ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) Read online

  “And now he’s taunting us. Catch me if you can.”

  “Could be. Or maybe he really does want us to catch him.”

  “Not what Norris thinks. Man, was he pissed.”

  “He can’t handle the pressure he shouldn’t have taken the job. Let’s go up to Patti’s apartment, see if we can sneak a peek at the crime scene.”

  They slogged through the soggy heat to the stairs that led to Patti’s apartment, Miller saying, “Had to be noise if she fought back, but the guy that lives below her works nights, didn’t get home till midnight. We talked to everyone in the building. Nobody heard a thing.”

  They climbed two flights of stairs, sweltering inside the airless enclosed stairway. On the third floor landing a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s deputy stood outside a door sealed with yellow police tape, his arms folded over his chest.

  “Sorry guys. No one gets in without permission from Norris.”

  They did an about-face, descended the stairs and stood in the shade of the stairwell. “Norris keeps us in the dark,” Frank muttered, “only shares with his FBI cronies. You think we ought to tell him about Kitty? The sketch Monica worked up today is worthless. Could be anybody.”

  Miller frowned and passed a hand over his shaven pate. “Why get the man riled up for nothing? We got a tip and it didn’t pan out.”

  “Kitty thought the guy might have been a priest.”

  Miller stared at him, incredulous. “I’d keep that quiet, I was you. Float a theory like that in this town, you’re asking for trouble. Did you call Charlie Malone about Lynette Beauregard’s priest?”

  “Yeah, I’m meeting him tonight at six.” He stifled a yawn, the day stretching ahead like an endless highway. His ex-wife had phoned him at one A.M. during another of her frequent panic attacks, saying she didn’t know who else to call. How about your friend Myrna, he wanted to say, the woman that sabotaged our marriage? But he didn’t. He still felt responsible for Evelyn, his wife for twenty-four years, the mother of his only child: Maureen, the jewel of his life. So he let Evelyn pour out her fears, soothing her with phrases her therapist had suggested, didn’t get back to sleep until four.

  As they left the shade of the stairwell Frank saw a window curtain move in the first floor apartment across the way. He jerked his head, signaling Miller to follow him, went over and tapped on the door.

  “Who is it?” called a woman’s voice.

  “New Orleans Police Department, ma’am.”

  “I already talked to the police.”

  Certain that an eye was behind the peephole in the door, he aimed a persuasive smile at it. “It’ll only take a minute.”

  A chain grated against metal and the door cracked open two inches. “Where’s your badge?” said the voice, whiny and cantankerous.

  They dangled photo IDs in front of the opening. The door slammed shut, the chain rattled, and a woman in a faded-blue housecoat opened the door, gray hair, thin face and blue eyes that squinted with suspicion.

  Frank amped up the wattage of his smile. “Sorry to bother you. We need to know if you heard anything unusual last night.”

  Her eyes shifted away. “I didn’t hear nothing, didn’t see nothing.”

  He didn’t believe it. “Are you sure? It might be important.”

  “I didn’t see nothing. That’s what I told you cops this morning.” Her lips pursed. “Why can’t you catch this killer, huh? Answer me that.”

  She slammed the door and rattled home the chain.

  Frank looked at Miller. “Riddle me that, huh, Batman?”

  Miller grinned. “Would if I could. One thing for sure, we won’t be getting any information out of Miz Crosspatch.”

  _____

  As soon as the CYO meeting ended the sinner rushed back to the rectory, intent on watching the ten o’clock news in the privacy of his room. But the instant he opened the rectory door, a querulous voice called from the parlor, “Father Tim. Come here, please.”

  With a resigned sigh, he turned and entered the parlor. Ensconced in his leather recliner, Monsignor Goretti regarded him sternly, moon-face set in a frown, potbelly straining the buttons on his shirt. His hand, mottled with liver spots, waved a pink message slip.

  “Mrs. Thierry called. You were supposed to see her today.”

