Everyone Pays (9 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

MICHAEL

In the courtyard of St. Boniface, just beyond the palm tree, was a large azalea bush that needed trimming often. Someone had to keep it looking neat and tended to, and I took pride in that being one of my contributions. Over the years, I changed its shape, pruned it back, even rooted it more solidly. I took my duties regarding the general facade of the church most seriously.

As I snipped at the azalea with my shears, I watched the lunch line across the street. All sorts of sinners waited on the sidewalk outside St. Anthony’s with blank, guilty faces. They were cast aside by life time and time again. Not of their own choosing. Still there was responsibility in them all—their choice of certain ways.

Some of them were worth pity and love. Sadness and shame. But He didn’t feel shame for them; He imposed His direction and will toward all equally. It was our lot to make the most of both sunshine and rain, treat them equally as gifts.

Some of the needy held wet cardboard over their heads, hoping to deflect the rain. Still their jackets were wet.

Suddenly He blessed me with a new vision, a message. I saw the world clear-eyed as I hadn’t in some time, almost as if I’d received a new day’s vision on His earth.

He told me to focus on a certain police officer as he walked the street toward our church. I watched the servant of the law when he stopped, talking into his shoulder mic, less than a block away. His name was Cope. We had met before, spoken to one another about this very bush. I cut back a few protruding sprigs. His look showed concern.

He watched the church. I bowed slightly, stayed beneath the line of our courtyard wall.

The officer scrutinized the chapel so closely, as if examining who we were and what we offered. Then he checked his watch, spoke into his mic again, and turned away. He walked back up the street the way he had come, heading toward the station.

Something was wrong. I knew God had shown me this for a reason. I knew I had to run.

Emily?
I asked Him.
What about Emily?

He didn’t answer.

Sometimes His instructions had to be enough, even if partial. Anything He offered was truly a blessing—His gift.

I tucked the shears into my vest and retreated inside the chapel, down the stairs to the rectory. No one saw me slip into my room. She was here, sat up from the bed as soon as I entered, concerned, almost as if I’d woken her, though it was well after noon.

Her eyebrows came together. She saw it in my face, wanted to know if I was okay.

“Yes, my dear. I’m fine.” Something in my face betrayed me, but she didn’t inquire further. For this once, she didn’t press me. Perhaps this too was His gift, Him watching over me, over us.

“I love you,” I said, crossing the room to give her a kiss on her temple. Pulling the covers up to her chin, even just a little above, I said, “Stay warm. Your fever is high.” I touched her forehead, felt the heat. She was not well. I worried, but He didn’t direct me to stay and watch her care. I would help when I returned.

I took my jacket out of the wardrobe and slipped it on, my wallet still heavy in the pocket. On the shelf at the top of the wardrobe were my things: my Good News Bible, a small pocketknife, my various keys. The pictures of Emily that I had taken from Piper’s and Farrow’s apartments. From Dub’s. I wanted to travel light but didn’t know when I would be back, the whole of His plan. I left the knife and the Good Book, took the keys. He told me to hurry. I tucked the pictures inside the front cover of the Bible.

At the door, I looked back at her again. She had fallen asleep or pretended to do so.

“Be still, my love,” I whispered. “I’ll be back soon.”

Out in the hall, all was quiet. I was alone. I slipped up the side stairs and outside without anyone seeing. Perhaps many of the priests were in confessional or tending to their chores. Some surely were out helping the city’s poor.

I slipped through the gate and looked across the street to St. Anthony’s, where He told me to go. I saw Gus outside and knew Jermaine would be manning the front desk until three o’clock. I shouldn’t involve them, I knew. He wanted me to go around and enter through the back, as if making a delivery. This was why He had told me to take my keys. I did my best to follow, walked to my right, taking the long way around the block so as not to be seen. No one should notice that I’d left; they knew I was at my work, completing my duties and chores. They would never understand my obligations coming directly from Him, that it superseded whatever plans they had for one another.

Even those who carefully read their Bibles, sometimes even they didn’t believe or understand the machinations of God. Truly, I didn’t either. But I knew when to follow Him and be led.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

DONNER

The girl made a mewling noise in the back of her throat, like a lost cat.

“My child.” Father Kevin tried moving into the room past Hendricks.

“Someone get him out of here,” I said.

“Right behind you,” Hendricks said. He left, taking the priest. I could hear them talking down the hall.

I brought the girl to the small table, led her to sit in one of the chairs.

“Calm down now,” I said. “It’s all going to be okay.”

She made a sound, her mouth still pursed, and I knew more was wrong with her. Her face had shrunken in on itself. She opened her mouth to show me short brown teeth repelling her gums, a scarred stump where her tongue was supposed to be.

