VC03 - Mortal Grace (60 page)

“I haven’t had a chance to look at them.”

Pierrette pushed him toward a chair. “Then sit. Peruse the million-dollar epistles. Actually, Father only had to pay half a million to suppress them.”

“Who did he pay?”

“Schuyler gave them to Samantha. Father paid Samantha. His gift to Wright’s memory.”

Cardozo began reading.

“Would you like a drink? It’s only white wine.” Pierrette went behind the screen. He heard her open the door of the refrigerator and yank out an ice tray. She came back with two glasses of ice and a bottle. “Not chilled, I’m afraid, but there’s ice. I’m having another.”

She filled both glasses.

“My use of the word
another
is not quite accurate. I’ve had an entire bottle already. I’m drowning my sorrows.” She perched on the arm of a chair like a Prohibition-era chanteuse on the edge of a piano. “My lover has left me for a rich divorcee. But you know all that.”

“No, I don’t know anything about it.”

“Really? It’s in all the columns. Please, have a drink.” She held out a glass. “It’s very rude not to keep a drunk lady company and I know you’re not a rude man.”

He took the glass and set it on the floor beside him.

Pierrette was watching him. “I’ve always thought those letters were sweet. Repetitious but sweet.”

“Then you must have thought your brother’s affair was sweet too.”

“It would have been sweet if he’d ever
had
an affair—but he was much more for thinking than doing. Especially in that department. The exact opposite of me.”

“I heard he and the priest at St. Andrew’s were lovers.”

“To call them lovers shows very little respect for the meaning of that word. Bonnie was counseling him and they spent a lot of time together. Big deal.”

Cardozo felt hollow when she said Bonnie’s name. “I thought it was Father Joe they suspected.”

“Suspected of what?”

“Seducing Wright and causing his death.”

“Darling old Father Joe? Heavens, no. It was Bonnie. Modern, liberated, first-female-in-the-clergy Bonnie.” She smiled with a drunk’s caginess. “And the lawsuit never got anywhere. Our family has no luck in the courts. Which is sad, considering how much we pay our lawyers.”

“Why’s your mother meeting with Bonnie?”

“I suppose she wants to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“What happened, and how to forgive. Isn’t that all any of us need—just to understand and forgive?”

Bonnie opened the door wearing blue jeans and a lightweight sweatshirt with large blue letters that spelled
General Theological Seminary.

“I’ve been trying to reach you all morning,” Cardozo said.

“I’m sorry. I must have programmed the call-forwarding wrong.”

They went to her office.

She looked at him. “Is something the matter?”

“Something’s very much the matter. You were going to let my office know if you had to leave the parish house.”

“Look, I don’t think I can take that accusing tone right now.”

“You know ten thousand ways of withholding, don’t you? And you’ve been doing it from the start.”

For an instant her mouth was a speechless O of astonishment. “What on earth do you think I’m withholding?”

“I’ve seen the letters between Wright Vanderbrook and his lover.”

He could see she was shaken.

“How did you manage that?” she said.

“There’s a collection of them in Wright Vanderbrook’s studio at 474 Broadway.”

“What were you doing there?”

“What were you doing there?”

“You’ve been following me.”

“Yes, I’ve been having you followed.”

“Why?”

“Originally, it was to protect you.”

“And now there’s another reason?”

“Why did you let me believe Father Joe was involved with Wright Vanderbrook—when all the time it was you?”

There was disbelief in her eyes and then resolve. “I never said it was Father Joe. No one was involved with Wright, not in the way you mean.”

“Someone sure wrote a lot of sexy letters.”

“I took notes of our sessions. Someone stole my papers.”

Okay
, he decided.
I can give her the benefit of the doubt. They were notes.
“Did you report the theft?”

“No, I did not.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t realize the notes had been stolen till Wright’s family produced them in the lawsuit.”

“All the same, you misled me.”

“Never.”

“All right—you let me mislead myself. And if you let me mislead myself about Vanderbrook, how do I know you haven’t let me mislead myself about everything else?”

The moment stretched out, endless and awful.

