A Cruel Season for Dying (39 page)

She had just returned from shopping for the suit, when she got the call about Byron Shelton being questioned in connection
with the serial murders. In fact, this was a second go-round for the comic. She could really be pissed about missing out on
this one, but her sources had it that Shelton would walk. His alibis were iron clad. The smart money was on a priest, but
with the clout of the Church in this town, that was sure to twist the Department in knots. It was good enough to give her
an orgasm—
CATHOLIC PRIEST MOONLIGHTS AS SERIAL KILLER
. Smoke that, Rozelli!

She stepped out of the rental car and walked across the street to Agnes Tuminello’s house. A bleak one-story covered in faded
yellow siding that made the exterior look dirty rather than cheery. Barred windows added to the overall effect of a life led
in quiet desperation. A sad-looking Christmas wreath did nothing to dispel the general gloom. She reached into her handbag
for the final touch. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

She opened the weather door and knocked. After a moment she heard the soft click of heels; then the door cracked open a fraction,
restrained by a heavy safety chain.

“Yes.” Agnes Tuminello sounded like someone used to turning people away.

“Mrs. Tuminello? I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m from
The Catholic Answer.
We’re just a small Catholic newspaper….”

A pause. The chain unhitched. The door opened wide.

“I’m Mary Katherine O’Malley.” Zoe reached down and took Mrs. Tuminello’s hand. She watched as the woman’s eyes moved up from
her sensible shoes to the gold cross nestled beneath the pearls.

“I was wondering if we might talk.”

Even the crucifix wasn’t enough to stanch the housekeeper’s wary expression. “About what?” she asked.

“The awful tragedy at St. Sebastian.” She looked full into the woman’s careful eyes, compassion brimming in her own. “
The Catholic Answer
just wants the truth … and to help find the person who did this terrible thing.” Her voice faltering on the last of her words.

Mrs. Tuminello nodded and held back the weather door. She led Zoe down a short hall and into a living room overcrowded with
furniture. The heat was up too high.

“Please sit,” the woman said, walking over and turning off the television. She pointed to a sofa. “You said you’re with a
Catholic paper?” she asked, settling herself in a chair.

“Yes, and we are deeply concerned about the violence that happened to Father Kellog and that poor little girl. Murder in the
house of God.” She sighed, shaking her head.

“That is because we nurtured a viper in our bosom.” The words as righteously delivered as any Sermon on the Mount.

“A viper?”

“Thomas Graff.”

“The priest who found the bodies?”

The woman nodded solemnly. “An evil man. I tried to warn Father, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Such a misfortune…. What exactly did you try to warn Father about?”

Mrs. Tuminello’s eyes closed as she rested her head against the chair’s cushioned back. Her hand patted one of the overstuffed
arms like the head of a faithful old mutt. “He had some of the ladies in the parish fooled, but not me,” she said proudly.
“I saw into his black heart.” Her head lifted. “I knew what he was. An abomination.” The hand quit its soft tattoo.

“What do you mean, Mrs. Tuminello?”

“He likes men. Takes pictures of them. Naked.” She crossed herself. “He never wanted me to clean that room. Had a new lock
put on the door. Kept the only key.”

“What room?”

“In the same house with Father Kellog. Desecrating the rectory.”

“What room, Mrs. Tuminello?”

“A darkroom. He developed his nasty photographs in Father Kellog’s house. In that secret room of his.”

Zoe had been leaning forward as Mrs. Tuminello told her tale. Now she sat back, took in a breath of overheated air. This was
better than she’d hoped.

“They know about Graff,” Mrs. Tuminello said quietly, “because I took one of his pictures. And my Connie gave it to them.
They know.”

“Who knows, Mrs. Tuminello?”

This time when she lifted her head, the housekeeper was smiling. A self-satisfied smile that said if she couldn’t be rewarded
in this life, she would surely be in the next. “The police. The police have all the pictures now.”

“All the pictures?”

“Of Father Graff’s naked boys.”

Despite the overstuffed furniture, the living room of Vernon Norman’s tiny brownstone had the feeling of a cloister. The air
trapped inside didn’t move. Overheated, thicker than normal, it blurred any color existing in the room and gathered in a graying
mass like cobwebs near the ceiling. The walls were a yellowed white and bare, except for a large print hanging above a table
of votives. Jesus stared out of the frame with an expression of painful bliss, one hand lifted to his breast, where a fleshy
heart, circled in flame, hovered miraculously, pierced by a stout ray of light.

Sitting with Rozelli on Norman’s sofa, Walt Talbot found that his eyes kept straying to the picture of the Sacred Heart. A
psychology major, the detective had no problem identifying the underlying symbolism in the image. He doubted Vernon Norman
was aware of it. At least on a conscious level.

“It’s terrible that we have to keep the churches locked these days,” Norman was saying. A small tight man in his seventies,
he appeared lost in one of the worn brocade chairs that formed a group with the sofa. His faded brown sweater seemed meant
for a larger man, or perhaps he’d been the one to shrink.

“We’ve been told you have a key to the church.” Rozelli was smiling at the man, working him back to the subject.

“I do have a key.” Norman smiled back. “I’m president of the Society for Devotion to the Divine Love,” he explained. “We hold
special services every week, and it’s part of my duties to see that the Host is taken from the tabernacle and placed in view
on the altar.”

Rozelli nodded.

