The Skeleton Box

FOURTEEN

Whistler leaned against his Toronado in the road outside the sheriff’s department, his breath billowing white around his white head. I rolled up in my truck and eased the window down. The winged wheel of the Detroit Red Wings logo peeked out from inside Whistler’s vest.

“What are you doing out here?” I said.

“The cops aren’t letting us in. There’s a press conference in a few minutes.”

Catledge and another deputy were standing guard at the entrance to the department parking lot. Half a dozen cars and the Channel Eight van were parked on the shoulder, reporters standing around with their notebooks and microphones at their sides. They’d come from as far away as Traverse City and Petoskey. No reporters from Detroit yet, but I supposed they’d show up eventually if bad things kept happening.

“What do you know?” I said.

“They grabbed him coming out of the hardware. Apparently bought them out of work gloves,” Whistler said.

“In cuffs?”

“Far as I know.”

Roy “Tatch” Edwards was in police custody.

“They charge him?”

“Not sure. The sheriff’s got to be shaking him down. I guess he shouldn’t have missed that hockey game.”

I recalled what Darlene had told me at Mom’s. “Maybe the Channel Eight story forced Dingus’s hand,” I said.

“Sure. Leaky department. Connections to priests. Nobody in jail. Got to do something.”

“Speaking of priests, your guy at the archdiocese knew where the bodies are buried, all right. Two lawsuits saying our friend Nilus fathered children of local parishioners. In Midland County, 1928. Marquette County, 1956.”

“No shit. I didn’t know they even had paternity stuff in the twenties. Priests can’t use a rubber, eh? Against their religion?”

“Funny. This guy must have been a big problem for the church. I’m thinking he might’ve had other lucky parishioners in between the twenties and fifties.”

“What happened with the lawsuits?”

“Settled, of course. Terms not disclosed, but no doubt the church paid the ladies handsomely to go away.”

“Hell of a story, man.” Whistler held up a hand for a high-five. I slapped it, feeling the hard edge of his ring. “I wish I’d just done it myself. You put it online?”

“I want to get the lawsuits in hand first. They’re overnighting them.”

Whistler grinned. “On the corporate card?”

“Screw it,” I said. My phone started ringing again, reminding me I wanted to check on Mom. “Besides, don’t we have to figure out what the hell it means first? What does Nilus banging parishioners have to do with what happened to Phyllis?”

The door on the front of the sheriff’s department opened. Darlene stepped out. She placed something on a lectern set up outside with a microphone.

“Who knows?” Whistler said. “There’s got to be something there.” He turned toward the department. “Looks like the press conference is getting started.”

“I’m going to get this call,” I said, picking up my phone.

Whistler waved his notebook at me as he walked away.

“Mom?” I said into the phone.

“No, Gus.”

I almost dropped the phone. I thought of yelling for Whistler, but he was too far away. “Tatch?” I said. “Holy shit, where are you?”

“Jail, man. This is my call.”

“Why are you calling me?”

“I tried Mr. Breck, but he ain’t answering.”

“What about the rest of the people out there?”

“None of them got phones. Mr. Breck made us turn them in. Said we had to isolate ourselves from the sinners in civilization.”

Shrewd, I thought. “What can I do?”

“Well, first, one thing: I never did nothing at your mom’s. You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Bea or Darlene’s mom.”

“OK.”

“I can’t believe this is happening. I mean, I’ve been in this shithole before, but then I deserved it.”

Rolling holy hadn’t done much for Tatch’s language.

“Did they charge you with something?” I said.

“Nah, this ain’t about me. This is about old Mr. Breck. Dingus already told me we’re going to be having a talk about him.”

As Tatch said it, I saw Dingus come out of the sheriff’s department and walk to the lectern, where he picked up the sheaf of papers Darlene had left. Darlene and Catledge stood just behind him. He began to speak into the mike.

“I’m across the road from the jail. Dingus just came out to address the press.”

“Aw, hell,” Tatch said. “Putting the pressure on. I should’ve just sold the damn land when I had the chance.”

“Somebody was going to buy your property? Who?”

“Yeah, Mr. Breck talked me out of it. Some law firm from Detroit.”

