UnCatholic Conduct

by Stevie Mikayne

  If Jess was shocked by any part of this, she was doing an excellent job of hiding it.

  “And the attacks?” Padraig clarified.

  “Attacks on who? Julia?” Jess asked, alarmed. “I mean Jil. God. It’s going to take me a while to get used to that.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jil said, shooting Padraig a warning look, which Jess easily intercepted.

  “Is someone out to get you?” she demanded.

  Jil sighed.

  “You said you’d tell me the truth.”

  “No, I said I’d tell you more than you knew.”

  Jess narrowed her eyes. “I’m not four years old. Spill it.”

  “Remember that night we were coming back here from the restaurant?”

  “Yeah. When you missed your turn and we stopped for gas you didn’t really need?”

  Jil smiled sheepishly. Jess noticed a hell of a lot more than she gave her credit for. “Yeah.”

  “What about it?”

  “Someone was following us that night. I doubled back and stopped so I could call Padraig and have him send someone.”

  “Who was following us?”

  “I never found out. They were gone by the time I pulled out of the gas station.”

  “Shit,” Jess breathed.

  “Yeah.”

  “What else aren’t you telling me?”

  Padraig was watching this exchange with an unreadable look on his face.

  Jil suddenly felt uncomfortable—a little too intimate—even though she wasn’t saying anything but facts. Her personal life and her professional life were colliding—eclipsing—and she didn’t like it. She was afraid of what would happen if she told Jess about the man with the knife in the tunnel. “Why don’t I fill you in later?” she muttered.

  “Sure.”

  Jil took the marker out and began filling in more blank spaces.

  -Wax seal with SoA

  -Watermarked notes

  -Secret club?

  -Student Council

  From her notebook, she pulled out the watermarked notes, and pinned them to the board.

  Jess stared at the list and paled like some long-dormant ghost had tapped her on the shoulder, dripping blood. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “SoA. That couldn’t be…Sons of Adam?”

  Padraig and Jil both looked at her, surprised.

  “What the hell is going on in my school?”

  “Jess, does that mean something to you?” Jil asked.

  Jess stared at her.

  “Who are they?” Padraig asked, leaning forward.

  Jess struggled to form words, and when she did, they were soft and strangled. “Years ago, at the time of that young boy’s death—”

  “Bobby Hansen?” Jil interrupted.

  Jess blinked, like tears had suddenly pricked her eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Sorry,” Jil muttered. “Go on.”

  “I was a teacher at St. Joseph’s, which is just in the next district to St. Marguerite’s. I was brought into St. Marguerite’s to talk to students. Another student teacher and I were parked in the guidance office for about a week after the incident.

  “Most of the kids talked about other things—not even about the kids who died. But there was this one guy. This one scrawny little bit of a thing. He can’t have been more than fifteen. I swear he said the Sons of Adam were responsible.”

  “And did you ask him what that meant?” Padraig asked.

  “I did. But he was pretty tight-lipped. Didn’t even look like he wanted to be there. I think he was the one guy who made about three appointments and missed them before he finally came in. And then, when we did sit down, he wanted the door closed, which I wasn’t allowed to do. So he whispered really low and kept throwing glances over his shoulder. Anyway, I didn’t get a whole lot out of him at that point, but I do remember him saying something about the Sons of Adam.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “Actually, yes,” Jess said, her brow furrowed as she remembered incidents from a decade ago. “I remember going back to my own school at the end of the week, still thinking about this boy. I told my mentor what he’d said.”

  “And what did your mentor tell you?” Padraig pressed.

  “He said that he knew this kid from elementary school and that he was very disturbed. He had a history of mental illness, or something to that effect. Not to pay too much attention to what he said. So I dropped it. But now that you bring it up again…I wonder.”

  Jil remembered something Jess had said a few months back—when she’d been complaining about Buck and the mentorship process. “Jess,” she said slowly. “Your mentor when you were a student teacher was—”

  “Giovanni DiTullio,” Jess finished.

  Jil and Padraig exchanged a look.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked.

  “That,” Padraig said gravely, “is what we’re going to find out.” And then, when Jil looked at him closely, seeing the wheels spinning in his head, she had to ask.

  “You mentored Mark Genovese, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why? He’s got to be more than twenty years older than you.”

  Jess frowned. “I had a master’s degree and I climbed the ranks faster. I was a VP before he was, and DiTullio paired us together.”

  Padraig and Jil exchanged a look.

  “When? When was this?”

  “The summer after…when everything happened with Mick.” She swallowed painfully.

  Padraig leaned closer, his voice urgent. “Jil—your investigation.”

  “I know.”

  “You were right. It was never a real investigation. It was just a ruse.”

  Jil breathed out, her thoughts racing.

  “More than a ruse,” she whispered. “A setup.”

  *

  Well past lunchtime, Padraig stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Jil asked.

  “First, I’m meeting with our accountant. Then, I believe I need to see our generous sponsor. And then, I need to clear away the little matter of the gun.”

  Jil blushed.

  “What gun?” Jess asked.

