Spiked

by Mark Arsenault

  So much for leveling with her.

  Eddie squirmed through the interview, evading questions when he could, offering the truth whenever possible and flat-out lying when he had to. He did not fool her—that much was obvious. But with no hard evidence with which to challenge his story, Detective Orr was stuck with what he gave her.

  She closed the notebook and rose in one motion. “I have taken a good deal of your time, Mr. Bourque, but investigations such as this depend greatly on the recollections of the people who knew the deceased,” she said.

  “I know that.” Just leave.

  “That’s why the statements I collect are so important,” she said, waving the little notebook. “And why it’s a crime if anything false gets in here.”

  Eddie eyed her. “You think that notebook is sharp enough to cut the politics in this town?”

  She hesitated—just a split-second, but Eddie saw it. “I’ll be in touch,” she said, and walked out smiling. Good God, how Eddie hated that phony smile. But her hesitation had confirmed for him that someone was applying pressure to ease off the investigation. Not that Orr would, and Eddie felt sick that he could not level with her. He sat in Keyes’ office, clutching his head and counting the ways she could puncture his tale. They seemed endless.

  Melissa poked in her head. “I’m braving the elements and brutalizing my body for the sake of stimulating the mind,” she said. “Care to come on a coffee run?”

  “She thinks I’m obstructing the investigation,” Eddie said, still clutching his head.

  “Who? That police lady with the fabulous Ann Taylor scarf? I love that color, not quite violet, more like a plum—”

  “Did you hear me? She thinks I don’t want her to find out who murdered my beat partner. Remember him? The chipper redheaded guy who sat next to me and would have scooped my ass all over town if he were my competitor instead of my partner? Or at least that’s what the Globe thinks—do you ever listen to what I’m saying?”

  Eddie didn’t realize until he finished that he had been yelling.

  Melissa recoiled one step back. Her hand drew over her heart.

  “Maybe it’s time you switch to decaf,” she said softly.

  She left him there.

  Eddie started after her. But Melissa sped away on her long getaway sticks. Eddie couldn’t catch her without running, and that would just draw attention to a bad scene. This was becoming the worst day of the week—and he had already been thrown in a canal and chased by two New York hitmen. Both, Eddie suddenly realized, probably had been Yankees fans.

  Chapter 24

  Back at Eddie’s desk—more bad news.

  There waited City Councilman Manny “The Mangler” Eccleston, dressed in a wrinkled gray suit and a black knit necktie so far out of style its age would have to be carbon dated. With a fedora in hand he looked like a Depression-era panhandler.

  The Mangler looked around the newsroom, which had started to simmer in anticipation of deadline. “It’s always a pleasure to visit the ninth estate,” he said. “I wanted to be a reporter when I was a boy. But to do this day after day, you need paper in your veins.”

  “What’s the good word today, Councilman?” Eddie asked.

  “The word today is building report,” Eccleston said, pointing to a large brown envelope on the desk. It was addressed to Eddie. “The report on the old church I promised you the other day. Let nobody ever say that Manny Eccleston can’t make a promise.”

  “I’ll correct anybody who tries to say that,” Eddie pledged, reaching for the envelope.

  Manny squirmed. “Ah, ah, ah—can you wait until I go? Wouldn’t want anyone to know where you got the packet.”

  Eddie looked again at the address printed in black marker on the envelope:

  TO: Edward Bourque, Lowell Empire reporter.

  FROM: Lowell City Councilman Manuel G. Eccleston Jr.

  RE: Church Structural Analysis Report.

  Eddie sighed. “Sure thing, Manny.”

  Eccleston leaned close. His breath smelled like Greek salad dressing and orange Tic-Tacs. “But I don’t mind telling you,” he said, “that this report is going to knock a hole in your socks.”

  “Oh really?” Eddie’s attention was on the envelope. He wanted to ditch the councilman so he could read the report, but The Mangler sat on Eddie’s desk and sank roots.

