by Julie Hyzy
“I don’t know. She left after our meeting,” he said with a small frown. Impatience, it seemed. He hadn’t taken a seat. I took that to indicate that he wanted this interview over quickly.
Relief that Sophie was apparently all right gave me the freedom to stay a few moments longer to find out more. “What did she say?”
Bruno leaned on his desk, his fingertips bearing his weight. “What did she say?” The incredulity in his voice was palpable.
“Did she tell you what happened to her? Did she tell you about her …” I didn’t know how to phrase it. Emil stood in the open doorway behind me, listening to every word. “… problems?“ I kept it vague. Very vague.
“Alexandrine,” Bruno said, in a condescending tone. “Aren’t you a good Catholic girl?”
I nodded.
“Then I shouldn’t have to remind you that what is divulged under the sacrament of reconciliation is protected. What Sophie shared with me is sacrosanct and I will thank you never to ask such a question again.”
Anger shot through me like a white hot knife. “I wasn’t aware she’d come to confess, Father,” I said, in as calm a voice as I could muster.
He nodded, benignly. As if granting absolution. But I hadn’t asked. And I wasn’t sorry. He smiled. “Do you need anything further?”
“No.”
“Well then, if you don’t mind, I have a busy morning planned,” he said, easing himself to sit.
My cue. On my way out, as I neared Emil, still standing sentry in the doorway, Bruno called to me. “Alexandrine.”
“Yes?”
“How’s the new job?”
I flashed him a lips-only smile. “Bad break. Ms. Knowles couldn’t use me after all.”
He returned my smile in kind. “I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m certain something else will turn up.”
* * * * *
“Sophie, you had me worried.”
She’d made her way back to the convent, unaware of the angst she caused by disappearing the way she had. Her face had cleaned up well; the cuts on her lip appeared to be healing already. Residual swelling still marred the left side of her face, giving her an elephant-man look. Purplish bruises on her chin and cheeks exacerbated the image.
She favored her left arm, resting it in her lap as we spoke. The four nuns who occupied the convent made themselves scarce, bustling about at their business, letting us know that we had complete privacy here in the dining room, to talk.
Sophie and I sat at the far end of a long table, me at the head, she at the first side chair. The blond wood table, made in the fifties, but looking brand-spanking new, lent a certain surreal feeling to our discussion. We kept our voices low. Even though no one was nearby, the large room, and the silence that pervaded it, caused us to whisper.
“I had to go see Father Bruno,” she told me in Polish. Her right arm rested on the corner of the table and she didn’t meet my gaze. I watched as she rubbed her thumb against the side of her index finger, eyeing it.
“But why?”
Her hand trembled. She continued to rub. “He has been like a father to me. He has taken care, good care of me, since Matthew and I arrived from Poland. And I have done the worst thing I could do. I gave in to temptation. The temptation of money.”
As though there were answers coming down to her from above, she focused on the ceiling. Her right hand lost the battle she’d been waging and she raised it to her mouth, biting her thumbnail while she gathered her thoughts further.
“If I’m careful, Lisa and Rodero won’t hurt me anymore. But I’m in trouble. I know I am. And if something happens …”
“Like what, Sophie?”
“If … if I should die … I can’t go to heaven with my Matthew if my soul is stained with such mortal sin.”
Pulling her fingers from her mouth, she put her head down on the table as though drained of energy. Her hair spilled onto the tabletop like a blond waterfall, obscuring her face. I got up, reaching to put my arm around her, and I could feel tiny tremors in her back as she cried.
She calmed after a bit, and when she sat up, I told her about Lisa’s call reneging on the shampoo girl’s job. Her eyes widened and she buried her face in her hands, as though in prayer. “Thank the Good Lord. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, thank you, thank you,” she whispered. Looking back up at me. “You will be safe now. And I will be, too.”
“Father Bruno’s going to help you get away from Lisa, then?”
Sophie bit her lip.
“Sophie? What did you tell him?”
“You want to know my confession?” Her horrified look that I would ask about her confessed sins could have been humorous had the situation not been so grave.
Her thumb had gone back up to her mouth.
“No, of course not,” I said. “What I want to know is how much Father Bruno now knows about Lisa’s organization, now.”
“He knows my sins.”
“Did you tell him about your job?”
Blue eyes held mine as she nodded her head.
“Everything?”
“No. Not everything. I made it sound like I work for someone else that he doesn’t know—doing the … things I do. I didn’t tell him where I was staying, either. I just told him enough to get his forgiveness.”
I felt energy drain out of me with startling immediacy. “Let me call him,” I said, standing. “I think he needs to know that Lisa’s behind this.” My mind was going two-forty, recalling that he asked me about my job this morning. After Sophie had talked with him. I wished I would have paid closer attention to his reaction to my disclosure that I lost the position. He’d seemed angry and quick to dismiss me. But his demeanor could have a lot to do with the magnitude of Sophie’s news, too
I reached the phone in the adjacent kitchen, just as I became aware of Sophie behind me. She reached, dragging at my arm. “No.”
