Justifiable

by Dianna Love

  But he was not as trapped as Lucinda felt. She still had a problem to solve and switched back to Ms. Cortese. Would it be insulting to ask for an after-hours confession and a different priest?

  Ms. Cortese had been watching the priest with worried eyes, but now she blinked as if returning to the present, and swung her attention back to Lucinda. “I’m sorry, Miss...?”

  Lucinda’s heart thumped a loud warning that she might be making a bigger mistake by staying.

  Heavy footsteps beat across the wood floors and echoed against the high ceilings as the monsignor walked up. “Hello.”

  Please, God, have mercy and get me out of this. Lucinda raised her eyes to the monsignor. “I...uh.” She swallowed, buying time to come up with something.

  Ms. Cortese spoke up. “She’s here for confession, but I told her it’s past the time.”

  Monsignor Dornan’s face warmed with a smile, his gaze steady on Lucinda. “I can take one more.”

  Lucinda glanced at Cortese, whose eyebrows shot up in question. Ms. Cortese started to speak, but Monsignor Dornan quieted her with a look that passed between them.

  Lucinda seemed to be the only one not in on these silent messages.

  “I’ll go over my last meeting with you after you’ve finished, Monsignor,” Ms. Cortese said in an efficient, but brisk manner, then spun on her heel and walked back down the aisle to the altar and exited through a side door.

  “Shall we?” Monsignor Dornan lifted a hand toward the confessional booth.

  Like I have a choice at this point? Lucinda nodded and headed to the confessor’s side of the confessional. Why was she worried? People remembered her husband, a high-profile television executive. Wives were invisible most of the time, at least she was. She wore conservative clothes and stayed out of the news, one of the few things that Stan had made very clear from the beginning of their relationship was not negotiable.

  Lucinda had easily agreed since she had no interest in being in the media spotlight.

  Once she settled on the bench and the door on the screen separating the two halves slid open, Lucinda took a breath and prayed he wouldn’t tell her priest about this if he did recognize her.

  He couldn’t, right? Everything she said was in strictest confidence. That took some load off her chest.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been a week since my last confession. My husband and I argued today.”

  “And?”

  “We don’t normally argue, Father, but I got confused and I’m still kind of confused.” She wished her mother was still alive, someone she could tell her blunt thoughts to who wouldn’t condemn her for jumping to conclusions.

  “Go on,” he encouraged in a deep voice.

  “Well, our daughter has been so quiet and depressed lately that I think I might have overreacted when she started crying and I blamed the problem on her father. I know that sounds wrong, and I’ve never blamed him for anything in the past. The last four months have been hard on all three of us. He’s a very important man in a major company – high-profile company – so he’s under a lot of pressure. I’ve tried to be there for him and for my daughter, too, but I think I might be hitting the wall on how much I can handle. I’m starting to wonder if I’m doing anything right these days.” She stopped to catch her breath. Her heart had a stranglehold on her emotions, but she wasn’t stopping now. Not with her family’s future at stake.

  The monsignor waited silently, which encouraged her to take another breath and tell him the rest of her thoughts. “I know it sounds like I’m weak, but I’m not. I had to raise my daughter alone after my first husband died. I can do it again, but I want this marriage to work.”

  “A solid marriage is built on communication and faith in God. Does your husband follow God’s word?”

  Thank goodness, an easy question. “Yes, he’s a devout Catholic. Active in the church. He’s never really raised his voice to me until today. He’s been a good husband and father, even adopted my daughter so she’s his child, too. She’s so sweet and she was so happy, but now she’s not, and I don’t know what to do.” Her voice broke on a sob she sucked down. He didn’t need to listen to that.

  “Why is your daughter unhappy?”

  “I’m not sure, but...” Could she really bare her deepest thoughts? If she didn’t, she couldn’t handle another day of wondering what to do. “This is confidential, right? I mean you can’t even tell another priest or anything, right?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  Please tell me I’m doing the right thing. Kelsey is my world. She depends on me to keep her safe. Lucinda took a breath. This was a safe zone where she could say anything, no matter how bizarre.

