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.
Monday, February 20, 2017
15. Unwelcome Guests
Read from the beginning
Read Part 14
Parme and Singleton made room in the hallway so the two uniformed officers could escort Mark Boyle past Eagan’s apartment and on down the hallway toward the stairwell. Gilbert caught a glimpse as they passed by and it looked like the suspect wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping up with his escort. He could hear Boyle becoming increasingly agitated the further he was taken from his own apartment. His cries and complaints were abruptly cut off by the slamming of the stairwell door.
“Wayne, make sure your boys get some good shots of that design on the ceiling,” Parme said before turning to another uniformed officer in the hallway. “Canvas the building. Find out if anyone saw or heard anything. And keep everyone out of that apartment,” he said, pointing to Boyle’s door.
He turned back to Singleton. “I guess we’ll need your boys in there next. It looks like this is going to be a long night.”
Singleton smiled, but didn’t reply. He just started giving orders to his technicians.
“And keep an eye out for any blood-covered blunt objects,” Parme deadpanned.
Gilbert was still studying the ceiling and trying to figure out how a person could have created that pattern. It was too large to fit on the ceiling so some of the marks on the outside of the main circle extended down the walls. It was almost a perfect a match for the mark on the leather journal they had found downstairs. But there were no brush strokes of any kind. It appeared to have just splattered there, which was impossible.
Parme turned to Gilbert. “Good job, Rookie.”
The younger detective was caught off guard and jolted out of his reverie, both by having his thought interrupted in Parme’s typical style -- Gilbert realized that his partner tended to speak at you instead of to you -- but also by the fact that he had just been praised. “For what?” he asked.
“For realizing that Eagan had an accomplice.” Gilbert still had a confused look on his face so Parme continued. “The second chair in the basement. You asked who the second chair was for.”
“You heard that? I thought you were gone.”
“I hear everything you say, Rookie. Remember that.” Gilbert thought he caught the shadow of a smile on the older man’s face. Then his cell phone rang.
“Gilbert,” he announced into the handset. He listened for a moment, made a few replies and hung up. When he looked up, Parme was standing closer to him.
“Hot date?” he asked slowly.
“Actually, that was Father Miller, the friend…”
“I know who he is,” Parme grunted. “Did he know anything of value?”
“Not yet, but his plane just landed and he wants to help.”
Parme looked at the younger man for a moment before replying. “Landed where? Help with what?”
“Corporate Charter Services,” Gilbert replied. “Out at the airport. He thinks he might be able to help with the case.”
“Unless you’re in bad need of confession, you don’t need a priest’s help. And it’s against department regs to share any information about an open case without approval anyway. And we don’t have approval. So, tell him to fly home.”
Gilbert grimaced. “He said he flew all the way from Boston just to see me. I should at least see him.”
Parme stared at his partner and thought this over for a moment. About the time Gilbert opened up his mouth to make another argument, Parme answered. “Fine. We’ll both go see him.” Without another word the older detective headed for the exit.
Singleton was in the hallway outside of Boyle’s apartment, supervising some techs as they moved lights and cases of equipment inside. “You guys leaving?” he called down the hallway. “It’s still early.”
Gilbert look at his watch. It read 10:45 PM.
“Good night, Wayne,” Parme said over his shoulder without looking back.
Once they got outside, Parme headed straight for his car. He said over his shoulder, without looking back at his partner, “Follow me.”
Gilbert made his way carefully through the snow the city plows had piled up against the curb to his own Crown Vic and started it up. Parme had already left the curb so Gilbert gunned it to keep up.
The ride to the airport took about 30 minutes. It took another 5 minutes or so to navigate around the main terminal building to the private terminals. On the ride, Gilbert thought about the strange turn of events. He was having trouble making it all fit together.
Eagan wasn’t their killer. The DNA evidence had ruled him out. He was afraid to go home and it appeared that he had reason to be afraid. What was left of him had been shoveled into a body bag. All except the blood and plasma that had become part of some kind of gruesome art project on his apartment ceiling.
The artwork was completely indecipherable. But what about the other facts?
Someone had been waiting for Eagan to return home. Either in his apartment or outside, though probably inside or he would have seen them and fled. The killer let him get into his apartment and then beat him to death with a blunt instrument. Then, for some reason, the murderer set the victim’s body on fire, setting off the fire alarms in the process and alerting the authorities.
Once the authorities arrived, a man stumbled out of the apartment down the hall covered in blood. If it was Eagan’s blood, this case was closed. Or was it?
If Eagan had an accomplice and that’s who he was afraid of and if that accomplice lived down the hall from him, why did he go home at all? Why didn’t he just tell the authorities and have Boyle arrested?
If Boyle did it, why didn’t he run? And if he was going to stay, why call attention to the murder with a fire in the building? And if he was going to stay and call the authorities to the scene, why stumble out into the hallway covered in blood? In his experience, there were no criminals this stupid.
The key had to be in the image on the ceiling and his old friend Father Miller, who had gone to the trouble of flying in from halfway across the country to see him, must have information to share.
Gilbert followed Parme into the airport and then around to the private aviation section. There was a single private jet parked outside the big building marked Corporate Charter Services. The office was a small metal box that seemed bolted onto the side of a large hanger. The jet bore no distinctive markings.
Gilbert parked and stepped out to join Parme, who was already standing by his car and looking out at the jet. It was big and expensive looking, but other than that there was nothing Gilbert could discern from it. The older detective didn’t remark on the aircraft, just glanced over at his partner. Gilbert just shrugged.
Double glass doors on one end of the building led into a comfortable lobby, made to appeal to a corporate clientele. A long counter was situated along the wall on the right and at the end of it another set of glass doors led further into the building. Only a hallway was visible through the glass doors, with the same industrial carpeting on the floors and framed certificates on the white walls. The rest of the lobby was appointed comfortably enough, with couches, chairs and coffee tables one would expect to see in the waiting room of any mid-tier corporate office.
The room was empty at this late hour, save for two priests who shared one of the couches farthest from the entrance and who stood as soon as the detectives entered. One was younger and stood a head taller than the other, dressed all in black save for the small white Roman collar at his heck. The other was older and dressed in long black jacket that looked more like a cape, lined with a very dark red material so dark that it seemed almost black. Something about the cut of his clothing didn’t look domestic.
The younger man smiled as soon as he caught Gilbert’s eye and moved quickly to close the distance between them. Gilbert extended his hand but was instead embraced by the smiling priest. He was surprised by the warmth of the embrace. Fr. Miller broke it to look into this friend’s eyes.
“It’s good to see you, Rob,” he smiled. “It really is.”
Fr. Miller’s companion had come up on his shoulder and so the priest made a half turn to make the introductions. “May I introduce His Eminence Armando Cardinal Mara of The Vatican.”
“It is good to meet you, Detective Gilbert,” Mara said. “And this must be your partner, Detective Parme, is it?” He gave it an Italian pronunciation so that it sounded like “Parm-ay.”
Parme stuck out a thick hand, which the Cardinal shook without hesitation. “Glad to have met you. We can’t discuss the case with you. If you had told us you were coming, we could have saved you the trip.”
Gilbert and Fr. Miller locked eyes but neither moved. Mara just smiled at Parme. “Of course,” he replied. “We would not expect you to discuss your case with us, however we understand you have a document in need of translation.”
“Our people have looked at it and judged it to be gibberish that is not related to the case,” Parme said.
“If it’s not related to the case, then there should be no harm in having it examined,” Mara answered in a calm voice. “I assure you, we have experts in the Church who can tell you with certainty…”
“No, thank you,” Parme said. “I’m afraid it’s still evidence in our ongoing investigation. It was good meeting you both. Enjoy your stay.” He turned to Gilbert and said, “We don’t discuss open cases. See you in the morning.” He left the building.
The three men watched him go and then Gilbert turned to the priests. “I’m so sorry…”
Mara took his arm. “It’s fine. He’d doing his job. A good man does his job. Come, sit with us a moment.” He led him to the seating area and sat down in a chair across from the sofa. He motioned to the sofa. Gilbert sat down and Fr. Miller sat beside him.
“Wayne, make sure your boys get some good shots of that design on the ceiling,” Parme said before turning to another uniformed officer in the hallway. “Canvas the building. Find out if anyone saw or heard anything. And keep everyone out of that apartment,” he said, pointing to Boyle’s door.
He turned back to Singleton. “I guess we’ll need your boys in there next. It looks like this is going to be a long night.”
Singleton smiled, but didn’t reply. He just started giving orders to his technicians.
“And keep an eye out for any blood-covered blunt objects,” Parme deadpanned.
Gilbert was still studying the ceiling and trying to figure out how a person could have created that pattern. It was too large to fit on the ceiling so some of the marks on the outside of the main circle extended down the walls. It was almost a perfect a match for the mark on the leather journal they had found downstairs. But there were no brush strokes of any kind. It appeared to have just splattered there, which was impossible.
Parme turned to Gilbert. “Good job, Rookie.”
The younger detective was caught off guard and jolted out of his reverie, both by having his thought interrupted in Parme’s typical style -- Gilbert realized that his partner tended to speak at you instead of to you -- but also by the fact that he had just been praised. “For what?” he asked.
“For realizing that Eagan had an accomplice.” Gilbert still had a confused look on his face so Parme continued. “The second chair in the basement. You asked who the second chair was for.”
“You heard that? I thought you were gone.”
“I hear everything you say, Rookie. Remember that.” Gilbert thought he caught the shadow of a smile on the older man’s face. Then his cell phone rang.
“Gilbert,” he announced into the handset. He listened for a moment, made a few replies and hung up. When he looked up, Parme was standing closer to him.
“Hot date?” he asked slowly.
“Actually, that was Father Miller, the friend…”
“I know who he is,” Parme grunted. “Did he know anything of value?”
“Not yet, but his plane just landed and he wants to help.”
Parme looked at the younger man for a moment before replying. “Landed where? Help with what?”
“Corporate Charter Services,” Gilbert replied. “Out at the airport. He thinks he might be able to help with the case.”
