She continued to rummage through his drawers, though she had no clue what she was looking for. She knew it was an invasion of privacy, and if she stopped to think, that was probably the reason she was doing it. He knew so much about her, and now it was time for her to know about him.
Maureen was looking through the detective’s sock drawer, hoping she’d find his porn collection or something else to throw a shadow over his squeaky-clean persona, when she lifted a pair of wool socks in the back to reveal a pistol. It didn’t look like the standard issue service weapon that she had seen him wearing day after day. She reasoned that it must be his backup weapon. She had heard most cops had them.
She stared at the gun for several moments, transfixed by it. Before she knew what she was doing, she grabbed it out of the drawer and ran out into the living room, stuffing it in the bottom of her pillowcase and covering it with the rest of her dirty clothes. She rationalized her actions by telling herself that before she was through in this town, she might need it. And if she ever needed to fire a gun, it might go better for her if it was one registered to an officer.
Maureen stood up and paced around the living room. She still could not detect any sound of movement in the house, and it was making her feel uneasy. She decided that a little television would take the edge off, so she stuffed her pillowcase underneath the couch, sat down, and grabbed the remote. After flipping through the channel guide for a minute, she decided on one of the home improvement and craft shows she’d heard talked about by patrons at any number of the bars and restaurants she’d worked at. She didn’t understand why people liked watching things like that, but figured that she could at least turn her brain off for a while. It would be the closest thing to therapeutic she could get at the moment.
She was in the middle of her third episode of the same show and wondering why the couple on the television would worry about something as trivial as the color of the kitchen counter tops when they could afford a half-million-dollar home, when the front door opened and the detective walked in. He was wearing a pair of jeans with his badge clipped on the belt, a shirt and tie, and a sport coat. He had shaved and put gel in his hair. He was probably trying to look impressive. In his hand was a thin booklet of papers bound with a plastic ring.
“Where did you go all dressed up?” Maureen asked. She tried to make her question sound as sarcastic as possible, to hide the fact that she was glad he was back and it was no longer just her in the house.
“Getting this,” he said holding up the packet.
“And what is that?”
“It’s the directory for St. Mary’s,” he replied, stepping over to the couch and sitting down next to her. She could smell his deodorant and a hint of aftershave. She was loath to admit that she liked it.
“You went back without me?”
“I met with the FBI, would you really have wanted to come?”
Maureen closed her mouth tight.
Manny shrugged and told his story. “I got a call from Agent Layton early this morning. He asked me to meet him for breakfast and when I got there, he handed this to me. He must have gotten it from the church after we left yesterday. Anyway, it seems that the Feds are going to be pretty busy keeping surveillance on the known drug traffickers in the area, and they don’t seem to hold other local law enforcement in high regard, so he asked me to run through the directory here and see if anyone knows any more about the dealings of Tom Lowes and Sandra Locke.”
“Why doesn’t he just ask the two of them himself?” she asked.
“We’re apparently going to leave them be for a bit. Until we’ve got something a little more concrete on the laundering theory. They’ve been through enough for now.”
The detective leaned back, put his palms over his eyes and let out a loud sigh. “I gotta say, I’m not exactly looking forward to doing this rundown. Talking to some three hundred people who probably don’t know anything isn’t my idea of a fun time.”
“So, don’t do it,” Maureen said.
“I can’t just dump an assignment. How would that look?”
“Why are you trying to impress Layton so much?”
Now it was Manny’s turn to avoid answering. He leaned forward and began to leaf through the directory, making sure he didn’t make eye contact.
“And I suppose I’ll have to go with you?” Maureen sighed, flopping back on the couch and folding her hands on her stomach.
“If you don’t mind,” he said.
“Why would you even want me there?”
“I like having you with me.”
Maureen’s heart fluttered, but she ignored her desire to press forward. She wasn’t sure how she would proceed if she opened that box, and that scared her more than anything.
The detective picked up the directory and pushed himself to his feet. “You hungry?” he asked, turning to her.
“I could eat,” she replied.
“How about we head to the burger stand? We can have a sit-down and decide what order we want to hit these folks in.”
She got up and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, fastening it with the hair tie she kept on her wrist. Manny opened the front door for her. Begrudgingly, she accepted his act of chivalry and walked through in front of him.
“Thank you, Detective,” she mumbled as she passed him.
“Any time,” he said.
As she began to walk down the walkway toward the truck, Maureen felt her head look back and past the detective to the living room. Her pillowcase containing the detective’s gun was just poking out from under the couch. She felt a pang of guilt that she was stealing from him. But, deep in the recesses of her mind, she knew that rather than put it back in its place, she’d act counter to decency and find a way to hide it further when she had a chance.
And even if he found out what she had done, she was certain that she could make the detective forgive her.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“I’m out of clean clothes,” Maureen said as they sat on the couch reviewing the interview notes that they had gathered over the past three days.
