Dying For Revenge (The Lady Doc Murders Book 1)

by Barbara Golder

  He knew parts of the story, of a husband killed unexpectedly at the hands of someone called a friend, of great grief, of sudden dislocation, of worried and grown children. There were rumors of lawsuits and vast fortunes to which he was willing to give great credence, having seen what she contributed, but no details to help him figure out what was wrong. He played the odds that she was in that state of being angry with God for her loss. He would learn not to do that with her, because she was never with the odds, but it had still been early days then.

  “The Church can be a great help to you if you let her.” It was a platitude and he knew it, but he could think of nothing else. He was sure as soon as he said it that it was meaningless to her if not to him. She completed the smile then in sadness and condescension.

  “Yes, I imagine she can,” she had replied in a voice with no tone at all. “But no, Father, there’s nothing you can do.”

  Silence again, and just when he’d about given up and was going to try to coax the conversation in another direction, she spoke, looking away and into the distance and not at him. It was the only time he’d yet seen her give up the advantage of quiet.

  “‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive’, isn’t that what we pray, Father?” Her voice was matter of fact and unconcerned as though she were addressing a lack of postage for a parcel to be mailed, or the dearth of fresh corn for the evening’s dinner as she added, “I do not forgive John’s killer. I will not. And I will not go to confession for something I am not sorry for.”

  Her eyes gave her away when she finally turned to look at him. This was no matter of indifference. He looked in those eyes and was surprised to see nothing but hurt so palpable it struck him dumb. Not anger, just hurt and sadness so deep there just wasn’t an end to it.

  “Will not or cannot?” he found himself asking her. “There’s all the difference in the world, Jane. If you cannot, perhaps if…”

  She’d stood up then, cutting him off into silence as the rest of the sentence trailed away. She looked down at him, and collected the rest of her features into impassivity. She turned quickly away.

  “Thank you for your kindness in asking,” she said as she started down the stairs without a look back in his direction, boot-heels clicking on the stairs.

  Oddly, she sounded as though she meant it, but it drifted back up the stairs, almost an after-thought. He’d scared her away; amazing!

  He managed not to blurt out his incredulous and totally inappropriate questions by imposing his mental, priestly filter. Father Duncan had once told him that was his biggest failing as a priest, not having that necessary brake between thoughts and voice, but one common to the inexperienced, overcome with time and patience. Apparently, he was making progress.

  Unwilling, he wanted to ask, or unable, he asked himself again. There was all the difference in the world. His own heart stirred in memory of his own naked pain of not so many years ago when his twin sister Sarah had died. All the difference in the world, he thought, and his own sadness returned, if only for a minute, when he’d walked into that house. He wasn’t sure whether it was sadness for himself, or for that poor man who had been shot, or the others milling about, or Jane Wallace, who looked so lost in the middle of it even as she managed outwardly with the practiced ease of an Army drill sergeant with a bunch of fresh recruits. He smiled at the analogy. Jane Wallace was a lot like Sergeant Blair, his own nemesis. Tough as nails outside and complex as a philosopher’s dissertation inside.

  He opened the door to the rectory, smiling at Isa’s admonition that he needed to keep it locked. There wasn’t much inside to steal; he lived a frugal life. Mostly books, and the kind he kept no one around here would be much interested in. He’d have to remember to turn off lights as well. The small sitting room was bright. And sitting in the corner was Pete Wilson, thumbing through a copy of the Summa Theologica.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in. The door was open. I have a few questions to ask you.”

  Wilson’s smile was a lot like Jane’s, Father Matt thought, missing something. Only Wilson’s smile had no warmth about it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  JUNE 14, MORNING

  I hurried down Aspen St. toward Colorado Ave. I was late for my Steaming Bean Breakfast with Father Matt. He’d started asking to meet me for coffee about a week after he’d cornered me in the choir loft and surprised me by probing into my life. I’d been unprepared and off balance, and the meeting had left me in tears.

