Vespers

XIII

He went back to the church again at noon that the first day of June. He had called ahead to ask if i could look through the dead priest's files again, Father Oriella had told him it would be no bother all, he himself had a meeting at the downtown, and would be out of the office most the day. "If you need any assistance," he'd "just ask Marcella Bella.”

Marcella Palumbo, as it happened, was out lunch when Carella got there.

It was Mrs. Henness who let him into the rectory and then took him to the small office. Where there had been scattered all over the floor on the night of the and cartons stacked everywhere when the new was moving in, there was now order and a sure sense of control.

"What is it you're looking for?" Mrs. Henness' asked.

"I'm not sure," Carella said.

"Then how will you know where to look?”

Good question.

He was here, he guessed, to do paperwork again.

To some people, Hell was eternal flames, and to others it was getting caught in midtown traffic, but to Carella it was paperwork. He was being punished now for having walked out of church without having said his penance all those years ago. A vengeful God was heaping more paperwork on him.

He asked Mrs. Hennessy if she knew where Father Oriella had put the calendar, checkbooks, and canceled checks that had been returned to him by the police. She said she thought Mrs. Palumbo had filed them in the M-Z file drawer, though she had no idea why the woman had put them there since checks and calendars both started with a C, so why hadn't she put them in the A-C drawer? Carella had no idea, either. But sure enough, there they were, at the front of the M-Z drawer. He thanked Mrs. Hennessy, declined her offer of a cup of coffee, sat down at the desk and began going through the material yet another time.

As earlier, the priest's appointment calendar told him nothing of importance. On the day of his murder, he had celebrated masses at eight A.M. and twelve noon, and then had done the Miraculous Medal Novena following the noon mass. He had met with the Altar Society Auxiliary at two, and the Rosary Society at four. He was scheduled to meet with the Parish Council at eight that night, presumably after dinner, an appointment he kept. That was it for the twenty-fourth day of Carella skimmed back through the pages for preceding week. Again, there was nothing seemed significant.

He put the appointment calendar aside, took St. Catherine's Roman Catholic Church checkbook from the drawer, and began through the stubs for checks the priest had during the month of May. Here again were checks for photocopying and garage, mortgage maintenance, medical insurance, flower.. missalettes, and so on. Carella turned to the che stubs for May 24.

The first stub on the page was numbered 5699. a hand that was not Father Michael's, and Carella assumed to be Kristin Lund's, the recorded that a check had been written to Macauley Tree Care, Inc. for spraying done on in the amount of $37.50. As he'd done last Friday the squadroom, Carella now went down the one after the other, all of them dated May 24, numbered sequentially:

5700

To: US Sprint

For: Service thru 5/17

$176.80

5701

To: Isola Bank and Trust

For: June mortgage

$1480.75

5702

To: Alfred Hart Insurance Co.

For: Honda Accord LX, Policy # HR 9872724

$580.00

5703

To: Orkin Exterminating Co. Inc.

For: May services

$36.50

5704

To: The Wanderers

For: Band deposit

$100.00

That was the last check Father Michael had written on the day of his murder.

Carella closed the checkbook.

Nothing.

Paperwork, he thought. That's why he was here.

Punishment. The ransacked G-L file. The eighth circle of Hell would be going through that another time, and trying to discern what was mi. from it. Because no one zeros in on a single file, that file drawer out, searches through that file .] haste, tosses papers recklessly into the room a onto the floor, unless that someone is looking f something. And if the something had in fact be found and taken from the priest's office, then t something may have been the reason for the murder. So perhaps if he studied the papers in as they'd been filed, he might discover a break in continuity, a lapse, a gap, a hole in the records.

then, by studying the surrounding papers, and using his admittedly weak powers of reasoning, he hoped he might be able to figure what the purloined something had been. In short, planned to study the doughnut in order to define hole.

It occurred to him that Father Oriella might replaced the dead priest's G-L file with a G-L file his own. But no, the fastidious Marcella had refil the dead priest's papers exactly where they'd on the night of the murder, there to be consul whenever or if ever his successor had need to look something concerning the church. Carella opened. the drawer the bottom one on the left took ou! the first hanging folder in line, made-himself comfortable at the desk again, and began going," through the folders one by one.

He thought, at one point, that he'd found meaningful absence in a file labeled GUTTERS.

Last autumn, Father Michael had been in correspondence with a man named Henry Norton, Jr., at a firm called Norton Brothers Seamless Gutter Company, regarding the repair and possible replacement of the church's leaders and gutters. He had written a letter on September 28, making an appointment with Mr. Norton to visit the site and give an estimate, and then he'd written another letter on October 11, stating that he would like to see a written estimate in addition to the verbal estimate Mr. Norton had given him after his visit, and then a further letter on October 16, stating that he was now in receipt of the written estimate and that this would serve as agreement to the terms. It closed saying he would be looking forward to word as to when the actual work would commence, The missing document was the written estimate Father Michael said he'd received. It turned out, however, that the estimate had been misfiled. Carella ran across it later, in a folder labeled HOLY NAME SOCIETY.

