“I think that’s possible. Possible. And what about this other guy? What became of him? Suppose Sperl was meeting someone for some reason he was ashamed of. Or nervous about.”
“Oh. Could Ed have been gay? Would that …”
“Nothing surprises me, not anymore. But Sperl was with someone, at least for a while. The other guy must have come in a different car, right? Unless he got a ride to the tavern with Sperl or someone else, then got a ride away from the tavern with someone after walking out of the place with Sperl.”
“Riddles, riddles. And I told you, when he was at my party he was real interested in old pictures and the tape from a long-ago farewell party with jokes about that priest.”
“Play it for me.”
Marlee got the recorder and put it on a table in front of Ed. “The tape’s in it. You know how to work it, I suppose.”
Delaney nodded and pressed play:
“… to aid in your quest for glory …”
Ed pressed fast-forward.
“… whoever did it is long gone.”
“Still hacking away.”
“You sick …”
Marlee felt embarrassed, not so much by the vulgarity as by the drunken foolishness. “All that bumping was from people banging into the tables and chairs,” she said. “Some of them were, you know.”
“Yep, I know. Been that way myself.”
Ed listened awhile longer, turned off the recorder.
“So?” Marlee said.
“Nothing, Marlee. No secrets.”
“But you do find something strange in all this.”
“Let’s say some things that bother me. Loose ends. Hey, I just said ‘loose ends,’ but before I said it was all too pat. See, I don’t know what I think.”
“But what about the tape, and those old pictures? There was something that Ed was interested in.”
“I don’t know, Marlee.”
Delaney finished his beer and debated with himself whether to tell Marlee about his talk with Ray McNulty. No: that would be a breach of confidence.
Marlee was staring intently at the envelope holding the file on Sperl’s death.
“Ed, you had this sent to your home instead of headquarters. Why?”
“Things have a way of getting lost at headquarters.”
But the flint in Marlee’s eyes told Delaney that the lie was inadequate.
“Ed, you felt something was wrong even before you got the file, didn’t you?”
“I had my doubts.”
“Come on, Ed. I’m not a big investigative reporter, but I’m not a fool either.”
“I never thought you were. Marlee, I can’t tell you any more. Not right now.”
“There is something. I know it.”
“Marlee, I’ll tell you this much. This is a Catholic town. That’s what a good cop told me a long time ago. I think there were people who never wanted that priest killer tracked down. The trail would have been too dirty.”
“Who wouldn’t have wanted it solved? Someone in the church?”
“Maybe the victim’s family had money, influence, and didn’t want their beloved son disgraced as well as dead. Now I’ve really said enough. Don’t press me, okay?”
“Okay. But if there was a cover-up years ago, that’s just plain wrong. And what could it have to do with Ed’s death?”
“Maybe nothing. Or maybe Sperl was gay and ran into the same guy who killed the priest.”
“But Ed used to make bad jokes about gays.”
“So what? Could have been just a cover for his own act.”
“But that would be an almost unbelievable coincidence, wouldn’t it, if Ed ran into the same guy who killed the priest?”
“Coincidence, yes. Unbelievable? Like I said, nothing surprises me anymore. And even though this is a Catholic town, it isn’t that big a town.”
“What happens now?”
“What happens is, I’ll do some more discreet poking around. And I’ll share what I find with you. Off the record. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now I have to go.”
“A lot’s happening at once,” Marlee said, walking Delaney to the door. “Ed Sperl. Nigel getting sick. The reunion starts tomorrow. I don’t feel like celebrating anything.”
Ten minutes later, Marlee did feel like celebrating: the veterinarian called to say that the mighty dog Nigel had passed two large pieces of plastic, probably from a child’s beach bucket. Yes, Marlee said, that made sense. It was not the first time toys had blown onto her property from a couple of yards down. She thought she recalled having seen such a bucket yesterday, in fact, but had never got around to picking it up.
The veterinarian said Nigel should stay in the hospital over the weekend, just in case there was any damage to his bowels, but that he would almost certainly be all right.
The news about Nigel made Marlee feel lighter. A two-mile run up around the reservoir and back made her feel lighter still. As she was cooling down, she thought through what Delaney had said.
This is a Catholic town. Maybe the victim’s family had money and influence. God, wouldn’t it be something if Ed Sperl had got involved in something too big for him—something far bigger than the traffic tickets he had helped people fix?
On an impulse, Marlee picked up the phone and dialed the Gazette’s library. “Rachel? This is Marlee. I’m calling from home. I hope it’s not too much trouble, but I need you to look up something from the microfilm.”
Marlee gave the library assistant her request and got a return call fifteen minutes later. After listening as the library worker read the first big story about the 1971 killing, Marlee thanked Rachel profusely. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she dialed long-distance information for Sharon, Pennsylvania.
There was only one listing under the name she was interested in. After the second ring a woman answered. From the sound of the “hello” Marlee figured her to be in her sixties or seventies.
“Hello, my name is Marlee West and I’m calling from Bessemer, New York.”
“Yes?”
