Unholy City

by Carrie Smith

  As the drinks cart came down the aisle, he tried other words related to Philip’s area of expertise. Cold War. Russia. Soviets. Stalin. Khrushchev. Each word was rejected. Cuban Missile Crisis. Bay of Pigs. KGB. Arms race. Nuclear arsenal. Kennedy. NATO. Gorbachev. Glasnost. Perestroika. None of them unlocked the computer, and he felt his jaw tighten with frustration. How would he ever pick out the right combination? For all he knew, Philip had used an obscure reference from his distant past, something no one would ever be able to guess.

  The flight attendant who’d found him his new seat stopped the drinks cart next to his aisle. Roger ordered a seltzer, and as she poured it for him, she asked if he was comfortable now. He forced a smile and said, “Very. You saved me.” But the only thing that could save him right now was the password, he thought as her cart rolled on.

  He closed his eyes. Think, goddammit. Concentrate. He imagined himself back in Philip’s bedroom. He stared down at the pencil holder, laptop, and stacks of papers on the man’s cluttered desk. He visualized the unwashed Columbia College coffee mug. And then he saw the puckered lips on the Khrushchev and Castro bobbleheads standing by the mug. He read the words “Kissin Kuzzins” on the base of each bobblehead. He opened his eyes, set his seltzer on the floor between his feet, typed those two words into the password box, held his breath, and pressed enter again.

  The password screen dissolved.

  CHAPTER 40

  The door opened, and Emily Flounders’s daughter, Martha, hugged Anna so tightly that the rector could only take shallow breaths. When Martha finally released her, Anna noticed that the young woman’s eyes were swollen and red. “Thank you for coming, Mother Anna,” she said.

  “Of course, Martha.” Anna placed her arm around Martha’s shoulder. “Of course I came.”

  They walked into Emily Flounders’s living room where a thinner, slightly younger version of Emily sat on the edge of a gold couch. Anna approached the woman and held out her hand. “You must be Emily’s sister.”

  “Edith.” The woman nodded.

  “Edith. I’m so very sorry to meet you under these circumstances. I’m the rector of Emily’s church, Mother Anna.”

  Martha Flounders sat beside her aunt, and their hands found each other’s. They were like a pair of symbiotic organisms drawing strength from each other. Anna sat beside them and joined their silence. Many inexperienced clergy found silence like this intolerable. They tried to fill it with words of comfort that weren’t comforting at all. But Anna had always known not to make that mistake. When, as a deacon, she’d performed her first bereavement visit—to a couple who’d lost their child in a bus accident—she took her cue from the priest who’d sat with her twenty-eight years ago when her father died. She was eleven then, and she refused to speak to anyone. Rector Paul hadn’t even tried to coax her to speak. He’d simply sat and shared her grief, letting her know without words that he honored her pain. Anna’s job, she knew, was not to convince a grieving person to feel better or accept the will of God before they were ready.

  She breathed evenly and waited for Martha and Edith to tell her what they needed.

  “I didn’t get to see my mother,” Martha murmured after several moments. “I didn’t get to say good-bye to her.” The muscles in Martha’s face tensed in a spasm of emotional pain.

  “I understand, Martha.” Anna stroked the daughter’s arm. Even the very devout sometimes couldn’t take comfort in the soul’s eternal life until they’d said good-bye to the flesh and bones of their departed.

  “Detective Codella told me they’re doing an autopsy today. Can I see her after that?”

  Anna could think of no delicate way to tell Martha that seeing her mother’s body after an autopsy would not be comforting. Instead, she took Martha’s free hand and squeezed it.

  “Who would do this to Emily?” asked Edith. “My sister was such a good person. She never hurt anyone. She was so kind, so giving.”

