Unholy City
Page 23
For more than a moment, Anna wanted to say. Codella stared at her, and Anna felt a growing urgency to speak. “I just can’t do this anymore,” she heard herself say.
“Do what?” the detective asked gently.
“Stay here. Be the St. Paul’s priest—be anyone’s priest. I’m not good at it. I don’t know how to run this place. Everything’s falling apart, and it’s my fault.”
Codella said nothing.
“Todd was right about one thing. I should never have gone to seminary. I’m not a decision maker. I let Philip make all the decisions. I—” She shook her head. “Never mind.”
Codella continued to stare at her with impartial eyes. She and the detective were around the same age, Anna guessed, but they were nothing alike. The detective was forceful and determined—she would never have let herself end up in Anna’s position. “I trusted him. I was wrong. I see that now.”
“Tell me what happened, Rector. Tell me what happened in the fifteen minutes before the vote was taken.”
Anna considered her words for a long time, and Codella did nothing to hurry her along. It occurred to Anna that police detectives were like priests in certain ways. Codella seemed to understand what Anna had learned in all her confessional conversations with parishioners—that sometimes you didn’t have to bulldoze through people’s walls to get to the truth; you could just sit back and wait for their ramparts to crumble on their own.
Anna felt her own resistance to the truth begin to crumble. “It was such a terrible scene.”
“Terrible how?” Codella’s voice was a whisper.
“Everyone was at each other’s throats.”
“Who?”
“All of them—except Rose. She’d gone out. She missed the whole confrontation over the cemetery proposal.” Anna recalled Peter reviewing the plan and promising that it would increase church revenue and make a big impact on operating expenses. She could still hear Philip’s contemptuous rebuke: “The church’s operating expenses, Peter, or your own?”
“What are you talking about?” Peter had demanded.
“You know as well as I do why you want the cemetery expansion,” Philip responded. “You’ve been cooking the cemetery books, and you’ve run out of ingredients. Bodies, that is.”
Anna could still see Peter’s blood-red face. “That’s absurd!”
“Oh?” Philip pulled some documents out of a file folder in his lap. “Then look at this. The proof’s right here. You didn’t do a very good job of covering your trail.” He turned to Vivian. “Peter’s got a steady little stream of about five thousand dollars trickling into his pocket each month. Ask him.”
Vivian turned to Peter with an “Is that true?” expression while Emily cupped her palm over her mouth. Susan winced as if the confrontation was physically painful to witness, and Roger just shook his head as Philip explained the mechanics of Peter’s scheme.
Peter squirmed in his seat. He knew he was caught. “My wife lost most of her portfolio in the 2008 recession,” he said. “And my firm didn’t do well last year. And—” He started to cry.
“And you’ve been snorting away your paychecks, haven’t you?”
“I’m—I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Philip made deliberate eye contact with each vestry member. “Peter has an addiction, and he’s pilfered from the church. He’s endangered our fiscal health.”
“Oh, my God!” Emily Flounders exclaimed. “What are we going to do?”
“I believe we should forgive him and help him,” Philip said. “That’s what Christian people do.” Philip stared at Anna with an expression that said, Trust me. He looked at the others. “Peter has been a member of this congregation for years. I think we should forgive his crime and let him pay back what he’s taken—with interest, of course—over time. I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up a simple IOU that he can sign right now. Do we all agree?”
Then Philip turned to Anna. Everyone waited for her response. As soon as she nodded, the others agreed, and Philip passed the IOU to Peter. “We’ll need your signature.” He held out his Montblanc pen. “Emily, you brought your notary stamp?”
“Peter signed the IOU?” Codella asked.
Anna nodded. “He hardly had a choice.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about this sooner, Rector?”
“I was going to, but Vivian convinced me not to say anything. She felt that it would only damage the church’s reputation.”
Codella frowned. “Where is the IOU now?”
“In my office. In the file drawer on the left side of my desk, tucked in a hanging folder.”
“And what happened after Peter signed it?”
At that point, Anna remembered, Philip held up a thick document and explained that he had a plan that would benefit the church rather than Peter’s personal portfolio. “I’ve negotiated a very favorable sale of our air rights—with many givebacks for the church.”
“Givebacks?” Emily asked. “What kind of givebacks?”
“He’ll build a daycare center on the north side of the new high-rise,” Philip explained, “and our parishioners will receive discounted tuition for their children.”
Emily nodded with enthusiasm. She scribbled notes into her minutes.
“And there’ll be a state-of-the-art playground adjoining the daycare center, and—you’ll love this, Emily—it will be accessible from the second-floor Sunday school classrooms. That means children will be able to play there on Sunday mornings—with supervision, of course—while their parents enjoy the coffee hour after the service.”
Emily’s eyes had widened in delight, Anna recalled, until Vivian Wakefield interrupted Philip’s laundry list of promises. “Three companies have been vying for our air rights, Philip,” she said. “I want to know what this developer promised you personally to seal his deal.”
“Nothing,” Philip assured her as he looked toward Anna with another trust me expression.
