No Time To Run (Legal Thriller Featuring Michael Collins, Book 1) (28 page)

“
Fine.” Gadd held out her hand. “I have to get back to this anyway.” They shook hands, and then Gadd opened the door to the conference room where the Grand Jury was waiting. “It’s just starting to get interesting in here.”

Gadd walked through the door and closed it behind her. The Mother Hubbard smile was back, and she apologized for the disruption.

“
Now where were we?” She looked at Father Stiles on the witness stand, then looked down at her notepad and back up again. “Oh yes, you were telling us about your conversations with Mr. Collins.”

He shifted in his chair.

“
No.” Father Stiles bit his lower lip. “I wasn’t telling you about my conversations. I was telling you that the conversations are confidential.” He held up a Protective Order that the Catholic Church’s attorneys had obtained from the Court, but there wasn’t any judge in the conference room to enforce it.

“
Right.” Gadd continued, pretending that the court order was meaningless.

“
You care a lot about Michael Collins, isn’t that correct?”

“
I do care about him.”

“
And you wouldn’t want any harm to come to him?”

“
I wouldn’t want any harm to come to any of God’s children.” Father Stiles crossed his arms over his chest. “And particularly Michael. He’s a bright young man, who was dealt a tough hand early on in his life.”

Gadd nodded, but paused before beginning, again. The next series of questions were tricky. She needed to prove her point, but not come on too strong. Father Stiles was a priest after all. She didn’t want backlash from the jury.

“
Has Michael Collins contributed any money to your church?”

Father Stiles nodded.

“
Yes, I believe he has.”

“
A large amount?”

“
I don’t know. We have an accountant. He may be better able to answer your – ”

Slowly enunciating each word, Brenda Gadd interrupted.

“
So you’re saying that you are not aware of any large donations by Michael Collins to your church?”

“
Correct.”

“
He’s made none?”

“
Yes.”

“
Michael Collins has made no large donations?” Gadd pinned the story down.

“
I believe that to be the case.”

Brenda Gadd seized on the word.

“
Believe,” she said, and then paused, letting Father Stiles’ response to the last question, and the ones before it sink in. Silence often piqued the interest of jurors more than shouts.

Gadd took a step back toward her table and pulled out a stack of papers.

“
You mentioned that the church had an accountant. I've actually spoken to that accountant.” Gadd held the stack of papers out to the side. It was a subtle gesture to draw the jurors’ attention to the paper without waving the evidence around.

Jurors trusted paper more than people. It was a fact. Psychologists had conducted studies of trials, both short and long. Regardless of the case, when the jury started to deliberate the first thing they looked at was the paper, the days or months of testimony were merely to refute or confirm what was on the paper.

Gadd took a step towards Father Stiles. She handed him the reports from the church’s accountant, and then continued.

“
I notice that three years ago, the church received fourteen thousand dollars in anonymous donations, correct?”

“
I assume that’s right, if the accountant said so.”

“
But then Joshua Krane was killed, Michael Collins disappeared, and then what happened to your anonymous donations?”

Father Stiles didn’t answer, and any juror that hadn’t been paying attention before was now on the edge of their seat. All eyes were on Father Stiles, anticipating a response that never came.

Breaking the silence.

“
They went up, didn’t they?”
she pressed.

“
I believe so.”

“
Believe?” Gadd said. “Or know?”

Father Stiles looked down at the papers in his hand, and then up at his interrogator.

“
I know.”

“
In the year following Joshua Krane’s death and disappearance of Michael Collins, the anonymous donations went up quite a bit, didn’t they?”

“
Yes.”

“
What were they?”

“
I don’t know, exactly.”

Brenda Gadd grabbed the papers away from Father Stiles, and then pretended to read from the top page.

“
Your anonymous donations went from $14,000 to $654,382, is that correct?”

“
If that’s what the accountant says, then that’s correct.”

“
Does it sound correct?”

“
Yes.”

“
And last year, the anonymous donations went from $654,382 to roughly $1.2 million dollars, is that correct?”

“
I believe so.”

“
These donations saved your church from being shut down by the Archdiocese of New York, didn’t they?”

“
God saved our church.”

“
Right,” Gadd said. “God and Michael John Collins.”

She walked back to her table, set the stack of papers down, and shook her head.

“
I have no further questions for you, Father.”

CHAPTER FIFTY SIX

Michael didn’t return to the Sunset until long after dark. The exercise had been good for him, but he still couldn’t stop thinking about Andie and the case. There were things that just didn’t seem right, although if asked to name one, Michael couldn’t.

He pulled the kayak onto the shore, and then carried it back to the boathouse. Michael hung his life-vest on the rack, and put the paddle in a large barrel with the others. On his way up to the bar, he noticed a large, silver Airstream trailer parked at the end of the road.

New guests, Michael thought.

He walked up the steps, onto the deck, and into the bar. It was crowded with the usual mixture of retired vagabonds, college kids re-enacting the early days of Che Guevara, and people who were simply lost on a variety of levels. Michael found a seat at the bar. Sammy Alvarez saw him, and immediately uncapped a bottle of Corona and stuck a wedge of l
i
m
e
on top.

