Deadly Blessings

by Julie Hyzy

  “The police think that I might have frightened them away as I came in through the back. It’s a possibility.”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “I guess I’m not.” I held off while the waitress came by to refresh our coffee. “Why go to all that trouble to break in and not take anything? Think about it. My house is small. Really small. The television and DVD player are right there as you walk in. Even if they heard me coming, they could have yanked them both out in a matter of seconds.”

  “You think the break in has something to do with your story?”

  I shrugged. “What purpose would breaking in to my house serve?”

  “Scare you off?”

  “Maybe.” I took a long sip of the coffee. “The police said that maybe the thief was searching for something in particular, but didn’t find it. But, what could I have that anyone would want? And like I said, nothing’s missing.”

  We were both silent for a long time. Forty-year old springs beneath my white vinyl seat were straining to escape, and I shifted to find a comfortable pose. “So? You talked to Lisa Knowles …”

  “Quite the businesswoman.”

  “Are you on?”

  His jaw tightened a bit as he nodded. “Tonight, at ten.”

  “Bass arranging everything?”

  “As we speak.”

  I let my mind wander a bit. Bass would be working as liaison between our investigative department and the media group. The administration liked to keep abreast of undercover operations. Bass, as manager, had the authority to request technical support. Of course, that meant he had to come along for the ride, too.

  “So,” William said, apropos of nothing, “you’re good friends with some of the people over at Up Close Issues?”

  Now that was a peculiar question. Other than Dan, and his boss, Roy, I knew perhaps three or four people at that station well enough to say hello, but that was about it.

  “Not particularly, why?”

  William seemed a bit unsettled as he took a drink of his coffee. Putting it back down, he shrugged. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that … ah … nothing.”

  “You can’t do that to me,” I said, half-laughing, half-annoyed. “If it’s nothing, then it’s no big deal to tell me. … So, tell me.”

  “Okay. Dan Starck.”

  “What about him?”

  “I heard that you and Dan were an item …” He let the sentence hang.

  “Not any more,” I said. “Why?”

  Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed pleased by my answer. Still the question felt odd, more inquisitive than conversational.

  He shrugged, as if unsure. “I was in the parking garage, earlier. I stayed sitting in my car, listening to the end of one of my favorite songs and I saw somebody hanging around there.”

  Just then Bass walked in, looking wild-eyed with worry as he scanned the restaurant’s interior till he spotted us.

  “You’re here,” he said unnecessarily, but with obvious relief.

  William’s face changed in a way that made me realize that whatever he’d been about to tell me wasn’t something he cared to share in front of Bass. So before he had a chance to sit down, I suggested, “Why don’t you let the waitress know you’re joining us.”

  He gave a thoughtful nod, “Good idea.”

  I turned back toward William.

  He shrugged, but spoke quickly. “It was Dan. I’ve met him a few times, so I knew what he looked like, and I’d heard that you and he …” He let the sentence trail off. Again.

  It took me a second to get what he was implying. I fixed him with a hard stare.

  William looked down into his coffee cup, then continued with another shrug, this one apologetic. “I followed him. I figured he was meeting somebody, and at first I wondered if it might be you.”

  “Well, it wasn’t.”

  Bass gestured toward the washroom. I nodded, then turned back toward William. “Sorry, go ahead.”

  He nodded. “I was afraid to get too close, in case he saw me. He got into a car with somebody. I couldn’t get near enough to see who.”

  “What kind of car?” I asked.

  William gave me a peculiar look at the question, and it dawned on me that I probably sounded like a jilted, jealous lover, scrounging for scraps of information. I put my hands out. “You’ve got me curious now. I don’t see why he’d have any business in our garage,” I offered, by way of explanation. “Anyway, I met his girlfriend. She doesn’t work here.”

  “Hint,” I wanted to say—that was a hint to let you know I’m not pining after the fellow.

  Instead, I took another sip of coffee while William continued.