“Unless you’re in bad need of confession, you don’t need a priest’s help. And it’s against department regs to share any information about an open case without approval anyway. And we don’t have approval. So, tell him to fly home.”
Gilbert grimaced. “He said he flew all the way from Boston just to see me. I should at least see him.”
Parme stared at his partner and thought this over for a moment. About the time Gilbert opened up his mouth to make another argument, Parme answered. “Fine. We’ll both go see him.” Without another word the older detective headed for the exit.
Singleton was in the hallway outside of Boyle’s apartment, supervising some techs as they moved lights and cases of equipment inside. “You guys leaving?” he called down the hallway. “It’s still early.”
Gilbert look at his watch. It read 10:45 PM.
“Good night, Wayne,” Parme said over his shoulder without looking back.
Once they got outside, Parme headed straight for his car. He said over his shoulder, without looking back at his partner, “Follow me.”
Gilbert made his way carefully through the snow the city plows had piled up against the curb to his own Crown Vic and started it up. Parme had already left the curb so Gilbert gunned it to keep up.
The ride to the airport took about 30 minutes. It took another 5 minutes or so to navigate around the main terminal building to the private terminals. On the ride, Gilbert thought about the strange turn of events. He was having trouble making it all fit together.
Eagan wasn’t their killer. The DNA evidence had ruled him out. He was afraid to go home and it appeared that he had reason to be afraid. What was left of him had been shoveled into a body bag. All except the blood and plasma that had become part of some kind of gruesome art project on his apartment ceiling.
The artwork was completely indecipherable. But what about the other facts?
Someone had been waiting for Eagan to return home. Either in his apartment or outside, though probably inside or he would have seen them and fled. The killer let him get into his apartment and then beat him to death with a blunt instrument. Then, for some reason, the murderer set the victim’s body on fire, setting off the fire alarms in the process and alerting the authorities.
Once the authorities arrived, a man stumbled out of the apartment down the hall covered in blood. If it was Eagan’s blood, this case was closed. Or was it?
If Eagan had an accomplice and that’s who he was afraid of and if that accomplice lived down the hall from him, why did he go home at all? Why didn’t he just tell the authorities and have Boyle arrested?
If Boyle did it, why didn’t he run? And if he was going to stay, why call attention to the murder with a fire in the building? And if he was going to stay and call the authorities to the scene, why stumble out into the hallway covered in blood? In his experience, there were no criminals this stupid.
The key had to be in the image on the ceiling and his old friend Father Miller, who had gone to the trouble of flying in from halfway across the country to see him, must have information to share.
Gilbert followed Parme into the airport and then around to the private aviation section. There was a single private jet parked outside the big building marked Corporate Charter Services. The office was a small metal box that seemed bolted onto the side of a large hanger. The jet bore no distinctive markings.
Gilbert parked and stepped out to join Parme, who was already standing by his car and looking out at the jet. It was big and expensive looking, but other than that there was nothing Gilbert could discern from it. The older detective didn’t remark on the aircraft, just glanced over at his partner. Gilbert just shrugged.
Double glass doors on one end of the building led into a comfortable lobby, made to appeal to a corporate clientele. A long counter was situated along the wall on the right and at the end of it another set of glass doors led further into the building. Only a hallway was visible through the glass doors, with the same industrial carpeting on the floors and framed certificates on the white walls. The rest of the lobby was appointed comfortably enough, with couches, chairs and coffee tables one would expect to see in the waiting room of any mid-tier corporate office.
The room was empty at this late hour, save for two priests who shared one of the couches farthest from the entrance and who stood as soon as the detectives entered. One was younger and stood a head taller than the other, dressed all in black save for the small white Roman collar at his heck. The other was older and dressed in long black jacket that looked more like a cape, lined with a very dark red material so dark that it seemed almost black. Something about the cut of his clothing didn’t look domestic.
The younger man smiled as soon as he caught Gilbert’s eye and moved quickly to close the distance between them. Gilbert extended his hand but was instead embraced by the smiling priest. He was surprised by the warmth of the embrace. Fr. Miller broke it to look into this friend’s eyes.
“It’s good to see you, Rob,” he smiled. “It really is.”
Fr. Miller’s companion had come up on his shoulder and so the priest made a half turn to make the introductions. “May I introduce His Eminence Armando Cardinal Mara of The Vatican.”
“It is good to meet you, Detective Gilbert,” Mara said. “And this must be your partner, Detective Parme, is it?” He gave it an Italian pronunciation so that it sounded like “Parm-ay.”
Parme stuck out a thick hand, which the Cardinal shook without hesitation. “Glad to have met you. We can’t discuss the case with you. If you had told us you were coming, we could have saved you the trip.”
Gilbert and Fr. Miller locked eyes but neither moved. Mara just smiled at Parme. “Of course,” he replied. “We would not expect you to discuss your case with us, however we understand you have a document in need of translation.”
“Our people have looked at it and judged it to be gibberish that is not related to the case,” Parme said.
“If it’s not related to the case, then there should be no harm in having it examined,” Mara answered in a calm voice. “I assure you, we have experts in the Church who can tell you with certainty…”
“No, thank you,” Parme said. “I’m afraid it’s still evidence in our ongoing investigation. It was good meeting you both. Enjoy your stay.” He turned to Gilbert and said, “We don’t discuss open cases. See you in the morning.” He left the building.
The three men watched him go and then Gilbert turned to the priests. “I’m so sorry…”
Mara took his arm. “It’s fine. He’d doing his job. A good man does his job. Come, sit with us a moment.” He led him to the seating area and sat down in a chair across from the sofa. He motioned to the sofa. Gilbert sat down and Fr. Miller sat beside him.
Mara leaned toward Gilbert. “We have studied the photographs you sent Fr. Miller. We have reason to believe that these markings are related to early Church writings. We would be very interesting in seeing the journal. We could review it in your presence. There would be no reason to remove it from your possession.”
Gilbert shook his head. “I’m afraid that would be very difficult, Cardinal Mara. I don’t have the authority to grant what you ask.”
Mara leaned back. “I understand, of course. Tell me, detective. Were there numbers written in this journal?”
Gilbert thought back and then shook his head. “I didn’t see any numbers. Just strings of characters. Although I guess some of those characters could have been numbers in a language I don’t know.”
“But none of the characters were arranged in columns. It wasn’t a ledger,” Mara suggested.
“No, I don’t think so,” Gilbert replied.
Mara glanced over at Fr. Miller, who met his gaze. Mara rose.
“It’s late. We shouldn’t keep you. Thank you for coming out to meet with us,” Mara extended his hand. Gilbert shook it, then turned to his friend.
“How long will you stay? I’m really very interested in anything you can tell me about the symbol on the book. Despite what my partner says, I can’t help but think it’s related to our case,” Gilbert said. “Besides,” he said turning to Fr. Miller. “I really would like some time to visit with you.”
Mara answered, “We’ll be in town for a few days. You two will have time to catch up.”
Both men smiled. “How about lunch tomorrow?” Gilbert suggested. They exchanged numbers and said goodnight. When the detective had left the building, the two priests sat down.
“If it’s not a ledger, then it won’t have anything to do with the Church finances,” Fr. Miller said. “I knew he wasn’t investigating us.”
Gilbert shook his head. “I’m afraid that would be very difficult, Cardinal Mara. I don’t have the authority to grant what you ask.”
Mara leaned back. “I understand, of course. Tell me, detective. Were there numbers written in this journal?”
Gilbert thought back and then shook his head. “I didn’t see any numbers. Just strings of characters. Although I guess some of those characters could have been numbers in a language I don’t know.”
“But none of the characters were arranged in columns. It wasn’t a ledger,” Mara suggested.
“No, I don’t think so,” Gilbert replied.
Mara glanced over at Fr. Miller, who met his gaze. Mara rose.
“It’s late. We shouldn’t keep you. Thank you for coming out to meet with us,” Mara extended his hand. Gilbert shook it, then turned to his friend.
“How long will you stay? I’m really very interested in anything you can tell me about the symbol on the book. Despite what my partner says, I can’t help but think it’s related to our case,” Gilbert said. “Besides,” he said turning to Fr. Miller. “I really would like some time to visit with you.”
Mara answered, “We’ll be in town for a few days. You two will have time to catch up.”
Both men smiled. “How about lunch tomorrow?” Gilbert suggested. They exchanged numbers and said goodnight. When the detective had left the building, the two priests sat down.
“If it’s not a ledger, then it won’t have anything to do with the Church finances,” Fr. Miller said. “I knew he wasn’t investigating us.”
“And you were right. He has no idea what he is investigating,” Mara said and turned to study the doors that Gilbert had just passed through. “But it’s more dangerous than he knows.”
Read Part 16
Read Part 16
Sunday, January 29, 2017
14. Another Murder Scene
Read from the beginning
Read Part 13
Gilbert surveyed the cheap formica countertop that took up most of the tiny kitchen in his rented apartment and the ingredients he had lined up carefully along its fake green-veined granite surface. Tomatoes, red onion, three kinds of peppers, blue cheese crumbles and the cheap bag of salad greens that would form the base for his dinner. He would have liked to have had a jar of sun dried tomatoes, but he was out and hadn’t been to the grocery. He would have to do with what he had.
He didn’t really care, from a culinary perspective. All of his salads seemed to taste pretty much the same, which he didn’t mind. It wasn’t the taste of a salad that attracted him to it, nor its lack of weight inducing calories. He thought of it as art. He had found over the many years he had lived on his own, that if you combined all of the right ingredients, you couldn’t help but have a satisfying outcome when it comes to a salad.
As it turned out, that rule didn’t always hold when it came to other forms of cooking because heat created its own problems. Even with all of the right ingredients, a mistake over the fire would render the result less than satisfying. In some cases, downright catastrophic. Salads, on the other hand, required no heat and had therefore become his culinary art form of choice. He was just dropping some sliced banana peppers into the salad bowl when his phone rang.
By the time he got to Eagan’s apartment building, the fire department’s trucks were already rolling away. He could see the crime tech’s bright lights shining from the window off the 4th floor corridor. He shook his head as he trotted up the front steps to the apartment building’s front door.
