Truth Beat

by Brenda Buchanan

  “How about one anecdote? Something that will help those who only knew Patrick in his professional capacity to see another side of him. Kathleen told me the three of you made regular pilgrimages to Midcoast lobster shacks, pretending to be tourists named—” I flipped through my notebook “—Charlene, Leonard and Ricardo. It sounded as though your adoption of those alter egos was an ongoing thing, kind of an extended game.”

  DiAngelo pushed his chair back from the desk.

  “That was Kathleen’s game really.” His pale face now wore a deep flush. “Here’s something not too many people knew about Patrick—he was a pizza connoisseur. He spent a year studying in Italy when he was in his early thirties, and came back with a profound understanding of how to make great pizza. It’s an art, and he’d mastered it. Every Thursday night he’d take over the kitchen here and make pizza so great it would make your head spin.”

  “I’m sure you and Mrs. McGuire will miss that, too.”

  He nodded and guided me back toward the side door, lowering his voice.

  “I understand you ran into Tillie when you came by a couple of days ago. I’m sorry she more or less shut the door in your face. We are very much in mourning here—even as we reminisce about Patrick—and she’s protective by nature.”

  I said I understood.

  “One more question, Father. Will you be eulogizing Patrick at his funeral?”

  He shook his dark head. “The bishop has other plans.”

  * * *

  Stella had a good view of the side door of the rectory, from which she’d observed both my entrance and exit. I was not surprised when she rang my cell before I reached West Street. Though I needed to get cracking on the actual writing of my now-thoroughly-researched Sunday story, I dutifully climbed her stairs because it was possible my busybody source knew something I didn’t know. It turned out she didn’t—she was looking for information more than dispensing it that afternoon—so over a cup of her brutal coffee I listened while she recounted her interview with the state police.

  “I told them all about the noises late at night. They asked a lot of questions about that. Also showed me a few dozen photographs of people, asked if I recognized any of them from the protests.”

  “Did you?”

  “A few. That tall woman who’s always carrying a clipboard. McGillicuddy. The guy with the bullhorn, and a couple of other hotheads I call his lieutenants.”

  “What did they want to know about Peggy McGillicuddy?”

  “If I ever saw her at the rectory or in the churchyard when there weren’t protests going on.”

  “Did you?”

  “A few times. The door to the downstairs chapel was unlocked during the day, and I watched her slip in and out of there quite a bit, both mornings and afternoons. I also saw her talking with Tillie a few times on the rectory doorstep. Twice that I can remember she was invited in.”

  “When was this?”

  Stella shrugged. “I didn’t write down the dates, but within the past six months.”

  “Peggy had known Patrick for many years. She probably was visiting him.”

  “He wasn’t at home at the time. That’s why I noticed it. I don’t remember where he was, but I knew he was away. The first time Peggy showed up at the rectory door with a paper bag in hand early in the morning, and Tillie let her in. The second time wasn’t too long after the first. It was an afternoon visit that time, in the spring, a weekday. I’d seen him drive off that morning in street clothes, like he wore when he went up to Bangor to see his sister.”

  “You don’t miss a trick, do you?”

  Stella smiled a confident little smile. “The police complimented my observational skills.”

  Makes their life a whole lot easier to find a nosy neighbor to a murder scene, I thought. “How about the guy with the bullhorn? Bozco. Did you ever see him in the area when there was no protest going on?”

  “All the time,” she said. “Never going inside the church, but skulking around the churchyard, and walking by on the street, all times of the day and night.”

  “Maybe he lives in the neighborhood.”

  Stella frowned. “Maybe. But then why would he stare at the church so much, and the rectory? You’d think he’d walk right past familiar places, but not the bullhorn man. He checked it out like a thief casing a bank to figure out how to break in.”

  * * *

  Early Friday evening I was settled in my chair at the Chronicle, a fresh cup of coffee I hoped would chase the bitter taste of Stella’s at my right hand. I had written a necessarily thin update on the high-school bomber investigation and was five hundred words into my Sunday profile of Patrick when Leah dropped an envelope on my desk.

