Bales held up his own hand. “You slice off the thumb, and they can’t use a gun. See? And then I’d cut off their dicks. Watch the whole fucking race disappear.” He leaned back in his chair and nodded. “Let me tell you, I think about these things.”
Worthy heard a sigh from Betts and tried not to smile. Be as loose in the head as you want, Bales, he thought. Leave no doubt.
“I don’t imagine you shared any of these ideas with Lashad and Rimes.”
“Who?”
“Your friends. They’re black, yet you seem to hang out with them.”
“Shi-it. I’d leave those two homeys be. They’d get all the pussy they wanted.” He paused. “Got a smoke?”
Betts handed Bales a cigarette and lit it for him. The cigarette trembled in Bales’ mouth as he took a long drag then exhaled a smoke ring. Without warning, he bounded from his chair and jumped for the ring, sucking it in a second time.
“Sit down, Mr. Bales,” Worthy ordered.
Bales leaned back on two legs and laughed. “So why am I here again?”
The guy’s waking up, Worthy thought. Let’s see what he knows. “Did you hear about the murder of a priest over at St. Cosmas Church?”
Bales looked puzzled. “Did that happen last night? Because I was with my girl last night. At least, I think I was.”
“No, the murder occurred a month ago.”
Bales looked down and beat the table like a drum. “Was that the one where they cut the priest’s fingers off and stole the holy water?”
Worthy continued to take notes, as if Bales was making perfect sense. “No, this priest was strangled. It’s just that in our records we see that you had that previous incident at the church.”
“Huh?” Bales said, squinting at Worthy.
“You know,” Worthy reminded him, “the time you were arrested in the church during the Greek festival.”
Bales sat quietly for a moment before springing to his feet. “Christ, that place! I was yelling blasfemo. Know what that means? It means blasphemer. It’s Italian. My momma taught me that. You are talking about the Catholic church, aren’t you?”
“Sit down, Mr. Bales,” Betts said in a weary voice.
Bales held out his hand but stayed standing. “Hey, I’m cool, I’m cool.”
“So you don’t remember St. Cosmas? It’s a Greek church.”
Bales sat down heavily. “Maybe. I just never went back.”
“How about Lashad and Rimes. Did they go to the church?”
“Shit, man. They’re not my boyfriends. Hey, is that it? You arresting them for slicing up some priest?”
“No, we’re just conducting interviews,” Worthy explained. He hoped Betts heard the pattern. The guy preferred knives. There was no way he strangled the priest.
“Can you tell us where you were last Wednesday, February first?”
“Gesù Christo. Un momento, Capitano. Some other cop asked me that. A nigger. Was the priest a nigger? ’Cause I’d never kill a priest unless he was a nigger. You don’t go to hell for that. I read that on the Internet. A preacher in Idaho said that.”
“We’re asking if you remember being at St. Michael’s Catholic Church last Wednesday night,” Betts said.
“That the one down by the arena?”
“No, that’s St. Paul’s,” Worthy explained, failing miserably to hide his smile.
“I know that one. It has a soup kitchen.”
“St. Michael’s is near Suffolk Projects.”
Bales sneered. “Suffolk, shit, man. That’s for niggers. I live five fucking miles from there.”
Betts cleared her throat. “We know where you live, Mr. Bales. But we also know that you hang out at Suffolk.” The captain looked over at Worthy. “Anything else, Lieutenant?”
“Just one more question. “Do you remember the policeman who interviewed you last time? His name is Henderson.”
Bales seemed confused by the question until Worthy clarified that Henderson was a black officer.
“Hell, I sure do. I scared the shit out of that nigger. He got all fucky in the face.” Bales started to rise, but a look from Betts sat him down again.
“How’d you scare him? Did you tell him how much you hated blacks?”
