The Violet Hour (36 page)

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Authors: Richard Montanari

BOOK: The Violet Hour
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The answer came mid-meal on Christmas Day when Dag, without a word, got up from the table, put on his hat and coat, and left the house, only to return twenty minutes later. He had a big smile on his face, and in his arms the scruffiest runt of a golden retriever pup any of them had ever seen.
And it was right around the time Martha Randolph served her traditional Dutch apple pie and coffee that a beaming, lovestruck Maddie St John – with a confused but enthusiastic young puppy in tow – lumbered into the dining room and introduced everyone to the newest member of the St John family: Molson Lite.
On New Year’s Day the pier at Seventy-second Street was deserted, save for the lone figure in black, standing on the rocks. Even the most hard-core fishermen wouldn’t come out on a morning like this, Nicky thought. It had to be Joseph. Joseph had called, left a somber message. The two hadn’t met on the pier in years.
Nicky parked his car, made his way down the treacherous rocks to where his cousin stood. As always, Father Joseph LaCazio seemed to have a sixth sense about the presence of another human. He didn’t turn around, he didn’t look.
‘Good morning, Nicky.’
‘Morning, Joey. How ya doin’?’
He got his cousin’s attention, gave him one of the two cups of McDonald’s coffee he carried. In silence they opened their cups, blew on the coffee. When it was cool enough, they sipped, looked out over Lake Erie. Joseph spoke first.
‘A murderer, Nicky. A murderer lived at the St Francis rectory.’
‘I know, Joey. But you shouldn’t—’
‘A murderer lived at the rectory and he killed a priest. How does a parish ever get over that?’
Nicky had no idea what to say. How do you begin to revive someone’s faith, especially when that person’s faith has always dwarfed your own? The police had found a number of bizarre things in Gil Strauss’s room. Not the least of which were two dozen scrapbooks containing hundreds, probably thousands, of images cut and pasted from magazines. All the same. Julia’s face pasted onto the body of some Playmate or 1980s movie star Some of the pictures were Gil’s face pasted on the body of Christ.
How does a parish get beyond that? Nicky had no idea. But he started moving his lips, and words somehow appeared on his vaporous breath. ‘Catholics are tough, Joey. You know that. Time will heal all of this. Look at my hand,’ he said, holding up his bent but healing left hand. ‘God takes care.’
Joseph lit a cigarette, expertly into the wind, the street kid on the pier again. ‘I knew Gil Strauss a lot of years,’ he said. ‘I had no idea. None at all. What the hell kind of priest am I?’
Nicky grabbed Joseph by the shoulders, squared himself in front of him. ‘The best kind. You hear me? The kind who sees the good in people. Not the evil.’
‘It’s not nearly enough these days, Nicky. Not nearly enough.’
‘Come on, man. Don’t do this to yourself.’
‘I wish there was a choice.’
The two men embraced, a bit awkwardly, trying not to spill their coffees. Nicky wanted to comfort Joseph, to take care of his older cousin who had rescued him so many times, but he really had no answers.
So instead, they stood on the rocks, watching the frigid waves crash into the shore, watching the gulls circle in their odd, seemingly random patterns, patterns that Nicholas Stella used to think were ruled by the moods of the moon, by the whim of the Lake Erie winds.
But he knew better now. He had learned that the fate of people is not random at all, but led instead by history, personal history, the moments of madness we all carry around like deep red scars on our souls.
This Slow-Gathering Storm
would be nonfiction, the story of Gillian Strauss and his murderous rampage. About the furthest thing from a romance Amelia could imagine. But that was okay. Amelia decided that she didn’t have the words to be a writer, nor the discipline, nor the ability to translate her thoughts onto paper the way some people did. People like Nicky.
What she could do, though, was research. In the weeks that followed that night, in between her victim’s therapy sessions at the Justice Center, she became quite proficient with her computer. There was much to learn, much to find out. Strauss was from somewhere. He had a family. Friends.
They would get to the bottom of the Gillian Strauss story.
To that end, Nicky had put together a book proposal that had gotten an immediate response from two publishers. And as they sat in the USAir jet in late January, waiting for takeoff from Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, heading to New York, it looked to Amelia as if she might have a book in her future after all.
‘Ready?’ Nicky asked. He wore a navy wool suit, a burgundy tie. He looked like a million bucks.
‘Ready,’ she replied.
She buckled her seat belt, closed her eyes, gripped the armrests, waited for the roar of the engines. And found that she was. Definitely.
Amelia St John could honestly say that she was ready for anything.
Epilogue
 
Time Present, Time Past
63
 
Dr Marsh hung up the phone, made a brief notation on the ledger in front of him. He had spoken to the bank in Cleveland, and was told that their instructions had been to keep mailing the money every month until the account was depleted, an account to which a Mr Thomas Macavity had suddenly stopped making deposits.
Marsh had never met Mr Macavity, had never seen him visit the woman. Nor anyone else, for that matter. She had no family, no friends.
Sad, he thought. And now this.
Marsh rose from his desk, filed the report.
Then walked down the hall and stepped into Room 56.
She sat, as always, looking out the window, her shiny gray hair pulled back from her face, lashed into a bow. A girlish thing to do, Marsh had always thought. It made her look younger, even more vulnerable, than her delicate features allowed. Today the bow was lemon yellow. Marsh, who was in his early sixties, still felt a rush of attraction for her. She had just celebrated her fortieth birthday, if celebrate was indeed the proper term.
Marsh sat on the edge of the bed, studied her. She did not acknowledge his presence, but that was nothing new. Soon Alice Jilek stepped into the room and placed a hand on his shoulder. Alice was the new head of admissions for the Fostoria Clinic. ‘Have you told her?’ Alice asked softly.
‘No,’ Marsh said. ‘Not yet.’
‘Do you think she’ll understand?’
‘Hard to say. She’s been here five years, ever since her mother died. I’m not sure I’ve reached her once.’
‘What was her original diagnosis?’
‘A heroin overdose, more than twenty years ago now. She jumped from a second-story window, spent a year or so in a body cast. It seems her body recovered, her mind never did. Her mother cared for her for fifteen years. Then she came to Fostoria.’
‘Shame,’ Alice said.
‘Yes,’ Marsh replied. He got up, walked over to the window, leaned against the sill.
She looked up at him.
‘We’re bringing you to a new place, my dear,’ Marsh said as he took her hand in his. ‘Soon. A brand-new place. Brand-new people. Do you think you’ll like that?’
Julia Raines looked at him, squeezed his hand gently. The doctor was taking her somewhere.
Maybe Gillian will be there
, she thought.
Maybe Gillian will finally be there.

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