Blood on a Saint (23 page)

Monty thanked Sarah and left the library, trying to figure out what this stunning new information meant, what it told him about Ignatius Boyle, and how he could use it in his defence of Pike Podgis.

Brennan

Brennan headed over to the church for confessions on Monday evening, following a weekend he had managed to devote to prayer and music. It was a cold, crisp January night, with a bit of snow on the ground and the moon bright in the sky. He was almost smiling as he walked. The choir school children had done a stellar job singing Mozart’s beautiful motet “Laudate Dominum.” Normie Collins had requested it for a “sick friend,” someone down with “consumption,” to hear her tell it. Well, regardless of the reason, he was happy to add the piece to the choir’s repertoire. He would bring in the men and older boys for the lower parts. The music was running through his head. Nothing better.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

This was the fourth person to enter the confessional, and it was that rasping, hissing, disguised voice again. The nasty piece of work who had wanted to talk about the murdered girl. Brennan steeled himself for another encounter.

“I can’t get her out of my mind, Father. Jordyn. Have you seen the pictures of her in the paper? On TV? I mean the pictures before she was a stiff. Or maybe you saw her in the churchyard when she was still moving and breathing.”

“What do you want?”

“I want forgiveness, Father. Absolution. I want to be a better man than the weak, lustful sinner that I am. I want to stop thinking about her! The long pale legs, the finely turned ankles. The high-necked but always — did you notice? — tight sweaters she would wear. And did you see her that time she had the hot pink miniskirt on? You guys probably spent a whole lot of time looking at her out the window of the rectory, right? Are those little skirts back in style, or was she just flaunting that firm little ass and, as they say, lookin’ for it — ”

“I don’t want to hear another word of this selfish and twisted talk. About a young girl who was murdered. You are here for reasons unbefitting a Catholic in his church, making a mockery of the sacraments. If you need treatment for your problems, I can give you the name of a counsellor or a psychiatrist. If you have committed a crime, if you have some responsibility for the death of this young woman, again I urge you to turn yourself in. If you’re just here for shock value, get the hell out of here. I do not want to hear you. If you ever feel remorse for your sinful behaviour or your thoughts, come back in and confess properly. Preferably to another priest. Get out.”

“Let’s cut the crap, Brennan. You know what I’m here to confess.”

He had dropped the disguise. The voice belonged to Podgis. When Brennan looked through the screen the hood was down, the silhouette of the head visible.

“Father? You there?”

Brennan did not reply. His mind was racing.

“Yeah, you’re there. I didn’t hear you stumbling out of the box, trying to run away from your responsibilities. So let’s get on with it.”

“You’re not a Catholic, Perry Calvin Podgis.”

“Oh, I beg to differ. I was baptized a Catholic by my dear old dad before he left for parts unknown. My mother was a Presbyterian. Then she turned Holy Roller. Took me to a few different Protestant churches when I was small. Then my stepfather came along. He wasn’t much for church. So my mother went along with that, and I didn’t have all the benefits of a religious upbringing. Thank God. If He exists. I have no idea. I don’t pretend to know. Unlike some. But He might exist. So I’m here, to cover my ass just in case. Where were we?”

“What are you really here for, Podgis?”

“I want to get it off my conscience.”

“Is it troubling your conscience at all?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure it is. Why else would I be here?”

“I can’t begin to fathom your motives, so I won’t even try.”

“I want to confess to this mortal sin I’ve committed, before I go to trial and plead my innocence!”

“You feel remorse for it, do you, Podgis?”

“I do, Father.”

“I see. Why don’t you just plead guilty, if you’re so remorseful? Try a bit of plea bargaining. Try for a reduced sentence. Say you were driven mad by this girl’s rejection of your advances. Take your punishment like a man. Gather lots of material for a series of television shows about the prison and its inmates to use when you get out.”

“Would you?”

“Would I what?”

“Plead guilty to murder?”

“I’m not the one who killed a person and then proceeded to enjoy all kinds of hateful, perverted conversations about it.”

“I know, I know. I feel bad about it. I just feel compelled to relive the whole thing. Fantasize about it. About her. You understand.”

“No. I don’t.”

