Nora Roberts - Sacred Sins

“Is there anyone who concerns you, someone you might consider emotionally unstable?”

“Detective, I’m in the business of comforting the troubled. We’ve had some drug and alcohol abuse, and an unfortunate case of wife beating a few months ago. Still, there’s no one I would even consider capable of these murders.”

“Your name might have been pulled out of a hat, or it might have been used because the killer identified with you, as a priest.” Ben paused, knowing he was stepping onto the hard-packed un-movable ground of the sanctified. “Father, has anyone come to you in the confessional and indicated in any way that he knew something about the murders?”

“Again I can be honest and say no. Detective, are you certain it was my name?”

Ed took out his notepad and read from it. “Reverend Francis Moore.”

“Not Francis X. Moore?”

“No.”

Moore passed his hand over his eyes. “I hope relief isn’t a sin. When I was given my name and was old enough to learn to write it, I always used the X for Xavier. I thought having a middle name that began with X was exotic and unique. I never got out of the habit. Detectives, every piece of identification I have uses my middle initial. Everything I sign includes it. Everyone who knows me, knows me as Reverend Francis X. Moore.”

Ed noted it down. If he’d gone with instinct, he would have said good night and gone on to the next address on the list. Procedure was more demanding and infinitely more boring than instinct. They interviewed the three other priests in the rectory.

“Well, it only took us an hour to come up with nothing,” Ben commented as they walked back to the car.

“We gave those guys something to talk about tonight.”

“We put in yet another hour of overtime this week. Accounting’s going to hit the roof.”

“Yeah.” Ed smiled a little as he eased into the passenger’s seat. “Lousy bastards.”

“We could give them a break, or we can go see the ex-con.”

Ed considered a moment, then pulled out the rest of his trail mix. It should hold him until he could get a meal. “I’ve got another hour.”

There were no fresh flowers in the one-room apartment in South East. The furniture, what there was of it, hadn’t been polished since it had been bought from the Salvation Army. A Murphy bed no one had bothered to tuck back into the wall took up most of the room. The sheets weren’t clean. The unpleasant odors of sweat, stale sex, and onions hung in the room.

The blonde had an inch of brown root showing in her frizzed mop of hair. She opened the door with the slow, wary stare of the knowing when Ben and Ed showed their badges. She wore snug jeans over a well-shaped rear, and a pink sweater that was cut low enough to show breasts that were starting to sag.

Ben gauged her to be about twenty-five, though there were lines already dug deep at the sides of her mouth. Her eyes were brown, and the left one was set off by a bruise that had rainbowed into mauve, yellow, and gray. He judged she’d taken the hit three or four days earlier.

“Mrs. Moore?”

“No, we ain’t married.” The blonde dug a cigarette out of a pack of Virginia Slims. You’ve come a long way, baby. “Frank went out for beer. He’ll be back in a minute. Is he in trouble?”

“We just need to talk to him.” Ed gave her an easy smile, and decided she needed more protein in her diet.

“Sure. Well, I can tell you he’s been keeping out of trouble. I’ve seen to that.” She found a pack of matches, lit her cigarette, then used the pack to squash a small roach. “Maybe he drinks a little too much, but I make sure he does it here, where he can’t get in trouble.” She looked around the pitiful room and drew deep on the cigarette. “It don’t look like much, but I’m putting money aside. Frank’s got a good job now, and he’s dependable. You can ask his super.”

“We’re not here to hassle Frank.” Ben decided against sitting. You couldn’t be sure what might be crawling under the cushions. “Sounds like you’ve got him pretty much in line.”

She touched her bruised eye. “I give as good as I get.”

“I bet. What happened?”

“Frank wanted another five for beer on Saturday. I’ve got a budget.”

“Saturday?” Ben came to attention. The night of the last murder. The woman facing him was a blonde, of sorts. “I guess you two got into it, then he stomped out so he could go down to the bar and bitch with the boys.”

“He didn’t go anywhere.” She grinned and tapped her ash into a plastic dish that invited you to PUT YOUR BUTT HERE. “He got a shot in, and the neighbors downstairs were beating with that damn broomstick on the ceiling. I got a shot right back.” She let the smoke trail lightly out of her mouth and up her nose. “Frank respects that sort of thing in a woman. He likes it, you know. So we… made up. He didn’t think about beer anymore Saturday night.”

The door opened. Frank Moore had arms like cinder blocks, legs like tree trunks, and stood maybe five feet five. He was wearing a black trench coat that had moth holes in the shoulder, and was carrying a six-pack of the King of Beers.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. His free arm was already flexed.

Ben pulled out his badge. “Homicide.”

Frank dropped his arm. Ben noticed the inch-long scratch on his cheek as he leaned over to read the badge. It was scabbed over and looked every bit as nasty as the blonde’s bruise.

“The system eats shit,” Frank announced, and slammed the six-pack onto the counter. “That slut tells the judge I tried to rape her, I end up doing three years, then when I get out I got cops hanging around. I told you the system eats shit, Maureen.”

“Yeah.” The blonde helped herself to a beer. “You told me.”

“Why don’t you just tell us where you were last Sunday morning, Frank,” Ben began. “About four A.M.”

“Four in the morning. Jesus, I was in bed like everybody else. And I wasn’t alone neither.” He jerked a thumb at Maureen before he popped the top on a Bud. Beer fizzled through the opening and added one more smell to the room.

“You Catholic, Frank?”

Frank wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, belched, and drank again. “Do I look Catholic?”

“Frank’s daddy was Baptist,” Maureen supplied.

“Shut your face,” Frank told her.

“Kiss ass.” She only smiled when he lifted an arm. Ed had taken only one step forward when Frank dropped it again.

“You want to tell the cops everything, fine. My old man was Baptist. No cards, no drinking, no-fucking-around Baptist. He kicked my ass plenty, and I kicked his once before I left home. That was fifteen years ago. A two-bit whore railroaded me into prison. I did three years, and if I ever saw her again, I’d kick her ass too.” He pulled a pack of Camels out of his shirt pocket and lit it with a battered Zippo. “I got a job washing floors and cleaning toilets. I come home every night so this bitch can tell me I only got five dollars for beer. I ain’t done nothing illegal. Maureen’ll tell you.” He swung a loving arm around the woman he’d just called a bitch.

“That’s right.” She took a swig from her beer.

He didn’t fit the description, not the physical one, nor the psychiatric one. Still Ben persisted. “Where were you August fifteenth?”

“Jesus, how am I supposed to remember?” Frank chugged the rest of the beer down and crushed the can. “You guys got a warrant to be in here?”

“We were in Atlantic City.” Maureen didn’t blink when Frank tossed the can and missed the trash bag by inches. “Remember, Frank? My sister works up there, you know. She got us a good deal at the hotel where she does housekeeping. The Ocean View Inn. It ain’t on the strip or nothing, but it’s close. We drove up on August fourteenth and spent three days. It’s in my diary.”