4 Angel Among Us

by Chaz McGee

Father Sojak glanced at the hallway and lowered his voice. ‘I won’t pretend that Danny is a faithful member of this church. He only comes to make his wife happy. It’s Arcelia that loves St Raphael’s. She is the light of our lives here. But he is a good husband to her and I can assure you that he loves her deeply. He would never harm her. She is everything to him. His love for her has no limit, from what I can tell.’

  There was a trace of regret in the priest’s words, and I wondered how much Arcelia Gallagher had meant to him. As I speculated on their relationship, I realized that the tiny rectory did not have the same glorious feeling that the church itself had. There was human emotion at war within the rectory’s walls. I could feel anxiousness flavoring the air around me and something else, too – it felt like an ocean of everything from hope and desire to sorrow, fear, love and utter devotion, all roiling together in such a way that I could not pinpoint who or where it was coming from.

  Was it possible that I was simply picking up on what the people Father Sojak counseled had left behind? I did not think the turmoil came from him.

  Someone passed by me in the hallway, startling me. She was nearly as quiet and invisible as I was. It was the old nun who had led Calvano to Father Sojak. She had returned to the hallway outside the kitchen to eavesdrop. She was clutching a rosary anxiously and smelled of baby powder. Her cheeks were flushed, as if she were ashamed of herself for spying but could not help herself.

  Danny Gallagher was behind one of the doors that lined the hallway, but I did not think that the nun was concerned about him. Was it Father Sojak she worried for? No, her gaze did not linger on him. She seemed concerned with Calvano.

  ‘You’d be surprised at what a devoted husband can do,’ Calvano told the priest. ‘Are you sure you really know Danny Gallagher?’

  ‘Not as well as you, apparently,’ Father Sojak said calmly. Either he was a very smart man or he really did have powers beyond what most people can understand. He was staring at Calvano thoughtfully. ‘People can change, you know. I see it all the time. They come to me desperate to change and then they do. I know you have a history with him, but I have never known him to be anything but a devoted and loving husband.’

  ‘And yet, I can’t shake the feeling that you are hiding something,’ Calvano said. ‘I’m a good Catholic boy, father. I like priests. None of you are very good at hiding guilt.’

  The priest turned his deep blue eyes toward Calvano. I felt a connection strengthen between them and I wondered if Father Sojak had the same power I did to rifle through, or at least feel, the memories that others held in their minds. Calvano was not intimidated. He was on familiar ground. But the nun hiding in the hallway grew visibly more nervous. Her hands were trembling and sweat gleamed on her forehead.

  ‘I assure you that I am telling you absolutely everything I know about Danny Gallagher,’ the priest said firmly.

  ‘But not everything about Arcelia Gallagher, are you?’ Calvano asked.

  Father Sojak sat quietly, looking at his hands. They were long and graceful and I could understand why some might feel as if they had held the power to heal.

  He remained mute, trying to decide how much he could trust Calvano. The clock on the wall ticked loudly in the silence.

  The nun was trembling. I moved closer to her, brushing up against her with my essence. She did not even notice.

  ‘Arcelia helps the newest immigrants,’ Father Sojak said in a near whisper. ‘People from her country, fleeing the drug wars as she was forced to do. Her husband does not know about it. They come here, frightened and far from home, and she calms them. She understands what they are running away from and why they feel they must come here for a better life. Because of what she has been through, she speaks with conviction and from the heart. They respond to her. She has helped many families reunite and many lonely people find their way to a new beginning. I don’t know what these people are going to do without her. We have nuns who understand what they are saying, but only Arcelia understands what they are feeling.’

  ‘And none of these people have their papers, do they?’ Calvano asked, although he knew the answer already.

  The priest shook his head.

  ‘I’m not with Immigration,’ Calvano told him. ‘I don’t care if they’re here illegally or not. But I need to talk to them. They may have seen something. They may know something. You must understand how important this is?’

  ‘I don’t think any of them will agree to talk to you,’ the priest said. ‘I will do my best to convince them. But where they come from, the men who have badges are often the ones they fear the most. But I will see what I can do.’

