Last Breath

by Rachel Lee

  After Mass, there were the usual number of people who wanted to speak with him. Some simply wanted to socialize for a few minutes. Others had problems they wanted to share. Many expressed concern for Brendan and asked how he was getting along. If there was malice in this parish against the pastor, none of these people evinced it.

  But then, those who went to daily Mass were without a doubt some of the best people in any church.

  Chloe, thank goodness, waited patiently until he was able to signal her to follow him into the sacristy. Once there, he stripped his vestments, speaking as he did so.

  “I’m going to break a confidence here,” he said, reaching for a hanger. “I’d appreciate it if you'd keep it to yourself. Primarily, don't tell the cops.”

  Chloe tilted her head to one side. “I can't promise that, Father. I’m not just a parishioner, I’m also a lawyer, which makes me an officer of the court. I can't be involved in anything that might be obstruction of justice.”

  Dominic sighed, finished hanging his vestments, then sat facing her. “I don't think this falls into that category. But I’ll let you use your best judgment, then. Just understand that this was told to me in confidence, and the only reason I’m breaking that confidence is because I believe it might have some bearing on what's happening here.”

  Chloe nodded. “I’ll treat it carefully, Father. As an attorney, I understand confidentiality as well as a priest.”

  He smiled wryly. “Maybe you do.”

  “I know I do.”

  “Very well. We're on the same page.”

  Chloe nodded. “Close enough. So what's going on?”

  Dominic hesitated, trying to decide what was essential and what he could skip over so as not to divulge anything unnecessary. Finally, he decided to approach the matter as if he'd heard it from somewhere else.

  “It's come to my attention,” he said, “that another complaint has been lodged against Father Brendan at the chancery. From what I understand, this complaint alleges an improper relationship with young Steve King.”

  “That's already on the table. Father. Somebody spilled that to the cops.”

  “Yes, but there's more. Its seems this complainer linked the matter of King to an incident while Brendan was a navy chaplain.”

  Chloe became very still and very quiet. Dominic, who hadn't known her very long, wasn't used to this habit of hers, and he found it quite unsettling. In fact, it was downright unnerving how her blue eyes could suddenly seem icy enough to freeze anything they happened to gaze upon. At the moment, thank goodness, she wasn't looking at him.

  “Father …” She spoke slowly, thoughtfully. “Are you telling me that Brendan was accused once before of having a romantic relationship with a young man?”

  “I don't know if that's the case. I don't know if he was accused or not. In fact, I know nothing about what really happened. I … tried to find out, and met with a dead end.”

  “Shit.” Chloe spoke the word, then glanced at him. “Sorry.”

  “Quite all right. I believe I’ve used that word a time or two myself.”

  A small, mirthless smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Thanks. Okay. I’ll find out what's going on. Somehow.”

  “I’m just concerned that there may be a link, at least in the mind of someone who's threatening the pastor.”

  “There may well be. I don't know. It may be nothing but malicious gossip. But I’ll check it out.”

  “Thank you. And, by the way, I don't especially care to know what you find out.”

  Chloe looked at him, her eyes seeming to penetrate past his surface to the not-quite-shiny state of his soul. “You weren't sent here just to be parochial vicar, were you.”

  It wasn't a question. Dominic, who thought he'd forgotten how to blush at least thirty years ago, felt his cheeks heating.

  “You don't have to answer,” Chloe said pleasantly enough. “Just guard his back, Father. Because regardless of what problems the Church hierarchy may have with Brendan, they at least won't kill him.”

  He nodded, unable to speak, and watched as this extraordinarily self-possessed and icy woman walked out of the sacristy.

  Being asked to help Chloe with an investigation was often the high point of Phil's life. After fifteen years of teaching third- and fourth-graders, most of the problems she faced had become entirely too familiar. Chloe's occasional requests for her to do research of some kind were invariably welcome.

