The Man Who Murdered God

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  “Sure as hell isn’t, when you blast him in the crotch after you’ve practically blown his head off,” McGuire looked at Lipson. “Think our boy’s switched from priests to faggots?”

  One of the uniformed cops approached McGuire. He kept his eyes away from Alvin Chadwick’s remains, lying within the perimeter of his own blood, and from the chalked outline on the concrete floor. An outbound subway train entered the station and roared through without stopping. The cop waited until the noise faded before speaking.

  “You wanted to talk to me, Lieutenant?”

  McGuire looked up at the cop, pink-cheeked and with a neatly trimmed black mustache above a firmly set mouth. You look good, kid, McGuire said silently to the cop. Look real tough. Christ, I’m calling a cop in his twenties “kid,” he thought. How old am I anyway?

  “You the first one here?” McGuire asked.

  “Yes sir,” the cop answered. He pulled out his notebook. “Received call at 5:31 p.m. from one James Hannaford, M.B.T.A. motorman, regarding alleged body on inbound side of Aquarium subway station. Arrived at approximately 5:40 p.m. to discover John Doe remains. Sealed off station, secured area. No apparent witnesses, no suspects. Called your squad immediately in accordance with directive number 15217 from Captain Kavander regarding all shotgun assaults upon civilians in the greater Boston area.” He flipped the book closed.

  “You didn’t check for a pulse?” McGuire asked, his eyebrows arched.

  The young cop appeared flustered. “Well, no sir, it was apparent to me—”

  “Forget it.” McGuire waved the cop’s embarrassment away and turned to Lipson. “Three priests and a faggot,” he said. “What do you figure?”

  “Sounds like a joke you’d hear down at the archdiocese.”

  “Maybe Deeley has the punch line.”

  “Think we should call him on this one?”

  “No, I don’t,” McGuire snapped. Then, in a softer tone, “What do you figure he was doing down here? Not this guy,” he said, indicating Chadwick’s body. “The kid. With the gun.”

  His partner shrugged. “Catching a train, I guess. I don’t know.”

  “But it’s not a line end. The others, they were the end of a line, like the kid just got on and rode it until he had to get off. There’s nothing around here except the pier, couple of hotels, the aquarium. Let’s get some teams down here. We’ll work out sectors, get everything covered. Somebody had to see him come down. Maybe they saw him here on the platform. He might even live nearby. Talk to the trainmen who came through between five and five-thirty.”

  Lipson nodded. “Where you going to be?” he asked.

  “Back at the squad room,” McGuire answered, lost in thought. He was staring down at the remains of Alvin Chadwick. Walked right up to him, lowered the gun, and blew his balls off, McGuire said to himself. Jesus, what makes him so Goddamn angry?

  No one at Government Centre noticed the blond young man with the oversized athletic bag as he boarded an outbound Green Line train. He walked silently to a corner of the car and wedged himself between a window and an insurance actuary, who sat reading The Wall Street Journal and who didn’t look up from his paper, not even to stand as the train pulled into Kenmore station, where he exited.

  Most of the passengers, including a large number of laughing Boston University students, left the train at Kenmore, a station where the line split into three directions. Boston College and Cleveland Circle were the two nearest terminals. The train on which the blond young man still rode continued further west to Riverside.

  He had been as unaware of the insurance actuary and the sloppily dressed students as they were of him. He leaned against the glass, hoping he wasn’t going to be sick to his stomach again. In an alleyway off State Street he had been ill behind a stack of cardboard boxes and had emerged, trembling and perspiring, to see the police vehicles roar by, their sirens howling and their drivers shouting unheard threats to the rush-hour Boston traffic.

  At Riverside he left the train and walked into fresh, cool, moist spring air delicately spiced with the salt of the ocean. He turned the collar of his jacket up, swung the heavy bag to his other arm and set out along the shoulder of the suburban road.