“Well, I for one am not voting to sign that contract,” Vivian declared. “Peter’s proposal may have been self-serving, but it was also revenue generating, and we’ve got the votes to pass it. I suggest we get to it.”
“Fine. Let’s vote on the cemetery proposal right now,” Philip agreed with a smile. “And next month—if the proposal doesn’t pass—we’ll vote on the air rights deal.”
“So you took a vote?” asked Codella.
Anna nodded. “As soon as Rose returned. She abstained. She didn’t feel it was right for her to vote after missing the whole discussion. I abstained too, of course. Emily voted against the proposal. I could tell Vivian was upset with her for that. But she was even more upset with Roger and Susan. She hadn’t counted on them siding with Philip, and she stared at each of them as if they’d personally betrayed her.”
Anna stood now, walked to the window, and stared down at the street. “I was as wrong about Philip as I was about Todd,” she heard herself say. “The day of the meeting, he stopped by the church and warned me things were going to get ugly. He told me what Peter had done and that I’d have to have an iron stomach if we were going to save the church. He squeezed my hand and asked me to trust him even if it seemed as if he was being hard. He assured me he would make everything right. He told me Vivian was too stuck in the past to have a vision of how to take the church into the future. He assured me Susan and Roger would get on board with his ideas.”
“And you put your faith in him.”
Anna collapsed back into the chair.
“You loved him.”
Anna looked down.
“You loved him,” Codella repeated.
“Or I wanted to be loved by him.” Anna hid her face in her hands. “Oh, God.”
“There’s nothing shameful about that.”
“He was so kind and gentle, and I felt so alone with Todd.” She realized her words sounded like a lame apology. “Todd is so angry all the time, so critical,” she explained. “And I had a feeling he was probably seeing someone—”
“Anna.” Codella’s soft voice startled her. “Anna, I think you’re asking yourself, did Todd kill Philip, and did he try to kill Stephanie?”
Anna looked up and nodded. Codella’s hand moved to her shoulder. “Tell me why you think this. Tell me what you’ve been keeping inside.”
And then Anna confessed. “Todd wasn’t in our bed at five AM the morning after the vestry meeting. I don’t know if he was home or not.”
CHAPTER 70
Haggerty felt the vibration of his phone in his pocket. Claire’s number came up on the screen. “Yeah?”
“You’re still in the reception hall, right?”
“Right,” he said. “Where have you been?”
“Talking to Vivian and the rector,” she said. “I’ll fill you in as soon as I can.”
“Muñoz just called,” he told her. “A judge granted us a warrant to search Todd’s computer. Muñoz is waiting outside for someone to drive it over here.”
“Good. That’s progress,” she said. “Can you find Roger Sturgis and bring him to the Blue Lounge?” Then she hung up.
Haggerty panned the reception hall and spotted Roger in a circle of parishioners with Vivian at his side. Vivian’s hand was gripping Roger’s arm as if she were trying to pull him away from the group. Haggerty rushed forward and grabbed Roger’s other arm. “You’re needed for a moment.” He smiled.
Roger looked from Haggerty to Vivian. Vivian’s eyes gave Roger a silent warning as Haggerty led him out of the hall.
Claire was waiting for them in the Blue Lounge, and Haggerty could tell that Roger wasn’t happy to see her.
“Have a seat, Mr. Sturgis,” she said, and Haggerty pushed him toward the long blue couch under the window.
Roger turned to her. “Are you going to let him handle me like that?”
“Detective Haggerty is a lot like you,” said Claire. “He has a short fuse. I wouldn’t test it if I were you.”
“I don’t have a short fuse,” Roger insisted.
Claire pulled a chair right in front of him. “Drop the facade, Mr. Sturgis. I know what happened at that vestry meeting.”
Roger said nothing.
“And I know what happened after too.”
“Well I’m glad someone does,” he said.
“You spoke to your aunt in the kitchen.”
“She’s not my aunt.”
“All right, your wife’s aunt. You went in the kitchen after the meeting. Tell me about your conversation.”
“I thought you already knew. Didn’t Vivian tell you?”
“I want to hear your version.”
He shrugged. “She wanted to know why I voted to kill the cemetery proposal.”
“Go on.”
“So I told her.”
“About the woman in Detroit?”
“And she slapped my face. Vivian can slap very hard.”
“And then what?”
“Nothing.” Roger smoothed his moustache. “That was it.”
“Bullshit.” Haggerty watched Claire rise from her chair and turn to him. “Detective Haggerty,” she said, “see that Mr. Sturgis doesn’t move from that couch until I get back.”
CHAPTER 71
Codella climbed the stairs and returned to the second floor. The crowd in the reception hall was thinning, she noticed as she ducked back into the Sunday school classroom where Anna Brookes still sat. She took her seat next to Anna and said, “You have a chance to do the right thing, Rector. You can still be the strong leader of this church.”
