by Harker Moore
Between the peak hours of breakfast and lunchtime, traffic in the café slowed. Detective Walter Talbot was one of less than a half-dozen customers. The waitress who brought his order had a name tag above the pocket of her uniform. It said TIFFANY in thin white letters on plastic sky blue. A tall, pretty blonde, who looked like she could stand to eat more of whatever the place offered. She smiled as she set the cup and the little pot of cream on the table. The gesture was midwestern expansive, uncorrupted as yet by a city that seemed to compact everything down.
“Thanks,” he said, smiling up at her. “Could we talk?”
Her expression turned wary, appraising him, wondering no doubt if this was going to be a come-on. And whether or not she should mind.
“Talk about what?” she asked him.
“I was wondering how long you’ve been working here.”
“Six months”—she shrugged to indicate it was approximate— “since I got to New York…. I’m trying to break into modeling.” She’d tacked on the last, watching for his reaction. He imagined she told this to everyone.
“A man was murdered there.” He nodded toward Westlake’s building.
She stared past him through the window. “He used to come in here sometimes,” she said. “Geoffrey. He was a model too. A really nice guy.”
“So you knew him?”
“Not exactly,” she answered slowly, embarrassed to have been called on it. “I waited on him a few times.”
“Were you here the day they found him?”
“I saw them bring him out in the body bag,” she said, still staring through the glass. “It was just like on TV. And then people started coming in and saying it was Geoffrey. I couldn’t believe it.”
“What people?”
“What?” She had turned back to look at him.
“You said some people came in …?”
She studied him critically. “You a cop?”
“Yes.” He turned up the wattage on his smile. “We’re doing a little recanvassing.”
“I was gone by the time the police came round that day to question everybody,” she said. “God, I felt bad, like somebody should’ve been hauling me out on a stretcher.” She flashed another look at him, wondering if she’d been too irreverent. “I was out for days with the flu.”
“These people,” he reminded her, “the ones who were talking about Geoffrey …?”
“Regulars,” she answered, “people from the neighborhood.” She glanced back at the building. “Some of them live there.”
“I’m looking for a tall, thin man … wears a baseball cap and some kind of big outdoor parka,” he said. “You ever see anyone like that with Geoffrey?”
“No.” She shook her head, but her attention seemed to sharpen. “… Not with Geoffrey.”
“But you’ve seen him?”
“I’ve waited on him,” she said. Then, “… He killed Geoffrey?” She had figured where all this was going.
He didn’t answer.
“He was in here that morning,” she said as if to prompt him, “that day they found the body.”
“You know his name?”
“No … sorry.” She looked truly pained. “He never talked much. Just drank a lot of coffee.”
“Can you describe him?”
“His hair was blond … I think.” She scrunched up her face, considering. “He always had on that cap. But yeah, I’d say blond.”
“Eyes?”
She shook her head. “He wore sunglasses … always.”
The detail of the glasses was significant, tallying as it did with the bartender’s composite. And the blond hair. Thomas Graff had blond hair. “Age?” he asked her.
She frowned. “That’s hard these days.”
“Guess.”
“Thirty-five, maybe older. But good-looking, what you could see of his face. And built too, but not in an obvious way. He didn’t always wear the parka.”
He smiled again, encouraging her.
“That’s all,” she said. “I guess I can’t really tell you much.”
“You did great, Tiffany. Have you seen him lately?”
“No. But you can ask the other girls. They might remember him.”
“I’ll talk to them,” he said, “but first I’d like to know if you’d be willing to come in for a lineup.”
“Like on the cop shows? One-way window and all?”
“That’s right,” he said. “You can see them. They can’t see you.”
“Sure,” she said, sounding pleased with the drama of the prospect. “I want to help if I can.”