  At first, he asked me either to make amends or find out the answers to the questions I hoped I had deflected, but he pleaded the simple need for society. I found this implausible, then as now. As in every parish on the planet, the women faithful made it their business to see to it that he was well cared for. Fr. Matt made an offhand comment in his homily shortly after arriving that he didn’t know how to make pot roast, and within hours, there was a parade of casseroles and at least two cookbooks on their way to the rectory. It had been so obvious that it had garnered public attention and made the front page of one of the papers as a human-interest/welcome-to-town story.

  He always arrived at the Bean as they opened the doors, grabbing in order, a triple shot mocha and the green bus bench in the window so that passersby would have a view of him. I smiled to myself as I passed by the window myself and saw him there, cup at his side, head bent looking at the latest edition of the daily, long legs crossed, body studiously arranged in indifferent repose. He would have had a great career as an actor, I thought, had God not gotten hold of him first. Then again, I reflected, maybe he had the best of both.

  I ordered my own coffee, plain, old, garden-variety dark roast without frills and without additives. I refused to call it “Americano,” the affected café-speak for an old standby. I filled my cup from the pump dispensers on the side, grabbed a pair of muffins, and sat across from Fr. Matt on the other bench, made from an old school bus seat, shoving the green web seatbelt out of the way. I plopped a poppy seed muffin next to Fr. Matt’s cup. He looked up with half a smile.

  “Thanks,” he said as he peeled the paper from the muffin.

  He had a ritual for eating muffins — as far as I know, he had a ritual for everything. He was one of the most organized men I had ever met. First peel the paper, then disengage the top. Eat the bottom, save the top for last. I wonder what it said about me that I just did away with the paper and ate whatever part presented itself first. He was distracted this morning and ate his muffin Jane-style. I wondered what was wrong. I glanced down. Instead of his usual black slacks and loafers, jeans and sandals poked out from his cassock.

  “You’re out of uniform,” I said.

  He glanced ruefully down. “Laundry didn’t come back on time. I ran out of pants. I spilled scotch on my last clean pair last night.”

  “Out for a drink after the chaos?” I asked. “Certainly understandable. You should have joined Eoin Connor and me.”

  I squirmed a bit at the memory. In the clear light of day, all of yesterday made me uncomfortable, especially ending up in Eoin Connor’s arms and sharing a whiskey with him in my quiet house.

  “No. At home. It was a hard day.” His response was short and tense.

  Bad sign, I thought, a priest drinking alone. And Father Matt’s demeanor did little to reassure me. I tried to make light of it for his sake and mine. More for mine.

  “You know, it’s all right to wear jeans now and again. It’s practically a uniform in Telluride,” I said, looking down at my own favorite, faded pair. I’d had them for years, and they were just the right shade of pale blue with a hint of white over the knees.

  He shook his head, folded the paper, and uncrossed his legs so that the cassock covered more of the pant leg.

  “Nope. Just not right.” He shook himself as if to dispel his mood and pressed on with the morning pleasantries. “How are you doing this morning?”

  I debated giving him a real answer instead of the usual formalities. Over the months, Father Matt had lived up to
his title, becoming a real support in my life, though I tried not to acknowledge it myself, let alone let it slip to him. I looked forward to our breakfasts, and to his random visits to the Forensic Center on various pretenses. How odd it felt to have such a relationship with anyone, let alone a man nearly a generation younger than I. Fr. Matt was older than my oldest pair, but almost young enough that he really could have been my son, had I had an out-of-wedlock child at seventeen like my own mother. I thought of how hard she’d struggled all alone to raise me, momentarily sorry that she hadn’t lived to enjoy the fruits of my successes.

  “Ahem.” Father Matt’s polite cough brought me around. I was free-associating far too much lately, losing the thread of what was going on around me in random connections of thought.

  “Fine.” I took the easy way out. “You? What’s on the agenda for today?”

