Deadly Blessings

by Julie Hyzy

  I get these types every so often. Didn’t expect it today, but hey, my luck had been going downhill lately.

  I stood up. “You’re absolutely right.”

  That surprised her.

  Continuing, I gestured her to stand up. She did. “You know what? Gabriela’s filming one of our ad spots right now, down at the studio. Let me give you the address.”

  I walked over to Jordan’s desk. She was on the phone, giving me a look I didn’t understand. I grabbed a Post-it Note and scribbled down the information. “Gabriela’s the one who’s really in charge here.” That was a lie I’d burn in hell for. “Take a cab … save the receipt and I’ll see that you’re reimbursed. When you get there, tell her that we need your story on tape first, before we do any of the regular filming.”

  Tammy’s eyes showed a touch of interest. “She can do that?”

  “When she wants to. Sometimes she’s a little … what’s the word … persnickety? But I’m sure you already know that.” I grinned, as though we were sharing a joke at the star’s expense. “Push her. Hard, if you have to. She can do it. Don’t let her tell you she can’t. And then tell her to send the tape to my attention. At her earliest convenience, of course.”

  Jordan started to mouth something to me, the receiver still tight to the side of her head.

  I smiled and winked at Tammy, sending her on her way with a cheerful feeling in my heart.

  Jordan waited till she was out of earshot. “Here,” she said, her low voice intense. “I think you need to take this one.”

  I took the receiver, “Alex St. James.”

  “Oh!” The sounds of a woman crying met my ear, and my first concern was for Lucy, but within seconds I knew it wasn’t her. I had no idea who was calling me. Until she took a breath and spoke to me in Polish. “Alex, I am Sophie, from yesterday. My brother, Matthew … he’s gone. He’s missing.”

  Chapter Six

  I made it to Sophie’s address in just over twenty-five minutes. She lived in a tidy neighborhood on the near south side, well-known for its enduring Polish population. All the brick three-flats in this proud five block radius, with their sparkling white trim and clipped shrubs, were a testament to the work ethic that the nationality was known for. Despite the overcast day and the scattered rain clouds that had just finished a cleansing downpour, it was a welcoming neighborhood, the kind where I wouldn’t be fearful walking alone at night.

  I found her building right away. There was no place to park out in front, however, so on my second circuit around the block, I fitted into the only open space, at the far corner between two big Chevys. I loved my little Escort. Made it in with less than six inches to spare. Just as I moved to open my car door, a man emerged from Sophie’s building.

  Even though I was at least seven houses away, I could tell it was the burly fellow from the salon. Ro. He moved with purpose toward a dark sedan across the street from Sophie’s house. There was no reason in the world for me to want to hide from him, but I got the silly sense that I should. Ole Nancy Drew kicking in again. What the heck.

  Maybe he was Sophie’s boyfriend come to offer his help, I told myself. But that didn’t feel right. As he pulled his car into the center of the narrow street, I did two things: I noticed that the pavement beneath his car was wet, which meant he hadn’t been there long, and I found a gum wrapper on the floor of my passenger side that I needed to pick up, just then. This allowed me to wait till the sound of the car passed before raising my head to check the rearview mirror. He turned left at the corner and was gone. He hadn’t seen me. Of that, I was certain.

  I suppose I could have gone another turn around the block and taken his recently vacated spot, a much better one, but proud of my parallel parking efforts, I let it go and hoped the rain didn’t start up again soon.

  Sophie had told me to come around the back. She was there, waiting for me, standing near the support beam of her small wooden porch. Her arms folded and unfolded across her chest. Tension in her body language made her bounce.

  “Alex?” she said as I walked up. Her eyes were wide and blue; she looked at me the same way Lucy does sometimes when she’s gotten into trouble and needs my help to get out. “Thank you, thank you,” she said in English, the words coming out like “tenk you,” as she grasped my hand in both of hers and led me inside.

