by Mark Zubro
When they were done, Fenwick said, “We know a lot of shit.”
Turner sighed. “But not enough.”
Fenwick asked, “Who among the people in the Sacred Heart of Bleeding Jesus Order have the knowledge, wherewithal, and power to hire minions to kill Kappel?”
“Bruchard or Duggan.”
“Which one is more likely to do it?”
“Either one.”
Fenwick shoved aside the mound of paperwork that was now this case. “Who are these people?” Fenwick asked.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“We’ve got a raft of possible suspects. We’ve got people blabbing like mad.”
“I thought we liked blabbing-like-mad people.”
“Not so much in this case.” He riffled the papers. “We’ve talked to how many people, ten, twenty, twenty-five? I can barely remember some of them.”
“That’s why they created paperwork.” He pointed at the large monitor. “And now that thing.”
FORTY
Tuesday 6:45 P.M.
Turner called Ben, who reported that Brian spent the time after baseball practice reading a book and texting his friends. The eighteen-year-old had hovered around the kitchen and offered to oil Jeff’s wheelchair. “No snark. He ate a slightly bigger than normal dinner, but he said he also worked out in the gym at school for an extra hour. I asked him if everything was okay. He said it was.”
“Jeff?”
“Stopped burbling about having a hero for a brother when he saw that Brian wasn’t responding. Brian wasn’t mean, and you know how Jeff can be a little slow on picking up social cues, but he caught on to his brother’s reluctance, and to his credit didn’t press it. He spent the time after school improving, I think, a triple helix for that chess game he’s been trying to create for months. At the moment, I think he and Ardis are on what might very loosely be defined as being on a date.”
“A date?”
“They’re playing chess in the living room.”
Turner was never sure what got his younger son into trying to invent a new way to play chess, or a whole new game. Paul didn’t think Jeff really knew which, but it took up hours of quiet work. Quiet work from kids was a good thing so he never pressed it. Since Jeff had been working on it, he had made no attempts to indulge in noisome, odiferous science experiments. It wasn’t that Paul didn’t appreciate his son’s intellectual scientific pursuits, but he didn’t want his kitchen destroyed in the likely pursuit of the impossible. He wondered if Jeff even considered what he and Ardis were doing as a date. Jeff could be as mercurial in his emotions an any teenager. Paul and his husband exchanged endearments and rang off.
FORTY-ONE
Tuesday 6:55 P.M.
Turner returned to entering Cehak’s information by company, date, people involved, parish named, and cross referencing it. He was checking each company listed with the Internet, if it was still in operation, any news articles connected to it. As with most detective work, it was a lot of filling things in, doing basic work.
“I got another whoa on Vern Drake.” He clicked at the keys. Fenwick walked over to the large screen monitor. Turner joined him. Fong had given them a wireless mouse. He used it to highlight several of the companies, then created a new column to the right of the one they were originally in, and moved these over to the new column.
Fenwick said, “I think a visit to old Vern would be in order. His businesses have come up any number of times in all these papers, including the items Jeanne D’Amato pointed out.”
Turner printed only three of the cells they had on Drake. He had no intention of giving away the slightest bit of data even if Drake was the head of the Cook County Board.
They stopped in Molton’s office and mentioned what they had and that they were on their way to see the commissioner. They weren’t about to accost a high-ranking county official without mentioning it to the boss.
Molton smiled and said, “Only be gentle if you have to.”
Vern Drake lived in a mansion in Evanston on the lakefront just north of the city and past the cemetery that formed a border along the lake between the two cities.
Vern Drake answered the door himself. He did not invite the detectives in.
Fenwick opened with, “Commissioner, we have evidence that a business you own was involved in kick-back schemes with the diocese.”
Drake tried to slam the door. Fenwick pushed his bulk into the opening.
Turner said, “Commissioner, we can be discreet about this here and now, or we can simply call the press.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Can and will,” Fenwick said.
Drake looked uncertain. It was the first time they’d met him without Pelagius in attendance. “What do you have?” he demanded.
Turner handed him the printout he’d made.
“What is this?”
“You can see dates, work orders, inflated prices.”
“These are all legitimate.” He threw the papers back at them and slammed the door.
Turner and Fenwick were back in the Loop by eight. The night was fine for early May with a full moon rising.
As they moved past Buckingham Fountain, Turner checked his notes. “We’ve got those old guard priests Garch mentioned Sunday we could stop and see.”
“Let’s do it.”
On 47th Street just north and slightly west of Hyde Park, they entered the shabbiest rectory they’d been in yet. The originally tan brick work on the outside walls was rust-stained and crumbling. An ancient woman led them into a parlor with threadbare rugs, garage sale furniture, and a lone crucifix centered on otherwise barren walls.
Fathers McGinn and Wiltse swept into the room. Both were in their seventies. According to Garch, this was the heart of the old guard that Duggan had purged from the previous Cardinal’s staff.
Turner said, “We’re here about the Cardinal.”