  “Worried about these murders, like everyone else. Nice that you are the oasis of fine-ness among the rest of us nervous types.”

  His brow furrowed for only an instant before he displayed a disarming grin. His heart wasn’t in it. The good Father was troubled, and not as good an actor as I thought. Still, this was one reason I had to quit wool-gathering. Conversation with Fr. Matt required battle strategies. One minute, superficial pleasantries, random thoughts, one little mistake and bam! There I was, outfoxed and outgunned. At least I had ceased to be irritated either at his directness or at his persistence. I suppose that meant he was making some progress, or I was.

  “Nothing seems to come together. Other than the fact that rich kids are being killed, nobody knows much.” I felt safe dropping that little bit. It was common knowledge.

  “Seems that way.” He took another sip from his cup and changed the subject. “I did wonder how things are going with Isa and Pilar.”

  This time my smile was genuine. Isa and Pilar had proved to be one of the genuine lights in my life since Fr. Matt had foisted them off on me.

  “Very well. We’re working on getting their status regularized, but that might be difficult. My biggest problem is keeping them from working around the house. The immigration lawyer told me that I can’t be seen as giving them employment, not even lodging for work, without risking her status and my hide. I swear, those women—Pilar especially—are not happy unless they are cleaning something.”

  “I doubt that. They just want to pay their own way. Surely you understand that.” His voice was becoming more animated. Clearly, talking about the murders bothered Father Matt.

  “Nice,” I chided him for chiding me. “Of course, I understand. I also understand that both of them have cleaning jobs that more than validate their worth, thanks to you, and I understand involuntary time in the warm hospitality of the feds and loss of my law license. I am not sure they do. When I got up this morning, Pilar was already doing laundry. It really can’t go on. You have to do something about it. I guess I’m all right being your local immigrant shelter for the time being, but really, Father Matt, there have to be some ground rules.”

  Thinking about it, I realized that I was more worried about taking advantage of their gratitude than I was being hauled off to court.

  “I’ll talk to them," he said, waving his empty cup at me. “Another?”

  I hadn’t finished my first and shook my head. As Fr. Matt went to the coffee bar, Eoin Connor walked into the Bean.

  “Eoin,” Fr. Matt said, a broad smile splitting his face with genuine affection I found surprising and surprisingly, a little annoying. “Join us! What can I get you?”

  Connor shook the extended hand and looked over toward the bench where I was seated, glaring.

  “No, thanks,” he replied, inclining his head in my direction with what I was certain must be a knowing look at Fr. Matt.

  “Nonsense. She doesn’t bite. Sit down, what do you want?”

  “Regular coffee. Strong. Black,” Connor replied.

  More annoyance. That was my drink he was ordering. He wasn’t permitted to like my kind of coffee. Couldn’t he drink tea? Though I admitted to myself that tea didn’t seem the right drink for someone so obviously and thoroughly masculine in the old, pre-feminist sense of the word. Rats, wool-gathering again. I shook my head to clear it, and gestured for Connor to come and sit. At least wandering thoughts were thoughts of something other than this string of murders.

  Connor stepped onto the platform in the window. Wisely, he took the seat nearest the window. Two big men on that bench might be crowded, I thought, but the climate would be more pleasant for him over there, and it served Father Matt right for inviting suddenly unwelcome company.

  “I do bite.” I said.

  I needed to re-establish some boundaries after last evening. Something to counteract the rush of pleasure Connor’s presence gave me as he took his seat on the other bench.

  “I’ve no doubt at all about that,” Connor replied easily. “The literary muse dictates that I risk it anyway. This saves me having to track you down later today. I need the photographs from the Putnam case. Can you make me some copies?”

  I thought for a minute. It was a legitimate request and the photos were at least theoretically in my custody as medical examiner.

  “Weren’t they in the file Ben gave you?”

