by Bob Kroll
Crouse met his eyes and saw the hollowness in them. “I’d just be guessing,” she said.
Peterson looked back at the baptismal font, then at the statue of the Virgin. He thought for a moment then turned to Crouse, “Time of death?”
“Not long ago,” she said. “Three, maybe four hours.”
Peterson checked his watch: 2:35 a.m. “And the call?”
“Midnight, give or take,” Danny said.
“Let’s hear what the priest has to say,” Peterson said.
The two of them left Crouse to the forensic investigation and made their way up the centre aisle, out the heavy front door, and toward the rectory.
“You want to know, right? I mean, I’ll tell you if you want to know,” Danny said, as they descended the church stairs.
Peterson creased a smile Danny didn’t see. “I don’t want to know.”
“You want to know. Who you kidding?”
“You got something on your mind?”
“You know what you are?”
“Yeah, I know. So tell me.” Peterson nudged Danny to cut across the lawn to the rectory.
“Waterfront restaurant,” Danny said. “Harbour view. I drop near a hundred bucks on dinner. Then it’s a couple of Grand Marniers up the street, and she suggests I take her home. You know what I’m thinking. Then my cell vibrates in my pocket, but I don’t answer. I’m booked off for the night, so I don’t answer. So we grab a cab, and we’re in the elevator to her condo, and I can tell she’s having second thoughts, you know, by the way we’re standing two feet apart and she’s watching the floor numbers clicking off. Looking worried. So I said, ‘If this is a bad idea, I’m okay.’ And she said, ‘I was underwater and I’m resurfacing. Right now, I just need to breathe.’ Talk about ice water, huh?”
They climbed the stairs to the rectory. Peterson took a deep breath for Danny’s drowning date.
“I like her,” Danny said. “If she needs to breathe, let her breathe. No push back. No rush. Crazy, huh?”
Peterson opened the rectory door, but Danny had something on his mind and held back from entering.
“I’ll tell you what I’m tired of, Peterson,” Danny said. “I’m forty-six years old, I’m tired of going home and there’s no one there, no one to talk to, about the job, about anything.”
“You wouldn’t talk about the job even if there was someone there.”
“Maybe not you.”
Peterson was expressionless. “Yeah, maybe not me. But what’s there to talk about, a hit and run, or Father What’s-His-Name with a smashed skull?”
“You don’t make it easy for someone to say something.”
Peterson gave him the fake nonchalance — a squeezed laugh and raised shoulders.
“I never thought about it before,” Danny said, “not until I started feeling it myself, but the empty house would’ve been the hardest part for you, right? I mean after how many years and all of a sudden there’s no one there.”
Peterson looked past Danny into the shadow of the church, struggling with a memory. Then he shifted his eyes back to Danny. Stony. “You done with the heart-to-heart?”
Father Ronny, a pudgy, balding, middle-aged man in a grey tracksuit, met them at the door and led them to a quiet parlour with understated furnishings. A large icon of St. Jude broke up the monotony of a long beige wall.
Father Ronny was visibly shaken. His eyes kept drifting past Peterson and Danny, staring into space.
“What time did you find the body?” Peterson asked.
“Close to midnight,” the priest said.
“You always roam the church late at night?”
“I was looking for Father Boutilier.”
“Why was that?”
“He wasn’t in the rectory. When I left earlier, he was going to the church for holy oil and the Eucharist. A parishioner was dying in hospital. Last rites.”
“What time did you leave?” Danny asked.
“After nine.”
“You thought he’d still be in the church three hours later?” Peterson’s tone was harsh.
Father Ronny became defensive. “He wasn’t back yet. That wasn’t like him, so I called the hospital. He never got there. I thought something had happened.”
“Like what?” Still Peterson.
“He’s sixty-seven and has a heart condition.”
“And where were you all this time?” Danny asked.
Father Ronny hesitated, and Peterson caught it. “I returned a shawl to Mrs. Harding. Angela Harding. She left it behind in church after mass.”
“You said mass this evening?” Peterson asked.
“No. Father Boutilier did.”
“So he found the shawl?” Peterson persisted.
“No. I did. I went into church after mass …”
“To find the shawl,” Peterson added.
Father Ronny avoided looking at him. “To check the doors were locked.”
“Why didn’t you get the Eucharist and holy oil while you were in the church?”
“The hospital didn’t call until I was back in the rectory.”
“Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” Danny asked.
“The dying person was his parishioner.”
“You delivered the shawl, then what?” Peterson asked.
“I came back here and went to the church to look for him.”
“Three hours to deliver a shawl?” Peterson’s question had an edge to it.
“We had a glass of wine.”
“Big glass,” Peterson asked, “or are you a slow sipper?”
Father Ronny buckled, “What does this have to do —”
“You said you checked the doors,” Peterson interrupted.
“Yes. I picked up the shawl and checked all the doors.” Then off Peterson’s questioning look the priest added, “Father Boutilier sometimes forgets.”
