Deadly Blessings (25 page)

The nuns had one of those old-fashioned dial
phones with the hang-up hooks that people always fiddle with in
movies when a connection has been lost. Sophie attacked it now,
slamming it down with the palm of her hand.

“
No.” She said again,
wincing in pain at her sudden movement.

I felt like a little kid caught making a
prank phone call—the mom staring at me, folded-armed and angry.
“Why not?” I asked with more than a touch of anger, myself.

“
He made me promise to tell
no one else.”

I stared at her, my disbelief apparently
evident on my face because her Polish explanation came out fast and
nervous.

“
Father Bruno sat down with
me, not even in a confessional. He took me to the back in the
sacristy, where we could talk without anyone hearing us and where I
could see him. It made it easier, you know. To see his face. I was
so worried that I would hurt him because he has done so much for
me.”

I was getting pretty damn tired of hearing
what a saint Father Bruno was. Because of her undying loyalty to
the man, Sophie had never said a word of the real work she did for
Lisa Knowles. In my opinion, the man should have had the reality of
the situation presented to him a long time ago. The girls’
complicit agreement to keep him protected boggled my mind. He
should be aware. If he wasn’t already. Father Bruno didn’t seem
like a man who’d bask in ignorance or naïveté.

Sophie leaned back. There was a chrome-edged
countertop that ran three-quarters of the way around the airy
kitchen that still sported the aqua cabinets that had come with the
fifties-designed building. One small window to my left and an
overhead fluorescent fixture gave us ample light, and I listened to
the lamp’s buzz as I waited for Sophie to continue. She seemed to
take strength from the support of the counter behind her, leaning
both hands on its top, fingers over the edge. But I noticed she
still put no weight on her left arm.

“
He was very understanding.
He didn’t make me feel … dirty. He made me feel good about myself.
What kind of a special man does that take to make someone feel good
about themselves when they have done so much that is so
bad?”

“
He made you feel good?” I
asked. I didn’t know whether to be impressed or repulsed by that.
“What did he say? Exactly?”

She shook her head and sent a long look out
the window before turning back to me. “I don’t remember all his
words. What I remember is that he took my hand and said that God
would forgive me. That the temptations of material wealth is
something we all face every day. And that I had taken the right
steps to try and fight the temptation by telling him.”

Sophie shrugged before continuing. “He said
he will help me find who killed Milla and Matthew. I know you’re
disappointed, because it will ruin your television story, but this
is what I had to do, Alex. I hope you understand. And you aren’t
planning to investigate any more, are you?”

My hesitation seemed to exasperate her.

“
Alex, please. I know I
wanted you to find who killed Matthew. But I am so afraid. And I am
so sorry, because I know you tried to help me and you won’t have
your good story anymore.”

Shaking my head, I was about to interrupt,
but she continued.

“
Father Bruno will take
care of it. And when he does, I will be free from Lisa and from
Rodero. I have to take care of myself. There’s no one else to take
care of me anymore.”

It wasn’t like I was a private investigator
who’d just been pulled off a case. Sophie hadn’t hired me, she
simply had asked me to look into the situation. I could continue to
look into it; I saw no need for me to let up. Not yet. Of course, I
also saw no need to let Sophie in on that nugget of
information.

I hated lying, but it didn’t stop me for
more than a heartbeat. “Listen, Sophie, even if I don’t continue
following this story, I’d like to know how everything worked out.
So, I’m just going to stick around for a little bit. You can
understand that, right?”

She nodded, but she had a skeptical look on
her face.

* * * * *

I left her feeling more than a smidgen of
disquiet. Great word, disquiet. It summed up exactly the buzz going
on in my brain, thoughts jockeying for position like bees in a
summer hive.

Driving back to the office,
I replayed some of our conversation. I asked her about Emil, but
she had no further information on him. But asking about him helped
me understand the steps William would need to take to contact Lisa.
I was convinced, however, that Emil played a significant role in
this drama. Otherwise how could Father Bruno remain oblivious? And
there was no doubt in Sophie’s mind that he
had
been oblivious, up until she’d
bared her soul.

I wasn’t so sure. I wished I could have been
there.

The only other enlightening tidbit I gleaned
from her with regard to Father Bruno was that he’d asked her about
my involvement in all this. Which I found curious. Maybe I
shouldn’t.

He piqued my interest—maybe I piqued his as
well.

Chapter Seventeen

This time it was William at my office with
his hand on the doorjamb. I’d left the door open for a change,
purposely hoping for company. There are times when the grit of my
job feels like sandpaper chafing away my humanity and I need
personal contact with those I care about to bring me back to
believing that the world is good.

I tried to call Lucy, but she was in a home
economics class and I didn’t want to disturb her. Swept up in the
week’s intrigue, I’d utterly forgotten to call her, and the fact
that I had bothered me deeply.

I’d half-expected Jordan to pop in; I wanted
to grab some good girl-talk while I let the ingredients of my story
simmer in the back of my head like a stew.

Instead, I got William.

“
Hi,” he said. “Got a few
minutes?”

No smile, again. In fact, it seemed as
though his eyes narrowed a bit when I answered, “Sure.” I wondered
what I was in for.

He came in, shutting the
door in a move I would have sworn was stalling, except for the fact
that
he’d
come to
see
me
. I heard
the metallic click as it closed. Turning back to face me, he shot
me a lips-only smile, as he grabbed the back of one of my chairs
and pulled it away from the desk before he sat. Distance, I
thought. He’s putting distance between us. This can’t be good
news.

“
How’s Sophie?” he
asked.

