Win

Chapter 30

The Reverend Calvin Sinclair, graduate of Oral Roberts University and, if Elena Randolph is to be believed, onetime lover of Ralph Lewis aka Arlo Sugarman, exits the front door to St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church. He walks a British bulldog on a ropy leash. They say that pet owners oft look like their pets, and that seems to be the case here. Both Calvin Sinclair and his bulldog companion are squat, portly-yet-powerful, with a wrinkled face and a pushed-in nose.

St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church is located on a surprisingly large plot of land in Creve Coeur, Missouri, part of Greater St. Louis. The sign out front tells me that services are Saturday at 5:00 p.m., Sunday at 7:45—9:00–10:45 a.m. In smaller print, it notes that prayer services will be led by “Father Calvin” or “Mother Sally.”

The Reverend Sinclair spots me as I get out of the back of a black car. With his free hand, he shields his eyes. He looks to be his age — sixty-five — with thin wisps of hair on his scalp. When he’d opened the church door, he wore a practiced wide smile, the kind of thing you put on just in case someone is around and you want to appear kind and friendly, which — who am I to judge yet? — Calvin Sinclair may very well be. When he sees me, however, the smile crumbles to dust. He adjusts his wire spectacles.

I start toward him. “My name is—”

“I know who you are.”

I arch one eyebrow to register my surprise. Calvin Sinclair’s voice has a nice timbre to it. I am sure that it sounds celestial coming from a pulpit. I did not call beforehand or announce my arrival. Kabir had contacted a local private investigator who assured us that Sinclair was at the church. Had Sinclair traveled somewhere else whilst I was in the air, said private detective would have followed him so I could have confronted him wherever I saw fit.

The British bulldog waddles toward me.

“Who’s this?” I ask.

“Reginald.”

Reginald stops and regards me with suspicion. I bend down and scratch behind his ears. Reginald closes his eyes and takes it in.

“Why are you here, Mr. Lockwood?”

“Call me Win.”

“Why are you here, Win?”

“I assume you know why.”

He nods with great reluctance. “I suppose I do.”

“How do you know my name?” I ask.

“When Ry Strauss was found murdered,” he begins, “I knew that would mean renewed interest in...” Calvin Sinclair stops and squints up at either the sun or his version of God. “You were on the news a lot.”

“Ah,” I say.

“Ry Strauss stole your paintings.”

“Seems so.”

“Naturally, I followed the story with interest.”

“With personal interest?”

“Yes.”

I was glad that the Reverend Sinclair was not going to give me a giant song-n-dance pretending that he had no idea why I was here, had never heard of Arlo Sugarman — all the verbal red tape I had feared having to waste time slicing through.

“Come along, Reginald.”

He gives the leash a gentle snap. I stop scratching Reginald behind the ears. They start walking. I stay with them.

“How did you find me?” he asks.

“Long story,” I say.

“You’re a very rich man, from what I’ve read. My guess is, you are used to getting what you want.”

I don’t bother to reply.

Reginald stops by a tree and urinates.

“Still,” Sinclair continues. “I’m curious. What part of our life gave us away?”

I see no reason not to tell him. “Oral Roberts University.”

“Ah. Our start. We were more careless then. You found Ralph Lewis?”

“Yes.”

He smiles. “That was three aliases ago. Ralph Lewis became Richard Landers and then Roscoe Lemmon.”

“Same initials,” I say.

“Perceptive.”

We are behind the church now, heading toward a path in the woods. I wonder about that. I wonder where we are going, whether there is a destination or whether the Reverend Sinclair is just taking his mighty Reginald on their daily walk. I don’t bother asking. He is talking, and that, after all, is what I want.

“After we graduated,” Sinclair says, “Ralph and I went on a missionary trip to what was then known as Rhodesia. It was supposed to be a one-year deal, but with the heat still on him, we ended up staying on the continent for the next twelve years. He and I had different interests. I was religiously focused, albeit in a much more liberal way than what we’d learned at Oral Roberts. Ralph despised religion. He had no interest in conversions. He wanted to work the classics: feed and clothe the poor, get them access to clean water and medical care.” He looks at me. “Are you a religious man, Win?”

“No,” I tell him.

“May I ask what you believe?”

I tell him the same thing I tell any religious worshipper — be they Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu: “All religions are superstitious nonsense, except, of course, yours.”

He chuckles. “Good one.”

“Reverend,” I begin.

“Oh, don’t call me that,” Sinclair says. “In the Episcopal tradition we say ‘the reverend’ as an adjective, a descriptive. It’s not a title.”

