The Man Who Murdered God

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  “Nothing, Mattie. Nothing at all.” He waved Frank away. “Make it two, Frank. What the hell.”

  “After our drinks we can have some dinner,” Mattie said, trying to control her voice. “Then we can go back to my place for a nightcap.”

  “Dinner?” Chris lifted his eyes from Mattie’s cleavage. “Oh hell, Mattie. I already ate.”

  “At the plant, right?”

  “Yeah. We had a couple of pizzas sent in while we got the press going again.”

  She smiled and shook her head slowly. “Funny how the stuff at the plant always breaks down so you have to eat dinner there, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “It happens.” He leaned across the table and took her hand in his. “But listen, Mattie, I’d love to have that nightcap with you later anyway. Soon’s we leave here. All the time we were working on that damn press, all I could think about was you being here and me coming to see you tonight.” He winked. “You know what I mean?”

  “Two Crown Royal doubles, no ice.” Frank set the glasses between them as Chris straightened up.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Chris said, still looking into Mattie’s eyes. “Well,” he added after a moment or two. “What do you think?”

  “What do I think?” She reached down to hold the glass then looked into his eyes again. “I think you’re a lying, cheating, scum-sucking prick, Chris.”

  The smile froze on his face. He straightened up. “Mattie, what are you talking about?”

  “You weren’t fixing any Goddamn press at the plant, you son of a bitch!” She was shouting. “You were having dinner with your fat-assed wife and your three brat kids and your fucking hairy sheep dog.”

  “Mattie, Mattie . . .” Still trying to smile, he glanced around the room and reached for her.

  “Don’t Mattie me, you bastard!” She stood up, the drink in her hand. “You just left your whole dumb family back in your mortgaged ranch house, fifty-three thousand still outstanding, fourteen years to go on it. I looked it all up, Chris. They think you’re over at the plant fixing your fucking precious press right now, don’t they?”

  “Mattie . . .”

  She looked over at the bar. The two men on the stools were staring, smirking at a half-drunk broad giving hell to a husband caught cheating. Others were watching and listening, too. Big smiles on their faces. Lots to talk about at coffee break tomorrow. Bastards. They’re all bastards. Grinning and smirking, elbowing each other, saying, let this be a lesson, and the lesson is, you don’t get caught.

  Only Frank was solemn-faced, watching her from behind the bar.

  She wavered a little, and Chris reached out a hand to steady her, saying “Mattie, for God’s sake sit down and we’ll talk about this.”

  “Frank!” she called over. “What’s a double Crown Royal worth?”

  “Six dollars, Mattie,” Frank said quietly.

  “Send the check over to asshole here,” she yelled. “He just had one.” She turned and threw the contents of the glass in Chris’s face. “Enjoy it, you bastard,” she hissed at him through clenched teeth. “Because you’re lucky it’s not a glass of lye, like I had planned to use.”

  Mattie walked to the door in long strides, feeling the stares of the men in the bar on her as she left. Her eyes began to sting, and she told herself, don’t cry. That’s what they want to see right now is you crying, tears running down your cheeks like a baby. Well, fuck ’em. They’re not going to see this broad bawl.

  They didn’t. She stepped outside and into the cool, wet mist, walked past three stores, stopped in the doorway of a discount shoe store, and leaned against the metal grill on the door.

  Finally, she cried. She dabbed at the tears with a tissue from her purse, hiccupping a few times, and slammed her clenched fist against the door frame. Then, as quickly as they began, her sobs faded. Wiping her tears fiercely from the corners of her eyes, she walked across the darkened parking lot towards her car.

  Once or twice she stumbled, feeling the effect of the margaritas. Gotta be careful, she told herself. It’s nearly ten miles home, darker than the ace of spades, you can barely see across the road in this mist. She found her car and after fumbling for the keys got the door open and slumped behind the wheel.

  A few straggling tears flowed as she sat with her head resting on the steering wheel. With a sudden and unladylike sniffle she started the car and began pulling out of the parking lot in the direction of the highway.

