Justifiable (20 page)

Riley pulled on the warped entrance door to Philomena House. It groaned in protest and balked two-thirds of the way open. Once he passed through the gap, Riley yanked hard on the door to slam it shut behind him.

Smelled like dinner being cooked in a few apartments, a scent that reminded him of boiled cabbage and something with a pungent curry sauce. Stale odors lingered, a residue of bodies that had passed through the building and stayed long enough to leave a human imprint in the air – perspiration and desperation.

A last chance place.

Gray walls, but not recently painted. Shiny aluminum mailboxes covered the wall on his right, ten in all.

Had anyone picked up Sally’s mail?

Only two boxes had names. No Stanton. Riley had a choice of taking the first floor hallway straight ahead or the stairs on his left to what was likely an identical layout above.

The front door to the building creaked open behind him.

Baby G squeezed through and left the door ajar. “You
do
have vehicle insurance, right?” 

Riley pushed passed him to check his truck. Still there. He turned around in time to catch G’s snicker. “Not funny.”

“Depends on your point of view.”  Baby G wore a long-sleeved, robin’s-egg blue pullover that hung loose over faded-red, baggy warm ups. Probably crossed town in that. Not the least affected by the temperatures outside.

“How you feeling?”  Riley shouldn’t be surprised to see Baby G without his sister. Street kids got patched up and moved on with little pampering.

Baby G lifted a fist with the thumb stuck up.

“What have you got for me?” 

“A deal.”

Riley crossed his arms. “Spit it out.” 

“Matching shirts for the team.”

He’d lose less money in a mugging, but he didn’t really mind buying shirts. Doing it this way would allow Romeo’s team to feel as though they earned the booty, but only if Riley made Baby G work for it. “
Five
shirts for what? Police have probably been here, picked this place clean.”

Baby G shook his head, slowly. “Eight shirts.”

“You only have five players,” Riley argued.

“All good teams have alternates. We’ve acquired three more players from extended family.”

This whole basketball sponsorship was turning into a bottomless pit. Riley indicated the apartments with a head nod. “How good is this information?” 

“Solid and the police
don’t
have what I’ve got you.”

Hot damn. “If that’s so, you’ll get your shirts.”

“Follow me.”  Baby G headed down the hallway.

Kid noises scrambled with television racket behind the first door they passed. Baby G rapped his knuckles on the second one. When the door opened, a slender Haitian woman greeted him with a smile then pressed a wary gaze at Riley. Baby G said something, the dialect sounding like thick Haitian. He turned to Riley. “This is Titia, my brother-in-law’s aunt’s cousin. She didn’t know Sally Stanton, but she knows the woman who was friends with Sally.”

In a convoluted way, that made sense. “Okay.”

The woman nodded at Baby G and stepped out in the hallway, closing the door behind her.

Riley and Baby G followed Titia to the first door they’d passed with the kid noises. She knocked. A pale dumpling-shaped woman with a head of frizzled black hair and swollen feet stuffed in pink house slippers came to the door. The apron over her flowery cotton dress had faded stains and bleach holes. A genuine cook.

Baby G’s relative spoke to the plump woman who frowned as if working to follow what Titia said, then the talking ended and both women turned to look at Riley.

He didn’t know what they wanted so he smiled.

“I’m Betty,” the second woman said at last. “You know Sally?”

“No, ma’am.”  Riley chose his words carefully. “But I’m trying to find out who killed her and what happened to Enrique.”  

Betty studied him with faded brown eyes shaped by Hispanic genes and filled with a mother’s concern. “Why?” 

Riley shoved a “little help here?” look at Baby G, whose eyebrows lifted with the delight of a used car salesman seeing an easy mark.

This would probably cost him embroidered shirts. Riley rolled his eyes then gave Baby G a nod.

Baby G said something to Titia who spoke to Betty who rattled something unintelligible back, then the three of them talked at once.

Riley had seen discussions between two warring nations take less effort, but no one in Philomena House had a reason to trust him. Without Baby G’s stamp of approval, Riley would be SOL. Shit out of luck.

Everyone stopped talking. Betty addressed Riley. “I tried to tell the police what Titia told me, but they just did a quick walk through Sally’s apartment and left. They didn’t think it mattered.”

“What mattered?” 

“Enrique’s woobie blanket’s gone.”  Betty lifted an index finger and waved like a first grade teacher. “I told the police I was sure Enrique didn’t have his Diego blanket with him when I took Enrique and Sally to the hospital, but the police just wanted to get a photo of Enrique and look around the apartment.”

That made sense. The police would have been searching for pictures of a man or a phone number, some place to start. Riley didn’t understand where Betty was going with all this, but patience played his role as investigator. “What’s the deal about the blanket?”

“St. Catherine’s staff gave it to him. Enrique called it ‘his Diego.’  Sally would wait up and wash it at night when the boy slept, washed it by hand so nothing happened to his blanket. She’d have it back on him before he got up.”  Betty’s eyes watered up with the memory. “If Enrique hadn’t been so upset and hurt bad last night he’d have pitched a fit when he realized he didn’t have his Diego. He’s a good little boy and loves that blanket so I figured he’d be crying for it by now.”

Riley needed more than a child’s attachment to a blanket. He frowned at G who lifted his heavy shoulders in a shrug. Baby G spoke to Titia in way that sounded like a question.

Titia fired off an answer that Riley didn’t think Betty could even follow based on the way her lips parted in confusion. When Titia finished, Baby G turned to Riley. “Think I get the point now. Miss Betty has an extra key to Sally’s apartment. She went upstairs to get the blanket this morning to take to the hospital and check on Enrique. When she couldn’t find it, she called the hospital. They said Enrique left with his mama around eleven last night. Miss Betty found out about the killing this morning so when the police came by she tried to tell them the blanket was missing. They wrote it down, but didn’t really listen when she described it, then they searched the apartment and left.”

