Authors: Kathy Reichs
I also told him I’d received the entomology reports.
“Summarize.”
“Cuervo kiled the chicken sometime in mid to late August.”
“I’m guessing that was before his boo-boo with the train.”
I ignored that. “Klapec was never in the lake, and probably died two days before we recovered his body.”
Slidel was silent a moment, thinking about that.
“Dame by the name of April Pinder sprang Vince Gunther. Wonder if she knows what line of work her boyfriend is in. Anyway, April and me are gonna become real good friends.”
“I want to be there.”
Slidel made a noncommittal noise and disconnected.
The clock said 9:50.
I had to hurry.
St. Ann’s cals itself the little parish with the big heart. What was needed that morning was a big parish with colossal seating and parking capacities.
Driving from the Annex, I saw hundreds lining up to march. City cops and state troopers. Firemen. Military personnel. EMT’s. It seemed everyone in uniform was represented.
As predicted, there was also an enormous civilian turnout. People stood three and four deep at certain stretches. Some wept. Some embraced or held hands. Many gripped or waved smal American flags.
Leaving my car at the YWCA as Slidel had instructed, I worked my way to the church. From the front doors hundreds of cops in dress blues had organized into a formation that wound out the parking lot and far up Park Road.
The media were present in extraordinarily large numbers, mostly local, with CNN and FOX clocking in for the nationals. Helicopters circled overhead.
The weather was cooperating. The sun was shining and the sky was a deep autumn blue, a picture-perfect day for broadcasting from a graveyard.
After showing ID to a uniformed officer, I was checked off a list and alowed inside the church.
Slidel was seated in the last pew of a side row, hands clasped between his knees, face looking like sculpted marble. On seeing me, he shifted right, but didn’t speak.
I slipped into the pew beside him.
And immediately felt the usual rush of emotions.
The somber drone of the organ. The scent of incense mingling with the sweet smel of flowers. The sunlight filtering through stained glass.
My mind flashed back to memories of funerals past.
My brother’s tiny white casket. My father’s gleaming bronze one. Baloons over the coffin of a little girl gunned down by bikers in Montreal. Baby’s breath atop the gravestone of a friend dead of lymphoma at forty-three.
I inhaled deeply, exhaled. Focused on the music. Handel’s “Dead March”? Chopin’s “Funeral March”? I wasn’t sure. Wasn’t uplifted.
An ancient priest said Mass. Slidel’s boss, Harper Dunning, offered a reading. Tony Rinaldi spoke of his father. Others talked of their coleague, their friend, their felow parishioner. We al stood, sat, knelt. Sang “Abide with Me” and “Lead, Kindly Light.”
Through it al, I kept seeing Rinaldi, al bony limbs and angles. In my office, carefuly taking notes with his Mont Blanc pen. In my lab, staring at Susan Redmon’s skul. On Thirty-fifth, bleeding through his perfect Armani jacket.
At the end, an honor guard of officers marched the coffin out. We exited to Mendelssohn’s “On Wings of Song.”
Slidel got us to the cemetery, where the scene was repeated al fresco. Cops. Mourners. Reporters. Dignitaries.
Larabee was there dressed in black. I was about to approach him when a hand touched my shoulder. I turned.
Two green eyes were gazing down into mine.
Without a word, Charlie drew me to him and hugged tightly.
Placing two palms on his chest, I pushed free and stepped back. Why? Embarrassment over his public display of affection? Over my bender? Over our rol in the hay? Rols.
“How have you been?” Charlie asked gently.
“Good,” I said, aware of Slidel ten feet away, aviator-shaded face turned to his boss, listening to us while pretending not to.
“I caled,” Charlie said.
“It’s been crazy busy.”
“I’ve been worried.”
“I’m fine. Thanks for the food.”
“I’d rather have cooked you a meal myself.”
“Listen. I—”
“Don’t explain. Not to me, Tempe. You did what you had to do.”
“That wasn’t me, Charlie.” I wasn’t quite sure of my meaning.
“On Thursday? Or on Sunday?”
He cut in before I could respond.
“Shal we try again? Maybe on a Friday?”
“There’s been someone else, Charlie. A detective in Montreal. I’m not sure it’s over.”
My own words surprised me. Of course it was over. And I was over Ryan.
