Spiked (24 page)

The ladder finally reached a roof of heavy timber. Eddie stepped to a triangular platform. It creaked under its first load in decades, but seemed up to the task. He wormed his shoulders into a cubbyhole through an inner wall of the church, and emerged in a crawl space between the ceiling of the sanctuary and the roof of St. Francis de Sales.

The space was about four feet high, cluttered with a crisscross of wooden beams and a web of support wires. Fingers of dust hung from everything, swaying like undersea plants in the dead air Eddie had disturbed. He crouched on parallel wooden timbers, loose insulation between them. What was beneath the insulation? Maybe just thin plaster, like in the old triple-decker in the Acre. He would stay on the timbers, and off the Channel Eight news.

He kept the flashlight in his teeth and crept under support beams and over the wires. Above the altar, right where it should be, he found a metal winch bolted across three timbers. It was the size and shape of an overturned wheelbarrow. Brass gears interlocked on the outside of the winch. A crank handle screwed into an axle.

Eddie gripped the handle. “Okay, Father Wojick,” he whispered, “time to come home from California.”

He pulled.

And nothing happened. The crank didn't budge. He pushed. Still nothing.

“Don't piss me off, crank,” Eddie warned. He pushed it with his feet, and then tried again from the other side. The crank refused to listen. He looked closer.

A steel claw, the size of a finger, was wedged into a gear, locking it in place. The lock was on a pivot, but the stubborn thing would not move. Eddie pulled at it, and then kicked it with his heel. He was
so close
, and this foolish metal claw was thwarting him. He needed something to pry it open. He tugged at a support wire. It might have been possible to loop wire around the claw and pull it free, but he'd need a wrench to loosen a wire. And if he had a wrench, he wouldn't need wire.

Eddie unscrewed the crank handle, which, once removed from the machine, resembled a crowbar. He tried wedging it against the claw to pry it loose, but the end of the tool was too fat. Furious at this nagging little detail for which he had failed to plan, Eddie whacked the claw with the handle. A spark shot into the darkness. The clanking noise vibrated through the crawlspace.

He hit it again, and then again.

And the machine gave up its ghost.

Gears whirled. The giant crucifix plummeted on its chain like a battleship's anchor. Eddie shut his eyes and squeezed the penlight in his teeth. The chain whipped back an instant after the crash and rang the winch like a church bell. Plaster chunks scattered below.

By the time Eddie got back down, old Rusty had the tripod and a portable light set up. He panned the camera back and forth.

A vaguely human form was splayed face-up on the altar, arms and head bent limp over the edge of the sacramental table. Chunks of plaster clung to the form. There was no odor. The moisture in the body had long since evaporated through pores in the plaster. What remained was the husk.

Boden held a piece of white plaster embedded with a tuft of hair. The newsman's complexion had faded, and Eddie could see the spots touched up by makeup. Boden's bottom lip quivered. He glanced to the news clip Eddie had given him, and then said, “Is this—”

“Father Wojick,” Eddie confirmed. “That old news story is all wrong. He never ran away for a woman in California. And he never abandoned his flock. You'll set the record straight.”

Boden nodded. He swallowed, and then said, “Who did this to him, Ed?”

“That's the new mystery you'll offer your viewers tonight at six.”

Boden plopped into a dusty pew, showing no concern for his suit. He pulled out a cell phone and had a hushed, five-minute conversation. He raised his voice one time: “I am
not
drunk!”

He hung up and told Eddie, “I'm leading the broadcast tonight.” His eyes lingered on the form on the altar. “My boss will need smelling salts when she sees this video.”

Eddie asked, “What time you go on?”

“The news is at six.”

“No, what time do you go on—exactly what time.”

Boden studied his wristwatch. “The show's intro is ninety seconds. Then Jill and Willy introduce me and set the scene. Figure another thirty seconds. I'll be live by six-oh-two, the latest.”

“This needs to be exact, not a minute either way.”

“My watch is synchronized with the station clock,” Boden assured him.

“Great. Gimme your watch.”

“Why?”

“Because Rusty has one and I need yours tonight.”

Boden handed over his Rolex without protest.