  The sinner glanced at Father Cronin, seated in the burgundy wingchair beside Monsignor. He thought of them as Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dee. Monsignor was short and fat, with a deceptively benign air about him. Father Cronin was tall and gaunt; dark hair sprouted from his nostrils and his blue eyes were always full of accusation. He despised Father Cronin and Monsignor Goretti’s gentle facade didn’t fool him either. Cronin sucked up to the Monsignor and got all the cushy assignments, which left the unpleasant chores for him, like visiting Mrs. Thierry.

  Feigning a look of innocence, he said, “Mrs. Thierry is mistaken. Our appointment is for tomorrow. It’s in my book.”

  Father Cronin snapped, “Where were you then?”

  Anger pooled in his gut, but he contrived to look puzzled. “When?”

  “This morning, when you should have been ministering to one of your elderly parishioner.”

  He lowered his gaze to the maroon-and-gold Oriental rug, contriving to look repentant. He’d skipped his appointment with Ida Thierry. Why listen to a wrinkle-faced old biddy complain about her arthritis when he could listen to people talking about him on the radio?

  He beamed the Monsignor a smile. “I was preparing my lecture for tonight’s CYO meeting: Why teenagers should remain chaste until marriage.”

  He saw Father Cronin grip the arms of his chair. Cronin obsessed over the “sex murders” every night at dinner, voicing his disgust at how “those poor girls had been violated.”

  “I hope you had more success than I did when I broached that topic,” said Monsignor Goretti, peering at him over his half-moon spectacles.

  “They were very receptive,” the sinner lied. In fact, they’d behaved like hooligans, rolling their eyes when he told them sex outside the sanctity of marriage was evil. “In fact, two of the girls offered some suggestions on how to remain chaste. I was just going to my room to write up my notes.”

  The Monsignor’s stern expression softened. “All right, Father Tim. But don’t you dare miss your appointment with Ida Thierry tomorrow.”

  “Mrs. Thierry’s a dear sweet lady. I’ll see her first thing tomorrow.”

  “What happened to your hand?” said Father Cronin, fixing him with an icy stare.

  His heart broke into a gallop. He’d hidden the cuts on his knuckles with Band-Aids, but Father Cronin missed nothing.

  “A silly accident. I was in a rush and shut my hand in the car door.”

  “Haste makes waste,” Father Cronin said with a nasty smile.

  Seething with anger, he stalked down the hall to his room, went inside and locked the door. Damn Father Cronin to hell, reminding him of last night’s disaster. On his car radio this morning, he’d heard a woman announce a prayer vigil for Patti Cole. But Patti didn’t deserve prayers. Patti had ripped his skin with her nails. Patti deserved to die.

  Patti defeated you, said the voice in his mind.

  He took a half-eaten Mr. Goodbar out of his desk drawer, bit off a chunk and gazed into the full length mirror mounted on the back of his door. Mud-brown eyes stared back at him, dark and accusing: Father’s eyes, always judgmental and critical. Mother was different, cuddling him as she read to him at bedtime, a sweet closeness he hadn’t experienced since. And then Mother was gone, forever. He finished the Mr. Goodbar and licked chocolate from his fingers. Love shouldn’t be like that. Love should last longer than a candy bar. After Mother died, he had learned not to expect love from anyone, not from Father, and certainly not from Nanny.

  He studied his face in the mirror, an ordinary face, the type that didn’t draw a second glance. As a child he’d hidden behind it, blending in like a field mouse, hiding from the spoiled-brat classmates who ridiculed him, never s
peaking or calling attention to himself.

  Now he had no need to stand out. His deeds spoke for him.

  But Dawn and Patti had defeated him. That was unacceptable. Moreover, the urge was back, stronger than ever, tormenting him.

  He unlocked his cherry-wood armoire: six feet tall, three feet wide, solid cherry-wood doors and a heavy-duty lock. Inside were his treasures: manila folders with articles about him, and videotapes with innocuous labels, Cooking with Emeril and Health Line, that contained news about his Absolutions, taped on the combination TV-VCR on his bedside table, not that anyone would ever see them. Or the tongues in the jars on the top shelf.

  Two inches tall and three inches in diameter, the glass jars had once contained marinated artichoke hearts. Now they held the tongues, preserved in alcohol, reminders of his prior sins, and his mea culpa for them.

