ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) (40 page)

Get out before she comes back!

No, not yet. Not until he confirmed his other suspicions.

The telephone went silent, a blessed relief.

He searched the drawers of Daily’s knee-hole desk and found plastic containers of paper clips, a box of staples, unopened packages of felt-tipped pens and stacks of blank legal pads. There was nothing of interest in any of the other drawers, either, but the bottom drawer on the right was locked.

He used the blades of the garden shears to pry it open. A photocopy of a
Boston Magazine
article lay on top, dated four years earlier, something about a shooting in a housing project and Detective Frank Renzi’s resignation from the Boston Police Department. Interesting, but of little use to him.

Beneath it, he found a newspaper article, yellowed with age, clipped from the
Boston Globe
, a story about an unsolved murder in New Hampshire. He skimmed the text. A thirty-year-old murder case reopened. The prime suspect, George Dillon, had fled. It hit him like a thunderbolt. Thirty years ago Sean Daily had supposedly entered the seminary to become a priest. But he hadn’t. Daily was no priest, he was George Dillon. To escape the murder charge, he had somehow managed to become a priest. Not a real priest, a pretender. Thirty years of blasphemy. The man deserved to die.

About to close the drawer, he spied a corner of newsprint tucked underneath a blank legal pad and pulled it out. His anger became a raging inferno. It was the original sketch in the
Clarion-Call,
altered with pen-strokes to define a Roman Collar and create a face that bore an uncanny resemblance to his own.

Proof positive he’d been right all along.

Daily had doctored the original to make it look like him. What else was Daily hiding? He dashed down the hall, stepped over Daily’s body at the foot of the staircase, and took the stairs two at a time. On the second floor an open door revealed a beige-tiled bathroom. Down the hall were three more doors. The first was a guest room judging by its air of disuse, no personal items on the bureau, a royal-blue quilt tucked over the bed. The next one was unmistakably feminine. A lemon-yellow bedspread on a narrow bed, frilly lace curtains at the window, tubes of lipstick and a can of hairspray on the dresser. The housekeeper’s room.

He opened the door across the hall and stared at the double bed, the bed where the old man screwed his housekeeper. Atop a maple dresser, a bottle of aftershave lotion, a comb and a hair brush. He riffled the drawers, found only briefs, T-shirts and socks, and turned toward the closet.

The doorbell chimed.

His heart jolted. His only escape route, the staircase, ended five feet from the front door. He had closed the door, but it wasn’t locked. The thought sent him into a panic. Sweat beaded his face as he crept down the hall to the staircase. He knelt down and peered through the banister. From this angle only the bottom half of the door was visible. He closed his eyes, visualizing the door. As best he could recall the window in the top half of the door was covered by a curtain.

The doorbell chimed again, an insistent clang that rattled his nerves.

Someone was outside the front door, but there had to be another exit. Gripping the banister, he crept down the stairs and stood on the bottom step. His polo shirt clung to his back, damp with sweat. The old man lay before him on the floor, eyes shut, arms splayed like Christ on the cross. Beneath his head, blood stained the carpet-runner like an ugly halo.

He studied the window in the top half of the door. An indistinct form was visible through the opaque curtain, no telling who it was. He stepped over Daily’s body and tiptoed down the hall to the kitchen.

_____

With mounting impatience, Frank shifted from one foot to the other. On his way to work he had called Sean twice, got no answer and decided to swing by the rectory. Sean’s dark-blue sedan wasn’t in its usual spot. Aurora might be out running errands, or Sean might be tending to a parishioner in an emergency, but either way, one of them would be home.

So why didn’t someone answer the door?

He leaned on the button, heard the chime loud and clear.

He took his thumb off the button and waited. Acid burned his gut. Each time he’d come here Sean or Aurora had come to the door right away. He checked his wristwatch. Seven-twenty. If he didn’t hurry, he’d be late for work, and he had to show Dupree the Cockpit security video. But his gut told him something was wrong. He hadn’t talked to Sean since the day he got back from Nebraska, three days ago he realized with a pang of guilt.