  “I’m worried that something has...has...happened to my daughter...physically.” She choked on the last word. A bleak image rose in her mind. “I might be wrong, but she’s been so withdrawn and she’s so skittish around St...my husband.” I have to protect Stan, too, if he’s innocent in all this. “I don’t mean to make it sound as though he did something, I mean, I know he loves both of us, but I...oh, dear God, I can’t say it – ” She cried into her hands, hard painful sobs that she couldn’t stop. Just the possibility of what she suggested made her physically ill.

  Silence answered her sobs until she finally regained control and sniffled. She coughed, pulled a tissue from the box next to her and dried her raw eyes. “I’m sorry, I just...I don’t know. He’s never done anything inappropriate before so I can’t believe he would now, but my baby is so upset and won’t talk to me or let me touch her. She used to spend hours with him on the computer and today she ran from him. I don’t know what to do, but I won’t let anyone harm my child.”

  There was a pause, a deep, silent pause, before he cleared his throat and spoke.

  “There is no question here.” His voice picked up strength and power when he added, “A child must be protected...at all costs.”

  Chapter 23

  Philomena House would never win an architectural award unless they gave one out for a brick box two stories high and twice as wide.

  Riley took one last glance over his shoulder at his Tundra parked across the street on the curb. He hoped the truck still had those custom wheels when he came back out, given that the area was already shrouded in full dark.

  His cell phone rang. Riley snatched it up, ready for some crap about Baby G running late. “Walker.”

  “Your ass is going to be parked in jail tonight if Massey pulls the warrant she’s working on,” Detective J. T. Turner growled.

  Ah, hell, Riley didn’t need J. T. pissed off along with Massey. “What the hell?”

  “She thinks you’re holding back information on that phone call. Said she pulled your records and the time stamps don’t jive with what you told me. You doing that, Walker, holding back information? Because, if you are, I’ll pick you up personally.”

  Riley opened his mouth, but had nothing to say. The break in time had been when he’d sat unable to breath or talk or think, but no one wanted to hear that.

  No one would believe him anyhow.

  “Goddammit, J. T. I told you and her both everything I knew at the time.” Almost everything. Kirsten didn’t know that the killer had his cell phone number. “But I left you a message to call because I have more.”

  “Like what?”

  “The killer called back. He got my cell number, probably from the station. Not like that’s hard to do in this business.”

  “Fuck. We need a tap on your line, but if the call was made from another Mickey Mouse payphone company it won’t do much good.”

  “Why? Are they immune to a warrant?”

  “No. The people who own those operations are impossible to find and even when you do they won’t agree to a tap or doing anything to help. All they care about is collecting money. It’s a nightmare to get anything out of them. Not like dealing with the big phone company. We’re better off if it’s a cell phone. We can track that as long as the phone’s on.”
<
br />   “He didn’t talk long, J. T., so I doubt you’d have gotten a location triangulated, but you set up a way to track the call and I’ll do whatever I can to keep him talking. Can’t promise how long I’ll keep him on the phone. I won’t push him.”

  “Why not?”

  Riley wished just one person didn’t think he was using this kid to get a story. “Because I’m worried about that child so I don’t want to scare him off or cause him to do something...reckless.”

  J. T. didn’t comment at first then said, “Good idea. What did he say?”

  “That Enrique is still alive.”

  “Jesus.” The harsh sigh that followed was that of a detective who had been up too many hours with too few breaks. “What else?”

  Riley related the whole phone conversation again then moved back to the issue of him going to jail. “I’ll make you a deal. If you can keep Massey off me until later tonight I may have some information that will help you on the Stanton murder case and Enrique.”

  He hoped. Riley didn’t have much at this point, but he had to stay free long enough to come up with something to trade with Massey.

