VC03 - Mortal Grace (42 page)

“Christ.” Her voice sagged.

“I know this poses a dilemma for you—and no one’s asking you to be a whistle-blower.”

They sat in silence. He could feel her apprehensiveness floating between them like the smoke.

“Then what are you asking me?”

“I want to nail Eff. I need to know what that unified investigation uncovered.”

“It’s not going to help you get Eff. He’s not the communion killer. If he were, we’d never have made a deal. Believe me,
that
cynical we’re not. The only way you’re going to nail him now is if that priest he raped is willing to press charges.”

Eff’s eyes stared into Bonnie’s. The razor flicked teasingly across her nose. The rancid fog of his body stench closed in on her. Strength drained out of her legs and she felt the stinging sensation of her sphincter threatening to loosen in fear.

“My suggestion is this,” Tina Vanderbilt was saying. “Of course, I’ll make a formal proposal to the vestry at our next meeting, but I thought it would be best to line up your support as early as possible. We need a flower code.”

“A flower code?” Bonnie said. They had been sitting in her office for the last half hour, and she was having trouble concentrating on the discussion.

“Exactly. Flowers in the church should be only white, or the shade of the walls.”

“Which at the moment are ivory.” Whitney’s fingers made wig-arranging motions.

Tina slapped his hand. “Do stop tugging at that wretched thing—you only make it look worse.”

After an instant of silence, Whitney stood. Pulling himself stiffly upright, he walked quickly and quietly from the room.

“For God’s sake,” Tina said, but she was chiding a shut door.

“You do know he’s dying,” Bonnie said, “don’t you?”

“Of course I know he’s dying—who couldn’t know it with that awful wig he’s wearing?”

“And yet you treat him like that?”

“We all die—what’s so special about it? Why should I treat him any differently from usual?”

Bonnie wondered if Tina had ever felt the tactile nearness of death. “I don’t think you mean that.”

“I do indeed mean it. All our lives we are governed by taste—and when we lose sight of that, we lose the one thing that distinguishes us from the animals.”

Bonnie was amazed. “
Taste
is all that distinguishes us from animals?”

“God gave us taste and it’s up to us to make the most of it.”

The moment felt skewed and surreal. Bonnie couldn’t shake the conviction that Eff was standing right behind her—that Tina saw him, but wouldn’t dream of being so ill-mannered as to mention it.

“Which brings us,” Tina was saying, “to the question of the flowers for funerals.”

I’m not going to look behind me
, Bonnie told herself.
He’s not there. I don’t need to look behind me.

“Here’s where I have a real bone to pick with the vestry. There’s no earthly way that variegated flowers could ever be appro—” Tina broke off. “Bonnie, is something the matter?”

Bonnie switched filters on her attention, focused hard and tight on here and now, on Tina’s mother-of-pearl-colored cloche turning slowly through the silvered light. “I’m all right.”

“No, you’re not.”

She felt his presence hanging in the air behind her like a tapestry. But she refused to turn in her chair. She stared beyond Tina through the windows to a breeze licking a branch of the pear tree.

“Have you heard a word I’m saying?” Tina was grumpy now.

“Of course I have.” Bonnie breathed in through her mouth. She was afraid if she breathed through her nose she would smell him. “Every word.”

When Cardozo arrived at St. Andrew’s rectory, Bonnie greeted him with a smile that was too quick, too bright. He handed her a manila envelope marked
NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT—OFFICIAL BUSINESS ONLY—PENALTY FOR PRIVATE USE.

“What’s this?”

“The paperwork to charge Eff.”

The smile dropped off her face.

“All I need is your signature.”

They went to her study. Right away he noticed something missing from the bookshelf. “What happened to that antique piggy bank?”

“I gave it away.” Her voice was flat, almost without affect.

“Too bad—I liked it.”

“Then I’ll have to get another one.” She sat down in an armchair and stared at three sheets of boilerplate with particulars laboriously typed in by Vince Cardozo, typos laboriously corrected in ballpoint by same.

“I’m sorry to have to put you through this, but Eff has a very slick lawyer—Pierre Strauss. I need a major felony charge to get him off the streets.” He offered his ballpoint. “You sign where your name’s typed in at the end.”

