The 7th Canon (18 page)

Connor blew more smoke. “None. Like I said, this time I’m the guy holding your nut sack.” Connor shook his head, looking disgusted. “You know, it would be just like you not to trust a man at his word. That’s the difference between me and you. You throw your word around like cheap confetti. It ain’t worth shit. But I’m willing to trust you, anyway, Gil. And you sure as hell better trust me.” Connor waved the cigar and turned again for the door. “Or I could just meander through your guests—”

“No.”

Connor turned around. “I didn’t hear you, Gil?”

Ramsey stood rigid. “I’ll get you a job. I’ll put you on the payroll. You won’t have to do a thing.”

Connor laughed. “You mean, like, maybe your bodyguard? That would be cool. You and me hanging out in Sacto? We’d be a pair, wouldn’t we?” Connor’s eyes narrowed. His jaw tightened. “And my old man? Are you going to get him a job, too? Are you going to dig him up and prop his corpse in a chair somewhere?” Connor’s face turned dark. His voice hardened. “I don’t want a job, Gil. I want justice. I want what my old man was entitled to. Five hundred thousand. You have one week.”

Connor started for the French doors.

“The kid you put in the hospital provides the defense a key witness,” Ramsey said.

Connor turned.

“And there’s a log of the boys who stay at the shelter each night. Apparently, everything they bring in is catalogued.”

“Not my problem, Gil,” Connor said.

Ramsey stepped forward, teeth clenched. “I’d say it’s both of our problem. If someone figures this out, you no longer hold anyone’s nut sack. I’ll be holding yours. And I’ll squeeze until you turn blue. You want five hundred thousand dollars, earn it.”

Connor smiled. “Don’t get tough with me, Gil. It’s not your style.”

Ramsey pointed. “If this comes apart, Connor, you won’t want to see my style.”

Connor grabbed Ramsey’s finger and bent it violently backward. The pain dropped Ramsey to his knees. Connor pressed the tip of the cigar into the palm of Ramsey’s hand. “Don’t scream, Gil. You don’t want anyone coming through that door. How would it look, you on your knees and all?”

Ramsey gritted his teeth, groaning. His forehead dripped perspiration.

“Do not threaten me,” Connor said. “One week. After that, the price goes up a hundred grand a day.” Connor patted Ramsey’s cheek and released his finger. As he passed the desk, he opened the humidor and helped himself to a handful of cigars. “You don’t mind, do you, Gil? It being Christmas and all. Don’t get up. I know my way out.” He stepped through the French doors onto the deck, stopped, and turned back. Ramsey remained on his knees. “And Gil . . .”

Gil Ramsey lifted his head.

“I know my way back in, too.”

Donley bounced the Saab into the parking lot and jerked to a stop near the emergency entrance, beneath a black-and-white sign mounted on the wall. He didn’t bother to read it. He really didn’t care.

Mike Harris struggled out of his seat belt. “This is a doctor’s stall, Peter.”

“They can tow it.”

Donley jogged to the emergency entrance, Harris following. He had a pit in his stomach the size of a softball. The emergency-room doors slid open. “Father Thomas Martin,” he said, approaching a nurse seated behind the counter.

She ignored him. He wasn’t in the mood to be ignored.

“Father Thomas Martin,” he said more forcefully. “The sheriff’s deputies brought him in about thirty minutes ago.”

The nurse put a defiant hand on her hip. “Are you a relative?”

“I’m his lawyer.”

Donley noticed two deputies at the end of the hall and started for them. Harris grabbed him by the arm and wheeled him in the opposite direction. “Take it easy, Peter. This isn’t her fault.”

Donley pulled his arm free, directing his comments to the deputies. “Whose fault is it? Who’s going to take the blame?”

Harris flashed his badge and pulled Donley farther down a short hall to a room with vending machines. He held him by the shoulders. “Take a seat.”

Donley resisted. The adrenaline pumped through his system, the way it felt back in high school on the football field, when he was about to unload on a ball carrier.

“Take a seat, Peter. You aren’t going to be of any help to him or anyone else if your ass is in jail.”

Donley walked away, pacing while Harris walked down the hall to talk to the deputies. The telephone call to Donley’s home had been from a sheriff’s deputy at the jail who said he found Donley’s business card on the ground near the priest’s body but could provide no further information on Father Tom’s condition.

Harris returned after several minutes. “Sit.”

Donley kept pacing. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“No, he’s not dead. Sit down.”

Donley realized he was taking out his anger on the wrong people. He sat on a bench. Harris fished change from his pockets and purchased a soft drink from a vending machine, holding it out to Donley.

Donley waved it away. “Just tell me what happened?”

“They’re not certain.”

Donley rolled his eyes. “Come on, Mike.”

“An order came down for Father Martin to have his blood drawn.”

Donley looked at him wide-eyed. “Tonight? They did it tonight?”

“Keep your voice down, Peter.” He looked down the hall at the deputies. “They didn’t have to tell me anything. The order said
immediately
. When an order comes in, it’s carried out. The time of day or night is not relevant. These guys are on the clock twenty-four-seven.” Harris cracked his neck. “But to answer your question, no, it didn’t have to be carried out tonight. The deputy who transported Father Martin completed a shift and went home. Nobody has been able to reach him. When Father Martin was finished, there was a whole new shift on duty.”

Donley took another deep breath. “So, what happened?”

“Apparently the deputy who came on duty to transport Father Martin back to his cell had been off duty the past seventy-two hours. He had no idea who Father Martin was.”