“What do you mean,” she said,

“‘everything else’?”

“I’ve asked you where Father Joe is.”

“How can I tell you something I don’t know?”

“You never exactly lie—you just give me enough truth to draw a false conclusion. Is that a technique they teach in seminary? Does it have a scholarly name?”

She drew in a long breath and held it.

“For all I know, you may even be hiding Father Joe. And your friend Collie too.”

“Why should I need to hide them?” Her eyes were hard now and challenging. “Why should anyone need to? In a decent world, priests wouldn’t need to hide.”

She was using the same tactic again.
Not a lie at all
, he realized.
She does it all by implication.

“You didn’t tell me Colin Draper was ordained.”

“You say that as though you think I was keeping it secret.”

“Somebody was keeping it secret. Father Henry at Redeemer didn’t know. Neither did Father Gus at St. Veronica. They thought he was a church groupie who put on vestments to make believe.”

“It was none of their business—or mine—or anyone else’s.” She was staring across the room. Anger rippled out of her in tight pulsations. “Collie had a breakdown in combat. He was ashamed. He had the notion that a real priest wouldn’t have come apart under gunfire. He didn’t feel he could go on working as a priest and he never mentioned his ordination. So I never mentioned it either.”

Suspicion kept nagging at Cardozo. She was extremely creative in covering her tracks, but the evidence never quite lined up on her side. “Did he give up the priesthood?”

“Not exactly.” A sigh came out of her. “He removed himself from the directory of priests. I don’t think he ever functioned as a priest again, except for…” She broke off.

“Except for what?”

“He’s helped runaways from time to time—heard their confession, given them communion.”

Cardozo rose from the chair and slowly circled the study. “Why runaways?”

“He identifies with them. He feels that in his way he’s one of them.”

“Is he?”

“He’s had a very tough life. But so have we all.”

Cardozo turned. “Where are Joe and Collie?”

“It’s not them. It’s not either of them. Father Joe’s
blind
.”

“Blind men have killed.”

She didn’t answer. She was somewhere else, some dark place in her mind.

“Are they together?” he said.

“If I knew, don’t you think I’d tell you?”

God give me the gift of silence
, he prayed. But God gave him words. “At this point, I don’t honestly know what you’d do.”

She looked up at him and her face was suffused with wondering and hurt. “You’ve never trusted me, have you?”

“That’s not true,” he said. “I trusted you till today.”

“And now?”

“And now I don’t. I’m sorry.”

SEVENTY-SEVEN

A
LONE IN HER OFFICE
, Bonnie paced. She was worried and she was scared. She knew she had to think clearly.

Her eyes fell on the photograph of her children.

She picked up the phone and dialed.

There was no answer. She broke the connection and paced.

An image leapt out at her from the wall: Father Damien preaching to the lepers. As she stared at it, the still air seemed to ripple.

She made up her mind and snatched up the phone again. She dialed another number.

“Pierre Strauss.” That same woman’s voice. His secretary.

“May I speak with him, please?”

“Of course, Reverend. Just a minute.”

She wound the cord around her fingers and waited.

“What now?” Pierre Strauss grunted.

“I’ve got to meet with Eff.”

“We’ve been through this. He’s not afraid of the rape charge. He doesn’t care whether you press it or drop it.”

“I’ll give him his money.”

“What money are we talking about?”

“Just give him the message. I’ll show up wherever he wants, whenever he wants. I’ll have half the money on me in cash. He gets the other half after he answers my questions.”

Pierre Strauss sighed. “I’ll get back to you.”

Cardozo’s phone jangled. “Cardozo.”

“I’m standing in a pay phone,” Greg Monteleone’s voice said, “and you’re not going to believe what I just saw the lady reverend do.”

“Tell me and I’ll try.”

“She just paid seven bucks and went into the Arcadia Cinema.” It was obvious from the music of Greg’s intonation that he was holding back something juicy.

Cardozo bit. “And where’s this palace of the arts located?”

“Ninth Avenue and Forty-fourth Street.”

Cardozo felt a spike of pressure just under his heart. “That’s a porn location.”