  One of her favorite jobs had been driving down to a bad part of town and parking where a cop had supposedly been parked while watching a drug exchange. She thought she'd earned her fedora that day, because there was no way the police officer could have seen a drug transaction at the corner where it supposedly took place, through the sign he was parked behind.

  But this request was different.

  “Well, of course I have contacts in the chancery,” she said in answer to Chloe's request, “but they aren't going to give me anything except gossip. Certainly not someone's personnel records.”

  “I don't need you to get them,” Chloe argued. “I just need to know if there's anything in them about an incident involving the death of a young man while Brendan was in the navy. Since he was a priest at the time, there might be something there about it.”

  “I don't know, Chloe. Those records are very private. There's not only the question of you and me being privy to something that's so private, but there's the question of asking someone else to check it out.”

  “I understand that. But the simple fact is, Brendan's life is in the balance. And a complaint made at the chancery suggests that Steve's death was not the first time Brendan was associated with the death of a young man. If there's a link there, it could lead us to the killer.”

  The two women were sitting in Chloe's living room, sharing a pot of green tea on a sunny April afternoon that had turned unexpectedly chilly. For now, Brendan was safe under the watchful eyes of about three hundred people as he performed a wedding. In forty-five minutes, though, one of them needed to get over to the church to keep an eye on him.

  Phil poured some more tea into her small Japanese cup and sipped it. This was a leap she wasn't sure she was ready to make, yet already her mind was considering ways she might achieve what Chloe wanted.

  “The problem with me,” Phil announced after a moment, “is that I can't resist a challenge.”

  “I know.” Chloe laughed. “That's what makes you such a great investigator.”

  “And a fool. I could get really burned on this, and so could whoever helps me.”

  Chloe didn't say anything. That was the worst thing about Chloe. She didn't argue. If she'd argued, Phil would at least have had something to argue against.

  “Oh, all right,” Phil said finally. “I’ll see what I can do. But I can't make any promises.”

  “You realize,” Chloe said, “that if we don't get to the bottom of this, and quickly, someone might be inspired to call the police with the same story. If that were to happen, Father Brendan wouldn't have a lick of privacy anymore, not from the police and not from the press.”

  Trust Chloe to give her the good reasons after she'd made her decision. Still, it helped ease her conscience somewhat. “Do me a favor, Chloe?”

  “Sure, Phil.”

  “Remind me to go to confession. Soon.” Chloe's laugh was little comfort.

  The watcher called the killer and told him the priest was going to be gone from Tampa in five days. The killer heard this news with a sinking heart, even though he knew he was the cause of it. Those phone calls to the Tampa chancery offices had finally had an effect.

  He hung up the phone and turned to his wife, who was watching some sitcom on the television. “I have to go out of town again.”

  She looked up, dismayed. Since the death of their son she'd begun to hate it when he traveled, even though she'd been alone before. It was as if she was afraid he was going to go away and never come back, just as their son had.

  “Do you have to?” she
asked, a hint of a whine in her voice.

  “There's an emergency.”

  “When?”

  “I’ll leave in the morning.”

  She sighed. “How long will you be gone?”

  “A couple of days. I’ll call and let you know.”

  Then, as always, she went back to her television show, leaving him alone.

  He went to his son's room, as he often did. In the years since Tom joined the navy, he and his wife had talked about converting the room into a guest room, but they'd somehow never gotten around to it. Oh, they'd started. They'd taken down the posters and the high school memorabilia, packing it all carefully away for Tom.

  The twin bed was still a twin bed, though. They'd never bought the queen-size bed they'd talked about once with so much hope, speaking of a daughter-in-law and grandchildren. The bedspread was different though. His wife had gotten rid of the “ratty” NFL spread and replaced it with a peach-colored chenille.

  But otherwise, the room was still the same. The same nicked wood desk was in the same corner, still bearing the scars of careless youth and one angry attempt to carve something nasty into it when Tom was eight. The shelves still held the books Tom had left behind, from Dr. Seuss to Cliff Notes. A copy of the King James Bible, battered from years of being carried to Sunday school and Bible study groups.

