Bobby Joe Waldo looked one shade paler than death as he entered his father’s office and took a seat next to Harry Doyle. It was ten o’clock on a clear, balmy Florida morning; the only storm clouds those that had gathered in the eyes of the Reverend John Waldo. The stout, unsmiling minister now turned those eyes on his son.
“Detective Doyle tells me that one of our cars was involved in an accident a couple of weeks back, and that it took place in the parking lot of some strip club in Tampa. You know anything about that Bobby Joe?”
Harry would have bet against the probability, but Bobby Joe’s complexion became even paler.
“I do,” Bobby Joe said in a soft, raspy voice, each word a separate croak.
“I think you better tell us about it.”
Bobby Joe nodded. “I guess I should of tol’ you before.”
“Yes, you should have. So let’s make up for it now.” His father’s eyes were still hard on him.
“I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but it wasn’t all that long ago,” Bobby Joe began. “The church got a phone call that one of our cars had been in an accident and the receptionist who took it passed it in to me.” There was a film of sweat forming on Bobby Joe’s upper lip despite the air-conditioning in his father’s office.
“When I took the call I realized that the woman was an exotic dancer, and that the place she claimed the accident happened was the parking lot of a strip club.” He gave his father a small, weak shrug. “Well, I decided the best thing for the church was to just pay this woman off.” He glanced first at Harry, then back at his father. “I mean there was no way to know who had taken the car, and if they had taken it to where she said the accident happened.”
Harry leaned forward in his chair. “Was the car damaged? Your car, I mean?”
“There was a scratch on the right front fender. It’s still there. It was so small I haven’t gotten around to getting it fixed.” Bobby Joe used his thumb and index finger to wipe the sweat from his upper lip.
“What about the dancer’s car?” The question came from Reverend Waldo this time.
“She said there was a scratch on the driver’s door of her car. From what she told me the paint left on her car matched the color of paint on ours. She told me she always wrote down the license plate numbers of cars parked next to hers because the club has so many customers who leave drunk. Everything she said seemed legitimate, so I just told her to get an estimate. She called back when she got it and I took money from the automobile maintenance account and paid her.” He looked anxiously at his father for some sign of approval. “Daddy, I just thought it best that we get rid of this as fast as possible. There was no way of knowing who took the car.” He turned to Harry. “The keys to all our cars are kept on a peg in the outer office.”
“The two ladies who work out there didn’t remember who took that particular car?” Harry asked.
Bobby Joe twisted in his chair. The tells were falling off him like raindrops. “People come in for cars all the time,” he said. “There’s really no way of them knowing who takes what car. They just kinda make sure anybody taking keys is authorized to take a car. And that would be any of the associate ministers, both lay and ordained.”
“What about assistant ministers and teachers in the school?” Harry asked.
Bobby Joe shook his head. “They’re not supposed to take cars out. They’re not covered on our insurance policies, and Daddy’s secretary and the receptionist watch it pretty close.”
“Is the office locked after normal business hours?”
“Yes.”
Harry got up from his chair, went to the door, and opened it. He studied the lock and looked across the outer office at the door leading out on to the covered walkway. “It looks like you have the same type of locks on both doors,” he said.
“We have the same locks on all the doors in all our buildings,” Reverend Waldo said.
Harry nodded and returned to his chair. “You might want to consider dead bolt locks for your doors. Especially in areas you want to keep secure. The ones you have now can be slipped. What I mean is they can be opened with a flexible piece of plastic, even a credit card, by slipping it into the door frame and manipulating the lock.”
“So anybody who knew how to do that could’ve got to the keys,” Bobby Joe said, jumping at Harry’s statement as if it were a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.
Harry turned to Bobby Joe, preparing to push him back out into deeper water. “We’re concerned about one of your cars visiting the strip club because Darlene Beckett was known to visit the place on a fairly regular basis.”
Bobby Joe glanced back and forth between Harry and his father. “I don’t think I understand,” he said, although the look in his eyes told Harry he understood completely.
Reverend Waldo leaned back in his executive chair. “I think what Detective Doyle has done is he’s added two and two-our car and that club-and he’s come up with five, all because that woman went there too.” He turned his still unhappy eyes on Harry. “I’m sure that when this car business is all sorted out we’ll find that one of our parishioners called to complain that her husband was visiting this club, and one of our people went there to tell him to get himself home.”