  She’d hang him on the time gap between receiving the call and reaching 9-1-1 if Riley couldn’t convince her and J. T. the time difference had not been to get a jump on the case. He’d come up with a reason by tonight, something that wouldn’t force him to admit he’d been close to losing consciousness during that phone call.

  “Don’t interfere with this case,” J. T. warned. “Bad enough you’re getting calls from the killer.”

  “You don’t want what I’ve got then?” Riley had never known a detective to pass up a chance on any free information.

  J. T.’s hiss of pent-up air filled the line, ragged and spent sounding. “Consider yourself forewarned that we’ll be listening in on your calls so we’ll know when to triangulate the killer’s call. See what I can do with Massey. No promises. Meet me at Race Street Café at nine tonight.” The detective didn’t wait for an answer since it wasn’t a question.

  They both knew Riley would be there for any hope of sleeping in his own bed tonight, which wouldn’t happen if he didn’t come up with a lead of some sort.

  Riley pulled on the warped entrance door to Philomena House. It groaned in protest and balked two-thirds of the way open. Once he passed through the gap, Riley yanked hard on the door to slam it shut behind him.

  Smelled like dinner being cooked in a few apartments, a scent that reminded him of boiled cabbage and something with a pungent curry sauce. Stale odors lingered, a residue of bodies that had passed through the building and stayed long enough to leave a human imprint in the air – perspiration and desperation.

  A last chance place.

  Gray walls, but not recently painted. Shiny aluminum mailboxes covered the wall on his right, ten in all.

  Had anyone picked up Sally’s mail?

  Only two boxes had names. No Stanton. Riley had a choice of taking the first floor hallway straight ahead or the stairs on his left to what was likely an identical layout above.

  The front door to the building creaked open behind him.

  Baby G squeezed through and left the door ajar. “You do have vehicle insurance, right?”

  Riley pushed passed him to check his truck. Still there. He turned around in time to catch G’s snicker. “Not funny.”

  “Depends on your point of view.” Baby G wore a long-sleeved, robin’s-egg blue pullover that hung loose over faded-red, baggy warm ups. Probably crossed town in that. Not the least affected by the temperatures outside.

  “How you feeling?” Riley shouldn’t be surprised to see Baby G without his sister. Street kids got patched up and moved on with little pampering.

  Baby G lifted a fist with the thumb stuck up.

  “What have you got for me?”

  “A deal.”

  Riley crossed his arms. “Spit it out.”

  “Matching shirts for the team.”

  He’d lose less money in a mugging, but he didn’t really mind buying shirts. Doing it this way would allow Romeo’s team to feel as though they earned the booty, but only if Riley made Baby G work for it. “Five shirts for what? Police have probably been here, picked this place clean.”

  Baby G shook his head, slowly. “Eight shirts.”

  “You only have five players,” Riley argued.

  “All good teams have alternates. We’ve acquired three more players from extended family.”

  This whole basketball sponsorship was turning into a bottomless pit. Riley indicated the apartments with a head nod. “How good is this information?”

  “Solid and the police don’t have what I’ve got you.”

  Hot damn. “If that’s so, you’ll get your shirts.”

  “Follow me.” Baby G headed down the hallway.

  Kid noises scrambled with television racket behind the first door they passed. Baby G rapped his knuckles on the second one. When the door opened, a slender Haitian woman greeted him with a smile then pressed a wary gaze at Riley. Baby G said something, the dialect sounding like thick Haitian. He turned to Riley. “This is Titia, my brother-in-law’s aunt’s cousin. She didn’t know Sally Stanton, but she knows the woman who was friends with Sally.”

  In a convoluted way, that made sense. “Okay.”

  The woman nodded at Baby G and stepped out in the hallway, closing the door behind her.

  Riley and Baby G followed Titia to the first door they’d passed with the kid noises. She knocked. A pale dumpling-shaped woman with a head of frizzled black hair and swollen feet stuffed in pink house slippers came to the door. The apron over her flowery cotton dress had faded stains and bleach holes. A genuine cook.

