Penance (23 page)

“H
EY
.”

“What?” I answered the voice that was shaking me out of deep slumber.

“I have to go. Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” I mumbled. The sun was thinking about rising and gray light illuminated the room. It nearly matched the gray of the sweatshirt Cynthia was wearing—my sweatshirt—with
COLLEGE OF ST. THOMAS
printed across the chest in purple letters. I had to admit, it looked a helluva lot better on her than it ever did on me.

“I have to go. Do you need a ride to your car?”

“Yeah.”

“Will you hurry?”

“Yeah. Ten minutes. What’s the rush?”

“I need to go home and change,” Cynthia said.

“Why don’t you wear what you had on yesterday?”

“People will talk.”

“What will they say?”

“They’ll say I have a fella.”

“Do you have a fella?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Cynthia glanced at her watch. “Will it take long? I have to go to my office and then I have to get over to Federal Bankruptcy Court.”

Despite her brusque manner, I had a sense that Cynthia was searching for some kind of assurance. So was I.

“I was happy you were here last night,” I told her. “I’m happy you’re here now. I’ll be unhappy when you leave. But I’ll understand if you don’t come back.”

“Do you want me to come back?”

“Yes, I do.”

She thought about it and said, “I don’t go to bed with men. I mean, I have, you know … I told you something about my … misspent youth. But I never cared before, really cared, not just pretended to care to make it seem all right. It was always somebody, never someone.”

“Until now?”

She thought about it again. “Until now,” she said and then she leaned over and kissed me. I took her in my arms and pulled her down onto the bed. I held her and kissed her and held her some more.

“Call your office. Tell them you’ll be late.”

“I can’t,” she said, her voice heavy with regret.

“Cindy, Cindy, Cindy …” I repeated.

“I’ll meet you for lunch if you promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t ever call me Cindy.”

Detective Martin McGaney was drinking coffee from a blue and gold mug with the inscription T
HOU
S
HALT
N
OT
K
ILL, THE
L
ORD
S
AITH.
A
ND
W
E
W
ORK FOR
H
IM.
Everyone who works Homicide in St. Paul gets an identical mug. Mine is tucked away on the top shelf of the cabinet above my kitchen sink.

“I was wondering when we would hear from you,” McGaney told me as I stood in front of his desk. He looked tired. So did Anne Scalasi, who’d just happened to discover a crucial piece of paper McGaney needed when she saw me enter the squad room. I wasn’t surprised by their fatigue. The first few days of a murder investigation are critical; you work it into the ground. And these guys had three murders.

“Ask the citizen what he wants,” Anne told McGaney.

“What do you want, Citizen?”

“Nothing much, just dropped by to watch my tax dollars at work.”

“Tell the citizen to go away,” Anne said.

“Go away, Citizen.”

“After all the trouble I went to find the perfect gift?” I set the spent bullet on the ink blotter in front of McGaney. “Simple, understated. I was going to wrap it, but …”

“What is it?” Anne asked. This time she was addressing me.

“I’ll bet you fifty bucks that’s a nine-millimeter slug,” I told her.

Anne rolled the bullet in her fingers, then felt the weight in the palm of her hand. She flipped it to McGaney.

“I’ll bet you another fifty bucks it matches the slugs taken from Thoreau, Brown and Amy Lamb.”

“Where did you get it?” Anne asked.

“I dug it out of my living room wall. It was deposited there late last night by someone who took a sudden dislike to me.”

“As opposed to those of us who have learned to dislike you over time,” Anne said. “I don’t suppose you can identify the shooter.”

“Person or persons unknown.”

“That’s informative.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve found Joseph Sherman yet,” I asked.

“We expect to make an arrest at any time,” McGaney assured me.

“Why would Sherman want to shoot you?” Anne asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

“Yeah, but I don’t.”

“Officer McGaney, inform the citizen that he is obstructing justice.”

“Officer McGaney, inform the lieutenant that I am not the only one.”

“Tell him that when this is over I’m going to kick his ass.”

“Was that kick or kiss?” I asked.

Anne Scalasi was angry. “Don’t push me too far, Taylor,” she hissed.