There it was. On a Norton Brothers Seamless Gutter Company letterhead.

An estimate of $1,036 to repair the leaders and gutters at St.

Catherine's Church.

Filed between the minutes of the Holy Name Society meetings for January and February of this year.

The last folder in the file was a hefty one labeled LENT.

Carella read every last document in that folder.

There was nothing else in the G-L drawer.

Sighing heavily, he replaced the folder in bottom file drawer, and pushed the drawer back the cabinet. It did not close all the way. He open again. Eased it shut. It still would not completely. An inch or more of the drawer jutted from the cabinet frame. He opened the drawer a and checked the slide mechanism. The drawer seated firmly on its rollers, nothing seemed to snagging. So what the hell...?

He tried closing it again. It slid back into cabinet and then abruptly stopped. Something at back of the drawer, or perhaps behind the was preventing it from sliding all the way into cabinet. He opened the drawer again, got down his hands and knees, leaned in over the drawer, reached in behind it. Something was stuck there. He couldn't see what it was, but... He yanked back his hand in sudden searing A thin line of blood ran across his fingertips.

The something back there was a knife.

He had found the murder weapon.

The defense attorney, a man named Oscar Loring, leaned in closer to Willis and said, "And what was this, exactly, Detective?”

He had a bristly mustache and the breath of a lion who'd just eaten a warthog. It was now a quarter to three. Willis had been on the stand for an hour and a laalf this morning, and had been on again since two o'clock, when court had reconvened. Trying to explain, first, why he'd requested a no-knock warrant, and next why he'd shot a man who'd tried to kill him with an AR-15. This had been in October of last year, during a raid on a stash pad. The case had just come to trial. Loring was attempting to show that Willis had lied on his affidavit making application for the search warrant, that he'd had no reasonable cause to believe there'd be either weapons or contraband material in the suspect apartment, and that in fact he'd planted both the weapons and the contraband after he'd kicked in the door!

He now wanted to know exactly what time it was that Willis and Bob O'Brien and four uniformed cops from CPEP had kicked in the door to the apartment.

"It was nine o'clock in the morning," Willis said.

"Exactly nine o'clock?" Loring asked.

"I don't know if it was exactly. We had the raid scheduled for nine o'clock, it's my belief we were assembled by nine and went in at nine.”

"But you don't know if it was exactly...”

“Excuse me," the judge said, "but where are you going with this?”

His name was Morris Weinberg, and he had a bald head fringed with sparse white sideburns, and he was fond of telling people that he'd lost all his hair the moment he'd been appointed to the bench.

"Your Honor," Loring said, "it's essential to client's case that we know at exactly what illegal entry was...”

"Objection!”

The prosecuting attorney. Bright young guy the D.A.'s office, hadn't let Loring get away with i much as an inch of bullshit.

"Sustained. What difference will it make, Loring, if the police went in at a minute before or a minute after nine? What possible... ?”

"If Your Honor will permit me...”

"No, I'm not sure I will. You've kept this on the stand for almost two and a half hours picking at every detail of a raid he and policemen made under protection of a warrant duly signed by a justice of the Court.

You've questioned his integrity, his his methods, and everything but the legitimacy birth, which I'm sure you'll get around to the. “

"Your Honor, there is a jury pres...”

"Yes, I'm aware of the jury. I'm also aware of fact that we're wasting a great deal of time here, that unless you can tell me why it's so important pinpoint the time of entry, then I will have to ask' to leave off this line of questioning.”

“Your Honor," Loring said, "my client awake and eating his breakfast at nine o'clock.”

"So?”

"Your Honor, this witness claims they kicked the door at nine o'clock and found my client in bed.

Asleep, Your Honor.”

"So?”

"I'm merely suggesting, Your Honor, that if the detective is willing to perjure himself on...”

"Objection!”

"Sustained. Now cut that out, Mr. Loring. You know better than that.”

"If the detective is mistaken about what actually happened on the morning of the raid, then perhaps he made a similar mistake regarding cause.”

"Are you referring to probable cause for the search warrant?”

"Yes, Your Honor.”

"Detective Willis," Weinberg said, "why did you believe there were weapons and contraband materials in that apartment?”

"An undercover police officer had made several buys there, Your Honor, in advance of the raid. Of a controlled substance, namely cocaine. And he reported seeing weapons there. Of a type, I might add, that was fired at us the moment we entered the apartment.”

"What's his name? This undercover officer?”

"Officer Charles Seaver, Your Honor.”

"His precinct?”

"Same as mine, Your Honor. The Eight-Seven.”

