Let the Dead Bury the Dead

by David Carlson

  “You see, Father, the reason I ask is that I understand there’s a break in the case. A new development.”

  He thought of the diary. Had Mrs. Hazelton broken her word and told someone? He couldn’t imagine that, but how else would she have known?

  “You’ll have to ask the police about that,” he said cautiously.

  “You mean Lieutenant Worthy? Yes, I tried that, but he hung up on me.”

  “Just how is this part of your story, Ms. McCarty?”

  “Just as I said, Father. Detroit hasn’t forgotten about a priest being strangled.”

  “Meaning, your paper wants to sell copies, no matter if it hinders an investigation or not,” he snapped.

  “Good Lord, you don’t know, do you?” she asked. “No one’s told you. I thought Worthy would have the decency to call you, but then, he’s a bit of a loner, isn’t he?”

  A monk’s life is a life of discipline. As his abbot had never tired of reminding him, the very structure of monastic life is predicated on self-control, on knowing when to speak and when not to. And so he yearned for the discipline not to ask the question, even as it was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. “What are you talking about?”

  “Another cop found the altarpiece, Father. Over at Suffolk, in a Dumpster.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Captain Betts’ office was standing-room-only by the time Worthy arrived. Sitting center stage was Sherrod, on his lap a cardboard box. The guy looked like he’d bought a lamp. Except Worthy knew it wasn’t a lamp, but another nail—maybe the final one—in his coffin. Henderson was standing by the window, as he had that first day when the case had been handed over. Captain Betts was also standing against the opposite wall and looking at the box. Behind her desk, in a golf shirt, sat another figure, Michael “Mickey” Livorno, Police Superintendent.

  Welcome to my funeral, Worthy told himself.

  Sherrod was leaning forward in his chair, patting the top of the box.

  Captain Betts cleared her throat. “Okay, it looks like we’re all here. Show-and-tell time, Lieutenant.”

  Sherrod nodded but paused a moment for full effect. “What I have here was found yesterday afternoon, by yours truly, over at Suffolk. I found it in a Dumpster that’s about two blocks from Mr. Lashad’s current address.” He slowly opened the top of the box, as if something could pop out. Reaching in, he pulled out a shiny silver and gold altarpiece. On it, Worthy noted the Greek lettering.

  “I believe we all know what this is,” Sherrod crowed as he held his trophy aloft, perfect except for a slight dent in the top. “The dent is recent. Notice that there’s no tarnish build-up in the crack.”

  “So you don’t think it’s been in the Dumpster long, then,” Superintendent Livorno asked.

  “I can’t say for certain, sir. Trash pick-up in on Fridays—that’s today—so the longest it could have been in there is a week. Besides that, the item in question was found about halfway down in the garbage, so I estimate it was put there middle of the week.”

  Worthy stood, detached, watching Sherrod’s moment of triumph. Betts had the courtesy not to look his way, though the superintendent seemed as interested in him as the altarpiece.

  “Does anyone have any questions?” Sherrod asked, smiling fully in Worthy’s direction.

  Like when you get to take the case back officially? Worthy thought.

  It was Henderson who broke the silence. “I got one, Sherrod. How’d you come to search that Dumpster? In fact, why the hell were you over there in the first place?”

  Sherrod didn’t look his way, but kept his eyes on Worthy. “Sergeant, you can accuse me of intervention in your case, but the evidence speaks for itself.”

  Captain Betts cleared her throat again. “The sergeant asked how you found yourself at that particular Dumpster.”

  Sherrod reddened slightly, gazing at the altarpiece again. “I got a tip. A phone call.”

  “Who from?” Henderson shot back.

  “From an informant, you moron! That’s police work. They know me around there and somebody called me and said I’d find something interesting in that Dumpster. And it looks like I sure as hell did.”

  Livorno rubbed his hands together as he stared at the altarpiece. “I can’t see how anyone can argue with Lieutenant Sherrod’s results. And I don’t have to tell you why it’s a relief to the entire department to have this case solved—once that’s proven, of course.”

