She smiled, “You think that anything in that little church could have been pawned? You say he might have pawned some church property maybe gold candlesticks? I don’t think so.”
She was quiet for a moment, then said, “If he did, I know he had good reasons. He did know a man in that business.”
“How did he know the man?”
She sighed. “He knew so many with problems. This man, he helped him save his daughter from drugs. I don’t know whether the man ever handled any loans for my brother. He did street loans, the kind of loans to people who could not get money anywhere else. My brother spent a great deal of his seminary time working with families in Baltimore. He worked from a church near the old baseball stadium near Greenmount Avenue, a working class area of town. That was where he met this man. They were friends.”
She picked up a small black loose-leaf book that was near the computer monitor. She opened it and he saw her finger run down a page. She said, “I keep this list of my brother’s friends and I was going through it today before you came to ask some of them to the funeral. Here it is. His name was Roger Green. The daughter had another name, Celebrity Brown, like she was a carnival person, or like she was trying to disown her father.”
“I don’t know where the father is or even if he’s still living. The pawnshop moved, I know that. I do have the work place of the daughter. At least she was there about two years ago.”
She copied down the address from the book and gave it to John, then said, “She would call me asking to see my brother and I’d pass along the messages. Asking for money, I suspect. My brother would give anyone all he had.”
She smiled. “You never know about these kids. I worked with a lot of them. Some of them did the friendly calls to just to keep someone on their list in case they needed to be bailed out. My brother said that he would be satisfied if they at least called for religion one time before they died, and that was all right with him if that was all he could achieve.”
“Your brother was like a bank account for them.”
“Yes,” she answered, and, as he rose to go, address in hand, John could see the strain in her smile, one of exhaustion that comes with years of fighting for her dreams and being gradually worn out by the constant weakness and failure of those she served and tried to help.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked.
“Give anything he left to me to the cathedral. That’s what you can do for me.”
“I’m sorry you won’t be at the funeral. We’ll make sure it’s very nice.”
She nodded. “Before you go, I want to show you a picture.”
She rummaged in a drawer behind her and pulled out an old glossy black and white snapshot and a rosary with crucifix.
“This was taken when my brother was a child.”
John looked at the picture. It showed a small boy placing a tiny cross on the ground. She explained, “When he was only eight years old he’d go in the yard and make little marks with this rosary crucifix. He called the marks, ‘God’s footprints.’” You keep it.” She handed him the rosary. “When you visit his grave take it out and say a prayer for him. You were his friend, I know.”
Then she said, her old eyes moist, “I know you will do what you can for my brother.”
As he moved outside, she added, “I’ll pray for you, for your safety. Evil men and women are out there and I’ll hope that they don’t cross your path.”
Chapter 6
Wednesday, July 10, 2PM
Celebrity Brown worked as an exotic dancer near the harbor in an area long known for its bars and burlesque houses, dating back to the days of Baltimore’s famous Blaze Starr. Celebrity’s business address, Hot Dancer, was a small place, definitely not a modern gentleman’s club. It was on the first floor of a wreck of a building, probably the location of many former businesses of its type, a neon lit structure with glass covered placards showing promotional pictures, some of them quite worn with the women’s costumes and hair styles dating back to the earlier ages of burlesque.
Inside, a dancer was twisting around a vertical chrome pole in time to one of Christina Aguilera’s songs. Several men watched, while others conversed with naked women sitting on stools next to them. The woman bartender who was clad in a red tee shirt and short cut jeans asked John what drink he wanted. He gave her a twenty and mentioned Celebrity’s name.
She pointed to a woman of about forty years of age with a face caked with makeup. The woman’s large bare breasts rested on the bar and she had both hands tight around an empty glass. The glint of a small piece of metal shone from her neck.
“Celebrity,” the bartender called to her.
A sleepy voice called back, “It that time already?” She looked at the woman dancing in front of her, and added, in a dazed voice, “She ain’t finished her dance time yet.”
John sat down on the stool next to her. He could smell her sweat mixed with a strong flowery perfume. He said, “I came to see you on behalf of Father Tom Sweeney.”
She sat back from him and stared. “You a cop?”
“An executor.”
Her eyes trembled. “Execute. That mean you kill people?”
John smiled and said, “No. I’m a lawyer. He died and I’m taking care of his affairs.”
She relaxed and John could see by her tightening lips that the priest’s name was tumbling through her mind. Then she inclined her head toward him and said, loud enough so the bartender could hear, “We going to talk, you have to buy me a drink.”
John signaled and the woman brought Celebrity a champagne glass with some sparkling water. He took a beer.
“That old priest. I haven’t seen him for a long time.” She grew angry and said, “What does he want? I ain’t got his money if he wants his loan back.”
“He doesn’t want any money. He died,” said John. “I got your address from his sister.”
“That religious bitch.”
“His funeral will be tomorrow,” said John looking at her eyes that turned away from his. Then she smiled and looked back at him. She asked in a voice that changed for a moment and sounded like a begging little girl, “He leave me money?”
