The Judgment (48 page)

He meant it as a joke, a serious joke, but I thought he made his point pretty well.

“So,” I said, “what do you do?”

“I do the only thing that any sensible adult who’s thought about these matters would do. I take a chance. Way back in the seventeenth century, Pascal called it the
divine wager. You just have to bet there is a God of the sort we believe in, the kind we’ve accepted all these centuries. Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, said we had to take a ‘death-defying leap.’”

“A what?”

He laughed. “I admit it doesn’t translate very well, but it’s a good image. If you ever went to the circus as a kid, you saw the acrobats. I guess they call them aerialists. They leap from the trapeze, maybe do a somersault in the air, and all they can do is hope their partner is there, swinging from the other trapeze to make the catch. I guess he was talking specifically about immortality, but what he really meant was the leap of faith. Thomas Aquinas notwithstanding, there is a point at which all rational approaches to God fail, and you have to take that leap into the unknown, the leap of faith.”

As far as Father Phil was concerned, that seemed to end it. He’d had his say. He sat back and looked at me, certainly not triumphantly, as if everything that needed to be said had been said, but hopefully, as if he hoped some of this had done some good.

I hoped it had, too, but I wasn’t so sure. I gave him high marks for honesty, but I would have to think about what he had said. I didn’t say that to him, though. I backed off and changed the subject, more or less.

“Whatever else, Father, this conversation was certainly a lot different from the one I had in Hub City with Father Albertus.”

“We’re both priests, but it’s a big Church, Charley. We have our differences. He’d probably call for a ban of excommunication on me if he’d been witness to some of the things I’ve said to you just now. But he’s a good man and a good priest. Whatever else, you must remember he’s under a terrible strain at the present.”

“In what way?”

“He lost a nephew about a month ago, a boy very dear to him, as I understand. We were at a retreat together. He missed the first day because he went back to Detroit to
say a funeral Mass for his nephew. Then he had to leave a couple of days early because of the death of that first boy—Lee Higgins was his name—the first one in these gruesome murders.”

“So there were funeral Masses at the beginning and the end for him?” I prompted.

“Yes, he was only around for a couple of days, if that. He said he’d looked forward to the retreat, too, getting away from his parish duties. Those mission churches out in the boondocks really keep him hopping around. They were all his children, you know.”

“Pardon? I don’t quite …”

He caught himself and grinned in embarrassment. “That was a bit of a non sequitur, wasn’t it? No, what I meant was that he saw all his parishioners as his children. It’s a terrible thing for a priest, especially since two were actually in his parish.”

“Not the last one, though. The French boy from Copper Creek.”

“No. He and his family worshipped at another church.”

I was about to ask another question when the doorbell rang.

Father Phil rose. “That’d be Bob. Have I restored your faith, Charley?” It was said with that same wry smile.

“Hallelujah!”

“All right, give me a break. But think about what I’ve said, and if you’d like, I could lend you some books. Unamuno’s good, won’t insult your intelligence.” Then, as we went together to the door, he added, “And prayer, Charley, prayer can help a lot.”

It was Bob Williams, all right, standing patiently with a serious look on his face. He seemed relieved when he saw we were wearing smiles. I said my good-bye to the priest, and he said he hoped we’d stay in touch. That was how we left it.

Bob had the good sense, or the tact, not to inquire deeply into my session in the rectory. His only comment came as we walked to the car.

“Good man, isn’t he?”

I gave an affirmative grunt, and that seemed to satisfy him. But on the drive back to my place, I gave some thought to the priest and, of course, what he’d had to say to me. Yes, Father Phil was decent. And in spite of his talk about the leap of faith, he was more of an intellectual than I had expected to encounter here in Pickeral Point. I wondered how he had managed to escape the Jesuits. Prayer? About the only praying I’d done in the last thirty years or so was the one we said at the end of every Double-A meeting. But yes, I’d give some thought to our discussion. How could I dismiss things that we said with such humility? He’d talked to me more as a fellow sufferer than as at priest, the sort of priest I was used to, anyway.

