Truth Beat

by Brenda Buchanan

  “It’s good to have friends,” I said.

  “I know you’re trying to be one.”

  I handed her the keys to her BMW. She slipped her feet back into her pumps and glanced toward the rear of the church, where an elderly priest was attempting to shoo the gaggle of nurses out the door. All the other robed men except DiAngelo had disappeared through an ornately carved door at the back of the altar. He was extinguishing candles, reciting prayers in a low monotone as he moved along the row. I thought for a moment Kathleen might approach him, but she walked toward her friends at the back of the chapel.

  Two burly men from the funeral home were standing next to the casket, apparently waiting to move it to the hearse in privacy.

  I slipped out the side entrance where a stone wall rose from the inside edge of a sidewalk that ran the length of the church. I leaned against the mortared granite and called Roz to ask about getting my car back. She said it was parked on a side street two blocks from the Chronicle, well away from the protest action, which had ended abruptly at six o’clock when the demonstrators packed up their signs and left.

  “Even crusaders gotta eat,” she said. “Sounded like they were going to debrief at one of the Thai restaurants on Forest Avenue.”

  “Good to know where not to go tonight,” I said. “Any more ridiculous talk about ‘citizen reporters’ taking over my beat?”

  “Leah won that battle without having to put up her dukes. Every reporter and editor on staff and a couple of retired ones flooded Jack Salisbury with NFW email this afternoon.”

  “NFW?”

  “No Fucking Way. Jack told Lombard before the afternoon meeting that the idea was a dead letter.”

  “Why was Al carrying water for these nuts in the first place? He may be a lazy, lousy journalist, but he’s got to know how crazy it would be to allow people with no training and less objectivity write actual stories. Besides, these people have dedicated space in the paper every day—it’s called the Letters to the Editor section.”

  “Al took their side because it was opposite you,” she said. “He’s convinced himself you’re out to shame good Catholics everywhere.”

  “Does he read my stories? I don’t criticize Catholics or Catholicism. I just report when churches are closed, and priests are arrested or—in the case of Patrick—murdered.”

  “Al Lombard is part of the dying generation that believes dirt that relates in any way to their life should be swept surely and often under rugs. The fact of abusive priests embarrassed him. He imagined non-Catholics assumed all priests were molesters, instead of a relative handful. He assumed people were wondering if he’d been abused back in his altar boy days. He didn’t want the Chronicle to cover the priest scandal a dozen years ago and he doesn’t like that you’ve pointed out the obvious truth that the church closings are the direct fallout of the abuse scandal. At the end of the day, Lombard’s identity as a Catholic is stronger than his identity as a journalist. He knows that’s wrongheaded, but it’s easier to gun for you than to examine his own shit.”

  “You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.”

  “It’s easier to analyze when you’re not the bullseye.”

  “Lot of target-shooting analogies, Roz.”

  “Al’s not going to take you out that way,” she said. “But keep your eyes open around the protest crowd. Some of them are wild-eyed.”

  * * *

  Christie’s phone went right to voice mail and I knew Rufe was meeting a friend, so I began to walk toward the nearest bus stop to public-transport my way to Portland and retrieve my Subaru. I was half a block away when I heard a boom.

  The explosion reverberated through my body, and my ears felt as though they were full of sand. Without conscious thought, I turned around ran back toward the church. In what seemed like ten steps—though it had to have been more like a hundred—I was back at the spot where I’d perched while making my calls. Jagged shards of gold glass littered the sidewalk and the narrow strip of lawn between the church and the granite wall. A burnt stench filled the air. I yanked my phone from my pocket and hit 911.

  The dispatcher knew about the explosion already. He was telling me to move away from the building when smoke began pouring through the window holes. I spotted licks of flame inside. My stunned ears made out the scream of sirens. They sounded far in the distance even though the nearest fire station was maybe a mile away.

  The elderly priest who’d shepherded the nurses out the door had been kneeling in a pew all by himself when I left. DiAngelo had been on the altar, extinguishing candles. The funeral director and his assistant had been conferring at the front end of the sanctuary, preparing to remove Patrick’s casket.

  Through the smoke I could see their hearse still sitting at the curb, outside the oversized door nearest the altar. As I sprinted in that direction, a pair of dark-suited figures emerged from the big black wagon, but neither moved toward the now-damaged door through which they would have removed the casket. DiAngelo and the old priest would have gone out the other side of the church. There was no time to run around to see if they’d made it out. I moved past the undertakers and pushed at the big door. One of the heavy hinges had been ripped free and the thick oak panels were dragging against the floor, but I shoved it enough to squeeze inside.

  My first lungful of superheated smoke caused me to jump back, but there was no time to waste if the elderly priest or Father DiAngelo were inside. I pulled my shirt up in front of my face, which did jack shit to protect me from the smoke and searing heat. I was choking before I reached the front pew and realized I needed to retreat. When I was backing toward the door, something heavy fell behind me. I tripped over it and went down on my backside, clipping something hot and sharp before sprawling on the tile. My mind flooded with the basics of fire safety. Stay low. Feel your way to the door.

