VC03 - Mortal Grace (23 page)

“Is that so.”

She smiled as though she had been complimented. “I know, people are always telling me I don’t look like a psychologist—as though I should wear spectacles and a beard and smoke cigars. Of course, you meet with a lot of drug abuse in your work too.” She handed him his diet Pepsi in a highball glass. The glass had Harvard University’s insignia etched into it.

“Drug abuse can play a part.”

“Douglas has told me about you. Forgive me, but I’m fascinated.” Her eyes flicked up. “Oh, there you are, Dougie.”

Douglas Moseley glided into the room. He was in full evening dress and he was folding down the aerial of a cellular telephone. “Anyone need anything?” He thunked the phone down on the bar and poured himself a generous Stoli on ice. He clinked glasses with Cardozo. Light flashed from the emeralds in his cuff links.

“Thanks for stopping by, Vince. I know how busy you are. I understand you’re acquainted with a good friend of mine—David Lowndes?”

“I’ve met him.”

“David tells me that you headed the team that investigated that dead girl they found in the Vanderbilt Garden.”

“That’s right.”

“David feels perhaps you shouldn’t be on the rectory break-in case.”

“Why does he feel that?”

Moseley’s right forefinger was stroking the rim of his glass. “David senses some kind of bad blood between you and Father Joe Montgomery.”

“He’s nuts.”

Moseley stood there nodding, not giving it much, just showing he was a man of goodwill, able to see all sides. “Nonetheless, it might save us all a lot of trouble if you were to remove yourself from this investigation.”

“It’s not up to me. I’m a grunt. I follow orders.”

Moseley twisted his glass between both hands and studied the miniature whirlpool he had created. “Your captain says he’ll be glad to remove you if you request it.”

“He hasn’t said it to me.” Cardozo crossed the room and set his unfinished drink on the bar. “Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

Both Moseleys had shocked looks, as if they had gravely misjudged the man standing on their jade-and-beige oriental rug.

“In that case, thanks for your hospitality.”

THIRTY

A
HALF HOUR LATER
, Cardozo was sitting in a lawn chair in the yard behind a stucco home in Queens. Anger was still making his mind buzz. “Guys like Moseley think they own this city.”

“And they’re not far wrong.” Tom O’Reilly reached for the sangria pitcher. He refilled Cardozo’s glass and then his own. “Moseley is damned unhappy you’re on the case.”

“He said you’d take me off if I requested a transfer. Did you tell him that?”

“Of course not. But if you asked me to transfer you, I would.”

Cardozo glanced at his captain. The red-jowled face maintained a careful neutrality. There were times when Cardozo distrusted neutrality. “So Moseley’s bluffing.”

“Be careful, Vince. He has power.”

“Not enough to direct a police investigation.”

“Don’t be so sure. Father Montgomery’s a well-connected man. His friends are going to see that he’s spared any grief.”

Cardozo stared up at the sky. The last light of day was flickering on the treetops. He could hear crickets in the bushes and a neighbor’s dog barking, and somewhere farther off, a lone frog.

“You have to follow guidelines,” O’Reilly was saying.

“Tell me once when I haven’t followed guidelines.”

“You can’t comment to the press. No remarks about the investigation. Everything gets handled through the office of the deputy commissioner for press relations.”

“That kindergarten. The department of cover-my-ass.”

O’Reilly didn’t deny it. “Those are the ground rules. If you can’t accept them, save us all a headache and get off the case now.”

“What are Montgomery’s friends scared of?”

O’Reilly shrugged.

Cardozo frowned, sensing something off-center. “Don’t tell me they’ve got you scared too.”

“Don’t make a conspiracy of it. It’s normal consideration when the poor guy’s blind.”

“Blind?” Cardozo set his drink down with a soft clink on the glass-top table. “What are you talking about?”

“Father Montgomery can’t see.”

“Who says?”

“His doctor says.”

“Since when?”

“Since they examined him this afternoon in Doctors Hospital.”

A screen door slammed and Tom O’Reilly’s wife came out of the house carrying a tray of hamburger patties and sliced sesame-seeded rolls.

“Are you staying for the cookout, Vince?” She was a slight woman with neat gray hair and cheerful blue eyes. “There’s more than enough.”

The idea of Betty O’Reilly’s barbecued burgers was tempting, but Cardozo pushed up from his chair.

