Breaking Point (23 page)

             
"I don't know that either. I believe it was born alive, but I have no proof. The week it happened, I was awakened, several nights in a row, by one or another of the younger boys. There was a stomach flu going around among the little ones at the time and it seemed I was awake more than I was asleep that week. One night, I thought I heard the sound of a newborn baby, that soft whimpering sound they make, coming in through the open windows. I shrugged it off as my imagination and didn't even think of it again until later, when the girl's parents came over to see us." Sister Alex stared at the far wall. "It was too late by then, of course."

             
"You don't know for sure, then, if it was born alive or not."

             
"It's a gut feeling, Mr. Murdock. That's all it is. But I believe that Patrick killed that baby and got rid of it somehow.

             
It was an ugly story but I didn't see that it helped my case any. "Did Charlie Wilson fit into this anywhere?" I asked.

             
"Only on the periphery. Charlie had a crush, I think, on the young lady. They lived in the same neighborhood and would have attended school together. I suspect they may have dated some before he moved in here. Of course, Patrick was here that summer, too and he and the girl were often seen together. I'd notice Charlie watching her or trying to catch her attention when she was talking with Pat. Charlie was about her age and Patrick was almost two years older. You know how girls are." Sister Alex managed a smile in my direction.

             
"Right," I said. "Charlie never had a chance against the older boy." She handed me the photo again and this time I accepted it, looking down at the picture of Charlie and his competition, Pat Donaldson. For the first time I noticed a dark circle of lines on the back of Donaldson's hand, where it gripped the wheelchair in front of him. I asked Sister Alex what the mark was.

             
"A tattoo,” she said, pursing her lips in disapproval. Pat had been mixed up in some gang activity before he came here and the tattoo was part of that, I believe. It was some demonic looking face, if I remember correctly. Anyway, it was on his hand when he arrived."

             
I thanked Sister Alex for her time and said I'd phone her if I had any other questions. In the office doorway, I paused and asked her if Charlie Wilson or Pat Donaldson had ever returned to Saint Martin's.

             
"Yes," she said. "Charlie did, last Christmas. Sister Anne and I had a nice talk with him. He was visiting his parents, I believe. He inquired about some of the other boys he'd known here and asked if we ever heard from them. He was well dressed and was nice and polite, but then he always had been."

             
"How about Donaldson? Ever hear from him?"

             
"Never. Patrick turned eighteen on a Sunday, less that month after the incident that I spoke of. We had the usual little cake and ice cream social, mostly because the other boys would have been cheated out of a party if we didn't. The next morning, Patrick wasn't in his bed and he's never come back. He was eighteen and legally an adult and there was certainly no reason for us to look for him."

             
"How about the girl's family? Do they still live around here?"

             
"No. They moved away. I have no idea where." Sister Alex got to her feet and extended a hand. The interview was over. She walked me to the door and left the outside light on until I had gotten into my car.

Chapter 25

              I was exhausted by the effort of dragging information from Sister Alex. For a little nun, she'd put up quite a struggle. The thought of a teenaged boy killing a baby, probably his own child, was a sickening one. I rationalized the magnitude of the deed into a more manageable proportion by telling myself that it had happened over twenty years ago. I switched off the air conditioning and opened the car windows, letting the fresh California breeze blow through the rental.

             
It may have been unseemly after hearing such a story, but I couldn't help it. The fact was that I was starving. Bonzo's Biggie Burgers was only a few blocks from the convent and was open twenty four hours a day. I parked and went inside for two Biggies and a double order of fries. I added a lot of salt to the fries to help absorb all the fat I was ingesting. It was just a theory, of course. Besides, I like salty fries. I carried the remains of a Biggie Cola with me to the Explorer and drove about fifty yards to the entrance of The Blue Moon Motel. The neon sign boasted free cable and HBO. The Vacancy sign was lit, too. The room turned out to be small but clean enough and the ice machine was right outside my door.

             
I tried to call Wood, but he must have been out for the evening. It would be almost eleven PM back in Iowa. I watched television for a while and fell asleep on top of the covers. At least I'd learned the identities of the people in the photograph. Sister Alex had agreed that the man in the suit was from the Kiwanis and I knew I could find his name by phoning the number I'd gotten from Clyde Wilson. I was too tired and full of fast food to think about it anymore tonight.

             
Around three AM, I woke up with a dream clanging loudly in my head. I dragged it to the front of my brain and tried to hold onto the last scene. Charlie Wilson was there, but he looked young, and he was in black and white, like he'd been in the old photograph. He was at the Coralville Dam, leaning against the fence and holding a baby in his arms. The baby was smoking a cigarette and looked a lot like Jimmy Durante. Bald eagles were swooping around like flies and Charlie was swatting at them with his free hand. There were a bunch of tiny Catholic nuns, about the size of geese, all dressed in black habits with white bibs, bustling around Charlie's legs. Some were holding bags of bread crumbs, which they were tossing to the eagles, while others had brooms and were busily sweeping the parking lot.

