"His nickname? Did he tell you his nickname?”
"No, he didn't.”
"Go ask him what his nickname is down the schoolyard. Go ask him what he was doing here Easter Sunday, go ahead.”
"Why don't you save me the trouble?" Carella said.
"Sure," Corrente said, and inhaled deeply on the cigar. Blowing out a cloud of smoke, he said, "Mr. Crack.”
Carella looked at him.
"Is his nickname, right," Corrente said. fucking nigger Crack.”
There was a need that took him back here.
Something inexplicable that did, in fact, take back to the scene of any murder he'd ew investigated, time and again, to stand alone in center of a bedroom or a hallway or a kitchen or roof or - as was the case now - a small cloisl garden suffused with the late afternoon scent hundreds of roses in riotous bloom.
The Crime Scene signs had all been taken the police were through with the place so far gathering evidence was concerned. But stood alone in the center of the garden, under spreading branches of the old maple, and tried sense what had happened here this past evening at sunset. It was yet only a little before the priest had been slain some two hours later, Carella was not here now to weigh and to to discern and to deduce, he was here to feel courtyard and this murder, to absorb the essence it, breathe it deeply into his lungs, have it seep his bloodstream to become a part of him as his liver or his heart- for only then could he to understand it.
Mystical, yes.
A detective searching for a muse of sorts.
He recognized the absurdity of what he was doing, but bowed to it nonetheless, standing there in pled shade, listening to the sounds of the springtime city beyond the high stone walls, trying to absorb through his very flesh whatever secrets the garden contained. Had not something of the murderer's rage and the victim's terror flown helter-skelter about this small, contained and silent space, to be claimed by stone or rose or blade of grass, and held forever in time like the image of a killer in a dead man's eye? And if so, if this was in fact a possibility, then was it not also possible that the terror and the rage of that final awful moment when knife entered flesh could now be recovered from all that had borne silent witness here in this garden?
He stood alone, scarcely dating to breathe.
He was not a religious man, but perhaps he was praying.
He stood there for what seemed a long time, some ten or fifteen minutes, head bent, waiting for... He didn't know what.
And at last, he took a deep breath and nodded and Went back into the rectory and into the small office :led into a nook that judging from the g had once served as something else, could not imagine what. There were secrets here, perhaps there were secrets everywhere.
The report from the Fingerprint Section had d him that any latents recovered from the open drawer of the file cabinet had been smudged to be useful in any meaningful se There had been latents as well on the various scattered on the floor and separately delivered in evidence envelope marked CORRES FLOOR and then initialed by the lab's R.] whoever he might be. Some of the latents the prints lifted from the dead priest's fingers thumbs. The rest of them were wild, with possibility that some had been left on correspondence by Kristin Lund.
Carella knelt beside the filing cabinet.
The bottom drawer, the one that had been open, was labeled: CORRESPONDENCE GL He opened the drawer, no danger in doing since the Mobile Lab had been through here everything from a vacuum cleaner to a tweezers. He felt around inside, along the back front panel; sometimes people Scotch-taped to the inside of a drawer, where no one but a a thief would think of looking.
Correspondence, G-L. Presumably, whoever thrown those papers all over the place was for something in this drawer, something with the letters of the alphabet that fell lx and L. Six letters altogether. God only knew piece of paper the vandal had been looking whether or not he'd found it. Or even whether the ransacking had had anything at all to do with the murder. Carella was getting to his feet again when a voice behind him said, "Excuse me, sir.”
He turned from the filing cabinets.
Two young girls were standing just inside the entrance door to the office.
They could not have been older than thirteen, fourteen at the most.
A blonde and one with hair as black as pitch.
The blonde was a classic beauty with a pale oval face, high molded cheekbones, a generous mouth, and dark brown eyes that gave her a thoughtful almost scholarly look. The other girl could have been her twin: the same delicate face, the same sculpted look, except that her hair was black and her eyes were a startling almost electric blue. Both girls wore their hair in stylists' cuts that fell straight and clean to the shoulders. Both were wearing sweaters, skirts and in a replay of the Fifties bobby sox and loafers. They exuded a freshness that Americans arrogantly assumed only their own healthy young girls possessed, but which was actually an asset of most teenage girls anywhere in the world.
"Sir," the black-haired one said, "are you with the church?”
Same one who'd spoken not a moment before.
"No," Carella said, "I'm not.”
"We thought they might have sent someone," the said. "A new priest.”
"No," Carella said, and showed his shield and I.] card. "I'm Detective Carella, Eighty-seventh Squad.”
“Oh," the black-haired one said.
Both girls huddled in the doorway.
"I'm investigating Father Michael's murder, Carella said... "How terrible," the blonde said.
The black-haired one nodded.
"Did you know Father Michael?" Carella asked "Oh, yes," both gifts said, almost in unison.
"He was a wonderful person," the one said. "Excuse me, I'm President of the My name is Gloria Keely.”
"I'm Alexis O'Donnell," the blonde said. "I': nothing.”
Carella smiled.
"Nice to meet both of you," he said.
"Nice to meet you, too," Alexis said. means Catholic Youth Organization." ... Thoughtful brown eyes in her delicate, face. I'm nothing, she had said. Meaning she was an officer of the club. But something indeed, in she was easily the more beautiful of the two with a shy, and thoroughly appealing manner. wondered how parents who had named th daughter Alexis could possibly have known she turn out to be such a beauty.
"Thank you," he said, and smiled.
"We were wondering about the funer tomorrow," Gloria said. "About what time it'll be.
So we can tell the other kids.”
A grimace. A shrug. Still the little girl in the developing woman's body.
"I really don't know," Carella said. "Maybe you can call the archdiocese.”
“Mm, yeah, good idea," she said. Electric blue eyes sparkling with intelligence, midnight hair cascading to her shoulders, head bobbing in agreement with a plan already forming. "You wouldn't happen to have the number, would you?”
"I'm sorry.”
"Do you know what they'll be doing about mass tomorrow?" Alexis asked.
The same soft, shy voice.
"I really don't know.”
“I hate to miss mass," she said.
"I guess we can go over to St. Jude's," Gloria said.
"I guess," Alexis said.
A heavy silence shouldered its way into the room, as if the priest's death had suddenly made itself irretrievably felt. Father Michael would not be here this Sunday to say mass. They guessed they could go to St.
Jude's, but Father Michael would not be there, And then - he would never know which of the girls started it both were suddenly in tears.
hugging each other. And holding each other in clumsy embrace. And comforting each other small keening female sounds.
He felt utterly excluded.
The twins were watching television in the room at the other end of the house. Teddy Carella alone in the living room, waiting for her husband.