Last Breath (8 page)

“Thanks, Naomi. I owe you.”

“Trust me, I’ll take you up on that. I’m getting desperate for a vacation anywhere they don't have telephones.”

“I know the feeling.”

In the front office, Chloe told Marcia and Leah what she needed. Both women were worth their weight in gold in talent, knowledge, and drive.

“Well,” said Marcia, immediately switching her computer screen to Chloe's calendar, “you at least picked a good time to do this, boss. You've got a light week. Remember? You wanted time to do research on the Vazquez and Milburry cases.”

“Great. But I may need more time than this week. Just see how much you can loosen my time without overburdening Naomi and losing any clients, okay? Then let me know what I’ve got left. Right now I need to get to an autopsy.”

As Chloe departed, Marcia turned to Leah. “Did she say autopsy?”

Leah nodded. “I didn't know lawyers went to those.”

Which was pretty much what Matt said when he was walking into the Medical Examiner's office and found Chloe already there. “You can't attend the autopsy.”

“No?”

Matt closed his eyes, an expression of long-suffering patience crossing his features. “Look,” he said, opening his eyes again, “even if you had standing or authority to be present, it wouldn't be allowed. This guy was a friend of yours.”

Chloe, who was seated in one of the institutional chairs in the reception area, simply shook her head. “I’m not going in. But I want to hear everything you know when you come out.”

“You know it won't be final.”

“I don't care. I want to know.”

He dropped onto one of the seats beside her. “Where's the quid pro quo?”

“It'll come.”

“So now I’m supposed to go on blind faith?” She gave him a wry little smile. “It'll do your soul some good, Matt.”

“Haven't you heard? Cops don't have souls.”

Then he was gone, heading inside for the least favorite part of his job. No matter how many autopsies he attended, he never got over the smell.

Chloe waited patiently, knowing it might be hours yet, but certain that if she weren't there when Matt came out, he'd find a way to avoid her. Since she hadn't been able to find out exactly when the autopsy had begun, she had no idea whatsoever when Matt might emerge … or whether he'd even stay to the end. So much couldn't be determined until later, with the aid of tests and microscopes, but it was the big picture she was after.

To her relief, her wait wasn't all that long. Matt emerged a half hour later, looking a little green, and with a jerk of his head signaled her to come outside with him.

The morning was turning cloudy, the breeze stiffening with the hint of a cold front. By tonight they might need light jackets. Chloe found herself hoping so. Despite having lived her entire life in Florida, she felt that the cool season was too short. She liked the way chilly air invigorated her.

Side by side they walked to Matt's nondescript sedan, a beige, slightly older model that wouldn't be noticed anywhere it went.

He leaned back against the car and folded his arms.

“Well,” she said finally, giving him what he wanted, her impatience.

“The kid probably was killed Thursday night.”

A shiver of surprise went through her. She'd been assuming, as had they all, probably, that he'd died on Friday night.

“Yeah,” he said, as if he shared her shock. “I wasn't expecting that.” He rubbed his chin and stared off into space. “Bullet to the base of the brain. Death was instantaneous. Decay leads the coroner to think the vie was dead at least twenty-four hours.”

“But he's not sure?”

“Not yet, but he's pretty good at these things. So someone had to have come back and crucified the guy on Saturday morning.”

Chloe looked at him. “Why?”

“Because he couldn't have been there that long before he was found. I mean …”

Chloe interrupted him with a shake of her head. “Here's a little quid for your quo. That cross was shrouded Friday morning. It's routine. Steve could have been hung there anytime after three-thirty or so in the afternoon, and before the seven-thirty service began, as well as later at night. Although given the number of people who drift in and out of the church on Good Friday, I’d bet he couldn't have been put up there before nine-thirty on Friday night. After the Stations of The Cross. But that's still a thirteen-hour window.” But what if Steve
had
been hanging there during the Good Friday services? She wanted to shudder at the thought. “And nobody that I can find has seen Steve since Thursday night.”

“You've been calling around?”

“Of course.” She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her suit jacket. “What do you think I’ve been doing? The last anybody at church knows, he offered to stay late to clean up the parish hall. End of trail.”