  “This came in today. Snail mail. The sender’s a day late for Throwback Thursday.”

  There was no return address on the plain white envelope, just my name typewritten, apparently on an old-fashioned typewriter with a worn ribbon.

  “Throwbacky, indeed.”

  It contained a single page of pale blue stationery, folded in thirds. Like the envelope, the note was typewritten.

  I have no one to whom I can confess what I know. The police will misunderstand. Mr. Gale, I can tell that you respected Father Doherty. If I speak with you, will you make sure my words do not cause more hurt? Please think about this. I will contact you again soon.

  I handed it to Leah. “What do you make of this?”

  She scanned it. “Could be a nut, could be someone with something valuable to say. It’s not signed, so there’s nothing to do but wait to see if whoever wrote it calls or writes again.”

  She was right, but it didn’t stop the cast of characters close to Patrick from rolling through my head, like credits at the end of a movie. It wasn’t Stella—she wouldn’t hesitate to tell me whatever she had to say. There was no reason for Kathleen Hazelwood to write such a note, or Peggy McGillicuddy, either. Perhaps it was Bozco—the bullhorn man—who I needed to track down. Or maybe someone else altogether, a childhood friend of the dead priest, or a parishioner who wanted to feel important.

  Leah went back to her desk. I dove in to my Sunday feature headfirst and didn’t come up for air for hours. A quick rummage through the emergency food stash in my bottom drawer yielded a package of peanut butter crackers that quieted the rumbling in my belly while I scanned my email. I just clicked on one that bore the subject line Stoopid Story when Jack Salisbury’s lanky frame cast a shadow on my computer’s screen.

  “You’re here late on a Friday night.”

  “It’s been a busy week.”

  “What are you working on?”

  I hesitated, but there was no way I could not answer him, and I wasn’t going to lie. “A profile of Patrick. For Sunday’s paper.”

  Salisbury made a big show of looking around the newsroom. “Roz Fortuna appears to have gone home for the night.”

  “I didn’t understand your edict to mean Roz needs to sit in my lap while I’m writing.”

  Salisbury smirked. “No, I don’t suppose that would be comfortable.”

  I glanced back at my screen, closed the Stoopid Story email. Maybe it was an ironic subject line, maybe it was some idiot. With Salisbury hovering, it could wait.

  “Why don’t you send me what you’ve got so far?”

  “My Sunday profile?”

  “Right.”

  “I haven’t reviewed it with Roz yet, much less with Leah.”

  “I didn’t know there was a rule that your work has to be edited before their boss—that would be me—can read a controversial story.”

  “It’s not a controversial story. It’s a profile of a good man who died too young.”

  “Died at the hand of an unknown person. That makes every story about Father Doherty controversial, especially when our readers are alle
ging in the comments section that you have a bias.”

  “Anonymous commenters who get off making stuff up. It’s sport for those who hide behind made-up names.”

  “Are you denying you’ve bribed a source to talk to you instead of the police?”

  I stood up so I was face-to-face with the assistant publisher. “I cannot believe you have the nerve to ask me that question.”

  “Why are you avoiding it?”

  “This is absurd. I have not bribed anyone, not in relation to this story or any other story. I am a professional, and don’t deserve your insinuations, especially when they’re based on ravings written by people who call themselves names like gripeguy or Ismellbullshit.”

  “I can see I struck a nerve. Surprise, surprise. Joe Gale is thin-skinned.”

  I put up my hands. “I’m not going to argue with you about this, Jack. Talk with Leah if you want to know about my stories. Last I knew, there was a firewall between the news operation and the business side of the paper, but maybe it crumbled when I was busy doing my job.”

  I sat back down and with a few rapid keystrokes password protected my story before I logged off. Then I grabbed my jacket and laptop and was careful not to brush against the still—smirking Salisbury as I walked out of the newsroom.