“Did he do this to you?”

She shook her head fast, eyes closed, and brought her hands up to her nose. She smoothed the creases of her face, just for a moment, running her hands back to her ears.

“Mmh mmh.” She sounded out a wordless negative.

“We need to get her some help,” I called to the hall.

“EMTs on the way,” Bennett said in the door.

“Finish the search for our guy. Keep checking the chapel.” To the girl I said, “Father Michael? Is he here?”

She stood, shook her head again. Spread her hands out in front of her and brought them wide, indicating the whole place.

“Not here?”

She nodded.

I eased her back into the chair, fearing what he might’ve done to her in this little room. I wanted to ask Father Kevin how she had gotten inside, how our man could keep a woman down here without anybody knowing.

Maybe she was what Father Kevin had been afraid to let us see. I couldn’t imagine how a person could stay hidden down here in the church quarters without raising concerns.

“What did he do to you?”

She shook her head, made a few noises. Her breathing had calmed, and she no longer cried.

“Let’s get her upstairs,” Hendricks said, taking the girl’s hand. “You check the room, okay?”

As soon as she felt Hendricks tug her hand, realized the direction he was leading her, she pulled away, tried going back to the bed.

I blocked her off with my body. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head violently, trying to push past me as Hendricks wrapped her up around her shoulders from behind. He could be too much with his force at times, but it was clear that we didn’t know what she’d do next.

“Leave her be,” I said, and he eased off. “I’m good here.”

He stood back, watched us, and soon walked out without another word. Witness or victim, we didn’t know what we had, and it was best to handle her with as much caution as we could.

“Calm now, calm,” I told her. I patted her hand until she seemed calm, then stepped out into the hall to make a plan.

On my handheld, I gave the word to the others that our man was not in his room, but that he could still be in the chapel. I told them to be on the utmost alert, to use extreme caution.

I radioed for Bruce and her partner to come inside and assist with the search, told Cope and his boys to tighten up the perimeter. I wanted two of them out front replacing Bruce and two inside helping in the search. In a building big as this, we’d have a lot of dark corners, suspicious nooks, and strange passages. I couldn’t even begin to imagine all the hiding places.

I nodded at Coggins. “Search the other rooms on this floor. Doors should be unlocked. Don’t mess the place up, but be sure you don’t miss anything.”

I went back inside Father Michael’s room.

The girl stared down at the floor. I waved to Coggins and told him to radio for the EMTs, to send them down here.

“Are you okay?” I sat next to her, tried to meet her eyes.

She nodded.

“Can you tell me your name?”

She hummed a few sounds, then shook her head, pointing at her mouth. I didn’t need to see the tongue again; I could imagine what it felt like to try talking through that.

Coggins gave me the thumbs-up from the hallway; the EMTs were on their way.

I touched the girl’s knee, told her it would all be okay.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

When the EMTs had taken the girl, I sat back down on the bed and snapped on my latex gloves to search the room.

It held a certain kind of quiet I wasn’t used to: the absence of anything electronic, phones or computers or wires. No wireless. There was a bed, a small table, and a large, dark wardrobe. Cool, thick stone walls, an earthy smell.

Off to my side a knee-high refrigerator clicked on and hummed. A hot plate sat on top of it next to a Mr. Coffee. I noticed a small sink.

I stood, paced around on the floor in my socks. This was
his
room. I knew it. Hendricks was somewhere else in the church, searching for a man we wouldn’t find. He wasn’t here—another hunch I knew was certain.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to smell him, get a scent, but there was nothing there. Maybe the place had no smell, or it smelled enough like me that I couldn’t discern it.

Coggins poked his head in. “All okay?”

“Yeah. I’m good.”

I crossed to the wardrobe. When I opened it, I saw two black suits next to a couple of plain white shirts on thin metal hangers. On a shelf above these was a small Bible and a pocketknife. I checked the knife for any traces of blood or signs of use, folding it open to find its blade as clean as you’d expect a priest’s pocketknife to be. It had never been used for anything involving human flesh. Still, it’d need more checking later. I put it back on the shelf for the techs to bag later.

I lifted out the Bible and opened its cover. When I did, a Polaroid picture fell out onto the ground. I looked down, saw that it was a picture of her.

Her.

I picked it up: definitely a match for the others from Jay Piper’s apartment. And it was a picture of her, the small blonde girl the EMTs had just taken upstairs.

In it, her face was full, skin clear and free of creases or pocks. In a word, she looked healthy. Healthy enough I could tell she was young. She couldn’t be more than seventeen, eighteen maybe.

She was blonde like the others, her hair brighter in the picture than now, more done up, pretty enough to attract johns.