“Where is Arlo Sugarman?” I ask.

We are in the woods now. If we look straight up, we can see the sun, but the trees are thick anywhere off this path. “There is no way I can convince you to just go home and let this go, is there?”

“None.”

“I figured as much.” He nods, resigned. “That’s why I’m taking you to him.”

“To Arlo?”

“To Roscoe,” he corrects. “You know something funny? I’ve never called him Arlo. Not once in the more than four decades we’ve been together. Not even in private. I think it’s because I was always scared that I would mess up and call him that in front of other people. This was always our big fear, of course — that this day would come.”

We are getting deeper into the woods now. The path narrows and veers down a steep incline. Reginald the Bulldog stops in his tracks. Sinclair sighs and lifts the dog with a huge grunt. He carries Reginald to the landing below.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“He didn’t do it, you know. Arlo — yes, I’m going to call him that — backed out. He wanted to draw attention to the war by throwing what appeared to be Molotov cocktails, but in reality, the bottles would only be filled with water dyed red to look like blood. Just something symbolic. When Arlo realized that Ry meant to really firebomb the place, they had a falling-out.”

“Yet,” I say, “he ran and hid anyway.”

“Who would have believed him?” Sinclair counters. “Do you know how scary-crazy it was those first few days?”

“Curious,” I say.

“What’s that?”

“Are you also going to claim that he didn’t kill a federal agent?”

Sinclair’s jowly jaw is set, but he doesn’t stop walking. “Patrick O’Malley.”

I wait.

“No, I won’t claim that. Arlo shot Special Agent O’Malley.”

There is a clearing up ahead. I can see a lake.

“We’re almost there,” he tells me.

The lake is gorgeous, serene, still, almost too still, not the slightest ripple. The blue sky reflects off it in a perfect mirror. Calvin Sinclair stops for a moment, sucks in a deep breath, and then says, “Over here.”

There is a wooden bench so rustic that it still has bark on it. It faces the lake, but more to the point, it faces a small tombstone. I approach it and read the carving:

“Lung cancer,” Calvin Sinclair tells me. “And no, he never smoked. We found out in March of that year. He was dead less than three months later.”

I stare at the tombstone. “He’s buried here?”

“No. This is where I spread his ashes. The congregation built the bench and memorial.”

“Did the congregation know you two were lovers?”

“It’s not like we made a big thing of it,” he says. “You have to understand. When we fell in love in the seventies, being gay wasn’t accepted in the slightest. Between hiding his real identity and our orientation, we were used to being deceptive. We lived our whole lives that way.” Calvin Sinclair puts his hand to his chin, his eyes gazing upward. “But by the end, yes, I think a lot of the congregation knew. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking.”

I look at the lake. I try to picture it — Arlo Sugarman starting his life as a Jewish kid from Brooklyn and ending up here, in the woods behind this church. I almost see it as a film montage complete with melodramatic score.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” I ask.

“I thought about it. I mean, he was dead. No one could hurt him anymore.”

“So?”

“So I’m not dead. I harbored a fugitive. You tell me: How do you think the FBI would feel about that?”

He has a point.

“There is one more thing,” Sinclair says, “but I doubt you’ll believe me.”

I turn to him. “Try me.”

“Arlo didn’t want to kill that agent.”

“Well, yes, I’m sure that’s true.”

“But that agent,” he continues. “He shot first.”

A cold trickle slithers down my back. I want to ask for him to elaborate, but I don’t want to lead him either. So I wait.

“Special Agent O’Malley came in through the back door. Alone. Without a partner. Without backup. He didn’t give Arlo a chance to surrender. He just fired.” He tilts his head. “Have you ever seen old photographs of Arlo?”

I nod numbly.

“He had that huge Afro back then. The bullet, Arlo told me, traveled right through it. Literally parted his hair. Then — and only then — did Arlo fire back.”

Two conversations echo and then ricochet through my head.

First, Leo Staunch’s words about his uncle came back to me:

Second, my conversation with PT when this all began:

Why hadn’t they waited for backup?

The answer seems fairly clear now.

Without another word, I turn and start back down the path.

I know it all now. Leo Staunch had hinted as much to me. He told me when I found Arlo Sugarman, I would find all my answers. He was right, I realize. In terms of the Jane Street Six, there is still a bit of cleanup work to do, but I came here for answers and now I have them.

Calvin Sinclair calls after me. “Win?”

I don’t stop.

“Are you going to tell?” he calls out.

But I still don’t stop.