Murder in the Irish Channel (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) (19 page)

“They were a couple?” That was a surprise.

“I didn’t say that—I said they were close.” Dan laughed. “Read into that what you will. Remember, the church doesn’t frown on love—but she does demand celibacy from her priests.”

“What do you think about the closings?” I watched his face.

“Me?” He shrugged. “It makes sense to me, but it’s not my parish, either. As you can imagine, it’s not like young men are breaking down our doors to get into the priesthood. When older priests die or retire, there aren’t young ones to replace them anymore, not like there used to be. Young people just aren’t that interested in marrying themselves to God anymore. It wasn’t really about money, you know—it was about the availability of priests. They needed Tom in Mobile—I’m pretty sure it was Mobile—and they didn’t have anyone to replace him at St. Anselm’s. Tom was already doing double duty at Our Lady of Prompt Succor—so the archbishop decided to merge those two parishes into others. Yes, it also meant a cost reduction, but I really do believe it was all about lack of personnel, like Archbishop Pugh said. I know that’s not a popular position to hold, but Archbishop Pugh isn’t the monster everyone makes him out to be.” He spread his hands. “He knows all about St. Sebastian’s, for example, and he supports me completely.” He winked. “As long as I keep a low profile, of course. The pasting he’s taking in the local media is kind of unfair. But he’s an outsider—if he’d grown up in Holy Cross or anywhere else in New Orleans, for that matter, none of this would even be an issue.”

“New Orleans doesn’t warm quickly to outsiders.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m sure Archbishop Pugh was caught off guard by all of this.” He grinned at me. “The church expects—no, demands—obedience. I’m surprised he hasn’t threatened to excommunicate the protesters.”

“Excommunicate?” I stared at him. “Do they still do that?”

He laughed. “Yes, they do. And he would be well within his rights to excommunicate them, for defying him as head of the church in New Orleans. So, the next time you hear someone bashing him as a heartless bastard who doesn’t care about his parish, remember that, okay?”

“So, there’s no priest gossip about anything unusual going on at St. Anselm’s? I’ve heard rumors that Pugh is looking to sell the property to a developer.”

“Been frequenting the online message boards?” Dan laughed. “Don’t believe any of that crap, Chanse. There are no plans to demolish the building or sell the land. Pugh is looking into having the building declared a historic landmark. Have you been inside? It is a gorgeous building.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I can see why the parishioners are so dedicated to it.”

“You know, I do have some ‘priestly gossip,’ as you call it, now that I think about it.” He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “That Save Our Churches group supposedly isn’t what it claims to be.”

“Then what is it? This is the first time I’ve heard anything like that.”

He gave me a strange look. “The story I heard is that Save Our Churches wasn’t founded by members of St. Anselm’s parish, or Our Lady of Prompt Succor’s—the founders weren’t even Catholic.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Dan.”

“I’m just telling you what I heard.” He gave me an apologetic look. “You might want to check into the group. I don’t know why, or what their endgame would be. It’s just what I heard. Maybe if you talk to Tom Shannon, he might know something more about it—after all, it was his parish. And after all, this O’Neill woman who disappeared—”

“Yeah?”

“This Mona O’Neill woman, if she was
supposedly
the leader of the group, and she found out she was being manipulated in some way, and that the whole point of the group really had nothing to do with keeping the churches open…” He held up his hands. “I know what you’re going to say—what nefarious purpose would this group have? Why would they be trying to keep the churches open? I can’t help you there, because I have no idea. I don’t know if it makes any sense to me, I don’t know if it’s even true. But you said you wanted to hear anything, even if it was just gossip—and I’ve heard that from several people inside the church. I don’t know, Chanse, maybe they’re just looking for some kind of answers themselves, something to take the heat off the archbishop, who knows?” He shrugged again. “You see why I don’t listen to gossip? There’ve been a lot of rumors, on both sides, about St. Anselm’s. And the truth is buried somewhere in there, but who knows what’s true and what isn’t anymore?”

I hadn’t thought about looking into Save Our Churches, and berated myself for not thinking of it.