He couldn’t believe that Parme was right. He could see his partner waiting for him through the glass front door. They had cut Eagan loose and he had killed someone in his own building. He felt like a fool for falling for his act. As soon as he opened the door, the smoke hit his nostrils and he came up short.
“I didn’t know you smoked?” Gilbert said. “You stink!”
“It’s not me. And it’s about time you decided to come to work, Rookie. Come on,” Parme said as he turned to the stairwell. Gilbert fell in line behind him.
“The fire department responded to a building fire on the 4th floor. It was contained. Singleton said they smothered it with a blanket,” Parme said.
“Oh, Singleton’s here? I like him,” Gilbert replied.
“Great. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear it,” Parme said. “Where else would he be?”
“I can’t believe you were right about Eagan,” Gilbert said. “I guess he really was crazy. We never should have let him go.”
“For the record,” the older man said as they passed the third floor doorway and continued on up toward the fourth, “the lab is very rarely wrong. It’s not our job to second guess them, so the department did nothing wrong by releasing him.”
“Who is the victim?” Gilbert asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Gilbert said as they reached the fourth floor landing. “I hope it’s not another kid.” As soon as they opened the door to the fourth floor corridor, the stench hit them like a wall.
Wayne Singleton was standing in the door to Eagan’s apartment when the detectives arrived. He wore a mask and latex gloves. His shoes were covered with disposable booties.
“We’ve got to quit meeting like this,” he said through the mask.
“What have we got, Wayne?” Parme asked.
Singleton just nodded at the apartment’s open door and offered the detectives both masks. “You’ll want these. Have a look.”
As they neared the doorway, the smell got even worse, causing both men to slap the masks up over their mouths and noses. Gilbert’s eyes were starting to water. It was cold inside the room, suggesting that someone had opened up the windows in the back to disperse the smoke. It wasn’t working very well. Clouds of it still hung in the air, mostly in the vicinity of a pile of burned human remains just inside the doorway.
“Oh God,” Gilbert mumbled involuntarily. The floors and walls were covered with splattered blood, as was the furniture, except for a band on the bottom and back of the couch, where something must have been sitting and later removed. The stench was almost overwhelming. Parme donned the mask and started pulling on the latex gloves.
“Do you have an ID yet?” he asked.
“These remains belong to the resident, one Arlington C. Eagen. C for Conrad,” Singleton replied.
"Are you sure?" Parme asked.
Singleton nodded. "A victim of foul play, it would seem."
“Yeah?” Parme growled, though not unkindly. “What was your first clue? Shouldn’t you leave the detecting to the detectives?”
Singleton’s eyes suggested a smile over the mask. “Well, I suppose he could have set himself on fire, but probably not after bashing in his own skull and breaking most of his own bones with a blunt object.” He pointed to a large plastic bag that held a blood-stained crowbar.
Gilbert donned his mask and gloves and then asked a nearby tech for a pair of shoe covers. He looked at Singleton for permission and then, after receiving the nod, moved carefully into the room.
“We didn’t find a crowbar among Eagan’s possessions on our first visit, did we?” Parme asked.
Singleton just shook his head. “It seems to have been left by the victim’s assailant.”
Gilbert had only gone a couple of steps into the room. He stopped and turned around to face the lead tech and his partner. “Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”
Something about this scene was altogether wrong. People who committed murder, unless it was purely motivated by passion, did not create unnecessary problems for themselves. Gilbert couldn’t imagine anyone getting that passionately angry over Eagan and yet this scene was filled with problems.
The assailant cooks the body in the middle of his apartment, absolutely guaranteeing that the body will be found immediately when the fire department responds, and then leaves the murder weapon to be found by the police? Gilbert shook his head. Cooking always causes problems; who doesn’t know this?
“Why didn’t he just leave the body?” he asked his partner. “Why burn it? It would have been days before anyone noticed that Eagan was missing. We had written him off and wouldn’t be surveilling him. The killer could have drug the body to the basement and it would have been months before the weather warmed up and the smell led someone to the body. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Crazy people seldom do, Rookie.” Parme said quietly. “Besides, no one outside of the department knew we had written him off."
"Even so," Gilbert shook his head.
"But it looks like you were right about one thing," Parme continued. "We should have been asking who that other chair in the basement was for. It appears that Eagan had an accomplice. Someone who knew he was talking to us. He won’t be talking to us anymore.”
Down the hallway, someone opened one of the apartment doors and stepped into the hallway. Parme turned to tell whomever it was to remain in their apartment and out of the way, but then stopped. Singleton turned, too, and both men stared at Mark Boyle as he stood in the center of the hallway, looking like he’d just awoken from a nap.
He saw them staring at him and then slowly raised his hands to see them covered in dried blood. “What the…,” Boyle shook his head as if trying to clear it and then blinked his eyes. That’s all the time it took for the two police officers stationed at the far end of the hallway to tackle him.
From inside the apartment, Gilbert heard the scuffle in the hallway. He head a man yelling all of the things criminals always yell when they are arrested, but he had other things on his mind. He stood in the center of the room, fishing around in his pockets for the copies he had made of the cover of Eagan’s book. He unfolded the image and then turned slowly around the room. The rational part of his brain was feeling stupid, but something made him search the blood stains for the pattern that was engraved into the leather journal.
Finally, he found what he was looking for. Parme and Singleton were no longer in the doorway, so he called over the closest member of Singleton’s team.
Ronnie Smith answered his summons, his eyes narrowed over his disposable face mask. Detectives were always asking questions at crimes scenes that the techs were in no position to answer. The information had to be carefully gathered, transported back to the lab and then tested and considered before any clues would be revealed or meaningful conclusions could be drawn. Cops always wanted quick answers and in his line of work there were never any quick answers. Anyone who offered one was bound to be wrong.
“Yes, detective?” he asked cautiously.
“Could any of these bloodstains have been painted on the walls?”
Smith shook his head. At least this was an easy one. “No,” he answered quickly and started to turn around.
“Then,” Gilbert said, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder, retarding his escape, “how did that get up there?” He pointed up at the ceiling.
Parme and Singleton returned to the doorway in time to hear his question and they, too, looked upward.
While the blood was splattered as expected on the floor, walls and furniture, on the ceiling it had created a circular pattern that matched, almost exactly, the printed image that Gilbert had in his hand. A couple of the techs began snapping photos of the image, but Smith just stood there, his open mouth pulling down the disposable mask.
“Why, that’s impossible,” he said.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Gilbert replied to the technician, but he was looking at his partner.
Read Part 15.
Read Part 13
Gilbert surveyed the cheap formica countertop that took up most of the tiny kitchen in his rented apartment and the ingredients he had lined up carefully along its fake green-veined granite surface. Tomatoes, red onion, three kinds of peppers, blue cheese crumbles and the cheap bag of salad greens that would form the base for his dinner. He would have liked to have had a jar of sun dried tomatoes, but he was out and hadn’t been to the grocery. He would have to do with what he had.
He didn’t really care, from a culinary perspective. All of his salads seemed to taste pretty much the same, which he didn’t mind. It wasn’t the taste of a salad that attracted him to it, nor its lack of weight inducing calories. He thought of it as art. He had found over the many years he had lived on his own, that if you combined all of the right ingredients, you couldn’t help but have a satisfying outcome when it comes to a salad.
As it turned out, that rule didn’t always hold when it came to other forms of cooking because heat created its own problems. Even with all of the right ingredients, a mistake over the fire would render the result less than satisfying. In some cases, downright catastrophic. Salads, on the other hand, required no heat and had therefore become his culinary art form of choice. He was just dropping some sliced banana peppers into the salad bowl when his phone rang.
By the time he got to Eagan’s apartment building, the fire department’s trucks were already rolling away. He could see the crime tech’s bright lights shining from the window off the 4th floor corridor. He shook his head as he trotted up the front steps to the apartment building’s front door.
He couldn’t believe that Parme was right. He could see his partner waiting for him through the glass front door. They had cut Eagan loose and he had killed someone in his own building. He felt like a fool for falling for his act. As soon as he opened the door, the smoke hit his nostrils and he came up short.
“I didn’t know you smoked?” Gilbert said. “You stink!”
“It’s not me. And it’s about time you decided to come to work, Rookie. Come on,” Parme said as he turned to the stairwell. Gilbert fell in line behind him.
“The fire department responded to a building fire on the 4th floor. It was contained. Singleton said they smothered it with a blanket,” Parme said.
“Oh, Singleton’s here? I like him,” Gilbert replied.
“Great. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear it,” Parme said. “Where else would he be?”
“I can’t believe you were right about Eagan,” Gilbert said. “I guess he really was crazy. We never should have let him go.”
“For the record,” the older man said as they passed the third floor doorway and continued on up toward the fourth, “the lab is very rarely wrong. It’s not our job to second guess them, so the department did nothing wrong by releasing him.”
“Who is the victim?” Gilbert asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Gilbert said as they reached the fourth floor landing. “I hope it’s not another kid.” As soon as they opened the door to the fourth floor corridor, the stench hit them like a wall.
Wayne Singleton was standing in the door to Eagan’s apartment when the detectives arrived. He wore a mask and latex gloves. His shoes were covered with disposable booties.
“We’ve got to quit meeting like this,” he said through the mask.
“What have we got, Wayne?” Parme asked.
Singleton just nodded at the apartment’s open door and offered the detectives both masks. “You’ll want these. Have a look.”
As they neared the doorway, the smell got even worse, causing both men to slap the masks up over their mouths and noses. Gilbert’s eyes were starting to water. It was cold inside the room, suggesting that someone had opened up the windows in the back to disperse the smoke. It wasn’t working very well. Clouds of it still hung in the air, mostly in the vicinity of a pile of burned human remains just inside the doorway.
“Oh God,” Gilbert mumbled involuntarily. The floors and walls were covered with splattered blood, as was the furniture, except for a band on the bottom and back of the couch, where something must have been sitting and later removed. The stench was almost overwhelming. Parme donned the mask and started pulling on the latex gloves.
“Do you have an ID yet?” he asked.
