Unholy Shepherd by Robert Christian (classic literature list .txt) 📗

I can accommodate. I’ll put it on my calendar. Wait here for just a moment.” Father Patrick retreated back inside the church.

Maureen turned her head to meet the detective’s gaze. He stood with his hands out, mouthing for her to come along with him. Maureen shushed him, imploring him to wait. Detective Benitez rolled his eyes, but kept his feet on the sidewalk, crossing his arms and making a show of tapping his right foot. Maureen stuck her tongue out at him.

After a few moments, Father Patrick returned to the doorway. He held a folded piece of paper out to her. “The address for the rectory,” he explained.

Maureen took the paper and stuffed it into her back pocket. She nodded thanks to him, turned, and headed down to the sidewalk.

“What was that about?” the detective asked as she walked up beside him.

“Nothing,” she said quietly, staring ahead down Main Street. “Just something between me and Father Patrick.”

Detective Benitez didn’t respond.

“What did you find in the books?” Maureen asked, deciding to break the uncomfortable silence.

“Nothing of any interest,” he replied. “The inventory of holy oil and all the other Eucharist supplies are all in order. Nothing has gone missing that I can see.”

Their conversation was cut short as a black sedan pulled up to the curb just ahead of them. Agent Layton stepped out and stood in their path. Maureen and Detective Benitez stopped and stared at him.

“Detective,” he greeted with a nod.

The detective nodded back, but the rest of his body stayed still. Maureen could feel the tension radiating off of him.

“Would you and your companion come with me, please?” The agent took a few steps to the car, keeping his eyes on the two of them, and opened the rear door.

TWENTY-FIVE

Manny felt Maureen’s eyes look over at him. He turned to her and shrugged his shoulders. It was obviously not the moment to defy the FBI. They approached the sedan and got into the back seat. The agent shut the door behind them, took his place in the passenger’s seat, and nodded to Agent Lorenzo in the driver’s seat. Agent Lorenzo pulled away from the curb and began to drive.

“I haven’t heard from you since Monday,” Agent Layton began, speaking toward the windshield and not to Manny directly. “Did you get my little present?”

“I did,” said Manny. “I found it very helpful.”

“And yet . . . ,”

“I wanted to make sure I had enough to give you,” he said as coolly as he could, looking out the window and trying to hide his irritation. “You know, not waste your time with a thin theory or stunted research.”

“I have every confidence in your investigatory skills, Detective,” the agent replied. “What did you come up with?”

He was skeptical about the praise being genuine, but decided that being skeptical was good. A skeptical mind was a sharp one.

“The financial information that was gathered on both Tom Lowes and Sandra Locke seems to indicate some kind of malfeasance,” Manny said carefully. “There is evidence that during the sale of the county buildings in Glenbrook last fall, there was quite a bit of superficial work done to the properties. The county paid well over one hundred fifty thousand dollars for the work, but it definitely looks as though there was not nearly enough work done to justify that amount. I had a quick look through some of the invoices, and to me it looks like material costs were inflated by as much as a factor of six and labor costs were at least doubled.”

“Indicating what?”

“Embezzlement and laundering.”

“Is that a guess?”

“Agent, not to be rude,” Manny said as diplomatically as his frustration would allow, “but if you’re just messing with me, I find it very unprofessional.”

“I would consider it unprofessional to question a superior officer,” Layton replied, though with little, if any, venom in his voice. “I can tell you that we are looking at this transaction as a laundering case, but I want to know why you think embezzlement as well.”

“It’s what connects the two families. Sandra Locke was in massive debt due to her son’s medical procedures. She took out a high-rate second mortgage on her house that she used to pay off his surgeries, but her late husband’s life insurance was cashed and her savings was also completely tapped months ago. The bank had begun foreclosure proceedings. Then, after the sale of the county buildings, she suddenly paid off her mortgage in full. Seventy-five thousand dollars just like that. It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Very impressive,” the agent said, turning around in his seat to look Manny in the eyes. “Now go further. Let’s hear some theories about how the money scheme played out.”

“I hadn’t thought that far.”

“Humor me.”

“Okay,” said Manny, taking a deep breath and running back through all that he’d read in the last two days. “Well, Sandra had to know what was going on. She was crucial to the plan working because she controls the county ledger. She’s the money. So I would guess that in exchange for helping the laundering activity go through, she got the seventy-five grand as a payoff. So it wasn’t two separate crimes, it was all part of the same crime. That would mean that she and Tom were working together. As for Lowes, it seems strange to me that he’d do something like this. He’s a very successful and respected pillar of the community. Engaging in money laundering is usually an indication of desperation. So maybe he’s not doing as well as he advertises. Maybe he got into some trouble, got in bed with some unsavory characters, and was forced to launder as part of his debt to them. Could be that the money they pocketed wasn’t supposed to be taken, and they sent someone after their sons as a message. But there’s just something about all this that doesn’t scream professional hit.”

“And that is?”

“The vomit at the first crime scene,” Manny said. “I’ve been thinking that whoever killed Jacob Lowes