“And he doesn't have a roommate or anything.”

“In retrospect, it's odd nobody missed him at Good Friday services.” Then she shrugged. “But it's a busy time, and people don't always show up for these things, even wanna-be priests. He might have had to work, he might have been a little sick. Nobody would really remark on it.”

“Except maybe a certain priest everybody said the kid was so close to.”

Chloe kept her face expressionless. “Do you have any idea how busy a priest is at this time of year? There could have been a lot of reasons Steve didn't show up on Friday evening. He might have gone to another church. It's not a required service anyway. Given all the pressures Brendan's under during this season, and given all the reasons Steve might not be there, it probably didn't even cross his mind to wonder.”

“Thus speaks the defense attorney.” He cocked a brow at her. “So tell me, Chloe. Why'd you go from being a cop to a criminal defense attorney?”

She looked him dead in the eye. “Because I worked with cops and prosecutors.”

He astonished her then with a hearty laugh, one of those belly laughs of good humor that she still remembered from the old days. “Touché,” he said, letting the insult pass.

But then, why wouldn't he? She knew all too well the time he had stood up against corruption. She supposed she ought to give thanks that Matt Diel was heading this investigation.

“Okay,” he said presently, “what've we got? We got a kid who was shot, then crucified, probably sometime early on Friday morning. He may or may not have been on the cross most of the time in between then and Saturday morning. Nobody had seen him since late Thursday.”

“What else did the M.E. note?” Past experience had taught her that more had been discovered in today's autopsy. She wondered why Matt was making her drag it out of him.

Matt shrugged. “Well, he wasn't killed in the church. There was grass and dirt in his mouth, under his nails, and on his clothing.”

Her lawyer's mind immediately leapt on an apparent logical problem. “But you said he died instantly.”

“He did. Postmortem paroxysm, not uncommon, especially in brain injuries.”

“Oh.” She studied the pavement beneath their feet and thought about what she had just learned. “Somebody went to an awful lot of trouble to muddy this trail.”

“So it would seem. To muddy it, or send a message.”

She raised her head to look at him. “What else?”

“What makes you think there's anything else?”

“I know you, Matt. You always hold something back.”

He sighed. She wondered what he was thinking, if he was remembering.

“What the fuck,” he said finally. “Okay. Whoever did the nail job did it without breaking any bones.”

Chloe fought to conceal the shock she was feeling.

“Me too,” Matt said, as if she were an open book. “Not to mention the M.E. He's kinda thrown by that. What he said was, ‘Do you know how many small bones there are in the hands and feet?’ ”

“Yeah.” Chloe knew. She'd taken an anatomy course, thinking it would be useful as a cop. “But it's possible.”

“Yeah, it's possible. With a knife. Not with nails like those. The bones don't even appear to be nicked.”

“Cripes. But it could be done.”

“Yeah. On purpose. The thing is —” He broke off and looked around, making sure there was no one nearby, then he leaned close, lowering his voice. “The thing is, Chloe, that even if those nails had found the path of least resistance and slipped between the bones, there should have been some scraping. Something. The M.E. said those nails were driven with surgical precision.”

Chloe studied the pavement for a minute or two. “So we're looking for someone with a medical background.”

“Maybe. Or just some damn lucky fool.”

“There's another thing, Matt.”

“What's that?”

“Nobody's found the corpus.”

“The what?”

“The body of Christ that was hanging on the cross to begin with. Carved from solid wood.”

Matt sighed. “You had to do that, didn't you.”

“Do what?”

“Give me another headache. You just can't resist.”

“Well, look at it this way. I didn't commit the crime.”

His dark eyes met hers. “Yeah. We gotta take our consolation where we can find it, right?”

Dominic had the morning Mass, so Brendan sat alone in the rectory, in the dining room, with his cup of coffee. He was still sitting there, thinking too much, when Merv Haskell, the facilities manager, rapped gently on the doorframe.

“Father? Lucy said it was okay if I talked to you.”

Brendan shook himself out of his dangerous lethargy and managed a faint smile. “Sure, Merv. Come on in. Help yourself to the coffee and biscuits. Biscotti, I guess they are.”

