All morning Friday at the precinct, Worthy tried to stay as busy with minutiae as possible. Yet, there was no way he could avoid thinking of the weekend ahead at the cabin with Allyson. With so much that could go wrong, he chastised himself for not settling for a less risky situation. But he knew that there were no amount of movies to watch or pizzas to eat that would salvage their relationship before Allyson went away to college. A weekend at the cabin, just the two of them, was a risk. Time, however, was running out.
Allyson made the drive up to the cabin nearly stress free by putting on her headphones and then falling asleep. So it wasn’t until they arrived and Worthy was unpacking the car that Allyson had a chance to show him what she needed from him in terms of distance. She dropped her suitcase in her room, and although it was already dark, immediately headed down to the shore of the lake. Worthy turned on the power and waited to hear the furnace fire up. Having already closed down the cabin for the winter, he’d brought the necessary bottled water they’d need for the weekend. They could thaw buckets of snow by the furnace to use to flush the toilets.
After he started a fire in the wood stove to warm the cabin, he meandered into the fish room, the tiny space at the front so named by Allyson as a grade-schooler for the rods and tackle boxes it housed. From there, he was able to watch his daughter as she stood on shore, gazing out at the lake. How many years had it been since he’d seen this sight?
The cabin was about the only family item to survive the divorce intact. In the final divorce papers, the cabin and property were listed as remaining in both Susan’s and his names, a kind of joint custody. The cabin was already old when they found it, having been built in the thirties by a local trapper and hunter. After a year of weekend trips to scout properties, Susan and he had found the place near Petoskey when Allyson was six and Amy only one. At the foot of the pier, Worthy had taught his daughters to fish and swim, and after that, Allyson had always seemed to linger near or in the water—in the summer swimming to the raft he’d built or fishing for bluegills, in the winter clearing the snow on the lake to ice skate. Later, Allyson had graduated to lifeguarding at a camp across the lake. Susan and Amy, on the other hand, had preferred gardening, or whatever passed for that in their losing battle with the deer.
Worthy jolted from his seat when Allyson turned and started up the path to the cabin. But he risked another look at his daughter as she strode up the way. She was clearly a woman. Gone was her bounding up the steps he’d built from old railway ties. She walked slowly and confidently, as if she knew she no longer needed to hurry. Then again, he thought, maybe she realized there was nothing waiting for her in the cabin to make her hurry.
He was on the stairs leading up to his second-floor room when she came into the cabin through the side door. He’d been stopped, as always, by the old photos and drawings by the girls taped to the walls. Nothing from the days of their marriage had been removed, even the picture of Susan and him mugging in the water when Allyson was already a teenager.
In the weeks following the separation, he’d come to the cabin as much as he could. Perhaps that had been as much to be with the family pictures as to escape his tiny apartment. He would study the photos of Susan and the girls for hours, as if they held some answer for him. “You’ve been here before,” they seemed to whisper in that first year. “Find the key, and you could be here again.”
He closed the door of his room behind him and breathed in the musty smell. Over the bed, a smallmouth bass would forever writhe in the taxidermist’s pose. He’d caught it the summer before the divorce, the summer Susan first seemed to withdraw. When, two months later, Susan had shocked him with her request for a divorce, he’d thought back and realized Susan had been pulling away earlier than that, maybe even the previous winter. But he’d been busy at work, and it wasn’t until they were at the cabin that summer that he finally began to wonder and worry. He probably should have asked her then, but the cabin had never seemed the right place to argue. And when they’d returned to the city, he’d been pulled into a particularly horrifying case—the rape and murder of an inner-city teenager. Things between Susan and him had seemed more normal. They weren’t, but as the investigation stirred up racial allegations in the newspapers, he just hadn’t noticed.
He heard Allyson below him in the kitchen opening one of the cookie boxes they’d bought at the store. He wondered how much she remembered from that last summer when the photos on the wall still made sense. He sat on the bed and listened to the unfamiliar sound of someone else in the cabin. It must be over four years since she’s been here. Susan had told him that she’d tried to get Allyson to come up with her and Amy, but Allyson had always said she had to work. Maybe that was the real reason, or maybe it was just an excuse. In the fall of that same year, Allyson had run away.
Always that persistent question: why had she run away, and where had she gone? He was a detective and she was a great mystery to him, as big a mystery as his divorce. So many questions, but were they the right ones? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on the immediate question of why his daughter had agreed to come to the cabin? What did she want, and what part was he supposed to play?
They both retired early on Friday night, and on Saturday morning, they slept in before putting on cross-country skis for a lap around the lake. They skied hard, as if they both realized pushing themselves would make conversation more difficult. The only topic Ally raised was which of the neighbors had sold their places since she’d last been there. But as they took off their skis at the cabin, she offered the smallest of smiles as she said, “I can’t believe I remember how to do that.”