“These remains belong to the resident, one Arlington C. Eagen. C for Conrad,” Singleton replied.
"Are you sure?" Parme asked.
Singleton nodded. "A victim of foul play, it would seem."
“Yeah?” Parme growled, though not unkindly. “What was your first clue? Shouldn’t you leave the detecting to the detectives?”
Singleton’s eyes suggested a smile over the mask. “Well, I suppose he could have set himself on fire, but probably not after bashing in his own skull and breaking most of his own bones with a blunt object.” He pointed to a large plastic bag that held a blood-stained crowbar.
Gilbert donned his mask and gloves and then asked a nearby tech for a pair of shoe covers. He looked at Singleton for permission and then, after receiving the nod, moved carefully into the room.
“We didn’t find a crowbar among Eagan’s possessions on our first visit, did we?” Parme asked.
Singleton just shook his head. “It seems to have been left by the victim’s assailant.”
Gilbert had only gone a couple of steps into the room. He stopped and turned around to face the lead tech and his partner. “Well, that doesn’t make any sense.”
Something about this scene was altogether wrong. People who committed murder, unless it was purely motivated by passion, did not create unnecessary problems for themselves. Gilbert couldn’t imagine anyone getting that passionately angry over Eagan and yet this scene was filled with problems.
The assailant cooks the body in the middle of his apartment, absolutely guaranteeing that the body will be found immediately when the fire department responds, and then leaves the murder weapon to be found by the police? Gilbert shook his head. Cooking always causes problems; who doesn’t know this?
“Why didn’t he just leave the body?” he asked his partner. “Why burn it? It would have been days before anyone noticed that Eagan was missing. We had written him off and wouldn’t be surveilling him. The killer could have drug the body to the basement and it would have been months before the weather warmed up and the smell led someone to the body. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Crazy people seldom do, Rookie.” Parme said quietly. “Besides, no one outside of the department knew we had written him off."
"Even so," Gilbert shook his head.
"But it looks like you were right about one thing," Parme continued. "We should have been asking who that other chair in the basement was for. It appears that Eagan had an accomplice. Someone who knew he was talking to us. He won’t be talking to us anymore.”
Down the hallway, someone opened one of the apartment doors and stepped into the hallway. Parme turned to tell whomever it was to remain in their apartment and out of the way, but then stopped. Singleton turned, too, and both men stared at Mark Boyle as he stood in the center of the hallway, looking like he’d just awoken from a nap.
He saw them staring at him and then slowly raised his hands to see them covered in dried blood. “What the…,” Boyle shook his head as if trying to clear it and then blinked his eyes. That’s all the time it took for the two police officers stationed at the far end of the hallway to tackle him.
From inside the apartment, Gilbert heard the scuffle in the hallway. He head a man yelling all of the things criminals always yell when they are arrested, but he had other things on his mind. He stood in the center of the room, fishing around in his pockets for the copies he had made of the cover of Eagan’s book. He unfolded the image and then turned slowly around the room. The rational part of his brain was feeling stupid, but something made him search the blood stains for the pattern that was engraved into the leather journal.
Finally, he found what he was looking for. Parme and Singleton were no longer in the doorway, so he called over the closest member of Singleton’s team.
Ronnie Smith answered his summons, his eyes narrowed over his disposable face mask. Detectives were always asking questions at crimes scenes that the techs were in no position to answer. The information had to be carefully gathered, transported back to the lab and then tested and considered before any clues would be revealed or meaningful conclusions could be drawn. Cops always wanted quick answers and in his line of work there were never any quick answers. Anyone who offered one was bound to be wrong.
“Yes, detective?” he asked cautiously.
“Could any of these bloodstains have been painted on the walls?”
Smith shook his head. At least this was an easy one. “No,” he answered quickly and started to turn around.
“Then,” Gilbert said, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder, retarding his escape, “how did that get up there?” He pointed up at the ceiling.
Parme and Singleton returned to the doorway in time to hear his question and they, too, looked upward.
While the blood was splattered as expected on the floor, walls and furniture, on the ceiling it had created a circular pattern that matched, almost exactly, the printed image that Gilbert had in his hand. A couple of the techs began snapping photos of the image, but Smith just stood there, his open mouth pulling down the disposable mask.
“Why, that’s impossible,” he said.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Gilbert replied to the technician, but he was looking at his partner.
Read Part 15.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
13. A Sudden Trip
Read from the beginning
Read Part 12
Cardinal Armando Mara sat at the small desk in the room he had been given for his use and studied the paperwork officer Gilbert had faxed to his friend Father Martin Miller. He had asked that a copy be made before releasing the originals to Fr. Miller. He instructed the younger priest not to respond to his friend until he had chance to study the material himself. Fr. Miller didn’t look like he understood the request, but he understood chain of command. That was something Mara knew well, also.
Even after being a priest for more than 25 years, Mara still didn’t consider himself a priest first. He was a soldier who happened to preach the Gospel of Christ. Not a soldier for Christ, for Jesus could never condone the work he did for the Church. Rather, Mara was a trained killer. He took the body and blood of Christ in Communion each day, and the blood of those who opposed his Lord whenever possible.
He held the page with the Seal of God up to the light of the small lamp. It was not the real seal, he realized. It was altered, making it something else. Something Mara recognized. He had half expected this when the Monsignor had asked him what it all meant. Miller had left the room, presumably to return to his office and the work of investigating Church finances, leaving Mara alone with Monsignor Copani.
“What does this all mean?” Copani had asked, his right hand was clenched into a fat fist on the desk while his left played idly with the silver crucifix that hung by a chain around his neck. Mara couldn’t help but notice that the Monsignor didn’t know how to make a proper fist. He would dislocate his thumb if he ever hit anyone with that hand, not that Mara could imagine the older man doing such a thing. He wasn’t a fighter. His first wasn’t a sign of aggression; he was clinging to something, something he hoped would save him. Cardinal Mara rose from his chair and paced to the other side of the room.
When he turned back to face the Monsignor, he was no longer the friendly Italian clergyman who had arrived, unannounced, the previous evening.
“We are under attack,” he said, closing on the Monsignor’s desk and leaning over it. Copani leaded back in his chair, his eyes wide. He started to mouth a response, but Mara wasn’t done. “What we do next may well decide the fate of the Holy Catholic Church in America.”
Mara saw the shock and fear in the older man’s face and sighed internally. It was as he feared. He would get no help from this office. He stepped back away from the desk and lowered himself into the seat that Fr. Miller had previously occupied. He resisted the urge to shake his head. These American priests were so soft. They were completed disconnected from the epic struggle the Church was intended to win for Christ on Earth. He couldn’t possibly explain to this man what was really going on. Fortunately, thanks to his rank in the Church, he didn’t have to.
“This is not something that truly concerns you, Monsignor Cobani. My apologies. I must travel to meet with this police officer and find out how this involves the Church precisely,” he said.
“Oh, of course,” Copani whispered the words. The relief on his face was unmistakable and his hand opened on the desk, still trembling slightly. “I’ll ask Fr. Carlson to make any arrangements you need.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mara said, rising. “I have my own transportation. I’ll be leaving as soon as I’m packed.” He turned toward the door, taking the file with him. Copani seemed pleased to see the information leaving his office.
Mara opened the door and stepped into the hall, but before he closed it, he turned back to Copani. “I’ll be taking Fr. Miller with me, as a translator. I’ll return him when we’re finished.” He stepped into the hall and closed the door.
Now, back in his small room, his small suitcase packed and sitting on the made bed, Cardinal Mara glanced through the paperwork one last time. He resisted the urge to break out his satellite phone and place another call to his team. At last contact, they were headed to La Paz to deal with something that could not be ignored. He knew they were unavailable. He was on his own.
There was a knock at the door. Well, not completely, he thought. He opened the door to find Fr. Miller standing in the hallway.
“Are you packed?” Mara asked.
“I’m ready,” Miller replied, but said nothing more. Mara smiled for the first time that day.
Read Part 14
Read Part 12
Cardinal Armando Mara sat at the small desk in the room he had been given for his use and studied the paperwork officer Gilbert had faxed to his friend Father Martin Miller. He had asked that a copy be made before releasing the originals to Fr. Miller. He instructed the younger priest not to respond to his friend until he had chance to study the material himself. Fr. Miller didn’t look like he understood the request, but he understood chain of command. That was something Mara knew well, also.
Even after being a priest for more than 25 years, Mara still didn’t consider himself a priest first. He was a soldier who happened to preach the Gospel of Christ. Not a soldier for Christ, for Jesus could never condone the work he did for the Church. Rather, Mara was a trained killer. He took the body and blood of Christ in Communion each day, and the blood of those who opposed his Lord whenever possible.
He held the page with the Seal of God up to the light of the small lamp. It was not the real seal, he realized. It was altered, making it something else. Something Mara recognized. He had half expected this when the Monsignor had asked him what it all meant. Miller had left the room, presumably to return to his office and the work of investigating Church finances, leaving Mara alone with Monsignor Copani.
“What does this all mean?” Copani had asked, his right hand was clenched into a fat fist on the desk while his left played idly with the silver crucifix that hung by a chain around his neck. Mara couldn’t help but notice that the Monsignor didn’t know how to make a proper fist. He would dislocate his thumb if he ever hit anyone with that hand, not that Mara could imagine the older man doing such a thing. He wasn’t a fighter. His first wasn’t a sign of aggression; he was clinging to something, something he hoped would save him. Cardinal Mara rose from his chair and paced to the other side of the room.
When he turned back to face the Monsignor, he was no longer the friendly Italian clergyman who had arrived, unannounced, the previous evening.
“We are under attack,” he said, closing on the Monsignor’s desk and leaning over it. Copani leaded back in his chair, his eyes wide. He started to mouth a response, but Mara wasn’t done. “What we do next may well decide the fate of the Holy Catholic Church in America.”
