"I'll see you at three-thirty tomorrow," she said, and hung up.
And realized all at once that she was trembling.
XIII
He went back to the church again at noon that the first day of June. He had called ahead to ask if i could look through the dead priest's files again, Father Oriella had told him it would be no bother all, he himself had a meeting at the downtown, and would be out of the office most the day. "If you need any assistance," he'd "just ask Marcella Bella.”
Marcella Palumbo, as it happened, was out lunch when Carella got there.
It was Mrs. Henness who let him into the rectory and then took him to the small office. Where there had been scattered all over the floor on the night of the and cartons stacked everywhere when the new was moving in, there was now order and a sure sense of control.
"What is it you're looking for?" Mrs. Henness' asked.
"I'm not sure," Carella said.
"Then how will you know where to look?”
Good question.
He was here, he guessed, to do paperwork again.
To some people, Hell was eternal flames, and to others it was getting caught in midtown traffic, but to Carella it was paperwork. He was being punished now for having walked out of church without having said his penance all those years ago. A vengeful God was heaping more paperwork on him.
He asked Mrs. Hennessy if she knew where Father Oriella had put the calendar, checkbooks, and canceled checks that had been returned to him by the police. She said she thought Mrs. Palumbo had filed them in the M-Z file drawer, though she had no idea why the woman had put them there since checks and calendars both started with a C, so why hadn't she put them in the A-C drawer? Carella had no idea, either. But sure enough, there they were, at the front of the M-Z drawer. He thanked Mrs. Hennessy, declined her offer of a cup of coffee, sat down at the desk and began going through the material yet another time.
As earlier, the priest's appointment calendar told him nothing of importance. On the day of his murder, he had celebrated masses at eight A.M. and twelve noon, and then had done the Miraculous Medal Novena following the noon mass. He had met with the Altar Society Auxiliary at two, and the Rosary Society at four. He was scheduled to meet with the Parish Council at eight that night, presumably after dinner, an appointment he kept. That was it for the twenty-fourth day of Carella skimmed back through the pages for preceding week. Again, there was nothing seemed significant.
He put the appointment calendar aside, took St. Catherine's Roman Catholic Church checkbook from the drawer, and began through the stubs for checks the priest had during the month of May. Here again were checks for photocopying and garage, mortgage maintenance, medical insurance, flower.. missalettes, and so on. Carella turned to the che stubs for May 24.
The first stub on the page was numbered 5699. a hand that was not Father Michael's, and Carella assumed to be Kristin Lund's, the recorded that a check had been written to Macauley Tree Care, Inc. for spraying done on in the amount of $37.50. As he'd done last Friday the squadroom, Carella now went down the one after the other, all of them dated May 24, numbered sequentially:
5700
To: US Sprint
For: Service thru 5/17
$176.80
5701
To: Isola Bank and Trust
For: June mortgage
$1480.75
5702
To: Alfred Hart Insurance Co.
For: Honda Accord LX, Policy # HR 9872724
$580.00
5703
To: Orkin Exterminating Co. Inc.
For: May services
$36.50
5704
To: The Wanderers
For: Band deposit
$100.00
That was the last check Father Michael had written on the day of his murder.
Carella closed the checkbook.
Nothing.
Paperwork, he thought. That's why he was here.
Punishment. The ransacked G-L file. The eighth circle of Hell would be going through that another time, and trying to discern what was mi. from it. Because no one zeros in on a single file, that file drawer out, searches through that file .] haste, tosses papers recklessly into the room a onto the floor, unless that someone is looking f something. And if the something had in fact be found and taken from the priest's office, then t something may have been the reason for the murder. So perhaps if he studied the papers in as they'd been filed, he might discover a break in continuity, a lapse, a gap, a hole in the records.
then, by studying the surrounding papers, and using his admittedly weak powers of reasoning, he hoped he might be able to figure what the purloined something had been. In short, planned to study the doughnut in order to define hole.
It occurred to him that Father Oriella might replaced the dead priest's G-L file with a G-L file his own. But no, the fastidious Marcella had refil the dead priest's papers exactly where they'd on the night of the murder, there to be consul whenever or if ever his successor had need to look something concerning the church. Carella opened. the drawer the bottom one on the left took ou! the first hanging folder in line, made-himself comfortable at the desk again, and began going," through the folders one by one.
He thought, at one point, that he'd found meaningful absence in a file labeled GUTTERS.
Last autumn, Father Michael had been in correspondence with a man named Henry Norton, Jr., at a firm called Norton Brothers Seamless Gutter Company, regarding the repair and possible replacement of the church's leaders and gutters. He had written a letter on September 28, making an appointment with Mr. Norton to visit the site and give an estimate, and then he'd written another letter on October 11, stating that he would like to see a written estimate in addition to the verbal estimate Mr. Norton had given him after his visit, and then a further letter on October 16, stating that he was now in receipt of the written estimate and that this would serve as agreement to the terms. It closed saying he would be looking forward to word as to when the actual work would commence, The missing document was the written estimate Father Michael said he'd received. It turned out, however, that the estimate had been misfiled. Carella ran across it later, in a folder labeled HOLY NAME SOCIETY.
There it was. On a Norton Brothers Seamless Gutter Company letterhead.
An estimate of $1,036 to repair the leaders and gutters at St.
Catherine's Church.
Filed between the minutes of the Holy Name Society meetings for January and February of this year.
The last folder in the file was a hefty one labeled LENT.
Carella read every last document in that folder.
There was nothing else in the G-L drawer.
Sighing heavily, he replaced the folder in bottom file drawer, and pushed the drawer back the cabinet. It did not close all the way. He open again. Eased it shut. It still would not completely. An inch or more of the drawer jutted from the cabinet frame. He opened the drawer a and checked the slide mechanism. The drawer seated firmly on its rollers, nothing seemed to snagging. So what the hell...?
He tried closing it again. It slid back into cabinet and then abruptly stopped. Something at back of the drawer, or perhaps behind the was preventing it from sliding all the way into cabinet. He opened the drawer again, got down his hands and knees, leaned in over the drawer, reached in behind it. Something was stuck there. He couldn't see what it was, but... He yanked back his hand in sudden searing A thin line of blood ran across his fingertips.