It was a moment he’d thought might never happen again, maybe because he had once foolishly thought it would always happen. When buying the old place, he’d attacked its sagging roof and leaky windows with a certainty that it would stay in the family. And now he wanted to find some way to say that again, to tell Allyson that she would return here with her children. He wanted her to know that, just as he was doing at that moment, she too would kneel to feed the fire while her children played board games on the rickety card table. More than anything, he wanted her to know that when he and whatever pain he had caused were gone, this cabin was the one place that would always know her.
But he didn’t say anything, not then or when they were checking the mouse traps. What he hoped she would realize about the cabin might not be even close to what she’d remember. For all he knew, she saw the photos in the cabin as all lies. For all he knew, what they’d had as a family was what she had tried to run away from.
“Should we make bacon and eggs for supper?” she asked from the kitchen.
He waited to hear if the word “Dad” would end that question, but when it did not, he replied, “Ah, give me a minute to think about it.”
The thought of sitting across from Allyson in the silent cabin suddenly made him nervous. He knew how easily a careless word on his part could destroy the uneasy truce between them.
“How about we go to the Outpost?” he asked as he rose from his knees. “I know it’s not Friday, but they still probably have the fish fry.”
She stood in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, hands on hips, as if she were ten. “Oh, gee, I haven’t been to the Outpost since forever. I’ll have to change.”
He stood awkwardly, feeling giddy in the near normalcy of the moment. “You look fine.” And then before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “I think Rick’s off in the Army, if that’s who you’re thinking about.”
That second seemed eternal to Worthy.
“Rick! That goof?” she said, as she returned into the kitchen. “I must have been insane to like him. Actually, I think I was thirteen, and everybody’s insane when they’re thirteen.”
He took a deep breath as she ran upstairs. She hadn’t freaked out. “I bet they’ll still remember you down there. The girl who’d ride her bike down to the Outpost every day for a Coke.”
“Proves my point,” came the voice from overhead. “Thirteen and totally insane. Just like Amy’s getting to be.”
He stacked some logs to the side of the fireplace for later in the evening. Maybe they’d rent a movie at the gas station and cap off a better day than he could have hoped for. Father Fortis would think it was an answer to a prayer. For him, it was just an answer.
From her room upstairs, Allyson called out, “Give me a minute and then I’ll be ready.”
He came to the foot of the stairs and called up, “How about me? You sure you don’t mind being seen with me in this old sweater?”
“Nobody would recognize you in anything else. Mom used to say your old clothes were like your uniform up here.”
“I suppose. I found this particular sweater in one of the trunks when we bought the place. Must be forty to fifty years old. I couldn’t believe it fit.”
Allyson snickered. “And you haven’t taken it off up here since.”
“Fine, I’ll go in my regular costume. Who’s going to be looking at me, anyway?”
“Yeah, right, as if they don’t always swamp you at the Outpost.”
“Swamp me?”
“Sure. Mom always said you were like a celebrity up here.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t been to eat there in … in more than a year, I guess. Bet you five bucks you get all the attention,” he said as they walked to the car. “Look, it’s Ricky’s old girlfriend.”
But he’d have lost the bet. The patrons that night in the bar and restaurant were the older set, the retirees still spry enough to endure the cold winters. One after another, they came over to his table on their way out to greet him, say when they’d last seen his photo in the Detroit papers, and leave him to introduce Allyson over and over again.
“You’re Allyson? Why, I almost didn’t recognize you.” The old man took off his duck hat and swept back a strand of hair over his bald spot. “Your hair sure has grown since last summer.”
“Actually, I haven’t been up here for four years.”
“No, I’m sure it wasn’t that long ago.”
The old-timer’s wife stepped forward. Her sweatshirt, fanning out at the hips, showed faded photos below a logo: “Ask me about my grandchildren.” Without waiting for Allyson to answer, the woman turned her attention to Worthy. “We still can’t believe it about you and Susan. Just so sorry. We all say how much we miss seeing you both here together.”
“I appreciate that,” Worthy said. He felt an urge to say that though the past five years had been hard they were all doing okay, but he stopped. Allyson wouldn’t understand the kind of lies adults told.
“So it’s just the two of you up for the weekend?” the woman continued. “My, my, Allyson, you’re looking so much like your mother. I suppose you get that all the time. And now you’re having a little father-and-daughter time together? Well, well, well. Norbert, isn’t that sweet?”
That was the problem with not telling lies, Worthy thought. People like this old woman could smell the scent of hard truth. Worthy felt panic rise in his stomach as the woman eyed Allyson, preparing for her next attack.
“Yes, just the two of us,” Allyson said in a voice loud enough for the entire room to hear. “We were hoping for some peace and quiet.”