Marlee thought the woman sounded puzzled and nervous. “I’m trying to reach the family of a Father John Barrow, who, um, died in Bessemer some years ago. Do I have the right family?”
“Oh! Who? I, I’m going to call my husband.”
Marlee held her breath, strained to hear the anxious, muffled exchange on the other end. I have the right family, Marlee thought. No doubt about that. Don’t hang up. Don’t, don’t, don’t.
“Who did you say you were?” A man’s voice, loud, challenging. Marlee repeated her introduction word for word.
“Why are you calling us?” His voice was still loud, but there was something else. Sorrow, Marlee thought.
“Sir, I’ve lived in Bessemer all my life, and I know about your son, how he died.”
“Why are you calling us? Just who are you?”
Anger as well as sorrow in the voice, Marlee thought. She knew what she had to say, even if the man hung up. “Sir, I’m with the Bessemer Gazette. I didn’t write about your son’s death at the time, but—”
“Why are you calling now, for the love of God?”
The man’s voice had broken. Marlee felt sorry for him, but at the same time she was monitoring her impressions: the man and his wife were not sophisticated, and therefore likely not rich or influential.
“Sir, please hear me out. I promise I’ll try not to add to your grief.”
“You’re wasting your breath with your kind words. I heard them all twenty years ago. They were no good then either.”
“Sir, do you know any reason why your son’s death would not have been investigated thoroughly? Any reason at all?”
“What kind of a crazy goddamn question is that? And why in God’s name—”
“Mr. Barrow, something about your son’s case may be coming to light after all these years.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sir, was your son a homosexual?”
Marlee held her breath as the silence of heartbreak filled the moment.
“What if he was?” the old man said finally, quietly. “That made him no less in God’s eyes, did it? Did it?”
“No, sir. It didn’t.”
“You have no right to put that in the paper now, after—”
“Mr. Barrow, please. I’m not writing a story. I have, I mean, I’m calling because I have reason to think your son’s death was not investigated very well. On purpose. Please don’t hang up. Please try to trust me.”
Twenty-eight
A couple of hours later, Marlee drove down a well-lighted tree-lined street, stopping when she saw a porch light.
Ed Delaney was waiting for her on the front steps.
“Thanks for making time to see me,” Marlee said.
“That’s okay. I’m just sorry you had to come over here. There was just no way I could get a sitter.”
He led her in to a narrow screened-in porch that ran the width of the house, sat her down on a rocking wooden bench with cushions, and excused himself. While he was gone, Marlee wondered what it would be like to sit on a porch with a man every night in the summer, listening to the crickets, or, the rain falling through the leaves. She wondered if there was any man in Bessemer she could be happy with.
Delaney returned with two cans of beer and handed her one. “Cheers,” he said. “Now tell me what couldn’t wait.”
“You said it might have been the church that hushed the investigation when that priest was killed. Or that he might have come from an influential family that squelched it.”
“‘This is a Catholic town,’ is what I said. That’s—”
“I understand that,” Marlee interrupted. “But it wasn’t his family that hushed things up.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I talked to his father tonight.” Marlee said that in a rush, not quite keeping the tremble out of her voice.
She told him how she had slowly broken down Thaddeus Barrow’s suspicions, got him to talk about his son, John. His only son. Yes, he had known his son was a homosexual, had found out about it just before his son was done with his seminary studies—although once he did find out, some other questions were answered. Such as why the adolescent John Barrow had spent so much time at the golf range, hanging around with an assistant pro about whom, Thaddeus Barrow learned much later, there had been whispers.
What surprised Thaddeus Barrow and his wife was how few questions the Bessemer police asked them, and how the whole thing “just seemed to have died down” when the Barrows called the Bessemer police.
“Ed, the parents weren’t trying to hush anything.”
Delaney’s silence in the dark told her to go on.
“They believe their son is waiting for them in heaven. And they wanted his killer caught. They even considered hiring a private detective to come to Bessemer and hunt for him.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“Thaddeus Barrow was a steelworker, and he hurt himself real bad at work. Bad enough that he took a long disability, or whatever. He was a long time getting better, and by the time he was better the steel business was sick, and there wasn’t any work for him.”
“How did you find out all that about these people?”
Marlee thought for a moment. “I listened to them, and I didn’t try to bullshit. And I suppose Thaddeus Barrow could sense …”
“That you felt sorry for him.”
“Yes. Ed, these are salt-of-the-earth people. Simple people. Not rich, not sophisticated, not influential. They didn’t want their son’s case forgotten. Just the opposite.”
Marlee had finished her beer, and she waited for Delaney to say something. The seconds went by, the silence broken only by the soft night noises heard through the porch screens. “Ed?” Marlee said at last.
“What?”
“What’s going to happen?”
“To be honest, probably nothing.”
“How …?”
“Think a minute. There’s two deaths twenty years apart, one in Bessemer and the other way over in Horning, in a different county. On the surface, there’s nothing tying them together.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Hear me out. Sure, Ed Sperl was bugging me about a killing that took place in ’71, when I was a rookie, and we know he wanted to peek at the old file.”
