ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel)

by Susan A Fleet

  Dupree pulled two out of the binder and handed them over. One was a publicity shot: Danny Sampson gazing at the camera with an I-want-to-fuck-you look, his shirt open to show his chest hair. It made Frank ashamed to be half-Italian. The other was a shot of Sampson and his daughter, a pudgy teenager shrinking away from her father, eyes downcast to avoid the lens.

  He held up the two-shot. “When was this taken?”

  “Six months ago. Danny should be on the movie set right about now. It’s here in the Quarter, near Jackson Square.”

  Frank left Dupree’s office, thinking: Great. Desk-duty to Hollywood in a single bound. But before he walked over to Jackson Square to interview Danny Sampson, he needed to call the D.C. homicide detective. To ensure privacy, he got in his car, called Lieutenant Paul McGuire on his cellphone, said he was a friend of Ross Dunn and he needed a favor.

  “You’re a friend of Ross?” said McGuire, his voice hoarse and raspy, as if he’d already smoked a dozen cigarettes. “Whatever you need.”

  “I’m working those serial murders down here in New Orleans.”

  “Sounds like a doozy from what I see on the news. You got a lead?”

  “Maybe. Can you check your files for any unsolved homicides in the D.C. area between 1988 and 1992? Sorry, I know that’s a lot to cover.”

  McGuire grunted. “We got no shortage of murders, that’s for sure.”

  “Forget anything drug related. That should cut it down some.”

  The comment elicited a chuckle from McGuire, a chuckle that turned into a hacking cough. “You kidding? That eliminates half of them.”

  “My guy was in the D.C. area from ’88 to ’92. If he got started down there, I want to know about it. Ross gave you high marks, so I trust your judgment. Flag any cases that look interesting.”

  “I don’t recall any homicides with tongue mutilations,” McGuire said, “but another detective might have caught the case. My caseload’s a bitch, but I’ll get on it, call you back ASAP.”

  _____

  The sinner tried not to limp as he entered St. Anne’s Nursing Home. He faked a cheery hello to the receptionist and got in the elevator. A fierce headache pounded his temples and his leg throbbed. He punched in the floor number and sagged against the wall, dreading his visit with Mrs. Fontenot. He wanted to rest, wanted to close his eyes and fall into the oblivion of sleep.

  Last night during his panicked flight from Rona Jefferson’s house he had barked his shin, but that was nothing compared to the puncture wounds on his calf from the dog bite. After his miraculous escape, he had tended his wounds in his room, slathering antibiotic ointment on them, bandaging them with sterile gauze pads. Even so, the pain had kept him up most of the night.

  The elevator door opened, and he limped down the corridor toward Mrs. Fontenot’s room. How could he comfort a dying old woman when his leg throbbed with unmerciful pain? Lord, help me get through this.

  “Good morning, Father Tim!” called a dark-haired nurse, smiling at him from her chair behind the nurses’ station.

  No, this is not a good morning. He smiled and waved but didn’t stop.

  Halfway down the hall he ducked into a rest room, splashed cold water on his face and studied his reflection in the mirror above the sink. His complexion looked sallow in the fluorescent light, and dark smudges rimmed his eyes. Each time he dozed off last night, he had startled awake, imagining the police pounding on the rectory door. At dawn he had watched the early news, massaged his aching leg as he watched coverage of last night’s fiasco. Jefferson’s house was a charred ruin, but her body had not been found. Footage of firefighters battling the blaze cut to shots of the house behind Jefferson’s where three people had died of gunshot wounds: a female resident, a police officer, and a man patrolling the neighborhood.

  You failed again, said the voice. Rona Jefferson is alive and a cop is dead.

  He patted his face with a damp paper towel, threw the towel in the trash and massaged his temples. The news commentators believed the firebombing was racially motivated, just as he’d intended. Unfortunately, the wrong people had died, one of them a police officer, which guaranteed a zealous investigation. From now on, he would have to be very careful.

  This morning, fearing someone might have seen his Toyota near Jefferson’s house, he had told Monsignor Goretti his car wouldn’t start, and Monsignor told him to use Father Cronin’s Honda Civic. Cronin had called last night; his mother was on her deathbed and he didn’t know when he’d return. “You’ll have to take up the slack,” Monsignor had said.

