“About a week ago,” he said, “but that’s not the abbey’s boat.”
“What?”
“That’s not the abbey boat,” he said again. “I moved it back over to the lake a week ago.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Sister Abigail stopped walking and turned back toward us.
“You’re sure?” Steve asked.
“Positive,” Richie said. “I know our boat and that’s not it.”
“Then whose is it?”
Richie shrugged. “I’ve never seen it before.”
I knew any minute Muscle-fat would state the obvious.
“It could be the one stolen from Lake Grove Landing,” he said.
“Maybe you better show us the abbey boat,” Steve said to Richie.
“Okay.”
“And on the way you can tell me why you wouldn’t answer John’s questions this morning,” he said. As we walked past Muscle-fat, Steve said, “Stay here and keep the scene secure until FDLE arrives.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t understand,” Sister Abigail said when we reached her. “How can this not be our boat?”
“Lot of possibilities,” Steve said. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Whatever the case,” she said, “it’s looking better and better for Tom all the time.”
She then turned and walked back toward the dorm and the three of us continued down to the lake.
Like many cops, Steve had a hardness that enabled him to deal with the hardened, and though it was similar, it was not the same.
“I want you to refuse to answer my questions,” he said to Richie. “Few things I enjoy more than kickin’ the shit outta rapists.”
Keith Richie was scared and it showed, but only if you were looking carefully for it. Not only was he walking differently—as if his joints had lost some of their flexibility—but the skin of his neck had become splotchy beneath tiny beads of sweat.
“I’m not the same man I used to be,” he said. “I’m different. A new creature in Christ Jesus.”
“You and every other convict I’ve ever talked to,” he said. “World would be a better place if we could all just go to prison.”
“You ask anybody here,” Richie said. “I’ve never done anything that even looked wrong.”
“Until now.”
He stopped walking.
“What the hell you think you’re doin’?” Steve asked.
“No sense investigating if you’re just gonna pin it on me. You don’t need to even look at the boat.”
“All these little tactics to keep from answering our questions aren’t gonna work,” Steve said. “So just move your ass and your mouth or getting butt-fucked in the shower because you take the fall for Tammy’s murder’ll be the least painful thing that happens to you.”
Richie started to protest, but before he had gotten out three words, Steve punched him in the chest. It caught him by surprise and shut him up, knocking him back a few steps and making him gasp, but he didn’t fall down, and when he took a step toward Steve, which his whole life had programmed him to do, Steve slapped him across the face so hard his head whipped to the side.
Instinctively, Richie swung back, but the punch was a looping right hook that Steve easily blocked, then countered with a digging right uppercut into his gut. Richie fell to his knees, his mouth open as if trying to suck air that wasn’t there.
By the time the brief exchange was over, Steve was out of breath, and I waited while both men took a moment to regain their composure.
After a couple of minutes of silence, Richie stood without speaking and began walking toward the lake again.
Steve and I followed.
“Were you involved with Tammy?” Steve asked.
“You don’t have to rape a woman who’s givin’ it to you.”
“Unless she stops,” Steve said.
“She didn’t. I was drunk when I supposedly raped that girl in Pensacola. She was too. I honestly don’t know what really happened, but I haven’t had a drink since that night.”
“That may be true, but we’re not dealing with a rape here. This is murder. And we know you’ve got one hell of a temper and rage control issues.”
Steve waited, but Richie didn’t say anything.
“What’d she do to make you so mad?”
“Tell me what my motive is,” he said.
“It’s internal,” Steve said. “It’s anger. It’s rage. It’s violence. It’s not outwardly motivated. Oh, I’m sure she did something to set you off, but that’s all you needed. She was just a trigger.”
“You had more of a motive than I did,” Richie said.
“Yeah, I did it,” Steve said, his voice full of a mean sarcasm.
“Well, I didn’t. That’s all I’m saying. I swear to Christ, I didn’t do it.”
We passed near Kathryn’s cabin, and I felt both excitement and guilt.
“See,” Richie said as soon as the small boat became visible. “That’s the abbey boat. It’s been here at least a week.”
The small wooden boat was tied to a stump and half hidden by the hay-colored underbrush. It looked nearly identical to the one we had just seen in the waterway.
“Why’d you move it over here?” Steve asked.
“I wasn’t using it in the waterway and I figured Kathryn would use it if it was over here.”
“Damn you’re a nice guy,” Steve said. “But from now on, I don’t want you even saying her name. Understand? You better not come within twenty feet of her. If you do, rather than take a chance, I’ll cut ‘em off just to be safe.”
“I’ve got to get lunch started,” Richie said, beginning to turn. “You know where to find me.”
“You better be there when I come looking for you.”
Richie walked away.
For a moment we stood there in silence staring at the lake and the small boat.