Anna shook her head. She was holding a wadded-up tissue, and Codella could see that her spirit was broken. Codella thought of all the times when she’d felt this helpless, sitting in a hospital bed and thinking that she wouldn’t be able to make it through the next chemo treatment. “Listen to me,” she said and pointed across the hall. “You have to find a way to reclaim your identity. You’ve got to find your inner strength. Everybody has to do that over and over again in their lives. Those people in that reception hall? They trust you. They love this place. It means something important to each of them. They come here because they’re lonely, they need comfort, or they’re afraid. And they find something here that keeps them coming back. Those are the people you need to think about right now. Tell me what happened after the meeting. Tell me what you know.”
“I don’t know who did this.”
“I think you do. I think some part of you suspects but doesn’t want to admit it. You have to find the part of you that knows the truth, and you have to tell me.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Be the person who went to seminary, Anna—the person who had a passion to lead. Stop being the victim of Todd or the weak little girl who needed to be loved by Philip Graves. Stand back and regain your perspective. What happened that night?”
Anna blew her nose, took a deep breath, and composed herself. “Right after Philip left, Susan stopped me in the hall and said she needed to talk.”
“About what?”
“It wasn’t clear to me. She said she was having terrible trouble sleeping, and she wondered if I could lend her a book on Christian meditation that I had on my office shelf. I got her the book, and she pulled me into the Community Room and asked me to recommend some passages that she could meditate on.”
“And then what?”
“I flagged a few passages and got up to go—I was upset that I hadn’t gotten to see Philip before he left, and I wanted to see him—but then she said she needed to confide something in me.”
“What? What did she confide?”
“Nothing. She just told me she had a secret from her husband, and she wasn’t sure whether to tell him. She wanted my advice. But that’s all she told me.”
“How long were you there with her?”
“About ten minutes, I’d say. Susan definitely wasn’t her usual self. She seemed almost desperate to keep me there.”
“When you did finally come out of the Community Room, where were the other vestry members?”
“Rose and Vivian were by the coatrack. Roger and Peter were standing in the Blue Lounge.”
“How did they look?” asked Codella.
She watched Anna think for a moment. “As if they’d been fighting.”
Codella stood. “I’ll be back,” she told the rector.
She returned to the Blue Lounge and motioned Haggerty into the corridor. As soon as he closed the door behind him, she whispered, “I don’t think Todd Brookes killed Philip Graves.”
“Who did? Roger Sturgis?”
“I don’t know yet.” She stared at the closed door and visualized Roger sitting on the couch. “But I’m going to try to get the truth out of him.”
“Good luck with that,” said Haggerty. “He’s a hard son of a bitch.”
“Yeah, but we all have a weakness, and I think I know what his is.” She hoped she was right.
Haggerty touched her arm. “Go to it then,” he said. “I’ll be out here if you need me.”
“No. I’ll be fine here. You go help Muñoz execute the warrant.” She touched his bristly jaw and watched him smile. Then she turned and entered Blue Lounge.
CHAPTER 72
Codella crossed the room and stopped five feet in front of him. “I know what happened, Mr. Sturgis.”
“Oh, you do? Then tell me, please.” Roger took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He’d been in tighter situations than this, he reminded himself. He had breached deadly minefields in Kuwait. He could certainly handle this minefield.
“You went outside to the garden.”
“We all went outside, Detective.”
“I mean
before Graves died,” said Codella. “You left Vivian in the kitchen—after you promised her you’d end things with the woman in Detroit.”
He could feel her watching for his reaction. He didn’t intend to give her one.
“You left Anna Brookes in the care of Susan Bentley, and you slipped outside to deal with your problem.”
She continued to stare at him. Was she telling him what she knew or what she believed and needed him to affirm? “Should I be calling my lawyer right now, Detective?”
“That’s up to you,” Codella said, “but I hope it’s not Peter Linton.”
“I see you have a sense of humor.” He smiled, but he felt no warmth inside.
Her eyes narrowed. Her stare made him feel exposed. “You loved that Monique woman, didn’t you?” she asked, but the words, he could tell, weren’t really a question.
That Monique woman. He bristled at the phrase.
“She meant something to you, something deep.”
He rose to his feet. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Detective.”
“Is that what it feels like I’m doing?”
“My personal relationships have nothing to do with Philip Graves’s death.”
“But I think they might.”
Roger said nothing. He hadn’t anticipated this.
“Your relationship with Monique wasn’t just a simple affair. You paid her son’s tuition. You sent him to a very nice and very expensive school in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. And you’ve been flying to Detroit almost once a week for years.”
He shrugged.
“You went to see her on Thursday to break things off, didn’t you? Vivian demanded that you do that immediately, or she was going to tell Kendra. Am I right?”
He crossed his arms.
“But when you got there, it wasn’t so easy to say good-bye, was it? And you felt so guilty that you ended up at a car dealership. You bought Monique a car. A parting gift. Something she needed.”
Roger held up his hands in a stop gesture. “That’s enough!”
“Why is she so important to you, Mr. Sturgis?”
“That’s none of your fucking business.”