The Devil's bed

chapter
twenty-one

St. Jerome’s Home for Children was a vast rectangular structure of red brick set at the edge of an alfalfa field. When Bo drove up, the playground beside the parking lot was full of laughing children. It was a fine setting, there in the country, but Bo knew firsthand that even in the finest of settings an institution was no substitute for a home and a family.

Sister Mary Jackson ushered him into her office. She wore a brilliant red skirt and matching jacket. Her dark hair was coifed short and stylish. There were lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, smile lines deeply etched. Her eyes were warm brown and welcoming. Her office overlooked the playground, and as they spoke, the sound of children’s voices floated in like music. Bo explained his situation. She turned to her computer terminal and entered the name of David Moses. The program searched for a moment, then reported it found no matches. No problem, she explained. While all recent files were in the system, anything older than fifteen years probably hadn’t been entered yet. She led Bo downstairs into a cool basement room full of green filing cabinets and the musty smell of time. She turned on a dismal light, quickly found the cabinet she wanted, and pulled out a drawer. She began to flip through manila folders brittle with age.

Bo’s cell phone broke the quiet of the basement. “Thorsen, here,” Bo answered.

“This is Manning. You wanted to talk to me.”

“Chris, can I call you back? I’m in the middle of something here.”

“If you think it can wait.”

“Hmmm,” Sister Mary Jackson said.

“It can wait.” Bo flipped the cell phone closed. “What is it?” he asked the nun.

“I can’t find one for David Moses. It would have been approximately twenty years ago?”

“Approximately.”

“And you’re certain he was one of ours?”

“I’d pull up just short of certain.”

“That’s very odd. We should have a file somewhere.” She accompanied Bo back upstairs and discussed the situation with a couple of the office staff. They looked in several places and came up empty-handed. “It’s possible,” she finally conceded apologetically, “that it’s been misplaced. These things happen. If you’d like to talk to someone who may remember the boy, I’d suggest you speak with Father Don Cannon. He was the director here for nearly thirty years. He’s retired now, but he’s a wonderful resource.”

She gave Bo a telephone number and an address in River Falls, a small town in Wisconsin, just the other side of the St. Croix River. As he was leaving the parking lot, his cell phone beeped. It was Stuart Coyote.

“I was beginning to think you’d gone on vacation,” Bo said.

“It was a bastard finding a judge, or more precisely finding a judge who wasn’t a bastard. First guy looked at me like he wondered how the hell I escaped from the reservation. We finally got the warrant this afternoon and went into Luther Gallagher’s house.”

“What did you find?”

“Nothing that relates in an obvious way to David Moses. But we stumbled onto some interesting appliances in the basement. Complicated wood and leather devices. The place looked like a dungeon. Luther Gallagher appears to have a fondness for rough foreplay of the medieval variety.”

“What do you bet David Moses convinced Luther Gallagher he’d be his dungeon buddy if Gallagher helped him after his escape?”

“My guess, too. We found an address book, and the sheriff’s people here are doing a rundown of the names to see if anyone knows Gallagher’s whereabouts or has knowledge of any connection with David Moses. We found a telephone number for Gallagher’s father in Arizona. The old guy says his ticker’s never acted up, and he claims he hasn’t seen his no-account son in almost a decade.

“Here’s something else that’s interesting. We found papers for a vehicle purchase made four weeks ago. Luther bought himself a new van. According to bank statements in the pile of mail, he cleaned out his savings and checking accounts. I’m going to run a check of his credit history, see what he’s been up to lately in that department.”

“Good work, Stu.”

“One more thing, Bo. I went back to see Dr. Hart. I wanted to ask her a few more questions. I passed a couple guys in dark suits coming from her office. When I stepped in, she seemed surprised to see me, since she’d just finished talking at length with two of my colleagues.”

“Colleagues?”

“The two dark suits. They told her they were Secret Service. Flashed IDs that Hart swore looked like ours. I went after them. They were gone. I didn’t recognize them, Bo. I checked with the field office. Nobody but you and me on this case.”

“What do you think?”

“I peg them for a couple of alphabet boys. CIA, NSA, DOD. Take your pick. I’m wondering if maybe Moses really is a hit man. Or was. For the government. And whoever he worked for doesn’t want anyone to know it.”

Bo considered the long, lost period in the history of David Moses after he left the military. He knew any of the agencies Coyote had mentioned were powerful enough to wipe a man’s slate clean.

“Did you run this by Ishimaru?”