"Does that satisfy you as to probable cause, Mr. Loring?”

"I'm just hearing of this, Your Honor. This not stated on Detective Willis's petition for a...”

“I said information based on my person knowledge and be...”

"You didn't mention a police officer...”

"What difference does it make? The warrant granted, wasn't it? I went into that damn with a...”

"Just a minute now, just a minute," said.

"Sorry, Your Honor," Willis said.

"Can we get Officer Seaver here this afternoon Weinberg asked.

"I'd need time to prepare, Your Honor," Loft said.

"Tomorrow morning, then. Be ready to call him nine A.M.”

"Your Honor...”

"This court is adjourned until nine A.M. morning," Weinberg said, and banged his gavel, abruptly stood up.

"All rise!" the Clerk of the Court shouted, everyone in the courtroom stood up as swept out like a bald Batman, trailing his black behind him.

The clock on the wall read 2:55 P.M. They were due at three-thirty.

When they announced themselves over speaker at the front door, she would tell them the door was open. When they stepped into the entrance foyer, she would call, "I'm in here." And as they walked into the living room... The entire house was already in disarray.

She had spent the past hour yanking out dresser drawers and strewing their contents onto the floor, unplugging television sets and stereo equipment, gathering up silverware, jewelry and fur coats, carrying all of this down to the living room where it would appear they had assembled it after ransacking the house. Her story to the police would be that she had walked in on two armed men... She hoped they'd be armed. If not, she would change her story... two armed men whom she'd shot dead in self-defense. Two armed intruders shot to death while burglarizing a house they thought was empty.

Criminal records a mile long on both of them, Willis had shown her copies. Open and shut, don't cry for me, Argentina.

She did not have a permit for the gun she'd bought from Shad Russell, but she was willing to look that charge in the eye when the time came, even if it meant going to prison again. The important thing was to make certain none of this rubbed off on Willis. She did not see how it could.

The day watch was relieved at a quarter to four. He would not be home until four-fifteen, four-thirty. It would be over by then. All of it.

She looked at the mantel clock now.

Seven minutes to three.

She picked up the gun Russell had sold her.

A .38 caliber Colt Detective Special. Sixcapacity. Three for each of them. She had bel shoot fast and she had better shoot straight.

She rolled out the cylinder, checked that the was fully loaded, and then snapped it back into barrel.

The clock read five minutes to three.

The two girls came down the front steps of Graham School on Seventh and Culver, wearing pleated green skirts, white blouses, knee-high socks, brown walking shoes, and bh blazers with the school crest over the left pocket. They were both giggling at sc another girl had said. Books held against budding bosoms, girlish laughter spilling onto springtime air, sparkling and clear now that the had stopped. One of them was a killer.

"Hello, girls," Carella said.

"Hi, Mr. Carella," Gloria said. Blue eyes twinkling with laughter, long black hair dancing sunshine as she came down the steps.

"Hi," Alexis said. She wore the solemn look in the aftermath of laughter, her brown el thoughtful, her face serious. I'm nothing, she told him. Blonde hair falling to her shoulders bobbing as she came down the steps. They could have been twins, these two, except for their coloring.

But one of them was a killer.

"See you guys," the other girl said, and waved as she went off.

They stood in the sunlight, the detective and the two schoolgirls. It was three o'clock sharp. Students kept spilling out of the school. There was the sound of young voices everywhere around them. Neither of the girls seemed particularly apprehensive. But one of them was a killer.

"Alexis," he said, "I'd like to talk to you, please.”

She looked first at him, and then at Gloria. The serious brown eyes looked suddenly troubled.

"Okay," she said.

He took her aside. They chatted quietly, Alexis's eyes intent on his face, concentrating on everything he said, nodding, listening, occasionally murmuring a few words. A girl wearing the Graham School's uniform and a senior hat that looked like a Greek fisherman's cap, except that it was in the orange-and-blue colors of the school, came skipping down the front steps, said, "Hi, Lex," and then walked off toward the subway kiosk on the corner.

Some little distance away, Gloria watched them in conversation, her books pressed against her narrow chest, her eyes squinted against the sun.

Carella walked back to her.

"Few questions," he said.

"Sure," Gloria said. "Is something wrong?”

Books still clutched to her chest.

Behind them and off to the left, Alexis sat on school steps and tucked her skirt under her, them, puzzled.

"I spoke to Kristin Lund before coming Carella said. "I asked her if she'd seen you at church on the day of the murder. She said she Is that correct?”

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand the q "Did you go to the church at anytime before o'clock on the day of the murder?”

"No, I didn't.”

"I also spoke to Mrs. Hennessy. She told me hadn't seen you, either.”

"That's because I wasn't there, Mr. Carella.”

Blue eyes wide and innocent. But clicking intelligence.

