The Darker Side

Texas, for example.'

'Ah. I understand.'

'Father Strain was cautioned, nothing more. He was told to stop giving Holy Communion to Dexter Reid and to be more circumspect about his dealings with Dexter. He refused.'

'What happened to him?'

'Nothing.'

There's a quality to that 'nothing' that makes me think there are two words missing from it: for now.

'What will happen to him?'

'That's in God's hands.'

I chuckle and shake my head. It's comforting, in a way, to see that a bureaucracy is a bureaucracy the world around. Something tells me that Father Strain can expect no further advancement. Maybe he doesn't care.

'Cardinal, I'm looking for a connection. How would Lisa Reid have attracted the Preacher's attention? Was it newsworthy?'

'It didn't appear in any major news outlet that I'm aware of. There were some mentions of it on Catholic blogs and in some newsletters. There is debate even within the church, at times, on homosexuality and how best to bring homosexuals into God's grace. A heated topic, as I'm sure you can imagine.'

'That could be it,' I murmur. 'Maybe he was monitoring religious blogs.'

'Agent Barrett, do you think Father Strain is in any danger? This man, would he go after the Father for allowing Dexter into the congregation?'

I notice that we continue the debate he mentioned in the here and now; I say Lisa, he says Dexter. Tomato tomahto, except that we're talking about a person. It seems like such a casual dismissal on his part of everything Lisa was trying to do and be and feel about herself.

'I don't think so. Lisa was a tool for him, a way to draw our attention to what he was doing. He wanted to come out of anonymity with a splash. Lisa fit the bill in spades; her family's political connections, her controversy. Virginia was way out of his normal stomping grounds. I think he did what he intended to do, and then left. I do need to speak with Father Strain, though.'

'I understand.'

Alan pokes his head into my office. 'Got something,' he says. He seems excited.

'Cardinal, I have to go. I appreciate your help.'

'I'm available when you need me, Agent Barrett.'

I bet you are, I think as I hang up. Don't need more scandals now, do you?

The discourse on homosexuality and his refusal to use the name of Lisa has stirred up some of my old angers with the Catholic Church. There was a time I loved the purity of prayer. Just me and God. It was simple, and there was a kind of peaceful truth to that. I never understood or enjoyed what I perceived as the intolerance, the unwillingness to think beyond, to look beyond. Not much seems to have changed.

'What is it?' I ask.

'Andrea told Father Yates her name was Andrea True.'

'True? Are you kidding?'

'I know, big funny on their part, ha ha ha. You were right. It was a false name. No Andrea True ever worked for any police department in Ohio. No Andrea True in AFIS, CODIS, etc., etc.'

'Perhaps she's just a transient who gave a fake name,' Callie observes.

'That'd be some coincidence,' Alan says. The tone of his voice is more than doubtful.

I shake my head. 'No way. She's a part of it.'

Here we go, I think. Here comes the downhill side. Everything picks up speed now.

'Callie, you're coming with me to the Redeemer. Bring your forensics kit. Alan, get on the phone with Father Strain in Virginia. Grill him again on anyone he might have seen associating with or interested in Lisa Reid. Go in the other direction this time--look for the last person he would have suspected of anything.'

'Got it.'

FATHER YATES STILL LOOKS TROUBLED. I feel bad that I'm about to make things worse for him.

'Andrea True is a false name, Father,' I tell him.

'That's not so unusual here.'

'There's no Andrea True that ever worked for any police department in Ohio.'

He runs his hands through his hair. His eyes find Jesus again. How many times a day does he look to that paint-chipped savior for comfort?

'You think she was working with the Preacher, don't you?'

'I do.'

I explain to him how I came to this conclusion. He begins to sag, and it only gets worse as I lay out the probable MO: infiltrating the congregation, bugging the confessional, picking a victim and getting close to her, passing the victim off to her partner, sticking around for a while after the victim disappeared to throw off suspicion. He doesn't want it to be the truth, but Father Yates has worked too close to the hard parts of this society for too long to ignore evidence of evil when it's presented to him.

'Everything you say makes sense, God help me. Andrea moved the day after you spoke to her. She said that it was time for her to go home and restart her life again.' His voice is bitter. 'I trusted her. I took her in, I gave her Communion and confession. I held her when she told me about her dead son and she wept for him.'

Callie has been silent throughout until now.

'Sometimes they're wonderful actors,' she says. 'It's not that you were blind or stupid, it's that they can give Oscar-worthy performances when they need to.'

He gives her a halfhearted smile of agreement but he doesn't seem to take much true comfort from her words.

'How can I help?'

'I think Andrea left something behind for us on purpose. This is coming to an endgame for them. They want us to catch them, but they want us to have to work for it. He said everything we needed to find them was there.'

'Is there anything in here that Andrea was in regular contact with?' Callie asks. 'Anything she touched a lot, anything she paid an undue amount of attention to?'

His eyes widen.

'What is it, Father?' I ask.

'The chalice. She asked to be given the job of cleaning it. She said that she loved touching the chalice, that it made her feel closer to God.'

'That was probably true,' I say.

'Can we see it?' Callie asks.

'Of course. Wait here, please.'

He leaves and comes back in a moment carrying a blue drawstring bag. He motions for us to come forward to the altar.

'Put it down, please, Father,' Callie asks.

He does.

We both watch as Callie puts on a pair of gloves. She doesn't reach into the bag to remove the chalice, but instead opens the top of the bag and then pulls it down toward the base. The chalice is gold and it gleams even in the poor night light of the church. Callie takes out a fluorescent flashlight and proceeds to examine the outer surface.

'Nothing on the exterior at all,' she says. 'Not even any smudges.'

Disappointment rises, but then an idea occurs to me.

'Check on the bottom, underneath the base. I bet that spot gets missed during cleaning by most. If she wanted to leave us a clue, she'd want to make sure that it couldn't get wiped away by accident.'

Callie upends the chalice and applies the light. She looks at me and smiles.

'Bingo. Nice big thumbprint, clear as day.'

That electric feeling, all over again. It's not the endgame, but we're on our way there.