Body Of Truth

by Deirdre Savoy

  Not everything about Dana Molloy was tough as nails. Her lips were soft, moist, pliant beneath his, sweeter than he’d expected. That sweetness drew him in, prolonging what he’d thought would be a brief meeting of his lips and hers. His tongue slipped inside her mouth to find hers. Their meeting was languid, unhurried, and heady as all get out.

  When he finally pulled away, he scanned her face, pleased by the bemused expression he found there. At least he wasn’t the only one rocked by that incredible kiss. He ran his thumb along her moist lower lip. “Take care of yourself, Dana,” he whispered, then turned to walk back to his car.

  Nine

  Jonathan woke at his usual time the next morning despite a lack of sleep. He’d spent half the night baking in the night heat out on his fire escape, hoping that Tyree had cooled down enough to join him. That hadn’t happened, and he had to admit, much of the time his mind hadn’t been on what the teenager was or wasn’t doing.

  His thoughts kept drifting back to Dana. It hadn’t been very bright of him to put his hands on a woman he’d reminded himself only minutes before that he had no intention of pursuing. He still didn’t, but now he was free to torture himself at his leisure with the sweetness of her kiss. At the time, he’d had half a mind to push her a little further to see what other surprises she might spring on him. His only comfort was knowing he’d left before it had occurred to her to throw him out.

  When he walked into the squad room, Mari was already at her desk. “Look what the cat dragged in. Thanks for calling me and letting me know what happened.”

  He shot her a quelling look, which by now she was used to ignoring. He took his jacket off, slung it over the back of his chair and sat. “She had a girl, Sarah Elizabeth. Everybody’s fine.”

  “See, now that wasn’t so hard.”

  He shot her another look, then glanced at the stack of papers littering her desk. “Looks like you’ve been busy.”

  “Interesting reading. It turns out Pierce’s Father Malone didn’t start life as a choirboy. He did time for B&E and burglary before some jailhouse Jehovah got ahold of him and turned him around. Later, when he became head of St. Jude’s he was one of the players in building some apartment complex near Third. Trinity Houses. You can see it off the Bruckner Expressway.”

  He thought he knew the development she meant. “So what’s the problem?” He rifled through the messages left on his desk, finding nothing of interest. “The guy hasn’t been dead long enough to be canonized.”

  “Two things. It’s speculated that the Father didn’t quite leave his old ways behind. Some of his partners in the deal were his old running buddies who’d taken their scams to a higher level. Supposedly some of the funds for the project were never accounted for.”

  “How is that different from half the buildings that go up in the city?” You couldn’t exactly give mob payoffs a line on a spreadsheet.

  She shrugged. “Then there’s how he died. The church burned to the ground with him in it. Mind you, this is in the days before mandatory smoke detectors and sprinkler systems, so that by itself isn’t so strange. But the fire investigator could never discover the cause of the blaze, except to note the way the fire burned it must have started in the priest’s office.”

  “Don’t priests burn candles?”

  “Who knows what most priests do, but they found a candle holder on the desk and wax residue by the window. If it was a candle, that was probably what started the fire. Malone’s body was found prone in the middle of the room.”

  “Maybe he was trying to get out.”

  “Not if he was facing the desk.”

  Jonathan supposed not. “Is that it?”

  “The Medical Examiner found a contusion at the back of Malone’s head, but not much was made of it, considering the building practically fell down on top of him.”

  “They left it at that?”

  Mari leaned back in her chair. “There’s also speculation that powerful friends of Malone’s squashed a full investigation fearing the fire had been set to cover up Malone’s murder. They would rather not have known than discover one of Bronx’s most beloved priests had been killed by his cronies for lining his pockets with more than his share of the skim.”

  “Is there any proof that anyone actually skimmed anything?” No skim, no motive for anyone to have murdered him, at least not over that.

  “None that’s here. It’s all speculation upon speculation generated by the press. There’s no proof of anything except that the building went up.”

