Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

with us from time to time, when we need his special expertise. We have a letter to that effect from the city’s corporation counsel.”

“That’s right,” Chalmers said. “He’s a consultant.”

“That tired TV cliché?” Graves said. “Does the PBA know about this?”

“I’m a rep,” Chalmers said. “How could they not? Does the ABA know you’re trying to poach another lawyer’s client?”

Graves ignored the question. “His special expertise?”

“Is not your concern.” Chalmers gestured to those gathered around. “We’re busy right now, working on a case we’re not at liberty to divulge. So if you don’t mind—”

After Graves pushed his way through the crowd and stomped out, Chalmers turned to one of the detectives. “Marczak, see if Kirk Wiggins is working the front desk again. He got reprimanded last year for loose-lipping arrest details. If it’s not him, we need to be on the lookout for somebody else who might be trading info for money.”

A middle-aged man in a pin-striped blue shirt and wearing his badge clipped to his belt, Marczak nodded and left the room. But I doubted it was Wiggins. I expected that through the foundation, Loni had lots of sources who didn’t know what she was.

I looked at Piñero. “You guys have a copy of my letter? When I showed it to you a couple of months ago, you wanted to tear it up.”

“We had a copy even then,” Chalmers said. “Faxed over from the mayor’s office before you showed it to us. We were pissed at her, not you. Contract talks were in the toilet and here she was saddling us with you.”

“Now that we know you, G, we get pissed at you for being you,” Piñero said. “But if you’re coming with us to Sanctuary Nimbus, your letter’s gotta be in play.”

44

It was half-past six and dark when we got to Sanctuary Nimbus on Bidwell Parkway, with two officers in the SUV and Pete Kim in a winter trench coat, sitting beside me in the back of Chalmers’s car. The two uniformed cops took up positions outside two different exits. With Kim waiting outside the main entrance, Chalmers, Piñero, and I got in line to go inside.

Eyes ever distant and voice fragile, Pastor Paul was at the door that opened onto the softly lit, repurposed church interior. Beside him was one of his volunteers, a middle-aged woman in a knit sweater and long woolen skirt. She seemed to be there as much to look after the old man in monk’s robes as to greet entrants. As he shook hands with each person who entered, Pastor Paul smiled with a satisfaction reminiscent of the afterglow of a holiday meal, as if contact with another person in and of itself was enough to nourish him. He seemed not to hear the sounds around him: scraping feet, low-volume music from a handful of small players, the squeak of cots being shifted or sat upon, voices and occasional laughter. I had given his backstory to Chalmers, Piñero, and Kim on the way over. Because I had already met Pastor Paul and Brother Grace, Chalmers said, I would take the lead.

When we reached him, I took hold of his dry, cold hand and shook it gently. “Good to see you again, Pastor Paul. I’m Gideon Rimes, Ileana’s friend. I met you last week.”

“Ah.” The upward tilt of his head suggested recognition but may have masked doubt.

“These are my friends, Terry and Rafael,” I continued, as Chalmers and Piñero stepped forward to shake his hand. “I was telling them what a wonderful job Brother Grace does for you. Is he here tonight?”

Pastor Paul looked confused, his lower lip quivering. The woman beside him smiled and shook our hands. “I’m Camille,” she said. “Brother Grace is either downstairs in the dining hall or carrying supplies down there from the bell tower.” She pointed toward a nearby staircase, which had age-darkened steps winding in both directions. We thanked her and went toward it. So far, I noticed, about a third of the cots on the main floor had been claimed. Too many people if something went wrong.

The sound of voices from below pulled us downstairs. The church basement had a low ceiling and cold gray walls, with a large room on either side of the staircase. To the left was the main dining hall, which had fifteen rectangular banquet tables and a kitchen with a serving counter at the far end. Ten more tables were set up to the right, in a space that once held Sunday school classrooms, if the faded construction paper crosses and cut-outs of Jesus holding lambs or children were any indications. Only the main dining room had people in it, taking up fewer than half the seats.

Brother Grace was near the counter in the same pile-lined suede jacket he’d worn last week. He was talking to a winsome young blonde woman, probably a volunteer. She seemed to hang on his every word. I realized the Sanctuary was a perfect place for someone like him to seduce an attractive college student fulfilling volunteer requirements for a course. He would smile whenever he saw her and talk to her whenever he could. He would thank her for volunteering and look embarrassed when she said she admired his compassion. Then one night when the lights were out and the industrial snoring of the chronically lung-impaired began, he would invite her to stay up with him after the other volunteers turned in or left. He would take her somewhere they could be alone, probably not his room in the parsonage when he was on duty. But what about the bell tower he had said was unsafe but was somehow sound enough to hold supplies? Would he take her there, or elsewhere because the bell tower held things she shouldn’t see?

“That’s him,” I said to the detectives. “Give me a little room.”

I walked across the room quickly, smiling, holding out my hand, weaving around chattering people and empty chairs. “Brother Grace! Hey, man, it’s good