“Yes, Catholic Memorial. It’s a great school.” Jonathan Mathews drank from a can of Coke and set it on the squeaky clean Formica tabletop.
Jonathan sold real estate and was eager to talk, but not at his office. He had asked Frank to meet him at home instead, a modest bungalow in a middle-class neighborhood. Judging by the spotless counter tops and the gleaming copper-bottomed pans above the stove, Jonathan was a neat-freak.
At the news conference he had deemed Suellen a saint, but Frank wasn’t so sure. Her high school yearbook portrait revealed a girl with worldly eyes and a Lolita smile, lips parted seductively, and blonde hair frosted with platinum highlights.
“Suellen was a pretty girl, head cheerleader. Did she date much?”
Jonathan set his can of Coke on the table and lowered his head like a bull about to charge. “What are you getting at?”
Defensive, knee pumping up and down, powered by his foot.
“Was she dating older men?”
The kid stared at him, eyes wide with shock. “Who told you that?”
Take a shot in the dark, sometimes you hit something. Frank kept his expression neutral, watched conflicting emotions ripple over the kid’s face.
“It happened her senior year,” Jonathan said, eyes fixed on the floor, knee pumping. “There was a new math teacher, a young priest. I think he’d only been out of seminary a year. One night after a Friday night football game the pastor caught them necking in Suellen’s car and told my parents.”
“Did Suellen talk to you about it, ask your advice? You know, big brother, kid sister stuff?”
“Not really. I tried. I mean, I asked if they, uh, if they had been … intimate. Suellen said no.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “My parents really took it hard. They thought it reflected badly on them, you know?”
Like every parent in the world, Frank thought, recalling the disapproval in his father’s eyes after Evelyn filled for the divorce. Judge Salvatore Renzi had no respect for men who committed adultery.
“My parents argued over it for months.” Jonathan clenched his jaw. “After Suellen was murdered the fights got worse.”
Frank nodded. As a homicide detective he’d seen plenty of marriages fall apart after a child was murdered: too much guilt, too many recriminations and an endless, terrible grief.
“That’s what caused the accident. My parents were arguing.”
“What accident?”
“My parents died in a car accident six months after Suellen—” Wracked by a sob, Jonathan turned away and muttered, “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said, feeling guilty about putting the kid though this.
“Dad died instantly, but I talked to Mom at the hospital before she died. She said it was her fault. They were arguing and Dad got distracted.” Jonathan took a deep shuddering breath and clenched his fists. “You see why I want to catch the bastard that killed my sister?”
“Yes, I do,” he said, and meant it. Jonathan was twenty-four, just a kid trying to cope with his sister’s murder, his parents dead in a car wreck.
“The priest Suellen was involved with. What was his name?”
He felt like a vulture pecking at road kill, but he needed a name.
“Father Harris, Jeffery Harris. The pastor caught them on Friday and Father Harris was gone by Sunday.”
Interesting. A disgruntled priest, exiled for messing with a young girl, good and sufficient cause to make him a person of interest.
“Where did they send him? Do you know?”
Suellen’s brother shook his head, staring at the tabletop.
“You’re doing the best you can, Jonathan. Your parents would be proud of you. Is there someone you can talk to? A friend? An uncle, maybe?”
Jonathan raised his head and gazed at him with bloodshot eyes. “The Lord will get me through. I pray to Him every day. Just find the monster that killed my sister. I want him to rot in Hell.”
He’d stopped believing in Hell about the time he stopped believing in the tooth fairy, but he wanted to find the killer, too, wanted him to rot in jail, forever. “I’m sorry for your loss, Jonathan. Call me if you think of anything else, or even if you just need to talk.”
When he went out to his car, a young couple across the street stood behind a red Jeep Cherokee, unloading bags of groceries from the cargo area. The man looked over to check him out, a good neighbor, on the lookout for suspicious-looking strangers that didn’t belong on his street.