  Both Padraig and Jil looked at her.

  “The gun I had belonged to Padraig,” Jil explained.

  But Jess just stared at them poker-faced. “What gun?”

  Slowly, like an ember catching flame on paper and blossoming into a fire, it dawned on Jil. Jess was the one responsible for keeping her name out of the media. She was the reason no one had heard about her involvement. Jess knew as well as anyone that civilians weren’t allowed to carry weapons—even ex-police officers turned PIs. She had been trying to protect her. But was it possible that she could have convinced the entire rumor mill to stop churning out that one particular piece of information?

  “No one saw a gun,” Jess said firmly.

  They stared at each other for a moment.

  “How can you do that?” Jil asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend that nothing happened? Pretend that I wasn’t running through your school with a loaded weapon?”

  “No one saw you do that. In fact, no one saw you at all.”

  Padraig chuckled. Jil just stared at her, baffled.

  “We’re a Catholic school,” said Jess, a small smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Denial is our way of life.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  When Padraig had given Jil instructions to meet him at DiTullio’s office later that afternoon and had taken his leave, Jil and Jess were left sitting awkwardly on the couch, carefully avoiding each other’s eyes. Jil’s mind raced with the puzzle pieces she was beginning to put together.

  “Can I get you something to eat?” she asked, heading for the kitchen. Anything to get in the way of having a real conversation. The real topics.

  Jess hesitated a moment. “Sure.”

  Jil took out a container of homemade soup and put it on the stove then unwra
pped a pre-made garlic bread and put it in the oven.

  “So, Jil,” said Jess, taking a seat on the raised barstool and cupping her face in her hand. “What’s your plan for next week?”

  Jil smiled. “Well, it looks like I’m out of a teaching job,” she quipped weakly.

  “I should have known you weren’t a teacher. No one with your grit decides to go into teaching religion, for God’s sake. So, how will you finish your investigation?”

  “Not sure yet. I’ll have to wait for Padraig on that one.”

  “You’re finished investigating me, then?”

  “It was never just you.”

  “Someone wants me gone. Is that it?”

  And in that second, Jil made a decision. In her heart of hearts, she knew what was right to do, and what was wrong to keep secret. This investigation was more than a paycheck, more than politics and morality and biblical teachings. It was about how she was going to live the rest of her life.

  She remembered what Padraig had whispered to her, just before he’d left—gone to do something he didn’t even want to reveal to Jil. “I don’t want you sacrificing who you are for your work. And I sure as hell won’t let you do it for me.”

  Permission to spill her guts.

  “Why would Giovanni DiTullio want me gone?”

  “That, I haven’t yet figured out,” Jil replied honestly.

  “So you’ve been investigating me since September? I was your prime target?” Something else lingered behind her words—more than just anger. Jil waited and finally she asked, “Was it part of your job to get involved with me so you could learn my secrets?”

  “No. No, Jess. I didn’t even get the list of names I was supposed to start with until after I’d already met you—after I—after we…after I figured out I liked you,” she finished, blushing furiously.

  “And then what? You just thought, ‘Hey, this is convenient. I can use her to get what I want?’”

  “Jess, I’m so sorry. I don’t expect you to understand at all what I was thinking. I don’t even understand. I just kept delaying things in my mind. I investigated everyone else before you, telling myself that maybe I could just leave you off the list, claim I couldn’t find anything wrong with what you were doing.”

  Jess smiled wryly, seeming unable to decide which was winning—her overwhelming sense of betrayal, or understanding for Jil’s position.

  “I can name at least ten acts of uncatholic conduct that I’ve committed in the past hour. There’s no way you could have left me off the list…after…well…” She stared at Jil for a long moment, just digesting the news.

  “I have yet to find anywhere in the Bible that states ‘thou shalt not be gay,’” said Jil softly.

  “You might make a good Catholic after all,” Jess replied. “Seems you have a knack for self-denial.”

  Bolstered by that small gesture of understanding, she went on, turning to the soup on the stove so she wouldn’t have to look Jess in the face. “I couldn’t let you go, and I’m sorry for that. I should never have gotten involved with you. It was wrong, but I couldn’t help it. I was just so drawn to you that…”

  “That what?” Jess asked, her voice softer now.

  “That I just…I wanted to believe that it was right.”

  “Right in what sense?”

  “In any sense. Not only are you my target—” At that word, Jess’s face tensed again. “But even being with you, being anywhere near you, was a conflict of interest. How can I investigate someone for uncatholic conduct when I’m the person causing them to act that way? And how can I investigate the person I care about? And if that wasn’t complicated enough, how can I throw away an investigation because of my own feelings, knowing that it would jeopardize Padraig’s agency? I’ve made such a mess, and I’m so sorry. And I hope that you can understand what I was doing, because God knows I can’t.”

  Jess sighed deeply. “No one has ever lied to me like this before,” she said tightly. “Jil, I’m falling in love with you, and I have no idea who you are.”

  Jil stopped stirring the soup to look up at Jess. For a second, they stared at each other over the countertop, silently, no words seeming to be enough to cross the distance between them.

