The Church of the Holy Child

by Patricia Hale

“Then we’ll have a completely different issue on our hands,” I said.

  John nodded and turned to look at me. “Happy husbands,” he said. “And not in a good way.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  That night, Griff and I sat at my kitchen table with the shelter staff files and separated the men from the women. There were only four men volunteering, two maintenance and two on the hotline.

  “The maintenance guys wouldn’t have access to personal information for anyone staying at the shelter, and they’d have nothing to do with anyone’s escape plans.” I said.

  “Unless they became friends and the women shared it.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  I put my hand on his arm, hoping to point out the stupidity of his statement without making him feel bad. Most of the time, in my eyes, Griff maintained his superhero status, but occasionally he revealed himself as a mere mortal.

  “Do you know how secretive escape plans are? Of the few people who know, the woman herself would sooner die than divulge information. Even their family members don’t know where they’re going or when they’re leaving. A maintenance man would never become a confidante. I say we look at the two hotline guys first, Mitch Bolitar and Randolph Trek.”

  “I’m going to talk to the maintenance crew before we rule them out,” Griff said.

  “But…”

  “Humor me, I’ll feel better if I cover all the bases. Tomorrow morning, I’ll call Sandra and set up a meeting with them at the shelter. You take the addresses of the other two and see what you get.”

  According to the shelter file, Mitch Bolitar was a mortgage officer at the Citizens First Bank in South Portland. I arrived at 65 Mason Ave at eight-thirty the next morning figuring I’d catch him before he started his appointments so he couldn’t use a client as an excuse not to talk to me. I doubted there’d be many people asking for loans before eight-thirty in the morning.

  He stood as I approached his desk and smiled, sizing me up with a quick once over that was not subtle enough to go unnoticed. He’d have to work on that. Bolitar extended his hand and I took it.

  “I’m not here for a loan,” I said.

  His smile faded. He motioned to the chair beside his desk and sat down.

  “I’m a PI and have been hired to investigate the murder of Shirley Trudeau. I watched him closely for a reaction, but all I got was a tight-lipped nod.

  “I read about her and the other woman,” he said. “But I’m not sure how I can help you.”

  “You’re a volunteer on the shelter’s hotline?”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “But I never spoke to either of the women who were killed.”

  “How long have you been a volunteer?’

  “Two years.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, it’s not often that men volunteer for a battered women’s shelter. Can you tell me why you do it?”

  “Five years ago, my sister was killed by her abusive husband. I still feel like I should have been able to do something. I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. So now, I do for other women what I should have done for my sister.”

  It was hard to come back with more questions after that. He’d pretty much shut me up. So, staying true to professional necessity, I ignored my emotions and continued.

  “Can I have your sister’s name and the date of her death?” I hope you understand, I have to check it out.”

  He nodded and gave me the information.

  I stood to leave, more than ready to go, but threw a final punch.

  “Mr. Bolitar, where were you on October 10th between three and five a.m.?”

  He looked up at me with tired eyes and sighed.

  “I was in bed beside my wife and I know you’ll have to confirm that too.”

  He scribbled his address on a scrap of paper and handed it to me then stood, turned his back and walked away.

  On my way to Forest Avenue and the residence of Randolph Trek, I stopped at Bolitar’s home address. An athletically built, blond woman opened the door. Most of her hair had escaped its ponytail and the neck of her sweatshirt was dark with sweat. Add that to her sneakered feet and it was safe to assume that she’d just returned from a run.

  “Yes?”

  I identified myself and confirmed Bolitar’s alibi all the while watching her initial smile rapidly fade. It was one of those bite the bullet and get it over with visits, like going to have a tooth pulled. Some things have to be done, like it or not.

  Apartment number three at 1600 Forest Avenue didn’t prove any better.

  “Mr. Trek moved,” the elderly, raven-haired landlady informed me. “I didn’t know him, much. He mostly kept to himself. Paid by the month, always on time. That’s all that mattered to me. His mother was sick. He moved to Florida to take care of her.”

  “How long ago did he move?”

  “Oh,” she scratched her ample rear through a floral housedress while she thought about the question. “It’s been at least three weeks, maybe more. He left mid-month, but paid for a full.”

  “Any forwarding address?”

  She shook her head, jiggling a throat pouch similar to that of a Pelican, though in her case I assumed it wasn’t for storing fish. Or maybe it was.

  “Florida.” She said.

  I got back into the car and called Griff as I headed for the office. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Anything?”

  “Dead end with Bolitar. Randolph Trek moved to Florida three weeks ago. At least that’s what I got from his landlady. You?”

  “I talked to the men at the shelter and then to Sandra. She said there’s no way maintenance crew would have any info on a woman’s plans. I guess we’re back to square one.”

  “I’m not ruling out Trek just yet. He told her he moved to Florida, that doesn’t mean he did. I’m going to follow up a little more.”

  “It’s your case. Do what you need to. And hey.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You said I’d be wasting my time going after the maintenance men. Thanks for not saying I told you so.”