The piece of fish stuck in Worthy’s throat, forcing him to cough and cough again. Norbert hit him between his shoulder blades, then donned his cap before escorting his wife toward the door.
The other patrons silently pondered their food. In a few seconds, the waitress was standing by their table. “Do you want your check, then?” She’d already begun to tally the bill.
“Want anything else, Ally?”
“Not unless they serve liquor to minors here,” she murmured, looking down. “Let’s just go.”
He handed his plate to the waitress. “I’ll have some more fish.”
Raising her eyebrows, the waitress walked the plate back to the kitchen.
“I don’t think you’ll be confused with the sweet lifeguard anymore.”
“I’m not sorry,” she said.
He took a swig of his beer. “I don’t know why you should be. She had it coming. Other people are just wishing they could say things like that.”
“No, most of them think your daughter is a bitch.”
“So order some dessert and show them you don’t care.”
“Why are we the only ones talking in here?” she whispered. “That doesn’t bother you?”
He shrugged and pondered the question. “My folks raised us to be nice in public, no matter what anyone said or did. Don’t you remember what your grandmother always says? ‘If you can’t say anything nice—’ ”
“ ‘Then don’t say anything at all,’ ” Allyson finished.
“But I realized that was just my father’s way of keeping his job. With him being a minister, he couldn’t afford having what he called sassy-mouthed kids. As a cop, I learned pretty quickly being nice doesn’t always work.”
“My Dad, the sassy detective. That’s how you make people confess?”
He basked in his daughter’s interest and her occasional smile. “No, unlike on TV, it pays to be polite to witnesses, even suspects. But some of the other guys in the precinct are another matter.”
“That why you never have a partner?”
“Who said I don’t?”
“Mom told me once. She said you like to work alone.”
The waitress put the plate of fried fish in front of him. “And my daughter would like dessert.”
“What’ll it be, sweetie?”
“A chocolate shake. Just a small one.”
“One small shake coming up.”
Worthy squeezed lemon over the fish. “I wouldn’t say I prefer working alone. I just seem to do better that way.”
Allyson balled up a napkin. “Wouldn’t a good partner help you find the killer quicker?”
Worthy put his fork down. “It did in New Mexico. They gave me a good partner. Actually, two of them, if you count Father Nick. And I had some local help. She was very good.”
“She?”
Worthy nodded.
“Let me get this straight. You had a woman for a partner, and it worked?”
“There was a rough spot or two, but yes. Does that surprise you?”
Her eyes were boring into his. “What kind of rough spot?”
Why is she so interested? he wondered. “Two people working on a case don’t always see the clues the same way. I made some assumptions, kind of jumped ahead of her at one or two points, and she thought I was all wrong.”
“Let me guess. In the end you were right.”
“Not really. It turned out we both were partly right. Also partly wrong.”
Allyson leaned forward. “Was she cute?”
He took a sip of his beer. “It wasn’t something I paid a lot of attention to. I guess you could say she was cute, but I’d say we became good friends.”
“So you had a partner in New Mexico, and you got along okay. So why doesn’t that happen in Detroit? Why is it always just your picture in the papers?”
“Look, Ally, I don’t write the news. And besides, I do have a partner on the case I’ve got now. The only question is whether he’ll stay on it.”
“Is it a murder?”
Worthy nodded. “A priest was strangled about three weeks ago.”
“I heard about that.”
“Actually, it’s a takeover case. That means I got somebody else’s case.”
“The first guy screwed up?”
“No, he was just pulled away to work on something else.”
“Oh, a big case like this. Boy, I bet he loves you.”
“No, we’ve known each other too long for that. He pretty much told me he hopes I fall on my face, except he didn’t say ‘face.’ I wonder when she’s going to bring your shake.”
“It’s her way of telling me she doesn’t like me.”
“Nah. She’s just busy,” Worthy said.
“You know who she is, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Ricky’s older sister. I think her name’s Tammy. We hated each other.”
“You going to let her know you remember her?”
“No, Dad. Anyway, back to you.”
Back to me? Where did this sudden interest in his career come from?
“What did you mean when you said your new partner may not stay on the case?” Allyson continued. “Cops get to do that?”
“No, cops can’t do that. But he’s had some problems lately. Real explosive type, the kind who slugs people he shouldn’t. They might have to pull him.”
“Won’t that cost him his job?”
“Probably.”
Tammy brought the shake and set it down with a straw.
“I’ll take the check when you’re ready,” Worthy said.
Allyson took a long sip and grimaced.
“What is it?” Worthy asked.
“It’s vanilla. I asked for chocolate.”
“Want me to call her back?”
“No, I don’t want to give her the satisfaction.” Allyson took the straw out and drank from the glass before looking back at her father. “Anything you can do to help?”
