by Rick Skwiot
“She might be withholding some key info. Are you sure she wants you to find him? You sure she wants him back?”
Gabriel stared at him. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”
Gabriel’s cell phone dinged in his coat pocket, and he pulled it out. “Speak of the devil. A text from Ellen Cantrell thanking me for the good news about the hubby and asking for his laptop back.”
The Gecko looked at him and said, “Well, there you go.”
- 16 -
Another evening home alone for Gabriel. Trying to stick to his low-carb diet, he poured himself some bourbon, made a salad, and fried a steak. As he ate he read about “tone” in his grammar book, about how the writer’s attitude and vocabulary must suit the topic and the audience. After dinner he sat on the couch with his laptop and dove further into “The Eddy.” It was like he was back in school, doing his homework.
By midnight he came to the last entry, dated nine a.m., Saturday, December 21, the morning Stone disappeared.
I say I distinguished myself at the faculty Christmas party yesterday—my last day at the university and perhaps my last as a teacher, given my behavior. I don’t know what got into me. Well, yes I do: in vino veritas (via the two beers and shot of Jameson I had at lunch with Dadisi) and a crystalline sense of liberation—I’ve lost my job, my wife, my raison d’etre.
I had planned on skipping the event to avoid chitchat about my leaving. But the party was already going on when Dadisi and I returned, and he pulled me into the conference room.
I was sipping coffee and munching Christmas cookies when I heard the dinging of a spoon on glass. Everyone quieted and turned toward the punch bowl, where stood our fearless leader, Armand Betancourt.
He welcomed everyone, apologized for the lack of alcohol in the punch—ha ha—and announced: “This is my fifth Christmas party as department chairman and, I have learned, my last…”
Gasps. Mumbled condolences. Betancourt raised a hand to quiet the crowd.
“I’ve just learned that come July I will assume new duties as the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.”
Cheers, a smattering of applause.
I muttered, “To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence,” just as the room quieted. Heads turned to me. I raised a hand as if in apology. “I didn’t say that; Mark Twain did.”
From across the room Betancourt glared at me. I waved at him.
“Don’t worry, Armand. I’ll keep your academic dishonesty secret—for the time being.”
Stunned silence in the room.
“Enough, Stone. Let’s keep this friendly.”
“That’s good coming from you, who a few hours ago threatened to sic campus police on me. Once again your totalitarian impulses kicking in.”
“Is that all?”
“Just one other thing: Kiss my ass, you corrupt son of a bitch.”
Another round of gasps.
“Not wise to slander with witnesses present, Stone.”
“Not slander if I have proof, which I do—at least for the ‘corrupt’ part.”
I saw Dadisi giving me a pleading look. He was right: guilt by association. Just because he was my office mate and we’d had lunch together, it could cost him with the vindictive Betancourt.
But Betancourt was right too: My exit speech was over-dramatic and uncivil. But how else to get people’s attention these days?
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,…
I had already played three of Shakespeare’s seven ages of man—the infant, the child, and the lover—all to no avail. Now perhaps time to portray the next: the soldier. So I bid everyone a “Merry Christmas!” and left.
Gabriel turned off his computer and gazed out over the darkened park. Stone’s tone was not that of someone ready to take his own life. Rather, he sounded like someone ready to launch an attack. But Gabriel had no idea where or what sort.
Friday morning he was sitting on his couch in his robe drinking coffee and reading the St. Louis Post-Dispatch when his phone buzzed. No caller I.D. He answered anyway.
“Hey, Carlo, Ange. You still at home wasting taxpayer money, you lazy ass? Be downstairs in a half hour.”
At eight-thirty Gabriel stood in his topcoat just inside the glass front doors of his building. He had stepped outside to wait and found that the air had turned bitter cold overnight, riding in on a brisk northerly wind, forcing him to retreat back inside.
Soon the mayor’s black Lincoln Town Car pulled into the semicircular drive. Gabriel lifted his chin at the driver, who acknowledged him likewise, and dove into the back seat. There the mayor sat sipping coffee from a cardboard cup.
“Give us a minute, Lawrence.”
The driver—Officer Monroe—got out, leaving the engine running, and stood on the curb with his collar up.
“Good thing the weather here’s so crappy,” said Cira. “Makes for affordable city living.”
“That and the high crime rate. But we’re doing our best, Mr. Mayor.”
Cira laughed and slapped Gabriel’s knee. “You know how to get along, Carlo. I still hear good things from the department. Everyone likes you. No bull.”
“I try to get along, Ange.”
Cira nodded, then frowned. “I know, I know. But I don’t like the way this Jonathan Stone thing is dragging out.”
“Like I said, we’re doing our best. But you don’t want any publicity, and without the public’s help you know how tough it is to find someone—particularly if they’re trying to dodge you. Either he’s made himself hard to find—no money trail, no phone calls, no credit cards, no plane tickets, nothing—or maybe he’s in the river after all.”
Cira raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you think?”
Gabriel hesitated then said, “I don’t know what to think. His wife thought him incapable of harming himself but may have changed her mind. He was under a lot of pressure, thought himself a failure.”