  I vented my frustration in the front seat of my stationary car, screaming at the windshield and pounding the steering wheel at the same time. I was hungry—the peanut butter crackers having whet, not quelled, my appetite. I was tired. I hadn’t been quite ready to send the story to Roz for her review, which meant I had no business going off on a foliage hike with Christie the next day. But I had to do that. My girl had been shouldering far too much stress in recent weeks, and would probably implode if I canceled our little getaway.

  When I’d hollered myself out, I dialed Roz on her cell and told her what had happened.

  “He’s going to drive me to drink.”

  “As long as he doesn’t drive you to quit.”

  At that moment Salisbury emerged from the back door. I could hear him whistling through the closed windows of my car, which made me wonder who might have overheard my rant. He was oblivious to my presence when he strolled by my car to his dark Mercedes, which was parked under a streetlight on the opposite curb.

  “Big Jack appears to be headed home for the night.” I kept my voice low. “He’s getting into his car as we speak.”

  “Are you going to go back upstairs to finish writing?”

  “I may as well.”

  “Email the story to me as soon as you’re done and we’ll go through it over the phone. No Jack Salisbury. No Al Lombard. Big sister Roz will make sure you get your day off tomorrow.”

  Back in the newsroom, I re-immersed myself in my profile of Patrick. I emailed the full draft to Roz shortly before ten. It took us forty-five minutes to walk through the story line by line. I texted Leah a note asking her to call me before she began her edit. I wanted my boss to have the full flavor of my run-in with Salisbury, but I sure as hell wasn’t stupid enough to sound off about it in writing.

  I was debating whether to pick up pizza or pad Thai when the night editor called across the nearly empty newsroom that a man in the lobby was looking for me. I hustled downstairs and found J.C. Bozco, the ex-con protest leader himself.

  Five-ten and lean as a whippet, Bozco tried to seem casual when he was introducing himself but his handshake was too aggressive and his breathing was uneven.

  “I was passing by and thought maybe you were working late, seeing how it’s been a big week on the Catholic Church beat.”

  “Well you’re in luck. Here I am.”

  Instead of inviting him upstairs I motioned to a bench on the far side of the lobby. As soon as we were settled he trained his coal-black eyes on me and looked as though he was about to spit on the floor.

  “You liked the dude, didn’t ya?”

  “Patrick? Sure. He had a difficult job and I thought he did it well.”

  “What a job. Sedating the people with understanding and hugs. The people who built the churches he was busy closing down would have loved to have such a gig. They had difficult jobs—running the looms over at the Saccarappa Mill, working construction in the heat of summer and cold of winter, emptying bedpans at the hospital.”

  “It sounds like you didn’t think much of him.”

  “Actually, I admired his ability to get people who should have hated his guts to love his ass.”

  “I’m interested in hearing what you have to say, but can we talk some other time? It’s almost eleven o’clock and I’m dead on my feet.”

  “I doubt you’re really interested, but sure. I get the message. I saw lights on and figured I’d see if you were here, so I could take your measure. Until this moment I’ve only seen you at meetings, sitting in the corner, hunched over your laptop. We’ve never talked, and I wanted to know my enemy.”

  “What makes me your enemy?”

  “You’re laying down a line of bull that misses the point about what’s going on in the Church. It’s a corrupt enterprise and he was its chief apologist. Because someone killed him you’re making him out to be a hero. It’s a crock of shit.”

  Bozco thrust out his hand again. This time I could feel the anger thrumming through his veins.

  “A real reporter would look behind the curtain.”

  * * *

  When I got back upstairs I forced myself back to my computer to finish checking email. I’d feel better being up in the mountains the next day if I was confident there were no unexploded grenades in my inbox. I denied myself the pleasure of reading Stoopid Story until I’d clicked through those with more conventional subject lines. Its sender was listed as edgar222@hotmail.com, and I didn’t know anybody named Edgar, but tips sometimes come in unlikely packages. The first paragraph nearly drove me to spike it, but I re-thought that instinct before my finger reached the delete button

  I don’t no why you get payed to right bullshit. That preist was scum. He made beleive he was holey, but he wasnt. Me and my sister no alot but you probly woud say we was lyin. Hears a preevu.