Even if there was nothing there, I should have covered all of my bases.

“But it can’t hurt to find out if someone might have a reason for wanting to cause trouble for the archdiocese—or just the archbishop himself.” He glanced at his watch. “All right, I’ve got to run.” He grasped my forearm. “It’s good to see you, Chanse. Maybe I can have you and Rory over for dinner sometime soon?”

“That would be great.” I smiled at him as he stood up.

“I’ll call you.” He smiled and walked out of the coffee shop.

I watched him go, then whipped out my cell phone. I sent Abby a quick text:
Add Save Our Churches to your to-do list. Find out everything you can about them.

Two seconds later her response came:
Will do!

I put my phone away and walked out of the coffee shop into the bright morning sunlight.

I spent the rest of the morning trying to track down Tom Shannon. A quick web search turned him up in Biloxi, as Dan had said, but I wasn’t able to reach him. I left messages for him at several different numbers and tried to get a hold of Celia O’Neill. Again, all I got was the voicemail at Mona’s house, so I left a detailed message. I also left one with Jonny, asking him to have Celia give me a call. I puttered around, finished some paperwork and paid some bills—and looked up Luke Marino’s address online.

As I sat there, staring at the Uptown address on my computer screen, memories I hadn’t thought about in years came back to me.

I’d grown up in a dusty little east Texas town called Cottonwood Wells, living in a trailer on the wrong side of town. We never seemed to have much money, and knowing that most everyone I was in school with considered me trash didn’t help matters much. My clothes were always ill-fitting and from Sears, and I knew the kids whose parents belonged to the country club and bought their clothes at big fancy stores in Houston laughed at me, mostly behind my back but sometimes right to my face. My mom drank and my dad was violent. We always had to walk on eggshells whenever Dad was home because you never knew what would set off his mercurial temper. When he got mad his brown eyes turned black and spittle would fly from his mouth as he screamed at us. He smashed things, punched walls, took his belt and beat me and my brother and sister. Even something as innocuous as watching a football game on television could turn ugly with no warning.

That was the worst part of it. Something that would make him laugh one day could send him into one of the rages another day—and there was nothing to do but ride it out. He made no sense, and nothing anyone could say would make the situation better. Anything you said was wrong.

My goal growing up was to survive until I was eighteen and then get as far away from Cottonwood Wells as I could—and never look back.

Football was my ticket out—of everything. Once I displayed talent and ability on the football field, all the snotty things kids would say about me ceased, and I became one of the “popular” kids, the football star everyone wanted to be associated with. But rather than embracing this wonderful change in my life, from trash to popularity, by now I knew I was gay and had to hide that from everyone else.

I chose LSU because it was the college offering a full scholarship that was the farthest distance from Cottonwood Wells. The others—the University of Houston, the University of Texas, Texas Christian—were too close.

And so I came to Baton Rouge as a big eighteen-year-old virgin, my first time away from home, entering a world that might as well have been another planet.

And Luke Marino was King of the Planet.

As a freshman tight end on the Tiger football team, I’d had a major crush on him. What wasn’t there to like? He had thick, curly bluish black hair and olive skin, and the five o’clock shadow he always had by late afternoon tinted his cheeks and chin. He’d been around six feet tall or so and carried 220 pounds of solid, defined muscle on his frame. He actually liked working out—for me, it was always an odious chore, part of the price I paid to play football. He had the most amazing legs I’d ever seen to that point—his quads were so thick and powerful they could have easily cracked coconuts. He was also one of those guys who had no shyness about his body. Most guys on the team walked around the locker room or the training room with a towel tied around their waists. Not Luke Marino—he walked around either in just a jock or stark naked with a big grin on his face with everything exposed for everyone to see. He’d had a thick patch of hair in the center of his broad chest and a treasure trail leading from his navel down to the pubic thatch, and his massive legs were also covered in curly black hair. I tried not to stare, but would always steal surreptitious glances whenever I could so I could replay them in my memory later, when I was alone in my room at the fraternity house. I dreamed about him for years after he graduated—and for a long time, I always judged every man I met by how their looks compared to his.

