On the Fifth Day Read online

  "It's good," he said, as if he'd never tasted it before.

  "Let's see how badly the Illini are doing," said Jim, jabbing the remote toward the boxy TV.

  "So how did Ed know Devlin?" Thomas said, deflecting his own thoughts.

  "Not sure," said Jim, scowling at the game. "Met with him right after he got back from Italy. But that wasn't the first time."

  "When did he come back?"

  "Two months or so ago. The Js use a retreat house in Naples and he went out for a couple of weeks after he'd been helping out here. He was working on a book on early Christian sym

  bology. No idea what interest Devlin might have had in him."

  "Did you know Ed before he came to work here?"

  "Not well. We'd met a couple of times at conferences and diocesan functions, but it's amazing how separate priests can be, especially when one is of the lowly diocesan clergy like yours truly, and one is of the exalted ranks of the papal stormtroopers."

  Papal stormtroopers. It was an old joke, one that Thomas remembered Ed using in the days when they still talked. It wasn't that funny and hadn't been accurate for decades. The Jesuits didn't just take a vow of poverty. They also took a vow of obedience to the pope. Thomas supposed that had once meant something, but times change, and lately the Jesuits' fa

  mously leftist intellectualism and social activism had stirred the impatience of the Vatican.

  "You sure we've never met?" said Jim. "There's something about your face . . ."

  "Don't think so," said Thomas.

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  "Maybe you've been on the telly," said Jim, grinning. Thomas waited for the memory to catch, saw it in the priest's face, and opted to head it off.

  "Actually, yes," he said. "I'm a high school teacher. Was. I made the grave error of telling a parent what I really thought about how he had raised his lying, cheating, plagiarizing, bul

  lying thug of a son, something of which the school board took a dim view, doubly so since said parent worked for the local Fox affiliate. Not my finest hour."

  Jim smiled, shrugged, and raised his glass.

  "Here's to going out in style," he said. Thomas drank. The third quarter ended, and as the bright-orange-shirted Illinois players trooped off the court looking beaten, the TV

  kicked into commercials.

  "So this is how you spend your time?" said Thomas. He hadn't meant it to sound so snide. He sounded like that a lot lately, hearing it after it was too late to take it back. Jim just raised his eyebrows.

  "When I'm not doing the masses," he said, "the sick visits, the pastoral meetings, the young-adult discussions, the hospi

  tal calls, the endless parish meetings, coordinating . . ." he ticked them off on his fingers, "the drug and alcohol counsel

  ing sessions, the community food bank, the baptism classes, the single-mom dinners, a dozen different support groups, deaconate training, funerals, community outreach. Then there are the real problems, like people who can't pay their rent and get tossed out into a Chicago winter . . ." he said, the anger in his voice building, though Thomas felt sure it wasn't directed at him. "It's not all sitting around saying the rosary."

  "Or watching basketball," said Thomas, apologetic.

  "A game I find tedious and baffling," Jim added. "In fact, it's a penance to watch it."

  "And a kindness," said Thomas, raising his glass to him.

  "Which is appreciated."

  Jim shrugged to show there were no hard feelings.

  "You liked Ed," said Thomas.

  "Kindred spirit," said Jim. "And not just because he was a 40

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  priest. He was more of a reader than me, but he didn't mind spending the afternoon washing pans at the soup kitchen. It's always nice to meet a priest whose liberation theology doesn't stay in the bookcase."

  Thomas nodded and smiled.

  "You think I should speak to the senator?" he said.

  "Wouldn't hurt to try, I guess," said Jim.

  Another silence.

  "So," said Jim, eyes on the TV, "what happened? Between you and Ed, I mean. You didn't just drift apart. You looked happy enough together in those wedding pictures."

  There were so many ways he could answer that, many of them things he had said before to others, many of them dodges or feints intended to wrong-foot the defense. But Thomas was tired and he probably would never see this lonely priest again after today.

  "He ended my marriage," he said.

