Blood on a Saint (34 page)

“Good.”

“Tell me,” he said to Maura, “has anybody ever done a study of how many sexual predators have female pen pals and courtroom bunnies hanging on their every word? Studied what makes a person become the lover and admirer of convicted sex offenders and serial killers?”

“I’m not sure. If not, it’s about time.”

Monty spared Maura the details of the Podgis show he had seen, detailing just how far some of these courtroom bunnies and other panderers were willing to go to keep their men happy.

Maura said, “Jordyn’s letters to him aren’t available, I suppose.”

“No. All we know of them is what he says in response.”

“And that tells us everything we need to know, that he’s a sadistic, paranoid, narcissistic, controlling psychopath. Why is that not obvious to anyone who reads these letters, including Jordyn?”

“Maybe it was obvious, and she liked him just the way he was.”

“Don’t make me sick.”

“You just don’t
understand
him
, Maura, the way Jordyn did.”

“Maybe at the cost of her life.”

Brennan

Brennan was too agitated to concentrate fully on his work after searching the residence of the accused murderer, Podgis, and finding a photograph of Ignatius Boyle lying naked with a young woman who was presumably the victim of the murder. There was a part of Brennan that wished he had never broken into the flat, never seen the photo, never heard Boyle’s unsatisfactory answers to his questions about the killing. Because now Brennan had to consider a possibility that pained him to the core: that poor, sweet Ignatius Boyle was a legitimate suspect in the case. And that the vile Podgis might be innocent. If he was, what in the hell were those depraved “confessions” about? But no, that did not necessarily follow. After all, there was incontrovertible physical evidence tying Podgis to the crime scene. Was it even remotely possible that the two men’s lives had somehow intersected to the point where they acted together in committing this crime? What on earth could have brought two such disparate individuals together? The obvious link was Jordyn Snider. Boyle had been naked with her, and Podgis had the photo of them together. Had Podgis taken the picture? If so, when? Where? And, again, how did these people step into each other’s lives?

Ignatius Boyle had been at the church the day of the debate on the Podgis show. He had encouraged Brennan to prevail over the forces of darkness and unbelief. To take on Podgis and win one for the Man Above. Boyle was no friend of Podgis at that time. And that time was a few hours before the broadcast. Less than twelve hours before the murder. It didn’t make sense. What Brennan would normally do to hash out something like this was discuss it with Monty. But Monty was on the wrong side of this. The dark side. Or was he? Well, he was representing Podgis.

Brennan wondered, not for the first time, what kind of information Monty possessed about Podgis and his activities that night, and other previous troubles he might have had. How much did Monty know about Boyle? Were there other suspects as well? Monty could not reveal anything he had because of solicitor-client confidentiality. Brennan was in the same boat; he could not reveal to Monty the things he had heard from Podgis in the confessional. “Boat” might be an appropriate image; the priest and the lawyer were like the proverbial two ships passing in the night, when it came to knowledge about the murder of Jordyn Snider.

He would keep an eye out for Ignatius Boyle. Perhaps he could persuade the homeless man to come into the church. Boyle was a very devout Catholic. Would the magnificent interior of the church, with its statues and stained-glass windows depicting the angels and saints, and the presence of the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, induce in Boyle the desire to tell the truth? Brennan of course did not have the luxury of lounging about on the benches in the churchyard all day and night in the hope of catching the man when he came for his devotions. It would be a matter of chance, not at all an efficient way to make progress in an investigation, but he did not see what else he could do.

There was no sign of Ignatius Boyle over the next few days. Whenever Brennan had the opportunity, he took a peek out the window of the parish house or the choir school to see if he could spot his man. But no luck.

It was nearly a week before Brennan caught sight of Boyle again. On a Monday night when the priest was in his room basking in the creamy voice of Kiri Te Kanawa on his CD player, he looked out the window and saw his quarry shambling into the churchyard with his Roman missal in one hand and his pack of cigarette butts in the other. Brennan gently extinguished Kiri’s voice and ran down the stairs and out to the yard. He thought it best not to draw attention to himself but to get good and close to Boyle before announcing his presence. He was just about to head over to him when he heard his name.