She stared at the pages and then at him. “I keep hoping it’s a dream. I close my eyes and tell myself to wake up and when I open them again nothing’s changed.”

He was standing close enough to smell the sweet chamomile of her hair. “I’m told that often happens.”

“Would you mind if I didn’t sign just yet?” She looked away. “I need time. I can’t…do anything important. Not for a few days.”

“I’ll leave these. Sign them and phone me.”

“Thank you.”

“Bonnie,” he said. “It’s okay. Believe me. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry. You’ve been wonderful to me. And I need to be alone.”

He tried not to show how much that hurt him. “Of course. I understand.”

FIFTY-THREE

C
ARDOZO SAT ON A
scuffed leather chair in St. Veronica’s rectory, listening to the new rector speak in his quiet, resigned voice.

“The prosecutor’s office never told us why the state dropped the murder charges—except that new evidence had come to light.” Father Gus Monahan shook his head. He was a small, burly man with sad, preoccupied eyes. “No one would say what this new evidence was. No one would answer questions. Too busy asking them, I guess.”

“What were they asking about?” Cardozo said. “Did there seem to be any particular focus to the questions?”

“Mostly about Father Chuck’s private life.”

“Did Father Chuck have problems in his private life?”

“Without a doubt he had problems. Every priest does. One of Chuck’s greatest problems was that he didn’t have a private life. He was a workaholic. As his date books showed.”

Cardozo felt the prickling of a doubt. There was a defended quality about Father Gus that suggested he might be protecting his predecessor’s memory. “Would it be possible for me to see his date books?”

“The diocese had us turn Father Chuck’s papers over to the district attorney. Those that he hadn’t already destroyed himself.”

“What papers did Father Chuck destroy?”

“His personal correspondence—his diary—his counseling records.”

“Do you have any idea why he destroyed them?”

“The obvious one—sanctity of the confessional.”

“He told you this?”

“He didn’t have to. It went without saying.”

“There was no other reason?”

“If there was, he never discussed it with me.”

“Who did he counsel?”

“Anyone who asked. He had a special empathy with young people—runaways, teenagers who’d gotten mixed up with prostitution and drugs.”

“Is there any record of who his counselees were?”

Father Gus thought for a moment. “All I can think of is his date books, but we never got any of them back.”

“You were working here at the time?”

“I was Chuck’s assistant. I look back on it as the happiest time of my professional life. Except for the end.”

“Maybe you can recall the names of some of the counselees.”

“I might have seen one or two passing through the rectory. But Father Chuck was a popular man. People were always dropping by.”

“Do you know if he ever counseled the boy who murdered him?”

“Eff Huffington? He may have thought he was counseling Huffington.”

For a long moment Father Gus didn’t speak. A vibration was coming off him and Cardozo tried to catch it.

“Chuck took people at their word.” Father Gus let out a long, rolling sigh. “He believed the best of them. He thought it was a contradiction in terms to say that a child could be evil.”

“You didn’t share that opinion.”

“Huffington made a profession accusing priests, shaking them down. I always suspected he was setting Chuck up for some kind of scam.”

“Did Father Chuck say anything to give you that idea?”

“Chuck spoke evil of no person. Not ever. Just as he refused to believe it. It was Huffington’s reputation that worried me. The boy had a history, and here he was seeking out Father Chuck at all hours of the day and night—spending time with him, sometimes alone with him.”

“And you know for a fact that Father Chuck kept records of their meetings?”

“He kept records of his meetings with everyone. Noted everything except what was discussed. He had to protect himself.”

“Against what?”

“In the old days an unbalanced female parishioner might claim a priest molested her. Nowadays kids do it.”

“Were there ever accusations of that nature against Father Chuck?”

“Maybe one or two parishioners tried to stir up trouble—but Chuck’s records were beyond reproach.”

“Yet he destroyed them.”

“You know lawyers. They can make anything look questionable.”

“Was Father Chuck under investigation?”

“We all are, potentially. My guess is, Chuck looked over the records and saw the sheer quantity of time he spent with Huffington. He didn’t want to chance what a lawyer would make of it.”

