“Hello, Samantha,” he said when she reached the front desk.
Sam noticed his white collar, but she did not recognize his face. He had the most gentle, soft-spoken voice she had ever heard. There was something rich and calming about it that put her at ease. She remembered feeling the same way when she met Rey for the first time. Father Ken was a burley, tall man, fortyish, with a thick head of auburn hair and full beard to match.
“Have we met?” Sam asked shaking his hand.
“I came to bring these back to you. And yes, we’ve met, though I suspect you may not remember. I called your office several times last week, but they said you were out,” Father Ken said.
“Yes … yes,” Sam said, trying not to stammer. “I … I was having some problems.”
“Yes, I know,” he said and saw the look of uncertainty in her eyes.
“We talked last week,” he said calmly.
Sam frowned. “We did?”
Nick Weeks entered the reception area and Sam did not want to continue the conversation with him in the lobby.
“Please follow me, Father.”
Within moments they were downstairs in the conference room behind closed doors.
“You said we spoke? When?” Sam asked.
“Last week,” he replied.
“Last week? I don’t remember speaking with you.”
Father Ken laughed gently. There was something reassuring in his laughter.
“You were having a very rough time, Samantha.”
Sam looked at him, her eyes wide with uncertainty.
“I was having a hard week, but how did you know?”
“You were in St. Bernadette’s.”
“When?”
“Thursday afternoon.”
“Thursday afternoon?” she echoed.
She tried to think back, but nothing came to mind. She remembered the last question she had just answered on the AA quiz.
“What was I doing there?”
“You were sitting in the last pew in church when I found you.”
“I … I was?”
Father Ken nodded.
“You came in the front door and Sally, our office manager, was on the altar fixing a floral arrangement when you entered. She said you stood by the door a moment, as though you weren’t sure you wanted to enter.
“Sally said you began to walk to the back of the church, but stopped halfway and looked at the altar again. Sally told me you stayed right there for several minutes. She said it made her wonder if you’d been in our church before.”
Sam nodded feeling numb. “I used to go there as a kid. Is there still a small room in the back of the church for candles where people can light them and pray?”
“Yes, it’s still there, Samantha.”
She sat back against the chair. “That must’ve been where I was going. When I was little I’d pray in there …”
Sam’s voice faded and she smiled slightly, almost embarrassed.
“For the longest time, I always thought God heard my prayers,” she went on, “but when I got older, I realized how foolish I’d been and stopped going to church and praying.”
Father Ken rested his hand lightly over Sam’s. It was warm to the touch and eased the anxiety churning inside her. “God is never far away from any one of us,” he said, reciting his favorite verse from the Book of Acts. “In Him we live and move and are.”
“It doesn’t seem like He’s ever been living and moving within me. Is that prayer petition book still there?”
Father Ken nodded.
“Well, I wrote in it once that my mother would come home from Chicago. She finally did and then she killed herself on Christmas morning.”
“I know,” Father Ken said gently. “You told me.”
Sam glared at him in amazement. She put a hand on her chest. “I told you? When?”
“Thursday. As I was saying, Sally watched you until you entered the prayer room. And that’s when she came to get me.”
“And when you found me, I was already out of the prayer room and sitting in one of the pews?” Sam asked, trying to piece together a day she didn’t remember.
Father Ken nodded. “When Sally came to get me, she said I’d better get over to the church before you left. She said you looked sad and desperate and might need someone to talk to.”
Sam was sad. And desperate.
“Forgive me, Father, but I don’t remember anything about that day. I am so sorry, but I don’t remember telling you anything,” Sam said and looked away. Her foolishness made her feel angry.
“I know. You told me why, Samantha. You told me about your parents and what happened to Robin and where April is.”
Sam looked at him perplexed.
“I … I did? I … don’t remember. I feel so foolish.”
“Don’t be. It’s what I am here for.”
Father Ken smiled gently and went on. “You told me how you lost your job at the Denver Post. And you told me you thought you might have a substance abuse problem.”
“Was I drunk?”
The Father nodded. “Yes, Samantha, you were. But I understood where you were coming from and told you why.”
“Why?”
“I was an alcoholic for years before I went to AA. That was almost fifteen years ago.”
“Do you still to go AA?”
“Once a week, every week. Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said.
“Did I tell you I worked here?”
Father Ken nodded. “When we were in my office, you left these things behind. So I came to bring them back to you.”
Sam had not noticed the small brown paper sack Father Ken had brought with him. He set it on the table before her. She opened it and inside was her wool hat and a small white envelope with her handwriting on it.
“I don’t remember writing this on here,” she said looking from him to the envelope.
He looked at her saying nothing. Her handwriting said it all.
“I must’ve written down someone else’s prayer when I was in the prayer room. It looks like a child’s handwriting,” Sam said as she read the words …
I want my dad to spend more time with me.
But it was the line below that made her draw a deep breath involuntarily.
Please can I have a better life.
Sam looked at Father Ken, her eyes glistening with tears.
