Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Leopard Spot

“I thought you would.”

“How’d you know which side I’d be in.”

“I figured you’d pick the St. Joseph side. He’s a mystery.”

“Right pick, wrong reason. The other side has that gruesome twelfth station of the cross with Christ crucified on the wall next to it. I see enough gore in my day job.”

“Which station is outside these confessionals?”

“Jesus before Pilate.”

“Always the cop, wanting everybody in custody.”

“Not everybody. So what’s the crisis? I can only take feeling silly so much longer.”

Matt gathered himself. “I wish I could just feel silly. In fact, I probably should, but I’m too scared to.”

“Scared?”

He was flattered that she was surprised. “That woman I told you about? The one who—”

“The razor-wielding priest hater. That’s what this is about?”

“She’s stalking me. More than me. Anybody I associate with.”

“I told you back then it was a hate crime. You should have let me have a real go at her then.”

“How? She appears when she wants to.” His knees were starting to kill him and he shifted position.

“What’s she done? Specifics.”

“She confronted me again. Made demands. She sent me an object. Made demands. She, uh, she was at TitaniCon, and I think she attacked Temple, and Sheila, a friend of mine from my ConTact hotline days. And…Mariah.”

“What!”

He had her attention now. “Mariah’s the one who noticed the pattern. They were all silly mishaps, but there was malice behind them. Then, as I was leaving, someone jabbed me in the kidneys when I was going down an escalator. Felt like a gun. Felt like a warning that she could do anything she liked to me, anywhere, anytime.”

“And? Did you confront her?”

“Couldn’t. It was a mob scene. She vanished into the crowd. But she left her ‘weapon’ behind. Dropped it. Mariah retrieved it.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I know. It could have been an explosive. But it was an aspergillum.”

Silence held inside the confessional rooms as well as outside them.

“Father, forgive me,” Molina intoned laconically at last. “You were right to be so cautious.”

“An aspergillum is—”

“I know what it is. I’ve had my catechism lessons. I’ve seen it used at my grandmother’s funeral. Little metal implement for the dispensing of holy water. Scary thing, she could have had it wired into a bomb. An instrument of blessing made into an instrument of death. So. What does she want?”

Matt took a deep breath.

“No one toys with anyone,” Molina prodded, “including the police, unless he or she wants something: publicity, fear, revenge.”

“She wants souls. Specifically mine.”

“A soul is an immaterial thing.”

“She wants my soul in a very material form. She’s…demonic is the word I’d use.”

“We’ve run into religious nuts,” Molina mused, thinking as a police officer. “Usually they’re men. I don’t get this woman. I don’t get her nuisance attacks on these innocent bystanders at TitaniCon.”

“Not all nuisance attacks. When Temple, Mariah, and I were seeing Sheila to her car in the parking garage, a vehicle came right at us, followed us across the bridge to the hotel and crashed right through the glass doors.”

“I heard about that! Stolen car. It was pursuing you ? And Mariah?”

“And Temple.”

“I am furious that no one told me about this. I’m the child’s mother. I have a right to know.”

“We weren’t sure what that was about, some nutso driver who couldn’t find a parking place, or a drunk gambler with a gripe against the hotel…I hadn’t put it together yet. I wasn’t really sure until she approached me a few days ago and told me what the price of peace and quiet for all involved was.”

“A soul? That’s demented.”

“You still don’t understand.”

“Maybe I’m a little more concerned about my daughter’s life and limb than I am about your soul. So what was this woman doing at TitaniCon anyway?”

“Stalking me is all I can figure out.”

“Oh, I doubt you’re that intriguing. There’s got to be another reason.”

She was right, but Matt wasn’t ready to tell her that. Kinsella’s past was his to keep, and Temple would feel betrayed if Matt gave it away to Molina, even if it put some of Max’s actions in a better light.

“I’m afraid her prime objective is just me and my soul.”

“You can’t extort a soul from someone.”

“I didn’t think so either, but I underestimated her. It’s really simple, Carmen. What has been my core belief for most of my life?”

“The Church.”

“How have I honored it?”

“By being a priest, until lately.”

She still was oddly obtuse. He had never confessed a true sin that made him feel as slimy and ashamed as Kathleen O’Connor’s method of extracting, extorting his soul. He was glad they were both in the dark, locked in a ritual room from their common past.

“Yes?” Molina demanded.

“I suppose it’s a simple thing to most people. No big deal. But she knew how to find the one thing…What’s the hallmark of a Roman Catholic priest, laicized, as I have been, or not?”

“Religion. The collar, bingo night?…” Her joke found no response and he could hear her squirming on her side of the linen curtain. Funny, confessees usually squirmed, not confessors.

“Oh. That,” she said at last, absolving him of putting it into words.

A long silence.

“It is fiendish,” she whispered, almost thinking aloud. “Isolating. Abusive. Like something out of a melodrama, only with a role reversal. This woman is mad.”

“I asked Kinsella for help. He checked out my place for bugs. There was nothing. Yet. But she left a package there while I was out of town.”

“Right. It could have been a bomb.”

“I don’t think she wants to hurt me. At least not physically. Not anymore. She’s made her mark. It’s just others. I didn’t tell him what her price was. I was afraid he’d tell me to pay it.”

“You can’t.” Molina’s voice was crisp. Certain. “You know what I’d do if someone was putting Mariah in that position?”

“I’m not a child. I’m not helpless.”

“Yes, you are, which is why you wouldn’t let the Mystifying Max in on your ugly secret. We’re all helpless, Matt, if someone wants to destroy us badly enough. This is fiendish. You can hardly dare go to anyone for help, you can’t associate with friends…. Has she targeted Temple Barr?”

“I don’t know. She said something about watching her, but it was more to prove that she was watching me. I think she knows who my friends are, but she doesn’t know—”

“Who you really care about. That’s good. Keep it that way. She seems to be aiming at the women around you, like the jealous bitch she probably is.”

“Carmen!”

“Sorry. I forgot where we were. Where I am. You know how hard it is to stop a stalker. Legally.”

“I know. And she’s too smart to attack me physically again, although if I hurt her back, a man against a woman, who’d support me?”

“Fiendish.”

“I wonder,” he began, then stopped.

“What?”

“Oh, speaking of role reversal. I hunted Cliff Effinger down. Probably drew the wrong people’s attention to him and got him killed. I wonder if this isn’t a case of just deserts.”

“Forget it! Effinger brought on his own death by associating with a crooked crowd. Besides, this woman…what does she look like anyway?”

“Great. Beautiful. A late-twenties Elizabeth Taylor. And don’t say—”

“‘Just relax and enjoy it?’ No, I won’t. Heard that about too many rape victims to think any age or gender welcomes abuse. Looks have nothing to do with the crime, but they might have something to do with the criminal. With looks like that, she could get almost any man she wanted. Why fixate on the one man who doesn’t want her, won’t succumb. It’s a power thing, as usual. All about me, me, me, even as they fixate on you, you, you. Can you get me an image of her?”