  I showed him, she told herself, as a smile began to play at the corners of her mouth. They’re all laughing in there now, the bunch of drunken studs. But I made a fool out of him in front of his buddies. She reached the highway and looked to the left, waited for a truck to emerge out of the gloom and roar past, then swung the wheel to the right and pressed the accelerator. Bastards will lie and cheat just to get a fast lay.

  Jesus Christ, what was that? She applied the brakes. The right front corner of the car had struck something. Something soft and yielding.

  Mattie opened her door and wrapped her arms around herself against the dampness. Unsteady on her high heels she ran to the front of the car, then stopped abruptly and leaned against the hood when she saw the young man.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .” she said.

  He was lying on his side, one leg pulled up in pain as he rubbed his calf with his hand.

  “I didn’t see you, I’m sorry,” she repeated and ran to crouch down beside him.

  “I’m all right,” he said without looking at her. “I’m okay. It’s all right.”

  “Stay there. Don’t get up.” Mattie restrained him as the young man tried to rise. “Your leg could be broken.”

  “I don’t think so.” He lifted his face and looked directly at her for the first time. Angelic, Mattie thought immediately. That’s what he looks like. Like an angel. Blond and delicate and almost pretty. And sensitive, look at all the sensitivity in his eyes. Leave it to me, the only time I have an accident I have to hit an angel. I can’t run down a prick like Chris.

  “You just caught me with the front bumper,” he said, letting her help him stand. “It hurts, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”

  “We should get it looked at,” she said as he leaned his weight on her.

  “No, it’s all right,” he assured her. “Honestly.” But as he tried to walk, he stumbled in pain and fell against her. “I don’t want to go to a hospital,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Do you live around here?” Mattie asked. She was glad he didn’t want to go to a hospital. With two drunk-driving convictions on her record, enough alcohol in her to pickle a goose, and now an injured pedestrian, she stood to lose her licence for sure if the police investigated. Her eyes stung with tears for the third time. Goddamn that Chris, she thought, biting her lip. Because of him I’ll lose my licence. Then how the hell do I make a living selling real estate?

  “No, I don’t live around here,” the young man was saying. “I’m just passing through.”

  “Well, where are you staying? Do you have a motel room or something?”

  He shook his head. “No. I have no room.”

  I just might get out of this thing with my licence intact and my tits out of the wringer, Mattie said to herself.

  “Listen,” she said gently, leading him to her passenger door, “come home with me and we’ll look at your leg. We’ll put some heat on it to help it heal. Then I’ll make you some nice hot tea and put you to bed in my guest room. How does that sound?”

  “No, honestly, it’s all right,” he said. “I’ll be okay.” He turned away from the car, but when he leaned his weight on the injured leg, he winced in pain and almost stumbled.

  “You’re not all right,” Mattie said firmly. “You’ve got a bruised leg, and you’re cold and wet with nowhere to go. You’re coming home with me.”

  Her firm attitude worked. He looked
at her, smiling shyly in the harsh glare from the headlights, and let himself be led back to the passenger door. Just as they reached it, he said, “My bag,” and started towards the front of the car again. Mattie followed his gaze, nodded, and said, “Hop in. I’ll get it.”

  When he was settled in the passenger seat, she retrieved the heavy black athletic bag emblazoned with the name of a line of running shoes, walked to door on the driver’s side and tossed the bag roughly in the back seat before slipping behind the wheel.

  “I’m Mattie,” she said as she pulled away from the plaza again. “Mattie O’Brien. What’s your name?”

  He was staring directly ahead into the darkness, his face lit by the flashing lights of oncoming cars and from the glow of neon signs at gas stations and roadside bars.

  “Bobby,” the blond young man replied. “My name is Bobby.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  They were on a concrete pier somewhere on the Cape. Maybe Hyannis Port. It was a warm day in June, and they were alone on the pier with the seagulls. Gloria sat in the sun resting against the seawall, her head back, her eyes closed. She wore a cotton T-shirt and shorts, and her sneakers had been kicked aside or lost somewhere. She wiggled her toes.

