A Bitch Called Hope (24 page)

A tiny woman with a bird-beak nose and thin gray hair pulled into a tight knot at the back of her head entered the room and took the tweed chair next to Lennox’s. She fastened bright black eyes on Lennox.

“You remember Father Mac, Mrs. Guzman?” Lennox said.

She sat on the very edge of the chair, her legs planted apart but covered by her skirt. “Of course,” she said.

She waited for the next question, watching Lennox the whole time. Lennox asked if Father Mac had used the Altar Boys for anything illegal.

“My family lived in one of Father’s apartments,” she said. “The landlord before the Father never did what he said he would do. Clean the gutters, exterminate. But he was a nice man and never once raised the rent. We lived there six years before the Father bought the building. We thought how wonderful, our parish priest, he’ll fix the leaky roof, the broken washing machines in the basement. Then we got the eviction notice. I was his housekeeper.” She sat even straighter in her chair. “I went to him. Told him we couldn’t afford to move. He was so very nice. He said he understood, not to worry.”

“Then the trouble began. Those boys are criminals. First they broke the windows in my Hector’s truck, then they cornered my Isabella. Pushed her down on the sidewalk, lifted her skirt. We moved all right.”

She wagged a brown finger at Lennox. “We all moved, every last one of us. When it was vacant, Father McMahon fixed everything. Painted. Put on a new roof. Called the apartments “condos” and sold them to white people with money. Then he bought another apartment and the same thing all over.”

“Imagine,” Mrs. Guzman said. “Working for such a man. Making his bed. Cleaning his toilet. I was glad to see him go.”

Chapter 38

That afternoon Lennox canvassed the neighborhood that ran adjacent to Father Mac’s subdivision. She rang a lot of doorbells and came up empty, the folks most likely at work. And the people who were home? Geezers too scared to slip the security chain off their doors and answer any questions. Finally, her twenty-first doorbell yielded Sarah Feeley, a mother in her late twenties and active in the neighborhood association. The Feeley house was a block from the subdivision.

About two years ago, she said, two men came to their door. It was night and her husband, Ben, answered it. They told Ben it would be best if he and Sarah stayed home zoning meeting nights. Ben told the men to get off his step; he was calling the police. The men showed up the next day after Ben left for work. She never answered the door. They called her by name, demanded she open up. One of the men went to the back of the house and knocked on the window. Both she and her little boy were terrified. They hid in the hallway.

Three nights later, Ben and Sarah found their dog by the front door. Her skull was caved in. Sarah showed Lennox a framed photo. She was an Australian shepherd. Her name was Emily.

The men threatening Sarah’s family wore black caps pulled low on their foreheads and dark sunglasses, but Sarah was pretty sure they were the same men as the mug shots of the Altar Boys.

Lennox rang a lot more doorbells that afternoon hoping to find additional witnesses. By the time she finished, the sun was setting behind Portland’s cloud cover. She’d made it home and had just finished listening to her voice mail when she heard her doorbell.

Either a werewolf was standing on her porch or it was Fish. Either way, color her surprised. She slipped the chain, unbolted the deadlock and welcomed him in.

She offered him a beer. She could feel his distrust of her. And something else she couldn’t put her finger on.

“This ain’t a social call, Cooper,” he said.

She flushed with excitement. “You’ve got the cell phone logs.”

“A waste of time,” he said, kebabbing another lead. “Any other bright ideas before I go back to traffic land?”

Forget her disappointment, she had less than a minute to get a read on Fish. Any bright ideas? More than his dislike for her was the hope that maybe she could come up with the brilliant idea that would help him crack this case.

Brilliant idea? And presto! She had one.

“Sit down,” she said.

Reluctantly he lowered himself into the only uncomfortable chair in the living room. A wood rocking chair Aurora had given her from some long, lost, moldy relative with Puritan sensibilities.

“Father McMahon has a crew of two felons does his bidding,” she said.

“The priest.” Fish rocked the chair forward and stood up.

“Listen. The priest was Bill’s cousin, his business partner. He stood to inherit thirteen million if Bill died. Okay?”

Fish lowered himself back in the chair. “Yeah?”

