"You said something about a phone call."
This time, I had to wait until he took a bite of his festive pink donut. He swallowed in two gulps that ran his Adam's apple up and down in a big lump.
"Last night," he said, "I was watching Leno in the den that Father Daly and I shared. Must've been about eleven o'clock. The phone rang. I got it on the second ring. But Father Daly was already talking. And there was a woman on the other end."
"Did you recognize her voice?"
"Afraid not."
"Did you hear anything she said?"
"Not really. I just hung up. I didn't want to butt into his business."
"What time did you go to bed?"
"Maybe midnight."
"Was Father Daly still home?"
"Yes. I heard him in his room as I passed it."
"Any more phone calls?"
"None that I heard," he said.
Steve Gray walked up, then. "She gave me a good chewing out."
"I kind've thought she might."
"I should've called the police right away. It's just that we've got this fund-raising drive coming up and—"
"We're going to be fine," Father Ryan said. "People don't think that all priests have affairs."
I wasn't sure about that. The Catholic Church had taken some tremendous hits in the past few years.
Wilson had disappeared for a time and now he was back.
"I don't like that detective," he said. "Arrogant bitch."
"I thought she was very professional," I said.
He looked at me and smiled. "I don't think that you and I are ever in danger of becoming good friends, do you?"
"I'd agree there isn't much danger of that."
He tapped his wrist-watch. "I'm supposed to be at Rotary in another hour. Doing a big advance dog-and-pony show there over lunch. Father Ryan's helping me. We need to get moving."
Everybody said goodbye. Steve and I walked back down to the office.
I went up to the desk clerk. "All right if I see the register?"
"Fine by me."
It sat on the desk. I turned it around so I could read the signatures.
"David Montrose' was the name Father Daly had used. He wrote it clearly on the fourth line. He was the only check-in the motel had had after 11:30 last night. Given the time-table Father Ryan had laid out for me, this had to be Daly.
"Thanks," I said.
"Anything?" Steve said.
I put a dollar on the counter. We walked over to the Mr. Coffee, took a couple of paper cups, and filled them.
"He used the name ‘David Montrose.’ That mean anything?"
"His brother-in-law's last name is Montrose. His brother's name is David."
We walked back outside.
"Holloway thinks you may have had something to do with it," I said.
"With the murder?"
"Uh-huh."
"That's crazy."
"That's what I told her."
"Good Lord."
"Don't get excited — it's how cops think. You're in a room with a dead man. The most logical suspect is you."
"I suppose. But still." His face was suddenly flushed, and he didn't say anything else.
The crime-scene search was still going on. We watched the next ten minutes of it. By now, most of the gawkers were gone.
The body came out in a plastic bag. The crime lab people brought out all their equipment. And Detective Holloway kept glancing back at Steve.
"She really does think I did it," he said.
"Automatic reflex," I said. "I don't think you're a serious suspect."
"I hope not," he said. "That's all the parish needs with this fund-raiser coming up. A dead priest and a Monsignor under suspicion."
I went over and said goodbye to Holloway.
"He's nervous," she said.
"Steve?"
"Yeah."
"He's nervous because you keep looking at him."
"Maybe he's nervous because he did it."
"Maybe he's nervous because you're kind of an intimidating person."
"I am?"
"Yeah. Kind of."
She grinned. "I'm going to take that as a compliment, Payne. I really am."
Steve walked me over to my car. "I've been thinking about it, Robert, and I want to hire you."
"Hire me for what?"
"To find out what happened here."
The wind was up again. Mist chilled my face.
"The police'll do a good job," I said.
"I'd feel better if you were working on it, too, Robert. You were in the FBI."
I smiled. "So were a few other people, Steve. It's not like I was the only employee."
"Please, Robert," he said. "The sooner this is resolved, the better for everybody."
I checked my watch. "I've got about three hours' work ahead of me right now, Steve. Why don't I stop over to the rectory after work today? We'll talk about it some more."
"I really appreciate this, Robert."
I tapped his shoulder. "You're a good man, Steve. This'll all work out and not drag your fund-raising down at all. You'll see."
"Thanks again," he said.
Twenty minutes later, I was at the lawyer's offices.
Chapter Four
Six months after I joined the law firm of Doucette, Fineman & Cary, the largest criminal-law firm in the state of Iowa, I started thinking about writing a book. I even had the title: Lawyers Are People, Too — More Or Less.
Three things you need to know about Brad Doucette. He graduated number two in his class at Yale; he has won more "impossible" cases than anybody in state history; and he once saw Madonna running naked down a Chicago hotel corridor.
I remember these things because Brad reminds me about them at least once a week.
Brad is a gadget guy. His outsized office, for instance, is equipped with all kinds of gadgets.
An electronic Rolodex sits on his desk. The heavy wine-red drapes on all three windows can be opened or closed with a toggle switch built into his desk. The leather armchairs are even equipped with little motors that tilt them up and down and back and forth. And the Egyptians thought they were on to something epic and immortal with the pyramids.
