Nothing to Lose (J.P. Beaumont #25)(5)

“I believe you said at the time that you might want to be a policeman when you grew up,” I added.

Cops learn to read faces. It’s something that’s drilled into your head starting on your first day in the academy, and there are times over the course of a career when being able to capture and decode a fleeting expression on a suspect’s face can mean the difference between life and death. I saw the muscles in Jared’s jawline twitch. He chewed on his lower lip for a moment before he spoke.

“I tried that,” he said at last. “I got a degree in criminal justice and went to work for Monroe PD in Monroe, Ohio. It’s outside Cincinnati. They’re the ones who sent me through the academy.”

I wasn’t sure how his going through police-academy training jibed with his showing up in priestly attire. I was about to ask, but something in his expression kept me from opening my mouth.

He sighed and then, after taking a deep breath, continued. “I made it through training fine. But then, my first week of being in a patrol car on my own, I got a call to do a welfare check.”

A wave of gooseflesh passed over my body, because I knew what was coming.

“A domestic?” I asked.

He nodded. “A woman and two little kids—a boy and a girl—all of them dead, stabbed to death in their beds. The perpetrator was down in the basement. He’d taken himself out with an overdose.”

I said nothing because there was nothing to say.

“I called it in,” he continued. “I stayed there until the homicide detectives showed up so I could give them my statement. The lieutenant wanted me to be part of the house-to-house canvass. I told him I couldn’t do it. Instead I drove my patrol car back to the department, where I turned in the keys, my badge, and my weapon. Then I went home, got good and drunk, and stayed that way for a month.”

He paused and sat there staring into his coffee cup as though the liquid there might be able to deliver some enlightenment. I knew it wouldn’t.

“I think most people given those circumstances might have stayed drunk for a lot longer than that,” I offered. “What happened?”

“My grandmother sent her parish priest to talk to me, Father Joel.” Jared gave me a sidelong glance. “Did you know we were Catholic?”

“Not until your mother’s memorial service,” I answered. “Somehow our respective religious affiliations never came up in casual conversation.”

Jared nodded. “That’s one of the reasons my mother’s divorcing my father was such a big deal. They were both good Catholics, supposedly, and they had married in the Church. It’s why she put off getting a divorce for as long as she did.”

Again I managed to resist the temptation to speak. That’s another thing they try to teach you in the academy. When a suspect or witness is busy telling his or her story, don’t interrupt—just shut up and listen. I've had years of experience in that regard, so I kept quiet.

“Father Joel was a good guy,” Jared continued. “The last time I’d seen him was two years earlier when he officiated at my grandfather’s funeral. By the time he showed up at my apartment, I’d been shit-faced drunk for days. I wasn’t eating or sleeping, had lost close to twenty pounds, and hadn’t bothered to shower in I don’t know how long. The place was filthy, and yet there he was. The first thing he did was make me shower and put on clean clothes. Then he threw out the booze, made me drink coffee, and ordered a pizza. While I was drinking coffee, he started cleaning the apartment—throwing out garbage, washing the dishes. He told me Grandma had sent him to check on me because I wasn’t answering the phone.”

I nodded. “Sounds like she was right to be worried.”

“I was busy feeling sorry for myself—not for the people who’d been murdered whose bodies I’d found, but sorry for me. Father Joel asked me if I wasn’t going to be a cop, what was I going to do with my life? I told him I had no idea. I knew I couldn’t be in law enforcement anymore, even though I had a degree in criminal justice. It seemed to me as though the four years I’d spent going to college had been a total waste of time and money.”

“‘We should pray about it,’ he said. I thought he was nuts. ‘Pray?’ I asked. ‘Right here? Right now?’ ‘Why not?’ he said. And that’s what we did. We both got down on our knees next to the couch where I’d been lying and wallowing in my misery, and we prayed. When we finished, we got up off our knees, and he said, ‘My grandmother always used to tell me that those who can, do and those who can’t, teach.’ I was astonished. ‘You think I should teach criminal justice even if I can’t do it?’ I asked him. Father Joel nodded, and that’s what happened.

“He pulled some strings and helped me get into the graduate program in criminal justice at Notre Dame, and one thing led to another. By the time I earned my master’s, I had entered the seminary. I received my doctorate in May and was ordained this past July. Starting next fall I’ll be an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque.”

Thank you, Father Joel, I said to myself. Just then the name that had been eluding me turned up in my little gray cells. “So what about Christopher?” I asked. “What’s become of your little brother?”

Jared’s telltale jaws tightened again. “That’s why I’m here,” he said finally. “Chris has fallen off the face of the earth. I need your help in finding him.”