  I will go where my feet and fortune carry me, he told himself. He was beyond so much now. Beyond fear and guilt, beyond questioning and remorse. He saw himself as an arrow launched from a bow, moving swiftly towards an unknown and unseen end, buffeted and staggered by crosswinds but continuing on, rising, arcing, falling.

  Ahead, at the corner near a gas station and convenience store, the lights of a telephone booth glowed softly in the mist. The young man entered it and, after resting a moment or two against the side of the booth with his head on his arm, searched in his pocket for a coin.

  “Nothing.”

  Janet Parsons dropped the file on the table in front of McGuire. Bernie Lipson and Ralph Innes were standing at the wall map, sectoring the area to be swept by search teams through the night. Eddie Vance was seated against the wall, transferring data into a book on his lap.

  “Nobody saw a thing?”

  Janet shook her head. “We’ve talked to everybody in a two-block area of the place. The hotel staff, the souvenir sellers, the parking-lot attendants, the staff at the aquarium. One guy, a caretaker at the aquarium, said there was a blond kid there most of the day, but he’s something of a regular. Gave us the name of some ticket seller he said left with the kid. We called her and she said she’d seen him hail a cab, so it couldn’t be him.” Janet shrugged. “What the hell do we do now?”

  “We know he didn’t leave on the subway,” McGuire said. “The last inbound stopped at five-fourteen. The next train to pass was at five-eighteen, an outbound. Nobody remembers seeing a thing. The five twenty-five inbound, that’s who found Chadwick.”

  “Nobody ever notices anything on the subway,” Janet commented, sitting on the edge of McGuire’s desk. “They’re all either zombies, or their heads are buried in a newspaper.”

  The fabric of her skirt stretched tightly across her thighs, and he could see the line of her panties under the cloth.

  “You want to take a picture, Joe?”

  He glanced up to see her watching him, a smirk creasing her face. “What?” he said.

  “I said, do you want to take a picture.” The smirk widened into a smile. “You were staring, Joe.”

  “Oh.” He busied himself with Mel Doitch’s medical report. “Sorry. Just thinking.”

  She slid off the desk and smoothed her skirt. “Sure as hell were.”

  “Look, Janet, I’m tired.” He smiled at her. “Okay? Don’t take offence.”

  “Who said I was offended?” She leaned over to look directly into his eyes. “You sleeping here again tonight?”

  He tilted his head at a cot in the corner of the room. “After I visit the hospital.”

  “Take it easy then, okay?” She glanced in Vance’s direction, and asked, “Any response yet about Mr. Public Relations?”

  McGuire shook his head, and she straightened. “See you in the morning, Joe,” she said and left the room, her jacket thrown over her shoulder. Ralph Innes stopped speaking to Bernie Lipson long enough to watch her leave, his eyes at the level of her hips.

  He felt better. He always felt better afterwards. Opening the door of the booth, he stepped back into the night mist, moving carefully along the shoulder of the road, facing the oncoming traffic.

  The bag was growing heavier in his hand, and he considered tossing it and its contents into the small stretches of woods that appeared out of the mist, leaving it in the undergrowth and walking alone in the direction of the sun. But he knew he couldn’t. It would make him a fugitive; it would be like St. Paul abandoning the believers on the road. Or a child might find it and cause injury.

  No, it is a part of me, he told himself. As much as my hands, my eyes, my soul. It is de
manding and it weighs heavily upon me like the burden of belief in a land of unbelievers.

  But oh, he wished he could pray. He wanted so much to pray.

  McGuire told himself the pillow was larger or softer or positioned differently. That is why she looks shrunken, he thought. She couldn’t have changed so much in so short a time.

  “How does it feel to be the highlight of someone’s day?” she asked behind a forced smile.

  “Always nice to know you’re needed,” McGuire answered. He removed the withered flowers from her vase and dropped them into a wastebasket, replacing them with the fresh bouquet of roses he had brought. Gloria looked down at the discarded flowers with a sad, wistful expression.