“
Luise says hi.” Sammy put the beer in front of Michael. “You be careful.”

“
Don’t worry.” Michael pushed the lemon wedge into the head of the bottle. “She’ll be fine.”

“
I’m not worried about her.” Sammy tipped his cowboy hat and raised an eyebrow. “I was talking about you.”

“
You hear anything from Kermit?”

“
No,” Sammy said. “Senorita Larone calls every day, but no Kermit.”

Michael took a drink of beer, and then ordered a plate of quesadillas. Sammy wrote it down, and then he passed the slip of paper back to the kitchen.

“
Anybody come around asking for me?”

“
No.” Sammy shook his head. “Should there be?”

“
Hope not.” Michael knocked twice on the wood bar in front of him.

As the evening went on, the bar started to empty and eventually only one other person besides Michael remained. He was an older man, probably in his early seventies. Too far past his prime to be a Deti hit man, Michael thought, but the old man kept looking at him. That made Michael nervous.

When their eyes met for the thirteenth or fourteenth time, the man said, “You look familiar.” He had a thick New York accent.

“
Must be mistaken.” Michael glanced at the door.

“
No.” He shook his head. “I swear I’ve seen that face.” The old man caught Sammy’s attention, ordered two beers, and walked from his end of the bar toward Michael. Then, without asking, he pulled up a stool.

“
If you’re here to kill me, just say so.”

The man laughed.

“
I’m a bit too old for that,” he said. “Maybe in my youth.” He stuck his hand out, and introduced himself as Stanley “Big Stan” Pappas.

“
You don’t look so big.”

“
I’ve shrunk.” Big Stan rubbed his nose and smiled, as Sammy placed two beers in front of them. “I worked the night beat for the N.Y.P.D. for thirty years,” he said. “That’s why you caught my attention. A lifetime of trying to remember a million faces.” Big Stan opened his wallet and placed a few bills on the bar, and then picked up the bottle and took two long draws.

“
Hard to turn off that switch.” He burped and returned his wallet to his back pocket. “You just wait; I’ll remember where I saw you before, just wait.”

“
Retired?”

Big Stan nodded. “Where you from, maybe I seen you back home?”

“
Boston, originally,” Michael said. “But I spent a few years living in the Vladick projects off Madison, finished up high school, and then got the hell out.”

“
I’m a product of beautiful Holmes Towers myself … well, what eventually became Holmes, but Vladick …” Big Stan brought the bottle to his lips. “Tough part of New York.”

In a way that is only possible with men, they talked for an hour and a half about nothing particular and nothing personal. Topics went from the weather today to the weather tomorrow to the weather this month, and then this season. There were the usual suspects of sports, crooked politicians, and the eternal debate over whether the feelings experienced during an orgasm and a Number Two stem from the same portion of the cerebral cortex.

During this time, Sammy kept serving up the beers. The Sunset didn’t have many rules, but so long as there were customers, the bar was open.

At three-thirty in the morning, Michael and Big Stan stumbled outside. Big Stan wanted to give Michael a tour of his Airstream, and Michael couldn’t really think of any reason not to accept the invitation.

Big Stan opened the door to the large aluminum bubble trailer.

“
This is a Safari 19. Others are larger, but after the wife died, this one just felt right.”

They walked down the center aisle, and Big Stan pointed out the Safari’s many features. He was especially proud of the television, located conveniently above the refrigerator, and then there was the shower directly across from it.

“
Got my laptop hooked up right here so I can get all the news from back home off the ol’ triple-W.” They both stared at Big Stan’s laptop computer, paying proper homage to the flat, black box.

“
When you think about it,” Big Stan surveyed his palace, “this is all the room you really need.”

Big Stan opened the refrigerator and took out a beer.

“
Another?”

“
No.” Michael started walking back down the trailer’s aisle. “Better be heading off.”

“
Hold on just a minute,” Big Stan said. “Only alcoholics drink alone, so don’t go makin’ me one.”

Michael had walked to the door, but stopped, deciding to stay.

He followed Stan to the dinette in the front of the Safari, and they sat down across from another. Whether it was his well lubricated mind or something else, Michael decided that he could venture into areas more pressing than sports and poop. “You ever run into Mario Deti?”

“
As a cop?”

Michael nodded, and Big Stan looked up at the ceiling as if he was searching for a memory floating around in the air above him.

“
Not run into, exactly, but you’d hear stories. Why?”

“
A friend.”

“
Good luck on that one.” Big Stan laughed. “Your friend want a job or what?”

“
Owes him money.”

Big Stan nodded.

“
Lots of people do.” They sat for another minute or two while Big Stan drained a good portion of his beer. “How much?”

“
A lot.”

“
Gambling?”

“
Not sure,” Michael said. “Not sure I want to know the details.”

“
Wise man.” Big Stan raised his beer to Michael, and then took another sip. “So how much is a lot?”

Michael started to say, and then hesitated.

“
Come on.” Big Stan choked back another burp. “It’s becoming increasingly unclear which portions of this conversation I’ll remember in the morning.”