ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) (19 page)

Monday 7:20 A.M.

When Frank arrived at St. Margaret’s Church, gray drizzle shrouded the block-long collection of white stucco buildings. Yellow school buses stood empty in the parking lot, having delivered their load of summer school students. The church itself was circular, with magnificent stained-glass windows. The rectory was across the street, a stately two-story building with Georgian columns, flanked by manicured shrubbery and colorful flowerbeds.

But church officials were leery of police inquiries these days, so Frank avoided the rectory and went to the school. Inside an office bright with fluorescent lights, an older woman with short, snow-white hair stood behind a waist-high counter, six feet tall and rail-thin, bony wrists visible below the sleeves of her black habit. Her nametag said Sister Esther Emmanuel.

He flashed his photo-ID, introduced himself and said, “I understand Melody Johnson was a member of this parish.”

The nun’s expression turned mournful. “Indeed she was, Lord help us, a lovely girl. I still can’t believe it. Just last Friday she was here at the school, playing DJ for the fundraiser dance.”

“
Were you at the dance?”

With a faint smile, Sister Esther Emmanuel said, “Yes. I don’t dance, but I was there. Melody did a fine job. She had a beautiful voice.”

“
What about Father Krauthammer? Was he there?”

“
Father Tim? Yes.” Her blue eyes turned wary. “Why do you ask?”

“
Did he ask Melody to be the DJ?”

“
No, Jimmy Tate was in charge of the music. He’s president of the parish youth group.”

“
Could I talk to him?”

“
Not without his parents’ permission. Besides, Jimmy’s not in summer school. He’s very smart, a fine boy.” She gave him a conciliatory smile.

Working hard to mask his frustration, he smiled back.

A circular clock on the wall gave an audible click, a bell clanged, and boisterous voices sounded in the hall. He turned and saw students surge past the office door. But Jimmy Tate wasn’t one of them. This fishing expedition had been for nothing, and if he didn’t hurry he was going to be late for work—desk duty, assuming Norris had made good on his threat.

“
Well, thanks for your time, Sister.”

“
You’re welcome. I hope you catch this terrible killer, Detective Renzi. Everyone’s scared to death.” Her eyes softened. “Father Tim is in charge of the youth group. Why don’t you talk to him? He officiates at the early Mass every day. He’s probably at the rectory right now eating breakfast.”

But he didn’t want to talk to Father Tim in the rectory. He wanted to talk to the priest outside of his territory, where no one would interrupt them.

“
He could tell you about Melody,” Sister Esther Emmanuel said. “I saw him chatting with her at the dance.”

Bingo! He thanked her again and left the office, adrenaline pumping as he hurried down the hall, dodging students in green-plaid uniforms. Not only did Father Timothy Krauthammer know Melody Johnson, he’d been seen talking to her at a dance two nights before she’d been murdered.

_____

Occupying one half of the oversized television screen in the parlor of St. Margaret’s rectory, the anchorwoman said, “Thank you for joining us, Ms. Jefferson.” On the other half of the screen, an unsmiling Rona Jefferson gazed into a remote camera in the
Clarion-Call
newsroom.

“
My pleasure,” she said. “Someone has to stand up for justice.”

The sinner leaned forward in his chair and studied her ebony-skinned face: eyes narrowed, nostrils flared, thin lips clamped in a line. A loud turquoise turban covered her hair. She looked like one of those disgusting rap singers, wailing their sinful lyrics.

A resounding belch from Monsignor Goretti cut into his thoughts. The Monsignor clasped his hands over his ponderous belly, a belly that was working overtime to digest two helpings of Sister Mary Joseph’s fried catfish dinner. Seated beside the Monsignor, Father Cronin was staring at Rona Jefferson with undisguised distaste.

“
Ms. Jefferson,” said the newswoman, “Shouldn’t you have waited for the taskforce to release the sketch?”

