Guilty as Sin (38 page)

"But Costello is right," Wilhelm argued. "Paul Kirkwood has a temper. We've seen it."

"Hannah would never allow him to hurt Josh. She wouldn't put up with that kind of shit for a minute."

"Then what's she doing married to the jerk? She doesn't strike me as the kind of woman who would put up with any of Paul Kirkwood's lesser qualities, but there she is. There might be a lot we don't know about their marriage."

"He's changed," Mitch said. "People do."

Cameron arched a brow. "The question may be—How much? Has he gone off the deep end? We know the marriage is all but over. Paul isn't living at the house. We know Josh reacted very badly when Paul showed up to see him in the hospital."

"And you think it's because he's a child abuser and Hannah knows it but has failed to report it," Mitch stated flatly.

"Stranger things have been proved true."

His face set in stubborn lines, Mitch turned his scowl from Cameron to Wilhelm and back. "Use your heads. We're saying Wright's accomplice nabbed Dustin Holloman. Nothing in that case points to Paul."

"Maybe there are three of them," Wilhelm suggested.

"Yeah," Mitch said. "Maybe Deer Lake has a whole underground community of psychotic child abusers and they're all trying to draw suspicion off their pal Wright."

"There's no point in fighting about this among ourselves," Ellen said. "Costello is forcing the issue. If he's looking at Paul, then we'd better make at least a token show of looking at Paul or we'll end up with egg on our faces."

"There was the van—" Wilhelm started.

"All together now." Mitch raised his arms like a symphony conductor. "The van that yielded us nothing."

"Mitch is right," Ellen said. "Don't waste time on the van. Talk to people around Paul. Talk to his secretary. Talk to his partner."

"He won't be any help pinning down Paul's movements in any way," Cameron said. "I know Dave Christianson from my health club. He's been working strictly from home for the past three months. His wife is having a difficult pregnancy with twins."

"Okay, so we talk again with the secretary," Wilhelm said. "And the security guard at his office complex. Neighbors. See what we can tie him to. Maybe he's not in with Wright. Maybe he's trying to frame Wright."

Mitch slapped his hands down on the table. "Jesus Christ, Costello would love this. We're here to discuss new evidence against his client and instead we're tripping over conspiracy theories. This isn't a case we're on, it's a fucking Oliver Stone movie."

"Evidence?" Ellen asked, sitting up straighter. "What evidence?" Wilhelm pushed a curled tube of fax paper across the table to her. "I pulled some strings and got a friend in the lab to release a preliminary report on some more of our physical evidence—the gloves, the ski mask, and the sheet that was wrapped around Agent O'Malley the night she was attacked."

"And?"

"The glove has bloodstains that look to match Agent O'Malley for type. We already know about the blood types on the sheet. Now we're looking at hairs recovered from the sheet. Four distinct types. One unidentified. One consistent with Agent O'Malley. One consistent with Josh. And one consistent with Garrett Wright."

"We finally catch a break," Ellen said, a sense of relief seeping through her.

"Regarding the stocking cap," Wilhelm went on, "they found two distinct types of hair—one consistent with Wright, and one matching the unidentified hair found on the sheet.

"The question now," he said, "is, Who does that other hair belong to? And if we got a sample from Paul Kirkwood, would we get a match?"

CHAPTER
 
21

Father Tom sat in a pew toward the back of the church. On the left-hand side of the aisle—opposite where his one-time deacon, Albert Fletcher, had fallen to his death six days ago. Albert, devout servant of the Lord, his faith turning into fanaticism into madness; his madness leading him to his death, here, in this place he had loved. Tom couldn't decide if it was poetic or ironic. It was sad, he knew that. And it struck him as cruel, as many things did these days.

He sat alone. The weather had kept the faithful few away from morning Mass. He had gone through the motions for his own sake, hoping he would feel something, some kind of deep, binding affirmation that he still belonged in the vestments. But all he felt was hollow desperation, as if he were truly, totally, spiritually alone, abandoned by the same God who had allowed Josh to be taken and Hannah to suffer and Albert to die.

He had considered confessing his feelings, but he already knew the empty platitudes that would be handed him in response. He was being tested. He needed to reflect, to pray. He needed to keep his faith. A pat on the head and a hundred Hail Marys. At most, they would send him on retreat for a week or a month to one of the secluded spots where the Church tucked away its embarrassments—the alcoholic priests, the burnouts, the mentally fragile, the sexually suspect. Time to reflect among the casualties, but not too long, because the archdiocese was woefully short of priests and better to have one in place who had lost his faith than not to have one at all. At least he could go through the motions.

The politics of the Church disgusted him, and always had. He had come to the priesthood for better reasons, nobler reasons. Reasons that were drifting away from him.

He tipped his head back and looked up at the soaring ceiling with its delicate gilt arches and ethereal frescoes. St. E's had been built in the era when minicathedrals were still affordable and parishioners tithed to the Church instead of to their IRAs. The exterior was of native limestone. Twin spires thrust heavenward like lances of the soldiers of God. The windows were stained-glass works of art, jewel-tone mosaics depicting the life of Christ. Inside, the walls were painted slate blue and trimmed with lacework stencils in gilt and white and rose. The pews were oak, the kneel-ers padded with worn velvet. It was the kind of place meant to inspire awe and offer comfort. A place of ritual and wonderful mysteries. Miracles.

He could have used one about now.

