Read from the beginning
Read Part 21
Cardinal Mara moved into the space slowly, almost as if he was trying to sneak into the stall. Fr. Miller remained with the rest of the group on the concrete walkway that bisected the long apartment building.
Mara made his way to the desk. He bent down to get a closer look at the table top, but did not touch it. To Gilbert it appeared that he was smelling it. He did the same to the two chairs, before returning to Singleton.
“May I have a pair of gloves?” he asked.
“Sure,” Singleton shrugged and pulled a pair of blue latex gloves out of one of the pockets on his vest, handing them to Mara. “We’ve already been all over this space, so you can’t mess anything up.”
Mara smiled. “That’s good to know. I hope you’re right.”
Parme rolled his eyes and then growled, “How long is this going to take?”
Mara replied, “I’m not sure. We have to move this.” He pointed to the pile of old furniture.
“My men have already moved every stick of that garbage. There was nothing under it,” Singleton said.
Cardinal Mara looked back at him over his shoulder and smiled. “Please, indulge me.”
Gilbert, Singleton, Fr. Miller and Ronnie Smith moved off the concrete walkway and over to the pile of broken furniture. Singleton directed this crew to move the furniture, most of which was wooden bedroom and living room furniture in various states of disrepair, into the stall directly across the building. Then sent them past Parme, who watched them angrily for a while and then pitched in. Within a few minutes the floor was clear of anything but dirt, packed down as hard as an adobe wall.
The police personnel moved back to the walkway and let the priests walk around the room, now empty of everything but the small writing table and two chairs. Cardinal Mara walked around the space a few times and Fr. Miller walked across the room from one side to the other. Suddenly, Mara crouched down and began to examine the dirt floor carefully.
“Did you employ Luminol?” Mara asked without looking up.
Singleton frowned and then replied, “We didn’t find any blood, so it didn’t seem necessary.”
“Look at this,” Mara said, looking up at him.
Singleton moved into the room and took a knee next to the Cardinal. He put his head down low and whistled softly.
“Smith, go get it,” Singleton said. Without a word, Ronnie Smith flew back up the concrete walkway to the stairwell leading up out of the basement.
“That may not be blood,” Singleton said softly.
“I believe it is,” Cardinal Mara replied.
Parme, who had been pacing back and forth along the concrete walkway in front of the stall had stopped and was staring at the two men, who looked rather like they were playing together in the dirt. Fr. Miller stood over them, a respectable distance back but still trying to see what they were looking at. Gilbert had moved into the room on an angle that brought him near the desk. He leaned back against the table and watched the men in the center of the empty stall.
A few moments later, Smith returned with two large orange cases. He had donned gloves. He opened up the cases and took a spray bottle over to Singleton. Then he began wiring up a portable black light to the extension cord that was powering the worklight.
“Excuse me,” Singleton said as he stood and began gentle covering the area with the liquid in the spray bottle. Both priests moved back against the walls and watched him work. As he finished, Smith handed him the black light and then moved back to the walkway and shut off the worklight.
The string of bare bulbs that hung above the walkway did not throw much light into the stalls on either side and Gilbert suddenly found himself in the shadows. He backed up until he was leaning against the writing table and waited for Smith to return to the stall. Fr. Miller was standing against the back wall and Cardinal Mara stood next to Singleton.
Smith returned and handed the portable black light to Singleton who switched it on.
“Jesus Christ!” It was Smith who said what everyone in the stall was thinking. On the section of floor that had previously been covered by a pile of old furniture and rubbish was a perfectly formed image of the circle from the front of the notebook, apparently painted in human bodily fluids.
Smith scurried back out of the stall to stand next to Parme, who was now standing still on the concrete walkway. Cardinal Mara dropped to one knee to get a closer look at the markings. He traced the line with his gloved hand and then looked up to see Fr. Miller, who had crossed from the back of the room to get a closer look.
From where he was standing, Gilbert could see the concern on Cardinal Mara’s face, etched in the eerie white glow of the black light.
“Get out of the circle!” Mara cried.
What happened next happened so quickly that none of the reports provided by the men in the room would match up perfectly afterward. Each seemed to see it unfold slightly differently. One thing they all agreed about was the wind that rose up on the middle of the stall, blowing dirt and debris into their eyes and making their jackets flap against their bodies. Cardinal Mara dropped the black light, which fell so that it continued to cast its glow across the back of the stall.
From the concrete walkway, Parme saw Mara drop the light and watched Gilbert leap forward and grab Fr. Miller, who had fallen down and seemed to be attempting to crawl out of the circle, which was glowing more now than before, despite the howling wind and blowing dirt. Just as Gilbert was about to pull the priest out of the center of the stall, the furniture fell from where it had been stacked precariously against the side of the stall. It knocked Singleton back and nearly struck Mara. As it landed on the priest the wind died.
Parme turned around quickly, hoping to God he would still see the stack of furniture on the other side of the building where the team had moved it. It was not there. He turned back to see his partner and Cardinal Mara pulling the unconscious body of Fr. Miller from beneath it.
Parme turned to Smith. “Did you see that?” The smaller technician slowly looked over his sleeve and then shook his head. He would later report that he had covered his eyes as soon as the wind came up and had seen nothing.
Singleton had been struck by something wooden and there was blood on his wrist above his left latex glove. “Turn on the light!” he shouted at Smith.
Smith jumped and switched back on the worklight, flooding the stall. The shadows cast by the pile of furniture sprang up and danced on the back wall. Singleton could see that Fr. Miller had blood on his head and ordered Smith to get upstairs and call for an ambulance. He left quickly.
Gilbert and Cardinal Mara finished pulling Fr. Miller free and checked his wounds. They looked serious, but he was still breathing. Gilbert jumped to his feet and yelled to his partner.
“Where the hell did this stuff come from? I thought we moved it!” there was venom in his voice. He realized he had sent it in the direction of his partner when Parme stepped off the walkway and into the stall and then immediately regretted it. Parme narrowed his eyes and was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his words left no room for discussion.
“Get this place locked down. Nobody comes down here but the EMTs,” he turned to Singleton. “Wayne, you’d better get a full crew down here.”
Singleton had just finished mopping up the blood on his arm. He looked up at his friend and nodded. “I’m on it,” he said and headed for the stairs.
Gilbert crouched back down and looked at Cardinal Mara over the unconscious body of his friend. “What the hell was that?”
“What was what, son?”
“That blue arm that had Marty by the leg.”
Mara raised an eyebrow. “You saw that?”
Gilbert growled and looked like he was about to climb over the body of the priest and grab the Cardinal by the throat.
“Rob,” it was Parme, using a voice Gilbert hadn’t heard before. It had a gentleness to it, but also a sense of urgency.
Gilbert tore his eyes away from Mara, who was still looking at him with mild surprise, and focused on his partner. Parme nodded to the stairway. “Lock it down.”
Gilbert nodded and headed for the stairs. When he was gone, there was only Parme and the Cardinal left in the stall.
“What are we really dealing with here,” Parme asked him.
Cardinal Mara finished a prayer that Parme could barely hear in a language the detective did not know, and then stood up and turned to face the policeman. “I don’t think you want to know detective,” he replied.
Parme took a step forward and towered over the small Italian clergyman. “Don’t play games with me,” he warned.
“I’m not sure,” he replied, which made Parme lean a little further into the Cardinal’s personal space. “But if you let me see the book, I think I can find out.”
The door opened at the top of the stairs and Parme heard Gilbert leading the EMTs down into the basement.
“Then let’s go see the book,” Parme said.