Harry gave the minister a long, blank look. Then he smiled. “You think it’s possible that one of your assistants took your admonition against Ms. Beckett to heart and started following her around to see what he could dig up on her?”
Reverend Waldo returned Harry’s smile, his distinctly patronizing. “We don’t have any detectives in our ministry. I don’t think any of our people would know where to begin if it came to following somebody around.”
Harry momentarily studied his shoes, thinking of the person who followed him home the previous night. When he looked up his smile was back. “I’m sure you’re probably right, Reverend Waldo.” He paused. “But just in case you’re not, I’d like a list of all the people authorized to take cars so I can speak to them.”
The minister’s eyes hardened again. He looked sharply at his son. “Bobby Joe can get that together for you. I think you’ll find everybody you need to talk to is here this morning. And when you’re finished with the detective, Bobby Joe, please come back. There are some other things we have to go over.” When the minister turned back to Harry, his smile had returned. “I hope we were of help,” he said, his tone clearly a dismissal.
Harry got little more than blank stares when he asked members of the church’s staff if they had driven a church vehicle to the Peek-a-Boo Lounge during the past month. He hadn’t expected an admission. He was simply looking for clues, but in each instance he came up empty. Yet when he asked their opinions about Darlene Beckett, the church staff proved far more forthcoming. Words like sinful and child molester, harlot, and wickedness dropped from their lips almost as though they were programmed responses. There was a genuine anger about Darlene, a remorseless anger that did not vary from one person to another, and it led Harry to conclude that the Reverend John Waldo had a staff of true believers unlike any he had ever encountered.
The last person Harry interviewed was Justin Clearby, the church’s first assistant minister. Clearby surprised Harry both in his physical appearance and his demeanor. He was a tall, solidly built man somewhere in his mid-fifties who carried around the well-battered face of an aging prizefighter. There was also a sense of rigidness about the man, accented by sandy brown hair cut in a military buzz and pale blue eyes that could only be described as very hard, very cold, and very angry. Clearby also had huge, powerful hands and when Harry shook one he felt as though his own had been swallowed. There was no question in Harry’s mind that Clearby would have the ability to wield a knife with enormous force. Harry also noted that just standing near him seemed to put Bobby Joe Waldo on edge.
“I know the area you’re talking about,” Clearby said, when asked about Nebraska Avenue. “Before being saved I had a thirty-year career in the Marine Corp, most of it spent as a seagoing Marine.” His back seemed to stiffen with pride as he spoke. “Back then Tampa was a popular liberty port largely because of that area. So I know it.” He paused to offer up a cold smile, then added: “Although I haven’t been there in many years.”
“How did you feel about Darlene Beckett?” Harry asked.
Clearby paused a long time before answering. When he did his eyes seemed to give off a steady chill, and as he leaned in to bring himself closer to Harry, his voice became little more than a gravelly whisper. “I wish I had been in heaven the day she died, so I could have borne witness to Jesus Christ casting her into hell,” he said.
Bobby Joe watched Harry’s car leave the church parking lot and head east on Keystone Road toward the Brooker Creek Preserve. The asshole had gotten nothing from all his questions. Everybody he had asked about the Peek-a-Boo had just looked at him like he was out of his mind. Even Clearby shut him down cold. And the big detective, he just stared back at them all the while they talked like he was gonna get something out of the tone of their voices, or the way they stood, or how they made eye contact. He was just like every cop he had ever met, thinking he was gonna be able to divine something, just like he was talking to one of those Greek oracles he had read about in school.
Now he had to go back to his father and listen to his shit for however long it took to smooth his feathers. But he better do it, and he better do a good job of it, or he was gonna lose this piece-of-cake job and find himself out looking for something in the real world, the very thing Daddy always threatened to make him do. Yeah, fat chance. Not with his record. Somebody got a look at that, they’d say so-long, goodbye, have a nice life, kid.
When Bobby Joe entered the office his father was seated behind his desk stone-faced. His tone matched his look, dark and simmering with anger.
“What happened with the detective?”
“Nothin’ happened, Daddy. He talked to everybody and nobody knew nothin’ about that accident.”
Reverend Waldo leaned back in his chair, his large belly rising up above the desktop like some sea creature coming up for a gasp of air. His eyes narrowed as he continued to stare at his son. “Nobody said nothin’ because the person who was driving that car was standing right next to that detective. Isn’t that so, Bobby Joe?”
