Inside Out (22 page)

I guess she was really pleading with him—first to keep his voice down, but then when he kept shouting, I heard her say, “You leave me no choice. We can’t go on this way. ”

And then she said—now it sounded like she was crying
—
“It isn’t that I don’t love you. I will never stop loving you. ” But Dr. Bell, he only got angrier. Shouting even louder
—

“I won’t let you go. Not now. Not ever.” And then Dr. Ingram was definitely crying. I thought she was just so upset, but then I heard her say
—
“Stop, you’re hurting me, Harrison. ” I guess he did stop, because seconds later I heard the door to his office slam shut and next thing you know he breezed right into the examining room as if.. . as if nothing had happened. He greeted me with a warm smile and be looked . . . cool as a cucumber.

Leo hit the
off
button. “True, this wouldn’t be admissible in court—”

“And,” Nat pointed out, “it could be a fake.”

“We’re gonna lean on Bell. See if we can’t get him to come clean. And there’s always the possibility, if the tape is legit, that Lynn Ingram will remember some of this.” He waited for a response from Nat. When he didn’t get one, he looked at her more closely. “Something’s up. What is it?” he asked cautiously.

“I have a new suspect for you, Leo. I’m pretty sure this one will drop Bell down a notch on your suspect list.”

Leo got up from the desk and started to pace. Not a hell of a lot of space for it in his small office. He managed maybe ten steps to the wall, then crossed back ten steps. His expression was grim. Frown lines cut across his brow. His eyes were cast to the floor as though he was searching for something he’d dropped.

The tension in the office was palpable.

Leo paused for a moment, shooting Nat a look. He opened his mouth to say something, but then shut it again without uttering a word,

“I know it’s hard to believe,” she said softly. No matter what one’s denomination, it was difficult to imagine, much less accept, that a priest, a man of God, would be capable of such heinous crimes. Nat was sure it was especially hard for Leo, who was Catholic. While he wasn’t a regular churchgoer, she knew from Jakey’s grandmother that Jakey had been baptized and that she took the little boy to church once or twice a month. Nat had been invited along with them one time, even though she wasn’t Catholic. §he hadn’t really been raised with any religion. Her mother believed only in her delusions. Her father put all his faith in the bottle. Their gods failed them utterly.

And what did she believe in? It was a question she’d pondered a good deal over the years. There’d been times she’d thought she knew, only to be proven wrong. She’d yet to come up with a lasting answer.

Leo stopped pacing, dropped back into his chair. Still not a word. Was he thinking about what the priest did to Lynn? Or trying to sort out exactly what Suzanne’s relationship was to Father Joe? Not that it was hard for him to figure out.

“I’m sorry, Leo,” Nat said finally, his continued silence wearing on her heart.

He mimed an indifferent shrug—she didn’t believe for an instant that was the way he was feeling—then pulled open the top drawer of his desk and took out an opened pack of Lucky Strikes. He tapped a cigarette out, jabbed the unfiltered tip between his lips, rummaged in the drawer until he unearthed a book of matches, and lit up.

Right behind him on the wall was posted the ubiquitous
no smoking
sign.

It was no big surprise to Nat that Leo wasn’t swayed by that stricture.

What surprised her was the smoking itself. Leo’d quit smoking before she knew him—he told her once that he’d stopped right after Jakey was born—fiercely determined not to endanger his child with secondhand smoke. It would take a lot for Leo to light up again.

Nat was smart enough not to comment on it.

She was smart enough to keep her mouth shut altogether.

nineteen

Lynn sought religious counsel prior to making her decision to go ahead with the sexual-reassignment surgery and was told by the pastor that it was a sin against God.

Dr. Ross Varda (therapy note)

NAT WAS MORE than a bit surprised when Melissa Raymond introduced herself at the front door of the rectory. She looked nothing like Nat’s stereotype of a priest’s housekeeper. She’d envisioned a late-middle-aged, plain-looking, broad-faced woman with steel-gray hair, wearing a matronly black dress, a large silver or gold cross prominently hanging from a chain around her neck.

Melissa Raymond’s cross—if, indeed, she was wearing one— was nowhere in sight. She was a willowy woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties. She was smartly dressed in a pair of finely tailored charcoal-gray slacks and an emerald-green sweater that highlighted her green eyes—not to mention clinging to her shapely bosom. Her chestnut hair hung sleekly down around her shoulders.