“I figure I’ll be too distracted when I’m on trial. I won’t have time to think about her. Maybe that’s why I’m so obsessed now, so keen on bringing up the images. And feeding off them. Gives me something to do when I’m alone in my room. I figure I won’t get lucky too often as an accused murderer, so I mostly avoid the pickup joints.”

Brennan had to stifle the urge to question how often the stunted, ferocious-looking creature would ever get lucky at the best of times; that was hardly an appropriate question for a priest to ask while performing the holy sacraments.

“But maybe I’m wrong, Brennan. Ever hear of Ted Bundy?”

Of course he had heard of the sadistic psychopath who had killed more than thirty young women in the United States. He didn’t reply.

“You’ve heard of him, right? Some of the things he did to those girls! Did kinky things to them, beat their heads in, bit them, strangled them, you name it. And guess what? He had a fan club. Girls sitting in the front row of the courtroom, giggling when he turned and smiled at them. Broads from all over the world writing to him. Making phone calls, trying to reach him. To tell him they loved him. Go figure, eh? Maybe I should plead guilty after all. Build up a following. I did a show about that phenomenon. That and other cases like it. Did you happen to catch it?”

Brennan remained silent, wondering what to do about the appalling man, how to get him to either turn himself in or shut up once and for all. What was he getting out of this sacrilegious confession?

“Brennan, are you listening? I am a man in crisis, and I don’t feel I have your attention.”

“Is that what this is all about, Podgis? Attention? Haven’t you received enough of that already? With more on the way?”

“I don’t like your attitude, Burke. I never did. But you’re my man now, my priest.”

“No. I am not.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re my confessor.”

“So confess and move on.”

“I think you need some spiritual guidance, Father. You do not strike me as a holy and forgiving man of God.”

“You don’t believe in God.”

“Hey! I don’t know one way or the other, so I gotta hedge my bets. Who was the guy, that that was his philosophy about God? Thornhill mentioned him after you walked off the show. Ever hear of him?”

Blaise Pascal. Pascal’s wager. He didn’t bother to enlighten Podgis.

“No reply? That can only mean one thing. You want me to do the talking. Okay. I got lots to talk about, lots to confess. I bet you get tired of the predictable confessions of the little old church lady who promised her dying friend she’d pray for her every day and then forgot, and the friend croaked and it’s the church lady’s fault as if she holds people’s lives in her claw-like hands, or — ”

“Go away.”

“No, I’m not going anywhere until you hear this. It’s a tragedy about Jordyn Snider. Dying at the point of a bloody knife driven into her tender flesh. But I’ve already confessed to that, so I’ll move on. Old news and stale headlines don’t sell. So how about this? Ever hear about Jeanie Ballantine?”

Brennan had heard. A horrific murder. The girl’s body was found but they never caught the killer. The girl’s mother suffered a nervous breakdown and was confined to a psychiatric hospital.

“Father, I asked you a question. Did you ever hear about Jeanie Ballantine?”

“No.”

“Well, let me give you the short version. Eighteen years old, missing for over a month. Happened in Toronto but the family was from here. Oh, the pleas of that family. Please, please just bring our little girl back. We won’t ask any questions. They wouldn’t have wanted her back if they’d known what she looked like at the end of her short life. She had been abducted, subjected to repeated sexual attacks and beatings, and was finally stabbed to death. Police never solved it.”

Why was this vile man taking it upon himself to discuss the fate of the young girl in Toronto?

“If you’re talking to them, Brennan, the police I mean, you might help them out by telling them that the carpet knife they found under Jeanie’s body — which, by the way, was never made public — was left there on purpose. It wasn’t accidentally left behind at the scene by a careless, incompetent murderer. This guy isn’t stupid.

“Don’t go out of your way,” Podgis said, his tone now pleasant and conversational. “I’m just saying if you happen to be talking to the police, you could pass that helpful tip on to them. Oh, wait. Sorry. You can’t talk to them, can you? You can’t reveal anything you hear in this box. I guess it’s just our little secret, Bren.”

Brennan’s heart was pounding, his thoughts running wild. Was Podgis guilty of yet another murder? Had he stalked the country leaving the bodies of young women in his wake? It was unbearable. And the fact that this malevolent individual knew he could slip into the confessional and boast about it in the secure knowledge that everything he said, and every bit of information arising out of it, was protected from disclosure forever, was an outrage in itself. Monty had told Brennan about a similar situation in the law. Prosecutors could not use any information that came out of an illegal search. Fruit of the poison tree, or something like that. Priests were stuck with the same prohibitions.