“
No. Agent Norris won’t endorse it. He doesn’t want young women to know what the killer looks like, but I do.” She waved a copy of the sketch. “
This
man, a
white
man, attacked Kitty Neves, but Norris is convinced the killer is black. He’s held three brothers in custody overnight and grilled them for hours. But their alibis were airtight, so he had to release them and—”

“
Excuse me,” the anchorwoman interrupted, “but how do you—”

“
This isn’t the first time racial bias has obstructed justice. Not by a long shot. Back in the ‘80s they arrested a black man for those child murders in Atlanta—”

“
Ms. Jefferson—”

“
They sent Wayne Williams to prison on circumstantial evidence and to this day many people believe that he was wrongly convicted!”

Clearly flustered, the newswoman said, “Ms. Jefferson, you say the Tongue Killer is a priest, but it’s very difficult for our Catholic viewers to believe such a theory.”

“
Exactly right!” Father Cronin exclaimed, pounding his fist on the arm of his chair. “No one in their right mind believes it.”

As if she had anticipated this sort of reaction, Jefferson said, “Well, I’m a Catholic, and I believe it. Kitty said her attacker was a priest. The Tongue Killer was afraid she’d identify him, so he killed her.”

The sinner clenched his fists. How dare this miserable reporter say he was afraid? The prostitute deserved to die, flaunting her body in that sinful red dress. She was an evil temptress, selling her body for money—

“
The Tongue Killer is a priest!” Jefferson exclaimed. “A
white
priest, not a black one.
Hundreds
of priests serve the Archdiocese of New Orleans, but only a handful are African-American. Norris should tell every young woman in the area to beware of white men in priest’s collars.”

The sinner bit his tongue to keep from screaming. If she kept up these accusations, every slut in New Orleans would view him with suspicion.

“
The woman’s a fraud!” Monsignor Goretti shouted, waving his hands in the air. “She’s just stirring up trouble to make a name for herself.”

“
Serial killer priest,” Father Cronin snorted. “No one believes that.”

“
Don’t be so sure.” The Monsignor aimed a dark look at Father Cronin. “We have many enemies these days, enemies all too eager to persecute us.”

The sinner remained silent, rage boiling into his throat as he gazed at Rona Jefferson. The woman had to be stopped.

Just as a commercial flashed on the screen, an ad for Viagra, the sinner noted in disgust, the telephone rang. Monsignor looked at Father Cronin, who rose obediently, then sank back in his wingchair as footsteps sounded in the hall. The ringing ceased. Father Cronin gazed at the TV screen, rapt.

As the Viagra commercial concluded Sister Mary Joseph, a ruddy-faced woman with gray hair, came to the door. “Excuse me, Monsignor. The Archbishop’s assistant wishes to speak with you.”

Monsignor Goretti levered himself out of the recliner and left the room with a sour expression. A conversation with the Archbishop’s assistant often spelled trouble. It wasn’t long in coming.

Monsignor burst back into the room, wide-eyed and agitated. “Cancel your appointments for tomorrow afternoon! Archbishop Quinn has called a convocation, mandatory attendance for every priest in the archdiocese.”

“
What time?” Father Cronin asked.

“
Four o’clock. Make sure you’re on time, Father Tim.” Monsignor Goretti gave him a stern look. “We mustn’t have anyone from St. Margaret’s straggling in late.”

“
I’ll be there early, Monsignor. I promise.” He flashed an obsequious smile, left the parlor, went to his room and locked the door. But visions of the insufferable columnist remained in his mind. To erase them, he focused on Melody. His groin pulsed with remembered excitement.

His latest Absolution had been perfect in every way.

“
I’m sorry,” she kept saying, sorry her house was a mess, sorry the ceiling fan didn’t work, sorry her coffeemaker was broken, a litany of sorrows as long as a rosary. It rather captivated him. Later, as he zipped up his pants, his evil need satisfied, he’d seen tears on her face and felt a stab of remorse. A strange feeling, one he’d never experienced, flashing by quicker than a light pole beside a highway. And then it was time for her Absolution.