Nat wondered facetiously how well she cleaned house.

“Father Joe is working on next Sunday’s sermon and he hates to be interrupted,” Melissa said in a crisp, proprietary tone.

Leo whipped out his badge. Melissa’s eyes widened slightly, but otherwise her features registered no alarm.

“Is this about Tommy Matthews?” she asked, lowering her voice a notch. “Father Joe’s been saying for weeks that one of these days that boy is going to—”

“It’s not about Tommy Matthews,” Leo cut her off brusquely.

This elicited a slight flush on Melissa’s fair and flawless skin. “Oh,” she muttered. “Well, I suppose I. . . could interrupt Father.”

“Do that,” Leo said.

Melissa’s flush deepened.

Leo and Nat eyed each other as Melissa hurried off, leaving them standing in the gloomy and airless foyer of the large, late-nineteenth-century stone-and-brick rectory beside St. Bartholomew’s Church.

It couldn’t have been any more than thirty seconds before Father Joe himself was bustling down the hall from his office toward them.

If Nat had been surprised by the housekeeper’s appearance, she was doubly surprised by Father Joe’s. Not that she’d formulated a vivid image of what a priest/sexual abuser/psychopath would look like, but it certainly wouldn’t have been this small, pudgy, fifty-something-year-old man with graying hair and a benign demeanor, dressed in baggy khaki slacks and a navy-blue T-shirt.

It was hard to imagine he’d be big enough or strong enough

to attack the nearly six-foot-tall Lynn Ingram, much less be capable of lifting her limp body and tossing it into a Dumpster.

But then Nat had encountered numerous men—and women— in prison whose size and apparent lack of strength had proved no deterrent to their commission of heinous crimes against seemingly bigger and stronger victims. In the heat of rage or passion or both, with the adrenaline flowing, it was amazing how strong a person could become.

As Father Joe approached them, he was smiling beneficently, but Nat detected a shadow of worry on his face.

“Please,” he said, sounding a bit out of breath, “forgive my appearance. I wasn’t expecting—” He stopped. “Well, of course I wasn’t expecting you.” He extended a hand in Nat’s direction. She gave the priest’s hand a perfunctory shake. When Father Joe extended his hand to Leo, Leo stuck his hands in his jacket pocket.

“Please, come into the parlor.” Father Joe Parker was already heading over to the closed heavy mahogany pocket doors to their right. As he slid them open, he glanced back at them. “I’ve asked Melissa to bring us all some tea. I hope you like tea. Of course, if you prefer coffee—”

“Nothing for me.” Leo gestured to the priest to step into the parlor. They followed him inside. Leo slid the doors shut.

The dark-wood-paneled room that Father Joe referred to as the parlor more resembled a library. Bookcases lined two walls from floor to ceiling. Heavy dark-umber drapery covered much of the triple-bay window that faced the street. Narrow openings in the curtains allowed only thin shafts of light to filter into the space. The floor was covered with a muted Persian rug. The furnishings looked to be authentic Victorian antiques—deep-blue velvet sofas, a pair of ornate brocade armchairs, a large, intricately carved mahogany desk. Father Joe approached the desk and turned on a desk lamp. Then, after a pause—possibly reflecting that this amount of lighting did not exactly flood the room with brightness—he moved to a standing lamp by the sofa and turned that on as well. The lighting, while now adequate for their purposes, didn’t expel the essential gloominess of the parlor.

The room was meticulously tidy and there was a lingering hint of fine-furniture polish. Melissa might not have looked like a housekeeper, but then, looks, as Nat knew so well, could be deceiving. She had to remember to keep that in mind in connection with the unassuming priest.

Father Joe ushered them to the two respective armchairs, selecting the couch for himself. He settled himself before he spoke. “Now, please, tell me how I can help you.”

“Let’s start with Suzanne Holden,” Leo said gruffly.

Not even a hint of alarm or wariness in the priest’s demeanor in response to this question. “Suzanne Holden?”

“An inmate at Grafton.”

“Let me think. I’ve been volunteering there for a number of years. So many women ...”

“She has very clear recollections of you.”

“Is that right?” He spoke with a tone that indicated nothing more than curiosity, then pondered the name aloud again. A few seconds later, he snapped his fingers. “Of course. Suzanne. Yes. Yes, yes. I’m sorry. I should especially remember Suzanne.” Nat’s stomach clenched.
Yeah, I bet you should.