He got in his Mazda and drove off, mulling over the interview. After graduation Suellen had rented her own apartment, to have more privacy, he assumed. He never made moral judgments about rape-murder victims, had worked a series of prostitute murders in Boston as hard as he did any others. Lust murders weren’t about sex, they were about power. The sexual habits of the victims had nothing to do with it.
But everyone down here seemed fascinated by what other people were doing in bed. The first time he talked to Charlie Malone, the rookie cop didn’t have much to say about Father Daily, but last night Charlie had called him back and hinted that Daily might be having sex with his housekeeper.
No surprise there. Observing them, Frank had surmised as much. Now it seemed that Suellen Mathews had been caught necking with a young priest. Father Jeffery Harris. Was Harris angry that a tryst with a teenaged girl had gotten him shipped to Siberia, angry enough to start killing other young women he perceived as sinners?
He got on the Interstate and headed home, anxious to get on his computer. He wanted to find out where Father Harris had been for the past two years while the Tongue Killer had been murdering young women. He flipped down the visor to shield his eyes from the sun, recalling the priests he’d known as a teenager, dour old men for the most part, pinched mouths, forbidding eyes and inflexible attitudes. At fifteen he had stopped going to confession, an ordeal he equated with mind-fucking. Why should he tell some nosy old man about his sex life?
But now things were different, apparently. Lynette Beauregard had confided in Father Daily. Compared to the priests he’d known, Daily seemed pretty laidback. He also appeared to be hiding something. Priests turning up everywhere he looked. Suellen, caught necking with a priest. Kitty, convinced that the weirdo john was a priest. Given the recent pedophile priest scandals, it wasn’t a big stretch to believe a priest had visited a prostitute.
Maybe a serial killer priest wasn’t so farfetched, either.
_____
Three hours later he stood at his kitchen sink, drenched in sweat, gulping ice water. His stomach cramped. Not smart, running five miles in the brutal Big Easy heat, but exercise usually got him out of a funk. He refused to call it depression. Evelyn’s depressions lasted for weeks. If he got down about something, he worked it off by running or lifting weights.
The telephone on the kitchen counter rang and he grabbed it, hoping it was Maureen. It wasn’t. He got rid of the telemarketer and went upstairs to take a shower.
Fifteen minutes later, refreshed and invigorated, he sat on his couch with a can of Coors, put his feet on the maple coffee table and gazed at the antique clock on his bookcase, breathing in rhythm with the brass pendulum as it swung back and forth. The clock was a family heirloom, inherited from his grandmother, Maureen Sullivan, an Irish lass from County Mayo, a strong-willed woman with a ready smile. His daughter’s namesake.
He loved his father deeply, but emotionally he had been closer to his mother and grandmother, seeking their advice on issues he would never discuss with his father. And now they were gone. His mother had died right before the Fuckup. Strangely, that incident and the resulting furor had brought him closer to his father. Judge Salvatore Renzi had stood solidly behind him during the IA investigation.
A poster of famed Boston Celtic point guard Bob Cousy hung above another bookcase. His father had given it to him when he was in high school, a reward for his outstanding performance in the state basketball finals, but also as a reminder. “Cousy never quit,” his father had said. “If something is
worth doing, give it your all. Others may not know you did less than your best, but you’ll know. A half-assed effort is a rotten egg in your soul, and the stench will stay with you forever.”
Give it your all. The clock’s pendulum swung back and forth, parceling out the seconds. Time was the enemy. Weevils of anxiety ate at his gut. The faceless killing machine who’d murdered five women—six if he included Kitty—was still out there, and it wasn’t Father Jeffrey Harris.
Earlier, after doing an Internet search, he had made two phone calls and learned that Father Harris had been living in Seattle for the last four years. Scratch Father Jeffrey Harris from the suspect list.
The telephone on the end-table beside him rang. He grabbed it and felt a wave of relief as he heard Maureen say, “Hi Dad, I got your message last night but it was too late to call you back.”
“Sorry I had to put you off the other day, Mo. I was in a meeting with my boss.” My former boss, the asshole. “How you doing?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“You don’t sound okay. What’s going on?” He fingered the scar on his chin, wishing she were sitting beside him so he could give her a hug.
