The Man Who Murdered God (12 page)

Mattie woke with a hangover. She rolled over and tried to smother her headache with the pillow, hiding her eyes from the warm rays of the sun. The bed seemed to spin slowly under her, and her stomach felt uneasy. When she opened her eyes and lifted her head, she saw the brilliant morning light reflected from mirrors and from the polished surface of her Italian brass bed. She lifted her wrist, squinted at the watch with one eye. Eight o'clock. Damn.

She struggled out of bed and slipped into her robe, then padded into the kitchen, where she sat morosely watching the kettle until it began to boil.

Jesus, she had to stop drinking tequila. So easy going down, so hard on the head. She smiled, remembering the scene with Chris in the bar. Hell, it had to come to that. He'd been fun for a while.

She looked up at the ceiling. There's a kid up there, she remembered. In the guest room. The young guy I nearly ran over, coming out of the parking lot. And I brought him home with me. I must have been nuts.

The kettle began to whistle. She jerked the plug out of the wall and reached for the instant-coffee jar. No, she remembered, I wasn't nuts. I was half drunk. If the cops had arrived, I might have woken up in a cell this morning and kissed goodbye to driving for about a year.

She heard the ceiling creak above her, heard footsteps walking towards the upstairs washroom. What do I do now? The toilet flushed, and she grinned to herself. Hell, you do the same thing you always do when you bring somebody home. You make breakfast and ask if he had fun last night.

No, wait a minute. This isn't the same. There was no groping and grabbing and changing positions last night. She made him, what? Hot chocolate? Yes, and gave him some stale cookies. And he kept thanking her. Christ, she almost ran him over, he's got a bruise the size of a grapefruit on his calf, he could hardly walk up the stairs, and he's thanking her.

He wanted me to tuck him in, she recalled. Acts like a kid in some ways, doesn't he? Good-looking, though. Not too muscular, but at least he had a flat stomach. God, she was tired of men with pot bellies. Some of them were almost proud of their gut. Their beer reservoir, they called it, the pigs. God. When was the last time she'd been able to reach over and stroke a man's flat belly?

“Good morning.”

Mattie almost spilled her coffee. He was standing in the doorway at the bottom of the stairs, wearing baggy exercise pants and no top.

“Hi,” she answered. “Sleep well?”

“Yes, I did. That bed is very comfortable.”

“Bought it for my mother. Did the whole room for her. I even had the bathroom installed
en suite
. We were going to live together and share the expenses.” She pulled a ceramic mug down from the cupboard. “You drink coffee?”

“No, thank you,” he said. “What happened to your mother?”

“It lasted a month. We fought from the first day and never stopped. She thought I was a slob. I couldn't stand her cooking. She didn't like my friends. Pretty soon I was convinced I was adopted because I couldn't possibly have been born to a witch like her. And she was convinced they'd mixed up the kids at the hospital when I was born. So she went back to Ohio. Now we just send Christmas cards. How about orange juice? You like orange juice?”

“Orange juice would be fine. Mind if I sit down?”

“Of course you can sit down.” She remembered his injury. “How's your leg?”

He sat, stretched his leg out and pulled the cuff of the exercise pants up, revealing the large blue and purple bruise on the calf and shin bone. “It feels stiff,” he said. “And tender. It hurts a little bit.”

“Look, I feel terrible all over again,” Mattie said, touching him gently on the shoulder. “If you want, I'll take you to a doctor or a hospital and we can get it looked at.”

“No, please.” He pulled the cuff of the exercise pants down to cover the bruised area again. “I'm sure it will heal by itself. It's just a bruise.”

“We're both lucky I didn't run you over.” She headed for the refrigerator. “What else can I get you besides orange juice? A glass of milk?”

“Yes, thank you. Doesn't that bother you about your mother?”

“What, that she's a lousy cook?” She poured large glasses each of juice and milk and carried them back to the breakfast table.

“No, that you don't enjoy each other's company. I thought mothers were always close to their children.”

“That's the problem,” Mattie said, sitting opposite him and sipping her coffee. “She still thinks I'm a child.”

“I try to talk to my mother every day,” the young man said.

“Well, that's nice. It's good to still have a close relationship with your parents at your age. How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Great age. I remember when I was twenty-two. Best year of my life.” She took another sip of coffee. “Where's your mother live?”

“Lexington.”

Mattie lowered her cup and stared at him. “Lexington? You live there? No wonder you talk to her every day. Hell, the way you were talking, I thought she was in another state. Lexington's just down the road.”

“I don't live there,” he explained. “I haven't lived there in a long time. I've been staying with friends.”

