Page 8 of Go Home (Kate Valentine #1)
“We need CCTV, doorbell cameras, see where he came from, where he went.”
“Young Arthur’s on it. And I got something else. Bangor PD. Attacks on homeless tents… it’s like a sick local pastime. Four in the last twenty-two months.”
“Four deaths?”
“Four attempts. Two successes, if you want to call it that.”
“So we don’t know if it’s linked to the death of Father Tom.”
“It seems unlikely. I talked to the detective heading up the Bangor scene. He didn’t want to give too much away but, on the q-t, he said don’t waste the calories.”
“Father Tom’s got no military background?”
“Zero, unless there’s some Northern Ireland connection we’re not seeing. We should try and rule that out, I guess. I’ll get onto that. You ok to cover CCTV and door-cams?”“
“Will do.”
They made a good team, a well-oiled machine, communicating with fluid grace and sharing the workload. Kate cherished the little moments when that was obvious, and she tried to hold onto them when the PTSD was rattling the bars. It was all-too-easy to forget it, or take it for granted.
The waffle-rush had died down, the kids drifting away, numbed by the sudden ingestion of fat and sugar. A short, heavy man – Hugh or Remy, she guessed – was picking up paper plates and discarded forks from the ground around the truck, muttering crossly.
Marcus grabbed a sticky plate, folded it and put it in the man’s litter-sack.
“Whatever they’re teaching them,” the man said. “It’s not respect.”
“Too right,” said Marcus. “Kids today.”
He introduced himself and Kate.
“I’m Remy. That’s Hugh.” They received a curt nod from a tall, thin, distinguished-looking man with a high forehead and half-moon spectacles. He looked more suited to a concert hall than a waffle truck.
“We’re trying to find out why anyone would have hurt your friend,” Kate said.
“Because people are sick,” said Hugh, with unexpected bitterness.
“They’re sick, and they’re fed a diet of sick shit, wall-to-wall, twenty-four-seven, news reports, films, music, Netflix, a whole chattering, gibbering cacophony of voices celebrating everything that’s ugly about the whole frickin’ human race. ”
“Right,” said Marcus, carefully.
The other guy, Remy, flashed them a slightly sheepish look. “He’s upset,” he said. “We all are.”
“What’s worse,” Hugh said. “Is people like you, pandering to it. ‘The Purifier.’ Seriously? You think we’re in a Marvel comic? A good man died, you know. It really happened. It’s not content. It’s not clicks. It’s the senseless loss of a decent, kind, human soul.”
“I think we’re missing some information,” Kate said carefully. “What’s this about a purifier?”
“Oh really, sweetheart? You don’t know?”
“Hugh,” said his companion. “Give the lady a break. C’mon.”
In answer, Hugh searched for something on his phone, then handed it, wordlessly, to Kate.
It was the social media feed of the local news outlet. A post began with the headline: PURIFIER”S CRYPTIC CLUE.
It gave details about the three Bible verses encoded on the hymn sheet. In light of the killer’s obsessions – the worship of false gods, the redeeming power of fire and sacrifice – it said Federal agents had dubbed him “The Purifier.”
“This is nonsense,” Kate said, handing the phone back. “We haven’t called the killer anything.”
“And if we were going to give him a handle,” Marcus said. “I mean, come on…”
“I’ll get it taken down. It’s the last thing we need,” Kate said.
She looked straight at Hugh. “Sir, I can assure you that it’s nothing to do with us.
We’re working out of the local PD building, and I can only guess someone there has taken too much of an interest, or…
Whatever it is, it’s not how we operate, so I’m sorry this has happened on top of your friend’s death. ”
There was a long silence which ended when Hugh started wiping down the counter. Apology accepted, apparently.
“Can you tell me about the pétanque group?” Kate asked.
“Started, what? Seven, eight years back, I think?” Hugh said, looking at Remy for confirmation. “Father Tom used it as an ice-breaker when he first moved in. He wasn’t exactly a star player. Enthusiastic, shall we say, rather than talented.”
“In other words, not as good as Hugh,” said Remy, with a wink.
