Damage Control (10 page)

Jonathan pulled a digital monocular from a pouch on his vest and brought it to his eye for a closer look. In his peripheral vision, he saw Boxers doing the same thing.

“I don’t see any weapons,” the Big Guy said.

Nor did Jonathan. “I count eight adults plus the children.”

“Agreed,” Boxers confirmed. “But there have to be more adults than that, just to account for the children.”

“I wish I could see a priest,” Jonathan mumbled. He brought the monocular down, turned it off, and slipped it back into its pouch. “Okay, Tristan,” he said. “You ready to take a walk?”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

F
ather Dominic D’Angelo had known Jonathan Grave for more years than he cared to calculate—since the day they’d moved into long-condemned yet still-assigned Tyler-A dormitory on the campus of the College of William and Mary. Jonathan’s last name had still been Gravenow back then, during their freshman year. They were both jocks and party boys—Jon as a track star and Dom as a middling soccer player—and they’d bonded instantly, remaining roommates through their entire college careers.

It’s funny, Dom thought, how similar the eighteen-year-old version of one’s self turns out to be to the adult version. Even then, long before the Digger handle had even been thought of, Jonathan had been an angry young man. There was a dark side to his competitiveness, a drive to prove himself. Haunted by demons of which Dom had only recently become aware, Jon had a sense of right and wrong—of justice and injustice—that was cast in shades of black and white. Traditional notions of authority meant little to him. Rules weren’t necessarily made to be broken, but they were certainly made to be evaluated for reasonableness and then followed or shunned accordingly.

Perhaps that’s the natural outcome of having been raised by a mobster and a murderer. Dom always thought it was interesting that he’d known about Jonathan’s father’s ties to organized crime long before he’d learned that Jon was heir to hundreds of millions of dollars. While it was important to him that people know he was ashamed of his bloodline, the money seemed to embarrass him. Over time, as Dom earned his doctor of divinity, and then his PhD in psychology, he would come to understand the roots of Jonathan’s emotional peccadilloes, and he would grow to understand his friend’s worldview that right and wrong were absolutes, affording precious little room for relativity.

Jon had been one of those teenagers who could transform from charming ladies’ man to ruthless fighter and back again in the space of a dozen heartbeats. All it took was for a person to victimize someone weaker than he. Dom had seen it happen with trash-talking bullies in bars, and he had seen it in classrooms when a professor bullied a student intellectually. Jonathan got away with it because his motivations were always pure, and because, in the end, he was always right.

To Jonathan, the world was full of petty tyrants. He saw it as his life’s mission to protect people from them. Sometimes with his body, occasionally with his career, but always with his intellect.

Dom had never known anyone quite like him. Supremely competent at everything he tried, and possessing a near photographic memory for things that interested him, Jonathan could talk anyone into doing anything. Including, it turned out, joining the Army.

To this day, Dom wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking when he’d allowed Jonathan to talk him into enlisting, but reasons notwithstanding, he’d followed his friend from graduation to the recruiting station, and from there on to Officer’s Candidate School, from which neither would graduate.

OCS turned out to be a bad billet for a young man who resented authority. After only a few weeks, Jonathan resigned and shifted gears to become an “honest soldier,” as he liked to call it, meaning a career as a non-commissioned officer. Dom, on the other hand, finally succumbed to the calling of the Church. He did his requisite three years as a grunt, and upon separation from the service moved on to serve the Lord.

When the Bishop of Arlington contacted Dom to offer him the job as pastor of St. Katherine’s Church in Fisherman’s Cove, he’d jumped at the chance, marveling at the coincidence that he would be called to the oft-talked-about home of the friend with whom he’d fallen out of touch over the years. For as far back as he could remember, Jonathan had gushed about the bucolic community he’d called home as a child, and having served in some of the more unsavory corners of the Diocese, Dom had welcomed the transfer.

He’d barely unpacked his bags in the rectory at St. Kate’s when his phone rang and he answered to find Jonathan on the other end. “Welcome to paradise,” he’d said, and then he invited Dom to dinner at his house.

