Applaud the Hollow Ghost (16 page)

I raced back to the house and up the stairs to the second floor. The kitchen door was locked. I opened it and went inside, charging around, turning lights on everywhere. Casey and Lammy weren't there. No one was there. Nothing was disturbed that I could see.

Ending up back in the kitchen, I checked the lock on the door. It would have taken real skill to get through this one, and there was no sign of anyone trying. Was the visitor merely pulling another dead dog–type stunt? I hadn't stumbled across anything in the dark by the basement door, and it hardly seemed worth it to check at that hour. All I really wanted to do was sleep. But if there
was
something, I should get to it before Lammy saw it.

I found the switch to the back-porch lights and went downstairs. There was nothing. The door out to the yard was still open, and I pulled it closed. When the spring lock clicked, I remembered the basement door had the same lock. Anybody who got through one could have gotten through the other. So I used the key and went into the basement. I switched on the light.

It was a cold, bone-dry basement with a seven foot ceiling, and about as clean and tidy as a basement can be. There was a washer and a dryer, and the shelf over the slate-gray double-welled sink was neatly lined with laundry supplies. There wasn't a spider web in sight. The compact gas boiler sat like a dwarf in an alcove that must once have held a huge coal furnace. To the right of that, what might once have been the coal bin was divided into two walk-in storage bins with floor-to-ceiling walls of chicken-wire framed with pine one-by-twos. Both bins had chicken-wire doors about six feet high, padlocked and marked “First Floor” and “Second Floor,” as if the two families wouldn't be able to remember otherwise.

Inside the “First Floor” bin, everything was boxed and stacked and labeled with a felt-tipped pen. The other bin—Lammy's and his mother's—was far less neat and organized. A huge old console TV, probably black and white, dominated the floor space, and on top of that a plastic Sportmart shopping bag lay on its side with clothing spilling out. Between the TV and the far wall, cardboard boxes and brown paper bags were haphazardly piled all over each other. There was an ancient child's rocking chair—missing one rocker—and lots of rusting household appliances like toasters and waffle irons.

Most interesting to me, though, were the little lines and marks on the floor outside the bins—some still damp—lines and marks that might have been the remains of dirty snow from someone's shoes. I'm no tracker, but the residue ran in a fairly straight path from the outside door to the second-floor bin—and nowhere else. The padlock was intact, though, and unless someone had squeezed through the ten or twelve inches between the top of the flimsy door and the basement ceiling—not likely—they'd have had to pick the lock to get inside. It was a cheap lock, but so was the one on the other bin, the bin that would have looked far more promising to any ordinary thief. Besides, why steal something from the Flemings' bin and then replace the lock?

There was another, more likely, alternative. Especially since the Flemings weren't exactly a Sportmart type of family.

Taking hold of the wood frame at the top, I ripped down the door, splintering the flimsy wood around the hinges. The shopping bag was stuffed with old clothes, but not entirely. Near the bottom were three thin paperback books—cheaply printed and bound, but claiming very high purchase prices on their covers. Pamphlets, really, rather than books, and mostly pictures. They were somebody's gift to Lammy, and they sure weren't books about war—other than that age-old profit-driven war against prepubescent little girls and boys. I wrapped them in an old undershirt, and stuffed the other clothes back into the Sportmart bag. Finally, on a whim and just because it might confuse things further, I pushed the bag of clothes through the opening between the ceiling and the top of the door of the first-floor storage bin, and dropped it inside onto the floor.

Dragging myself upstairs, I knew I was far too tired to make smart decisions—like whether to burn the little pornographic books or save them as evidence—so I decided to hide them for now. I'd get them out of the house first thing in the morning, and consult Renata.

Casey's duffle bag was lying open on the floor beside the sofa in the TV room that was his headquarters. Inside the bag, among his books and clothing, was a black leather case—cube-shaped, about nine inches to the side—with a black plastic handle on its hinged top. There was a latch with a tiny keyhole, but the case wasn't locked. Inside, cushioned in purple velvet, was a large goblet-shaped cup made of gold. It was Casey's chalice, and slipped in beside it was a matching gold plate, in a sort of envelope of soft cloth. Substituting the thin pornographic books for the gold plate, I wedged the cloth envelope back into place beside the chalice. That left the plate, so I wrapped it up in the old undershirt and put it, along with the chalice case, in with the clothes in the duffle bag.

