The Priest's Graveyard Page 12

  That stalled the conversation completely. Perhaps Danny had been too strong.

  Redding walked to the door and faced them, scowling. “Stay here. Both of you. I didn’t get your name, Father.”

  “Hansen. Father Danny Hansen.”

  “She’ll tell you all kinds of stories. Believe what you will, but I have an obligation to my employer and to the authorities.”

  With that Redding exited the room, closed the door, locked it, and was gone.

  “He’s gone?” Renee asked.

  “Apparently. Smart man.”

  “But he just left us?”

  Danny faced her and lowered his voice. “What you said, it’s true?”

  “Of course it’s true! I—”

  “Keep it down, please.”

  She did, but barely. “You believe that thug over me?” she said. And then as an afterthought, looking at the door: “Why’s it so smart to leave us?”

  “Because he saw that I wasn’t going to leave. There are no police coming, and that would have quickly become obvious and awkward. His only other choice was to threaten me, which would complicate matters for him.”

  She stared at him. “Really? What’s he doing now?”

  “He’s getting orders.”

  “To do what?”

  “To either let us go or take us both out.”

  She stared, aghast. “How do you know?”

  “I’m a priest. I read people better than most.”

  “Then you have to get us out of here!” She stood, dragging the chair.

  “Sit down!”

  She sat.

  Danny pulled a thin black bundle from his coat pocket. He rarely carried any kind of weapon on his person—though he did have the box cutter he’d lifted from the other closet—but he kept his lock-picking pack with him at all times. So much of his work involved retrieving information under lock and key.

  He withdrew a shim pick from the five-piece kit. “I heard some things before I came in. They’re true?”

  “I told you, yes,” she said.

  “I don’t know what you thought you could accomplish by confronting him, but I suggest you leave well enough alone and disappear for your own sake. Let the authorities handle Bourque.”

  “You don’t understand. The authorities can’t touch him.”

  “Neither can you. And I do understand. I’m going to get you out of here, but I want you to promise me you’ll disappear. If you know something that truly threatens these people, they’ll come after you. I would consider leaving the state, maybe finding a new identity.”

  She was dumbfounded, but he didn’t have time to persuade her. Redding would have his answer quickly. Even if he set them free, issuing apologies, he would establish a tail on the girl and deal with her later in the night.

  Danny dropped to one knee, inserted his shim into her cuffs’ locks, and sprang them open. Then he went to work on the door using another pick and a small torque wrench. The knob was locked from the outside, but the lock was keyed on both sides.

  “There’s another closet at the end of this hall. I want you to hide inside for five minutes, then climb the stairs and get out. Don’t look back.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to find Redding and explain what happened.”

  “And what did happen?”

  He had a vague notion of what he would say, but he was still working on it. “Let me take care of that.”

  The lock disengaged.

  Danny eased the door open, stuck his head out into the hall, saw that it was empty, and waved her forward. “Hurry. End of the hall. Give me five minutes. You got that?”

  “Five minutes.”

  She hurried down the hall, got to the closet door, then turned back and stared at him with large, questioning eyes.

  He motioned her in. “Inside.”

  She nodded, then vanished behind the door and pulled it closed.

  Danny took the stairs quickly, paused at the door that led out to the main hall, and stepped out. The keynote speaker droned on in the adjacent banquet room. He had to get to Redding while the man was in a public setting.

  He entered the dining hall and pulled up. There, not ten feet from the door, stood Redding with his back to Danny, talking to Jonathan Bourque. Danny could not have been blessed with a better gift. God was indeed alive and well and had his eyes on his faithful servants.

  He hurried up to Redding and tapped him on the shoulder. Redding turned and, caught off guard, took a step backward.

  “Mr. Bourque, excuse the intrusion. So happy to meet you.”

  Before the man could return his greeting, Danny turned to Redding. “I think there’s been a mistake, my friend. You shouldn’t have put me in charge of holding the woman. I’m a priest, not a prison guard. It’s none of my business, really. I assure you that I want nothing to do with your affairs. You’ll find her downstairs where you left her. I hope that’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry, you are—?” Bourque asked.

  Danny wanted to say, I’m the man who is going to kill you.

  Instead he said, “A priest.”

  “Clearly.” Bourque offered Redding an amused look, then put his hand on Danny’s shoulder and guided him toward the door. “Look, Father, I’m a bit confused about what’s happened, but I want to offer my sincerest apologies for your trouble.”

  Danny wasn’t interested in entering the hall, where at any moment Renee would fly out of the door that led to the basement. So he stopped and forced Bourque to turn back.

  “No problem, sir. If there is one thing I know about human nature it’s that we are all prone to error, albeit some more than others. You might consider giving your man a few pointers on kindness. He seemed just a bit rough from my perspective.”

  Bourque smiled. “Security people—what can I say? Simon has the best intentions, but your point is taken.”

  Danny took the man’s elbow. “I think he may have made a mistake with the girl as well. She seemed quite innocent to me.”

