“I just wanted to paint some boobies. We create our own truths.”
“I left it on a pew in the church.”
Lynch opened his eyes, broke into a pace, and started talking to himself. Ernie had seen it before, but Devlin was clearly creeped-out.
“The band…the day we questioned the band at Maplewood. There was something else.”
He turned to face his partner.
“Ernie, I’m an idiot, a complete, worthless idiot. I’m the one with a certification in ladder logic programming and a degree in computer science from Drexel fucking University! You’re the one with the street smarts. You know people. I’ve got the overactive powers of deduction. That’s my role. If I don’t play that role, what good am I? When I’m at a church clothing drive and I see signs labeled SM, ME, and XL, I think they indicate sizes. It makes perfect sense that they’re sizes; it’s a clothing drive. But when I see other signs in the same room labeled SA, F, and FB, I dismiss them as something I don’t understand. Do I ever think to ask for clarification? No, because it makes perfect sense that the other signs indicate sizes, but they don’t!”
Devlin launched another ball…
”Thwack – pop!”
…but Detective Lynch caught it before Devlin could hit it again.
“Pastor Devlin, do you take clothing drive donations from other churches?”
The minister was frozen in mid-swing.
“Yes, several. Why?”
“And the letter codes put up around Community Hall, they aren’t sizes. They represent the churches that make the donations. Right?”
“Again, yes. Who said they were sizes?”
“So, XL is hung above the pile from Xavier Lutheran; SM is Saint Matthews; ME is your own pile: Maplewood Evangelical.”
“SM is South Methodist, but yes. Could I have my ball back?”
“FB is First Baptist. F I don’t know.”
“Fellowship…the Church of Rock. It’s all the way over in Ellisport, but they live for stuff like…”
“And SA is Saint Aloysius.”
Devlin broke eye contact to see why Detective Gomez suddenly slapped the wall. A toothy smile gave the impression that something good just happened.
“St. Al’s donates sometimes; not often.”
Lynch didn’t care about “sometimes.” Once was enough: one donation, one black trench coat with a Theban S on the back. Finally…FINALLY…there was a route that an article of clothing could have taken from St. Al’s to Maplewood.
“Get Father O’Rourke, would you please, Ernie?”
The chaos surrounding Fellini’s assassination had prevented Lynch from discussing Samuel’s jacket with Father O’Rourke…until now. This time, the detective wasted no time getting to question number one.
“If someone leaves a personal effect in a pew after a Mass or confession, what happens to it?”
“We have a lost-and-found box in the secretary’s office. I don’t know what happens to the items that go unclaimed. That’s a question for Pastor Karney.”
“That’s okay. I think I know.”
Gomez spoke to Devlin.
“I don’t completely understand why you need to know who the donations come from.”
Devlin, now engrossed, answered enthusiastically.
“It’s something we started doing a couple years ago. It inspires competition between some of the larger churches. There are also some things we can’t use, so it’s good to know where they came from so we can send them back.”
“Give me an example.”
“Sometimes we get an item that looks too nice to wind up in a donation box, so we check to make sure it wasn’t put there by accident. We also get personalized items like sports jerseys and bowling shirts.”
“What happens to that stuff?”
“We put it aside. After that, it gets sent back, or someone from Maplewood finds a use for it.”
“Who gets first crack?”
“Anyone helping with the drive. That’s not much of a lead for you. A couple o’ dozen people volunteer.”
Lynch handed his tablet to Devlin, along with a pen. It was time to put the jacket and the gun in the same hands.
“We need a list of all the volunteers who were also at the Battle of the Bands.”
Devlin took both with no eagerness.
“Okay, but this will take a while. It’s just about all of them.”
“Leave out the blue-hairs.”
The good pastor’s expression said “fine…you asked for it.” He scribbled down a couple names and paused.
“Detective Lynch, can you get YouTube on your phone?”
Lynch brought up the app, knowing exactly where Devlin was going.
“Yes, I can.”
“While I’m doing this, you might want to search for performances from the Battle of the Bands. I’m sure someone posted something.”
For probably the sixth time that day, Lynch felt useless for not thinking of such a thing himself. The posts were easy to find. Most of them were shots of the stage.
No good.
One channel, however, was full of onstage, offstage, and audience footage shot using a mobile device. It was all too dark to be helpful, but it showed that the user took a greater interest in the event than most. The guy probably had many more clips than he’d posted. Lynch checked the YouTuber’s name, and, with joy, showed it to his partner.
CHAZ-ROX76
“You took a business card from him, right?”
“That I did, Jaime.”
6. Le Chataeu du Chaz
Looking around Charles ‘Chaz’ Martin’s apartment, one might assume he was rich. He was not. Somewhere around the tenth of every month, he would tally the earnings from his day job, along with his gig money. He’d subtract his expenses which amounted to rent, bills, food, and gas. Whatever he had left, he’d spend to the last penny.
“Irresponsible moron” was the general flavor of the name-calling, but such things merely bounced off of Chaz. In his mind, he wasn’t broke, he was (quoted verbatim) “happily even.” He had neither a mortgage nor a credit card. He paid cash for everything from his collection of concert t-shirts to his Subaru Outback. The man was, unlike everyone who gave him shit, free of debt. True, he was also free of savings, but savings did not concern him. When he got too old to enjoy his stuff, he’d sell it, hand the profits over to the nearest senior living center, and let the government take care of the rest.
The lifestyle was careless and bound for disaster, but also made a twisted bit