“How do you know that?”
Now was the time for him to cover his ass.
“We found a journal of sorts on his laptop. Problem students, troubles with his boss, unable to finish his PhD dissertation, then he loses his job. And he had personal issues.”
“Anything else?”
Gabriel looked through the windshield at Monroe, who had his back to the wind. “That was pretty much it for the journal,” he said. “That and lots of research about educational issues and problems with the schools, which he seems bent on addressing.”
“So you think he’s still alive?”
“I do. And maybe a man on a mission.”
The mayor sipped again at his coffee and looked away, gazing out the side window toward Forest Park.
“Let me be frank with you. This Stone could be a loose cannon. Maybe delusional to boot. An intellectual who doesn’t understand politics or appreciate the real world. Who knows where his imagination has led him. He’s a nobody, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t cause problems. If he files for divorce and makes accusations—no matter how wrongheaded—all that is public. With that comes questions and putting me on the defensive with Milton Jackson Holmes breathing down my neck in the primary. Doesn’t make any difference if it’s all bullshit. It could still cost me votes.”
Gabriel waited.
“Track him down and shut him up. Do what’s necessary. I wouldn’t want to have to bring anyone else in on this.” He turned back and laid a gloved hand on Gabriel’s coat sleeve. “But when you find him don’t take any chances. He might be feeling desperate. He could be armed. You understand? We need to dissuade him in whatever way from doing anything stupid. We both have a lot riding on this.”
Gabriel stared at the mayor but Cira avoided his eyes, sipping at his coffee and looking again out the side window toward the park. “You know, Carlo, it might have been better for all of us if that had been him
in river.”
When he turned back their eyes met. Gabriel had seen that gaze before, and even after thirty years it still chilled him. He opened the door and got out without another word. He stood on the sidewalk watching Cira’s limo pull away and turn south, watched it until it disappeared from view. Then he turned and went back inside.
Later that morning Gabriel drove back to the SLU campus. The clock was indeed ticking. The mayor had put pressure on him. Now he would funnel it along in hopes of finding a leak.
He parked beside Saint Francis Xavier College Church across the street from Jesuit Hall, where he had recently interviewed Father Mohan. The church was a white-stone structure with soaring steeple—Gothic, thought Gabriel, though he wasn’t sure. Ornate—that he was certain of. The sort of sanctuary only Catholics would build. Gabriel locked his cellphone in the glove box and stepped out into the cold.
As he walked up the front steps toward the tall wooden doors he remembered walking down those steps with Janet on his arm in her wedding dress. What sort of optimism had compelled him to make that leap? He really couldn’t recall and didn’t want to try.
He found Father Mohan waiting for him in the vestibule, this time wearing a black cassock. They did not shake hands.
“You surprise me, Mr. Gabriel,” the priest said by way of greeting. “I didn’t think you’d take me up on my offer to hear your confession so soon.”
“God moves in mysterious ways.”
Inside the massive vaulted church the only other person was a thin, gray-haired man working an electric floor-polisher over the wood parquet. The sanctuary was but softly lit, minimal light coming from the high, stained-glass windows. The ornate altar, which mimicked the church’s façade, glowed yellow.
Gabriel followed Mohan to one of the beige-curtained confessionals built along the north wall where, as a SLU criminal justice student, he gave his confession weekly.
Inside as he knelt, the smell of the wood, the darkness, the quiet put him back as an undergrad trying to figure it all out, trying to get it right and do the right thing. He sensed a shadow of Mohan behind the wooden screen.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Since my last confession it’s been twenty, maybe twenty-five years.”
“Close enough. Any mortal sins in the past three decades?”
“A couple of the Ten Commandments, Father: Thou shalt not kill—though in the line of duty. Thou shalt not commit adultery on several occasions. I stole, coveted my neighbor’s wife, and blasphemed. I got divorced. On the upside, I always honored my father and mother.”
“Thank God for that.”
Gabriel looked up again to the wooden screen that separated the two men. “Want to hear some venial sins?”
“Do we have time?”
“Actually, there’s something more important I want to talk about and why I’m here: Jonathan Stone.”
“In hopes of delivering a message à la Gabriel the Archangel? Then why not just call me?”
“To protect you, Father. And me.”
“From what?”
“The forces of evil. At least as Stone saw them.”
“You mean you think he’s dead?”
“A grammatical error. I think he’s still alive. No DNA match on a man we pulled from the river. But I’m concerned that his days may be numbered.”
“How’s that?”
“The mayor asked me to kill him. Of course, not in so many words. But you don’t need too many words to get that kind of meaning across. And soon I may not be the only one hunting him.”
After a pause Mohan asked, “Can we back up here? Mayor Angelo Cira asked you to murder Jonathan Stone?”
“This morning. Over coffee in the back seat of his limo. Like I said, it’s not that he came right out and said it, but it’s what I read between the lines and in his eyes. Bottom line is he thinks things would be nicer and easier without Stone running around mucking them up.”
He heard the rustling of the cassock as Mohan shifted in his seat.
