by Steve Richer
“Cool.” He went to the table and grabbed one of the two sandwiches, immediately biting into it. “Fuck, that’s hot!”
He spat on the floor, grabbed Sierra’s beer and drained it in one gulp.
“What are you doing here, Boomer?”
“Just checking up on my boy. Something wrong with that?”
This Boomer guy was twitchy, Sierra noticed. He was walking through the place as if marking his territory. Even Ridge seemed uneasy and this astounded her. It took a lot to shake Ridge’s confidence.
“I’m gonna blaze up,” Boomer said, leaning against the wall and producing a joint. “You want a hit?”
He lit his joint and inhaled deeply, closing his eyes to savor the smoke invading his lungs.
“Here, give me some.”
Ridge took the blunt and he took a long drag. Then he looked at Sierra.
“Come here baby, this is good shit.”
She was about to go to him, weed always made her feel great and mellow, but she didn’t want to be this way in front of Boomer.
She said, “I’m okay for now.”
Boomer started laughing. “You’re more than okay, sweetheart. You’re goddamn fine, is what you are! And you cook too? I tell you what, why don’t you go make me a sandwich, okay? But a cold one, don’t wanna get burned again. Go on…”
It wasn’t a question, it was an order. Sierra found herself shaking and looked at Ridge for guidance. After a moment, he went and stood between her and Boomer.
“You stay right here, baby. Bro, if you want a sandwich you make it yourself, all right?”
“What’s going on here? You wanna share your food but not your girl with me? Where your manners at?”
Ridge took a step forward, towering over the visitor. “Listen, thanks for the bud, but if you don’t have any business to conduct, we want to be alone for now.”
“You throwing me out?”
“Just trying to have a romantic lunch with my girl.”
The two guys came closer still, sizing each other up like boxers on pay-per-view. Sierra had never felt this tense in her life. That was how fights started, right? What would happen to Ridge? He was taller, but Boomer had more muscles and, worst of all, appeared more ferocious.
But after a few more seconds, Boomer grinned and took a step back, snatching his joint in the process.
“It’s all good. It’s all good! We’ll do this another time then.”
Boomer grabbed the other can of beer and drank it as he left. As soon as the door closed, Sierra threw herself into Ridge’s arms with relief.
“Thank you. He scares me.”
“Nothing to be scared about. Come here, let’s go back to the couch and we can eat after.”
Eating, lunch, Sierra finally made the connection. “Oh my God, it’s noon!”
“Yeah, so?”
“I was supposed to pick up my mom at the hospital. She had her treatment today. I’m like an hour late!”
She motioned to grab her bag but Ridge held her by the waist and brought her with him to the sofa.
“Chill, baby. It’s too late anyway, right? You said so yourself. Your mom probably took a taxi by now.”
“But…”
“It’s too late, it’s over. Let’s not let this ruin our day together, all right?”
“Ridge, I don’t know…”
He tipped her head back and kissed her lips gently. “You need to relax, Sierra. And I got just the thing.”
He pulled a plastic bag from his jeans. Sierra stopped breathing when she saw the small pink pills inside. It was that Russian koala thing everybody was talking about.
“No, I can’t take that.”
“Have you ever tried it, baby?”
“No, but isn’t it dangerous?”
He shook his head. “Not if you know what you’re doing. I tell you what, do half a pill with me, okay? Rush-K isn’t bad when you just swallow a pill. It’s not like smoking it or snorting it. You’ll see, it’s amazing.”
Before she could reply, he had already split the pill in half with his pocketknife. He placed the piece against her lips.
“Do it for me, baby. Don’t be such a daddy’s girl.”
Without thinking, she took it into her mouth. It melted on her tongue at once and she swallowed.
“Good, right?” he said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
She snuggled against him and her mind was immediately at peace. It was like being under warm blankets on a cold day. She was so in love with him! She had never felt this wonderful in her life and quickly she climbed on his lap, her lips finding his again.
Chapter 10
All the tasty sandwiches were gone by the time Donnie returned to the conference room and decided to have lunch. Most of all, nobody even appeared guilty at having snagged the good stuff. He wound up with a ham-and-cheese which had been warm at one point but was only soggy now.
He sat at one end of the long conference table, a phone clutched to his ear. The federal agents were on the other side, talking among themselves as if he wasn’t important enough to join them. It suited him just fine.
“Yeah, I’m still holding over here,” he said into the phone. “Get the ME on the line, would you?”
Emma was by his side, nibbling on a paper-thin bologna sandwich. She didn’t complain at all about it which told Donnie that she was definitely new on the force. Cops were known to be connoisseurs when it came to deli food. He had never particularly cared for doughnuts personally.
“And you’re absolutely certain His Holiness was murdered,” she whispered, not quite forming a question.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. We can’t go half-cocked on this, you know? This is one of those things where there’s no going back.”
He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed rapidly. After missing breakfast this morning, he was famished. He wished the federal agents hadn’t hogged all the fries.
“Detective Beecher?” a voice said in the phone.
Donnie straightened up in his chair, wiping his hands on a napkin as if he had a visitor. “Hey, Doc. Talk to me, what do you got?”