He bent down and peered through a gap where the filmy white curtains didn’t quite meet. The foyer was dark, but he caught a glimpse of something on the floor. It looked like a man’s shoe, a black brogan, like the ones Sean Daily wore. He tried the door and found it unlocked.

He pushed through the door, stepped inside, and his heart catapulted into his throat. Sean lay on the floor, his head tilted at an odd angle, eyes closed, his face ashen, dark stains on the carpet beneath his head.

Frank heard a faint sound. A creaky floorboard? A rusty door hinge? He froze, hyper-alert, heard stealthy sounds in the kitchen. He yanked his Sig-Sauer out of his ankle holster and charged down the hall to the kitchen. The back door stood open. Goosebumps rose on his arms. He felt an evil presence, the same feeling he’d gotten when he found Kitty’s lifeless body. He ran to the door and looked out but saw no one. While he’d stood outside ringing the doorbell, the killer had been in the house, had escaped through the back door only moments ago.

He wanted to chase the scumbag down and throttle him, but his first priority lay on the floor of the foyer. He ran back to Sean, knelt down and put a thumb under his jaw. No pulse. With trembling hands, he pulled the Roman collar away from Sean’s neck and pressed his finger against the base of the old man’s throat. At last he was rewarded by a faint throb.

He called 911 and forced himself to speak calmly. “I need an ambulance ASAP at St. Catherine’s Rectory. Someone attacked Father Daily. He’s unconscious, blunt trauma to the head. I got a pulse, but it’s weak.”

“
Right away, sir,” the female voice said. “Could I have your name?”

“
NOPD Detective Frank Renzi. Get the EMTs over here fast!”

He punched off, bent down and whispered in Sean’s ear, “You’re a tough old Irishman, Sean. You can make it.”

To his amazement, Sean’s eyes fluttered open. Frank stroked his cheek. “You’re gonna be okay, Sean. An ambulance is on its way.”

Sean looked at him, befuddled. Then recognition glowed in his eyes. With a supreme effort, he whispered, “Father . . .”

The word hung in the air like a puff of smoke and disappeared.

Sean’s eyes rolled up into his head.

Frank couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt so helpless. His chest felt like it was clamped in a vise. Over the years he had seen many crime victims and had always felt a rush of sympathy, but they were strangers. Sean wasn’t a friend exactly, but he rather liked the old man, respected him for coming clean about the murder charge in New Hampshire. His gut told him Sean was innocent. He had intended to check into the case, but too many other things had intervened.

He wet his fingers, held them near Sean’s nostril and felt a tiny exhalation of breath. Encouraged, he unbuttoned Sean’s shirt, slid his hand inside and placed it over his heart. Felt a faint heartbeat. Very faint.

Placing his mouth near the old man’s ear, he whispered, “Hang on, Sean. You’re gonna make it.” Recalling the last word Sean had uttered.

Father
. . .
.
Father Tim, he was certain of it.

I’ll get you, you sonofabitch.
He stroked Sean’s forehead, anxiously awaiting the sirens that signaled an approaching ambulance.

_____

Unnerved by his narrow escape and desperate for a restroom, the sinner drove to a gas station on Airline Drive. His bladder was ready to burst, but he hadn’t dared stop anywhere near St. Catherine’s. Inside the restroom he relieved himself, splashed cold water over his sweaty face and combed his hair. Before leaving the store he bought a Hershey’s bar to replace the energy he had expended in his frantic sprint to Father Cronin’s Honda.

Inside the car, he opened the candy and his mouth flooded with saliva. He bit off a chunk, chewing ferociously as he swung out of the station onto Airline Drive and merged with the traffic, savoring the chocolate.

Until he recalled the diabolical Queen of Torture, forcing him to talk.