  “She was all those things, Edith.” Anna spoke with the sober respect she would expect for her loved one. She stole a glance at her wristwatch. She still had an hour before she was supposed to meet Vivian Wakefield at the rectory. She met Edith’s tired eyes. “Emily will be mourned by so many people. She was a stalwart of St. Paul’s.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Muñoz was already seated when Codella and Haggerty got to Edgar’s Café. They joined him at a round table in front of the pastry display. Codella peeled off her leather jacket, hung it on the back of the chair, sat down, and turned to Muñoz. “Well?”

  Muñoz flipped to a page in his spiral notebook. “I’ve got last night’s call records for Vivian Wakefield, Peter Linton, and Stephanie Lund.”

  The waitress came and they ordered. As she left, Haggerty unfolded his napkin and set it on his lap. Codella stared at the portrait of Edgar Allan Poe—the Edgar’s Café namesake—hanging on the opposite wall. “I want to know who Peter Linton texted in the garden last night.”

  “His wife,” answered Muñoz.

  Codella let out a long sigh. She’d hoped for a more incriminating answer, one to justify her dislike of the man. “Well, he chose a pretty odd time to phone home, don’t you think?”

  “Except that everyone texts, tweets, or Instagrams everything these days,” pointed out Haggerty.

  “True.” Codella picked up her water glass. “He said he got a call after the meeting too.”

  “He did.” Muñoz stared at his notes. “From a two-one-two number listed to a Jules Partridge. I ran his name. He lives on East Seventy-Fourth Street. He was charged with vehicular manslaughter last September in the death of a schoolgirl on the Upper East Side. He phoned Linton at ten forty-six.”

  “How long did they talk?”

  “Only about a minute.”

  “That doesn’t account for very much of his time,” pointed out Codella.

  Haggerty leaned his elbows on the little round table, causing it to wobble. “What about Vivian Wakefield? She had time to let her fingers do some dialing while she was rinsing the tea service in the kitchen.”

  “Yeah, but she didn’t. She made no calls,” said Muñoz, “and she had only one incoming call at one forty AM. It went to voice mail.”

  “From whom?”

  “From Roger Sturgis’s home phone.”

  “So Roger called Vivian Wakefield?” said Haggerty. “That’s interesting.”

  Codella nodded her agreement. “What about Stephanie Lund?”

  “She got a call at seven forty-five last night. From the St. Paul’s rectory.”

  Haggerty squinted. “You mean from the rector’s home?”

  Muñoz nodded. “That’s right. From the landline.”

  Codella watched Muñoz smile as the waitress set down his vanilla milkshake. He ripped the paper off his straw.

  Haggerty rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “The rector couldn’t have made that call. Rose Bartruff told me she got to the church at seven forty-five, and she was the last to arrive. Everyone else was in the Blue Lounge waiting—including Anna Brookes.”

  “So who made the call?” asked Muñoz.

  “There’s only one person who could have,” said Haggerty. “Todd Brookes.” He turned to Codella. “Something must be going on between him and Stephanie Lund. Why else would he call her while his wife’s at a meeting? So much for her story about coming to the church last night to practice on the Hook and Hastings.”

  “The what?” asked Muñoz.

  “The Hook and Hastings—the church organ. She told me she came over to the church to practice for the Palm Sunday service. She gave me a whole song and dance about how complex the organ is. But she was obviously playing a very different kind of organ last night. Maybe Graves caught them going at it against the garden wall.”

  Codella sipped her water and stared through the pastry window at the key lime pie. Edgar’s key lime pie was her favorite dessert. “So you’re back to the theory we shot down last night—that the deaths boil down to a cheating husband who killed t
wo people to keep his affair from his wife?”

  “Don’t most homicides boil down to something really stupid like that?” Haggerty asked.

  Codella supposed he was right. Anyone—even the most devout churchgoer—was capable of the ultimate crime. The only ingredients required were opportunity mixed with a single episode of blistering rage, extreme panic, or gross misjudgment. What if Graves had observed the lovers? What if he’d said something derisive or threatening, and Todd reacted out of anger or fear? It was perfectly plausible that Emily Flounders had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid the price for it.

