Nora Roberts - Sacred Sins

“We’ll get you home.” Ben looked at Tess through the haze of his smoke. “Just take it easy and tell it from the beginning.”

“I was at a party.” He stopped dead and looked at Tess. She gave him an encouraging nod. “You can check, it was over on Twenty-sixth. Some friends of mine just got the apartment, see, and it was like a moving-in party. I can give you names.”

“That’s fine.” Ed had his notebook out. “We’ll get them from you later. When did you leave the party?”

“I don’t know. I had too much to drink and got into it with my girl. She doesn’t like it when I party too hard. We had words, you know.” He swallowed, drew in smoke again, then let it out on a shuddering breath. “She got pissed and left, that was about one-thirty. Took the car, so I couldn’t drive.”

“Sounds like she was looking out for you,” Ed put in.

“Yeah, well, I was too wasted to see it that way.” The rumblings of a heroic hangover were already beginning. Gil preferred it to the nausea.

“What happened after she left?” Ed prompted.

“I hung around. I think I crashed for a while. The party was winding down when I woke up. Lee-it was his apartment, Lee Grimes-he says I can sleep on the couch, but I… well, I needed air, you know? I was going to walk home. I guess I was already feeling pretty sick, so I stopped, just across the street there.” He turned and pointed. “My head was spinning, and I knew I was going to toss up some beer. I just rested there a minute and got it under control. And I see this guy come out of the alley-”

“You saw him come out,” Ben interrupted. “You didn’t hear anything? See him go in?”

“No, I swear. I don’t know how long I’d been standing there. Not too long, I think, ‘cause it was cold as hell. Even drunk I was thinking I had to move to keep warm. I saw him come out, then he leaned up against the lamppost for a minute, like he was sick too. I thought it was kind of funny, two drunks weaving across the street from each other, like something out of a cartoon. And one of the drunks is a priest.”

“How do you know that?” Ben paused in the act of offering Gil another cigarette.

“He’s wearing this priest’s suit-the black dress with the white collar. I was laughing to myself. You know, looks like he’s been hitting the communion wine. Anyway, I’m standing there wondering if I’m going to piss in my pants or barf, and he straightens himself up and walks away.”

“Which way?”

“Toward M. Yeah, toward M Street. He went around the corner.”

“Did you see what he looked like?”

“Man, I saw he was a priest.” Gil pounced on the fresh cigarette. “He was white.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “Yeah, he was a white dude. I think he had dark hair. Look, I was wasted, and he was standing with his face against the lamppost.”

“Okay. You’re doing good.” Ed flipped a page in his notebook. “How about build? Could you tell if he was short, tall?”

Gil screwed his face up in concentration. Though he still consumed the cigarette in great gulps, Tess saw he was calming. “I guess he was pretty tall, not a little guy anyhow. He wasn’t fat. Shit, it’s like average, you know. About like you, I guess,” he said to Ben.

“How about age?” Ben put in.

“I don’t know. He wasn’t old and feeble. His hair was dark.” He said it quickly as it flashed into his memory. “Yeah, I’m sure it was dark, not gray or blond. He had his hands in it like this.” He demonstrated, pressing his hands against the side of his head. “Like his head was hurting him pretty bad. His hands were black, but his face was white. Like he had gloves on, you know. It was cold.”

He stopped again as the full implication hit him. He’d seen a murderer. Fear doubled back, a personal thing. If he’d seen, he was involved. The muscles in his face began to tremble. “He’s the one who’s been doing all these women. He’s the one. He’s a priest.”

“Let’s finish this up,” Ben said easily. “How’d you find the body?”

“Oh, Christ.” He closed his eyes, and Tess moved toward him.

“Gil, try to remember it’s over. What you’re feeling is going to fade. It’ll start to fade a little bit after you say it all out loud. Once you say it out loud, it’ll be easier.”

“Okay.” He reached for her hand and held on. “After the guy left I was feeling a little better, like maybe I was going to keep everything down after all. But I’d had a lot of beer and I had to get rid of some, you know. I still had myself together enough to know I couldn’t just piss all over the sidewalk. So I walked over to the alley. I almost tripped over her.” He ran the back of his hand under his nose as it started to leak. “I had my hand in my pants and I almost tripped over her. Jesus. There was enough light coming in from the street so that I saw her face, real good. I never saw anyone dead before. Not ever. It’s not like the movies, man. It ain’t nothing like the movies.”

He took a minute, sucking on the cigarette and crushing Tess’s fingers. “I gagged. I took a couple of steps trying to get out, and I just started throwing up. I thought my sides would bust before I stopped. My head was going around again, but I got out somehow. I think I fell down on the sidewalk. There were cops. A couple of them stopped their car. I told them… I just told them to go in the alley.”

“You did good, Gil.” Ben took his pack of cigarettes and stuffed it the boy’s pocket. “We’re going to have one of the officers take you home, let you get cleaned up and eat something. Then we need you at the station.”

“Can I call my girl?”

“Sure.”.

“If she hadn’t taken the car, she’d have been walking home. She might’ve walked past here.”

“Call your girl,” Ben told him. “And ease off the beer. Whit-taker.” Ben signaled to the driver of the first cruiser. “Take Gil home, will you? And give him some time to clean up and pull it together before you bring him in.”

“He could use some sleep, Ben,” Tess murmured.

He started to snap at her, then cut himself off. The kid looked ready to drop. “Right. Drop him off, Whittaker. We’ll send a car for you about noon. Okay?”

“Yeah.” He looked at Tess then. “Thanks. I do feel better.”

“If what happens gives you some trouble and you want to talk about it, call the station. They’ll give you my number.”

Before Gil was in the car, Ben had Tess by the arm, leading her away. “The department doesn’t approve of soliciting for patients at the scene.”

Tess shook off his arm. “Yes, you’re welcome, Detective. I’m glad I could help you get a coherent story out of your only witness.”

“We’d have gotten it out of him.” Ben cupped his hands around a match and lit a fresh cigarette. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Harris arrive on the scene.

“You really hate it that I helped, don’t you? Because I’m a psychiatrist, I wonder, or because I’m a woman?”

“Don’t psychoanalyze me,” he warned, tossed his cigarette into the street, and immediately wished it back.

“I don’t have to psychoanalyze to see resentment, prejudice, and anger.” She broke off, realizing how close she was to losing control in public and creating a scene. “Ben, I know you didn’t want me to come, but I didn’t get in the way.”

“Get in the way?” He laughed and studied her face. “No, you’re a real pro, lady.”

“That’s it, isn’t it?” she murmured. She wanted to shout, to sit down, to just walk away. It took the rest of her control not to do any of those things. Whatever you begin, you finish. That, too, was part of her training. “I walked into that alley with you and stayed on the same level. I didn’t fall apart, get sick, run away. I didn’t get hysterical at the sight of a body, and that really bothers you.”