Zoe watched as Connie Venza backed out of the carport onto the street and drove away. She checked her rearview mirror, examining her hair, smoothing an unruly wisp into the tight French twist at the back of her head. Then she clipped on the small button earrings that matched the single strand of pearls circling her neck above the thin gold chain bearing a small crucifix. She fished out a pot of clear gloss and coated her lips. Her white silk blouse and navy wool suit were matron-simple. Along with the sensible leather pumps.
She had just returned from shopping for the suit, when she got the call about Byron Shelton being questioned in connection with the serial murders. In fact, this was a second go-round for the comic. She could really be pissed about missing out on this one, but her sources had it that Shelton would walk. His alibis were iron clad. The smart money was on a priest, but with the clout of the Church in this town, that was sure to twist the Department in knots. It was good enough to give her an orgasm—CATHOLIC PRIEST MOONLIGHTS AS SERIAL KILLER. Smoke that, Rozelli!
She stepped out of the rental car and walked across the street to Agnes Tuminello’s house. A bleak one-story covered in faded yellow siding that made the exterior look dirty rather than cheery. Barred windows added to the overall effect of a life led in quiet desperation. A sad-looking Christmas wreath did nothing to dispel the general gloom. She reached into her handbag for the final touch. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
She opened the weather door and knocked. After a moment she heard the soft click of heels; then the door cracked open a fraction, restrained by a heavy safety chain.
“Yes.” Agnes Tuminello sounded like someone used to turning people away.
“Mrs. Tuminello? I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m from The Catholic Answer. We’re just a small Catholic newspaper….”
A pause. The chain unhitched. The door opened wide.
“I’m Mary Katherine O’Malley.” Zoe reached down and took Mrs. Tuminello’s hand. She watched as the woman’s eyes moved up from her sensible shoes to the gold cross nestled beneath the pearls.
“I was wondering if we might talk.”
Even the crucifix wasn’t enough to stanch the housekeeper’s wary expression. “About what?” she asked.
“The awful tragedy at St. Sebastian.” She looked full into the woman’s careful eyes, compassion brimming in her own. “The Catholic Answer just wants the truth … and to help find the person who did this terrible thing.” Her voice faltering on the last of her words.
Mrs. Tuminello nodded and held back the weather door. She led Zoe down a short hall and into a living room overcrowded with furniture. The heat was up too high.
“Please sit,” the woman said, walking over and turning off the television. She pointed to a sofa. “You said you’re with a Catholic paper?” she asked, settling herself in a chair.
“Yes, and we are deeply concerned about the violence that happened to Father Kellog and that poor little girl. Murder in the house of God.” She sighed, shaking her head.
“That is because we nurtured a viper in our bosom.” The words as righteously delivered as any Sermon on the Mount.
“A viper?”
“Thomas Graff.”
“The priest who found the bodies?”
The woman nodded solemnly. “An evil man. I tried to warn Father, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Such a misfortune…. What exactly did you try to warn Father about?”<
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Mrs. Tuminello’s eyes closed as she rested her head against the chair’s cushioned back. Her hand patted one of the overstuffed arms like the head of a faithful old mutt. “He had some of the ladies in the parish fooled, but not me,” she said proudly. “I saw into his black heart.” Her head lifted. “I knew what he was. An abomination.” The hand quit its soft tattoo.
“What do you mean, Mrs. Tuminello?”
“He likes men. Takes pictures of them. Naked.” She crossed herself. “He never wanted me to clean that room. Had a new lock put on the door. Kept the only key.”
“What room?”
“In the same house with Father Kellog. Desecrating the rectory.”
“What room, Mrs. Tuminello?”
“A darkroom. He developed his nasty photographs in Father Kellog’s house. In that secret room of his.”
Zoe had been leaning forward as Mrs. Tuminello told her tale. Now she sat back, took in a breath of overheated air. This was better than she’d hoped.
“They know about Graff,” Mrs. Tuminello said quietly, “because I took one of his pictures. And my Connie gave it to them. They know.”
“Who knows, Mrs. Tuminello?”
