Flight of the Fox

by Gray Basnight

  The priest approaches, holds out his hand. I take it. “Richard Dean Buckner,” I say, respecting his firm grip. “I’m a private eye, used to be this guy’s senior detective.”

  “Father Nicolas Sisti. I used to wear a badge as well.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes, but not here.” He eyeballs the bodies. I see that curious mix between people who are used to living this life—nurses, doctors, firemen, cops, soldiers—who have no special response to seeing the dead, the ruined. But now it hits home. Their own personal people are dead. Ruined. The normal response of EMS folks is to get into business mode, which for better or worse dehumanizes it all. It keeps them operating, but now Father Sisti has to swing at the curveball of knowing the person. You know that object in your front seat that rolls under your brake pedal and causes you to wreck? Personally knowing the dead when you need them to be not human is that object.

  Father Sisti is trying not to wreck.

  Clevenger comes over, hand out. “Detective Graham Clevenger.”

  Father Sisti breaks from his derailing long enough to take in Clevenger. He breathes deeply, controlled, says, “Good to meet you.”

  “I assume you’re at Saint Aloysius?”

  “Yes. I run the mission.”

  “Any idea what happened?”

  The Father takes another deep breath, the kind where it should be cleansing but instead is burdening. “They were out, trying to see if anyone needed help. They do it every night.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous? I mean, two older women in this neighborhood?”

  “It’s dangerous crossing the street, Detective. The habit commands more respect, even out here, than one would imagine. Besides, when I took my final vows all those years ago, I began my vocation under a Vietnam-era priest. He told stories about saying Mass while taking fire from the jungle. He had stories of the priest he worked with in his own youth, who had given—more than once, mind you—Last Rites to soldiers while the Nazis were firing mortars at him.”

  Leave it to Hitler’s goon squad to bomb a priest soothing a dying man.

  “But tonight—” Father Sisti looked around, “—nothing special about tonight. And we have strangers here most nights. We’re a common traveling spot. The transit system has the Montgomery stop two blocks to the north. The highway is just over there—” he points to the south, “—and it’s not out of the ordinary to see vagrants walking back and forth. Maybe a mile to the northwest is Gregg Park. They all come around here, especially when word goes around about our mission.”

  Gregg Park is known for the human detritus that washes up there. Drug addicts, homeless, the mentally ill left to wander the streets. You can’t walk through it without the smell of unwashed people wafting over, stinging your nostrils with grime and body odor. It’s dangerous enough that any call there becomes two or three officers minimum. The turds that congregate there have a habit of ganging up on you.

  “A couple things,” I say. “I notice no one’s out tonight. Is that because of this, or is this normal?”

  “It’s not normal,” Father Sisti says. “Usually there will always be a few people if not half a dozen on the streets. Fred Nordburg lives in that house over there, and he always smokes a pack of cigarettes sitting in his porch chair. A schizophrenic kid named Brody will wander around here, trying to sell expired bus tickets for spending cash. Mr. and Mrs. Velez own a corner store over on Twelfth and MacIntyre. They close around now and walk through here on their way home. Others, too. This street is always busy.”

  “The other staff? Where are they?”

  Father Sisti turns and motions up the road. “Tending to our needy in the mission. I don’t know if you’ve seen, but two other people have been dropped off here since…all this. Our world up there is still turning—” He looks at the sister lying on her back, her lips still and eyes closed, “—no matter what else we have down here to deal with.”

  He looks back again to the mission. “Our other nuns are there. They have two male nurses with them, as well as a female paramedic. Volunteers.”

  Vagrants. Gregg Park. Ghetto shelter. If they’re killing on the streets out here, those two male nurses better be big fucking guys. And that female paramedic better be a big fucking guy also. I can picture her now: sports bra to compress her breasts down to a flat chest, all her excess weight in her hips and thighs. Short hair. Deep voice. Her girlfriend wears all the makeup. Burnout. All the best medics are.

  “I sent officers up there,” Clevenger says.

  Father Sisti nods. He looks at us, scrunches his eyebrows. “Why a police detective and a private detective?”

  Clevenger smiles. I shrug, say, “I used to be homicide. This guy was my partner. People tried to kill me—almost did, I guess, and I wound up being retired from the force. Mandatory. Clevenger took my spot. Sometimes I’ll go with him to stuff like this just as another set of eyes.”

  “It keeps Buckner out of the nursing home,” Clevenger says.

  I smirk. “Crime still needs to be solved in the city. With me around, it still does.”

  “Find their killer, please,” Father Sisti says. Solemn, like he’s promising a child he’ll protect it through a dangerous event. His eye contact is intense. Our joking vanishes into the night. “These women were sisters in real life. Mary-Pauline was three years older than Mary-Helene. They took their names from two of Saint Therese of Lisieux’s sisters. The Little Flower. All they wanted to do was follow the call of Christ out here, where there is no love, no dignity. They weren’t selling drugs or using people. You won’t find some Law & Order third act twist here. They were trying to bring love to the unloved and someone murdered them.”

  “I believe you,” I say.