  “There’s all kinds of structural deficiencies,” he said.

  Eddie did a doubletake. Did Manny just say structural deficiencies? “This report says that?” he asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Eccleston assured him. “To recalibrate this place would be improbable. The cost would be prohibited. The Diocese doesn’t need the building anymore, but they want to spare parishioners the heartache of a property auction. I hear they’d settle for the assessed value if the city takes it eminently by domain.”

  Eddie pictured a wrecking ball thudding against the belfry, and the gargoyles hobbling away, dragging their knuckles. “That’s a beautiful old building,” he said. “Isn’t the past worth saving? You guys saved the old mills.”

  Manny shook his head. He said, “I appreciate you playing devil’s surrogate, but the old mills have business value.”

  “What about historic value?”

  “History doesn’t feed the piper.”

  Eddie said, “This ain’t a gimme. That save-the-church group had good numbers at their rally, and they got Hippo Vaughn. This will be a fight.”

  “They won’t win. Vaughn’s a lone dog on this. We got five votes on the Council.”

  “If the election goes right for you incumbents,” Eddie noted.

  “Let’s presume it does,” Manny said. “Vaughn can beat the rug all he wants on this, he’s not bigger than the whole political inner circle.”

  “Can’t fault your logic.”

  Eccleston nodded at winning the argument.

  “But what’s the plan for the land?” Eddie asked.

  The councilman grinned. “You and I have a deal about that—not until after we win the election,” he said. Suddenly Manny’s wristwatch was in his face. “Gotta go. Meeting with your publisher about an editorial. So where do I find his office?”

  “Take the elevator all the way up,” Eddie said. “And go through the glass door that says Alfred T. Templeton. Take your time, Templeton is always up there.”

  “A work addict, eh?”

  “Either that, or he’s afraid of sunlight.”

  “Enjoy the report,” Manny said. “Write it up good.” He tried to salute but gave up half way, settled for a wave and walked off.

  Eddie settled into his chair with the contents of the envelope. It was a fifty-page consultant’s report, commissioned by the Diocese to assess the physical condition of St. Francis de Sales. The report was dated two days ago and still marked “draft.” Eccleston had good sources if he got the draft before the final report was even finished.

  Like most consultant reports, this one left room for interpretation and was not a slam-dunk for either side. The consultants had found problems, but Manny had overstated their conclusions, which were overstated in the report’s one-page introduction. The building needed substantial work to stabilize the outer stone face and one tower, but its basic structure was sound.

  It was a decent news story. Eddie called the Diocese and reached a pleasant spokesperson who, after checking with various clergy, refused to comment because the report was a draft, but was very interested in where Eddie got his copy.

  Eddie offered his stock answer, “Things just seem to appear here.” The call had mined no further information, but the hubbub confirmed that the report was authentic.

  Eddie called the head of SAVIOR, the save-the-church group, who was also very interested in where Eddie got the report. Same pat answer. Eddie typed as they talked. He gathered a few usable quotes on the general dispute over saving the building.

  He phoned Gordon Phife across the room and negotiated for thi
rteen inches of space in the local section of the last edition.

  In just over an hour, Eddie had a story that began this way:

  LOWELL—St. Francis de Sales Church, whose twin granite spires have towered over the Acre neighborhood for more than a century, would need extensive work and a sizable investment before the building could be redeveloped, according to a Cambridge consulting firm hired to study the building.

  But the basic structure of the granite church is solid, like the faith of the saint for whom it was named.

  Eddie had taken some artistic license in the second paragraph. He didn’t know Francis de Sales, the man. But saints are faithful. Everybody knew that.

  Bang. He hit the send key.

  Phife read through the text while Eddie watched over his shoulder. With a few dozen keystrokes he trimmed the fat and tuned the sound of Eddie’s words. Phife had a great ear for language. Gordon knew which words made music together and which combinations were sharp or flat. Some editors butchered news copy so that every story, no matter who wrote it, sounded the same. Not Phife. His line editing was gentle. He brought out the best in every author’s voice.