"Gloria," he said.

Those eyes intent on his face now.

"When I talked to Alexis last week and I now verified this with her, to make sure I mistaken she told me you had the check for band deposit and wanted to know whether the was still on. This was on Tuesday afternoon, twenty-ninth of May. Is that right? Were you possession of the deposit check at that time?”

"Yes?”

Wariness in those eyes now.

"When did Father Michael give you that check?”

"I don't remember.”

"Try to remember, Gloria.”

"It must have been on Wednesday. Yes, I think I stopped by after school and he gave me the check then.”

"Are you talking about Wednesday, the twenty-third of May?”

"Yes.”

"The day before the murder?”

"Yes.”

"What time on Wednesday, would you remember?”

"After school. Three, four o'clock, something like that.”

"And that was when Father Michael gave you the deposit check made out to The Wanderers, is that correct? For a hundred dollars.”

"Yes.'“

"Gloria, when I spoke to Kristin Lund, I asked her if she was the person who'd written that check. She told me she was. She wrote that check and then asked Father Michael to sign it.”

Eyes steady on his face.

"She wrote it on the twenty-fourth of May, Gloria.”

Watching him, knowing where he was going now.

"You couldn't have picked it up on the twenty-third," he said.

"That's right," she said at once. "It was the twenty-fourth, I remember now.”

"When on the twenty-fourth?”

“After school. I told you. I went to the right after school.”

“No, you told me you didn't go to the church at, on the day of the murder.”

"That was when I couldn't remember.”

"Are you telling me now that you were at church?”

"Yes.”

"Before five o'clock?”

"I'm not sure.”

"Kristin left at five. She says you...”

"Then it must have been after five.”

"What time, Gloria?”

"I don't remember exactly, but it was long “

seven.

He looked at her.

They had not released to the media the time of the priest's death. Only the killer knew He saw realization in her eyes. So blue, intelligent, darting now, on the edge of panic. He not want to do this to a thirteen-year-old, but he straight for the jugular.

"We have the knife," he said.

The blue eyes hardened.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

Which words he had heard many times before, from murderers much older and wiser than young Gloria here.

"I'd like you to come with me," he said.

And in deference to her youth, he added, "Please.”

Maybe she's scared them off, he thought.

They hadn't heard from the two Argentinians since the day she'd cut the handsome one. That was on Saturday afternoon. A week tomorrow. And no word from them. Every night this past week, when he'd come home from work, his eyes had met hers expectantly. And every night she'd shaken her head, no. No word. So maybe they'd given her up as a lost cause.

Maybe they'd bandaged the handsome one's hands and packed up and gone home, no sense trying to ride a tigress.

Maybe.

He came down the steps from the street outside the Criminal Courts Building, into the tiled subway passageway, and was walking toward the turnstiles when he saw the roses. Lavender roses. A man selling long-stemmed lavender roses, just to the left of the token booth. A dollar a rose. In the Mexican prison, there'd been a woman from Veracruz who'd wistfully told Marilyn that all the days were golden there, all the nights were purple. Lovely in Spanish.

Lovely the way Marilyn repeated it. En Veracruz, todos los dfas eran dorados, y todas las noches violetas.

The roses weren't quite purple, but lave: would do.

Maybe it was time to celebrate, who the knew?

Maybe they were really gone for good.

"I'll take a dozen," he told the vendor.

The clock on the wall of the token booth read minutes past three.

In this city, the Afghani cab drivers had a radio network. You got into the taxi, you told where you wanted to go, they threw the flag, was the last you heard from them. For the rest of trip, they ignored the passenger entirely and incessantly into their radios, babbling in alan incomprehensible to the vast majority of the population. Maybe they were all spies. Maybe were plotting the overthrow of the United government.

This did not seem likely. reasonable was the assumption that they homesick and needed the sound of other voices to get them through the grinding day.

Carlos Ortega didn't care what the needs of Afghani people might be. He knew only someone with an impossible name printed on Hack Bureau license affixed to the dashboard of taxi was shrieking into the radio at the top of lungs in an unintelligible language that was and intrusive.

"You!" he said in English.

The cabbie kept babbling.

"You!" he shouted.

The cabbie turned to him.

"Shut up!" Carlos said.

"What?" the cabbie said.

"Shut your mouth," Carlos said in heavily accented English. "You're making too much noise.”

"What?" the cabbie said. "What?”

His ethnic group back home in the Wakhin Corridor was Kirghiz, although a moment ago he'd been speaking not the language of that area, but Farsi instead ... which was the lingua franca of the city's Afghani drivers.

His ancestors, nonetheless, had come from Turkey, and he tried now to muster some good old Turkish indignity, which disappeared in a flash the moment he looked at the ugly giant sitting in the back seat. He turned away at once, muttered something soft and Farsic into his radio, and then fell into an immediate and sullen silence.

