“Stir shit? Detectives, will you please take a notice of our surroundings. Look at those nice folks peacefully exercising their right to assemble over there. Now look at us. Now look at your peer group over there in light riot gear. If someone throws an apple at a cop, who do you think is going to get tased first? I mean, let’s face it. Running isn’t exactly a strategic option for Bubbs here.”
Lynch was borderline-impressed. Gomez was not.
“So, what are you doing here?”
“To tell you the truth, we came out here to see if we could peep Samuel for you.”
“Really, did you now?”
Arthur was keeping the lie as close to the truth as possible. The little turd, Gordy, had rubbed off a bit.
“We figured the only way you’re going to leave us alone is if you find the sorry-ass prick so…”
“Very well spoken. By the way, I talked to just about everyone in your ‘not-gang’ last night, and I never got a straight answer when I asked who your leader is. Has a good-night’s sleep jogged your memory at all?”
“We ain’t got a leader. Ain’t no gang.”
“Is that so, Bubbs? Who told you that?”
There was no response, but the reactive glances in Arthur’s direction gave Lynch his answer. He spoke.
“Yeah…well, I got news for you, Bubbs. The guy that tells you there’s no leader…he’s the leader.”
Bubbs processed Lynch’s words for a pregnant moment before voicing his retort.
“Ain’t no gang.”
The City Hall Steps had long since cleared. Having made their point, the protesters started to disperse. Bubbs put the apple back in his pocket. He had been dangling it since he took it out. The tambourine stopped.
Lynch and Gomez were antsy to get started on the case. Arthur was antsy to get started on his Sunday buzz.
“Looks like things are breaking up, detective. May we go?”
“You’re not gonna stay and help clean up?”
“Nah, I think we’ll be taking off. There shouldn’t be much to do anyway. The people in this town are pretty tidy as a rule…especially this crowd.”
The four UJ’s turned, revealing their Theban monograms. Lynch called after them as they walked away.
“You still have my card. Right?”
Arthur nodded his head and gave another sardonic thumbs-up without turning around. Gomez wanted to punch something.
“Little Aryan puta!”
“What’re ya gonna do? Well…that was both time-consuming and bilaterally fruitless.”
“You ain’t kidding, partner whatever the fuck you said. I think the uniforms have this. Wanna get to work?”
Lynch checked the time. Julie had a review at 1:00. He was half hoping he could get home for a quickie before lunch, but his carnal window had closed.
“Let’s eat first.”
“Is Julie pissed that you have to work?”
“Not yet.”
The small talk continued as they walked through the building to the municipal parking lot. Lynch took a quick look at his cell phone as he got into his car. There were three notifications: two texts and a voice-mail. The voice-mail was from a number he didn’t recognize, so he gave it a listen.
Hi. Detective Lynch? This is Kelly Sanford. Um, you talked to me…well…interrogated…I mean interviewed me last night about Jeremy getting beat up.
A pause.
I need to talk, but we have to do it somewhere private. We can’t do it at the barn or the police station.
The barn was still considered a crime scene and closed off anyway.
I’ll be at the food court at the Galleria at four o’clock today. I’d really like to talk.
Another pause.
Okay, thanks. Bye.
He stared at his phone for a few moments, then took a look at the text messages. The first was from Detective Reilly:
THE JEREMY KID WOKE UP. HEADED TO THE HOSPITAL.
The second was from Julie:
FOUND IT.
6. St. Matthew’s Catholic Church
Neither of them said it out loud, but both men were thinking the same thing.
Here we go again.
The event at City Hall probably could have gone worse, but in terms of what they were looking to accomplish, it was difficult to see how.
On the plus side, the protest distracted the press long enough for Father Pascucci and Archbishop Fellini to escape unaccosted. They needed to regroup, and St. Al’s was not the place for it. Luckily, St. Matthew’s, also a part of the Philly Diocese, was only a short drive away. They’d been given a small police escort, but both men agreed that the added protection wasn’t worth the added attention. They sent all the officers away, save one. Once comfortably in the offices of St. Matt’s, the Archbishop started calling every news contact he had in an attempt to head off the inevitable.
What a disaster.
Leo took a seat by a large window and stared out. He whispered to himself.
“Please God, I need a hand here.”
It was the third time in twenty-four hours that his mind wandered to the Eric Bell trial. So far, he’d been too busy to let the memory take him. Now, with nothing to do but watch the traffic on Bridge Street, he needed to push it out of his head.
“Anything, Lord. Please.”
Since childhood, Leo’s life had been steered by pivotal moments in time that he called “water in the face.” He was at a three-week sailing camp in New Hampshire the first time he put a name to it. Why his parents wanted him to learn how to sail was (and remained) a mystery to him, but there he was.
At the age of thirteen, his lack of enthusiasm for boats was only surpassed by his ignorance of women. Nonetheless, he’d spent the better part of the first week pining over a cute, early-developing cherry blonde from Norwalk Connecticut named Leslie. His two-part plan to become Leslie’s summer boyfriend was the same that had failed over and over since the invention of puberty.
By his efforts, part one (enter the friend zone) worked. Part two (exit the friend zone) did not.
Her reaction was straight out of the teenage rejection handbook.
“You’re a great guy, but I don’t think of you that way. I just don’t want to have a boyfriend right now.”
The next