“Which is appropriate, because it’s a porn movie house. Double feature.
Color Me Wow
and
Sophie’s Choicest
.”

“Was she alone?”

“Alone with a lunchbox. Obviously she’s planning to have dinner in there.”

“Obviously.”

“Or could be it’s her traveling kit, and she’s giving communion to the lowly and humble.”

Cardozo felt an overwhelming desire to punch Greg Monteleone’s smile down his throat.

“Want me to go in after her?” Greg said.

“Give her twenty minutes. If she’s not out by then, go in and get her.”

The sign said seven dollars. Bonnie pushed the money through the opening under the bullet-proof window.

The woman selling tickets looked at her as though she had lost her mind. “You know what kind of a movie house this is, don’t you?”

Bonnie’s smile ached in her teeth. She knew it had that extra giveaway something that signaled nervousness, and she tried to tamp it down. “Yes, I know you show sex films.”

“But do you know what
kind
of a movie house this is?”

“The sign says seven dollars. Here’s my money. Please just give me my ticket.”

“Okay, lady.” A brass slot spat out the ticket. The woman shoved it under the bullet-proof glass.

Bonnie stepped out of the hot afternoon into a zone of pitch blackness that had the chilled damp of a rain forest. A turnstile buffeted her in the stomach. Somebody jostled her. She held the lunchbox tight against her side and waited for her eyes to adjust.

A stale smell of sweet rose like a gas around her. There was a hidden sting to the smell, something else that her nose didn’t want to recognize.

She felt something waiting in the dark. Her body warned her:
Don’t.

A gray shifting light dappled the void in front of her. Gradually she made out shadows sliding against the darkness, the faint light-edged valley of an aisle. Rows of seats dimly outlined themselves. Heads floated above them, haloed in light sifting down from three primary-colored TV projector beams.

She hung back at the edge of the moment, trapped in a space of sudden uncertainty. The directions had been,
Eighth row from the rear, third seat in on the left.

Inside the silence of her body she could feel her heart punching. She focused on that rhythm and moved forward, allowing two punches of the heart to each step of the feet. The important thing was not to show hesitation.

She adjusted her balance to the slight decline of the aisle and counted her way down eight rows. A man had passed out in the aisle seat. His trousers had a glistening reptile sheen and she realized he was urinating in his sleep. She squeezed past and tried to step over without touching him. She lowered herself into the third seat.

She waited.

The row rocked with each snoring breath of the man on the aisle.

She angled her watch again to catch the glow from the movie screen. She could barely make out the hands. Eff had said three-twenty. It was already three twenty-five.

She checked the aisle. Shadowy men moved up and down. Some stopped and stared at her. Eyes in nodding heads were glazed points of light.

She looked to her left. Three seats down, a man was shooting a needle into his belted arm. She quickly turned her face. Her heart was tap-dancing inside her chest.

She wondered if Eff had set her up—if this was all some colossal practical joke.

No, he wouldn’t walk out on five thousand dollars.

Not if he believed it was really five thousand.

Her arm tightened around the lunchbox, which she had stuffed with one-dollar bills and cut-up phone books. Her eyes went to the screen.

A huge, lumbering man in an American Indian headdress was straddling a woman in a police uniform. He handcuffed her wrists to the posts of a bed. She yanked and twisted sharply. He began garroting her with an athletic supporter.

The policewoman arched her back in a violent spasm. Purple glowing smudges appeared on her face.

Pounding rap music on the soundtrack urged the killer on:
Gonna kill me a pig, gonna bring me home some bacon, uh-huh, mmm-hmm….

Around Bonnie, there were stirrings in the seats. She saw manic grins and thumbs-up signs. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was still in America.

She remembered the words of the theologian Martin Buber:
God can be beheld in each thing.
She wondered:
Where is the healing presence of God in all this?

A sudden weight seized her by the hair and yanked her head back against the seat.

“Yo, bitch.”

It was his voice, whispering. It was his smell, crashing in on her—the tuna fish-and-cigarette stench of his breath, the sour heat of his sweat.