Sweat (17 page)

“The sauna?”

“A great place to recruit. Everyone is naked and the temperature is hundred and thirty degrees Celsius. No one is going to be eavesdropping. No one is going to be wearing a wire. And although I have no concrete scientific evidence to back me up, I think the heat makes people more susceptible to influence.”

“How much did you pay him?”

“Oh I don't remember exactly, and if I did I couldn't tell you. Off the record, we probably paid him a couple of thousand a month. He was usually debriefed in D.C. when he got back in the U.S. That's how I met Marilyn. She was always by his side. Always very pleasant.”

“If my father no longer fed you information, why did you keep in touch with her?”

“Marilyn? Pure coincidence, really. After my family passed, I moved into Potomac Falls Condominiums. Marilyn was my neighbor.”

The mystery around the great Peter Winthrop just got deeper. For Jake, life as an English teacher was looking more appealing every second. “What's our next move?” Jake asked, half-afraid of the answer.

“Jake, why do you want to help this Wei Ling?”

“Because it is the right thing to do.”

Al, homeless cover operative, stuck out his dirty paw. Jake looked at Al's hand and then extended his own.

“Then you and I are going to be pals, Jake. Spike Lee hit the nail on the head.
Do the right thing.”

“So what do we do?”

“You need to decide what you want to do, Jake. I just agreed to get you the information.”

“You're not going to help?”

“I didn't say that. But you're leading this expedition.” Al thought about Jake and the slim chance that someone was after his newest friend. “Let me give you my number,” Al said, looking for a pen. “If you see anything strange, duck first, then give me a call and leave a message.”

“And in the meantime?”

“What?” Al asked.

“What's our plan?”

“Jesus, Jake. Life doesn't just map itself out for you. Talk to your father again. See if he can't straighten it out. Tell him you know he is lying and force him to give you some evidence that will rest your soul. Tell him you know the girl is still on Saipan. Rattle his cage a little. Write your letter to whomever.”

“So that's it?”

“For now, that's it. Feel free to come back anytime to visit. I'm usually around the Mall somewhere.”

Jake rang the doorbell to the rectory on the side of the church. He waited and hit the buzzer again before walking back down the narrow walkway to the front entrance. He pulled open the oversized doors and light poured into the dark vestibule, reflecting off the top of the newly shined pew backs. He dipped his middle finger into the holy water and kneeled briefly while crossing himself in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

A lone parishioner sat in the sea of pews, head down, heavy into prayer, trying to vanquish years of natural Catholic guilt. It was the first time Jake had been back to the church since his mother's funeral. He had been to Mass with Kate twice in the last month, both times at St. Nicholas in upper Northwest D.C. The nice part of town. But Jake wasn't coming to pray. He walked down the aisle to the front of the altar, knelt one more time, and took a left.

Jake knew the church as well as anyone, save for Father McKenna and Sister Ann, the padre he had known since birth and the nun whose age could be measured in the wrinkles of her face. Jake knew the smell of the candles, the sound of the organ. He could identify the squeaky back pew with his eyes closed. Baptism, first communion, confirmation, four weddings, his mother's funeral and three years as an altar boy. The church had long since lost the power of the silent spell it cast on most parishioners who showed up for an hour a week of spiritual due diligence.

Father McKenna was in the back room, straightening the small locker that held his collar when he slept. Jake knocked lightly on the open door, and Father McKenna turned toward his guest, arms open wide.

“How are you, Jake? I haven't seen you since the service.”

“Yeah, I know Father, my apologies.”

“Don't apologize to me… unless my sermons are the reason you stopped coming to Mass.”

“No, that's not it.”

“How are you, son? How is your family?”

“I'm doing okay. I moved a few weeks ago.”

“I heard your mother's house sold.”

Jake forgot how plugged-in the priest was to the local community. As a priest, Father McKenna knew about the births, the marriages, the deaths. He heard the dirt, the secrets, things he wished he didn't know, and everything in between.

“Yeah, the house sold without a hitch. I'm renting an apartment in Cleveland Park.”

“Fabulous. Nice area. You know there is a church five blocks from the subway stop.”

“Yes, I know,” Jake said dipping his head in temporary shame. “And I have a new girlfriend.”

“How's that going?”

“Great girl. Overbearing parents.”

“More often than not, one goes with the other.”

“Working at my father's office for the summer.”

“Work is good.”

“It's nice to be employed. Trying to get to know my father a little.”

“I understand. That can be hard.”

Jake turned serious, his brown hair and chiseled face stern. “I'm not here for an update, Father.”

