by Tami Hoag
“Keep it down out here! Court is in session! Don't you people have any respect?”
Without waiting for an answer, he raised his cane and smacked it against the wall, the sound ringing out like a gunshot. People ducked and gasped and swung toward him. Cameramen wheeled with tape running.
Ellen took advantage of the diversion to make her escape, rounding a jungle gym of scaffolding and riding a service elevator down to the second floor.
Costello was going to turn the spotlight on Paul. Theoretically, the ploy would have no bearing on the probable-cause hearing. Grabko had to base his decision whether or not to bind Wright over for trial on the evidence presented, and Tony had no real evidence against Paul Kirkwood. But there wouldn't be a potential juror in the district who wouldn't have picked up on a story as sensational as this.
“You have to get it to a jury first, Ellen,” she muttered as the elevator landed and the doors pulled open.
Phoebe stood outside the county clerk's office with a ream of paperwork clutched to her meager bosom and a shy smile on her face, absorbed in conversation with the boy wonder of the Grand Forks Herald. Adam Slater's eyes widened as he caught sight of Ellen. He swung away from Phoebe, digging a notepad out of the hip pocket of his baggy jeans.
“Hey, Ms. North, can I ask you a couple of questions about last night?”
“I'm surprised you aren't upstairs with the rest of the pack.”
Slater shook his head. “Can't get anywhere that way. Everyone will have the same story. If I want to make my mark, I've got to get something fresh. You know, like they say in baseball—hit 'em where they ain't.”
“Charming analogy,” Ellen said, “but I don't want you swinging your bat around my secretary. Is that understood, Mr. Slater?”
His smile went flat. Beside him, Phoebe stood with her jaw dropped and her cheeks tinting.
“I have no comment for your story,” Ellen went on. “You'll have to use someone else to make your mark. Phoebe, let's go. We've got work to do.”
She started toward the office but turned back when Phoebe didn't fall in step behind her.
The girl had ducked her head in abject embarrassment. “God, I'm really sorry, Adam. I didn't—”
“Phoebe,” Ellen said sharply.
“Man, this sucks,” Slater complained, flopping his arms at his sides. “We were just talking.”
Phoebe kept her head down as she walked beside Ellen. Neither spoke. In the outer offices phones rang, and Kevin O'Neal, the county SWAT commander, stood talking and laughing with Sig Iverson and Quentin Adler.
“Hey, Ellen,” O'Neal called as he caught sight of her. “The ATF caught your pals the Berger boys down in Tennessee.”
“Was there gunplay?” she asked with sadistic hope.
“Gave up without a fight and with a van full of stolen cigarettes. ATF wants to keep them on the federal beef. What do you want to do about extradition?”
Ellen shook her head. “Good riddance. Save the county some money.”
She turned around just as Phoebe was slinking behind her desk.
“I'd like to speak with you in my office.”
The girl didn't answer but followed Ellen as if going to her death.
“How do you know Adam Slater?” Ellen asked as soon as they were in the office.
“I met him at the Leaf and Bean last night,” she said quietly, still hugging her papers. “We drank coffee and listened to music. Thursday is open-mike night.”
“Did you know he was a reporter?”
“Yes. He said so. We didn't talk about the case, Ellen. I know better.”
“I know you wouldn't mean to say anything, Phoebe, but he's a reporter. They have ways of wheedling information out of people. Believe me, I know.”
“Our mutual friend Mr. Brooks . . .”
“I was very up-front with him about it,” Phoebe said. “I told him right off I couldn't say anything about the case, and he was fine with that. Maybe he just wanted to have coffee with me. Maybe he just likes me as a human being. Our psyches are very in tune.”
Ellen rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Phoebe. He's a reporter looking to make a name for himself. He'll do anything to get what he wants. That's what reporters do—they screw people over for their own glorification.”
“I'm here for a story . . . I go after what I want and I get it.”
“Well, I'm sorry I'm not as cynical and paranoid as you are.” Tears beaded on Phoebe's lashes. “And I'm sorry you don't trust me, Ellen.”
