Harlot's Moon (14 page)

"Right."

"But I saw that in a lot of them. How they'd get real weird around him like high-school girls or something. I was the same way. I'd get real fluttery and possessive." She shrugged. "I'm kind of possessive myself." Apparently she'd forgotten she'd already said that.

"Yeah?" Then: "How did he respond to all this?"

"Oh, you could see he enjoyed it sometimes. Guess it depended on who was being fluttery."

"Anybody else in particular comes to mind besides Ellie Wilson?"

"Just her. And the one who went up with him to clean out the cabin."

"Cabin?"

She nodded and her little pony tail bounced cutely. "Yeah. Up on the Waubeek River. Somebody who died left it to the parish a few years ago. It really needed a good cleaning-out, so Father Daly, he took this Marcia Beaumont up there and they cleaned the place up. Then he started going up there a couple of times a month. In the warm months, I mean."

I asked her to describe where the cabin was, and she did. Vaguely.

I was going to ask her more about Marcia Beaumont but then she said, "Are you really possessive?"

Humor the witness. "I really am."

She leaned forward and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "Cool," she said.

"Cool?"

"Yeah," she laughed. "I really like possessive people."

"Maybe we should start a club."

"Can I be president?" she said.

On the way out, I spoke briefly with Bernice at the front door.

"Do you think Father Daly was sleeping with anybody?"

She made a face. "Times sure have changed when you can ask a question like that about a consecrated priest."

"I didn't mean to upset you."

"When I was a girl, priests were somebody you looked up to. It was almost like they were a superior race of people or something."

Gently, I said: "You were going to tell me about Father Daly."

She shrugged. "Nothing much to tell. He was a very attractive man. And being a counselor, he was in a very intimate relationship with a lot of women. But he was also very serious about being a priest. He was always praying. Always. I sensed he was having a great inner struggle. As for sleeping with women, maybe one or two, but nothing close to what the newspapers are hinting at. Nothing close to that."

"Do you know anything about the cabin up on the Waubeek River?"

"Oh yes, the cabin. It was a little primitive for the Monsignor and Father Ryan, but Father Daly didn't mind a bit. He loved boating, so he spent quite a bit of time up there."

"Is it locked?"

"Oh, yes. Locked tight, I think."

"Would you have the key?"

"I think so. Yes. Are you going up there?"

"I have an old airplane I take up any chance I get. It's a nice afternoon. Might be fun to look around up there for a few hours."

"You're as bad as Father Daly was. Any excuse to get away to the cabin and he'd be gone."

Then she went and fetched me the key.

Half an hour later, I was at the airport.

I
spent five minutes checking everything over: fuel valve, engine controls, engine and flight instruments. I finished up by checking the struts and the wire that binds the wings together. Then I was getting into my leather helmet, goggles and gloves. I'd snugged on a sweater because even on a warm day, it gets chilly in an open cockpit.

I followed the river for twenty minutes and then angled eastward. Bluffs and cliffs and timbered areas contrasted with farmland. The familiar green of John Deere farm equipment was a deeper green than the land itself. A dozen horses ran in the hills above the river, and down below, on the water, a small sailing ship drifted westward.

The flight took forty minutes. I put down near a riding stable. The owner was an old friend of mine.

He must have heard me because he was in his field to watch me land, waving as I touched down.

"Wish I'd been born back then," Sam Carson said, shaking hands as we walked toward his corral.

Sam ran the most prosperous riding academy in this part of the state. The wealthier families brought their children here to learn the ways of the saddle, as Sam liked to say.

A sign out front told just how successful he'd been:

1500 ACRES

HORSES AND SADDLES FOR SALE AND TRADE

THOROUGHBRED & PAINT & QUARTER HORSE

STUD SERVICE

HAYRIDE FACILITIES

PASTURE & STALL BOARDING FOR ALL BREEDS

Sam could never pass the sign without looking at it, a flash of pride showing in his eyes. He'd been raised by nuns in an orphanage. When I knew him at the University of Iowa, he was a shy kid in our ROTC unit. Gradually, we got to be friends and I learned just how destitute Sam was. Finishing college meant a heavy burden of student loans for him. By junior year he was working at the stables he'd eventually buy from the owner, working thirty hours a week and carrying a full load of classes. He'd graduated with a four point.

He'd had one love all the time I'd known him. Horses. He took every opportunity to be around or on a horse. I was the same way about bi-planes.

Around forty, Sam started putting on weight and his hair turned white. Not gray — white. Today he was dressed as usual — western shirt, jeans, cowboy boots, and with a pair of leather gloves tucked in his back pocket.

As we walked past the first stable, he had a word for each one of the horses. They were like his kids, though Sam and his wife had a whole tribe of the real thing up at the house.

The day smelled sweetly of hay and horseshit.

I described the cabin I was looking for and he told me the easiest way to get there. On horseback.

"You're getting the hankering, aren't you, Robert?"

"Must be," I laughed.

"This is the third excuse in a month you've had to ride one of my horses."

"Maybe next month I'll come up with four."

We walked over to the smaller of two barns. A shirtless old man with muscles like a circus strongman's pounded a new shoe on the hoof of an Appaloosa saddle horse.

"Butch here'll be finished in a minute. How about this girl?" Sam said.

He walked over and put a big hand on the crest of the animal. Shoulder and belly and haunch were youthful and trim.

"There you go," Butch said, setting the leg down when he was done with the hoof.