“Did he?”
“Did he what?”
“Did he forget to lock the doors after mass.”
“No. They were all locked.”
“Every door?” Danny asked.
“You know the neighbourhood,” the priest said.
“When you went back for Boutilier was the front door locked?” Peterson asked.
“No. That’s why I thought he was inside.”
“So someone could have followed him in,” Danny said.
“Maybe,” Peterson said.
“No broken windows,” Danny said. “No forced locks.”
“The church is only open for mass and confession,” the priest said. “We open the front door a half-hour before mass and lock it after.”
“Could they have come for mass and stayed?”
“I don’t know. The congregation is small, a few more than fifty, and we only get eight to ten regulars for daily mass. More on Sunday. And there’s always someone from the neighbourhood looking for comfort.”
“Any of the fifty hold a grudge against Father Boutilier?” Danny asked.
Father Ronny shook his head. “He was a gentle man. Easy going.”
“Someone didn’t think so,” Peterson said. “Anyone in the neighbourhood not like him?”
“I doubt it,” Father Ronny said. “He understood poverty.”
“Which means what?”
“He didn’t blame people for being poor. He accepted them whatever their lot in life.”
“That include drug heads and pimps?”
Father Ronny met Peterson’s eyes with a look that was as cold as the cop’s. “They don’t attend mass very often.”
“That leaves you,” Peterson pressed, holding the priest’s gaze. “Did you get along with Father Boutilier?”
“We had our differences.”
“You didn’t like him, or he didn’t like you?”
&n
bsp; Father Ronny searched Peterson’s face. “Am I a suspect?”
Peterson smiled. “Everyone is suspect. It comes with Original Sin. Guilt and suspicion. Now what kind of differences?”
Father Ronny looked past Peterson. “I was too liberal minded for Father Boutilier. He was a strict conservative. I want the priesthood open to everyone, and he didn’t.”
“You argued over religion?”
“Not religion,” Father Ronny said, “church rules and regulations. And we didn’t argue. Discussed. And not in a while. Our discussions ended long ago. I suppose we agreed to disagree. We went about our duties and spoke when necessary. He lived a life devoted to the church.”
“And you don’t,” Peterson said, and the priest glared. “Did you argue about that?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“And what do I think?”
Father Ronny looked away again, unwilling to answer. Then he faced Peterson. “We have fifty parishioners. The other three churches, not much more than a hundred among them. In the modern world, a conservative Catholicism is irrelevant.”
“Yet you’re still a priest,” Peterson said.
“Yes, I am still a priest.” His voice was low.
“Just going through the motions?” Danny asked.
Father Ronny held up his hands. “My hands were consecrated to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. That is what makes me a priest.”
“That’s like saying the badge is what makes me a cop,” Peterson scoffed.
Father Ronny lowered his hands to his lap. His face reddened. “I would have thought the gun is what makes you a cop.”
Peterson shrugged. “Sometimes it comes down to that. Tell me about the Holy Eucharist. Any signs of desecration?”
“It hadn’t been touched,” Father Ronny answered.
“You checked?”
“After I called 911.”
“You called from the rectory?”
“My cell.”
“Then what?”
“I went into the nave. I couldn’t be in the sacristy, not with Father Boutilier lying there. I saw the torn altar cloth, the blood, and the candles. Satanists was my first thought, so I checked the tabernacle and it was locked.”
“You have another ciborium in the sacristy,” Peterson said.
“For a time when the congregation was larger and we needed two priests serving Holy Communion.”
“How long has the top been broken off?” Danny asked.
“I didn’t know it was. We would have used that ciborium last Easter when the church was full with those making their Easter duty. It wasn’t broken then.”
“It’s broken now. What are we looking for?”
“The top had a Chi-Rho. It looks like this.”
Father Ronny borrowed Danny’s notebook and pencil and quickly drew an X superimposed by a P.
“I doubt someone stole it. It’s not valuable,” Father Ronny said.
“Maybe they thought it was,” Danny said.
“Then they would have taken the ciborium and chalice,” Peterson said.
“Is anything else missing?” Danny asked.
“I’m not sure,” Father Ronny said. “I haven’t really looked.”
“If the only thing missing is the top to the ciborium, the Chi-Rho,” Peterson said, “then whoever killed the priest didn’t come here to rob the place.”
Chapter
THREE
Danny followed Peterson into the dead priest’s bedroom. It was ascetic: a single bed pushed into a corner, covered by a grey wool blanket. The wall opposite it had two large windows that overlooked the south side of the church and the side door to the sacristy. The furniture was all dark oak: a small desk and chair, a matching dresser, and a cushioned armchair with a floor lamp beside it. Several books were neatly stacked on the desk. There was no computer. A crucifix hung on one wall and a cork bulletin board on another.