“Which one?” McGinn had a scraggly mustache. He brushed his left index finger across it.
“Both.”
Wiltse had a full beard. He said, “Good. We can give you everything.”
“You’re willing to trust us so quickly?” Fenwick asked.
Wiltse rubbed his beard. “We know you’re the detectives on the Kappel case. He worked for the Cardinal, and then poof, the Cardinal’s life blows all to hell on the Internet. Who else can bring down a Cardinal except a couple of Chicago police detectives?”
Fenwick said, “He did the dancing all by himself. His choice.”
Wiltse said, “It’s glorious.”
“Why’s that?” Fenwick asked.
Wiltse grinned. His beard was white, the top of his head nearly bald. He said, “Even if the Cardinal stays in his position, his power and influence will be diminished. The position may be the same, but the perception will be far different. How can you sit there to discipline some priest when you know they’re stifling gales of hysterical laughter at your expense right below the surface?”
McGinn went to a shabby desk that might have been used in a school seventy-five years ago. He unlocked a drawer with a simple key.
“We have this for you. This is all the information we have on the Cardinal.”
Fenwick said, “And on what was wrong in the last administration?”
An hour later Turner and Fenwick sat in their car outside the rectory. They’d listened to the two priests spew venom and speculation. Fenwick thumped the folder with the new information. He sighed and belched. “More repetitious drivel.”
“Yup.”
“They didn’t like Kappel or the Cardinal.”
“Nope.”
“They have alibis.”
“Yup. You want dull and boring or you want mad shootouts while careening down the streets of Chicago?”
Fenwick scratched his ass and wiped his hand across his chin. Finally Fenwick said, “Which one of us would be driving?”
“Not you.”
“Let me get back to you on that.”
The detectives returned to the station. They spent several hours more cross-referencing all the new data from McGinn and Wiltse. At midnight, they gave up.
FORTY-TWO
Wednesday 12:35 AM
Brian sat on the top step of the front porch. Jeff’s wheelchair ramp stretched to the right. The full moon rode high overhead. Brian sat in shadow. Paul was tired. He wanted to get in, grab a bite to eat, and go to bed.
He greeted his son.
Brian gave him barely a nod. Jeff might cause an uproar for attention, but Brian, since he was two or three years old, usually made barely a peep. Brian’s cheerfulness, like his brother’s, seemed endemic, and sometimes hid his deep emotions. Brian hadn’t cried that Paul knew of since the time he and his first girlfriend broke up. He was in fourth grade when Mavis Lukachevsky had stolen his lunch.
The slumped shoulders and the silence raised Paul’s level of concern. Brian wore jeans and a sweatshirt. The May evening had turned cool.
“It’s late,” Paul said. “It’s a school night.”
“I know.”
Brian didn’t really have much of a curfew as long as he was in at a reasonable hour, and that they had a notion of where he was, and who he was going there with.
“What’s up?” Paul asked.
His older son sighed. “I was waiting for you. I think I screwed up.”
Paul sat down next to his son. “It would be warmer inside.”
“I’m okay here.”
“What did you screw up?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Not sure about what?”
Brian looked at him, looked down at the ground. It was a gesture both of his sons used.
Brian sighed deeply. He leaned back with his elbows on the top step and his butt on the bottom one. He gazed at the moon.
He said, “I’m not a mean person.”
“I agree.”
He looked at his dad and shook his head. “I was trying to do right.”
Parental fears rushed through Paul’s mind. Had the boy done something illegal? Got caught with drugs? Hurt his brother?”
“You know I went to Shane’s birthday party ten days ago?”
“Yeah.” He and Shane had been friends all through high school. Brian hesitated some more.
Paul prompted, “Something happened at the party.”
“Afterwards.”
Brian gulped, sat up, leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, put his head in his hands.
Paul gave his son’s shoulder a squeeze. “I can’t help until you tell me what’s happened.”
Big gulp, big pause, then a whisper. “It’s my fault Shane tried to commit suicide.”
Paul swallowed his parental fears, wild concerns based on lack of knowledge. What was most important to him was his son and what was bothering him. “Why would you think that? His note didn’t mention you. He thanked you at the hospital.”
A desperate whisper. “It was me.”
Paul said, “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Brian stared into the neighborhood darkness, looked at his dad, then down. He whispered, “I didn’t go there for a study session.” Brian shifted uneasily. “He wrote me a love poem.”
“I know what I think I mean by a love poem, but I’m not sure what you or he means by a love poem. You mean like a Shakespeare love poem?”
“No, like a boy/girl love poem. He said he loved me, but it was all poetic and stuff.”
“Okay, why would he write a love poem to you? Does he think you’re in love with him?”
“Well, no. I’m not. It’s just, well…”
Paul waited. Brian crossed his legs, uncrossed his legs, leaned back, leaned forward, stared at the night sky, stared at the ground. When he spoke his voice was barely above a whisper. “So at that party.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, afterwards. After everybody left.” He rubbed his face with his hands, did some more body shifting. Paul thought if he kept at it much longer, the boy might wind up with his body twisted into a pretzel position. Brian looked agonized. He muttered, “I can’t talk about this.”