  McGuire watched from a distance. He could see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, and he wanted to walk to her and sit beside her. They would laugh and gossip about friends. Or maybe watch the gulls. There were seagulls everywhere. He could hear the cry of the seagulls now.

  He tried to stand, but he was restrained. Something was holding him down, and now Gloria was sliding away. The pier was tilting, and she was sliding towards the water. He called for her, and she didn’t respond; she remained sitting in the sun, slipping further away.

  He called again, but this time Janet Parsons appeared beside him, and he turned to her. Nothing restrained him from turning to Janet Parsons. They kissed, and he could feel her body against his. When he looked back at Gloria, she was closer again, standing and blessing the gulls. As he watched, someone rose from behind the pier wall and aimed a shotgun at Gloria’s head. He shouted her name and tried to go to her, but he was being restrained again. It was Lipson, that son of a bitch. Lipson was holding him and calling his name, keeping him from going to Gloria. Lipson was shaking him, Lipson was saying “It’s all right Joe, it’s all right. . . .”

  He opened his eyes to see Bernie Lipson standing next to the cot, his hand resting on McGuire’s shoulder.

  “You okay?” Lipson asked.

  McGuire blinked and looked around the squad room. Two uniformed cops were watching him with curiosity. “I’m fine.” He swung his legs onto the floor and rubbed his eyes. “Bad dream,” he explained. “Haven’t had one in years.”

  “Nightmares, you can get ’em sleeping on these cots,” Lipson said. “Or a bad back. How late were you working on this thing last night?”

  McGuire shook his head, studying his feet. “I don’t know. Three, three-thirty.” They were going to kill Gloria, and he couldn’t stop them. “What time is it now?”

  “About seven-thirty. Maybe an hour before Kavander slices somebody’s liver out with a rusty knife.”

  McGuire looked up, questioning.

  “Look at this,” Lipson said. He opened a folded copy of the morning’s Globe for McGuire to examine.

  Priest Killer Leaves Message the headline screamed. Beneath it was a large photograph of the scribbled words found in the classroom where Sellinger had been shot. Police Probe Meaning of Death Phrase, a second headline shouted.

  “Where the hell did they get it, the picture?” Lipson asked, shaking his head. “You read the story, it doesn’t say. It just says ‘The Globe has acquired,’ and ‘Globe researchers were able to obtain,’ stuff like that.”

  A uniformed cop answered a telephone and called over to McGuire, “It’s for you, Lieutenant.”

  McGuire walked past Lipson to the other side of the room, slumped into a chair, held his hand out to take the phone from the cop and said his name into the receiver.

  The voice that replied was filled with panic and at least an octave higher than its normal speaking range.

  “Have you seen this morning’s paper, Joe? The Globe? Have you seen the Globe?”

  McGuire frowned. “Who the hell is this?”

  “It’s me. Eddie Vance. Have you seen it?”

  “Yeah. Lipson just showed it to me.” He looked over to see Lipson watching him, his hands in his pockets, his eyebrows raised.

  “They’re trying to say it’s me who sent the picture. Joe, it wasn’t. I swear. I wouldn’t release something like that to the press. That was vital. Captain Kavander made it plain to everybody—”

  “How do they say they got it?”

  Vance’s voice dropped to its customary level. “In an information package from me.” He took two deep breaths before speaking again. “I was getting so many requests from the media on personal information, especially about the computer scans we were running, that I, uh, I had some information kits released.”

  “You sent them personal information kits? Did Kavander know about this?”

  “Well, no. See, it was just information on the program, nothing about any evidence. Hey, I’ve been on the force over ten years. I wouldn’t send evidence.”

  “But it arrived with personal information on you.”

  “Yeah. . . .”

  “That you sent.”

  “Well, they’re saying I sent it.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Then how’d they get it?”

  McGuire heard Vance release a long breath on the other end of the line. “Somebody’s setting me up.”