“Who’re we talking about?”
“Your partner.”
Worthy tried to make sense of the worried look on his daughter’s face. He’d understood Captain Betts’ concern, but why would Allyson care? “You’re not the first to ask me that, but I can’t see how,” he said. “I mean, look at it this way. Somebody strangled a priest in front of his own altar in broad daylight. In this country, a priest or minister is like a symbol of goodness. If they get killed, people get really scared. And they should be. The media will roast us if whoever did it gets away with it. That’s what I’m paid to prevent. My partner’s problems are just distractions.”
Allyson looked down at the half-empty glass. “That’s what he is, a distraction?”
“Look, I’m not saying his problems aren’t important. In fact, I told my captain the man probably needs professional help. But that’s not my job.”
Allyson pushed away the half-empty glass and rose from the table. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, looking past him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, still seated.
“Nothing. Can we just go?”
He could see tears in the corners of her eyes. “Don’t do this again, Ally. Tell me what’s the matter.”
“It’s always just that one thing for you, isn’t it? To find your killer. The rest of us? Well ….”
Worthy watched her walk toward the door, her hands in her pockets. There it was again, that sense he’d failed some test. What had he said?
The following Monday morning, Worthy’s breakfast was interrupted by a phone call from Father Fortis.
“Christopher, did I wake you?”
“No, Nick, just finishing breakfast. After that, I’m headed over to see you. I want to hear about Hartunian.”
“Fine, fine, my friend, but did you see the morning paper?”
He stopped chewing. Had something happened when he was up north with Allyson? No, he reasoned, if that had happened he’d have found a message when he got home. “I haven’t opened it yet.”
“I’m truly sorry, my friend. It’s not fair at all, I must say.”
Worthy opened his front door and picked up the paper on the mat before returning to the phone. “Come on, Nick, just spit it out.”
“It’s a small piece. Maybe people won’t read it. By someone named Kenna McCarty.”
Worthy groaned. “What page, Nick?”
“First section, Page twenty-three, left hand side.”
Worthy opened the paper and saw the headline: ANOTHER ROBBERY. VACATION TIME? He leaned against the door frame. Anger mixed with confusion. How’d she know about that?
“Christopher, are you there?”
“Yeah, I see it,” he said as he scanned the small column.
The break-in late Thursday night, early Friday morning at St. Michael’s Catholic Church may have struck many readers as too much of a coincidence. Just two blocks away from St. Cosmas Greek Orthodox Church, where Father Spiro George was found strangled three weeks ago, St. Michael’s also had an altarpiece stolen.
That should send the investigative team off like a pack of bloodhounds, right? Wrong. This reporter learned that Lieutenant Christopher Worthy, in charge of the case, left town only hours later on a family weekend vacation.
Let’s hope the robbers/killers also take weekends off.
“This is my fault, Christopher.”
Worthy found his car keys, leaving his breakfast unfinished. “How do you figure, Nick?”
“She called here yesterday. I happened to be in the office, working with your partner. She asked some questions about the robberies, then wanted to know where she could reach you. And I guess that’s when my big mouth got you in trouble.”
“Forget about that. Are you telling me Henderson was there yesterday?”
“Yes, he sat in the back during liturgy. He asked if he could see me in the afternoon. He wanted to hear what I thought about the case. He’s here this morning, by the way.”
“Doing what?” Worthy said, trying to cradle the phone with his shoulder while he tied his shoes.
“Looking for the missing book. Isn’t that what you told him to do?”
“Not in so many words, Nick, but he’d surprise me no matter what he did. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Don’t you have to go in to the precinct? I mean, shouldn’t you explain?”
“Not now, I don’t. I’ll leave my boss a message where she can reach me. That writer is just paying me back.”
“For what?”
“For not doing her a favor. Something impossible. Look, I’ll see you soon.”
Worthy’s brain drifted between two questions as he drove through morning traffic. The first was: what’s the worst thing that could happen? Possible answers ranged from Captain Betts bawling him out on the mild end of the scale, to the superintendent butting in, to being dismissed from the case. He imagined Sherrod making an appointment with anyone who would see him before the day was out.
The second question absorbing his attention was: do I wish I hadn’t gone to the cabin with Allyson? Their weekend never recovered after the incident at the restaurant. She’d listened to her headphones the entire way home. But the first part of the weekend was worth it to him. In the old place, the two of them had found an old way of being together. Who knew if he’d somehow destroyed that possibility again, but for the first time since the separation, Allyson and he had been almost together.
As he pulled the car into the church parking lot, he admitted that had he known the society reporter was out to get him, he’d still have left town.
Father Fortis came around his desk to greet him. “I beg your forgiveness, my friend. It’s been eating away at me all morning. And each phone call is salt in the wound.”