“It's not you I don't trust,” Ellen said softly. She let out a pent-up breath, trying without success to force the tension out of her shoulders. “It's the rest of the world I don't trust—Adam Slater included.”
God, what a tangled mess. She took her secretary to task for talking to a cub reporter from a nothing newspaper in nowhere, North Dakota, while Jay Butler Brooks, renowned rogue and writer, old college buddy of her archnemesis, had been making himself at home in her home, drinking her liquor . . . kissing her, touching her, reaching past her barriers.
Who do you trust?
Phoebe? Adam Slater? Costello? Brooks?
Trust no one.
“Rumor has it you think Enberg had some help with that shotgun.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Around.”
“If there's a leak on this case—”
“No one fed it to me. I don't have a mole in your office, if that's what you're worried about. . . .”
“I'm not paranoid.”
If she was paranoid, it didn't mean they weren't out to get her.
She stood at her window and looked out. Deer Lake was a ghost town, windswept and deserted; a place from a science-fiction movie, where all had been abandoned in an unknown moment for unknown reasons. “Abandoned”—it was a good word for what she was feeling. Abandoned by the security and trust and safety she had embraced here.
“We can't take chances,” she said, turning back toward Phoebe. “Look what happened with Paige Price and Steiger, and that whole mess. This case is too important. We can't risk a mistake. Josh and Megan are counting on us.”
“And Dustin Holloman,” Phoebe added in a small voice. She gnawed her lower lip for a moment, a moment of silence for the victims, then swiped a tear from her cheek. “I'm s-sorry. I-I w-w-w-ouldn't—”
Ellen held up a hand. “I know you wouldn't, Phoebe. Just be careful. Please.”
She nodded and sniffled and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Cameron and Mitch and Agent Wilhelm are waiting for you in the conference room.”
Ellen briefed them on the meeting in Grabko's chambers. Mitch reacted with anger, Cameron with disgust. Marty Wilhelm looked troubled and confused.
“Is abuse a possibility?” he asked.
“Absolutely not,” Mitch said. “I've known Hannah and Paul since I moved here. There's no way.”
“But Costello is right,” Wilhelm argued. “Paul Kirkwood has a temper. We've seen it.”
“Hannah would never allow him to hurt Josh. She wouldn't put up with that kind of shit for a minute.”
“Then what's she doing married to the jerk? She doesn't strike me as the kind of woman who would put up with any of Paul Kirkwood's lesser qualities, but there she is. There might be a lot we don't know about their marriage.”
“He's changed,” Mitch said. “People do.”
Cameron arched a brow. “The question may be—How much? Has he gone off the deep end? We know the marriage is all but over. Paul isn't living at the house. We know Josh reacted very badly when Paul showed up to see him in the hospital.”
“And you think it's because he's a child abuser and Hannah knows it but has failed to report it,” Mitch stated flatly.
“Stranger things have been proved true.”
His face set in stubborn lines, Mitch turned his scowl from Cameron to Wilhelm and back. “Use your heads. We're saying Wright's accomplice nabbed Dustin Holloman. Nothing in that case points to Paul.”
&n
bsp; “Maybe there are three of them,” Wilhelm suggested.
“Yeah,” Mitch said. “Maybe Deer Lake has a whole underground community of psychotic child abusers and they're all trying to draw suspicion off their pal Wright.”
“There's no point in fighting about this among ourselves,” Ellen said. “Costello is forcing the issue. If he's looking at Paul, then we'd better make at least a token show of looking at Paul or we'll end up with egg on our faces.”
“There was the van—” Wilhelm started.
“All together now.” Mitch raised his arms like a symphony conductor. “The van that yielded us nothing.”
“Mitch is right,” Ellen said. “Don't waste time on the van. Talk to people around Paul. Talk to his secretary. Talk to his partner.”
“He won't be any help pinning down Paul's movements in any way,” Cameron said. “I know Dave Christianson from my health club. He's been working strictly from home for the past three months. His wife is having a difficult pregnancy with twins.”