Danny scanned the notices on the bulletin board. Peterson examined the desk. The books included a Bible, The Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend, The Bestiary of Christ, Harper’s Bible Dictionary, a personal diary, and an appointment book. Peterson thumbed through the appointment book. The last entry was a week ago, for a Mrs. DeMilo.
Peterson set aside the diary and appointment book to take with him. Then he flipped through the books for marked passages and loose inserts. A folded paper fell out of Harper’s Bible Dictionary. The handwritten note was in French. Peterson struggled to translate it then gave up.
Danny moved on to the dresser. On top was a tray with a water glass, a coffee mug, and an empty plastic pitcher. The drawers contained the usual assortment of clothing.
Peterson was now combing through the closet, feeling each article of clothing for something in the pockets. Priestly garb comprised the most of it, with a few sport shirts and casual slacks mixed in. Nothing hidden.
Then Danny whistled at finding a half-dozen old black-and-white photos in the bottom drawer, hidden under carefully folded sweaters. Peterson looked at the photos. All pictured early teenage girls, mostly undressed.
Danny pulled out a Kodak Instamatic camera from behind the sweaters. The little window on the back showed the number one, which meant there was film in the camera, with one frame exposed.
“An Instamatic must be thirty years old at least,” Peterson said. “These girls would be women by now. Some with children of their own.”
Peterson took another look at the photos, then crossed to the window that looked out on the darkened mass of the church. He turned back to Danny. “A film cartridge left in the camera and only one frame exposed. Then the camera is tucked away in a bottom drawer with the five photos. What does that tell us?”
“He never got around to taking more pictures,” Danny said. “Maybe he never got the opportunity?”
“For over thirty years?”
“It’s possible.”
Peterson looked back out the window at the church in shadow. He spoke to his reflected image. “The camera and photos were too neatly stored,” he said. “Trophies? Maybe. Or maybe they were a form of penance, a way to punish himself for what he had done.”
“You believe that?” Danny asked.
Peterson turned from the window. “I want to. I want to believe we’re more than just goddamn garbage collectors.”
Later, Peterson stood on the stone steps of the church looking at a closed-down school and a corner store with riot gates over its windows. Looking at the crummy neighbourhood. Looking in a mirror. Not fully conscious of the wind, of the newspaper waving in the gutter, of the traffic and the pedestrians on the sidewalks, of the shadows boxing with telephone poles and drifting along the sides of buildings, of the blurred swimmings of his own brain.
Crouse joined him on the stone steps. She lit a cigarette. Inhaled deeply. They stood together in silence for a long time then she said, “Sometimes I wonder what the hell is going on, what’s happening out here. What makes people do the things they do?”
Across the street a light went on in an upstairs room. They both looked up at the same time and watched a man pass before the window. Then the light went out.
Peterson shrugged. “Catholics believe we’re born with it. The evil that we do. Bad to the bone.”
“Do you believe that stuff?”
“I used to.”
“Now?”
“Who knows what to believe?”
Peterson started down the stone steps.
“Keep yourself human,” Crouse said.
Peterson stopped and turned back.
“That’s what you told me ten years ago,” Crouse continued. “‘Don’t let yourself get used to it.’” She flicked her cigarette to the sidewalk. “So what happened?”
“You tell me,” Peterson said.
Chapter
FOUR
The deputy chief’s office looked out on a grid of narrow paths and crowded desks that hummed with constant chatter and ringing phones. Through the glass wall, Deputy Chief Fultz could watch his staff, and his staff could see him. They could see Peterson standing before Fultz’s desk, one hand toying with his waistband, like a delinquent child awaiting the punishing end of a belt.
Fultz finished reading the report, carefully placed it on his desk, and folded his arms on his chest.
“What is it, Peterson? What gets inside your head?”
Peterson flinched but did not blink.
Fultz studied him. He took in the detective’s dog-eared face. He saw something else too, but he couldn’t put a finger on what it was. He nodded at the report. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
“I sleep.”
“Not last night. You were here until after nine, then you hit a pub on your way to the Drop Zone for a meet with a possible witness. Then you drank away the next hour at a hole in the wall. Investigated a murder of a Roman Catholic priest, after which you closed another bar, had half-a-dozen shots one after the other, and then you walked around downtown alone, hassling people, picking fights. You’re six months off probation and you’re at it again. What is it this time? What triggered it?”
Peterson didn’t answer.
Fultz checked the report. “Officer Sperry found your car in a pub’s parking lot and you sleeping on the front steps of the church where the priest was killed. What’s that all about?”
Peterson avoided the deputy chief’s eyes.
“You said you were over it,” Fultz said. “But you’re not over it.”
Peterson’s eyes roved the room until they found a lion’s head carved into the apron of a rosewood side table. He stared at it to avoid Fultz’s gaze, his questions.
“You’re a good cop, Peterson, but you’re falling apart.”
Peterson’s eyes darted to a painting of old-time baseball players in a farmer’s field that seemed chromatically endless.