  What followed was a laundry list of sins virtually every religion preached against—gambling, stealing, adultery, drinking to excess—with as many misspellings and grammatical goofs as the first paragraph. According to my correspondent, Patrick bet on the ponies, pocketed half of what was dropped in each week’s collection basket, slept with a couple—both the wife and the husband—who’d come to him for marital counseling, and drank until he passed out every night.

  It was over the top, but the deliberate misspelling and misuse of words convinced me the email came from someone who wanted me to think they were unsophisticated. Was the author testing me to see if I would trash the note? Or was he hoping I’d recognize it as kind of a coded request to discuss Patrick’s dark side? It was a good bet edgar222 was none other than Mr. Intensity, J.C. Bozco, and his visit to the Chronicle’s office showed his inability to wait for me to respond to his email. If I was right about that I wanted to send a consistent message, so I typed out a quick reply.

  Will you meet me Sunday morning to talk about Father Doherty? Name a time and any coffee joint in Portland and I’ll be there.

  If edgar222 was a prankster, he’d slither back into his cave and laugh at me for taking his bait. But if it was Bozco checking to see if I would dismiss criticism of the dead priest out of hand, maybe I’d wind up with a Sunday coffee date.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When the Frig It meeting finally ended it was after ten o’clock. Rufe declined Sam’s invitation to grab a bite. He was hungry as a bear in springtime, having eaten only half of a sandwich from the platter Doug had set out, but he was talked out on the subject of Pat’s death and he knew he and Sam would keep at it, no matter how hard they tried to talk about something else.r />
  He found a food truck on the Portland waterfront that sold excellent fish tacos and bought himself three. He tried to clear his mind while he ate, to sweep all thoughts of Pat and the tumult within Frig It out of his brain. It was a challenge. He’d counted the dead priest among his closest friends, and while his bond with some of his support group brothers was closer than it was with others, the institution of Frig It had been a cornerstone of his life for decades. First he’d lost his friend, now it appeared the bulwark he’d thought was so strong was in fact flimsy, falling to pieces as soon as a stiff wind began to blow.

  Rufe headed for his favorite nightclub, telling himself as he cruised through the narrow streets of the Old Port that having a drink or two and working up a sweat on the dance floor was not the same thing as Thom coming to a meeting half in the bag and unleashing his fury on his compadres. Thom was all about sidestepping pain. Rufe was drowning in it, and needed to get his head above water.

  He found a seat with a view of the crowd and let the bartender mix him a new-fashioned, an old-fashioned with Canadian whiskey and amaretto standing in for bourbon. After drinking two he gave up his seat at the end of the bar and elbowed his way onto the packed dance floor where he lost himself for more than an hour. The disc jockey was matching beats of high-energy noise, throwing in a surprise every now and then to keep the mood on the edge of frantic. Rufe danced until his shirt was drenched and sweat was running down his sideburns and through his beard.

  When he finally took a break a muscular guy he guessed to be in his late twenties followed him off the dance floor and offered to buy him a drink. Rufe smiled and asked for a beer, then watched the well-built man power his way toward the bar. Nice, he thought, if I was in that kind of mood.

  They found a table in a side room, far enough removed from the dancing to allow for conversation. The man’s name was Bryce and he’d been living in Portland for a year and a half, still exulting in the energy and relative anonymity of a city after growing up with eight brothers and sisters in a tiny town at the end of a Midcoast peninsula. Bryce said his family was in the lobster business and he had the work-scarred hands to show for years hauling traps and working in the cooking shed at their wharfside lobster pound. Bryce grinned when Rufe said he didn’t trust men with uncalloused hands. That bit of flirting gave way to a discussion of who they knew in common. It didn’t take long to land on Pat.