by Alex Kava
“Yes, but what no one seemed to notice or care about was that Father Michael Keller had suddenly disappeared. He left the country. Not even the Omaha Archdiocese knew why or where he had gone. They claimed there was no reassignment. It wasn’t like he had taken a leave of absence. He just disappeared.”
She paused and Pakula glanced at her. She stared out the windshield now, but seemed to be somewhere else, her hands in her lap, her fingers nagging at a loose thread on her jacket. She continued as if she needed to explain, “I tracked him for a while as best I could even though I had absolutely no jurisdiction to do so. He wasn’t implicated in the case in any way and he had left the country. All I had to go on were rumors. He fit the description of an American-speaking priest who suddenly showed up at a small parish in a poor village outside of Chiuchin, Chile. No sooner did I think I’d found him and he was gone again, on to some other little village.”
“How could he do that without the Catholic Church keeping track of him? What did he do, just show up and pretend to be the new priest?”
“From what I could find out, yes, I think that’s exactly what he was doing, probably what he’s still doing. Many of these poor villages haven’t had a priest for years. The people have to travel miles just to take part in a mass. Can you imagine a priest just coming into their village? They might not question it at all. They’d simply be glad to have him. They’d probably do anything and everything in order to keep him. Maybe even keep his presence secret.”
“Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the first time the bad guy got away.” Pakula flexed his shoulders. He’d wondered if he’d overdone it with the punching bag this morning.
“Maybe he hasn’t gotten away, after all.”
“Whadya mean?”
“That’s who called me right before we went into the school,” Maggie said.
“Holy crap! You’ve got to be kidding.” Then he remembered. “You said something about the list. He’s on it?”
“Yes,” she said, only now she was smiling.
“What the hell did he want?”
“Protection. And medical attention. He thinks the killer poisoned him.”
Pakula couldn’t believe it. “Why the hell does he think we’d protect him?”
“For one thing, he can tell us who else is on the list.”
“He has the list?”
“That’s what he says.”
“And you believe him?”
Maggie nodded. “He says Daniel Ellison is on it.”
Pakula stared at her until he realized they were approaching a stop sign. Keeping his eyes on the road, he said, “You already made a deal with this guy, didn’t you?” It wasn’t really a question.
“We should probably talk to Chief Ramsey about this,” she said calmly.
Pakula felt the sweat trickling down his back. He turned up the air-conditioning and flipped one of the vents to blast him in the face.
“We’ll have to do that later,” he told her. “We only have about a half hour before we meet with that snoopy reporter.” And he needed to keep focused. Actually what he needed was a break. This case kept getting more and more bizarre. “How ’ bout some lunch? Whadya think about splitting a pie at LaCasa’s. Best pizza around.”
“Italian sausage?”
“Only if we get to have Romano cheese.”
“Deal,” she said.
“Oh crap!” Pakula said, slapping his forehead. It hit him like a flash of lightning. “Hamilton? The kid. Morrelli’s nephew is Timmy Hamilton. And you asked him how his sister, Christine, was?”
“That’s right. What is it?”
“It just occurred to me and I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence—the snoopy reporter from the Omaha World Herald is Christine Hamilton.”
CHAPTER 58
Our Lady of Sorrow High School
Omaha, Nebraska
Gibson waited outside Sister Kate’s classroom for Timmy. He’d told Gibson that he was almost certain he recognized the woman who had been talking to Sister Kate earlier. He kept saying she was an FBI agent he knew. Yeah right, Gibson had wanted to say, but didn’t. He liked Timmy. And he liked having a friend.
Yesterday they discovered that they lived only about three blocks away from each other, so Gibson invited him to come over again and play some computer games. Now he wondered what was taking Timmy so long. Maybe he ran into the FBI lady. He had gone off to use the school’s ancient pay phone to ask his mom’s permission about going over to Gibson’s, which blew Gibson away. He couldn’t believe Timmy didn’t have a cell phone. Gibson thought he was the only teenager alive who didn’t have one.