  Sophie’s three flat had been converted so that this floor boasted two apartments instead of one. Sophie and her brother occupied the back half of the first level. This was one tiny place to live.

  We sat in the kitchen, around a four-chair aluminum table with a white-speckled Formica top. Very fifties. There were two rooms behind heavily varnished wood doors, and a hall that no doubt led to a bathroom. Everything, from the kitchen sink on legs, to the refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom, were throwbacks from many decades ago. I guessed that they’d rented this place fully furnished. And I wanted to get a look at the other rooms, just because I’m a nosy chick.

  “You want coffee?” she asked, getting up quickly, as though she’d made some gross mistake.

  “No, no. Just sit down, Sophie.”

  She rubbed at her forehead, then perched her supershort thumbnail between her teeth, as if waiting for me to speak.

  “Just now, out front, I thought I saw that guy from the salon. Ro?”

  Her teeth didn’t let go of the nail as she nodded her head.

  “Is he your … boyfriend?”

  “No!” she said, slapping both hands on the table.

  Not quite the response I’d expected, I nodded. “Okay then, who is he?”

  “His name is Rodero. He come here to pick up something. For work.”

  Remembering the altercation yesterday, I asked, “Does he have any idea where your brother is?”

  “I don’t tell him Matthew gone. You find him? I pay you.”

  “Nuh-no, wait. Hold on a minute. I don’t know exactly what I can do here …”

  Sophie pulled out my card, “I look up this word. In-ves-ti-ga-tor. It mean you find people. No?”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “Not like Magnum?”

  “Magnum?”

  “Magnum PI.”

  The old Tom Selleck show. Still on in reruns, obviously. “No. I work for a TV station. I investigate interesting stories … like the news.”

  Her look told me I wasn’t getting through.

  I switched to Polish and told her. “I’m not a detective. Not like Magnum. I investigate stories.”

  Sophie’s lips compressed into a thin line as she nodded in a way that tore at my heart. “I don’t know what to do,” she said, lapsing into her native tongue.

  “First of all, how do you know he’s missing? Maybe he’s just out for the day.”

  “No,” she said with a vehement shake of her head. “They called me from his work this morning. He never showed up.”

  “Did he say anything before he left?”

  Sophie’s eyes welled with tears. “He never came home last night.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I watched her fight a losing battle with her emotions, her eyes expressing fear, deep sorrow, and something else. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “I came in late last night. I had a date. And I thought Matthew was already home because he usually goes to bed early. But when I went in his room this morning, I knew he hadn’t been there, because his clothes that I washed and folded were still on his bed, the way I left them.”

  Getting all that out in one breath took all of Sophie’s energies and she covered her face with her hands, trying to quiet her own sobs.

  I let her cry for a minute. Truth was, I had no idea what to do next.

  “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

  “He only wants to help me, I know that.”

  I studied Sophie as she settled herself. When the tears started, her face had immediately broken out into huge red welts, and her eyes puffed up.

  “Do you want me to go with you to the pol
ice station?”

  She sat up as if slapped. “The police? I can’t go to the police. Why do you want me to do that?”

  “If your brother’s missing, we can file a report. I don’t know if it’s too early, but it won’t hurt to get his information out there. What kind of car does he drive?” I asked, pulling out my notebook.

  “No car.”

  “Do you have a picture? We can give that to the police to help them.”

  “No. No police.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Are you here illegally?” I asked.

  “No,” she said with tiny pride, “we have been sponsored. And we have our papers in order. I just don’t want Matthew to get into trouble. He will lose his job.”

  No matter how much I tried to prod, Sophie had clammed up about Matthew and why contacting the police would result in the loss of a job. She insisted that Matthew had not gotten into trouble before, that he had no record of arrest.

  “What about a girlfriend? Do you think he might’ve spent the night with someone and just forgot about work today?”

  “No. No. Matthew never takes time for himself. He never tried to find a girlfriend. He is so handsome, and all the girls want to go out with him, but he want to make a good life for us here, and make our parents proud and he never stops working. He’s just trying to keep us together and strong.”

