“Because they’re stupid fucks,” Sherrod said, glaring at him.
“But smart enough to leave no signs of forced entry. Not even a fingerprint.”
Sherrod’s eyes narrowed. “Ever heard of gloves and dumb luck? Look, we did our homework, smart guy. It was friggin’ cold that morning—nine miserable degrees. So they wore gloves. And we figure the priest turned off the security, so they just followed him in.”
Worthy could feel Captain Betts’ eyes on him and remembered her appeal for finesse. Welcome to the real world, Captain, he thought. “If I have this right,” he said slowly, “you’re saying this robber or robbers knew the old man was around because they followed him in. But then this same priest surprised them a few minutes later in the sanctuary, so they killed him.”
Sherrod shook his head, pointing the nail file at Worthy. “Look, they did fucking surprise him. The priest must have come in and gone down to his office. Maybe then he hears something in the sanctuary. Like maybe they dropped the piece, okay? So he comes in, and they realize he could ID them. Work for you, Einstein, or you gotta better theory?”
Worthy looked down at the questions on his sheet. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t say there’s a lot here from the interviews at the church.”
Sherrod stood up and glared down on Worthy. “Look, I’m telling you, those church folks are only going to get things balled up. Hell, half of them don’t even speak English. Hoops will tell you that none of them know nothing. And please, for Christ’s sake, have the basic courtesy to read the report. That will tell you that the priest was there alone that morning.”
Worthy nodded. “Of course, of course. Well, I don’t see why Sergeant Henderson shouldn’t carry on with your three suspects from Suffolk. I don’t think the interviews will take more than a few days.”
Sherrod stood, red-faced, as he ran a hand through thin strands of hair. “Look, Worthy, it won’t be interviewing, but re-interviewing. I give you a case practically done, but you can’t just tie the bow and be done with it, can you? No, you have to over-complicate things.”
Captain Betts cleared her throat.
“No, let me finish, Captain,” Sherrod said, hands planted on his hips, his right hand gripping his holster. “Look, Worthy, almost everyone we arrest in this city is, at bottom, a simple fuck. There are no great ideas floating around in their heads. No masterminds out there; that’s what I’m trying to say. That morning, this guy or guys figures the easiest way is to follow the old priest in once he gets there. That way, no alarms go off. You see, it’s simple.”
Worthy kept his eyes on his notes.
“Okay, fine,” Sherrod said. “Screw things up, if that’s what you need to do. But I’m out of here.”
Worthy sat silently as Sherrod left the room, slamming the door.
Nicely done, Worthy thought. Now everybody in the precinct knows exactly where things stand.
Captain Betts took her glasses off and looked over to the window. “Sergeant Henderson, we haven’t heard anything from you.”
Henderson didn’t respond.
“Did you hear me, Sergeant?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I don’t see nothing wrong with the two of us going our separate ways. I’ll take Bales and his buddies from Suffolk. The lieutenant can take the church.”
Betts raised her eyebrows and turned her attention to Worthy. “Lieutenant, because I’m sure Sherrod will make his displeasure known to my superiors, maybe you’d be so good as to tell me what you hope to gain from interviewing the same people at the church over again.”
Worthy sat forward in his chair. “I just want to make sure we don’t have this whole thing backwards.”
Henderson turned toward him.
“Go on,” Captain Betts said.
“What if somebody made it look like a robbery? I mean, what if the priest was having problems, maybe even some at the church. That’s all I want to find out.”
“Okay,” she said, unconvinced, “but churches usually give their ministers or priests ulcers. They don’t generally kill them, Lieutenant. Any other thoughts, Sergeant?” she asked.
“Like I said, I’m fine with it.”
“Fine, fine, fine,” Captain Betts snapped back. “Tell me why you’re fine when somebody suggests a completely contradictory theory to what you’ve been pursuing for two weeks.”