Mara saw the shock and fear in the older man’s face and sighed internally. It was as he feared. He would get no help from this office. He stepped back away from the desk and lowered himself into the seat that Fr. Miller had previously occupied. He resisted the urge to shake his head. These American priests were so soft. They were completed disconnected from the epic struggle the Church was intended to win for Christ on Earth. He couldn’t possibly explain to this man what was really going on. Fortunately, thanks to his rank in the Church, he didn’t have to.
“This is not something that truly concerns you, Monsignor Cobani. My apologies. I must travel to meet with this police officer and find out how this involves the Church precisely,” he said.
“Oh, of course,” Copani whispered the words. The relief on his face was unmistakable and his hand opened on the desk, still trembling slightly. “I’ll ask Fr. Carlson to make any arrangements you need.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mara said, rising. “I have my own transportation. I’ll be leaving as soon as I’m packed.” He turned toward the door, taking the file with him. Copani seemed pleased to see the information leaving his office.
Mara opened the door and stepped into the hall, but before he closed it, he turned back to Copani. “I’ll be taking Fr. Miller with me, as a translator. I’ll return him when we’re finished.” He stepped into the hall and closed the door.
Now, back in his small room, his small suitcase packed and sitting on the made bed, Cardinal Mara glanced through the paperwork one last time. He resisted the urge to break out his satellite phone and place another call to his team. At last contact, they were headed to La Paz to deal with something that could not be ignored. He knew they were unavailable. He was on his own.
There was a knock at the door. Well, not completely, he thought. He opened the door to find Fr. Miller standing in the hallway.
“Are you packed?” Mara asked.
“I’m ready,” Miller replied, but said nothing more. Mara smiled for the first time that day.
Read Part 14
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
12. A Friendship Questioned
Read from the beginning
Read Part 11
Fr. Carlson led Fr. Miller down the long hallway that ran the length of the main building and when he reached his destination, turned abruptly to face the door to Monsignor Copani’s office. There was no marking on the door, just a wooden portal similar in all respects to the others they had passed. Carlson knocked twice and opened the door, leading Fr. Miller into a richly appointed office. The Monsignor sat behind his very large desk, where a second chair had been pulled around for a man that Fr. Miller had not yet met.
“Fr. Miller, as requested,” Fr. Carlson said and then stepped smartly to the side to allow Fr. Miller to step up. When he failed to do so, Fr. Carlson cast him a disapproving glance.
“Thank you, Fr. Carlson,” the Monsignor said. “That will be all.”
This clearly caught the smaller priest by surprise, but he recovered quickly and stepped from the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
“Thank you for coming straight away, Martin,” the Monsignor said. Copani had been a Catholic priest for over 30 years. Now, at the midpoint of his 50s, he appeared much older. There was a tiredness hanging under his eyes that made him look melancholy even when he smiled, which was rare. He was not smiling now. “Please meet Cardinal Armando Mara.”
The Cardinal stood and Fr. Miller let out a small gasp. He hadn’t been paying attention. The clerical clothing worn by the clergy in Italy differed from that worn in America. He had assumed that Copani was the highest ranking priest in the building. A thoughtless mistake! Mara saw the younger priest’s embarrassment clearly on his face and extended his hand with a smile. Smaller of frame and darker of hair and eye than Copani, Mara seemed younger than the Monsignor, and quite fit.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Father Miller.” His English was excellent, but the Italian accent made it twist and curl like a true romance language. “Please have a seat.”
Fr. Miller sat down in a high backed chair that faced the desk squarely. Behind and on both sides of the large desk were framed paintings, that could have come from an Italian museum for all he knew, not being an expert. The dark wood of the frames went well with the dark paneling. It all conspired to make the room feel like it was home to more power than a similar 12-foot by 12-foot office elsewhere in the building. However, Fr. Miller thought, with both the Monsignor and the Cardinal tucked behind the large wooden desk, it probably was the epicenter of power at the moment.
“You haven’t been to your office yet,” the Monsignor said. It wasn’t a question so Fr. Miller merely nodded. “When you get there, you’ll find that you have received a message from an old friend of yours, a police officer by the name of Rob Gilbert. Do you remember this person?”
Fr. Miller was momentarily taken aback. First, how did the Monsignor know about his message before he did? And what form did this message take? Was it a voice mail message? E-mail? And Rob Gilbert. He hadn’t heard that name since he was an undergraduate at the University, almost a decade ago now. These thoughts, though moving quickly, gave him pause and he realized that he had been silent a moment and that both priests were now watching him very closely. He suddenly felt like he was being examined.
“I do remember, Rob. He was my roommate when I was in college many years ago,” he replied. “Is there some problem that I should be aware of? Has something happened?”
“Have you been in touch with Officer Gilbert recently?” the Cardinal asked. His accent made the question sound less like an accusation, but something in his eyes was giving Fr. Miller an uncomfortable feeling.
“No, I have not,” he replied. “What is this about, please? What is this message and why, if I may ask, did it come to your attention before my own?”
The Cardinal started to lean further across the desk, his face darkening, but the Monsignor spoke first.
“Martin, your message came to my desk because a keyword filter directed it to me. We set that system up during the crisis that almost bankrupted our diocese some years ago. The fact that the message came from a law enforcement organization caused it to be re-routed to me.”
Fr. Miller had just become a priest when the child abuse scandal rocked the Church to its core. By the time it was over (if one could ever call it over, given the ongoing suffering of those involved), hundreds of millions of dollars had been paid out by the Church in legal settlements, leaving a number of diocese across the nation bankrupt. The Archdiocese of Boston was particularly hard hit, but survived, financially, in large part due to the measures taken by the Monsignor’s office.
“I didn’t know such a system existed,” Fr. Miller said. He felt a cold weight in the pit of his stomach. He personally knew priests, men he had known for years and respected, who were accused during the scandal. He felt certain then that they were innocent of any crimes and continued to be convinced to this day, but during the crisis, even the suggestion of wrongdoing put enormous pressure on the Church to settle. Had someone accused him? “But I see why one is necessary. Of course, this could not be related to…”
The Monsignor stopped him with a raised hand. “Of course not, Martin. That has not been suggested.”
“But we are very interested in what this is related to,” the Cardinal added.
Fr. Miller looked from one priest to another and then shook his head. “I haven’t even seen the message.”
Monsignor Copani explained that Gilbert was asking for help on a case and had promised to send over materials that he would like Fr. Miller to examine. Those materials were expected to be faxed to his office as soon as the staff at his parish in Texas arrived at the church office. Instructions had been sent that would reroute those materials to the Monsignor’s office.
Fr. Miller’s confusion showed clearly on his face. “I have no idea what this could be about,” he said.
“It could be nothing,” Monsignor Copani said. “Just an old friend seeking some spiritual support.”
“Or,” added the Cardinal, “it could have to do with the government’s investigation of our financial records, in which case we must take great care in how we respond.”
Now, Fr. Miller was really confused. He recalled Rob Gilbert as a serious young man who’s only goal was to get into law enforcement and investigate crimes, specifically those against what he called defenseless victims. He was not involved in financial crimes and, in any event, Fr. Miller had found no evidence that there was any crime to be found in the Church’s financial records -- aside from the possible crime of losing too much money. He was about to point this out when they were interrupted by two quick knocks on the door, which was then opened to admit Fr. Carlson. He held a stack of papers.
He placed them carefully on the desk, each page stacked perfectly above the one below it, and then stood at attention near the corner of the desk. The monsignor pulled the stack of papers over, messing them up in the process and causing Fr. Carlson to grimace.
“Thank you, Fr. Carlson,” the Monsignor said. “That will be all.” The small priest’s grimace began to trend toward a scowl. He spun on his heel and left the room.
The Monsignor and the Cardinal studied the printouts for a moment and then both sat back in their chairs. Neither man looked happy. Fr. Miller waited. Finally, the Cardinal took one sheet from the stack and pushed it slowly across the desk. “Do you know what this is?” he asked.
Fr. Miller studied the page for a moment. It was a copy of a drawing of the Sigillum Dei, the Seal of God. “Yes,” he replied.
“Is it possible that your friend is investigating the Church?” the Monsignor asked him directly.
Fr. Miller shook his head. “No. I mean, I don’t know. I haven’t even spoken to him yet. Besides,” he said, lifting the sheet with the medieval symbol and holding it up to the light, “what can the Church’s finances possibly have to do with this?”
Monsignor Copani sat back in his chair but Cardinal Mara leaned forward. “Everything,” he said.
Read Part 13
Read Part 11
Fr. Carlson led Fr. Miller down the long hallway that ran the length of the main building and when he reached his destination, turned abruptly to face the door to Monsignor Copani’s office. There was no marking on the door, just a wooden portal similar in all respects to the others they had passed. Carlson knocked twice and opened the door, leading Fr. Miller into a richly appointed office. The Monsignor sat behind his very large desk, where a second chair had been pulled around for a man that Fr. Miller had not yet met.
“Fr. Miller, as requested,” Fr. Carlson said and then stepped smartly to the side to allow Fr. Miller to step up. When he failed to do so, Fr. Carlson cast him a disapproving glance.
“Thank you, Fr. Carlson,” the Monsignor said. “That will be all.”
This clearly caught the smaller priest by surprise, but he recovered quickly and stepped from the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
“Thank you for coming straight away, Martin,” the Monsignor said. Copani had been a Catholic priest for over 30 years. Now, at the midpoint of his 50s, he appeared much older. There was a tiredness hanging under his eyes that made him look melancholy even when he smiled, which was rare. He was not smiling now. “Please meet Cardinal Armando Mara.”
The Cardinal stood and Fr. Miller let out a small gasp. He hadn’t been paying attention. The clerical clothing worn by the clergy in Italy differed from that worn in America. He had assumed that Copani was the highest ranking priest in the building. A thoughtless mistake! Mara saw the younger priest’s embarrassment clearly on his face and extended his hand with a smile. Smaller of frame and darker of hair and eye than Copani, Mara seemed younger than the Monsignor, and quite fit.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Father Miller.” His English was excellent, but the Italian accent made it twist and curl like a true romance language. “Please have a seat.”
