The Orphans of Race Point: A Novel

by Patry Francis

  “Wait. You really thought I did it?”

  “No—no, I didn’t,” she stammered. “I mean, I don’t know what I thought. This whole situation makes no sense.”

  Gus nodded silently, remembering why he’d left home and never come back. In this house, even with Hallie, he could never entirely escape the past.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted to help, not to add to your problems.”

  “Don’t apologize. You were probably right. Given the right circumstances. If I really had been in love with her the way . . .” His voice trailed off. “In this case, though, I didn’t hurt her.”

  Hallie turned away and put her face in her hands. When she looked up at him, he saw the confused girl he’d left on Race Point twelve years earlier. It had taken all his strength not to turn around that time. It was no easier now.

  “Please, Hallie, don’t say any more. For both our sakes, don’t say any more,” Gus said. Then he walked away; and this time she didn’t try to stop him.

  Chapter 17

  A broken rib, some internal bleeding. One side of her face is badly swollen. She looks pretty bad, Gus.”

  So came Robin’s report on Gus’s cell phone. After calling various wards and asking for nurses he knew personally, he’d finally located Ava on South 3, the same ward where Sandra had landed for her most recent hospital stay.

  “She’s gonna be okay, though, right?”

  “Dr. Gallagher was in earlier, and he said she was stabilized.” Robin lowered her voice to a whisper. “I probably shouldn’t be talking to you about all this, Father Gus, but I just wanted to say—well, I know you couldn’t hurt anyone like that.”

  Gus took a deep breath. Though he knew she was attempting to be kind, his first instinct was to tell her that he didn’t need anyone defending him.

  “I’ll be there in five minutes,” he said, more curtly than he intended. “What room is she in?”

  “There’s an officer posted outside her room. If you step off that elevator, they’ll arrest you on sight.”

  “Let them, then. I have nothing to hide,” Gus said before he hung up.

  Soaring down the highway, he refused to think of Robin’s warning—or Hallie’s. All he knew was that he had to see Ava and convince her to tell the truth. Not for his sake—even if he was arrested, he was sure he would be quickly exonerated—but for her own, for her daughter’s.

  Gus slipped into the hospital through the laundry and greeted the three Brazilian workers in Portuguese. Though he hadn’t learned his mother’s first language growing up, it had come easily when he was first assigned to a Portuguese parish in New Bedford, and he was now a fluent speaker.

  “I thought it was your day off, Father,” a woman named Eliana said. Apparently, the gossip that was swirling on the upper floors had not yet reached them.

  “It is. This is a personal visit.” Just then, the service elevator announced its arrival with a loud clank. He got in and rode it to the third floor.

  Robin had obviously been watching for him.

  “Sorry if I was rude on the phone,” he said, touching her arm as he passed the desk. Before she could say a word, he headed down the corridor. An older nurse named Evelyn called after him, “Father Gus, you can’t—”

  “Morning, Evelyn,” he fired back.

  Gus knew most of the men on the Barnstable police force, but the officer who sat in the hallway, sucking on a cup of Dunky’s, must have been new. A beefy blond guy around Gus’s age, his name tag identified him as Officer Ryan Whiting.

  “Hello, Officer,” Gus said, extending his hand. “I’m here to see Mrs. Cilento. I won’t be long.”

  Rattled out of the tedium of his job, Whiting looked for a place to set his coffee. Finally, he put it on the floor and stared at the proffered hand. “Immediate family only,” he said.

  “Unfortunately, the immediate family consists of a child and the man who did this to her,” Gus said, speaking loudly enough to hopefully penetrate whatever drugged slumber might have swallowed Ava Cilento. Moving quickly, he opened the door, and called to her directly. “Ava, it’s me—Father Gus. Can you hear me?”

  Whiting charged into the room. After calling for backup, he ordered Gus to turn around and face the wall slowly. Gus cooperated, even putting his hands behind him so that Whiting could put on the cuffs.

  “I’m the hospital chaplain, officer. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “If you didn’t want any trouble, you shouldn’t have assaulted the woman, Padre,” Whiting said. “And stopping by for a little visit probably wasn’t the best idea, either.”

