Part 28 (1/2)

”There must be,” she said. ”I mean, what are the odds that there were two child p.o.r.n factories in our little state? The way I figure it, the Winklers were running their operation out of Colfax Street, somehow got away when the bust went down, and moved their operation to Chad Brown.”

”That's how I figure it, too.”

”Of course, we don't know for sure,” she said. ”The Providence cops are p.i.s.sed at the way Parisi's been bigfooting them, so they're stonewalling us.”

”I don't suppose Dr. Charles Wayne's name has come up in any of this.”

That startled her. ”Some reason it should?”

So I told her what I'd heard, leaving McCracken and Peggi out of it. ”Be nice if we could get a look at his home computer,” I said.

”It would, but we can't. There's no probable cause for a warrant.”

We lapsed into silence as Charlie shuffled over to top off our coffees. The silence dragged when he moseyed back to the grill. We were probably both thinking the same thing: We didn't have a clue who was behind the Chad Brown murders. The body parts at the pig farm were still a dead end. And we had no idea why Sal's double had been whacked. We were just blundering around in the dark.

We broke the silence at the same time.

”Could it all be connected somehow?” I asked, just as Fiona said: ”What if it's all connected?”

”Parisi won't speculate,” I said.

”But we will,” she said.

So we started brainstorming, throwing out ideas that had been bouncing around in our skulls for weeks.

”A war between rival p.o.r.nographers?” I suggested.

”Maybe. The Chad Brown creeps try to whack Sal so he whacks them.”

”Of course, the creeps could have been working for Sal.”

”In that case,” Fiona said, ”maybe Arena and Gra.s.so whacked them all to settle their old strip club beef.”

”Then again, what if this is all the handiwork of the Sword of G.o.d?” I said, and started to give her a rundown on Sunday's service.

”I heard all about that,” she interrupted. ”Parisi planted an undercover in the congregation to keep an eye on them.”

”Jimmy Ludovich,” I said.

”How'd you know that?”

”I saw him there Sunday.”

I sipped coffee that was turning as cold as my investigation.

”Got anything solid yet on the Maniellas' illegal campaign contributions?” Fiona asked.

”Not yet.”

”That's what you should be concentrating on. You're a reporter, not a cop. Murder investigations are way out of your league.”

”You're probably right.”

She picked up her cup of coffee, discovered it was cold, clunked it back on the table, and sighed.

”So we're still nowhere with all of this,” she said.

”Only thing we can be pretty sure of,” I said, ”is that the body parts at Scalici's farm came from the Chad Brown snuff film factory.”

”No, we can't,” she said. ”We can't be sure of anything.”

40.

Christmas Day I didn't have anything better to do, so I volunteered for a double s.h.i.+ft on the city desk again. I edited the annual holiday traffic fatal-a family of five erased in a collision with a snowplow-and was scrolling the AP national wire when a story out of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, caught my eye.

The parish priest at St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church had presided over midnight Ma.s.s on Christmas Eve, but he failed to show up for Ma.s.s on Christmas morning. Alarmed, the vicar went looking for him, found the back door of the rectory kicked in, and called the police. Two patrolmen arrived promptly and discovered that the place had been ransacked. They found the priest dead in his bed. Father Rajane Valois had been executed with a single gunshot to the back of his head.

I thought about calling Parisi to see if he'd heard the news, but it was Christmas. I figured it could wait a day. Twenty minutes later, Jimmy Cagney's voice shrieked from my cell phone: ”You'll never take me alive, copper!”

”Merry Christmas, Captain.”

”Not so merry in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.”

”Is that so?”

”A parish priest was shot to death sometime early this morning.”

”Father Rajane Valois,” I said.

”You know about this?”

”I read about it on the AP wire.”

A five-second delay, and then: ”I just got off the phone with the chief of police in Fond du Lac. He says they found about a hundred child p.o.r.n videos on the good father's personal computer.”

”Doesn't surprise me,” I said.

”Oh?”

”He was one of the names you got from the Internet providers,” I said.

”How the h.e.l.l do you know that?”

”A source.”