Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(21)
I parked my car and went inside. Poor as the parish was, at least they could still afford air-conditioning. Off to one side of the altar, candles and a wreath surrounded the portrait of a smiling, plump-faced priest. I walked up the aisle, past pew after weathered, splintering, and empty pew, to look for a placard or note about who the dead man was. Please don’t tell me Sitri got someone else to do the job…
“Did you know Father Fernando?”
I looked over. Another priest stood near the altar, maybe in his early forties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His voice carried the faintest hint of a Spanish accent, like it was something he’d worked hard at unlearning.
“Afraid I didn’t have the pleasure,” I said.
He walked over, standing close and giving the portrait a long stare.
“Good friend of mine. We went to seminary school together.” He looked at me. “Killed by a car, just last week. A hit-and-run, if you can imagine that. Every night I pray that the driver finds it in his heart to turn himself in and seek absolution. Murder is a terrible burden to carry.”
I suspected I knew more on that subject than the good father, but I shook my head and said, “My condolences. Are you Father Alvarez?”
“I am.” He offered me his hand. His grip was firm and warm. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ve seen you before. You’re not from our congregation, are you?”
On my way over, I’d thought hard about how to play it. The best lie, as usual, would cut pretty close to the truth.
“I’m a private investigator,” I said. “Your name came up in relation to a case I’m working on. Is there somewhere we could talk? I won’t take up too much of your time, I promise.”
He nodded and gestured toward a side door. “Of course. In my office. If this is about Father Fernando’s estate or the insurance claim, though, you’ll really need to talk to the diocese. I’m just the man who writes the boring sermons and occasionally manages to dispense a little good advice.”
White flowers bloomed in a cheap glass vase on the priest’s desk. Groaning bookshelves lined the walls, piled high with everything from church histories to manuals on child rearing and grief counseling. A window overlooked the empty parking lot. Alvarez took a seat behind his desk, leaning in to sniff the flowers.
“Casablanca lilies,” he said, gesturing toward the chair on the other side. “I grow them in the garden out back. Heavenly scent. So what’s this all about, Mr.…?”
“Faust.”
He smiled, lightly teasing. “Have you read Goethe, Mr. Faust? I do hope you’re coming by your knowledge the honest way.”
I held up my hands. “Don’t worry, no pacts with Mephistopheles. Let me get right to the point. I don’t want to worry you unnecessarily, but do you know anyone who might want to harm you? Have you had trouble with anyone lately?”
His smile faded. “Harm me? Well, no, of course not! I’m just a parish priest, not John Dillinger! I’m a homebody, really. When I’m not attending to my duties here, my hobby is translating obscure liturgical material. That’s about as wild as my life gets. Why do you think—”
“What about your friend? That hit-and-run, any chance it wasn’t an accident?”
The priest shook his head, looking bewildered.
“I’d barely had a chance to catch up with him,” he said. “I’m a recent transfer, you see. I was looking to make a change, he knew of an opening, and he invited me to join him here at Our Lady. A few days later, he was taken from us. If he feared for his life, he said nothing to me about it. Mr. Faust, I’m going to have to insist on an explanation. Who do you work for? And why on earth would you think someone wants to hurt me?”
The glimmer of movement out the window caught my eye. A pair of BMWs, lean and low and black as midnight, rolled into the lot with military precision. I nodded toward the glass. It was too hot for jackets, so our new arrivals didn’t bother concealing their shoulder holsters. I counted six guns, gleaming chrome in the dying sunlight.
“We could ask them,” I said. “But they don’t look like they’re here to chat.”
A couple of the men had the look I’d come to associate with near-feral cambion, that vaguely lumpy, didn’t-spend-enough-time-in-the-oven look. The others just looked mean as rattlesnakes and angling to raise some hell.
If my guess was right, Sitri wasn’t the only player in the occult underworld who wanted Father Alvarez’s head. The Redemption Choir was here.
Eleven
“What do they want?” the priest said, his eyes wide.
I got to my feet. “You. And I’m guessing they’re not here to give confession. This place have a back door?”
“This way.” We slipped out the back just as the church doors slammed open, the old wood splintering under a kick from a steel-toed boot.
“Alvarez!” a voice roared at our backs. “Faust!”
My blood froze. How did they know my name? Why did they know my name? I focused on keeping Alvarez moving, ushering the panicked priest through the gardens and around the building. I held up a hand behind me, waving for him to hold up as I poked my head around the corner. The way looked clear. They’d all gone inside and left the parking lot undefended.