  A scream from down the way pierces the stillness. We spin. A nun sees us, sees it all, collapses onto her knees as a man, probably one of Father Sisti’s male nurses, takes her gently by the shoulders and holds her. Shock. Anguish. Not unusual to see.

  “They hadn’t been made aware of all this yet,” Father Sisti said. “Certainly not in its entirety.” The nun weeps and pounds her fists into the ground. A second nun comes running down the street. Joins the first. Together, their cries break the evening. “I didn’t give it a thought when you asked the officer to go up there.”

  Clevenger hangs his head. “Sorry. They must be very close.”

  Father Sisti smiles weakly. “The first nun you see, her name is Sister Mary-Louise. She’s a widow. They were unable to have children, so they fostered for years. Joined the convent that we partner with here several years ago. Told us that fostering some of the more difficult children prepared her for this new calling.”

  “Terrible,” I say.

  “Yes,” Father Sisti says, starting to walk toward her. “Her dead husband, he was Mary-Helene and Mary-Pauline’s younger brother.”

  “Robbery?” I ask, snub out my smoke onto the concrete railing of the mission’s back porch.

  Father Sisti turns to me, his fist to his mouth as he silently contemplates the world around him. I could tell him the truth: nothing makes sense, but I figure he needs to come to that conclusion by himself. I won’t argue that God wants us as a species to move closer to Him, and we as a species are running away faster than a frat boy runs from the girl he knocked up at a bender. But still, I can already see the ghosts of the nuns swimming in his eyes.

  Things are different now.

  “You think it was a robbery?” he says absently.

  “Back from your cop days, what do you think?” I ask.

  “Those instincts are rusty. And I’m deeply saddened.” He looks at me and offers a weak smile. “Humor me.”

  “Well, you told Clevenger back there that you couldn’t think of anyone who would want to harm the sisters. No one new or odd in the neighborhood sticks out in your mind that may have done this. No one or thing suspicious.”

  “But who would rob a nun?”

  “Junkies. Some
stupid motherfucker that thinks since nuns are charitable they walk around with a wad of cash to, I don’t know, buy value meals for the homeless.”

  “I know, I know. I just…can’t fathom this,” Father Sisti says and turns around.

  The street is cordoned off by the investigations folks. Crime scene staff, more uniforms, and now the coroner. Let the questioning begin. With a cold trail, Clevenger and his people need to start interviewing everyone and everything before this thing dies out completely. In a neighborhood like this, where the boys in blue don’t get to do much besides crack skulls and worsen public relations because the public around here are all crooks, shit isn’t going to go our way.

  One uniform is walking up and down the street shining a flashlight into any building that might have a security camera. Another two uniforms are knocking on doors, asking people to help. I can count on one finger how many of the neighborhood folks open their doors. I can also count on that same finger how many people told the uniforms to fuck off.

  Funny thing was, it was a woman and she grabbed her crotch and honked it like Michael Jackson used to do. Slammed the door.

  “Anyone around here hate Catholics? Christians in general?” I ask, light a new smoke.

  “Sure,” Father Sisti said. “We get some hateful stuff here and there. The Church is a bunch of pedophiles, the Church is the whore of Babylon. We’re cannibals. The usual stuff. Not very creative people. Nothing that would indicate our nuns are in grave danger.”

  “The pedo stuff, does it come from someone who was molested? Maybe not of the Church’s sex scandal, but someone else and they’re just projecting it onto you?”

  “Nah, not to my knowledge,” Father Sisti says. “Less than four percent of priests were ever accused, and out of that number far fewer were ever actually guilty. Some priests did harm children, but far more were simply dragged through the mud. There were some ugly truths in all of that, but it was also turned into a fad. Pure and simple, people made it the in thing to do. I’ve never heard of a clergyman’s victim around here…but I guess we have a lot of drifters and crazies, too. Who knows?”

  “Okay.” I turn away, stare at the moon through a nearby dying tree’s bare branches. Skeletal fingers, crooked with a hundred years’ worth of arthritis as it grips at that dead, gray eye in the sky. “But we need motive.”

  Father Sisti snorts a bitter laugh. “The problem with this neighborhood is that rationality has left it. That kid I told you about, Brody. He’s in his late twenties, been on the streets around here for at least five years. He went schizophrenic his sophomore year of college. Paranoia drove him away from anything he trusted. His brain is fractured, his reality a series of snippets, incomplete pictures only his mind perceives. His motive is here one second and then mutated by his illness into something incomprehensible the next.”

  “Sure.”

  “A few years ago, there was a former crack addict named Tubbs who went to prison for trying to kill his dealer. He plead down to aggravated battery and served eighteen months in prison and one year in a locked-down rehab. Came back and opened a lemonade stand right down there.”

  Father Sisti pointed past the murder scene to whatever patch of dead grass might have once held a ramshackle stand where a violent crackhead peddled his wares.

  “And?”

  “Never made any money.” Father Sisti laughed. “Everybody in the neighborhood knew him. No one trusted he didn’t piss in that lemonade first. He’s back smoking crack. Every now and then I still see him, in here or just wandering his old neighborhood. His motive was doing whatever he needed to do to get by.”