  And then Jil walked over to the bar, grasped both Jess’s hands in hers, and said, “There have been so many times that I wished I had never met you. But I wouldn’t trade you for anything. Not my job. Not normalcy. Nothing. But, Jess, once I move past this case, I can do my job and have you at the same time. You can’t. You have way more to lose.”

  Jess grinned at her, a smart-assed comment clearly playing on her lips. But she kept it to herself, regarding Jil steadily, as if trying to decide how much she could trust her. And then finally, she leaned forward, mouth tilted up, instead. This time, when they kissed, there were no lies between them, and the roadblock removed was palpable.

  *

  Padraig parked his car smoothly and waited for Jil to unbuckle her seat belt. “You don’t have to say a word at this meeting. Leave it to me.”

  Jil’s palms sweated and she rubbed them against her jeans as Padraig led the way into the white stone building that housed the Rockford Catholic School Board. He didn’t pause at the front desk, but walked straight to the elevator, and up to Giovanni DiTullio’s corner office.

  “Mr. DiTullio, good morning,” he said as he opened the door, letting himself in.

  DiTullio looked up, surprised. “Hello, Mr. O’Hanagan,” he said, rising, a quizzical expression on his face. “How can I help you?”

  Padraig stepped aside. “I’ve brought Ms. Kidd with me.”

  At this, his face fell. “Ms. Kidd,” he faltered. “How nice to meet you.”

  Jil shook hands but said nothing.

  Padraig smiled widely and helped himself to a seat, settling down comfortably. “In light of recent events, I thought I’d best come see you in person.”

  DiTullio sat down gingerly again, fingers steepled on the desk. “Yes, I understand. I apologize for not calling you sooner, but I’ve been rather busy with the implications of that incident.”

  “What implications are those, exactly?” Padraig asked amiably.

  “Oh, I won’t bore you with the details, but I do hope Ms. Kidd wasn’t injured in the process.”

  “No, no, not at all. In fact, she wasn’t even there,” Padraig replied.

  “No?”

  “No,” Padraig said. “She was off sick that day.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes. In fact, I brought her chicken soup at home. Right around the time when the lockdown alarm went off.”

  “I see,” DiTullio narrowed his eyes at Jil. “Then I suppose there was another person in the school at that time who just happened to look like Julia Kinness.”

  “No, no. Don’t think so,” Padraig replied. “Seems everyone agrees that Ms. Kinness was MIA that day.”

  Giovanni was silent. “Well,” he said carefully. “I guess that makes sense. Something tells me she tends to stand out.”

  “She does. Indeed she does,” Padraig replied. “Which is why she’s one of my best investigators.”

  Jil shuffled her feet, trying to figure out why Padraig had dragged her to this uncomfortable meeting.

  “The most special thing about her is that she would willingly give her life for someone she thought was in danger. That, she has proved to me over and over again. She’d even bring a contraband weapon into a public place in order to protect young students from a threat.”

  “Quite the woman you’ve got working for you.” DiTullio met her eye.

  “Yes, indeed. I value her. And when someone else willingly puts her in danger, that really bothers me, Mr. DiTullio.”

  “Now, why would that be the case?”

  “No idea. Doesn’t seem to make much sense to me at all. Perhaps it’s something I’d like to investigate further. Why a young agent would be brought in to do a job, which she does successfully—perhaps a little too successfully—and th
en suddenly becomes the target of malice. Why do you think that might be?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Well, I’m quite bothered by it,” Padraig said. “In fact, it bothers me so much that I would, without hesitation, put the person responsible for injuring my agent directly in the line of his own fire, if I knew who he was. Don’t know how I’d do it, exactly, but I’d be sure to do something. It could be at night, sometime—walking out of the pub. It could be in broad daylight, on the highway. It could be while he was sleeping, oh so soundly in his bed. But I promise you, it would happen.”

  DiTullio’s face was so tight and his lips were so drawn that he looked like a bad caricature of himself, sitting there. Jil almost felt sorry for him. But then she remembered Gideon’s face, and stopped.

  “Ms. Kinness filed an absentee form for last Thursday,” he said in measured tones. “I understand that she’s been off ill for the past few days.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes. The paperwork is on Ms. Blake’s desk.”

  “As we speak?”

  “As we speak.”

  “Excellent. I’m glad to hear that’s sorted. We’ll have our final report to you by week’s end.”

  “Very well, Mr. O’Hanagan. And your final check will be in the mail. Thank you for coming to visit.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. DiTullio. My pleasure.”

  As Jil followed Padraig out, she paused to touch a picture standing on a shelf by the door. Four young men—arms slung around each other, grinning in front of a high ropes course.

  Something clicked. “Outdoor Education trip?” she asked. She turned around in time to see DiTullio’s eyes widen.

  “Uh, yes.”

  “Looks like a great time.”

  “It was. It was.”

  Jil turned and strode back to the desk, the picture in hand. She leaned over DiTullio, her face inches from the man’s clean-shaven jaw. “Why did you do it?” she whispered. “After all these years, why expose them now?”