  At the bottom of the story, Phife nodded and said, “This is good.” He scrolled to the top and typed from memory a long string of characters that could have been nuclear launch codes. The coding told the typesetting computer which font to use for the byline and body of the story. Another line editor would give the story a second read, and write a headline.

  “Do I see the white smoke?” Eddie asked.

  “You are dismissed,” Phife said.

  “Can you keep Keyes away from this story?”

  “Don’t worry, Ed, it’s a good read. Now get away from here before I open the correspondent copy. The stench can be overpowering if you’re not used to it.”

  “One pass through the Phife-O-Matic ought to fix it,” Eddie said. He clapped Phife on the shoulder and left him to his dirty work.

  Back at his desk, Eddie called Durkin in the library and asked if he had old church homilies on file.

  “Do I?” Durkin howled. “What do you want with those old things? Nobody has touched those files in years.”

  “Can you find them, old man? Or must I do it myself?”

  “You couldn’t find them in a month down here, but if we printed it, I can put my hands on it. What era?”

  “The old days,” Eddie said. “Back when they chipped the paper out of stone every morning. You were probably my age at the time.”

  Durkin’s laugh sounded like a nine-hundred-pound grizzly enjoying the Goldilocks story—the part when the bears gave that little thief what she deserved. “I got what you need,” he said. “What church?”

  “Shoot, I dunno,” Eddie said. His eyes fell to the consultant’s report on his desk. He remembered there was no such thing as coincidence. “Let’s start with St. Francis de Sales. And don’t send the file up. I’ll come down.”

  Chapter 25

  The musty, unlabeled file on Durkin’s desk was an inch thick with typewritten sheets. The papers contained the wisdom of a hundred Sundays with Father Zygmunt O. Wojick, former pastor of St. Francis de Sales Church. Each homily was two pages, fastened by a staple.

  Eddie started with the earliest entry, about the dangers of judging people by their looks. He thought about Leo and Gabrielle. Had they once been invisible to him? Right up until they saved his life?

  He pictured the clergyman hunched over an old Underwood typewriter, nearly twenty years ago, banging out his message to the flock and then performing the piece from the pulpit. He read one about gambling:

  There exists in some men a yearning, not of God but of man, to dream a dream of luxury by which he arrives not by the sweat of his brow, the strength of his back nor the cut of his wit, but by way of a much easier path. A path along which honest labor has no place, where reward is not earned. Those who walk this road surrender the choice of whom they shall become, and instead trust their future to chance. This path of ease, and of sorrow, is called gambling—

  Eddie liked the piece. It was more like an op-ed essay than a sermon—uncompromising and well argued, yet eloquent and gentle.

  He dove deeper into the file. Father Wojick’s words steered a consistent, conservative course through the social problems of the nation and of the Acre: poverty, failing schools, domestic abuse, the disintegration of the family, racism, unwanted pregnancy, drugs, violence. Eddie searched for keywords or patterns in the essays. Nowlin had made his revelation seem obvious. It was right there in the homilies. Maybe it was obvious if you knew what you were looking for. Where is it, Danny? Halfway through the stack, Eddie rubbed his eyes.

  Durkin was clip clopping around on his crutches, adding stories cut from the paper to files throughout his library. The odor of coffee tugged Eddie to his feet.

  “Hey Durk,” Eddie yelled. “You making coffee over there?”

  “You won’t want any of this. This brew ain’t for topsiders.” Topsiders—what Durkin called the collar-and-tie types who worked above ground.

  “Try me,” Eddie said.

  “I’m warning you, pencil neck.”

  “Try me, before I bounce your crippled ass from A to Z.”

  Durkin, thrilled by the combat, laughed and relented. He brought Eddie a cup. The brew was endlessly black, like the moment before Creation. A metallic aftertaste lingered past the bitterness, and the caffeine rush was instant. Three gulps switched Eddie’s internal organs from “play” to “fast-forward.”