Bobby Joe shuffled his feet. He knew it was useless to lie to the old man. He wouldn’t believe anything he said no matter how good the story was. And he didn’t have a decent story anyway.
“I was just following her, trying to get somethin’ on her. Something we could use to see that she finally went to jail,” he said.
His father remained silent, the only sign he had even heard him an increased narrowing of his eyes.
“I didn’t even know I had scratched that woman’s car. But I knew I couldn’t risk having anything that would show a church car was ever there. That’s why I paid that woman off so quick.”
“You were sleeping with that filthy harlot, weren’t you?”
Bobby Joe began to rapidly shake his head as though it might drive the accusation away. “No, Daddy. No, no, no.”
“Don’t lie to me. Don’t you dare.”
The old man’s voice thundered throughout the room and Bobby Joe could swear it made the photographs on the wall shake. His hands began to tremble. “Daddy… Daddy, I tried hard to resist her.”
The older minister leaned forward, elbows on the desktop, hands pressed together in front of his face as if he were preparing to pray. His voice was little more than a whisper now.
“You tell me how you sinned with her. You confess it to me, boy. You tell me all of it. Every… last… detail. Then you tell me if anybody else knows about it, or even suspects it happened. And you hear this, boy: I don’t want you to leave anything out. And when you tell me all that, then I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do next to make sure this here church doesn’t pay a price for your sin.”
It was two o’clock when Harry returned to the squad room. Since he arrived at the church that morning he had run into one stone wall after another and he was not in a good mood. The fact that he was followed home the previous night and hadn’t even spotted his tail had dropped his mood another notch.
He slid into his chair at the conference room table and opened his notebook to review his interviews at the church. They hadn’t proved useless, but they were running a close second. Every question he had asked had been answered, but the information given had been minimal or nonexistent. Justin Clearby had been the only plus, and that had been purely a gut feeling. But when he had run a criminal record check on him, he had drawn a blank there as well. All of it left Bobby Joe Waldo as his only suspect.
As he considered his next move someone slid into the chair opposite him. When he looked up he found Vicky looking at him intently. Jim Morgan stood in the doorway behind her. Harry acknowledged him with a nod and Morgan raised one finger to his forehead in a salute.
“How are things going with the church?” Vicky asked.
“I think I’m learning why churches are made of stone,” Harry said.
“That bad, huh?”
“That bad. And the entire staff of ministers and assistant ministers- all except for my boy, Bobby Joe Waldo-is the biggest collection of Biblethumping religious zealots I’ve ever come across. But, what the hell, this is Florida. How are you and Jim doing?”
Vicky jerked her head toward the squad room and when Harry looked past her he could see Nick Benevuto seated at his desk in a far corner. “It’s a little weird when the suspect you’re investigating is sitting across the room from you.” She paused, hesitating to say more.
“You haven’t come up with anything that might clear him? Or at least raise some doubts?”
Vicky gave him a steady look. “No, Harry. Not a thing. Are you still convinced the killer is someone involved with that church?”
Harry nodded and watched Vicky shift her weight in her chair. When he looked past her he saw that Jim Morgan had lowered his eyes. Harry smiled for the first time that day.
“Hey, guys, this is what homicide is all about. You follow every lead, every gut feeling. And when it’s all over, with a bit of luck, you end up with the right guy.”
Vicky stood and stared at him. “So it’s not just the dead detective’s well-known instinct for getting inside a killer’s head. Or all that mysticism about victims talking to him.” She returned his smile, but hers was cold and hard, her voice dripping sarcasm. “I think the captain actually believes in all that. I think he’s even counting on that bit of homicide voodoo to get Benevuto off the hook.”
Harry stared at her, allowing the bitterness in her voice to hang between them. He continued to hold her gaze as he leaned back in his chair. “Let’s get back to work, partner.”
Harry’s use of the word partner hit her like a slap, and Vicky realized they probably wouldn’t be using that word between them for a very long time.
Harry gathered his things, including the old mug shot of Bobby Joe Waldo. He had decided to show it to Darlene Beckett’s neighbors and friends to see if anyone could place the young minister with her in the weeks preceding her death. As he left the conference room Nick Benevuto approached him.
“Harry, I gotta talk to you.”
Harry nodded and stepped back inside the conference room. “What can I do for you, Nick?”