  In the bed, Ava appeared to be asleep. Gus called her name again, this time more loudly, but she didn’t stir. Was she unconscious? Or perhaps just unwilling to face the man she’d falsely accused?

  “What did you guys expect me to do—leave town? I haven’t done anything wrong,” Gus said to Whiting, the fury rising again. “If I’m going to be arrested, I might as well do it right here.”

  Whiting made no answer; and in a moment, two more officers arrived. Gus recognized one of them as Willard Duarte, who regularly attended the Portuguese mass he said on Saturdays in Hyannis. “Sorry, Father Gus,” he muttered as he led him out.

  Gus said nothing, but inside his head he was screaming. Eyed suspiciously in the hospital where he spent so many of his days? Arrested by a parishioner? How could this be happening?

  Inside the police car, he could smell the hamburger with onions Willard had eaten for lunch, the synthetic mountain breeze of his aftershave.

  “You know David Oliveira? Grew up with you down in Truro?” Willard asked.

  Though Gus had played football with Dave at Nauset, he was in no mood for reminiscing.

  “Yeah, well, Dave’s got a cousin, Lunes,” Willard continued, undeterred by Gus’s silence. “He’s from Brockton, but he lives in Orleans now. A lawyer. Supposed to be pretty good, too.”

  “I don’t need a lawyer,” Gus snapped. “All I need is a chance to clear this up.”

  Willard chuckled softly. “No disrespect, Father, but you’re sittin’ in the wrong end of a cruiser with cuffs on. A lady laying in a hospital bed made some pretty bad charges against you.”

  “I’m not worried about that.” Gus stared straight ahead.

  Willard glanced at him sharply. “Well, you better start worryin’. Or at least get out them rosary beads of yours. What the hell were you thinkin’?”

  “Listen, the woman came to me for help in the first place, all right? I needed to make sure she was safe, and find out how he forced her to name me. Besides, I’m the hospital chaplain; it’s my job to—” Gus began before Willard interrupted him with a bitter laugh.

  “You also got yourself a past, Father Gus. And it’s no further away than the archives over at the Times. How long you think before someone digs all that up? Then you’ll see who’s standing behind you. No one but your own.”

  When Gus didn’t respond, they drove the rest of the way in silence.

  No one but your own. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, he had never ceased to be surrounded by community—whether you wanted them there or not. Thus he was not particularly surprised when David Oliveira’s cousin showed up an hour later.

  Though Gus and Lunes were the same age, their styles couldn’t have been more different. In his well-cut suit, the attorney was clearly a man who was as comfortable and proud in his body as a panther. Obviously, he spent hours in the gym. Though his cousin had been light-skinned, Lunes looked more Cape Verdean. His eyes were as dark as coffee, his skin a smooth cinnamon. Gus admired the man’s style in spite of himself.

  After brushing off the seat in the cell and removing his jacket, Lunes sat down.

  “So you’re Codfish Silva,” he said. Then he laughed. “Excuse me, it’s Father Codfish now, isn’t it?” He appraised Gus with a mixture of the reverence for all things connected with Church that families like theirs inculcated in their children—and the bafflement that his ge
neration felt for a man who would choose such a vocation in this day and age. Not to mention celibacy.

  “Codfish was my father,” Gus said, bristling. “And much as I appreciate Willard calling you, I don’t need a lawyer. This is nothing but a misunderstanding.”

  Lunes removed a notebook and a pen from his brown leather case. “All due respect, Little Cod, but that woman’s injuries don’t sound like a misunderstanding to me. Someone made their point loud and clear.”

  Little Cod. It was a name Gus hadn’t heard in years. When he had walked the docks with his father, or watched the Captain’s ropy muscles tense and relax as he hauled heavy nets of fish from the boat, he had been proud to be called Little Cod. How had this infuriating lawyer even heard it?

  His jaw tightened. “As I told you before, I don’t need an attorney.”

  “You telling me to leave, Little Cod? ’Cause if you are, there’s no need to play games. I already know all about you.”