  Worthy watched the four in the room as if they were characters in a movie scene. His case was over. Livorno’s fascination with the altarpiece proved that. But dammit, Worthy thought, Henderson’s point is still valid. Sherrod’s victory was too pat. “Why contact you, Sherrod? Henderson’s been all over Suffolk. Why didn’t they call him?”

  Sherrod smirked, looking from Worthy back to Livorno. “Superintendent, do I really have to answer that? I’m a modest man, and Lieutenant Worthy is trying to set me up for self-promotion. That’s something I’ve always detested in others. Not my style.”

  Henderson’s laugh cut through the room. “You’re telling us some informant from Suffolk, out of the blue, calls a white cop and tells him where to find this piece?”

  Sherrod spun around and glared at Henderson. “Yes, that’s what informants do for me, Sergeant. They inform! And I fucking reward them.”

  “So who called?” Henderson insisted.

  Sherrod glanced back at Superintendent Livorno for support. “I’m sure most people in this room will understand if I say I’m not at liberty to say. Hell, I’m not sure myself yet. He’ll let me know who he is when the time’s right.”

  Worthy edged over in Henderson’s direction. “So, you didn’t recognize the voice.”

  “I thought you were the one teaching at the academy,” Sherrod sneered. “Informants call when they know it’s safe. He’s waiting until somebody has the balls to lock those guys up.”

  “So this guy, is he Black?” Henderson asked.

  “You’re a moron, you know that? And this guy is your teacher. Hell, we all know what this meeting means. You blew it,” he said, waving the altarpiece again. “Some punks followed the old priest into the church, did the job, and killed the geezer. It wasn’t a fucking hard case. It was never a hard case until somebody in this room decided it was.”

  “That’s enough, Lieutenant,” Superintendent Livorno said.

  “All I’m saying is that I was right. And I deserve—”

  Captain Betts cut him off. “The superintendent said that was enough. You can go, Lieutenant.”

  Sherrod ceremonially placed the altarpiece on the desk, directly in front of Livorno. Glaring at Worthy on his way out, he slammed the door. For a few minutes, no one spoke.

  “Anything you’d like to say, gentlemen?” Captain Betts asked.

  Neither of them answered.

  “What your captain is asking is this: do you or do you not have anything to say which we can use to cover your sorry asses when the papers get on to this?” Livorno asked.

  Again, both men remained silent.

  Livorno stood, looking like the morning had ruined his golf outing. “Then Captain Betts and I will see you both back here Monday morning, nine o’clock sharp. We’ll let you know our decision.”

  The next morning, Saturday, the day before Father Spiro’s memorial, Worthy was watching the coffee percolate when the phone rang.

  A thin voice on the other end said, “Dad?”

  His heart skipped a beat. Why would his daughter call him at eight thirty on a Saturday? “Ally, what’s wrong?”

  “I just saw the paper.”

  Steaming water, an anemic brown, trickled into his cup. “You’re ahead of me, then. I take it I didn’t get another commendation.” He hadn’t meant it to sound cruel, to throw back in her face what she’d accused him of the week earlier.

  There was only silence on the line. “Dad? Does this mean you’re going to …?”

  “Be fired? No, although like I said I haven’
t seen the article. I suspect that’s what the reporter recommends. What it means is that on Monday I’ll lose the case.”

  “Oh,” she said, sounding relieved, then anxious again. “But that’s a big deal, right?”

  “Yes, a pretty big deal,” he replied, seeing no need to explain to his daughter how long public humiliation hung around a cop’s neck. There goes the guy who—

  “They’ll give you another one?”

  He flipped the switch on the coffee maker. The stream stopped almost immediately. “Probably not this Monday. But yes, they’ll give me another one.” Some day. At least he wouldn’t be sent back to the academy. No, he’d spend the next few months sitting at his desk, his ear pressed to a phone as he researched background on other people’s cases.

  “How about we do something tomorrow?” Allyson asked.

  Sunday, the day before judgment came down from on high. And now the day his daughter didn’t want him to be alone. “I thought you worked on Sundays,” he said.