“If you have one speck of humanity in you, Podgis, if there is any part of you that is the crusader for truth you claim to be, if you committed these crimes, turn yourself in and get help. Go now and talk to — ”

“I’m all talked out for today, Brennan. Oh, will you look at the time? Am I forgiven or what?”

“Podgis, you and I are going to meet outside the bounds of confession. It’s the only way to — ”

“Nope. See ya, Padre.”

With a swiftness Brennan would not have thought possible of the awkward man, he was up and out of the confession box. Brennan had to fight an almost irresistible urge to get up and go after him, and throttle the life out of him unless he agreed to confess to the police every word he had confessed to Father Burke. But he could hear other people in the church, others waiting their turn for confession. He would put the Podgis situation in the back of his mind. For now. Later he would try to suss out how to bring this abominable man to justice.

Chapter 12

Monty

Monty was in the office Tuesday morning preparing his arguments for the Court of Appeal on a hopeless narcotics-importing case that had been part of his life for two years. He did his best to concentrate on it, but a portion of his mind was replaying the conversation with Sarah Fulton at the library. Ignatius Boyle had gone off in a van with Jordyn Snider and some other people her age. What happened on that outing? Whatever it was, Jordyn had shrunk away from him when he tried to speak to her on Spring Garden Road.

Monty had just returned his attention to the drug case when his secretary buzzed him to say Sergeant Walker was there to see him.

“Good. Send him in.”

The retired cop came in, took a seat, slapped a file down on the desk, and said, “I got one hit.”

“Great, Moody. What did you find?”

“One resident who heard something that night. Same apartment building as Betty Isenor, but on the Hollis Street side, not the front on Morris. I interviewed every man, woman, and child I could find in that area, and nobody else heard a thing.”

“Well, it was late at night, or early in the morning. No real surprise there. But you did find one.”

“Yeah, Richard Campbell. Sixty-two years old, resident of the building for eight years. That morning he was asleep till he heard voices outside. A guy and a girl.”

“Really! There was a female voice. Could the witness make out what the people were saying?”

“He said it sounded like a lovers’ tiff. Those were his words. All he could make out from the guy was ‘please’ and her saying ‘no’ over and over again. Then they were quiet. Our witness didn’t get out of bed, or look at a clock. Just went back to sleep. I don’t know what good this is going to do you, Collins.”

“Well, it tells us there were other people out there. And this guy was not Podgis. Because we know Podgis was coming from the churchyard, not Hollis Street, and he was alone.”

“We also know the victim was lying in the churchyard with a knife wound in her chest by the time Betty Isenor saw Podgis. And if you think you can fudge the timing . . .”

“I know, I know. It had already happened. When Podgis came through, he already had the blood on his shoes.”

“And this Campbell is on the Hollis Street side of the building. So that must have been where the voices were coming from that woke him up. Morris Street would be better. I don’t know how this helps you.”

“I’ll think of a way.”

“Gotta admire that about you, Collins. You don’t give up, even when anybody else would pack it in.”

“Thanks, Moody. Leave your account with my secretary, and we’ll take care of it right away.”

“Will do.”

Walker left, and Monty sat there, saying over and over to himself, as if to a jury: “There was somebody else out there.” He tried to come up with a scenario whereby a guy and a girl arguing on Hollis Street the same morning of the murder could be used in the defence of his client, who was seen running from the Byrne Street crime scene on bloody feet.

†

The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal reserved its decision the next day in the narcotics-importing case. There were two men and one woman convicted in the scheme, which involved drug dealers in a chain from Medellín, Colombia, to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Monty represented the woman, who was the mother of a child now in foster care so, regardless of her guilt, he wanted to get her out of prison. There was not much hope of overturning the guilty verdict, but he had given it his best shot. The two co-accused had their own lawyers, as was always the case when criminal conspirators were arrested and began trying to pin the blame on one another. Monty was well acquainted with the other two lawyers and, after they had duly excoriated each other’s clients before the judges, they gathered outside the courtroom for a gab unrelated to the case. One of them, Jamie McVicar, had been at law school with Monty, and they had remained friends.