“I have nothing, Detective. Like I told everyone else who’s been calling, there are no definitive answers yet.”
“I’m not asking for toxicology reports or anything. I know those take a month to get back. I want your gut feeling on this, Doc.”
There was a sigh. “I can’t say for sure, Donnie. There are strangulation marks around the deceased’s throat which is consistent with suicide by hanging. And the eyes were bloodshot.”
“That’s a sign of asphyxiation, right?”
“Correct,” the pathologist replied. “Again, that’s consistent with suicide. I’ll be checking for cerebral anoxia and venous congestion. And…”
“What is it?”
“There’s… There’s something I want to check. I’ll call you back in a few minutes, okay?”
“All right, thank you, Doc.”
Donnie hung up and returned to his sandwich. Emma was looking at him intently.
“Any news?” she asked.
“Not so far.”
Between bites, he made more phone calls. He called Victor Bray, an analyst with the Crime Scene Unit, but the only thing he could confirm was that the evidence was still being processed. They were cross-referencing fingerprints and that would take forever considering everyone who had traipsed through that place.
Next he called Kwon who was still at the townhouse on 72nd Street, although now he was in his car for a lunch break. Everything he had to report was negative. Nobody had seen or heard anything. There were no signs of forced entry. The three surveillance cameras installed at the house had picked up nothing suspicious.
“Shit,” Donnie said, drawing out the word in a long breath while he tossed the phone aside. “Pardon the language, Sister.”
Emma smiled shyly. “I’m no longer a nun, remember.”
“So what happens next anyway?”
“You’re the expert.”
“No, I mean with the Pope. Now that he’d dead, what’s the procedure with the Vatican?”
“Oh, okay. Let’s see… Uh, normally the Camerlengo – that’s Cardinal Masé…”
“The karma what?”
“The Camerlengo,” Emma repeated, enunciating slowly. “He’s basically the Pope’s chief of staff. He has to certify the death officially, that’s procedure. However, I’m not sure if that’s going to happen now, if he’ll travel to New York or not. He becomes the temporary head of state after the Pope dies.”
“Sweet gig. Are we sure he didn’t kill him for the job?”
“No, it would be useless. He becomes head of state but has no power, he can’t even make decisions. One of those rules from five hundred years ago.”
Donnie snorted. It reminded him of marriage. Whoever thought that was a good idea? “And then?”
“The Camerlengo has to destroy the Ring of the Fisherman – the Pope’s ring – and then he officially informs the Dean of the College of Cardinals before making preparations for the funeral and the conclave which will vote on the next Pope within a couple of weeks.”
“And you’re sure our doer can’t be some priest on a power trip?”
“When the Pope dies, the Roman Curia – the Vatican’s government – is essentially dissolved. Day-to-day affairs continue, but it’s the new Pope who will make decisions. It’s exactly to avoid a takeover by any one individual.”
So much for that theory, Donnie thought. It would have been so much simpler if their perp had been some jilted lover or something.
The phone rang and his heart beat a little faster. Sure enough, it was the Medical Examiner again.
“Hey, Doc. What’s going on?”
“Okay, this is troubling. I should’ve caught hit sooner.”
“That’s fine, you’re calling me now. All is forgiven and I’m making a note to send you a Christmas card next December. Tell me what you have.”
“There is bruising on the victim’s neck, hemorrhaging in the strap muscles, right under the skin, and in the sides of the tissues around the trachea and larynx.”
“But again, that jibes with suicide, no?”
“Yes, but there’s more,” the pathologist said in a way that made it sound like he was confessing something shameful. “The marks on his throat. It’s not evenly distributed like it would have been with that terrycloth belt. There are reef knots instead of smooth ligature marks.”
“Fuck me,” Donnie whispered. “That’s a hand. The pope was choked to death.”
The pathologist hummed in agreement. “Obviously, I can’t confirm this beyond a doubt until I have the official autopsy report ready, but I’m inclined to lean this way now, yes.”
“Thanks, Doc. Please, pretty please, keep this to yourself and don’t tell any of this to anyone, okay?”
“You got it, Detective. Good luck.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna need it.”
Emma leaned closer as Donnie hung up. “So? It’s really a murder?”
He nodded as he considered what to do next. He couldn’t sit still anymore.
Looking around, he spotted Galfy finishing his lunch. He went over and crouched next to him, leaving Emma confused. Shell-shocked.
“I just got off the phone with the ME. We really do need to start treating this as a homicide. Like, seriously.”
“Really? Damn. Okay, okay. You’d better brief the task force then, it’s your case.”
“Don’t remind me,” Donnie said. He stood straight. “Guys, guys! We have some news. We have preliminary autopsy results. There are prints on the victim’s throat that suggest he was strangled. It’s a homicide.”
There was a deafening silence that was swiftly followed by groans and curses.
“How long have you been sitting on this information?” Special Agent Garza of the FBI said. “We have a known terrorist cell in the city. We could have moved on them already! They’re probably long gone by now.”
Petersen from the Secret Service threw a half-eaten burger away. “Son of a bitch, Beecher! My people have been monitoring an active threat list. Why didn’t you say anything? Have you ever run a task force before? Goddamn amateur!”
