All the Dead Fathers (5 page)

First, though, she had a report to write. For a week she'd been working fourteen-hour days, doing surveillance for a lawyer wanting proof that the man his client ran over with a truck wasn't really disabled. Her report wouldn't be complicated. The subject hadn't been out of his house except to go to physical therapy.

*   *   *

She met Michael at the station and they took a cab to Michigan Avenue. The gloomy weather was no help at all. They went to the Art Institute, had a cafeteria lunch in the Court Café, then wandered the galleries. For two hours they struggled to focus on the works they were viewing, from the French Impressionists to the African Collection, to some amazing mobiles by a Belgian artist she'd never heard of … although Michael had. But finally, as though by unspoken agreement, they ended up back at the cafeteria for coffee and the conversation turned to what was actually on both their minds: the murder of Stanley Immel.

Once he got started, the words poured out of Michael's mouth. What he knew about Immel's sex abuse case he had learned from the man himself. At fifty-one, Immel had been the pastor of a parish when he was found to have engaged in incidents of improper sexual touches with two sisters, aged ten and eight. At the time, they had been foster children under the care of Father Immel's sister, Louise, and her husband. The couple had no children of their own, and this was their first experience with foster care.

Unknown to Louise and her husband, Michael said, the girls had been in four other foster homes in three years and had been removed from every one of them when they complained of sexual abuse by their caregivers. The ten-year-old, Maggie, a small, pretty girl with a wide smile and large dark eyes, was quite precocious and talkative. Her little sister, on the other hand, hardly ever said a word, other than to agree with whatever Maggie said. The frequency of their claims of abuse was not deemed by the social workers to affect their credibility.

The incidents with Father Immel were said to have occurred on two nights during a week when he was visiting his sister's family at a summer cottage they owned near Brainerd, Minnesota. He'd offered to babysit, to give Louise and her husband some well-earned respite from the two girls.

On the second occasion, the couple had gone out to a movie, and Father Immel sat on the sofa with the girls and read to them, which they seemed to like. But when he told them it was bedtime all hell broke loose. Maggie went out of control and threatened to run away. He was scared and finally locked the girls in their room. The moment Louise and her husband got back, Maggie started screaming uncontrollably. She accused the priest of molesting her and her sister on both nights. “According to Stan,” Michael said, “Maggie kept saying, ‘He picked us up and made us sit on his penis and wiggle around.' He said she used those exact words and never varied from them. Like she had memorized them.”

Torn between her faith in her brother and her belief that little children could never lie about such things, Louise took the girls home to Chicago the following morning. She reported the matter to the social worker, who reported it to the archdiocese. Father Immel was called in and interviewed by a priest from the cardinal's sex abuse task force, and a lawyer.

“Did he bring his own lawyer with him?” Kirsten asked.

“Of course not,” Michael said. “To him it was just a conversation, to explain what really happened.”

What Father Immel explained was that Maggie had become enraged and threatened to “get him good” when he insisted the kids had to go to bed. In addition, however, while he denied any sexual contact or sexual interest in the girls, he did admit under questioning that there were some “embraces and caresses” that occurred as he cuddled the two girls and read to them, and that these were “probably imprudent.” He agreed that he “should have known better” and “should have avoided that.”

When criminal charges were filed Father Immel
did
get a lawyer. Later, the state's attorney dropped the charges and the priest entered the archdiocesan sex abuse program. He was removed from his parish and went through the required course of evaluation and treatment. He was eventually certified as “not a danger” to children. Still, when he was returned to priestly work, it was at the Catholic Center at the University of Illinois, the Chicago Circle Campus, where he wouldn't come into contact with young children.

“Stan worked as chaplain there for almost four years without incident,” Michael said. “Then, suddenly these new policies were put in place and, like me, he was removed at once from his position.”

“And later, like you, his name got into the paper,” Kirsten said.

“Right.”

“It sounds like he suggested to you,” she said, “that what got him in trouble was his not being more careful answering questions, and that they interpreted his answers in a way to make him look guilty, when he wasn't.”

“Exactly,” Michael said. “Those girls lied. They'd done it before and—”

“But you know, don't you, that
he
might have been the one lying? That maybe he
did
abuse those girls?”

“I … well … I don't think so. Not at all. The psychologists said he was okay, and there was never any other incident.”

“No other incident that
you
know of.” His eyes widened and he was about to object, but she raised her palm to stop him. “Look, I'm not saying he did it. I'm only saying…” She let it go. “Anyway, he wasn't appealing to Rome about his removal from the priesthood, like you are?”

“No. Stanley was angry that they would send him back to square one after he'd already done everything they asked him to do. Basically, he told the cardinal the hell with it, and walked away. I heard he bought a rundown summer cottage near his sister's place in Minnesota for next to nothing and was trying to fix it so he could live there year-round.”

*   *   *

The rundown cottage was on tiny Two Skunk Lake, and that was where Stanley Immel's body was discovered. Kirsten had already read a very sketchy report from a Brainerd newspaper's Web site. The report didn't identify the victim as a priest or an ex-priest but did say that according to the coroner, he'd been dead about a week when he was found by a woman who delivered propane gas in the area. “I wondered where he was, because he always comes out when I drive up, and the dog's usually barking and all,” she was quoted as saying. “So I peeked in the kitchen window. Gosh, it was a mess in there. Blood all over everything.”

The paper said the Crow Wing County Sheriff's office had classified the incident as a homicide. There were no suspects.

8.

“Jesus, are you totally out of your mind?” Dugan got up and walked to his office window and looked out, as though to study the rain streaming down, or the gray building hardly visible across the street.