Carlos merely nodded.

He was used to people shutting up when he told them to shut up.

In Spanish, now that the chattering din had subsided, he said, "I don't trust her, do you?”

"Beautiful women are never to be trusted," Ramon said.

He was still angry over the fact that she'd cut him.

His hands were still bandaged and medicated and for the most part his wounds had healed. But there were some wounds that never healed. You did not cut hands of a person as handsome as Ramon C You did not even touch Ramon Castaneda unless gave you permission to do so. For her indiscre the blonde whore would pay. As soon as she them the money.

"Why her house?" Carlos asked.

"Because she's stupid," Ramon said.

"No, she's very smart, give her that at least." I'll give her this,” Ramon said, and grabbed genitals.

"Yes," Carlos said, and smiled. "After she us the money.”

"And then this," Ramon said, and took pocket a small bottle with glass stopper in its The bottle was full of a pale yellowish liquid. liquid was nitric acid. Ramon hoped that Hollis would live to have many children grandchildren, so that she could tell all of them her face had come to be scarred in such a manner. You did not cut someone who looked Ramon Castaneda, no.

"Put that-away," Carlos said.

Ramon put the bottle away.

"Why her house?" Carlos asked again. "Will police be there? Has she notified the police?”

"She murdered your uncle," Ramon r.e him.

"Still.”

"If you had murdered someone, would you call the police?”

"The police in Argentina aren't looking for her.”

"True. But she doesn't know that. Believe me, Carlos, she hasn't called the police.”

"Then why her house?”

“I told you. She's stupid," Ramon said again. "All beautiful women are stupid.”

"Can she be planning a trap?”

"Stupid people don't know how to plan traps.”

"I think we should be careful.”

"Why? We'll roll over her like a tank. Take the money, fuck her, throw the acid in her face," Ramon said, and nodded at the utter simplicity of it all.

But Carlos was still concerned.

"Why do you think she chose the house?" he asked again. "Why not a public place?”

“She told you why. She's afraid of carrying all that money on the street.”

"A public place would be safer for her.”

"Women think their own houses are the safest places in the world. They think their houses are nests.”

"She'll be armed in her nest," Carlos said.

"Certainly. She was armed last time.”

Both men fell silent.

Carlos looked at his watch.

The time was a quarter past three.

Suddenly, he grinned. He looked particularly ugly when he grinned.

"Do you remember how we got in last time?" asked.

Ramon grinned, too.

She heard the key in the front door at exactly twenty-eight minutes past three. There were two people who had keys to this house. The opening the front door had to be... "Marilyn?”

Willis's voice. Calling from the entry Calling to her where she sat in the red armchair facing the open-arch entrance to the room, the .38 Colt Detective Special in her fist.

Exactly what she hadn't wanted. Willis home the other two not here yet.

Willis stepping into middle of it. The one person she wanted to keep of it, clear of it... "Hi, honey," he said, and came into the room a bouquet of flowers wrapped in white paper, saw the gun in her hand. The flowers made her to weep, the incongruity of flowers when she expecting... His eyes suddenly shifted to the left, toward the stairs, and she knew even before his hand snapped to his shoulder holster that they were already in house. Somehow, they had got into the house again.

The spring-release on Willis's holster snapped his pistol up and out into his hand.

She came up out of the chair just as he fired.

He must have hit one of them - she heard someone yelling in pain just as she turned toward the stairway and then there was shooting from the steps, and she stuck the .38 out in front of her the way she had seen lady cops do on television shows, holding it in both hands, leveling it.

The big one was hit and was lurching toward Willis, firing as he stumbled into the living room. The handsome one was on his left, coming toward her, a gun in his hand.

She fired at once. The bullet went low, she'd been aiming for his chest.

But she was sure she'd hit him because she saw a dark stain appear where his jacket pocket was and at first she thought it was blood, but it wasn't dark enough for blood, and suddenly he began screaming. His screaming startled her, but there was no time to wonder what was causing it, there was time only to fire again because the hit hadn't stopped him, he was still coming at her, screaming, his handsome face distorted in anger and pain. The big one was still headed straight for Willis.

Both of them still coming. The bad and the beautiful in one spectacular fireworks package.

Willis had his. pistol stuck out straight in front of him, holding it in both hands the way she'd seen detectives do it on television, except that he happened to be a real detective and not Don Johnson. He was aiming very carefully at the ugly one's chest, taking his time, because this one was for the money. He fired in the same instant that the ugly one did. She fired, too. And saw the handsome one throw back his arms, the way extras did in mov: and then fly over backward as if he'd been hit by football linebacker. Except that the stain on pocket seemed to be spreading and his chest w suddenly spurting blood.

So was hers.

She didn't realize at first that she'd been hit.

