The Sons of Mount Carmel by Ron Alvarez Chapter 1 (A NYPD Murder Mystery Novel)
CHAPTER 1
“What’s cooking?” Detective Toni Santiago said into her iPhone.
She noticed the time on the screen read 6:42 before she answered. She'd been running on the tree-lined campus of the College of Mount St. Vincent not far from her apartment in North Riverdale. Holding the phone to her damp ear with one hand she listened and walked; dripping in her blue and gold—Fighting Irish—t-shirt and shorts, and held her bulldog Vita's leash with the other. The dog had a lock on Toni's empty bottle of Poland Spring between its slobbering teeth.
"A priest?" Toni said and stopped walking. She swiftly swiped sweat from her ear, put the phone back, and continued to listen.
"In the face?" She said, and started to walk again as she listened, Vita waddled alongside her.
“For crying out loud,” she said. “Crime Scene there yet?” She stopped again, didn’t budge, Vita stopped again too.
“Good. All right, I’ll be there in forty-five.”
Toni made it to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church by 7:45. Channel 7 Eyewitness News and New York 1 news vans were already parked across the street, with others pulling up. A few of the reporters were using the backdrop of the church as they spoke into their mikes.
There was yellow crime scene tape across the front steps leading to the entrance of the rectory. Barricades had been set-up on both sides of the rectory steps to keep parishioners and passersby from blocking the entrance.
Two uniformed cops stood like Corinthian columns on either side of the rectory door. One held a clipboard and took-down the ID's of everybody who stepped up into the rectory: EMT'S, Crime Scene Unit investigators, Medical Examiner personnel, Night Watch and Bronx Homicide detectives; names, ranks/titles, shield numbers. Toni showed her gold detective shield to the officers, as did her partner, Detective John Geddes. After their ID's were noted, Toni and Geddes ducked under the yellow tape and entered the threshold of the murder scene.
As soon as they stepped into the rectory, a couple Night Watch detectives pointed them to the kitchen without comment. In their walk down the narrow, dark, hallway, Toni noticed one still candle under a clear, red, cover that washed the walls in just a whisper of flickering red light. When they reached the doorway of the kitchen they stopped and took in the spiritless, bloody body of Father Manuel Gonzalez in the rear. The back of his head had landed on the hard, linoleum floor near the sink. A stew of blood radiated around the priest’s head like an aureole.
Toni turned back to look at one of the night watch detectives. “Anybody else here?”
"Priest in the office back by the front door," the detective said and nodded in that direction. "Father Gribbons."
“Okay, thanks.”
“You need us to stick around, or you got this?”
“No, we got it now. Thanks for the response.”
Toni stepped into the rectory office where the priest was sitting on an upright wooden chair in the far corner like he was being punished.
“Father Gribbons,” Toni put out her hand to the priest, “I’m Detective Santiago. I’ve been assigned to lead this investigation.” Toni pulled up another wooden chair nearby without letting the priest’s hand go.
Toni only stood a little over five-two but sounded taller.
"Thank you, detective," Gribbons said and shook Toni's hand. Toni held his hand a little longer than she would have normally. She was struck by how soft the priest's hands were. Not that this should have surprised her considering his line of work. But she had no illusion, not for one second, that those soft hands couldn't pull a trigger, if necessary.
“Can you tell us what you know, Father?”
Father Gribbons was a tall, lanky priest in his mid-fifties. He’d been assigned to Our Lady of Mount Carmel right out of seminary like Father Manny Gonzalez only Gribbons had arrived ten years before.
“Well, I just got back about 6:30 this morning. I was at a weekend retreat. When I came in I first found it strange that the lights were not turned on. It was completely dark, except for the one candle in the hallway that’s on all day and night. Father Manny woke up at five-thirty each morning and would head downstairs to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, and would leave the lights on in the rectory office before going back upstairs to shower. Often he would go out for a morning run in the park—
“Mount Carmel?” Toni said.
“Yes, Mount Carmel Park,” Father Gribbons said. “He’d always leave the lights on, except, recently he’d stopped going.”
Even in the rectory office, the scent from the decades-convergence of burning candles and dark wood walls was robust.
“Do you know why, Father?” Toni said. “Why he stopped going?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t. I asked him several times if everything was all right, and he’d say he just needed a change.”
“Okay,” Toni said. “Please go on.”
“Well, I turned the lights on and I could hear the running water in the kitchen and started to go down the hallway. When I arrived at the doorway to the kitchen, I saw him on the floor, and all the blood.”
The kitchen had two windows facing the back of the rectory into the garden with a fire escape. There was a crucifix hanging on the sliver of wall between the windows. In the center were an oak table with six chairs and a half-filled cup of black coffee with a lipstick mark. There was also a shattered coffee cup on the floor. The water was still running into the stainless steel sink.
“Did you walk into the kitchen, Father?”
“No. I stopped at the doorway, saw his body and came right back here to the office and dialed 911,” Gribbons said. “I knew he was dead.”
Gribbons took off his glasses and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.
Toni watched the priest for an extra moment.