“Really Dad, everything’s fine. It’s just that I’m almost done with my residency and I have to make a decision, you know? Choose my specialty.”
A warm glow filled his chest. She wanted his advice.
“Want to tell me about it?”
“That’s why I called. I was hoping you’d come to Baltimore so we could talk.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, aching to say yes. But he couldn’t leave town now, not with a killer on the loose, not after the bastard murdered Kitty. Now that he was off the taskforce every day, every hour, every minute counted. “Is there a deadline?”
“Two weeks from today.”
“Any chance you could fly down here? I’ll pay for your flight. We could hang out in the French Quarter, kick back, have a brew and talk.”
“Dad, residents don’t get weekends off.” She sighed. “Never mind. It’s okay if you can’t. I know you’re busy.”
Her obvious disappointment made him melt. “Hold it. I didn’t say I couldn’t come up. It’s just that we’ve got this murder case—”
“I know. That serial killer. I saw it on CNN. What a creep.”
“Yeah, people are freaked out.”
“How do you like it there? Other than the serial killer, I mean.”
Hearing the smile in her voice made him feel good. “I love it. Great music, friendly people, no snow to shovel.”
She laughed. “You’ve turned into a snowbird, Dad. Isn’t that what they call old people who retire to Florida?”
He grinned. “Yup, that’s me, an old snowbird. All I gotta do is figure out how to retire.”
She laughed again. Then she said, “How’s Mom doing? Have you talked to her lately?”
The subject switch blindsided him. “Yes, she called me a few nights ago.” At three A.M., costing him another night’s sleep.
“Well, I’m glad you guys are still talking at least.”
The yearning in her voice made his heart ache. She wanted Mom and Dad back together, wanted her family whole and unbroken. Wasn’t going to happen. “How’s the riding going?” he asked.
“Very well. Excellent, in fact. Jeremy’s teaching me show jumping.”
His heart lurched, seeing in his mind’s eye the overplayed image of Christopher Reeves flying off his horse, then crumpled on the ground.
“That’s great, Mo. But be careful.”
“Dad, the bars are only two feet off the ground.”
And you’re on a horse with only a helmet to protect your head. And who’s Jeremy? Did I hear a lilt in your voice when you said his name?
“I’m sure you’ll do fine. Listen, Mo, I’ll try to get out of here and come up and see you. I can’t promise, but I’ll try.”
“Okay,” she said, without enthusiasm. “I miss you.”
His throat closed up and his eyes misted. “I miss you too, Mo. I’ll get up there one way or another, I promise.”
“Thanks, Dad.” And after a beat, “I love you.”
“Love you too, Maureen.” He hung up, picturing her as she’d looked on Christmas, the last time he’d seen her: tall and lean like her dad, high cheekbones and a stubborn jaw like Evelyn. Seven months ago. Too damn long ago. But at least she had called him, a step in the right direction. Would she ever forgive him? Doubtful. Maybe someday she would understand how difficult things had been for him.
No she wouldn’t, because he wasn’t going to tell her. How could he tell her that Evelyn would only make love in the dark? How could he tell her that by the time she was two, her parents’ sex life was over and they were sleeping in separate beds. How could he explain that he needed to love someone in a physical way, that caring about Evelyn wasn’t enough?
He couldn’t. End of story.
He flicked on his TV and tuned in the five o’clock news.
The screen blossomed into color. Above a bold graphic—TONGUE KILLER UPDATE—a breathless newswoman with thin-plucked eyebrows said, “In a new development, Special Agent Burke Norris announced that the taskforce has taken a person of interest into custody. When asked if the man was a suspect in the two-year string of gruesome slayings, Norris refused comment, saying only that members of the taskforce were interviewing him.”
The picture cut to a perp walk, four FBI agents leading a large angry black man through a mob of reporters into taskforce headquarters.
Frank hit the mute, called Miller and asked if he’d seen the news.
“Hell, yes. Everybody’s seen it. Gonna be trouble ahead.”
“Rona will go on a tear.”
“Yeah, and she won’t be the only one.”
