Dead Irish (25 page)

In the kitchen he took the note she had written and carefully tore the paper so that it broke off after her name. He put a period after the word “sorry.” The note now read: “Fathers. I’m sorry. I’m going to miss you. Rose.”

It would do.

He walked back to the library and placed the note on Father Dietrick’s chair. In the bathroom he touched a match to the rest of the note, held it for as long as he could while he watched the good bond curl into black ash. As the flame neared his fingers he let go of the corner he held and flushed the toilet. He waited. When the toilet had finished, he wiped down the bowl with toilet paper and flushed it again.

He’d had to think fast when Rose had pulled out the yellow pad. It wouldn’t do to have secondary impressions of the note for someone to notice. The bond had been just the right answer.

There was a slight smell of smoke in the room, and he opened the bathroom window to get rid of it. He looked at his watch. It had only been twelve minutes. Rose was probably still alive.

It was important to establish his whereabouts and his calm. He did not feel like a man who was in the process of killing someone. He went out the side door of the rectory, crossed in front of the church and entered the school. In the office the principal’s secretary, an Indian woman named Mrs. Ranji, stood up to greet him.

He told her his usual joke and said he had just come by to see if there were any last details about the upcoming graduation he needed to know, and if there were any, to have Sister give him a call. Sitting at Sister’s desk, he proceeded to look over some correspondence, then asked Mrs. Ranji when the next period ended. She looked at the clock. Good. Fifteen minutes? No, that was too long to wait. He would check back with Sister later. He hummed loudly as he walked out.

Twenty-six minutes had passed. He went to the garage and opened the dead bolt, held his breath, and walked in. He flipped on the light at the switch by the door. Rose was still sitting up, propped by the door, looking like she was sleeping.

Moving quickly now, he took the picnic basket from behind the driver’s seat. He was running out of breath.

Outside again, with the basket, he stopped by the door, relocked it and looked back toward the school, then at the rectory. No sign of anybody. He crossed the lot.

Three sandwiches. One for him, one for Dietrick, and one for Father Paul. He unwrapped them and put them on a plate in the refrigerator. It was plausible, in character. Rose, planning to kill herself, might just have made sure she made lunch for the fathers first. He put the pickles back in the jar, washed out the Ziploc bag and threw it in the garbage, scooped the potato salad back into the rest of it.

Breathing hard now, his nerves speaking, he once again began crossing the parking lot. About two-thirds of the way across, he called out Rose’s name. He started running toward the garage, and in what would look like a panic threw back the bolt, the picture of a man making a horrifying discovery. “Rose!” he called again.

Don’t forget to put the keys back in the ignition. He had to do that in any event to turn the car off, which is what he would do.

A final survey of the scene. He put his hand on Rose’s still-warm forehead. She had died peacefully—he was glad of that. He made the sign of the cross over her, giving her his blessing, last rites of sorts. Then he started jogging back to the house. He was surprised to find he was crying. But he didn’t try to stop himself. That was all right. Why shouldn’t he cry?

And it would ring very true to the folks at 911.

32

STEVEN BELIEVED HIS mom was really trying.

After Dad and Jodie had left the house she came in and talked, or tried to talk, for a while. After she’d gone back out to her housework or whatever, he wondered what kind of teenager she’d been, if she had ever done anything like run away. It was the first time he’d thought of anything like that, and so it was a little hard to imagine—Mom screaming for Elvis Presley (as she said she’d done), or dating anybody but Pop.

Well, whatever she’d done, he was pretty sure it didn’t prepare her for him. She didn’t seem to be able to find a handle to grab on to, although Frannie’s pregnancy was as close as she’d gotten in a long while.

She sat on the bed, much the way Pop had done last night. He felt a little stronger and had managed a decent breakfast. She ran her hand through his spiky hair and asked him how he knew about Frannie.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I didn’t want to call her yet. She’ll tell us when she wants to.”

“Why wouldn’t she want to?”

His mom’s face clouded, as though trying to decide whether to tell him one of the adult secrets. As usual, she came down saying no. “I don’t know,” she did say. “There are reasons. It might just be too soon. But how did you find out?”

He’d thought about it this morning after he woke up. It had been Hardy, yesterday. He was telling him about Father Jim and about his pride, how he had kind of blamed himself for Eddie’s death because of talking Eddie into confronting his boss. Which was dumb. Eddie was going to do that anyway. He’d told Steven all about it the day before.

Anyway, once he got into it, Hardy was good at sounding like different people, and he did Father Jim pretty well. Of course, he had an easy voice—kind of regular, but the words he used in a certain way that Hardy caught the rhythm exactly. He spent a lot of time talking about Father Jim, even though he didn’t really have any part of it. But Father Jim was like that—he caught your attention.

Anyway, Hardy was “doing” Father and he said, “I sent Eddie off to slay the dragon. Do I think about his pregnant wife, whether he’s the man for the job? No, not the smart Jim Cavanaugh.” (That part sounded perfect, and Steven had laughed.) “I only see what a wonderful notion it is.” Then he goes: “My pride killed him.”