“
Want some Kit-Kat?” she’d said, peeling off the bright red wrapper and holding the treat just out of reach.

Of course he wanted it, wanted to savor the sweet flavor burst of chocolate. Father never let him eat candy, but—this was the diabolical part—to celebrate his fourth birthday the previous day Nanny had let him eat an entire Kit-Kat bar. He thought he’d died and gone to Heaven.

But now it was, “Say Kit-Kat, or it goes in the garbage!”

He drummed his feet against the table leg and screamed.

“
No tantrums, you little creep! You know what happens then.”

Right: Sit on a toilet with urine-soaked underpants in his mouth.

Her eyes glittered like shattered glass. “
Say
it. Kit-Kat.”

His stomach lurched in terror.

Kit-Kat
, said the voice in his mind, but the word refused to come out, stuck in his throat like a gigantic boulder.

“
SAY IT!” Nanny screamed.

His head felt like it would burst like a balloon as he squeezed out the words. “K-Ki-Kit . . . K-K-Kat.”

“
I knew damn well you could talk,” Nanny had said. “Don’t pull your deaf-mute act on me. From now on, talk or you don’t eat.”

A horn blared.

Startled, he realized the light had turned green. He accelerated, melding with the traffic as he licked smears of chocolate off his fingers. He couldn’t remember if Nanny had given him the candy or not. What he remembered was his utter conviction that she would have devised a torture far worse than withholding a Kit-Kat bar if he had not spoken.

But Nanny was the least of his problems now. Sean Daily was dead and that was a huge problem. Daily had made him lose control.

“
Stupid!
” said the nagging voice in his mind.

“
Shut up!” he screamed.

He swung around a slow-moving dump truck, accelerated to beat a yellow light and zoomed through the intersection. The infernal voice was right. When Detective Renzi found out Daily was dead, Father Tim would be the prime suspect. Renzi expected to meet him for lunch at one. Fat chance! By one o’clock he would be long gone, miles away from New Orleans.

He punched on the radio and tuned in the news.

“
. . . seeking the person who attacked the pastor of St. Catherine’s Church this morning. Father Sean Daily was taken to Tulane Medical Center. No word yet on his condition, but an NOPD spokesperson said police have been unable to question him.”

Daily’s was alive! For an instant he thought he might vomit.

If Daily talked, he was finished.

He pulled into a Walgreen’s parking lot and took out his cellphone.

Marie answered right away. “Hi, Tim! Gee, I didn’t expect you to call this early.”

He hated it when she used his name, but he needed her, now more than ever. “Are you at the motel?”

“
Yes. I just got out of the shower and I can’t decide what to wear. I mean, I didn’t know what we’d be doing . . . ”

“
Dress casual,” he said. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

“
Don’t you have to work today?”

No, Father Tim will not be working today.

“
I’ll explain when I see you. Pack your things so you can check out.”

“
Check out?” Her little-girl voice wavered with uncertainty. “Uhhh, where are we going?”

The sinner smiled. “Have you ever been to St. Louis?”

_____

When Frank finished screening the Cockpit security video for Captain Dupree, Dupree looked at him and said, “Is this all you’ve got?”

Dupree had been thrilled to hear about Lisa Sampson’s rental car and her visits to The Cockpit, not at all thrilled that Frank had waited till now to tell him, though his tale of rescuing an injured priest had mollified him somewhat. Dupree was a steadfast Catholic.

Dupree gulped coffee from a ceramic mug, seated beside him on a metal folding chair in the closet-sized room that housed the computerized equipment to enhance security videos. Not every station had such equipment, but the Eighth District covered the French Quarter with its numerous retail stores, most of which had security cameras.

“
The image isn’t great,” Frank said, “but that’s Lisa.”

Now that they’d used the equipment to enhance the image and zoom in on her face, Frank could see the sad vulnerability in her eyes. “We need to ID the guy. Let’s watch it again, zoom in on the man.”