The nuns had one of those old-fashioned dial phones with the hang-up hooks that people always fiddle with in movies when a connection has been lost. Sophie attacked it now, slamming it down with the palm of her hand.
“No.” She said again, wincing in pain at her sudden movement.
I felt like a little kid caught making a prank phone call—the mom staring at me, folded-armed and angry. “Why not?” I asked with more than a touch of anger, myself.
“He made me promise to tell no one else.”
I stared at her, my disbelief apparently evident on my face because her Polish explanation came out fast and nervous.
“Father Bruno sat down with me, not even in a confessional. He took me to the back in the sacristy, where we could talk without anyone hearing us and where I could see him. It made it easier, you know. To see his face. I was so worried that I would hurt him because he has done so much for me.”
I was getting pretty damn tired of hearing what a saint Father Bruno was. Because of her undying loyalty to the man, Sophie had never said a word of the real work she did for Lisa Knowles. In my opinion, the man should have had the reality of the situation presented to him a long time ago. The girls’ complicit agreement to keep him protected boggled my mind. He should be aware. If he wasn’t already. Father Bruno didn’t seem like a man who’d bask in ignorance or naïveté.
Sophie leaned back. There was a chrome-edged countertop that ran three-quarters of the way around the airy kitchen that still sported the aqua cabinets that had come with the fifties-designed building. One small window to my left and an overhead fluorescent fixture gave us ample light, and I listened to the lamp’s buzz as I waited for Sophie to continue. She seemed to take strength from the support of the counter behind her, leaning both hands on its top, fingers over the edge. But I noticed she still put no weight on her left arm.
“He was very understanding. He didn’t make me feel … dirty. He made me feel good about myself. What kind of a special man does that take to make someone feel good about themselves when they have done so much that is so bad?”
“He made you feel good?” I asked.
I didn’t know whether to be impressed or repulsed by that. “What did he say? Exactly?”
She shook her head and sent a long look out the window before turning back to me. “I don’t remember all his words. What I remember is that he took my hand and said that God would forgive me. That the temptations of material wealth is something we all face every day. And that I had taken the right steps to try and fight the temptation by telling him.”
Sophie shrugged before continuing. “He said he will help me find who killed Milla and Matthew. I know you’re disappointed, because it will ruin your television story, but this is what I had to do, Alex. I hope you understand. And you aren’t planning to investigate any more, are you?”
My hesitation seemed to exasperate her.
“Alex, please. I know I wanted you to find who killed Matthew. But I am so afraid. And I am so sorry, because I know you tried to help me and you won’t have your good story anymore.”
Shaking my head, I was about to interrupt, but she continued.
“Father Bruno will take care of it. And when he does, I will be free from Lisa and from Rodero. I have to take care of myself. There’s no one else to take care of me anymore.”
It wasn’t like I was a private investigator who’d just been pulled off a case. Sophie hadn’t hired me, she simply had asked me to look into the situation. I could continue to look into it; I saw no need for me to let up. Not yet. Of course, I also saw no need to let Sophie in on that nugget of information.
I hated lying, but it didn’t stop me for more than a heartbeat. “Listen, Sophie, even if I don’t continue following this story, I’d like to know how everything worked out. So, I’m just going to stick around for a little bit. You can understand that, right?”
She nodded, but she had a skeptical look on her face.
* * * * *
I left her feeling more than a smidgen of disquiet. Great word, disquiet. It summed up exactly the buzz going on in my brain, thoughts jockeying for position like bees in a summer hive.
Driving back to the office, I replayed some of our conversation. I asked her about Emil, but she had no further information on him. But asking about him helped me understand the steps William would need to take to contact Lisa. I was convinced, however, that Emil played a significant role in this drama. Otherwise how could Father Bruno remain oblivious? And there was no doubt in Sophie’s mind that he had been oblivious, up until she’d bared her soul.
I wasn’t so sure. I wished I could have been there.
The only other enlightening tidbit I gleaned from her with regard to Father Bruno was that he’d asked her about my involvement in all this. Which I found curious. Maybe I shouldn’t.
He piqued my interest—maybe I piqued his as well.
Chapter Seventeen
This time it was William at my office with his hand on the doorjamb. I’d left the door open for a change, purposely hoping for company. There are times when the grit of my job feels like sandpaper chafing away my humanity and I need personal contact with those I care about to bring me back to believing that the world is good.
I tried to call Lucy, but she was in a home economics class and I didn’t want to disturb her. Swept up in the week’s intrigue, I’d utterly forgotten to call her, and the fact that I had bothered me deeply.
I’d half-expected Jordan to pop in; I wanted to grab some good girl-talk while I let the ingredients of my story simmer in the back of my head like a stew.
Instead, I got William.
“Hi,” he said. “Got a few minutes?”
No smile, again. In fact, it seemed as though his eyes narrowed a bit when I answered, “Sure.” I wondered what I was in for.