“These two felons were Father Mac’s altar boys back in the day. Now they’re our age and they’ve done time. I’ve interviewed people who claim these same guys, these Altar Boys, have threatened and harassed tenants Father Mac wanted to get rid of or people active in zoning issues that impacted Father’s subdivision.”

“So?”

“So. Maybe Father Mac put these Altar Boys up to the hit-and-run.”

Fish rocked back and forth. She watched him get his thoughts together. “What did they do time for?”

“Assault, armed robbery. I’ve got their sheets and their cell numbers. I’m telling you, Fish, I know these two murders are connected. Think about it. This rich dude gets killed. One of the witnesses comes into a great big bunch of cash all of the sudden. Then he’s murdered. This is no coincidence.”

Watch Fish weighing the pros against her cons. “That would mean the priest put them up to it.”

Fish, Catholic to the roots of his hair. She caught his eyes. “You got a problem with that, Fish?”

He returned her look steady on. “Nope.”

Chapter 39

Beneath that leprechaun charm, Father McMahon was one ruthless sonuvabitch. But was he capable of murdering his cousin?

Easy for the priest to slip upstairs—a quick duck in the master bathroom and he replaces the inhalers. He sets the trap and waits for the heart attack. What he doesn’t count on is an autopsy. It was a good working hypothesis.

The next morning Lennox crossed the Willamette River to the rectory at Saint Mary’s Cathedral. It had stopped raining for the moment, but everything from the trees to the porch eaves still dripped. She crossed the wet pavement to Father Mac’s office.

Mrs. Abendroth looked nothing like what Lennox had imagined. Instead of a skinny, needle-nose woman, Mrs. Abendroth was round as a dumpling. She was too young and plump to have worn frown lines along the sides of her nose and mouth, but they would come as surely as autumn follows summer.

Mrs. Abendroth pointed her finger in the direction of the office door. “He’s expecting you,” she said.

Lennox opened the door to an office still clogged with sports gear. Father Mac sat behind his desk dressed in gray sweats, a coach’s whistle hanging around his neck.

“Hello, Father,” she said and stepped around the bags of bats, helmets and baseball gloves that slumped against the furniture. A large box of jerseys butted up against the sofa.

“Thanks for seeing me,” she said.

He folded his hands on the desk. “What do you have for me this time?” His voice flat without accent. So much for the leprechaun charm.

She sat across the desk from him. “Do you mind if I record this meeting?”

“Of course I mind. I’m only seeing you as a courtesy to Delia.”

She tucked the recorder back in the bag and pulled out her notebook. “I wanted to ask you about the partnership agreement you had with Bill for Hunter’s Ridge.”

“What about it?”

“How did you and Bill decide on a cross-purchase partnership?”

His expression was unreadable. “I don’t remember.”

“But, Father, this partnership has made you a millionaire.”

He leaned back in his chair. “What are you implying, Miss Cooper?” Maybe he was on the defensive, but he was smug, too. She could see it in his eyes. He liked being called a millionaire.

“Father, I’m just asking questions,” she said making that sound as innocent as possible.

“The trial is in less than two weeks. Shouldn’t you be done with the questions by now?”

He was right. She should be done with interviewing. Lennox had August Kline to thank for that. She sat impassively, her pen poised over her notebook. “Are you going to answer my question or not?” she said.

“I did. I said I don’t remember.”

“When you partnered with Bill on the Irving Street complex, you had a general partnership agreement?”

“I think so.”

“That partnership goes back to the late seventies. How can you remember that arrangement and not the agreement you made with Bill three years ago?”

“Because back then, we either had a general partnership or we incorporated.” Father Mac turned his wrist slightly so he could read his watch.

“Who inherits your estate?” she said.

“Saint Mary’s parish,” he said.

“Perhaps Bill initiated the cross-purchase plan so that he wouldn’t end up being partners with the parish.”

McMahon shook his great bald head. “Perhaps. As I keep saying over and over, I don’t remember.”

Enough already. Even she was getting tired of this line of questioning. She said, “Up until a year ago, Bill supported Scott financially. Then he stopped cold. You, Father, took over supporting Scott.”

“That’s not true,” he said. “It is true I loaned Scott money. I’m fond of the boy; he’s my godchild.”

And thank God he was answering the question. “So were you prepared to take over Scott and his live-in girlfriend’s upkeep indefinitely?”