  I began crawling on my elbows and knees, arms reaching ahead to feel for obstacles, my nose and mouth nearly brushing the floor. I collided with a wall—or maybe it was a pew—all I knew is that it was solid and where I’d expected to find a doorway. Adrenaline shot through me at the realization I’d lost my bearings. The dense smoke stung my eyes but I kept them open, looking for light, or shadow, anything to show me the way out of hell.

  My gut told me the door was to my right, so I dragged my knuckles along the baseboard in that direction. No door. I sidled sideways. Still no door. I reversed direction and slid left for what seemed like fifty feet, scraping wall the entire way. Finally I hit something pliant, which turned out to be the boot of the lead firefighter. He said something into his mike and in an instant three of his buddies converged. They hauled me out the door and handed me over to an ambulance crew, then disappeared back inside. I had no voice, and almost no breath when they strapped an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth and gave me a blast of the sweetest air I’ve ever breathed in my life.

  I was still gasping into the mask when Barb Wyatt climbed in the back of the ambulance.

  “I’m not going to yell at you right this moment, because I’m sure you had a noble purpose going in there, but you are a stupid, reckless man.” Her voice was as serious as I’ve ever heard it. She snapped her fingers. “You could have been overcome like that.”

  I nodded and held up a hand. My voice was a rasp when I moved the mask away from my face. “Afraid. Priests. Were in there.”

  Her hand-held radio squawked something unintelligible to my dulled ears.

  “Where were you when the bomb went off?”

  “Walking. Toward. Main.” I tried to lift my arm to point but it felt like lead.

  “Did you see anyone else in the area?”

  I closed my eyes to ease the singed feeling, relived the seconds it had taken me to sprint back to St. Jerome’s. I shook my head. “Just the undertakers.”

  There was a flutter of activity outside the ambu
lance’s back door and the chief hopped out. “I’ll be back,” she said. “Don’t even think of going anywhere.”

  She overestimated my physical prowess if she thought I was capable of climbing out of the ambulance to take pictures or interview people. But my phone was still in my pocket so with shaking hands I sent three texts.

  First, to Christie: Bomb at St. J’s. Am working the story. Later. xo J.

  Second, to Leah: Am on scene at church. need backup. have them txt me ASAP.

  Third, to Kathleen: Tell me you are nowhere near St. J’s.

  Kathleen was the first to respond, as quickly as though we’d been instant messaging:

  I am in Portland. Why?

  * * *

  Forty-five minutes later I was in Portland, too, in the Emergency Room, being treated for smoke inhalation, which meant a chest X-ray, some blood tests and about three hours of observation, which was three hours more than I had. The ER nurse must have been tipped off that—given the chance—I was likely to hotfoot it out of there. She hovered outside the curtain of my cubicle but kindly fed me news updates as she received them.

  The funeral director and his assistant had finished loading the body into the back of the hearse and were preparing to leave when the explosion occurred. Theirs was the first 911 call.

  No one had been inside the chapel as it turned out, so my actions were going to be seen in the newsroom as histrionic rather than heroic. The last priest crossed the courtyard to the rectory a minute or two before the explosion, according to my nurse-captor.

  I assumed the straggler had been either DiAngelo or the elderly priest who’d been kneeling in the rear. Stella’s perch gave her a clear view of the courtyard between the church and the rectory. She’ll know who was the last to leave, and what door he left through, I thought. My number one churchyard source will have bird-dogged the whole scene.

  Christie was none too pleased when she heard on the Riverside grapevine that I’d been carted off in an ambulance. She and Rufe arrived at the hospital together, fearful and fuming in equal measure. Two minutes into their visit a state police detective and a guy from the fire marshal’s office elbowed them aside and grilled me about how I came to be at the church, what I saw and heard and what led me to go inside a burning building. The fire investigator was the same one from the football field explosion Thursday night. He could have been Rigoletti’s kid brother. Same blunt questions muttered through pursed lips. Same squinty eyes all but accusing me of having been the guy who set off a bomb inside the chapel.

  My nurse-now-protector interrupted after fifteen minutes of their badgering, maneuvered them aside with a look and announced I was being taken downstairs for more tests. When a transport staffer rolled me back to the ER a half hour later, Christie and Rufe had been joined in the waiting room by Roz, and the investigators had left.

  While the duty resident got going on the discharge paperwork, Roz gave me more news updates and passed on a firm order from Leah to stay the hell away from the Chronicle. “More than half the staff—even some of the sportswriters—showed up within a half hour. She says you are not needed and I agree. We’ve got it covered.”

  “What do you know?” It hurt less when I whispered.

  “I talked my way inside the rectory before the cops got there. One of the priests—had to be in his eighties—was the last one out. He was all shook up. He thought he heard someone inside the chapel when he was turning out lights and locking up. The funeral home staff had left with the casket, so he thought maybe they’d returned for something they’d left behind. He called out but got no answer. He walked up the center aisle, looking side to side, saw no one. Walked across the altar, finished turning off the lights. Went out the door the priests use and locked it behind him. He was only in the rectory for a couple of minutes when the blast happened.”