“Very troubled. She has a little boy, you see. It’s all coming back to me. Wasn’t she released a few months ago? No, wait, she was transferred. Yes, I remember now. She went to a prerelease center. Something hasn’t happened, I hope. She is all right, isn’t she?”

Leo ignored the question. “What’s ‘all coming back’ to you?” Father Joe scowled in thought. “All the times she spoke about her son. What a sweet and clever little boy he was. Suzanne was always bringing me in photos of the child. Oh, yes, and little drawings he made for her when he came to visit.”

Nat glanced surreptitiously over at Leo to check out his reaction. His poker face was in place, but she suspected it was taking a concerted effort. Did he know how much Jakey meant to Suzanne? How much pride she took in her child?

Her
child. Nat felt an ache in her chest. And she was sure her own attempt to maintain a neutral look was not nearly so successful as Leo’s.

“You said she was very troubled,” Leo said.

“May I ask what this is about? I know Suzanne had a drug problem. I hope she hasn’t. . . slipped. One of the things, in fact, that concerned her deeply was that she had passed the illness on to her little boy and that he’d grow up to be a drug addict. Is she all right?”

“No,” Leo said succinctly.

The priest looked genuinely alarmed. “Is she back on drugs?” Nat grit her teeth. It w
^T
as all she could do not to leap up from her chair and slam her fist into Father Joe’s face.

But Leo continued to appear cool and collected. “Let’s move on to Lynn Ingram.”

Father Joe nodded, resting his small hands over the paunch of his belly. Nat found herself studying those hands with their short, pudgy fingers—a plain band of gold on the marriage finger of the left hand. Father Joe was married to the church.

Was it really possible that these were the hands of a slasher? Was this man of God capable of wielding a knife and viciously, brutally, cutting up a woman? Leaving her for dead? Were these the hands of a man who would plunge a hypodermic needle full of heroin into the vein of a recovering drug addict?

“I have been praying for Lynn daily.” He pressed his palms together as if to demonstrate the gesture of prayer. Or was he saying a silent prayer at that very moment? Praying for another go at her? Another go at Suzanne? Praying that his crimes would go undetected?

Father Joe dropped his hands over his belly again. “I keep listening to the news, reading the daily paper, hoping to get word on her condition, but there’s been absolutely nothing—”

“You’ve done more than follow the news,” Nat challenged.

Father Joe gave her a blank look. “I don’t—” His expression quickly changed. “Oh, yes, that’s true. I did have a brief word with a doctor over at the hospital. I was paying a call on one of my parishioners and—”

“The name?” Leo interrupted.

“Excuse me?”

“The name of the parishioner you were visiting.” Leo had his notebook out and was withdrawing a pen from his pocket.

“I can’t remember offhand. It was actually the mother of a parishioner. Visiting from out of town—”

“The parishioner’s name, then,” Leo pressed.

“Alice,” the priest said after a short pause. “Alice Morrisey.”

“How would you describe your relationships with Suzanne Holden and Lynn Ingram?” Leo asked, deliberately throwing the priest a curve ball.

Father Joe merely gave Leo a puzzled look. But before he could respond—probably only to question the question—there was a firm knock on the door. “Yes, come in, Melissa,” Father Joe said in the direction of the closed doors.

The doors slid open. Melissa’s eyes darted immediately over .to the priest. He smiled pleasantly. “You may bring in the tea, my dear.”

She disappeared for a moment and reappeared with a silver tea set sitting on a silver tray that she must have put down on a nearby table.

Nat spotted the housekeeper catch the priest’s eye again as she set the tray down on a coffee table in front of the sofa.

“Is there anything else?” she asked.

“No, Melissa.” He checked his watch. “It’s nearly noon. You better hurry off and meet the school bus.”

Now it was Leo and Nat who exchanged glances.

“You have a child?” Nat asked Melissa as she was starting toward the doorway.

Her back stiffened as she glanced back at me. “Yes. A little girl.” There was a hint of defensiveness in her tone. Nat’s gaze instinctively fell to her left hand. No wedding band.

But it wasn’t Melissa Raymond’s marital status that was on Nat’s mind. It was the fact that she had a child. A daughter. A daughter who was likely very close to Father Joe. If he’d asked her to draw a picture for him . . .