VC03 - Mortal Grace (30 page)

“Who besides that housebreaker? And he had nothing whatever to do with this church!”

“Father Montgomery had that housebreaker’s picture in his file. And he had photos of two murdered runaways in that same file.”

Bonnie stared at the lieutenant. She felt an icy swell of amazement. “Because he had their photos he killed them?”

He looked concerned for her and enormously sad. “Did it ever occur to you that Father Montgomery may have a dark side?”

“And did it ever occur to you that Father Joe is a humanistic liberal? He takes a hands-on approach to the social problems of this city. There are hundreds of people who’d love to discredit him and his policies and the social activism of this church.”

Cardozo just stood, letting her shout.

“I hope you’re not one of them.”

“Why would you think I might be?” he said quietly.

“Because you’re ready to believe anything—that Joe is a communist, a seducer of adolescents, a murderer.”

“Did I say all that?”

“You don’t have to.” The sound of her own angry voice shocked her, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Other people have said it. Frightened small men and women who can’t face the fact that this society has got to change or go down the tubes. People who want to undermine everything this church has worked twenty years to build up, everything we stand for. That’s the dark side, Lieutenant—the true dark side.”

“I’m not denying it.”

“Father Joe is responsible for one accidental death, and he’s admitted it. He rigged that booby trap because there’d been break-ins and he was terrified after the attack in the park.”

Cardozo shook his head. “There’s no proof that he was ever actually attacked.”

“You think he faked that too?” Disbelief took her. “And blinded himself?”

Cardozo sighed. “The pawnbroker surrendered your property—I’ll see that it’s returned to you. If you see this kid again, let me know immediately. And I mean
immediately
.”

She watched him go to the door.

Bonnie
, she chided herself,
what the hell is the matter with you
?
God made rednecks just as he made moral theologians. This man has no obligation to you except to be the person he is.

“Lieutenant.”

He turned.

“I realize you mean to helpful. I appreciate that.”

“That’s okay.”

“And you’re wrong. Joe was attacked. There’s proof and I’ll find it.”

Bonnie closed the rectory door. Her guts were churning. She returned to her office and grabbed the phone and dialed David Lowndes.

“You sound strange,” he said. “Is something the matter?”

“No. Well, yes. I’m concerned with the way the police are handling Father Joe. I have a feeling it could be the beginning of an orchestrated backlash against his policies.”

“Now, isn’t that a little paranoid?”

“The city’s turning conservative and a lot of the police are openly right-wing.”

“If you mean law and order, they’ve always been right-wing.”

“They’re saying Father Joe was never attacked in the park, that it’s all a lie and a cover-up.”

“What do they say is being covered up?”

“They think he killed the Cespedes boy intentionally.”

For a moment David Lowndes didn’t speak, and then he said, “That’s asinine.”

“Of course it’s asinine—but we’ve got to find proof that the attack in the park actually happened. I’m going to offer a reward for eyewitness information. Is there any legal problem?”

THIRTY-NINE

A
T SUNSET, BARRY IGNATIUS
Cardinal Fitzwilliam crouched down beside the flower bed. He gave a sharp tug on the string. The wooden duck took a waddling lurch through the freshly mowed grass. Its painted bill opened and shut and a ratchet somewhere inside of it made a sort of quacking sound.

The infant—usually a quiet, dignified toddler—broke into golden laughter.

The cardinal offered his great-grandnephew the string. “Here, Barry, want to try?” He placed it in the little hand.

The little fingers closed into a fist.

“Pull. Go ahead.”

The cardinal gave the duck a push from behind. The ratchet quacked and the child fell down and rolled on the ground in helpless giggles.

In the sky far above the garden, a waxen moon rode a pink-marbled tide of clouds.

The cardinal patted the little blond head.

If day has to pass into night
, he reflected,
this is the perfect way.

“Uncle Barry.” His grandnephew’s wife stepped from the house into the backyard. “Dinner will be ready in a half hour.”

“You’re spoiling me.”

She stood dark-haired and lean in faded blue jeans, watching him. “And you have a visitor.”

He saw that she was holding his briefcase. “Thank you, Nora.” He took the briefcase and went through the door into a softly lit living room. He turned right and took the stairs down into the game room.

