Reprisal

Bill ransacked the kitchen, found the door to the cellar, and ran down the steps, fearing all the while that somewhere along the way he'd trip over Sara's remains. He was sure she was dead. He found a toolbox sitting on a dusty workbench. He grabbed it and raced back up to the second floor.

Da

Halfway to the car Da

"Why didn't you come, Father Bill?" he said in a voice that was almost gone. "You said you'd come if I called. Why didn't you come?"

* * *

The next few hours were a blur, a montage of white streets seen through a fogged windshield, of battling skidding tires and locking wheels, of bouncing off curbs and near misses with other cars, all to the accompaniment of Da

And then came the thin, chain-smoking detective with yellow stains between his right index and middle fingers, mid-fortyish, thi

Re

Twenty-plus years on the force and he'd never seen anything even remotely like what had been done to that kid. Turned his stomach upside down and inside out.

And now his chief was on the phone telling him he could pack it in until the day after tomorrow.

"I'm go

"Hey, Re

No way.

"Tell Goldberg to cover everything else on eleven-to-seven. This one's mine."

"Something special about this one, Re

Re

"Uh-uh. Just a child abuse case. A bad one. I think I got all the loose ends within reach. Just want to tie them up good before I call it a night."

"That could take a while. How's Joa

"She'll understand." Joa

"All right, Re

"Right, Lieu. Thanks. And Merry Christmas."

"Same to you, Re

Detective Sergeant Augustino hung up and headed for the doctors' lounge he had commandeered. That was where they were holding the guy who'd brought the kid in. He said his name was Ryan, claimed he was a priest but he had no ID and the sweatsuit he was wearing didn't have a Roman collar.

Re

St. Francis… that was what had grabbed Re

That was all Re

He'd left a uniform named Kolarcik on guard outside the lounge. Kolarcik was on the walkie-talkie as Re

"They picked up the guy in the house," Kolarcik said, thrusting the handset toward Re

We don't know for sure he's a priest yet, Re

"You mean the guy was just sitting there waiting to be picked up?"

"They say he looks like he's in some sort of trance or something. They're go

"Bring him here," Re

Kolarcik smiled. "Right."

Re

He opened the door to the lounge and took a look at the guy who said he was a priest. Big, clean-cut, square jaw, thick brown hair graying at the temples, good build. Good-looking guy, but at the moment he looked crushed by fatigue and pretty well frayed on all his edges. He sat hunched forward on the sagging sofa, a cup of Downstate's bitter, overheated coffee clasped in his hands.

His fingers trembled as he rubbed his palms against the cup, as if trying to draw warmth from the steaming liquid on the other side of the Styrofoam. Fat chance.

"You co

The guy jumped, like his thoughts had been a thousand miles away. He glanced at Re

"For the tenth time, yes."

Re

"What order you from?"

"The Society of Jesus."

"I thought the Jesuits ran St. Francis."

"Same thing."

Re

The guy didn't smile back. "Any word on Da

"Still in surgery. Ever hear of Father Ed? Used to be at St. Francis."

"Ed Dougherty? I met him once. Back in seventy-five at St. F.'s Cente

The guy had said the magic words: St. F.'s. Only someone who'd lived there called it St. F.'s.

Okay. So he probably really was Father William Ryan, S.J., but that didn't absolutely mean that he had nothing to do with what had happened to that kid. Even priests got bent. Wouldn't be the first time.

"Look, Detective Angostino," Father Ryan said. "Can we make small talk later?"

"It's Awgustino, and there's no small talk and no later in something like this."

"I've told you, it was Herb. The husband. Herbert Lorn. He's the one. You should be out—"

"We've got him," Re

"Here?" Ryan said. The fatigue seemed to drop away from him in an instant. His eyes came to blazing life. "Here? Give me a few minutes alone with him in this little room. Just five minutes. Two." The Styrofoam cup suddenly collapsed in his hand, spilling hot coffee all over him. He barely seemed to notice. "Just one lousy minute!"

Okay. So the priest most likely had nothing to do with hurting the kid.

"I want you to tell me the whole story," Re

"I've done that twice already." The fatigue was back in Ryan's voice. "Three times."

"Yeah, but to other people, not to me. Not directly. I want to hear it myself, from you to me. Right from the moment these people stepped into St. F.'s until you arrived here in the ambulance. The whole thing. Don't leave anything out."

So Father Ryan began to talk and Re