After a while, Steve turned to me and said, “What the hell’s goin’ on here?”
I shrugged.
“You think that’s Tammy’s blood on the other boat?”
I nodded. “I do. Maybe some of her killer’s too.”
“Why the hell use the boat in the first place?”
I shook my head. “Don’t know.”
“Can’t see the devil paddling away in it,” he said.
I laughed.
“And where’d it come from?” he asked. “You think it’s the stolen one?”
“I do.”
“So it could’ve been someone from the outside,” he said.
“Why not leave in the boat? Why just paddle back to the dock?”
He shook his head. “For a moment I thought we found something, but all we got is more questions.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
“I understand you have evidence that proves my client’s innocence,” Ralph Reid said.
He and Father Thomas had come out of his cabin and joined us at the water’s edge.
Steve shook his head. “We’ve got a little blood in a boat. Don’t even know if it’s related.”
“But if it is—” Reid began.
“It could belong to Father Thomas,” Steve said. “Could prove he did it.”
“It doesn’t,” Father Thomas said, “and it won’t.”
“I’d really like to believe that, Father, but there’s a lot of physical evidence against you.”
“What happened wasn’t physical. It can’t be explained in physical terms. That’s why your search for a killer is so vain. Human agency wasn’t involved.”
“That’s not exactly true,” I said. “Even if what you’re saying is true, it’s not purely physical or Tammy would still be alive. What happened to her ended her physical life.”
“You’re right, of course. All I meant was her killer’s not flesh and blood, but spirit and darkness.”
“And yet,” I said, “we have a stolen diary, a stolen boat with blood in it, and a drowning.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I don’t. I don’t have to.”
“Well, I do,” Steve said. “And everything else that’s happened.”
“It may be your job, but it’s arrogance to think there’s an answer for everything.”
“How did your skin get beneath her fingernails?” Steve asked.
“It had her scratch me,” he said.
“It?”
“The demon.”
“Did it also have you scratch her?”
“Of course not,” he said. “I only tried to restrain her.”
“Did the two of you have sex?”
Reid jumped in. “We’ve already been over all this. We’ve answered all your questions. Why, when you have evidence pointing in another direction, are you asking them again?”
“We have evidence now,” Steve said to Father Thomas. “We’ll be able to prove it if you lie. Did you have sex with her?”
For a moment Father Thomas hesitated. Finally, he shook his head. “No,” he said so softly it was difficult to hear, “I did not.”
“Well, somebody did not long before she was murdered, and we’re gonna find out who.”
“We’re going now,” Reid said, “but let me remind you that if you ignore the evidence of the boat and its implications, I’ll clobber you with it in court.”
Steve’s eyes widened and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. “Tell me you didn’t plant it after the fact to establish reasonable doubt.”
“I didn’t,” he said with a self-satisfied smile, “but I’m glad you agree it creates reasonable doubt.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
I found Kathryn crying in her cabin.
“Was it that bad?” I asked, a small smile on my face.
She was wearing the same clothes as this morning, which were wrinkled and grass-stained in spots from our alleged picnic, and her hair was sticking up on one side from where she had been laying on it.
“It was wonderful,” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re crying,” I said as if having Muscle-fat’s gift for stating the obvious.
She nodded.
“What’re you crying about?”
“Nothing,” she said, “and everything.”
There was nothing manipulative in her words or tears. She was just as genuine as she had been in all our previous encounters. I had merely interrupted her private experience of existential suffering.
“Is it a rainy-days-and-Mondays kind of thing?” I asked.
“Exactly,” she said. “Just the noonday demon.”
I nodded.
“You sound like you have some experience with it,” she said.
“Hello darkness my old friend,” I said.
“Mine’s hormones,” she said. “What’s your excuse?”
I shrugged.
“I’ve learned there’s nothing I can do about it,” she said. “I just hang on, wait it out, try not to kill myself.”
“How often does it happen?” I asked.
“Usually not more than a couple of times a month. Not counting my period, which is a different shade of blue.”
“Anything I can do?” I asked.
“Just be gentle. I need a non-demanding, TLC-filled afternoon.”
“So it’s probably not a good time to ask you about the tape,” I said.
She looked puzzled. “What tape?”
“The one you took from Father Thomas’s camcorder night before last,” I said. “The one that’s supposed to exonerate him and implicate the devil.”
“Oh, that tape,” she said with a forced smile. “I really need to get out of this cabin. Tell you what, take me into town for an early dinner and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
Bridgeport had changed.
Far from the fishing village I had visited as a kid, it was now a quaint touristy town of gift shops, art galleries, and eateries. A restored theater housed a local acting company and hosted traveling players, and a turn-of-the-century inn stayed booked year round.
