Body Of Truth (20 page)

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Authors: Deirdre Savoy

BOOK: Body Of Truth
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“It's no mystery who has the class in that family,” she said, nodding toward the couple.
“Mmm,” he agreed. All that was left of this show was the people filing out of the church. “Let's get out of here.”
 
 
About noon, after her stomach had rumbled a few times, Dana went to the kitchen to see what might be available for her to make for lunch. She quickly settled on a sandwich from the cold cuts she found in the fridge and returned to the sofa. Despite what she'd told Jonathan about sleeping the day away, even a fifteen-minute catnap had eluded her. Instead she'd ended up watching two hours of ER reruns and a particularly whimsical episode of
Charmed.
By the time she got back to her seat, it was fifteen minutes into
Law and Order.
At least on TV the cops were always righteous and they always got the right man. Outside, she could hear the stirrings of a PA system, someone testing out a microphone with what sounded like the usual one, two, three. Reverend Bobby must be tuning up his show. She turned the set up a little louder, hoping to block out his noise.
Her cell phone rang a few minutes later. Who could be calling her now? She didn't give out her cell phone number to many people. If it were Jonathan or even Joanna, they'd have called on the regular phone. She'd called Tim that morning. Reluctantly, he'd agreed to stay put with his friend's family and they'd been happy to house him for a few more days.
She dug the phone out of her purse and answered the call. “Hello.”
“Dana, where are you? Are you anywhere near a TV?”
She recognized Father Mike's voice almost immediately. “Why?”
“Your friend Nadine is on the news.”
Dana picked up the remote. “Which station?”
“The Bronx news. Not BronxNet, the other one.”
She flicked around until she found the channel he meant. Apparently, they were broadcasting Reverend Bobby's conference live. The camera held a close-up shot of the Reverend. Despite the cooler temperature since the night before, Reverend Bobby's forehead was pebbled with perspiration that threatened to run down his face. He dabbed at his skin with a handkerchief dramatically. She wouldn't put it past the man to have sprayed himself with water before the press conference began to give himself the appearance of a man sweating it out for God.
“. . . while at this very minute, another woman killed in the Bronx is being buried with much pomp and circumstance at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Where was the pomp when poor Wesley was being buried? Only a handful of mourners saw him interred in his final resting place. Where were the police in this poor grandmother's hour of need?”
Jones gestured to his left and the camera shifted to focus on Nadine sitting in a wheelchair looking more flustered than anything else. Dana's first thought was to wonder how they'd gotten Nadine up all those steps since the woman couldn't make it to the bathroom by herself. Dana shook her head. She'd seen it in Nadine's eyes at the funeral, her desire to seek some sort of vindication for Wesley. She'd also known from the moment Reverend Bobby showed up on her doorstep that his involvement could only lead to trouble. Dana couldn't imagine that toting herself out like a spectacle was what Nadine had had in mind.
“Did you find it?”
She'd forgotten about Father Mike. “Oh, yeah.”
“. . . and what does it say when the only witness to this tragedy will not come out and let her voice be heard?”
Dana ground her teeth together. She supposed he wasn't going to let her get away with not joining his parade without some mention of it. But if he actually used her name or trotted out that picture of his she was going to sue his sorry butt.
“What do you think?”
“I feel sorry for Nadine, but she asked for it.”
“Have you heard anything new in the case?”
For an instant she debated whether to tell Father Mike what happened last night. Considering that the only thing anyone could do if they knew about it was worry, she decided against it. “Who tells me anything? I'm only the victim.”
Father Mike chuckled. “Well, if you need anything, give me a call. By the way, how's Tim?”
“He's still away with friends. I sort of am, too, for the next few days. If you need me you can reach me at this number.”
After they said their good-byes, she disconnected the call and put the phone back in her purse. She looked at her meal, mostly uneaten, which she no longer wanted. She clicked off the set. Let Reverend Bobby rant all he wanted. At least with the windows closed she couldn't make out the words.
 