Her mouth was the biggest difference: full and not shrunken, cheeks broad. She had a whole tongue then.

I slipped the picture inside my jacket.

In the Bible, I found two more. The first was of a young blonde in Farrow’s apartment. Not the girl who’d just left. I didn’t recognize her, but his rumpled bed and stained wall behind it were unmistakable. I noticed a foot in the corner of the picture, a thin white one, possibly Farrow’s, but I had no way to know. The picture from Dub’s was here, the one Debbie Shine had described of the pimp and a few of his girls. The girl we’d found was there, sure enough: second from the left, scowling at the camera, a plastic cup of wine in her hand. The other girls looked older, drunker, as if they were having more fun. She didn’t fit in. That much was clear.

I thumbed through the Bible’s pages, looking for marks or key passages underlined—anything that would help me make sense of the man. I stopped when I saw more markings than I knew what to do with. It didn’t take long. I was no Biblical scholar. I’d get someone else to do more checking into this later on.

I left the Bible with the pictures and his knife on the shelf to have the techs catalog them for evidence.

In the hallway, Coggins was making his way through the other rooms on the floor. I radioed to ask the others how their sweep was coming and heard back that they were moving through the chapel and the rectory’s three floors with help from the priests. No sign of Father Michael.

I had that strange premonition again that he was gone. Call it the genius of lack of sleep, investigator’s hunch, or a church-inspired call down from a god I didn’t believe in, but I knew in my bones we’d missed him.

But the case would go on.

I radioed to Hendricks, “Give me your status. I’m coming up to talk to Father Kevin.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

When I found him, Father Kevin looked like he’d receded inside himself, shut up tight like the church when we arrived. He sat at the end of a pew, near the back of the chapel. The smell of pungent bodies still hung in the air from the day’s shift of homeless crashing out on the long wooden pews.

I watched a few of the officers move about in their search. More beat police in uniforms had arrived, no doubt from the Tenderloin station but also from the Hall, close as it was. The case was moving forward, even without our big sit-down with Bowen. I was driving it.

I stopped to lean against the end of a pew, feeling the aftereffects of the adrenaline from entering Father Michael’s room. This, too much coffee, two full days on, and not enough sleep—I felt jittery, unhinged. I needed caffeine or a strong drink. One or the other at this stage, if I was to keep going.

When I sat down with Father Kevin, his face changed; his eyes cleared, and he looked through me. I hoped it meant something good.

“Father, what can you tell me about the man we’re looking for?”

He shuddered. “That woman. Where did she come from? How long has she been here?”

“I thought maybe you could tell me.”

His body sort of slumped, like he felt the blow of realizing we were not here to help. Maybe I’d been wrong about what he knew.

He said, “I have no idea.”

“What kind of a man is he? How long has he been here with you?”

“Father Michael have own ways. He came from streets. After hard times.”

I moved a hymnal off the pew to rest my leg on it, making it easier to turn around and face him. “Yes?”

“He was here before he priest.” He held up his hands, gestured to the chapel and its pews. “Used to sleep here. Was one of them.” That was when I noticed he was tearing up. He produced a handkerchief from a pocket, used it to wipe his eyes. “I sorry. I care for him very much.”

“I understand. You two must be close.”

“Father Michael is not open man. Closed off. But I can tell you one thing: he very sure of relationship with God.”

I had three murder scenes that might contradict that, but I wanted to know more. “Go on.”

“Father Michael walk own path. Since he came here, became priest, he have intense belief in Bible. More than usual. Even more, Father Michael
believe
. He tell me. Tell me he have directions from God.”

“From God?” Something about the way I said it made the priest pinch his brows. I couldn’t help myself. “He told you he talks to God?”

If we were trying this case, this testimony might justify an insanity plea. In the church, it meant something very different. Here, priests made careers out of talking to God.

But I wasn’t comfortable going down that road; I’d never been good with religion.

If we caught this bastard, and the system let him skate? No. I’d sworn after Terranella that I’d never let that happen again, but I’d also sworn to Hendricks that I’d never tilt things myself again.

I didn’t like either way.

“And what does God tell him?”

He frowned. “That I cannot say. Maybe you tell me? What has he done?”

There it was: not what did we think he’d done, but what
had
he done. This priest knew something else was going on. But I couldn’t say what we thought it was. Not to this man, his friend.

The priest didn’t wait. He said, “You cannot tell me. I understand. But”—he put his finger on the back of my pew, pressed the wood—“what he has done, whatever it is, Father Michael thinks he has done it in the name of the Lord.”

He meant what he said. One hundred percent.

What was worse, he’d just articulated my biggest fear.