He came in, shutting the door in a move I would have sworn was stalling, except for the fact that he’d come to see me. I heard the metallic click as it closed. Turning back to face me, he shot me a lips-only smile, as he grabbed the back of one of my chairs and pulled it away from the desk before he sat. Distance, I thought. He’s putting distance between us. This can’t be good news.
“How’s Sophie?” he asked.
I related the morning’s events and was pleased to see his reactions match my own on every point. I dug out the notes I’d written and copied for him. With a quick glance at them, I pointed. “Here’s the number Lisa uses for business. She’s wary of new clients at first, but Sophie says she doesn’t like turning them away, either.” Before the recent confession to Father Bruno, Sophie had been very upfront with all aspects of the business. “As a matter of fact, beside the contact information, she also gave me a few names of men she’s … been with.” I looked up. William seemed uncomfortable. “First names. You might be able to bluff your way through by using one of them.”
He nodded. Took the note paper and folded it into precise quarters. Again, it looked like a stall tactic.
William wore a muted blue two-button polo shirt and dark pants. The look said “casual” though he seemed anything but. With the note tucked into his pants pocket, he nodded again.
“So,” he said, raising his eyes to meet mine. I was taken aback, again, by the vibrant shade of blue. Darker today—their color seemed to vary with his demeanor like a permanent pair of mood rings.
I waited.
“There’s something you need to know before I go on this undercover investigation.”
“Okay,” I said, striving for an encouraging tone.
He stared at something at the edge of my desk for a moment, then looked at me again. “Have you heard the scuttlebutt about why I left the Daily Times?”
Thoughts of Dan sent a rush of relief that he hadn’t had a chance to have his say about William the other night. “No,” I answered truthfully.
“Let me tell you then. At least, let me tell you my version.” He sat forward in his chair, and pulled it up a few inches to allow him to rest his arms on the edge of my desk.
“You ready?” he asked. The words were tentative, but his body language, assured.
“Yep.”
With a nod, he began. “I was there for five years, working for a fellow named Bernie. About a year before I left, he hired someone new, a woman. Chloe.”
His brow furrowed for a split-second. “I know I don’t need to ask, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t share this information with anyone.”
“I won’t,” I said. And I wouldn’t.
“She was tough as nuts. A real hard-driver. At first I respected that, thought she’d infuse new life into the department. I mean, she had spunk and a willingness to get the job done. And don’t get me wrong … she was good. Damn good.”
“But?”
I felt power surge from those blue eyes and I realized that whatever was coming next carried weight with him. “But after a while it became apparent that she had her own agenda. The good of the group meant nothing to her. We’d been a nice, tight team. We looked out for one another, helped each other along. That’s so rare nowadays. But we had it. We were more than a team; we were friends.”
He shot me a look before continuing. “But, like an uncontained virus, her influence spread. She backstabbed constantly, convincing others that there were conspiracies that didn’t exist. Before we knew it, the spirit that held us together was gone. People started to leave. Good people. And, of course, Chloe was there, ready to move up as each one departed.
“She went from beat reporter to byline in less time than anyone else I’d ever known. She’s a contender. No doubt about it. Talented. Voracious in her desire to claw her way to the top. Or the perceived top.”
Claw. Interesting word choice.
William took a breath before continuing. He turned to stare out my window for a moment. It seemed to me that he needed a break before continuing. “This really is a great view,” he said in a voice that bordered on melancholy. I followed his gaze, and though the top of Wrigley was covered in gray fog, the pedestrians all head-bent under dull umbrellas taut with wind, and the river water choppy and black, I had to admit, he was right. I felt a
twinge of guilt, remembering the outlook from his office.
“The Powers That Be at the Times,” he said, picking up the story again but still watching out the window, “decided to create a new section. All new features. Big splash debut. It would start out on Sundays only and eventually move to twice a week. This was big time. Very big time. And they wanted a writer/editor for this new feature section. Bernie had been grooming me from day one for an opportunity like this. It was mine to lose.”
“And you lost it?”
“I had help.”
His face contorted, almost of its own volition and almost imperceptibly, but it was there. I got the impression that this was a man in total control of his emotions. And yet this story was difficult for him to relate.
“This is long, and it’s ugly, and I don’t like telling people about it because no matter how I say it, the words sound resentful and bitter. Though I suppose that’s appropriate.” He gave a wry laugh, and dragged his gaze away from the window to turn to me.
“What it boils down to is this: Bernie brought the team together—what was left of the team, that is—and let us in on the plan for the new Sunday section. He told us that my promotion to features editor would be announced by the paper to coincide with the section’s debut, about a month down the line. There were five others besides me left in the department, and at the end of the meeting, four of them came up to congratulate me on the promotion.”
“Not Chloe?”
William pursed his lips, letting a whistle-like sound escape his clenched teeth. “Nope. She did them all one better.”
I raised my eyebrows in anticipation. I had no idea what he was about to say.
“First thing the next morning, she circulated a memo, achingly written,” William’s face tightened, “apologizing for not bringing it up sooner, but letting the administration know that she’d filed a lawsuit against the Times, and against me.”
“For … ?” My hands flew out, in an expression of frustration.