The Skeleton Box (15 page)

I jumped to my feet, thinking, How the hell could they know that? It had to be Tawny Jane Reese reporting. There was no way that Darlene would have told her, or that D’Alessio would have known now that he was openly campaigning against Dingus. Vicky Clark? Could Vicky have figured out what I was really doing at the clerk’s office? And even if she had and then had thought to call Tawny Jane, Tawny Jane couldn’t have reported it based solely on a secondhand tip from a deputy county clerk.

The only other person who knew was Luke Whistler.

I went into the kitchen, turned on my phone, dialed Whistler.

“Where the hell were you?” he answered.

“Did you just moan it out when she was going down on you?” I said.

“Settle down, junior,” Whistler said. “I didn’t tell her a thing. She told me. I got it out of her. I tried to call you from her bathroom.”

“Bullshit.”

“I left you a message about twenty minutes ago.”

I pulled the phone away from my ear. The message light was blinking. Shit, I thought. “I don’t give a damn,” I said. “You told her.”

I looked through the kitchen and dining room to the TV. There was Tawny Jane on the screen, microphone in hand, doing a stand-up in front of St. Valentine’s. Goddamm it, I thought.

“The next time you accuse me,” Whistler said, “I’m gone, and you can fill your little rag by yourself. If you’d had your phone on—”

“Shit!” I said, spluttering it.

“If you’d had your phone on, you could’ve beaten her to the punch on the Web and I’d be getting my ass chewed by her instead.”

“Then how the hell did she know, Luke?”

“Are you watching her now?”

I walked into the living room. Tawny Jane was signing off, her brows furrowed into their deepest crease of seriousness. “Yes. Fuck.”

“She didn’t have anything more than what we already knew. I’m betting you’ve already made some progress in your reporting, am I right?”

“Some. But how did she know? Really.”

“She wouldn’t tell me. But I’m betting it was D’Alessio.”

“Come on. Dingus has got to be totally shutting him out.”

“Maybe he has his own department mole.”

I considered this, doubted it, but didn’t know what else to think. I shut the TV off.

“Should we pop something online?” I said.

“That would just be an admission of defeat. And it’ll be seen by
about six people. Might as well stay on the trail and do a better story when we got it. Look, partner, T.J.’s good.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Enough,” he said.

He was right. Tawny Jane Reese could be a good reporter, as I had learned from hard experience. “All right,” I said. “Let’s talk in the morning.”

“Get back on the horse.”

The kitchen filled with the glow of headlights. I heard tires crunching snow. I started walking to the kitchen door.

“And look, I’m sorry,” I said. “But you’ve got to understand—”

“Yeah, I know, I know. I can see how you’d jump to the conclusion. But, look, I’m on your side.”

Darlene was standing outside Mom’s kitchen door. She didn’t look happy. I unlocked the door, swung it open, stepped outside, pulled the door closed. Her cruiser was idling, the exhaust a coiled wraith in the dark. “Good night,” I said into the phone, hanging up. Midnight cold enveloped me. I wrapped my arms around my chest.

“Checking in with T.J.?” Darlene said.

“That was Whistler,” I said. “We got scooped big-time.”

“Really? How would the TV bitch know about Nilus if you didn’t tell her?”

Oh, holy shit, no, I thought. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

“Do you get extra points at work for helping Channel Eight? Do the bosses send you an attaboy? Or maybe T.J. has one for you, huh?”

I couldn’t believe this was happening. “I’m not sleeping with Tawny Jane, Darl.” I decided against telling her about Whistler and T.J. “She knew on her own. Whistler’s as pissed as I am.”

“Uh-huh.”

She didn’t look convinced, but what else could I say?

“Did you hear what she said?” Darlene asked.

“I saw the bulletin and got on the phone. Why?”

“She said the Catholic Church may be implicated in my mother’s murder.”

“She what?”

“The Catholic Church, Gus. My mother loved the church. She believed. She had faith. She’d be horrified at this crap coming out of the TV.”

“That’s just TV hype,” I said. “As you may know by now, there was a Nilus here who was pastor at St. Valentine’s when our mothers were girls. But I don’t see how that connects him to what happened.”

