Beach Wedding(44)

Father Holm leaned back and looked up at the office ceiling. “You hear that, Noah? You have a new detective on your case, brother.”



58

I smiled.

“So, you and Noah were good friends, Father?”

“Best friends in college. We were roommates and both on the rugby team, which was something, since Dartmouth was nationally ranked. I was the hooker, the tip of the spear when the teams scrum. You know who gets to be the hooker?”

“No.”

“The slowest and smallest guy on the team. And also the dumbest. I got my collarbone broken for me during the national championship.”

“Ouch. But did you win?”

“No,” he said and laughed. “Cal completely crushed us that year. Me literally.”

“Was Noah any good?”

“Okay, I guess. He rode the bench mostly.”

“He was better at the parties after?”

“Yes. So, you met Noah,” he said, smiling. “We loved beer and AC/DC and trying to pick up girls. We both had learned a little karate, and after the bars closed, we would have heated but hilarious karate fights in the room. Shirts off with a tie around the head. There would be bowing. Man, you had to see the bruises. I went out drinking with him when his girlfriend dumped him. It was on the night before one of my finals, and I failed the class and had to take a summer one.”

“That’s what bros are for.”

“Yeah, we were definitely bros. I think he really appreciated that. I wasn’t from money, didn’t give a care about his prominent family. My dad was a beer truck driver outside of Minneapolis. We just goofed together, watched football.”

“And you remained friends after college?”

“Yep. Once or twice a month, we did poker games and Yankee games. There was actually a large group of Dartmouth rugby alums in NYC who we hung with. I still go to a dinner we have every year.”

“A lot of priests?”

He laughed. “No, just me. The rest all work on Wall Street. Shocker.”

“So, what do you think happened that night to your friend, Father?”

He stared at his coffee cup. “I’ve thought on this a lot over the years. And I think deep down it had to do with...his family’s company.”

What!

I had been convinced that the name Mark Disenzo was about to come out of his mouth. Or definitely Hailey.

His family’s company?

I looked at him and mentally raced through my notes.

“Cold Springs Chemical?” I said, remembering the boring-looking file in the Kelsey box I hadn’t read yet.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong. Hailey is obviously in this. Up to her salon-plucked eyebrows. But it had to do with the family company. Had to be. Especially when you look at what happened after.”

“What happened after?” I said.

Father Holm stared at me for a beat. “Oh, you don’t know about all that, do you?”

He stood and went to the coffee maker and dumped out the grinds into his wastebasket.

“Let me put on another pot, Mr. Rourke. You’re going to like this, but it’s going to take a little while.”



59

I saw my gas tank light go off as I was coming across the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge with the departing commuter traffic, so I put SIRI to work.

I was guided to a station in nearby Long Island City, Queens, and after I gassed up, I parked and decided to call Viv.

As I waited for her to pick up, I stared out from under the giant metal jungle gym beneath the bridge at Midtown Manhattan.

The incredible view looked like it was from a postcard. It had stopped raining, and the city’s steel-and-glass towers were shining there across the East River like a new car in a showroom. You could see the Chrysler Building and the UN and the Empire State dead ahead.

The Empire State Building looked especially cool. Like a movie poster. Like King Kong would appear in a second and start climbing.

After the score I’d just made, I actually felt a little like King Kong. Which was why I was calling Viv before I got back on the highway. The intergalactic level download of info I’d just bagged couldn’t wait another second.

An Amtrak train rolled out from a train tunnel to my left as Viv finally answered.

“Honey, tell me you’re pulling into the driveway,” she said.

“No, not even close, Viv. I’m sorry, but I need your help. I need to download what I just heard from this guy, Robert Holm. It’s huge. A completely new angle on the case.”

“Wait. Slow down,” my wife said. “Let me get some paper so I can take notes.”

“First, how’s my little angel?” I said.

“Little devil, you mean. She’s bad. Very bad.”

“What? Why?”

“I just put her in time-out. When I came into her room after the pool a minute ago, do you know what she was doing? She was in the buff, throwing her wet bathing suit up at the ceiling fan!”

“Hahaha! No!”

“Yes, can you imagine the boldness? She’d turned the fan on somehow and was trying to get her wet suit stuck on the blades. No way is that my side of the family.”

“Oh, that’s hilarious. Yeah, that’s Rourke DNA without a doubt right there.”