“I know, son. It's written in your gait. Your tone of voice. But niceties are called niceties for a reason.” The priest sat down and motioned for Jake to do the same. “What's bothering you?”

“Well, I'm not sure.”

The priest laughed at the child-like delivery of the statement. “Jake, I am a man of the cloth, but unfortunately that does not make me a mind reader.”

“You knew my mother. Ever hear her mention a woman named Marilyn Ford?”

“Marilyn…?” Father McKenna said. He looked toward the ceiling trying to recall a face to go with the familiar name.

“She works for my father,” Jake added. “She was my father's secretary.”

“Marilyn Ford,” the priest said, the weight of the woman's name heavy on his tongue. “Her last name threw me off a bit. Thought it was a trivia question there for a minute. Like Henry Ford's daughter or something. Yes, Marilyn, I know her.”

“Did you ever meet her? She said she attended my parent's wedding.”

“I don't remember her from the wedding, Jake. But I do vaguely know her from the church. She was a parishioner here years ago.”

“She came to the same church as my mother and I? I don't remember her.”

“Used to come to the early Mass if I remember correctly. Not sure your mother ever spoke to her. I don't recall them being friends.”

Jake thought about his mother and Marilyn in a throwdown, hair-pulling fight outside the entrance to the pearly gates. Settling earthly scores with a heavenly catfight.

Father McKenna continued. “Haven't seen Marilyn in, gosh, five years. Maybe longer. Time just flies by,” the priest said, stroking the bookmark that hung from the pressed pages of the Bible on the table.

“She passed away on Friday. Fell down an escalator at the Metro station. We had just had a few drinks at a bar near my father's office.”

“I hadn't heard. Poor woman.” Father McKenna closed his eyes and muttered something undistinguishable in Latin.

Definitely old school, Jake thought.

“No one contacted me about a service.”

“There is a brief service at a funeral parlor in Alexandria. Her brother is flying her body back to Wisconsin on Wednesday.”

“Does your trouble have to do with Marilyn?”

“Maybe. She and I had been doing a lot of talking lately. She told me some things I could have gone without knowing. Things involving her and my father. Not very flattering revelations if you know what I mean.”

“I see,” Father McKenna answered noncommittally. He had probably received both ends of the story in anonymous confessionals, but it was a million affairs ago. A billion sins by thousands of sinners.

“And on top of that, it seems that my father has managed to get some Asian girl pregnant and is refusing to help her.”

“Sounds like life has been interesting.”

“You have no idea.”

“So how can I help you, son?”

“How would you feel, hypothetically speaking, if I helped someone get an abortion?”

“Hypothetically, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to answer that as a priest or as a friend?”

“Either,” Jake said. “Or both.”

“Well, as a priest, all I can say is that the Catholic Church has a very dim view of abortion. The fetus is a living human from the moment of conception. Undoubtedly this is not a new thought to you.”

“No, Father. I understand the Church's position… What would you say as a friend?”

“Do you believe that God loves you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to believe that God loves you more than even your mother did?”

“I'm willing to believe it is possible.”

“If your mother were alive, do you think she would still love you even if you did something she did not agree with?”

“Sure, she would.”

“Then, as a friend, and not a priest, I believe God would also.”

Jake sat quiet for a moment. “Thanks, Father.”

“Sure, Jake.”

Jake stood and the padre pushed himself out of his chair using his palm against the corner of the desk.

“Mass on Sunday is still at eight, ten, and twelve. I will be doing the ten o'clock service. Bring your new girlfriend.”

“Nice sales pitch Father. I'll try to make it.”

“Don't be a stranger,” the priest said, patting Jake on the shoulder and going back to his menial daily tasks.

Jake stopped and looked at the priest as he walked out the door. It was the closest thing he was going to get to a spiritual green light.

Jake walked through the vestibule to the back of the church, past the lone sinner, rosary still in hand. He dipped his finger in the holy water again, made the sign of the cross, and followed the short hall to the right, past the bathroom and the water fountain. At the end of the hall, he stopped and looked through the glass window in the door. The “silent room” as it was called among the parishioners, was built for parents to take their restless children during Mass. It was constructed a hundred years after the main church was built, a niche carved out from a few rows of pews and an old coat closet. The large glass window on the far side of the room offered a distant view of the altar. Two speakers were perched in the corners of the wall so the parishioners could hear the Mass in progress. When the speaker was off, the room was dead quiet. A pay phone, a rapidly disappearing species of technology, hung on the wall in the close corner. Jake stepped over a pile of religious children's books and shook his pocket for loose change.