“I’ll tell you what I know when I know it,” I hissed back, then thought better of it and, determined to keep it light, said, “There’s no pleasing some people. Give a woman a bullet and she doesn’t even say thank you.”

“It’s a thankless job,” Anne told me.

“Isn’t this sweet,” McGaney remarked. “I’m touched, I really am. Two old friends getting together, it brings a tear to my eye. Let’s all hug each other.”

“Shut up, Martin,” Anne said. And then she added one word. “Mankamyer.” She was behind her desk before McGaney could get to his feet.

“You two remind me of an old married couple,” McGaney told me as I followed him out of the squad room.

“Sure,” I agreed. “An old married couple on the verge of a divorce.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” McGaney said.

“Are Anne and her husband really getting a divorce?” I asked; I’d been wanting to ask someone.

“Looks that way,” McGaney said, confirming my fears.

“Damn.”

“Yeah,” McGaney said. “You know, my wife and I are celebrating our second anniversary next week. Considering what this business does to marriages … You were married.”

“I was.”

“Did you have troubles?”

“No.”

“How did you manage to keep it going?”

“I didn’t,” I said honestly. “She did.”

“Hey, you guys,” Casper called to us as we stepped into the corridor. “You gotta talk to this woman, I mean … She says she knows who killed Thoreau, but man, is she weird.”

McGaney rubbed his face. “Has she confessed to anything before?”

“She isn’t confessing, she’s accusing.”

“Get the lieutenant,” McGaney said.

“Hell no, not me. You talk to her first.”

McGaney sighed and walked into the interrogation room, the same interrogation room where they had interviewed me. I followed.

The woman was about twenty-three with the kind of wholesome beauty that was spoiled by makeup. Her dress was simple and white, her eyes were dark and brooding, her hair was black and brushed the top of the shoulders. She spoke quickly, like someone had a stopwatch on her.

“I’m Brenda Clark,” she said, extending her hand to McGaney. “The Lord has sent me.”

McGaney smiled broadly. “That’s nice,” he said. “I’m Detective McGaney. This is Holland Taylor. He’s a … an investigator.”

The woman crossed her ankles. They were nice ankles.

“Detective Casper said you can help us identify Mr. Thoreau’s killer?”

The woman pivoted in her chair and smiled at Casper, who smiled back. “It was the Reverend Leonard Hoppe.”

“
Reverend
Hoppe?” McGaney repeated.

“‘For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.’”

“Say what?”

“Sixth Ephesians,” I told McGaney.

The woman smiled brightly at me. “You know the Word of the Lord?”

“I can also recite the entire roster of the 1987 Minnesota Twins.”

“Shut up, Taylor,” McGaney told me.

“Ms. Clark …” he said.

“Miss Clark,” she corrected him.

“
Miss
Clark. How do you know …”

“The Lord told me.”

“He did?”

“Not directly, of course.”

“No, I don’t imagine …”

“His messenger came to me. I was reading the morning newspaper,” she said, turning toward me. “So much pain and suffering. I began to pray. I asked the Lord, What can I do to help turn the tide against the Prince of Evil who has caused so much suffering? Suddenly, a dark-skinned, handsome man came into my kitchen; that’s where I was, in my kitchen,” she added, speaking casually, as if that sort of thing happened to her all the time. “I knew right away I was in the presence of a great spiritual power, an angel. He didn’t speak. Instead, he pointed at the newspaper and the pages started to turn, one by one, until finally they stopped and then the paper just burned away except for this.”

She pulled a clipping from her purse and gave it to McGaney, who showed it to me. It was an article from the
St. Paul Pioneer Press.
The headline read S
T.
P
AUL
M
AN
S
LAIN IN
H
IS HOME.
The edges of the clipping were singed.

“I asked the angel, “What does this mean?’ and he said, ‘He who has sinned against God and man speaketh the Word of the Lord. He is possessed of the demon and must be saved or destroyed, for his flock must be protected from the Evil One.’ Just then I heard Reverend Hoppe’s voice loud and clear on the radio and I knew it was he who was possessed by the demon and then the angel’s face began to shine as if there was a powerful light behind his eyes and then the angel was gone … It was a very interesting experience.”