_____
Rona squinted at her computer screen. It was six-thirty, and she had ten minutes to deliver her copy to her Clarion-Call editor. He planned to run the story on the front page tomorrow. Her stomach churned. Sunday circulation was huge. She had to deliver: make it short and hit the important points hard.
She typed furiously for five minutes and scanned what she’d written.
Thursday morning a woman was found dead in her home, a murder that went unnoticed by the New Orleans serial killer taskforce. Why? Because she was a prostitute. Kitty Neves foiled the Tongue Killer two years ago, but Agent Norris didn’t believe her story and offered her no protection. Now she’s dead. The Tongue Killer shut her up. This monster has now claimed six victims. Kitty was his latest, but she won’t be his last.
Why can’t the taskforce catch him? Because Agent Norris believes the killer is black. Kitty described her attacker as a young white male and worked with an artist to make a sketch [See graphic], but Norris won’t endorse it. If you recognize the man in the sketch, call the police. Don’t call Norris. His mind is made up. The killer is black. Case closed.
Well, not quite. He hasn’t caught the killer yet.
Kitty believed her attacker was a priest. I’m a Catholic and this shocked me. But is it really so farfetched? For years people denied that Catholic priests sexually molested children. We now know that many did.
Does the man in the sketch look like a priest in your parish?
Agent Norris doesn’t believe the Tongue Killer is white. Norris may not believe he’s a priest, either. But one thing is certain: Kitty Neves is dead. How many more women must die before the Tongue Killer is caught?
With a satisfied nod, she hit a key to transmit the file to her editor. That should get Special Agent Burke Norris off his sorry white ass.
_____
Alone in the WCLA studio at four-twenty in the morning, Melody Johnson adjusted a sliding knob on the state-of-the-art control panel. Satisfied with the volume level, she removed her headset, set it on the console and rose from her padded swivel chair. Towers of revolving wire racks filled much of the fifteen-by-twenty foot studio. Chock full of CDs filed alphabetically by composer, the racks stood higher than
her head, and she had to stretch to reach the topmost recordings.
She wandered to a picture window on the back wall and stared out into the night. Fluorescent ceiling lights cast her ghostly reflection upon the glass. No curtains or blinds covered the window. This had made her uneasy the first time she’d done the overnight shift. She felt exposed, isolated in the first floor studio at the rear of the building. But the station manager had reassured her: a seven-foot wire-mesh fence surrounded the property. So she had dismissed her fears, attributing them to big city paranoia.
Leaning close to the glass, she peered out. Other than the blinking red lights on the fifty-foot transmission tower behind the station she saw only inky darkness. That was one reason she liked the overnight shift. Darkness was her friend, cloaking her in a protective shield. She liked being alone in the station too. The morning-drive announcer didn’t come in until five.
The station manager, an older man with a kindly smile, had been eager to hire her, apologizing that he had only the Saturday and Sunday overnight shifts to offer. When a full time job opened up, he’d promised it would be hers. Soon, she hoped. Lord knows she needed the money.
But she didn’t mind working the midnight to five-thirty shift. During the day the music alternated with news and interviews from NPR. On the overnight shift nothing interrupted her beloved classical music.
The fluorescent bulb above her head winked out.
She looked up and watched the bulb fight for its life, flickering, on-off-on-off-on-off, as if it were blinking a warning. Then, with a final sputter, the bulb blinked off and stayed off.
She wandered back to the console. At her previous job, she had chosen the music, but the WCLA program director compiled the playlist. Why did he choose such sad music? Maurice Ravel was one of her favorite composers, but Pavane for a Dead Princess was heartbreaking, a haunting French horn solo to begin the piece, a theme taken up by sobbing strings and winds.
The music brought a lump to her throat and, inevitably, thoughts of Dave. Even now she could conjure up the scent of his aftershave, could still feel his lips on hers and the warmth of his skin against her body. Dave had cared for her, she was certain of it, gazing at her, telling her she was beautiful, inside and out. He didn’t mind the horrible stain on her face.
ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) Page 11