“And?”

“And he put him in general population.”

Donley felt the softball in his stomach drop. “Oh, shit.”

“It happens,” Harris said, though he didn’t sound convincing.

“Bullshit. We both know that’s not the case. This is my fault.”

“How is it your fault?”

It had all been fun and games, toying with St. Claire and Ramsey, but now it could have cost Father Tom his life. “You told me to keep it quiet. You said to keep my mouth shut. All that stuff I said today in court about the evidence and the motion—they don’t think they can win.”

“Who?”

“Ramsey, the DA’s office, whoever is behind this.”

“That’s a huge jump, Peter.”

“Is it? You said this guy Connor is not the kind of cop to screw up a crime scene, but he did. Father Martin didn’t have to have his blood drawn tonight, but he did. Then he somehow ends up back in general circulation. Something is not right about any of this, Mike.”

“What are you saying? That there’s some conspiracy to get Father Martin?”

“All I know is, Father Martin didn’t kill Andrew Bennet.”

Harris looked him in the eye. “You sure about that?”

“Don’t go all cop on me now, Mike.”

“That’s not fair, Peter.”

The vending machines hummed from down the hall. “I’m sorry.” Donley wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer but asked the question, anyway. “What did they do to him?”

“They found him unconscious on a cell floor. Of course, nobody saw or heard anything, but one of the gorillas down the hall said your boy gave as good as he got. He just got overpowered.”

Donley leaned his head against the wall to wait.

After forty minutes, a man in surgical scrubs approached the nurses’ station and spoke to the nurse, who pointed to Donley and Harris. They stood as the doctor approached.

“I’m Dr. Araj,” the man said, removing a blue surgical cap.

“How is he?” Donley asked.

“Not good. We’ve relieved the pressure from the swelling in his brain and stopped the internal bleeding, but he sustained a serious head injury. He’ll be in the recovery room for another forty-five minutes or so. I wouldn’t plan on speaking to him tonight. It will be a while.”

After the doctor had departed, Donley held out the keys to the Saab. “Go on back to the party. There’s no sense both of us waiting. Your kids shouldn’t be punished for this; Benny’s too young to know the difference.”

Harris shook his head. “My kids will be in bed soon. We’ll handle this together, just like we used to.”

“I hope not. We didn’t always handle things too well.”

Harris studied the linoleum floor. “We’ve done all right, considering where we came from.” He finished the soft drink and played with the can, flexing the aluminum, making crinkling noises. “Maybe it’s time you told Kim what happened that night.”

Donley shook his head. “And what exactly would I tell her?”

“The truth. Just tell her the truth. She loves you, Peter. That won’t change.”

Donley wasn’t so sure.

Danny Simeon lay in the dark, small bursts of red, orange, and green lights pulsing on the consoles all around him. He continued to float in and out of consciousness and suspected it was the drugs being administered through an IV drip in his right arm, making everything fuzzy. His tongue felt as though it was coated with hair. When he turned his head or shifted his eyes, the room followed a split second behind, like a time-lapsed photograph. At least the excruciating pain in his side and jaw was better now, just a dull ache.

The doctor said he was lucky. He said X-rays revealed the nightstick had not ruptured his spleen or kidneys, though they were bruised and he continued to pass blood. Simeon had also suffered bruised ribs that would keep him in pain for the better part of the next few weeks. When he coughed, he felt like someone was stabbing him with a knife. Connor had also cracked two of Simeon’s teeth, but his jaw was not broken. He would not be eating pureed food through a straw.

Simeon concentrated on a small orange light blinking across the room. He felt an urgency to stay awake, to leave, but he was having difficulty remembering why. In fact, it was difficult to remember much about the past three days. His body wanted to let the soothing warmth of the drugs help him drift to sleep, but his mind fought against that desire. Each time he closed his eyes, drifting on the gentle waves, images jarred him awake: Father Tom being led from the shelter in handcuffs, covered in blood.

Then he would drift again, wake, drift and wake, drift . . .

Slipping toward sleep, he was vaguely aware when the door to his room had opened, a wedge of light spilling into the darkness. He heard the voice a split second before the hand gripped his throat, cutting off the flow of air.

“Hello, Dingo. Did you miss me?”

Simeon opened his eyes, the room remained fuzzy, but the voice was unmistakable. Dixon Connor. He’d used what had been Simeon’s street nickname.

Connor drew closer, his wide face and flat head a spinning blur in the dark. Simeon gasped for air. Connor squeezed tighter.

“Are they taking good care of you? This must be heaven for a junkie lowlife like you. Free drugs, a clean bed, and a pretty little nurse.”

Connor’s breath smelled of alcohol and cigarettes.

“We have some unfinished business, you and me,” Connor said.

Simeon grabbed Connor’s wrist, but it was thick as a tree limb, and his own arms felt weak from the drugs.

“The side effects of prescribed narcotics can be a bitch, especially for someone who has abused drugs and alcohol. A hospital can’t be held responsible. Organs can shut down. A patient can suffocate or drown in his own spit.” Connor leaned closer, whispering, “And nobody would even look into it.”

Simeon felt himself losing consciousness. He struggled to breathe, inhaling short, thin breaths.

Connor maintained pressure. “See how easy that would be? Just like squishing a bug. Now, I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to give me an answer. You give me the right answer, and I leave you alone with your plastic bottle here. You don’t, and I ask the question again. And Dingo, I don’t like to ask questions more than once. Got it? First question: Does Father Martin keep a record of the little pricks who stay at the shelter each night?”