He was actually feeling pretty good today. Sister Kate had taken more of an interest in his collection than he expected. She even praised him, telling him she was impressed that he had been able to find and barter such exquisite authentic pieces. She had actually called them exquisite. And she said she was impressed. Sister Kate was impressed with him and his collection. Yeah, it was a pretty good day. One of his best in a long time, probably since he helped her with her cataloging project.
Maybe he’d show Timmy the portfolio he found in his backpack. He was hoping that having Timmy there with him might give him the courage to go through the damn thing. He had carefully placed it in the back of his closet after he opened it and found Monsignor O’Sullivan’s name on one of the papers. He didn’t want to be reminded of the dead priest let alone go through some stupid papers about him.
He slung his backpack over his shoulder and leaned against the wall. Maybe Timmy had to get change from the office. The pay phone still took quarters. Probably not many like it left. Truly ancient. He smiled and thought Sister Kate should ask for it if and when the school ever replaced it.
“You, over there. What are you doing?”
Gibson straightened up and pushed away from the wall. It was the tall, hawk-nosed guy from Monsignor O’Sullivan’s office yesterday. And he was coming at Gibson, pointing a finger at him as if lasering him to the spot. It worked. Gibson couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe.
“What are you still doing here? Isn’t class over?”
“I…uh…” Gibson tried to answer but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“I saw you yesterday, right? You were snooping around Monsignor O’Sullivan’s office.”
The guy towered over him, looking down his nose, the finger still pointing, only now poking Gibson in the chest.
“Why are you still here?”
“I’m…uh, I’m waiting…”
“You’re meeting someone?” The guy looked around. “Maybe you’re meeting someone to make an exchange?”
“Huh?”
“Is this what you do after everyone’s gone? You make a few deals?”
The finger pokes emphasized “gone” and “deals.” Gibson didn’t know what the guy was talking about. His heart was beating so hard he felt sure it would explode with one more poke.
“What do you have in the backpack? Are there drugs in there? Is that what you’re waiting around for? To make a few deals? Open it up.”
Gibson held it even tighter. He knew they could do random searches, but this guy was scary. All Gibson wanted to do was find an opportunity to run.
“Do as I say.”
Gibson tried not to look him in the eyes, almost afraid they carried some sort of evil power. He should try to look at him, stare him down, make him think he wasn’t afraid, but he couldn’t do it. He was afraid.
“Give me the bag,” he said and reached for it. That’s when Gibson bolted to the left and tried to run. The guy held one of the backpack’s straps and he jerked Gibson with such strength it almost knocked him off his feet.
“What’s going on over there?” Gibson heard Father Tony’s voice, but he couldn’t see beyond the black frame of his captor.
“Everything’s under control,” the guy said in a voice that came nowhere near the tone he had just been using. It was almost soft and reassuring. And the tugging grip on
his backpack loosened a bit.
Gibson yanked completely free, twisting around the guy, missing a swipe of his clawing hand by inches. He ran down the steps. He didn’t bother to answer when Father Tony called out to ask if he was okay. Like who would Father Tony believe anyway? Gibson or the Darth Vader of Our Lady of Sorrow?
Gibson ran, hitting the bottom of the stairs, pushing open the lobby doors. He kept running, past the sidewalk, past the parking lot, not looking back.
CHAPTER 59
Saint Francis Center
Omaha, Nebraska
Maggie spotted Christine Hamilton, who waved at her and Pakula. Christine marched across the large room, weaving in between the long tables, each with a dozen or so volunteers on phones. When she finally reached them she gave Maggie a hug.
“Hi, Christine. It’s been a long time.”
“You look great,” she said, and to Pakula she offered her outstretched hand. “I’m Christine Hamilton. You must be Detective Pakula. Thanks for agreeing to meet here.”
“Detective Sassco assured me this was a fact-finding mission. No hidden agenda. No media tricks.”