  Sending a message to every slut out there: Be chaste or be punished.

  He took down jar number three and caressed the glass, picturing Lynette’s fearful expression as she lay naked before him in her bed.

  Erotic images flooded his mind, fueling the fire in his groin.

  _____

  Tuesday 12:10 P.M.

  Having learned nothing significant from Officer Charlie Malone the previous night, Frank skipped lunch and went to see Father Daily instead. St. Elizabeth’s Church was a massive stone structure with a fifty-foot bell tower and gorgeous stained-glass windows, but the paint on the trim was peeling, and the school across the street appeared to be vacant: no kiddy-art in the windows, weeds poking out of cracks in the blacktop. A sign with an arrow pointed him to the rectory, a two-story cottage with azalea bushes bracketing the front steps. A woman with chiseled features and warm brown eyes opened the door, wearing an apron over a paisley-print dress.

  He flashed his ID. “Detective Frank Renzi. Is Father Daily in?”

  Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Yes, he is. Come in, Detective Renzi.” She turned and called up a staircase, “Father Daily, someone to see you.”

  The rich spicy aroma inside the rectory made Frank’s mouth water. Brisk footsteps sounded overhead, and an older man in a Roman collar descended the stairs, exuding an air of bustling vitality. Close to six feet tall, he was slender and wiry, and appeared to be in his sixties.

  “This is Detective Renzi,” the woman said.

  “New Orleans Police Department,” Frank added.

  “Hello there, Detective Renzi!” Daily exclaimed, flashing a big smile. “How can help you?”

  An effusive greeting and a big smile, but Frank detected wariness in the priest’s sapphire-blue eyes.

  “Perhaps he’d like coffee,” the woman said in a voice tinged with reproach.

  “Of course. I’m forgetting my manners.” The priest put his hand on her arm and left it there a moment longer than necessary. “Detective Renzi, this is Aurora Laussade, my housekeeper.”

  “Nice to meet you, Aurora. No need to be formal. Call me Frank.”

  “Frank it is then. Aurora, could you bring the coffee to my office?”

  The mouth-watering aromas grew stronger as they went down the hall. Before entering the priest’s office, Frank glimpsed a kitchen table set for two. Daily waved him into an arm chair and settled into a high-backed chair behind a large oaken desk strewn with papers. Aurora brought two mugs of steaming coffee into the office and set them on the desk.

  “Thank you, Aurora,” Daily said, smiling at her fondly as she left.

  More than fondly, more like intimately, Frank thought, observing Daily’s expression. “What happened to the school? It looks vacant.”

  “The Archbishop closed it the year after I came here.” Daily pinched the bridge of his nose with nicotine-stained fingers. “Kids grow up, families leave. We had to lay off some teachers, and then the football coach got a job that paid better. I never cared for football. Basketball’s my game. I still shoot hoops with the boys, but this town loves the Saints.” Daily chuckled, his eyes full of mirth. “The football team, I don’t know about the others. After the football coach left, we lost more students, contributions fell off and—”

  “Where you from, Sean? Not New Orleans, right?”

  Daily shook a cigarette out of a pack of Best Buys. “California.”

  “Really? From your accent I would have guessed New England. Whereabouts in California?”

  “Caspar.” Daily lit the cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke, eyeing him steadily. “A little town north of San Francisco. I doubt you’d know it.”

  “What made you decide to be a priest?”

  “Nothing specific. I guess you could say I had the calling early.”

  “Where’d you go to school? Or was it a seminary?”

  “Seminary. St. John’s in Rochester, Minnesota. Ages ago.” Daily set his cigarette down in a butt-filled ashtray, steepled his fingers in front of his mouth and looked away.

  He’s lying about something. “Been here long?”

  “At St. Elizabeth’s, you mean? Almost fifteen years. Before that I served at St. Bart’s in Metairie for ten years. Before that St. Mary’s in Thibodaux.” A broad grin made his startlingly-blue eyes crinkle at the corners. “That’s where I met Aurora.”

  “Did you know any of the serial killer victims?”

  The priest’s grin disappeared. “Did I know them?”