  ‘What about you?’ Calvano asked. ‘When is the last time you actually saw Arcelia Gallagher?’

  ‘She came here the day before she disappeared,’ Father Sojak confessed. ‘She wanted to talk to one of our other parishioners. I did not know where he was and I could not help her. She left and I do not know where she went.’

  ‘How about if I talk to that parishioner?’ Calvano asked.

  ‘I had not seen him in a week when she came looking for him and I still do not know where he is,’ Father Sojak said firmly.

  Calvano understood. The parishioner was an illegal immigrant and Father Sojak had no intention of telling Calvano where he might be. He rose to go. The nun, visibly relieved that the questioning was over, backed slowly down the hall. When she reached a smaller doorway at the other end of it, she glanced at it. I could feel her anxiousness radiating toward whatever was behind that door. Interesting.

  Calvano and the priest were exchanging goodbyes and I could have followed the old nun as she scurried away down the corridor. But I was a much better detective than I had been when I was alive – and I knew that at least one clue as to where Arcelia Gallagher might be lay behind that door.

  As I approached it, I could feel the emotions I had sensed earlier rising in me, growing a hundredfold in strength. I suddenly knew, with an unshakeable certainty, that behind that door lay lifetimes worth of hopes and dreams, an endless plane of happiness and misery entangled together – the essence that connects all human beings. I passed through the door.

  A narrow stairway led down into the darkness on the other side. As I drew near the end of the steps, I begin to hear a hum that grew louder and separated into individual voices. I made my way along a narrow, dimly lit hallway that wound back beneath the rectory and under the parking lot to the basement of the church itself.

  As I approached a set of double doors at the far end of the underground corridor, the voices grew louder. I could distinguish the deep tones of men from the higher cadences of women and the shrieks of children at play. The sea of emotions I was feeling burbled and boiled, filling me with a strange affection for what I might find on the other side of the double doors. Light leaked out from the crack between them and I followed it like a beacon.

  Inside that basement room, I discovered a secret world. A vast space stretched out as far as I could see. It was filled with row after row of neatly made beds, some separated from the others by screens for privacy. Everywhere I looked, people sat in clusters, talking, holding their children, reading books, lying on their beds sleeping, clustered around small television sets or eating at a long, narrow table pushed up against a wall. Every single one of them had the dark skin tones and distinctive features of Mexicans who come from Aztec stock. There must have been a hundred or more people in that basement, not counting the children who chased one another between the rows of beds.

  Two nuns walked calmly among the rows of beds, handing out towels and pillows to their weary-looking guests. Some of the people seeking sanctuary at St Raphael’s were old, some were young, some were yet to be born. Many looked tired, but all seemed grateful. Relief pervaded the room. I was staring at a refugee camp.

  I would never have pegged Father Sojak and the old nun in the hallway as people who would blatantly break the law. I would not have thought the two young nuns helping people settle down for the nig
ht could be so cheerful about being part of it. But you did not build a haven this large, or filled with so many beds and other supplies, without knowing exactly what the consequences could be. They had created a sanctuary for illegal immigrants below the very marble floors of St Raphael’s. They had to know the chances they were taking.

  I became aware of a burning sensation and I knew what that meant – it is the feeling I get when someone on the other side, the side of the living, can see me. I looked around the room and saw an impossibly old woman with a shrunken face collapsed in on itself staring at me as her fingers flew over her rosary. Her nearly toothless mouth was contorted in silent prayer. Her eyes filled with fear as she stared at me standing in the doorway. I nodded at her and she nodded back.

  I backed from the room, my eyes never leaving hers. I was not Death, but I knew Death would visit her soon. That always happened to people who could see me.

  NINE

  Despite my side trip to the basement, I still beat Calvano to the car. He had lingered to talk theology with Father Sojak. I was glad Calvano was not there to witness what I saw before he arrived: Maggie screaming into her cellphone, as angry as I had ever seen her.

  ‘How did you get this number?’ She sounded furious. ‘Don’t ever call me again. You are not going to get anything from me and you should have known better than to try.’

