Everyone Pays (10 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

MICHAEL

I looped around the block to keep away from Gus, made my way down to McAllister and around to come up Leavenworth from its other side. It was here, between Golden Gate and Turk, that I slipped into the locked alley using my key and went around to St. Anthony’s rear entrance. Here, where the deliveries came, the food stores, medicine for the clinic, books for tutoring. So much good happened here, and now He guided me inside. I slipped my passkey over the sensor and opened the door. No one greeted me but a small camera and the elevator. Perhaps this was the moment when Jermaine watched his monitor and he would see me, but perhaps he wouldn’t.

I called the elevator, and the doors opened almost immediately. I pushed the button for floor five and the doors closed. No other stops; the car took me right to the top, to St. Anthony’s storage rooms. The doors opened onto a series of shelves and boxes, and I exited to the left, slid along a few rows of boxes stacked high, and worked my way to the front of the building and the tall, arched windows that overlooked Golden Gate Avenue.

Below me I saw St. Boniface from above, across the street: its spires and bell tower, the roofs of the rectory and the chapel. I saw the closed front doors. Now it was all quiet, the police officer long gone. An occasional passerby labored up the block.

He told me to wait.

At the corner, a man called Rapier stood and ran his mouth, peddling his wares to anyone who passed. He had watches and DVDs but also the drugs that brought in his money. I noticed the occasional junkie come to him for a fix.

In time, the patterns of the block revealed themselves and made sense in their own logic until a set of four police cruisers pulled up in front of the church. This was His purpose, I was sure—why He told me to leave.

Someone had told them something. Immediately I knew it was the whore. Here I had done everything I could to free her, help her, let her run without concern of being followed by that pimp, set her on the path of righteousness, and she didn’t take the chance to start over. She allowed herself to be guided by her fears.

I ground my molars in frustration, knowing it would always be the same: that the sinners would go on choosing the wrong paths. What was more, the police, these servants of the law, would not understand my work and what I had done for this city, freeing its heathens in His name.

None of them would understand the work I did for Him.

I shook my head, watched as Gus came from the front of St. Anthony’s to greet the lead detective, who was a woman with brown hair. She told the others what to do. Looked to be more than ten years older than Emily, with a guarded hunch to her shoulders when she walked. I saw her face as she talked with Gus, and then he left, perhaps to call Father Kevin to open the gate.

Surely Gus and the priests would cooperate, do their best to assist the city’s police. They wouldn’t understand if or when they were presented with any details of what I’ve done. I risked condemnation in their eyes to be saved in His. In His name I would be saved.

As I watched, I found my interest drawn again and again to her, the woman with the brown hair. It was her, the head detective. She held a presence and authority as she told others what to do, pointed them in various directions. She told the men where to go and what to do. They respected her, I could see. There was something of an aura about her, possibly the glow of God.

She reached up to her hair, pulled it back tight to her skull, trapped it with a band. This streamlined her features and her approach to the world. She was ready to slice into the day.

A kinship rose up inside me as I watched her at work.

Father Kevin came out and greeted her clumsily. She was uncomfortable on the grounds of the Lord. She made an awkward gesture as he led her inside the gate. Her shoulders slumped, her carriage changed. Kevin stopped, and she showed him a picture. His face dropped.

I saw disappointment in his expression, a repeat of how he had looked earlier when he’d asked if I was all right. This picture, it was of me.

Kevin knew something. Perhaps he would give it to them, but perhaps he wouldn’t. After all, he had saved me once before.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

DONNER

After talking with Father Kevin, I made my way around the rest of the church, checking on the search. The other officers had found very little else, beyond the girl and what was in Father Michael’s room. No other signs. The best we had was his Bible and the few other items in his wardrobe. The pictures from Piper’s, Farrow’s, and Dub’s.

Beyond that, the man was a ghost.

What worried me more was that Father Kevin’s testimony made sense to me, almost fell into line with what I’d expected.

I found Hendricks waiting for me by our car. “Nice work, partner.”

“What?” He’d caught me by surprise.

“We got a suspect on the strength of your hard work. A priest in the wind, but still. You did good. Looks like our man. A triple homicide. At least.”

“He might be. Yeah.”

“So tell me what’s next.”

“Partner, I could use a ride home. A shower. I’m beat.”

“You got it.”

When we were both in the car, I asked about the girl. “Where is she?”

“I had the EMTs take her to General. Give her the full work.”

“She say anything else before they left?”

“Say?” He shook his head. “She sure didn’t. Not with that tongue.”

“She’s a fighter though. What do you make of it?”

“Don’t know. Maybe she actually liked our man. Liked the safety of that little room underneath the church.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s another thing I’m afraid of. If she liked that so much, what else was out here she wanted away from?”