Part 23 Coming Soon
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Saturday, February 10, 2018
21. A Field Trip
Read from the beginning
Read Part 20
When Parme hit the diner door, both Gilbert and Fr. Martin jumped. Pat didn’t. She had been watching him from the time he left the precinct house across the street. She could tell he was not happy by the way he walked. He was using that John Wayne gait that meant he was just looking for an excuse to kick someone’s ass. When he came through the door and found Gilbert sitting on his side of the booth, Pat was sure he’d found it.
“Coffee, gentlemen?” she asked brightly.
Parme, who had been glaring at his partner since he hit the door, slowed down for a half a step and looked up at her. Damn that woman, he thought. How does she do that. He refused to smile, not because he wanted to withhold the pleasure he knew it would give Pat to know that she could change his mood just by speaking to him, but because he wasn’t willing to be any less angry than he was right now.
And right now, the primary cause of his anger was sitting in his bench on his side of his booth in his diner.
There is a sense a prey animal gets just before it becomes a predator’s next meal. If it’s lucky, it comes with just enough time to zig when it’s expected to zag and it lives another day. If it’s not, it’s the last sense it registers before it enters the long sleep. Gilbert was getting that sense now as he watched his partner stomp across the diner in his direction, with the Cardinal, who know appeared much shorter than he had the night before, trailing in his wake like the tail of a kite.
Gilbert started to stand up but realized that he wouldn’t make it to his feet before his partner go to him and probably shot him. Suddenly, Pat was standing between them. Parme came to a stop just in time, his shirt brushing once against her chest just below the old “Barb” tag she wore on her blouse.
“Hi!” she said brightly. “Coffee?”
By the time Parme had growled a reply that only she seemed capable of translating, Gilbert has slid out of the booth and was standing next to Fr. Miller. He took a small amount of comfort in the idea that at least he would get last rights.
“Grab your gear,” Parme told Gilbert. “We’re taking the Cardinal and his associate out to the crime scene, at the Captain’s request.” He looked down at Pat for a moment but didn’t smile. She did and then returned to her work.
Parme led them outside and across the street to his car. Gilbert rode shotgun, while the priests filled the back seat. They barely had their doors closed before Parme took off. Gilbert snapped his seat belt, noticing with a sidelong glance that Parme wasn’t buckled in.
“Where are we going?” Gilbert asked.
Parme looked over at him, not with malice but with something that made Gilbert uncomfortable. “We’re taking them to see the basement, where the book was found. Then they’ll look at the book. Then, that’s it.”
The priests didn’t argue. Fr. Miller looked ahead and seemed quite pleased and comfortable with this turn of events. Cardinal Mara was directly behind Gilbert and so he couldn’t get a read on him. Now that he thought about it, the cardinal hadn’t said a word since he had entered the diner.
Gilbert turned around in his seat to get a look at the Cardinal, then asked him, “Did the Captain release the book to you?”
“Not yet,” he replied and Gilbert heard the Italian lilt in the older man’s voice, not that he could tell exactly how old he was.
“I expect that we’ll have the chance to examine it upon our return.” Parme neither confirmed nor denied the cardinal’s expectations. They made the rest of the ride in silence.
Gilbert felt relieved that his friend would finally have an opportunity to review the notebook. He felt certain that most of what it contained would be revealed as gibberish, but it would good to knock one more theory off their list. Not that demonic possession had ever been one of their theories. In hindsight, he felt stupid for ever sending Marty the material in the first place.
As they neared the apartment building, previously occupied by one Arlington C. Eagen, now deceased, they could see that Wayne Singlton and one of his techs were already on the scene.
“How did Wayne know…” Gilbert began.
“I called him,” Parme growled. “We’re not going to go stomping around a crime scene without him.”
“I thought you said the basement wasn’t a crime scene, detective,” Cardinal Mara said.
Parme turned around and shot him a look that said many things, none of them good. Gilbert couldn’t see what effect this had on the clergyman, but he hoped his partner never looked at him that way.
“Let’s go,” Parme said and exited the vehicle.
As Gilbert and Parme approached Singleton, he slid off the back of his cruiser and met them at the walk leading up to the building. “What are we doing, boys?” he asked.
Parme’s frown deepened and Gilbert answered. “These two are from the Catholic Church. They may have a line on translating the book we found and they want to see where we found it.”
“Not much to see down there, but okay.” Singleton ordered his associate to grab a set of lights out of the trunk and follow them down. He then turned to the priests. “I’m Wayne Singleton, I run the crime scene team. You guys know the basement isn’t a crime scene, right?”
“We were informed,” Cardinal Mara replied. He introduced himself and Fr. Miller and then the six of them headed into the building. They followed Parme down the hall to the basement steps and then own the stairs into the basement. At the bottom, Parme clicked the switch to turn on the string of lights down the center of the building and lead them down the concrete walkway.
When they got to the division that held the desk, Parme stopped. Singleton’s technician had unrolled an extension cord and was setting up a work light. Gilbert recognized him as Ronnie Smith, the tech he had met the night Eagan’s body had been found. Smith clicked on the work light and the “room” came out of the shadows, exactly as they had left it. The desk and two chairs against the right hand wall and the pile of used and broken furniture covering much of the rest of the space.
“Here we are,” Parme said to the priests. “Knock yourselves out.”
Read Part 22
Read Part 20
When Parme hit the diner door, both Gilbert and Fr. Martin jumped. Pat didn’t. She had been watching him from the time he left the precinct house across the street. She could tell he was not happy by the way he walked. He was using that John Wayne gait that meant he was just looking for an excuse to kick someone’s ass. When he came through the door and found Gilbert sitting on his side of the booth, Pat was sure he’d found it.
“Coffee, gentlemen?” she asked brightly.
Parme, who had been glaring at his partner since he hit the door, slowed down for a half a step and looked up at her. Damn that woman, he thought. How does she do that. He refused to smile, not because he wanted to withhold the pleasure he knew it would give Pat to know that she could change his mood just by speaking to him, but because he wasn’t willing to be any less angry than he was right now.
And right now, the primary cause of his anger was sitting in his bench on his side of his booth in his diner.
There is a sense a prey animal gets just before it becomes a predator’s next meal. If it’s lucky, it comes with just enough time to zig when it’s expected to zag and it lives another day. If it’s not, it’s the last sense it registers before it enters the long sleep. Gilbert was getting that sense now as he watched his partner stomp across the diner in his direction, with the Cardinal, who know appeared much shorter than he had the night before, trailing in his wake like the tail of a kite.
Gilbert started to stand up but realized that he wouldn’t make it to his feet before his partner go to him and probably shot him. Suddenly, Pat was standing between them. Parme came to a stop just in time, his shirt brushing once against her chest just below the old “Barb” tag she wore on her blouse.
“Hi!” she said brightly. “Coffee?”
By the time Parme had growled a reply that only she seemed capable of translating, Gilbert has slid out of the booth and was standing next to Fr. Miller. He took a small amount of comfort in the idea that at least he would get last rights.
“Grab your gear,” Parme told Gilbert. “We’re taking the Cardinal and his associate out to the crime scene, at the Captain’s request.” He looked down at Pat for a moment but didn’t smile. She did and then returned to her work.
Parme led them outside and across the street to his car. Gilbert rode shotgun, while the priests filled the back seat. They barely had their doors closed before Parme took off. Gilbert snapped his seat belt, noticing with a sidelong glance that Parme wasn’t buckled in.
“Where are we going?” Gilbert asked.
Parme looked over at him, not with malice but with something that made Gilbert uncomfortable. “We’re taking them to see the basement, where the book was found. Then they’ll look at the book. Then, that’s it.”
The priests didn’t argue. Fr. Miller looked ahead and seemed quite pleased and comfortable with this turn of events. Cardinal Mara was directly behind Gilbert and so he couldn’t get a read on him. Now that he thought about it, the cardinal hadn’t said a word since he had entered the diner.
Gilbert turned around in his seat to get a look at the Cardinal, then asked him, “Did the Captain release the book to you?”