  “It’s like asking for directions. There are some things a guy’s gotta find out for himself.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  I was at my kitchen table waiting for Griff’s infamous half-knock and trying hard to nurse my Pinot Grigio. Frustration makes me thirsty. I flipped open the second file in the stack of female volunteers and stared at the face of Bethany Rancourt. Her information told me that she’d been with the shelter for three years. She was also a law student at the University of Southern Maine and a volunteer at Pine Tree Legal, providing legal aid for the poor. Trying to pin three murders on one of these volunteers was like trying to connect Mother Theresa to a crime spree. They were the cream of the crop. Committed, compassionate, selfless, the list went on…

  I went to the fridge for another glass of denial when the phone rang. It was Griff.

  “Where are you,” I asked between sips.

  “I need you to come down to the station.”

  “What about the volunteer files?”

  “We’ll get back to that. There’s something here I want you to see, but it’s evidence and it can’t leave the precinct.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  I slipped the phone into my purse and grabbed my coat. The brisk ten-minute walk put an end to the Pinot buzz I’d started. (Okay, so I’m a light-weight. It doesn’t take much.)

  “What’s up?” I asked stepping into John’s office.

  Griff picked up a piece of paper shrouded in protective plastic and handed it to me across the desk.

  IT’S ABOUT THE CHILDREN, was hand printed in blocky, capital letters.

  I looked from Griff to John. “Where’d this come from?”

  “Desk sergeant found it mixed in with the regular mail.”

  “Envelope?”

  “Plain white, had my name on it,” John said. “Nothing else. It’s bagged.”

  “Did the desk sergeant see anyone?”

  John shook h
is head and shrugged.

  “You’re sure it has to do with this case?”

  He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “The media has made it common knowledge that I’m running this case. You pointed out yourself that each of the women had a young child. It’s got to be.”

  I slipped into a chair. “So what do you think it means? And who could have walked into a police station and blended in enough to slip an envelope into a stack of mail?”

  John looked at me, his hands overlapped into a fist in front of his mouth. He looked weary. “That’s what we’re going to figure out,” he said.

  “Why would he risk coming into the station?”

  “I’m not sure that he did,” Griff said.

  “You mean someone else dropped it off?”

  “Maybe. The video camera on the front desk doesn’t show anything out of the ordinary. A few delivery guys, uniforms coming and going, Joe public asking questions, lost dogs, a regular day. No envelope being slipped onto the counter by a masked man or anyone else.”

  “So where do we begin?” I looked from Griff to John.

  “We begin with the lead, assuming it is one.”

  “Looking at the kids?”

  John nodded. “Start at the shelter, it’s the best option. Find out what these children have in common, besides dead mothers, babysitters, daycare, play-groups, any common thread. Sandra’s more likely to give information to you than to a uniform.”

  “Haggerty going to put up a stink if I go with her?” Griff said.

  “You’re representing the department’s interest. I’ll go talk to the husbands and take a couple of his boys with me. There’s plenty of work to go around.”

  I checked my watch. It was seven forty-five. “I’m sure Sandra has gone home for the evening. First thing tomorrow okay?”

  “Earlier the better.”

  Griff and I left John hunched over a legal pad, brainstorming with his pen. Outside I slipped my arm through Griff’s. “I say we finish the wine I left sitting on my kitchen counter, have some dinner and then…” I smiled up at him.

  He pulled the zipper of his leather jacket to his neck. “That’ll give us time to try and make sense of this. We have to take the right approach with Sandra otherwise she’ll clam right up when we start asking about the kids.”

  “That wasn’t quite what I meant.”

  He opened his car door for me and I slid onto the passenger seat. When Griff got wrapped in a case, he came down with tunnel vision. Not that I didn’t, but I was better at multi-tasking. There were moments when I could empathize with Eliza.

  “You talk with Beth yet?”

  “Yeah, I told her the fee would be cut in half, that you were primarily working with the police and I would exclusively be hers.”

  “She okay with that?”

  “As long as we solve this, she said she’s okay with whatever it takes.”

  “We need to link the kids,” he said revving the engine. “Whoever left that envelope offered us a place to start.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe he’s ready to get caught.”

  “Or maybe we’ve got a Good Samaritan.”

  “She had a four-year-old son.”

  “And now he’s motherless?”

  “She was nineteen and stupid.”

  “You killed a nineteen-year-old?”

  “She was old enough to have a child.”

  “She was a child herself.”

  “All the more likely that she’d never have come back for him.”

  “You don’t give them a chance to return.”

  “Because I know they won’t.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “They never do. Do I hear the sound of a grown man’s tears? Are you crying, Father? Ah, music to my ears.”

  “You are a sick human being. You’re going to be caught.”

  “Maybe. But I’ll do what I can until then and you’re going to listen to every bloody detail. That’s a pun. Did you like it, Father? Did it make you smile?”

  “The media says that the husbands are no longer suspects.”

  “Following my fame? Don’t get enough right here in the confessional?”

  “I’m watching so I can see them catch you. They will, you know.”

  “So you keep telling me. They always realize that it’s not the husbands sooner or later.”

