“A parishioner?” Collins asked, eyebrow arched. “Please, have a seat.”
Okay, I was nervous, as I always am around people with a direct line to God. I sat on a sofa under the light of a floor lamp. Had it not been on, we’d have both been in deep shadows. The light from outside had dimmed considerably in the darkening sky. Looked like another storm, I thought.
“Yes, a parishioner,” I said as Collins sat down in his desk chair, facing me. “Randy Ryan.”
“Mm,” the reverend said, expression placid, not at all wary.
Not knowing how much to tell him, I stuck with the essentials. “He’s missing. Hasn’t been seen since Thursday.”
“Oh no.”
“Unless, of course, you’ve heard from him.”
“No, I have not.”
“But you saw him that day, right?”
Collins considered that. “What is your interest, if I may ask?”
“His daughter asked me to find him.”
“You’re a detective?”
“Not hardly. Just a friend, helping a friend out.”
“I see.”
He said nothing. Neither did I until it occurred to me that he had ducked my question. “You saw Randy last Thursday, right? I know he was here, he made a phone call from here.” And maybe more than one, I realized.
“Thursday, Thursday,” Collins murmured. “Yes, of course. The day of the big storm.”
“Whatever.” I felt that incomparable rush that you get when you’re onto something. “What was he here about?”
The priest tipped his head back a bit, watching me, expression kind, perhaps even a bit amused. “You know I can’t talk about things like that, Ben,” he answered. “And besides, it’s not really what you need to know.”
I wanted to retort, Look, you be the preacher and I’ll be the detective, okay? But that would have been impertinent. I did my best to smile back. “Then what is it I really need to know, Father?”
“Where he was headed when he left here. And I can tell you that.” He smiled. “Home.”
Another fond hope blown to bits. I mean, after seeing Neal Leopold I thought I had figured out what Randy’s deal was. I hoped, upon meeting Father Dave, that he would confirm it. Instead he felt obliged to play coy and sent me ricocheting back into the icy outdoors on yet another wild goose chase. “Home,” my Aunt Lizzie’s butt. No way did Randy go home last Thursday after seeing the padre. He had not been back there. I was sure of it.
Even so, I wheeled north toward Randy’s Long Lake apartment. Might as well check it out again. Nothing else to do. I felt fatigue in my legs and back, a numbing of the spirit, the sour taste of having been laughed at. This was such a joke. I never liked going over the same unfruitful ground a second and third time. It always meant that I’d missed something. Had been less than brilliant. Had been, as Raeanne likes to say, “a mere mortal.”
Feeling sour, I smoked a cigar. I went over Randy’s chronology again, probing for soft spots. Propelled the Mustang north in the thick Telegraph Road traffic, piloting along between the high walls of plowed blizzard snow. Did the litany, each time ending up with “home.” Which made no sense.
Unless.
What if home did not mean Randy’s apartment? What if home meant Redford Township, where he’d lived with Virginia and Shyla?
Well now. This was more interesting. And it made all kinds of sense, given the other things Randy had done that day. But if he had gone there, Virginia would have mentioned it. Wouldn’t she?
But she had not. Why not?
Perhaps because... because something really ugly had happened?
Availing myself of a median crossover, I switched sides to southbound Telegraph and motored along, Red-ford-bound. I made fairly good time despite the old snow, new snow, and traffic. I thought about Virginia’s flinty eyes, the set of the scowl on her face, the tone of utter contempt and loathing in her voice as she spoke of her errant husband. The sense I had had that this was a woman who threw things with grim purpose and deadly aim. I remembered how she had tried repeatedly to wave me off the case. Oh, my imagination did all kinds of things as the big Mustang wheels ate up several snow-packed miles. I pictured Virginia aiming a pistol. Randy going down. Blood splattering a beige wall. His body wrapped in plastic, entombed under a snow-covered pile of boards behind the garage...
Of course the scenario was dumb and obvious, but most real-life murders are just that. I played around with different elements as Tel-Twelve Mall approached. This was always one of the worst traffic choke-points in all of metro Detroit, and today was no exception. As the traffic lurched along in its stop-and-go fashion, I wound back the tape in my mind and replayed how it might have gone down. Randy leaving the church, inspired, fervent, anxious to get to her. Motoring south on Telegraph, just as I was doing. Except that this had been Thursday afternoon when the blizzard hit, the big Alberta Clipper, right? So he was in a hurry, trying to get there before everything shut down. He had come flying along here and—
And just as I was doing now, Randy had approached the interlocking cloverleaves where Telegraph met Reuther Freeway/Lodge Freeway/Northwestem Highway.
But Thursday there had not been snowpack on the macadam and lines of crawling cars and walls of plowed snow on both sides and flurries flying in the air. Thursday had been, as Father Dave had said, “the day of the storm.” The Alberta Clipper had struck right about the time Randy barreled south on Telegraph. There had been a howling wind and snow pouring down like porridge. The pavement had slickened up, and there’d been nothing on the sides of the road to stop him from—
And that’s when it came to me.
Leaning forward, gripping the deep-dish Mustang wheel, I stared through the windshield. I thought about angles and distances and timing, the vastness of the clover-leaf. The great expanses of open land with its slopes and gullies and blind spots. I thought about Virginia Ryan again, too, but this time there was no gun in her hand, as I knew in my heart there had never been.
Hitting the brakes, I halted the Mustang in the left-hand lane, right in the middle of the cloverleaf. Traffic continued to pass on my right. I mashed the four-way lights, shut off the engine, and got out.
Instantly the wind tried to bite me through. I turned up the collar of my peacoat and buttoned it tight and jammed the cell phone in my back pocket. The wall of snow rose eight feet or more, a slanting slope of grayish white interspersed with big black icy chunks. Bracing myself, I began to climb up the wall of icy snow, virtually on all fours, freezing my hands as I clambered up, shoes slipping, fingers freezing as I fought for purchase.
I was halfway up when a male voice hollered from down below. “Hey, moron!”
Looking down, I saw a big beefy guy leaning through the window of his white Olds Intrigue. “What’re you doing parking there, ya idiot? Jamming up all the traffic here!”
“Got business” I called back. “Possess your soul in patience. Jackass,” I added, just for his information.
“You move that damn car,” he bawled, “or I’ll rearrange your face for ya!”
I hesitated. From inside came that dark chuckling feeling I remembered so well, the feeling of all-righty-then, let’s party. And I thought about going back down there and dragging him through the window and using him for a pogo stick or something.
But “no rough stuff,” Carole had said.
And I had promised.
And all the man wanted was a clear ride home.
So I grinned and waved. “Back in a minute,” I called and, with final scrambling effort, propelled myself over the summit of the snowdrift and down the other side.