For the first time, Henderson met his new superior’s gaze. “All right, here’s what I think. But remember, you asked me. I think Worthy’s angle is full of day-old shit, but yes, I’m fine with that. Because at the end of the day, it’s going to make me look all the better.”
Father Fortis hit the print command on the church office computer so hard that the keyboard jumped, but for the third time nothing happened. He felt like the new schoolboy, having to ask the church secretary, Mrs. Hazelton, how to do something. The monastery in Ohio had only four computers, and Brother Basil guarded them jealously.
The buzzer beeped on his desk. “Yes, Mrs. Hazelton?”
“Father, there’s a policeman here to see you.”
Father Fortis took a deep breath. So it was time to meet the infamous Lieutenant Sherrod, the detective who’d managed to alienate nearly everyone at St. Cosmas. He stood, straightened his robe, and managed a serious scowl. Let’s see how he does with me, he thought.
The door opened, and Christopher Worthy walked in. Father Fortis let out a yell and scampered around the desk to lift his friend off the ground.
“Easy on the ribs, Nick,” Worthy said, laughing.
Father Fortis set him down and laughed in return. “Did you like that look on my face when you came in?”
“It looked like you had gas.”
“It was supposed to intimidate you. I thought you were someone named Sherrod.”
“Intimidation, huh? You couldn’t scare anyone if you tried.”
“Sit down, my friend, and bring me up to date. How are things with you? More importantly, how are things with Allyson? The last time we talked, you were hoping to make some headway.”
Worthy shook his head, not knowing what to say about where things stood with his older daughter. After the case in New Mexico, he had indeed returned to Detroit more committed than ever to connecting with his troubled daughter. Two and a half years before, Allyson had run away, and for five months Susan and he had no idea whether she was dead or alive. Then one day, she walked back into the house as if she’d just come home from school. She’d told no one—not her mother, her father, her younger sister, or her counselor—where she’d been in those months or how she’d survived.
Despite Allyson’s stonewalling, Worthy had come back from New Mexico with a pledge to give their relationship another try before Allyson went away to college. But his renewed attempts over the last eighteen months to talk with Allyson had made no headway. Until four days ago, that is.
“All I can say, Nick, is that I’ve tried a new tack. I had to do something. The counselor kept saying the same thing to me, through Susan. ‘Don’t upset your daughter. Don’t put her in a corner.’ It was like the safest thing I could do was never talk to her again.”
“So what did you do?”
Worthy sat down in the chair. “Maybe something really stupid. I just don’t know. Anyway, it must have been last Monday when I stopped at the house after work. Allyson was alone in the kitchen. To use her words, Amy had conned Susan into buying her more clothes for school. So I took a deep breath and asked if she’d go up some weekend to the cabin. Just the two of us.”
“And she said yes?”
“Not exactly, but at least I didn’t get the standard ‘you have to be kidding’ response. She wanted to know when, exactly. So I said the weekend after next, and then I stupidly added we could leave on Friday night if she wanted. As soon as I said it, I realized how that sounded, like I was saying she didn’t have anything better to do than spend the whole weekend with her dad.”
“So she said no?”
“Well, she ignored me for
a few minutes. I’m used to that. She finally told me that Amy would make better company. She said the cabin is boring.”
Father Fortis sat down next to Worthy. “I’m so sorry, Christopher.”
Worthy shrugged. “It may not be over yet, Nick. I told her that Amy and I can go another time. The way I figure it, Amy is only twelve and hasn’t yet decided that I’m the cause of all her problems. So I told Allyson that I know the cabin can be boring, but with it being mid-January, we could go skiing or ice fishing. I tried to crack a joke, saying we could be bored together for a while, just like the old days. She rolled her eyes at that and told me to skip the ‘good-old-days stuff.’ ”
“You never fail to make me glad I’m celibate, my friend,” Father Fortis said. “Teenagers’ brains are much too quick these days.”