Manny slurped up the mouthful of spaghetti he’d just shoved into his mouth. He chewed quickly and swallowed, not wanting to talk to her with his mouth full.
“You could just wash them here,” he said, surprised that the prospect hadn’t occurred to her.
“All right, you got me,” she said, sticking her tongue out. “I’m just homesick.”
“We’ll see,” he told her. “For now, let’s focus on making some sense out of these notes.”
They had a lot of work to do on that front. As the days went by, they had interviewed more and more members of the church, and it became apparent that gossip within the community clouded the truth that they were seeking, and hearsay sent them in circles. They had decided that afternoon that they needed to regroup and reorganize their priorities going forward.
Older women, especially those that had been a part of the church for decades, were particularly eager to dish on any perceived unsavoriness that existed among their fellow parishioners. Digging through what was real and what was imaginary would be crucial to prevent them from going on any more wild-goose chases.
“Jim Donaughy’s obviously got a thing for Annie Brogden,” he recalled one octogenarian named Virginia Stanton saying during their interview with her on Thursday afternoon. “You can see how he hangs on to their handshakes just a bit longer during the peace. And he always makes sure that his family sits right by the Brogdens so he can look at Annie during the service. Of course that Annie isn’t any better. Her parents moved into the neighborhood thirty years ago when she was just a little girl. When she hit her teens and blossomed, my goodness, the outfits she used to wear. She looked like a streetwalker. And do you think she moderated herself when she married Andy? Oh, no! That woman still packs on the makeup and walks into the church in those low-cut tops of hers. And
after having two babies as well! There’s no place for that among decent, God-fearing people.”
His notebook was filled with interviews like this. It had been impossible for Manny to keep up with the pace at which many of these women talked, but their voices stuck in his memory, so he was able to fill in whatever gaps he found as he read his notes. He heard the thin, nasal voice of seventy-one-year-old Sharon Easton as she told him and Maureen about a dispute between two neighbors who each attended the church, which revolved around a fence being erected over the property line. Oliva Graves complained in her husky, cigarette-scarred voice about her son wanting to put her in a nursing home, failing to grasp the concept of what the detective was asking.
The interviews contributed very little to the investigation on the surface, but even still, Manny was intrigued by the multitude of underlying feelings that bubbled beneath the surface of the church community. True, whether or not Jim really had a thing for Annie almost certainly had nothing to do with the deaths of two young boys, but there still seemed to be quite a few grievances among the people of St. Mary’s that, put simply, no one ever talked about out loud. Of those grievances, only one seemed to be connected in any way to Tom Lowes and Sandra Locke.
Paris Meintz and her husband, friends of the Lowes family, revealed that a former member of the church by the name of Steven Hanson had a very public falling out with Tom Lowes about three years prior. The rumor was that Tom had listed Steven’s house on the edge of town for sale, and things hadn’t quite gone according to plan. Tom had brought an inspector to the property to check out some work that Hanson had done in the basement, only to find a variety of code violations. Tom had reported these to the county, as most were electrical in nature and posed a significant safety risk.
“He got hit with some serious fines,” Paris had said, “and I know Hanson blamed Tom. He said he had no right to report him and was just supposed to sell his home and not ask questions. Steve actually lost money on the sale, refused to pay Tom his commission, and left a threatening message on Tom’s phone. He played it for us at dinner once. Steve said that Tom had screwed with the wrong person, and that he better watch his back.
“Then we heard that he tried to sue the county so that he didn’t have to pay the fines. I’m pretty sure he barged into the county offices and yelled at Sandra, since it was her name on the notice. The courts threw out his case and he left the city, but I wouldn’t put it past a guy like that to make good on his threats. He was never charged, but we’re all pretty sure that his first wife left him because he hit her on a regular basis.”
Unfortunately, the lead didn’t go anywhere. Manny had given the name to Agent Layton, but it turned out that this Steven Hanson guy had apparently cleaned up his act, remarried, and was living north of Kansas City. Friends and family in the area confirmed that he, his new wife, and stepson had been on an end-of-summer vacation in Yellowstone for two weeks and had returned two days after the second murder. A cursory check by the Feds into their financial activity confirmed the dates of the plane tickets, rental car, and cabin they had stayed in.
“No one in this town is who they say they are,” Manny mused aloud as he paged through his notebook. He turned to look at Maureen, and she was focusing on mopping up the remaining sauce on her plate with her last meatball. He found the way she ate adorable, and Manny couldn’t help but stare at her as she let out a sated sigh and put her plate on the coffee table. It was then that she noticed him ogling her and turned to stare back, raising her eyebrows to silently question what he was looking at. Manny tried to speak but found only empty air coming from his throat. Maureen said nothing either, and the two simply sat for countless agonizing moments.
The hanging silence was broken by Manny’s ringtone. He picked up his phone and checked the caller ID. It was his mother.
“Hi, Ma,” he said as he got to his feet. “I’m kind of in the middle of something. Can I call you back?”
