Run for Your Life - James Patterson [70]
He let go of the leash and drop-kicked the squealing Maltese into the darkness.
“Now, it’s my turn.”
Part Four
THE POOR BOX THIEF
Chapter 75
SITTING IN THE DARKENED HOLY NAME confessional booth, Father Seamus Bennett silently blew his running nose and lifted his Sony minirecorder.
“Poor box stakeout,” he whispered into the microphone. “Day two.”
Sick, my ankle, he thought, sniffling. He’d never been sick a day in his life. Stay in bed? Didn’t Mike know that at his age, lying down was a hazard to be avoided at all costs? Who knew if he’d ever be able to get back up again? Stay on his feet and stay busy, that was the thing.
Besides, he had a parish to run. Not to mention a dastardly poor box thief to collar. It was clear by now that nobody else was going to do it. The overrated NYPD was no help, that was for sure.
Twenty minutes later, he was starting to doze off when he heard a sound—very faint, tentative, a creak that was barely there. Stifling a sneeze, Seamus slowly drew open the confessional’s velvet curtain with his foot.
The noise was coming from the middle aisle’s front door! It was opening an inch at a time. Seamus’s heart rate kicked into overdrive as a human figure, shadowed in the dim glow of the votives, emerged from behind it. He watched, mesmerized, as the thief stopped beside the last pew, stuck his arm up to the shoulder down into the poor box opening, and removed something.
The object was a folder of some kind. So that’s how it had been done, Seamus thought, watching the felon slide coins and a few bills out of the folder into his hand. He’d used a type of retrievable trap that would catch any money dropped in the box. Ingenious. For a poor box robber, he was a true mastermind.
Except for getting caught red-handed, Seamus thought as he removed his shoes and stood quietly. Now for the arrest.
In just his socks, he crept out into the side aisle. He was less than ten feet away from the culprit, approaching silently from behind, when he felt a nasty tingling sensation in his sinuses. It was so fast and powerful that he was helpless to hold it back.
The sneeze that ripped from him sounded like a shotgun blast in the dead silence of the church. The startled figure whirled around violently before bolting for the door. Seamus managed to take two quick steps before his socks slipped out beneath him and he half dove, half fell forward with outstretched arms.
“Gotcha,” he cried, tackling the thief around the waist.
Coins pinged off marble as the two of them struggled. Then suddenly his opponent stopped fighting and started . . . crying?
Seamus got a firm grip on the back of his shirt, hauled him over to a wall switch, and flipped it on.
He stared in disbelief at what his eyes told him. It was a kid. And not just any kid.
The poor box bandit was Eddie, Mike’s nine-year-old son.
“For the love of God, Eddie. How could you?” Seamus said, heartbroken. “That money goes to buy groceries for the food bank, for poor people who have nothing. But you—you live in a nice apartment with everything you want, and you get an allowance besides. Don’t tell me you’re not old enough to know stealing is wrong.”
“I know,” Eddie said, wiping his teary eyes, with his gaze on the floor. “I just can’t seem to help it. Maybe my real parents were criminals. I think I got bad blood. Thieves’ blood.”
Seamus snorted in outrage. “Thieves’ blood? What a crock.” He shifted his grip to the young man’s ear and marched him toward the door. “Poor Mary Catherine must be worried sick about you. You’re supposed to be home.You’re going to have a thief’s black-and-blue behind once your father hears about this.”
Chapter 76
BY THE TIME I GOT BACK to the Blanchettes’ on Fifth Avenue, the party had amped up considerably. I heard dance music blaring as I got off the elevator. In the wood-paneled foyer, I was nearly blinded by flashbulbs as spit-shined executive types and their exotic-looking wives got their social register pics taken.
Was being a cop in this town unbelievable, or what? I thought. From an actual bowels-of-hell