The cameraman declared he was finished. Eddie sat next to Boden while Rusty packed. “Do me a favor,” Eddie said. “Cover my tracks, and don't call the cops or the diocese until the video is on the air. I don't want this story getting around before you break it.”

“Not a problem,” Boden said. “I'm sure they'll be calling me when they see it.”

They left the church with old Rusty bringing up the rear again. Eddie locked the door. Boden sent the cameraman away for video of the church exterior, and of the neighborhood. He offered his hand and left it there until Eddie shook it.

“Thanks,” Boden said. “For picking me.”

“Pull no punches tonight,” Eddie said, knowing that Boden never did. The Rolex read four-thirty. Plenty of time for a coffee before he barged into the office of Empire publisher Alfred T. Templeton.

“Gotta go,” Eddie said. “I need to quit my job.”

Chapter 34

Eddie slouched on the red vinyl bench and peered over a four-year-old edition of
Field & Stream
. Another police car slowly passed outside. That made three patrols in the twenty minutes since he had ducked into the barbershop on the outskirts of downtown.

“They're looking to take you in,” the barber said. He was stooped, and spotted with age and spoke in a thick Cuban accent.

Eddie spun around, startled. “What's that?” he said.

The barber looked oddly at Eddie. “I was joking to my friend here,” he said. He pointed a comb at his customer, a balding middle-aged man with a black beard that brushed his potbelly.

“Oh. Sorry.”

The barber grinned. “You got a guilty conscience, eh?” He went back to snipping his customer's black horseshoe of hair. “S'okay. S'okay. I give you a prison cut.”

Eddie laughed. “Are there normally so many cops around here?”

The barber shrugged. “What's normal? Seems like a lot today.”

Yeah, it seemed like a lot for the late afternoon shift. This was strange. The closer Eddie got to the Empire Building, the thicker the police patrols had become. They were looking for somebody. “Is there a phone around here?” he asked.

The barber pointed with scissors. “Pay phone outside, around the corner.”

Eddie went to the phone. He pried purple chewing gum off the coin slot with a discarded Popsicle stick and then jammed in fifty cents. Whom could he call? Whom did he trust? Eddie dialed an extension at The Empire.

“Newsroom,” answered Boyce Billips.

“Hey, it's Bourque.”

The intern shrieked in Eddie's ear and hung up.

“Boyce? Boyce? Hey!” Eddie said into the dead telephone.

What the hell is his problem?

Eddie dug another fifty cents from his pocket and dialed back.

A tiny voice answered after six rings, “Hello?”

“What's the matter with you?”

Boyce whispered, “Whatever happened, I just want to say I have nothing but respect for you and all the help you've given me the past year, and I'll say that under oath.”

Eddie checked Boden's Rolex—five minutes to five. “Goddammit, Boyce, I don't have time for riddles. Tell me what you're talking about.”

“
You don't know?
Please, Eddie, don't shoot the messenger—oh God, I didn't mean it like that! I mean it's just an expression….”

Eddie hollered, “Boyce!”

Eddie heard Boyce's telephone crash off his desk. After some fumbling noises, Boyce got back on the line. “Sorry,” he said with a nervous laugh, “dropped the phone.” He quickly added, “Not that I'm afraid or anything, it's just startling. I mean, you're startling, not the phone. Not you, personally, it's just….”

“Please,” Eddie interrupted. He turned his back to an approaching car, a late-model rust-colored sedan. He let it pass, and then gave a little sigh. “Tell me what's going on.”

“The cops, Eddie, the cops found the weapon, so just turn yourself in.”

“Again with the riddles? What weapon?”

He could hardly hear Boyce whisper, “The murder weapon.”

“You mean from Danny's murder? Jesus, Boyce, this is
good
news. Finally a breakthrough. Where'd they find it?”

There was a pause. Boyce creaked, “In your house.”

My house?
Eddie stood stunned, a man of marble with a telephone to his head.

“I guess some investigators went there early this morning,” Boyce continued.

Eddie wasn't sure he could speak. He was surprised to hear himself say, “Yeah, I had convinced the cops to follow up on a break-in at my place.”