Once the insults were spent, all the federal agents jumped back on their phones. The only one who didn’t seem angry was Inspector Sclauzero from the Vatican City Police. He smiled softly at him, as if in compassion. He was probably happy that this wasn’t a suicide after all. The Catholic faith wasn’t in jeopardy, as it turned out.
“You couldn’t be a team player, could you?”
Donnie spun around and found Crim next to him, his eyes black with anger.
“I’m sorry if the truth doesn’t go along with your career goals, Mr. Undersecretary.”
“Fuck you, Beecher. You should have been a good boy, played along, and called this a suicide. But no, not once did you consider your country’s national security. I’m gonna have your head, you understand me? By this time next month, you won’t be able to get a rent-a-cop job at a New Jersey strip mall!”
Crim stormed away, knocking a chair down in the process. Emma was visibly uncomfortable.
“I take it he’s not happy.”
“He has all the symptoms of a man who lacks fiber in his diet, Emma.”
Donnie was playing it cool, but he knew more than anyone that life was about to get very complicated really fast.
Chapter 11
Even though rush hour should have been finished by now, Colm had rarely seen traffic so dense as he drove through the streets of Rome. People were honking everywhere and it was making him angry even if he did his best not to be. What was it about Italian drivers thinking traffic laws were just suggestions anyway?
He swerved out of the way as a small Fiat cut him off. The man behind the wheel turned to him and displayed his middle finger.
“Vaffanculo!” he screamed at him from inside his car.
He didn’t even seem remorseful when he realized Colm was sporting a Roman collar, that he was a priest. It was probably because of the big Mercedes he was driving, he thought.
He himself was uncomfortable being behind the wheel of this luxury car. It belonged to Cardinal Blanchet and he had insisted on the Irishman taking it as he went to Ciampino Airport.
It was strange to feel this way now because it hadn’t always been the case. As a young man, Colm had often dreamed about owning a Mercedes and everything that went with it: big house, lots of friends, pretty wife. He had been vain and would have done anything to achieve his goals.
Growing up in Castlebar, in the western part of Ireland, he hadn’t seen many prospects for a productive life. In hindsight, it wasn’t shocking that he’d become a juvenile delinquent. Public drunkenness had been his calling card although vandalism wasn’t far behind.
Sometimes, Colm and his mates would go on a shoplifting spree. They thought they were tough, that soon they would graduate to dealing drugs and hijacking armored cars, perhaps even rob banks. They needed to prove themselves before they moved on and eventually got rich.
Colm was arrested while he was helping steal his first car.
It broke his parents’ hearts and looking back it still shamed him. He was sentenced to a juvenile detention center and it was during this time at Trinity House that he’d met Father Osmond. He had been young and cool, he even smoked. It was the first time that Colm didn’t look down on a priest.
He got probation when he pledged to enter the seminary, Maynooth College. It was just a ploy to go back to his budding criminal empire in Castlebar, but before he knew it he discovered he truly had faith. When he closed his eyes, it was like he could speak to God.
He was ordained, found a passion for his work, and public service became a genuine vocation. He tried to reconnect with his old friends in the beginning. They were convinced he was playing a game to avoid prison, that it was all a charade. They didn’t find it funny anymore when he tried to get them to turn th
eir lives around. He never saw them again after that.
Colm did missionary work in Indonesia, a couple African countries, and India. Then he was assigned to the Archdiocese of Dublin where he excelled at administrative work. That’s how he had wound up being offered a position at the Vatican, working for Cardinal Blanchet at the Secretariat for the Economy.
Being a priest had cleansed his soul. He loved the feeling of being pure again, although admittedly no mortal was ever truly pure. But he tried. And that was why these errands and secret meetings his superior had him participate in were troubling him.
Maybe he could ask to be transferred to a small parish again? It would make life much less complicated, he concluded.
After what seemed like an eternity, traffic let up and Colm was out of the Grande Raccordo Anulare, the road which circled the city. Ciampino Airport was Rome’s secondary international airport and it was booming at the moment thanks to low-cost carriers setting up shop here.
Colm glanced at the map on his phone, squinted at the numerous traffic signs to get his bearings, and finally drove onto the premises. It took two tries to find the general aviation area and he cleared security in record time.
This was one of the advantages of being a priest, he decided. He was rarely held up or scrutinized. That little white plastic square on his neck was like a VIP pass.
“Am I late?” he muttered to himself as he drove onto the tarmac, next to the FOB.
A sleek private jet, painted beige with dark blue stripes, was taxiing to the hangar. He noticed that the registration number on the tail began with S5. Having checked beforehand, he knew that this meant the plane was from Slovenia.
Bugger.
Still, he wasn’t that late. The passengers hadn’t walked off yet. He carefully circled the hangar and came as close to the luxury aircraft as possible without it becoming dangerous.
Just as he turned off the engine and stepped out of the car, the plane’s door opened and with it the built-in stairs were lowered. Colm had never seen anything so fancy in his life. He had himself only ever flown commercial, and coach at that.
Evidently, the Archbishop of Maribor felt differently about the vow of poverty.