“Thanks, Father.” Merv filled a mug and joined him. A retired parishioner with enough energy for a thirty-year-old, Merv was a popular man in the parish. He was also, to Brendan's way of thinking, an extremely useful brake on priests like himself, who weren't always the most practical of men.

“Father,” Merv said after a delicate moment, “we can't find the corpus.”

In the haze of grief, anger, despair, and, frankly, self-pity that had been filling him since Saturday, Brendan hadn't even thought of that. Now the back of his neck prickled. “Anywhere?” he asked, knowing it was pointless, but needing to say something.

“It's not on church grounds. Sister Phil and I spent all afternoon yesterday looking for it. I thought maybe it would turn up in the school or hall. I mean, that thing was
heavy.
Who'd want to take it away?”

“Someone who didn't want his crime to be discovered too quickly.”

“True.” Merv nodded, passing a hand over his bald head. It was a characteristic gesture, that smoothing of hair long gone, and evinced his discomfort. “The thing is, we have to have a corpus. That new directive …”

Brendan rose from the table, clasped his hands behind his back, and paced to the window. The day outside was insultingly beautiful. “Ah, yes. The return of Christ to the church.”

“Father?”

“You know, Merv, I’m a post-Vatican II Catholic.”

“Yes, Father.”

“I’m too young to really remember the Mass in Latin. But I’m not so young I don't remember a time when all Catholic churches had a crucifix on the altar. Don't you find it a little bit strange that we now have to be
told
we must have a corpus?” In the burst of ecumenism, many Catholic churches had abandoned statues of any kind.

“Well, yes,” Merv admitted. “We're Catholics.”

“Exactly. And while many non-Catholics may be deluded enough to think we actually
worship
those statues, the fact remains, we know better, don't we, Merv?”

“Yes, Father.”

“So we never should have bowed to that pressure.”

Merv was silent, apparently wondering where this was going.

“I love the fact that St. Simeon's is old enough to still have statuary. I loved that beautiful crucifix behind the altar.”

“So did I, Father.”

“But you know what, Merv? We are never going to have another like it, not while I am pastor here. I couldn't bear it. In fact, I don't want that cross to go back up, even when or if we get it back.”

The old pendulum clock on the wall ticked away the silent seconds. Finally, Merv said, “I understand, Father.”

“Thank you. But you're right, we need to have the corpus. So do me a favor, Merv, whatever you decide to do about it, please ensure that it's … different.”

“Yes, Father.” Merv left, taking his coffee with him. Moments later, the phone rang and Brendan answered automatically. “Father Brendan.”

A whispery voice came across the line, pouring into his ear like corrosive acid.

“You're next, Father.”

Chapter 7

The meeting held that evening in the rectory parlor wasn't convened for spiritual purposes. Brendan was there, of course, but so were Sister Phil, Chloe, and Matt Diel.

Brendan had been troubled by the call that morning. Initially he'd been inclined to dismiss it as a crank call, but as the day had worn on, it had niggled at him more until he finally mentioned it to Phil, who had stopped by after school let out for the day. It was she who had sent up the flares, calling Chloe at once. Chloe had then called Matt. Dominic had wanted to be there, but he was needed at the hall for a meeting of a grief support group.

“I’m probably making too much out of a crank call,” Brendan said, giving a half smile. “I’m just jumpy.”

Matt spoke. “I’d agree with you except for what's happened here. Yes, it may just be a sick twist, taking advantage of the situation to scare you. Then again …” He didn't need to complete the sentence. “There's been a possibility from the outset that this was a message crime, which makes it possible that you were the intended recipient.”

“A message saying what?”

Matt shrugged.

Brendan studied him for a moment. “You also think there's a possibility I’m making up the phone call.”

Matt merely looked at him.

Brendan sighed. “I’m glad I don't live in your world.”

Chloe smiled faintly as she watched Matt bristle.

“Somebody's got to live in my world, Father,” he said simply. “Because not everyone out here believes in yours.”

“I wasn't putting you down, Detective,” Brendan said kindly. “I’m just remarking that I’m glad I don't have to live in a world where I have to question everything and everyone. Where I have to suspect every statement may be a lie.”