Even Frank had her routine. She checked the graves in the morning, then returned to the Nova, content to take in the neighborhood and drink coffee. When she tired of that, she spent the obligatory time on her journal, visited the bathroom and walked around the cemetery. She dawdled, reading names until lunch. If it was nice she ate in the cemetery, and if not, she'd eat in the car and listen to news. After lunch, she'd pour her last cup of coffee and read. She usually nodded off a few times, jerking herself awake. Then it was time for another walk around the cemetery, bemused by both her dreams and the quality of light as the winter sun descended.
It went that way Thursday and Friday, with Frank's second Saturday at the cemetery fast becoming as fruitless as her first. Warm in the heavy wool coat she'd borrowed from Annie, Frank admired a sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding her crucified son in her lap. The Mary looked so pained and the Jesus so dead. Frank was amazed that stone could be so vivid. She studied the epitaphs of the family beneath the monument, deciding she didn't want to be buried. Who would visit and why waste the space?
Wondering if she could arrange for her ashes to be put in a dumpster, she eyed a man hurrying by on her right. He was about six feet tall, weighed around one-seventy, maybe black or Latino. She couldn't tell from the way he was hunched into his jacket. He wore John Lennon glasses and seemed to know where he was going. In one gloved hand he clutched a grocery sack. Yellow chrysanthemums poked from the edge.
Frank followed discretely.
Her heart jumped when he stopped at her father's grave. The man searched the ground. He looked behind the headstones and at the surrounding markers, then knelt and crossed himself. He appeared to pray for a moment. Done with that, he took the flowers from the sack and propped them against the carved letters
Frank edged closer. She drank him down like whiskey. Kinky short hair flecked with gray above a furrowed, walnut-colored face. The skin under his chin bunched under his bent head and she put him in his mid-fifties. He wore black trousers over black lace-ups. The pants and shoes were worn but clean. The down jacket was navy- colored, no brand.
He stood but didn't leave, his gaze rarely straying from her father's headstone. Frank watched, making herself crazy with the possibilities. Could he be the perp? Maybe. Frank tried to see him almost forty years younger. Couldn't. Maybe her father's illegitimate child? Maybe a half brother from somewhere? Maybe he'd been bisexual and this was his old lover. Hell, after Annie's bombshell Frank was ready to accept anything.
The man looked toward her. Frank checked the monument at her feet, crossing herself like she'd seen Annie do. From the edge of her vision she watched him do the same thing then hurry toward the gate. Frank went after him, keeping half a block between them. He stopped at a bus stop and Frank ducked into a grocery. She watched from there, getting a couple dollars worth of change. Five minutes later a bus pulled up and Frank got on behind him.
The bus zigzagged north through Brooklyn. When the man got off Frank did too. She maintained her half-block trail. He seemed oblivious to her. Various people greeted him as he walked. A few times he stopped for a brief talk. Frank strained to hear but couldn't. She twisted and turned with him until he abruptly crossed the street and entered one of half a dozen entrances into a large brick building. Frank crossed too. Reading a sign on the door listing Rectory Hours, she paused.
A young Hispanic woman came out and lit a cigarette. She quickly puffed half of it and as she stubbed it out against the building Frank approached her.
'Excuse me. Who was that man that just walked in to the rectory? Tall guy, glasses, dark coat.'
'You mean Father Cammayo?'
Frank hid her surprise. 'Is that who that was? I lived here a long time ago. I thought I recognized him but I didn't want to go up and say hello to a total stranger.'
Flashing a nervous smile the woman nodded, then returned inside.
Frank walked around the corner and dialed Annie, but she didn't answer. Frank told her voice mail, 'It's Frank. I got him. Call me.' She pressed end and read the name scrolled above a large set of wooden doors.
She climbed the steps to the doors. She pulled a large iron handle and the door gave easily. But she dropped her hand, letting the door close in a whisper of incense. Above her, three stained glass windows stretched to the sky. One panel looked like Mary ascending to Heaven in the company of angels. The second was a mournful, El Greco-style Christ and a third appeared to be Adam and Eve. While grappling with the significance of the triptych her phone went off. It spooked her and she checked the number, relieved.
'Hey,' she told Annie. 'I got him.'
'So I heard. Where are you?'
'Brooklyn. Williamsburg, I think. I'm at a church.' Frank tilted her head back. 'Our Lady Queen of Angels. On Eighth Street.'
'Is that where he's at?'
'Yeah. He's a fuckin' priest.'
'Hey, hey. Watch your mouth. A priest? How do you know? Did you talk to him?'
'No. He went into the rectory and a minute later a woman came out. I asked who the man was that just went in and she says, 'You mean Father Cammayo?' A priest. Go figure. When can you talk to him?'
'I just got outta the pool. I was on my way to Mom's but I guess I'll come over there instead. What's the address?'
'Uh . . .' Frank looked around. 'Corner of Eighth and Havemeyer. The rectory's around the back. I'm gonna keep an eye on it, see if he comes out again. How long you think it'll take you to get here?'
'I dunno.' Annie sighed. 'Gimme a half-hour.'
'All right. There's a pizza joint across the street. I'll be waiting in there.'
Frank ordered a slice and picked at it, too excited to eat. She scoured her memory for a priest. Her father was raised Catholic but except for an occasional Christmas Mass she'd never seen him inside a church, and certainly never with a priest. Although her mother dabbled in practically every known dogma, cult and creed, the woman was adamantly opposed to Christianity in all guises, a backlash from her rigid Lutheran upbringing.
Frank would have liked to talk to her mother. She wished she could be here now to share the excitement. Frank reflexively thought to order a beer. Realizing she couldn't, she concentrated instead beyond the window, one eye on the rectory door, the other searching for Annie.
CHAPTER 35
After an agony of time, Annie finally appeared. They made a quick plan inside the restaurant, and Annie ordered, 'You just be quiet, okay? Let me do all the talkin'.'
Frank nodded, impatient to get started.
Glancing at the cold pizza, Annie asked, 'You gonna finish that?'
Frank pushed the plate toward her.
'This father, he look old enough to have known your pops?'
'Maybe. I put him in his mid-fifties.'
'Any way your pops coulda known him?'
'I been racking my brain, but I'm comin' up blank. He didn't go to church except for a Mass now and then, but my mother made such a stink I doubt it was worth it. She hated the Catholic Church. Said it was the second largest corporation in the world and it got that way by burning women at the stake and keeping the rest barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Sorry, but she was no fan of Catholicism. My father wasn't much of a fan either, from what I remember. I think he just went outta guilt. He always looked sad in church. I asked him once, why he was sad. We were at a Christmas Mass and he just said 'Hush.' He was quiet all the way home. I never asked again.'
'Your pops, what sorta temper did he have?'
'Temper? Hardly any. He was an easy-going guy. Had to be to live with my mother. She was the one with the temper.'
'Didn't get into fights?'
'No. Twice I saw him swing at someone and both times it was because the other guy pushed him.'
'What do you mean pushed him?'
'I mean got in his face.'