“She is where I once was.”
“Perhaps,” he said quietly. “As perhaps you may have been, too, at one time.”
Sam ran her hand over the envelope.
“How long was I in your office?”
“I didn’t keep track of the time. We couldn’t let you drive home. We called a cab and Sally and I followed.”
Her face flushed with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry, Father, you had to do that.”
“Don’t be, Samantha. We were happy to help.”
“Did you come to bring these back?” she asked.
“Yes, and to see how you were.”
“I’m doing better, thank you. But I have a long road ahead of me, don’t I?”
Father Ken nodded. “Yes, you do, but you’re welcome to come talk to me any time you want. The door is always open.”
Sam thanked Father Ken and walked him to the main doors and he finished telling her about their time together. There wasn’t an accusatory tone in his voice the entire time he spoke to her. She was sorry she could not remember their first meeting. She stayed at the door and stared in the direction she last saw his car for a long time. She looked again at the white envelope and thought about the child who had written those words, wanting a better life. Her father’s acceptance.
She could do nothing to help that child, but she could to help herself. She returned to her desk to finish the AA quiz. She flipped to the final question on page twelve.
Would my life be better if I quit drinking?
It wasn’t Ruth’s words she heard this time, but Father Ken’s.
“Many
of us drink because we think it’s going to make our lives better,” he told her. “At AA we learn that alcohol has taken over our lives. It has hindered our life, not made it better.”
Sam sighed deeply, folded the brochure and returned it to the envelope. Instead of putting it in the drawer, she placed it in her purse, to keep it as Robin had.
When she looked up, the computer screen beckoned, the cursor blinking in anticipation. She didn’t feel as overwhelmed and anxious. She closed her eyes and silently thanked Father Ken.
She no longer felt perilously lost. She allowed herself a small satisfied smile and pulled her chair closer to her desk. She set her fingers lightly on the keyboard, ready to type.
She wrote headlines for her editors to consider:
Suburban Drug Ring Cracked
Grandview police chief faces charges in smuggling operation,
death of DA, police officer
Her smile was bittersweet. She rubbed her temples in an attempt to soothe the terrible pounding. She ignored the throbbing and wrote her byline beneath the headlines.
The story followed:
“Charges will be filed this week against Grandview Police Chief Wyatt Gilmore who was taken into custody for running what investigators are calling a “highly profitable and long running suburban drug smuggling operation.”
Gilmore, 58, a popular and well-liked police chief and respected community member, was taken into custody without incident at his office Friday morning.
According to a police report, in the 21-count charges, Gilmore was arrested for narcotics trafficking and smuggling, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion and filing false income tax returns for the last three years.
Other charges are forthcoming, investigators said.
The alleged conspiracy also charges that Gilmore, along with the late Cmdr. Jonathan Church, killed last week in a car explosion, and others discussed the possibility of killing a newspaper reporter conducting an investigation into the crimes.
Gilmore has also been charged with the alleged murder of Robin Marino, 28, an assistant DA with the Truman County District Attorney’s Office. Marino, who had been investigating the alleged local drug smuggling ring, was about go public with her information when she was murdered Christmas Eve. Her death, originally ruled a suicide, was reopened as a murder investigation earlier this month.
Gilmore has also been charged with the alleged death of 29-year-old Reynaldo Edward Estrada, a five-year veteran of the Grandview Police Department. Estrada died in a traffic mishap, which officials have now determined was a set up designed to end the officer’s life, officials said.
Investigators could not speculate how long the alleged drug smuggling ring had been operating from Truman County, but estimated that it may have been as long as 10 years.
Hints of an investigation into such a ring – the first of its kind and magnitude ever known to hit the streets in the Denver-metro area – began to surface after Marino’s death.
At the time of Gilmore’s arrest, it was estimated that he was allegedly earning about $1.5 million per month from cocaine, black tar heroin from Mexico and methamphetamine sales, according to investigators.
Gilmore was depositing the cash in a bogus bank account established at the Grandview National Bank under the false name of “Roy Rogers.” The local bank was one of several hundred banks with accounts that were frozen by federal authorities last fall because they contain illegal drug cartel money.
Costs of the alleged Grandview-based drug smuggling operation have been estimated at nearly $600 million a year, according to authorities.
Investigators said the suburban drug smuggling operation had become so powerful and successful that those involved “weighed their money instead of counted it.” Investigators also said that Gilmore “ruled the ‘Drug Empire’ with an iron fist.”
Local investigators said the ring operated in the Denver metro area and Rocky Mountain Region, and had branches that extended to New York, California and Florida. Smugglers used the “cutting edge of technology,” with cellular telephones and Blackberries to conduct and complete their drug transactions, authorities said.
Government documents cited direct links between the ring and drug sources in Colombia and Mexico and charged that Gilmore was “responsible for making most of the high-level business decisions,” from his desk at city hall.