“Not yet,” he replied and Gilbert heard the Italian lilt in the older man’s voice, not that he could tell exactly how old he was.
“I expect that we’ll have the chance to examine it upon our return.” Parme neither confirmed nor denied the cardinal’s expectations. They made the rest of the ride in silence.
Gilbert felt relieved that his friend would finally have an opportunity to review the notebook. He felt certain that most of what it contained would be revealed as gibberish, but it would good to knock one more theory off their list. Not that demonic possession had ever been one of their theories. In hindsight, he felt stupid for ever sending Marty the material in the first place.
As they neared the apartment building, previously occupied by one Arlington C. Eagen, now deceased, they could see that Wayne Singlton and one of his techs were already on the scene.
“How did Wayne know…” Gilbert began.
“I called him,” Parme growled. “We’re not going to go stomping around a crime scene without him.”
“I thought you said the basement wasn’t a crime scene, detective,” Cardinal Mara said.
Parme turned around and shot him a look that said many things, none of them good. Gilbert couldn’t see what effect this had on the clergyman, but he hoped his partner never looked at him that way.
“Let’s go,” Parme said and exited the vehicle.
As Gilbert and Parme approached Singleton, he slid off the back of his cruiser and met them at the walk leading up to the building. “What are we doing, boys?” he asked.
Parme’s frown deepened and Gilbert answered. “These two are from the Catholic Church. They may have a line on translating the book we found and they want to see where we found it.”
“Not much to see down there, but okay.” Singleton ordered his associate to grab a set of lights out of the trunk and follow them down. He then turned to the priests. “I’m Wayne Singleton, I run the crime scene team. You guys know the basement isn’t a crime scene, right?”
“We were informed,” Cardinal Mara replied. He introduced himself and Fr. Miller and then the six of them headed into the building. They followed Parme down the hall to the basement steps and then own the stairs into the basement. At the bottom, Parme clicked the switch to turn on the string of lights down the center of the building and lead them down the concrete walkway.
When they got to the division that held the desk, Parme stopped. Singleton’s technician had unrolled an extension cord and was setting up a work light. Gilbert recognized him as Ronnie Smith, the tech he had met the night Eagan’s body had been found. Smith clicked on the work light and the “room” came out of the shadows, exactly as they had left it. The desk and two chairs against the right hand wall and the pile of used and broken furniture covering much of the rest of the space.
“Here we are,” Parme said to the priests. “Knock yourselves out.”
Read Part 22
Thursday, February 8, 2018
20. A Tense Conversation
Read from the beginning
Read Part 19
Twenty minutes earlier, Parme had just released Cardinal Mara’s hand after shaking it for the second time in less than 12 hours. He hadn’t initiated it and he was’t smiling.
Captain Allen wasn’t smiling either. This was exactly the kind of thing that could focus a lot of unwanted attention on his department. This was supposed to be a routine case, open and shut. Parme had picked it and he had a way of knowing which cases the rookies could handle. It was a gift, really. Allen had often marveled at the impact a solved case could have on a new detective. By giving them a taste of success early on, Parme was doing a great service to the department. He was getting good men and women off to a good start. Allen appreciated it.
What he had a harder time appreciating was Parme’s near constant surliness. He knew the old detective was getting close to retirement. Hell, he was, too. But that didn’t mean that he had to go around growling and grumbling all of the time like an old bear pulled out of hibernation too soon. Parme had an attitude problem, but then he had been sporting it for a long, long time. Ever since his partner was killed. Allen knew that many officers never got over that kind of a loss. It was why he cut Parme so much slack. But this was different.
First, the kid had alerted the Catholic Church to the existence of what might be but probably wasn’t a religious artifact. Somehow he had convinced the Church to send a Cardinal all the way from the Vatican to investigate. The chances of Allen keeping this under wraps were very slim. Almost as slim as the chances that Cardinal Mara could provide any information that would help Parme and Gilbert solve their case.
The best thing he could do would be to grant the Cardinal a chance to look over the evidence. Singleton’s team had already been all over it and there was no DNA on the book that didn’t belong to Eagan, who was now deceased. It appeared that Eagan had created the book and that it shed no light on the current investigation. Unless the pages weren’t filled with gibberish as it appeared that they were. It shouldn’t take long for the priest, who said he was an expert in these matters, to discern the truth.
Allen pointed to the chair he expected Parme to occupy and sat down. Cardinal Mara perched on the edge of the third wooden chair.
“I’m granting Cardinal Mara access to the evidence you found at Egan’s apartment,” Allen told Parme in the tone he used to indicate that it wasn’t up for discussion.
“I would also like to see the crime scene,” Cardinal Mara said.
Both officers responded exactly the same, turning to face him abruptly and asking him to repeat it by barking, “What?”
“I need to see where the book was found,” he replied.
“Why,” Parme growled. “It was a basement. Nothing was down there by a table and chair.”
“Just one chair?” Mara asked in a tone that said he found that hard to believe.
The captain looked at his detective and raised an eyebrow. Parme’s frown deepened. “What does it matter?” he asked.
“I can’t be sure until I see the crime scene,” Mara replied. “But trust me, it could matter.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t trust anyone to investigate my cases but me,” Parme started to rise out of his chair. Allen stopped him with a look.
“We really just want to know if the writing is a religious code or ancient language that will give us the information we need to find our killer and prosecute this case,” the captain told the cardinal.
“I will help you with that, I assure you, but I need to see where it was found.”
Parme looked at Allen and very slowly shook his head. Allen looked back, blinked and said, “Fine. Give him a look around and the book.” To Mara he asked, “How long will you need to tell us what it says.”
“If it says anything, I’ll know within 24 hours,” Cardinal Mara replied.
Captain Allen stood. “Good luck then.” He shook hands with the cardinal. Parme was already out the door.
As he passed her desk, he heard Harriet whisper just loud enough for him to hear, “You’d better cool it, Parme.”
He didn’t slow down or look back.
Read Part 21
Read Part 19
Twenty minutes earlier, Parme had just released Cardinal Mara’s hand after shaking it for the second time in less than 12 hours. He hadn’t initiated it and he was’t smiling.
Captain Allen wasn’t smiling either. This was exactly the kind of thing that could focus a lot of unwanted attention on his department. This was supposed to be a routine case, open and shut. Parme had picked it and he had a way of knowing which cases the rookies could handle. It was a gift, really. Allen had often marveled at the impact a solved case could have on a new detective. By giving them a taste of success early on, Parme was doing a great service to the department. He was getting good men and women off to a good start. Allen appreciated it.
What he had a harder time appreciating was Parme’s near constant surliness. He knew the old detective was getting close to retirement. Hell, he was, too. But that didn’t mean that he had to go around growling and grumbling all of the time like an old bear pulled out of hibernation too soon. Parme had an attitude problem, but then he had been sporting it for a long, long time. Ever since his partner was killed. Allen knew that many officers never got over that kind of a loss. It was why he cut Parme so much slack. But this was different.
First, the kid had alerted the Catholic Church to the existence of what might be but probably wasn’t a religious artifact. Somehow he had convinced the Church to send a Cardinal all the way from the Vatican to investigate. The chances of Allen keeping this under wraps were very slim. Almost as slim as the chances that Cardinal Mara could provide any information that would help Parme and Gilbert solve their case.
The best thing he could do would be to grant the Cardinal a chance to look over the evidence. Singleton’s team had already been all over it and there was no DNA on the book that didn’t belong to Eagan, who was now deceased. It appeared that Eagan had created the book and that it shed no light on the current investigation. Unless the pages weren’t filled with gibberish as it appeared that they were. It shouldn’t take long for the priest, who said he was an expert in these matters, to discern the truth.
