LA. Franco Mysteries: End Of Watch Part 20

"I just got outta the pool. I was on my way to Mom's but I guess I'll come over there instead. What's the address?"

"Uh ..." Frank looked around. "Corner of Eighth and Havemeyer. The rectory's around the back. I'm gonna keep an eye on it, see if he comes out again. How long you think it'll take you to get here?"

"I dunno." Annie sighed. "Gimme a half-hour."

"All right. There's a pizza joint across the street. I'll be waiting in there."

Frank ordered a slice and picked at it, too excited to eat. She scoured her memory for a priest. Her father was raised Catholic but except for an occasional Christmas Ma.s.s she'd never seen him inside a church, and certainly never with a priest. Although her mother dabbled in practically every known dogma, cult and creed, the woman was adamantly opposed to Christianity in all guises, a backlash from her rigid Lutheran upbringing.

Frank would have liked to talk to her mother. She wished she could be here now to share the excitement. Frank reflexively thought to order a beer. Realizing she couldn't, she concentrated instead beyond the window, one eye on the rectory door, the other searching for Annie.

CHAPTER 35.

After an agony of time, Annie finally appeared. They made a quick plan inside the restaurant, and Annie ordered, "You just be quiet, okay? Let me do all the talkin'."

Frank nodded, impatient to get started.

Glancing at the cold pizza, Annie asked, "You gonna finish that?"

Frank pushed the plate toward her.

"This father, he look old enough to have known your pops?"

"Maybe. I put him in his mid-fifties."

"Any way your pops coulda known him?"

"I been racking my brain, but I'm comin' up blank. He didn't go to church except for a Ma.s.s now and then, but my mother made such a stink I doubt it was worth it. She hated the Catholic Church. Said it was the second largest corporation in the world and it got that way by burning women at the stake and keeping the rest barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Sorry, but she was no fan of Catholicism. My father wasn't much of a fan either, from what I remember. I think he just went outta guilt. He always looked sad in church. I asked him once, why he was sad. We were at a Christmas Ma.s.s and he just said aHush.' He was quiet all the way home. I never asked again."

"Your pops, what sorta temper did he have?"

"Temper? Hardly any. He was an easy-going guy. Had to be to live with my mother. She was the one with the temper."

"Didn't get into fights?"

"No. Twice I saw him swing at someone and both times it was because the other guy pushed him."

"What do you mean pushed him?"

"I mean got in his face."

"Your pops knew how to fight?"

"He knew some moves."

"Where'd he learn aem?"

"Look, why are we talkin' about this when Cammayo's across the street?"

"Humor me. Where'd he learn to fight?"

"Christ, I don't know. His friends. The street. His brother. How the h.e.l.l should I know?"

"What streets?"

"Chicago."

"He grew up in Chicago?"

"Where are you goin' with this?"

Dusting pizza flour from her hands, Annie said, "Guys learn to fight interestin' places. Prison, the army, boarding schools. Just trying to figure where your pops was comin' from."

"You couldna asked me earlier? Before we had a potential witness waiting across the street?"

Annie stood and leaned over the table. "You didn't tell me earlier your pops was George Foreman."

Frank followed her outside. "He wasn't George Foreman, for Christ's sake. He just knew how to defend himself."

Crossing the street Annie asked, "He ever swing at a man of G.o.d?"

"Why would he? He wasn't a loose cannon. I told you. Twice I saw him fight. Both times it was in a bar."

"And the night he got shot."

"How do you know that?"

"It was in your statement. You said he swung at the perp and that's when he got shot."

"Yeah. So three times. And each time he was defending himself. End of story. Jesus, Annie. He wasn't some loony vigilante."

"Awright, I'm just askin'."

Opening the door to the rectory, Annie was all silken politeness to the woman behind the desk.

"Hi," she said, displaying her ID. "My name's Detective Silvester. NYPD Homicide. I hate to bother him on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, but we need to speak with Father Cammayo. Where might we find him?"

The woman looked back and forth between Annie and Frank. "Um, he's not here. He left just a couple minutes ago."