  “My God, this stuff is wonderful. What is it?” Eddie asked.

  “Supermarket coffee, mixed double strength,” he explained. “But to give it kick I use caffeinated mineral water from the vitamin store. Have a few cups, then enjoy the cardiac arrest.” He laughed some more and went back to his work.

  Eddie breezed through the rest of the homilies. The pages quivered in his hands. Alert? He felt alert enough to solve cold fusion equations in his head.

  The last of Wojick’s homilies was shorter than the rest, just a few lines. It had more typos fixed with correction paper than any ten other homilies together. Eddie read it over again, slowly this time:

  April 16

  God’s love knows no bounds, my brothers and sisters, but with His miracle of forgiveness comes responsibility.

  Confessing is not enough. Do we expect God to forgive the hurts we do not seek to mend?

  If one among us is responsible for pain and death beyond most mortal imagination, can he expect to simply confess in the dark and find God’s forgiveness, while he hides from the laws of man?

  No, I say.

  Turn yourself in and pay for your crimes!

  I now must beg you, my brothers and sisters, for forgiveness, for I have today broken a vow of my robe. I am sorry.

  Durkin asked, “Find what you’re looking for?”

  “Maybe. Got any more sermons from this guy, Wojick?”

  “Naw. He took off at the end, just before the church closed. Abandoned the whole congregation. Nobody ever saw him again.”

  “Oh right, I’ve heard something about him running off.”

  “He even apologized before he split, although nobody knew what he was apologizing for until he left. The whole thing was hushed up. I went to St. Joseph’s—the priest was quicker there—so I don’t really remember the details.”

  “You better get me the staff-written Wojick clips,” Eddie said.

  Durkin snorted. He needed more action. “The last time I followed orders from a college boy my leg got blown into a tree,” he said.

  Eddie smacked his fist into his palm and said, “If you want to keep the leg you’ve got, you’ll get me the goddam clips.”

  A tremor of laughter shook Durkin’s mountainous shoulders. “All right Bourque,” he said, struggling to get the words out. “No need to get rough.”

  Eddie refilled his cup with Durkin’s racing fuel and dug through the files. The yellowed clips
sported bylines from Empire reporters long gone. Several stories about dwindling attendance at St. Francis de Sales foretold of the church closing. One report questioned the wisdom of buying a new church crucifix.

  There was just one story on Father Wojick’s disappearance. It had no byline, and had run on page five.

  LOCAL PRIEST LEAVES PARISH,

  ALSO TO LEAVE THE CLOTH

  LOWELL—Father Zygmunt O. Wojick, pastor of St. Francis de Sales Church, is retiring from the church and leaving the priesthood, according to sources close to the pastor.

  Wojick celebrated his last Mass on Sunday, which was also the occasion of a first-communion ceremony for twenty-two second-graders and one adult.

  Sources say Wojick is leaving for California, and intends to give up the priesthood in order to wed a woman he knows there….

  The story ran three days after Father Wojick delivered his final odd little homily, in which he had begged for forgiveness.

  The church closed immediately, citing difficulties in finding another pastor among the thinning ranks of clergy, according to another clip. At first, there was hope it would reopen. The paper ran a two-column picture of the new crucifix being delivered, the one that still hung over the church altar. Stories over the next several months were less and less hopeful about the parish’s fate. A few recent pieces speculated on redevelopment plans.

  The last item was filed out-of-order—a three-column picture of the church’s final First Communion class, gathered in rows on the church steps like pupils in a school photo. The girls were in white dresses, the boys in tiny clip-on neckties. The barrel-chested man with a crew cut, white collar and stern face was Father Wojick. Eddie stared at Wojick’s image. It still amazed him that dots of ink, gray and black, could combine with white space to replicate something as complex as a human face. The children would be in their twenties now; Eddie recognized none of the names.