Allen pointed to the chair he expected Parme to occupy and sat down. Cardinal Mara perched on the edge of the third wooden chair.
“I’m granting Cardinal Mara access to the evidence you found at Egan’s apartment,” Allen told Parme in the tone he used to indicate that it wasn’t up for discussion.
“I would also like to see the crime scene,” Cardinal Mara said.
Both officers responded exactly the same, turning to face him abruptly and asking him to repeat it by barking, “What?”
“I need to see where the book was found,” he replied.
“Why,” Parme growled. “It was a basement. Nothing was down there by a table and chair.”
“Just one chair?” Mara asked in a tone that said he found that hard to believe.
The captain looked at his detective and raised an eyebrow. Parme’s frown deepened. “What does it matter?” he asked.
“I can’t be sure until I see the crime scene,” Mara replied. “But trust me, it could matter.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t trust anyone to investigate my cases but me,” Parme started to rise out of his chair. Allen stopped him with a look.
“We really just want to know if the writing is a religious code or ancient language that will give us the information we need to find our killer and prosecute this case,” the captain told the cardinal.
“I will help you with that, I assure you, but I need to see where it was found.”
Parme looked at Allen and very slowly shook his head. Allen looked back, blinked and said, “Fine. Give him a look around and the book.” To Mara he asked, “How long will you need to tell us what it says.”
“If it says anything, I’ll know within 24 hours,” Cardinal Mara replied.
Captain Allen stood. “Good luck then.” He shook hands with the cardinal. Parme was already out the door.
As he passed her desk, he heard Harriet whisper just loud enough for him to hear, “You’d better cool it, Parme.”
He didn’t slow down or look back.
Read Part 21
Saturday, February 3, 2018
19. Coffee and Crazy Old Friends
Read from the beginning
Read Part 18
Seeing his old friend Martin Miller walk through the diner door stopped Gilbert in his tracks. Dressed all in black as he was, save for his Roman collar, he reminded Gilbert of the way he had looked the last time they had spoken in college. Once he had made the decision to leave the university for the seminary, Martin Miller immediately began wearing all black.
Seeing him again now reminded Gilbert how it felt to hear that his friend would be leaving school. At the time, he had been surprised that it hurt. It caught him by surprise that he remembered it so clearly now. They had only known each other for a couple of semesters, but in that short period of time Martin Miller had become a close friend. More than that, he had become an important part of Gilbert’s therapy.
Gilbert had told Miller what had happened to his sister. He even shared some of the information he had shared with his therapist, Dr. Willenshow. Miller had a way of knowing when Gilbert needed to talk and could quickly put him at ease. Miller was the only person who had seen Gilbert cry, as far as he knew. He had, in a very short period of time, become like a brother to him.
And then he had left for the seminary and Gilbert was left to bumble his way through school on his own, finally achieving his undergraduate degree and moving on to law school. That hadn’t lasted long. He hit a wall in therapy and found himself unable to concentrate on a field of study that he had begun to see as more effective at obstructing justice than delivering it. He left the university after only one semester of law school.
He hadn’t seen Miller again in person since they left each other at college until the night before at the airport. Seeing him again now brought back so many conflicting feelings that he locked up completely.
Fr. Miller did not. He entered the diner and crossed the distance to embrace his friend as he had the night before. Pulling back, he seemed to see something in Gilbert’s eyes and held on to his friend’s shoulders.
“I thought we were on for lunch. I need to see my partner,” Gilbert stammered.
“He’s in a meeting with your Captain and Cardinal Mara,” Fr. Miller said, turning his friend gently back toward the table. Pat was already putting down a second coffee cup. “Let’s have a chat.”
Gilbert’s attention snapped back to the priest’s face. Those were the exact words he had used whenever he found Gilbert curled up in a ball on his dorm room bed. It was the lifeline he had thrown out on so many occasions during his first year at school. Gilbert realized that his friend had made it possible for him to advance through school as far as he had. He had never thought to thank him.
By the time the second cup of coffee was gone, Gilbert had forgotten about his partner and the fact that his was the first time he had ever missed his breakfast meeting. The friends had briefed each other on their experiences at the police academy and the seminary. To their surprise, they found many similarities. Both felt as though they had found their way into a position from which they could serve their communities. Neither found it to be quite as fulfilling as they had hoped.
For his part, Gilbert admitted that he had expected modern crime scene techniques to be more effective at gathering evidence that could be used to convict wrongdoers. Instead, he found it used more often to disqualify suspects, which he found frustrating.
Fr. Miller admitted that he had been quite fulfilled at his small Texas parish, until he was called to serve the Archdiocese of Boston. He had thought that was fantastic until he had received Gilbert’s message and discussed it with Cardinal Mara. Then, Fr. Miller said with a strange gleam in his eye, everything changed.
“I think you’ve opened a door for me, my friend,” he told Gilbert. “You’ve stumbled across something that will change my life.”
“What makes you think this isn’t just something Eagan looked up on the Internet,” Gilbert asked.
“Well, it may be. We’ll have to examine it first, which is why Cardinal Mara is visiting with your captain now. But whatever it is, it came to light when I was working with Cardinal Mara. Now, it appears that he will recruit me into his work.”
“Which is ancient church artifacts?” Gilbert asked.
“Not exactly,” Fr. Miller replied. He smiled then, very much like he had when he had first told Gilbert that he would leave school. At once it was like he could barely contain his excitement and also like he knew Gilbert could not possibly understand. "Cardinal Mara hunts demons."
Gilbert was quiet for a moment. He realized after a moment that he was waiting for his old friend to laugh at his own joke, but the earnestness in his eyes told him that wasn't going to happen. He struggled to find an appropriate response.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure a demon didn’t perpetrate the crime I’m investigating. All of the DNA we recovered from the scene was human, so…”
“That’s not how it works and I don’t expect you to believe me. I understand it’s quite a ways out there, but believe me, there is more to this world than what we can see.”
Gilbert didn’t know what to feel at that moment. When Martin first told him that he was going to go into the priesthood it had made a great deal of sense. While his friend was never one to go around proselytizing, he was a great listener, a wise counselor despite his youth and a good friend. He knew at the time that Martin Miller would make a great priest.
Suddenly, Gilbert felt a great sadness descend upon him as he realized the Church had taken such a good man and rendered him insane.
“Marty,” Gilbert started carefully. “I don’t think…”
His thought was cut short when Parme kicked open the diner’s front door. He stomped in with Cardinal Mara following him closer than his own shadow.
Read Part 20
Read Part 18
Seeing his old friend Martin Miller walk through the diner door stopped Gilbert in his tracks. Dressed all in black as he was, save for his Roman collar, he reminded Gilbert of the way he had looked the last time they had spoken in college. Once he had made the decision to leave the university for the seminary, Martin Miller immediately began wearing all black.
Seeing him again now reminded Gilbert how it felt to hear that his friend would be leaving school. At the time, he had been surprised that it hurt. It caught him by surprise that he remembered it so clearly now. They had only known each other for a couple of semesters, but in that short period of time Martin Miller had become a close friend. More than that, he had become an important part of Gilbert’s therapy.
Gilbert had told Miller what had happened to his sister. He even shared some of the information he had shared with his therapist, Dr. Willenshow. Miller had a way of knowing when Gilbert needed to talk and could quickly put him at ease. Miller was the only person who had seen Gilbert cry, as far as he knew. He had, in a very short period of time, become like a brother to him.
And then he had left for the seminary and Gilbert was left to bumble his way through school on his own, finally achieving his undergraduate degree and moving on to law school. That hadn’t lasted long. He hit a wall in therapy and found himself unable to concentrate on a field of study that he had begun to see as more effective at obstructing justice than delivering it. He left the university after only one semester of law school.