  “I didn’t notice the type of car. Navy blue, I think.”

  “My car’s white.”

  He acknowledged that piece of information with a nod. “I waited a few more minutes, then started to feel foolish. So I came up to the office.”

  William drained his coffee cup. Buying himself time, I suspected.

  His eyes met mine just as he placed the cup down onto the saucer with a little clink.

  A momentary thought that Dan might have been there to spy on me flashed through my mind. But that couldn’t be it. But the fact that William had been curious enough to find out if Dan and I were an item made me smile.

  Bass emerged, rubbing his hands together as the men’s room door swung shut, blocking out the whirring of the hand dryer. As he made his way toward us, I turned to William. “You sure you’re okay with this operation tonight?”

  He averted his gaze. “I can handle it.”

  I touched his hand across the table, a move that didn’t quite startle, but seemed to grab his attention. “I appreciate this, you know.”

  He smiled, but I knew it was for my benefit. My heart gave a little lurch of unease as he shook his head. “Don’t you worry about me.”

  * * * * *

  Back in my office I sorted through e-mails and went over the detail Bass had provided regarding the evening’s plans. Peppering his conversation with words like “reconnaissance” and “stake-out,” he gave us the scoop. As William headed for the pre-arranged hotel room tonight, Bass and I would reconnoiter nearby to watch. Jeff, one of our premiere technicians, volunteered for the after-hours escapade. His wife was out of town and he wanted the overtime. One of our older techs, he had to be over forty, but no one had a handle on the state-of-the-art video equipment like he did. Bass was pulling out all the stops on this one and for a moment I worried about something pulling the plug before this story came to fruition. Jitters.

  Alone now, I called up a file I’d created and password protected, just in case Feudin’ Fenton ever got his greasy paws on my computer. To keep life simple for me, I used only three passwords for all my documents. One for business, one for personal, one for really, really personal. Made it easy to remember, but if any of them ever got out, my life would literally be an open book.

  I wore comfortable clothes today, since it was the weekend. Jeans, T-shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt I periodically took off and put back on, as I moved from place to place and the ambient temperature changed. I rubbed my hands on my legs, thinking, thinking.

  I wanted to record everything that happened so far. And within forty-five minutes or so I had a decent rendition of the events that had transpired, up to the minute. A quick glance at the empty hub unnerved me. The only sounds were the refrigeration compressor on the water cooler and the lonely whoosh of warm air coming through the large vents overhead.

  Passwords were hard to break, and if something should happen to me …

  Rotten thought. I pushed it out of my head at once. But still.

  Finished, I dragged my coat on as I made my way through the darkened hub and to the glass front doors. I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to let William know about my meeting with Father Bruno. And while I was there I could clue him in on my business password, just in case. I trusted him.

  Turning back, I headed for his office, convincin
g myself that this was the right course of action. Sheesh. Not that I had a death wish or anything, but as long as someone else was in on it, it wouldn’t be needed. That’s the way jinxes worked, I told myself. The way to break them.

  I came around to his open door and realized he’d gone home. Turning back, I leaned against the adjacent wall, and shook my head. The super-quiet was getting to me. And it was nearing my meeting with Father Bruno time. I had to go.

  * * * * *

  “Alexandrine!”

  He greeted me with the effusiveness of a long-lost friend, and I felt my body tense when his beefy hands grasped my upper arms. If he’d been about to pull me into a hug, he’d apparently gotten my “back-off” message because he let go almost immediately after I froze in place.

  There was a younger hostess today, and several teenage waitresses. With weekend business brisker than that of late night; I supposed they could afford a bigger staff. I felt a little thrill of victory when I beat Bruno to answer her question, “Smoking or Non?”

  With a bland smile that looked to be pasted on, he picked up a briefcase set near his feet that I hadn’t noticed earlier, and followed me and the hostess to a far booth in the “non” section.