But in there—that’s where he’d heard about Frannie. It had been like Hardy was telling him part of another story, not really telling him. He tried to explain that to his mom, who wondered why Hardy hadn’t told her.

She put her hand up to her brow and said, “God.” He could see that she’d started thinking about Frannie now, or Eddie again. Her eyes were gone, out to the backyard, staring at nothing.

“Mom?”

He was going to say something like “It’s all right,” or, “I’m going to help,” though he knew it wasn’t and wasn’t sure how he could. She looked back to him, smiling with her mouth. So instead he asked if it was too early to have another pill.

He’d just have to go ahead and do it, whatever it turned out to be. Make his mom see he wasn’t going to be any more trouble. He’d have to do something that would help them all get over this, maybe forgive him for running away and making them deal with him when Eddie—naturally—was the hardest, most immediate thing.

He’d do something on his own. Something worthwhile, adult. Maybe then his mom would appreciate him. Love him . . .

Next time she came in was only a couple of minutes later, but he was sailing into oblivion pretty fast and almost couldn’t answer when she talked to him. Though she did come in and tell him about the call.

That’s what he was starting to see. She was trying. “Steven.”

Not faking at all, he had to use most of his strength to open an eye.

“That was Mr. Hardy on the phone.”

He hadn’t even heard it ring and it was right there, next to his bed. “He says yes, Frannie’s pregnant.”

“Maybe he’ll look like Eddie.”

He meant it as a good thought, but he saw when he said it that it kind of hurt her. She leaned against the doorsill, then walked the few steps over and plumped herself down on his bed again. “I hope so,” she said. It was like she was forcing herself to talk. “He also”—she stopped and rubbed at her eyes—“he also said that neither one of the suspects killed Eddie.”

He didn’t think anything could pull him out of the haze the pills created, but that almost did. Suddenly he was nearly awake. “How could that be?”

She hunched down over her shoulders. “They were all someplace else, I guess.” Then he heard her say . . .“I guess Eddie didn’t love us that much. As much as we thought.”

“What do you mean, Mom?”

“I mean, if he killed himself—”

“He
didn’t
kill himself. I know he didn’t.”

She had that blank look again, that empty stare. She tousled his hair and kissed him on the forehead. “You try to get some sleep.” She got up and turned to the door.

“Mom.”

She stopped and faced him.

“He didn’t.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding her head. “Okay.”

It came to him. That’s what he’d do. He’d find out who had killed Eddie. Never mind Hardy or the cops. They were obviously dildos who didn’t know Eddie the way he had known him. He’d find out the truth, all on his own, and then his mom at least would know Eddie hadn’t deserted him. That might get her started back to being alive.

Hardy hung up and shook his head.

He hadn’t called Erin to talk about Frannie’s pregnancy, and he was mad at himself for having let that out to Steven. How had he been so careless and at the same time so obtuse? No wonder he’d blocked it out for so long.

Cavanaugh had referred to Frannie as pregnant, and even after mimicking his damned voice to Steven, Hardy hadn’t put it together. The point was, how could Cavanaugh have known about the pregnancy if he hadn’t seen Eddie after Frannie had told him, which was the night he’d been killed? Which meant he’d lied about seeing him Sunday. It had been Monday.

He closed his eyes, really pumping now. He’d only slept five hours, but it didn’t matter. Things were falling into place.

The gun had bothered him a lot, and he’d stood in front of his desk from dawn until about an hour ago, drinking two full pots of espresso and throwing darts until it had come to him. The gun drive. Sixties liberal mania. Cavanaugh had collected some hundreds of unregistered guns. And what he’d done, of course, was to hold out on one or two of them. And the cops who were monitoring the thing—even the good ones like Abe—would never think that a priest would use a clean-the-streets gun drive to build his own arsenal. I mean, why would it occur to anyone to check that? But, Hardy was now certain, it was what Cavanaugh had done.

What he’d called Erin for was to ask her the exact date she and Ed had gotten married. That was a little bit of a wild hair, he knew, but it might tie in with something else that had occurred to him, something he needed to go back and check out before he went to see Glitsky.

If they’d already burned up three suspects, he’d better have the next one, the real one, trussed up and ready to carve. Glitsky might have been hot to get whoever’d done Eddie, but he would be a fool to risk his career on another hunch of a civilian. Now Hardy felt he owed him the collar for all the help he’d given him, but he knew he’d have to do it all, then call for the troops.

He had the two tapes in a heavy yellow envelope. He didn’t know if he could get anybody to do voiceprint comparisons on them, or what it would cost to do them himself, but he did know that if there was going to be a trial, they would be good evidence. In fact, they were the first pieces of hard evidence he had come upon.

But you never knew. He might get lucky with some technician, so he had decided to take them downtown. He’d stop by the Hall of Justice after his visit to the
Chronicle.
Glitsky himself might still be interested enough to do it on the sly.

He folded the piece of paper—the one with Ed and Erin’s wedding date—and put it in his wallet. He was tempted to call Cavanaugh, put the fear—if not of God—of man into him and see what he’d do.