“Believe me, Detective, I’m not the one with a hidden agenda. If anything, I’m the one trying to figure out what’s going on. Pretty much like you are.”
Maggie glanced at Pakula to see if he believed her, then back at Christine to see if she was being straight with them. Maggie couldn’t help remembering the last time, the case in Platte City when Christine, then a rookie reporter, had used anything and everything she could to make headlines. Her son’s kidnapping had straightened out her professional ethics. Of course it had. But the real question was, for how long?
“Let’s see what you’ve got for us,” Pakula said, nodding in the direction from where she had come, giving her the okay.
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with the center,” Christine asked as she started leading them slowly through the maze of tables. She had to speak louder to be heard over the ringing of phones and the buzz from the surrounding conversations. “The Saint Francis Center started as a women and children’s shelter about twenty years ago. It’s grown to include this abuse hotline and also in back there’s a food pantry.”
Maggie surveyed the room as they cut through, noticing that many of the volunteers were simply being quiet, apparently listening to the callers. Others used soft voices barely above a whisper. She realized the nature of the calls allowed them to set up the facility with as many phones and volunteers as there was space.
“We have a room back here,” Christine told them, pointing to a doorway in the far corner.
The room surprised Maggie. It looked like someone’s cozy living room with a sofa and matching chairs, glass-topped coffee table and floor-to-ceiling bookcases lining the back wall. A service butler in the corner was stocked with refreshments, and the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee filled the room. When they entered, there was a woman pouring herself a cup, and a young man loaded a plate with miniature sandwiches and pieces of fruit. Both stopped and turned to be introduced.
“Wow! I guess we didn’t need to have lunch,” Pakula said.
Apparently it didn’t faze him that Christine had invited guests, but Maggie wondered what the reporter was up to.
“Agent O’Dell, Detective Pakula, this is Brenda Donovan and her son, Mark.”
There were friendly but guarded hellos all the way around with no handshakes and little eye contact. As they filled their small plates or napkins and coffee cups and settled around the glass-topped table, Maggie stayed back to observe the woman and her son. Brenda Donovan wore blue polyester slacks and a knit T-shirt with a colorful patchwork teddy bear on the front. Her white sandals were scuffed. Her hands looked scuffed too, the tint of redness possibly from handling too many chemicals or having them in water for long periods of time. Her fingernails were cut short just like her hair for easy and no-frills care. Maggie got the impression that Brenda had worked hard all her life, earning her the wrinkles around her eyes and the gray hair that had begun to take over what at one time must have been a beautiful caramel brown.
The hard ruggedness did not extend to Mark Donovan. Instead, the young man—who Maggie guessed was perhaps not quite twenty—looked soft and wide around the middle, the physique of a couch potato. His close-cropped hair was still damp as if they had pulled him from the shower only minutes ago. His puffy eyes suggested little sleep. But his appetite seemed healthy. He had overloaded the small plate until grapes and slices of hard salami hung over the edges. If this was some kind of confessional tell-all, which Maggie suspected, then Christine must have anticipated that food would bolster their confidence.
She caught Pakula’s eye and nodded at his own full plate.
“I have a hard time saying no to free food.” And he left her to take a place in one of the easy chairs across from the sofa, where the Donovans had taken refuge, side by side.
Maggie popped the top of a Diet Pepsi and gave the other refreshments one last look, not noticing that Christine had returned beside her.
“I heard you saw Nick this morning,” she said in a low voice, keeping her back to the group across the room.
“I didn’t realize he was back in Omaha. Has he given up on Boston?” Maggie asked, not letting it slip that she knew for a fact that up until last month he was still employed as a deputy prosecutor for Suffolk County. It was just one of the perks of being an FBI agent and having access to information she often didn’t ask for.
“No, he’s still in Boston,” Christine said as she helped herself to one of the cans of soda, but unlike Maggie filled a glass with ice. Then suddenly she blurted out, “I don’t know if you realize how badly you broke my little brother’s heart.”
“Excuse me?”