Sam led the animal into the sunlight, throwing a blanket over her as we walked.

"You want to try it this time?" Sam said.

"Think maybe I'll watch you one more time."

Sam laughed. "Chickenshit." Then: "Her name is Moonglow."

"Moonglow?"

"Look at her forehead."

I did, and saw what Sam was talking about. A perfect white circle of hair shone on the animal's forehead.

"Now watch closely, Robert, because next time you're going to do this yourself."

"Yessir, bossman."

He was probably showing off a little but he got Moonglow saddled up in under two minutes, running the skirt and fender and stirrup and cinch ring and latigo all before I even had much of a chance to see.

"You got that now?"

"Got it," I said.

I took the reins, swung up into the saddle.

"Don't worry, Robert. You're just as impatient when you're teaching me about that old barnstormer over there."

"Yeah, I probably am."

"She's a good horse. You'll enjoy her. See you later. Be sure and stop up for some lemonade. Martha wants you to tell her some more FBI stories. All she reads these days is true-crime stuff. They even have pictures in some of those books. Man, times sure have changed."

I shook my head. "We just like to think so. But that kind of stuff has been going on ever since we started walking upright. Probably before then, even."

He looked up at me and frowned. "We're the only species that constantly preys on its own kind, Robert. You know that? Martha read that to me from one of her true-crime books. The only species. That's pretty depressing."

"It sure is," I said.

"Well, on that cheery note, Robert, have yourself a good ride."

I nodded and rode away.

M
y generation got in at the tail end of the western boom. There were a few cowboy shows on TV while I was growing up but not all that many. Still, I'd had the requisite number of cowboy fantasies. In the movie theater of my mind, I was the white-hatted marshal who cleaned up the town; the spunky young man who single-handedly got rid of the vigilantes who had been terrorizing the area; and the only citizen brave enough to stand up to the gunfighter who held the town in thrall.

Those were my primary fantasies.

But there was one other. I was the scout. This was early in the 1800s. The land was still raw and vital and untouched.

This was a fantasy I still indulged in, and that's why I'd lately taken to horseback riding. Because there are places I can find today where it's possible to have a good sense of what the land looked like back then. I wanted my wife Kathy to be with me. I wanted her to see the beautiful blooming sunflowers and smell the apple blossom-breezes and watch the prairie hawks dip and dive down the air currents.

That's how I spent the first part of my ride. Trying to envision what life would have been like, back then.

Fortunately, Moonglow was a lot more sensible than I was. All the time I was playing pathfinder, she was leading us to the wooded area above the river where Father Daly's fishing cabin was located.

When we reached it, I ground-tied Moonglow and walked over to the small cabin. The house was made of pine boards, the roof of wooden shingles. Tall jack pines encircled the plot on which the cabin had been built.

There were a couple of big silver bullets in the back — propane tanks —an outdoor charcoal grill on the left side and a stack of firewood on the right.

The windows were dusty but intact. Inside, I saw that the cabin was divided into three rooms — a kind of general living area, a small bedroom with a lone single bed, and a kitchen area with an ancient refrigerator and stove. There were three cupboards, all closed. The inside looked like a dollhouse for grown-ups.

I tried the door. Padlocked, just as Bernice told me it would be.

I was just inserting the key she had given me when a male voice said, "You're trespassing, mister. Now put your hands up and turn around so I can see you."

He was somewhere in his sixties, tall, stooped, weatherburned, and the possessor of burning blue eyes. He wore Osh-Kosh overalls, a faded checkered shirt and a long-billed blue baseball cap with a Cubs symbol on the front. He had a trusty old Remington shotgun in his gritty hands. It wasn't aimed directly at me. Not quite. But it could be. And in a matter of only moments.

He said, "Who the hell are you, mister?"

"I'm an investigator."

"What kind of investigator?"

"I work for a law firm."

"What law firm?"

He would have made a good interrogation cop.

I gave him the name of the firm.

"Cedar Rapids, huh?" he said.

"Right."

"And you're working on what, exactly?"

"There was a priest who used this cabin."

"Yeah. I saw him around sometimes."

"I'm trying to find out who killed him."

"Well, then I guess we've got something in common, mister."

The shotgun pointed downward suddenly, held in the crook of his left arm, and his right hand shot out.

We shook.

"Kevin Ward's my name."

"Robert Payne."

"Just wanted to make sure who you were," he said. "I figure with all the publicity, lot of people around here'll come in and scavenge the cabin."

"It's locked."

"They'll break in."

"Doesn't look like there's much of any value inside."

"That's not the point. People who scavenge, most of them do it for the thrill, not the loot."

"I guess you're probably right about that." I turned toward the door. "You want to come in with me?"

He nodded and followed me inside.

The air smelled of fireplace wood and mildew. These old cabins were never water-tight.

"You looking for anything in particular, mister?"

"Nope. Don't have any idea of what I'm looking for actually."

I started going through the cupboards.

"He was a nice fella," Kevin Ward said. "Didn't think I'd like him at first. He was pretty modern."

Modern obviously being a word that conveyed a whole load of negatives to Kevin Ward.

"But one day I was explainin' to him about this grandson of mine my daughter was havin' trouble with, and Father Daly told me a few things to tell Bonnie, you know, to help her boy and everything, and damned if they didn't help. They really did. Always be grateful to the man for that. I sure will. I'm not even no Catholic."