             
I knew I shouldn't have eaten all those French fries. It was one of those insane conglomerations of nonsense that follow overeating. One part of the crazy image was sticking in my brain, though. Charlie Wilson's hand, waving in the air, was turned with the back toward me as he shooed the pesky eagles away. There was a smudgy mark on the back of his hand. I sat up and turned the light on beside the bed. "Holy Shit!" I said out loud. "That tattoo on his hand." In my dream, Charlie Wilson, instead of Patrick Donaldson, had the tattoo. In this crazy dream, though, it wasn't a clear tattoo. It was a smudge...like a scar. I knew where I'd seen the same mark on the back of someone else's hand, just two days earlier. "The Mayor?" I asked myself softly. "Did Petrick have a tattoo removed?"

             
And then I had it. Patrick Donaldson. Donald Petrick. They could be the same person. I got up and tossed my suitcase onto the bed, sliding clothes and papers off onto the sheets until I located the two remaining photos. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, I held one under the glow of the bedside lamp. I stared hard at the picture of the tallest boy, the one with the tattoo. I tried to add twenty-some years and maybe a hundred pounds to his image. The scowling face looked similar to Petrick, I thought, although the mayor's constant smile made the comparison more difficult. Donaldson could have had another growth spurt after he turned eighteen, although he was well on his way even then. The more I looked at the picture of Patrick Donaldson, the more certain I became. He was Donald Petrick. I played the scenario out in my mind.

             
Donaldson had left the children's home and started his life over again and had somehow managed to make a success of it. He'd had the tattoo removed, or maybe tried to do it himself, leaving the smudged scar tissue. He'd been safe, at least until his old rival, Charlie Wilson had stumbled on the scene, recognized him and brought up the subject of a dark night in the mayor's life. So that was where Charlie had been getting his wealth. He'd been blackmailing the mayor, who had aspirations far beyond the political arena of West Fork. Family values, eh? Some political platform for a guy who may have killed his own child. The press would crucify him and the cops, if it could ever be proven, would toss him in jail. Petrick must have killed Charlie Wilson to save himself.

             
I tried to lie back down and get some sleep but once my brain had latched onto the idea of Petrick being Patrick Donaldson, sleep was impossible. I was out of bed, showered and dressed before the alarm went off. It was six-thirty in Iowa and that made it only four-thirty here on the coast. Within an hour I was already at the L.A. airport, had returned the car and was on standby for an early flight back to Cedar Rapids. My original ticket was for a seven PM flight. I'd given myself plenty of time to interview all the people I'd need to see while I was here. Now, between the information I'd gotten from Sister Alex, and my own clever detecting skills, I had enough to go back to Iowa and confront Charlie Wilson's killer.

             
At five forty-five, I found the departure gate for the six-thirty flight to Cedar Rapids via St. Louis. There was a coffee shop nearby and I picked up a large coffee and a larger cinnamon roll to carry over to one of the seats. When I'd eaten most of the roll and drunk half the coffee, I fished my cell phone from the inside pocket of my windbreaker and punched in my own number. Woody answered on the first ring. He was finishing his breakfast, he said, while his laundry spun around in my washing machine. I told him what I'd found out about the mayor and his connection with Charlie Wilson.

             
"Wow," he said. "So Wilson was getting money from Petrick, to keep his mouth shut."

             
"Yep. I figure he was blackmailing Petrick ever since he got that picture," I said, "which was around last Christmas. Petrick must have been paying him off to keep it quiet."

             
"Yeah, but do you think he'd kill the guy just to shut him up?" Woody wondered. "I mean, hell, it's not like Wilson could prove anything."

             
"Yeah, I know," I said. "But men have killed for less. Petrick has a wife and a nice family now. Plus, he's a public figure and he has aspirations to go further in the spring, all the way to the State House of Representatives. Even a rumor of an incident like this would ruin his career, proven or unproven." I told Woody about the mysterious tape with a message about the next meeting being the last one.

             
"Sounds like Petrick was either out of money or out of patience with Charlie." Wood said. "What are you going to do now?"

             
I told him that I was waiting to catch an earlier plane, flying standby, and didn't know when I'd arrive at Cedar Rapids. "If I get back in time, I'll rent a car at the airport and drive straight to West Fork and pay a visit to the mayor. If I'm too late to see him today, I'll try to call you to pick me up or I'll just grab a shuttle back to Oak Grove."

             
"OK. I'll see you when you get here. Don't take any chances up there. You have your gun?"

             
"No, but I'll be careful. I don't think I'm in any danger from Petrick, at least not while I'm sitting in his office, with his secretary right outside. If anything, he'll try to get to me after I leave, but I'll be watching for that." I told him not to worry and that I'd call him later or see him back in Oak Grove.

