headache. He reached into the suitcase, pulled out a fifth of Southern Comfort, and unscrewed the cap. As he brought it to his lips, he said, “Hair of the dog and all that.”
“Sure. Got a lot on your mind, I imagine.”
“Glad you understand.”
“Are Fletcher Kane and Solemn part of it?”
The priest took a long swallow. He looked at the bottle and shook his head. “Big help there, wasn’t I?”
“The night they died, where were you?”
Mal Thorne hesitated. He glanced at Cork, then away. “I was here.”
“At the rectory?”
“Yes.” He bent to his packing.
“The whole evening?”
“I may have stepped out for a minute.”
“Try an hour and a half.”
The priest shot him a killing look.
“Where were you in those ninety minutes, Mal?”
“With all due respect, that’s none of your damn business.”
“Ellie told me you got a call about nine o’clock and hurried out. Was it Fletcher Kane calling? Did he call to tell you what he’d done? What he was going to do? Did you rush over there and find out you were too late? And did you sit down at the table that had been set for a meal and consume the sins of the two men you couldn’t save?”
Mal Thorne stared as if he thought Cork had gone stark raving mad. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? The two men who tried to rob you in Chicago, they were murdered after the attack. And whoever killed them ate their sins afterward.” Cork leaned across the bed, pressing tight the space between him and the priest. “Tell me about Yvonne Doolittle, Mal.”
The priest froze. His eyes went cold, his tone icy. “That’s why you’re here? You know, you’re a real son of a bitch.”
“That I am, Mal. In the pursuit of truth right now, I’d spit in the eye of God.”
“Truth.” The priest spoke the word as if he were cursing. “You’ve assembled a lot of facts, but you haven’t come anywhere near the truth.”
“Then enlighten me, Mal. I’m all ears.”
The priest almost laughed. “Fine. Yvonne Doolittle. That poor, confused girl. She’d been sexually abused at home and in foster care. She saw me as a father figure. Unfortunately for both of us, to her a father also meant sex. When I wouldn’t respond, she threatened me, and finally made those allegations. You see? I was no more help to her than I was to Fletcher Kane or Solemn Winter Moon. Or Charlotte.” The priest seemed to go limp, as if he might fall, and he steadied himself by putting his hands on the bed. “Liar. The writing on the wall? That was directed at me.”
“Why?”
“Charlotte came to me one day. It must have been November. She was so confused, so convinced that she was the most awful human being. All she wanted was to die, she said, because she loved someone who didn’t love her back. You know how many teenagers I’ve heard that from? So what did I tell her? That time would take care of it. That she should put her trust in God, her father. That He loved her. That she was one of His treasures. She went absolutely crazy. Called me a liar. Said the church was a lie because fathers didn’t love their children. They fucked them. She left and never came back. Not just to talk but even to worship. Gone from the church altogether until the night she broke in with Solemn.”
From the dark forest of his own self-loathing, he stared at Cork.
“The whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. Isn’t that how it goes? All right then. While Fletcher Kane, in all his suffering, took his own life and the life of that remarkable young man, do you know where I was? I was with Rose.” He looked up, his face screwed into a mask of pain. “With Rose, trying my damnedest to convince her to help me shatter my priestly vow of celibacy, a thing she would not do. How’s that for pathetic? You don’t believe me? Ask Rose. She won’t lie to you. She’s the finest person I’ve ever known.”
Mal Thorne reached into his suitcase for the bottle of Southern Comfort.
“A gluttony for sin? Try pride, for example, so cocksure I could make a difference somehow. And to everything else, you can now add lust.” He raised the bottle. Before he drank, he said, “I’m tired, Cork. I just want to be left alone.”
A knock on the door frame brought Cork around, though the priest seemed not to hear. Ellie Gruber stood timidly in the hallway. She held a cordless phone in her hand.
“A call for you, Cork,” she said. “It’s Jo.”
“Thanks, Ellie.”
Cork took the phone. Ellie retreated.
“Hey,” Cork said.
“Before you go crazy over there, there’s something you should know. The night Fletcher Kane and Solemn died, Rose was with Father Mal. She swears it.”
“I already went crazy. And Mal told me the truth.”
“Oh.” She was quiet a moment. “How’s he doing?”
“Less than fair, I’d say.”
“Is he still leaving Aurora?”
“I don’t know.”
“What a mess. You got a call from Boomer Grabowski. He asked me to pass along some information you wanted. He said the other murder victims in Chicago were a young, engaged couple. The case was never solved. He said it was interesting that the young man was a former priest and his fiancee was a former nun.”
“Any names?”
“Yes. His name was James Trowbridge and hers was Nina van Zoot.”
“Say that again.”
“His name-”
“No, hers.”
“Nina van Zoot.” She waited. “Cork? Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” he said when he was able to breathe again. “A nun, Boomer said? You’re sure? Not a prostitute?”
“Definitely a nun. Boomer says to call him anytime. And he doesn’t believe you’ve actually given up being a cop.”
“Right.”
After Cork hung up, he looked at Mal Thorne. The look alone seemed to sober the priest dramatically.
“Are you all right, Cork?”
“Randy Gooding?” Cork said.
“What?”
Cork took some time to rearrange his thinking, put things in place. “It sounds crazy, Mal, but Gooding may be our sin eater.”
“Why would you say that?”
“He told me once about a woman he knew in Chicago. He lied about her in some respects and didn’t tell me the important part, that she was murdered, and someone ate her sins.”
“Gooding? I don’t believe it. He’s such a righteous young man.”
Cork rubbed his forehead and thought out loud, “If it is Gooding, why would he kill the two men who attacked you?”
“You don’t know that he did.”
“You think all of this is just coincidence? When the murders occurred, he was working the FBI’s Milwaukee field office, just a hop, skip, and a jump from Chicago. He was involved with one of the victims. Did you have any contact with Gooding in Chicago?”
“No.”
Cork tried to put it all together, but there were gaps. Still, the direction of his thinking felt right. “I’m willing to bet he knew you somehow. I think he followed you here, and the sin eater killings continued.”