“What did you make of it?”

“That in some ways Chuck was a good-hearted fool. Well, what can you expect of a man who believes in unicorns?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Cardozo stared at Father Gus and Father Gus stared right back.

“Chuck kept a unicorn on his wall.”

Cardozo closed his notebook. “Would you mind showing it to me?”

“I don’t see how it could do any harm.”

Father Gus led Cardozo into a dark hallway and up a narrow flight of stairs. He opened a door. A smell of disinfectant and old clothes came whooshing out of the dimness. Father Gus turned on the light.

A poster of a unicorn hung over the four-poster bed. The walls were crowded with posters advertising Father Chuck’s amateur musical shows. A photograph of a samurai executioner was hanging over the fireplace. It was the same as the photo in Father Joe Montgomery’s bedroom.

“Did Father Chuck see a lot of Father Joe Montgomery?”

Father Gus nodded. “They were great buddies. Worked together on musical shows. Worked together in the Barabbas Society.”

Cardozo stepped around a rocker and crossed to the window. A small forest of houseplants was growing on the sill.

“Chuck loved plants,” Father Gus said. “Those were his. He thought every living thing was holy.”

Cardozo tried to hear what the silence of the room was telling him. The room of a priest whose best friends were plants and a unicorn. The scent of loneliness, of giving up was heavy in the air.

One of the panes had been broken and patched with plywood. “When was this broken?”

“Before Chuck died. Haven’t gotten around to calling the glazier.”

“How did it happen?”

“There was a break-in. Church paraphernalia was stolen.”

Cardozo pushed the window up and leaned out. The room faced the street across a small leafy lot. A vine trellis built against the brick wall looked as though it would afford access if you were light enough and limber enough.

As he brought his head back inside, he noticed black powder flecking one of the sash bars. He recognized print powder.

“Have the police been here recently?”

“Three people from the district attorney’s office were here a while back.”

What did they think they would find here
, Cardozo wondered,
and why were they still looking for it so long after the murder charge had been dropped
? “How long ago was that?”

“Couldn’t have been more than two or three weeks. But you’d have to ask Mrs. Quigley—my housekeeper.”

Cardozo turned. “Your housekeeper’s name is Quigley?” The name of Father Joe’s former housekeeper had been Quigley. It seemed an odd coincidence.

“Olga Quigley. Darling woman. I couldn’t have a life without her.”

“I’d like to talk with her.”

Olga Quigley was relaxing in the kitchen with a mid-afternoon cup of tea.

“You kept house for Father Romero?” Cardozo asked.

“I did indeed.” She spoke with a trace of a brogue. “I’ve been at this rectory twelve years.”

“And you also kept house for Father Montgomery over at St. Andrew’s?”

This time she hesitated, stirring nonsugar and nonmilk powder into a mug decorated with scenes of Cypress Gardens, Florida. “What if I did?”

“Seems odd—keeping house for two different priests.”

“When I was younger and stronger, I kept house for three priests. I’ve had to cut back since my hip trouble.”

“How’d you happen to work for Father Montgomery?”

“He told Father Romero he needed a housekeeper part-time. The work here kept me busy only three days a week, so Father Romero recommended me. I’m a good housekeeper.” Her tone was aggrieved, as if she were defending herself against an accusation. “I understand what priests need. They’re not like ordinary bachelors.”

“Why did you stop working for Father Montgomery?”

Olga Quigley’s wide, dark eyes stared at Cardozo out of a long, oval face. There were plenty of gray streaks in the black hair that she pushed away from her forehead. “When you’re a servant, you’re not supposed to notice. Or say anything. Certainly not to the cops.”

“No one’s going to know we spoke.”

Father Gus had left them alone. Light from the window dappled the spotless porcelain sink, the copper pots hanging beside the old-fashioned hooded six-burner stove, the table with its neat cloth and bowl of fresh fruit.

“I’m not going to give testimony in court,” she said.

“I’m not asking you to.”

“I worked for Father Joe ten years. I did good work for him. He was happy with me. Never an argument. Never a problem. Then that woman came.”

“Bonnie Ruskay?”