“I bet.”

“Who is Reverend Hoppe?”

“He’s a radio evangelist on WKKK radio,” Casper said.

“Unfortunate choice of call letters,” I suggested.

“It is because preachers have tried to spread the Word of the Lord through television and radio that the demons have attacked,” Brenda Clark said. “The airwaves are the realm of the spirit world, it is where the demons reside, and when the preachers took to the airwaves, well, the demons didn’t like it and they came out against them.” She turned to me again. “That is what happened to Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart.”

“I knew it,” I said. “I just knew it.”

“Did you confront the reverend, Miss Clark?” McGaney asked.

“I attempted to. After the angel came, I drove to the radio station with the clipping and I saw him in the parking lot. But he was not alone. He was with…” She shook her head in disbelief. “He was with Vivian Olson, kissing Vivian Olson, caressing her.”

“I’m sure he meant it in the most paternal way,” Casper volunteered.

The woman turned and looked at him but did not speak.

“Vivian Olson?” McGaney asked.

“She’s the assistant station manager; an evil, evil woman,” Brenda Clark said. “A plaything of the devil, Satan’s strumpet. I realized when I saw them together that Reverend Hoppe could not be saved, that he must be destroyed.” She turned to me again. “Lay down with dogs and rise up with fleas,” she said.

Casper chuckled and Brenda Clark, McGaney and I all turned toward him in unison, staring at him like he was Lucifer himself. “Excuse me,” he said, coughing into his hand.

McGaney excused himself as well and headed for the door. Again, I followed him.

“Martin,” Casper implored. “What about …” he nodded at the woman.

McGaney took his arm and whispered loud enough for her to hear: “Take Miss Clark’s statement and make sure she gets home. Then drive over to WKKK and find out where the Reverend Hoppe was Friday night.”

Casper nodded and smiled.

“Thank you, Miss Clark, you’ve been very helpful,” McGaney said. “And I want to see a report,” he told Casper.

Casper stopped smiling.

While we waited for the elevator, a file folder McGaney was carrying slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. “Oh, damn,” he said. “Confidential information on the Lamb case. I must be more careful.”

I stooped to retrieve the folder. It was McGaney’s working file. I was glancing at the contents when the elevator doors slid open; McGaney punched the button marked B for basement.

The first page was labeled T
IMETABLE
—L
AMB MURDER,
T
UESDAY,
O
CT.
8. It was virtually the same as mine, except it omitted C. C. Monroe. The second page, a list typed on Ramsey County Medical Examiner stationery, was headed W
OUNDS
C
HART,
A
MY
L
AMB.
There were six by the ME’s count, all carefully and clinically identified. I skipped over them, stopping at the part that suggested the wounds were caused by .9mm bullets fired at a distance of three to five feet. Most of the other pages were handwritten and barely legible. From what I could make out from McGaney’s scrawl, a door-to-door canvass of the neighborhood had proved fruitless—no witnesses, no gun. Nothing had been taken from Amy’s apartment. Nor was there any evidence of forced entry, no jimmy marks on the door jambs or windowsills, no scratches on the perimeter of the locks. The front and back doors had Yale deadbolts that must be locked with a key both inside and out. The front door was locked; the landlady had let me in. The back door was not; the key was still in the lock, on the inside.

“Killer went out the back,” I assumed.

“Wouldn’t you?” McGaney asked.

“How did he get in?”

Still another page contained notes taken during an informal discussion McGaney’d had with the ME: “Preliminary examination reveals no evidence of sexual assault.” “No evidence of sexual assault” was circled three times.

“She knew her killer,” I volunteered. “She let him in.”

“Or her,” McGaney reminded me.

I leafed through the rest of the file, asked about physical evidence, hair samples, skin tissue. “Did you check the sinks like Anne suggested?”

“Of course.”

“Well?”

“C’mon, Taylor. It hasn’t even been two days yet.”

“I’ve seen more information on a dog bite complaint,” I said, handing back the file.

“I’m expecting a report from the lab this afternoon,” McGaney replied almost apologetically, but not quite.