Fr. Miller sat down in a high backed chair that faced the desk squarely. Behind and on both sides of the large desk were framed paintings, that could have come from an Italian museum for all he knew, not being an expert. The dark wood of the frames went well with the dark paneling. It all conspired to make the room feel like it was home to more power than a similar 12-foot by 12-foot office elsewhere in the building. However, Fr. Miller thought, with both the Monsignor and the Cardinal tucked behind the large wooden desk, it probably was the epicenter of power at the moment.
“You haven’t been to your office yet,” the Monsignor said. It wasn’t a question so Fr. Miller merely nodded. “When you get there, you’ll find that you have received a message from an old friend of yours, a police officer by the name of Rob Gilbert. Do you remember this person?”
Fr. Miller was momentarily taken aback. First, how did the Monsignor know about his message before he did? And what form did this message take? Was it a voice mail message? E-mail? And Rob Gilbert. He hadn’t heard that name since he was an undergraduate at the University, almost a decade ago now. These thoughts, though moving quickly, gave him pause and he realized that he had been silent a moment and that both priests were now watching him very closely. He suddenly felt like he was being examined.
“I do remember, Rob. He was my roommate when I was in college many years ago,” he replied. “Is there some problem that I should be aware of? Has something happened?”
“Have you been in touch with Officer Gilbert recently?” the Cardinal asked. His accent made the question sound less like an accusation, but something in his eyes was giving Fr. Miller an uncomfortable feeling.
“No, I have not,” he replied. “What is this about, please? What is this message and why, if I may ask, did it come to your attention before my own?”
The Cardinal started to lean further across the desk, his face darkening, but the Monsignor spoke first.
“Martin, your message came to my desk because a keyword filter directed it to me. We set that system up during the crisis that almost bankrupted our diocese some years ago. The fact that the message came from a law enforcement organization caused it to be re-routed to me.”
Fr. Miller had just become a priest when the child abuse scandal rocked the Church to its core. By the time it was over (if one could ever call it over, given the ongoing suffering of those involved), hundreds of millions of dollars had been paid out by the Church in legal settlements, leaving a number of diocese across the nation bankrupt. The Archdiocese of Boston was particularly hard hit, but survived, financially, in large part due to the measures taken by the Monsignor’s office.
“I didn’t know such a system existed,” Fr. Miller said. He felt a cold weight in the pit of his stomach. He personally knew priests, men he had known for years and respected, who were accused during the scandal. He felt certain then that they were innocent of any crimes and continued to be convinced to this day, but during the crisis, even the suggestion of wrongdoing put enormous pressure on the Church to settle. Had someone accused him? “But I see why one is necessary. Of course, this could not be related to…”
The Monsignor stopped him with a raised hand. “Of course not, Martin. That has not been suggested.”
“But we are very interested in what this is related to,” the Cardinal added.
Fr. Miller looked from one priest to another and then shook his head. “I haven’t even seen the message.”
Monsignor Copani explained that Gilbert was asking for help on a case and had promised to send over materials that he would like Fr. Miller to examine. Those materials were expected to be faxed to his office as soon as the staff at his parish in Texas arrived at the church office. Instructions had been sent that would reroute those materials to the Monsignor’s office.
Fr. Miller’s confusion showed clearly on his face. “I have no idea what this could be about,” he said.
“It could be nothing,” Monsignor Copani said. “Just an old friend seeking some spiritual support.”
“Or,” added the Cardinal, “it could have to do with the government’s investigation of our financial records, in which case we must take great care in how we respond.”
Now, Fr. Miller was really confused. He recalled Rob Gilbert as a serious young man who’s only goal was to get into law enforcement and investigate crimes, specifically those against what he called defenseless victims. He was not involved in financial crimes and, in any event, Fr. Miller had found no evidence that there was any crime to be found in the Church’s financial records -- aside from the possible crime of losing too much money. He was about to point this out when they were interrupted by two quick knocks on the door, which was then opened to admit Fr. Carlson. He held a stack of papers.
He placed them carefully on the desk, each page stacked perfectly above the one below it, and then stood at attention near the corner of the desk. The monsignor pulled the stack of papers over, messing them up in the process and causing Fr. Carlson to grimace.
“Thank you, Fr. Carlson,” the Monsignor said. “That will be all.” The small priest’s grimace began to trend toward a scowl. He spun on his heel and left the room.
The Monsignor and the Cardinal studied the printouts for a moment and then both sat back in their chairs. Neither man looked happy. Fr. Miller waited. Finally, the Cardinal took one sheet from the stack and pushed it slowly across the desk. “Do you know what this is?” he asked.
Fr. Miller studied the page for a moment. It was a copy of a drawing of the Sigillum Dei, the Seal of God. “Yes,” he replied.
“Is it possible that your friend is investigating the Church?” the Monsignor asked him directly.
Fr. Miller shook his head. “No. I mean, I don’t know. I haven’t even spoken to him yet. Besides,” he said, lifting the sheet with the medieval symbol and holding it up to the light, “what can the Church’s finances possibly have to do with this?”
Monsignor Copani sat back in his chair but Cardinal Mara leaned forward. “Everything,” he said.
Read Part 13
Saturday, March 14, 2015
11. An Urgent Mission
Read from the Beginning
Read Part 10
Gilbert’s telephone voicemail message to Fr. Martin Miller remained unheard for most of the following day. He wouldn’t find it until about the time that Gilbert was waking up and checking in with his partner about the failed DNA test. Fr. Miller would hear of the accompanying e-mail message from his old friend much sooner, as it had already come to the attention of his superiors by the time he arrived at his temporary office in Boston that morning.
As Fr. Miller was making his way carefully across the snow and ice covered parking lot of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council building in Braintree, Monsignor Copani, the head of financial affairs for the Archdiocese, and Cardinal Armando Mara, the Vatican’s director of Financial Forensics were studying Gilbert’s e-mail message. A keyword had been detected by scanning software used by the Archdiocese and caused the message to be diverted to land on the Monsignor’s desk.
The message referred to an open case his friend -- a US law enforcement officer -- was working on. Gilbert’s e-mail said he had tracked Fr. Miller down to St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church in Pawchuck, Texas, where he had been assigned until very recently. He got this e-mail address from one of the nuns working in the church there, but was unable to get a fax number that he could be sure would reach his friend. So, he had faxed some documents to the church in Texas that he hoped Fr. Miller could examine at his earliest convenience. He did not provide any details regarding the documents, but said that Sister Katie promised to forward it to Fr. Miller in his weekly package.
The two read through the brief e-mail and then sat back in their chairs. They frowned, but did not speak to each other. Cardinal Mara placed a call to the church in Texas, but it was early there and no one was in the office. He left a terse message. The Monsignor dispatched his assistant to fetch Fr. Miller as soon as he arrived.
It had been many years since Fr. Miller had heard from his college roommate and he would be very surprised to learn that he had received a message from him. In truth, he hadn’t thought of his old friend in a long time. During the two semesters they had shared a dorm they had became like brothers. Miller had enjoyed similar relationships after he left school and went to the seminary, but he had never met anyone else like Gilbert. Since then, their relationship had faded into the back of his mind, displaced by the work of running his church and ministering to his parishioners.
The two had enjoyed many long theological discussions in those days, even before Miller had confided in Gilbert his desire to leave school to join the priesthood. Gilbert was in pre-law. Miller was studying forensic accounting. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what had attracted him to it. If asked, he would reply, “God’s will” for it was his training in that discipline that had quickly elevated him from priest of a small parish in southwest Texas to the role of important advisor to the Archbishop and, by extension, to the Vatican.
Fr. Miller had recently been flown to Boston and asked to take on a special project. Of course, being asked by an Archbishop is rather like being asked to send a check by the Internal Revenue Service. Refusal is frowned upon. In this case, Fr. Miller had been excited by the prospect. This seemed like important work and while he wasn’t sure what he could bring to the project, he was proud, despite his best efforts to be humble, that he had been called from so far away to serve in this capacity.
The Bank of the Vatican had run afoul of American bank regulators when a Catholic priest working for the bank was found carrying a large amount of cash, U.S. dollars, by train from Italy to Switzerland. The United States wanted to know that the dollars were not on their way to a country that was currently under sanction. The Vatican had stalled for as long as possible, but when it became apparent that it would have to share information with the American government, the Vatican had requested a trusted expert look over the records before they were released. Fr. Miller was called to Boston.
As he understood it, the project required him to investigate the records just like the U.S. government would and reveal to the Archbishop anything that the records would reveal to the government’s investigators. When he asked what he was supposed to find, he was simply told, “whatever is there to find.”
And so for the past three weeks, Fr. Miller had been poring through bank records involving hundreds of international transactions, originating at the Bank of the Vatican but moving through institutions around the world, involving many parties and multiple currencies. Sure enough in his faith to know that the transactions represented God’s work, he was still finding reason to feel troubled.
First, there were a great many transactions that went to third parties that were either impossible to identify or described in such general terms that it was impossible to tell what they were. Secondly, the Vatican seemed to switch currencies on a whim, sending first dollars, then British pounds, and even using Bitcoin for some transactions. Finally, and perhaps most troubling, the Church as consistently losing money on the currency swaps. A lot of money was being lost in what appeared to be highly inefficient fiscal practices. He wasn’t sure what it meant yet, but it was there for him to find and so he planned to get to the bottom of it, in service to the Archbishop and the Holy Catholic Church.
Fr. Miller entered the building and shook the snow off of the heavy coat he had been loaned and ran a hand through his short blonde hair. It came away wet and cold. His ears were burning, not because at that very moment Robert Gilbert was mentioning him to his partner over a greasy breakfast, but rather because he hadn’t been loaned a hat. Something he planned to ask for shortly. He rubbed his hands together and then clapped them over his ears. He was standing like that, exactly like the hear no evil monkey, when Farther Carlson stepped around in front of him.
Fr. Carlson was a short man. He wore the traditional garb of the Catholic priest with the addition of a clipboard. Fr. Miller had never seen him without it, nor the worried expression he always wore along with his wire-framed glasses. From the moment he’d met him, Fr. Carlson gave the impression that he was late for something, or thought you were.