“From parish council members, I take it?”
“Others, too. Whoever said newspaper readership is down? Things okay at work?”
“I left a message I’d be in after lunch. My boss will call me here if she decides things can’t wait.”
“What can I say, my friend? It’s just what my abbot has told me for twenty years. A monk who can’t control his tongue is like a serpent.”
“Let it go, Nick. The woman trapped you. How were you to know? Anyway, where’s Henderson?”
“Somewhere in the church. Mrs. Hazelton has decided she quite likes him. She started to call him the eager-beaver type.”
“Oh, does she? I think I should go back to bed and start the day all over again.”
Moving to the window, Father Fortis gave Worthy a puzzled look. “Don’t you want him here?”
“I don’t know. We’re supposed to work together, so I guess this is as close as it’s going to get—same place, same time. That sort of togetherness.”
“Sit down, my friend. The more important question is how was your time with Allyson?”
Worthy dropped into a chair and scratched at his forehead. “Half of it was excellent, half of it terrible.”
“Which came first?”
“Unfortunately, the excellent part.”
“Will you have another chance?”
“We can hope,” Worthy said, fearing how Allyson might react to the story in the newspaper. “Nothing much else to say about it. What happened with Hartunian?”
He listened to Father Fortis’ review of the strange meeting. When Father Fortis asked him at the end if it sounded to him like Hartunian might be a killer, Worthy shrugged his shoulders.
“It sounds more like he wanted your attention. He reminds me of the type who hope they’re suspects.”
“Really? Some people want that?”
“Absolutely. Nothing bothers them more than when we find the real killer. Up to then, they get the satisfaction of looking out their windows to see if their house is being watched. He’ll probably call to see you again.”
“I think you’re right, my friend. And that fits with the way he badgered Father Spiro. So, you definitely believe he couldn’t have done it.”
“I wouldn’t completely rule it out. Attention-seekers live with mountains of frustration. You see, they never get enough, and if Hartunian thought Father Spiro was preventing him getting something he’d set his heart on, like this promotion, then yes, he could have done it. I’ll bet he fantasized about it more than once. So we’ll have that talk with his boss. In fact, it will probably make me look like I’m doing my job.”
“But you are doing your job, Christopher.”
“I’m talking from my boss’ perspective.”
Father Fortis groaned. “If I’d just kept my mouth shut—”
The phone buzzer interrupted them. “Father, Mrs. Theodora Nichols is here to see you. She’s a member of the parish.”
“I didn’t know I had an appointment.”
“She’s come about your note in the newsletter. The one about those who spoke with Father Spiro in the last weeks?”
“Oh? Just a minute.” Father Fortis relayed the message to Worthy. “Would you like to hear this?”
“Why not? That is, if she agrees.” Worthy’s entire world had seemed upside down since his fight with Allyson on Saturday. His daughter seemed as concerned about Henderson as his captain. On top of that, Kenna McCarty probably had the superintendent on the phone right now. Maybe this woman would bring his mind back to the one person who really mattered—Father Spiro.
A short, dark-haired woman in her thirties with a two-year-old in one hand and a canvas bag in the other came into the office. She smiled tentatively at Father Fortis before stooping to kiss his hand, then peered questioningly at Worthy.
“Please sit down, Mrs. Nichols. May I call you Theodora?”
Mrs. Nichols nodded with a small smile.
“And let me move some chairs back so your son can play on the floor.”
“Thank you, Father. This is Andrew.”
Father Fortis bent down and patted the toddler’s head. “What a beautiful name. It happens to be my middle name as well, at least the English form. Theodora,” he said, straightening up, “this is a friend of mine, Lieutenant Christopher Worthy.”
The woman’s eyes grew large at Worthy’s title. “Are you a policeman?”
“That’s right, Mrs. Nichols. I’m in charge of the investigation.” He wondered how long that would be true.
“Oh, I didn’t realize I’d have to speak to a policeman, Father. I’m not sure my husband would have agreed.”
The two-year-old yanked on Worthy’s pant leg. Worthy reached down to pull gently on the pacifier. “I know what this is,” he said, smiling. The child laughed and sucked harder, having obviously played the game before.
The woman sat on the edge of her chair and rested her hands in her lap. “Bill said I could talk to you, Father, but he said I wasn’t supposed to bother the police.”
“My dear, I’ve known Lieutenant Worthy for some time, and I can assure you that you can trust him with whatever you want to tell me. I assume it’s about Father Spiro.”
She nodded and looked down as the child continued to pull on Worthy’s pant leg. “Andy, do you want some Cheerios and juice?” She opened the bag and put a small plastic bowl and covered cup on the floor next to her. “I’ll clean up what he spills.”
“Don’t even think about it, my dear. Mrs. Hazelton said you’ve come because of my notice in the newsletter.”