“He’s very far away,” Charlie said.
In so many ways, I thought.
“Stand by your man,”
Charlie sang softly.
I had to smile. The song had played incessantly on an interminable bus trip to a state tennis tournament. It became one of the team’s standing jokes.
“Who owned that tape?” I asked.
“Drek Zogbauer.”
“We went to school with someone named Drek Zogbauer?”
Charlie shrugged.
“I remember everyone applauded when the driver finaly confiscated the boom box.”
“I led the ovation. It was not the music of my people.”
I cocked a brow. “Your people?”
“Yankees fans.”
Again, I had to smile.
“I do understand, Tempe. Healing takes time.”
You would know, I thought, recaling the photos of his murdered wife.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I can wait.” Charlie grinned. Sad, but a grin. “I’m a very patient man.”
And then I hugged him.
He started to walk away.
“Charlie.”
He turned back.
“Asa Finney was released this morning.”
One hand went to his chest. “Realy. No need for accolades.”
I roled my eyes.
“Just an acknowledgment that I’m the greatest lawyer on the planet.”
“Between you and me, do you read Finney as capable of violence?”
Charlie stepped back to me and lowered his voice. “Honestly, Tempe. I don’t know. Slidel’s right about one thing. The guy’s one weird duck.”
“Thanks.”
Charlie had gone barely ten paces when Slidel left Dunning and ambled back to me.
“That was touching.”
“We went to high school together.”
“I’m happy for you.”
I said nothing.
“Dunning’s pissed.”
“Why?”
“Switchboard’s lighting up with cals from outraged citizens wanting to know why the cops ain’t rounding up witches and warlocks.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. They think He’d be al for it.”
I just shook my head.
“She puts it partly on you.”
“Wait. What?”
“Says you goaded Lingo.”
“I
goaded
him?”
“Most calers think you’re the spawn of the devil.”
Thirty minutes later, the cavalcade arrived and a brief graveside service took place. Guns were fired, then the coffin was lowered into the ground. The crowd began to disperse.
The backhoe was shoving dirt onto Rinaldi when I spotted Larabee staring toward the gate opening onto Sharon Amity Road. Curious, I folowed his sight line.
Like ants drawn to a gumdrop, reporters were circling a pair of men. Al I could see were the tops of two heads, one silver-haired, the other buzz cut.
Boyce Lingo and his aide. Exploiting Rinaldi’s funeral to spread a message of hatred and intolerance.
White-hot anger seared through me.
Elbow-jabbing Slidel, I took off in Lingo’s direction, intending not to speak, but to stand front and center, a living reminder to the commissioner that he’d be held accountable for every word he uttered.
Behind me I could hear Slidel struggling to keep up. Behind him, more movement, which I assumed was Larabee.
Reaching the scrum, I pushed to the front and positioned myself opposite Lingo.
“—Finney was set free this morning. Free to live amongst us paying tribute to Satan, worshipping Lucifer and bringing evil into this world.”
Silence, Brennan.
“Now, the law is the law and the man has his rights. That’s as it should be. That’s our system. But what happens when that system begins to crumble? When the rights of criminals outweigh those of law-abiding citizens like you and me?”
Easy.
“I’l tel you what happens. O. J. Simpson plays golf in Florida. Robert Blake and Phil Spector party in their Holywood mansions.”
“Are you saying those juries were wrong?” a reporter caled out. “That these guys are guilty?”
“I’m saying our government is losing its ability to protect us against criminals and terrorists.”
“Why?” another voice asked.
“I’l tel you why. Restrictive laws that tie the hands of police and prosecutors. If elected to the state senate I’l work hard for repeal of those laws.”
I forgot the chief’s warning. Forgot my plan of silent intimidation.
“This is hardly the place for campaigning, Commissioner.”
As at our previous encounter, al eyes swung to me. Lenses and booms folowed.
Lingo smiled benevolently. “We meet again, Dr. Brennan. But, yes, what you say is true.”
“Asa Finney has a right to his day in court.”
“Of course he does.”
I couldn’t let it go at that. “And to worship as he chooses.”
Lingo’s face went somber. “In venerating Satan, Asa Finney and his kind ignore the goodness of Jesus and show contempt for al our Savior has done for us.”
Lingo raised humble hands.