  “But we can’t know with absolute certainty that he made that call,” she pointed out, “and even if he did, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Stephanie and Todd are lovers, but I agree it looks suspicious—especially when you consider that he had a set of keys to the whole church and Zamora’s guys spotted him on the second floor, right outside the closet where I found the murder weapon less than an hour later.”

  Haggerty nodded. “Remember at the diner I told you Stephanie Lund saw some guy stick his head in the second-floor reception hall?”

  “Yeah, but you said she couldn’t describe him.”

  “Right, and it’s probably because he wasn’t there. Maybe that was her feeble attempt at an alibi. Maybe she was at the rectory the whole time—which would explain why Anna Brookes looked so sad this morning. Anna probably knows her husband is fucking around on her.”

  Codella paid close attention as Haggerty described his encounter with the rector that morning.

  “I had the distinct impression she wanted to tell me something but stopped herself,” he said.

  Codella stared across the restaurant at two women engaged in conversation below the painting of Edgar Allan Poe. She’d never sat across from another woman like that, she thought, with no other objective than to enjoy a meal and each other’s companionship. Jean, her neighbor, was her closest female friend—only because she understood Codella’s inability to acknowledge her vulnerabilities. A woman priest, she imagined, had to be even stronger than a woman detective, and she felt sympathy for the rector taking root in her heart and mind. She thought of the lipstick print on the wineglass in Philip Graves’s kitchen. Was Haggerty right? Did the lipstick print belong to Anna? Had she gone to the vestry warden’s apartment and secretly poured her heart out to him the night before the meeting?

  Codella looked at Haggerty. “Pay Anna a visit sooner rather than later. Tell her we’re trying to eliminate suspects. Ask her if she’ll give us fingerprints and a buccal swab.”

  He nodded.

  “And bring Stephanie to the station,” she added. “Tell her that guy who peeked in at her in the second-floor reception hall could be the one we’re looking for. Show her some arrays. And while she’s sitting with you, find out whatever you can about her and Todd.”

  She turned to Muñoz. His eyes were on the waitress walking toward them with their lunches. She watched the waitress set down their plates. As Muñoz sprinkled cheese over his steaming lasagna, she told him, “You might want to go easy on that. You and I have a date with the medical examiner an hour from now.” She smiled. “Time to watch your first autopsy, and we’ve got a double feature.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Roger Sturgis exited the North Terminal baggage claim of Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Monique was waiting in front of the short-term parking structure on the other side of the drop-off lanes. As soon as she spotted him, she waved both arms like a stranded shipwreck survivor signaling to a rescue plane, and her obvious joy only increased the dread he already felt.

  He crossed at the pedestrian walkway. When he reached Monique, she pulled him into a tight embrace. Her kiss was a wet, warm branding. “You look tired, baby.”

  “A little.” He withdrew from the embrace. He wasn’t going to do Monique the ultimate injustice of drawing things out. He remembered a guy in his platoon who’d been too close to a mine when someone stepped on it. The poor kid flew twenty feet in the air, and when he came down, his legs were shredded. They got him to a field hospital, where a surgeon hacked off the fragmentized flesh and bone. The amputations weren’t pretty, but they were over quickly. Monique deserved a quick amputation too.

  She pointed to her 2005 Ford Focus at the end of the row. Someone had slammed into her car at a stoplight five months ago, and the rear bumper was like a crushed aluminum can. Why had he not bought her a new car? Why hadn’t she asked him for one?

  He went to the passenger side, opened the door, and slid into the seat. Monique’s dashboard had no navigation system, Sirius XM radio button, or Bluetooth. He thought of the Volvo XC90 that Kendra drove and felt ashamed of himself. He’d taken from Monique—affection, solace, sex—but he hadn’t given her much in return. She’d refused his offer of an apartment on Jefferson Avenue overlooking the river. She didn’t want the hundred-dollar bills and the credit card he’d tried to give her. And he’d had to shame her into letting him pay for her son to attend private school. She was prescient, he thought now. She knew that all things came to an end and that you couldn’t miss what you never had.