  Take up the slack while the Monsignor relaxed in his leather recliner.

  Grimacing with pain, he left the restroom. Time to visit Mrs. Fontenot.

  But when he entered her room the old woman was asleep, mouth agape, tubes running out of her nostrils. Grateful for the respite, he sank onto an armchair with green-plastic upholstery and looked at the TV set above Mrs. Fontenot’s bed. A movie commercial was playing, the sound muted, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, their mouths locked in a torrid kiss followed by a close-up of Angelina’s battleship-sized lips. Disgusting.

  Angelina should get down on her knees and pray for Absolution.

  His groin stirred with a familiar ache. He glanced at Mrs. Fontenot, snoring softly now, then touched his erection. How could he remain chaste when women like Angelina tempted him everywhere he looked? He went to the door and closed it, and pulled the opaque curtain around Mrs. Fontenot’s bed. Then he got down on the floor and did twenty pushups, like a drill sergeant in assault mode, feeling the searing pain in his biceps.

  He closed his eyes, but visions of the tongues filled his mind. With each pushup he whispered their names: Cheryl, Suellen, Lynette. Patti and Melody. No tongue from Dawn, the deceitful slut.

  Still his erection throbbed. He switched to situps, did them until sweat drenched his shirt. But deep down he knew it wouldn’t help. Brother Henry had said he used to do pushups to stop fantasizing about having sex with students, but in the end it didn’t matter. He’d done it anyway.

  Like Brother Henry, he was out of control.

  Years ago in a city several hundred miles away, his first Absolution had attracted little notice. Gloria, a shy college coed, had teased him with her milky-white breasts. After he tied her up, she readily confessed, but the finale didn’t go as planned. Warning her to be quiet, he ripped the tape off her mouth. Not a peep from Gloria, though it must have hurt. He told her to stick out her tongue. She did, but when he tried to cut off the tip, blood spurted everywhere. He’d failed to anticipate the blood. A fatal error.

  After Gloria he had managed to banish the evil thoughts, had lived happily ever after for quite a while. But, unlike the fairy tales, the evil thoughts and wicked desires had returned. He killed one girl and then another, and the euphoria wore off sooner each time. His moments of peace lasted only eight months, then four, then less than a week.

  His life wasn’t working anymore. He forced himself to do ten more pushups, but he couldn’t get the look in their eyes out of his mind, the terror and the pleading, the dying light and the slow fade to black.

  Again, he felt the inevitable, inexorable erection.

  If you don’t stop, said the voice, they’ll catch you and put you in jail. That man almost caught you last night.

  He went in the bathroom and studied himself in the mirror. His face was pink from exertion, shiny with sweat, his hair matted to his forehead.

  You have to stop. Detective Renzi suspects you.

  He thought about the tongues in his armoire. He had to find a way to live the way he had before he’d begun taking the tongues, had to try and live the way normal people did, reading books or listening to music or going to movies. Had to find a way to stop loathing himself. Had to face his demons. He wasn’t stupid. Deep down he’d always known that someday he would have to face them. He closed his eyes and saw Melody’s face, the shocked, reproachful expression that lingered after death, like a faint footprint in the sand, not
quite erased by receding water.

  You can’t keep killing these women. From now on you must be good.

  Good. The only good thing he owned was a snapshot of himself as an innocent young boy. But had he ever been innocent? Maybe, before Mother died. Before Father began to bully him. Before Father hired the Queen of Torture, the bitch who’d seduced Father and stolen his love—love that was rightfully his—and convinced Father to send his inconvenient son off to boarding school so they could be married.

  His groin throbbed with a steady pulsing ache.

  He looked at his image in the mirror.

  “I don’t think I can stop,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER 20

  “You are so full of shit!” Rona screamed, shaking her fist at the television set on Aunt Em’s antique maple dresser.

  The object of her wrath, Special Agent Burke Norris, stood on the steps of the Louisiana Supreme Court surrounded by a bevy of supporters: the NOPD Superintendent, the Sheriff of Jefferson Parish, four FBI agents and two African-American ministers. Off to one side, conspicuously apart from them was Archbishop Quinn.

