They shared a cheeky grin before strolling to the edge of the slab, and the boat (christened ‘Delilah’) moored there.
“You guys doing okay?”
Nate passed through the French doors just in time to see Lynch pull a water pistol from Delilah’s stern. One would have thought Excalibur had just been freed from the Stone.
“I said…you guys okay?”
Lynch froze and responded with the pistol brandished above his head.
“We are incredibly fine, sir.”
He twirled and pocketed the plastic weapon while Gomez showed his shield and spoke.
“Mind if we ask you a few questions, sir?”
The custodian defensively swept his pointed finger between the moorings.
“Pastor Dani told me it was okay to dock here while I do the floors. I live just up and across the river. It’s easier than driving.”
“No, no, no. That’s not it at all. This isn’t even our jurisdiction. Delilah’s yours, then?”
Nate immediately relaxed and went back into Ellisport mode. The boat was, indeed, designed, built, and owned by him. Like every honorable sailor, he named it after his wife.
“Was she moored here during the last BOB?”
“That thing? Naw, I never go to it…”
He held up his iPod so the detectives could see his playlist.
“…country fan. I think the River Tram was here that night though. She’s a big ‘un. Takes twenty passengers comfortably. Wouldn’t surprise me if there were a few other launches tied up too.”
Lynch pulled out one of his cards and handed it to Nate.
“Here…if you need anybody shot, give me a call.”
The man was still laughing when Lynch and Gomez reached the top of the stairs. They knocked on every door they could find. No one else was in the building. They took a walk around the sanctuary to see if anything new popped; nothing did. Gomez spotted the sheet-covered dolly of chairs.
“Who’s this Damien cat?”
“I don’t know, but he takes his chairs seriously.”
“And how do they get this stuff downstairs? I didn’t see an elevator. Did you?”
“Push a button. I’m sure the fireplace spins around or something. All this is easy enough to confirm.”
He called the number given to him by Pastor Dani and left a message for her to call him back.
The captain of the River Tram was easy to track down and easier to eliminate as a suspect since he and had been in New Zealand for almost a month. They took a shot at calling him, but it was two o’clock in the morning where he was.
“Feel like lunch?”
“I feel like lunch.”
On Julie’s texted recommendation, they found their way to a little mom-and-pop hole-in-the-wall called Apron Strings. The walk sobered them. Their shared high wore off as they talked.
“Tell me, Jaime, why are we just finding out about this stuff now? Nobody said nuthin’ ‘bout no River Tram. There should have at least been something in the report.”
“I’ll tell you why, Ernie. Because they’re just like us, only worse. They’re small town cops. We do fine with robberies, drug busts, domestic disturbances, lost children…but throw a murder or a shooting at us, and we are way out of our bandwidth!”
“But this wasn’t a serious crime. No one even got killed.”
“Exactly! No one got killed. If someone had gotten killed, they might have handed the thing over to the Feds, just like we should have done from the start. No, no. They figured everyone was okay, they caught the shooter red-handed, plus six witnesses saw the gun go into the river. Why spend all the time, money, and energy dredging the Schuylkill when no one got killed.”
“So, they let it go.”
“They let it the fuck go. Who cares about a weapon when you’ve got a bullet and a confessed criminal? No one does, of course, until the weapon is used again.”
The conversation continued along the same lines all the way through lunch, culminating in one basic truth: even with the Delilah revelation, they weren’t that much farther than before. They didn’t need to prove that the gun didn’t go into the river. Ballistics proved that. They now had an idea where the gun may have actually gone provided Eddie Williams threw the thing exactly the same way Gomez did.
“There is one thing though amigo, and it isn’t small change.”
“You mean We’re All Lazarus?”
Gomez nodded.
“Being on stage during the shooting doesn’t alibi them anymore. Anyone at the show could have picked up that nine mil any time before the boat unmoored.”
“I’ll do you one better. Pastor Devlin’s on the list now too.”
“Holy shit! I didn’t think of that.”
“He has lost no love for the Philly Archdiocese. We saw that.”
“That’s beautiful!”
Lynch looked at his watch.
“We’ve got a little under two hours of lost time left. I say we start with Devlin.”
“Works for me. How’s the cheesecake here?”
“Good thing we’re not in a hurry.”
“Now who’s being sarcastic, bro?”
3. Beside an Open Window
Philip looked down at the top of his girlfriend’s head. This was not intimate sex, the kind that was enhanced by closeness, best executed skin to skin with deep passion and utterances of love. This was the other kind: the kind that filled a primal need for release and nothing more: the kind he usually got in the afternoon.
He’d already done his part. His taking care of her first made it better for both of them.
By design, the kitchen blinds were up. Anyone walking by would have seen him from the waist up smoking a cigarette in profile. Fifteen minutes earlier, they would have seen her sitting on the counter reading a strategically positioned magazine. The feeling of getting away with something, sprinkled with the chance of getting caught, was a mutual turn-on.
He tapped ash into the sink.
She looked up and said the last thing a guy wants to hear when getting his world rocked.
“Everything okay?”
She was right to ask. Nothing was working. Philip was too preoccupied. He hadn’t heard anything from his ID guy since their deflating online chat. He had no back-up plan, and time was growing short. The divine guidance he