  “I didn’t think you would come today,” she said when he had settled in the chair beside her bed.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re so busy. I can tell you’re busy. Your voice changes, and you talk more like . . . like a cop I guess.”

  “It’s a round-the-clock thing. I’m sleeping on a cot in the squad room. Kavander’s putting the pressure on.”

  “You got . . .” she stammered. “You got the biggest story to hit Boston since the Kennedys. How . . . how long can you stay and talk to me?”

  “As long as you want.”

  She smiled sadly. “No, Joe. No, you can’t stay that long.”

  “Well, I’ll stay until the nurse comes with your injection, anyway.”

  “I’ve already had it.” She cocked her head to look directly at him. “I’m on demand now. Like a junkie. I just say ‘Shoot me up’ and they pour on the morphine.”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “That bad, huh?”

  “That bad.” Her eyes lost their focus and drifted from his. “I was thinking, Joe. It was unfair of me to ask you to do that. I mean, look after the funeral service and all that. . . .”

  “No,” he blurted. “No, it’s not. I’m going to do it. In all the craziness of this priest thing, it makes sense. I’ll do it, Gloria. Organ music, champagne for the nurses, the whole works. Whatever you want.”

  “Really?” She looked back at him again, and this time the smile made her face glow from within. “That’s wonderful. Thank you, Joe. Come . . . come here, please.”

  He bent down and she reached a thin arm behind his head, pulling him closer to kiss him lightly on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear.

  When he pulled away, his face was flushed with embarrassment.

  “Let’s talk,” she said, now animated. “Let’s talk about old friends. And that funny apartment we had in Cambridge, the one with the sun room. And how the air felt in Hawaii, walking barefoot on the sand.”

  Anne Murison lay in the darkened room, listening to her husband snore gently beside her and her own heart beating madly within her.

  God, had she done the right thing? There was no way that nice young boy could have anything to do with the murders of the priests. He was frightened and lonely. She had heard about police interrogations. They would pick him up and throw him in a cell with perverts, then they would shout at him and abuse him. It would be horrible, it could take days before they realized they had the wrong person. So she just had to say the boy couldn’t have been involved in that shooting in the subway.

  She couldn’t let them abuse someone who was so obviously innocent and who loved the otters that much. She just couldn’t. Besides, he was so . . . pretty. She smiled and closed her eyes.

  And almost immediately opened them again. What if the police checked all the cabs? They did things like that. On the news tonight the announcer had said this was the largest manhunt in Boston history. Hundreds of police officers were working around the clock, looking for the priest killer. What if they came back and asked her again? Or made her take truth serum? Or a lie detector test? She might say something she didn’t mean to say. Or she could be arrested for . . . what? Obstructing justice? Mischief?

  She suppressed a sob and rolled towards her husband, grasping him in her arms. His snoring ceased, but he didn’t awake.

  If they came back to talk to her, she would tell them the truth.

  But the young man who liked to watch the otters, she knew was innocent.

  She only hoped the police would agree.

  “McGuire?”

  “Yeah, Vance.” McGuire didn’t look up at the overweight detective standing next to his desk.

  “I’m calling it a night. Going home, catch a few hours. Should be back on the job by eight.”

  “That’s truly wonderful, Vance.” McGuire glanced at his wristwatch. It was just after midnight.

  “I’ve completed an analysis of all Remington 870 shotgun sales within the greater Boston area during the past six-month period according to sales records from one hundred and thirty-eight reporting retailers. You know we’re tracking ownership with teams?”

  “Of course I know,” McGuire spat out. “Get to the fucking point.”

  Vance frowned and cleared his throat. “The point is, I ran all the addresses through the computer data base, and five of them are essentially non-existent as residential dwellings.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “They’re vacant lots, or office buildings. One’s even a—”

  “Joe!” Ralph Innes called from across the room. “You know where that list is of subway witnesses sweet-ass was working on?”

  “Who?”

  Innes grinned. “Janet. Doesn’t she have the sweetest heart-shaped ass you’ve ever seen?”

