Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [672]
“We don’t know that for certain.”
His cell phone interrupted them and he wanted to rip it off his belt and throw it across the room, but he was expecting a call from Chief Ramsey.
“I’ve got to get this,” he told her and she nodded, taking the pizza boxes to the dining room where he saw the table was already set. “Pakula,” he grunted into the phone.
“I got your message,” Chief Ramsey said without a greeting. “I’m talking to Cunningham in an hour. Do you have any idea what this Father Michael Keller has for us?”
“He said he had the list of the priests being offed. Supposedly he thinks he has something else that could lead us to the killer, but he wouldn’t spell it out to O’Dell until he knew he had a deal and until he was here in the States.”
“She thinks he’s on the level?”
“She thinks he’s scared. He’s on the list.”
Ramsey was quiet and Pakula waited it out, watching Clare put ice in their glasses and pour the tea. There was something about the way she moved that had a calming effect on him.
“The shit is starting to hit the fan,” Ramsey finally said, and it wasn’t at all what Pakula had expected him to say. “My wife found out today that her grant for the hospital got canceled. She says it’s a coincidence. I don’t think so.”
Pakula turned his back to Clare and the dining room and walked across the kitchen as far out of her hearing as possible. “My daughter’s scholarship just got pulled. Insufficient funds.”
“Jesus! You’re kidding.” There was a pause. “Well, we both knew this could happen.”
“Yep, we did.” Pakula kept it to himself that he didn’t think the asshole would be able to do stuff like this or at least not this quickly. “He’ll be shitting bullets if he hears what I found out this afternoon.”
“What’s that?”
“Seems the monsignor had a thing for little boys after all, and the archbishop knew all about it.”
“Figures,” Chief Ramsey said.
“Look, about this Keller guy making a deal with O’Dell. You think your buddy Cunningham is gonna have a hernia?”
“Not when I tell him we have five dead priests.”
“Five?”
“Deputy Sheriff down in Santa Rosa County, Florida, just found one in the wetlands,” Chief Ramsey explained. “May have been there for over a week. I’ll have a copy of the autopsy report in the morning.”
“And the fifth?”
“North Boston.” This time Ramsey paused and Pakula could hear him shuffling papers. “Information’s still coming in. Details are sketchy. If I understand correctly, it happened earlier today. This one’s freaky, Pakula, and I can’t help wondering if the killer is not only escalating but that he’s starting to lose it.”
“How freaky?”
“The victim was a Father Paul Conley at Blessed Sacrament. His head was found on the altar.”
CHAPTER 66
Omaha, Nebraska
Gibson had managed to get a dark corner booth in Goldberg’s Bar and Grill on Fiftieth and Dodge Streets. He didn’t think he had an appetite, but he had ordered a cheeseburger and fries so that the waitress wouldn’t mind him taking up a whole booth. Then it smelled so good that he started taking nibbles, and before he realized it he had it devoured, probably eating out of nervous energy more than hunger.
When he called his mom from the restaurant’s pay phone she sounded hysterical, not because he had slipped out on her but because Brother Sebastian had convinced her Gibson was on drugs. He couldn’t believe it and told her so. How could she believe some stranger over him? He tried his best to reassure her that he wasn’t taking or selling drugs.
He couldn’t tell her about the portfolio even though he was pretty sure that’s what Brother Sebastian wanted from him. Instead, he told her Sebastian was a bad guy and she needed to stay away from him. But that’s when she laughed, a nervous, slightly hysterical laugh. “Now you sound paranoid, Gibson. Isn’t that something that happens when you take drugs?”
“Mom, I’m not taking drugs. You gotta believe me.”
But then he did lie and told her he’d be staying with a friend for a few nights. Truth was, he hadn’t asked Timmy yet. It didn’t make her