“No.”
“I don’t care anyway,” she mumbled.
“His sister said that you might know where your father was.”
“What do you want with him? He don’t have no money either, anyways not for me.”
John changed the subject. “Why did Father Tom give you money?”
Her eyes tried to focus as she shrugged and said, “He come in here one night, right here, five years, a long time ago. That time my father told him about me using. He came to help me.”
“He sat with you here?”
“Yes. I thought he wanted to buy me a drink, you know, have some fun. I was young then, pretty. Was getting me lots of good tricks. The manager thought he was going to buy me a drink too and when he didn’t, the manager tried to throw him out.” She laughed, a coarse laugh.
The dancer who had been listening, leaned down and said, “They’re all the same aren’t they?”
Celebrity continued, “Father Tom explained he was a priest and he stayed. He gave me some money to get off the stuff and get straight.”
Another woman, younger than Celebrity, with tired eyes, came up and sat on the next stool. Her hair was very neatly done with ribbons.
“Maybe he want two girls?” she asked, looking at John.
Celebrity ignored her and fingered a small chain around her neck that suspended a tiny metal bird in flight.
“That’s a pretty necklace,” said John.
Celebrity showed him the jewelry, holding it in front of his face. She said, “The wings used to move but only one does now.”
“Can I meet your father?”
She closed her eyes. “The old priest came back again later, maybe two years ago, and this time he wanted to find my father. Said he had lost track of him.”
“He’s a young one, ain’t he?” the dancer called do
wn.
John asked, “Did Father Tom say why he wanted to meet with your father?”
“My Goddamn father.”
“They want sex,” said the neighboring woman. “That’s what they all want, even the preachers. I’ve had some and I know.”
“Shut up, Gladys,” said Celebrity. She said to John, “He said he wanted to sell him something.”
“Did Father Tom say anything about gold?”
She started shaking and emptied the glass in front of her. “I don’t know nothing about no gold.”
“So if I want to see him, where is your father located?” John pressed.
“His name is Green. Green’s Pawnshop, couple blocks from here.”
John stood up. The neighbor woman took his arm and said, “You tell him she ain’t on the street no more. She’s got class now. Her pimp sends the customers up here. Knows they won’t come just by looking at her.” She cackled showing her two missing front teeth.
“I got a tighter hole than you, bitch,” Celebrity said, raising her hand.
“Yeah, in your ass.”
Celebrity said, “My father had a lot of money once but he wouldn’t give me none. I went and made my own money, that’s all, looking out for myself.”
She thought for a second and added, “You say, Father Tom didn’t leave me any money?”
John said, “No, he didn’t.”
“Goddamn shame. I was one of his best converts.”
“You ain’t no convert,” the dancer said, as she stooped in front of them. “Just a played out whore, that’s all.”
“I can make money for my man,” Celebrity said.
“Not likely, after seeing the way your guy comes in here and slaps you around,” said the dancer.
Celebrity was shaking harder. She leaned back and moved her head back and forth.
“You talked too much, didn’t you, girl?” the neighbor woman said.
Celebrity said, “You lawyer. I don’t know anything.”
Celebrity then stood up and walked away from John to the other side of the bar.
John watched her stagger away. He knew she was suddenly afraid. The only thing left for him was to talk to her father. He’d tell the Chief about Celebrity and maybe the policeman could get more from her.
People on the street directed him to Green’s Pawnshop. He finally found the place down a side street. He stopped and looked at the storefront. In the window were a multitude of pawn items such as guitars, various types of inexpensive jewelry, even pairs of shoes that looked well polished and ready to sport some man’s feet into the street. He smiled, wondering how a person could pawn his shoes and walk this street barefoot. A small sign said, “gold items, all types, our specialty.” John immediately thought of the small rectangles of gold.
The back of the window was a closed panel so that he could not see inside. He tried the door and it was locked with a steel mesh curtain pulled down over it. He could see a security wire on the side of the door and did not shake the door for fear of setting off the alarm.
He decided to go to the back of the building hoping that Green’s car might be parked, perhaps some other sign that Green was inside. When he got to the back, John was surprised to find several people standing and pointing at smoke coming from underneath a steel back door to the store. Two of the group were showgirls, dressed in g-strings and halters, their feet angled harshly in very high-heeled plastic platform shoes.
One of the women said, “Wonder where the old man is. He gave me my bail last year.”
“I ain’t seen him,” another said in a shrill scared voice. “Ain’t seen him.”
Just then the space behind the store was taken up with the front end of a Baltimore City fire truck and two men rushed forward, clad in heavy fire outfits, axes in hand. “Stand back, you people,” one of them yelled, as he raised his axe at the back door.
The door crashed in, allowing flame to come rushing out into the alleyway. The onlookers fell back to the opposite side of the street. A police sedan arrived, its siren wailing, followed by an ambulance. Smoke billowed out and some flame licked around the doorframe.
“She’s hot,” yelled the fireman to his partner. “Get some water in here.”
