“You got a better look this time?”
“Yeah. But it was also darker, so I couldn’t really see much.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“I think he was tall.”
“Taller than me?”
“I’d say so, yes.”
“Fat, skinny?”
“Kind of medium.”
“What was he doing?”
“Just standing there, watching me.”
“How do you know it was the same person you saw by the old foundry?”
“I just know it was.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“I started running then, kind of like I was jogging home. I just wanted to get out of there.”
“Sure. That was smart, honey.”
“Then I saw him again. He was waiting in the alley just before I got to Gooseberry Lane. There’s a streetlamp there, but he stayed in the shadow of the Kaufmanns’ big lilac hedge.”
“Did you get a better look this time?”
She shook her head. “I only saw him because he coughed.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“No. I ran. I mean I really ran this time.”
“Is there anything you remember about him? Any detail? His clothing?”
“No.”
“Did he wear glasses?”
“I don’t know.”
“Face hair?”
“I couldn’t see.”
She seemed distressed that she had no answers, and Cork decided to let it go for now.
“That’s okay, Annie. You did just fine.”
“This is Aurora,” Jenny said. “We shouldn’t have to worry about pervs here.”
Cork said, “Until we know better what’s going on, you both ride home with me at night, okay?”
“What if Sean gives me a ride?” Jenny said, speaking of her boyfriend.
“Fine. But he sees you to the door.”
“Which he ought to be doing anyway,” Jo said.
Annie held herself as if she were cold. “I think I’m going to take a shower.”
“A good long hot one,” her sister advised. “Wash that creep away. Come on. I’ll go up with you.”
Cork stood up and hugged her. “It’ll be all right, I promise.”
She seemed to believe him. “Thanks, Dad.”
When the girls were gone, Cork sat with Jo at the table. He picked up Annie’s uneaten cookie and began breaking it into pieces.
“What do you think?” Jo said.
“Annie’s as sensible as they come. If she says she was followed, she was followed.”
“Why would someone do that?”
The cookie lay in crumbs on the table in front of Cork. “Jo, there’s something I haven’t told you. I didn’t think much about it until now. The other day when Kane was out at Sam’s Place, he asked me how I’d feel if it were my daughter who was dead.”
“And you don’t think it was just a rhetorical question?” Jo was quiet a moment. “You think it might have been Fletcher?”
“Annie said the guy was tall. Fletcher’s tall. He’s always been odd, but he’s way beyond odd now. I’m not saying absolutely it was Kane, but I’d be a fool-no, worse; I’d be negligent-if I didn’t check him out. Jo, if he did have something to do with Charlotte’s murder, who knows what he might be thinking now.”
Jo’s eyes drifted to the door through which her precious daughter had just passed. She nodded once. “Start checking.”
32
Next morning, Cork stopped by the YMCA early. He found Mal Thorne in the weight room, wearing finger gloves and working a heavy bag. The priest worked out this way several mornings a week, keeping himself in shape. He might not have been the athlete he was when he’d boxed at Notre Dame, but for a man in middle age, he was all right. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt, and his biceps were hard and round as river stones.
Mal stopped when he saw Cork watching him. He smiled and, with the back of the leather glove on his big right hand, wiped sweat from his brow.
“What’s up, Cork?”
“Got a minute?”
“Sure.”
The room smelled of warm weights and hot bodies and bench cushions that went too long between cleanings. Except for Mal and Cork, the place was empty.
“I’ve been thinking, Mal. About the graffiti Solemn spray-painted on the wall of St. Agnes. That Latin word.”
“Mendax.”
“Right. Liar. I’m pretty sure it was Charlotte Kane who put him up to it.”
The priest showed no surprise.
“Why do you suppose she did that?”
Mal laid a hand on the heavy bag, as if to keep it from swinging, which it wasn’t. “Search me.”
“Not even a guess?”
“Some people feel as if God has let them down, as if the promises of the Church are empty. I encounter that a lot.”
“Did you encounter it with Charlotte?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re hedging.”
“I was her priest, Cork.”
“And her confessor.”
“It’s the nature of the job.”
“Mal, Charlotte Kane exhibited behaviors that, in my understanding, are classic for a young woman who’d been sexually abused, probably on a long-term basis.”
The priest tugged off one of his gloves, and started on the other.
“It occurs to me that you’re also Fletcher Kane’s confessor.”
“I’m not going there with you, Cork. You know that anything told to me in confession is a sacred confidence.”
“I’m concerned. If he was sexually molesting his daughter, he may be trapped in a behavior pattern that threatens other young women.”
“I can’t help you, Cork.” A drop of sweat hung on the priest’s brow. It gathered weight, plummeted, splattered soundlessly on the wooden floor.
“Someone followed Annie home last night. Stayed to the shadows where she couldn’t see him clearly.”
“You think it was Kane?”