  Norris had just read a statement condemning the firebombing and its violent aftermath and acknowledging the fears of the community. Now, sweeping the crowd with a stern gaze, he said, “But we will not tolerate vigilantes. Anyone patrolling the streets with a firearm will be arrested.”

  This brought catcalls from a huge mob of outraged citizens.

  “You tell him!” Rona yelled at the screen.

  Frightened more than she’d cared to admit by the dead bird and note, she had confided in Sam Leroux, her devoted fan. When the security guard suggested she check into his aunt’s bed-and-breakfast under an assumed name, she thanked him profusely but warned: “Tell no one where I am.”

  “God strike me dead if I do, Rona,” Sam had declared.

  Thus, when her house went up in flames she had been sound asleep in her cozy room at Emma’s Bed & Breakfast, had woken at dawn, turned on the TV and stared, astonished, at her face on the screen, a file photo from the Clarion-Call. Her astonishment turned to rage as she watched footage of the flames consuming her house. Her rage escalated when a pert blue-eyed CNN analyst said: “The firebombing may be retaliation for Rona Jefferson’s outspoken columns. The African-American reporter has alienated many New Orleans area residents, first by insisting the Tongue Killer is white, then by asserting that he’s a priest, an allegation that enraged many Catholics.”

  Recalling these comments, Rona smiled. She didn’t give a damn about disaffected Catholics, didn’t care how many whites she alienated. Black folks loved her. She focused on the TV set as a minister concluded his remarks. Growing up in Texas, she’d heard enough pious platitudes from preachers to last a lifetime, though she knew the man meant well. Unlike the gray-haired man stepping to the microphone, nostrils flaring in disdain as he stared down the mob of reporters and residents. Archbishop Brendan Quinn.

  She upped the volume. She didn’t want to miss a word he said.

  “Due to recent scurrilous accusations and crackpot demands by irresponsible reporters, I felt it incumbent upon me to speak here today.”

  Quinn’s lips widened, a cross between a self-satisfied smile and a sneer, Rona thought, as though his jockstrap was too tight but he was enjoying it.

  “Accusations against my fellow priests pain me as much as if I had been accused myself. Thus I must advise every priest in the diocese: Do not be coerced by public opinion. Do not bow down to law enforcement. No one can usurp the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. In due time, I shall issue a statement concerning these outrageous allegations.”

  Rona gritted her teeth. His message was loud and clear: Don’t mess with Archbishop Quinn. Hers would be equally clear. Earlier she’d called Michael Gregory, had been gratified to hear genuine relief in her editor’s voice when he learned she was safe. Without revealing her location, she told him she had her laptop and would continue to write her columns. “I will not allow some racist to shut me up!”

  “Damn straight,” Michael had replied. “We can’t allow anyone to infringe upon your the First Amendment rights. Send your column ASAP!”

  Recalling his enthusiasm, she opened her laptop. Michael wanted to sell papers, and her column was sure to do it.

  Scurrilous accusations. Crackpot demands. Do not bow down to law enforcement.

  Spurred by the fury Quinn’s words inspired, she typed: How many women must die before this gutless murderer is caught? The Tongue Killer hides behind a priest’s collar, a cowardly white man who preys on innocent young women. Archbishop Quinn must order every white priest in the New Orleans Archdiocese to give a DNA sample to police at once.

  She scanned the copy and transmitted it to her editor. The gutless creep could threaten her and firebomb her house, but he couldn’t shut her up.

  _____

  Frank entered the Twin Oaks café at ten past six, spotted Miller at the bar and slid onto the adjacent stool. “No fair, you got a head start.”

  “Believe me, I earned it.” Miller signaled the barmaid, pointed at his beer and held up two fingers, then pulled a face. “Meeting with Norris all day, everybody helping the man figure out how to placate the media and keep folks calm. Man, I never saw him so pissed. Did you catch the briefing?”

  “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” He nodded to the barmaid as she delivered two bottles of Coors, collected Miller’s empty and moved down the bar to tend other customers.

  “So, how’d you earn your beer? Hard day of desk duty?”