It wasn’t easy trying to get rid of Bob. He went with me up to my apartment and offered to make a pot of coffee. I think he wanted to be reassured that I didn’t have another bottle stashed away someplace. I didn’t, but I was damned if I was going to tell him so. In the end, he had a Diet Coke, and I brewed up that same hangover remedy I’d fixed for Sue Gillis. It was pretty fierce. How did she ever manage to get it down? Bob suggested delicately that I might do well to look for professional counseling. I told him I’d think about it. Not long afterward, I kicked him out. I told him I was exhausted, wanted to go to bed and sleep it off. A little reluctantly, he rose and forced a smile.

“Call if you need me, Charley. Don’t worry about the hour. I’ll come in the middle of the night.”

“I’ll be okay, Bob. I’m sure I will.”

“We’ll get together for dinner whenever you want.”

“During the week,” I said.

“I really do blame myself for this.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” He put out his hand, and I shook it.

“If you don’t, I’ll call you.”

He backed away into the hall and turned once to wave, then I eased the door shut.

I was exhausted. I undressed, throwing my clothes indifferently onto a chair, then threw myself just as indifferently into bed. But sleep wouldn’t come, not immediately. Something nagged at me. It was that bit of information that had been passed on to me about Father Charles Albertos. He’d been at the retreat only two days, perhaps less. That might have put him in Hub City at the time that both Lee Higgins and Catherine Quigley were murdered. It might, but so what? So were all the rest of the citizens of Kerry County. I’d simply been misinformed by his housekeeper. Still, it was strange that two of the murdered children were from churches ministered to by him. This was an area that was heavily, even preponderantly, Catholic. What did I expect? I ran it through my mind a couple of times, perhaps three, looking at it this way and that, trying to decide what it was that nagged at me. I must have given up then, for sleep came at last, and with it no bad dreams, thank God. That’s pretty funny. Me, of all people, thanking God.

Although I hadn’t slept badly, with all that alcohol in my system I was hung over, dehydrated, and felt greatly in need of a drink. So I coped with the situation as best I could, drank a lot of water, and had another one of my hangover specials. That took away my desire for a drink, and for that matter took away my desire to eat, as well. Not that I could have kept anything down.

Before I left for the office, I tried my answering machine. Pulling out the phone jack had scrambled it badly, so that when I pushed playback, what I got were messages from a couple of weeks ago, or maybe even further back. So I had to listen to the whole tape. At the end of it, there were the messages from Sue I’d expected to hear, demanding my presence at her parents’ Thanksgiving feast, and angrily repeating it on successive calls. Then there was one I couldn’t figure out.

“Charley, this is Dominic,” I heard Dominic say. “I
been calling you at your office, which was probably a mistake. But I need you, Charley. They got me here at the station house, and I need you here now. You said you’d be available any time. Charley? Charley?”

When was that? It had to be a call that came in on Thanksgiving. As it happened, it was the last message on the tape. I must have pulled the jack right after it was recorded. Then, when I plugged the phone back in, whenever that was, the answering machine had rewound and gone on strike. I’d have to reprogram it or something. But that could wait. I grabbed the county phone book and searched for Dominic Benda’s phone number.

Peg answered. She seemed reluctant to talk when I identified myself.

“Oh, Mr. Sloan, I don’t know. He’s here, all right, but I don’t think he wants to talk to you. He’s still mad at you, but he’s even madder at Larry Antonovich and that Sue Gillis. Larry came for him right when we were sitting down to dinner with the whole family. ‘Questioning,’ he called it.”

“I’m sorry, Peg,” I said. “I had no idea.”

“I mean the kids were there and everything, seeing their grandpa getting taken in like that. It just wasn’t right. He didn’t put cuffs on him or anything, but it just wasn’t right.”

“No, it wasn’t. I’ll talk to Dominic about it later. Just tell him I’m deeply sorry he had to go through that alone, sorry he had to go through it at all. Give him my apologies.”

“I will, Mr. Sloan. I’ll tell him when he cools down.”

With that behind me, I set off for the office, thinking grim thoughts about Sue and her ideas of what might be fair in love and war. Mrs. Fenton’s ancient but well-preserved Plymouth sat in its usual corner of the small office parking lot. She awaited me upstairs. I’d have to get past her to start the day.