This time when she lifted her head, the housekeeper was smiling. A self-satisfied smile that said if she couldn’t be rewarded in this life, she would surely be in the next. “The police. The police have all the pictures now.”
“All the pictures?”
“Of Father Graff’s naked boys.”
Despite the overstuffed furniture, the living room of Vernon Norman’s tiny brownstone had the feeling of a cloister. The air trapped inside didn’t move. Overheated, thicker than normal, it blurred any color existing in the room and gathered in a graying mass like cobwebs near the ceiling. The walls were a yellowed white and bare, except for a large print hanging above a table of votives. Jesus stared out of the frame with an expression of painful bliss, one hand lifted to his breast, where a fleshy heart, circled in flame, hovered miraculously, pierced by a stout ray of light.
Sitting with Rozelli on Norman’s sofa, Walt Talbot found that his eyes kept straying to the picture of the Sacred Heart. A psychology major, the detective had no problem identifying the underlying symbolism in the image. He doubted Vernon Norman was aware of it. At least on a conscious level.
“It’s terrible that we have to keep the churches locked these days,” Norman was saying. A small tight man in his seventies, he appeared lost in one of the worn brocade chairs that formed a group with the sofa. His faded brown sweater seemed meant for a larger man, or perhaps he’d been the one to shrink.
“We’ve been told you have a key to the church.” Rozelli was smiling at the man, working him back to the subject.
“I do have a key.” Norman smiled back. “I’m president of the Society for Devotion to the Divine Love,” he explained. “We hold special services every week, and it’s part of my duties to see that the Host is taken from the tabernacle and placed in view on the altar.”
Rozelli nodded.
“I’m a deacon,” Norman said to them both. “I took Orders after my wife died.”
“Does anyone else in your group have a key?” Talbot asked him.
“Mrs. Delorio uses mine sometimes,” Norman answered him. “She’s our society’s secretary.”
“We’re looking for a tall, thin man who wears a cap and a big outdoor jacket. Does that sound like anyone you know?”
“Father Graff dresses like that.” Norman’s eyes searched Rozelli’s face. “I’ve heard the rumors,” he said. “Do the police really believe that Father Graff might have committed these murders?”
“We have to consider everything.” Talbot was the one to answer. “You said that Mrs. Delorio uses your key to the church, Mr. Norman. Is there no one else besides the priests who has keys?”
Norman’s sad gaze shifted back to him. “Agnes Tuminello has keys,” he said. Then, “A church has to be reconsecrated when a murder takes place inside. Did you know that?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “We live in terrible times.”
Talbot stood. “Thank you, Mr. Norman,” he said. “It was kind of you to talk to us.”
“Yes, thanks.” Rozelli stood too.
Norman nodded. Pulling himself out of the chair by inches, he went over and picked up two little booklets from a stack next to the votives. The cover was a duplicate of the picture that hung on the wall. NOVENA TO THE DIVINE LOVE was printed in red at the bottom. “Our devotional services.” He handed one to each of them as he walked them out.
Norman locked his door and went into his kitchen. The clock in the stove showed fifteen minutes past the usual time for starting his dinner. Since his wife had died, he had found that it helped to keep to a regular schedule. A schedule kept him busy. And idle minds, like idle hands, were the devil’s workshop.
Still, variety was nice, and the policemen’s visit had been interesting. He’d wanted to mention to them that he’d taught math for thirty years before he’d retired. Instead, he’d made a point of being a deacon in the Church. So what? He was not ashamed of his beliefs. They gave him his only comfort.
He stopped, leaving the food he’d taken out of the refrigerator on the counter, and went back to the living room. He sat on the sofa and pulled out the photo album from the dusty bottom shelf of the coffee table. There was a photo near the back that he suddenly wanted to see, a picture from about this same time a couple years ago when Ida Mae had still been alive.
The picture had been taken in the church hall, at the Christmas party that the ladies put together every year. He was there, posing for the group shot, looking uncomfortable, as he always did in photographs. But Ida Mae was smiling, still plump and pretty, showing no sign of the cancer that would kill her in less than six months.