“Aw, you poor kid.” Mattie reached out and touched his hand gently. Such soft skin. Such innocent hands. “A broken home, right? No father, right?”

“Well, I did have a father but—”

“It's all right. God, I swear we're raising a whole generation of kids who don't know what it's like for their fathers and mothers to sleep under the same roof together. Listen, it happened to me, too. I was just nine years old when my parents split up, and I never got over it.” She grinned and lowered her voice. “I had a shrink once, told me the reason I was so nuts about men was because I kept looking for a father figure, looking for a man in my life I never had.”

He looked confused and sat silent while she spoke. Finally he said, “The sun's shining. It looks like a nice day. I guess I'd better be going.”

“Going?” Mattie grabbed the young man's wrist. “What do you mean, going? No, you're not. You're staying here. I owe you at least that much. Just stay here a day or two until your leg is better. Call your friends and tell them . . .” She paused, then giggled. “Tell them you were picked up by an older woman who took you home with her.”

He looked at her blankly.

Mattie reached for her coffee cup. “Just a joke. Bobby, isn't it?”

“Yes,” he said. “Bobby Griffin. And you're Mrs. . . .”

“Mrs. Nothing. Just Mattie. Mattie O'Brien.”

Bobby smiled. “Mattie. I've never met a Mattie before. It's an unusual name.”

“It's a ridiculous name,” she sneered. “It's the only thing I could do with Matilda. Couldn't even use my middle name in place of it, because my mother gave me her maiden name. Matilda Austin O'Brien. When I was a kid they put the three letters together and called me Mayo. Like in mayonnaise? So I had to settle for Mattie. Right around then, when the kids were calling me Mayo and I was trying to live with at least Mattie, that's when the relationship between my mother and me began to fall apart.”

She drained her coffee and gathered Bobby's empty glasses together. “So what do you do, Bobby?” she asked. “You still going to school? Got a job somewhere?”

“I go to the aquarium,” he said as she carried the dishes to the sink.

“What do you do there?”

“I watch the otters.”

She turned to look at him, this young blond boy with the almost feminine features, sitting in the sunlight filtering through her kitchen window. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, she thought. He seems harmless enough, but, hell . . .

“You watch the otters,” she said finally.

Bobby nodded his head vigorously. “Do you like otters?”

“I don't know,” she said, folding her arms and resting her hip against the kitchen counter. “I spend most of my time around rats. The two-legged kind.”

“I've never seen two creatures show as much affection for each other as the otters do,” Bobby said. “Not even people. They groom each other, and they even swim holding hands. It's . . . it's touching.” He looked away, blinking his eyes rapidly. “Wouldn't . . . wouldn't it be nice if people just spent their time showing affection for each other?”

Mattie walked quickly over to him. “Hey,” she said putting her arms around his heaving shoulders, “take it easy. What's wrong?” She felt him shake in her arms, his body trembling with sobs. Mattie knelt down to look into his eyes, taking his chin in her hands. “You poor kid,” she asked. “What's wrong with you? Why did you get so upset just thinking about a couple of animals?”

Bobby kept his head turned away from her, embarrassed at his tears. “I get too . . . emotional at times,” he said. “That's what they tell me.”

“Who? Who tells you that?”

“My friends.”

“Well, showing your emotions is all right. I just can't figure out why you got so upset thinking about the otters.”

He kept his eyes from her, then swivelled his head to look around the kitchen and through the doors leading elsewhere in the house. “You have a lovely home,” he said, wiping the last of the tears from his eyes. “Did you mean it when you said I could stay here? For a little while?”

“Sure,” Mattie replied, standing up. “Enjoy yourself. I have to go to work.”

“Where do you work?”

“Jenkins Real Estate, down the road towards Framingham.” She looked at the clock on the kitchen stove. “And I'm going to be late this morning if I don't get a move on. I'm showing an estate over on Mountain Road to this couple from Florida. The place is going for two million four, and I think they make their money in slightly illegal ways, but if I swing it, we'll make almost a hundred thousand in commissions.” She crossed both fingers and held them up for Bobby to see. “Ask me if I'm nervous.”

“I know you're nervous,” Bobby said. “But I hope you're successful. I'd like to see you happy. You seem like a good woman.”

“Good?” She smirked. “Actually, I'm best when I'm bad.” From the way Bobby looked at her, she could tell that he hadn't understood.

“Look,” she said. “I'm going to leap into the shower. There's lots of cold cuts in the fridge if you get hungry, and the TV set in the living room is on cable, so you can watch movies if you want. I'll leave you a spare key if you want to go for a walk. There are some woods over here behind the house, and a path through the ravine—”

“I won't need the key,” Bobby said. “I'll just sit in that chair.”