  Once my iced tea, his coffee, and a basket of assorted rolls were settled before us and our orders sent back to the kitchen, I leaned forward, arms on the table, and smiled. I decided to take control of the moment. His phone call to set up this meeting had thrown me off my game enough to make me uncomfortable. And discomfort doesn’t help me maintain my equilibrium in wacky situations such as this.

  “I was surprised to hear from you,” I said in an attempt to take the reins and guide the conversation. “I can’t imagine what you need to see me about.”

  Bruno was wearing priestly garb, black pants, black long-sleeve shirt with the stark-white notched collar that let everyone in the restaurant know a holy man was present. He acted as though he hadn’t heard me, instead moving his gaze around the murmuring diners, obviously catching an eye now and then. Giving “priest nods”—those innocuous head gestures that can mean anything from “hello” to “you are blessed,” but probably meant nothing in this case more than “Hey, I’m a priest. Did you notice?”

  Attendant Catholics acknowledged, he returned his attention to the table. He pulled a wrinkled handkerchief out from inside his black sleeve and blew his nose copiously, eyebrows raised, his face reddening in the process. This man plodded. He took his time. And if he was hoping to set me off-kilter again, it was working. Of course, I wasn’t about to let him know that.

  Time to be direct. “So why exactly did you want to meet with me?” I asked.

  Tucking the soiled hanky back into its nook, he shot me a short-lived smile. “Alexandrine Szatjemski.”

  I felt my eyes squint, wary. “Yeah.”

  His face broke into a large smile. A scary one, because his eyes picked up the overhead light and glittered when he spoke again. “Also, Alex St. James?”

  Damn. He’d made the connection. “Sometimes,” I said, and shrugged as if to say “no big deal.”

  With slow movements, designed no doubt, for maximum suspense, he slid his coffee cup far to his right and brought his black briefcase up, opening it on the table, with a snappy click-click. He had it angled in such a way that I couldn’t see what he pulled out, other than to know it was papers. Several papers.

  “You neglected to mention the real reason for your interest in Sophie.”

  “My real reason?” I affected confusion.

  “Come now, Alex. And you do usually go by Alex, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “It wasn’t that hard to find out about you. I suppose most people who you interview and whose stories you tell on Midwest Focus simply don’t take the time to discover who they’re dealing with.”

  Another smile. Another jolt of unease for me.

  “Or maybe,” he continued, “you don’t need to affect a different persona for your other stories.”

  I’d lost control of this one. That was obvious. Now I needed to decide the best way to regain my footing. I opened my hands in what I hoped looked like a gesture of abdication. “Okay, so you found me out. What are you planning to do?”

  “I’m going to do what I do best, my dear,” he said. Everything about him oozed condescension. The gentle, yet not-so-kind look in his eyes. The tilt of his head that to onlookers might seem as though he was engrossed in my words, but to me looked like ill-concealed smugness. “I’m going to protect my children.”

  Our young waitress arrived with his open-face pork sandwich—a mound of meat and accompaniments swimming in gloppy brown gravy so carelessly ladled on, that thick globs dripped off the side of the plate. She slid my small dinner salad in front of me. Ranch dressing in a silver cup on the side, just like I requested. She asked if there was anything else we needed, in a voice that expected we’d say we were fine.

  “We’re fine,” I said, eager to turn the conversation back to Father Bruno. As soon as she left the side of the table I asked, “How?”

  He closed the briefcase again, returning it to his side on the booth’s seat as he turned his attention to food. His doughy face had broken into a smile, and I half-expected him to rub his hands together before diving into his meal. But he picked up his knife and fork, checking them for spots, it seemed, and started in with gusto. I didn’t think he heard me.

  “How?” I repeated.

  “How … what?”

  “How do you plan to protect them?”

  Condescension again, this time blatant. “Eat,” he said gesturing with his now-dripping knife. “Plenty of time to talk when we’re finished.”

  We locked eyes for a moment or two, him daring me to push it, I thought.