  “You’re saying somebody’s framing you?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You send unauthorized material through the mail to a newspaper, and you claim it was used to frame you?”

  “Looks like that to me.”

  “Is that what you’re going to tell Kavander?”

  Another pause. “I have to. It’s the truth.”

  “Why don’t you save everybody some time, Vance?” McGuire smiled coldly. “Just have your guts surgically removed, pin your badge on them and mail it all to Kavander.” He replaced the receiver gently and looked up to see Bernie Lipson watching him carefully.

  “He says somebody’s framing him.” McGuire walked to the cot and picked up his sports jacket. “He sent some information to the papers on his smart-ass computer program, and he claims somebody slipped a picture of the blackboard into the envelope.” He threw the jacket over his shoulder and headed out the door to his locker and a hot shower. “Can you believe that shit?’

  Lipson chewed silently on his lower lip as he watched him go.

  After his shower McGuire dressed, shaved and swallowed some hot coffee. He used the rest of the coffee to wash down a stale muffin from a dispensing machine while he scanned overnight arrest and disturbance records in the squad room.

  Shortly after eight Bernie Lipson entered. “He’s ready,” Lipson said in a flat voice.

  “Who?”

  “Kavander. He’s seen the papers. He wants to talk to both of us.”

  McGuire tossed the reports aside and followed Lipson down the hall to the captain’s office.

  “You seen this?” Kavander was holding the front page of the morning paper up like a placard.

  “We saw it,” McGuire answered. He sat down in front of the captain. Lipson took his usual place at the window, his hands folded in front of him.

  “You know what they’re saying?” Kavander slapped the newspaper onto his desk as though killing a swarm of insects.

  “They’re saying Eddie Vance sent it along with some other crap he wanted them to have.” McGuire leaned his head back and twisted it from side to side, trying to relieve a sti
ff neck. “At least that’s what Vance told me this morning.”

  “Who authorized Vance to send anything to the press?”

  “Nobody.”

  Kavander looked up and scowled at the ceiling for a moment, shook his head, then glanced at McGuire and Lipson in turn. “That stupid son of a bitch,” he said finally. “I knew he wasn’t the smoothest operator in the world, but I thought he was smarter than this.” He slapped the front of the newspaper with his hand.

  “You call the paper?” McGuire asked.

  Kavander rested his head on his hands and looked down at his desk. “Yeah. Talked to a guy I know on the city desk, used to be on the police beat. He says it came in with a bunch of other stuff on Vance. Says he called Vance as soon as he saw it and asked him if the killer had left a message at St. Matthew’s. Vance referred him to me instead of denying it, so they knew they had something.” He looked up at McGuire. “First amendment rights. So they print it.”

  “Didn’t they figure they were pissing in the dark?”

  Kavander shook his head. “They knew what they had. Sent a reporter with the picture of Sellinger’s classroom to match it up. The message was gone, but he could tell it was the same room.”

  “What about Vance?”

  “He’s in deep shit. Right now he’s suspended with pay pending further investigation.” He slammed his fist down on the paper again. “The guy is never sloppy about anything else. I mean, he’s a hot dog and all, but . . . how could he have been so fucking stupid?”

  McGuire shrugged. “He could have made a mistake, slipping all of that stuff together.”

  “He made a mistake all right. Anyway, have Janet Parsons take over all the internal co-ordination. Vance is to have no access to any information at all. As a matter of fact I don’t want him setting foot on this floor. You see him anywhere, you have his ass thrown out on the street, understand?”

  McGuire understood.

  “What’s happening today?” Kavander demanded.

  “Reworking the people around the aquarium.” McGuire stood up. “There has to be something there. The killer didn’t arrive on a train, so he had to be in the area. There’s a woman, works at the aquarium. Says some young blond guy was there, but he’s a regular. Took a cab. None of the cabbies have a record of a pick-up at the aquarium, nobody remembers seeing a young blond guy in the area. We’ll run it down.”