“I was generous. If you want to cast that in a negative light, go right ahead.”

“You certainly were generous. At the time you were leveraged to your eyeballs to raise enough capital for Hunter’s Ridge. I’m surprised you didn’t tell Scott to go get a real job.”

He lowered his eyelids halfway, a classic fuck-you-very-much expression if she ever saw one. “What’s your question?” he said.

“Why did you bankroll him for over a year?”

“I’ve told you.” Father Mac glanced at his brass desk clock. “I’d like some coffee.” He hit a button on the bottom of the phone to summon Mrs. Abendroth. “Would you like some?”

The smile he gave her didn’t reach his eyes. Which was odd. Why all of the sudden was he being gracious with her?

“Thanks, anyway. I’m almost done,” Lennox said. “Could you check your diary and tell me what you were doing the day and evening of December 16?”

The priest opened the top drawer of his desk, pulling out a large planner bound in maroon leather. He paged back and pointed in the book with his forefinger. “I had business out at Hunter’s Ridge until seven at which time I went to dinner at Jake’s.”

“Did you meet with anyone at Hunter’s Ridge?”

He looked at Lennox with frank contempt. “Do you know how insulting this is?”

“I’m not trying to insult you, Father,” she said. “I need to verify every statement. Whether you’re a priest or a senator makes no difference in a court of law.”

Mrs. Abendroth knocked and entered with a small tray. She placed Father Mac’s coffee on the desk.

“Thank you,” he said. “Go home, now. Anything you’ve got left can wait for the morning. I’ll lock up,” he said.

It was Lennox’s turn to glance at her watch. Six o’clock. Mac was probably one of those millionaires who sweated their employees’ overtime.

“Do you want this door left opened?” she said, nodding her double chin in the direction of the door that separated Father Mac’s office with hers.

“Please,” he said.

Lennox and the priest listened as Mrs. Abendroth returned the coffee tray, turned off various office machines, gathered her coat and umbrella.

“Good-night, Father,” she said. They heard the door click behind her.

“Now where were we?” he said.

“Did you meet with anyone at Hunter’s Ridge?”

“Dan Pike,” he said and closed the planner.

“Did the two of you drive together?”

“No,” he said. “I met him there.”

“Are you certain, Father? You didn’t pick him up at Pike Development?”

His body stiffened. “I already told you that we drove separately.”

“Would you look again? In your planner?” she said. “Just to make sure?”

He stood up, braced both hands on the edge of the desk. “I’ve tried to cooperate with you for Delia’s sake, but you seem to delight in insulting me. I want you to go now.”

She didn’t get it. One minute he was hostile, the next he was offering her coffee. Which, she noticed, he had not taken a sip from since Mrs. Abendroth left it for him.

“One last thing, Father,” she said.

She reached into her bag and withdrew Gabe’s drawing of the Hierophant. The likeness between the drawing and Father McMahon was unmistakable. The same tall rangy body, same pattern of baldness and red complexion. Same stained glass eyes, the same beaky nose.

She smoothed the drawing in front of her then held it up to him until he looked at it. He sat down again. He looked like he was doing his best to control his mouth.

“You’re famous on the comic book scene,” she said. “Leastways you will be when Gabe’s book goes into print.”

“What are you showing me that for?” he said.

“Don’t you recognize yourself?” she said.

The muscles in his face and neck tightened. “Ridiculous,” he said. “You’re wasting my time.”

“He looks exactly like you,” she said. “You’re the Hierophant in a comic book. He represents the clergy in the tarot deck.”

“The occult,” Father Mac said heavily.

“Do you know the artist?” she said. “His name is Gabe Makem.”

Did the muscles in his shoulders tense? Did his eyes blink one too many times? She thought so.

“Never heard of him,” he said. “What are you after?”

He was doing his best to play it cool. Ah, but then that thin, Irish skin of his gave him away.

She folded the drawing in half and slipped it back in its envelope and into her bag. She stood up. “Thank you for your time, Father.”

Chapter 40

It was a quarter after six when Lennox left the rectory. The wind had shifted, blowing hard out of the Columbia Gorge, the kind of wind that liked to tear the skin right off your bones. She ran to the Bronco and turned on the heat, not waiting for the engine to warm up.