  “Wonderful.” He took the folder she handed to him. Knowing Mari, she’d laid out all the pertinent information in some reasonable format. As he looked through it, two thoughts bothered him, one of which Mari had already voiced: Why would Amanda Pierce care about the doings of a small-time priest and why now? The building had opened in September of 1980; the church had burned down several months after that. The only rationale he could see was that the twenty-fifth year anniversary of both events was almost here.

  He pushed the file away and squeezed his temples between his thumb and middle finger. Even if there was some significance to the anniversary, there was nothing here to suggest a motive for Amanda Pierce’s murder—unless of course there was something to all that past speculation and someone didn’t want her to dredge it all up again. If one of Malone’s gangster buddies had wanted her dead, he doubted he would have had her strangled in the first place, not to mention leaving her body nude and freshly bathed in a garbage can uptown. A couple of shots in the back of the head with a clean .22 in her own bed was more their style. Less work, no mess, and dead was dead, no matter how it was accomplished.

  Shea chose that moment to come stand by his desk. “Your friend Freddie Jackson just turned up. Some neighbor saw him entering his mother’s house and phoned it in.” He tossed a slip of paper bearing an address onto Jonathan’s desk. “Maybe you want to go pick him up.”

  As Shea walked away, Jonathan turned to Mari. “Want to go watch the show?”

  Mari was already on her feet. “Anything beats sitting here shuffling papers.”

  Yeah, and having an actual break on something couldn’t hurt, either.

  Dana woke late and stretched languidly, for the first time in a long time not caring what time she arose. Her dreams had thankfully been free of any stark images of that morning on Highland Avenue. She hadn’t told anyone, but those first two nights after the shooting, she’d dreamed of falling, endlessly falling, only to reach bottom and have two disembodied dead eyes staring down at her.

  Last night was different, thank God. Maybe her psyche had simply cleansed itself of those terrifying moments through her dreams. She didn’t know, but if the nightmares were over, she was grateful.

  She rose, showered, and dressed in a pair of low-riding jeans and a T-shirt that exposed her navel. Against her doctor’s orders, she’d taken off the sling yesterday and considered herself done with it. Her shoulder was almost healed. She could withstand whatever few twinges activity sparked in that area.

  She made herself a light breakfast of toast and coffee, settled on the sofa with her feet tucked under her and turned on the TV. Channel 12, the Bronx cable news station, came to life. After a brief report on the traffic, the news anchor introduced the next story, new speculation into the Amanda Pierce case. Supposedly some crazed fan might have gotten to her. The report didn’t speculate as to the identity of said crazed fan, but segued instead into a story about other celebrities who were either harmed or stalked by the public.

  Dana clicked off the set. A maniac fan. That made as much sense to her as any other explanation for Amanda Pierce’s fate being tossed around. At least it wasn’t the proverbial tall, short, young, old, fat, skinny black man blamed for so many crimes until the real culprit, usually white, was uncovered.

  She was just about to carry her dishes to the sink when her doorbell rang. Three men stood on her doorstep, all of them dressed in dark suits with white shirts and striped ties. The one in the cent
er carried a Bible. He looked vaguely familiar, as if she’d seen him in the neighborhood, but she couldn’t place him. To her mind, it was a bit early for religious proselytizing, but there was no accounting for other people’s schedules.

  She was tempted to leave them there on her porch, but then she’d have no assurance that they went away. She pulled open the door. “What can I do for you today, gentlemen?”

  “Good morning, Sister Molloy. I am the Reverend Robert Jones and these men are my associates. May we have a word with you about Sister Evans?”

  “Nadine?” She hoped these men hadn’t come to tell her that something had happened to Nadine. If so, she wouldn’t mind having a seat for that.

  She stepped aside to allow them to enter. “Please come in.” Once all of them were inside, she shut the door and led them toward her living room.