“Okay, so we talk again with the secretary,” Wilhelm said. “And the security guard at his office complex. Neighbors. See what we can tie him to. Maybe he's not in with Wright. Maybe he's trying to frame Wright.”
Mitch slapped his hands down on the table. “Jesus Christ, Costello would love this. We're here to discuss new evidence against his client and instead we're tripping over conspiracy theories. This isn't a case we're on, it's a fucking Oliver Stone movie.”
“Evidence?” Ellen asked, sitting up straighter. “What evidence?”
Wilhelm pushed a curled tube of fax paper across the table to her. “I pulled some strings and got a friend in the lab to release a preliminary report on some more of our physical evidence—the gloves, the ski mask, and the sheet that was wrapped around Agent O'Malley the night she was attacked.”
“And?”
“The glove has bloodstains that look to match Agent O'Malley for type. We already know about the blood types on the sheet. Now we're looking at hairs recovered from the sheet. Four distinct types. One unidentified. One consistent with Agent O'Malley. One consistent with Josh. And one consistent with Garrett Wright.”
“We finally catch a break,” Ellen said, a sense of relief seeping through her.
“Regarding the stocking cap,” Wilhelm went on, “they found two distinct types of hair—one consistent with Wright, and one matching the unidentified hair found on the sheet.
“The question now,” he said, “is, Who does that other hair belong to? And if we got a sample from Paul Kirkwood, would we get a match?”
CHAPTER 21
Father Tom sat in a pew toward the back of the church. On the left-hand side of the aisle—opposite where his one-time deacon, Albert Fletcher, had fallen to his death six days ago. Albert, devout servant of the Lord, his faith turning into fanaticism into madness; his madness leading him to his death, here, in this place he had loved. Tom couldn't decide if it was poetic or ironic. It was sad, he knew that. And it struck him as cruel, as many things did these days.
He sat alone. The weather had kept the faithful few away from morning Mass. He had gone through the motions for his own sake, hoping he would feel something, some kind of deep, binding affirmation that he still belonged in the vestments. But all he felt was hollow desperation, as if he were truly, totally, spiritually alone, abandoned by the same God who had allowed Josh to be taken and Hannah to suffer and Albert to die.
He had considered confessing his feelings, but he already knew the empty platitudes that would be handed him in response. He was being tested. He needed to reflect, to pray. He needed to keep his faith. A pat on the head and a hundred Hail Marys. At most, they would send him on retreat for a week or a month to one of the secluded spots where the Church tucked away its embarrassments—the alcoholic priests, the burnouts, the mentally fragile, the sexually suspect. Time to reflect among the casualties, but not too long, because the archdiocese was woefully short of priests and better to have one in place who had lost his faith than not to have one at all. At least he could go through the motions.
The politics of the Church disgusted him, and always had. He had come to the priesthood for better reasons, nobler reasons. Reasons that were drifting away from him.
He tipped his head back and looked up at the soaring ceiling with its delicate gilt arches and ethereal frescoes. St. E's had been built in the era when minicathedrals were still affordable and parishioners tithed to the Church instead of to their IRAs. The exterior was of native limestone. Twin spires thrust heavenward like lances of the soldiers of God. The windows were stained-glass works of art, jewel-tone mosaics depicting the life of Christ. Inside, the walls were painted slate blue and trimmed with lacework stencils in gilt and white and rose. The pews were oak, the kneelers padded with worn velvet. It was the kind of place meant to inspire awe and offer comfort. A place of ritual and wonderful mysteries. Miracles.
He could have used one about now.
Along the south wall a rack of cobalt-glass votives cradled the flames of three dozen prayers, filling the air with the buttery scent of melting wax. On the wall beside the tiers of candles, the handmade posters put up by the catechism classes praying for Josh's safety had been replaced with prayers for Dustin Holloman. Prayers children should never have to make, fears their lives should never have known.