 
About five-thirty, Jonathan decided to give it up for the day. Figueroa must have gone into hiding, since he wasn't at any of his usual haunts. Either that or no one was willing to give up his whereabouts, which was more likely. On top of that, he'd gotten exactly nowhere trying to contact the names on Father Masella's list. He'd had someone looking up current addresses for the former parishioners. He and Mari had made the rounds of those they had so far. They wanted to visit in person rather than call for the same reason they'd gone to the funeral—to gauge people's reactions. Most of the people they located weren't home. These days, even retirees had better things to do than sit around at home. In each case, they'd left a card asking the people to contact him at the station. Of the people he reached, most launched into a paean of Father Malone's virtues, but none could remember anything about the building project or about which boys in particular had been close to the priest.
Unfortunately, Father Masella's list concentrated on folks who had been adult members of the congregation. Most had moved on, many had died, none of their memories of that time were sharp any longer. That was the trouble with trying to investigate something that happened twenty-five years ago. But Amanda had to have found something worth getting killed over, but about whom?
Or maybe Pierce's research had taken her in an entirely new direction. Maybe he was just too tired to puzzle it out. He hadn't slept much since he'd gotten the case and in the past couple of nights he'd slept even less. He was anxious to get home to the reason for his lack of slumber, to find out if Dana was all right. Though she'd shown only concern for her brother and an unwillingness to involve Joanna in her situation, he knew she had to be scared for herself, too.
Even before he turned the key in his lock, he heard her. The faint sound of her singing along with the radio. She must be in the kitchen at the front of the apartment, since the aroma of something cooking reached his nose, too. His stomach rumbled its anticipation of anything home cooked by anyone's hand but his.
He pushed open the door and spotted her immediately, standing by the sink washing something under the water. He let the door close behind him then turned the locks. By the time he turned back around, she'd shut off the water and was facing him.
She finished drying her hands on a dishtowel and tossed it on the counter. For a moment neither of them said anything. He was busy letting his gaze wander over her, from her tousled hair to her sweet face to the swell of her breasts beneath the thin covering of her T-shirt to the jeans that molded to her hips and thighs, before bringing his gaze back to her face.
She smiled at him, a lopsided grin. “Would it be inappropriate of me to say I am so glad you're home?”
He chuckled. “No.” Not if she didn't mind him admitting how glad he was to arrive home to find her whole, well and smiling at him with such obvious welcome. It was the sort of domestic scene he didn't usually appreciate, but today it felt like coming in from the cold. “Missed me, did you?”
“Missed all human contact.”
He curled a finger urging her over. “Then come here.”
Her smile took on a teasing quality. “Why?”
She knew damn well what he wanted. He didn't mind stating it plainly. “A little of that human contact you've been craving.”
She bit her lip as if contemplating a juicy meal. “Bring it on.”
He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. His mouth found hers for a stirring kiss. After a few moments he pulled away. It would be far too easy to lose himself in that kiss. He pulled away a little bit but still held onto her waist. “I didn't expect you to cook.” He wasn't complaining, but it hadn't occurred to him before he got home that she would.
She shrugged. “We both have to eat. I hope you're not trying to convince me Joanna didn't teach you how to cook. You have food in the freezer.”
“I do all right, but Martha Stewart won't be calling for any recipes any time soon. How long before dinner?”
“I was waiting for you to get home before putting the meat in the oven, so you've got a few minutes.”
“I'm going to go get cleaned up.”
“Okay. If you like your steak rare, don't take too long.”
He kissed her forehead. “I won't.”
A few minutes later he stepped into the warm spray of the water. He'd started the ritual of taking a shower when he got home the day he started working homicide. A couple of hikers had found a woman's body down by the Bronx River. It was the end of summer, hot enough for the river to be almost dry. Whatever animals frequented the riverbed had discovered the body before the police had. The sight was so gruesome and the stench so rank that even hardened investigators resorted to gas masks modified for police use. All of it was made worse by the fact that the first officer responding was a rookie who lost his breakfast a couple of feet from the scene.
That day, he couldn't wait to get home to get out of his clothes. He'd tossed the suit down the incinerator. No dry cleaner could have gotten the smell out. He'd spent a good half-hour in the shower before he'd felt anywhere near clean. Days like today, the shower was more a psychic than a physical cleansing, a means of putting the day to rest.
He got out of the shower and dressed as he usually did at home, in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. When he got out to the kitchen, Dana was taking the steaks out from under the broiler. His mouth watered, not only for the food but also from her rear view as she bent and then straightened.
“You're right on time,” she said, casting him a smiling glance over her shoulder.
“What do you need me to help you with?”
“Nothing really. I figured we'd serve ourselves here then take it into the other room.”
He gestured for her to precede him. She filled her plate then slipped past him out of the kitchen. It wasn't until then he noticed how much she'd cooked. Certainly more than the two of them could eat in one night. He filled his plate and stopped short once he left the kitchen. By the other room he thought she'd meant the living room where he normally ate, not the dining room he never used. He hadn't noticed before that she'd actually set the table with wineglasses and a bottle of wine he'd forgotten he had.
“Surprised you, huh?”
“A little.”
“Civilization comes to 162nd Street. Don't tell me I'm the only woman you've ever had here.”
No, he couldn't say that, but for the most part he preferred to be somewhere he could get up and leave if the urge struck. He didn't know if that comment of hers was simply a throwaway or if she were fishing for information about him. But the last thing he wanted to do was discuss his other women with her. He didn't know how she'd feel knowing his track record or even how much, if anything, Joanna had told her about him. He only knew he didn't want her to judge him harshly because of it.
He cut into his steak and brought a bite of it to his mouth. The meat was juicy and flavorful. “Not bad.”
She shot him a knowing look. “Fine. Don't tell me.”
So, she had been looking for information. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad.
“Okay, change of subject. What did you find out today?”
“Nothing much. If I'd been much more productive I might as well have stayed home in bed.”
“Well then, tell me everything. I know you suspect that Amanda Pierce was killed by whoever I saw picking her up that day, but why?”
“That's what I'd like to know, too. We believe her murder was tied up in what she was working on—researching her uncle's death twenty-five years ago.”
“Who's her uncle?”
“Father Brendan Malone.”
“I've heard of him. He's the one who built Trinity Houses. Aside from the religious implication, wasn't it called that because the people involved came from three fields, the church, the government, and private enterprise? Why was she researching her own uncle?”
“First, he died in a mysterious fire in his church. I pulled the file on the old case, but most of the information that should have been there was either gutted or lost over the years. At the time it was deemed an accident. Second, while he was alive, it was rumored that he and some of his cronies were skimming money from the building fund. As far as I can determine, that isn't true. I have a meeting tomorrow with one of the other partners in the building deal. We'll see what he says.”

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