Fears and anxieties flooded Paul’s mind. He wanted his boy safe. He was determined to help any way he could. He presumed whatever his son revealed, they would deal with. If the boy was this hesitant it must be pretty huge, or at least huge to his teenage mind. And he didn’t get up and leave, and he’d been waiting here, which Paul thought all led to the logical conclusion, the boy wanted to talk and unburden himself.
“Would you prefer to talk to Ben?”
“No, it’s not the person. It’s what happened.” Another big pause. “I don’t know how to talk about this.”
“Do the best you can, and we’ll sort it out together like we always do.”
“I guess.” More pauses and gulps. Brian said, “You know Shane’s gay?” Paul remembered the day of the Inauguration.
“Why is it important if he’s gay?” Paul knew a love poem from a boy to a boy could be upsetting if one was gay and the other was straight. Or any love poem from someone who was smitten to someone who did not share the smitten ones feelings even if both were gay or both were straight.
Brian fell silent. The night noises of Chicago surrounded them: a far off car honked, tires swished on the pavement on Taylor Street half a block away, a distant stereo boomed from a car’s speakers, an emergency vehicle, probably on Halsted Street, hurried by. All the sounds where muted here with the surrounding trees and houses.
Paul knew his son, he knew the ways of the world, and he was reasonably astute about teenagers. He guessed something physical had happened between the boys. A hug? Probably more. A kiss? Possibly. It was not unheard of in Paul’s experience for gay men to offer straight guys physical pleasure with little expectation of reciprocation. Had an offer been made? Accepted? Even reciprocated? He didn’t want to know. Certainly from the level of Brian’s emotional reaction, it had been more than a hug.
The boy’s emotional and maturity level had been or were being tested. His heroism in saving his friend had made the swirling feelings soar off the scale.
Finally Paul said, “And whatever it was that happened after the party and the love note are connected?”
“Right. Yeah.”
“And now you think those two events and the attempted suicide are connected?”
Brian breathed a sigh of relief. His dad was filling in the blanks, and he didn’t have to go into embarrassing details.
“I think so. I’m not sure. I’m afraid so, yeah.”
“What did you do about the note?”
“That’s the thing. I didn’t do anything.” Brian took several deep breaths. “All week he asked to talk to me. I didn’t know what to do or say. It was a guy saying he loved me.” He paused, gulped. “I ignored him and the note. I almost didn’t go Sunday. We were supposed to talk. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I don’t think of him that way. I don’t want that kind of relationship with him. I didn’t know what to say. That’s why I was late that night. If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have saved him.” He wrung his hands. “I was almost too late.”
Paul let the information sink in. He didn’t want a clearer picture of what happened after the party, but he had a clear enough picture of the agony his son was in. He asked, “Do you love him?”
“No. I’m not gay. And I know it would be okay if I was, and I know it’s okay that you guys are. I’m not prejudiced.”
“I know.”
“What should I have done?”
“What would you have done if it was a girl?”
“I guess talked to her.”
“You know that’s what we do in our family, talk to each other.”
“That’s partly why I feel so rotten. I know we talk. I was just too embarrassed. I didn’t know what to say.” He sighed. “I know, I should have. I was going to that night. I shouldn’t
have been late. I was delaying. If I’d got there on time.” He held his arms out as if pleading. “Maybe if I would have talked to him before, like the day he sent me the note, right away, he wouldn’t have…you know…tried to off himself.”
“But you did get there in time.”
“Barely.”
“You are not responsible for his choices.”
“But if I’d have done something, maybe he would have made different choices.”
“You can’t know that. No one can.”
Paul wasn’t sure what to say at such a primal and difficult moment. He wasn’t sure how he felt about what he was being told. He knew for certain that he needed to concentrate on making sure he understood what his son was saying and feeling. He knew he had to take care of his son’s needs and not concentrate on any reaction or discomfort he felt. Helping his son was the key. He just didn’t know what to say or do.
Paul was not about to ask how his son knew how a girl felt doing whatever Shane or he and Shane had done. He wanted no details about his son’s intimate attachments. First, he had to be clear about what his son was saying.
“You don’t want a relationship with him?”
“He thought what happened meant I wanted a relationship. He’d been pestering me and pestering me, all week. He sent me flowers. And then he slipped that love note in my locker.” He sighed and sat back again. “I ignored him. It’s my fault.”
“You’re going to be on opposite sides of the country in a few months, right? He’s going to USC?”
“Yeah, but he had all these ideas about us, having a long-distance relationship. He put it all in the note. About getting together. He wants to do…uhh…more intimate stuff. He’s a nice guy. I thought he was, but I’m just not into him. Not that way. I just totally screwed up.”
Paul said, “Let’s take this a bit at a time.”