He hadn’t seen Miller again in person since they left each other at college until the night before at the airport. Seeing him again now brought back so many conflicting feelings that he locked up completely.
Fr. Miller did not. He entered the diner and crossed the distance to embrace his friend as he had the night before. Pulling back, he seemed to see something in Gilbert’s eyes and held on to his friend’s shoulders.
“I thought we were on for lunch. I need to see my partner,” Gilbert stammered.
“He’s in a meeting with your Captain and Cardinal Mara,” Fr. Miller said, turning his friend gently back toward the table. Pat was already putting down a second coffee cup. “Let’s have a chat.”
Gilbert’s attention snapped back to the priest’s face. Those were the exact words he had used whenever he found Gilbert curled up in a ball on his dorm room bed. It was the lifeline he had thrown out on so many occasions during his first year at school. Gilbert realized that his friend had made it possible for him to advance through school as far as he had. He had never thought to thank him.
By the time the second cup of coffee was gone, Gilbert had forgotten about his partner and the fact that his was the first time he had ever missed his breakfast meeting. The friends had briefed each other on their experiences at the police academy and the seminary. To their surprise, they found many similarities. Both felt as though they had found their way into a position from which they could serve their communities. Neither found it to be quite as fulfilling as they had hoped.
For his part, Gilbert admitted that he had expected modern crime scene techniques to be more effective at gathering evidence that could be used to convict wrongdoers. Instead, he found it used more often to disqualify suspects, which he found frustrating.
Fr. Miller admitted that he had been quite fulfilled at his small Texas parish, until he was called to serve the Archdiocese of Boston. He had thought that was fantastic until he had received Gilbert’s message and discussed it with Cardinal Mara. Then, Fr. Miller said with a strange gleam in his eye, everything changed.
“I think you’ve opened a door for me, my friend,” he told Gilbert. “You’ve stumbled across something that will change my life.”
“What makes you think this isn’t just something Eagan looked up on the Internet,” Gilbert asked.
“Well, it may be. We’ll have to examine it first, which is why Cardinal Mara is visiting with your captain now. But whatever it is, it came to light when I was working with Cardinal Mara. Now, it appears that he will recruit me into his work.”
“Which is ancient church artifacts?” Gilbert asked.
“Not exactly,” Fr. Miller replied. He smiled then, very much like he had when he had first told Gilbert that he would leave school. At once it was like he could barely contain his excitement and also like he knew Gilbert could not possibly understand. "Cardinal Mara hunts demons."
Gilbert was quiet for a moment. He realized after a moment that he was waiting for his old friend to laugh at his own joke, but the earnestness in his eyes told him that wasn't going to happen. He struggled to find an appropriate response.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure a demon didn’t perpetrate the crime I’m investigating. All of the DNA we recovered from the scene was human, so…”
“That’s not how it works and I don’t expect you to believe me. I understand it’s quite a ways out there, but believe me, there is more to this world than what we can see.”
Gilbert didn’t know what to feel at that moment. When Martin first told him that he was going to go into the priesthood it had made a great deal of sense. While his friend was never one to go around proselytizing, he was a great listener, a wise counselor despite his youth and a good friend. He knew at the time that Martin Miller would make a great priest.
Suddenly, Gilbert felt a great sadness descend upon him as he realized the Church had taken such a good man and rendered him insane.
“Marty,” Gilbert started carefully. “I don’t think…”
His thought was cut short when Parme kicked open the diner’s front door. He stomped in with Cardinal Mara following him closer than his own shadow.
Read Part 20
Monday, June 5, 2017
18. Off to See the Gatekeepers
Read from the beginning
Read Part 17
Parme had no particular problem with Captain William Allen, his immediate superior and the only other man in the building with as many years on the force as Parme had. That said, he had no particular love for the man either. He was adept at doing his job, which seemed to be mostly remaining under the radar, maintaining the morale of the men, as much as that was possible, and serving as the paperwork gatekeeper between the force on the ground in his precinct and the paper shufflers at division. It was all important work, but not what Parme considered real police work.
Which was not to say that what Parme did during his working hours was real police work, not these days at any rate. It used to be a real job, years ago when he still believed in the system, before his partner was killed. When he was a young man, police work was an important job to him. But those days were behind him now. In a way, he envied men like Captain Allen who had never known what the job was really supposed to be all about.
Back when Parme was cruising with Mike Hernandez, Miguel when he was off duty, he took his work very seriously. To serve and protect, whatever the cost. They were young and stupid and neither of them ever considered how high the cost could actually be. After Mike was killed, Parme never took another partner. Sure, the young detectives he mentored called him that, but Parme’s partner was long dead.
These days, Parme did a pretty good job of staying out from under the Captain’s feet. He felt he owed him that after the way he acted after Mike was shot and how he gave Parme time to recover, as much as that was possible, and then let him have the job he has now. It wasn’t real police work, not in Parme’s estimation, but it was important. He was teaching these kids how to stay alive, how to do the job without getting shot and maybe, if the stars lined up and the lawyers had a bad day, make a difference in the world. None of that would have been possible if Captain Allen hadn’t signed off on it.
The Captain also made sure that Parme got his first choice of cases, which allowed him to cherry pick the easy ones, the ones where the bad guy made so many mistakes that even the rookies could follow the trail and bring him in. It was important for the younger detectives to taste success early on. It was like holding a bloody rag to a bloodhound’s nose. Once they got the scent, they took to the job. Then, all he had to do was hold the leash firmly until they developed the kinds of habits that would keep them alive. Once that was done, he would turn them loose and pick up another rookie to run through the same paces.
When Parme pulled the paperwork on the Paula Kelly murder, it seemed like a perfect case for his current rookie. The crime scene was a nightmare for any normal person, but a dream for Wayne Singleton and his team. There was evidence everywhere. But now, weeks into the investigation, none of the evidence seemed to be pointing anywhere and people who somehow knew much more than they should about the case were showing up dead. This was not the kind of case to train a new detective on.
Parme had made the decision to kick the case back to White and Nauscott to handle and find something a bit more straightforward to work on with Gilbert. He had made an appointment with the Captain for later in the day to discuss it and so was surprised to get the call from Harriet, the rail thin woman who handled Allen’s front office. Parme was expected to appear at once. He would have argued but he didn’t want to rile up Harriet. People who underestimated that woman were never pleased with the outcome. It was a mistake Parme had only made once.
He stomped up the stairs to the second floor after grunting hello to Sargent Larsen at the front desk. Captain Allen’s office was right off the stairwell, but you couldn’t get to the glassed in inner office without making your way past Harriet in the outer one. Parme held his breath and pushed open the door.
Harriet was a battle axe, but her sharp edge was carefully concealed behind a model-pretty mask. She was beautiful in a 1980s Sharon Tiegs poster kind of way, only with a couple of decades of wear on it. Somehow, the wear made her more attractive. When she smiled, she could turn an angry paper pusher from division into a pussy cat begging for her attention. When she was provoked, which seemed to happen anytime anyone did anything that upset the delicate sensibilities of Captain Allen, her deadly blade made its appearance.
“Good morning, Harriet,” Parme said as he entered the outer office. He started to smile, which always took a bit of extra effort for Parme, when he caught a glimpse of the visitor already seated in Captain Allen’s office.
“What the hell!” Parme started for the inner office door, but suddenly Harriet was between him and the door knob. His hand was almost touching her left hip when she slapped it down. Parme’s frown started to turn into a snarl before the slender woman got up in his face.
“Shut it!” she hissed up at him. Even on her tip toes he was still a full head taller. He looked over her 80s style hairdo at the men in the inner office. “That man in there is a man of the cloth,” Harriet stated with a note of reverence in her voice.
“I know what he is,” Parme muttered.
Harriette continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Captain Allen is very respectful around the clergy. Everyone knows that. Don’t you embarrass him.”