“There,” I said aloud to no one, “they're within the private property of a guest.” Of course, the rules on how far a search warrant extended kept changing, but in the morning I'd get the books out of the apartment entirely, and avoid the whole issue. I collapsed on the sofa and fell asleep with all the lights on.

The next thing I knew, Casey was bellowing at the front door of the apartment. Something like, “… upstairs, c'mon, all you guys. We'll tear these suckers limb from limb, damn it, the no-good bums. This way!” Now he was farther inside the apartment, still hollering, “Bring those baseball bats. These guys—”

“Casey!” I called. “It's me.”

“Oh.” He appeared in the doorway, alone. “Jeez, you look a mess. Me and Lammy saw the lights on and thought—”

“Let's talk about it in the morning,” I said, hoisting myself up off the sofa.

“Hell, it's
already
morning, almost six o'clock now. We had a flat tire, and there was no spare in your damn rental car, so we hadda wait—”

“Where's Lammy?”

“I told him to stay by the front door and run like hell if there was trouble.” He turned around and shouted. “Hey, Lammy, it's all right. C'mon up!”

There was no answer.

“Damn,” Casey said.

But then we both heard pounding on the downstairs front door, and Lammy's voice, louder than I'd ever heard it. “Father Casey! Help!”

Casey ran to the door at the top of the front stairs, with me two steps behind. “Lammy?” Casey called. “Why don't—” He stopped, looking down the stairway, then turned to me and said, “I don't believe this.” He shook his huge head. “The police are here.”

CHAPTER
21

T
HERE WERE TWO UNIFORMS
with crowbars they were dying to use, and two plainclothes—one named Stevenson, the other my friend Sanchez. He was the one who showed us the search warrant for the second-floor apartment, issued by a night court judge who'd handwritten “plus basement storage for second floor only” right above the typed address.

We gathered in the kitchen. Lammy and I sat at the table, while Casey started making coffee. Sanchez somehow managed to look groggy and wired at the same time. I knew exactly how he felt. “You don't look so hot, investigator,” I said. “You oughta get more sleep.”

He ignored me and sent the uniformed cops to the basement. “Should be a storage room down there marked second floor.” They left, and Sanchez turned and stared straight at Lammy with red-veined eyes. “I'm gonna nail your ass, Fleming, you twisted prick,” he finally said. He must have been exhausted, filled with rage he was too tired to hold back any longer. “You might as well give up now, fat boy,” he said. Lammy's face turned ashen, and tears filled his eyes.

“Hey, hold on,” Stevenson said. “Relax, will you pardner? Jesus. It's just a job, man.”

But Sanchez kept on. “I'm nailin' your baby-fat ass, Fleming. Your big brother here's got his own problems now, and he can't do a thing to help. I'm gonna see you go away, fat boy.” His mouth curved into an ugly grin. “You like little girls so much? Well, you can
be
a little girl, a fat little girl for some big shine to shove his—”

I was on my feet by then, blind to all but the grin on his face, with his words roaring in my ears. I lunged at Sanchez.

But I couldn't move. I was paralyzed, arms pinned down to my sides. I tried to walk but my feet were off the floor.

“Mal … Mal … Mal…” That was all Casey kept saying, softly, as though to himself, as he carried me kicking out of the kitchen, down the hall to the TV room. He sat me on the sofa like I was three years old, and I let him do it because I knew he was right and I'd been just as out of control as Sanchez was.

Lammy came in, too, and shrank back against the wall, hugging himself, staring down at his shoes. Behind him came Sanchez, with Stevenson nowhere in sight.

“All right, Fleming,” Sanchez started, “you can't—”

“Quiet!” Casey roared. “No more!” He stepped close up to Sanchez, looming over the smaller man. “You and I are leaving this room now, officer, and you won't say one word more.” His voice was low and soft now, in a way I'd never heard before. “Because if you do…” he paused, as though coming to a decision. “If you do, I'll pick you up, too, and I'll carry you the other direction down the hall and out the damn back door.”