In the silence he could hear the memory of his father's voice as he read the Billings newspaper three days after the fact, because that was as fast as the mail could get it to them on their small ranch near Red Lodge, Montana. Every morning Bob McCoy would come in from chores and read the paper while he had his breakfast, and shake his head and say, “The world's going to hell on a sled.”
Tom thought he could hear the runners screeching. But the thump that resounded in the church brought him back to reality, such as it was. Someone had come in the main doors at the back, the main doors that needed oil in their hinges. He turned in the pew, squinting to recognize the man walking toward him from the dark shadows beneath the balcony.
“I'm looking for Father Tom McCoy.”
“I'm Father Tom,” he said, rising.
“Jay Butler Brooks.”
“Ah, the crime writer,” he said, offering his hand.
Jay clasped the priest's hand in his and gave it a pump. “You're familiar with my work, Father?”
“Only by reputation. My reading taste runs more toward fiction. I get enough reality on a daily basis. What can I do for you, Mr. Brooks?”
“I'd like a moment of your time, if I might. I wasn't interrupting anything, was I?”
Tom McCoy cast an ironic glance around the deserted church, but the emotion that twitched the corners of his mouth seemed self-deprecating. He looked nothing like any priest Jay had ever seen or imagined. He was too young, too handsome, built like an athlete, and dressed like a slacker in creased black jeans and a faded green sweatshirt from the University of Notre Dame. The clerical collar seemed at odds with the cowboy boots. A man of contradictions. A kindred spirit.
“We're not exactly having a rush on salvation today,” he said.
“With weather like this I reckon folks figure they'll take their chances,” Jay reasoned. “What's another day or two in purgatory, give or take?”
“You know about purgatory, Mr. Brooks? Are you Catholic?”
“No, sir. I was born a Baptist and later converted to cynicism, but I do know all about purgatory.” Weariness crept into his voice against his will. “Y'all haven't cornered the market on hell or its suburbs.”
Father Tom tipped his head in concession. “No, I suppose not. Did you want to go into my office?”
Jay shook his head. His gaze scanned the grand interior of the church, taking in the windows, the statuary, the cast bas-relief plaques that hung at regular intervals along the wall. “This is fine. Quite a place you've got here.”
The altar was traditional, draped in linen, set with brass candelabra, a gleaming chalice, a huge old book with marker ribbo
ns trailing from between its pages. According to the newspaper articles from one week ago, the demented deacon had given Father McCoy a concussion with one of the brass candlesticks from that altar. Jay wondered if it was sitting up there now, absolved of guilt, or if the police had taken it away as evidence.
From the huge crucifix that hung behind the altar, the delicately carved face of Christ glowered down at him as if in disapproval of his thoughts.
Father Tom moved farther down the pew. Jay sat beside him, his parka rustling like newspaper. He had unzipped it as a concession to being indoors, but the cold seemed to have sunk into him bone-deep in the ten minutes it had taken him to get there, navigating the Cherokee along unplowed roads and through three-foot drifts. At any rate, the church didn't seem as warm as the interior of the truck. The thermostat probably went up only for parishioners. No sense heating the barn when the flock was gone.
“You're here to do a book,” Father Tom said flatly.
“You disapprove.”
“It's not my place to approve or disapprove.”
A smile cracked Jay's face. “Well, I've never known that to stop anybody.”
“Hannah and Josh have been through enough,” McCoy said without apology. “I don't want to see them hurt any more than they already have been.”
Jay arched a brow at the omission. “And Paul?”
The priest glanced away. “Paul has made it clear he doesn't want anything from me or the Church.”
“Can you blame him?”
“Not for that.”
His candor was surprising, but, then, nothing much about Tom McCoy seemed ordinary. Depending on who you asked around town, Father McCoy was a rebel, refreshing, an affront to the traditions of the Church. He did not define himself by uniform or convention. His parishioners either loved him or tolerated him. Behind the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses, his blue eyes were honest.
“I'm not interested in exploiting victims, Father.”
“You'll record their suffering, dissect their lives, package their story as entertainment, and make a whole lot of money. What do you call that?”