Kirsten was sitting in one of his client's chairs and wasn't surprised at his reaction. She'd left her raincoat with Michael in the reception area and gone alone into Dugan's office and closed the door. “No,” she said, “I wouldn't say
totally.
” She crossed her legs and wondered how much these new wool pants—soaked through up to the knees—would shrink. “Anyway, I'm
thinking
about it. Michael's, you know, in serious trouble.”

“Uh-huh, and why is that?” Dugan turned to face her. “Oh, I remember. Because he's a so-called man of God, and when a mixed-up teenager comes to him for help … his solution is to fuck her. And … gosh … now he's in
trouble.
”

“I didn't say he didn't do something bad. It was the worst thing he could have done.”

“You
say
it's bad, but you sugarcoat—”

“I'm not sugarcoating anything. I'm saying it's possible—not certain, but
possible
—that someone intends to kill him in a brutal way for something terrible he did thirty years ago. He was a priest, yes. But he was a drunk, too, with his stupid friends covering for him when they should have gotten him into a recovery program. And you? You never did anything in your past you were ashamed of?”

“I never got into the pants of a sixteen-year-old client.”

“She was seventeen, almost eighteen. It happened just once.”

“Right. If you believe what
he
says.”

“That's what her
family
said. He never denied anything they said.”

“So what? So it's okay because he fucked her ‘just once'?”

“Of course not, but—” Why the hell was she defending Michael's indefensible conduct, anyway? That wasn't the point. “You know what, Dugan?” She stood up. “You're starting to really piss me off.”

“I'm just trying to keep you from wasting a lot of time and money. For no good reason. Why don't you save your pissed-offness for that uncle of yours who couldn't keep his goddamn pants zipped up?”

She was about to leave before she said something she'd regret, when she suddenly realized the problem was hers, not Dugan's. She'd come to him to talk it over, when she knew damn well what his opinion would be. Now she needed to turn this conversation around. “Okay,” she said, “you've raised a good objection. Let's both relax and think this through.” She sat down, and gave him her best I-love-you-more-than-anything-in-the-world smile. It was 100 percent genuine, too, but it still took a while to work.

He stared at her. “Is this the part where you try to talk me into something?” he finally said, but he sat down and she could see him softening.

“Who in the world ever talked
you
into
anything?
Uh-uh, I'm just running an idea past you, and you think it's a
bad
idea because it could get quite expensive.”

“That's not my main object—”

“No, but you brought it up and it's an important consideration. I know Wild Onion's net each year has barely been half what I made as a cop, but this year—mostly because of the Willoughby divorce—I should double last year's income.”

“I don't care what your income is. Jesus, I don't care if you work at all. Maybe when you get preg—”

“Let's not go there, okay? Not until there's something to talk about.”

“Yeah, well, you'd go nuts if you didn't work. I understand that.”

“Right,” she said. “And you also understand I'd go just as nuts if my business had to be supported by you as though it were my hobby. So I have to make enough so I could support myself even if you and your law practice weren't around.”

“Don't talk that way. I
am
around. And I will be.”

“Of course. But that's how I have to think about it. For my
own
sake.”

“Okay … so?”

“So, if I decide to help Michael and the others, maybe they'll be able to pay a fee. Or at least expenses.”

“Michael's in no position to pay anything near what it would cost.”

“But he'll pay
something
. And probably most of the others will join in. I mean, they're all scared. And reasonable or not, I'd be scared, too, in their position. Some of them must have some money, from their families or whatever. So…” She shrugged and spread her hands out, palms up.

“So you're gonna do it, whatever I think.”

“I said I'm
considering
doing something to help.”

“And so you got me twisted into talking about money,” he said, “instead of about the kind of creeps those guys are.”

“You give me
way
too much credit.”

“Yeah, right.” He picked up a pen and tapped one end of it on his left palm.

She stood up and went around the desk and rested a hand on his shoulder, but he just sat there tapping his pen and playing tough guy. She put her other hand on the back of his neck and leaned and kissed him on the left ear … and felt the shiver that went through his body. She knew it would. Both ears were hot-wired, but the left one? Dynamite. “Gotta go,” she said. “Michael's out there waiting. Um … I don't suppose you wanted to say hello to—”

“Anything I have to say to that guy, you don't wanna—”

“Great. So, anyway, thanks for helping me sort this out.” She headed for the door.

“I give up,” he said. “He's your uncle, damn him, and you're gonna get mixed up in this whether you get paid or not, aren't you?”

She turned at the door. “Not relevant, counselor, because I
will
get paid.” At least she hoped so.

“So now it's ‘
will
get paid'? I thought you were only
considering
getting involved.”

“I was,” she said. “But talking to you has helped me decide. That's one of the things I love about—”

“So you're gonna run around from state to state and investigate two murders?”

“Two we know of so
far
,” she said. “But catching killers is what
cops
get paid for. Me, I'll concentrate on protection.”

“Protection for a bunch of damn—” He didn't finish. “So how many are left? Sixteen? You're gonna bodyguard sixteen people?”

“Just the ten who are living at Villa St. George,” she said. “But even so, I'll need … some help.”

His eyes widened. “You don't think you're gonna get
me
involved with those—”

“Of course not,” she said. “You're much too busy squeezing dollars out of innocent, helpless insurance adjusters. I'll get … oh … someone.”

Understanding spread slowly across his face. “You're gonna get Cuffs Radovich, aren't you?”

“If he's available.”

“Jesus.” Dugan shrugged. “Well … creeps like those guys, I guess they
deserve
a babysitter like Cuffs.”