  “Details? Same type of bomb as the other incidents? Where in the church was it left?”

  “Fire marshal’s office isn’t talking yet. We’re sitting on them. I’ve got an in there, so as soon as they have solid info, we’ll have it.”

  “The guy from the marshal’s office who came here looked like a younger version of Wrecker Rigoletti.”

  “That’s my connection. Gio Fortuna. He’s my father’s cousin’s kid. Gio’s nowhere near as paranoid as Rigoletti. Plus, he’s had press training, and we’re related.” She couldn’t suppress her smile.

  “What about the funeral?” My voice was a rasp. “Are they going to have to postpone it?”

  “They’re moving it into Portland, same time tomorrow, at St. Ignatius. There’s no way they could have it at St. Jerome’s now. The downstairs chapel is a mess. The bomb itself sent heavy smoke through the whole downstairs, and there were flames, but nothing structural caught fire before the firefighters arrived, and they got it under control pretty quick. There’s a lot of smoke and water damage, and some pews were scorched pretty bad. But it didn’t have a chance to climb.”

  “The smoke was really thick. I can tell you that much.” Saying that many words set off a coughing jag. Christie moved to my side and put her hand on my back while I hacked myself breathless.

  “It scares me that you swallowed so much of it,” Christie brushed my smoke-saturated hair back from my face. “I know you were worried there might be people inside, but what made you think you could save them?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Later that night I was stretched out on my couch, three pillows under my head, wondering how much longer my lungs would ache and my mouth would taste of smoke. I texted Leah that I was home safe and sound. When she called my cell a minute later I thought we had a bad connection, but a callback didn’t improve it. Short-term damage to your hearing, the doctor had said. It’ll come back in a day or two.

  Leah sounded as rattled as Christie, but her tongue-lashing was more businesslike. She forbade me from covering the funeral. I already knew Roz would cover for me.

  “Jack Salisbury the guy behind that decision?”

  “Nope. I made it all by myself, anticipating an edict along that line.”

  “I don’t want a medal, but my intention was altruistic.” I was still more or less whispering, but she seemed to be able to hear me well enough.

  “Lombard was barking to anyone who’d listen that once again, you’d put yourself into the middle of a story. I didn’t want to give Jack a chance to make the case that Al should handle all the coverage himself. But in addition to trying to keep Jack from meddling in newsroom decisions, I’m sincerely worried about you. Roz said you were pale and shaky, and the doctor said you may feel side effects for days. Dizziness, difficulty breathing, coughing up blood, little things like that.”

  “Can’t have a reporter bleeding from his mouth at a funeral,” I said.

  “It’s not funny. Your beat is getting more dangerous by the day. First the school bombings. Then Patrick is killed. His sister is assaulted. Tonight someone set off a bomb inside the church minutes after the last person left the wake. You’ve got to wonder if the bomber meant for it to explode when it was full of people.”

  “What’s the fire marshal’s office saying?”

  “Nothing yet. The obvious question is whether the bomber has bigger plans in mind. Roz heard people from the FBI and ATF are on their way from Boston.”

  I thought about texting Kathleen. I hadn’t responded to her text asking why I wanted to know if she was near St. Jerome’s, and she hadn’t sent another, so I left it alone. With any luck she was sound asleep, her distance from the hotel’s bar being monitored by her nurse pals.

  When my phone rang ten minutes later I assumed it was Leah calling back, but it turned out to be Stella Rinaldi.

  “What are you doing up?” My croak was getting weaker as the hour got later.

  “What do you think? Keeping an eye on the crime scene. Watching
for suspicious people. I had a nap this afternoon before the wake, and there’s a fresh pot of coffee on the stove. With bombs going off on my street, you can be sure I’ll be right here in my chair all night, watching for anything that moves.”

  “Did you see the priests leaving the church around seven?”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Before you start pumping me for information, tell me about what happened with you. You’re home from the hospital. That’s a good sign. But your voice sounds terrible.”

  “I’m fine. But my throat hurts.”

  “Then stop talking. I saw you walking up West Street, then turn and run back after the boom. I lost sight of you when you ran down alongside the church. I was worrying about you. Said some Hail Marys.”

  “I was lucky the firefighters were so fast to the scene,” I whispered. “They had to pull me out of there.”

  “I knew the priests were safe. I saw most of the out-of-town fathers walk across to the rectory as a group. Father DiAngelo followed, by himself. Then the lights inside went out, and an old one with a limp left through the sacristy door and locked it behind him.”

  “How soon after that did the explosion happen?”

  “Not long. A minute or two. Even though it’s a chilly night I had my window cracked, and heard voices in the back of the churchyard right before the big boom. I’ll bet the bombers were watching to make sure everyone was out before they set it off.”

  “But the bomb was inside the church.”

  “Like I’ve been telling you, there’s been a lot of in and out lately. They knew a sneaky way to get in when the doors were locked.”

  “Why do you think there was more than one bomber?”

  “Because I heard two voices.”

  “Have you told the police this?”

  “The lady chief came to see me right away. She knows I keep an eye on things. I told her everything I’m telling you.”

  “Men’s voices?”