Coldwater Revenge, James Ross [books for 9th graders txt] 📗

They don’t miss anything.

When Tom didn’t respond, the man turned to Johnsen. “Did we decide yet what to do about that Barney Fife who thinks he runs things around here? The one with the monster truck that costs more than my house. Have we decided whether he’s taken money from the rag-head, too, or just the locals?” He looked at Tom. “It’s that kind of town, I hear. That kind of family.”

Tom ignored the pugnacious stare, but the man wasn’t finished. “If a brother were helpful, maybe we wouldn’t have to waste time digging into any of that. Or let that state trooper, Grogan, do it. He seems to have a real hard on for your brother.”

“We do have more important things to do,” added Johnsen, “and precious little time to do them.”

CHAPTER 28

Gauss sat alone on a stone bench outside the St. Gabriel chapel, his hands folded in meditation. A small fountain bubbled nearby making sounds like a running toilet, though not loudly enough to cover the sound of footsteps echoing on cloister stone. He looked up. Bishop’s Mczynski’s gopher, Monsignor Marchetti, came to a halt and dropped an unsealed envelope into Gauss’ lap. “His Eminence has received another letter.”

“I would have thought he might be over the thrill of these by now.”

“And photographs.”

“Ah.” Gauss opened the envelope and retrieved a color print. The lighter-skinned of the two sunbathers wore shorts and a silver crucifix and sat upright facing the water. The darker one lay face down on a lounge chair and wore nothing.

“And the letter?”

“You have some explaining to do, Father.”

“Do I?”

“These are serious charges, Father. And this is damning evidence.”

“Evidence of what, Monsignor?”

“Is this a friend of yours?”

“An acquaintance.”

“What sort of acquaintance?”

“An intellectual acquaintance, for want of a better word.”

“I’m not interested in his IQ, Father. I want to know what the two of you were doing together in your birthday suits.”

Gauss glanced at the photo. “Actually, only one of us is in his birthday suit, Monsignor. I seem to be wearing the same pair of swim trunks that I’ve had since the seminary. Can’t afford new ones on the pittance His Eminence pays his vineyard labor.”

“That man is stark naked, Father! And that’s you sitting next to him. Or do you deny that?”

“Oh, no. That’s me alright.” He put the photo back in the envelope and returned it to the Bishop’s man. “Some of our summer residents like to swim in the nude, Monsignor. The European ones, anyway. Locals tend to keep their clothes on, as you can see. But we’re not so arrogant as to tell people how to dress in their own homes.”

“Please answer my question,” Marchetti demanded. “What’s your relationship with this man?”

“He’s the owner of an island on Coldwater Lake across from Our Lady of the Lake Church. The one with the Frank Lloyd Wright house on it. His name is Hassad.”

“Go on.”

“Dr. Hassad, bought the island last winter and put guard dogs on it. When I took the church row boat past there this spring after the ice out, the dogs lept into the water and practically chewed the boat to bits. Dr. Hassad saw it happening and called them off. Then he invited me for lunch so they could ‘get my smell’, as he put it, so they would leave me alone the next time I rowed past the island. He’s an interesting man. Claims to be from Afghanistan, though I don’t think that’s true, since he’d never heard of Ahmed Zahir. But it turns out we both like Merchant Ivory films.”

“I don’t understand,” said Marchetti.

“You would if you lived in a town where fishing rods outnumber library cards.”

“Arrogance!” Marchetti blustered.

“Is that what this mystery letter accuses me of? Arrogance?”

“It accuses you of being this man’s lover!” Marchetti snapped a fingernail against the envelope.

Gauss sighed. “I suppose that makes sense. Pearce might even have thought it true this time.”

“How… ? Are you admitting…?”

Gauss regarded his inquisitor from beneath raised eyebrows. “Don’t you do any homework before you take on these assignments?”

“Are you?” demanded Marchetti.

“What?”

“A homosexual.”

Gauss sighed again. “I’m a celibate, Monsignor. And if you’d bothered to read the files you gave to Sister Inquisitor, you’d know that Billy Pearce began writing this kind of drivel as soon as I put the kibosh on his first attempted romance with one of my altar boys. Hasn’t it occurred to anyone in the Chancery that all this so-called evidence may just be Pearce penning under different names?”

“I didn’t say who wrote the letter,” Marchetti protested.

“You didn’t have to.” Gauss lifted a pair of bony shoulders. “Have you ever been to Stockholm, Monsignor?”

“I don’t see…”

Gauss talked over him. “I stopped there on my way back from the Vatican a few years ago. The friend I was there to see got tied up and suggested that I go to the park across the street to kill an hour. There I was sitting on a park bench, soaking up what passes for sunlight in those parts, and here and there on the grass and on the other benches I see these young office girls sunbathing—with their shirts off! It was quite a sight.”

Marchetti’s face turned scarlet, but Gauss continued. “When I met my friend later, he laughed and asked how I enjoyed my lunch. ‘Sometimes we get people visiting our little city for the first time who go to lunch and never make it back.’”

Marchetti folded his arms and rocked on his heels. “And the point of this scurrilous story?”

“That if somebody had taken my picture that afternoon in Stockholm, sitting on a park bench enjoying my holiday and sent it to the parish newspaper along with a nasty letter, what would that prove? Except that I didn’t go native there either.”

“So you’re denying the authenticity of this photograph and letter?”

“No, the photograph is real. It just doesn’t mean what you think it does. If Billy Pearce was on Pocket Island when that picture was taken, then