Authorities said Gilmore and his associates funneled a near-daily supply of drugs to a “vast array” of dealers in the Denver-metro area, as well as along the Front Range before branching out to other cities nationwide.
Gilmore is being held without bail in the Truman County Jail.
An investigation continues …”
Sam went on to finish the article, which included a color photograph of Wyatt being taken away from his office in handcuffs, as well as mugs of Robin and Rey and three photos from the night that Sam and Rey were at High Pointe Warehouse. Sam insisted Rey receive photo credit. Nick Weeks granted her request.
Sam went on to write two more stories. One detailed how the Denver metro area and the Rocky Mountain region had become third in the nation for drug smuggling and trade. The other article was about Jonathan.
When she finally finished writing late Wednesday afternoon, the total package contained just over sixty inches of copy. The main story would fill all of page one of the Friday edition. It would go to press and on the website Thursday evening and hit the streets Friday morning. She knew now it was only a matter of time.
****
The Grandview Perspective landed with a thud on W. Robert Simmons desk late Friday afternoon, just as he was preparing to leave for the weekend.
His eyes met directly with the bold headline Sam Church had written.
Her bylines glared and snickered at him.
He picked the paper up slowly and grimaced as he began to read.
Forty-eight
It was Saturday. One week since Sam’s articles had been published in the Grandview Perspective, and the first full day she had alone to herself.
Her original stories had been picked up by the wire services, and, of course, the Denver Post. Sam felt a little more satisfied when she saw that another reporter at the Post had written the story and not Simmons. Reporters called from other newspapers nationwide wanting background information to write their own stories. Sam had spent most of the past week writing her own follow-up articles. She told investigators all she knew about the local drug smuggling operation.
She told them everything and about everyone except for one person. She told them nothing about Ruth. Though she hated her for betraying Robin, Sam had spent the week remembering what Ruth had done for her sister. In ways Sam could not explain, that somehow superseded her final act. Ruth would have to live with her actions. That, Sam hoped, was sentence enough. The memory of what she had done would be her prison for the rest of her life. Sam could live with that.
Sadness pulled at her when she thought of Brady. He was there the morning authorities arrested his father, standing in the doorway of his father’s office and watching as they put one hand behind the other. The last of it was the click of the handcuffs.
Wyatt passed his son at the door, but did not look at him. Wilson and Sam went to Brady’s basketball game the day after her stories hit the stands. His team won.
Sam talked to Todd that Sunday after the story was published. He told her he had gone up to Lookout Mountain Friday night and had stayed until dawn. Sam knew the place. Todd and Robin used to go there often to watch the city lights and talk. There, on top the mountain, the city stretched out for miles like a giant glittering blanket.
It had been an unseasonably warm winter day. It was evening now and, with the sun gone, the winter air had turned uncomfortable. Sam was closing the windows in her apartment and was about to shut the last one when the sound came and stopped her.
The plaintive wail of the distant train whistle entered the apartment with the night air. The sound made Sam draw a breath
involuntarily. Whenever she heard that distinct whistle one person instantly and always came to mind. She smiled with the thought that she would go there tomorrow.
About twelve miles from where the pavement turns to gravel, a 280-acre ranch lies at the end of a rugged county road.
As Sam approached she could see the figure standing at the gate that was the entrance to the property. She saw that he was attempting to fix the gate when she pulled alongside him.
“Hi, Howard,” Sam said.
She felt an immediate sense of belonging. Howard looked up. His blue eyes beamed in her direction, pleased to see her.
“Samantha,” Howard always called Sam by her given name. “How are you doing, young lady?”
“It’s been a rough few weeks, but I think it just got better.”
Except for the wire-framed glasses, Sam always thought that Howard Skinner could pass for “Mr. Clean.” He was in his mid sixties now, but still the big bear of a man Sam always remembered. He had always been as hairless as a statue and she never saw Howard in anything but crisp white Tshirts, Levi’s and workman boots. He was well over six feet and, at the end of a thick neck and beefy shoulders and forearms, were hands the size of baseball mitts. Despite his size he was gentle and placid. “Like a piece of bread,” was the expression her grandmother always used to describe him.
Howard lived in a small satellite house adjacent to her grandmother’s home. He was a widower at thirty-five and had never remarried. More years ago now than Sam could remember, Howard Skinner had answered a newspaper ad Frances Marino had run for a caretaker for her ranch. He had taken care of the place since.
“Whatcha doing?” Sam asked.
It was another unseasonably warm winter day and she allowed the sun to fall on her face. Howard’s bare brow and head were beaded in sweat.
“Gate’s stuck,” he said, tapping it lightly with the wrench he held. “Can’t get the darn thing to close.”
“I guess that’s an invitation for me to enter,” Sam said.
“Your grandmother’s at the house,” Howard said, using the wrench to point in that direction. “She’s waiting for you and you know her, she’s cookin’ up a storm.”
Sam moaned happily. “Howard! I’ve got to lose weight, not put it on!”
The Friday Edition (A Samantha Church Mystery) Page 29