  The room looked dingy and sad. But mostly it looked empty.

  Sometimes when he sat on the edge of the bed, the annoying sound of the TV muffled by the closed door, he thought he could hear his son's voice, could hear his laughter, and his impatient, angry teenage retorts. Could hear him announcing with such pride that he'd joined the navy. It was as if the room had captured those sounds and held them, cherishing them.

  He let the sorrow come to him, let it fill him and spill wetly from his burning eyes. His throat tightened until he could barely breathe, each gasp sounding pained.

  I’ll get him for you, Tom, he vowed silently, anger fueled by his anguish. I’ll get him for you.

  Then he sat there and sobbed like a baby.

  The watcher sat in the cheesy hotel room — the big guys always got the slightly better hotels, while he wound up in the cheapest motel in the area — and stared at the telephone. He'd done it, he'd pushed the cannon, but he wasn't at all sure he was happy about it.

  Sitting there, he did some painful thinking. It was rare that he allowed himself to do so, because painful thinking seldom led to answers, but it often led to exactly that: pain.

  However, the choice of cannon in this instance was really beginning to bug him. It wasn't that he questioned the goal of his organization. After all, you couldn't fight terrorism with mealy-mouthed platitudes and endless investigations. No, you needed to fight them head-on, with every bit as much threat and weight as you could put behind your words. The business in Afghanistan was a surprising but welcome step in the right direction. However, the real nest of vipers was being overlooked.

  So you gave a little push and shove in the right direction. All perfectly well and good. He approved of that.

  He also understood the need to use a cannon that couldn't be traced back to them. But their choice this time …

  He shook his head. He'd questioned it from the outset, although not too loudly, since loud complaints could bring the hammer down on his head. But he'd questioned it even then. Now the cannon had killed a kid, and was plainly running his own agenda. Not good. Not good at all, even if the big guys did say that it would make the cannon look even more like a crazed killer working for his own reasons.

  The problem was, the cannon was a crazy man working for his own reasons. That made him difficult to control. That meant he might do something else stupid, something that could get him caught before he got the target.

  Shit. He was going to have to keep a closer eye on this guy than he liked. He was going to have to expose his own back.

  And that's why he didn't like painful thinking.

  Chapter 11

  “Nothing,” Phil said to Chloe. “There's absolutely nothing.”

  The two women were on the church basketball court. The team Phil coached had finished practice and disappeared to their various homes and other activities. She and Chloe were alone, tossing free throws for the heck of it, working up a good sweat, as the westering sun bathed the world in a golden glow. Dominic was with Brendan in the church hall, along with three hundred kids, who were getting their weekly dose of religious education.

  It turned out that shadowing a priest wasn't the most difficult job in the world. The man was rarely alone.

  Chloe dribbled the ball, then swished a three-pointer. “Then who's making this connection?”

  “Darned if I know. I mean, Brendan's file is clean. All it says is that he went into retreat for two years after leaving the navy. Whatever the reason was, that was kept solely between him and his spiritual advisor.”

  “Hell.”

  “Tsk,” said Phil, more out of habit than because she was offended. Older kids used four-letter words all the time, and she habitually voiced disapproval. The automatic response of fifteen years as a teaching nun. Dribbling the ball, she ran around the court and shot from behind Chloe. The ball sailed over the other woman's head, then bounced off the backboard.

  “Sheesh,” Phil said, “I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn tonight.”

  “Try again.” Chloe headed for the bench and the towel she'd left there. The chilly air had gone as fast as it had come, and the night hinted at the humid, hot summer to come.

  But Phil tossed the ball into the corner of the court, with all the other balls, and joined her at the bench, mopping her face with her own towel. “The thing is, Chlo,” she said, keeping her voice down, “you're probably going to have to ask Father about this. He's the only one who knows what really happened, if anything did. Well, other than Crowell and whoever is pouring poison into his ear. And they're not going to talk.”