In addition to that amazing body, he was also impossibly handsome, with big, round brown eyes with heavy lids, an aristocratic nose, impossibly white teeth, and a deep cleft in his chin. His sister managed a tanning salon in Baton Rouge, so he had a deep all-over tan. His eyes had a sparkle to them and were incredibly expressive underneath the thick black eyebrows.

He was a big star on campus—everyone knew who Luke Marino was. He might not be the fastest running back, or the strongest—but when Luke got the ball, it was practically a guaranteed three yards. He just put his helmet down and ran over everyone. He made all SEC his junior year, and his senior year we managed to win the SEC despite our loss to Florida. We went into the Sugar Bowl ranked fourth in the country, and humiliated our Big Ten opponent 44–14, which jumped us up to Number 2 in the final polls. I remember after that win partying on Bourbon Street with my teammates—and wondering where in the Quarter the gay bars were.

I found those on a solo trip down a few weeks later.

But Luke Marino was friendly and nice—no one had a bad thing to say about him. He never yelled at anyone on the team, never criticized or made fun of anyone—he always knew the right thing to say to make someone who was down get back up. He was a natural leader—he could fire up the team even higher than the coaching staff could. When he talked, his eyes flashed and you could hear a pin drop in the locker room. He made you want to play harder than you ever had before because you didn’t want to let him down.

He had a steady girlfriend, Mandy Welles, who was one of the Golden Girls in the marching band. She was beautiful and was always waiting for him outside the locker room after games. He would kiss her, and they would walk off together, his arm draped around her shoulder, her long blond hair bouncing. They got married right after the Sugar Bowl. He entered the pro draft and was taken in the second round by the San Diego Chargers. I followed his pro career, such as it was. It never really got off the ground. The Chargers had a lot of high hopes for him, but when he got in to play during his rookie season he didn’t exactly cover himself with glory. His second year, he blew out his right knee against the 49ers, ending his career.

And then he dropped out of sight of the public eye.

I’d seen him once in the years since I myself graduated—Paige and I had dinner at Marino’s, his family’s restaurant on Magazine Street, shortly after I got on with the NOPD. He and Mandy had been there with another couple, and he’d started gaining weight. Obviously, since leaving professional sports he simply didn’t see the need to keep himself up with the kind of physical conditioning he had before. Our eyes had met at one point, and I could tell he recognized my face, just didn’t know where he knew me from. I’d just nodded and turned away.

I thought about calling him, but decided to just take a chance and drop by the house.

The address turned out to be a big yellow house on Jefferson Avenue, about a block on the river side of Newman High School. It was a big place, with a circular drive and a gallery that ran along the entire front of the house. Two gas lamps bracketed the front door, and the curtains were closed in the big windows. There was an emerald green Mercedes parked in the driveway with MARINO 2 on the license plate, an LSU plate. There was also an LSU plate frame and a sticker reading G
EAUX
T
IGERS
on the right back bumper.

I parked on the street and sat there for a moment before getting out. I took a couple of deep breaths, trying to steel my nerve and making fun of myself for being so nervous.
He isn’t the big star on the team anymore
, I reminded myself. I got out of the car and headed up the walk. I rang the doorbell and a dog started barking. I could hear someone yelling at the dog, and then the front door opened.

The years had not been kind to Luke Marino.

He was balding, and trying to hide it by combing his hair over the bare spots. The bluish-black hair was not only thinner but was shot through with gray. A second chin was forming beneath the original one, and his eyes were bloodshot. His face was wider and rounder than I remembered, and there were heavy bags underneath both of his eyes. He was still a big man, but his stomach had expanded exponentially, straining the buttons on his white shirt. He was wearing a pair of jeans that he had to belt low underneath the bulge of his stomach. His legs were also thicker—but I rather doubted that was muscle. I could see red veins in his nose, and grayish black hairs jutted out from his nostrils. He was wearing a T-shirt underneath the white shirt, but black hairs were poking out through the neckline.