“Something else we’ll have to find out. After the docs get her stabilized, we’ll go have a talk. See what we can get.”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “Tomorrow.”

Later, heading west on Division, under the 101, I said, “I might need some help with something.”

“Name it.”

“Religion. I feel like an elephant in a china shop, like I’m going to say things that will be horribly offensive to people.”

“You mean like how you spoke in front of the priest?”

I bit my lip. “That? I was trying my hardest not to offend.”

“And failing.”

“I wanted to ask him if he thought it was ordinary for a person to hear directions from God or if he understood that it’s certifiably crazy, especially as far as the state is concerned.”

He shook his head. “Makes me wish we weren’t going into this with the church, you know? If my mother knew what all was happening here? She wouldn’t talk to me for weeks. That or what’s worse, she’d make me go to services with her.”

“Maybe she can help me sort through some of the protocols?”

“Oh no. That is definitely the last thing that would help you. She’d only make things worse, believe me.”

“You just don’t want to tell her what you’re working on.”

He cracked a smile. “Well, that too. Priests can do no wrong in her eyes.”

I relaxed into my seat as Hendricks turned onto De Haro. I was glad to be going home. “How long have I been on? Since we came on last night to talk with Sunshine, that’s twenty hours.”

“Plus the few nights before that we got called in. So you deserve a rest. Take it.”

“I could sleep for a week.”

“Not likely, my dear. I’ve got a date with you and the evidence room plus some report writing bright and early. We should also go talk to our girl at SFGH and loop Bowen in on all this.”

“Pick me up?”

He laughed, told me a time that was earlier than I wanted to imagine getting started, but I agreed.

“Maybe we should go back at some of those priests again, after we look over their statements.”

“Only if you let me do the talking.”

I said I would.

When Hendricks dropped me off, I shook his hand like a good partner, and we bumped fists.

“You broke this one, Donner,” he said. “Without the work you did in these last twenty-four hours, this guy would still be walking the streets. We wouldn’t have squat.”

I had one leg out of the car already but stopped and turned back. “He
is
still walking the streets, Hendricks. Let’s not forget that.”

He sighed. “Okay, but still, the point is valid. We’re a lot closer. Because of you, Donner.”

He went to chuck my chin, and I blocked it. I’d told him once that my father did that, and since then he’d only wanted to do it all the more. My father, the hard-ass cop—even when he tried to tell me I’d done something right, he could make me feel bad. I could never make up for the fact that my mother hadn’t given him the son he wanted.

“Then thank you very much.” I winked.

Before I could close the door, he said, “I’m serious, Donner. Give yourself some credit for once.”

I looked up at my apartment building. It was just after six o’clock, and the sky was already going dark, but I felt like the longest day of my life still wouldn’t end.

We were close though. I’d held the priest’s Bible in my own hands, talked to the woman he shared a room with. She was bound to have a lot more to tell us. I knew that much. I’d go at her tomorrow.

I told myself to feel good, if even just a little, and tried to smile, but I was too tired to make it real.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

In my apartment, I peeled off my clothes and threw them onto the floor of the bathroom. I wanted to get in bed and fall asleep right away, but for the grease and stickiness, the smell of the Hall and the church—I had to wash it off.

I scrubbed my hair with a tea-tree-oil shampoo, lathered my face with it even though it stung, and touched suds to the inside of my nose. The smell was strong, overpowering; mineral menthol was all I could smell. My skin tingled. I turned away from the water and let the hot stream beat on my back. Steam pulled oil from my skin and the smell from my nose.

I felt more like a person as I toweled off and rubbed the water from my hair. I brushed my teeth, moisturized even, and was heading to the bedroom, but I couldn’t resist the pull of my computer. Nothing good would come from checking for emails and messages at this hour, but I was addicted.

I sat down and flipped open my laptop, waited for it to recognize the wireless and download my emails. Sure enough, they started popping up, and there were more than a dozen: messages from guys on dating sites. This was exactly the reason not to check in, to stay clear of the mild techno-flirtations that passed for my social life, the e-winking, messaging, and anticipation that did nothing but waste my time.

None of the guys understood what dating a cop would be like; they thought it was a hot idea for a minute, something cool they could tell their friends about, and that I’d have lots of good, gruesome stories to share.

Problem with the online guys was they were mostly too San Francisco, too convinced of their own free-thinking avant-garde laissez-faire bullshit to understand a person working over sixty hours a week for the city, giving a shit about putting dirtbags behind bars, and feeling like it made a difference. Not wanting to head off to Tahoe for a long ski weekend, basically a deal breaker more often than not.

That and it was like they’d all read the same handbook on how to treat a woman: rule number one was to listen acutely, make the conversation all about her, and act like you gave a shit when you really didn’t. Talk about wines and show some knowledge there. Boring. If I wanted to sit around and listen to myself talk, I’d go to therapy; it’d be easier all around.