“Hell, no!” Bales snorted. “He’d have beaten the shit out of me if I’d said that. No, I said something that scared that motherfuckin’ nigger.” He paused to pound on the table again. “I did this girl one time. She really put out until I said something. Then she got all white in the face and ran off. Just ran out the door. No shit. And I was still agoin’.” Up again, Bales rotated his hips forward in a snapping motion. “Woo, woo, woo!”
“We know how it works, Mr. Bales,” Betts said. “You can sit down.”
“So you said something that troubled Sergeant Henderson.” Worthy was genuinely curious this time. “Do you remember what it was?”
Bales looked around the room, found the camera on the wall and waved at it. “Hell, I don’t know. Wait. Yeah, okay, I remember. He kept looking at me like I was nuts or something, and so I told him he was the one needed shock treatment, not me. Then I got in his face like this,” Bales said, standing to lean across the table toward Worthy, “and went ‘zit, zit, zit.’ ”
Worthy saw again the worried look on Henderson’s wife’s face as she looked in on them the previous Friday. Bales had taunted him not about race, but about shock treatments. His mind stuck on something odd from that visit, but quickly dismissed it. In a day or two, the case should be solved, and the two men would likely never work together again.
Down the hall from his own office, Worthy stopped and knocked on the door. He heard Henderson’s grunt and let himself in. His partner was sitting behind his desk, pencil in hand but nothing else in front of him.
“We just got through with Bales,” Worthy said.
Henderson regarded him with dead eyes. “That right?”
Worthy took the unoffered chair on the other side of the desk. “Fortunate for you that he doesn’t remember you pounding on his scalp.”
Henderson shrugged and tapped the pencil point on his empty desk. “I don’t see how that matters. If they want to take me down, they got the tape.”
“But then again, you found the diary.”
“A diary, huh? You going to tell me we got the name of the killer?”
“Not exactly,” Worthy replied. Worthy gave him a quick review of the three people mentioned in the diary, explaining how one confirmed Mrs. Nichols’ testimony.
Henderson yawned but didn’t say anything as he studied the pencil.
“So, what I’m saying,” Worthy continued, “is that we might be closing in. Why don’t you and I run by the college and hear what they have to say about this Peggy Hagarty?”
“Sure, sure,” Henderson said, but got up slowly. Worthy wondered if he’d even heard what he’d said.
On the way over to Allgemein, Worthy reported on what Captain Betts had said about Bales. “She thinks he’s certifiably crazy,” he said, immediately regretting his choice of words. “Neither of us sees him as the type to have killed the priest—at least not in that way,” he quickly added.
“He’s one stupid fuck—that’s all I know,” Henderson offered, looking out the window. “So you cut him loose?”
“Not completely, but he’s on the back burner, especially after I told her about Hagarty.”
“You really think the woman did it, don’t you?” Henderson asked drowsily. “Sounds like you think we’ll be finished in a couple days.”
Worthy shrugged. “The pieces fit.”
“Fine by me,” Henderson responded flatly.
At the college, their wait was no more than two minutes before they were shown into the academic dean’s office. A tall man in his fifties, dark hair graying at the temples, came around from behind a desk and introduced himself as Dean Wolcott. Worthy glanced around the room as the two of them were seated. Diplomas and archival photos of students lined the wall, along with one prominent
photo of the dean in full academic regalia standing with Gerald Ford. The dean was younger in the photo but already had the confident smile he now beamed at them.
“You were on campus some years back, weren’t you?” the dean asked Worthy.
“Right. I worked the VanBruskman case.”
“How’d that turn out? I don’t think I ever heard.”
“The girl is still missing,” Worthy said.
“Such a shame. What a good family.”
I think you mean wealthy and powerful, Worthy thought.
The dean returned to his leather chair and straightened his tie. “I hope your visit today doesn’t mean we have some new emergency.”
“We’re investigating the murder of Father Spiro George,” Worthy explained.
“Oh, yes. A terrible tragedy. I knew him, by the way.”
“Oh? How was that?”
“We were working together on an icon exhibit. A very gentle man. Yes, I met with him and two of his parishioners who are faculty members here. The church must be devastated.”