“Where?” She looked to follow his gaze through the door to the living room.

“That one. There, in the corner.” It was her favourite Queen Anne wing chair, overstuffed and covered in a flouncy, flowery material. A small brass lamp sat beside it on a cherry-wood washstand Mattie had refinished herself. Behind it were two framed steel engravings of London she had brought back from Europe. Heavy pine beams dominated the room, running vertically up the walls to horizontal beams placed a few feet below ceiling level. The beams, wider than a man's hand, wore the warm patina of age and provided a rustic Tudor-like mood to the room.

“It's a nice corner to read in,” she said. “Cozy. See those beams? They're over two hundred years old. They came from an old colonial barn. When I had this room decorated, this carpenter friend of mine suggested we use them. Not to hold anything up, just to show off the wood. Anyway, I like to snuggle up there on winter nights and hear the wind whistle around the corner.” She looked over at the light streaming through the window. “But you don't want to stay inside on a beautiful day like this, do you?”

“Yes,” Bobby replied. “I don't really want to go anywhere. I'd just like to spend the day in that chair, curled up and thinking.”

“Well, Bobby, you do whatever you want, okay?” She glanced at the clock again. “If you'll excuse me, I'm really running late.”

She turned to leave the room, and he stood up and nodded politely. She stopped, looked back at him for a moment, then walked down the hall to her bedroom.

Later, standing in her shower, working the shampoo and conditioner into her hair, she asked herself what she had done. I've got a weirdo in my house who cries over otters, she thought. And I'm leaving him here all alone.

I must be nuts, she told herself for the second time that morning.

Ollie Schantz had thrived on the pressure of an intensive murder investigation. When tempers were short and frustration was highest, Ollie's jokes and wry observations on life and death flowed most freely.

Once, when McGuire was grumbling about attending the funeral of a murder victim in order to record the licence-plate numbers of mourners, Ollie commented, “You gotta be reasonable about funerals, Joe. If you don't go to other people's funerals,” he said with a straight face, “how can you expect them to come to yours?”

When Captain Kavander had exploded at a homicide detective in frustration, Ollie waited for the captain to leave, slamming the door violently behind him, before observing, “If Jack could die right now, he'd be the happiest man alive.”

Ollie's demeanour changed dramatically when a murder case was breaking. As soon as the end was in sight, he became serious and methodical. McGuire commented on this once, and Ollie nodded and said, “Nobody needs me to break up the tension now, see? What everybody needs now is a mechanic to tighten the bolts and clean up all the spills. That's why I joke, Joe. To keep everybody loose.”

Driving to the psychiatric hospital, knowing in his heart he was about to break the case, McGuire felt his composure relax. He had needed his former partner's jokes and looseness. Without them, the pressure he felt had spilled out of him, onto Bernie Lipson, Kevin Deeley, Fat Eddie Vance. . . .

“That offer still open for dinner some time, Bernie?” McGuire asked.

Lipson studied him warily. “It's open, Joe.”

“Let's do it,” McGuire said, smiling at his partner. “First night after we get our indictments, let's you and me and Janet—”

“Janice.”

“Yeah, Janice. The three of us, we'll do dinner.” He banged the steering wheel with his fist. “Damn it, I feel good about this one. This one's going to break it for us, Bernie. Getting that picture in the paper did it, huh? Didn't it, Bernie.”

“Hell of a break, Joe,” Lipson said. “Hell of a break.”

Lynwood Institute was a low-rise brick and concrete structure bordering on open parkland. A long asphalt driveway led from the quiet residential street through manicured lawns to a small parking lot. Groups of men were trimming and feeding the trees and shrubbery that lined the driveway. There seemed to be no supervision to their work; the gardening was apparently a productive excuse to be outside and enjoy the warm spring sunshine. A few of the men looked up from their work and waved happily as McGuire and Lipson drove past. Others watched in glum silence.

“You know anything about this place?” McGuire asked as he looked for a parking spot.

“Heard about it,” Lipson answered. “It's kind of a halfway house for fruitcakes, far as I can tell.”

“Looks like it's for males only.” McGuire pulled into an open space, facing the car back down the driveway, where the men had resumed their work.

McGuire was wrong. As he and Lipson left the car and approached the front entrance, two middle-aged women were about to emerge from the building. One was dressed in a sweater and slacks; the other wore a loose but expensive-looking dressing gown. The woman in the dressing gown grasped her younger companion's arm with both hands as they walked. In truth, they clung to each other like a single creature with four legs and two inclining heads, each wearing identical, fearful expressions.