“Let me guess: Eagan, MacDonald and Browne.”

“Hm. Maybe so-oh, hang on, buddy.” Tatch directed himself to someone else. “Gimme just another damn minute.”

I watched Dingus reading from a sheet of paper, Whistler bowed to his notebook, TV lights glaring in the gray noon, Tawny Jane waiting with her own mike.

Tatch came back on. “Gusser, ’fraid I have to go.”

“I saw Breck at the drain commission,” I said. “He told them he’s not going to let Tex play tomorrow.”

“No way.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“What the hell,” Tatch said. “The guy’s got some kind of hard-on for the whole town. It ain’t just the tax thing. Something’s got him honked off at everyone here.”

Whatever it was, I thought, had something to do with his grandfather.

“Speaking of hockey, where were you Sunday night anyway?” I said.

“Got stuck. Slipped off the road. Like a damn tourist.”

“And you didn’t have a cell phone to call.”

“Yeah.”

“But you told me you had family stuff.”

“I know. Sorry, man. I had me a couple of nips to steady my nerves before the game. Couldn’t be saying that around Mr. Breck. He don’t like us drinking.”

“Tell me, buddy,” I said. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“When?”

“When you let this Breck guy cut your balls off and take over?”

I didn’t mean to embarrass Tatch, but his pause told me I probably had.

“Shit, you know. We were living on fumes out there. Mr. Breck came with cash. I couldn’t look at another can of SpaghettiOs.”

“So, was it him at my mom’s?”

“He was at the camp Sunday night. Everybody said so.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Shit, I don’t know. I wish to heck Mr. Breck would’ve just picked up.”

“You want me to call Terence?”

Terence Flapp was a local lawyer who knew Tatch only too well.

“You sure about what you said about Tex? He ain’t going to let him play?”

“That’s what he said.”

“That’s bullshit, man. Yeah, call Terence.”

“How’s the digging going?”

“Oh, don’t get me start-Hey, wait-”

The call ended. I dialed Flapp and left a message.

As I walked up to the press conference, I heard Whistler asking whether the sheriff would confirm Channel Eight’s report about Father Nilus Moreau. His question surely annoyed the hell out of Tawny Jane, who was standing in the semicircle of reporters, photographers, and cameramen gathered around the lectern, kept at a distance by Catledge and Darlene.

Dingus peered over the half-moon glasses perched on his tulip bulb of a nose. “I have no comment on that report, sir,” he said in his Finnish lilt. “I can tell you, however, that the department has conducted administrative discipline on certain personnel.”

“Deputy Frank D’Alessio?” Whistler said.

“Next question.”

“So,” Whistler persisted, “you cannot confirm the Channel Eight report, and we should regard it as inaccurate? Is that what you’re saying?”

I glanced at Tawny Jane. She kept her eyes on Dingus, pointedly ignoring Whistler’s insult so as to assure the rest of us that her scoop was good.

Dingus ignored Whistler and pointed at Chester Pavich, a young reporter from Petoskey. With shirttails flying out from beneath his corduroy jacket, Pavich always looked like he was in a hurry, which could’ve meant that he had ambition and was going places, or that he was struggling to keep up and doomed forever to chase chicken-dinner news at dinky papers up north. Both were familiar to me.

He asked, “Is the man you’ve arrested considered a suspect in the murder of Paula Bontrager?”

Phyllis, I thought, and then, Doomed.

“As I said,” Dingus said, “we have in custody a person of interest.”

“Hold on.” It was Tawny Jane, her microphone thrust forward like a sword. “Sheriff Aho, would you tell Channel Eight’s viewers whether charges will be filed?”

“Ma’am,” Dingus said without looking at her, “as a deliberative police force, we need to investigate first, charge second, if we charge at all. Operating on rumors and speculation would be a poor use of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars.”

Tawny Jane hated to be called ma’am, and Dingus knew it. “Well then,” she said, “what other than rumors and speculation are the basis of this arrest?”

“We had an anonymous tip and, upon further investigation, it turned out to be more than a rumor. That’s all I can say for now.”