In truth, it wasn’t time that worried Fr. Carlson, it was entropy. He lived in fear of nature’s tendency to march forever toward disorder. Maintaining order was his true calling, one he secretly held even higher than his mandate to preach the living Gospel. There were a great many priests who were capable of delivering a decent sermon. There were few that could keep an operation like the financial center for the archdiocese on track. Maybe one. His prayer each night was that he continue to be that one.
For now, helping Monsignor Copani keep his department orderly was his role, but he dreamed -- and prayed -- that one day he would be called to a higher purpose. Some said that the Devil was in the details. Fr. Carlson knew that was wrong. The Devil was hiding just beyond those details and waiting for the opportunity to reveal himself should they be mishandled, as they too often were.
Fr. Carlson always got a small thrill from urgent missions because he knew that crisis was the battlefield where entropy clashed swords with order. He could hear the call to battle in the Monsignor’s order to fetch Fr. Miller. He wasn’t sure the reason, but he was quite sure that disorder would follow in the wake of failure to fulfill this mission. He opened his mouth to address his charge when he was interrupted.
“Good morning, Father Carlson. Do we have any hats in the chancery?”
The shorter man was caught by surprise at the question. He sputtered for a moment and then admitted that he did not know, but would ask someone who might at a more appropriate time.
“We’ll see to that later,” Fr. Carlson said. “You are summoned by the Monsignor. He would have words with you.”
“Very good. I’ll just drop my coat in my office,” Fr. Miller began.
“Actually, we should go now,” Fr. Carlson said. His light blue eyes, made slightly larger by his glasses and his will to see order maintained, stared at the other priest and did not blink.
Fr. Miller managed a half-hearted smile. “Very good. Lead on.”
Fr. Carlson stepped out ahead of him and marched down the narrow corridor toward the Monsignor’s office. Fr. Miller shook his head and followed
Read Part 12
Read Part 10
Gilbert’s telephone voicemail message to Fr. Martin Miller remained unheard for most of the following day. He wouldn’t find it until about the time that Gilbert was waking up and checking in with his partner about the failed DNA test. Fr. Miller would hear of the accompanying e-mail message from his old friend much sooner, as it had already come to the attention of his superiors by the time he arrived at his temporary office in Boston that morning.
As Fr. Miller was making his way carefully across the snow and ice covered parking lot of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council building in Braintree, Monsignor Copani, the head of financial affairs for the Archdiocese, and Cardinal Armando Mara, the Vatican’s director of Financial Forensics were studying Gilbert’s e-mail message. A keyword had been detected by scanning software used by the Archdiocese and caused the message to be diverted to land on the Monsignor’s desk.
The message referred to an open case his friend -- a US law enforcement officer -- was working on. Gilbert’s e-mail said he had tracked Fr. Miller down to St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church in Pawchuck, Texas, where he had been assigned until very recently. He got this e-mail address from one of the nuns working in the church there, but was unable to get a fax number that he could be sure would reach his friend. So, he had faxed some documents to the church in Texas that he hoped Fr. Miller could examine at his earliest convenience. He did not provide any details regarding the documents, but said that Sister Katie promised to forward it to Fr. Miller in his weekly package.
The two read through the brief e-mail and then sat back in their chairs. They frowned, but did not speak to each other. Cardinal Mara placed a call to the church in Texas, but it was early there and no one was in the office. He left a terse message. The Monsignor dispatched his assistant to fetch Fr. Miller as soon as he arrived.
It had been many years since Fr. Miller had heard from his college roommate and he would be very surprised to learn that he had received a message from him. In truth, he hadn’t thought of his old friend in a long time. During the two semesters they had shared a dorm they had became like brothers. Miller had enjoyed similar relationships after he left school and went to the seminary, but he had never met anyone else like Gilbert. Since then, their relationship had faded into the back of his mind, displaced by the work of running his church and ministering to his parishioners.
The two had enjoyed many long theological discussions in those days, even before Miller had confided in Gilbert his desire to leave school to join the priesthood. Gilbert was in pre-law. Miller was studying forensic accounting. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what had attracted him to it. If asked, he would reply, “God’s will” for it was his training in that discipline that had quickly elevated him from priest of a small parish in southwest Texas to the role of important advisor to the Archbishop and, by extension, to the Vatican.
Fr. Miller had recently been flown to Boston and asked to take on a special project. Of course, being asked by an Archbishop is rather like being asked to send a check by the Internal Revenue Service. Refusal is frowned upon. In this case, Fr. Miller had been excited by the prospect. This seemed like important work and while he wasn’t sure what he could bring to the project, he was proud, despite his best efforts to be humble, that he had been called from so far away to serve in this capacity.
The Bank of the Vatican had run afoul of American bank regulators when a Catholic priest working for the bank was found carrying a large amount of cash, U.S. dollars, by train from Italy to Switzerland. The United States wanted to know that the dollars were not on their way to a country that was currently under sanction. The Vatican had stalled for as long as possible, but when it became apparent that it would have to share information with the American government, the Vatican had requested a trusted expert look over the records before they were released. Fr. Miller was called to Boston.
As he understood it, the project required him to investigate the records just like the U.S. government would and reveal to the Archbishop anything that the records would reveal to the government’s investigators. When he asked what he was supposed to find, he was simply told, “whatever is there to find.”
And so for the past three weeks, Fr. Miller had been poring through bank records involving hundreds of international transactions, originating at the Bank of the Vatican but moving through institutions around the world, involving many parties and multiple currencies. Sure enough in his faith to know that the transactions represented God’s work, he was still finding reason to feel troubled.
First, there were a great many transactions that went to third parties that were either impossible to identify or described in such general terms that it was impossible to tell what they were. Secondly, the Vatican seemed to switch currencies on a whim, sending first dollars, then British pounds, and even using Bitcoin for some transactions. Finally, and perhaps most troubling, the Church as consistently losing money on the currency swaps. A lot of money was being lost in what appeared to be highly inefficient fiscal practices. He wasn’t sure what it meant yet, but it was there for him to find and so he planned to get to the bottom of it, in service to the Archbishop and the Holy Catholic Church.
Fr. Miller entered the building and shook the snow off of the heavy coat he had been loaned and ran a hand through his short blonde hair. It came away wet and cold. His ears were burning, not because at that very moment Robert Gilbert was mentioning him to his partner over a greasy breakfast, but rather because he hadn’t been loaned a hat. Something he planned to ask for shortly. He rubbed his hands together and then clapped them over his ears. He was standing like that, exactly like the hear no evil monkey, when Farther Carlson stepped around in front of him.
Fr. Carlson was a short man. He wore the traditional garb of the Catholic priest with the addition of a clipboard. Fr. Miller had never seen him without it, nor the worried expression he always wore along with his wire-framed glasses. From the moment he’d met him, Fr. Carlson gave the impression that he was late for something, or thought you were.
In truth, it wasn’t time that worried Fr. Carlson, it was entropy. He lived in fear of nature’s tendency to march forever toward disorder. Maintaining order was his true calling, one he secretly held even higher than his mandate to preach the living Gospel. There were a great many priests who were capable of delivering a decent sermon. There were few that could keep an operation like the financial center for the archdiocese on track. Maybe one. His prayer each night was that he continue to be that one.
For now, helping Monsignor Copani keep his department orderly was his role, but he dreamed -- and prayed -- that one day he would be called to a higher purpose. Some said that the Devil was in the details. Fr. Carlson knew that was wrong. The Devil was hiding just beyond those details and waiting for the opportunity to reveal himself should they be mishandled, as they too often were.
Fr. Carlson always got a small thrill from urgent missions because he knew that crisis was the battlefield where entropy clashed swords with order. He could hear the call to battle in the Monsignor’s order to fetch Fr. Miller. He wasn’t sure the reason, but he was quite sure that disorder would follow in the wake of failure to fulfill this mission. He opened his mouth to address his charge when he was interrupted.
“Good morning, Father Carlson. Do we have any hats in the chancery?”
The shorter man was caught by surprise at the question. He sputtered for a moment and then admitted that he did not know, but would ask someone who might at a more appropriate time.
“We’ll see to that later,” Fr. Carlson said. “You are summoned by the Monsignor. He would have words with you.”
“Very good. I’ll just drop my coat in my office,” Fr. Miller began.
“Actually, we should go now,” Fr. Carlson said. His light blue eyes, made slightly larger by his glasses and his will to see order maintained, stared at the other priest and did not blink.
Fr. Miller managed a half-hearted smile. “Very good. Lead on.”
Fr. Carlson stepped out ahead of him and marched down the narrow corridor toward the Monsignor’s office. Fr. Miller shook his head and followed
Read Part 12
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
10. A Dead End
Read from the Beginning
Read Part 9
It was nearly 5:00 pm when Gilbert finally awoke in his apartment. The sun was already setting on what appeared to have been a cold winter day. He couldn’t remember any details about the weather, only that they were finally making some progress on their murder case. He rolled over and grabbed the phone.
Parme picked up his cell phone on the second ring. “What?”
“Did the lab call? About the DNA.”
“Yeah,” his partner growled on the other end of the line.
Gilbert rolled out of bed, sitting up on the edge and letting his bare feet touch the cold hardwood floor. “Well, are you going to tell me?” He could hear Parme spit on the other end of the line. He must be outside or in his car. Now that he listened, Gilbert could hear street traffic. Not much of a rush hour in this town, it seemed.
“It’s not him. We cut the little bastard loose this afternoon.”
Gilbert blinked. He wasn’t sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, he never really believed the little man was capable of the brutal murder he was investigating. On the other hand, he was really looking forward to cracking his first case. He didn’t have to guess how Parme felt about it. He decided not to rub it in.
“So…,” Gilbert started.
“So, we keep working the case. I’ll see you at the diner first thing in the morning. And Rob, don’t be late.” There was an edge to his voice that made tardiness sound like a very bad idea.
“Yeah, right. Good night.” Gilbert hung up the phone. The sun was just falling below the horizon. Darkness was coming. He thought about Eagan. If he hadn’t committed the crime he tried to confess to, he must be crazy. Crazy and alone. And heading home in the dark. Whatever he was afraid of would be waiting for him there.