Benevuto’s eyes kept darting toward the main door of the squad room. “It’s your partner and her new sidekick. Especially Stanopolis. She’s really out for my ass, Harry, and she’s really bought into everything this kid Morgan claims he found.” He shook his head. “Okay, maybe I was off base tryin’ to dick that Beckett broad. And maybe I was stupid using one of our unmarked cars when I stopped by her place. But sweet Jesus, Harry, I never snuffed her, and I sure as hell never tried to alter department records to hide the fact that I was in an unmarked car when I went to her place. Shit, I wouldn’t know how to alter a computer record.”
Harry looked steadily into Benevuto’s eyes. “Did you ever see Darlene Beckett’s body?” he asked.
“No, Harry, I never did.”
“She looked scared, Nick. But the fear came later, when she realized she was going to die. First she looked surprised, and that sense of surprise never completely left her face. I think it was a surprise that came from something she saw. Like maybe she knew her killer, or she was surprised that someone like that would be a killer, because maybe he was a minister, or a cop, or a kid, and it surprised her that someone like that could have just cut her throat. So it’s like I told you before, Nick, the squad has no choice; they’ve got to check you out.”
Nick shook his head vehemently. “Those two, your partner and this Morgan kid, aren’t just checking me out, Harry. They’re out for by sweet dago ass-every pound of it. And they’re not gonna stop until they see it hanging from the nearest goddamn palm tree. Every time they look at me I can see it in their eyes. They’re gonna make their bones on my goddamn back. And all of it’s based on some computer bullshit that this kid dreamed up. But your partner, Stanopolis, she acts like this Morgan kid is some kind of genius detective, not some wet-behind-the-ears punk right out of a patrol car.”
“I still don’t get what you want me to do, Nick.” Harry, too, was now glancing toward the squad room door and this time he saw two suits enter. They had to be the people Nick had been anticipating. Harry could almost smell them from across the room. “I think we’ve got company,” he said.
Nick followed his gaze. “Shit,” he muttered.
“Look, I’ll do what I can. But it’s not gonna be much. I can’t tell them to back off.”
“I know you can’t. But Jesus, Harry, reign in this Morgan kid and his computer bullshit. Explain that it’s another cop’s blood he’s after.”
Harry nodded but made no promises. Benevuto was scared and, as a cop, he wanted to believe him, at least as far as Darlene’s murder was concerned. But he wasn’t about to impede another cop’s investigation. He started across the squad room and found himself braced by the two suits coming toward him.
“You’re Harry Doyle, aren’t you?” the larger of the two said.
“That’s right.”
“My name’s Dwight Jimmo.” He nodded toward his partner. “This is Barry Brooks. We’re from Internal Affairs and we need a few minutes of your time.” As Jimmo was talking, Brooks looked past Harry and called out to Benevuto who had started back across the room. “Don’t go anyplace, Benevuto. We need to talk to you too.”
Harry stared at each man in turn, the contempt clear on his face. “You’ll have to catch me later.”
Harry started to move past them when Brooks stepped in front of him. “We need to talk to you now.”
Brooks was a big man, most of it fat built up from sitting behind a desk. A small, cold smile gathered on Harry’s lips. His voice was just one level above a whisper. “You step in front of me like that again, and I’ll dump you on your fat ass-”
“Maybe you didn’t hear us,” Jimmo interrupted. “We’re from Internal Affairs and we want to talk to you.”
“And like I said, you’ll have to catch me later. Right now I’m working an active homicide, so you can set up an appointment with my captain, and when he tells me to drop what I’m doing and talk to you, I will. In the meantime, you can take your Internal Affairs creds and shove ’em up your ass sideways.” This time Harry stepped past them without any interference.
“You’ll be hearing from us,” Brooks called after him.
“Be still my heart,” Harry called back.
Bobby Joe insisted that he hadn’t told his daddy everything, and the man he was now talking to believed him.
“Your daddy seems to scare the hell out of you. Why is that?” The man asked the question casually, almost as though he didn’t care about Bobby Joe’s answer.
“I’m not afraid of him,” Bobby Joe said. There was a slight quiver in his voice as he spoke. “I just know what I can tell him and what I can’t.”
“You think he won’t stand by you if you tell him you did something that offends him, something that goes against his beliefs?”
Bobby Joe snorted.
“Maybe he won’t,” the man said. “Maybe his beliefs are too important to him, or maybe he’s just all used up with all the stuff you’ve pulled over the years.”
“Yeah, well maybe I’m used up with him.” Bobby Joe paused. He didn’t want this man going to his father and telling him what he had said. “No, I don’t mean that. I’m not used up with him. It’s just that sometimes he’s a hard man to get along with.”