I heard a car passing and looked behind me. A Jeep slowed almost to a stop before moving along. Breck. I pictured him gathering the adults and children at the camp, fixing them with his cross-eyed stare, telling them the townspeople were determined to stop them from living their lives, from practicing their faith, and now had captured one of their own to demonstrate their power and instill fear.

Tawny Jane furrowed her penciled-in brows and cocked her head just so. “Sheriff Aho, isn’t this just a reaction to your opponent’s charges that you haven’t responded aggressively to the recent break-ins? To the point that now a murder has occurred?”

“Excuse me, Sheriff,” Whistler interrupted. Tawny Jane looked at him as if she might shove her mike up his ass. “Your opponent has told the Pilot you may not have the right person in custody. Would you like to comment on that?”

Dingus’s face turned redder than a goal light. “I would not.”

“So do you or don’t you believe you’ve arrested the Bingo Night Burglar?”

Tawny Jane jumped in. “Will you tell our viewers that your investigation has nothing to do with a certain Father Nilus Moreau?”

I looked at Darlene. She must have had enough of the back-and-forth-I certainly had-but her face remained expressionless. I thought of her waking that morning and remembering, in an instant, that her mother was gone. Or maybe she hadn’t slept, maybe not since the night of the break-in, as the creases beneath her eyes suggested. She was tougher than me, tougher than anyone I knew, to stand there next to Dingus without losing it, without coming close, in front of all the professional voyeurs. Her mother would have been proud. I sure was.

“I cannot and will not comment on speculation,” Dingus said.

“Will you be giving us regular updates?” Pavich asked.

Dingus pursed his lips, pressed his hands together, and forced a smile. “The Pine County Sheriff’s Department is nothing if not transparent,” he said. “But we hope that all of the God-fearing people of Pine County will remain calm and rational as we sift through the evidence.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Thank you.”

Darlene and Catledge followed Dingus back inside.

“Where’d you find him?” Tawny Jane asked me as Whistler shuffled off to his Toronado. He’d whispered that he was going to put a story online and I should delay Channel Eight.

“He’s quite a character,” I said.

“You were awfully quiet today.”

Generally, I didn’t say much at press conferences. It gave lousy reporters an edge if decent ones were asking questions. But I said, “It was more fun to watch you and Luke go at it.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“No,” I said, then realized she was referring to “go at it,” and said, “Sorry.”

She pulled her hair back with the hand holding her microphone, revealing silver wisps along her neck. Seeing Tawny Jane Reese up close always made me think, man, she must have knocked them dead when she was twenty-five, how did she get stuck up here? I had heard that she still stayed late at the station to make tapes she sent to stations in every major market in the country, hoping someone would notice.

Whistler’s car pulled away.

“Forget it,” she said. “How’s your mom?”

“OK.”

“It’s one heck of a story.”

“Yeah. Nice scoop last night, by the way.”

I was thinking I’d try to scoop her back with what I’d learned about Nilus’s serial womanizing, as soon as I figured out what it meant.

She shifted her Channel Eight equipment bag from one shoulder to the other. “I don’t know what it’s got to do with anything, but I’ll take it. It’s been getting a lot of Web traffic.”

“Really? I never keep track of that stuff.”

“Maybe because your job is safe.”

“No safer than yours.”

“Really? Do they want to make you the weather bitch?”

“Huh?”

“They want me to do the weather, Gus.”

“You mean like-”

“Yes. They want me to give up news and become the weather bitch. You know, smiling and waving my arms around like a goddamn cheerleader.”

“Jesus. Why?”

“I don’t know. My numbers are down, they have new bimbos to try out, they want to yank my salary back to poverty level. Depends what time of day you ask. Either I beat everybody on this story or I’m going to have to get new boobs.”

She wasn’t kidding. No wonder she was sleeping with the competition.

“Sorry about that, T.J.”

“You know,” she said, “when you came back here a few years ago, I figured you were going to make a quick stop, get your shit together, and get out of Dodge.”

“I probably thought that, too. But here I am.”

“Yeah, well, I am not going to be the weather bitch.” She stuffed the microphone in her bag. “See you in the trenches.”