Parme looked down at the little woman who had thrown herself between him and her superior as if she were the last line of defence against a dangerous enemy. He blinked at her. She stabbed a manicured finger up at him to punctuate her point.
“Are you gonna let me in or did he just want to see me through the glass?” Parme asked.
Harriette rolled her eyes, turned and opened the door. “Detective Parme to see you, Captain, as requested.”
She stood aside to let the old detective in. The Captain and Cardinal Mara stood to greet him.
Read Part 19
Read Part 17
Parme had no particular problem with Captain William Allen, his immediate superior and the only other man in the building with as many years on the force as Parme had. That said, he had no particular love for the man either. He was adept at doing his job, which seemed to be mostly remaining under the radar, maintaining the morale of the men, as much as that was possible, and serving as the paperwork gatekeeper between the force on the ground in his precinct and the paper shufflers at division. It was all important work, but not what Parme considered real police work.
Which was not to say that what Parme did during his working hours was real police work, not these days at any rate. It used to be a real job, years ago when he still believed in the system, before his partner was killed. When he was a young man, police work was an important job to him. But those days were behind him now. In a way, he envied men like Captain Allen who had never known what the job was really supposed to be all about.
Back when Parme was cruising with Mike Hernandez, Miguel when he was off duty, he took his work very seriously. To serve and protect, whatever the cost. They were young and stupid and neither of them ever considered how high the cost could actually be. After Mike was killed, Parme never took another partner. Sure, the young detectives he mentored called him that, but Parme’s partner was long dead.
These days, Parme did a pretty good job of staying out from under the Captain’s feet. He felt he owed him that after the way he acted after Mike was shot and how he gave Parme time to recover, as much as that was possible, and then let him have the job he has now. It wasn’t real police work, not in Parme’s estimation, but it was important. He was teaching these kids how to stay alive, how to do the job without getting shot and maybe, if the stars lined up and the lawyers had a bad day, make a difference in the world. None of that would have been possible if Captain Allen hadn’t signed off on it.
The Captain also made sure that Parme got his first choice of cases, which allowed him to cherry pick the easy ones, the ones where the bad guy made so many mistakes that even the rookies could follow the trail and bring him in. It was important for the younger detectives to taste success early on. It was like holding a bloody rag to a bloodhound’s nose. Once they got the scent, they took to the job. Then, all he had to do was hold the leash firmly until they developed the kinds of habits that would keep them alive. Once that was done, he would turn them loose and pick up another rookie to run through the same paces.
When Parme pulled the paperwork on the Paula Kelly murder, it seemed like a perfect case for his current rookie. The crime scene was a nightmare for any normal person, but a dream for Wayne Singleton and his team. There was evidence everywhere. But now, weeks into the investigation, none of the evidence seemed to be pointing anywhere and people who somehow knew much more than they should about the case were showing up dead. This was not the kind of case to train a new detective on.
Parme had made the decision to kick the case back to White and Nauscott to handle and find something a bit more straightforward to work on with Gilbert. He had made an appointment with the Captain for later in the day to discuss it and so was surprised to get the call from Harriet, the rail thin woman who handled Allen’s front office. Parme was expected to appear at once. He would have argued but he didn’t want to rile up Harriet. People who underestimated that woman were never pleased with the outcome. It was a mistake Parme had only made once.
He stomped up the stairs to the second floor after grunting hello to Sargent Larsen at the front desk. Captain Allen’s office was right off the stairwell, but you couldn’t get to the glassed in inner office without making your way past Harriet in the outer one. Parme held his breath and pushed open the door.
Harriet was a battle axe, but her sharp edge was carefully concealed behind a model-pretty mask. She was beautiful in a 1980s Sharon Tiegs poster kind of way, only with a couple of decades of wear on it. Somehow, the wear made her more attractive. When she smiled, she could turn an angry paper pusher from division into a pussy cat begging for her attention. When she was provoked, which seemed to happen anytime anyone did anything that upset the delicate sensibilities of Captain Allen, her deadly blade made its appearance.
“Good morning, Harriet,” Parme said as he entered the outer office. He started to smile, which always took a bit of extra effort for Parme, when he caught a glimpse of the visitor already seated in Captain Allen’s office.
“What the hell!” Parme started for the inner office door, but suddenly Harriet was between him and the door knob. His hand was almost touching her left hip when she slapped it down. Parme’s frown started to turn into a snarl before the slender woman got up in his face.
“Shut it!” she hissed up at him. Even on her tip toes he was still a full head taller. He looked over her 80s style hairdo at the men in the inner office. “That man in there is a man of the cloth,” Harriet stated with a note of reverence in her voice.
“I know what he is,” Parme muttered.
Harriette continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Captain Allen is very respectful around the clergy. Everyone knows that. Don’t you embarrass him.”
Parme looked down at the little woman who had thrown herself between him and her superior as if she were the last line of defence against a dangerous enemy. He blinked at her. She stabbed a manicured finger up at him to punctuate her point.
“Are you gonna let me in or did he just want to see me through the glass?” Parme asked.
Harriette rolled her eyes, turned and opened the door. “Detective Parme to see you, Captain, as requested.”
She stood aside to let the old detective in. The Captain and Cardinal Mara stood to greet him.
Read Part 19
Monday, April 17, 2017
17. A Morning Dirve
Read from the beginning
Read Part 16
Parme had been at the diner earlier in the morning. Pat had dropped her Olds at the shop for an oil change the day before, so she rode in with the old detective. After dating him for nearly a year, she knew that he wasn’t much for talking before his coffee, so she just smiled ahead as they made their way across town to their respective workplaces.
It’s funny how things work out, she thought to herself. Before meeting Parme, she had spent years living in that gray place between anxiety and total panic. Her first husband had been long gone by the time her mother got sick, which, in hindsight, had been a blessing. He had never been a good provider and having to take care of both him and her mother would have pushed her over the edge.
Pat’s mother, Barbara, had worked at the diner for as long as her daughter could remember. She had started there right out of high school and was there when the police department’s new building went up across the street in ‘68. She met Pat’s father a couple of years later and married him, something she would spend the rest of her life warning her only daughter not to do.
“Cops don’t make good husbands,” she would say. “They may serve, but they can’t protect. They may say they do, but don’t you believe it!”
And she hadn’t. Despite the facts that she followed in her mother’s footsteps, starting at the diner before she was even out of high school, and then living in a near constant state of puppy love with the young police officers that frequented the diner, she had never dated one. Instead, she said yes to former classmate who became a successful real estate developer. She married him a year before the big recession hit that wiped him and half of the city’s builders out completely. He had never recovered.
She never really held it against him. Growing up without a father, she had no real example in her life of what a man should be. For many years afterward, she assumed that men were like her ex-husband: little boys; delicate creatures who acted tough until things got tough and then folded up and crawled away. No one she met in the diner convinced her otherwise, though in truth she knew them all only as “customers,” which kept them at a distance from which actual qualities could not be discerned.
Thankfully, Pat had not become pregnant during her short marriage, so she would not have a daughter of her own to warn about real estate developer suitors. Her ex-husband left the area a few years later and she never heard from him again. She was fine with that.
But living on her own, even without children, proved to be difficult and stressful. This surprised her. Stress was new to her and something she had never experienced at work. She could remember every item ordered for a table of 10 and get the order to the kitchen and then back to the right customer without writing it down. She could open the diner, handle the customers, keep the books, pay the taxes and close up at night without ever once worrying that she had missed an important step. But when it came to managing life beyond the diner, she faltered.
The city recovered slowly from the recession and the diner always seemed to bring in just enough to make it to the next pay period. Her pay was well below the poverty line but she never complained. It was her landlord or her car mechanic or her doctors who complained. There were always more bills to pay than paycheck to pay them with.