At the sight of the two approaching men both women gave a small whimper and turned quickly to re-enter the building. McGuire and Lipson followed them through the front door into a closed vestibule, where the younger woman struggled to open the inner door. Looking behind her, she saw the detectives enter, and whimpering again she guided her colleague away from the door towards the safety of a corner. The older woman buried her face on the shoulder of her partner, who kept her eyes turned from the men, an agonized expression creasing her face.

“Morning, ladies,” McGuire said pleasantly as he and Lipson passed.

His words propelled the women further into the corner, pressing them against the walls.

Lipson pursed his lips and shook his head sadly, then followed McGuire into the foyer.

A heavy-set woman, her black-dyed hair pulled into a severe bun, approached them from behind a reception desk. McGuire reached into his jacket pocket for his identification, but before he could show it, the woman glanced through the two glass doors into the vestibule.

“Oh, dear,” she said, her smile fading and her expression growing anxious. She lifted a hand as though to hold the men back. “Excuse me, please.”

In the vestibule the two women, still clinging to each other, were watching McGuire and Lipson in wide-eyed fright. Their faces softened as the woman who had greeted the detectives opened the glass doors cautiously. “How are you, ladies?” the detectives heard her ask pleasantly. “Why don't we forget about our walk this morning and come back inside? I'll make us some tea.”

The younger woman in the vestibule whispered something, her eyes darting back and forth between the two detectives and the black-haired woman. Soon the three were engaged in animated, whispered conversation. McGuire turned away to see Lipson studying several of the cheaply framed oil paintings that covered the reception area walls.

The paintings had been executed in a myriad of styles, from primitive to proficient. Most were still lifes or landscapes. A few were awkwardly drawn portraits, which had neither the realism of a professional artist nor the originality of a surrealist.

It struck McGuire that almost all of the artists, whether working in oils, water colours or acrylics, had chosen drab earthy tones—browns, greys, blacks and deep haunting shades of midnight blue.

One painting caught his eye. Larger than the rest it had been painted on stretched canvas and mounted in a plain wooden frame. This artist, unlike the others, seemed to have discovered more colours on his palette and applied them with a striking degree of talent. The painting showed brilliant yellow sunlight flooding into a room through an open window. The artist's portrayal of the delicate texture of dust suspended in the sunbeam looked so real that McGuire thought he might see the particles move if he watched long enough.

Behind the sunbeam, the wall of the room was rich orange, almost sensual in its depth of colour, especially when compared with the drabness of the works surrounding it. A small side table in the foreground of the painting held a blue ceramic bowl with a bright flower pattern meticulously rendered about its rim. In fact the entire composition, which had a distinctly Mediterranean mood, had been painted with remarkable detail, considering the simple subjects being portrayed.

McGuire moved closer. He studied how the artist had added the most minute details: shadow textures of the sunlight falling on the wall, chipped paint on the open windowsill, even a distinctive oak grain to the table.

But the drama of the painting was clearly centred on the figure slouched in the sunbeam, elbows on its knees. The man or woman—it was impossible to tell which—was dressed in a shapeless robe and sitting bent at the waist on a chair that matched the oak table in design and detail. The figure's head rested on one hand in an expression of gloom. The other hand hung limply between the figure's knees.

Squinting and leaning toward the painting, McGuire could see the ridges on the fingernails, the dull worn surface of the plain gold ring on its left hand, the realistic manner in which the fingers hung slightly curved.

He looked back up to the head of the figure. Where there should have been a face, there was nothing. The artist, who had created each limp finger as an individual element, had painted a flat, flesh-toned area where the face should have been.

It was not an unfinished painting, McGuire realized. It was a painting of a faceless, sexless person, sitting gloomily in a simple room, facing a warm and brilliant sun. And it made McGuire uneasy just to look at it.

He shivered and stepped back from the wall as the black-haired woman who had greeted them returned from the vestibule.

“I'm sorry, gentlemen,” she said in a voice that had strength behind its cheeriness. “I really did have to talk to those two girls.”

McGuire glanced past her to the two middle-aged “girls,” who stood staring through the vestibule window at the open grounds.

“What's wrong with them?” McGuire asked.

“Oh, they're just a little concerned about going outside,” she replied, smiling. “It takes them a while to be sure everything is safe.”

“Agoraphobia?”

“Yes.” She beamed at McGuire as though he were a grade-school pupil who had guessed the correct answer. “Verna there, the younger one, has been responding to treatment. She's gone as far as the end of the lane by herself. I'm a little worried about Edith.” She looked back at the women, who were moving carefully towards the outer door. “She hasn't been outside since she arrived here.” The woman looked back at McGuire. “That was almost ten years ago.”