  “Sophie,” I finally said, exasperation evident in my voice, “there’s not a chance of finding out where he’s gone unless you can give me some help, here. Isn’t there anyone who might have a clue? Anyone Matthew might turn to or keep in contact with?”

  “Yes … I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Okay.” I wiggled forward in my chrome-legged chair, making it squeak. “Who?”

  “Father Bruno. From St. Dymphna’s. He is our sponsor to the United States. He helps us and takes care of us.”

  “Good, good. Do you want me to call him?” I asked.

  Sophie bit the insides of her cheeks, and her face welted up again, as though she might break into sobs at any moment. She glanced up at the clock. “Maybe he’s there now. You’ll come with me?”

  In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. “Sure.”

  * * * * *

  Father Bruno lived in a square-ish, brick, and solid-looking home in the center of the block. While St. Dymphna’s Church, at the southern end of the street, had been built in 1968, according to the large and obvious cornerstone near the front doors, Father Bruno’s home was much older. It didn’t sport a year, but a concrete sign, pitted with age, sat stoically above the front door, capital letters spelling out the word “Rectory.” Clearly this building had never been intended to serve any other purpose. I wondered what would become of it in years to come, as the dwindling priesthood made it difficult to justify the upkeep of so many residences across the archdiocese.

  The parish name, St. Dymphna’s and even the priest’s name were vaguely familiar to me. I was curious to meet him, and try to remember the connection.

  Sophie, I discovered, was a physical person. She thought nothing of gripping my hand as we approached the building’s cement front steps, scurrying to keep ahead of the drizzle. Even on the ride over, she touched me several times; I began to realize that she needed constant and tangible evidence that she wasn’t in this dilemma alone.

  The doorbell rang loud enough for us to hear it, standing outside the wood-framed door. After waiting more than five minutes we rang it a second time, despite the hand-lettered sign that instructed to ring it only once. The pebbled glass door made seeing anything inside impossible, and the dark interior led me to believe that Father Bruno was not home.

  I was surprised, then, when a flash of yellow appeared and the lock turned.

  “Sophie?”

  “Oh, Father,” she said, sobbing, “Matthew no come home.”

  From her instant, high-powered cries, I gathered that the man at the door was Father Bruno. Wearing a casual ensemble of a yellow golf shirt and navy pants, the silver-haired priest should have opted for the next size after extra-large. He sent a curious glance my direction, as he took Sophie by the shoulders and led her inside. Not knowing what else to do, I followed and caught his indication that I should close and lock the door behind me.

  The long dark corridor was lined on either side with deep mahogany doors, polished to high-gloss. There were at least eight, all closed. One small light fixture, overhead, cast scant light in the area. The effect was mausoleum-ish, but I’d been in rectories before and knew that most holy men didn’t spend a lot of time worried about a welcoming décor.

  Father Bruno opened the first door to the right, and gestured us in.

  “I apologize for the delay in answering. Emil must have stepped away again, and I was unaware.” I shot him a quizzical glance, and he explained. “The rectory secretary.”

  The priest’s face was familiar. I knew I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t place him.

  This room was barely an improvement over the hall. While spacious, and outfitted for both work and comfort: desk to the right, sitting room—complete with TV and DVD player—to the left, it was drab. A corner office, it had five tall double-hung windows, but the gray sky outside offered little in terms of light.

  Sophie sat in a burgundy leather chair. The fancy kind with bronze buttons lining the sides and back. I took a matching one next to her and perched my elbows on the arms. Sophie was beginning to quiet, and for the few moments that it took Bruno to pull a box of tissues from behind his mahogany desk, I thought she might have forgotten I was there. Her eyes followed the man’s every movement, with huge alertness, as though ready to jump at his words. Indeed, her whole body, at first relaxed from releasing all the anguish, now tensed up again—a runner ready for the starting gun.