  “Nope. I’ve been out looking for a missing eighteen year old girl.”

  Miller frowned. “You think the Tongue Killer got another one?”

  “No.” He gave Miller a short version of Dupree’s saga of Danny Sampson. “I talked to the father. He’s no great parent, but he’s worried. I think she’s a screwed up adolescent, had a fight with Dad and split.”

  “Back to California?”

  “If she did, it wasn’t on a plane or a train or a bus, nothing on her credit card since Friday, the day before she disappeared. She could be smarter than Daddy thinks.”

  “She could be dead,” Miller countered.

  “I don’t think so. I think she’s an unhappy kid trying to get Daddy’s attention. I spent the day in the Quarter showing her picture, got nothing. Tomorrow I’ll hit the Garden District. That’s where they were staying.”

  Miller nodded at the television where footage of Rona’s house in flames danced on the screen, the same clip replayed endlessly, stoking bonfires of discontent among area residents, some of them supportive of neighborhood patrols, others against.

  “The State Police cadaver dogs didn’t find Rona,” Miller said. “No one knows where the hell she is.”

  Frank nodded. He’d left three messages on her voicemail, none of which had been returned. But that wasn’t why he’d asked Miller to meet him. It was time to mend fences. “It’s great to get off the desk, but I’d rather be investigating Father Timothy Krauthammer than chasing a missing teenager.”

  Miller looked at him, his expression tinged with resentment. “I was wondering when you were going to tell me about it.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you before, in case it didn’t pan out.”

  “So? Did it?” Miller’s eyes remained cool and distant.

  “My gut says he’s our guy, but that’s not enough. I talked to his father and the psychotherapist that treated him in high school.”

  “He was seeing a shrink when he was in high school?”

  “Yes. Then he went to Georgetown University. I’ve got a D.C. detective checking the cold case files for the years he was there.”

  “Be great if you could get a sample of the guy’s DNA.”

  Frank grinned. “Yes it would, wiseguy. Got any suggestions?”

  “Break into the rectory and steal his toothbrush?” Miller’s eyes twinkled with mischief now.

  “Yeah, and wind up in jail. Besides, eve
n if we got a match the judge would throw it out. I got a better idea. I’m going to invite Father Tim down to the station for an interview, see if I can rattle him. Want to join me?”

  Miller flashed a broad grin. “Just tell me when, partner.”

  _____

  Unable to face another dinner alone with Monsignor Goretti, the sinner phoned the rectory and instructed Sister Mary Joseph to tell the Monsignor that he would be dining with a parishioner. He needed to think, needed to silence the incessant voice in his head. For more than an hour he drove aimlessly, trying to sort out his chaotic thoughts. A mile from the airport he passed a seedy bar on Airline Drive: THE COCKPIT.

  Lured by a flashing red-neon sign—KWIK-KOOL-KONVENIENT—he made a U-turn and pulled into the parking lot. Did airline pilots stop here for a kwik kool one, he wondered as he parked Father Cronin’s Honda between a black F150 pickup and a battered blue Buick. Should he go in, or not?

  His last visit to a bar had been disastrous: THE PUSSYCAT where he’d met the prostitute. He almost drove away. He didn’t want to be with anyone, but he didn’t want to be alone with his turbulent thoughts either. Drawn by an aching need, he entered the squat brick-front tavern and stood by a cigarette machine and a coin-operated peanut dispenser, eyeing the neon beer signs: MICHELOB ULTRA in red, HEINEKEN in green. A Corona Light banner hung from the ceiling, each letter on a different colored square of fabric.

  He stepped into a dim-lit room that smelled of stale beer. He hated beer. Perched on stools at a bar-height table, two bleached-blondes in skimpy skirts and halter tops were watching a game show on television. Two men sat at the bar separated by several stools, a young guy in an olive-green camo shirt and an older man nursing a beer. The sinner walked past them and claimed the stool at the far end of the bar beside a square post.

  A sign taped to the mirror behind the bar said: Cash Only, No Credit Cards. Below the mirror two shelves held a dazzling array of liquor bottles. He didn’t want beer, or liquor for that matter. He needed to think. But ordering soda in a place like this would attract attention.