But no. Build a case and blindside him. That was the way. Cavanaugh would have no idea that the noose was tightening. Especially after spending last night drinking with him (God, he was one confident man), he must think he was clear. He must also think his friend Hardy was a bit of a fool.

Well, he had always said he might be dumb but wasn’t a fool. Cavanaugh playing him for one made him unhappy. He was out of his chair and heading for the door when he stopped. He had three guns in his safe. But what, after all, was he planning to do with a gun? He was off to do a little research. He wasn’t planning to confront Cavanaugh. On the other hand . . .

He walked back toward the safe.

For a two-dollar fee anybody could go into the archives room of the
San Francisco Chronicle
and look up microfiche of newspapers from any date since the newspaper was founded in 1865.

Hardy was interested in the week of July 2, 1961. Driving downtown, his .38 Police Special now loaded and stowed in the glove box of his Seppuku, he spent a few minutes worrying about the what-ifs.

What if there was nothing in the newspaper? What if Glitsky wasn’t in? What if nobody at the Hall was willing to let him look up the past Incident Reports?

He turned on the radio. It was still broken, which wasn’t surprising since he’d done nothing to fix it. He wanted to listen to anything to get the other song out of his head. It was an old Conway Twitty tune called “This Time I Hurt Her More Than She Loves Me,” and it had been number one on the Hardy brain parade for two days now. Well, he thought, the hell with the radio. He went back to the what-ifs.

What if I get in a car wreck? What if a meteor plunges from deep in outer space and punches me half a mile into the ground? He had to laugh at himself.

In the
Chronicle
archives room he put the what-ifs out of his mind and now was glad he’d wasted no more time on them. He wouldn’t have to go see Glitsky about this, or wade through the hard copies of some faded and musty IRs. There it was, on page 8 of the first section for Monday, July 3, 1961.

It wasn’t a big article. Most other big-city newspapers might not even carry it, but it was one of the advantages of the
Chronicle
’s parochial view of what news was—they covered the city pretty well.

The article read:

CALL GIRL FOUND SLAIN
IN NOB HILL APARTMENT

The body of a call girl who had been strangled was discovered late yesterday evening in her posh Taylor Street apartment after the woman failed to report back to the escort service for which she worked. The victim, 22-year-old Traci Wagner, had been employed by the BabyDolls dating service for approximately six months.

Police are seeking for questioning a white male in his early to midtwenties who picked up Miss Wagner in a dark, late-model car in the midafternoon. The suspect gave his name as John Crane, but this appears to have been fictitious. The investigation is continuing.

Hardy went to the desk with the spool of film and asked the clerk to copy the page for him. That cost him another five dollars, but it would be worth that to have for Glitsky.

John Crane, huh. Jim Cavanaugh. Funny about those initials, he thought. Same as Jesus Christ.

“You got squat.” Glitsky wasn’t feeling patient. “And I simply cannot take the risk.”

“You can’t listen to two tapes? Take you fifteen seconds.”

Abe leaned his chair back and put his head against the wall of the little cubicle. Hardy might be his friend, but he was getting on his nerves.

“Nope. I got four—no, now five—live ones out there and”—he consulted his watch—“I got about ten minutes before I mosey out to the Mo’ and talk some jive.”

Hardy sat down.

“Don’t get comfortable. I mean it.”

Hardy clucked at him. “Look, ten minutes you can hear this thing thirty times. I take off a little for rewinding.”

“It’s gonna take me ten minutes to find two recorders.”

Hardy looked outside of the cubicle into the main office, a wide-open expanse of green metal desks on linoleum. Guys were milling around, secretaries were talking on phones, occasionally typing. “I see at least four Walkmans from here,” he said.

Griffin had seen Hardy wandering through the office, trying to borrow a Walkman from a secretary. After he scored it, Griffin followed him up to Glitsky’s cubicle. “Still at it?” he asked Hardy. “Any luck?”

Glitsky knew that Carl was aware of the ninety-five or so suspects he’d suggested in the past day. He figured he’d imply some frustration with Diz, show that he was still a professional cop who realized the utter silliness of what his friend Hardy was doing. “Now it’s the priest at St. Elizabeth’s.”

Griffin chuckled. “Well, you need any help, just call.”

Smiling and helpful, he bowed out. Glitsky raised his bloodred eyes at Hardy. “Prick,” he said.

Abe was still trying to be reasonable. “This is just plain old dog doo, Diz. I mean it. Nothing.”

Hardy shook his head. “He did it.”

“Look, even if it is his voice—and I’m not saying it is—so what?”

“So what? It means he was there and didn’t want us to know.”

“I’ve heard that song before. Wasn’t that why you thought Cruz killed him, when was it, yesterday?”

“He killed that hooker, too. He ran away from the seminary right after the Cochrans’ wedding. Was missing for half a week. I tell you it fits—”

“Oh, Jesus, Diz, spare me.”

But Hardy pressed on. “We just saw the hooker’s still an unsolved case—twenty years later!”

“We got a thousand unsolved cases.”

“
Listen.
Cavanaugh got the gun from the gun drive. He knew about Frannie being pregnant, which means he saw Eddie after she told him, which was Monday, not Sunday. It all fits.”