  Calvano reached the car and she hurriedly disconnected, setting her phone to silent and storing it away. By the time he slid into the front seat next to her, her anger was under control. ‘Find out anything useful?’ she asked him.

  Calvano nodded. ‘Apparently, Arcelia Gallagher is a major stop on the Mexican Underground Railroad.’

  Maggie looked confused.

  ‘Seriously? You don’t know what the Underground Railroad is? The network of hiding spaces people used to hide slaves in who were leaving the South and fleeing to freedom in the North during the Civil War?’ Calvano looked at her impatiently. ‘Our town used to be a stop on it. Slaves hid here until they could make the final dash to Philadelphia. It’s all we learned about in school.’

  Maggie was barely listening. Her mind was still on the conversation she had just had. ‘Of course I know about it,’ she said. ‘But you aren’t being serious, right?’

  ‘I’m being completely serious. Father Sojak says Arcelia Gallagher counsels illegal immigrants who come through St Raphael’s for help starting new lives here in America. He made it sound like it was just a couple of them, but when’s the last time you only saw a few illegal immigrants together?’

  ‘We need to talk to them,’ Maggie said.

  ‘I know. I’m on it. He’s going to get back to me.’

  Maggie looked at him skeptically.

  ‘I said I was on it. What’s next?’

  ‘Gonzales called us back to the office.’ Her tone made it clear that this was the last thing she wanted to do. ‘We are under orders to come in the front door.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Calvano sounded pissed, but he was still Calvano: he looked in the car mirror and started arranging his hair. He knew he’d be on every major network by nightfall tomorrow.

  ‘Yes, seriously. He wants the whole world to know that the best detectives in town are on the case,’ Maggie said sourly.

  ‘Hey, it’s kind of a compliment, right?’ Calvano asked.

  ‘It’s kind of a pain in the ass,’ she answered.

  It may have been a pain in the ass for them to push through the cluster of reporters and cameramen waiting to ambush them when they reached the station house, but for me it was kind of a hoot. I kept walking in front of the cameras, blocking their view, hoping that I might at least create some static and ruin a shot or two. A ghostly figure would have been way more dramatic and, for a brief shining moment, I had a vision of becoming a legend around the station house after all. But I knew it was just a fantasy. I was pretty sure I was destined to remain as unknown as I had been while alive.

  As always, the leader of the media pack seemed to be Lindsey Stanford, the stocky woman in a crap-colored pantsuit and a bad haircut who had a bigger entourage than most of the other reporters competing with her. Two cameramen, a sound man, some Type-A skinny blond producer and a terrified-looking intern followed her as she barreled through the crowd, making a beeline for Maggie and Calvano. Maggie must have been under orders from Gonzales to talk to her, because she slowed reluctantly and waited until the reporter reached her. Lindsey Stanford was a legend to some, but she was one of those popular culture figures whose rise to fame I had missed, due to being in an alcoholic haze for the past ten years.

  Lindsey Stanford had nerve, I had to give her that. She sent a tiny blond reporter careening off another competitor with one bump from her hip and then planted herself firmly in front of Maggie. Instead of sticking her microphone in Maggie’s face, she held it up to her own and launched into a long and well-written introduction about Arcelia Gallagher, the beloved mother-to-be and kindergarten teacher who had surely met with foul play. She fully expected Maggie and Calvano to stand there while she hogged the camera time, and stand there they did. As she was talking, somehow making the disappearance of Arcelia all about her, I saw Maggie’s ex-husband inching his way through the crowd, trying to catch Stanford’s eye. I wondered what Maggie would do when she realized that her ex-husband was working with the most obnoxious reporter in a field of highly obnoxious candidates.

  Stanford was wrapping up her endless intro with a sensationalized account of Maggie’s career to date, no doubt fed to her by some public relations flack Gonzales had assigned to the case. It was all Calvano could do to keep from laughing as he listened. Apparently, the fact that he was invisible to both Gonzales, and now the public, did not bother him a bit. For once, being a screw-up had its advantages.