  Monique got behind the wheel, and he turned to face her—to say, I’ve got to end this—but she spoke first. “I took the afternoon off so we can be together.” She squeezed his hard left quad and turned the key in the ignition.

  Now. Say it now, he told himself as the car motor labored. “When was the last time you changed the oil, Monique?” he asked instead.

  “I don’t know. September?”

  “Seven months ago? That’s way too long.”

  She backed out of the space. They exited the parking garage, followed the road that looped around the McNamara Terminal, and took a left past the car rental agencies. Tell her to pull over. They passed the gas station on Middlebelt Road. Say something. They came to the I-94 East entrance ramp, Monique accelerated, and they merged into the right lane behind an eighteen-wheeler. Then his opportunity was gone, and he sighed with both relief and exasperation.

  As Monique concentrated on the road, he surreptitiously studied her profile. Her lips were fuller than Kendra’s. Her skin was darker, and her face broader. Each time he came back to her, he stole glances like this, readjusting his eyes to her features, recalibrating his brain to her particular beauty, her idiosyncrasies. He had never planned to deceive Monique. When he’d met her twelve years ago, he didn’t even know that Kendra existed. He’d flown in to tour a potential acquisition, checked into his hotel, and realized he hadn’t packed a tie. He went to a mall, and Monique was behind the register at Brooks Brothers. He wasn’t accustomed to a saleswoman recommending ties for him. As she held each one up to his chest, he’d smelled her delicate perfume. He’d been aware of her large breasts only inches from his chest. She was almost as tall as he was, and when he tried to step back from her, she gripped his bicep and said, “Stand still!” with the force of an army drill sergeant or a mother.

  Two hours later, he was sitting in her kitchen, drinking coffee across the table from her four-year-old son, Justin. After she tucked the child into bed, she tucked him into hers. Her naked body was thick and strong. Her skin was so dark that he couldn’t see her at first when they turned out the lights. She rubbed the army tattoo on his bicep. “I suppose you got stories,” she whispered with her lips against his.

  “More than you want to hear,” he said.

  “Well, I’m listening.” And in the blackness of the bedroom, years dialed back in his brain like mileage off an odometer, and what he’d witnessed on a stretch of highway between Kuwait City and Safwan was as raw and mangled as that soldier’s exploded legs. She stroked his head as he described images he’d never shared with anyone before, and when he ran out of words, her fingers moved down and gave him an excruciatingly tender release.

  Now Monique reached across the front seat and took his hand. “What’s the matter, baby?”

  “Nothing.” He pulled his hand back and gripped the laptop bag at his feet. M
onique certainly must know that he had another life, but she never asked him about it. She wasn’t like Kendra—vigilant and proprietary. Was that because she’d been abandoned enough times that she’d abandoned her expectations? He wanted to tell her that he felt empty everywhere—even in his perfect life—except with her. In the important ways—the ways you couldn’t monetize—he supposed he needed her far more than she needed him.

  They drove under the blue steel arches of the Gateway Bridge. He stared straight ahead but focused on her profile in his peripheral vision. Monique wouldn’t make trouble for him. She was too proud for that. When he said good-bye and left her today, she wouldn’t follow him to New York, and that knowledge made shutting the door on her even harder.

  He watched the green exit signs. Ecorse Road. Telegraph Avenue. The Southfield Freeway. Every exit they passed brought them closer to Monique’s bed, and if he let her take him there, he wouldn’t be able to keep the promise he’d made to end things. Why did a person always have to make either-or choices? Why did you always have to sacrifice one desire—no, one need—for another?

  They were coming up on the Oakwood Boulevard exit, still miles from Monique’s house. “Turn off here.” Roger pointed.

  CHAPTER 43

  Vivian Wakefield was standing on the front steps of the rectory when Anna returned. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long,” she told the churchwarden. “I’ve been with Emily’s daughter and sister.”