“Like I said, whatever happened….”

“Shut up, Boyce,” Eddie hissed. “I didn't kill Danny.” He noted a rust-colored Buick slowly coming toward him.
Is that the same car from a minute ago?
“How do they know it's the murder weapon?”

“They found blood and fingerprints on it,” Boyce said. “The word leaked from the police lab a little while ago. It's Danny's blood. And
your
fingerprints—they match your media I.D. application.”

Eddie got stern. “Boyce, listen to me. This is a setup.”

“Uh-huh….”

The Buick stopped about forty yards from Eddie. Two people were inside. “Boyce, I'm in some trouble here, and I need you to believe me.”

“Whatever you say.”

“No, Boyce!” Eddie shouted. He caught himself and said calmly, “You have to believe me for real. Think about all we've gone through together.”

“Like what?”

Like what, indeed? Eddie tried another line of reasoning, “Think about all those emails about hepatitis you sent me last month. And remember the time you called at five in the morning when you thought you got V.D. from a picnic blanket?”

“There was something crusty on it.”

“Whatever,” Eddie said. “Boyce, think about all the annoying things you've done in the past year.”

Two men in black slacks and matching blue windbreakers got out of the Buick.

Eddie gently said into the phone, “If I was really a killer, wouldn't you be dead by now?”

The phone was silent.

The two men started walking toward Eddie. They had matching crew cuts and badges on their belts. Eddie recognized one of them from when he worked the night shift on the police beat.

“Think fast, man,” Eddie said. “I really gotta run.”

“Yes, I guess so. I'm sorry.”

“Forget it. Stick by the phone. I may need help.”

Eddie hung up and ran.

***

One cop raced back to the car.

The other raced after Eddie. He ran heavy, arms across his body, more like a football halfback than a track sprinter. Eddie tore across a parking lot, vaulted a low chain fence, cut through a playground and zigzagged down side streets into a neighborhood of low-rent apartments, mini-malls, and light manufacturing plants.

Fleeing on foot through back yards and back alleys kept Eddie's mind off what the police had found in his house. He thought only about getting away, and getting to the publisher's office in time for the six-o'clock news. He had one shot to squeeze Templeton for some answers about Danny, and he didn't care about the risk.

Up ahead, a police cruiser screeched to a stop, its nose diving at the ground. Eddie fled into an alley between two brick buildings. A big blue Dumpster blocked the way. He turned sideways and scraped past it, just as his pursuer on foot came into view.

“In the alley,” the cop huffed into his radio. “Seal the other end.”

The other end was thirty yards away. Eddie dashed for it. The rust-colored Buick beat him there; the car skidded on the concrete sidewalk and stopped across the narrow exit. Eddie hurdled the front fender in stride, slid over the hood and ran blindly across the street. Car horns blared. Brakes screamed. Somebody shouted, “Asshole!”

The driver gunned the Buick's engine. Tires spun on sand and the car roared after Eddie down a side street lined with interconnected faux-brick condominiums.

Eddie gasped for air. The Buick growled louder. Ahead on the left, a roll-down garage door was closing. Eddie dove under it and rolled. The door closed behind him. Outside, the Buick squealed to a stop.

Eddie rested on an oil-spotted cement floor, allowing himself a few deep breaths. He was in a one-car garage with a low-end Toyota and a scattering of dirt-caked garden tools. Three wooden stairs led to a doorway.

A doorbell chimed. A cop pounded the front door. “Police! Police!”

Eddie got up and made for the doorway. It led to a hall covered with pictures of an aged couple surrounded by what probably were grandchildren. A weather report blared at maximum volume from a television ahead. Eddie tiptoed down the hall. The doorbell rang again; he could barely hear it over the TV.

The condo had a spacious, open floor plan. To Eddie's left, their backs to him, an elderly couple sat hand in hand on a sofa, learning, at earsplitting volume, about a coming cold front. To Eddie's right was a dining room. Straight across—a back door.

There was no sense startling these people into heart attacks. Eddie crept behind them, and then let himself out the back. He was in a common courtyard with a parking lot, a few scattered hardwoods and picnic tables, enclosed by an iron fence.