Frank glared at Annie and held back a curse. Unruffled, Annie continued, "Oh, that's too bad. See, we need to talk to him as soon as possible. We believe he might have some very important information about a parishioner we're looking for. This is a very time-sensitive matter-we're talkin' lives hangin' in the balance-and I'm sure you wouldn't normally do this but we need to ask you for Father Cammayo's address and phone number. It'd be a huge help."

The woman bit her lip. "Could I see your ID again?"

Placing her shield and ID on the woman's desk, Annie a.s.sured, "Absolutely, miss. You're right to ask. Copy the numbers for your records. CYA."

"What?"

"Cover yourself."

Having written Annie's information on a slip of paper the woman consulted a printout. She wrote Cammayo's information on a pink memo slip, handing paper, badge and ID back to Annie.

"You're a doll. Let me ask you one more thing. What's his schedule for the weekend?"

The woman checked another list. "Father Cammayo has the eight a.m. and the five p.m. ma.s.ses tomorrow."

Annie extended her hand. "Thanks, Miss ... ?"

The woman took Annie's hand. "Mrs. Perez."

"Thank you, Mrs. Perez. You've been a tremendous help."

Outside the rectory Annie warned, "Don't even say it."

Frank's jaw bones bunched.

"Hey, thirty-six years, right? What's another couple hours? Come on." Annie unlocked the pa.s.senger side. "We'll find him. Where's the Nova?"

"Canarsie. I followed him on the bus. Where we going?"

"East Flatbush." After pa.s.sing through a couple lights on Broadway. Annie posited, "Best case scenario, the priest is your junkie. Turned to G.o.d after he killed your pops. After all these years of carryin' this horrible burden he wants to come clean. Confesses everything."

Frank muttered, "Aren't you the f.u.c.kin' dreamer?" A few blocks later she groaned, "Christ. You're probably right. My dad was having an affair, only with a Catholic priest."

Annie wagged a pointed nail. "I doubt it. Don't believe everythin' you hear, huh? Sure there's bad priests, but there's a lotta good ones, too. All in all, more good than bad. It's a cryin' shame the way the rotten ones undermine the good work of their brothers. I hate all these scandals. And I hate the priests that commit these abuses-don't get me wrong-but what good does it do to tro' the bat' watuh out widda baby, huh?"

"I'm just sayin' I'm ready for anything."

"Well, it probably ain't gonna be nothin' like that. Just relax. Don't get ya knickers in a twist."

"They been in a twist thirty-six years. Why untangle aem now?"

Annie ignored her, scanning building numbers. "Figures he's in a church. They got so many churches in Brooklyn they call it the borough of churches. This is it." Slipping her NYPD plate on the dash she double-parked. "You ready?"

"Yeah," Frank said, not ready at all.

CHAPTER 36.

Pedaling up the street on a bicycle a lean black man glided to a stop in front of the building Frank and Annie were watching.

Frank said, "That's him."

"The guy on the bike?"

"Yep."

"Let's go." Just as he hoisted his bicycle onto his shoulder, Annie called, "Father Cammayo?"

He turned to look. "Yes?"

She waved her ID, introducing herself. "May we talk to you for a moment?"

"What about?"

Annie smiled warmly. "Could we go inside, Father? It's kinda chilly out here."

Cammayo held the lobby door open. Silently he led the women up three flights of stairs.

His apartment was small and clean. A black man in his late thirties-early forties looked up from the couch.

"Al, these are homicide detectives. They'd like to talk with me."

"Oh." The man put down the paper he'd been reading. "I'll leave you alone."

He retreated down the hall and entered a room. Leaning his bike against the wall, Cammayo asked, "What's this all about?"

"Father," Annie replied, "what is your relationship to Francis Franco?"

The priest froze. His gaze shifted between the detectives, stopping on Frank. "You were at the cemetery this morning."

She nodded.

"What concern is this to the police?" he asked. His English was correct and formal, like an immigrant's, Frank thought.

Annie smiled. "How do you know Francis Franco?"

"Am I under investigation for something?"

"Not at this point, no."

"Not at this point," he repeated. "Meaning I may be at a future time?"

"It's possible," Annie parried.