  “Not until six. We could have lunch and see a movie.”

  “I’d planned on going to church in the morning,” he said.

  “You’ve gone back to church? Since when?”

  “No, nothing like that. I want to go to St. Cosmas one more time.”

  “The place where the priest got killed? Why?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly,” he said. “Why don’t you come with me? We can go for lunch from there.” He waited for her to refuse, just as she had in the old days when he was still trying to get his family to church. That had been before the wheels came off his marriage and then his life.

  “I tell you what. We’ll sit in the balcony. After the service, you can meet my friend, Father Nick.”

  “Sure, I guess so,” she agreed, sounding less than sure. “They’re not weird, are they?”

  “Weird? I don’t think so. “There’ll be nothing heavy, I promise you that. No pressure stuff.” And it wouldn’t be heavy, he thought. Of course, the sanctuary would be packed with all those coming for Father Spiro’s memorial service. But everyone would be respectful, wanting to do things right. Worthy knew he wasn’t going out of respect for the victim. No, he was going for one reason: to look down on the parishioners one last time before having to turn the case back over to Sherrod. The killer wouldn’t miss the chance to sit, head bowed and sorrowful, in the midst of the mourners, and feel what—regret, grief, or simply pride? After all, wouldn’t tomorrow be the day to secretly celebrate how masterfully he—or she—had kept on top of developments?

  First, he or she had had the presence of mind after strangling the priest to take the altarpiece and throw Sherrod off. Secondly, they must have overruled an initial instinct to wipe the piece down and get rid of it, to throw it into the lake or bury it in some field. And hadn’t that proved to be a wise decision? How clever the killer must have felt, knowing the value of the altarpiece when he, Worthy, had come on the case and turned attention back on the church. But they had been patient, not playing that card yet. No, they had opted to hit the Catholic church and take something similar. It was as if the killer knew they could still get to Sherrod. And then, the coup de grâce, the killer had disposed of the altarpiece at Suffolk and made one disguised phone call. All that could mean, Worthy concluded, was that the killer thought they were getting too close. But we aren’t, Worthy admitted. Or are we?

  Father Fortis’ left knee cramped as it did every time he prayed too long on his knees. Always heavy-set, he’d played left guard from junior high through his junior year in college when he’d had surgery on the knee. Technically, he’d been a football player, though he’d never touched the ball except in practice, when everyone would pretend to be quarterback or tight end. The sanctuary of St. Cosmas was dark in the pre-dawn hours, lit only by the candles under the icons that flanked the altar doors. It would be a long day, filled with a myriad of tiny details. The flowers were set in place—Lord, may they not wilt before morning. The metropolitan’s throne was polished—Lord, keep the old guy awake. Don’t let him nod off like they tell me he did on his last visit. He’d heard the choir practicing extra long the afternoon before, and once or twice he’d heard the chanter’s voice crack. Nerves, he thought, the same as he was battling as he imagined the day ahead. Lord, give us all a sense of your peace today.

  Nearly forty nights before, Father Spiro, body and soul still intact, might have been on his knees in this same place. Had he been oblivious that Sunday morning to what lay ahead, his accidental death at the hands of some burglar, as the morning article stated was now established? Or, as Worthy believed, had he been praying that night about a confrontation he was to have the next morning?

  Letters from the secret diary, in combinations of four, swam in front of his eyes in the candlelight. MRAG, NISP, and finally IOAG. What did they mean? They meant nothing, if the killer or killers had come in from Suffolk.

  He’d asked himself the same question a hundred times over the past few days. Last thought at night, first in the morning, he was ashamed to admit, had not been his prayers, but those puzzling letters. As if he could catch Father Spiro’s soul before it left this world forever, he whispered, “So what did they mean, Father?” Again, for the second time in the last two days, he felt something vague streak across his mind from one corner to the other like a shooting star. And again, just as it had when he was a boy, he could hear his brother’s voice. “Over there, Nicky. Quick!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Worthy and Allyson arrived early at St. Cosmas and made their way to the balcony. Worthy watched as parishioner after parishioner brought candles to the icon screen, and after standing quietly and crossing themselves, placed the candles below one of the icons. They seemed like soldiers reporting to duty for a sad mission.