When she realized she couldn’t escape she said, “Oh Jesus,” a heartrending note of supplication, one that didn’t deter him. He smothered her with the pillow, holding it over her nose and mouth.

But not her eyes. He loved watching their eyes, watching them go wild with desperation, then calm with surrender, then blank. At first Melody’s eyes beseeched him in a silent scream for help, but soon the terror faded and acquiescence began. Finally, her struggles ceased, and her eyes clouded in a vacant stare. It almost seemed as though she had expected it, nodding when he asked if she had enjoyed having sex with her boyfriend. And with him.

Unlike Patti who’d fought him to the bitter end.

He examined his knuckles. The puncture wounds had scabbed over and the scratches on his neck had faded, too. Patti had been a nasty aberration. People were saying he was invincible and they were right. No one could stop him, not even Rona Jefferson. He would make sure of that.

_____

Three miles from his apartment Frank rounded a corner and began the return trip, dripping sweat as he ran through the soggy early evening heat. Yesterday after his row with Norris, he’d bought a pack of cigarettes, his first in years. The first cigarette tasted awful, the second even worse. He’d thrown the rest in the trash, but his mouth still tasted like an ashtray, and he had a headache that wouldn’t quit.

Running in the heat didn’t help, nor had the bottle of beer he’d belted down while watching Rona’s performance on the news. Two murders in ten days and he was stuck on desk duty. Well, fuck Norris. Riding the desk might curtail his pursuit of the killer, but it only increased his determination. He would work the case on weekends and in the hours before and after work. He would find the killer no matter how many obstacles Norris put in his way.

His cellphone vibrated against his thigh. He slowed to a walk and answered, thinking it might be Maureen, but it was a wrong number. He resumed his run, pounding past an elegant Georgian mansion with stately white columns, alert for Slasher. The first time he’d run past the property a black-and-tan Doberman had slashed across the lawn, utterly silent, and lunged at him, teeth bared, halted only by a six-foot wrought-iron fence. It had scared the hell out of him.

Today, after a half-hearted snarl, Slasher turned and trotted away.

His cellphone vibrated again.

This time it was Miller. “Yo, Frank, where y’at?”

“
Out for my mental health run,” he huffed. “What’s up?”

“
Sounds like you just ran a marathon, the way you’re puffing.”

He grinned, jogging in place at an intersection, waiting for a car to pass. “Beat you on a basketball court any time, easy layup, for sure.”

“
In your dreams. You see Rona on TV?”

“
I did indeed. Norris won’t like it.”

“
Won’t like what the Mathews kid said either.”

He jogged across the street and perched on a low stone wall in front of a two-story Victorian. “Jonathan? What did he say? When was this?”

“
After they finished the interview with Rona. You didn’t watch it?”

“
No. After Rona’s lovely remarks, I went out for my run.”

“
Should have waited. Jonathan raked Norris over the coals for not preventing Melody Johnson’s murder. He urged witnesses to come forward, and dig this.” Miller chuckled. “Mathews said if they didn’t trust the Norris they should contact Rona.”

“
Whoa! Norris will shit his pants.”

“
You got that right. I’m wearing a Kevlar vest to work tomorrow.”

Frank mopped sweat off his face with his sleeve. “I called DeMayo today, asked him about any physical flaws on the other victims. He said Dawn Andrews’ left leg was deformed. Her tibia was two inches shorter than the other, which would cause a limp. Even with orthopedic shoes, she’d have an odd gait, he said. And Patti Cole had a severe class-two occlusion.”

“
A what?”

“
A bad overbite, like buck teeth. DeMayo said he swabbed her teeth, thinking she might have bitten the guy, but he didn’t get anything.”

DeMayo had reinforced his theory that the killer chose women with a physical or emotional vulnerability. Dawn, self-conscious about her limp; Melody’s birthmark; Patti’s protruding teeth; Lynette, emotionally distraught over a pregnancy and her ultra-strict parents; Suellen traumatized by the scandal with a young priest. Priests were father-confessors, able to spot vulnerabilities. Like Father Timothy Krauthammer, maybe.