longer Bo’s responsibility.
“Sorry, Jake.”
“No problem, Bo. Just keep me informed.”
“You’ve got it. Have Manning call me when he gets back to the Op Center. I’ll fill him in on everything.”
“Ten-four.”
Bo stood blinking in the sun, wishing he could let go of the feeling that responsibility for so much rested on his shoulders. But it was a feeling as old as any for him, and if he lost it, who would he be then?
chapter
twenty-one
St. Jerome’s Home for Children was a vast rectangular structure of red brick set at the edge of an alfalfa field. When Bo drove up, the playground beside the parking lot was full of laughing children. It was a fine setting, there in the country, but Bo knew firsthand that even in the finest of settings an institution was no substitute for a home and a family.
Sister Mary Jackson ushered him into her office. She wore a brilliant red skirt and matching jacket. Her dark hair was coifed short and stylish. There were lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, smile lines deeply etched. Her eyes were warm brown and welcoming. Her office overlooked the playground, and as they spoke, the sound of children’s voices floated in like music. Bo explained his situation. She turned to her computer terminal and entered the name of David Moses. The program searched for a moment, then reported it found no matches. No problem, she explained. While all recent files were in the system, anything older than fifteen years probably hadn’t been entered yet. She led Bo downstairs into a cool basement room full of green filing cabinets and the musty smell of time. She turned on a dismal light, quickly found the cabinet she wanted, and pulled out a drawer. She began to flip through manila folders brittle with age.
Bo’s cell phone broke the quiet of the basement. “Thorsen, here,” Bo answered.
“This is Manning. You wanted to talk to me.”
“Chris, can I call you back? I’m in the middle of something here.”
“If you think it can wait.”
“Hmmm,” Sister Mary Jackson said.
“It can wait.” Bo flipped the cell phone closed. “What is it?” he asked the nun.
“I can’t find one for David Moses. It would have been approximately twenty years ago?”
“Approximately.”
“And you’re certain he was one of ours?”
“I’d pull up just short of certain.”
“That’s very odd. We should have a file somewhere.” She accompanied Bo back upstairs and discussed the situation with a couple of the office staff. They looked in several places and came up empty-handed. “It’s possible,” she finally conceded apologetically, “that it’s been misplaced. These things happen. If you’d like to talk to someone who may remember the boy, I’d suggest you speak with Father Don Cannon. He was the director here for nearly thirty years. He’s retired now, but he’s a wonderful resource.”
She gave Bo a telephone number and an address in River Falls, a small town in Wisconsin, just the other side of the St. Croix River. As he was leaving the parking lot, his cell phone beeped. It was Stuart Coyote.
“I was beginning to think you’d gone on vacation,” Bo said.
“It was a bastard finding a judge, or more precisely finding a judge who wasn’t a bastard. First guy looked at me like he wondered how the hell I escaped from the reservation. We finally got the warrant this afternoon and went into Luther Gallagher’s house.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing that relates in an obvious way to David Moses. But we stumbled onto some interesting appliances in the basement. Complicated wood and leather devices. The place looked like a dungeon. Luther Gallagher appears to have a fondness for rough foreplay of the medieval variety.”
“What do you bet David Moses convinced Luther Gallagher he’d be his dungeon buddy if Gallagher helped him after his escape?”
“My guess, too. We found an address book, and the sheriff’s people here are doing a rundown of the names to see if anyone knows Gallagher’s whereabouts or has knowledge of any connection with David Moses. We found a telephone number for Gallagher’s father in Arizona. The old guy says his ticker’s never acted up, and he claims he hasn’t seen his no-account son in almost a decade.
“Here’s something else that’s interesting. We found papers for a vehicle purchase made four weeks ago. Luther bought himself a new van. According to bank statements in the pile of mail, he cleaned out his savings and checking accounts. I’m going to run a check of his credit history, see what he’s been up to lately in that department.”
“Good work, Stu.”
“One more thing, Bo. I went back to see Dr. Hart. I wanted to ask her a few more questions. I passed a couple guys in dark suits coming from her office. When I stepped in, she seemed surprised to see me, since she’d just finished talking at length with two of my colleagues.”
“Colleagues?”
“The two dark suits. They told her they were Secret Service. Flashed IDs that Hart swore looked like ours. I went after them. They were gone. I didn’t recognize them, Bo. I checked with the field office. Nobody but you and me on this case.”
“What do you think?”
“I peg them for a couple of alphabet boys. CIA, NSA, DOD. Take your pick. I’m wondering if maybe Moses really is a hit man. Or was. For the government. And whoever he worked for doesn’t want anyone to know it.”
Bo considered the long, lost period in the history of David Moses after he left the military. He knew any of the agencies Coyote had mentioned were powerful enough to wipe a man’s slate clean.
“Did you run this by Ishimaru?”
“Yeah,” Coyote said. “She’s working on it.”
“Good.”
“What’s up on your end?”
Bo filled him in on his visit to St. Jerome’s. “I’m heading to River Falls to talk to the old priest,” he finished. “Maybe he can enlighten us about the adolescence of David Moses.”
“We’re closing in, Bo.”
“Stay in touch.”
River Falls was twenty miles southeast of Stillwater. Bo’s watch read six o’clock straight up when he pulled onto Main Street. He was hungry. And tired. He needed food and coffee, but he wanted to talk to the priest first.
He found the home that matched the address Sister Mary Jackson had given him. It was a tidy little one-story frame on a street shaded by maples. Pansies lined the walk. He parked in the empty drive and went to the front door. No one answered the bell or his knock. He headed back to his car and stood a moment, considering his options. It was the dinner hour. The street was deserted. In a while, people would be out for their evening walks or watering their lawns or sitting in their porch swings. But at the moment, there was no one to be seen. Bo decided to eat and return later.
He found a homey-looking cafe called Ethel’s. The place smelled wonderful, of meat loaf and gravy. Bo ordered the dinner special for the day, the meat loaf, and coffee. The cafe was nearly full, families, older folks talking quietly, a couple of farmers in clean, bib overalls and billed caps. Locals. It reminded Bo of Blue Earth and the rare dinners out with Harold and Nell Thorsen. Two or three foster kids were always along. They always ate at the Sleepy Eye Cafe, where the specials were pork roast or fried chicken or chicken fried steak with mounds of mashed potatoes and homemade gravy and green beans. Dinner always ended with fresh-baked pie. So little had been special in Bo’s life before those days in Blue Earth that dinner at the Sleepy Eye Cafe became a landmark for