“Father Burke!” Shite.

Ignatius Boyle whipped around, saw Brennan, and hightailed it out of the churchyard.

Brennan turned to see who had hailed him. It was Urquhart, the fellow who did repair work around the church. He wanted a word with Brennan about cleaning and doing something to the furnace. The burner, the filter . . . something. Brennan could not remember ever looking at the furnace and had no interest in its maintenance; he told the man to go ahead and do whatever needed doing.

By the time he had dealt with that, Boyle was out of sight.

Well, Brennan was not about to let it rest. He took off at a fast clip in the direction Boyle had taken; he was determined to question the man again and get to the bottom of the connection between Boyle, Podgis, and Jordyn Snider.

Boyle had left the churchyard in the direction of Morris Street to the south, so Brennan sprinted to Morris and looked left and right. He had a split-second decision to make: which way to go? Left was the direction of the harbour. It was more likely Boyle had gone right, into the heart of the Halifax peninsula, so that’s what Brennan did. He walked as fast as he could without breaking into a run. There, up ahead, was Boyle. Brennan slowed and moved into the shadows of the buildings as he followed his quarry west on Morris. He saw Boyle turn right on South Park; Brennan broke into a run until he got to the corner, then turned and resumed a walking pace. Boyle stopped for the light at Spring Garden Road and did not turn around. A man not plagued by any suspicion that he was being followed. Well, most people are not being followed, and Ignatius Boyle would normally be no exception. In fact, he was probably the least likely person to be pursued, having no possessions that anyone would want to steal. Boyle turned left on the north side of Spring Garden, walked the length of the Public Gardens to Summer Street and then cut through the Camp Hill Cemetery. Brennan made a little bow in the direction of the soaring column marking the grave of the great brewer Alexander Keith on his way through the graveyard. How far was this pursuit going to take him, Brennan wondered, but he stayed well behind Boyle and kept at it. Boyle did not stop until he reached a blue wood-shingled house on Yukon Street north of Quinpool Road. Only then did Boyle look about him. Brennan ducked out of sight behind an oil truck. When he peered out, he saw Boyle standing at the entrance to the house, leaning on the bell and pounding on the door. There had been a reference to Yukon in the notes in Podgis’s closet. Podgis had this address.

After nearly a full minute of ringing and pounding, which attracted annoyed glances from a couple of people passing by, the door opened a crack. Boyle spoke to someone inside in an urgent whisper. Brennan strained to hear what was being said, but could not make it out. Boyle was admitted to the house, and the door closed behind him. Who was in there? Someone connected with Jordyn Snider? With Pike Podgis? Someone with a nostalgic taste for candid Polaroid photography?

Chapter 17

Brennan

Brennan, dressed in a navy sports coat, white shirt, and no tie, stood in front of the blue house on Yukon Street, treating the door with more restraint than had been shown by Ignatius Boyle the night before. It seemed long but it was probably only thirty seconds before Brennan heard someone shuffling towards the entrance. The door opened, and a woman of about seventy-five stood there glaring up at him through a pair of smudged eyeglasses. She had three sweaters layered on, all white, and still she shivered with the cold.

“Yes? May I help you?”

“Em, perhaps you can. I’m wondering if Mr. Boyle is here.”

“Who?”

“Ignatius Boyle. This is the address he gave me.”

“Ignatius!”

“Yes. Is he here?”

“I’d remember a name like that, so I can tell you the answer to your question is no. You must have the wrong address.”

“It may be the upstairs flat . . .”

“The upstairs flat is occupied by three — ”

“Maggie! Maggie!”

Brennan heard two very young voices coming from the top of the stairs, followed by footsteps and a crashing sound. The elderly woman looked upwards. “Take it easy up there, girls. You’ll fall and hurt yourselves. I’ve warned you before about that landing. Now go back inside. It’s not Maggie; it’s me talking to a gentleman who’s lost.”

“Lost? We’ll help him, Mrs. Lewis! We’ll know the way!”

“No, no, he’s just leaving.”