Bill Kodahl stood playing with one of the vintage pin-ball machines. Bells clanged. Lights raced like traffic speeding across a dozen highway clover leafs. In the score box, extra points and bonuses spun into the ten millions.

“Good evening, Bill,” the cardinal said. “It’s my turn to go first, isn’t it?”

Bill Kodahl picked up his Scotch and soda from the edge of the machine. He turned. His smooth face had a hint of a new tan. “I hope you’ve got good news for me on Giuliano?”

“The sound quality’s not very good.” The cardinal handed the D.A. a tape from his briefcase. “There was a festival in the street outside and the choir was practicing. Giuliano’s very, very troubled.”

“And well he should be.”

“He’s willing to come clean.”

“To his priest or to me?”

“The priest has persuaded him to come clean to you. But he wants the drug charges against his son dropped.”

“You have to love human beings.” Bill Kodahl smiled. “They never stop wanting the moon.”

The cardinal sat with his briefcase open on his lap, tapping a finger on the combination lock. “Do you have something for me?”

“Afraid so. An undercover cop has photographed Father McCoy dealing drugs in Canarsie.”

“Lord.”

“We’ve fixed it.” Kodahl crossed to the sofa. He snapped open an attaché case and handed the cardinal a folder. “Regina Cosmato has charged Father Bozack with gross indecency. We probably can fix it.” He handed the cardinal another folder.

“At least it’s a woman.”

“She accuses him of molesting her eight-year-old daughter.”

“At least it’s a female.”

“Then there’s Father Hoffman. He’s been stealing art books from the gift shop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

“But he’s done that for years.”

“But this time the museum is being hard-assed.” The D.A. handed the cardinal a third folder. “They want a variance to put up a new wing.”

The cardinal sank deeper into the sofa. The prospect of involving himself in city real estate politics yet again gave him a headache the size of the living room upstairs. “What happened to the days when priests were content to sit in the rectory and drink themselves silly?”

“Just be happy they’re not doing crack.”

“In the inner-city parishes, some of them already are.” The cardinal sighed. “What’s happening to the world I used to know, Bill? I miss those days.”

“I miss them, too, but it’s no good looking back.” The D.A.’s voice had that inflection:
There’s more, and it’s worse.
“I’m afraid there’s one more thing we have to discuss.”

He handed the cardinal a thick State of New York Department of Law manila envelope.

Suddenly the cardinal’s breath was a block of ice in his stomach. He knew what was in the envelope. “Not another child. Not the same as before.”

“Two weeks ago. In Queens.” Bill Kodahl drained his drink. “A communion wafer in the kid’s mouth.”

The cardinal ripped open the envelope. He gazed at the photographs. They were the worst he’d seen. For the first time, the victim had not had time to decay. There was still flesh on the bones, still a face on the flesh, still an expression on the face. “But we were certain Father Romero was the murderer. And when he died, we were certain it was over.”

“And going by the evidence in hand at the time, that was a logical conclusion.”

“But Father Romero’s dead—and the murderer’s alive. He’s taken another life.” The cardinal stared at the district attorney. “We’ve made a terrible mistake. We completely misjudged poor Father Romero.”

“We did what seemed best at the time.”

The cardinal’s eyes swung back to the photos. “Are we making another mistake to go on hiding these killings? It’s been three years and they just get worse.”

“Barry.” The D.A.’s voice was a command. “It’s not your worry. I’m handling it.”

The sun had dropped below the skyline and East Fifty-third Street was in shadow. Halfway down the block, tucked between a dress boutique with a
FOR RENT
sign and an office building with a
FLOOR TO LET
sign, Cardozo found the first address from Reverend Bonnie Ruskay’s list: gold Gothic lettering announced
THE FISH AND THE LAMB: RELIGIOUS GOODS AND BOOKS
.

He pushed open the glass door.

The shop was hushed and softly lit, with a smell of old books like the herbs in one of those after-dinner liqueurs for which only monks possess the secret recipe.

There was a wall of religious pictures and crosses and crucifixes in all sizes from mega to petite. The remaining walls were devoted to books.

Two women browsed the bookshelves. One was a nun, dressed in a short-skirted gray habit that marked some sort of compromise between cloister and Fifth Avenue, and she pinned Cardozo with a glance that seemed to say,
Are you sure you’ve come to the right place?