  “Noted.” Bourque’s smile broadened generously. “I like you, Father. And I can assure you that this has all been a dreadful mistake.”

  He was good. Good enough that had Danny not heard Redding’s interrogation of Renee, he might have wondered if he’d misjudged the man.

  Danny nodded and was considering how he might stall the man another minute when he heard the soft whoosh of a door closing in the hall beyond. Renee had made her getaway.

  “Good. Thank you, sir. Do you attend Mass, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Actually, I’m Protestant. It’s strictly church for me.”

  “Oh? I thought I’d read somewhere that you were once a priest.”

  “That was a long time ago. I’ve mixed things up a bit since then, though I assure you I have the highest respect for all.”

  “Well, that’s just as good. I don’t think God cares what the building looks like on the outside. As the Good Book says, it’s the inside that matters, yes?”

  “Just as I’ve always believed.”

  “Indeed.”

  Danny had given her enough time, he thought, so he dipped his head and bowed out. “Nice to meet you. Oh, and I let the girl out of her cuffs.” He held up his lock pick. “Little trick I learned when I was a younger man. She was bruising and promised me she would stay put.”

  Bourque’s grin held firm. “I’m sure she will. Nice to meet you, Father.”

  “So nice.”

  13

  I WAS A neurotic mess who’d been taught by Lamont that everything pointed to some greater purpose. After meeting the priest, I became that much more convinced that everything Lamont had said was true, not that I’d ever doubted him.

  Here is how I thought about it: I was lost and God sent Lamont to save me. My name is Renee, which means “reborn” in French, as Lamont also liked to point out, and I was indeed reborn in his house of laws. Then I became lost again, and he showed up—a priest named Danny Hansen
.

  I looked up his name. Danny is from Daniel, which means “God is my judge.” So you can understand why I couldn’t sleep that night. For the second time in two years I had been saved from death by a man of the law, so to speak.

  This could only mean that I was on to something, that I had a purpose, which I assumed had to do with delivering justice. Being the judge where the law had failed, as Lamont said.

  The priest’s words circled my mind like buzzards, whispering and calling to me.

  It isn’t the first time that Jonathan Bourque has been accused of injustice…

  I do understand…

  They’ll come looking for you…Leave town…

  The next morning I tracked down Father Danny Hansen. As it turns out, priests are public servants who apparently live open, transparent lives. Unlike Jonathan Bourque.

  Danny Hansen was one of several priests at the Saint Paul Catholic Church on Long Beach Boulevard. He was a parochial vicar in charge of benevolence who served under the pastor, Bernard Lombardi.

  The parish receptionist was a sweet woman named Regina who was enthralled with my somewhat modified story of recovery from heroin addiction. When I explained that I needed Father Danny Hansen immediately and had lost his number, she was happy to provide it.

  I found his address through a reverse-directory search on the Internet. He lived in Lakewood, in a subdivision called the Brentwood Estates, a middle-class neighborhood in which most of the brick homes looked like they had come from the same mold.

  A Yellow Cab driver delivered me to the address shortly after noon. I paid him and stepped out of the car into a cul-de-sac ringed by five homes.

  The house directly in front of me was number 3005. This was God-is-my-judge’s home, a single-story red-brick house with brown trim, bordered by a green lawn, like the rest of the houses.

  Not a soul besides me was around that I could see. The quiet was a bit unnerving. I wasn’t used to this kind of neighborhood, having lived first on the street, then in an ocean mansion, and now in a hotel.

  I walked up to the cement landing and stopped in front of the door. A clay pot with a leafy green plant sat to one side. The doorbell button glowed orange, and I wondered if I should push it or just knock. It was early afternoon and I had no idea if the priest was even home. I reached up and pushed the button.

  When no one responded to the faint sound of the chime inside, I tried again. Still nothing.

  I had already decided that if the priest wasn’t home I would simply wait, but standing there alone on the porch, I felt completely exposed. Maybe it would be better if I waited in the back, where neighbors peering through their windows would be less likely to notice me. Surely Danny wouldn’t mind if I sneaked into his backyard.

  I stepped onto the grass and walked to the side of the home, then through a wooden gate. At the back of the house, sliding glass doors stood behind a small porch with a table and two chairs. A set of blinds blocked my view of the interior. I looked around his small green lawn, then slid to my seat next to the door and waited.

  What if I was wrong about Danny Hansen? What if he didn’t know more about Bourque than I’d convinced myself he did? What if in my obsessive state of mind, I’d read him wrong?

  And yet everything the priest had said seemed to suggest more than the actual words—maybe only to me, to my own craziness, but what if I was right?

  What if Danny Hansen knew much more about Bourque than he let on? What if he hadn’t come into that basement by accident? What kind of priest would suggest I leave town, if not one who knew precisely how dangerous Bourque really was?

  Either way, I had to know, because this could be my first real break. My simple plan had all gone wrong, but I just might have found my guardian angel.

  The previous night’s pacing and fretting caught up to me. The next thing I knew, I was slumped over between my knees, climbing out of a foggy sleep. I opened my eyes to dusk and jerked up. I wiped some drool from the corner of my mouth, alarmed that I had slept so long.