The maddening, bureaucratic world of the D.C. Police was a shock to Jake's system. His first call to headquarters was picked up by Tonya Freeman, a woman with three kids, as many ex-husbands, and a dislike for her job. She tried to transfer Jake's call and promptly disconnected him. Jake shoved another fifty cents in the phone and called back. On his second attempt, Tonya put down her coffee long enough to connect him to the First District. His second transfer was as difficult as the first and Jake found himself talking to Officer Charlesworth from traffic enforcement. Ten minutes after his journey had begun, Earl Wallace, the detective who filled out the accident report on Marilyn, picked up his phone.

“Detective Wallace.”

“Good morning, detective.”

“Good morning. How can I help you?”

“I wanted to ask a question about a recently deceased woman. Her name is Marilyn Ford and she died Friday night in an accident at the McPherson Metro station.”

Detective Wallace started shuffling papers around his desk. “What did you say your name was again?”

Jake stalled. “I'd rather not say.”

“Then may I ask if this is an anonymous tip?” It was an early stalemate and Jake realized he wasn't prepared for what he was doing.

Detective Wallace followed his instincts and didn't push. “Okay. How do you know the subject?”

Jake noted the word ‘subject', not ‘victim.' “We go to the same church,” he answered. It was stretching the truth like spandex at a Weight Watchers meeting, but it was still technically true.

Earl Wallace switched gears and eased into the soft approach. “I'm sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks for saying so. Detective, I'm curious as to the specifics of how she died.”

Detective Wallace listened to Jake's voice, trying to imagine the person on the other end—his age, his race, his education level. “She fell down fifty yards of escalator stairs. Broken neck. It was a violent fall.”

“So it was an accident?”

“Yes, as far as I know. Do you have something to tell me it wasn't?”

“No, I was just wondering. We got the news at the church and we were looking for answers.”

“Well, could I get your number, just in case I need to speak with you.”

“That's all right. I just wanted to know how she died. You have been helpful. Thanks for your time, detective.” Jake hung up the phone as he finished the sentence. He felt sweat run down the inside of his arm. He looked out at the altar and the hanging crucifix, and crossed himself one more time for luck before dancing around the toys on the floor on his way out.

Detective Wallace hung up the old black phone on his desk and stared at the receiver, the noise of the office and its activities silenced by concentration. He picked the phone back up and punched nine for the police operator. “I need a trace on the call that just came in.”

“Yes, detective. The phone is registered to St. Michael's Catholic Church. 2300 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Wallace jotted a quick sentence in his detective's notebook. The phone call was unusual. He pulled the file for the case from the out-basket on his desk and went over the evidence again just to be thorough. The accident scene report and the medical examiner's cursory exam results all pointed to a lady with a broken heel taking a spill down one mean-ass escalator. He held the folder in his hand and tried to put it back in his out-basket. His fingers wouldn't let it go. Something about the phone call stuck in his craw. Cases had been made and killers sent to prison from investigations that started with clues far more benign than a random phone call.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was everything.

Detective Wallace placed a call to the morgue. His request for a full autopsy on the victim wasn't well received. The medical examiner's initial report was already on file. The body had been in the morgue since late Friday night and it was due to leave in a couple of hours. A full autopsy was time consuming and the current backlog of stiffs was long and growing. Two teenagers found beaten, stabbed, and shot in an alley on U Street. A three-car accident that claimed four lives including a mentally ill man who was trying to cross the street with a grocery cart full of junk. A young man dumped at the entrance to the hospital with no visible signs of illness or injury. And those were only the dead from Saturday afternoon. Two bodies had just been fished out of the Potomac and were on their way over.

Dr. Hahn handled the call. “I'll get to her later today, detective. Looking for anything in particular?”

“Anything suspicious, no matter how minute. Double-check for forensic evidence that may have been missed in the initial exam. Anything that would contradict an accidental death by serious fall.”

The doctor read the clipboard. “Alcohol, Valium, and Zoloft followed by a fall down the stairs at the Metro station?”

“That's what we know.”

“Ouch,” the doctor said. “I will get back to you by this afternoon.”

The unmarked cruiser stopped between two of the most confusing parking signs ever manufactured. By process of time slot elimination, it was legal to park between six p.m. and midnight, excluding holidays and snow emergencies. Detective Wallace shook his head at the sign, shut the door to his black unmarked cruiser and jogged, stomach bouncing, across two lanes of traffic.