Worthy nodded. “We’re here to talk about one of your faculty members.”
“Oh?” the dean responded, his expression blank.
“Dr. William Nichols.”
The dean’s chair came forward slowly to its fully erect position. “Is Bill in some trouble?”
As if you don’t know, Worthy thought. “Not Dr. Nichols himself. We’d like confirmation that he came to see you as recently as mid-December.”
Wolcott’s eyes twitched slightly. “You’ll have to refresh my memory.”
“It was a complaint he had with Peggy Hagarty. Are you saying he didn’t see you about that?”
The dean looked from one of them to the other. “I’m not sure I’m at liberty to answer that. Not without our lawyer present, anyway.”
Worthy looked over to see Henderson. Time to jump in, partner, put some pressure on this guy. But Henderson didn’t seem to be listening as he studied his knuckles.
“It’s part of our ongoing investigation,” Worthy explained. “I’m sure Allgemein wants to cooperate.”
“Of course we want to cooperate, Lieutenant, but we still have to protect confidences.”
“Okay, then let me ask you this. Did Father Spiro ever come to see you about Mrs. Hagarty?”
Wolcott’s eyes widened. “And you’re suggesting that Mrs. Hagarty has something to do with the murder?”
Worthy studied the dean’s face. The guy didn’t give too much away. “We both know that you keep careful records, Dr. Wolcott,” he said. “So you can either tell us what went on between Dr. Nichols and Peggy Hagarty, or we can subpoena the records.”
The dean sat quietly for a moment before looking pleadingly as his visitors. “In your jobs, I’m sure that you have procedures you must follow. You may not like them, but there they are. I believe that’s all I’m at liberty to say.”
Worthy rose, with Henderson following. “Expect a subpoena by tomorrow morning.”
Dean Wolcott rose, but this time didn’t come around the desk. “I can assure you, Lieutenant, the file you’re requesting will be ready for you.”
After dropping Henderson at home, Worthy munched on a burger as he drove toward his old house. The tingling electric feeling from earlier in the day had been short-circuited at the college. But it wasn’t the dean’s resistance that had caused it. The subpoena would free Wolcott to do what he might have wanted to do anyway, and the damning evidence would be there all the same.
No, it had been Henderson who’d brought him down to earth. The guy had been useless, obviously distracted. He saw Allyson’s face and remembered her concern for a man she’d never met. Let it go, he told himself.
Again, he saw Allyson’s face. He’d tried twice to reach her by phone since their odd weekend, but she hadn’t bothered to respond. He turned onto his old street, fully expecting her not to be home. That would mean a few minutes of awkward conversation with Susan before he would take his younger daughter, Amy, out for ice cream or pizza. Let it go, he told himself again.
But it was Allyson herself who opened the door, looking surprised, maybe even a bit guilty. “Did Rachel tell you to come?”
Rachel was Susan’s psychologist, the one Allyson was also seeing. The idea of Rachel actually being on his side seemed almost funny, but he just shook his head. Allyson stood in the doorway for a moment as if she didn’t believe him.
“Okay,” she said, turning and walking toward the kitchen. The return of her suspicion and sullenness made him ask the same question he’d asked himself a hundred times since the weekend. What had he said in the restaurant that had turned her away? What had he said about Henderson but the obvious truth?
He sat at the table in his old kitchen and wondered where to begin. Should he inquire about Rachel? No, too invasive. Should he tell her about Henderson coming through by finding the diary? No, that would sound too self-congratulatory, as if he’d been right in not getting caught up in the man’s anger problems.
“Where’s Mom?” he asked.
“You mean your ex-wife?”
So that’s how it’s going to be, he thought.
“They’re shopping … again,” Allyson added, opening the refrigerator. “I swear, Amy is addicted.”
“Is there a Diet Coke in there?” he asked.
Allyson reached in and brought the can over to him.
“Can you sit down?” he asked.