And then she saw the blood, saw her white turning red with blood, saw the blood spurting up of the hole in her blouse, the hole in her spreading into the fabric, turning the entire bh red, and knew that she'd truly been hit badly, and the pain all at once, came down all at once off excitement of all the shooting, felt the pain like elephant stepping on her chest and thought, oh he's really done me, and thought oddly and that she had not yet returned Eileen Burke's call almost a week ago. And then she fell to the floor her mouth open and her chest still spurting blood.

Willis stood over the big one, the gun still in hands, the gun leveled at his fucking head, ready blow his head off if he so much as blinked eyelash, but nobody was blinking, they were down, he turned immediately to Marilyn.

And saw her on the Persian carpet, all covered with blood.

Saw blood spurting up from her chest.

Her heart pumping out blood.

And thought Oh Jesus no.

And ran to her.

And fell on his knees beside her.

And said, "Marilyn?”

A whisper.

"Marilyn?”

And realized all at once that he was still holding the bouquet of lavender roses in his left hand.

In the city and state for which these men and women worked, Section 30 of the Criminal Law Statutes was titled INFANCY, and Subdivision 1 of this statute read: A person less than 16 years old is not criminally responsible for conduct.

Gloria Keely had turned thirteen in February.

Her parents insisted on an attorney. The attorney said he woulc apply at once for removal of the action to the Children's Court. They reminded him that the crime was murder. He reminded them that she was scarcely thirteen years old, and that children (he punched home the word children) of thirteen, fourteen and fifteen years of age were juvenile offenders under the laws of this state. They, in turn, reminded him that the moment she hit her thirteenth birthday, she lost. infancy under the laws of this state if the crime was Murder, Subdivision One or Two.

Ergo, she could no longer be considered a juvenile offender, and they were charging her as an adult.

Gloria's attorney told them that the laws of this city and this state specifically forbade the questioning of a juvenile offender in a police station.

They reminded him again that the crime was and that she was no longer a juvenile offender. also mentioned that the intent of that restriction was to keep juveniles separate and from hardened criminals, and besides she was longer a juvenile for the third time. The said the questioning was academic, anyway, since would not allow his young client to answer questions put to her by the police.

They were all walking on eggs here.

The girl was only thirteen years old.

They were saying she'd killed a priest by or slashing him seventeen times.

The police were in possession of what they certain was the murder weapon, a knife with handle and blade caked with dried blood certainly the priest's. Presumably, there were fingerprints on that knife. And presumably, fingerprints would match Gloria's. But her argued that taking her fingerprints here in a station would be tantamount to questioning her which would be in violation of not only her fights under Miranda-Escobedo, but also in of the statute specifically forbidding the que of a person under the age of fifteen in a station.

They told him yet another time that she had infancy when she'd turned thirteen, and that Miranda-Escobedo they would not be takin incriminating testimony without permission if fingerprinted or photographed Gloria, or asked her to submit to a blood or breathalyzer test, or examined her body, or put her in a lineup, because the difference between these actions and a statement in response to interrogation was simply the difference between non-testimonial and testimonial responses on the part of the prisoner. There was no question that Gloria was a prisoner. She was in custody. They were going to charge her with the crime of Murder, Subdivision One: With intent to cause the death of another, causing the death of such person.

But this was a tough one.

Nellie Brand, who'd been called in because of her familiarity with the case, couldn't do a Q and A because Gloria's attorney said he would not permit her to answer any questions. The attorney was now saying they'd had no cause to bring her in here in the first place, were they perchance familiar with the expression "false arrest"? Carella had already briefed Nellie on his reason for bringing in Gloria, and whereas she considered his deduction sound enough, she also recognized that absent a fingerprint match, they were treading shaky ground. Carella was using the girl's possession of the last check written by Father Michael as proof that she'd been to the church on the day of his murder. If her fingerprints were on that knife, all well and good. If not... A fingerprint match was essential to their case.

And even though Nellie felt positive that they were permitted to take Gloria's fingerwints (and the Police Department's Legal Bureau concurred on point) she didn't want to risk what appeared to good case by giving anybody reason to about a rights violation later on; these w trigger-happy times. Anyway, once they charged girl and booked her and they would do downtown at Central Booking, as soon as they tap-dancing here fingerprints and photol would be taken as a matter of course, juvenile or So why push Miranda-Escobedo now?

The attorney would not let go of it. So they it back and forth, Mr. and Mrs. Keely putting in two cents every now and then with comments about what a good girl and student their daughter was, espousing Byrnes's "Class Valedictorian" line of the lawyers and detectives quoting chapter and of the various applicable laws, and in the midst this, as the shouting and gesticulating reached heated climax, Gloria suddenly said, "I killed Her attorney immediately said, "Gloria, I advise you..." but she rolled over him like steamroller flattening a fly. And since neither police nor the district attorney were required Miranda-Escobedo or any other law in the land warn a person of her rights if she was volunteering statement, they stood by silently and let her to it.