Her face, which had grown cloudy while discussing the women, brightened. “How awful of me,” she said, and McGuire noticed a trace of British accent. “I haven't introduced myself, have I? I'm Glennis Metcalf.” She extended her hand and raised her eyebrows. “And you are?”

McGuire took her hand and shook it, surprised at the strength of her grip. “I'm Lieutenant McGuire, this is Lieutenant Lipson.” With his left hand he reached into his jacket and extracted his identification, offering it to the woman who, while shaking Lipson's hand, turned to study the badge and photograph in detail. “We received a call from a Dr. Taber about a story that appeared in this morning's paper.”

“The priest desires,” Glennis Metcalf said, raising her eyes from McGuire's ID. “Yes, I should have realized who you were.” Her eyes flicked up to the wall behind McGuire, where the painting of the forlorn and faceless figure hung. “That was Bobby's painting you were looking at. Powerful, isn't it? Just a moment, please.”

McGuire looked behind him at the painting again. The woman reached for a small button mounted discreetly on the counter of the reception desk and pressed it once. Somewhere in the building a bell rang. Almost instantly footsteps could be heard echoing quickly down the hall.

“I would take you to Dr. Taber myself,” she explained. “But I really should keep an eye on Verna and Edith.” She turned to regard the women, who remained standing at the outer door, gazing at the men working in the garden. “Poor things, they do panic so easily. Ah, here's my sweetie now.”

A small, slight man in white T-shirt and loose-fitting slacks stood smiling nervously at them, his hands behind his back, his feet in sneakers.

“This is Andrew,” Glennis Metcalf said, and the man smiled and bobbed his head quickly. McGuire guessed he was perhaps forty years old. “Andrew will take you to Dr. Taber's office, won't you Andrew?” Without waiting for a reply, she looked back at McGuire and Lipson. “Dr. Taber is expecting you. He said to send you right down. Andrew, come back here when you're finished. I have some boxes I want you to move for me.”

The smiling man nodded cheerfully again, turned and walked rapidly away down the hall, the two detectives following him.

He led them to the rear of the building and the open door of an office where a tall, balding man unfolded himself from behind his desk to greet them, hand outstretched. He wore a white smock coat over a tweed suit, his tie neatly knotted against a white Oxford-cloth shirt.

“Good morning,” he said solemnly. “I'm Clarence Taber. That'll be all, Andrew.”

The soft, quick-moving steps of Andrew's rubber-soled shoes echoed away into silence as McGuire and Lipson shook hands with the doctor, introduced themselves and sat on matching straight-backed chairs facing Taber's desk.

Clarence Taber appeared to be in his fifties—tall, slim . . . “gangly” was the word that came to both detectives' minds—his long arms sprouting oversized hands, and his long legs ending in a pair of extra-large brogans, which he rested on the corner of a filing cabinet when the other men were seated. With his bald head and bristling eyebrows he was almost menacing. It was a look, McGuire reflected, that a tough street cop might attempt to acquire over the years. But Taber's flashing eyes, crinkling above a quick smile, relieved the menace. They made him seem not only approachable but appealing, strength made stronger with the temper of sympathy.

“We got a call this morning,” McGuire began. “Apparently the phrase on the blackboard in the murder of Father Sellinger meant something to you. Is that right?”

Taber nodded. “The priest desires. It's difficult to believe, but it can't be a coincidence. And Bobby isn't even here today. He didn't come back last night. It's the first time he's done that.”

“Bobby?” Lipson asked. He held his wire-bound notebook on his lap, his pen already scribbling on the paper.

“Bobby Griffin.” Taber reached for a file folder on the corner of his desk. He looked at the sheet stapled to the front of the folder, holding it at arm's length to read it. “Robert Kennedy Griffin.” He placed the file folder in front of him and opened it carefully. “Everybody calls him Bobby. Likeable kid.”

Lipson lunged for Taber's telephone and began dialing.

“Describe him to us,” McGuire snapped.

Taber shifted his chair to make room for Lipson. “About five eight, five nine,” he began. “Slim build. Maybe a hundred and fifty pounds. Fair complexion, blond hair, blue, eyes. I have a photograph of him somewhere—”

“Any distinguishing marks, characteristics?” McGuire
asked. “A limp, speech impediment, anything like that?”

The doctor thrust out his bottom lip, thought for a moment, and shook his head as Lipson spoke softly, urgently,
into the telephone before hanging up and nodding at McGuire.