“You … are you threatening a police officer?” Sanchez said.

“Not a threat, no. A promise. From a man who happens to be a priest, don't forget. A priest whose father was a cop who was shot dead in the line of duty. A priest who has a cousin who's watch commander in the Second District and a nephew downtown in Internal Affairs. I'm telling you it's over now. Say anything more to these two, and unless you shoot me—and you're not that crazy—I will certainly carry you outta here, and accept whatever the consequences are.”

My shock at what I was hearing must have cleared my mind, and I suddenly remembered something. “Casey,” I said, “look at your watch.” He looked at me, confused. “You promised to say the six-thirty Mass at Our Lady of Ravenna. You're gonna be late if—”

“Hey, Sanchez!” It was Stevenson, calling from the kitchen.

“… almost forgot,” Casey was saying, still trying to get a handle on things, but playing along. “Let's see now, I—”

“Here's your roman collar,” I said, and then dug back into his duffle bag. “And here. Here's your chalice. What else you need?”

“Sanchez!” Stevenson again, banging down the hallway.

“Quiet!” Casey bellowed. He turned to Sanchez, waving his chalice case in the air for emphasis. “I'm taking my friends with me to Mass. You do your search. And close the door on your way out. We'll keep quiet about what's happened here. And you will, too.” His voice had returned to the soft, ominous tone of a few moments ago. “Because otherwise you'll have to lie. And if you do, and if I tell the truth … which of us do you think will be believed?”

Casey gestured Lammy and me to the door ahead of him and we started down the stairs. From behind, I heard Stevenson's voice: “… nothing in there, so the two assholes busted into the other bin and—”

Casey slammed the door behind him and we all went out to the car and I drove us to church.

The wind was still blowing, but no new snow had arrived yet. Our Lady of Ravenna was locked up tight and as dark as a tomb. The sign said the first Mass on Sunday was at eight o'clock.

“We can't go back to Lammy's yet,” I said. “Let's just go to my place and get some sleep.”

“Good idea,” Casey said. He turned to the backseat. “Whadda you think, Lammy?”

Lammy didn't answer. I checked in the rear-view mirror, but he wasn't asleep. He was just sitting there, wrapped up in the coat I'd bought him.

“Lammy?” Casey said. “Shall we go to Mal's, or what?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” Lammy said.

“Okay, then we all agree.” Casey let a few seconds go by, then said, “'Cause like I was telling you before, Lammy, everybody's idea counts, you know? We're all in this together. Okay?”

“Uh … yes, Father.”

We rode in silence for about ten minutes. “So Casey,” I said, “would you really have done it?”

“Done what?”

“Picked him up and carried him outside.”

“Jeez, I don't really know. I might have ended up in jail.”

“You sounded certain to me.”

“Yeah, well, I always got a big part in every play we put on in the seminary. I was the angriest juror in
Twelve Angry Men,
and I was King Henry in
A Man for All Seasons,
and—”

“So you lied to Sanchez.”

“Making a promise you might not keep isn't exactly the same as a lie … I guess. Anyway, the part I feel bad about is playing up the
priest
business, you know? But then, Sanchez … probably raised a Catholic…”

“Plus, I knew about your dad getting shot, but I never heard about your cousin and your nephew. Was that all true?”

“Of course it was. I read in the paper about my cousin being made watch commander. Second cousin, actually. Haven't seen the damn guy in thirty-five years. And my sister's youngest kid just got a job in Internal Affairs. He's a clerk-typist or something.” Casey banged me on the arm with the chalice case he was still holding. “Anyway, what's this stuff all about? I had my chalice in my bag in case I wanted to say Mass right there at the apartment. If I was gonna say Mass at Ravenna's, I'd just use one of their chalices.” He unlatched the case. “By the way, did you ever see my chalice? It's got my mother's diamond—”

“Wait. Don't open that.”

“Huh?”

“Here's a White Hen Pantry,” I said, as we bounced into the parking lot of the twenty-four-hour store. Casey had his chalice case open. “Gimme that,” I said, and snatched the cloth packet from the case. “You don't want to see these,” I said.