“No argument there, Nick. That’s when she really opened up on me. She said she had a theory as to why I was asking her to go. In talking with Rachel, her counselor, she’d worked out that my time out in New Mexico had changed me. How I’d been sent out to find a missing girl, and how I’d failed. So I’d come back worried that she’d run away again. I don’t know if that’s her thought or the counselor’s, but I can’t say she’s completely wrong.”
“You haven’t told her what actually happened in New Mexico?”
“Not in so many words. The fewer people know what really happened out there, the safer things are. Anyway, just when I thought she was leading up to a big ‘no’ on the cabin plan, she said she’d think about it. With my luck, she’ll say yes just about the time my new case ties me down here.” Worthy shook her head. “ ‘Just like the old days,’ she’ll say.”
Father Fortis sighed. “This is Allyson’s last year of high school, right?”
“Yes, and after that, who knows?”
“Blessings on you, my friend. I truly mean that. And congratulations on getting a case, although I suppose that means someone’s been murdered.”
“Any case is better than being at the academy, Nick. And I think this one could be a challenge. It’s complicated, though not everyone agrees with me on that. But speaking of complicated, I understand you’ve got your own problem here.”
“Indeed we do. That’s why I thought you were this Lieutenant Sherrod. Do you know him, by the way?”
“Oh, yes. Sherrod and I go back a good ten years. Unfortunately, we’ve never actually been friends.”
“Well, he hasn’t made a very good impression around here.”
“He never does. Sorry you have to deal with that.” A smile played across Worthy’s face.
“You find something funny?” Father Fortis asked.
“I’m just jacking you around. What if I told you Lieutenant Sherrod isn’t your problem any longer?”
Father Fortis studied his friend’s face. “He’s been reprimanded?”
“Better. He’s been promoted to a federal case.”
Father Fortis’ heart leapt for joy. “Thank you, St. Nicholas or St. Cosmas, or St. Whoever! I don’t suppose you know who’s taking his place?”
Worthy’s smile widened.
“Christopher, don’t tease me.”
“Think we can work together again, Nick?”
Father Fortis jumped up and planted a big kiss on the crown of Worthy’s head. “Watson reporting for duty, Holmes.”
“Better, I’ll be that Flambeau guy and you be Father Brown,” Worthy countered.
“Well, now I know you’re teasing me. No, it’s going to be hard enough trying to be a good parish priest. That’s a bit of a stretch for this monk, let me tell you. Nothing to keep me awake at night like remembering that I’ve been given the care of over three hundred grieving families. So, I’ll settle for a very weak impersonation of Dr. Watson.”
Worthy rose. “Well, then, Watson, shall we start by you showing me where it happened?”
“Of course,” Father Fortis replied, moving toward the door. “At least that will get me away from the blasted printer problem. I think the computer is possessed.”
Worthy walked around the desk and studied the computer screen. He hit a series of buttons and a new screen appeared. “It says that you’ve sent three documents to a different printer. That’s probably the one out in your secretary’s office.” Worthy hit another button, and Father Fortis heard the paper jump in the printer next to him.
“Bless you, my friend. I am so in over my head here.”
Worthy took Father Fortis by the arm. “You’ve got your printer. Now show me my crime scene.”
Out in the hallway, Father Fortis pointed down a side corridor to another door. “We can take this shortcut to the altar area, or we can walk around to the narthex and come in that way.”
“Is that shortcut door usually locked?”
“Yes. Always, in fact, except on Sunday morning.”
“Then let’s go the other way. I’m guessing that’s the way the killer entered and probably left.”
That the very hallway they were in had been used that fateful morning when Father Spiro was murdered was not a new thought to Father Fortis. In fact, he’d had a hard time thinking of anything else as he struggled to write a homily that morning. No doubt that’s what the parishioners would also be thinking on Sunday, no matter what he said.
Worthy broke into his thoughts. “I’ll need to interview your secretary next.”
“Go gently, please. Mrs. Hazelton feels terrible that she wasn’t here that morning.”
“Perhaps she was lucky,” Worthy replied.
