Mike’s phone rang at 6:45 the next morning.
“Nadine’s having a palm-reading party tonight at Bam’s,” Wild Bill said.
“Bam know about this?”
“Knows about it and is going to be there. So are you and I. We’ll take turns videotaping Bam as he gets his aura read. What are you doing right now?”
“Lying in bed next to a big wet spot.”
“That’s my boy.”
“It’s dog drool. What’s all that yelling?”
“That would be the twins. They’re running around the house—I swear Patty puts caffeine in their milk. I’m sitting here at the kitchen table with my box of cereal. For the record, Lucky Charms are no longer magically delicious. You eat breakfast yet?”
“Some of us like to sleep in on Sundays.”
“Come on over. Bring the dog—and Father Jack. The twins need an exorcism.”
Mike hopped in the shower. Nancy Childs’s plan for today was to attend her goddaughter’s baptism in Wellfleet, a town at the uppermost tip of the Cape, and then head back sometime later in the afternoon and hopefully talk with Jonah’s hospice nurse, Terry Russell. Nancy promised to call and update him sometime mid week. That was how they left it last night.
Now, though? Mike didn’t see the point in waiting. Nancy didn’t know any more than he did about what was going on—in fact, she probably knew less, so why wait? Why not get the ball rolling? The best time to talk was in the morning, after a full night’s rest, when your mind was relaxed and fresh.
After he finished dressing, Mike grabbed the leather writing pad from his office and headed out to Terry Russell’s house.
Two cars were parked in her driveway. Mike parked against the curb, got out and climbed Terry’s stairs. The front windows were open but the blinds were drawn, and there was a two-inch gap between the windowsill and the shades. He wanted to check and see if she was awake—it was 8:30—so he bent down and peered through the screen, relieved to see a shadow moving across the far wall where he saw two rows of neatly labeled boxes. Terry was home, and judging by the faint chink-chink noise he heard, she was probably unloading her dishwasher.
He stood up and rang the doorbell, expecting to hear footsteps. He waited a full minute and then went back to the window and bent back down. Terry’s shadow was no longer moving,Terry standing absolutely still.
“Terry, it’s Mike Sullivan. Can I talk with you for a moment?”
A pair of legs came out from the kitchen. By the time Mike stood back up,Terry had cracked open the front door.
“Sorry, I thought you might have been a reporter,” she nearly whispered behind the screen. She wore jeans, sneakers and a plain gray Champion sweatshirt, her gold cross, as always, on display. Her hands were covered by the same kind of yellow rubber cleaning gloves Jess wore to clean the bathrooms and stove. “Come on in.”
The cool air inside the apartment was heavy with Pine Sol. The bookcases were naked, the contents packed in the neatly stacked and labeled boxes near the window.
“I didn’t know you were moving,” he said.
“Neither did I until a few days ago. This amazing opportunity came up and, well, I decided to jump on it.”
“Judging by that smile on your face I’m guessing it has nothing to do with the hospice business.”
Her smile gained some wattage. “A good friend of mine works at this spa in Phoenix, Arizona. She called the other night and we got to talking, and she started telling me about how the spa’s looking for a new massage therapist. Sally—that’s my friend—knows I used to be a massage therapist years ago. So we get to talking, and Sally is telling me about how nice the weather is out there, you know, warm and sunny all the time—great weather if you suffer from fibromyalgia.”
Mike looked at her, puzzled.
“Fibromyalgia is … well, doctors don’t know exactly what it is for sure, but it’s like having a really bad flu and your muscles ache all the time. It’s worse in the winter, and this was a really bad winter. Anyway,” she continued brightly, “Sally’s single like me and owns this really nice house. She’s going to let me stay with her until I find a place to rent—or she said I could stay with her for good.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“I’m really looking forward to it, especially after everything that’s—” She stopped herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive.”
“You’re not. I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you. So what brings you by at such an early hour? And with a notepad no less.”
“I’m sure you’re probably sick and tired of answering questions.”
Terry’s smile was polite. “I’d be fibbing if I said no.”
“Reporters still bothering you?” Mike asked. They hadn’t bothered him, or maybe they had just grown tired of trying to chase him down all the time and had given up.
“The calls have pretty much tapered off, but every now and then they’ll drop by here unannounced—please don’t take that the wrong way.”
Mike waved it off. “Believe me, I understand where you’re coming from. It’s just, well, I’ve come across some information and I didn’t want to wait for Nancy Childs—she’s the investigator—to stop by. She’ll probably be calling you sometime this afternoon. You going to be around?”
Now Terry looked puzzled. “I thought the case was closed—at least, that was what Detective Merrick told me.”
“Sorry. This woman Nancy is a private investigator. The question I have, I know it’s going to sound a little off the wall, but just bear with me.”
“Let’s sit down.”
Mike sat in the same spot he did the other day. “Yesterday, I found out that my wife along with the women from the other two families, Rose Giroux and Margaret Clarkston, these three very Catholic women had—” he didn’t want to use the word abortion in front of Super Catholic here—“they elected to have their pregnancies terminated.”
The shock on Terry’s face barely masked her disgust.
“I’m not sure about Margaret Clarkston,” Mike said. “But I know for a fact that Rose Giroux and my wife had it done at the same clinic in New Hampshire. Rose Giroux—that’s Ashley’s mother—she told me she had spoken to Jonah about it.”
“For confession?”
“Yes. The first priest, he didn’t take too kindly to the news and said—”
“As well he shouldn’t. What that woman did was murder.”
“Jonah forgave—”
“It’s murder. Some priests forgive that sort of thing—just as some priests and cardinals knowingly shuffled sexual predators to other parishes and then covered up their disgusting actions. To use your power to hide such a thing is an absolute disgrace. It’s a sin. But God will deal with them properly, just as He’ll deal with Father Jonah properly.”
The room had an awful stillness to it.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
The indignation set in Terry’s face slowly melted away, her features softening, slipping back into the bright and pleasant woman who had greeted him at the door.
“I should be the one who’s apologizing,” she said. “I didn’t mean to go off on a rant. It’s just … What happened here in Boston with Cardinal Law, and now what you just told me about Father Jonah—it makes it hard to keep believing.”
“In God?”
“No, not God.” No, of course not God, you fool—and how dare you even think such a thing. “When I was growing up, I never considered the Catholic Church a political organization,” she said. “But that’s exactly what it is. It’s a business. It’s always been that way, I suppose, but it didn’t sink in until my sister tried to get her first marriage annulled. She was married for a year with a baby girl when her husband just packed up and left. Wanted nothing to do with her anymore. The church wouldn’t annul her marriage on account of the baby. Now take that example and compare it to the son of senator you-know-who who was married for something like twenty years and had four children. The priest granted that annulment right away. It’s disheartening, but that’s the way things get done in life—and in the Catholic Church. You wouldn’t believe the stories Father Jonah told me.”
“Like what?”
“He just talked about how political the church was. I’m sure some of that—well, maybe even all of it came from his bitterness at being defrocked. He missed it. Being a priest, I mean.”
And the cloak of secrecy it provided him, Mike added privately.
“I know Father Jonah spoke to Father Connelly a lot,” she said. “He’s a priest at St. Stephen’s. Father Jonah spoke very highly of him.”
“Father Jack’s on my list. Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all?” Mike grasping now.
“I’ve told you everything I know. That side of Father Jonah that hurt those girls and kept those items hidden under the floorboards of his bedroom—I didn’t know anything about that man. I just knew the man who had cancer.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll let you get back to cleaning,” Mike said and stood up. “Thanks again for your time.”