“Thanks, Betty, but can I take a rain check?”

The door to the hospital room was halfway ajar. Cardozo could see Father Montgomery sitting up in bed. He had a melancholy and beaten look.

Sonya Barnett, his actress friend, had pulled a chair to the bedside and was reading aloud from
The New Yorker.
“This magazine used to be so good,” she said, “and now they’ve ruined it.”

Cardozo knocked. “Am I interrupting?”

Father Montgomery turned his head and smiled. At least it was a brave try at a smile. “Not at all.”

“We’re just being cozy.” Sonya Barnett tossed away her reading specs. Their fall was broken by a cord of pink gift-wrap ribbon tied around her neck.

Cardozo approached the bed. “Do you remember me, Father Montgomery—Vince Cardozo, your cop friend from a year and a half ago?”

“Why, yes.” Father Montgomery’s gaze seemed to float without finding anything to moor itself to. “You borrowed my talent file.”

“And I’ve had to borrow it again.”

“There haven’t been many changes, I’m afraid. I haven’t been as active theatrically lately as I’d like to be. Did you meet my good friend and neighbor, Sonya Barnett?”

“Yes, indeed.” Ms. Barnett extended a hand. She was wearing a short-sleeved high-necked linen blouse, and her arm was almost completely freckled. She offered an enormous gift box of chocolates. “The round ones are champagne truffles. They’re divine.”

“Thanks. I already ate.” It was a lie, but Cardozo intended to eat, and he hated to start a meal with dessert.

“Then I guess poor old Joe and I will have to eat them all ourselves.” Which seemed to be Sonya Barnett’s way of stating that she had no intention of leaving her friend alone with any member of the NYPD.

Cardozo drew up a second chair. “Tell me, Father—do you have any idea of the identity of the young man who was found in the rectory?”

“No, I don’t—but I didn’t really get a clear look at him. My vision…hasn’t been good lately.”

“Do you have any idea how he could have gotten in?”

“He must have broken in.”

“There’ve been break-ins in the rectory lately,” Sonya Barnett said.

“Did you report any of them?” Cardozo directed the question to Father Montgomery.

Father Montgomery hesitated. “No…”

“Well, you told me about them,” Sonya Barnett said. “I can vouch for that.”

“But you didn’t report them to the authorities. Why not?”

“I did report a break-in. It was committed by a young man named Tom Lanner.”

“Pewee.” Sonya Barnett made a face. “Revolting young punk.”

“But that wasn’t a break-in,” Cardozo said. “At least not according to the charge you filed.”

Father Montgomery’s jaw moved but only a stuttering sound came out. It was as if his brain had short-circuited and was seeking out new ways to connect old wires. “I didn’t report the others because…I’d had an operation, and I was—I was recovering…. They’d given me a general anesthetic.”

“The effects of that anesthesia linger,” Sonya Barnett said. “Especially when you reach Joe’s and my age. Remember how you were imagining things, Joe?”

“That’s right. I couldn’t be sure what was my imagination and what wasn’t.”

“Did thieves ever take anything from the church?”

Father Montgomery hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

“Honestly, Joe.” Sonya Barnett was shaking her head sternly. “Those scavengers cleaned you out—vestments, collection plates, books, candlesticks, chalices, the works!”

“I can’t be sure,” Father Montgomery said. “Aside from Tom Lanner…I had a feeling things had been rearranged…possibly mislaid.”

“Or stolen. You’ve got to tell the truth, Joe. Stop protecting criminals.”

“They’re not criminals.” Father Montgomery’s voice was weary.

“What about the one who attacked you in the park?” Sonya Barnett arched an eyebrow at Cardozo. “What the dickens do you call that?”

Father Montgomery reached fumbling hands for a pipe on the bedside table. He packed it with sweet-smelling tobacco and struck three matches trying to light it. He was good at dawdling.

“Could you tell me a little about that attack?” Cardozo said.

Silence pressed down on the room. Father Montgomery exhaled wearily. Smoke spiraled through the air like a flattened galaxy. “I’d hardly call it an attack. It was a nuisance, really. A young man came up to me and demanded my wallet. Which, being a nonviolent man, I handed over.”

“Damned pussycats like you are killing this town,” Sonya Barnett said. “I’d have hooked that punk in the kisser.”

“Did this young man have a weapon?”