  ‘Detective Gunn,’ Stanford finally asked Maggie. ‘What news do you have in this sad case of a missing, beloved community figure?’

  Maggie stared at the reporter like Stanford was some streetwalker she had been caught in the act, and it was not until Calvano gave her a discreet push that she answered. ‘We cannot comment on the case, but we can assure the public that we are doing everything possible to bring home this beloved mother-to-be and kindergarten teacher.’

  Maggie had nicely regurgitated Stanford’s own words but also managed to look like she wanted to throw up a little more.

  By then, Maggie’s ex-husband, Skip Bostwick, had reached the center of the crowd and was whispering to one of Stanford’s cameramen. The cameraman nodded and gave his boss a signal. She caught it out of the corner of her eye and, sensing that Maggie was not going to be the interviewee she had hoped, she smoothly changed tack. Turning to Maggie’s ex-husband, she announced to the camera, ‘We have a forensic expert straight from the state of Delaware’s famed crime laboratory who is prepared to give us insider information on results of sensational tests that call the husband’s innocence into question.’

  Maggie’s mouth fell open, fortunately off-camera, and Calvano tugged her away before she could lunge at Skip Bostwick and start swinging. Calvano hustled her in through the doors of the station house, where four policemen were standing guard to keep outsiders out. He did not say anything until they were near the elevators, but he did not let up on his pressure either. He was going to get Maggie as far away from the news crews and her ex-husband as he could before she exploded. Calvano was a dumb-ass, but he knew women and he could feel the fury sparking off Maggie as surely as I could.

  ‘Inside,’ he commanded her as the elevator arrived. She was still looking over her shoulder, but Calvano shooed her inside the car and I hurried in after them. The door closed and at last Calvano could speak. ‘You know that he doesn’t have anything that’s really a clue,’ he told her. ‘It’s just bullshit for the ratings. The lab is not going to give him any meaningful results.’

  ‘You don’t know Skip,’ Maggie said quietly. ‘He has friends everywhere. He could be out there divulging some important piece of evidence
right now.’

  ‘No way,’ Calvano said shaking his head. ‘Gonzales is too smart for that. He’s either sending them on a wild goose chase, or just telling them what they want to hear so we can work the real evidence.’

  ‘I hate that man with every fiber of my being,’ Maggie suddenly declared, and I knew she wasn’t talking about Gonzales. ‘Is it just me or does obnoxiousness leak from every one of his pores?’

  ‘You won’t have any argument from me on that point,’ Calvano admitted.

  The elevator doors opened and Gonzales was waiting for them, smartphone in hand, watching the tail end of a live streaming video of their encounter with Lindsey Stanford. God, that was creepy. He had been four floors above them and yet had seen every move they made. ‘Nice quote,’ he said to Maggie, pointedly ignoring Calvano.

  ‘Sir,’ she muttered. ‘We need to talk.’

  Whatever Maggie had hoped Gonzales might do to help them block the press from access to their investigation, her worst fears were realized when he informed her that he knew that Lindsey Stanford’s technical consultant was her ex-husband and he expected her to make the most of the situation.

  ‘You want me to suck up to him?’ Maggie asked in a tone of voice I had never heard from her before. ‘Sir, do I have to tell you what it was like?’

  ‘I know what it was like, Maggie,’ Gonzales said, using her first name. I had never heard him call her anything but ‘Gunn’ before. ‘But we have to keep the press under control and out of our way, and the best way for you to do that is to suck up to him. I don’t care what you’re feeding him. I don’t care if it’s fake information or unimportant information, just use your relationship with him to keep him off the trail.’

  ‘He’s already down there claiming he has sensational evidence. Mind telling us what that’s about?’

  Gonzales waved his hand. ‘It’s nothing. I reached out to all drug enforcement – the FBI, ATF the state boys, you name it – and none of them have any intelligence leading them to believe a drug cartel has been anywhere near our town in the last three years. They moved the trafficking corridor further east a long time ago and there’s no chatter at all about a kidnapping. None. I let Bostwick know that.’