“That’s right, Father,” she said, giving Worthy another look. “We got it Saturday in the mail. I thought about speaking to you after church, but … well, I didn’t make it yesterday.”
“I’m just glad you came in this morning.”
“And I promise that if it doesn’t have anything to do with my investigation,” Worthy said, “I’ll completely ignore it.”
“I can’t believe it could have anything to do with Father’s … his death, but then maybe I’m hoping it doesn’t,” she said, tears starting down her cheek.
Father Fortis handed the woman a tissue from a box on his desk. “But I can see it’s important to you, my dear. I assume it’s something you talked about with Father Spiro.”
Both men waited as the woman wiped at her tears. “I came the first time back almost a year ago, in February. I remember it was about St. Valentine’s Day. I just wanted to talk … to talk to someone.” Her hands squeezed the tissue in her lap. “It was about my husband—his work, actually. I could see that something had been bothering him, but he wouldn’t talk about it.”
“Where does he work?” Father Fortis asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry. He teaches physics at Allgemein. He’s in his third year.”
“Oh, a college professor.”
Theodora Nichols grimaced slightly, as if the compliment had somehow hurt her.
“When he finally sat me down to talk about it, I couldn’t make any sense of it. He told me he was having trouble with one of his students, a woman. I immediately thought affair and started to cry.” She looked over at Worthy. “Are you married, Lieutenant?”
Worthy was surprised by the question and stammered a bit as he said he was recently divorced.
“I’m sorry,” Theodora Nichols said, sniffling. “That’s what I imagined was coming for me. I thought Bill was going to tell me he’d fallen in love with this woman. I call her a woman because she’s an older student, not just some girl in her early twenties.”
“But I take it from what you’re saying that that wasn’t the problem,” Father Fortis coaxed.
“No, at least not on his side. He promised me there was nothing romantic. She was one of his students who just began hanging around the department, working on lab projects with him. He said the whole thing started to make him uncomfortable back at the end of the fall semester. I remember really crying then, because that’s when I first noticed the change in him … in us, really. He’d been so happy at Allgemein, so hopeful this was where he belonged.”
“Did he speak to the woman—I mean, to warn her off?” Father Fortis asked.
Mrs. Nichols dabbed at her eyes and nose. “He tried to put up some barriers, like not going into the lab when he saw her in there, but she just showed up at his office hours.”
“Did he talk with his dean?” Worthy asked.
“Oh yes, but that was a disaster. When he asked the dean to remove her from his class, the dean turned everything around on him. He asked Bill what he’d done to encourage her.”
“Not very helpful, my dear.”
“It shook Bill. And then he found out this woman is the wife of an older faculty member, someone in the sociology department, I think. Bill thought the dean was too scared to call her in.”
“And that’s when you came to see Father Spiro?”
“Yes, that was the first time, and he was wonderful. He listened to me, and I probably wasn’t making much sense at the time. I mean, I still wasn’t sure Bill hadn’t done something with this woman. I know it’s not right to distrust your husband, but I couldn’t help wondering.”
The woman’s worry brought Worthy back to the memory of his own face in the bathroom mirror, the night after Susan asked for a separation. Was there another man? Had she found something she’d failed to get from him? But it hadn’t been that for him. Never during the separation or the divorce had he ever sensed there had been another. She just got tired of him.
“Theodora, what did Father Spiro do when you told him this?” Father Fortis asked.
“He took me into the sanctuary, and I knelt in front of the Christ icon. He prayed for my family, for Bill, for Andy and me, and our protection. I cried. He was very good, like a grandfather, really.”
Worthy tried to picture the woman in this office telling her woes to Father Spiro. Could this explain the panicked look in the priest’s eyes when he’d been caught by the photographer? Was this the kind of thing he kept secreted away in the missing book? Lloyd Hartunian didn’t seem the kind of problem the priest would bother to hide. But he might have been more careful with accusations against a college faculty wife. And if so, that raised an old question for him.
“Did Father Spiro seem mentally sound to you, Mrs. Nichols?” he asked.
“Huh?” she said, looking over at him. “Yes, why do you ask? Oh, I know. You’re thinking about what happened on that last Sunday. No, he was fine.”
“And you came to see him again?” Father Fortis asked.
Mrs. Nichols fought down a sob and shook her head. “The woman seemed to know Bill was in a bind. It was as if the dean suspected him, and Bill’s not near to getting tenure. She started leaving him notes. Then by the end of the spring semester, I started getting phone calls at home. The person would just hang up. But I knew who it was.”
“I think if I were in your husband’s shoes, I’d have been pretty scared,” Worthy said.