  McGuire grunted, stood up, and walked over to Innes, the file folders in his hand.

  Vance turned to walk away. “Monastery,” he said in a voice no one heard.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mattie told herself she had known it all along. In her gut she had known it. She should learn to listen to her gut instead of her heart. Oh Christ, she said to herself, swallowing the rest of her margarita. Thirty-eight years old and the broad’s talking about trusting her heart.

  “Frank?” she called across to the bar. “Another one.” She held the empty glass up for the bartender to see. “Easy on the salt.”

  Frank nodded back at her. Two men on bar stools, who had looked over at the sound of her voice, said something to him and laughed. Frank smiled, saying nothing. One of the men looked over at her again and nudged the other, and they both laughed again.

  Frank wasn’t a bad guy, Mattie thought. At least he admitted he was married. Which hadn’t prevented Mattie from inviting Frank home once or twice after closing hours. Frank wasn’t like that bastard, Chris.

  Mattie twisted to look at herself in the mirror beside the booth. Not bad, she decided. Ignore the chins, she told herself. The extra one’s going as soon as the warm weather’s here and I get back to salads and exercise. Check the boobs. They look good. Cost forty dollars each for those new French bras, but they sure lift ’em up and head ’em out, don’t they? She giggled. Long as the boobs stick out further than the chins, there’s nothing to worry about. She giggled again.

  “You’re looking a little happier, Mattie.” Frank stood over her, carefully lowering the brim-full margarita to her table.

  “I’m always happy when I’m drinking your margaritas, Frank,” she said. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” Frank answered.

  Poor Frank, Mattie thought. He was bald and his nose was too big and his ears stuck out like jug handles and he wasn’t any smarter than your average Martini shaker. But he was sweet. She watched him walk to the back of the bar. And well-hung, she recalled.

  Chris arrived as Mattie was finishing the margarita. He entered the bar and stood in the doorway, letting his eyes become accustomed to the light, shaking the rain from his jacket. Mattie watched him from the corner of her booth, admiring the long sturdy legs, the muscular flat stomach, the thick wavy hair. You good-looking stud,
was her first reaction. Her second was, you lying bastard.

  “Mattie!” he called out when he finally saw her. “Thought it was you there in the corner.”

  She waved coyly at him.

  He strode over to her, looking around and calling out to two buddies gnawing on fried chicken at a table at the rear. I’m going to miss those nice long legs, she thought sadly. And those big bear-paw hands on me. God, I loved those hands.

  “Hi,” he said, bending down to kiss her on the cheek. “Been waiting long?”

  “Three margaritas. You’re late.”

  He motioned to Frank, then slid into the booth across from her and smiled to show his even white teeth. He was always proud of those teeth, Mattie remembered. Hell, he was proud of everything. The bastard’s got more vanity than a Miss America reunion.

  “Had a problem over at the plant. Press broke down right in the middle of a run. Took a couple of hours to get it up and going again.” He reached out to touch her hand.

  “You have a lot of problems over there, don’t you?” she said. She lifted the empty glass to her lips and with the tip of her tongue licked the salt from the rim. He watched her as he spoke, the smile growing wider.

  “Yeah, well, the equipment’s getting old, and the guys aren’t all that careful with it.”

  “How come it always happens at the end of the day?”

  He shrugged. “End of the day-shift, you expect problems to crop up.”

  Mattie set the glass down as Frank approached. “Another margarita, Mattie?”

  She gave her empty glass to him and without lifting her eyes from the table said, “Make this one a Crown Royal. Double, no ice.”

  Chris sat back in the booth and studied her. “We celebrating something tonight? A double Crown Royal?”

  She looked up and smiled. “You don’t think I’m worth it?”

  “Why, of course you’re worth it. It’s just not what I normally see you drink. You’re a mixed-drink girl. Margaritas, daiquiris, whisky sours . . .”

  “Tonight I feel like good booze straight. What’s wrong with that?” She began fingering the top button of her blouse.