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

“And what is that?”

“It’s the directory for St. Mary’s,” he replied, stepping over to the couch and sitting down next to her. She could smell his deodorant and a hint of aftershave. She was loath to admit that she liked it.

“You went back without me?”

“I met with the FBI, would you really have wanted to come?”

Maureen closed her mouth tight.

Manny shrugged and told his story. “I got a call from Agent Layton early this morning. He asked me to meet him for breakfast and when I got there, he handed this to me. He must have gotten it from the church after we left yesterday. Anyway, it seems that the Feds are going to be pretty busy keeping surveillance on the known drug traffickers in the area, and they don’t seem to hold other local law enforcement in high regard, so he asked me to run through the directory here and see if anyone knows any more about the dealings of Tom Lowes and Sandra Locke.”

“Why doesn’t he just ask the two of them himself?” she asked.

“We’re apparently going to leave them be for a bit. Until we’ve got something a little more concrete on the laundering theory. They’ve been through enough for now.”

The detective leaned back, put his palms over his eyes and let out a loud sigh. “I gotta say, I’m not exactly looking forward to doing this rundown. Talking to some three hundred people who probably don’t know anything isn’t my idea of a fun time.”

“So, don’t do it,” Maureen said.

“I can’t just dump an assignment. How would that look?”

“Why are you trying to impress Layton so much?”

Now it was Manny’s turn to avoid answering. He leaned forward and began to leaf through the directory, making sure he didn’t make eye contact.

“And I suppose I’ll have to go with you?” Maureen sighed, flopping back on the couch and folding her hands on her stomach.

“If you don’t mind,” he said.

“Why would you even want me there?”

“I like having you with me.”

Maureen’s heart fluttered, but she ignored her desire to press forward. She wasn’t sure how she would proceed if she opened that box, and that scared her more than anything.

The detective picked up the directory and pushed himself to his feet. “You hungry?” he asked, turning to her.

“I could eat,” she replied.

“How about we head to the burger stand? We can have a sit-down and decide what order we want to hit these folks in.”

She got up and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, fastening it with the hair tie she kept on her wrist. Manny opened the front door for her. Begrudgingly, she accepted his act of chivalry and walked through in front of him.

“Thank you, Detective,” she mumbled as she passed him.

“Any time,” he said.

As she began to walk down the walkway toward the truck, Maureen felt her head look back and past the detective to the living room. Her pillowcase containing the detective’s gun was just poking out from under the couch. She felt a pang of guilt that she was stealing from him. But, deep in the recesses of her mind, she knew that rather than put it back in its place, she’d act counter to decency and find a way to hide it further when she had a chance.

And even if he found out what she had done, she was certain that she could make the detective forgive her.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“I’m out of clean clothes,” Maureen said as they sat on the couch reviewing the interview notes that they had gathered over the past three days.

Manny slurped up the mouthful of spaghetti he’d just shoved into his mouth. He chewed quickly and swallowed, not wanting to talk to her with his mouth full.

“You could just wash them here,” he said, surprised that the prospect hadn’t occurred to her.

“All right, you got me,” she said, sticking her tongue out. “I’m just homesick.”

“We’ll see,” he told her. “For now, let’s focus on making some sense out of these notes.”

They had a lot of work to do on that front. As the days went by, they had interviewed more and more members of the church, and it became apparent that gossip within the community clouded the truth that they were seeking, and hearsay sent them in circles. They had decided that afternoon that they needed to regroup and reorganize their priorities going forward.

Older women, especially those that had been a part of the church for decades, were particularly eager to dish on any perceived unsavoriness that existed among their fellow parishioners. Digging through what was real and what was imaginary would be crucial to prevent them from going on any more wild-goose chases.

“Jim Donaughy’s obviously got a thing for Annie Brogden,” he recalled one octogenarian named Virginia Stanton saying during their interview with her on Thursday afternoon. “You can see how he hangs on to their handshakes just a bit longer during the peace. And he always makes sure that his family sits right by the Brogdens so he can look at Annie during the service. Of course that Annie isn’t any better. Her parents moved into the neighborhood thirty years ago when she was just a little girl. When she hit her teens and blossomed, my goodness, the outfits she used to wear. She looked like a streetwalker. And do you think she moderated herself when she married Andy? Oh, no! That woman still packs on the makeup and walks into the church in those low-cut tops of hers. And after having two babies as well! There’s no place for that among decent, God-fearing people.”

His notebook was filled with interviews like this. It had been impossible for Manny to keep up with the pace at which many of these women talked, but their voices stuck in his memory, so he was able to fill in whatever gaps he found as he read his notes. He heard the thin, nasal voice of seventy-one-year-old Sharon Easton as she told him and Maureen about a