He looked at the picture, at the predominance of old faces. Most of them would be dead soon, himself included. He looked at the youngest member of their group, come back for the party long after she’d moved out of the parish. Hadn’t she once had a key to the church? The thought struck him for a moment but faded to unimportance. What could it matter? Marian, poor child, was already dead and gone, and for nearly as long as his Ida Mae.
The night was overcast and the street dark, as if the close humid cold had absorbed the glow from the streetlamps. Sakura, puffing clouds, left the rental garage and walked toward his building. He wanted more than anything to be home and at rest, but he feared it might be necessary to offer amends tonight. Hanae had still been sleeping, or pretending to sleep, this morning when he’d left, and he’d talked to her only briefly during the day, calling to tell her he would once again be late and not to expect him for supper. He knew he had hurt her with his abruptness last night. The case was taking its toll.
He thought of Faith. There had been no commitment between the two of them. No love. But with Faith he’d never had to explain himself. In terms of their work, they had been completely in sync, competitive and ambitious, but supportive in their separate spheres.
He had been reminded of that today when he’d called to bring her up to speed on tomorrow’s planned search of the rectory and the lineup that was set for the next day. Faith had been approving, cutting through the bullshit to his own bottom line. A witness ID on Graff would go a long way toward covering his back. Proof his investigation was making progress.
Of course, there was more than the politics. He hadn’t forgotten his conversation with Willie this morning. He trusted her instincts and his own, and he shared her misgivings concerning Graff’s guilt. But instinct could be moot if tomorrow’s search of the church grounds were successful. If they found some piece of evidence that tied Lucia to Graff.
He was getting ahead of himself. A bad sign, his needing a break this much. It was unlikely they would find anything at all. If Graff was the killer, he had left no physical evidence at any of the other crime scenes. Still, Lucia Mancuso’s murder had been an undeniable departure, and a change in MO increased the risk that the ki
ller would make a mistake. There was no penalty for hope. He stopped at the downstairs entrance and used his key. Walked up the stairs to the apartment. He entered the genkan quietly to the familiar greeting of the marriage kimono. And a not so familiar voice. Coming to him clearly from the living room. Speaking to Hanae. In perfect Japanese. A language he had not heard from those lips since the day of his grand-father’s funeral.
He removed his coat. His shoes.
Isao Sakura rose from the sofa as he came into the living room. The man looked as tired as he felt.
“Hello, Jimmy.”
“Father.”
Hanae stood, seeming to flutter in the silence.
“Your father would not let me call you,” she spoke. “He did not wish to disturb your work.” Her blind eyes were fixed on something behind his face. “May I get you something, Jimmy?”
On the coffee table were plates with the remnants of food.
“Nothing,” he said. “I ate earlier…. Perhaps tea.”
“I will make some fresh.” Her eyes unfixed themselves. She bent to pick up the tray. He marveled as always at her grace, watching as she walked toward the kitchen. He felt his father watching him.
He turned back. “What are you doing in New York?”
The response was a smile at the brusqueness of his question. His father sat down on the sofa, waited for him to settle in his chair. “I’m in town for …a conference,” he answered. “And also to deliver this.” He brought out from the side of the sofa a package that was long and narrow.
He reached without thinking, accepting the gift, shocked by his certain knowledge of what the package contained.
His father was watching his hands.
He, too, watched as his fingers of their own volition worked the knotted cord and unrolled the heavy paper. It fell away, leaving the sword in his lap. He did not look up but stared at the embellished hilt and scabbard while memories rose like smoke. An image of Grandfather Nakamura nodding gravely, bringing out the sword from the chest where it was stored in its fine silk wrapping. Explaining to him once more the history and meaning of the family treasure, passed down from the time when a samurai wore this weapon as a birthright and called the katana his soul. Passed down to Isao as firstborn after Grandfather’s death.