I didn't mean to do it, she said.

I only went there to pick up the check. This was around six o'clock or so, I went in through the garden, the gate was open, I left it open because I figured maybe they wanted it that way, whoever'd left it open.

The rectory door was open, too, the wooden one, not the screen door, that was closed. I opened the screen door and went right in. I'd promised Kenny the check, Kenny Walsh, he's leader of The Wanderers, he plays lead guitar and writes most of the he said he needed the songs, deposit check right away if we expected him to play the job. So I only went there to get the check.

I went into the rectory, and... There's like this little bend before you come to the office, this sort of little turn after you come out of the entry, and I heard the.., the voices.., before... before I made the turn.., the moaning.., the woman moaning.., and Faiher Michael saying, Oh God oh God oh God, and the woman saying Give it to me, give it to me, Michael!

And... I'm not a child, you know. I know about such things. A lot of the girls at Graham do these things, they talk about these things, I'm not a child, I knew what they were doing even before I... I should have turned back, I guess.

I should have left the minute I heard them.

But I... I went around the.., the turn there.., the little bend there where the.., the bench is... that you sit when you're waiting to see the priest, and I... I looked.

And he was.., they were.., her back was to m her skirt was up, she was holding her skirt up, sh was naked under the skirt, her panties down around her ankles, her legs apart, his hands were up unde her skirt, they were kissing, oh dear God, and sh kept moaning and moving against him, they were you know, they were, they were making love there his office, her long blonde hair trailing down her back, twisting her head, moaning, and him saying| love you, Ab, oh God how I love you, a priest!

An then he he sort of of of slid down her, his hand,, moving down the backs of her legs, and he he got o his knees in front of her as if he was praying, and ] realized all at once what he was doing to her, and[ covered my face with my hands and ran through th sacristy into the church and prayed to God fo guidance.

I waited till she was gone. She came out through the church, I guess she didn't want anyone to see her leaving on the rectory side. I was still sitting in a near the altar. Praying. This was about half an hour after I'd seen them, maybe forty minutes, I aon know, she came clicking out of the sacristy on high heels, tall and beautiful and clicking by in a hurry, a smile on her face, she was smiling. I watched her, I could see the line of her panties under the yellow skirt, I turned to look up at Jesus hanging on the cross and I looked at his sad eyes, do you know his sad eyes, I cry when I look at those eyes, and it seemed to me he was saying I should discuss this with Father Michael, ask him about it, find out what he what he why he he was doing this, why he had done this.

I didn't mean to kill him.

I only wanted to ask him why he was betraying not only God but also me, too, yes, because I'd trusted him, I'd thought we were friends, I thought we could tell each other things we couldn't tell anyone else, hadn't I said things in the confession box, hadn't I told him things I'd never told another human being on earth, not even Alexis? So that's what I planned to do. Just ask him how he could do such a thing. He was supposed to be a priest but instead he was behaving like a like a, I just wanted to tell him.

He was sitting in the rectory alone, behind his desk, this had to have been, I don't know, seven, a little before seven, ten to seven, something like that?

He looked up when I came in, and he smiled, and said You're here for the check, am I right?

Something like that. And I said Yes, Father Michael, and he gave me the check and I put it in my purse and I I I was waiting there because I didn't know how to start this, and he said Is there something, Gloria?

And I said, Father Michael, I saw you and that woman. And he said, What woman, Gloria? And I said A blonde woman, Father Michael, the one who was here earlier. And he looked me in the eye said I don't know what you're talking about, I said Father Michael, why are you doing this, sin! And he looked me in the eye again and he You must be mistaken, Gloria, please go now.

I went out of the office.

I don't know why I took the knife from kitchen.

Mrs. Hennessy wasn't in there, I don't where she was.

There were things cooking on the stove.

It smelled good in the kitchen.

I took the knife and... And went back to the rectory to look for him, he wasn't there.

This made me... I don't know why, but it made me angry. I I wasn't going to hurt him, so why was he from me? And then I... I heard him out in garden.., walking out there in the garden, and I to the rectory door, the sun was beginning to set, sky was red like blood, and I realized he was and all at once the hypocrisy of it, his praying to the lie of it...

I guess I stabbed him.

I don't know how many times.

God forgive me.

Afterwards, I... I went... I had to get rid of knife, you see. There wasn't any blood on my or on my hands.., isn't there supposed to be a lot blood? The blood was all over his his back, all over the knife, but none of it was on me. I couldn't go out on the street with with... I ran into the rectory again... Mrs. Hennessy didn't see me, she was in the kitchen... Everything was happening so fast... I ducked into the office... I pulled open the bottom file drawer, and threw the knife into the space at the back of the drawer, and then kept yanking things out of the drawer to make it look as if somebody had come there to rob the church and had killed... Oh dear God.