  “Shit.”

  This time Phil bit back the automatic sound of disapproval. “Well, it seems to me if you want the real skinny, you need to go to the horse's mouth.”

  “What if the horse doesn't want to talk?”

  “Then you get nothing. Same as you've got now.”

  Chloe sighed, wiped her face again, and took a deep draught from her water bottle. “I don't want him to feel like he's being hounded.”

  “He is being hounded.” Phil sat on the bench and plucked her damp St. Simeon Saints T-shirt from her skin. “Worse, he's being hounded by someone who probably wants to do the same thing to him that they did to Steve. God, you know, it hurts even to think about that.”

  “Yeah.” Chloe sat beside her and rested her elbows on her knees.

  “You got anything from the cops?”

  “They're still waiting for lab reports. And they're still wondering what the relationship was between Brendan and Steve.”

  “Right.” Phil reached for her own bottle of water. “Anybody with eyes can see how Brendan looks at you. He's het, or he ain't nothing.”

  “Yeah, that's what I told Brendan.”

  The water bottle paused halfway to Phil's mouth, and she gaped at Chloe. “You didn't.”

  “I did.”

  “Oh, my word …” Then a shriek of laughter escaped Phil. “Oh my, oh my. He must have looked like a deer caught in headlights.”

  “He did.” Chloe shrugged. “Too bad. He's not obvious about it. He doesn't make me uncomfortable.”

  “No, but you've probably made him uncomfortable.”

  “Well, I was trying to get his attention.”

  “I bet it worked.”

  “I don't know. That man walks around in a haze of true goodness so thick I don't think he'd believe it if he had a dagger sticking out of his back. He'd convince himself he must have somehow bumped into it.”

  “Yeah, he's amazing, isn't he? Very otherworldly.”

  “It must be, because he doesn't strike me as pathetically naive. Not at all. It's an odd twist, t
he way he seems to have a good understanding of human nature, but seems unable to believe the worst about anyone or anything. I guess it's like I told Matt. He truly believes in redemption.”

  “Yes, he does.” Phil sighed and sipped her water. “I’m pooped. Wanna clean up and get dinner?”

  “Sure. But first let me check and make sure Father Brendan doesn't go wandering off on his own somewhere.”

  They hadn't even made it across the parking lot to the hall before Matt pulled up beside them in his nondescript sedan. The women stopped walking and turned toward him as he rolled down his power window and smiled.

  “How are you ladies this evening?”

  “Fine,” Phil said, smiling back.

  “Hot, sweaty, and tired,” Chloe answered. “Do you have something for me?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Phil looked at Chloe. “You go ahead. We can catch dinner another time. I’ll just check on Father.”

  Chloe hesitated, but only briefly. “Thanks, Phil. I’ll call you later.”

  Smiling, Phil waved and walked away.

  “Hop in,” Matt said.

  “I wasn't kidding about being sweaty. You want that on your car seat?”

  “You don't want to know what's been on my car seat. A little sweat won't hurt it.”

  So she climbed in on the passenger side, and felt the blast of air-conditioning turned on high. Almost at once her damp T-shirt felt like ice against her skin. Matt turned out of the parking lot, onto the residential street in the direction of Dale Mabry, one of the busiest streets in town.

  “What's up?” Chloe asked.

  “Let's get something to eat. I haven't had an encounter with food since early this morning.”

  “I’m not dressed for a restaurant.”

  “You'll be dry in five minutes, and anyway, I wasn't thinking fancy. I was thinking drive-through.”

  Typical cop, Chloe thought. Fast and greasy. It was a wonder any of them made it to retirement age. “As long as I can get some vegetables with it.”

  “No prob. I give you your choice. Fried chicken and coleslaw, or a sub.”

  “I’ll take the sub.”