I related the morning’s events and was
pleased to see his reactions match my own on every point. I dug out
the notes I’d written and copied for him. With a quick glance at
them, I pointed. “Here’s the number Lisa uses for business. She’s
wary of new clients at first, but Sophie says she doesn’t like
turning them away, either.” Before the recent confession to Father
Bruno, Sophie had been very upfront with all aspects of the
business. “As a matter of fact, beside the contact information, she
also gave me a few names of men she’s … been with.” I looked up.
William seemed uncomfortable. “First names. You might be able to
bluff your way through by using one of them.”

He nodded. Took the note paper and folded it
into precise quarters. Again, it looked like a stall tactic.

William wore a muted blue two-button polo
shirt and dark pants. The look said “casual” though he seemed
anything but. With the note tucked into his pants pocket, he nodded
again.

“
So,” he said, raising his
eyes to meet mine. I was taken aback, again, by the vibrant shade
of blue. Darker today—their color seemed to vary with his demeanor
like a permanent pair of mood rings.

I waited.

“
There’s something you need
to know before I go on this undercover investigation.”

“
Okay,” I said, striving
for an encouraging tone.

He stared at something at
the edge of my desk for a moment, then looked at me again. “Have
you heard the scuttlebutt about why I left the
Daily Times
?”

Thoughts of Dan sent a rush of relief that
he hadn’t had a chance to have his say about William the other
night. “No,” I answered truthfully.

“
Let me tell you then. At
least, let me tell you my version.” He sat forward in his chair,
and pulled it up a few inches to allow him to rest his arms on the
edge of my desk.

“
You ready?” he asked. The
words were tentative, but his body language, assured.

“
Yep.”

With a nod, he began. “I was there for five
years, working for a fellow named Bernie. About a year before I
left, he hired someone new, a woman. Chloe.”

His brow furrowed for a split-second. “I
know I don’t need to ask, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t share
this information with anyone.”

“
I won’t,” I said. And I
wouldn’t.

“
She was tough as nuts. A
real hard-driver. At first I respected that, thought she’d infuse
new life into the department. I mean, she had spunk and a
willingness to get the job done. And don’t get me wrong … she was
good. Damn good.”

“
But?”

I felt power surge from those blue eyes and
I realized that whatever was coming next carried weight with him.
“But after a while it became apparent that she had her own agenda.
The good of the group meant nothing to her. We’d been a nice, tight
team. We looked out for one another, helped each other along.
That’s so rare nowadays. But we had it. We were more than a team;
we were friends.”

He shot me a look before continuing. “But,
like an uncontained virus, her influence spread. She backstabbed
constantly, convincing others that there were conspiracies that
didn’t exist. Before we knew it, the spirit that held us together
was gone. People started to leave. Good people. And, of course,
Chloe was there, ready to move up as each one departed.

“
She went from beat
reporter to byline in less time than anyone else I’d ever known.
She’s a contender. No doubt about it. Talented. Voracious in her
desire to claw her way to the top. Or the perceived
top.”

Claw. Interesting word choice.

William took a breath before continuing. He
turned to stare out my window for a moment. It seemed to me that he
needed a break before continuing. “This really is a great view,” he
said in a voice that bordered on melancholy. I followed his gaze,
and though the top of Wrigley was covered in gray fog, the
pedestrians all head-bent under dull umbrellas taut with wind, and
the river water choppy and black, I had to admit, he was right. I
felt a twinge of guilt, remembering the outlook from his
office.

“
The
Powers That Be at the
Times
,” he said, picking up the
story again but still watching out the window, “decided to create a
new section. All new features. Big splash debut. It would start out
on Sundays only and eventually move to twice a week. This was big
time. Very big time. And they wanted a writer/editor for this new
feature section. Bernie had been grooming me from day one for an
opportunity like this. It was mine to lose.”

“
And you lost
it?”

“
I had help.”

His face contorted, almost of its own
volition and almost imperceptibly, but it was there. I got the
impression that this was a man in total control of his emotions.
And yet this story was difficult for him to relate.

“
This is long, and it’s
ugly, and I don’t like telling people about it because no matter
how I say it, the words sound resentful and bitter. Though I
suppose that’s appropriate.” He gave a wry laugh, and dragged his
gaze away from the window to turn to me.

“
What it boils down to is
this: Bernie brought the team together—what was left of the team,
that is—and let us in on the plan for the new Sunday section. He
told us that my promotion to features editor would be announced by
the paper to coincide with the section’s debut, about a month down
the line. There were five others besides me left in the department,
and at the end of the meeting, four of them came up to congratulate
me on the promotion.”

“
Not Chloe?”

William pursed his lips, letting a
whistle-like sound escape his clenched teeth. “Nope. She did them
all one better.”

I raised my eyebrows in anticipation. I had
no idea what he was about to say.

“
First
thing the next morning, she circulated a memo, achingly written,”
William’s face tightened, “apologizing for not bringing it up
sooner, but letting the administration know that she’d filed a
lawsuit against the
Times
, and against me.”

“
For … ?” My hands flew
out, in an expression of frustration.

“
Sexual
harassment.”

“
What?”

“
It was perfect,” he said,
shaking his head. I could tell that he’d left me, that he was
reliving the incident as he spoke. His words had gone quiet, almost
as though he was talking to himself; he wasn’t seeing me any
longer. “It was so manipulatively worded, I could almost believe it
was true myself.

“
In the
memo, she explained how she tried to bear up under the strain of
working with me, but that my lewd and obnoxious behavior had gotten
progressively worse. And while she’d repeatedly spurned my
advances, she didn’t know how long she could work under such dire
circumstances. My impending advancement to features editor, she
claimed, would only increase my power over her. She wanted to
trudge on like a good soldier, but the strain was too much. In a
very vulnerable and polite way, she let the administration know
that, unless they rethought my promotion, she’d move forward with
the lawsuit and pull the
Daily
Times
down, along with me.”