  Missing was the laughter and arm-punching he remembered from his youth, the pre-service frivolity that had so disturbed his father. His father’s intermittent pleas for a spirit of reverence to prepare for worship would be honored for a week or two, but the chatter of sports and weather would inevitably return. The Baptists he’d grown up with had savored the last few minutes before worship like last drags on a forbidden cigarette.

  But again this week, as two weeks before, silence lay heavy in the Greek church. Allyson added to it, sitting quietly beside him without fidgeting. Here at St. Cosmas there was no hint of the breezy familiarity with the Deity. Here, beneath the scowls on the faces in the icons, fear of God made some sense. A part of his first visit came back to mind, when Father Fortis had turned toward the congregation and begged them to forgive his offenses against them: “For I approach God, our immortal King.” It sounded like the warning of a landmine ahead.

  An African American walking up the side aisle brought Worthy back to the present. Henderson. Wow, who’d have thought that? His partner ducked in and sat just behind Mrs. Nichols’ usual seat. The man was either loyal or stubborn.

  Both he and Allyson stood with the others as the service began. He looked down and picked out those he knew. He recognized Mrs. Filis, the parish council member who’d found the body. Across the aisle and up closer to the front stood Dr. Pappas. Next to him was a thin woman, almost as tall, dressed in respectful black. At the front and to the side stood the chanter and next to him, Mr. Margolis, parish council president.

  Worthy looked toward the other side. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered.

  Allyson poked him in the ribs. “Dad! Shh.”

  “Sorry,” he whispered, still trying to make sense of the new couple who had seated themselves along the far aisle. Kenna McCarty was sitting next to Superintendent Livorno. She must be covering the service for a follow-up story, he thought, but why is he here?

  He didn’t have much time to puzzle on the matter as Father Fortis appeared in the doorway between the icon screen and the altar and looked down the center aisle. Everyone turned toward the narthex, as if expecting someone.

  Soon the scene was explained, as altar boys carrying icons
and incense holders escorted an older man in even fancier vestments down the center aisle. Father Fortis came down from the podium, kissed the old man’s hand, and led him to the ornate throne set off to the right.

  “Who’s he?” Allyson whispered.

  “I think he’s the metropolitan, their bishop.”

  “Wow. Nice getup.”

  The service returned to what he remembered from his last visit. By the first procession, the seats below were packed. If the killer was among them, they wouldn’t have been the first to come, nor noticeably late. No, the killer would have entered with the crowd—all perfectly normal.

  First Corinthians, Chapter One, was read in Greek, then English, by Mr. Margolis. Immediately following, Father Fortis opened the jeweled Bible and read a gospel story about a father with two sons, one who promised to obey, the second who protested but in the end was the only one to obey.

  Worthy stood, his legs as heavy as lead, for the second procession. The altar boys inched their way toward the back corner and then turned toward the center. Here, Father Spiro had stopped, frozen for some reason, as unfathomable a mystery to Worthy as the diary’s codes.

  Worthy looked down and spied Henderson. His voice had held some hope on Thursday when he told Worthy about his son’s new psychiatrist. The doctor was a visiting specialist from Peru whose accent was so thick that Henderson admitted he didn’t understand every word the guy said. But somehow the doctor had connected with Jamie. “If a shrink from Peru can do that, maybe he can teach me,” Henderson had said. Yes, Henderson was stubborn.

  A strange rustling had started below him, and Worthy brought himself to attention. He saw Mrs. Filis drop to her knees and cross herself. Slowly, even as he leaned so far over the balcony rail that Allyson pulled at his coat, he realized what was happening. Below him, in the rear of the left aisle, Father Fortis stood motionless, his mouth open but silent. The tinkling of the censer had stopped, and the altar boys and the other priests in the procession stared back at the pale and shaking priest.