  Connor shook his head. “Not a one. I need to see the ones that were entered into evidence and compare them with the rest of the photos I have — I’m wondering what kind of selection went on in choosing them for trial.”

  I found myself drawn into his question because it seemed so simple.

  “They were chosen to make a point for the prosecution,” I said. “I can tell you that even without looking at them.”

  “That I know, too. But there must be something they left out because they didn't need it. I might find some of that useful. Everyone knows the outcome of the trial — there’s no Putnam sportswear anymore, no more Putnam jeans because Putnam’s lover is marking time on death row.”

  I looked down at the denim of my pants. I had forgotten they were Putnams, probably collectors’ items by now. I tuned back to hear Connor continuing.

  “In any case, the real story is outside that. I want to know the why, the how, the good, the bad. Is Putnam the innocent in the tale? I think I know his virtues and his vices, but it’s not always as simple as it seems. The pictures sometimes tell a story that the participants forgot.”

  That was true enough. I had seen the power of crime scene photos many times over the years, starting with my first trial. A woman had been murdered by her boyfriend. We tied him to the murder by matching the imprint of the buckle on his harness boot with a bruise on her side. Just like we would link Pelirojo to Isa by the mark of his ring.

  I wasn’t, however, sure what Connor meant by the power of the photos to set context. For me, their gift lay in what they proved, not what they suggested. No matter, he was entitled to them.

  “I’ll ask Ben to take another look. The prosecutor almost certainly still has them. I’ll have him call you.”

  Having put the conversation to rest, I cast about for Father Matt, who was taking far too long.

  He was standing by the coffee bar, talking animatedly to a well-dressed woman in pressed white shorts and a tight and low-cut sleeveless blouse, all designed to show off her perfect tan, flawless skin, ample chest and too-yellow curls showing the merest hint of dark roots. She had a multi-carat diamond band on her left hand and an older but equally perfectly tanned and well-preserved man at her side, and she could have been Marla Kincaid’s older sister, so much did she resemble her.

  Connor had noticed, too.

  “Well, now,” he said, a smile in his voice. “What’s the good Father up to now?”

  I felt a flare of irritation. Whatever it was, it was not important.

  “He’s a priest. He’s up to nothing.” The woman chose that moment to embrace Father Matt soundly, standing on tiptoes to reach up and bestow a kiss on his bearded cheek, then standing back, looked up at him with a decidedly adoring gaze, his two
hands in hers and his mocha growing cold on the counter.

  “Aye, now, you’re right,” Connor said. “Looks like a perfectly ordinary conversation to me.”

  He looked at me with devilment in his eyes over the rim of his cup.

  It was nothing. It had to be nothing. Fr. Matt was a priest, entirely unconnected to those around him in any permanent, human sense. If he could live unconnected, so could I. I had staked my life on that; it was one reason I valued his friendship so much: another solitary soul making his way among the pairs and pairs around him. It had to be possible to live out a life without people to depend on, to live with, to share a house and a bed and a life with. It had to be possible to be solitary and happy. It had to be. If he could do it, so could I, but if he was just as encumbered by the traps of relationship as everyone else, what hope was there for me? My connection was gone, dead, buried.

  “But he’s a priest,” was all I could say.

  “He’s celibate, not blind, and not made of stone. She’s a fine looking woman,” he added with an approving glance in Father Matt’s direction.

  The woman had disengaged herself and was waving as she exited the open door held by the older man. I scowled at Connor, willing him to leave and not to upset my world any further with his observations and innuendoes.

  My mind was still spinning when Father Matt stepped across my outstretched legs to squeeze into the seat next to Connor.

  “Well done, lad,” said the Irishman, clapping Matt’s shoulder as he sat. “And just who was that? Are your vows in jeopardy?”

  “Not anymore. She was my fiancée when I was a foot soldier for Uncle Sam instead of the Church Militant. Dumped me for the stockbroker she interned with. Two husbands ago. Drove me right into the arms of Holy Mother Church.”