“No. And trust me, last thing I need is another pill to swallow.”
“Fine then. As long as I’m here,” said Heat, suddenly feeling like her last name should be Columbo—why not? she was certainly wearing the coat—”I want to ask if you had any new thoughts about the pictures I showed you.” When the woman shook no, Nikki handed her the photos again and asked her to give them a second look. She cleaned her glasses on her sweater and surveyed them. This time she went through the stack with no reaction to the one she had hesitated over before.
“Sorry,” she said and handed the array back across the table. Nikki was trying to figure an approach that wouldn’t traumatize her even more, when Mrs. Borelli said, “Oh. I did have one other thing to mention to you. I thought of it this morning and was going to call you, but here you are.” She seemed overwhelmed by circumstances. “You asked if Father Gerry had any trouble with anyone.”
“Please, go ahead.” Nikki flipped to a clean page.
“We had a priest here a while back. There were accusations that he had been . . . improper with two of the altar boys on a weekend field trip. Now, I don’t know what happened, and neither did Father Graf, but as the pastor, soon as he heard about it, he did the right thing and reported it immediately to the archdiocese. They transferred Father Shea and started an investigation. But one of the boys’ parents, Mr. Hays, filed a lawsuit—which was fine, who wouldn’t? But he also harassed Father Graf.”
“Harassed how?”
“Phone calls at first, and then showing up here at the rectory, unannounced. He kept getting more and more irate.”
“Did he ever get violent or threaten Father Graf?”
Mrs. Borelli tilted her head side to side. “He got loud. Shouted a lot, blaming him for letting it go on, and then accused him of trying to whitewash it. But he never threatened, until about three months ago.”
“What did he say, Mrs. Borelli? Did you hear his exact words?”
“I did. It was the one time he didn’t shout. He was calm, you know? Scary calm. He said . . . ,” the old housekeeper tilted her head back as if reading the words on the ceiling, ” ‘. . . I’m done talking. Your church may protect you but not from me.’ Oh, and he also said, ‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with.’ ” She watched Heat writing the quotes down then continued. “I apologize for not thinking of it yesterday. Part was because Mr. Hays hasn’t been around since then, so I let it go. And also yesterday I was a little, you know . . .” She said it with a shrug and played with the crucifix around her neck. The poor woman looked drained. Nikki decided to let her rest.
But first she got the name and address of the irate man from the parish registry, as well as the name of the accused priest. At the front door she reassured the housekeeper that she had done the right thing in sharing the information and added pointedly, “It’s always helpful to speak up no matter when your memory brings a detail to mind.” Then she handed the photo array back to Mrs. Borelli and left.
* * *
The blue-and-white that had followed her to the rectory was waiting with its engine idling when she came out. Heat walked over to the driver, a mean-looking career uniform whose nickname around the Two-oh was The Discourager because when they posted him at the entrance to crime scenes nobody dared cross the line. “Harvey, don’t you have something better to do?” she asked when he powered his window down.
“Captain’s orders,” he said with a voice accented by sandpaper and gravel.
“I’m heading to the precinct. I’ll be taking West End instead of Broadway.”
“Don’t you worry, Detective, you won’t lose me.” He said it casually, but the fact was The Discourager was exactly the pit bull you wanted to have your back. She handed him the small bag of pizzelles Mrs. Borelli had given her. When he looked inside it he damn near smiled.
* * *