  “You read some old newspapers and your cousin played ball with me fifteen years ago. You don’t know shit about me, Oliveira,” Gus said. “And if you call me by that name one more time—”

  “Whoa, Padre,” the attorney said, holding up his hand. “A priest—cursing? I’m shocked.”

  Gus glared at him.

  “Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Lunes continued. “It almost sounded like you were about to threaten me.”

  Gus looked downward and emitted a long, slow exhale. “You deserved it,” he said when he glanced up. “You’re pretty good at getting under a guy’s skin, aren’t you?”

  Lunes chuckled softly. “A necessary skill when dealing with a hostile witness—or trying to find out if a client is telling the truth.”

  “Well, since I’m neither, and this hasn’t been the best day of my life, I’m going to ask you to leave.”

  “Your call.” Lunes nodded and reached for his jacket.

  “And one more thing?” Gus snapped. “She’s not just some woman in a hospital. She’s a mother desperately trying to protect her daughter. If you talked to her for five minutes, you’d understand . . . Ava Cilento is so terrified she could do or say anything right now.”

  Lunes cocked his head, appraising him openly. It was the same kind of frank assessment that Gus had made a moment earlier. “My cousin Dave says you were a helluva football player back in the day,” he said, pivoting. “Not the biggest guy on the field, maybe not even the most talented, but the one who played with the most heart.”

  “Dave was no slouch himself.”

  Lunes nodded, watching Gus stealthily. “He also says there’s no way you could have beat a woman like that. Just don’t have it in you, Codfish’s son or not. Guess that’s the reason I’m here. I wanted to see for myself.”

  “So what do you think?” Gus asked.

  “Haven’t decided yet,” Lunes said. “One thing I do know is you’re gonna need me in court tomorrow morning. But if you’re too foolish or stubborn to realize that, there’s not much I can do. I expect bail’s gonna be high—with you bustin’ into the hospital the way you did. Hopefully, the parishioners have been tossing more than the traditional buck in the basket.”

  “I didn’t bust into the hospital, Mr. Oliveira. I walked through the door like I always do,” Gus said, rising to his feet. Though he was not particularly tall, he stood so straight that he sometimes appeared to be. “And I don’t expect my parish to post bail, either.”

  Lunes Oliveira put on his jacket, preening in the small mirror over the small sink as he buttoned it. “You really have no idea how much trouble you’re in, do you?” he said when he caught Gus’s eye in the glass.

  “Right now I’m worried about a woman’s life—not legal red tape.” Gus escorted him to the door of the cell like a host. “Sorry you wasted your time,” he added before calling for the guard.

  “Oh, it wasn’t a waste of time. Truth is, I’ve always been fascinated by Codfish Silva. Sad story all the way around. A stand-up guy from the docks who turned into someone else when he was with his woman.”

  Lunes laughed shortly, then lowered his voice. “It’s gonna come out, you know. There are just too many parallels.”

  He was hardly the first one to try to lure Gus into talking about his father, nor the first to fail.

  “This case is completely different,” Gus said.

  “Maybe so. Or maybe you’re more like Codfish than you want to admit. Maybe you’re a different person when passion gets involved.”

  “I’m a priest, Mr. Oliveira. Passion had nothing to do with it.”

  Lunes opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted by a guffaw that promptly turned into Jack Rooney’s familiar hack. The old priest looked like he had been called from the recesses of his usual afternoon nap.

  “Don’t add sanctimony to your crimes, Gus. You’re in enough hot water already. We both know a priest without passion is a dead priest—or one who might as well be.”

  Then he turned his attention to Lunes Oliveira. “Are you Gus’s attorney?”

  “Actually, your friend here was just telling me he has no need of legal representation.”

  The guard opened the door, allowing Jack to enter the cell.

  “Good job, Gus,” Jack said. “You’ve done everything you can to make yourself look guilty. Why not fire your lawyer? Then you can go into court and tell the judge that you couldn’t have done it because priests have no passion. Is that your defense?”

  “I don’t need a defense. All I need is a chance to talk to Ava Cilento—which is what I was trying to do when—”

  “You show up outside a room under police guard, trying to visit a woman who’s been seriously assaulted?”