“I’ll be quick, Cariño,” his mother’s voice sang through the phone. “Me and Papa just wanted to know if you’re free for brunch tomorrow morning. We haven’t seen you in so long.”
“Um, yeah sure, Mama,” he said, shifting uncomfortably on his feet and looking at Maureen seated on the couch. “I’ll call you later tonight to firm it up. Love you.”
Manny hung up the phone, cutting off his mother’s farewell. He felt guilty that he didn’t want Maureen to hear him speaking with his mother. He cleared his throat and put his phone in his pocket.
“Looks like you might get to spend some time at home after all,” he said to her. “I got a brunch date with my parents. Unless, of course, you want to come with?”
“No chance,” she replied.
“I’ll drop you off at your place tomorrow morning then, and pick you up after I’m done?”
“Sure, that sounds fine.”
Manny grabbed up the empty plates from the coffee table and took them into the kitchen, depositing them into the sink. He was about to head back into the living room when his phone began to vibrate in his pocket and its muffled ringtone hit his ears. A smile hit his face as he thought it was his mother calling him again. The smile faded when he looked at the caller ID. It was definitely not his mother.
“Agent Layton,” he said quietly as he put the phone to his ear, “what can I do for you?”
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything, Detective,” Layton’s voice said.
“Not at all.”
“I’m calling to inform you that we’re planning on bringing in Tom Lowes and Sandra Locke in tandem this week Thursday.”
“Why so late?” Manny asked.
“We’ve decided to sit on the St. Louis cartels a little longer to see if we can find some more leverage. I’d like to have a few days to see if there’s any suspicious activity before we go at a couple of grieving parents.”
“Not to be rude, Sir, but why call me on this? Last I checked, I’m just your errand boy. I mean, that is why you stuck me with the directory assignment, isn’t it?”
“I’m calling you, Detective, because I want you there when we interview Mr. Lowes and Mrs. Locke.”
His stomach turned a somersault. “You want me there for what?”
“I’ll let you know when I see you,” came the reply. “In the meantime, keep going on the church angle just to be thorough and be at the Sheriff’s Department at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday. If I need to speak to you beforehand, I’ll call you.”
The line clicked and Manny stood for a moment staring at his phone. An invite from the Bureau to help break the case. It was the chance he’d been looking for. He slid his phone back into his pocket and headed into the living room.
“I’ve noticed that you like your baseball,” Maureen said, pointing at the television as he sat down on the couch. “Thought you might want to watch. Should I grab some beers?”
“Yeah, sure,” Manny said, surprised at her offer.
Maureen jumped off the couch, ran into the kitchen, and was back in a moment with four beer bottles stuck between her fingers. She popped the top off two of them and handed one to him.
“So which team are the good guys?” she asked as she sat down and curled her feet under her. “The ones in red or the other ones in red?”
Her ignorance of the game made him laugh. Manny had no clue why Maureen was being so friendly all of a sudden, but she was putting him at ease. He leaned back on the couch and decided to put his assignment out of his mind until the game was over.
“The good guys are winning,” he said, and it was true. It was already the seventh inning and the Cardinals were well ahead of Cincinnati.
They watched the rest of the game in silence and after it was over, Manny got up. “I should probably get to bed.”
“But it’s still early,” she said.
“I know, but I still need to call my mom back about tomorrow, and I know she’ll want
to meet earlier for brunch than I would like. I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight, Maureen.” Manny turned and began to walk to his bedroom. He was just turning the corner to enter the back hall when he heard her voice.
“Goodnight, Manny,” it called softly.
The sound of his name finally coming from her lips almost made him turn back.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“In times of tragedy, it is easy to ask why,” Father Patrick’s voice boomed throughout the church. “It’s easy to question God’s plan for us. But, as difficult as it is, sometimes it is necessary for us to face forward and allow His plan to unfold. We cannot hope to understand the mysteries of God. But what we can do is hold our brothers and sisters close and enfold them with Christian love. For love is the true weapon against evil. Love is what can give us all the courage to go forth into the world and change it for the better. So I encourage all of you, before you allow these horrific occurrences to lure you into anger or hate, please reach for love instead.
“Thank you, Father Preston, for allowing me these few moments to speak to our congregation before your sermon this morning. I want to conclude by letting all of you know that if anyone is in need of council or special prayer, we are extending office hours tomorrow, Tuesday, and Thursday for an extra two hours in the evening. No need to ask for an appointment, simply come to the church office, and we will be happy to meet with you and offer whatever assistance you require.”
The old priest stepped down and yielded the pulpit to his younger counterpart. Maureen looked on from the rear of the church where she leaned against the frame of the large double doors that provided the main access to the nave. She felt incredibly conspicuous, but she didn’t have the stomach to enter the church and sit in one of the pews while the actual Sunday Mass was going on. The last time she had done that was a lifetime ago, and she had been forced by medieval means to do it. There wasn’t a power on earth that could make her participate in a service again.
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