Riley could understand how they’d assume it wasn’t a big deal and probably couldn’t understand what any of this group was saying without Baby G.

To be honest, he wasn’t seeing the significance of the missing blanket right now.

Baby G took a breath and continued. “Miss Betty was telling Titia the news this afternoon when Titia got in from work. That’s when Titia told Betty about someone in Sally’s apartment last night.”

Now
that
could be important. “How would Titia know someone had been in there?”

“Sally’s apartment is above hers. Titia heard footsteps and thought it was Sally at home, but now she thinks it was someone else.”

“Why?” 

Betty spoke up. “Because the news said Sally’s body was found before 1:00 am this morning. Titia heard the footsteps when she went to the bathroom after 3:00 am. Sally couldn’t have been in that apartment. Somebody stole that baby’s blanket.”

Riley’s thoughts froze on the only person who had a reason to steal something personal of Enrique’s, something special.

Just like in Detroit.

The Kindergarten Killer had taken favorite stuffed animals to bury with the children.

Chapter 24

Who should repent tonight?
Choices, choices, choices.

All deserving. But he’d narrowed it down to two. Each required different...orchestration. Either way, he had the tools necessary.

His warm breath fogged the windshield. He rubbed his leather-gloved hands together, watching each scene in one of Philly’s safe little suburbs play out happy as a Hallmark card picture. Shiny cars that benchmarked success arrived at tidy houses surrounded by perfect landscaping. Kids and dogs playing in the yards ran to meet the cars as they parked. 

Sitting still this long wore on his nerves. If he could cull one more sheep out of Satan’s herd early tonight, he’d have time to deal with another one before morning. 

Getting away from St. Catherine’s without drawing attention was getting harder, especially now with the flurry of activity created by the pope’s visit, though that was a true blessing.

But to whip this parish into shape, he had to be more creative about his schedule, especially with Cortese.

Nothing eluded Margo Cortese, except having a life, but St. Catherine’s benefited from that.

He could work around her, maybe come up with a way to get her out of the office more often. Just for a while, until he cleaned up around St. Catherine’s. It all came down to time.

The clock’s tiny arms fought him at every turn.

People demanded a few minutes here and there, chewing away his available hours like hungry termites. He’d never complained about hard work, never would. The rewards made it all worthwhile. This was another chance to prove his value to everyone. Especially Bishop Gautier who he owed for so much.

This parish
would
be ready for the pope’s arrival.

But not if he didn’t punish the sinners. The ones who confessed, rushed a few Hail Marys and went right back out to commit the same sins again and again.

That’s why tonight had to be a special penance, something to make other sinners pay attention.

To fear the Lord is the beginning of freedom.

Riley Walker had been fearless in Detroit when he faced off with Satan’s soldier and won. He should understand the price of fighting a war against sinners, that some sacrifices had to be made so that the world could learn the price of being unrepentant. But if Walker’s inquisitive nature circled too close to St. Catherine’s he could become a problem. One that could be managed, as long as Walker had motivation.

The weak in spirit always needed tangible motivation.

Walker would do as instructed for the sake of the child.

Every step in the plan had been worked through with precise detail, right down to choosing that specific newsman. Walker’s news station had given out his cell number with little hesitation.

Another sign that everything I do is blessed
. Because of his commitment, St. Catherine’s would thrive and become a testament to other parishes around the country. He would not accept failure from anyone, especially himself.

Reputations weren’t built on occasionally persevering. 

Satan never dropped
his
guard or took a day off.

Besides, based on the confessions spun today at St. Catherine’s, the children of this city needed someone to defend them against dangers that hid behind friendly faces...like parents.

Children deserved their own special heaven on Earth.

Adults had a duty to protect the innocent, but few would take on the tough jobs, not if it meant getting their hands dirty.

Or bloody.

A white sedan hummed as it passed his vehicle, unobtrusively parked in a dark shadow. The sedan slowed three driveways up to turn in. The garage door opened. Lights flooded the driveway and across the car that slid into its warm nest.

And there was the dog, tail wagging, happy to see the dad.

Where was the happy homemaker standing at the door with a flour-dusted apron and a martini in hand for her husband?

Not a real homemaker, but the Feldman woman, a faithless wife who ogled the seventeen-year-old boy who did the yard work and shoveled snow while her husband worked hard all day. Worse than that, Feldman hit her kids when she couldn’t handle her frustration.

Maybe that should be part of her penance, a sound beating.

As God said, spare the rod, spoil the...sinner.

Chapter 25

What would it take to back Massey off? Riley huddled his shoulders against the damp with the temperature diving ten degrees below freezing and the black night closing in around him. He walked stiffly toward the Race Street Café.

He had one idea, one chance at turning J. T. to his side.  But that hope hung by a thread tied to a child’s blanket.

Snow drifted lazily down to the sidewalk, adding to shoveled slush piles mixed with road grime from traffic along Race Street.

Christmas lights still twinkled on the second floor balcony of the stack of brick apartments on his right. A block away, the Race Street Café lived in the shadow of the Ben Franklin Bridge on the edge of the historic district some called Old City. Tourists visited the nearby U.S Mint and Betsy Ross House to find out what happened back when. But Philly’s finest wound down with a Smithwick – pronounced schmiddick – beer to talk about what had occurred today and what they could do to prevent something worse from happening tomorrow. The café served all wallets, even the Philadelphia Flyers who frequented the place.