“Most of it,” Kleimer said glumly.
“Makes you wonder, don’t it?”
“What? You too? Don’t tell me
“Oh, no. No, we got the right guy. But I think the media want us to give Carleson a medal instead of life in Jacktown.”
“Yeah, well, fortunately the media aren’t going to be in the jury box.”
“That’s true. But it makes you think, don’t it? Hey, Brad, is it possible for the prosecution to ask for a change of venue?”
“No-that’s just for the defense. Besides, where would we go? This is getting national-hell, international! — coverage.” With little hope, Kleimer asked, “Any of your guys come up with anything?”
“Nothin’ you could bottle. Williams thinks he’s on to something, but it’s pretty vague. Nothin’ to get your hopes up for.”
“Is he there with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Put him on.”
“It’s not much more than a hunch.”
“Put him on!”
“Okay, okay. Just a second.”
No one had to caution Kleimer to rein in a rampant exuberance. His single comfort, and it wasn’t much, was that things couldn’t get much worse.
There was a click on the line. “Williams?”
“Yeah. Listen, this is just a feeling-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Kleimer interrupted. “Quirt’s already given me the disclaimer. Whatcha got?”
“Well, I was checking Carleson’s past assignments with Maryknoll headquarters in New York. Most of what I got was the same stuff they’ve got on radio and TV. It’ll be in the papers in more detail later today and tomorrow. But there’s one thing I’m pretty sure they haven’t got.”
“What’s that?” Kleimer tensed and leaned over his desk. The pen he’d been toying with he now poised over a legal pad.
“It was a routine question,” Williams said. “This priest …” Kleimer assumed Williams was checking his notes. “This priest-a Father Weber-was giving me a list of Father Carleson’s assignments-missions, I think they call them. Like I said, it was routine. He was giving me names of places-mostly Central and South America-and dates, and if anything outstanding happened because Father Carleson was there … you know, like chapels or housing units built, or wells being dug-stuff like that-”
“Yeah, yeah. So?”
“Well, he got to one place-Father Weber, I mean-it’s called … uh, Sandego. It’s in Nicaragua-close to Honduras-and, well, anyway, when he came to that point, this Father Weber hesitated. It wasn’t a long pause. But I got the impression that he was surprised by something to do with that assignment. I think he came across something, and he was trying to decide whether to tell me. And then he decided not to.”
That was it. Williams apparently was finished. “That’s it?”
“I said it wasn’t much.”
“What did you make of it?”
“It could’ve been anything. A word that was smudged and Weber was trying to make it out. Maybe his glasses got dirty. Maybe he got tired of reading through all these dates and places.”
“Did you press him on it?”
“Yeah. I did. I thought he spent too much time brushing it off as ‘nothing.’”
“Your gut feeling?”
“Without any real good reason, I got the idea that Father Weber was covering, uh, I don’t know what. Something that, for whatever reason, Maryknoll wants kept quiet. Father Weber-and I’m just guessing-well, I think he knew what was in the record. But then when he was reading me all the assignment stuff, he almost went too far. He stopped himself at the last minute.
“But I gotta tell you: All this is just one king-size guess … nothing more.”
Kleimer was no longer taking notes. He was tapping his pen on the desk pad. After a minute, he spoke. “Go there!”
“You want me to go to Ossining?”
“That’s it. I want you to read that record for yourself. Who knows; it could be the break we need. But we’ll never know with you here and that record in New York. See if you can tap a contingency fund. If not, I’ll see if I can free up some travel expenses here. Hell, if worse comes to worse,
Kleimer broke the connection and sat lost in thought.
What could it be? Something Maryknoll is trying to hide? Something Carleson did that nobody’s proud of? Molesting children? That sort of thing had become more common recently, it seemed. Maybe knocked up a local virgin?
Nicaragua. What comes to mind? The Contras. Civil war. Thugs in uniform. Villages destroyed. What would a guy who didn’t give much of a damn for rules and regulations do in a situation like that? Certainly not sit on his hands. He’d do …
Kleimer turned off his daydream machine. Such speculation could inject a little hope into a largely hopeless situation. But, face it: The odds were heavy that Williams would find nothing more than that the Maryknoll priest has emphysema and that when he read as far as Sandego, he just needed to take a breath real bad.
Kleimer wasn’t sorry he was sending Williams on this fishing expedition. But he knew there was no way he could count on miracles.
No, he was going to have to work like hell, starting right now. He decided to check the fax machine and see what Quirt’s people had turned up on Carleson. Kleimer needed to get inside that guy’s skin and find out what made him tick.
“Have you seen this afternoon’s
“Yeah, I did,” Angie Moore replied.
Zoo Tully, focusing on reports, paid only peripheral attention to their conversation.
“I didn’t get past the front page,” Mangiapane said, “but-wow! — I think they’re gonna canonize Father Carleson.”
“You should see the rest of their coverage. They’ve got stuff on a whole bunch of cases that depend on circumstantial evidence, interviews with lawyers, and reactions from just about all the Hispanic spokespeople. I can’t remember when I’ve read about a less likely killer.”
“Things don’t look good for our side.”
“Scratch ‘our side,’ and make it, ‘Things don’t look good for Quirt and Kleimer.’”
Tully put down the reports and gave full attention to his sergeants. His squad, like the other six, could boast of outstandingly competent officers. Experience had taught Tully that Moore and Mangiapane were his most dependable. And with this investigation going in many directions, dependable officers were a prime necessity. This was especially true since the case of Bishop Diego’s murder had been closed. A suspect had been arrested, arraigned, and was now free on bail. Thus, this ongoing inquiry had to be handled with extreme delicacy.
The squad was expected to move on to the next in the neverending caseload of homicides. So most of their investigation into the Diego case now would have to be carried out on their own time.
This was no problem for Tully personally. Normally he would be hard-pressed to distinguish between his time and company time. It was a measure of the respect in which he was held by his squad members that they would follow his lead in this sort of situation.
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Tully said. The three were alone in the squadroom. “There’s Michael Shell. One of the oldest motives around: alienation of his wife’s affections. Opportunity?”