Actually,
house
didn’t touch it. Palace barely touched it. Easily the largest structure in town, the Gravenow mansion sat adjacent to St. Kate’s, atop a hill that made it the focus of everything. Grand as it was, there was a coldness to the place that made Dom uneasy. That summer night Jonathan had greeted him at the door barefoot, wearing shorts and a G
O
A
RMY
T-shirt. Within the first few words, the years had peeled away, and they were old pals again, reliving stories of wild parties and wild women that would have made the parish flock blush crimson if they’d heard.

When the plates were empty, and the bottle of after-dinner Lagavulin was mostly gone, Jonathan leaned back perilously in his chair and gestured grandly with both arms. “So, Dom,” he said, “what do you think of the quaint cottage of my youth?”

Dom laughed. “Tell you the truth, Jon, I knew that you were rich, but until I saw this place, I don’t think I understood the, uh,
scope
of your wealth.”

“Nine figures and counting,” Jonathan said. His words were liquid and slippery, thanks to the scotch, and they bore an air of bitterness. “Couldn’t spend it in five lifetimes.”

Dom knew from just the delivery that something was coming. He waited for the rest, hoping that if the moment came for him to be profound, his own intoxication wouldn’t get in the way.

“You know Ellen left me, right?” Jonathan said.

“I kind of sensed that, yes.”

“Couldn’t handle the pressure of having a warrior husband. Said I make her worry too much.”

“So says everyone who’s known you for more than a few hours,” Dom replied. “Are you divorced or just separated?”

“Separated.” Jonathan got a faraway look. “I think I can get her back, though.”

“Is this where you lived? When you were together, I mean?”

Jonathan brought his front chair legs back to the floor. “God, no. We had a place down at Bragg. I still have it. She’s got a place in McLean now. A five-thousand-square-foot townhouse that I’m paying for.”

“How on earth can you make ends meet?”

The question seemed to startle Jonathan, and then he got the joke. “Yeah, right. Well, Dom, it’s never been about the money. You know I don’t give a shit about money.”

Dom smirked. “Bold talk for someone who’s never needed any.”

Jonathan turned very serious. “Do you really believe that I wouldn’t give all of it back if I could bring back one life that my father took to earn it?”

This was new territory for Dom. He just waited for the rest.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jonathan asked.

Dom threw an engineered shrug. “You just tossed out a barely veiled admission that your father is a murderer. Having never heard that before, an empty stare seemed appropriate.”

Jonathan’s eyes narrowed, and then he laughed. “Okay, I’m not being entirely fair. A lot of the family fortune came from the legitimate side of the business—the scrap business. But my father never had much to do with that. He leaned on honest people for that. In his heart of hearts, my father is a thug and a murderer.”

He delivered that last line in a way that made Dom think that he was supposed to draw some larger conclusion from it. “I know there’s a reason why you’re telling me this,” he said, “but it’s eluding me.”

“I don’t want it,” Jonathan said. “I don’t want any of it. It’s all blood money, and I’d rather be a pauper than accept it.”

“Be careful there,” Dom said. “I’ve known paupers. I’ve come very close to being one myself. It’s nothing to aspire to.”

Jonathan waved the notion off. “I couldn’t get rid of it all. Most of the money is so tied up in trusts and paperwork that I’m stuck with it forever.”

He said that as if it were a bad thing. Something big was on the way, but Dom had no idea what it was, and he didn’t like watching his friend navigate this dark place in his mind.

Jonathan stood. “Follow me,” he said. He led the way from the dining room back out into the mansion’s central hall. The Oriental carpet runner out here was slightly threadbare, but the padding beneath it felt like walking on water vapor. Every angle out here was delicately carved and ornately adorned. Dom had never seen anything like it.

Jonathan stopped next to the massive stairway and turned, “Fourteen thousand three hundred and eighty-seven square feet,” he said. “You could fit seven rectories in here, with room to spare. When I was a kid, we had servants on every level bringing us stuff and sucking up to my father’s every whim. With that kind of money came real control. That kind of money bought politicians, policemen, and judges by the bushel.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Makes a boy proud, don’t you think?”

