Hardscrabble Road(38)

Of course, there were dangers in the other direction. She had promised herself long ago that if she ever heard herself talking about “the transgressive hermeneutics of grammar” or describing her case as a “struggle against oppression,” she’d stop whatever she was doing, walk right out the door, and go to work for the Morgan Bank.

Right now, she just thought she needed a vacation. She’d come straight out here after settling a case in New York for the Coalition for the Homeless, which had been very good work but a long haul, dealing with city lawyers whose only purpose in life was to get her to run out of money and out of steam, and she was exhausted. She could use an island with lots of sunshine, lots of sand, and lots of liquor.

Here was something else she thought was important—she never, ever denied that she was who she was. Her idea of what to do about equality was to make the poor richer, not chuck herself into penury or play the martyr by buying her clothes at Kmart when she was able to shop at Saks. She was not a martyr, or a saint. She was just doing work she loved to do.

The phone on her desk buzzed. She picked up and the receptionist said, “Ms. Daniel? It’s Mr. Ballard on line three.”

Speaking of somebody who was trying to be a martyr or a saint, Kate thought. She picked up and said something noncommittal into the phone. Ray Dean Ballard always made her a little nuts. The fact that he insisted on calling himself Ray Dean made her nutser. If that was a word.

“Don’t be pissy,” he said. “I’ve got some news.”

“That’s good,” Kate said, “because we’re not much with news here this morning at all. What have you got?”

“The body, maybe.”

Kate sat up. “Are you serious? Where is it? How long has he been dead?”

“Calm down,” Ray Dean said. “It’s not that far gone yet. I got a call from my guy in the District Attorney’s Office. Demarkian’s been in to see Benedetti.”

“That’s not news. We knew he was going to do something like that. That’s why Chickie went to see him.”

“True enough, but now the two of them have gone out to the Hardscrabble Road precinct house. They’re stopping somewhere on the way, to get the guys who arrested Harrigan. But the thing is—”

“—What’s Hardscrabble Road?” “It’s about as close to the absolute edge of the city limits as you can get,” Ray Dean said. “You’d practically think it wasn’t part of the city at all. There’s a convent out there. Monastery. Carmelite nuns.”

“Benedictines,” Kate said automatically. “Sherman Markey was supposed to be a regular at some homeless shelter run by Benedictines.”

“Yes, I know that place, this isn’t that. This is way out. They don’t have a homeless shelter so much as they’ve got a barn they let people sleep in when the weather gets cold. The city would have a fit about the fact that there’s only one bathroom and no real beds, except everybody is scared to death we’re going to have a really big haul of people freezing to death this winter. Anyway, they found the hat. The red hat Sherman was wearing the last night anybody saw him alive. It turns out that somebody died out there on the night of the twenty-seventh.”

“And they didn’t tell anybody?”

“Of course they told somebody,” Ray Dean said. “They called an ambulance, the whole magilla. But at the time the hat was missing, or something. Anyway, the hat was left behind. The body is at the morgue somewhere, they’re going to try to go find it. But this is going to be Sherman. It all fits.”

“The place doesn’t fit,” Kate said slowly, “does it? You say it’s way out on the edge of the city? How would he have gotten there?”

“How do they ever get anywhere?” Ray Dean said. “We can work that out later. You should be ready for news, though. It’s coming this afternoon. And it’s going to be more interesting than you think.”

“Why?”

“Because you know the monastery I’m talking about. Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It’s the one that owns the land you guys had the lien put on, the land Drew Harrigan gave to the nuns after you guys sued him on Sherman’s behalf. The one where Drew Harrigan’s sister is the Abbess.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kate said.

“Exactly. Hold on tight. This is going to be a wild ride. I’ll call you back later. I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do. I just wanted to make sure you were warned.”

“Right,” Kate said. Then she put down the phone and stared at it.

It wasn’t the clients who got to her. It wasn’t the plaintiffs. It wasn’t the defendants. It wasn’t even the other lawyers and judges. It was just this, the stuff that came out of the walls when you weren’t expecting it.