  “How many more?”

  “I already told you, until these selfish bitches learn that they can’t leave their children to escape a beating. If they do, they get their final one from me.”

  “How did you find this girl?”

  “You’re asking a lot of questions, Father.”

  “What does it matter? I can’t divulge what you tell me.”

  “You’re right. Maybe it’s time I throw you a morsel. You have the hunger of a spectator. Hiding in a box. Eavesdropping on life. Living vicariously through other people’s misfortunes.”

  “How did you meet the girl?”

  “She was in contact with the women’s shelter. Her son is still there. She had no plan for the boy, just left him there. She said he had a grandmother and he’d be okay. When she was settled, she’d send for him. I knew she was lying.”

  “Do you have a connection to the shelter?”

  “You’re getting smarter, Father.”

  “So you know these women?”

  “Indirectly.”

  “How do you contact them?”

  “Who said anything about me contacting them? It’s the other way around.”

  “So they contact the shelter for safety and you kill them?”

  “Very good, Father. Except at the last moment I always give them an out. I always ask them if they want to bring their child, but they’ve heard that it’s safer to leave alone so they swear to me they’ll send for them later.”

  “So they’re not abandoning their children. They’re following good advice.”

  “You don’t know that, Father. I do. I lived it. Mothers don’t come back and they need to be punished for that.”

  “Did you ever find your mother?”

  “Why are you asking me that?”

  “Curious.”

  “No.”

  “You’re punishing these women for your mother’s mistake.”

  “Interesting insight.”

  “Would you kill her if you found her?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “This isn’t about the children. You’re no savior. You’re a serial killer.”

  “Enough with the psycho-babble, Father.”

  “What if I go to the police?”

  “You won’t. You can’t. The “Sacramental Seal” remember? You’re a hypocrite, hiding in the church so you don’t have to live in the real world.”

  “And you live in the real world?”

  “I live amongst the damaged and weed them out with my bare hands. You sit in a cubicle and speak to them from behind a screen, never even seeing their faces. Tell me, Father, whose world is more real?”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Father Francis ran a hand through his unruly brown hair then let it fall to his lap. He sat on the corner of his bed, his eyes resting on the naked branches of the Maple tree outside his window. The days were getting shorter and the nights were damn cold. He couldn’t get the killers words out of his head. “Whose world is more real?”

  Had he used the priesthood as an escape? He shook his head in answer to his own question. He’d followed the calling because he wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. He wanted to lessen the struggle of humanity, the pain that he saw everywhere around him. He’d believed on the day he was ordained that he finally had the means to do that. But now, the holy orders he’d accepted prohibited him from ending the suffering he’d been hell bent to stop. And worse, by doing nothing to end it, he was allowing it to continue.

  He lay back on the comforter and stared at the plaster ceiling. The concept of confessing sins to a priest was nowhere
in the New Testament. Instead, The New Covenant taught that all believers are priests. The Catholic Church’s practice of confession was based solely in tradition. Catholicism revered tradition. But was the preservation of a tradition more sacred than the preservation of a human life? He contemplated this for another minute then stood, picked up his Bible from his desk beneath the window and left the room.

  Monsignor McCarthy was in the plaid wing chair facing the fireplace. Praying or sleeping, his eyes were closed to the blaze in front of him. He startled slightly and looked up as Father Francis approached. Noticing the Bible in his hand, he raised his eyebrows. “Still looking for a loophole?”

  Father Francis dragged the matching armchair closer and sat beside the Monsignor. He felt heat rise in his cheeks and wasn’t sure if it was from the fire or the Monsignor’s question.

  “If I know of a crime being committed and do nothing to stop it, aren’t I acting in duplicity?”

  “The priesthood is not governed by manmade laws. We follow God’s decree.”

  “But the sacrament of Confession and the rules surrounding it were made by man, not by God.” Father Francis stood, laid the Bible on the seat of his chair, ran his fingers through his shaggy head and took a few turns around the room in silence, his bare feet scuffing the Oriental rug.

  He turned back to the Monsignor and lowered his voice as though he were about to tell him a secret. “The Old Testament says that people must approach God through priests, but because of Jesus’ sacrifice that’s no longer necessary. According to Hebrews 4: 14-16, when the temple veil tore in two at the time of Jesus’ death, it symbolized the destruction of the dividing wall between God and humanity. Because of Christ’s death on the cross, we can approach God directly without the use of a human mediator.” He pointed to his Bible on the chair. “It says that right in those pages. Confession is a tradition carried on by man, not mandated by God. If I break my promise of secrecy, I’m breaking man’s law, not God’s.”

  “The Sacramental Seal is inviolable.” The force of the monsignor’s voice surprised Francis. “Just because you think you’ve found a technicality, you believe that allows you to deface a sacred tradition of the church, a holy sacrament that has been in place since the time of Peter and the apostles? Good God Francis, what’s happened to you? Betrayal of what is heard in the confessional is forbidden in any manner of speech or otherwise. That is Canon Law. There is no room for discussion.”