In the living room, Turner inspected Scott's World Series MVP trophies and Cy Young awards. He nodded appreciatively. “I played baseball in high school,” he said. He smiled as he took a seat on the couch. “I pitched, but not in your class.”
“Why'd you give it up?” Scott asked.
“I went for one of those mass tryouts the White Sox had one summer. Instead of being the star from my team, I was one of four hundred who thought his fastball could strike out the side. It couldn't.” He smiled ruefully. “So I became a cop. I like it.”
He settled himself on the white leather couch and said, “You boys have been pretty active.”
“Wouldn't you be if one of your family'd been kidnapped?” I said.
He held up a hand. “I'm not criticizing. Not yet, anyway. I will tell you this. While there is no longer overt opposition to a murder investigation, I've never felt such pressure from the higher-ups to go easy. That's one thing. But the pressure also comes in weird indirect ways too. It's like being beaten to death with an all-day sucker. Reports that usually take an hour take a day. If they used to take a day, they take a week. Only somebody with powerful clout could pull those kinds of strings. Every little bureaucratic inconvenience somebody can put in my way in investigating this has been there. Plus I keep hearing about
you guys. Your friend Prentice complained to the beat cop. Our guy wasn't too sympathetic. Prentice had no witnesses and wasn't willing to show any bruises from the torture.”
Scott said, “I tried to twist his dick and balls off.”
Turner said, “You've got to let the cops handle this.”
“They haven't solved it,” I snapped.
“Neither have you,” he countered. “What you
have
done is piss people off or scare them away. I admit I wouldn't be pursuing this, at some danger to my career I might add, if I didn't believe you. However, I'm not going to risk my job for a couple of fuck-ups. I'm not going to tell you to stop. I know you won't. This is a warning. If you're caught in anything even slightly illegal, you're dead meat. Besides shit from me and the rest of the police department, whoever's behind the cover-upâand we all suspect the Churchâhas more power than even the most popular baseball player.”
“They'd hurt us?”
“Oh, yes, but in subtle ways. It'd be as if they were slicing off your skin layer by layer. Painful torture and eventual death. They won't call a press conference to denounce you. I've seen the Church do this kind of thing before. Somebody will be a friend of the owner of the team, and with a whisper in his ear, suddenly you find yourself traded away. That's one small example of a thousand kinds of revenge they might take. Be careful. Go easy.”
We thanked him for the warning.
“I'm also here to tell you that Father Sebastian was poisoned.”
We gaped in astonishment.
“The Catholic Church isn't the only institution around here with hidden powers.” He said that, like the HIV test, other parts of the autopsy had been done before official word came down to cool it. “My source wasn't able to find out what kind of poison,” he said. They planned further tests. For now, they were questioning all the people at the rectory who might have had access to his food.
I couldn't see Mildred and Harriet Weber as murderers.
We told him all we knew. He left around eight-thirty, after a final warning.
The members of the Faith Board of Directors arrived within fifteen minutes of one another, a half hour after Turner left.
Neil came first. He permitted himself a detailed inspection of the decor in the living room and kitchen. We didn't take him on a tour.
“How butch,” he murmured, descending the steps to the fireplace alcove. “All it needs is a white bearskin rug, and I'd orgasm as I stand here.”
“Please don't,” I muttered.
“And I love the paintings. Who did you get to do them?”
“A friend,” Scott said.
Neil swished over to inspect the signatures. “Never heard of him,” he said, peering at the painting.
“He's probably never heard of you,” Scott said.
Neil harrumphed. He came back to the center of the fireplace area. “What did you boys do to Prentice? To get him over here, I had to threaten the child within an inch of his life.” He pointed to Scott. “He especially doesn't like you.”
“It's mutual,” Scott said.
The buzz of the lobby phone interrupted any further rejoinders. Clayton, whom we hadn't seen since we interviewed him in Bruce's Halfway There bar, entered, followed soon after by Prentice and Monica, arriving at the same time.
When I'd seated them around the fireplace and we'd gotten them drinks, I explained the situation to them. I concluded, “Bartholomew is dead, Sebastian murdered, my nephew missing. I think one person or group is responsible.” I paced the room as I spoke. They sat on the matching white leather sofas, Prentice farthest from Scott.
“Has anybody heard from Priscilla?” I asked.
Universal head shakes. I sat on the arm of the couch next to Prentice. He looked up at me, then away. “Where could they hide a kid?” I asked. “This isn't Beirut.”
“Maybe they went underground like radicals from the sixties,” Clayton suggested.
“Does that still happen?” Neil asked.
“People can and do,” Monica said. “It's easier than you think.” She explained that without her knowledge the Lesbians for Freedom and Dignity had hidden away for months in the church complex renovation. “You need a group small enough, and people who know how to keep their mouths shut.” She shrugged. “It's obviously happening in this instance.” She picked up her purse from the floor, drew a gold cigarette case and holder out, looked around the room. “Does anyone mind?”
Scott found her an ashtray while she lit up and struck an elegant pose.
Neil rose, twirled, and flounced to the window. I never found his aging Queen Mother act less amusing. “It's useless for us to pursue this.” He returned to stand above us. “We shouldn't have gotten you involved.”
“We only did because of Jerry,” Scott said. “I don't give a shit about your lesbians, your causes, your goddam religion, your goddam priests, or your petty quarrels. I'm not sure I care that Sebastian is dead. Although out of this whole group, he seems to be the only genuinely good person. Bartholomew died and I feel sorry for him.”
“The deaths have to be connected,” I said.
Prentice said, “Why are we here?”