“I’m a deacon,” Norman said to them both. “I took Orders after my wife died.”

“Does anyone else in your group have a key?” Talbot asked him.

“Mrs. Delorio uses mine sometimes,” Norman answered him. “She’s our society’s secretary.”

“We’re looking for a tall, thin man who wears a cap and a big outdoor jacket. Does that sound like anyone you know?”

“Father Graff dresses like that.” Norman’s eyes searched Rozelli’s face. “I’ve heard the rumors,” he said. “Do the police
really believe that Father Graff might have committed these murders?”

“We have to consider everything.” Talbot was the one to answer. “You said that Mrs. Delorio uses your key to the church, Mr.
Norman. Is there no one else besides the priests who has keys?”

Norman’s sad gaze shifted back to him. “Agnes Tuminello has keys,” he said. Then, “A church has to be reconsecrated when a
murder takes place inside. Did you know that?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “We live in terrible times.”

Talbot stood. “Thank you, Mr. Norman,” he said. “It was kind of you to talk to us.”

“Yes, thanks.” Rozelli stood too.

Norman nodded. Pulling himself out of the chair by inches, he went over and picked up two little booklets from a stack next
to the votives. The cover was a duplicate of the picture that hung on the wall.
NOVENA TO THE DIVINE LOVE
was printed in red at the bottom. “Our devotional services.” He handed one to each of them as he walked them out.

Norman locked his door and went into his kitchen. The clock in the stove showed fifteen minutes past the usual time for starting
his dinner. Since his wife had died, he had found that it helped to keep to a regular schedule. A schedule kept him busy.
And idle minds, like idle hands, were the devil’s workshop.

Still, variety was nice, and the policemen’s visit had been interesting. He’d wanted to mention to them that he’d taught math
for thirty years before he’d retired. Instead, he’d made a point of being a deacon in the Church. So what? He was not ashamed
of his beliefs. They gave him his only comfort.

He stopped, leaving the food he’d taken out of the refrigerator on the counter, and went back to the living room. He sat on
the sofa and pulled out the photo album from the dusty bottom shelf of the coffee table. There was a photo near the back that
he suddenly wanted to see, a picture from about this same time a couple years ago when Ida Mae had still been alive.

The picture had been taken in the church hall, at the Christmas party that the ladies put together every year. He was there,
posing for the group shot, looking uncomfortable, as he always did in photographs. But Ida Mae was smiling, still plump and
pretty, showing no sign of the cancer that would kill her in less than six months.

He looked at the picture, at the predominance of old faces. Most of them would be dead soon, himself included. He looked at
the youngest member of their group, come back for the party long after she’d moved out of the parish. Hadn’t she once had
a key to the church? The thought struck him for a moment but faded to unimportance. What could it matter? Marian, poor child,
was already dead and gone, and for nearly as long as his Ida Mae.

The night was overcast and the street dark, as if the close humid cold had absorbed the glow from the streetlamps. Sakura,
puffing clouds, left the rental garage and walked toward his building. He wanted more than anything to be home and at rest,
but he feared it might be necessary to offer amends tonight. Hanae had still been sleeping, or pretending to sleep, this morning
when he’d left, and he’d talked to her only briefly during the day, calling to tell her he would
once again be late and not to expect him for supper. He knew he had hurt her with his abruptness last night. The case was
taking its toll.

He thought of Faith. There had been no commitment between the two of them. No love. But with Faith he’d never had to explain
himself. In terms of their work, they had been completely in sync, competitive and ambitious, but supportive in their separate
spheres.

He had been reminded of that today when he’d called to bring her up to speed on tomorrow’s planned search of the rectory and
the lineup that was set for the next day. Faith had been approving, cutting through the bullshit to his own bottom line. A
witness ID on Graff would go a long way toward covering his back. Proof his investigation was making progress.

Of course, there was more than the politics. He hadn’t forgotten his conversation with Willie this morning. He trusted her
instincts and his own, and he shared her misgivings concerning Graff’s guilt. But instinct could be moot if tomorrow’s search
of the church grounds were successful. If they found some piece of evidence that tied Lucia to Graff.

He was getting ahead of himself. A bad sign, his needing a break this much. It was unlikely they would find anything at all.
If Graff was the killer, he had left no physical evidence at any of the other crime scenes. Still, Lucia Mancuso’s murder
had been an undeniable departure, and a change in MO increased the risk that the killer would make a mistake. There was no
penalty for hope. He stopped at the downstairs entrance and used his key. Walked up the stairs to the apartment. He entered
the
genkan
quietly to the familiar greeting of the marriage kimono. And a not so familiar voice. Coming to him clearly from the living
room. Speaking to Hanae. In perfect Japanese. A language he had not heard from those lips since the day of his grand-father’s
funeral.

He removed his coat. His shoes.

Isao Sakura rose from the sofa as he came into the living room. The man looked as tired as he felt.

“Hello, Jimmy.”

“Father.”

Hanae stood, seeming to flutter in the silence.

“Your father would not let me call you,” she spoke. “He did not wish to disturb your work.” Her blind eyes were fixed on something
behind his face. “May I get you something, Jimmy?”

On the coffee table were plates with the remnants of food.

“Nothing,” he said. “I ate earlier…. Perhaps tea.”

“I will make some fresh.” Her eyes unfixed themselves. She bent to pick up the tray. He marveled as always at her grace, watching
as she walked toward the kitchen. He felt his father watching him.