Again, Dom remained silent, assuming that Jonathan would get to the point sooner or later.

Jonathan reached into his pocket and withdrew a key, which he dangled from his forefinger. He held it in front of Dom’s nose. “Take it,” he said. “In thirty-three days, this will be yours.”

Dom’s jaw dropped. “
What
will be mine?”

Jonathan grinned. “All of this. The house, the land, everything.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t need this. I don’t even
want
this.”

“Keep following,” Jonathan said, and he led the way down the hall to another room on the right. He opened the doors to reveal a twenty-by-twenty-foot library that had been decorated in Early Gentlemen’s Club. Thousands of volumes decorated the walls from floor to ceiling, except for the near wall on the left, which was dominated by a massive fireplace surrounded by what looked like a mahogany mantel. Jonathan gestured for Dom to sit in one of the luxurious leather chairs while he opened up a panel in the bookcase to reveal his stash of single malts. He poured generously without asking, and handed a snifter to his friend.

Dom took the glass. “Jon, I have to tell you that all of this is making me uncomfortable.”

Jonathan took the chair opposite Dom’s. “I confess I exaggerated,” he said. “It’s not really yours as much as it is the church’s.” He took a sip and he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I sold the whole kit and caboodle to the diocese for one dollar on a couple of conditions.”

Dom recoiled in his seat, his jaw agape.

“The first condition is that the space be used to create a school for children of incarcerated parents. I want to call it Resurrection House. There are a number of other contractual issues that we’re still hammering out, but the second major condition is that you serve in the role of counselor to the kids who come here.”

Dom’s scowl deepened as he tried to assemble the conversation in a way that would make the words sound as reasonable as Jonathan apparently thought they were.

“Tell me what you mean by
counselor
,” he said. Mostly, the question was a dodge for more time.

“You know,
counselor
. Lead psychologist, main confessor. The kids I want to build the school for are going to be damaged goods. They’re going to need help working through all the baggage. I think you’re the perfect guy.”

“We haven’t seen each other in years,” Dom reminded him.

“Doesn’t change anything. I’m an excellent judge of character. Anybody who could tame me during my college years can perform miracles.”

Dom recognized Jonathan’s Mr. Charming gambit, but effective as it was, he still wasn’t buying. “I’m honored,” he said, “that you would make such a marvelous donation in the first place, and that you have such faith in me to help the children. But I’m a priest, Jon. I’m not an entrepreneur. I don’t get to accept random job offers.”

Jonathan took a pull on the scotch. “I’m not suggesting that you’ll be working for me, Dom. You’ll still be working for God. For the Church. You’ll still be pastor of St. Kate’s.”

Just like that—with a
thunk
that only Dom could hear—a piece fell into place. “You arranged to have me brought to St. Katherine’s.”

Jonathan made a noncommittal rocking motion with his hand. “I had a conversation with the bishop, yes. Very reasonable guy. I pitched an idea and he accepted it.”

Another piece of the puzzle slid home, and as it did, Dom didn’t know whether to feel angry or complimented. “Is my participation one of the ‘contractual details’ in your donation of the property?”

Jonathan’s smile morphed into a look of concern. “You’re angry,” he said, shocked. “I thought this had you written all over it.”

“My God, Jon. I’m not an indentured servant. I don’t appreciate being traded for property. Did it occur to you to ask me?”

“I
am
asking you. Well, sort of. You have the right to refuse. I only pushed for you to be first choice, and frankly, the bishop agreed without argument. If you don’t want to do it, then that’s fine.”

Dom ended up accepting, of course, and it was the best thing he’d ever done. Since that day so many years ago, Dom had helped countless dozens of boys and girls deal with the trauma of separation from their families, and, in more than a few cases, with the horrors of reunion with their families. What continued to amaze Dom about that day, even through the filter of time, was how honestly clueless Jonathan had been about the difficulty he’d created. He’d seen a problem and a solution, and he’d married the two, fully confident that he was doing the right thing.

For those who understood the purity of Digger’s motives, it was hard to be angry with him. For the rest of the world, it was often hard not to be angry with him.