  Baby G’s relative spoke to the plump woman who frowned as if working to follow what Titia said, then the talking ended and both women turned to look at Riley.

  He didn’t know what they wanted so he smiled.

  “I’m Betty,” the second woman said at last. “You know Sally?”

  “No, ma’am.” Riley chose his words carefully. “But I’m trying to find out who killed her and what happened to Enrique.”

  Betty studied him with faded brown eyes shaped by Hispanic genes and filled with a mother’s concern. “Why?”

  Riley shoved a “little help here?” look at Baby G, whose eyebrows lifted with the delight of a used car salesman seeing an easy mark.

  This would probably cost him embroidered shirts. Riley rolled his eyes then gave Baby G a nod.

  Baby G said something to Titia who spoke to Betty who rattled something unintelligible back, then the three of them talked at once.

  Riley had seen discussions between two warring nations take less effort, but no one in Philomena House had a reason to trust him. Without Baby G’s stamp of approval, Riley would be SOL. Shit out of luck.

  Everyone stopped talking. Betty addressed Riley. “I tried to tell the police what Titia told me, but they just did a quick walk through Sally’s apartment and left. They didn’t think it mattered.”

  “What mattered?”

  “Enrique’s woobie blanket’s gone.” Betty lifted an index finger and waved like a first grade teacher. “I told the police I was sure Enrique didn’t have his Diego blanket with him when I took Enrique and Sally to the hospital, but the police just wanted to get a photo of Enrique and look around the apartment.”

  That made sense. The police would have been searching for pictures of a man or a phone number, some place to start. Riley didn’t understand where Betty was going with all this, but patience played his role as investigator. “What’s the deal about the blanket?”

  “St. Catherine’s staff gave it to him. Enrique called it ‘his Diego.’ Sally would wait up and wash it at night when the boy slept, washed it by hand so nothing happened to his blanket. She’d have it back on him before he got up.” Betty’s eyes watered up with the memory. “If Enrique hadn’t been so upset and hurt bad last night he’d have pitched a fit when he realized he didn’t have his Die
go. He’s a good little boy and loves that blanket so I figured he’d be crying for it by now.”

  Riley needed more than a child’s attachment to a blanket. He frowned at G who lifted his heavy shoulders in a shrug. Baby G spoke to Titia in way that sounded like a question.

  Titia fired off an answer that Riley didn’t think Betty could even follow based on the way her lips parted in confusion. When Titia finished, Baby G turned to Riley. “Think I get the point now. Miss Betty has an extra key to Sally’s apartment. She went upstairs to get the blanket this morning to take to the hospital and check on Enrique. When she couldn’t find it, she called the hospital. They said Enrique left with his mama around eleven last night. Miss Betty found out about the killing this morning so when the police came by she tried to tell them the blanket was missing. They wrote it down, but didn’t really listen when she described it, then they searched the apartment and left.”

  Riley could understand how they’d assume it wasn’t a big deal and probably couldn’t understand what any of this group was saying without Baby G.

  To be honest, he wasn’t seeing the significance of the missing blanket right now.

  Baby G took a breath and continued. “Miss Betty was telling Titia the news this afternoon when Titia got in from work. That’s when Titia told Betty about someone in Sally’s apartment last night.”

  Now that could be important. “How would Titia know someone had been in there?”

  “Sally’s apartment is above hers. Titia heard footsteps and thought it was Sally at home, but now she thinks it was someone else.”

  “Why?”

  Betty spoke up. “Because the news said Sally’s body was found before 1:00 am this morning. Titia heard the footsteps when she went to the bathroom after 3:00 am. Sally couldn’t have been in that apartment. Somebody stole that baby’s blanket.”

  Riley’s thoughts froze on the only person who had a reason to steal something personal of Enrique’s, something special.

  Just like in Detroit.

  The Kindergarten Killer had taken favorite stuffed animals to bury with the children.