  The idea of eating right now went beyond surreal. His arrogance glittered from small eyes peering out over flabby cheeks. This man across the table from me, leering at me not with lust, but with power, was a priest. A priest who made my skin crawl. I tried not to think “asshole” and “Father Bruno” in the same thought because doing so would probably guarantee an eternity in hell, but it was tough.

  Small talk wasn’t coming easy for me, but Bruno didn’t seem to mind. He paid little attention to anything other than the massive plate before him and his coffee, which he drained at least four times while he shoveled the pork roast and dressing in, at an impressive clip. He asked me once where Sophie was staying, but I didn’t answer and he didn’t press.

  He cleaned his plate, using the last bite of a sesame seed roll to sop up the remaining gravy. Tiny bits of cooked pork goo remained near the inside curve of his platter and he stamped at them with the bun, trying to pick up every last one, before shoving the arrangement into his mouth. His bottom lip was droopy in the center, I noticed. Like a baby pout, the middle hinged downward. With bits of food that he worked from between his teeth, the lip got lots of exercise.

  I dropped my fork into my unfinished salad. Now that he was done, we could talk and I was more interested in that than cleaning my own plate. Our server, in a bit of waitress-understanding, moved up to clear the plates right away, then swung back moments later to refill our beverages and drop off the check, which I grabbed. This girl was good, and I’d have to remember to tip her well.

  I brushed crumbs off the end of the table with the side of my arm. “So,” I said, prompting, “the reason for our meeting today?”

  This time he kept the briefcase on the seat next to him as he opened it. “Alex. Alexandrine.”

  I waited.

  “Lovely name. Alexandrine P. Szatjemski. What does the P stand for?”

  “My middle name,” I said without humor.

  “Yes. Yes,” he said, taking his sweet time, his eyes focused downward, to the side. On something inside the briefcase, no doubt. He had my attention, that’s for sure.

  After a few moments of noisy shuffling, he looked up at me. Gone was the beatific smile and kindly demeanor. “You’re an intelligent young woman, Alex. And
a beautiful girl. You have the potential to go far in this world.” His eyes never left mine. “If you make good choices.”

  The ranch dressing began to curdle in my stomach. I cleared my throat. “What kind of choices am I looking at?”

  His smile didn’t reach his eyes as he answered. “Now, now. Not to worry. There’s nothing sinister in what I’m about to propose.”

  The restaurant seemed almost to fade away, and I was unaware of any movement or sound beyond Father Bruno’s sonorous breathing as he settled his girth in the booth and leaned forward to explain. He pulled his head low, and arranged his voice even lower. “I told you that I protect my children, did I not?”

  He got me to nod.

  “And I sometimes do so at great personal risk.” The timbre of his voice suggested this was an “important point” he needed me to grasp. “If Midwest Focus does the story I envision, then many, many good people will get hurt.”

  “Many good people are getting hurt, now,” I reminded him.

  “There’s a lot you don’t understand.”

  “Why don’t you enlighten me, then?”

  Leaning back, he expelled a breath that could have been frustration. “Oh, Alex,” he said, shaking his head and taking a long drink of his coffee as he glanced around, grimacing. His voice changed—petulant. “I really do wish we’d sat in the smoking section.”

  “Why?” I asked. Anger and frustration got the best of me. Unable to stop myself I added, “Getting nervous?”

  That brought him back to the table, in a hurry. His eyes blazed. “No. I’m not nervous.” His words were quiet, precise. “Because I know who, and what, I’m dealing with. These girls come over from the old country and they’re not going to make it. Not unless they get help. And so I help them.” His voice rose. “And if they make choices that aren’t … ideal, that’s their decision. What I do is ask myself, do they have a better life because of me? I like to think they do. No. … I know they do.”

  I pulled away a little at the tirade, taken aback by his vehemence. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a couple of other diners sneak a peek our direction. I doubt they heard his words, but his body language was clear.