“That’s all you know?”

“So far.”

“I believe, too,” Darlene said. She’d gone to Mass with her mother almost every Sunday. The church was a subject on which we’d long ago agreed to disagree.

“I know,” I said.

“This may force our hand.”

“What does that mean?”

“This is not easy for me. Please don’t make it any harder.”

“I’m not.”

“Just do your job, and I’ll try to do mine.”

I watched her taillights recede on the shore road toward town. When I turned to go back inside, I saw Mom standing in the kitchen in her bathrobe.

Mom sat on the footstool in front of the recliner, facing me. The remnants of my chicken and noodles sat on the end table.

“I’ll clean that up,” I said.

“Why are you here?”

“I told you I was coming over.”

“It’s late.”

“I’m here because of Father Nilus Moreau,” I said. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

Mom considered it. “He was at St. Val’s when I was a girl. I worked for him for a few years at the rectory. Why?”

“He was your boss?”

“I guess. Grandma Damico liked him, but she liked all the priests.”

She meant her adoptive mother, my grandmother.

“What’s Grandma D got to do with it?” I said.

Mom shook her head. “She never liked Rudy, you know.” My father.

“What? Why are you—”

“She would never let us be alone in the house. It was fine for my brothers. They could have their girlfriends in at all hours when Mama and Papa weren’t there. But Rudy had to stay away.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You asked.”

“No. I asked about Father Nilus.”

“Grandma Damico liked him.”

Grandpa Damico died of a heart attack before I was born. Grandma D lasted until I was almost seven. I remembered how she looked too fat for her tiny kitchen and how her apron smelled of garlic and how disappointed I was that she gave me socks and underwear for my sixth birthday and then again for Christmas a month later.

“Why does that matter?” I said.

“She got me the job with Nilus. She said she wanted me busy, but really she just wanted me away from all the boys. ‘Boys bad,’ she used to say. ‘Boys bad.’ She was right, of course, as her own sons proved.”

“So you knew him pretty well?”

“Who?”

I told myself to be patient. It was late, Mom was tired, I was testing her.

“Nilus,” I said.

She placed her hands palms down on her knees and assessed them. “He was my friend, for a while,” she said.

“You never mentioned him before.”

“I suppose not. He went away when I was, oh, I don’t know, sixteen or seventeen? I wrote him a few letters, but he never wrote back. So I guess he wasn’t my mentor. Maybe I had the wrong address.”

“Where were you writing?”

“Why are you asking me these things?”

I studied her face. She wasn’t going to say more until I answered.

“During the break-in,” I said, “Mrs. B tried to call Darlene. Darlene didn’t answer so her mom left a message. She mentioned this Nilus. At least we think she did.”

Mom looked away. “Why?”

“Why what?”

She looked back at me. “Why would Phyllis say something like that?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you. Did she know this guy, too?”

“Of course. We went to the same school. We went to Mass every day.”

“Did something happen that would have—”

“A lot happened,” Mom said. “But then it was over, and we went on with our lives.”

“Are you talking about the nun? Sister Cordelia?”

Now Mom studied my face.

“How do you know about her?”

“I read about her at the—in old newspaper clippings.”

“It was quite a story.”

“You knew her?”

“We all knew her. She taught us.”

“Reading and writing and spelling, right? Did you like her?”

Mom nodded. “She was nice. She brought us cake on our birthdays.”

“Did Grandma Damico like her?”

“No. She thought Non—Sister Cordelia was too pretty to be a nun.”

“She did look pretty in the picture I saw. She took you on a trip for a spelling bee.”

“Really?” Mom thought about this. “I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that we lost.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about any of this?”

Mom lowered her eyes, and the fine features of her face—the high cheekbones, the thin-lipped mouth—narrowed into a concerted frown, as if she was trying to remember something. She began to rock gently on the footstool. She raised her right hand in front of her face and
looked at the backs of her fingers. She rotated her hand slowly one way, then the other. Then she turned it over and curled her fingers into her palm.

“Mom,” I said.

“My fingernails,” she said. “I have to wash my hands. Look at my nails. They’re filthy.”

I leaned over and looked. Her fingers and her palm were clean. Her unpolished nails, too. “They look fine,” I said.