  It occurred to me that Father Bruno must have sobbing women come visit him all the time. He gave Sophie’s shoulder an avuncular pat, and set the tissue box on her lap. “Now,” he said, moving to sit behind his desk, his eyes concerned behind drooping lids, “tell me what happened. What did you say about Matthew?”

  Between hiccups, Sophie spoke in her halting English. Explaining the situation was so difficult for her, I could almost see her physical pain as she spoke. But I let her tell the story with no interruption, wanting to allow her the chance to get it out once again. Like poison to be purged, oftentimes the more a story is told, the easier it gets. And although Matthew’s disappearance was still fresh and raw, I hoped that Sophie could find a way to face it with enough objectivity to be helpful.

  They conversed in English; he had no accent, and nothing about him suggested a particular ethnicity. He was fair-skinned and paunchy, with that tell-tale gray coloring of a heavy smoker. After Sophie covered everything she’d told me, he nodded and worked his lower lip for a moment. When he turned to me, I could sense he was still pondering all she’d said.

  “And you are … ?

  “I’m Alexandrine Szatjemski,” I said providing the name I preferred to use when covering stories. I leaned forward to offer my hand. He seemed momentarily surprised by the move, but he took it and gave a perfunctory shake. “I’m a friend of Sophie’s.” That was, of course, a stretch. I met the girl yesterday, for crying out loud. But that would take too long to explain, and was immaterial anyway.

  “Father Bruno Creighter,” he said. “Pleased to meet you Ms. Szatjemski.”

  Hearing his last name dropped the last piece of puzzle into place. He’d been a prominent player, hovering around the pedophile priest scandal a few years back. As one of the Chicago Archdiocese’s parish-level spokesmen, he’d made frequent public apologies to young victims, now grown. I’d seen his face in the newspaper plenty of times. He’d lambasted our station in one of his appearances because he took exception to our handling of one of the stories. I decided it would be best if I didn’t introduce myself, fully.

  Settling himself, he studied me for a moment, then pulled a pack of Mar
lboro Lights from his top center drawer and apologized. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “It’s a filthy habit, but I can’t seem to summon the will to stop.” He shrugged and gave me a wry smile. “Especially in tense situations.” He returned his attention to Sophie.

  “When did you notice Matthew was missing?” Bruno asked, shaking a cigarette out. He lit it with a gold lighter dug from his pocket and then tapped it against the leather blotter on his desk before resting it in his palm. A full-color enamel portrait of the Sacred Heart of Jesus decorated the lighter’s top and he caressed the smoothness of the decoration with his thumb as he smoked and listened.

  Cigarette lighters designed with your favorite priest in mind; now there’s a marketing niche I never would have imagined.

  He didn’t take care to blow the smoke off to the side, as polite smokers nowadays tend to do. Each puff was savored even as his caramel-colored eyes paid rapt attention, focused on everything Sophie had to say.

  Sophie tried to remember exactly what time the landscape company had called. Matthew was a gardener’s assistant at a suburban shop and had been scheduled for a big project that day. “They called about ten-thirty this morning. Maybe a little later.” She took two tissues from Father Bruno’s stash and worked them into twisted strings. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You were right to come here, my dear,” he said. “We will find him.”

  Buoyed by his praise she brightened, visibly. Her eyes had gotten bluer from her crying and they widened with childlike eagerness. Still snuffling, she offered the priest an additional tidbit, as though hoping for another “attaboy.” “Alex said we should call the police to tell them. Should we?”

  He gazed up at the ceiling for a long moment, blowing a stream of smoke upward and away from us. “Let me make some inquiries first,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to jeopardize the boy’s job. He’s got a solid future ahead of him there, as long as he keeps control of his temper.” His glance toward Sophie made her look away.

  She bit her lip, then colored bright red before addressing me. “Matthew has been in many fights since we come here,” she said. “He think some people look down on us and he get very mad sometimes.” She shrugged. “But he never not come home before.”