"Want some outside backup?" Cash started the car, began creeping down the block. "Smitty might do it."
"No. Shit no. We can't get anybody else involved. Even you shouldn't be. Twenty-three years is a lot to risk."
"Nah. No problem. We can bullshit our way out." But he, too, had begun to feel that peculiar twisting of the guts remembered from the Ardennes and several occasions when he had approached women with less than honorable intentions. He dithered at the intersection with Klemm till another vehicle rolled up behind him.
He turned right, went over to his own street, then east a block to Thurman. He parked beneath the huge elm on the corner. In the distance, Miss Groloch turned on to Thurman and strode purposefully toward the service station.
Cash said, "Guy that lives here on the corner is going to run for alderman next year." As John grunted his disinterested response, Norm turned to peer out the back window. They had parked in front of the house next to his own. He wondered if Annie had noticed. "Maybe you knew him in school. Name's Tim Schultz."
"It's the service station all right. She's crossing over. You going to cruise past?"
"No. She might make us. Don't want her changing her mind now."
Miss Groloch vanished behind the bulk of the station.
"I figure you should have a good two hours," Cash continued. "Plenty of time. I'll leave you off, then head for the funeral. Soon as you finish, hoof it over here. Annie'll be home. She never goes anywhere anymore. I'll pick you up when I get back."
The funeral was small and quiet. The priest didn't have much to say. He, Cash, and two men from the funeral parlor did the pallbearing. Sister Mary Joseph was accompanied only by two nuns. No one else came.
Except Miss Groloch, who watched from a distance, from the shadow of a grove of young maples. Her cab awaited her on a cemetery road behind her.
After depositing the casket next to the grave, Cash positioned himself so he could observe the principals. Sister Mary Joseph showed neither warmth nor coldness. Earlier, she had greeted him only with a curt nod. Miss Groloch seemed more interested in the surrounding cemetery than in the funeral, though there was no one in sight except an old man, off among the fancier monuments, who appeared to be a caretaker.
Once the casket had been lowered and he had deposited his handful of earth, Cash started the old woman's way.
"Sergeant?"
He stopped, turned. "Sister?"
"Thank you for coming. Even if you had to."
"Had to? I didn't. It just seemed right."
"Did she?…"
"Miss Groloch? Yes. She was in those trees over there." The cab had departed while his back was turned.
The sister squinted.
She was nearsighted, Cash realized. No wonder she hadn't noticed.
"She's gone now. Do you need a ride back to the convent?" He cast a sour look at the gravediggers. They were sidling nearer already, not trying to hide their impatience. Didn't anyone have any respect anymore?
"I'd appreciate that. We came out in the hearse. There's something I want to tell you anyway."
But she could not seem to get started. After a half mile, Cash asked, "I've always wondered. How come Miss Groloch upsets you so much? You seem to have adjusted to… to…"
"Jack's disappearance? It's all right, Sister Carmelita," she told the younger of the nuns in the back seat. The woman had placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I liked Jack, Sergeant. Even when I knew what he was. He was that way. Nobody could really hate him.
"I had no illusions. I knew something would happen, the way he lived. I think I was used to the idea before it did.
"No. I don't hate her for Jack's sake. It's Colin that did it."
"Colin?"
"My boyfriend. Colin Meara. If you can have a boyfriend when you're that young. The kid I was with the last time I saw Jack."
"I remember now. But I don't understand."
"The whole neighborhood knew about Jack. Because of the yelling and screaming and all that. Well, Colin decided he'd play detective. So he snuck into her house one night. And…"
"And?" Cash prompted after fifteen seconds.
"He never came out. Never. Nobody ever knew what happened but me. His parents thought… his dad was really rough on him. Because he was afraid Colin would be like Jack. He adored Jack. They said all sorts of crazy things, but mostly they just thought he ran away. He was an only child. I never could tell them the truth. Not even his mother when she was asking for him when she was dying. Couldn't ever tell anybody. Till now."
Sister Carmelita patted her shoulder.
Cash almost ran a red light. "Why?"
"I was waiting outside. We stayed awake and snuck out after everybody was asleep. I remember it so clearly. It was after midnight, almost a full moon. Not a cloud. The stars were so beautiful… We were going to do it together. Only I got scared. So he told me to wait outside. And he never came back."
A silent sob racked her thin frame.
"Sergeant, fifteen minutes after he went in… that woman came to the door. Then she came outside, all the way out to the gate. I couldn't run. She just stood there and stared at me for maybe five minutes. It was like looking the devil in the eyes. Then she just smiled and nodded and went back inside."
"She didn't say anything?"
"Nothing. Not a word. God in heaven. I was scared. Of her, of my father, if he found out I snuck out nights, of Colin's father… I'm still scared. I can still see that evil smile…"
Lord, another one, Cash thought. The Groloch place was a slaughterhouse.
"I thought you'd come today. I prayed you would. Last night I wrote it all down. I borrowed a school typewriter and put down everything I could remember, all the stuff I didn't tell you before. Maybe it'll help."
"Everything's a help." Something akin to elation coursed through Cash. It was starting to come. Finally, the information was breaking loose.
He had been home a half hour and had read the sister's deposition twice before he thought to ask, "What happened to John?"
"I haven't seen him," Annie replied. "Was I supposed to?"
"Yeah. He was supposed to meet me here. Hey. Maybe he found something and grabbed a cab back to the station."