Had killed the priest.

Oh dear God.

Had killed dear Father Michael.

Carella listened now to the numb recitation of how she'd made her way home through streets already dark, how her parents had found her in the living room reading a book when they'd got home from work, how she'd told her mother the roast was already in the oven.

Thirteen, he was thinking, she's only thirteen.

And he recognized with a heavy sadness that nighttime in this city he loved seemed to come too swiftly nowadays. And he wondered if it wasn't already too late to say vespers.

Nellie Brand was watching him. As if reading mind and thinking exactly the same thing. Their e' met. In the distance, there was the sound of ambulance siren.

Marilyn Hollis was being taken to Moreho General, where they would declare her dead arrival.

Night had come.

The sky was black with rolling clouds. They sitting in the little garden behind the church. could hear the sound of an ambulance siren fading the distance. Faraway lightning flashes crazed sky.

"I haven't seen you in a long time," he said.

He was wearing a black cotton robe in richer black silk with pine cones that formed phallic pattern, slit to the waist on either side reveal his.muscular legs and thighs.

"Well, there were problems," she said.

She was wearing a red leather skin slit to thigh. Black silk blouse carved low over her breasts.

Red high-heeled shoes. Bloodred lipstick. Dangling red earrings.

"Tell me," he said.

She told him the story.

He listened thoughtfully.

Sipped at his drink and listened.

"There was a simpler way," he said at last.

"I didn't think so.”

"I'd have kicked him out,. see. Plain and simple.”

"I didn't want you to know I had a twenty-two-year-old son.”

"So you went to a Catholic priest instead.”

"Yes.”

"To ask him to intervene.”

"Yes. Because how could I continue coming here if Andrew was here with his goddamn faggot boyfriend?”

"Andrew Hobbs.”

"Yes.”

"I never once suspected.”

"That was my married name. Hobbs.”

"A twenty-two-year-old son," he said.

"Yes.”

"Abigail Finch has a twenty-two-year-old son," he said, and shook his head in wonder.

"Yes. So now you know I'm a hag," she said, and smiled.

"Oh yes, some hag," he said, and returned the smile.

"The point is," she said, "it backfired. And I'm truly penitent about that.”

"Backfired how?”

"I didn't expect him to get on his pulpit about Bornless. I only wanted him to give Andrew a little heart-to-heart. Quit seeing the Devil, son, it's bad for your soul. That sort of thing.”

"Yes.”

"Sure. Instead, he made a federal case out, "Yes.”

He was silent for a moment, sipping thou at his drink. He looked up then, and said, you should be punished, Ab. The church can you, you know.”

"I know that, and that's entirely up to you deacons, Sky. I am penitent, though, I reall' you know...”

"Yes?”

"I did get him to stop, I really did. When ... what was happening, his sermons and all, I him and told him I'd tell all about us if he harassing Bornless. He said it was blackmail,:t him it was for his own good. I was being you know. For his own good. Walking would be for his own good.”

Schuyler began laughing.

"Yeah," she said, and laughed with him. was what really ticked him off, my saying then laughing in his face. He slapped me, the can you believe it? Five minutes earlier worshipping at the mound, and all at once he me. Because I'd offended his beloved know, who he'd only been betraying since the April, fucking me six ways from Sunday. can you believe it!

Some priest. I made him that slap later. But he stopped the sermons There weren't any more sermons after Easter, did you notice?”

"To tell the truth, Ab, I didn't notice the ones before Easter, either.”

Both of them laughed.

And sipped at their drinks.

And looked up at the threatening black sky.

There was another flash of lightning.

"Rain coming," he said.

"There's another thing, too," she said. "If you're thinking of leniency.”

"And what's that?”

"I really think I accomplished something for the church, Sky.”

"How do you figure that?”

"I seduced a Catholic priest. I seduced a servant of Jesus Christ. I think that's something, Sky.”

"You do, huh?”

"Something worth considering, yes. If you're thinking of forgiving me.”

I'll see.”

There was more lightning, closer now. A faint roll of thunder.

"He told me he loved me," she said, and turned to look at him, a small pleased smile on her face.

"I can't blame him.”

"Through love, lust. Right?”

"Vice versa, actually.”

"I had him lusting for me, Sky. He'd have done anything for me. A Catholic priest, Sky. I had him panting for me. On his knees to me. Not Sky. To me.”

She looked directly into his eyes.

Lightning flashed closer. There was a of thunder.

"We're going to win," she said "Eventually, we're going to win, Sky.”

“I think we've already won," he said It was going to rain any moment now.

He took her hand. They rose together back into the church just as the first hu began pelting the path.

"Would you care to serve as altar night?" he asked.

"I'd be honored," she said.