“That’s what I told her, but guilt isn’t logical.”
In the narthex, Father Fortis paused before the icon of Christ, crossed himself, and prayed for Father Spiro’s soul, the church, and the killer.
As the two men moved through the doors into the sanctuary, Worthy said, “You’ll have to explain a few things, Nick.”
“What do you mean?”
“All this,” Worthy said, gesturing toward the altar and to a side wall of glass icons set in floor-to-ceiling windows.
Father Fortis nodded. “Ah, my mistake. We’re such good friends, Christopher, that I just assumed you’d be familiar with our churches. Ask whatever you want.”
They walked down the center aisle of the darkened sanctuary to stand at the foot of the raised platform. In front of them, a row of candles flickered below the icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary.
“Actually, I was only at your monastery for that one case, and I think I was still smarting from my own problems at the time. When I look around this place, I realize that I’ve always known you were an Orthodox monk, but I never quite understood what that means. I do remember a time in my junior high school years when a Greek Church was on my paper route. One afternoon, I was walking by the church, and they must have had some service going on. I looked into a room full of smoke and candles burning beneath paintings just like these. I remember wondering if there could be any place more different than my dad’s Baptist church.”
“Ah, yes, my friend,” Father Fortis said. “A lot of people find us very different. It’s hard for many to accept that we Orthodox are every Christian’s oldest relatives. No Christian group has avoided changing over the centuries, but because of a series of circumstances outside of our control and conscious choices, we Orthodox have changed the least.”
“I thought that honor went to Catholics,” Worthy said.
“In a sense, that is also correct. Pope John Paul II was right when we said that the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches represent the two lungs of the ancient Church. Of course, the Catholic Church changed quite a bit after Vatican II in the 1960s. The Orthodox Church might be considered the eastern lung and the Catholic Church the western lung. Does that help?”
“I never thought of being Baptist as being modern,” Worthy replied.
“Maybe the difference would be better understood like this. The Protestant Reformation centered on each person’s relationship to Christ. The Orthodox were mainly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and
Russia at the time of the Reformation and were not directly affected. For us, Christian faith centers not so much on a person’s relationship to Christ as on Christ’s relationship with a people, with the Church. As a Baptist convert to Orthodoxy once expressed, ‘We Orthodox don’t focus on having Jesus in our hearts. We focus on desiring to be in Jesus’ heart.’ Does that help or just make things worse?”
“Don’t worry about it, Nick. I promise that I’ll attend services here at St. Cosmas, so maybe I’ll have some more questions. Right now, I think we should focus on the murder scene. He died right there, didn’t he?” Worthy pointed to the square of new carpeting.
“Yes, my friend. The carpet piece is just temporary, of course.”
“Speaking selfishly, I’m glad they’ve waited to re-carpet the whole area,” Worthy said as he knelt down, laying a folder next to him. It struck Father Fortis as odd to see his friend kneel as parishioners do, and not far from the icons before which confessions in the Orthodox Church generally occurred. But that, he knew, wasn’t in the cards for Worthy. Large parts of Worthy’s life had disintegrated with his divorce and then with the strain of Allyson’s running away. Faith in God had been one of those casualties.
“What have you learned about Father Spiro?” Worthy asked.
“Not as much as I had hoped. Naturally, no one wants to speak ill of a dead priest, but I get the feeling his mind was slipping a bit.”
“The file says he had some sort of spell on the Sunday before he died.”
“A ‘spell’? I guess you could call it that. I was told that he just stopped in his tracks during one of the processions. But there were earlier indications of some problem. It wasn’t the first time he’d forgotten parts of the liturgy. And he’d missed a few meetings recently.”
Worthy looked up from the carpet square to the rear of the sanctuary. “I was looking at a photocopy of his schedule for the day he died. There was an asterisk by the nine o’clock slot, but no explanation. And then there was nothing on the docket until six that night, when a land acquisition committee meeting was scheduled.”
Let the Dead Bury the Dead Page 3
