“Sir, I’m going to put you in an interview room for a few minutes, and I’ll be with you as soon as I’ve made my calls. Is there anything you need? Coffee, soft drink, something to eat?”
“I am glad I was not born before tea,” the old man remarked.
“Tea? I’ll see what we can do. Officer Scarlotti, would you please make a cup of tea for the gentleman in Interview Room One?”
“Tea?”
“Yes, there are some bags in the cabinet. And take him the milk and sugar, in case he wants them.”
“Milk and sugar?”
“And offer him the package of cookies,” she added, and closed the door before he could repeat that as well.
It took four calls to track down Inspector Kate Martinelli of the San Francisco Police Department, but eventually Mendez reached her at home. A woman answered; a child was talking in the background; Martinelli came on the line; and the background noise cut off.
Mendez began to explain: odd phone call; enigmatic remarks; the caller tracked to a local library; seemed to match the identity of the man known as Brother Erasmus; and she wondered -
“Our Holy Fool is there? In Rio Linda?” the detective interrupted.
“Apparently.”
“Good Lord, I’ve often wondered what happened to the old man. How is he?”
“He looks fine. Thin but healthy.”
“If I wasn’t in the middle of ten things, I’d be tempted to drive down and say hello. Tell him hi from me, would you?”
The affection in Martinelli’s voice was not the usual reaction of a Homicide detective to a witness and onetime suspect, Mendez reflected.
“I wanted to ask you about him, whether you’d say he was reliable, but it sounds like you’ve already answered my question.”
“I don’t know about reliable, since Erasmus might well have his own agenda, but I’d say he’s the most honest man you’ll meet.”
“If you can figure out what he’s saying,” Mendez said.
“Does he still talk that way? Everything in quotes?”
“Are those all quotes?”
“That’s how he talked then. It took us forever to figure out what he was trying to say.”
“Why does he talk that way?”
Martinelli was silent for a moment, then said, “He would probably call it penance for his sins. He lost his family, years ago back in England, in a way he felt responsible for. Personally, I thought he was trying to keep his mind so busy, he didn’t have energy left over for his own thoughts. He is actually able to speak directly, in his own words – he finally did when he was helping us with our case – but it seemed to be very hard on him. I think you’ll find that, if you listen carefully, his meaning becomes clear. Have you figured out what he’s after?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said he called you and said something about an ‘infant crying in the night.’ Has he suggested yet how he can help you?”
“You think he knows something about one of my cases?”
“People open up to him, even the most unlikely people.” Something about the way the detective said this made it sound like an admission. “And if he didn’t know anything, why would he have called? Do you have a case involving a child?”
Mendez was silent, picturing the abandoned bedroom of twelve-year-old Enrique Escobedo: neatly made bed, rock poster on the wall and a Lego spaceship below it, bulletin board pinned with drawings of friends and celebrities, dozens of science-fiction books on the shelf unit. “I might.”
“Well, he had some reason to come to you. You might start there.”
Mendez thanked her, repeated the promise to pass her greeting on to the old man, and hung up. She then phoned the priest at the Catholic church downtown – not her own parish priest, but she knew him. He knew immediately whom she was talking about.
“The kids call him St. Francis, because he has a way of coaxing birds into eating from his hand. He’s been at Mass a few times over the past few weeks. I’m not sure where he lives or how he supports himself, although I’ve seen people slip him money, and they often bring him something to eat.”
“Elijah’s ravens,” she commented.
“Exactly. Nice fellow, odd, but a calming influence. There was a scuffle in the food line one day, and he stepped forward and put his hands on the two men’s shoulders, and they calmed right down. What’s more, he had them eating lunch together afterward, talking up a storm while he sat with them and nodded.”
“Have you talked with him?”
“Don’t know if I’d call it talking with him, but I’ve sat and talked to him several times myself. Very restful kind of fellow. Knows his Bible better than I do.”
“But you’d say he’s a trustworthy sort?”
The priest did not hesitate. “I’d say he’s a saint of God.”
When she hung up, she sat tapping the desk for a while, then returned to the interrogation room. When she glanced through the door’s small window, she could see the old man, long hands tucked together in his lap, gazing in silent contemplation at his staff, which was leaned in the corner. She turned the knob and stuck her head inside.
“I need some lunch. You want to join me?”
He rose and picked up his knapsack and staff, and followed her out of the station.
They walked down the street to the take-out burrito stand, which was doing brisk business with an assortment of children in soccer uniforms, the playing fields being just two blocks away. They waited their turn, the old man ordered by laying a finger on the vegetarian option, and two minutes later they had their fragrant meals before them on one of the stand’s heavily scarred wooden picnic tables. She peeled back the paper and bit in; Erasmus was of the fork-and-knife school, taking a fastidious surgical approach to the object with his plastic utensils. His staff lay stretched out on top of a low concrete-block wall, and for the first time, she noticed that the fist-size swelling at the top was not an amorphous knob of wood but a heavily worn carving. Studying it, she realized that when it was new, it must have resembled its owner – beard, flowing hair, hawklike nose. She smiled.
“I spoke with Inspector Martinelli in San Francisco,” she said.
“Subtle and profound female,” he murmured.
“Yeah, she seemed to admire you as well, and asked me to say hello. She also said that you might have some information regarding an active case. That it might be the reason you called.”
He put his fork down and reached through the pocket-slit of his robe, pulling out a folded scrap of newsprint that was considerably fresher than the one she had found in his wallet earlier. He laid it in front of her, resuming his fork as she picked up the clipping.
The Escobedo boy’s grinning school picture looked out at her.
She knew what the article said without having to look – she felt by now that the words had been carved on her heart. It had been published on March 9, one week after Enrique Escobedo had vanished from his house, and his babysitter, Gloria Rivas, had been gunned down on the front walkway of the home. When the article was written, Rio Linda was still quivering with apprehension; they were now coming up on the two-week anniversary, and Detective Bonita Mendez hadn’t slept an eight-hour night in thirteen days.
“You have information about this?” she demanded.
He frowned at the rice and beans spilling out of their wrapper, and she could see him decide on an appropriate quote. “Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.” The stress placed on the final word suggested the direction of his meaning.
“Look, sir, can’t we just drop this whole quotation business? This isn’t a game.”
He raised an eyebrow in sympathy and said, “The rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us.” He chewed a mouthful, watching her intently. She propped her head in her palms and shut her eyes.