“Because we need help,” I said. “The Church has shut us out. The cops don't want us to interfere. The only chance left is the lesbian connection. You knew some of these people. All of you at least knew Priscilla. Where would she go?”
Clayton said, “The police asked us the same thing. We've already told them all we know.”
“Which is nothing,” Monica said. She twirled her hand and cigarette.
We urged them to try again. To think of anything that they hadn't thought of when the police questioned them. I turned to
Clayton. “I haven't had the chance to ask you. Did you know Sebastian was HIV positive?”
He gave me a puzzled look. “No. I don't believe it. He always defended priests' being celibate.”
I assured him it was true. I went back to urging them to try and think of anything that might help.
Monica reported that the police search of Priscilla's apartment had led to nothing.
“Can we see her place?” I asked.
A momentary look of annoyance crossed her face. Then she gave a cold smile and said of course we could.
We talked for another half hour, trying various remembrances. Prentice claimed he knew very little about his sister's life. I confronted him with the fact that he knew of their secret hiding place. His response was that as far as he knew the place wasn't a secret. He never knew any of their last names or anything of their backgrounds. “They didn't plot revolution while I was around,” he claimed.
Scott, Monica, and I shared a cab to the
Gay Tribune
offices. Night breezes stirred the air as we rode over. Instead of the usual clearing after a winter storm, it'd turned close and clammy. As we drove we could see the tops of the taller Loop buildings obscured by low-hanging clouds that had moved in with the sunset. The weatherman on the cab's radio said we were between two jet streams. If one moved north, it would probably snow. If the other moved south, it would turn bitter cold.
Priscilla's apartment proved to be as spartan as she herself was. She had basically two rooms plus a minuscule bath. The bedroom contained a twin bed that had a bright red-checked bedspread. The bed, a simple chair, and barren nightstand were the only furniture. A two-foot-by-two-foot charcoal sketch of a nude woman seen from the side hung on the wall.
The kitchenâliving room had a worn old couch and three mismatched faded chairs grouped to face the kitchen table. There was a two-burner stove and a half refrigerator. A door
next to the refrigerator led to a tiny washroom. A person could barely turn around in the shower space. We stood in the kitchen area talking.
“What does she do for money?” I asked.
Monica said, “I don't know about her personal finances. She never goes out to eat.” She pointed to the row of health food cereal boxes. “She eats here or not at all. A couple of the others used to tease her that she subsisted on gruel.” She smiled bleakly. “Priscilla cares about causes and not much else,” she said.
“I'm not sure I disagree about the causes, just the methods,” I said. I inspected kitchen cupboards and drawers as we spoke. I found three or four soup spoons, a few forks, three plastic dishes, a cereal bowl, one pot, and one pan. “What's she doing for money?” I reasked.
“As I said, she never spends for food beyond the basics. She buys inexpensive clothes. Her salary from the paper isn't great, but she could've afforded more than this. She may have stashed away a great deal. The police didn't find any bankbooks or shoe boxes stuffed with money when they searched.” Stuffing money in shoe boxes is an old Illinois political tradition.
The phone rang. We stared at it and then at each other.
Monica glided to the receiver and picked it up. Her hello sounded sultry enough to put half a dozen madams out of business. She listened a moment, then said, “You're sure?” and waited. She replaced the receiver. “Clayton. He's seen Priscilla.”
Clayton had gotten off the el at the Loyola stop. He lived in the building next to the el tracks. In the alley between he'd seen Priscilla.
“He said he'd follow her as best he could and call us as soon as she stopped somewhere,” Monica said.
“Where could she be headed?” I asked.
Monica shrugged. “I have no idea.”
We settled in the
Gay Tribune
offices one floor down and waited for a call from Clayton. Monica sat at a desk, her feet up, smoking cigarettes. Scott sat on a couch in an open waiting
area, leafing through back issues of the paper. I paced the room, willing the light on the phone to begin flicking.
Monica spent some of the time filling us in on Prentice and Priscilla. They were actually half-brother and -sister. Their mother remarried when Priscilla was eight. They'd grown up in Oak Park in a pleasantly upper-middle-class home. With mother and dad working, Priscilla often found herself caring for her little brother. From age twelve to sixteen her social life revolved around her parents' schedule of evening meetings. Instead of resenting the kid, she'd grown quite fond of him. She told Monica the only one she missed on leaving home for college was Prentice. Brother and sister had a falling out about his hustling but had achieved a reconciliation sufficient to the point that they made a joint coming-out presentation to their mother. This had been three years ago. It had gone badly. Monica wasn't sure if they'd spoken to the mother since.
The three of us talked about parents and coming out. Two days from now, Scott's mom and dad were due.
At periodic intervals we tried calling Clayton's home. I soon began to dread the opening words of his phone message. At midnight we started phoning hospitals. The newspaper had five outside lines. We each took a separate area directory and began dialing. This left open lines for him to get through on. I had just opened the second directory, which was for the western suburbs, when the phone rang. Monica and Scott were in the middle of calls. I jammed down the flashing button.
Clayton sounded terrifically out of breath.
“Where are you?” I demanded.
“The Wilmette el station. The end of the line.”
“She's there?”
“I lost her.”
She'd led him a merry chase. They'd ridden the el from Evanston to the Loop, transferred to go down to 95th Street to the end of the line on the south side, then back again. He'd kept her in sight and a car behind, but he thought she'd spotted him the last time they'd transferred. She'd been talking to a woman
he didn't recognize on the el platform. Usually he'd had to wait and make a mad dash just before the doors of the train closed so she wouldn't notice him on the platform. All he'd heard was she was meeting Prentice. She'd gotten off at the Willmette end of the line and stepped into a cab. He hadn't gotten the number of the vehicle.