  “Welcome to the land of the living.”

  I flinched and saw that Danny Hansen was seated on a chair with his legs crossed, nursing a beer. He wore jeans and a pale blue button-down shirt with short sleeves, looking more like the priest’s twin than the man who’d rescued me the night before.

  I clambered to my feet, nearly tipping over in the process.

  “Want a beer?” he asked. His voice carried a very slight and quite pleasant accent that I couldn’t place. Maybe European.

  I stared at him, not sure what he expected me to say. Did he know I didn’t touch beer? When Lamont let me drink it was only wine, and then only the best, not the grape juice that teenagers and NASCAR fans sucked up, as he put it. Was it a trick question?

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Because you’re thirsty?”

  “Oh.”

  “Would you like one? I have Fat Tire and Corona.”

  “No. Thank you.”

  He nodded then took a pull from his bottle of Fat Tire. He indicated the empty chair. “Have a seat.”

  I slid into the chair across the small round metal-mesh table and folded my hands, feeling awkward. I’d rehearsed what I would ask him, but my mind was now blank.

  Danny looked at the horizon and took another drink. His arms were well muscled and his hands were large. A scar ran from his right thumb over his wrist. Maybe he’d gotten it dragging a victim from a car wreck or rescuing an unappreciative cat from a tree. But somehow I didn’t think this priest spent his downtime patrolling the neighborhood for car crashes and stranded kittens.

  “I see you didn’t take my advice,” he said, eyes watching the dimming sky over his neighbor’s roofline.

  “To get out of town?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  He drank again, just a sip, as if he needed time to think.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” I said.

  “You were sleeping when I found you.”

  “I mean last night.”

  “That’s understandable, I’m sure you had a lot to think about. You were fortunate I came along when I did.”

  “Thank you.”

  Danny set his bottle down and turned his eyes to me. “I meant what I said. You shouldn’t be here. And I mean in this town, in this state. You can thank me by leaving. You need some money?”

  “No, I have some.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “You’re a priest, your life is transparent.”

  He didn’t respond to that, but he broke his stare and looked back at the neighbor’s house. There was much more to this priest than what showed on the outside, I thought. The line of questioning I’d rehearsed finally came to me.

  “Where did you learn to pick locks?” I asked.

  “Why did you come to me, Renee?”

  “You remember my name? Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Because I need to know where you learned to pick locks,” I said.

  “A quick search on the Internet will tell you all you need to know, if you want to learn how to pick locks.”

  “I’m more interested in you. You’re a priest who knows how to pick locks and handle criminals and come up with clever escape plans quickly. I want to know who you are and where you learned to do what you did.”

  He eyed me suspiciously. “What I did was only natural. I meet rough people every day in my line of work.”

  “I’m sure you do. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think God might have sent you to save me.”

  “Then be saved,” he said. “Leave town. And stay the heck away from men like Jonathan Bourque.”

  “I can’t leave town, not until he’s dead.” Had I just said that? I had. So then I was committed. “So you see, I still need saving.”

  He looked at me for a long time, and I spoke again, thinking I had no choice now but to trust Danny Hansen completely.

  “If I tell you wh
ere I come from, will you tell me how you learned to pick locks? Never mind, I’ll tell you anyway. I was rescued from the streets by a man named Lamont Myers. I was overdosed on heroin and as good as dead, and he saved me. He took me into his house and brought me back to health. We fell in love and then were married. Not officially.”

  I wasn’t sure why I added that last comment.

  It was the first time I’d ever talked to anyone about my love for Lamont, and I was surprised by the surge of emotion that welled up in my chest. Tears sprang to my eyes and I thought I might begin to fall apart, right there on Danny Hansen’s back porch.

  “Lamont was like an angel to me. I took care of him and he loved me. We listened to music and we danced. We drank wine and we watched the Malibu shores under the moonlight. I was lost but Lamont found me. You must understand that, Father. He was everything to me.”

  He looked at me with soft eyes and I saw only empathy and goodness in them. “I do,” he said. “Call me Danny. Please.”

  “Well, Danny, you should know that Jonathan Bourque killed Lamont.” My throat knotted painfully. I swallowed but that didn’t help. “And he would have killed me last night if I hadn’t escaped.”

  Danny averted his eyes. I think he was about to say something, but I wasn’t done. I was desperate to speak. This was my confession and Danny was my priest.

  Bitterness crept into my voice. My face was hot and my breathing was thick and I wanted to scream. I tried to remain calm but I didn’t do it well.

  “You’re probably thinking that I’m mistaken, but I know that pig killed my husband. Lamont worked with him, and my husband told me how evil Bourque is.” The words came out like nails. “Lamont found out something that he wasn’t supposed to know, and he told me he was afraid for his life. The next day he disappeared.”

  Tears leaked down my cheeks. Danny watched me with steady, kind eyes.

  “I waited for him for three days. Two men broke into our house then, and I heard them talking about Bourque while I hid in the corner.”