“How big is the group?” Marcus asked.
“Hard to say,” Hugh replied. “It’s expanded and contracted. Hang on.”
He went rummaging for something inside the truck.
“How long have you guys been in the waffle business?” Marcus asked.
“They used to sell them in Rodner’s,” Remy said.
“Then their electric griddle broke. Suddenly there’s all these starving teenagers wandering the streets after class, and we’re both semi-retired, so we thought…
” He smiled. “They’re good kids. I mean, of course they don’t remember to put their dirty plates in the trash; they’re kids, right? ”
Hugh returned, a photograph in his hand. The pétanque circle, beaming with a trophy.
“State of Maine champions, 2021, 2022, and 2023.”
“There’s like an actual league for this thing?” Marcus asked, incredulously. Kate shot him a look.
“Basque fishermen brought the game over from France,” Remy explained.
“This was taken back when we had the most members,” Hugh said. “That’s Phil – he moved down to Florida to see more of his grandbabies. That’s Kolya. Kolya died. Throat cancer. There’s the Father.”
Father Tom was holding one of the handles of the trophy. He looked flushed: booze, or success, or both. And he was wearing his clerical dog collar.
“Said it gave him a competitive edge,” Hugh said.
Kate wondered how a comment like that would have gone down with his curate, possibly with certain congregation members, too.
Her personal view was that, if God existed, then He was probably indifferent to people’s fashion choices, and their jokes.
But humans were not. It was possible someone could have found Father Thomas’s attitude glib or irreverent.
Hugh went on to point out himself, Remy, a scarecrow-like figure, all limbs and angles called Liam, and then he seemed all set to put the photo away. Rather hastily, Kate thought.
“The guy in the chair?” she asked. “Was he not part of the team?”
A glance whipped between the two men, fleeting, but enough for Kate to notice.
“That’s Sully.”
“Sully?”
“Ray Sullivan.”
The man in the chair was solid, with a broad neck and shoulders, long legs.
Smiling, like everyone else. He sported a pork pie hat, a Hawaiian shirt, and the stub of a stogie in between his lips.
The flash had caught a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and he looked like one of those guys who was always smiling, no matter what happened.
Why had they tried to skip over him?
“Where is Ray these days?” she asked.
A nanosecond of a pause. Another look.
“He’s had some problems in his life,” Hugh said, carefully. “As far as I know he’s… taking some time out. A local rehab place, I think.”
“The Sanctuary,” added Remy. “Just outside of Marburg.”
After a few more gentle questions, Kate thanked them for their time. They declined an offer of waffles, but Marcus suddenly wanted a cold drink. He didn’t suddenly want a cold drink at all, of course. Kate knew what he was doing. It was like Columbo’s “one last thing.”
“Oh yeah, one more thing, guys, what happened in twenty-four?” he asked, casually, as Hugh fetched a can from the refrigerator.
Hugh looked at him blankly.
“You said you were state champions in 2021, 2022, and 2023. I wondered what happened last year.”
“We didn’t enter a side,” Remy said.
“Too bad,” Marcus said. “Why not?”
There it was again. The look.
“A couple of people left. We kind of disbanded from that point on,” Hugh said, carefully.
“Who?” Kate asked. “I mean, which people?”
“Well, Ray was one of them,” Hugh said, as if he was having a tooth pulled. “For obvious reasons.”
“Sure,” said Marcus. “Makes sense.”
“And the other person?” Kate asked.
“Well… that was Father Tom.”
“Why did Father Tom drop out?”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here…” Hugh began.
“We’re talking about your pétanque team,” Kate said. “I thought.”
“But we’re also investigating a very brutal murder,” Marcus added. “And asking you questions related to that. So if there’s some reason why you don’t want to answer those questions here, gentlemen…”
“This is ridiculous,” Hugh fumed. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”
“The Bishop advised him to leave,” Remy said, sharply.
“The Bishop?”
“For some reason, Father Tom was advised, or more probably told, that he should leave the team,” Remy went on. “If you want to know why, you’ll have to ask the Bishop.”