  Only the Reverend deigned to sit, and at that he perched himself on one corner of her sofa. The other two men stood at his side. Dana sat on the loveseat opposite them. “What do you want to tell me?”

  “I received a call yesterday from Sister Evans, right after her grandson’s funeral. Honestly, I wish she’d called me earlier about her plight.”

  “Exactly which plight is that?”

  “The inattention that’s been shown by the police department in bringing Wesley’s murderers to justice.”

  Oh, that plight. She couldn’t imagine what these three men hoped to do in getting Moretti and the NYPD to move its feet, but more power to them. “What has this got to do with me?”

  “You see, Sister Molloy, we want to seek justice for the boy. Every cause needs a symbol. Sister Evans is too infirm to be of much help in that way. You were wounded by the same men who killed her grandson.”

  In other words, they wanted to parade her around as some martyr to justice. She scrutinized the Reverend’s face, finally recognizing him. Reverend Bobby Jones, who billed himself as the Al Sharpton of the Bronx, the defender of the weak and downtrodden.

  No matter what anyone else wanted to say about Sharpton, particularly the mainstream media, Dana had always thought that he at least believed in the causes he espoused and tried to do his best for the people he defended.

  From what she knew of this man seated before her, he was just a wannabe. All he cared about was to grab as much money and publicity as he could. She had no intention of becoming just another vehicle for him to do that.

  “I doubt I’d make much of a symbol for you, Reverend.”

  “Think of it, Sister. You’re a good woman. A public servant. A caregiver. How many times have you paid for food or supplies for your patients out of your own pocket?

  Too numerous to count, but she doubted he’d been speaking to enough of her clients to really know. She’d done those things for Nadine and he’d extrapolated what he wanted from that information. Regardless of what she’d done, she had no desire to be part of his public pity party. “I’m not interested in becoming a public spectacle for you or anyone.”

  “You weren’t so concerned about making a spectacle of yourself last night.”

  One of the Reverend’s henchmen handed him a manila envelope, which he extended toward her. Once she’d taken it from him he sat back with a smug expression on his face.

  Dana reached inside the envelope to pull out a fuzzy black-and-white photograph. If she hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have recognized herself or Jonathan as the man and woman kissing in the picture.

  She’d known at the time that it was a mistake to let him touch her, though her reasons had nothing to do with any Peeping Tom photographers. The only reason she had was that she’d fully expected to be able to put any attraction to him out of her mind. She’d expected kissing him to be like locking lips with a brick wall. She’d expected him to be as hard and unyielding in that arena as he appeared to be in every other. Never would she have anticipated the gentleness of that one slow, stimulating kiss. To be honest, she’d never expected him to touch her at all.

  To the Reverend, she said, “You were spying on me?”

  “Not spying, Sister. Watching out. Our man just happened to have a camera. He has been sanctioned for the lapse.”

  Yeah, but that didn’t mean the Dear Reverend wouldn’t try to use the by-product of his misdeed. She tossed the photograph and envelope onto her coffee table. “I don’t know what this is supposed to prove other than either your photographer needs a better lens or I need a bottle of Windex.”

  “Think of what the media might make of the chief investigator in one homicide being involved with a witness in another.”

  For one thing, in this day and age no one would care. That is if anyone besides her could actually tell who was in the picture. As sure as she sat there she knew the Reverend figured her for some half-brained female who would protect her man at any cost to herself. But he’d forgotten the chief rule of blackmail: Make sure the threat is something your victim actually fears.

  Dana shrugged. “Go ahead and print it, if you can find someone to do that for you. Make sure to send me a tear sheet for my scrapbook, while you’re at it. But don’t ever presume to come into my home again and make threats to me, no matter how idle they may be.” She stood. “Now it’s time you, Louie and Dewey left.”

  Jones rose to his feet. “Sister Molloy, I was raised in that neighborhood. My church is there. Don’t you think the people of this community need a voice, someone to stand up for them?”

  “Actually, I do. But I would hope that person’s first mandate would be their best interests at heart, not how best to line his pockets or get his face on TV.”