Her mother helped, as best she could, as did Paul Calloway, her dad’s old partner. Calloway was like an uncle to her growing up. Barbara treated him poorly, but he was often around when she was younger, bringing groceries or money to her mother and gifts to her on birthdays or Christmas. It wasn’t until many years later, when she learned about her father’s passing, that she learned why her mother disliked the man. He had retired from the force years ago.
But even with their support, her life was a constant race to stay ahead of the next collector who caught her scent. She wasn’t an extravagant person, just woefully underpaid. It was a condition she shared with most of the people living in the city. She accepted it, as she accepted most things in her life, as one more order she was called upon to fill and took it with her to the diner, the only place she felt any control over her life at all.
Then, her mother became ill and her world got darker for a long time. And then, she met Parme.
To look at the man, any sensible woman would see nothing worth salvaging and look elsewhere at once. Pat might have done that if she had seen him at all during the first few months he began having his breakfast at the diner, but she only saw him as another customer and settled in to serve him as best she could. She was always good at her job.
Over time, Parme’s conversation with his rookies started to make its way into her consciousness. She listened discretely as he lectured them, mentored them, scolded them and turned them into good detectives. He was the first father figure she had ever encountered, though she did not realize that she saw him that way. She fell in love with him. But love alone was not enough to overcome her mother’s warning, so she did nothing. It took another month for Parme to notice that she was paying more attention to him than his tips warranted. He came around slowly.
When he finally asked her out, it took a few moments for Pat to understand what he was suggesting. She opened her mouth to turn him down, feeling like her mother was watching her from the shadows of the afterlife, but stopped. She just looked at him for awhile, trying to figure out what she was feeling. When she noticed how tortured he looked waiting for her to respond, she couldn’t help but smile. She agreed and they saw a movie.
Afterward, when he dropped her back at the diner to pick up her car and make her way home, he leaned across the front seat to kiss her. Despite his unkempt exterior and the roughness with which he normally carried himself, his kiss was so gentle that it took her breath away. Later, she would think that he treated her like she was made of crystal and that he worried he might shatter her.
It was months before they went to bed together, where he treated her the same way. Afterward, he held her so tenderly that she felt like the most valuable thing in the world. When she looked up into his eyes, he confirmed it and it struck her so that she began to weep. Parme became flustered, worrying that he had hurt her, which made Pat smile but cry even harder. She tucked herself into his chest as tightly as she could and let the emotions run through her. He never stopped stroking her hair.
After that night, Pat decided that should Detective Walter Parme ever ask her to marry him she would say yes without hesitation. Her mother would be disappointed, but she knew she would never love another man like she loved him.
Since then, she had watched him bluster at the younger detectives he was training and learned to see through his angry exterior to the caring man underneath. She had no doubt that he could be as violent as any man, but she could see how much he cared about the younger men he was bringing into the law enforcement business. He was tough, but she could see how hard he was working to teach them to be good at their jobs, capable of both serving and protecting.
Parme parked at the diner and walked her to the door. She unlocked it with her key and he followed her inside. Manuel, the cook, was already in the kitchen, preparing for the breakfast crowd. Pat smiled over her shoulder at him as she moved behind the counter to start her day. Then his phone rang.
She knew he was unhappy by the way he held his mouth against his cell phone. He grunted something and then hung up, telling her he would see her later and asking her to tell his partner to wait for him here. He had a meeting with his captain, but would return soon. She watched him leave the diner and walk across the street, leaving his car in the diner’s lot.
She watched him make his way to the police station’s front entrance with a purpose and smiled. Parme was not happy and that meant that whomever he was meeting with was about to be unhappy. Still, she had no doubt that whatever he did or said, it would be for his co-workers own good.
Read Part 18
Read Part 16
Parme had been at the diner earlier in the morning. Pat had dropped her Olds at the shop for an oil change the day before, so she rode in with the old detective. After dating him for nearly a year, she knew that he wasn’t much for talking before his coffee, so she just smiled ahead as they made their way across town to their respective workplaces.
It’s funny how things work out, she thought to herself. Before meeting Parme, she had spent years living in that gray place between anxiety and total panic. Her first husband had been long gone by the time her mother got sick, which, in hindsight, had been a blessing. He had never been a good provider and having to take care of both him and her mother would have pushed her over the edge.
Pat’s mother, Barbara, had worked at the diner for as long as her daughter could remember. She had started there right out of high school and was there when the police department’s new building went up across the street in ‘68. She met Pat’s father a couple of years later and married him, something she would spend the rest of her life warning her only daughter not to do.
“Cops don’t make good husbands,” she would say. “They may serve, but they can’t protect. They may say they do, but don’t you believe it!”
And she hadn’t. Despite the facts that she followed in her mother’s footsteps, starting at the diner before she was even out of high school, and then living in a near constant state of puppy love with the young police officers that frequented the diner, she had never dated one. Instead, she said yes to former classmate who became a successful real estate developer. She married him a year before the big recession hit that wiped him and half of the city’s builders out completely. He had never recovered.
She never really held it against him. Growing up without a father, she had no real example in her life of what a man should be. For many years afterward, she assumed that men were like her ex-husband: little boys; delicate creatures who acted tough until things got tough and then folded up and crawled away. No one she met in the diner convinced her otherwise, though in truth she knew them all only as “customers,” which kept them at a distance from which actual qualities could not be discerned.
Thankfully, Pat had not become pregnant during her short marriage, so she would not have a daughter of her own to warn about real estate developer suitors. Her ex-husband left the area a few years later and she never heard from him again. She was fine with that.
But living on her own, even without children, proved to be difficult and stressful. This surprised her. Stress was new to her and something she had never experienced at work. She could remember every item ordered for a table of 10 and get the order to the kitchen and then back to the right customer without writing it down. She could open the diner, handle the customers, keep the books, pay the taxes and close up at night without ever once worrying that she had missed an important step. But when it came to managing life beyond the diner, she faltered.
The city recovered slowly from the recession and the diner always seemed to bring in just enough to make it to the next pay period. Her pay was well below the poverty line but she never complained. It was her landlord or her car mechanic or her doctors who complained. There were always more bills to pay than paycheck to pay them with.
Her mother helped, as best she could, as did Paul Calloway, her dad’s old partner. Calloway was like an uncle to her growing up. Barbara treated him poorly, but he was often around when she was younger, bringing groceries or money to her mother and gifts to her on birthdays or Christmas. It wasn’t until many years later, when she learned about her father’s passing, that she learned why her mother disliked the man. He had retired from the force years ago.
But even with their support, her life was a constant race to stay ahead of the next collector who caught her scent. She wasn’t an extravagant person, just woefully underpaid. It was a condition she shared with most of the people living in the city. She accepted it, as she accepted most things in her life, as one more order she was called upon to fill and took it with her to the diner, the only place she felt any control over her life at all.
Then, her mother became ill and her world got darker for a long time. And then, she met Parme.
To look at the man, any sensible woman would see nothing worth salvaging and look elsewhere at once. Pat might have done that if she had seen him at all during the first few months he began having his breakfast at the diner, but she only saw him as another customer and settled in to serve him as best she could. She was always good at her job.
Over time, Parme’s conversation with his rookies started to make its way into her consciousness. She listened discretely as he lectured them, mentored them, scolded them and turned them into good detectives. He was the first father figure she had ever encountered, though she did not realize that she saw him that way. She fell in love with him. But love alone was not enough to overcome her mother’s warning, so she did nothing. It took another month for Parme to notice that she was paying more attention to him than his tips warranted. He came around slowly.