  “Lynette Beauregard was one of your parishioners.”

  He made it a statement, a technique he often used during interviews. If the person knew you already had the information, he was less apt to deny it. And Frank got the feeling Daily wasn’t going to be very cooperative.

  “Yes, she was.” The priest lit another cigarette and lowered his gaze to a yellow legal pad on his desk.

  “How well did you know her? Ever talk to her alone, one on one?”

  “Once or twice. I get on well with kids, boys especially. Shoot a little hoop with them, get them relaxed. Once they knew I wasn’t going to beat up on them for making a bit of mischief, they’d open up to me.”

  “Did Lynette have some kind of a problem?”

  The priest doodled on the legal pad, puffing away on his cigarette.

  What’s he hiding? “What did Lynette want to talk to you about?”

  Daily frowned and put out his cigarette. “We spoke in confidence.”

  “Right. And now she’s dead.”

  The priest’s eyes narrowed for an instant, then widened in innocence, or an imitation thereof. Frank had seen that look on some very guilty crooks.

  “Surely you don’t think I had something to do with it?”

  “Sean, I’m trying to find out who killed her, and I need to know why she came to talk to you. Was she upset about something?”

  “You could say so, yes.”

  “What was she upset about?”

  The priest set aside the legal pad and looked at him. “She wanted to get her own apartment and her parents wouldn’t let her.”

  “When was this?”

  “A couple of years ago, during her second year of college.”

  “Her parents attend St. Elizabeth’s too, don’t they? Bart and Darleen Beauregard?”

  “Yes. They’re the wealthiest family in the parish.” The priest puffed his cigarette. “They contribute very generously to St. Elizabeth’s.”

  “Why wouldn’t they let her have her own apartment?”

  Daily’s mouth quirked in a frown. “They were afraid she’d get into trouble. The mother’s a bit of a fanatic when it comes to morality.”

  “About sex, you mean?”

  “Yes, and the father does her bidding. She’s the one with the money. Her father was a multi-millionaire, an oil man. He set up a foundation that donates money to local charities. When he died, Darlene inherited everything. Bart runs the foundation day to day, but Darlene calls the shots.”

  “Okay, but what did Lynette expect you to do? Convince the mother to let her get her own apartment?”

  Daily looked down at his legal pad, doo
dling on it with a felt-tipped pen. “Lynette was pregnant.”

  That stopped him. Darleen hadn’t mentioned a pregnancy when they spoke on the phone and nothing in Lynette’s file indicated that she’d born a child. “But she never had a baby.”

  “Maybe she miscarried. God was the first abortionist, you know.”

  An odd comment from a priest. “Who was the father?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you talk to her parents about it?”

  Daily’s lips tightened. “No.”

  “They never spoke with you after she was murdered?”

  “No.”

  He got the feeling Daily was still hiding something, but he had to get back to headquarters. He set his card on Daily’s desk. “Sorry to keep you from lunch, Sean. If you think of anything that might be helpful, call me.”

  _____

  Conscious of his galloping heart, Sean walked the NOPD detective to the door and returned to his office. How did Renzi know that he’d talked to Lynette? What else did Renzi know? Why had he come here to interrogate him? With trembling hands, he doodled Lynette’s name on the legal pad, recalling the day she’d sat in the same chair Renzi had.

  “I can’t have this baby,” she’d sobbed.

  “Then don’t,” he’d said. And she hadn’t.

  “Sean,” Aurora called from the kitchen. “Lunch is ready.”

  He rose and went to the kitchen. She’d served him a large portion of seafood gumbo with slices of golden-brown garlic toast, his favorite meal, normally, but now the very thought of eating made him queasy.

  She poured Chardonnay into their wine glasses and sat down across the table from him. “Frank seems like a nice man. What did he want?”

  “He was asking about Lynette. I told him she was pregnant.”

  “Did you tell him about that priest?”

  “No.”

  Aurora gazed at him with troubled eyes. “Why not?”

  “The man’s dangerous, Aurora. If he starts investigating, he’ll find out I’m not really a priest.” If Detective Frank Renzi dug hard enough, he’d find out things even Aurora didn’t know.