Last Breath Read Online Free Page A

you
didn't
tell me is why things like this are happening in
your
parish.”
    It sounded like the navy all over again, Brendan thought. Having spent twelve years as a navy chaplain, he'd discovered that anything remotely related to his faith, the chapel, or his congregation was always his fault. He didn't bother to argue. However, having spent half of those twelve years on a ship, seasick every one of them, he figured he was better off right now. Just on that front alone. Which gave him some patience.
    “Monsignor,” he said as gently as he could, “my parish can hardly be responsible because some sick, evil person decided to commit an act of such enormity.”
    “No? Well, I might point out that nothing like this has happened anywhere else. And nothing like this ever happened before you arrived here.”
    “I should hope not,” Brendan said. Thinking of the poor soul in the church reminded him that there were worse things than Monsignor Crowell. “I would hate to think this is a diocesan practice.”
    “Quinlan!”
    “Sorry.”
    “Your levity will be your undoing.”
    Brendan suspected that it already had been, with Crowell at least. Could he help it if he dealt with stress through humor and music? Or that he loved a good joke? Well, of course he could help it. He just refused to allow himself to be turned into a dour, judgmental, bitter man. The Catholic Church already had enough of them.
    “I wasn't being humorous, Monsignor. I was being honest.” There, let the old boy chew on that one. “Of course nothing like this has happened before. And, God willing, it will never happen again. But unfortunately, it
did
happen. I presume you want me to make every effort to help the police?”
    The answer should have been a prompt “yes.” This was, however, the church hierarchy he was dealing with, and in his experience if the hierarchy could find a way to be secretive, it would do so on principle. He was sure they didn't want a loose cannon like him shooting off his mouth without supervision. Or maybe up there they thought of him as a loose “canon.” The pun brought a grim smile to his mouth.
    “Let me talk to the bishop, Quinlan.”
    The bishop, the Most Reverend Arthur A. Rourke, was a kind and gentle man who probably had no idea that he was surrounded by a moat of politically motivated alligators. Then Brendan sighed inwardly. He was being unfair and he knew it. Most of the people in the chancery weren't like Crowell, who, he would bet, had his eye firmly fixed on cardinatial red.
    “Of course, Monsignor. But I will point out that the police are here
now,
and they want to talk to some of the parish employees.”
    “Well, of course they must cooperate,” Crowell said, as if realizing he was walking perilously close to a cliff edge. “I imagine no one knows anything anyway.”
    “Except for the murderer or murderers, I’m sure you're right.”
    “Just see to it that no one talks to the press. Any information will have to come through the diocese.”
    “I assumed so. I’ll warn everyone.”
    Without saying good-bye, Crowell hung up. He always ended conversations abruptly, at least when dealing with Brendan.
    Sitting at Lucy's desk, in an all-too-rare moment of solitude, Brendan closed his eyes and allowed himself to feel the gravity of this day, of the event that had unfolded in his church. Allowed himself to feel some of the grief and shock that any mind could be so twisted, that any human being had been killed such a way.
    He hoped to God he'd never seen the victim before in his life.
    Unfortunately, he was not to be so lucky.
    As he was coming out of the side door of the rectory into the courtyard, Brendan ran into Father Dominic Montague, who was coming in through the back gate, ostensibly on his way back from the parish hall.
    A tall man with graying hair and eyes the color of gunmetal, he was an imposing figure. The kind of figure Brendan had often wished he were. Everything about Dominic suggested that