“Additional back story,” Gabriel continued. “I suspect Stone told you about his job troubles and his straying wife. But there’s more, which you may or may not know. He learned that she’s involved with the mayor not only sexually but also in a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme related to Stadium Towne. My electronic-discovery geek was able to find documentation in files Stone thought he had hidden in an online storage box. We suspect that the mayor’s people have by now found those same files. Which is why he wants Stone dealt with.”
There was a longer silence. Finally Mohan spoke, his voice low. “Tell me why, lieutenant, would the mayor think you would commit murder for him?”
Gabriel looked down at his hands and saw in the dim light that they were folded as if in prayer. He separated them.
“I forgot to mention another mortal sin, Father: bearing false witness. Angelo Cira and I were young cops together. Went through the academy and worked side by side. Once, Cira shot an unarmed suspect and needed some cover. I provided it. So you might say there’s an expectation that I perform as a team player. There’s a bond.”
“Of a certain sort.”
“But I know Angelo Cira and know that for him loyalty is a one-way street. He worships but one God: Angelo Cira. Not that that distinguishes him from other politicians. The rest of us are disposable if we get in his way, and Jonathan Stone could end up being a major roadblock. Anything he might have told you about his plans might help me find him.”
“In order to kill him?”
Gabriel brought his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes. “Okay. So I’m somewhat corruptible, Father. Doesn’t follow that I’m capable of cold-blooded murder. I hate this case. Thought it would be easy. Track down this egghead and get back in the hierarchy. Get my old job back. But then I start stepping in all this other shit—sorry. Incompetent schools, drugged-out parents, discouraged students. Faithless wives, dirty politicians, surly Jesuits. I’m fed up.”
“That’s it, get it off your chest.”
“All I want to do is wrap this up and wash my hands of it. I figure if I can find Stone—given he’s not in the river, which might still be a possibility. If I can find him I can lay out what he’s gotten himself into and persuade him to back off. I can put him on ice and go to Cira to reassure him. Ange trusts me.”
“In other words, sweep everything under the carpet.”
“In other words, save the poor bastard’s life while keeping the mayor happy and keeping my job. Cira’s already threatened to hand this off to someone else if I don’t deliver, likely someone not as sensitive to Stone’s long-term well-being. Besides, I don’t think the mayor really wants me to kill him. Just keep him quiet.”
“You might not find that so easy. You don’t know Jonathan Stone.”
“I think I do. You may have heard his confession, but I read most all of it last night, some two hundred pages. His passion isn’t politics, Father. It’s participles and prepositions. And seeing kids get a fair shake. Yeah, he’s angered and humiliated by his wife’s adultery and feeling vindictive right now. But he’s also keen on acting from the better parts of himself, not from spite.”
After a beat Mohan said, “That would seem to suggest his dedication to exposing the corruption he’s discovered.”
“I think he could live with a minor sin of omission, Father.”
“He who stands idly by is just as guilty as he who holds the knife.”
“But in this case there’s no knife, no bloodshed. Just a little money under the table. That is, business as usual. Which is not likely to change, no matter what Stone does or who’s mayor. Hardly something worth sacrificing his life for, a life that could profit others if focused on the things that really matter to him. Besides, he couldn’t pull it off by himself. Cira’s no doubt already covering his tracks. Probably nothing any of us can do about it short of exorcising City Hall.”
“I’d like a shot at that.”
“In the meantime, Father, don’t you
commit a sin of omission by not helping me find and persuade Stone to get on the right course to save himself. If you know something and can’t tell me, at least let him know what I’m up to and why. Let him choose.”
Gabriel stared at the wooden screen where he sensed Mohan sitting stock-still. At last the priest spoke. “Perhaps I can help you, lieutenant, with a suggestion.”
“What’s that?”
“Pray to Saint Anthony, patron of missing persons.”
Gabriel laughed. “‘Something’s lost and can’t be found/Please, St. Anthony, look around.’ You are a pip, Father. Give me my penance, and I’ll get the hell out of here.”
- 17 -
Back home that evening Gabriel dipped once again into “The Eddy” hoping to discover something that might help him find Stone. That afternoon he had tried meditating on it in the sauna at the Y. Afterward he spent some time at the North Patrol Division bouncing ideas off The Gecko to no good effect. Then he sat in his office perusing English Grammar for Idiots, hidden inside a binder on Missing Persons Procedure, as if searching for clues as to how Stone’s mind might have been altered by teaching remedial grammar. It certainly made Gabriel more aware of the nuances in speech and what others, such as Father Mohan, might really intend—though the priest was hardly subtle. Maybe it had made Stone more aware of the subtext in his wife’s pronouncements.
Paging through the document he came upon some salacious bits he had only skimmed the previous night. He backed up and started reading in earnest.
It was there from the beginning. She had come home with me after our Monday evening creative writing seminar, where we had met the previous week. I opened a bottle of wine. As we toasted and drank I noticed a bit of lace peeking out atop her silky blouse. I touched her there, just grazing the backs of my fingers along the lace, and said, “This looks nice.”
“Would you like to see it?”
“Of course.”
She set down her drink, discarded her blouse and slid her blue jeans down over her hips to reveal ivory-colored bustier, bikini and stockings.