“Oh, Bill was a basket case until summer arrived. We spent the summer with my folks in Connecticut, and Bill was able to relax. The woman left us alone. But when August arrived, the Bill I’d been so worried about in the spring was back. Even before we came back to Detroit, I’d find him out of bed in the middle of the night, just curled up on the couch. I knew things were bad when just before we came back here, he started talking about applying for other jobs. Jobs in physics are very tight. I mean, there are hundreds of applicants for every opening. And like I said, we both thought Allgemein was wonderful.”
“Tell us about the second visit to see Father Spiro, my dear. When was it?”
“I guess it was in September, maybe early October. Is that important?”
“Maybe not,” Worthy said. “Please go on.”
Mrs. Nichols glanced back at Andrew, who was looking at a cloth book upside down. She offered a weak smile at her son before continuing. “I would have come back to see Father earlier, but Bill freaked out after the first visit. You see, I didn’t tell him beforehand. He said I was weak to come, like when I call my mom every week.”
The two men waited. Finally she went on, “I hope Andy doesn’t remember what I was like during those weeks. I’d sit in the kitchen every day and cry for hours. I thought I was going to go crazy, but I was even more worried about Bill. How can one sick person be allowed to destroy our lives, all we’ve worked for?”
“You hadn’t met this other woman yet?” Worthy asked.
Mrs. Nichols blew her nose. “I still haven’t. I began to wish her dead, though. That’s when I came back to see Father Spiro.”
“And what did he say?” Father Fortis asked.
She gave a brief laugh over her tears. “He told us to screen our calls, not pick up when she called. It was so obvious, but when you’re scared, you don’t think of those things. Then Father Spiro volunteered to talk with the dean.”
“Theodora, do you know if he did that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, but I don’t think so. I told him Bill wouldn’t like it. Bill can be a bit proud.”
February and then maybe late September, Worthy thought. Father Fortis’ note in the newsletter had specified those who’d spoken to Father Spiro in the two weeks before his death.
“Something went wrong, I take it,” he said. “Something that brought you back to Father Spiro.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Nichols said, rocking back and forth in the chair. “In November—I know it was before Thanksgiving—the woman came into Bill’s office, all matter-of-fact, and asked him to read a draft of her project. He lied and said he had a department meeting in five minutes, but she said that would be enough time.”
Mrs. Nichols put her hand over her mouth and stifled another sob. “At the bottom of the last page she’d written him a note. It said,” she stammered, “it said, ‘I know you’re avoiding me’ and then below that was ‘Would you believe, Bill, that I tried to kill my husband four nights ago?’ Bill said when he looked up from the page, the woman was just staring at him.”
“Good heavens,” Father Fortis exclaimed.
“Bill said he pushed the pages back toward her and told her he didn’t want anything to do with her. He said he hated her and that she was driving him crazy. She just laughed.”
“That’s when you came back here, my dear?”
“That’s when we both came in, Bill and I,” she said. “I know I should have been grateful for that, but it felt horrible. It was the second week of December, and it was like Bill had given up. Bill is a true scientist, Father, and doesn’t have a high regard for religion.”
“But he came with you. That strikes me as significant,” Father Fortis said.
Mrs. Nichols nodded. “Our meeting went better than I’d hoped. I guess Bill so desperately needed to talk to someone that he forgot Father Spiro was a priest.”
“Did Father Spiro promise to do anything?” Worthy asked. He could imagine the old priest realizing that the Nichols’ crisis was escalating. Had he decided to intervene in some way? Had a woman willing to kill her husband decided instead to turn her wrath on the meddling priest?
“He told us to both go see the dean and report what the woman had written. He wanted me to go with Bill so the university would know Bill wasn’t covering up something. He said the university had to take responsibility, and he expected they would. He also asked us to trust him.”
“What did he mean by that?” Worthy asked.
“He wanted to know what the woman’s name was. I’m pretty sure he said he’d keep it in a safe place,” she added.
Worthy looked at Father Fortis. That was it. The book must have been where he kept names and matters he didn’t want others to find. But why keep it at all? Then Worthy thought he understood. No doubt the old man was forgetting things. The book was his memory bank.
“And so you told him the name,” Worthy said. “I’m going to ask you to do the same with us.”
Mrs. Nichols nodded as if she’d been expecting the request. “Peggy Hagarty. Bill asked him what he planned to do with it. Father said part of his vocation was dealing with evil.”
Worthy’s heart skipped a beat. “That’s the way he put it? Dealing with evil?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Too close to the chapter in the Jewish book and Rabbi Milkin’s comments to be coincidence, he thought.
“Anything else, my dear?”
“He told Bill he intended to do something harmless to everyone but the woman. He intended to pray for her by name. I remember Bill laughed, and Father laughed too. It was like he knew Bill wasn’t mocking him.”
He did more than pray for her, Worthy thought. At least after he talked it out with the rabbi.