Along the south wall a rack of cobalt-glass votives cradled the flames of three dozen prayers, filling the air with the buttery scent of melting wax. On the wall beside the tiers of candles, the handmade posters put up by the catechism classes praying for Josh's safety had been replaced with prayers for Dustin Holloman. Prayers children should never have to make, fears their lives should never have known.

In the silence he could hear the memory of his father's voice as he read the Billings newspaper three days after the fact, because that was as fast as the mail could get it to them on their small ranch near Red Lodge, Montana. Every morning Bob McCoy would come in from chores and read the paper while he had his breakfast, and shake his head and say, "The world's going to hell on a sled."

Tom thought he could hear the runners screeching. But the thump that resounded in the church brought him back to reality, such as it was. Someone had come in the main doors at the back, the main doors that needed oil in their hinges. He turned in the pew, squinting to recognize the man walking toward him from the dark shadows beneath the balcony.

"I'm looking for Father Tom McCoy."

"I'm Father Tom," he said, rising.

"Jay Butler Brooks."

"Ah, the crime writer," he said, offering his hand.

Jay clasped the priest's hand in his and gave it a pump. "You're familiar with my work, Father?"

"Only by reputation. My reading taste runs more toward fiction. I get enough reality on a daily basis. What can I do for you, Mr. Brooks?"

"I'd like a moment of your time, if I might. I wasn't interrupting anything, was I?"

Tom McCoy cast an ironic glance around the deserted church, but the emotion that twitched the corners of his mouth seemed self-deprecating. He looked nothing like any priest Jay had ever seen or imagined. He was too young, too handsome, built like an athlete, and dressed like a slacker in creased black jeans and a faded green sweatshirt from the University of Notre Dame. The clerical collar seemed at odds with the cowboy boots. A man of contradictions. A kindred spirit.

"We're not exactly having a rush on salvation today," he said.

"With weather like this I reckon folks figure they'll take their chances," Jay reasoned. "What's another day or two in purgatory, give or take?"

"You know about purgatory, Mr. Brooks? Are you Catholic?"

"No, sir. I was born a Baptist and later converted to cynicism, but I do know all about purgatory." Weariness crept into his voice against his will. "Y'all haven't cornered the market on hell or its suburbs."

Father Tom tipped his head in concession. "No, I suppose not. Did you want to go into my office?"

Jay shook his head. His gaze scanned the grand interior of the church, taking in the windows, the statuary, the cast bas-relief plaques that hung at regular intervals along the wall. "This is fine. Quite a place you've got here."

The altar was traditional, draped in linen, set with brass candelabra, a gleaming chalice, a huge old book with marker ribbons trailing from between its pages. According to the newspaper articles from one week ago, the demented deacon had given Father McCoy a concussion with one of the brass candlesticks from that altar. Jay wondered if it was sitting up there now, absolved of guilt, or if the police had taken it away as evidence.

From the huge crucifix that hung behind the altar, the delicately carved face of Christ glowered down at him as if in disapproval of his thoughts.

Father Tom moved farther down the pew. Jay sat beside him, his parka rustling like newspaper. He had unzipped it as a concession to being indoors, but the cold seemed to have sunk into him bone-deep in the ten minutes it had taken him to get there, navigating the Cherokee along unplowed roads and through three-foot drifts. At any rate, the church didn't seem as warm as the interior of the truck. The thermostat probably went up only for parishioners. No sense heating the barn when the flock was gone.

"You're here to do a book," Father Tom said flatly.

"You disapprove."

"It's not my place to approve or disapprove."

A smile cracked Jay's face. "Well, I've never known that to stop anybody."

"Hannah and Josh have been through enough," McCoy said without ipology. "I don't want to see them hurt any more than they already have seen."

Jay arched a brow at the omission. "And Paul?"

The priest glanced away. "Paul has made it clear he doesn't want anything from me or the Church."

"Can you blame him?"

"Not for that."

His candor was surprising, but, then, nothing much about Tom McCoy seemed ordinary. Depending on who you asked around town, Father McCoy was a rebel, refreshing, an affront to the traditions of the Church. He did not define himself by uniform or convention. His parishioners either loved him or tolerated him. Behind the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses, his blue eyes were honest.

"I'm not interested in exploiting victims, Father."

"You'll record their suffering, dissect their lives, package their story as entertainment, and make a whole lot of money. What do you call that?"

"The way of the world. Stuff happens. People want to know about it. Their knowing doesn't change what happened. Nothing can. What I'm after is the truth. Reasons. Motives. I want to know where ordinary people find the strength to deal with extraordinary tragedy. I want to know what the rest of us can learn from them."

"And make a lot of money."

"And make a lot of money," he admitted. "The poor might be rich in the kingdom of God, but I'll take mine now, thanks."

"Hannah isn't ordinary," Father Tom said. His expression softened lightly, tellingly. "Ask anyone. She's stronger than she knows. Kind. Good. I can't begin to tell you what she's meant to this community as a doctor, as a role model."

"It must have been difficult to see her go through this," Jay offered, matching closely for the true reaction. Anger. There and gone. Quickly veiled by something more acceptable. But there was no priestly wisdom forthcoming, no magic motto meant as a blanket banality for all-purpose suffering.

"It's been hell," McCoy said frankly. "I've been a priest for more than a decade, Mr. Brooks. I have yet to understand why bad things happen to good people."

"God's will?" Jay ventured.