  CHAPTER 10

  Thomas sat in the reception room of Senator Zach Devlin's South Dearborn Street office and looked at his hands. He felt overawed by the place with its immaculate carpets, well-made furniture, and framed, official photographs of Devlin looking comfortable and imposing. Once he would have been de

  lighted at the prospect of meeting with someone from the staff of a Republican senator, and would have gone in feeling con

  fident and wittily aggressive, his pet subjects lining up in his head like paratroopers ready to jump.

  I was wondering, Senator, how you could begin to defend a policy--and I'm using the word in its loosest sense--so clearly asinine . . .

  Not lately, and certainly not today. Today he was antsy and 41

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  nervous, and once already in the last ten minutes he had con

  sidered getting up and taking the elevator back down from the heady thirty-ninth floor and into Chicago's cold and blustery streets.

  He had expected when he first called the senator's local of

  fice to be dodged as he had when he had called Manila or--at best--to be given an address to write to, a phone number to reach some Washington flunky. What had happened was that he had been put on hold, then invited to make his pitch to a secretary, and then put on hold again, for longer this time. But just as he was ready to dismiss the whole venture and hang up, the secretary came back on the line and told him to come downtown this afternoon. She had sounded slightly surprised, impressed even. Thomas had put the phone down with some

  thing like elation, but that faded as the hours wore on, and now that he was actually here he felt close to panic. The receptionist, a young blond girl with a bright, perky smile, answered her phone, said "Yes" twice and "Certainly"

  once, and then hung up and looked at Thomas.

  "Mr. Hayes will see you now," she said.

  "Mr. Hayes?" said Thomas, getting slowly to his feet. It wasn't a real question, more an opportunity to steady himself.

  "The senator's private secretary and chief of staff," she said, showing him to a paneled door.

  "Right," Thomas muttered, taken aback. "Thanks."

  Rod Hayes was about Thomas's age, though his cropped hair was starting to show a brush of silver about the temples. He wore black horn-rimmed glasses that could have made him look studious but looked instead as if they'd been lent to him to somehow balance his hearty athleticism. He was broad of chest and shoulder, and his sleek dark suit did nothing to hide a body that was well exercised and taut. His eyes, as they turned to Thomas, were gray, intelligent, and a little guarded. But that was understandable. If Homeland Security thought Thomas a dissident of the very-small-pond variety, it was at least possible that Hayes knew he was in the company of the political enemy.

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  The smile he dredged up didn't try too hard and thus seemed real enough.

  "Mr. Knight," he said, crossing from the window and ex

  tending a strong, tanned hand, "I'm glad you could drop by. Please, have a seat."

  Thomas shuffled to the proffered chair and sat cautiously.

  "We were sorry to hear of your loss," he said. "Father Knight was a good friend of the senator's and an important ally."

  "Really?" said Thomas.

  "Oh yes," said Hayes, choosing to treat the question as sin

  cere rather than snide, which was, for once, the way Thomas had meant it. He knew nothing of his brother's recent activi

  ties, and though the Ed he had known had been more than a Democrat, that Ed had disappeared off Thomas's radar long before he had actually died.

  "We weren't that close," said Thomas, opting to get that into the open right away, "but I know he was a man of principle."

  "Absolutely."

  "Well that's kind of why I wanted to speak to you," said Thomas. The office with its clean lines and gleaming window, this athletic and successful young conservative, and the sub

  ject of their conversation all made him uncomfortable and anxious to be gone.

  "I don't seem to be able to find out much about what my brother was doing when he died, and it seems like I'm running into some kind of national security investigation. I don't imagine you or the senator can tell me much or do much to . . . er . . . call them off, but I was wondering . . . since the senator knew him . . ."

  He gave up. He should have rehearsed this speech before

  hand. Call them off? He sounded as if he were asking for some kind of favor. Worse, he sounded guilty.

  "National security?" said Hayes, giving him a hard look. Thomas deflated further. He had hoped someone here would be able to tell him something right away. They obvi

  ously knew no more than he did.