As it happened, like so an
expression even more strained and disapproving than usual. Without a word, she handed me a stack of messages. I thanked her and started for my private office.

“When you weren’t back by lunchtime,” she said, addressing my back, “I began telling them you wouldn’t be coming in.”

“And right you were, Mrs. Fenton.”

“I tried to reach you at home several times. I think you switched off your phone.”

“Things happen,” I said and shut the door.

There were seven messages. Sue Gillis and Mark Conroy had each called me once. Dominic Benda had called me twice, and Ismail Carter had put in three calls, the last in the afternoon. I wadded the message from Sue Gillis and tossed it in the wastebâsket, decided to allow the talk I’d had earlier with Peg stand as a response to Dominic’s two calls, and picked up the phone and punched in Mark Conroy’s number. He picked up. I hoped that didn’t mean that his wife had moved out.

“Yeah, I was just checking in,” he said. “I guess you took the day off. You want me to find another phone and call you back?”

“No need,” I said. “But stick around. I may be calling you again.”

“I have no place to go.”

“Later, then.”

After I’d hung up, I gave some thought to Mark Conroy. He sounded glum, discouraged, and for good reason. If Ismail Carter had tried three times to reach me, then he must have something important to say. While I had reason to hope, Conroy had none. No wonder he was down. Since Ismail had no telephone in his room, I thought it best simply to wait.

Yet, knowing I could not bet all my money on the results of that mysterious trip in the rain to Manoogian Mansion, I hauled out the file on the Conroy case and began going through it carefully for the umpteenth time, checking my notes, rereading, and stopping frequently to
speculate. Powered by a new surge of energy that seemed to come from nowhere at all, I began to see things I hadn’t seen before.

What I saw was that the prosecution’s star witness was actually its weak point. The Mouse had access to the money. He had motive. He had opportunity. Put him before a jury, and I’d make him the villain of the piece. Hell, with that gangster face and huge body, he looked like the villain, and that alone should be enough to persuade most jurors. And if the prosecution dared put Mary Margaret Tucker on the stand, I’d prove she had access, motive, and opportunity, too—my theory of the crime. I began to see that I had a chance, maybe even a good chance, with or without Ismail’s help. What I had to do to win was attack, attack, and attack. Benjamin Timothy wouldn’t know what hit him.

Feeling empowered, I buzzed Mrs. Fenton and told her to get the Parkview Convalescent Hospital on the line. The call came through, and I found myself talking to the cute little receptionist. I could handle her.

“Switch me,” I said, with a threat in my voice, “to the phone nearest Ismail Carter. This is Charles Sloan. I’m an attorney and I need to speak to him.”

Just like that I had the floor supervisor.

“Are you speaking to me on a cordless phone?”

I knew damned well she was. I’d seen her using it.

“Yes, I am,” she said, clearly taken aback.

“Then bring it with you to Mr. Carter’s room and hand it to him. This is Charles Sloan. Mr. Carter and I have business to discuss.”

“He tried all day Friday to reach you, and you weren’t there.”

“I know that. And that’s precisely why I’m calling now.”

That did it. There was a pause of about half a minute.

“He just woke up. He’s been napping. Here he is.”

“Charley?”

“Tell her to take a walk, Ismail.”

He cackled at that and repeated the suggestion to the nurse. There was a pause, and then he said she was gone.

“How come you’ve got everything else in that room of yours but a phone?”

“Aw, they say it’ll disturb my daytime sleeping. All I do is sleep, seems to me.”

“What have you got for me?”

“Instructions, Charley. What day of the week is this, anyway? It’s easy to lose count where I am.”

“It’s Monday. Sorry I missed your calls on Friday.”

“Never mind that. But okay, it’s Monday. Now, day after tomorrow, Wednesday, you go to 1300 Beaubien at nine o’clock in the morning for an examination of Mark Conroy’s office. You have already petitioned for this. I’m told the visit’s all part of the discovery process, or something like that. I’m not a lawyer, so I really don’t know what that means. But like I say, it’s all been fixed up. You just go there.”

“I understand.”

“And when you get there, Charley, you’re to give special attention to the safe. You got that?”

“Got it.”