             
While I finished my breakfast, I observed the people walking by. LAX was not only one of the busiest airports in the country, it also offered a diverse cross section of humanity for a people-watcher like me. A group of men in turbans hurried by, speaking excitedly in their native language. I didn't understand the words but their expressions and body language told me they were late for their flight. Each turban was a different color. I made a mental note to find out if the colors had any significance, or if they just choose one in the morning the same way we select a necktie.

             
A woman carrying a little girl and pushing a stroller with twin boys made her way through the foot traffic, checked in at the desk, and settled in a chair near me. One of the babies was wailing and the mother searched quickly in one if the three bags she was carrying and drew out a bottle of juice, stuffing it in his open mouth. All the while, the little girl was tugging on her sleeve and shouting, “Mommy, Mommy," in an insistent high-pitched whine. When the harried young woman finally asked the girl what was so important, the child reported that these chairs were the same as the ones in Doctor Bob's office. At that point, the second infant woke up and started screaming just as the counter person called my name.

             
She told me that the flight was full, but that a second one, also departing at six thirty, was boarding at gate nine, just a hop skip and a jump down the corridor. It seems the young mother and her three offspring had shown up in time to claim their rightful seats, leaving none for me. Picking up my bag, I sprinted down to gate nine, silently thanking Lady Luck for one more quick smile. In a few moments, I was relaxing with a cold beer and watching the clouds roll by below as the plane flew east toward Missouri.

             
The airport in St. Louis is a relatively small facility, as least compared to the ones in Los Angeles or Pittsburgh. It's a nicely designed airport with one small exception, the restrooms or rather the lack of them. Visiting my sister in Iowa over the years had required a layover in either Chicago or St. Louis, so I'd spent equal time in each, depending on the best prices at the time. O'Hare is huge by any standards, but by God, they were considerate enough to put a bunch of rest-rooms near the gates. In St. Louis, I can only assume that the designer either wore an indwelling catheter or never drank when he flew. For me, a constant imbiber of coffee, beer or both, the dearth of urinals was a major annoyance. Over the years, I'd learned to stop at the first men's room I saw and await my turn. I knew by now that there would be no facilities near the gates and the ones that did exist would be the size of a voting booth, with several men shifting from foot to foot in the hall outside the entrance, hoping for a short wait.

             
We landed in St Louis at noon, central time, and I had just a little over an hour before my connecting flight took off for home. I bought a turkey sandwich and a Coke at a small booth near the gates and watched a few of the other passengers walk by. No turbans were visible here, but there were several young mothers carrying baggage as well as crying babies. I marveled at their stamina and patience as they shifted their loads from side to side and occasionally managed to fit a cookie or cracker into one of the grabbing little hands. Amazing. I wondered if the airlines had considered adding a secure area for a day care on planes, to which you could check your kids when you check your luggage. I thought the concept had possibilities.

             
On the short flight from St. Louis up to Cedar Rapids, I pondered the facts that had been revealed so far. Charlie Wilson had grown up as a spoiled kid and had seemed to develop into a worm of a man, with a taste for the things that only money could buy. He was probably motivated by greed, as well as self-importance. Frank Goodwin was probably in the drug business for money, and lots of it. Greed again. Petrick, however, may have had a somewhat different reason for his actions. If he had indeed killed his baby, over twenty years ago, it may have been from fear or even selfishness. He'd been old enough to know better, but at eighteen, was still a kid in my book. Remembering all too well how I'd felt about Caroline, even at twenty-one, I wondered what choices I would have made at her request. The comparison made me feel a little sympathy for the young Patrick Donaldson.

             
Petrick had killed Charlie Wilson, most likely to protect himself, not from a physical threat but maybe from one that would undermine the life that he had created. So, I wondered, is Mr. C.S. Lewis correct, and does there exist a real right and wrong in our universe? Was the mayor as 'wrong' as any other murderer, regardless of his motive? And, since Charlie Wilson had committed blackmail but not murder, where did he rank compared to Petrick? Was Charlie Wilson, the lying, meth smoking, blackmailing womanizer a better man? So far, I had them in a dead heat, but the mayor could still pull ahead at the slightest tip of the facts. I planned to do some reading again as soon as I had free time, but I didn't hold out much hope for a simple answer.

             
By two thirty Monday afternoon, we'd landed at Cedar Rapids. At the Hertz counter, I pulled my yellow parka out of the suitcase and shoved the nylon windbreaker inside. While the Hertz representative was writing up my order for another Explorer, I asked about the temperature and weather over the past twenty four hours.

             
"It snowed a little yesterday," he said as he wrote. "But just a dusting. The wind chill's about three degrees this afternoon, but it's going back down to twenty five below tonight." He turned the paper around for me to sign and handed me the car keys, adding, "There's a snowstorm on the way, too." I took a deep breath of the warm air inside the airport and stepped out to the rental lot.