Father Reilly, as he walked on, wondered if he should talk to Alec. The Chief was, after all, a good friend of his, and if his reputation was hanging by a thread he probably should be told before it was too late.
He now arrived at the precinct proper, and saw that there were very few cops present. One of them noticed him and got up. “Father Reilly! They’re expecting you.”
“That’s wonderful,” he murmured, without much conviction.
He was led along a corridor, then to the cell block, where only a single cell was occupied. If Hampton Cove was in the grip of a crime wave, it didn’t show in cell occupancy, he thought.
Two men got up from their metal bunks when Father Reilly was led inside. He greeted them with a kind smile, and the distinct hope that the guard wouldn’t stray too far in case the convicts turned belligerent.
“Am I glad to see you, Father!” cried the biggest of the two, a real grizzly. “I wanted to tell you that I didn’t hit him very hard. Only a light tap on the head. And I also want it stated for the record that I won’t do it again. But we’re innocent, see, so it’s only fair that we would try to escape, see?”
“Of course, of course,” he said, blinking at the man’s intensity and peculiar cadence.
“I want to talk to you, Father,” said the smallest of the two, and led him to his bunk and bade him to sit down. “My wife, or I should probably say ex-wife, she won’t return my calls. Can you call her and tell her she has got to come and visit. I’m innocent, and she has to understand that and, most importantly, she has to accept my apologies. I know I’ve been a lousy husband, and I also know I should do better. And I will do better, Father. You gotta believe me and tell her. If she decides to get back together with me, I can promise her now that I will be the best husband I can be.” He raised his eyes heavenward and folded his hands in a gesture of prayer. “With the good Lord as my witness, I’ll be a wonderful husband to Marlene. The best. Tell her that, will you?”
“Um… of course, my son, if you want. But I think your wife—or ex-wife—will be more amenable and convinced of your good intentions if you finally decide to cooperate with the police. For instance by telling them where you hid the proceeds of your crimes.”
“Huh?” said Jerry, giving him a look of confusion.
“The painting? The gold coins?”
“The loot, Jer,” said Johnny helpfully. “He wants to know where we stashed the loot.”
Jerry gave the priest a not-so-friendly look. “What did I just tell you? I’m innocent, Father. I didn’t steal no fricking painting, or no fricking gold coins. If I had don’t you think the cops would have found them by now? It’s not as if I’m some kind of fricking Houdini, capable of making gold coins and paintings disappear into thin air, am I?”
“No, of course, of course,” said father Reilly, adopting an appeasing tone of voice. “It’s just that the people that painting and those coins and those original works of art belong to, they’re suffering, Mr. Vale. They want to know what happened to their possessions.”
Jerry abruptly got up. “I don’t have their fricking paintings or works of fricking art! I’m innocent. Innocent, I tell you!” He poked a finger into the priest’s chest and dug in hard. “And you can tell Marlene that if she doesn’t believe me she can go to hell! Is that understood?”
“Jerry, I don’t think that’s the way to win your wife back,” said Johnny, interrupting the one-on-one between confessor and confessant once more.
“I don’t care!” yelled Jerry, gesticulating wildly. “If she doesn’t like it, she can lump it. You, too, Johnny,” he added. “And you, Father. You can all go to hell for all I care!”
“Now, Mr. Vale…”
“Get out—out of my sight!”
“Don’t you think a nice confession…”
“Out!”
And so out Father Reilly went. All in all, he felt, as he hurried along the corridor, preceded by a grinning cop, it hadn’t gone too badly. At least he’d escaped with his life, for that short crook had looked like a mass murderer, and the big one, too.
And so he exited the building with a sigh of relief. He hadn’t discovered the whereabouts of Ida’s Picasso, or Mort Hodge’s artwork, or even Charlene’s gold coins, but he was still breathing, and that was something to be thankful for.
Chapter 34
“We should probably stop meeting like this,” Charlene said as she stepped into Alec’s squad car.
“Yeah, people are starting to talk,” Alec agreed as he planted a kiss on the Mayor’s lips.
“We’ll have to tell them, Alec.”
“Not now,” he said. “It’s too soon.”
“If we don’t tell them now I might not have a career left, and neither will you.”
“Let’s keep it to ourselves just a little while longer,” he said. “You know what people are like. The moment they start sticking their noses in, the thing might go belly-up.”
“I know, but still…”
“Just a couple more days. Until the whole thing is in the bag.”
She sighed. “All right. But at least tell your family. They’ll start to think you’re up to no good.”
The Chief smiled a mischievous smile. “And maybe they’re right.”
“Oh, no,” said the Mayor. “You’re up to something good—a lot of good, in fact. Too bad we have to keep it a secret.”
The Chief started up the car and drove off at a slow clip. “Just a while longer, my sweet. And then this will all be over…”
Since the house was now under different command—in fact both of our houses were—we decided to relocate to Hampton Cove, and go for our usual morning walk and take in some of the sights and sounds. Most importantly, though, we felt the need to share our tragedy with our friends. Misery loves company, after all, and since our misery was so great, we needed a lot of company.
We passed by Kingman, the unofficial feline mayor of our town, and poured our heart out to the big cat.
“I hear you,” he said, casting a casual glance at two pretty felines passing by his store. “Lucky for me Wilbur isn’t big on hygiene, personal or otherwise. He does his own cleaning, which pretty much consists of him applying a broom to the floor once every two weeks, the vacuum cleaner once a month and a mop twice a year and that’s it.”
“You’re a very lucky cat, Kingman,” said Dooley, and he meant it, too.
“I’m sure this cleaning double act will simmer down soon,” said Kingman. “After all, Odelia is the paying client, and if Odelia wants her cats to have the run of the house, there’s nothing these Trainor twins can do about it.”
“But what if they convince Odelia that she should kick us out?” I asked. “They sounded very convincing. And Odelia and Marge seem determined to keep them on.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that either. Plenty of cleaners in the sea, I mean. Two can play that game, fellas. If you complain long and loud enough to your human about Blanche and Bella, she’ll kick them out instead of you—just you wait and see!”
The prospect of kicking Blanche and Bella out bucked me up to no end, and I could tell that Dooley, too, seemed elated at the prospect.
“I think you should relax. Who’s more important to Odelia, the cats she’s owned and loved since just about forever, or a cleaner she just met?” He gave us a wink. “If you ask me, it’s a no-brainer. Now where is lovely Harriet and why didn’t she join you?”
“Lovely Harriet is scheming with Brutus and trying to come up with a way of entering her own home.” Harriet had thrown a hissy fit when she found the pet flap locked.
“If I were Bella I’d watch my back,” said Kingman after I’d explained to him what had happened. “Harriet has some very sharp claws on her, and she can bear a grudge like no one else can.”
He was right. If I were a betting cat, and I can assure you that I am not, my money was on Harriet if things got physical.