The gadgets are Brad's rewards. He spent a few years as a public defender because it was the politically correct thing to do. But then he was smart enough to team up with Cary, a former county attorney. Together, Doucette and Cary could honestly argue that they had seen the courtroom from every angle.
At first, they joined a prestigious firm with a long solid history. But the place couldn't survive all the giant egos within the walls. Criminal lawyers are only slightly less egotistical than Benito Mussolini.
So Doucette and Cary opened up their own place and took on junior partners who could handle domestic law and real-estate law and corporate law, so that if the criminal business ever went soft, the other departments could carry the firm. Tom Fineman oversees these departments.
Brad Doucette said, "You hear the one about the priest and the rabbi and the Episcopalian minister?" Brad is five-seven, stocky, handsome in a dark and slightly crude way, and as in love with himself as any starlet. He wears expensive suits and tells you without shame how much each one cost. Today's number was a tweedy British-cut. He was probably going to ride to hounds later. At least in his mind.
"You told it to me yesterday."
"Shit. How about the gal with three tits?"
"That one I got last week."
"How about—"
"The gay electrician?" I said.
"You asshole," he said. He was serious. His greatest pleasure was going to the office every morning and telling everybody his joke for the day. He needed a new supply. Some of them he'd told us three or four times each.
"I already told you about the gay electrician?"
"You already told me about the gay electrician. How come you never tell jokes about white Protestant males?"
"You go out with the wrong kind of broads, Payne. A
ll that feminist bullshit."
I was in the tiny office they'd given me as the firm's in-house investigator. I'd come straight here from the motel where Father Daly had been found dead.
Brad said, "You get hold of that Beverly Wright woman?"
"She's coming in and talking it over."
"I'm counting on you, babe."
"I'll do what I can, babe."
He laughed. "You hate that "babe" shit, don't you?"
"Uh-huh," I said. "A lot."
"If I didn't worry that you might think I was a fag, Payne, I'd kiss you on the lips."
"Thank you for sparing me."
A minute-and-a-half later, I heard him wander through the door of Cary's office and start in on the woman with three breasts gag.
Brad Doucette was never going to be my kind of guy.
Around two that afternoon, the sun came out. I called Children's Hospital and talked to one of the nuns and said that I'd be picking Susan up in half an hour.
I liked talking to the nuns. They brought back good memories of my Catholic schooldays. The ones I'd known were all the best kind of religious people — selfless, charitable and willing to help in even the most extreme situations. The priests got the glory but, in many cases, the nuns did a lot of the work.
Sister Ellen stood on the front steps. She wore a blue business suit and a white blouse and oxfords. No habit. Sister Ellen was the one who'd called me when one of the local TV stations had run a piece about me and my bi-plane. She'd said that the hospital was caring for a very sweet little girl who had cerebral palsy. Her name was Susan and she was nine, and she had been totally transfixed by the TV story on the barnstormer. Would I consider taking her up in it?
I'd taken her up the last five Thursdays running. In between times, we'd also gone to a couple of movies, a miniature golf course, and out to one of the malls where a dance contest was being held. I suppose, at least in some ways, Susan was the kid my late wife Kathy and I had never had. She also gave me the freedom of being concerned about somebody other than myself. That's the nice thing you get from caring about somebody else — you're able to escape the prison of your own ego. At least for a time.
Sister walked her over to my car, helped her up inside, and then waved goodbye. Susan wasn't always strong. Today she looked exhausted.
"You sure you're all right to go flying?" I said.
I observed her as we drove. She looked paler than I'd ever seen her. I got scared when I was around her. I knew how easily life could slip away.
I asked her again if she felt okay.
"I'm just a little tired is all, Robert. But please let's go up, all right?"
How could I say no?
"You been behaving yourself?"
She smiled. "Uh-huh."
"Haven't robbed any banks lately?"
She giggled. "Not that I can remember."
"Burned down any buildings?"
"Nope."
"Well, you really have been staying out of trouble. I'm proud of you."
"Is Felice going to be here today?"
"Not today, honey. Maybe next week."
"How come?"
"Oh, she's just got other things to do."
Felice was a big hit with Susan. She'd come out to the airport on three different afternoons. All three times, Felice ended up drinking a little too much in the evenings. Sometimes the unfairness of life got to her. You see a kid like Susan, it isn't real easy to comprehend how any kind of deity could do something like that. "The terrible wisdom of God," Graham Greene called it. And it is terrible indeed sometimes.
"There it is!' Susan said fifteen minutes later as we drove through the gates to the small airport
I should tell you about the plane. My uncle was a barnstormer. With his bi-plane, he dusted crops, flew mail and put on numberless shows at county fairs. I grew up wanting to have a bi-plane of my own and now I did. It has huge wheels, two open cockpits, and a rebuilt engine that makes a deafening noise. You can put her down with complete ease and safety on just about any small grass field in the country.
"Do I get to wear the goggles today?"
"You sure do," I said.
"And the helmet?"
"Absolutely."
When I got her in the second seat of the bi-plane, she reached for her leather Snoopy helmet and her goggles. She'd already put on the heavy jacket Sister Ellen always made her bring along.