He wasn’t sure. He smiled at the nun. Her glance skittered away. He began searching the shelves. He found Bibles and gospels, prayer books and hymnals, works of scriptural interpretation alphabetized by author, but no Ruskay among the
R’s.

“Do you need help, sir?” The clerk was in his early thirties, dark-haired and prematurely balding.

For just an instant Cardozo thought he knew the man, and then the sense of familiarity disintegrated, as though a kaleidoscope had been jiggled.

“I’m looking for some books on theology.” Cardozo referred to the list he’d scribbled from memory. “
The Serpent and the Grail
;
Biological Resemblance to the Savior
—”

The clerk’s dark eyes froze behind horn-rimmed glasses. Civility at that moment was clearly a stretch. “The title is
No Biological Resemblance to the Savior.
Those are books by Reverend Bonnie Ruskay. We don’t carry her. We’re a traditional Catholic bookstore.”

“That’s odd. She recommended this store to me.”

Outside the shop window, traffic was a low and vaguely ominous hum. Somewhere in the street a car alarm began yodeling.

The clerk smiled. He had the squint lines of an accountant. “Reverend Bonnie Ruskay is more eclectic than we are.”

Cardozo realized the nun was watching them. “Where would I find her books?”

“The Episcopal diocese has a store over on Third Avenue—they’d stock her.”

After dinner, Cardozo sank into the comfortable embrace of an old armchair with Bonnie Ruskay’s
The Son of God Was Also a Daughter: Reclaiming the Holy Anima as Spiritus.

“Why are you reading that?” Terri asked.

Cardozo stared at the page, pretending he didn’t feel the expectancy of his daughter’s silence. “I want to get a feel for Reverend Bonnie’s thinking.”

Terri smiled and the smile showed beautifully young, white teeth. “And flatter her—and win her trust—and get information from her?” She lifted the book from his hands. She frowned at the author’s photo. “Funny, she doesn’t look like a reverend.”

“What’s a reverend supposed to look like?”

Terri’s shoulders rose in a half-shrug. “I don’t know. Dull. Earnest. Sincere.”

Cardozo studied the photo. It showed a face of fine-boned intelligence with eyes that seemed to hold flame. “You don’t think she looks sincere?”

“Not
boringly
sincere. You’ve met her. What do you think?”

What do I think?
he wondered. “Too early to say.” He tried to sound offhand about it. He didn’t feel all that offhand, but he wasn’t sure what it was he felt.

That night he dreamed he was making love with a strange woman. Her features were hidden: she wore dark glasses and dark blond hair covered half her face.

From far away came a wave that lifted them both and crested and then traveled past them, a shrug of eternity.

He angled his mouth and kissed a small pink birthmark on her left shoulder.

He lifted her glasses off and stared into Reverend Bonnie’s smoky green eyes.

“Omigod,” he heard himself say. “I didn’t know, I didn’t mean to…”

He was sitting up in bed. The familiar dappling of streetlight on wallpaper told him it was his own bed. The hands of the alarm clock, glowing in the dark, told him it was three thirty-five in the morning.

He lifted his feet out of the sargassolike tangle of bed-sheets. He pulled his summer-weight bathrobe around him. His feet found his slippers and his slippers found the kitchen.

He was fixing himself a cup of hot milk when Terri came shuffling in, rubbing her eyes. “Are you all right, Dad?”

He shrugged, embarrassed. “Just had trouble sleeping.”

“I heard you scream.”

He stared at the saucepan as though staring was the most important part of getting the milk to boil. “I was just arguing with myself.”

She lifted the saucepan off the flame just before it could boil over. She poured the steaming milk into a coffee mug and sprinkled a little cinnamon on top.

“What’s bothering you?” She pulled out a chair and motioned him to sit down. She sat across the table from him. “Is it something at work?”

He sipped. The milk stung his lips. He set it down to cool. He exhaled heavily. “Sometimes it hits me how much I miss your mother.”

Terri nodded. With each passing year, she seemed to take on more and more of her dead mother’s features. The pale skin, the brown hair, the smile that smiled just a bit more on the right than the left, and now the same dark eyes that knew exactly how to look into him. “I miss her too.”