  “Isn’t that everybody’s motive, ever?” I ask. “You and me both wore a badge. I’m sure the stuff you hear in Reconciliation is worse than anything you saw on the street.”

  Father Sisti nods gravely. “Sometimes, I want to reach through there and beat people half to death.” He looked at me. “I was a cop for two years in an upscale town. Rich husbands cheating, and rich housewives addicted to pain pills. Domestic violence that went unspoken. DV will ruin a reputation, and those people had good reputations. Out here? Man and woman will fistfight in the streets. Hell, the kids pick sides and hoot and holler while their parents slug it out.”

  I don’t know where this is going. People do this. Carry on with a sidebar because humanity sometimes needs to unburden. I could tell him the truth: people are the worst, but I figure he’s already come to that conclusion by himself.

  He takes my pack, taps one out and lights it. “People are the worst, Richard. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The thing of it, God, who doesn’t need us, still made all of this, all of us, because of sheer love. Nothing else. He doesn’t need our praise. Our worship. The very fact that we can thank him for his love is because He made it so.”

  “Seems to me there’s a lot of people around here who aren’t thankful for anything.”

  “Yes, but I am, and that includes being thankful for those very people. Every human being has intrinsic value. They are valuable because they are human—”

  “That’s probably their only value.”

  “But it is enough,” Father Sisti says, holding up a finger. “Jesus died for all men, not just those who live well, especially by our standards. All men.”

  “And the one who murdered Mary-Helene and Mary-Pauline?”

  “He should face the consequences of his actions. But he is still loved by God.”

  I snuff out my smoke on the railing, annoyed. “Love the sinner, don’t love the sin, correct?”

  “We all fall short.” Father Sisti walks to a chair and sits down, leans back. “Of course, when I broke a window as a child, my father only whupped me. I imagine when this killer is found, the justice system will pursue the death penalty.”

  “Even if they do, he’ll die in prison before they get around to whacking him.”

  “Even so, he should face the consequences of his actions. God is just.”

  “And in the meantime?” I ask.

  “He should try and prepare himself for Heaven. Like all of us. What else is there?”

  “I need motive, Father. I need a suspect.”

  “Yes, you do. And all you’re getting here is preached at.” He stands. Smiles. He’s tired, the kind of weary somebody gets when they know they’re tired but they’re going to pull an all-nighter anyway. He was watching over his graveyard only to see two fresh holes dug that he knew nothing about.

  “I’ll go inside, check on Clevenger.” I open the back door and Father Sisti catches it.

  “You said your partner—Clevenger—he calls you here and there for these cases?”

  “Yeah. When he wants me around for ’em.”

  “Why this one?”

  My turn to smile. “I’m Catholic.”

  “Any good at it?”

  I rub my face and go inside. “No.”

  Click here to learn more about Albatross by Ryan Sayles.

  Back to TOC

  Here is a preview from the crime thriller Once a Killer by Martin Bodenham…

  Chapter 1

  The two men had nothing against the old woman as they bludgeoned her to death. It wasn’t personal; she was bait, nothing more.

  Easing back on the gas, Michael Hoffman peered through the clunking wipers of his rental car, looking for the place they’d taken his mother’s mutilated body. He passed an empty Mexican restaurant, then a laundromat with a group of young men inside who looked like they were in the middle of a fight. As he checked the central locking system for the third time since leaving the freeway, a bright neon sign up ahead caught his attention—Cook County Funeral Home—Affordable Funerals by People Who Care Since 1954. Its red light, high up on a steel pole, and the pouring rain conspired to distort his view through the windshield. Rainwater pelted his face when he opened the side window and leaned out of the car, searching for a break in the wall. The entrance to
the private parking area had to be close. The man he’d spoken to on the phone yesterday had warned him: if he wanted it back, he should avoid leaving his vehicle on the street.

  There it was. At the bottom of the illuminated sign stood two brick pillars on either side of a narrow driveway. Michael pulled off the road and entered the vacant car park. As he killed the engine, the digital clock on the dashboard flashed 9:10 p.m. He was late—very late—and there were no lights on inside. Maybe the man had already left.

  The iPhone in Michael’s jacket pocket rang. As he retrieved it, an image of his wife appeared on the screen. For a moment, he thought about taking the call, but decided against the idea; lying to Caroline again about where he was tonight would only take up valuable time.

  When the door at the side of the building opened, a tall, muscular man in his early forties stepped out.

  “Hello,” Michael said, jumping out of the car. He ran over to the man, soaking the bottom of his suit trousers in the puddles forming in the potholed tarmac. “I’m really sorry I’m late.”

  The man threw him a shit-look. “I said no later than quarter to nine.” He turned the key to lock the door. “We’re done here tonight.”

  “My flight was delayed coming into O’Hare. I got here as soon as I could.”

  The man shrugged his shoulders. “Not my problem. You’ll have to come back tomorrow morning.”

  “I have to do this tonight. Please.”

  “I can’t help you. Now, if it’s okay, I’d like to get out of this rain.”

  Michael reached into his jacket, and the man flinched.

  “Yesterday, you wanted a hundred.” Michael took out a bunch of notes from his Mulberry wallet. “Would two hundred change your mind? I really have to see her tonight.”