“Anything taken?”
“His little computer, one of those ‘notebook’ things, I think he called it. And his chalice.”
The goblet Father Riordan would have used to celebrate Mass. “Monsignor, were you here that afternoon?”
“Of Frank’s... death, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I was. Sitting right at this desk, going over some budgetary matters.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“No, but these walls are thick.” Swiveling in his chair and pitching forward, McNulty slapped a palm against the exposed field-stone. “And following my directions, did you notice anything about the parking outside?”
I thought I saw what he meant. “That the lot winds around the church and annex.”
“Exactly. I was sitting here, but someone who knew Frank, and who knew the layout of the buildings here, could have come down the driveway, gone around the other side, and parked near Franks entrance on the backside of the annex. I wouldn’t have seen or heard them come in or go out.” Another glance to his window, or to the stained glass within it. “I know, because I didn’t that afternoon.”
“Have the police questioned the boys from St. Damian’s?”
“Oh, they tell me so. The chief here assures me that they’ve gone through the lot of them, one and all. Nothing.”
“Any other possibilities?”
“What?”
Things are usually what they appear to be, but I still asked the next question. “Aside from the burglary-gone-bad, could anyone else have had a reason to want Father Riordan dead?”
McNulty seemed shocked. “What are you saying? You never met the man. He was a saint, genuinely. A Renaissance man with a heart, Mr. Cuddy.”
“Then I don’t quite see what you want me to do.”
“Yes, well.” McNulty calmed down. “The truth is, I don’t know what you should do. It’s clear to me that the police have given up on Frank. They haven’t said that in so many words now, but they’ve implied as much.”
“Monsignor, the police have more resources than I do. If they’ve canvassed St. Damian’s, and you can’t give them any other leads, there’s not likely going to be some breakthrough because of me.”
McNulty frowned, a shrewd look on his booze-weathered face. “Is it the case you’ve no taste for, or the man trying to give it to you?”
Perceptive. “I don’t like taking money with no possibility of result.”
“Not what I’d call an answer, but I caught the look on your face when I said ‘Nancy-boy,’ so enough for now.” The man weighed something. “How about if you look into it for a few days? Just give me your opinion as to whether or not it makes sense to pursue.”
“I think I already have, Monsignor.”
McNulty showed me a sad smile. “My church has stood on this site for a hundred years, Mr. Cuddy.” Instead of slapping the exposed wall, he caressed it. “A round century of tragedy has touched this house of stone, but never so closely, or so deeply. I loved that boy like a father loves a son, and now somebody has taken him from me.”
McNulty’s eyes welled up, and he sniffed so hard it was nearly a snorting sound. “I owe it to Frank to have someone who’s sceptical — and who doesn’t much care for me — look into it. Someone whose opinion I can trust. And I feel I can trust you, Mr. Cuddy.”
Not liking the man was one thing, not feeling for him another. “I’d have to let the police know I was working for you.”
“Why? They told me I could even dispose of his effects, though God knows I haven’t had the courage to do that as yet.”
“It’s still an open homicide, Monsignor. I don’t have to get their permission. I just have to let them know somebody’s going to be out there, asking questions. They might also be able to help me.”
“You ever met the chief here, Smollett?”
“Once. I was hoping he might have retired by now.”
Very nearly a real smile from Monsignor Joseph McNulty. “Perhaps you’ll be able to push him on his way.”
2.
The only other time I’d been to the Meade police station, the chief s door had been newly painted. It now showed signs of wear, including scuff marks centered at the bottom where somebody seemed to have a habit of kicking it open. The uniform escorting me knocked.
“Yeah,” said a gravelly voice on the other side of the door.
I had to push hard to open it, the height of the carpeting in the office creating the problem. New carpeting. Solve one problem, create another.
The chief, sitting behind his desk, made no effort to get up. I didn’t expect he would. The old and worn nameplate on his blotter said SMOLLETT, no rank or first name.
“Cuddy. What do you want?”
“Can I sit?”
A wave of the hand to answer me and dismiss the uniform. Smollett’s nameplate had stood the test of time better than its owner. The knuckles on the hand were knobby from arthritis, the fingers starting to bend the wrong way.
I said, “I’m here about the Riordan killing.”
“We don’t have anything new on it.”
“How about a look at the folder?”
“Not a chance.”
“Why?”
“I’m supposed to help you and encourage every citizen’s not satisfied with our work to go out and hire private?”
Which would just create more work for him. “How about what everybody else knows anyway?”
An explosion of breath. “Look, Cuddy. Simple case. Some crackheads come calling, the good Father knows them, so he lets them in and gets whacked in the temple for his trouble. We didn’t find a weapon on the premises, so they came in knowing they were going to hit him. Christ, this Riordan did good deeds among them over at St. Damian’s. What the hell did he expect they’d do?”
“Monsignor McNulty tells me whoever did him got his chalice and a notebook computer. Anything else?”
“Not that we’re told. The punk fences the chalice, though, and he’s ours. Real identifiable, according to McNulty, gold with a heavy base.”
“They killed him, you’d think they’d dump the chalice and move the computer.”
“Maybe they will.”
“In which case, why bother to take the chalice at all?”
Smollett just stared at me.
“And,” I said, “if they’re going to mug him, why not around St. D’s instead of in Meade where they’d need transportation and kind of stand out?”
“Stand out? You kidding? Our own kids dress like they watch Colors on the VCR every night.”
“You talk with the people at St. Damian’s?”
“One of my detectives did, with a Boston cop as shotgun guard. Nobody knows anything, everybody alibis everybody else. All in bed after saying their prayers.”
“Riordan’s effects tell you anything?”
“What, you think the crackheads sent him a note in advance or something? ‘Hey, Padre-man, try to be in around three so Tyrone and me can axe you a question.’ ”
My day to let things pass. “Any objection to my going through Father Riordan’s things, then?”
“Be my guest. Have them bronzed, all I care.”
Another wave of the crabbed hand told me the interview was over.
Winding back through the brick-and-clapboard center of Meade, I saw what Smollett meant about dress code. Baggy athletic pants and oversized sweatshirts, baseball caps worn backward. Only there was a desperately casual note in the way the town’s teens wore the clothes and the colors. As though they were trying to be something they weren’t, but feared.
At the church annex, Monsignor McNulty took me to Father Riordan’s office. Same architecture, and for my money, better view, since it looked onto the oaks and maples in the back. It also was more utilitarian and modern, with a fax machine and computer printer to either side of a gap on top of the metal credenza behind the desk.