When he finally asked her out, it took a few moments for Pat to understand what he was suggesting. She opened her mouth to turn him down, feeling like her mother was watching her from the shadows of the afterlife, but stopped. She just looked at him for awhile, trying to figure out what she was feeling. When she noticed how tortured he looked waiting for her to respond, she couldn’t help but smile. She agreed and they saw a movie.
Afterward, when he dropped her back at the diner to pick up her car and make her way home, he leaned across the front seat to kiss her. Despite his unkempt exterior and the roughness with which he normally carried himself, his kiss was so gentle that it took her breath away. Later, she would think that he treated her like she was made of crystal and that he worried he might shatter her.
It was months before they went to bed together, where he treated her the same way. Afterward, he held her so tenderly that she felt like the most valuable thing in the world. When she looked up into his eyes, he confirmed it and it struck her so that she began to weep. Parme became flustered, worrying that he had hurt her, which made Pat smile but cry even harder. She tucked herself into his chest as tightly as she could and let the emotions run through her. He never stopped stroking her hair.
After that night, Pat decided that should Detective Walter Parme ever ask her to marry him she would say yes without hesitation. Her mother would be disappointed, but she knew she would never love another man like she loved him.
Since then, she had watched him bluster at the younger detectives he was training and learned to see through his angry exterior to the caring man underneath. She had no doubt that he could be as violent as any man, but she could see how much he cared about the younger men he was bringing into the law enforcement business. He was tough, but she could see how hard he was working to teach them to be good at their jobs, capable of both serving and protecting.
Parme parked at the diner and walked her to the door. She unlocked it with her key and he followed her inside. Manuel, the cook, was already in the kitchen, preparing for the breakfast crowd. Pat smiled over her shoulder at him as she moved behind the counter to start her day. Then his phone rang.
She knew he was unhappy by the way he held his mouth against his cell phone. He grunted something and then hung up, telling her he would see her later and asking her to tell his partner to wait for him here. He had a meeting with his captain, but would return soon. She watched him leave the diner and walk across the street, leaving his car in the diner’s lot.
She watched him make his way to the police station’s front entrance with a purpose and smiled. Parme was not happy and that meant that whomever he was meeting with was about to be unhappy. Still, she had no doubt that whatever he did or said, it would be for his co-workers own good.
Read Part 18
Monday, March 6, 2017
16. Another Breakfast Meeting
It took Gilbert a long time to fall asleep that night. His mind was working the case, of course, but it was also stuck on the most recent dead end. He couldn’t help but think that Eagan had been trying to tell them something. Something they had failed to grasp. Had it cost the man his life? Had they cost Eagan his life?
As for the case, they now had a new prime suspect who, if it was even possible, seemed even less likely than Eagan to have committed the crimes. Having checked his e-mail before laying down for the night, Gilbert knew that Singleton’s crew had found the crowbar in Boyle’s apartment. There was little doubt that it was the murder weapon.
So, that was it? Boyle was the killer?
It would mean that around 7pm on Friday night three weeks past, Boyle had abducted Paula Kelly as she left a high school football game, took her to an equipment outbuilding not far from where more than 300 students, their parents and teachers were watching the last minutes of the game and brutally murdered her. He then left without being seen.
Somehow, his neighbor had stumbled across the truth and worked it into his own neurosis. He hadn’t been capable of accepting the truth consciously, she he buried it deep. It emerged in the form of sleep-writing the victim’s name in the dark basement in the middle of the night on a piece of parchment stuck into what appeared to be a very old book bearing an inscription on its leather cover so interesting that it attracted two Catholic priests from half a country away to investigate.
Gilbert shook his head and shut his eyes tightly for anything that would make any of this make sense. He continued to work down through his analysis.
Then, Boyle had wandered down the hall and killed Eagan, set a fire to alert the authorities and then waited in his apartment, covered in the victim’s blood until the authorities arrived, at which time he began asserting his innocence and claimed to remember nothing.
No prosecutor was going to touch this case. Even if Boyle’s DNA was all over Eagan’s apartment it just didn’t add up. Now, if Boyle’s DNA was a match for that found in the school’s shed, that might make a difference.
Gilbert expected Parme to lead the way into a full investigation of Boyle’s life. If they could find some other incriminating evidence it might help create a case that looked like it held water. He resolved to be early for breakfast in the morning and finally fell asleep.
When Gilbert walked into the cafe the next morning a steaming cup of coffee was waiting for him in the booth. Parme’s side of the booth was empty. He checked his watch.
“You’re not that early,” Pat said from behind the counter. “You want eggs?”
As Gilbert approached the booth he noticed that Pat was still wearing the wrong name tag. He wanted to ask her about it, but he more pressing matters. “You haven’t heard from my partner, have you?” he asked.
“I have,” she smiled. “Sit down, I’ll get Manuel to start you some eggs.”
Gilbert looked back to the door and then through the plate glass window to the street and the stone and steel police station beyond it. He tried to see if Parme’s car was in the lot. He hadn’t event thought to look for it after he had parked and then walked across the street to the diner.
“He told me to tell you to wait for him here,” Pat said. “Now, do you want those eggs?”
Parme had never missed breakfast. It was the cornerstone of his new detective training program. Something was wrong. He turned back to Pat.
“Keep the coffee warm for me, will you? I’m going to run over and check on him.”
Pat opened her mouth to say something but Gilbert was already moving toward the door. He stopped in his tracks when Father Miller walked through it.
So, that was it? Boyle was the killer?
It would mean that around 7pm on Friday night three weeks past, Boyle had abducted Paula Kelly as she left a high school football game, took her to an equipment outbuilding not far from where more than 300 students, their parents and teachers were watching the last minutes of the game and brutally murdered her. He then left without being seen.
Somehow, his neighbor had stumbled across the truth and worked it into his own neurosis. He hadn’t been capable of accepting the truth consciously, she he buried it deep. It emerged in the form of sleep-writing the victim’s name in the dark basement in the middle of the night on a piece of parchment stuck into what appeared to be a very old book bearing an inscription on its leather cover so interesting that it attracted two Catholic priests from half a country away to investigate.
Gilbert shook his head and shut his eyes tightly for anything that would make any of this make sense. He continued to work down through his analysis.
Then, Boyle had wandered down the hall and killed Eagan, set a fire to alert the authorities and then waited in his apartment, covered in the victim’s blood until the authorities arrived, at which time he began asserting his innocence and claimed to remember nothing.
No prosecutor was going to touch this case. Even if Boyle’s DNA was all over Eagan’s apartment it just didn’t add up. Now, if Boyle’s DNA was a match for that found in the school’s shed, that might make a difference.
Gilbert expected Parme to lead the way into a full investigation of Boyle’s life. If they could find some other incriminating evidence it might help create a case that looked like it held water. He resolved to be early for breakfast in the morning and finally fell asleep.
--
When Gilbert walked into the cafe the next morning a steaming cup of coffee was waiting for him in the booth. Parme’s side of the booth was empty. He checked his watch.
“You’re not that early,” Pat said from behind the counter. “You want eggs?”
As Gilbert approached the booth he noticed that Pat was still wearing the wrong name tag. He wanted to ask her about it, but he more pressing matters. “You haven’t heard from my partner, have you?” he asked.
“I have,” she smiled. “Sit down, I’ll get Manuel to start you some eggs.”
Gilbert looked back to the door and then through the plate glass window to the street and the stone and steel police station beyond it. He tried to see if Parme’s car was in the lot. He hadn’t event thought to look for it after he had parked and then walked across the street to the diner.
“He told me to tell you to wait for him here,” Pat said. “Now, do you want those eggs?”
Parme had never missed breakfast. It was the cornerstone of his new detective training program. Something was wrong. He turned back to Pat.
“Keep the coffee warm for me, will you? I’m going to run over and check on him.”
Pat opened her mouth to say something but Gilbert was already moving toward the door. He stopped in his tracks when Father Miller walked through it.
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