A hose was produced and water poured into the opening. As the smoke fell back, two new firemen from a second truck rushed in.
One of the firemen called from inside, to the growing number of other firemen in the street. “Accelerant all over the place. Only one person in here that I can see and he’s dead.”
John waited with the crowd while an ambulance arrived and the paramedics brought out a man’s burned remains.
“It’s Mister Green,” said one of the women, puffing hard on her cigarette.
The body was that of a small man, the skin wrinkled with fire damage, terrible looking skin blisters and charred clothing. His eyes were half closed too but John could see a look of horror in them as if before he died, he had been anticipating the pain of the approaching fire, or even worse, he had been seeing the face of the murderer who set the fire.
“What happened?” he asked the fireman.
The man looked at him, his face covered with soot. “Don’t you smell all the gasoline? Place was splashed with it.”
John found his truck and drove towards River Sunday and the Eastern Shore. He stopped for coffee and then drove on. An hour later he pulled up to his office in the twilight. He was surprised to see Chief’s car parked in front, and a light was on inside the building.
The Chief met him with a serious face. “You’re pretty popular man, Neale. At least somebody thinks so.”
John looked around at the pulled apart file drawers, with all Whimsy’s files scattered on the floor. Anger swept over him as he thought of this murderer moving through the same room as his friend Whimsey. He beat his fists together, composing himself, remembering that anger can make him lose.
“Street patrol officer discovered it about a half hour ago.”
John thought aback to his stop for coffee and a sandwich on the way out of Baltimore. Just enough time to let someone get ahead of him. He’d have to be more careful. He went to his desk.
“Can you tell me if anything is missing? We’ll try for prints and see if we can find out anything.” The Chief paused, then added, “As if I didn’t know why.”
The priest’s folder was gone. He looked back at the officer. “You got that right, Chief Stiles. He took the papers I had on Father Sweeney’s estate, the deed to the swampland, everything.”
The older man asked, “Maybe you can tell me what you found out in Baltimore. What did you get out of the sister?”
“Father Sweeney visited his sister once a month. I don’t know if it means anything. I’m also sorry to report that the family has no rich uncles, aunts, grandfathers or anyone else.”
The Chief smiled. “I already knew that. Tell me what else.”
“She and her brother were the last two of the family and they are, in her words, dirt poor. They both served the church.”
“Knew that too.” The chief paused, then said, “I haven’t given up on somebody giving him a gift. Trouble is, if he got some money, he didn’t put it in any banks or list it with the parish. Steve and Father Phillip showed me all the books and I got the man’s bank records. I also checked his phone calls. He never called the monastery.”
“I got a feeling it was our bad guy who made the monk call Father Phillip the other day,” John said.
“You may be right.”
John said, “I saw some new work at the Cathedral. Maybe he was giving it to them.”
“I already called the Diocese,” the Chief informed him. “No one will talk. Say their donors are private.”
John nodded. “The only thing the sister knew about gold was the name of a pawnbroker. Father Tom had helped his daughter get off drugs.”
“That’s something. What was his name?”
“I got his location from his daughter, but never got a chance to talk to him. W
hen I got to his store, it was on fire. I could smell the gasoline.”
“Just like at the monastery.” The Chief said, pausing to consider something to himself. Then he said, “Look, the gold scrapings assayed out as real stuff, high quality. Funny thing. My lab man said the little gold rectangles were the same kind of stuff as on the car. How do you figure that?”
“Don’t figure it. Tell me, why would someone kill a pawnbroker?”
John gave him the information on the pawnbroker and his daughter Celebrity. Then he asked, “How would a pawnbroker fit in?”
The Chief shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ll do some checking on her and her father. I also better make sure that Father Tom’s sister is safe.”
“You think this killer will go after her?”
“You went there didn’t you? Somebody might have been watching you.”
“What did you find out about the grocery bags?” asked John, picking up some of the papers on his trailer floor.
“Nothing up there survived. You find anything out at that swamp the old man owned?”
“Nothing yet,” said John. He didn’t want to say anything until he had some proof that the swamp was even relevant. Then he realized that Andy and her mother might be in trouble too.
“Andy has been talking to me,” John said. “She might be in danger.”
Stiles nodded. “Nobody is safe until this is solved.”
As he had feared, when he finally got home, he found that his trailer had been searched in the same way as his office. As he picked through the books and dishes that had been thrown on the floor, he was more angry than he had ever been. Getting a second breath, he kicked the clutter to the side and stepped strongly across the carpet. He reached up to a small cubby above his cot. He pulled out a hunting knife, hefted it, the razor sharp blade glinting from the ceiling light, and put it on the floor beside his mattress. He smiled, reaching into his mind and bringing forth his inner cunning, his fighting self, his anger. This guy, whoever he was, would meet him face to face one of these times. He’d find out that John was not an old man like the others. He looked at the knife and remembered what he had been taught long ago by his foster father’s Vietnam veteran friend.
Gold (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 4) Page 7