Nickel City Crossfire, Gary Ross [ebook reader for pc and android txt] 📗

to see you again!” His eyes narrowed. He took my hand when I reached him and let me pump it, but clearly I had startled him. “Friend of Miss Tassiopulos. I met you last week.”

“Mr. Rimes, right?” he said, pretending he had just recognized me. “What brings you back?” He crossed his arms over his chest. I saw the ring on his right hand.

“Who’s your friend?” I said as Chalmers and Piñero closed the distance between us. “My name is Gideon Rimes.” I took the woman’s hand and held it as if I might be interested.

“Brigid Blake,” she said, blushing a bit. “Are you a friend of Brother Grace?”

I smiled. “I said I met him just last week.”

Her blush deepened as I released her hand. “Right.” Then she smiled. Giggled.

“So, Rimes, what brings you back?”

The question was gratuitous. If Brother Grace had thought I carried myself like a cop when I was an ex-cop, surely he would recognize the two men behind me, broad-shouldered and clad in long overcoats, were still on the job.

“My friends Terry and Rafael,” I said to Brigid and Brother Grace as I cocked my head toward the detectives. “We were just upstairs and Camille said you needed help getting supplies down from the bell tower. So here we are.”

Brigid giggled again. “You said it was hard to get help. I think these guys can carry a lot more than I can. But I’ll be here later if you want to talk some more.” Waving at Brother Grace and giggling again, Brigid went over to an old woman whose hands shook so badly she couldn’t steady the spoon she was trying to dip into her soup.

“Okay,” Brother Grace said. “You’re cops. What do you want?”

“I take it you heard about Veronica Surowiec,” I said. “She was found dead recently.”

“Who? Oh, you mean Nasty Nica.” He nodded, sighing a bit. “Yeah, I heard. Damn shame. Wasn’t she in the river or something? Drowned?”

“The Black Rock Canal,” Chalmers said, eyes shifting from Brother Grace to his ring.

“These detectives are friends of mine,” I said, leaning close to Brother Grace as if we were old friends. “When they heard I had seen Veronica here, they wanted all the particulars, which is why I’m back. They have some questions that I couldn’t answer but they don’t want to ask them out here in front of everybody.”

“Hey, bro, why don’t we go get that stuff you need from the bell tower,” Piñero said. “We all got strong backs. Kill two birds, you know.”

Brother Grace looked from one to the other of us, hesitated, and then shrugged. “Sure, why not. Let me show you where it is.”

He sidled past us and mounted the spiral stairs, his work boots thumping a steady pace. We followed, with Chalmers in the lead and Piñero behind me.

“So when did you last see—what did you call her? Nasty Nica?” Chalmers said.

“Her street name,” Brother Grace said. “I last saw her the night Mr. Rimes talked to her. She left in the morning and I never saw her again.”

“Did she drop in here often?”

“I guess once or twice a week.” There was no stress in his voice. “You get to know a lot of the regulars, but Nica stood out. She had a real foul mouth, cussed like a sailor. And…”

“And?”

“Her smile.” He stopped and looked back at us. “Musta been a nice smile at one time, you know? Kinda smile that makes guys hold open doors and wish they’d get lucky. But with her teeth all gross and shit, that smile just made her look pathetic. Even scary.”

“Did you know she was a doctor?”

“I heard that a couple of times. I remember thinking, Damn. Life’s a bitch.”

We resumed climbing the stairs. I half expected Brother Grace to bolt when we hit the main floor. I wasn’t worried because we had the doors covered. But he reached the first floor and kept moving up, the three of us in his wake.

“I know people thought Dr. Surowiec drowned,” Chalmers said. “But we didn’t find any water in her lungs, which meant she was dead when she went into the canal.”

“No shit? Huh.”

“Somebody beat her to death, bro,” Piñero said.

“That’s terrible,” Brother Grace said.

“The killer wore a ring,” Chalmers said.

Three steps below the small landing at the top of the stairs and the dark wooden door that led to the bell tower, we came to a shadowy split-level tile floor that held a disused choir loft. Inside were cracked benches, broken folding chairs, parts of music stands—all dimly lit by a flickering sconce on the outside wall, just above a bookcase full of old programs, paper church fans, and hymnals that smelled of mold. Brother Grace stepped onto the tiles.

“That’s far enough,” Chalmers said.

I was behind him, still on the steps. Piñero was behind me.

“But the keys to the bell tower are on that hook.” Brother Grace pointed to a brass coat hook beside the sconce. On it was a large key hoop.

“We don’t need to go in the bell tower,” Chalmers said. He withdrew a folded blue paper from his inside pocket and handed it to Brother Grace. “We have a search warrant here for an infinity ring. Since you’re wearing one, we’ll start with yours. Then you can tell us if any more are in the building.”

Brother Grace opened the warrant and leaned close to the sconce to read it.

His forehead nudged the fixture, and the light went out.

Something cut through the sudden darkness with a whipping sound that connected with flesh. I heard Chalmers cry out. He stumbled backward into me, forcing me to flail for the handrail. I caught it before my eyes began to adjust and strained to hold on as Chalmers’s weight forced me backward into Piñero. As we tried to keep ourselves from tumbling down the stairs, something clattered to the floor. Now a shadow, Brother Grace pounded up the last steps, jerked open the door, and disappeared into the bell tower like