“Yeah,” Coyote said. “She’s working on it.”

“Good.”

“What’s up on your end?”

Bo filled him in on his visit to St. Jerome’s. “I’m heading to River Falls to talk to the old priest,” he finished. “Maybe he can enlighten us about the adolescence of David Moses.”

“We’re closing in, Bo.”

“Stay in touch.”

River Falls was twenty miles southeast of Stillwater. Bo’s watch read six o’clock straight up when he pulled onto Main Street. He was hungry. And tired. He needed food and coffee, but he wanted to talk to the priest first.

He found the home that matched the address Sister Mary Jackson had given him. It was a tidy little one-story frame on a street shaded by maples. Pansies lined the walk. He parked in the empty drive and went to the front door. No one answered the bell or his knock. He headed back to his car and stood a moment, considering his options. It was the dinner hour. The street was deserted. In a while, people would be out for their evening walks or watering their lawns or sitting in their porch swings. But at the moment, there was no one to be seen. Bo decided to eat and return later.

He found a homey-looking cafe called Ethel’s. The place smelled wonderful, of meat loaf and gravy. Bo ordered the dinner special for the day, the meat loaf, and coffee. The cafe was nearly full, families, older folks talking quietly, a couple of farmers in clean, bib overalls and billed caps. Locals. It reminded Bo of Blue Earth and the rare dinners out with Harold and Nell Thorsen. Two or three foster kids were always along. They always ate at the Sleepy Eye Cafe, where the specials were pork roast or fried chicken or chicken fried steak with mounds of mashed potatoes and homemade gravy and green beans. Dinner always ended with fresh-baked pie. So little had been special in Bo’s life before those days in Blue Earth that dinner at the Sleepy Eye Cafe became a landmark for him.

He finished eating, and as he sipped a final cup of coffee, he tried calling the priest. He got the message machine. “Hi. Don Cannon. Can’t take your call, just leave a message and have a great day.” Bo didn’t leave a message. But so far, the day hadn’t been too bad.

He returned to the house. No one answered his knock this time either. Next door, a bald man in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts stood in the middle of his lawn. He had a garden hose in one hand and a beer can in the other. He was spraying a fine mist over the grass and eyeing Bo.

“Know Father Cannon?” Bo called to him.

“Sure.”

“Know where he might be?”

“Thursday’s his bowling night. Falls Lanes. West side of Main Street as you head north out of town.”

“Thanks.”

“You a cop?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I can tell. I used to be a cop, too.” He lifted the beer in a friendly toast of goodwill.

The last of the day’s sunlight fell across the town as Bo drove to the bowling alley. Trees cast long shadows down quiet streets. The air smelled faintly of fresh cut grass. If his concern had not been so pressing, Bo might have let himself linger awhile, enjoying the feel of the small town as evening settled in.

When he opened the door to the bowling alley, the country quiet was broken by the rumble of balls on oiled wood and the thunder of shattered pin sets.

The place was busy. A league night. Every lane was full. Bo had no idea what Father Don Cannon looked like. He didn’t see anyone wearing a cleric’s white collar. He made his way to the desk and took his place in a long line of people waiting to be served. As he stood there, he scanned the lighted displays above each lane that gave the names of the teams, the bowlers, and their scores. A team on lane eleven called themselves The Holy Rollers. The third bowler listed was Don. Bo stepped in that direction.

Father Cannon was a big man with bushy gray hair and a thick, unkempt beard. He wore glasses, a rumpled, blue knit shirt that barely covered his rotund belly, and tan slacks. He crouched low as he prepared to bowl, approached the foul line aggressively, and threw a powerful hook that sent the pins flying like demons fleeing the wrath of God.

Bo bided his time, waiting while The Holy Rollers and the team they opposed, The Wild Ducks, bowled two more lines. The Holy Rollers easily won. As the priest toweled off his ball and placed it in his ball bag, Bo approached him.

“Father Cannon?” he asked.

The priest looked up, smiling huge through the wild hairs of his beard. “Saw you watching. Wondered if you were a fan or just killing time.”

“Bo Thorsen’s my name. I’m with the U.S. Secret Service.” Bo let him have a good look at his ID. “I’d like a word with you.”

“About what?”

“David Moses.”

The priest’s face lost its smile, and a different look appeared there. As if Father Cannon had just heard something he’d been waiting a long time to hear. “You a drinking man?”

“On occasion,” Bo replied.

“I think this is an occasion, Mr. Thorsen.”