“But enough. She is right. Today is for mourning a fine officer who sacrificed his life in the line of duty.”
With that, Lingo turned and began walking away.
Pumped on adrenaline, I started to folow. Buzz-cut blocked my path.
“I have questions I’d like to pose to the commissioner off air,” I said.
Buzz-cut spread his feet and shook his head.
“Out of my way, please,” I said, voice al steely control.
Buzz-cut’s face remained impassive. “Best to cal for an appointment.”
I started to move past him. Extending an arm, he blocked me. I stepped left. He mirrored my move.
I started to say something I would later have regretted.
“Hold on right there.” Slidel was seething. “Did you just strong-arm this little lady?”
Little lady?
Folding his arms, Buzz-cut canted his head, gangsta-tough.
“What’s your name?” Slidel demanded.
“Who’s asking?”
Slidel flashed his shield. “I am, asshole.”
“Glenn Evans.”
“You his flunky?” Slidel chin-cocked Lingo’s retreating figure.
“I serve as Commissioner Lingo’s personal assistant.” The voice was more shril than I’d expected for a man of his size.
“Perfect. Then you can explain why my partner would be phoning your boss.”
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
“This is harassment.”
“Sue me.”
“I fail to even understand your question. Nevertheless, I’l answer it. Al communication goes through me, personaly, and no such cal ever came into Commissioner Lingo’s office.”
“You’re pretty sure about that. Don’t need to check a calendar or nothing?” Evans’s beligerence was not improving Slidel’s disposition. “This be easier for you down at the station?”
“You don’t scare me, Detective.”
Slidel glared in silence.
Evans puled on his nose with thumb and forefinger. Cocked his hands on his hips. Drummed his fingers on his belt. “When did this aleged conversation take place?”
“Shortly before Detective Rinaldi was shot. You want, I can subpoena your phone records. Your preference.”
“This is bulshit.”
“Jimmy Klapec. That name mean anything to you?”
“Who is he?”
“I’m asking the questions.” Slidel’s forehead vein was doing a rumba.
“The commissioner often reaches out into the community, visits homeless shelters, soup kitchens, battered women’s homes, food banks, that kind of thing. He meets a lot of people.”
Slidel said nothing, hoping Evans would feel compeled to continue talking. The ploy worked.
“The commissioner could have met this Klapec at any one of a dozen places.”
“The kid was a runaway living on the streets. Seventeen years old. Detective Rinaldi was investigating his murder. That’s why I gotta be curious Rinaldi’s caling your boss.”
“Wait. Are you talking about the boy found at Lake Wylie? I thought that was some kind of satanic-ritual thing.”
“Why’d you think that?”
“It was al over the news.”
Again, Slidel offered silence. I doubted he realy viewed Lingo as a suspect, figured he was hassling Evans simply for showing attitude.
“Look, Mr. Lingo is a politician. He comes in contact with a lot of people from a lot of places. So he met some half-moon hick living on the streets, which I’m not saying he did, doesn’t mean he had anything to do with the kid’s murder.”
As Evans talked, I studied his face. Up close I could see that his skin was pitted and scarred like Asa Finney’s. But al resemblance ended there. Evans’s hair was fair and shaved close to his scalp. He had close-set eyes, high, fat-padded cheekbones, and a tapering jaw ending in a prominent chin.
“Just for fun, Mr. Evans, where was your boss on October ninth?”
“The commissioner was speaking at an event in Greensboro. I was with him. If you like, I can provide a copy of the program and credit card receipts showing hotel and restaurants. Oh, and perhaps four hundred eyewitness accounts.”
Again, Evans answered quickly, without giving thought to the question. I stored that observation.
Through the crowd, I could see Larabee talking on his mobile. I guessed he was putting the best spin possible on my recent outburst. Knowing Larke Tyrel, I feared the effort would fal short.
Returning my attention to Evans, I sensed interest from my lower centers.
What?
The voice? The acne? Finney? Mention of Satanism?
It was no good. Whatever cel had cocked a brow had again lost interest.
Unfortunate. A synapse at that moment might have helped save a life.
29
I LEFT MY CAR AND RODE WITH SLIDELL. SEEMED I WAS DOING A lot of that lately.
April Pinder lived at Dilehay Courts, a public housing project off North Tryon, not far from a smal city park.