  “A woman who has accused him of the crime. Don’t forget that detail,” Lunes added.

  “That’s my point. There’s no way she would have said that—not unless she’d been coerced,” Gus said.

  “Have you noticed where you’re sitting?” Lunes asked.

  Gus sank onto his cot and put his head in his hands. “All right, I give up,” he said when he looked up. “Maybe I do need your help, Mr. Oliveira.”

  After he dismissed the guard, Lunes turned to Gus. “All right, then,” he said. “But I won’t have any friend of my cousin Dave’s calling me ‘Mr. Oliveira.’ ”

  “How’s this? You don’t call me Codfish, Little Cod, or anything else that has gills, and I won’t call you Mister.”

  “It looks like your curate and I have struck a deal,” Lunes said, still smiling as he turned to Jack. “Now I hope you’ll excuse us, Father, but the arraignment is tomorrow.”

  “Jack can stay,” Gus interrupted. “In fact, I insist.”

  “Listen, Little—” Lunes began. “I mean Father. Let’s get this straight. I need to know everything that went on between you and this woman. Every meeting. Every conversation. Every wet dream you ever had about her. And I can’t have you censoring yourself because your pastor’s tuning in.”

  Jack rose to go. “I’ll be there tomorrow,” he said.

  Gus grasped his arm. “This is ridiculous. Ava Cilento came to the rectory because she was in trouble—just like a lot of people do. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

  Lunes loosened his tie and began to strut around the cell as if it were a courtroom. “You’re saying you had a purely pastoral relationship with this woman? Nothing unusual about it at all?”

  “Can I be any more clear?”

  “Then answer me this one,” Lunes said in a voice that had grown low. “What the hell are you doing here, smelling the last occupant’s piss and answering my dumb questions?”

  “Merda, Lunes,” Gus shouted. “You think I haven’t been asking myself the same question all day? None of this makes any sense.”

  At that, Lunes walked to the door and called for the guard. “Could you please show Father Rooney out?” he asked. He shook Jack’s hand. “Thanks for coming, Father. I hope you meant what you said about being there tomorrow. Y
our curate’s going to need you. Oh, and one more thing—don’t forget the parish checkbook.”

  Before Gus could protest, Jack threw up a silencing hand and walked out. Gus noticed that his limp was more pronounced; he actually looked frail.

  “Seems like a great guy,” Lunes said.

  “Never knew a better one.”

  The two men stared at each other as their smiles faded. Finally Gus said, “I told you before—she was forced to say what she did. She had to have been. Exactly how or why, I don’t know, but it’s obvious she’s in danger, and—”

  “Listen,” Lunes interrupted. “Whatever her problem is, she’s going to have to get herself another savior, ’cause there’s nothing you can do to help her now. Nothing.”

  Silently, Gus thought about the last time someone had told him the same thing. It was the day he’d promised his mother he would be like a Jedi knight and swore not to interfere. “Are you saying you believe me?”

  Lunes assessed him with a long stare. “I hope I’m not being fooled by my childhood indoctrination, but I’m actually starting to think you’re telling the truth. Now, let’s get to the more prosaic questions. What were you doing in the early hours of the morning? And, more importantly, who can vouch for your whereabouts?”

  “I was in bed by midnight, and then—totally typical day. I got up at quarter of five, went to the beach to run and pray. Got back in time to say the seven-o’clock mass. After that, I went back to the rectory and had breakfast with our housekeeper.”

  “How far do you run?”

  “A couple of miles. Sometimes three,” Gus said.

  “Two hours to run a couple of miles, maybe three? You going for the slow-man record?”

  “I said I run and pray.”

  “And you can’t do that simultaneously? Come on, Father. How long does it take to whip out a few Hail Marys?”

  “That’s not the kind of—listen, I’m not going to explain my prayer life to you or anyone else. You asked what I was doing and I told you. It’s the same routine I follow every day.”

  Lunes rubbed at the lines that appeared on his forehead as if trying to erase a thought. “I don’t suppose anyone else was on the beach at that ungodly hour.”