of the fanfare or emotion of the first blowout. It was almost as if Christine had expected it, had prepared herself.
Sometimes Nick wondered if the emotion would catch up with her, sort of like an aftershock knocking her off her feet long after the initial impact. Christine had a way of reacting on impulse without thinking things through, without weighing the consequences. He hoped that wasn’t the case with Bruce, especially where Timmy was concerned. But then, who was he to judge? He certainly was no expert on relationships. After all, here he was an engaged guy, sitting on his parents’ front porch asking his sister to go get a pizza with him on a Saturday night.
“How did things go with Father Tony?”
“Are you asking as a friend of Tony’s or as a reporter?”
“Give me a break,” Christine said, but he recognized that faked, hurt look. Yet she diverted her eyes and was suddenly interested in the dust she brushed from the porch-swing arm. “I heard that Monsignor O’Sullivan may have been murdered, too much blood on the bathroom floor for a heart attack.”
“How did you already hear that?”
Now she gave him her eyes, only to roll them at him. “I work for the largest newspaper in the state. How do you think I found out?”
“Which brings me back to my original question. Are you asking about Tony as a friend or a reporter?”
“As a friend, stupid. I have other ways of finding out about the case. Come on, give me a break. It’s been almost four years.”
Nick took another gulp, watching her out of the corner of his eye, letting her know it wasn’t that easy to forget, to let bygones be bygones. Almost four years ago when he was sheriff of Platte City, she undermined a murder investigation—his investigation—using him to scoop her competition and to get front-page headlines and front-page bylines for herself.
“They just had some basic questions for Tony,” he said, carefully leaving out any information.
“Basic questions like who would want O’Sullivan dead?”
“Yeah. Basic questions like that.”
She shook her head at him and smiled, acknowledging that was all she was getting from him. Nick smiled back and took another swallow of beer. They knew each other too well. When had everything become a game with them? Two steps forward, three steps back—it was something his father always said, though Nick couldn’t remember at the time what his dad meant by it. Antonio Morrelli was the power broker of mind games. Or rather, he had been. There weren’t too many games the old man could play these days, lying in his bed, unable to move or speak, the massive stroke leaving him with eye movement his only communication tool.
“Actually I shouldn’t be telling you this,” Christine said, but paused, waiting for his attention. “We’ve been putting together a piece for the paper that involves the
Omaha Archdiocese. It involves O’Sullivan.”
She got his attention, just like she wanted. He couldn’t help wondering if this was what Tony couldn’t talk about.
“Involves the archdiocese in what exactly?” he asked, pretending it really didn’t matter to him.
“What else? The same thing that’s been plaguing the Catholic Church all over the country for the last several years.”
“You’re saying Monsignor O’Sullivan’s been abusing boys?”
“Keep it down,” Christine whispered, getting up from the porch swing to glance inside the house. “If Mom found out I was working on something that might go against the church, she’d be lighting candles for the salvation of my soul for weeks.” Satisfied that their mother wasn’t listening at the door, she leaned against the porch rail and took a sip of her beer before she continued. “A lot of what we have right now is considered speculation and rumor, because no one’s willing to go on the record.”
“Maybe no one’s willing to go on the record because it is speculation and rumor.” Nick wasn’t good at hiding his disdain for the news media, despite his sister being a part of that crazy world. And right now, he hated that Christine seemed willing to point to O’Sullivan’s death as proof of a bunch of rumors, some sort of way to validate a story she was trying to dig up. Hadn’t she learned anything from four years ago?
“Sometimes even the most outrageous rumors have a grain of truth to them.”
“And sometimes they’re simply started by bitter, vengeful people,” he added.
“Okay, then how about the rumor that O’Sullivan was taking secret documents with him to Rome and now all of a sudden they’re missing.”