“Bill and I slept better that night than we had in weeks. Strange, isn’t it? That’s what I remember.”
“So when did the two of you go in to see the dean?” Worthy prompted.
“The next day. Bill laid it all out and mentioned he might be getting a lawyer. The dean suddenly seemed more understanding and said he’d arrange a meeting with the college lawyer that afternoon. We walked out with the dean’s assurance, in writing, that Mrs. Hagarty would be barred from his classes.”
Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “It felt so clean. Bill took Andy and me out to some kid’s restaurant. The food was terrible, but Andy liked the puppet show.” She shook her head and gave a weak smile. “Bill felt so good that he talked about staying at Allgemein.”
“And that was all before the Christmas holidays, Theodora?” Father Fortis asked.
Mrs. Nichols nodded and cried softly. “We thought with the semester ending that the problem was over. We’d have the holidays, and then Bill wouldn’t have to see her again. But,” she said, then paused to collect herself, “but then we got a call from Andy’s nursery school right after New Year’s. He goes there two mornings a week. They said someone had broken into the school and vandalized the kids’ finger paintings. I couldn’t make any sense of it until the secretary said the person had only vandalized his.”
He looked down at her son. “It still didn’t make any sense,” she added, and Worthy could see that she believed that. “How can you vandalize a finger painting? But they asked us to come in, and we did. When we got there, a policeman was waiting for us. I want to show you what we had to look at.”
She reached into her bag, pulled out a folded piece of art paper, and handed it to Father Fortis, who spread it out on his desk. Worthy stood and looked down at the swirly shapes and the designs. At the top, someone had written “Die” in ink and underneath had drawn a crescent moon with a star in it.
“How odd,” Father Fortis said. “Terrifying and odd.”
“The secretary at the school told the policeman that she’d seen a woman come into the school the afternoon before. She thought she was a mother who’d come back to get something. She also said she thought she saw the woman talking and making gestures, as if someone else was in the room.”
“You’re saying it was Mrs. Hagarty,” Father Fortis asked.
“They didn’t have a good enough description, but I was sure. That was two weeks ago.”
“And so you came back here,” Worthy said.
Mrs. Nichols’ shoulders sagged. “Yes. That was just a day before Father was killed. He was interested in the moon and stars in the drawing. He asked if there were any dots placed around the stars. I didn’t know, and then he died. But I looked this morning. He was right.”
“I don’t follow,” Worthy said.
“It’s an old witchcraft sign,” Father Fortis said. “How did Father Spiro react to what you said?”
“He volunteered to call a lawyer from the church. Bill said the college had already done that, but Father Spiro insisted. He said we needed an independent one. I don’t know if he did that before he died,” she whispered.
“What are your plans now, my dear?”
“We’ve got boxes all over the house. You see, we’re leaving. We’re going to live with my folks for a while.”
There was motive here, Worthy thought. And with that he could explore the question of opportunity. But there was one question he still needed to ask.
“Mrs. Nichols, you said you were in church that last Sunday. What did you make of Father Spiro’s problem?”
“I didn’t understand it at all. Andy was fussy, and we’d been in and out of the service to the cry room. All I remember is feeling so sorry for Father. His face went white just before he stopped, then his face turned red when he started to chant again. I thought he must have been terribly embarrassed.”
“Could you tell if he was looking at you?”
“At me? I don’t think so. Why?”
“It’s nothing.”
A silence followed, a silence Worthy had come to understand well over his career. It was the silence that followed a witness having said everything that she or he had come to say. It was the silence of someone who suddenly felt empty and was not used to the feeling. It was the silence of a child who had turned over a problem to an adult and now wanted to think of something else.
Worthy thanked the woman for coming, as did Father Fortis, who asked that she call him if there was anything he could do.
As Worthy walked Theodora Nichols to the door, he could feel his mind beginning to race. He gave her his card and asked when the Nichols planned to move. He knew he needed time to put the pieces in order before he asked the couple to return to St. Cosmas to confirm his suspicions. But what she had told him made him feel better about the case than he had since the altarpiece was stolen from St. Michael’s. And he finally had a clue to the case that was important enough to help him forget the chasm that had opened up again between Allyson and him.
He watched the Nichols’ car drive away from the church before returning to the office. As he reentered the secretary’s office, he was surprised to see Henderson waiting for him. The secretary handed him a note, saying Captain Betts had called and asked him to return her call as soon as possible.
No question what that’s about, he thought. But with Theodora Nichols’ testimony, he finally had something he could use to push back on Sherrod’s robbery theory.
He looked up from the note, expecting to see Henderson’s mask of boredom; instead he saw a shy smile on his partner’s face. Henderson stepped forward, and like Santa at a Christmas party, brought something out from behind his back. It was the missing book with the leather corners.