Immediately, a police cruiser screamed around the building into the parking lot and stopped.

Now that's not fair
. Eddie broke into a sprint. No wonder criminals were so bad-tempered in court—the cops ganged up on them by radio. He headed for a gate in the fence. A uniformed officer jumped from the cruiser and raced after him. This guy was jar-headed and beefy, not a long-distance runner. But he was fresh and Eddie was near-exhausted and the chase stayed close through an urban industrial block of grimy brick buildings, loading docks and rusted tractor-trailer hulks.

A train whistled ahead.
The five-fifteen
. Gravity grabbed harder at Eddie's tired legs. The cop closed in behind him.

Eddie turned toward the whistle, onto the cement pad of a demolished warehouse. Kids had drawn a baseball diamond in blue chalk. Beyond the pad was a trash-strewn outfield of patchy grass, and beyond that, the railroad tracks.

The silver freight train, coming from Eddie's far right, clanged along at maybe fifteen or twenty miles per hour. He spied another police car on his far left. Both front doors opened and two more uniformed guys got out.

Eddie ran for the tracks, angling ahead of the train.

The two new cops yelled, “Stop! Police!”

Eddie would never stop, not before he learned what happened to Danny, and who had set him up.

The train hammered down the tracks, growing ever louder. Eddie pumped his burning thighs. His lungs sizzled like steaks on the grill. The cops yelled something he couldn't make out over the rumbling train. He focused on the tracks, at the spot he would cross ahead of the engine. The whistle was deafening.

He stretched one last stride across the tracks in the shadow of the locomotive. The engine nicked his right heel. His shoe flew off. The blow spun Eddie in a pirouette and deposited him, face down, in a crushed granite embankment on the far side of the tracks.

The trained clattered by. Three cops on the other side watched Eddie between the cars. He had maybe three minutes. He retrieved his shoe, some thirty feet down the tracks, and staggered away, down a concrete hill, under a highway overpass, and into the warehouse district. The cops no doubt had already radioed his position to other units. More officers, fresh and ready to run, were on their way. He had to hide, but where?
There's no time
.

An older-model Mercedes, a light lilac color, peeled around the corner and slammed to a stop. Eddie whirled and started back toward the hill.

“Bourque!” a voice yelled.

Eddie turned around. “Stan?”

Stan Popko leaned over and popped the front door. “Get in!”

Eddie dove into the front seat. Stan pounded the gas. The car jerked forward as Eddie was slamming the door.

“On the floor,” Stan ordered.

Eddie knelt in the foot space, panting, his head and chest on the seat. Stan drove off.

“Hello officers,” Stan said calmly to himself.

“More cops?”

“Going right past us. Just stay down.”

“How…how did you know?”

The dashboard police scanner crackled with excited voices, barking commands and relaying positions. Stan turned it off. “The police have been quite explicit in their description of the chase,” he said in his pitch-perfect monotone.

“You'll go to jail for helping me.”

Stan frowned. “Only if I'm caught.” He turned the car onto a residential boulevard. “Which seems highly improbable at this point.”

Eddie lay quiet for a minute. His strength came back. Who could have planted the weapon at his house? What kind of monster would allow Eddie to decompose inside maximum security for forty years to life? It struck him as bizarre that even the hitmen in the old mill had more compassion than whoever had set him up. The hitmen would have shot Eddie through the heart, but they wouldn't have murdered him little by little, for forty years.

“I didn't kill Danny,” Eddie told him.

Stan said, “You are a thorough and cunning investigator. I find a low probability that you would leave incriminating evidence in your dwelling. And though I have knowledge of several unlawful activities you have perpetrated during your investigation, those crimes were consistently committed toward a uniform higher moral purpose.”

“You believe me?”

“Didn't I just say so?”

Chuck Boden's wristwatch said the time was nearly five-thirty. “Barely half an hour,” Eddie said. “I need a phone.”

Stan handed him his minuscule cell.

“Start heading toward The Empire,” Eddie directed, while dialing. “And pay attention to this call. We gotta work together.” Into the phone, he said, “Boyce, here's what I need you to do….”