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  He told Hayes about the trouble he had had getting infor

  mation about his brother's death and about his interview with the DHS. Hayes's confusion seemed to deepen, but he said nothing, letting Thomas pick his uneasy way through his story. When he got to the part about the intruder who had brandished a sword, Hayes shifted and the muscles around his eyes tight

  ened. He nodded slowly when Thomas stopped talking, took a pen from his jacket pocket, and began scribbling on a blotter, muttering occasional questions without looking up.

  "They came when?"

  "Do you know who you spoke to in Manila?"

  "Some kind of road accident?"

  Each time Thomas bobbed his head and answered, feeling as he had as a child, kneeling in the curtained confessional.

  "Okay," said Hayes, after a moment's pause in which he seemed to decide the matter was exhausted, "leave your con

  tact information with the secretary and we'll see what we can come up with. Obviously if it is a matter of national security there won't be much we can do, but . . ."

  He stopped, staring over Thomas's head to the door.

  "It isn't," said a man's voice from behind him. Thomas turned to see Senator Devlin himself standing in the open doorway. He was a big man, still powerful in spite of his sixtysome years. His hair was thick and white, his eyebrows bushy, his eyes blue and a little wild.

  Hayes got to his feet, clearly surprised.

  "Senator," he said, "this is . . ."

  "Thomas Knight," said the senator. "Yes, I know. The girl outside has a tongue in her head."

  He walked in with long rolling strides as if he'd just gotten off a horse, moving through the room as if he were pushing aside waist-high underbrush: a man used to taking a direct route to wherever he wanted to go.

  "Ed Knight was no terrorist," he snorted over his shoulder as he heaved his briefcase onto Hayes's desk with a thud.

  "Somebody screwed up."

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  "Don't you think we should turn this over to Homeland Security or the CIA . . . ?" Hayes began, suddenly sounding a little plaintive and overawed by the unexpected appearance of his boss.

  "No, I damned well don't," said the senator, with a steely glare at his chief of staff. "I knew Ed Knight, and his death is a great loss to this community. That those Washington numb

  skulls would desecrate his memory by turning him into some kind of leftist paramilitary because he happened to die in the wrong place is worse than insulting. It's incompetent and stu

  pid and . . ." he sought for a suitable term, "blasphemous."

  Hayes opened his mouth to speak but said nothing. His eyes darted to Thomas, who was getting slowly to his feet feeling as if he'd strayed into a family quarrel.

  "Don't argue, Hayes," he said, raising a hand with absolute authority. He filled the room like a general astride the turret of his tank.

  "Mr. Knight," said the senator, turning those bright, intense eyes on Thomas, "you have my word as an American that we'll clear your brother's name and get these idiots back to doing their job properly."

  Thomas found himself smiling, inexplicably, swelling a lit

  tle with something like pride, knowing even as he did so that the feeling was absurd and unreliable. But he thanked the sen

  ator anyway, unable to stop himself from feeling privileged to be in his presence, awed by the scale of the man even as he knew they agreed on almost nothing.

  "Sit," he said. "We'll have a drink. Senate's not in session, right? Must be, or I'd be back in D.C. resisting the impulse to take a swing at the esteemed senator from Massachusetts."

  He grinned wolfishly.

  "You can fill me in on your story," he said.

  Thomas did so. The senator, like Hayes, said nothing, but watched him carefully, snorting and scowling at the right mo

  ments, giving his secretary the nod as Thomas drew to a close. Hayes ducked out of the room.

  "A good man," he nodded to Hayes's back as the door shut 45

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  behind him. "Conservative with a small c, perhaps, and what I call a trust-fund Republican with a tendency to be a little holier-than-thou, but I'll make a fighter of him yet."

  "Whereas you are conservative with a capital C?" said Thomas, mustering a little of his familiar archness.

  "There isn't a letter big enough," said the senator, and the grin broadened till it split his colossal face and showed his bright, even teeth. "You're not, I take it?"