Father Montgomery shook his head. “Nothing but his right fist.”

“Were you hurt?”

“You must have been talking to Bonnie.” Father Montgomery smiled faintly. “She’s a dear, but a little overprotective of old gents like me.”

“Were you hurt?”

“He…hurt my eye.”

“Can you describe him?”

“He looked angelic—”

“They all look angelic to you,” Sonya Barnett scoffed.

“He was young.”

“How young?”

“Oh, fourteen or so. I remember he was very frightened—it was probably his first mugging. He wore a woolen watch cap pulled down over his ears—khaki-colored.”

“Height?”

“Maybe five-six, five-seven.”

“Weight?”

“I’m terrible at estimating weight. It’s probably part of my denial—I eat so much of Sonya’s candy.”

“That’s what it’s there for, you numbskull.”

“Race?”

Father Montgomery’s head tilted. “What does race have to do with it?”

“Race is a useful part of the description.”

“I don’t see that it’s relevant. In any case…I’m not sure I can recall.”

Give me a break
, Cardozo thought.
You had your eyesight and you didn’t notice his race? The Supreme Court says laws should be color-blind, not people.
“Did you report the mugging?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“What would have been the point?”

“Joe, you have no public spirit. We can’t let these punks run our lives.”

“I know, I know.” Father Joe raised a hand, silencing her. “I was tired—I suppose I was in shock. And I was scared. I’ve never been scared that way before. It seemed to paralyze my will.”

“Why, Joe, you never said a word about it.”

“I had a feeling I was being stalked.”

“Stalked by who?” Cardozo said.

“I couldn’t tell. Perhaps the mugger. Perhaps somebody else. Or perhaps I was imagining it. I thought I noticed robberies in the rectory and church, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Is that why you rigged a booby trap in the rectory?”

Father Montgomery nodded. “Yes, I put a steam iron on top of a door.”

“Why, Joe,” Sonya Barnett said, “you’re a regular Thomas Alva Edison with your contraptions.”

“I’m afraid that’s how my poor housebreaker chap got stunned.”

“Your poor housebreaker chap never recovered consciousness,” Cardozo said.

Father Montgomery drew himself up a little higher in the bed. “He’s still unconscious?”

“He died this afternoon.”

“The hell you say!” Sonya Barnett cried.

Father Montgomery was making that stuttering sound again. “I truly didn’t—oh, God—I didn’t mean to—”

Sonya Barnett patted his hand. “Of course you didn’t, darling.”

Father Montgomery’s fingers tore at the hem of his bedsheet. “I only meant to scare him off.”

“Apparently,” Sonya Barnett said, “you built better than you knew.”

Cardozo realized that Father Montgomery’s defense rested upon proving his state of mind—intense fear—which in turn rested upon proving that the mugging in the park had actually taken place. He had a feeling that Father Montgomery realized it too.

Cardozo walked to the window. Beyond the double-glazing the colors of the day were finally dying. The darkening sky flowed with jet planes, blinking like a circuit board. “Tell me something, Father. Did anyone else see the attack?”

“There was a chatty woman with a dog—she was feeding the birds—she tried to be helpful, but really there wasn’t much to be done.”

“Do you remember her name?”

“I’m not sure she ever told me. She had extraordinary red hair.”

“Some women really should not resort to the dye pot,” Sonya Barnett said, and Cardozo flashed that it was a point of honor with her to wear her hair gray, drawn back in a bun but otherwise unfussed-with.

“Father Montgomery.” Cardozo turned and faced him. “Where were you when the intruder walked into the booby trap?”

“Well, when I heard the scream I was upstairs in my bedroom. I came downstairs and found the young man on the floor.”

“But you didn’t phone the police?”

Father Montgomery shook his head. “I suppose I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Has anyone besides you been living in the rectory?”

Father Montgomery seemed startled. “My assistant, Bonnie Ruskay, works there and takes her meals there. But she has her own apartment across the street.”

“Then who’s been sleeping in the guest room?”

Father Montgomery’s eyes blinked rapidly. “I’ve sometimes lent it to a young person in need of a bed for the night.”

“Recently?”

Father Montgomery didn’t answer.

“Do you have the names and addresses of any of these young people?”

Sonya Barnett laughed a low, mocking laugh—the trademark Barnett laugh. “Really, Lieutenant—do you think they would have needed to stay over if they’d had addresses?”