She stared at Christine, stunned and trying to decide if she was joking. It wasn’t that long ago, a year maybe, that Maggie had called Nick’s apartment. A woman had answered, offering to take a message and explaining that Nick was in the shower. Maggie still remembered the sting, but accepted that he had decided to move on and not wait for her.
“Sorry, I probably shouldn’t even be telling you.” Christine sounded sincere. “I know he’d kill me if he knew I’d said anything, but he was pretty hurt when you dumped him.” Then she smiled just a little. “I don’t think he’s ever been dumped before.”
“Dumped?” Maggie tried to keep her voice down, though she could see Pakula’s head jerk in their direction. “He dumped me.”
“That’s not the way he tells it,” Christine said, but another smile told Maggie that perhaps Christine knew better. “I suppose we should join the others.”
She didn’t want to think about Nick Morrelli. This morning’s surprise meeting had actually gone well for her. She hadn’t found herself regretting or longing for or…anything. She hadn’t really felt anything. And that was despite what Pakula had interpreted as some grudge that Nick seemed to be holding, which now made sense if he believed she had dumped him. Of course, her mind had been a million miles away, focusing on Keller and his arrival. Learning that she had been wrong about Nick and that he didn’t even know why she had avoided his phone calls or why she’d allowed them to drift away shouldn’t make a difference after this long.
Before Maggie could consider whether or not it mattered, Christine leaned over and added in an almost conciliatory tone, “Don’t worry. He’ll get over it. He’d better. He’s getting married in a month.”
CHAPTER 60
Saint Francis Center
Omaha, Nebraska
Tommy Pakula swallowed one of the miniature sandwiches and just as quickly popped another into his mouth, gulping down the rest of his coffee before the second sandwich had cleared his throat. It was a nervous habit for him to snarf down food whenever he felt control slipping from his grip, and he was feeling it with this case, big-time.
“Not bad,” he said, referring to the food and nodding at Brenda Donovan who continued to stare at him over the mug of coffee she
was sipping. Her son didn’t seem to notice that anyone else was in the room. At least he hadn’t acknowledged anyone else after the muttered hello during the intros. Now he stuffed food into his mouth without looking up.
Christine Hamilton offered the other easy chair to O’Dell, then pulled up a hardback chair to the edge of the small little circle so that she could sit between the law enforcement officials and the Donovans. Pakula had already guessed they were the victims.
He had to give Hamilton credit. She didn’t just want to make her statement, she wanted to drive it home with a tug at the heartstrings or perhaps with something she hoped would shock them. What she didn’t realize was that Pakula had seen and heard it all, the worst of the worst, from a newborn crack baby left floating in the toilet of a Gas ’n Shop to a domestic dispute where a husband had used a nail gun to crucify his wife to their living-room wall.
“Every time I’ve talked to Detective Sassco,” Hamilton began, “he’s insisted I back up the allegations I was making, despite my journalistic right to conceal my sources. Mark and his mother are very brave to be here today, but they wanted me to reiterate that this in no way implies they are willing to file an official police report.”
Pakula watched Mark the entire time. The young man hadn’t looked up from his food yet. He stopped once but only to take a sip of his Coke. Suddenly Pakula realized Hamilton was staring at him, waiting for his agreement to the terms.
“That’s fine.” He nodded at Hamilton then glanced at O’Dell, but she seemed to be somewhere else, probably trying to figure out what to do with Keller.
“Brenda,” Hamilton said, “would you like to begin?”
“When my husband first passed away…” The woman set her coffee mug down and began wringing her hands. She had been staring at Pakula since he’d walked into the room but now her eyes were everywhere but on him. “Well, when he died it was hard on Mark. They were so close the two of them. Monsignor O’Sullivan, although he was only Father O’Sullivan back then, asked if he could come over for dinner, spend some time with Mark. He said he was worried about him. I was always raised to believe that there was no better way to grace your home, your family, than for the parish priest to come to dinner. You have to understand. Well, you probably can’t understand,” she said, shaking her head.