“I need the hard brush. The bristles get under the nails.”

I had learned not to argue about things she believed she saw or heard that no one else could see or hear. They would go away on their own. I wanted to put my arm around her, but that wouldn’t have done any good either. I waited. She stared at her fingers a little longer, then let her hand fall back into her lap. The rocking stopped.

“I wish Phyllis were here,” she said.

“So do I,” I said. “Can you tell me anything more about Nilus?”

“Why are you so concerned with a priest who’s been dead for years?”

“How did you know he was dead?”

“I don’t know. He was old.”

“I thought he never wrote you back.”

“He didn’t.”

“Where was he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’d you send your letters?”

“Detroit.” A muscle in her jaw pulsed. “The archdiocese.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I’m tired.”

“That’s not why you stopped going to church, is it?”

“Because he didn’t write back to me? No.” She sighed. “No, he was a help after”—she paused—“after Sister Cordelia left. For a while.”

She’d never told me exactly why she had walked away from the church. She and Mrs. B had their occasional debates, of course, and almost every time Mom would say of St. Val’s, “There’s nothing in there
but a frustrated man and his expensive geegaws.” I never knew if she meant the pastor or God himself.

“Nilus died in the U.P.,” I said. “In 1971.”

“Hmm,” she said. She looked past me and I turned to see headlights moving past the house again. “When will the police stop?”

“Why do you care so much?”

“I want my life to go back to normal.”

It would never be normal again without her best friend, but I didn’t need to say that. “You’d better get some sleep,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “How is Alden?”

My mother was one of the only people in the world who called Soupy by his given name. “He’s fine. I mean, you know, he’s in bankruptcy and his life’s a total mess, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

“I worry about him.”

“Why?”

“Because I do. He’s selling his parents’ property, isn’t he?”

“He has an offer. Why?”

“He needs to be careful.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

Mom stood, gathering her robe around her. “I’ll stay at your place tomorrow night, if that’s all right.”

“Of course. Any particular reason?”

“I’m tired of the police watching my every move.”

“They’re not watching you, Mom. They’re watching over you.”

“Millie’s coming to get me in the morning,” she said. “We’re going to have breakfast at Audrey’s, then go to the funeral home.”

“I thought you were going there today.”

“Where?”

“The funeral home.”

Mom thought about this for a moment. “Well,” she said, “I didn’t.”

“How come?”

She looked past me into the kitchen again, as if she hadn’t heard my question. “Tomorrow night,” she said, “I’ll need you to help me with something.”

“All right.”

“After it’s dark.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too.”

I scraped my plate and put it in the dishwasher, then dialed voice mail on my cell phone. Sure enough, there was Whistler’s voice, telling me at ten fifty-two that Tawny Jane Reese was about to clobber us with the Nilus scoop.

“Damn,” I said, and shut the phone off.

M
y phone was ringing when I came through the back door to the
Pilot
newsroom. Only one person, my boss, called me on the line that was blinking. I grabbed it.

“Hey,” I said.

“I’ve been trying to call you,” Philo Beech said.

“I’ve been busy.”

Millie Bontrager had picked Mom up just as I was dragging myself out of bed. I’d hugged them both and told Mom I’d call her in the afternoon. Now I had a few things to do at the
Pilot
before I went to the drain commission meeting where Breck was supposed to make an appearance. I had a few questions to ask him about a murdered murderer who might have been his maternal grandfather.

“No, I’m sorry,” Philo said. “How’s your mother doing? It seems like every time I look at my computer, something else bad has happened over there.”

“Mom’s OK.”

Philo would have been standing at the fourth-floor window of his corner office in Traverse City, tall and gawky in a sleeveless argyle sweater, peering down on Front Street as he talked. Seven years my junior, he was enthralled with the idea that he was at corporate, with his own office and a shared secretary, after his promotion from the
Pilot
to Media North assistant vice president for news and innovation. As a reporter, he’d barely been able to cover a high school volleyball match. Now he was in charge of telling editors and reporters like me which stories to cover and how. It was actually the order of things at newspapers big and small. The guys who couldn’t skate or shoot or stickhandle often wound up running the hockey team.