“I’d rather stand,” she said as she walked back and leaned against the counter. After a moment’s silence, she said, “Rachel said we should talk.”
“So I guessed. Something to do with last weekend?”
Allyson twisted a ring on her finger but didn’t immediately answer.
He took a sip and waited. He felt butterflies in his stomach and wondered if it was his tension or Allyson’s he was feeling.
Allyson sighed. “This is a shitty idea. I don’t see what good it’s going to do.”
“I’d prefer you yelling at me to this silence between us.”
Allyson looked up and briefly made eye contact. “Why do people hate silence? Who does it hurt?”
More twisting of the ring. Worthy wondered if maybe Allyson was going to talk about something more important than their weekend spat. Was it possible after all these months that she was going to explain why she ran away? He felt his heart pounding, despite knowing she couldn’t tell him anything that he’d hadn’t already considered. Pregnancy and an abortion had been near the top of the list, but neither Susan nor he could remember any particular boy. That had raised the darker specter of rape and again an abortion, but during those months drugs and other scenarios had floated in and out of his nearly crazed mind.
“Tell me why you work on murders,” she blurted out.
He put the can down. “What?”
She took a deep breath. “I’ve never understood why anyone would want to be that kind of cop. I mean, dead people and all.”
“You don’t think solving murders is important?”
“We all know you think so.” He was mesmerized by the level of anger emanating from his daughter. He had the sudden feeling that he’d misunderstood absolutely everything about the last several years.
He took another swig of pop. “Allyson, when you see a headline in the newspaper about someone being shot or stabbed or found strangled in a motel room, aren’t you hoping somebody like me is out there looking for them?”
“Rachel asked me that. And yes, I’m not stupid. I know somebody has to do your job. But it’s different with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like some crusade. The minute you got a case, we all knew what would happen. You’d be gone, and even when you were here, you really weren’t.”
“I don’t sell insurance, Ally,” he protested. “A city gets scared whenever a killer is on the loose because they suspect something. And they’re right. Killing is like a virus. The longer someone gets away with it, the more dangerous h
e or she is. It’s like she’s tasted something new, exotic. It’s like taking a dangerous drug and finding out that she got away with it. Eventually, she wants that feeling again. I’m paid to find that person, that woman,” he added, “before she has that second chance.”
Allyson shook her head. “You talk as if someone is forcing you to do this. I think it’s you,” she said and paused. Her lower lip trembled. “You’d get a case, and you’d run away from all of us.”
He felt the heat rising from his chest up to his head. “So now you and Rachel think that I enjoy finding dead bodies? You think it’s fun to tell families that they just lost a father or sister? Do you think that I look forward to coming face to face with a killer?”
“Yes,” Allyson said without hesitation.
Her look hit him as hard as her response. She’s been waiting to tell me this, practicing it over and over again in her mind, he realized. “So now I’m to blame for being good at my job?”
“I knew this wasn’t going to work. Let’s just forget it.”
“Allyson, we can’t. Say what you have to say.”
She stood silently for a moment, tears welling up. “You and Mom made such a big deal out of my running away. Okay, don’t say anything. I know it was a big deal, and I know I could have gotten hurt, or worse. But what Rachel says I need to tell you is that what I did was what you did over and over again to us.”
Worthy stared at the can of pop. “Rachel told you to say that? Nice to know I’m paying the bill for someone who wants to lay all the guilt on me,” he said bitterly.
“Look, that’s what I believe, not her. She just wanted me to tell you to your face. I was trying to find a way to say something at the cabin, but I couldn’t.”
He stirred in his chair. He wanted to say something to wound her in return, something equally unfair. The words came out as if he, too, had been waiting for this moment. “How is my doing my job the same as your scaring the hell out of your mom and me?”
He looked over to see her reddened eyes glaring at him. My God, he thought, she hates me.
“I’m just saying that you’d get a case and we wouldn’t see you for weeks sometimes. It was like you cared more for those damned commendations—”
Let the Dead Bury the Dead Page 17