  The Reverend said nothing to that. He and his men filed out of her house and went to a black car parked across the street. As they drove off, she wondered if Reverend Jones was through with her and decided she didn’t care.

  Freddie Jackson’s mother Edwina Payne lived on a little stretch of houses recently built off the New England Thruway. Like many spots in the Bronx, any postage stamp-sized lot had a new house going up on it, or one recently built and occupied. The preference seemed to be for three-family numbers, with each family claiming one floor of the building. Jackson’s mother’s place was no different. She had a ground floor one bedroom that offered the intriguing view of two-way traffic passing on the highway.

  The neighborhood had once been a hooker stroll, drawing customers who made a pit stop off the highway before construction began. The hookers weren’t giving it up that easily. Three scantily dressed ladies disappeared into the bushes as they rolled up behind one of the squad cars in front of the house.

  “Isn’t it a bit early for working girls?” Mari said as they got out of the car.

  “Maybe they’re over achievers.” By eyewitness accounts and by the blood trail leaving the scene, Jackson had been hurt. How badly or where he’d holed himself up for the past two days was anybody’s guess. But by now, he must know he was wanted for murder. In all likelihood, he wouldn’t come along easily, but it was the uniformed cops’ show. They were along for the ride.

  Unlike the TV universe, real-life detectives didn’t go breaking down doors or lead S.W.A.T. teams into dangerous situations or other similar nonsense. Nor did crime labs instantly come up with results to complicated tests that took days or weeks instead of minutes to process. No wonder the public often accused the police of dragging their feet. Real cops didn’t have the Law and Order guys writing the scripts.

  For all the effort it ended up taking, he and Mari may as well have stayed in the house. Mrs. Payne opened the door willingly. It turned out she, not a neighbor, had called in. Her son had shown up on her doorstep feverish from his infected knife wound and passed out.

  Jackson was taken to the hospital under police guard while they questioned Mrs. Payne. She had nothing of interest to report except that she wasn’t letting nobody, son or not, die in her house.

  He and Mari got in the car and followed the ambulance. For the moment, at least, Amanda Pierce would have to wait.

  They calle
d him “Old Specs” because from the street all you could see of him was the top of his bald head and the thick rims of his glasses as he peered out at Highland Avenue through a gap in his blinds. Dana stood outside his building—the building where Nadine Evans lived, the building in which she’d been shot—questioning the wisdom of what she was doing.

  After the Reverend and his minions left that morning, it had occurred to her that since no one seemed to care what happened to Wesley except a man who wanted to advance his own agenda, maybe she should do a little investigating of her own. Nothing major, like hunting down the drug dealers that killed him, but somebody had to have seen something that could help track down the killers.

  But nothing went unnoticed in this neighborhood, no matter what the police thought. And those who wouldn’t dream of going to the police had no compunction about reporting to others who might not have her best interests at heart. She had to work in this neighborhood. What she was doing might be suicide.

  But she’d paid the better part of twenty dollars for a cab here so she might as well get what she came for and get out of there before she drew too much attention to herself.

  As she started up the steps, her breathing shallowed and her heartbeat quickened. The back of her neck grew cold with the sensation that someone watched her. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw no one but some kids playing across the street, paying her no mind. She took another step, feeling her empty stomach come to life, burning with acid and emotion. She reached the top of the stairs and laid her fingertips to the smooth glass panel in the door. New glass to replace the pane shattered by her and Wesley and a gunman’s bullets.

  She inhaled, trying to quell the effects of her body’s autonomic nervous system kicking in. Maybe her dreams hadn’t really cleansed anything from her psyche if her fight or flight instinct got activated just by being here. She pushed through the front door and walked to the man’s apartment. She knocked on the door and almost immediately it opened, revealing a dark-skinned man in a wheelchair. She’d wondered why the old man had spent so much time sitting by his window, and she supposed she had her answer.