But still I spent the time looking, probably to fend off any possibility of ending up like Hendricks, or
with
Hendricks, which was even worse. Ninety-five percent of cop-on-cop romances ended in regularly scheduled sexfests with nothing behind it. It sounded good, but I’d learned it wasn’t for me.

I thought about Alan, the fact that he hadn’t called. How long had it been? Barely a day, not even. That was all right. It wasn’t like I’d had a lot of time to talk.
He’ll call,
I thought.

I didn’t bother to check my work email, assuming I’d see more false responses about my suspect from other districts.

I was fading fast. Everything else could wait.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

MICHAEL

Finally she came out: the woman detective with brown hair.

She appeared older now. Dark circles stood out under her eyes. I almost felt sorry for her.

She walked to the man in the brown coat, her partner, he must be. They both walked toward a car, and he got in first. She stood by her door, waiting, and for just a brief moment, she looked up.

I had the sensation she could see me but didn’t shy away or hide. So be it.

“You,” I said, pointing to her with my finger, marking her for myself and for God. She could not see me; with the lights out and dusk coming, she would never see me where I was, but something caught her eye. She stared at me as if she
knew
, but it wasn’t possible. Still, she looked.

“You, police woman,” I said, “you have done this. Taken Emily from me. You have broken me from my purpose in His plan.”

She was still watching, looking. Finally I realized she wasn’t looking at me but at Him. Whatever she believed and imagined, she must recognize His power, for He is the Lord. He would never speak to her, but maybe she could see His presence.

I listened for Him.

He was quiet.

A lesser believer might have doubted His intentions, His love, but not me.

I knew His path and His intention and knew I was connected to her. He wanted this.

In time I would know more.

Finally she stepped into the car. Its exhaust puffed, and then she was gone. There were still other officers yet to leave.

Father Kevin would be somewhere inside, dealing with it all. Again I was most sorry for him.

I watched her car creep up Golden Gate toward Market, waited, watching until she passed completely from my view.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I sat in the darkness of the storage room for what felt like a long time, waiting for direction or guidance from Him.

Soon the building emptied; its workers went home for the night. I got up and walked around, stretched my arms, wrung out my hands.

After a while, I felt better for the time inside myself, letting the events of the past few days play across my mind and settle in. The sight of Emily being taken away still drove me mad. I replayed it in my mind. Why would God let them do this? Then: Where were they taking her? The fact that they’d found her in my room meant they were looking for me. They’d entered my room. A violation of my space, such as it was.

Father Kevin would know about Emily now, that I had kept her with me. What would he think?

Perhaps they knew something already, had heard her crying in the night. It was hard to imagine that no one would recognize her presence. Perhaps they were quiet about it out of a kindness. God would thank them for this. Or maybe he had shielded them from knowing she was there.

No matter. Now she was gone. And to where? How would I get her back?

The police might take care of Emily and not harm her, I hoped. But what if they kept us from finishing our work? What would she say to Gabriel at the gates of heaven? What would He say?

That depended on what I could do to clean her past.

I had the list in my breast pocket: four names from the pimp. My calling beckoned.

Now that I couldn’t go back to the church and was without Emily, my conviction was stronger, my path more starkly defined. He had broken me from my old role in the church and sent me exclusively into His. Perhaps it could only have turned out like this. He needed more of me than the church would allow. He needed me completely. This I could accept.

There was also something about the brown-haired detective. She was a part of this now.

Her.

He pushed us together under His wings, bound us toward some task. What it was, I could not tell, but I knew to contact her. She had a purpose in His plan.

I retreated through the storage rows, back to the elevator and the door to the stairs. Perhaps the cameras were still working. I had no knowledge of the security in St. Anthony’s at night. Who would steal from a charity that helped the poor?

I took the stairs down two flights to the clinic level and worked my way around the cubicles, looking for a computer that was still on. I didn’t have to look long; one desk still had its light on, its computer screen saver running like its user had just stepped out a minute before. I could see by the pictures on the desk that she had a family, kids in grammar school.

I called up the San Francisco police department website and started clicking through the various materials about the “Hall of Justice”—as if real
justice
was a concern there. No, His justice didn’t matter, just man’s inadequate laws. I found the homicide department and a list of its investigators. Most of them were men; of the three women, I found her picture on my second try.

Clara Donner.

I found her, along with her cell phone, email, and office number. There she was. In her picture, she smiled a forced smile, trying to look ready to help save the city. There was something else in her eyes though: loneliness and pain, the knowledge that this city could not be saved.

“Clara Donner,” I said, touching the screen. “You have been chosen to serve the Lord. He has put you on His path.”

I opened my email and started my first message to the good detective, Clara Donner.