The 7th Canon (34 page)

“Just tell him I’ll meet him at the corner by the video store. Tell him Connor is waiting for him.”

Crystal squealed again. “Connor. That’s a cute name.”

“Do it for me, and I’ll have another twenty for you when you come back. Easy money.”

Crystal let out a sigh and looked back down the alley. Donley could tell she was waffling. “What do I have to do?”

“Just what I said.” Donley described Red. “Just tell him Connor is waiting for him, and if he doesn’t come out, I’m going to come in.”

Crystal looked skeptical. “Are you sure you’re not a cop?”

“Would a cop be making this transaction, Crystal?”

“Some would.” She contemplated the alley. “They’re mean. Punks are mean.”

“In and out. That’s all you have to do. Deliver the message and get out.”

“What if he’s not there?”

“If he’s not there, you still get the money. Easiest forty dollars you ever made.”

“Make it a hundred.”

Donley shook his head. “Fifty. That’s the best I can do.”

She looked back down the alley for what seemed the hundredth time. “There’s a five-dollar cover at the door.”

Donley flipped through the stack, pulled out the five, and handed it and the twenty to her. “Just deliver the message. You’ll get the rest when you return.”

Crystal took a deep breath and started down the alley, walking comfortably in a pair of spiked heels despite the uneven pavement. Donley knew the door was the only entry and exit, and there were only two ends to the alley. If Red was inside, he’d think Connor was at the other end.

Crystal reached the club entrance. Donley watched as she stopped to speak to the bouncer with the multicolored spikes. Just when Donley thought Crystal would be turned away, the man nodded toward the entrance, and Crystal disappeared into the doorway.

Five minutes later, Crystal hurried back down the alley. When she reached Donley, he saw she was wiping blood from her nose.

“What happened?” Donley asked.

“I got slammed into a wall,” she said, no longer sounding so feminine.

“Are you all right?”

“That’s how they dance.”

“Did you find him?”

“I gave him the message.”

“He was there? You told him what I told you to say?”

“I said I did.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Crystal?”

“You said I’d get the money either way. Why would I lie? Red hair, shaved on one side, earring through his nose. But I don’t think he’s going to come. He looked freaked when he heard
your
name.”

Donley handed Crystal the rest of the money. “Thanks, Crystal. That’s all I need.”

Crystal put the money down the front of her dress. “If you change your mind, you know the name. Crystal. Delicate and expensive,” she said, and walked off down the block.

Donley watched the door to the club. People continued to file in. No one was coming out. Then Red stepped out, followed by another boy. Donley’s pulse quickened. The two boys looked down the alley in the direction of the video store, where they expected to find Dixon Connor. Then they turned and started running to where Donley waited. Donley pressed his back against the wall, listening for the sound of heavy-soled boots on pavement. He tensed his legs, timed their arrival, and burst from the wall as they reached the edge of the alley.

He hit Red square with his shoulders, knocking him backward into his friend, and took both to the ground. He pulled Red from the pavement by his shirt collar and dragged him quickly up the block, shoving him into the entryway of an apartment building. The second boy came up the stairway with a knife. Donley spun and kicked the blade from the kid’s hand. Red made a move to flee, but Donley grabbed him and threw him up against the wall. Then he dragged the second kid up the steps and also pushed him to the ground.

Red glanced at the knife.

“Don’t,” Donley said. He leaned closer. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t lie.”

Donley grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to his feet. “You’re lying to me now. You were at the shelter that night. You checked in. I got a book with your name on it and witnesses who say you were there.”

Red’s friend started to get up.

“Tell him to stay down.”

“Stay down,” Red said. His friend slumped back against the marble wall.

“Don’t lie to me. I know you were there. You were smoking in the dorm room. The priest came in and told you to quit. I know it, so don’t you lie to me.”

“OK, I was there.”

“Why? Who sent you in?”

“No one.”

Donley shook him. “Who sent you in?”

“No one.”

“It was Connor, wasn’t it? He had you prop open the two doors, the one at the bottom of the stairs off the park and the door into the recreation room.”

Red shook his head. “No.” But his eyes betrayed him. He clearly knew the name Connor because it had just scared him enough to flee the club.

Donley forced him against the wall. “Here’s a news flash. Connor has killed three young men already. You think he won’t make it four? You think you can survive out here, avoid him forever? You’re a witness. You know what he did. That means he’ll come for you. He’ll come because he knows I’m onto him. So if you want to live, right now I’m the only one who can help you.”

Red’s voice broke. “Why? Why would you help me?”

The emotion startled Donley. He noticed Red’s lip was swollen, and dried blood had scabbed over a cut. The kid’s eyes were wide with fear. Donley let go of Red’s collar and stepped back. He took a breath to calm himself. “Because I know what it’s like to be afraid, to have someone like Connor chasing you. And I know you can’t run forever. Eventually, he’ll get you. You know that.”

Red did not speak.

“Let me tell you how this works.” Donley spoke softly, deliberately. “The police will consider you an accessory to Bennet’s murder. I’ll tell them you refused to cooperate. You’re what, sixteen, seventeen? They’ll consider you an adult because you likely have a police record. That means you go to state prison. The other alternative is, I leave you on the street for Connor.” He let the choices sink in. “If you want my help, you have to be honest with me. You have to tell me the truth. People are forgiving, but you have to be accountable. You have to tell me what happened. You do that, and I’ll take you someplace where Connor can’t touch you.”

Red shifted his gaze to his friend.

“We didn’t know,” his friend said.

“Didn’t know what?”

“Didn’t know Connor was going to kill anyone,” Red said. “He’s crazy.”

“Tell me what you do know,” Donley said.

“Connor said he’ll kill me.”