"Are we ready?" she shouted down from her seat.
"Just about, sweetheart."
I spent a few minutes checking everything over — fuse, valves, engine controls, engine and flight instruments. I even checked out the struts on the double wings. The bi-plane was built in 1929, an ancient venerable flying machine with mustard-colored sides. The wing panels are made of cloth and wood. This is about as close to a real bird as a flying machine will ever get.
I got her going with just one jerk on the propeller. Then I climbed in my cockpit.
"Here we go!' I said.
Susan's exultant laugh was silver music.
We flew for forty-five minutes. Below us, farmers did their early-season plowing and rivers were alive with a variety of boats. It was spring, or soon would be anyway, and it made everybody a little crazy. I swept low over one farm and the wife stood next to the silo and waved at me as if I were the Beatles about to land.
Susan especially liked tracking the limestone cliffs, so we spent at least half the time coming in low over the ragged jutting rocks above the river. She'd told me once about the early Indians who'd lived in limestone caves and how they'd been vegetarians and not meat-eaters at all.
When we were driving back to the hospital, Susan said, "Have you ever had something you dreamed about come true?"
"Hmm," I said. "I guess I'd have to think about that. I'm not sure. Have you ever had something you dreamed come true?"
"Sister Ellen says maybe it's going to happen. She said that God does that sometimes, puts dreams in your head and has them come true."
"So what dream're you having?"
"That I won't be sick anymore."
I was glad she couldn't see the tears in my eyes. "Maybe it will come true, honey," I said. "Maybe it will come true."
When I got her back to the hospital, she leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
"You think we could do this next week, Robert?" She asked this every week.
"I don't see why not."
"Ooo goodie, I'll tell Sister Ellen." Then, "I really had fun today. Thank you, Robert."
This was the formal part of the afternoon, the part that came directly from Sister Ellen straight through the mouth of nine-year-old Susan. Good manners.
"You're most welcome, my dear," I said in my best Dracula voice.
She giggled. She loved the Dracula voice.
I delivered her unto Sister Ellen, who said, "Did she tell you about her dream?"
"She certainly did."
"You be sure and say a couple of prayers for her, Robert."
"You bet I will."
And I would, too. I prayed all the time. I just hoped there was somebody listening.
But I guess we all hope that, don't we?
I gave Susan a little more of Dracula and another kiss on the forehead, and then I was back in my car.
Chapter Five
The rectory was built of the same soaring native stone as the church itself. It was also built in the days when great vaulting spires were mandatory. St Mallory's had been here for more than a hundred years now, the neighborhood changing from Czech to Irish to its present mix of black and Hispanic. Because of its south-east side location, it was the church of wealthy Catholics for the past seventy years. Even today, parked near garages defiled with graffiti and old black men who sat patiently on crumbling back porches waiting for their dreams to come true — even today you found Cadillacs and BMWs and Mercedes Benzes here.
Five generations of Irish Catholics had trooped through this venerable rectory, and sometimes it was fun to imag
ine them standing on the front steps, talking to the priests, the women of the last century in their bustles, the men of the early 1900s in their straw boaters, the men and women of WWII in their uniforms, and the hippie parents in tie-dyes and beards.
Right now, there were vans from two of the local TV stations parked at the curb, and the rain was back
A woman of about sixty opened the rectory door to me. She wore a Lycra jogging suit and a buff blue headband that complemented the deeper blue of her suit. She had an angular face and white hair, but she exuded enough energy to charge up a generator. She was one of those wily, wiry older women who could probably put away a couple of boxers.
"Hello. I'm Robert Payne," I told her. "I'm here to see the Monsignor."
"You're not a reporter, are you?" she asked.
I smiled. "I haven't sunk that low yet."
She smiled back. "Careful, they might hear you. They're everywhere. I'm Bernice Clancy. Come on in. They're interviewing the Monsignor in his study," Bernice said, leading me to the back of the place. "Bob Wilson is with him."
The rectory was old but impressive, with heavy drapes and carpeting, woodwork and wainscoting that would cost thousands of dollars today. The furnishings ran to formidable leather couches and chairs. The framed paintings were the biggest surprise, for they consisted of very nice prints of Van Gogh, Chagall and Picasso. Except for the paintings, the rectory recalled a gentler time — old Irish priests spending their nights in armchairs with pipe and slippers and western novels.
I followed Bernice down the narrow hallway that smelled of floor wax. We ended up in a large kitchen with a small breakfast nook in the corner. A slight and very pretty girl in a white sweater, jeans and sandals was dumping spaghetti into a colander.
"Will he be eating with us?" she asked. "There's plenty."
"Jenny, this is Robert Payne. He's a friend of the Monsignor's. Jenny's one of our housekeepers."
She walked over to me, wiping water from her right hand on the leg of her stonewashed jeans.
She had a hard little hand. She also had freckles and about the most seductive blue eyes I'd ever seen. I'd taken her for maybe late teens but up close I could see a few streaks of gray in the dark hair she had cinched back in a pony tail.
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