“He’s a wonderful man.”
Bobby Joe shook his head. “Yeah, maybe he is to you. But I know one thing you don’t. He’s a hard man to have as a father.”
The man gave him a cold, distant smile. “I wouldn’t know about fathers… never had one; not a real one anyway. I just had a string of creeps my mother hooked up with from time to time, before the state sent me off to foster care.” He let out a barking laugh that sounded hollow even to him. He shook his head and continued. “The creeps, they only wanted one thing; they just wanted me out of the way so they could…” He let the sentence die. Then he smiled again. “Well, you know why they wanted me out of the way.” The smile widened, turning colder as it did. “If Darlene had a kid, you probably would have wanted him out of the way for the same reason.”
They were seated in the man’s car in the parking lot of Frank Howard Park, and beyond the low wall in front of them they could look straight out into the calm waters of the gulf. It was seven o’clock; sunset was still more than an hour away, and only a handful of people dotted the beach.
“I love the Gulf of Mexico,” the man said. “It always has a calming effect on me.” He turned slowly to look at Bobby Joe again. “Did you know that Darlene was killed on a beach? In fact, it was very close to where we are now. She was with a man she’d just picked up. He was killed too. I suppose it could just as easily have been you, Bobby Joe.” He looked back toward the water and his voice became distant and dreamy. “But that’s not really relevant. That’s just the luck of the draw.” He cocked his head to the side as if considering what he’d just said. “Anyway… whoever gave Darlene what she deserved moved her body after she was dead; took it to Brooker Creek. But the man’s body was left behind. A park maintenance crew found it a day later.” A glimmer of a smile began to form then faded away. “Pretty ripe by then, what with lying out in the sun all that time. Crabs too. They can find a body faster than anything.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” Bobby Joe said.
The man nodded slowly. “Well, I would, wouldn’t I?” He continued to nod his head. “I mean I was doing what your daddy asked us all to do. I was watching her… just like you were.”
“I wasn’t watching her that night.” Bobby Joe twisted nervously on the seat.
“You weren’t?”
“No, dammit. I was nowhere near her that night.”
“Can you prove that, Bobby Joe?”
He was silent for a moment. “No, I can’t.”
“Too bad… be better if you could. The detective you’ve got hanging around your neck seems to be looking at you pretty hard. Man’s like a dog with a bone. And I don’t think he’s about to give it up. If I were you I’d get myself an alibi.”
Bobby Joe stared out the window. “You could say I was with you… like we were doing something for the church.”
The man shook his head as though Bobby Joe’s suggestion was the dumbest thing he’d heard in a long while. “Now given my situation, why would I shine that kind of light on myself? Why would I put myself in the middle of your problem? Don’t you think I’ve got enough of my own?”
“But you were watching her too. Don’t you forget that. We even ran into each other at that club that one night.” Bobby Joe’s voice had become sharp and petulant.
The man turned to face him. As he did his arm slid along the top of the bench seat until his hand was behind Bobby Joe’s head. “But I didn’t keep going back inside that club. And I wasn’t sleeping with her behind everybody’s back. Only you were doing that. Only you had that kind of personal relationship with that slut.”
“Still…”
“You’re not threatening me, are you, Bobby Joe?”
The man’s eyes had turned so cold and so hard it sent a shiver through the young minister.
“No, no, of course not.”
“Good. Because it would be a terrible mistake if you ever decided you could threaten me.” The man moved in close, his face only inches from Bobby Joe’s.
Bobby Joe leaned away until his back was against the passenger window. “You know better than that.” There was a noticeable tremor in his voice.
“Yes, I know better. The question is, do you?”
“You don’t ever have to worry about it. Look, I don’t want any trouble with you. I need your help, that’s all.”
The man placed his hand on the back of Bobby Joe’s neck and he could feel a trembling that radiated up from his shoulders. “You’re on your own in this, Bobby Joe. Just make sure you never drag me into it. You understand what I mean?”
“Yeah, I understand.” The trembling intensified. “Listen, you don’t have to worry about it. Really, you don’t.”
The man watched Bobby Joe’s eyes and he knew there was no way he could trust him. He was weak and foolish and when it came down to it, he’d only think about saving his own skinny backside. But you don’t know everything, Bobby Joe. And there’s one thing you sure don’t know. You don’t know you’re already a dead man.