“Tell me what you know, and I’ll keep you safe from Connor. You have my word.” Donley stepped back, leaving the stairway clear for the boys to run. Neither did. “Tell me what happened.”

Red ran a hand through his hair and pulled the long strands to the side. “Connor busted us for coke. He said it was enough that he’d make sure we did time.”

“What did he tell you to do?”

“He told me to check into the shelter and unlock the two doors.”

“Was that it?”

“Mostly.”

“What else?”

“He wanted us to get something.”

“What?”

Red was breathing heavily. “I didn’t know he was going to kill anybody. I just didn’t want to go to jail.”

“Was it a book?”

Red shook his head. “A videotape. He said Bennet had it. He said he put it in a locker in the office.”

“Did you get it?”

“I couldn’t. The lockers were locked, and the priest was in there.”

“What did you do when the police showed up?”

“Just ran.”

Jack Devine’s whiny voice resonated inside Donley’s head.

The little fucker had a videotape.

Bennet had told Devine he had a lot of videotapes, and that he was going to make a lot of people pay. He’d been blackmailing someone with a videotape, but he was also running for his life from Connor. His two accomplices were dead. Where could he go? Ross said kids like Bennet had no place to go, nowhere to turn, nowhere except perhaps to a priest who had started a shelter for kids just like him. His two friends were dead. He was afraid. So he stashed a videotape at the shelter and took off. That’s why Connor broke down doors and busted locks. He was looking for the videotape Bennet had stashed. In the process, Connor planted enough evidence to blame the murder on Father Martin. He’d kill two birds with one stone.

But why was Connor so interested in a tape? What was on it? Ross said no way Connor was on the tape, but Donley was no longer so sure. It was like Joe from the video store said. You’d be surprised what skeletons people kept in their closets.

Donley knew.

He listened to the distant sound of a siren screaming toward an impending tragedy, echoing as they had ten years earlier when the police cars had sped up the hill, one after the other, lights flashing, and pulled to a stop in front of Donley’s home. He considered the two boys, backs against the wall, knees to their chests, frightened, distrustful.

He knew what he had to do to have any hope of saving Father Martin’s life. He had to get that tape before Connor used it for whatever purpose he intended, and Donley’s instincts were telling him he didn’t have a lot of time. Things were coming to a head. Connor knew it, too.

Whatever Donley was going to do, he had to do it now.

Chapter 20

December 30, 1987

The windshield wipers slapped a steady beat. Donley slowed the car to a crawl, the headlights blunted by the thick fog. With the temperature warming after a two-day cold spell, gray mist and fog had rolled over the Sunset District, nearly obscuring the pink-and-green neon sign of the 19th Hole.

Donley parked across the street, stepped out, and walked toward the doors. He’d driven by Connor’s house, but it had been dark, with no car in the driveway. Now he was playing a hunch.

He stepped to the swinging wooden doors of the 19th Hole and peered through the porthole. He recognized the hulking figure slumped on the same bar stool. Dixon Connor.

Turning, he noticed a brand-new Range Rover, the only vehicle parked in front of the building. He put a hand on the hood. It was warm. He pressed his face to the glass and shone a small penlight through the windows. He didn’t see a videotape or a Bible on the seats or the floor.

He hurried back to his car and pulled from the curb, driving past Connor’s house. Then he turned, and parked three houses to the west on the opposite side of the street. He killed the engine and took a moment to consider the neighborhood. Christmas lights and televisions glowed muted colors in the gray mist, but Donley detected no activity. No late-night dog walkers patrolled the sidewalks. No busybody neighbors stuck their heads out from behind curtained windows. The fog blunted all noise but for the low howl of the wind off the Pacific.

Donley pushed aside the words of caution repeatedly streaming through his head. He couldn’t wait for Ross, whose wife said he was not home. Connor would not stay out much later. The bars closed at 2:00 a.m. Besides, Ross would talk Donley out of what he knew he had to do. He’d tell Donley that he had a career and a family to think about. He’d tell Donley that Connor was not someone to mess with. He’d tell him to call the police, to get a search warrant. But that would be too late. Connor would ditch the book and the videotape. And Father Martin would fry. If Donley had any hope of finding either, he needed to act now, before Connor realized the extent to which Donley and Ross were on to him.

Besides, Donley had heard the same admonitions before, and he’d learned the hard way that if you wanted something done, you had to take care of it yourself. No one was going to help you.

Donley’s only chance, Father Tom’s only chance, was Connor’s arrogance. He wouldn’t think anyone knew about the videotape. He wouldn’t think anyone would dare to come looking for it. He wouldn’t think anyone would be so brazen as to break into a cop’s home.

Donley’s hand drifted to the passenger seat, feeling the walnut-wood grip of Lou’s police service revolver. In the thirty years Lou had kept it in his desk, it had never been fired. It had probably never been cleaned, but it was always loaded. Donley had no idea if it would fire or explode in his hand. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out tonight.

He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and stepped from the car. He shoved the barrel of the revolver into his pants at the small of his back and covered the handle with his leather jacket. He shut the car door with care. A neighborhood dog, as if sensing his presence, barked.

The fog blew moist pellets in his face as he crossed the street and walked up the sidewalk. He passed the walkway leading to Connor’s front door, took a final look over his shoulder, and ducked down the driveway beneath the sill of a window. At the end of the driveway, he came to a wooden gate. He looked over the top into the backyard before pulling on the knotted string. The gate unlatched with a click and swung open. He crept into a bleak backyard of crabgrass and dandelions. Weeds stood four feet high in planter beds along a dilapidated redwood fence. In the corner of the yard, a rusted clothesline resembling an oversize television antenna rotated in the breeze, whining like the strings on a violin.