But she did not succeed in hustling him off the property before two little girls came bounding down the stairs. One looked about ten, the other maybe eight. Both had dark curly hair and big brown eyes. They were wearing bibbed overalls made of denim with striped cotton T-shirts underneath.

“Are you lost?” the younger one asked.

“Well, it’s more that I’m looking for someone and can’t find him.”

“So the other guy’s lost.”

“Could be.” Brennan smiled at them.

“We’ll help you. Come up to our house. You tell us what he looks like. We’ll draw a picture, and you can nail it to a tree or a telephone pole, and people will see it and find him and you put your phone number on. That’s what we did with our kitty.”

“Oh, did you find him?”

“It’s a girl! Buffy.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you find
her
?”

“Yeah!”

The older sister spoke up at that point. “But then she got sick and died.”

“Oh, no.”

“We had a funeral,” the younger one said. “Buffy’s buried in the backyard, and we have a picture of her out there. What does the lost guy look like?”

He looked uncertainly at Mrs. Lewis. She said, “Girls, why don’t you go back inside and let this gentleman go look for his friend. I’m sure your sister will be home soon, and she won’t want you out here gabbing with, well, with strangers.”

“It’s okay,” the older child said. “If he does anything bad, we’ll get you to call the police.”

Obviously, the right thing to do would be to leave. But Brennan wondered if the girls knew, or had seen, Ignatius Boyle when he came to the house last night. There appeared to be only two flats in the place, one up, one down.

“How about this?” he suggested. “I’ll come up and talk to you on the landing. I won’t go into your apartment, because you don’t know me and I don’t know you. I’ll tell you what my friend looks like, and you can go in and draw a picture if you like, and bring it out to me. Maybe Mrs. Lewis will leave her door open, so she can hear us in case she thinks of anything that might help. Does that sound all right?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Great!”

The girls were on side. Mrs. Lewis looked skeptical, as well she might. But it was a dead certainty that she would listen in, so she would know soon enough that he was harmless. She stepped aside, and he walked up the stairs to the landing.

“I’m Florrie and this is Celia,” the younger girl announced. “She’s one year, six months, two weeks, and two days older than me, but I learned to read at four and she didn’t learn till she was almost six. She reads better than me now, though, because they have harder books in grade five.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Florrie and Celia. My name is Brennan.”

“That’s a nice name,” Florrie said. “I don’t know anybody else called that. I know four Joshuas and three Kaylas. But there’s no other Florrie in our school. And no other Celia except one of the teachers and we don’t call her that; we call her Mrs. Randall, because you have to be polite at school. I’ll go in and get our drawing stuff and bring it out here.”

“Sure. Or maybe I could ask you about the fellow first, ask whether you’ve seen him. You might have. He said something about coming to this street to see someone.”

“I’m getting the papers and coloured pencils anyway, Celia,” Florrie declared and stepped past her into the flat.

“So, what school do you go to, Celia?”

“Oxford.”

“How do you like it?”

“It’s good.”

“What’s your favourite subject at Oxford?”

“Math. The teacher sneaks me extra work from the bigger kids, in grade six.”

“You must be very good at it.”

“Well, you know . . . What do you work at?”

“I have a school. A choir school.”

“So you’re a principal?”

“I’m more of a music director.”

“That sounds like more fun. We have music too.”

“Brennan! What kind of music do you play?” Florrie called from inside.

“I do Gregorian chant, and something called Renaissance polyphony; that’s where different parts of the choir sing different parts of the piece. Beautiful harmonies.”

“I’m really good at music!”

“Florrie, that’s bragging!” her sister said.

“Well, you were bragging to him about the math!”

“Oh, no! I guess I was.” She looked at Brennan, the picture of guilt. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“I didn’t think you were bragging; you were just stating a fact. Right?”

She grinned at him. “Right!”

He heard the banging of something that sounded like a guitar hitting the wall, and he winced. Out came Florrie with one hand clutching the neck of a guitar, the other arm barely enclosing a bunch of drawing supplies. She dropped everything on the floor. The guitar suffered another blow.

“I’ll play something for you. But you can go first.”