16. Near Pickering Creek
Bubbs owed his rescue to his cheap-ass phone. The slam of Carrie Warner’s car door woke him up. He could only open one eye. He spit out a mouthful of blood and grunted one word.
“Pussies.”
This was nothing…an average Friday when he was in high school. In his delirious state, it was difficult to tell where the pain was coming from. Having been on the giving side of several such ass-kickings, Bubbs figured they’d gone at his midsection the hardest. No problem. That part of his body was like a cast-iron pot, but standing up wouldn’t be possible for a while. He wiggled his toes and squeezed his fingers to make sure he still had use of his limbs. That was when he discovered they’d put his cell phone in his right hand. He managed to move his head enough to look at the screen. A better phone would have been in sleep mode. His piece-of-shit pre-pay displayed his contact list with all the entries, of course, being members of the UJ. He aimed for Arthur with his thumb, but his eyes blurred. By the sound of the ring, he could tell that his new special friends had left the phone on “speaker.” Whoever jumped him wanted him to be together enough to make the call.
Someone answered.
“Whatchaneed, Bubbs? I’m at the garage.”
It was Rick.
Fuck!
He then noticed that the left hip pocket of his jeans was turned out. That was where he kept the keys to his Harley.
Now he was angry.
17. Devlin’s Pad
Pastor Richard Devlin’s persona did not match his appearance. To look at him, you’d think everything about him was contrived, from his untucked, black, band-collared shirt with the rolled-up sleeves to his Caesar haircut to his John Lennon glasses to his soul patch. His speech, however, was smooth and honest; his posture, modest.
He welcomed the two detectives to his little pow-wow room that he called an office and told the heart-breaking story of Eddie Williams.
“Do you have his mug shot with you?”
It was with the incident report. Gomez pulled it out and placed it respectfully in front of their host. The good pastor looked upon it with affected familiarity.
“That’s not Eddie; that’s the drugs…”
He reached for one of the pictures on his desk and spun it around for the detectives to see.
“This is Eddie.”
Like just about everyone else he’d met since he walked into Maplewood Evangelical, Lynch recognized Eddie (and consequently, Devlin) from the protest. The yearbook photo under the good pastor’s index finger was the same that was on his banner two days earlier. The banner that read “REMEMBER”
Devlin continued the story, scowling with distain every time he said the word “Catholic.”
“Both his parents were killed in a meth lab explosion when he was five. Foster care did him no favors. Everyone was well meaning, but that counts for very little when a kid ends up with a (finger quotes) good Catholic family who believes the only way to set him straight is to make him Catholic too. Baptism, CCD, confirmation, he got the full treatment, including the required serial fondling by a crusty old priest.
“And Eddie was so brainwashed by his Catholic foster family that he didn’t say anything until he was sixteen friggin’ years old. You know what happened as a result? As usual, nothing. The family retreated into denial, and his church tried to convince Eddie he imagined the whole thing. Eventually, the boy snapped and ran. He found his only comfort in the streets and wound up a meth head like his parents. Do you know how I know all this, Sergeant Gomez?”
“Mick told us you got to know the boy after his arrest.”
“Yes, and then it was my turn to fail him. I visited him in jail, stood up for him at his hearing, posted his bail, agreed to take him into my care until the trial…the whole boat. It all sounds very noble, but in jail he would have been protected from himself. In jail, he wouldn’t have been able to steal a hundred and fifty dollars, sneak off to his dealer, and put enough chemicals in his body to kill a buffalo.”
Devlin slid the mug shot back to Gomez.
“Like I said, that’s not Eddie. Please don’t remember him that way.”
Ernie took advantage of the emotional lull to broach the subject of the murder weapon.
“Did Eddie tell you what happened to the gun?”
“He wouldn’t talk about it. His lawyer told him to keep any information about the gun to himself…some garbage about ‘no gun; no crime. Anyway, you can see why I have a vested interest in anything involving the Philly Diocese. I’ll take full responsibility for Sunday’s protest. If it caused the Potterford P.D. any grief, all I can do is apologize and say I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Lynch held the yearbook picture next to Eddie’s mug shot. It was a horrible night and day. He spoke.
“Would it be alright if we kept this photo? We’ll make sure you get it back.”
Devlin smiled and nodded. Lynch took the photo out of its frame and tucked it into his shirt pocket. Ernie asked the good pastor to give his version of what happened behind Fellowship. His account of the shooting, though less flamboyant, matched Chaz’s to the letter.
The return walk through Community Hall and across the Maplewood parking lot was a low-spirited one.
They had no murder weapon.
They had no trench coat.
Their number one (only) suspect was weakening by the hour.
The two detectives sat for ten minutes in defeated silence in Lynch’s car before Gomez worked up the nerve to voice what they were both thinking.
“Is it time to cry, uncle?”
Lynch didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned his head back with his eyes closed and punched the passenger window with the side of his hand.
He turned to his partner.
“What if you did it?”
Gomez started the car.
18. Father Leo’s Office
They spoke in Italian.
The Archbishop sensed something wasn’t quite right before he picked up the phone, so