As we strolled down the sidewalk past the toggery, kitchen shop, and bookstore, I gazed out at the great bay and the barrier island of Pine Key beyond. Shrimp, oyster, and sailboats bobbed beneath the midday sun, as cars slowly cruised the causeway.
We ate at a place on the corner I had eaten at as a kid, but only the good food remained the same. North Florida’s filmmaker, Victor Nunez, had shot scenes for a couple of his movies here, and framed one-sheets from his films hung around the room.
“My depression doesn’t scare you?” Kathryn asked after we had ordered.
I shook my head.
“You’re not afraid I’m like this most of the time, that I’m unstable, maybe even dangerous?”
“Are you?”
“No,” she said. “And I didn’t kill Tammy.”
I nodded. “But you did take the videotape from the room.”
“How’d you know?”
“You knew it was in there and had time to get it when Steve came to get me.”
“Father Thomas could’ve taken it,” she said, “or the killer.”
“That’s true,” I said, “but it was you. You offered to keep the camera in your cabin because you wanted to use it to see what was on the tape.”
“I knew I couldn’t hide the whole thing, so I just took the tape, but then I wanted to see exactly what was on it.”
“You took it to protect Father Thomas,” I said.
She nodded.
Our food came, and we ate in silence for a while, bits and pieces of the various conversations of the early evening crowd around us drifting over to our table.
The quality of Kathryn’s beauty was more obvious now, sitting across from her in the unflattering light of the restaurant, than it had been at any other point I’d been around her. Her soft, delicate features, her pale, unadorned skin, her thick blond hair, and the deep brown of her eyes were just short of mesmerizing, her unselfconsciousness only adding to the effect.
“Whatta you gonna do?” she asked.
“Watch the tape.”
“With or without Steve?”
“Without the first time.”
“Then what?”
“Depends on what’s on the tape.”
“Just remember he’s a good man,” she said. “He’s helped so many people over the years. He’s been like a father to me. No matter what’s on the tape, don’t forget that.”
“I won’t.”
“What about me?” she asked. “Whatta you gonna do about me?”
I knew what she meant, but to stall I said, “Whatta you mean?”
“Do you suspect me more now?”
I shrugged.
“What about what happened last night and this morning? It was so wonderful. I hope I haven’t jeopardized anything we might have had.”
I thought about it. I wasn’t sure what we had, but so far she hadn’t really done anything that would make me unwilling to explore it.
“Do we need to talk about that?” I asked.
“What?” she asked. “Our future?”
I nodded.
“You told me up front your heart belonged to Anna,” she said. “We agreed to just let this be what it is and not try to make it into something it can’t be.”
“That’s a lot easier to say than do.”
“Especially for us girls.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “Though the reason we’re even having this conversation is that I’m still hung up on my first love.”
“So that could be me if our timing were better?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
She considered me for a moment. “There’s nothing typical about you, is there?”
I could tell by the things she was saying and the way she was acting that it would be best if we slow down some, but could we? Would we? Would we be able to resist the urge to define an
d possess and want more?
“Maybe what I should have asked is if you think less of me,” she said.
“For trying to protect Father Thomas?”
“You can’t be sure that’s all I was doing.”
“True.”
“But it was” she said. “I swear it. I’m not trying to hinder your investigation. Just the opposite in fact. And I can prove it.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that?”
“I’m the one who put Tammy’s diary in your room.”
Chapter Forty
We were getting into my truck when we saw them. They were walking toward a car across the street in front of the hardware store. I got Kathryn’s attention and pointed to them.
Her eyes grew wide in alarm. “The two who attacked us?”
I nodded.
She ducked beneath the cab of the truck, though they weren’t even looking in our direction.
“Get in,” I said. “Let’s see where they go.”
We jumped in, Kathryn crouching down in her seat.
“You’re gonna follow them?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “You wanna stay here?”
She hesitated a moment, seeming to think about it. “No, I guess I’ll go, but can I call Steve?”
“Sure,” I said. “I was gonna suggest it.”
She opened her purse, withdrew her phone, and began tapping Steve’s number.
The two men backed out of their parking place and drove in our direction. When they passed by, I let a couple of cars get between us, then pulled out and began to follow them.
They drove out of the downtown area and headed toward Highway 98, which ran along the coast between Pensacola and Carrabelle. Taking a right on 98, I followed three cars behind them as they drove back in the direction of St. Ann’s.
Seeming to rise out of the bay, the empty shell of Gulf Coast Paper Mill loomed in front of us. In contrast to the abandoned mill, the new Bridgeport marina next to it was alive with activity—boats trolling into and out of the bay, fish being unloaded on the docks by sun-burned families and their charter guides, and people coming from and going to the Café on the Dock.
“Where is he?” Kathryn was saying.
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