“And he was fascinated with the tape that had people talking about the priest.”
“Fine. And so what? Sperl getting shot in his car that way bothered me. I told you that. But there’s nothing I could tell a prosecutor over in Horning.”
“No?”
“No! My hunch isn’t enough. For a prosecutor or grand jury, I mean.”
“Well, did you tell the Homing police about your hunch?”
“Not in so many words, no.”
“Ed, what does that mean?”
“It means I was already sticking my neck out getting the Horning cops to send that file to me at my home. That’s irregular, to put it mildly.”
“But you thought it was important enough that you did it. And how could it hurt you?”
“Trust me, it could. If the brass heard through the grapevine that I was poking into something way out of my jurisdiction …”
Marlee was stung—disappointed in Ed Delaney, angry at herself for having believed he would help.
“Marlee, someone wanted that priest buried, quietly and forever. I’ve seen what can happen to cops who cross the wrong people, in or out of the department. And I’ll tell you something else.”
“What?”
“Your newspaper’s never been any help when good cops have gotten bum deals, from politicians and God knows who.”
“I don’t make newspaper policy. All right. I think I should go.”
“Look, when you first bugged me about Sperl it was because of that woman—Olga?—so she could maybe collect some insurance, right?”
“Only partly, Ed. Only partly.”
“Partly. Let me tell you, that’s not a good enough reason for an investigation.”
“You said you’d poke around and share what you found.”
“I will, quietly.”
Then Marlee understood. “What’s different now is that I’ve actually done something, talked to the priest’s father. It was easy for you to talk about digging into this or that when it was only hypothetical. Now that I’ve done something, you’re scared. That’s the truth, isn’t it? That’s what this is all about.”
Delaney was silent for a long moment. “The truth?” he said wearily. “The truth is, this is a Catholic town. An even bigger truth is that I’ve got a kid asleep in the house, and she looks to me for everything.”
“Good night, Ed.”
Marlee held it together until she was outside, in the sweet darkness. Then she started seeing the glow of the streetlights through tears of fury.
“I’ll keep my ears open, Marlee. I promise.”
Marlee didn’t answer.
After Marlee West’s car pulled away, Ed Delaney went back into the house, tiptoeing so as not to wake his daughter, and got another beer. He took it back to the porch, where he drank slowly, wishing he had done a lot of things in his life differently.
When she got home, she poured herself a tall glass of wine and drank half of it in one gulp. Missing Nigel, she said a silent prayer for him. Stupid Airedale; doesn’t even know enough not to eat plastic.
She was still angry and frustrated, but feeling less annoyed with Ed Delaney. He was on the mark when he said the Gazette had never done anything to help cops who got a bum deal. The police department was shot through with politics; after every mayoral election there were dozens of promotions and demotions and transfers, nearly all based on who had campaigned for whom and which constituencies—Polish, Italian, German, Irish, black, Jewish, Hispanic, some combination—the new mayor had to pay back. Marlee knew that. She also knew the Gazette winked at some lawbreaking, especially sports betting in the steel plant
s and prostitution, and that the Gazette had cozy arrangements with the police about parking spots for reporters and photographers and (much more important) the paper’s delivery trucks.
Marlee finished the rest of her wine and set the glass down with an angry clack. Okay, Ed Delaney. Touché. But there’s still something very wrong with what happened to Ed Sperl.
Marlee called the Gazette and got Jenifer Hurley’s home number from the night operator.
“She just left a few minutes ago, Marlee. Give her a while to get home.”
“Wow. She was really working late.”
“I walked by the library and saw her doing some research.”
“Thanks, Mildred. She never quits, does she?”
Marlee waited fifteen minutes, dialed Jenifer Hurley’s number, and got an answer on the second ring. Then she laid out what Delaney had told her, what she had learned from talking to Thaddeus Barrow, and how Delaney had pulled back from his earlier enthusiasm.
“Is that all you got?” Jenifer said.
“All? Goddammit, Jenifer, I practically …” Marlee heard Jenifer laughing and realized the joke. “You bitch.”
“Seriously, I’m impressed. What prompted you to call that old man, and how did you get so much out of him?”
“Curiosity and compassion, in that order. And after our little friction earlier, I had something to prove.”
“Not anymore, you don’t. I wish I had as much to report. I spent a lot of hours tonight going over Ed Sperl’s old clip files.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have enough hobbies. And I thought there might be a clue to … whatever. If there is, I missed it. Marlee?”
“What?”
“You’re sure this Delaney guy is straight? I don’t mean straight sexually, I mean—”
“I know. Yes, I think so. Yes.” It had not occurred to Marlee that Delaney might not be honest.
“You said he seemed to be pulling back, is why I ask.”
“I know.” Marlee had not told Jenifer about Delaney’s having had the Horning police send the file on Ed Sperl to his home; she thought that would be a breach of confidence. “Jenifer, I know you’re more skeptical than I am, and I know that trait serves you well. But I do have reason to be sure Delaney’s not covering up anything himself.”
Night of the Ice Storm Page 23