Gilbert thought briefly of going over to Eagan’s apartment, but the thought withered when his mind went back to the case. You don’t waste time on dead ends. That just creates cold case files. Better to focus on the investigation, continue to run it to ground. Anything else was a waste of his time.
He got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.
Across town, his partner shut his cell phone and dropped it unceremoniously into the cup holder next to his seat. He couldn’t believe that little shit wasn’t the perp they were looking for, but he’d learned long ago not to question the lab results. That’s a battle the detectives never won.
He had toyed with the idea of pressing charges against him for popping him in the nose, but had decided it wasn’t worth the crap the other detectives would give him. He was too old to chase down punks like Eagan and give them the beating they deserved, so he let it go.
Letting go of things was something Parme had become good at over the years. Everything was a lot easier that way. It was a lesson he wished he had learned on his first ex-wife. He hadn’t. It had taken a second divorce to get the lesson through his thick skull, but now it was one he wouldn’t forget. He was practicing with his current girlfriend. They were close, but he knew that he could drop the whole thing in a heartbeat if he needed to.
He watched her from the car as she left the diner and headed to the curb, making a beeline for his car. She looked as pretty as she had when she’d served him breakfast that morning. She always did. She leaned against the passenger door and put her head in the window.
“Hey, sailor. Give a girl a ride?”
Parme smiled in spite of himself. He knew he looked like a dork when he smiled, but she brought it out of him. He looked down at her blouse, stained from a long day of moving food from counter to table and back again. She still wore “Barb” on her name tag because it was the same old pin her mother had worn. Not good at letting go, this girl.
“Sure,” he said. “Get in.”
As Pat was slamming the door of Parme’s car, Arlington Eagon was opening the door of his apartment building. He had been released earlier in the afternoon and took a cab from the precinct house back to his apartment, but at the last minute he had asked the driver to pull over and let him out a few blocks away from his building. He had been wandering around the neighborhood since then, afraid to go home. Now, he was almost frozen and had chosen to enter the building instead of risk hypothermia.
Eagan new he was sick. Crazy, actually. Which might be the same thing, but he wasn’t sure. He had been to doctors and therapists and psychic healers and they’d all told him pretty much the same thing. He had a victim complex and people who had that were going to get victimized. That’s just how it worked.
He had hoped that by simplifying his life, he could avoid much of the confrontation that led to his eventual victimization and it had worked, for a while. But now that he knew he was not in control of his own body when he fell asleep, his fears had taken on a whole new dimension.
He had thought about what he could do about his situation for hours, as he walked the streets of his neighborhood. He kept coming back to the same solution. The only solution. He would have to run. Fast and far. And he would have to start this very night.
Deep down, he knew he hadn’t killed that girl. He was pretty sure he had never hurt anyone in his life. He figured he was probably incapable of it. He froze up during conflict of any kind. The whole confession thing was just a desperate attempt to run away from his apartment. It was a strategy that was woven out of panic and, predictably, it had failed.
This time, he would plan his run to freedom better. He would not panic. He would simply pack up the few things he needed and call a cab. He would meet the cab at the curb and then take it to the nearest hotel, where he would spend the night. Tomorrow, he would check himself into the nearest psychiatric facility, telling them that he was having visions of murder and that he was afraid he would hurt someone. They would have to take him.
They would put him in a room he could not escape, probably give him medication to help him sleep and make sure that he was never lured away into the darkness again. He would finally be safe.
He went over this plan again as he walked up the four flights of stairs to his floor and then down the hallway to his apartment. He was feeling much better when he inserted the key and opened his door. He stepped into his apartment and his plan was immediately forgotten.
There was a man standing in his living room. A large, hairy man. He squinted up at him for a moment and then recognized him as the factory worker who lived down the hall, Mike or Mitch or something, he couldn't remember now. The man was holding a crowbar and staring at him with heavy-lidded eyes.
The girl on his couch caught his eye when she moved, bringing a lit cigarette to her lips in a smooth motion. She was small and blonde. Eagan couldn’t remember ever having seen her before. She wasn’t wearing much clothing. She had the same half-asleep looking eyes. Were they both on drugs?
“What is this,” Eagan stammered. “I don’t have any drugs...or much money.”
“Do it, Mark,” the girl said calmly. “Do it now.”
The big man took a step toward Eagan and swung the crowbar at his head.
Read Part 11
Read Part 9
It was nearly 5:00 pm when Gilbert finally awoke in his apartment. The sun was already setting on what appeared to have been a cold winter day. He couldn’t remember any details about the weather, only that they were finally making some progress on their murder case. He rolled over and grabbed the phone.
Parme picked up his cell phone on the second ring. “What?”
“Did the lab call? About the DNA.”
“Yeah,” his partner growled on the other end of the line.
Gilbert rolled out of bed, sitting up on the edge and letting his bare feet touch the cold hardwood floor. “Well, are you going to tell me?” He could hear Parme spit on the other end of the line. He must be outside or in his car. Now that he listened, Gilbert could hear street traffic. Not much of a rush hour in this town, it seemed.
“It’s not him. We cut the little bastard loose this afternoon.”
Gilbert blinked. He wasn’t sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, he never really believed the little man was capable of the brutal murder he was investigating. On the other hand, he was really looking forward to cracking his first case. He didn’t have to guess how Parme felt about it. He decided not to rub it in.
“So…,” Gilbert started.
“So, we keep working the case. I’ll see you at the diner first thing in the morning. And Rob, don’t be late.” There was an edge to his voice that made tardiness sound like a very bad idea.
“Yeah, right. Good night.” Gilbert hung up the phone. The sun was just falling below the horizon. Darkness was coming. He thought about Eagan. If he hadn’t committed the crime he tried to confess to, he must be crazy. Crazy and alone. And heading home in the dark. Whatever he was afraid of would be waiting for him there.
Gilbert thought briefly of going over to Eagan’s apartment, but the thought withered when his mind went back to the case. You don’t waste time on dead ends. That just creates cold case files. Better to focus on the investigation, continue to run it to ground. Anything else was a waste of his time.
He got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.
Across town, his partner shut his cell phone and dropped it unceremoniously into the cup holder next to his seat. He couldn’t believe that little shit wasn’t the perp they were looking for, but he’d learned long ago not to question the lab results. That’s a battle the detectives never won.
He had toyed with the idea of pressing charges against him for popping him in the nose, but had decided it wasn’t worth the crap the other detectives would give him. He was too old to chase down punks like Eagan and give them the beating they deserved, so he let it go.
Letting go of things was something Parme had become good at over the years. Everything was a lot easier that way. It was a lesson he wished he had learned on his first ex-wife. He hadn’t. It had taken a second divorce to get the lesson through his thick skull, but now it was one he wouldn’t forget. He was practicing with his current girlfriend. They were close, but he knew that he could drop the whole thing in a heartbeat if he needed to.
He watched her from the car as she left the diner and headed to the curb, making a beeline for his car. She looked as pretty as she had when she’d served him breakfast that morning. She always did. She leaned against the passenger door and put her head in the window.
“Hey, sailor. Give a girl a ride?”
Parme smiled in spite of himself. He knew he looked like a dork when he smiled, but she brought it out of him. He looked down at her blouse, stained from a long day of moving food from counter to table and back again. She still wore “Barb” on her name tag because it was the same old pin her mother had worn. Not good at letting go, this girl.
“Sure,” he said. “Get in.”
As Pat was slamming the door of Parme’s car, Arlington Eagon was opening the door of his apartment building. He had been released earlier in the afternoon and took a cab from the precinct house back to his apartment, but at the last minute he had asked the driver to pull over and let him out a few blocks away from his building. He had been wandering around the neighborhood since then, afraid to go home. Now, he was almost frozen and had chosen to enter the building instead of risk hypothermia.
Eagan new he was sick. Crazy, actually. Which might be the same thing, but he wasn’t sure. He had been to doctors and therapists and psychic healers and they’d all told him pretty much the same thing. He had a victim complex and people who had that were going to get victimized. That’s just how it worked.
He had hoped that by simplifying his life, he could avoid much of the confrontation that led to his eventual victimization and it had worked, for a while. But now that he knew he was not in control of his own body when he fell asleep, his fears had taken on a whole new dimension.
He had thought about what he could do about his situation for hours, as he walked the streets of his neighborhood. He kept coming back to the same solution. The only solution. He would have to run. Fast and far. And he would have to start this very night.
Deep down, he knew he hadn’t killed that girl. He was pretty sure he had never hurt anyone in his life. He figured he was probably incapable of it. He froze up during conflict of any kind. The whole confession thing was just a desperate attempt to run away from his apartment. It was a strategy that was woven out of panic and, predictably, it had failed.
This time, he would plan his run to freedom better. He would not panic. He would simply pack up the few things he needed and call a cab. He would meet the cab at the curb and then take it to the nearest hotel, where he would spend the night. Tomorrow, he would check himself into the nearest psychiatric facility, telling them that he was having visions of murder and that he was afraid he would hurt someone. They would have to take him.
They would put him in a room he could not escape, probably give him medication to help him sleep and make sure that he was never lured away into the darkness again. He would finally be safe.
He went over this plan again as he walked up the four flights of stairs to his floor and then down the hallway to his apartment. He was feeling much better when he inserted the key and opened his door. He stepped into his apartment and his plan was immediately forgotten.
There was a man standing in his living room. A large, hairy man. He squinted up at him for a moment and then recognized him as the factory worker who lived down the hall, Mike or Mitch or something, he couldn't remember now. The man was holding a crowbar and staring at him with heavy-lidded eyes.
The girl on his couch caught his eye when she moved, bringing a lit cigarette to her lips in a smooth motion. She was small and blonde. Eagan couldn’t remember ever having seen her before. She wasn’t wearing much clothing. She had the same half-asleep looking eyes. Were they both on drugs?
“What is this,” Eagan stammered. “I don’t have any drugs...or much money.”
“Do it, Mark,” the girl said calmly. “Do it now.”
The big man took a step toward Eagan and swung the crowbar at his head.
Read Part 11
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