  "No," said Thomas.

  "Well, that's too bad. But I respect your right to believe whatever dumbass liberal crap you like. Hell, I'll fight to the death anyone who says otherwise. That's a hell of a story you have there, Mr. Knight. This guy who thumped you: you think he was searching for something?"

  "I do," said Thomas, "but I've no idea what."

  The senator frowned so that his forehead tightened by two inches, and nodded.

  "Hayes! HAYES!" he roared suddenly. "Where did you go, Kentucky?"

  Hayes reappeared at the door with a tray carrying three tumblers of Waterford crystal, two rocks and two fingers of Makers Mark in each.

  "Bourbon okay?" said the senator, thrusting the glass into Thomas's hand.

  "Sure," said Thomas, wondering what would happen if he said no.

  "To your brother," he said, raising his glass a fraction. "A good man and a good priest. And that's coming from a hellfire Southern Baptist: spiritually speaking, of course."

  He knocked the whisky back in one and banged the glass down on the mirror-polished mahogany desk. Hayes raised his glass for the toast, such as it was, but he didn't actually drink.

  "So did Rod here give you anything useful to go on, or did he fob you off with a bunch of bureaucratic doublespeak?"

  Thomas smiled a little and his eyes met those of Hayes, who returned the smile with what looked like familiar patience. 46

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  "Oh, he was very helpful, thanks," said Thomas, "and told me to leave my contact information in case . . ."

  "Bureaucratic crap," snapped Devlin, glowering at his chief of staff, who was nursing his untouched drink with his feet together like a maitre d' poised to sweep away their empty soup bowls. "I don't know what the hell is going on over there--in Manila, I mean, though I guess I mean in Washing

  ton too--but I'll find out and you'll hear from me. In the meantime, do nothing that would arouse anyone's suspicion. Leave the detective work to the authorities. And to me."

  "Thank you, Senator," said Thomas, tasting his drink. "Do you mind my asking how the two of you met up in the first place? My brother and you, I mean."

  Devlin seemed to hesitate for a moment as if trying to re

  member, but Thomas thought Hayes shot him a quick look, and he wondered if something passed between them. A warn

  ing? A caution? Something. Whatever it was, it reminded him that for all the senator's bluff camaraderie, the man was a ca

  reer politician. Such men didn't get where they were by al

  ways speaking their mind, even if he had mastered the illusion of doing exactly that.

  "He approached me about a year ago," he said, his head cocked thoughtfully on one side. "He had ideas for a kind of faith-based organization: interdenominational, you under

  stand. Local community leaders working together to address the causes of social problems in the city at the grassroots level. I liked the idea. I liked him, the way he thought. Smart, you know, but not too smart: concrete, not abstract. I can't be doing with a bunch of theory and high-concept nonsense that never puts bread on anyone's table . . ."

  "Or lets them work for that bread themselves," said Thomas, arch again.

  Devlin nodded emphatically, shrugging off the irony.

  "God helps those who help themselves," he said.

  "And you stayed in touch?" said Thomas, avoiding the ar

  gument. "He saw you again after he got back from Italy."

  There it was again: that momentary hesitation on Devlin's 47

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  part and the watchful tension that seemed to bind Hayes for a moment.

  "Yes," said the senator. "I wanted him involved on a local school board. He had the experience. Would have been good for the job. But he was committed to parish work and the book he was writing. Couldn't spare the time. I was disappointed, of course, but I respected his position."

  "And afterward? Did you speak again before he went to the Philippines?"

  "Is there something you are driving at, Mr. Knight?" said the senator with that same wolfish grin. "I'm starting to feel like I'm being interrogated."

  "I'm just curious," said Thomas, pulling back. "Trying to fill in the blanks. We weren't close, as I said, and . . . Well, I guess I'm just trying to find out what he was doing out there in the first place."

  The senator perched on the edge of the desk and leaned forward, looming over Thomas, and giving him a cool and studying gaze.