“When did you leave for retreat, Father?” Toni said.
“Friday afternoon,” Gribbons said. “You know, detective, the entire congregation over the years always eagerly awaited his words at mass. They had a deep affection for Father Manny. All those dark and light faces with sparkling brown eyes. All those eyes not knowing Sunday would be his last.”
Toni wondered too if Father Manny had had any idea it would be his last as she sized Father Gribbons up. She then wondered if Gribbons had had any idea it would be Father Manny’s last.
“Where was the retreat, Father?” Toni said.
John Geddes walked into the rectory office and joined the interview. Geddes stood about six-four and had recently turned forty. Half of his almost eighteen years in the department were spent in Bronx Homicide.
“The sarge coming?” Toni said.
“Outdoor range.”
Toni introduced Geddes.
“Where was that retreat, Father?”
“Massachusetts, Clarence, Massachusetts. The Clarence Abbey,” Gribbons said.
“Oh, really,” Toni said. “What religious order is that?”
“Cistercians,” Gribbons said. “They’re Trappist monks.”
Toni nodded.
Father Manny’s bloody body had been found spread between the sink and the table. She thought the priest would have turned when his attention was drawn to the shooter, maybe surprised and unable to focus at first, or maybe the figure had just had a cup of coffee with the priest. But whether he was surprised to see the figure or not, Toni imagined that when Father Manny turned—before seeing the gun in the shooter’s hand—he captured the settled glint in the eyes looking back at him, and with a gasp blurted, “Mercy…” as a solitary bullet shattered his glasses, pierced his left eye, and expelled from the back of his head.
Geddes said, “Father, what was Father Manny’s normal Sunday like after mass?”
"After mass, his day was usually full. He'd meet with various members of the congregation for lunch and others for dinner most often here in the kitchen until he retired to his private office to write in his journal before going to bed."
“He kept a journal?” Toni said. “Where is it?”
“He kept it on the top of his desk. His office is on the second floor. And you know—Gribbons stopped, and looked up at the ceiling—it’s odd but his office door was open.”
“On the second floor?” Toni said. “Why’s that odd? He just always kept it closed?”
"Yes, but it's not only that," Gribbons said. "When I got back after I found Father Manny's body and called 9-1-1, I went upstairs quickly just to put my bag in my room and that’s when I noticed his office door was open. And I paused, just for a moment, and looked in and noticed several of the draws to his file cabinet were open.”
“So, it felt like somebody other than Father Manny had been in there?” Toni said.
“Yes, I think so,” Gribbons said. “I’d never seen his file cabinet draws left open like that.”
“Okay,” Toni said. “Back to this journal. You said it’s on his desk.”
“Yes, it should be there.” Father Gribbons said raising his eyes to the ceiling again. “It’s red.”
“What about an appointment diary?” Toni said. “He must’ve had one.”
“Oh, yes. That’s right here.” Gribbons slowly rose up and stepped behind the desk in the rectory office. There was a table behind the desk with a printer/fax machine, and up against it was a green hardcover diary. Father Gribbons handed it to Toni.
“Have you looked at this since you found Father Manny’s body, Father?” Toni said as she leafed through the diary?”
“No, I haven’t. I thought it was best I not touch anything until you arrived. I’ve learned not touching anything always seems to be very important to arriving detectives.”
Toni looked at the priest.
“I watch ‘Law and Order’ re-runs on occasion.”
Toni kept leafing through the diary.
“I see his last appointment yesterday night was at 7:30 with a Mrs. Samantha Cohen.” Toni looked up. “Do you know her?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Gribbons said. “She was one of Father Manny’s closest friends. They grew up in this neighborhood and first met, I believe, here at Mount Carmel or maybe it was high school. No, maybe not high school, maybe they met at college. I’m not sure really, but I know she attended Georgetown and, and of course, Father Manny went to seminary. She’s a very fine personal injury attorney.”
“Do you have her number?” Toni said.
As Gribbons peeled off Cohen's business card from the ancient rectory Rolodex, Toni thought about Gribbons odd reaction to bring his bag up to his room—just after seeing Father Manny’s dead body—instead of dialing 9-1-1 right away.
Their attention had then been drawn to huffing sounds of heavy lifting rebounding off the walls of the hallway. Medical Examiner personnel were squeezing the dead weight of Father Manuel Gonzalez down the narrow hallway in that all too familiar temporary secular vestment to death investigators: a body bag.
“Are you all right, Father?” Geddes said.
Gribbons nodded his head as he again wiped his eyes.
Toni placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss, Father.”
Gribbons nodded again as he put his handkerchief in his pants pocket.
“Detectives, I don’t know if you’re aware that Father Manny was a very good friend of a lieutenant in your department. He’s a detective too. They too were childhood friends.”
“Is that right?” Toni said. “Who’s that?”
“Ryan Condon.”
“Lieutenant Condon,” Toni and Geddes said together.
“Yes,” Gribbons said.
Toni looked over at Geddes, closed her notebook and said, “Let me give Tazzo a call.” She stepped out of the office and strolled down the hallway. Two minutes later she was back.
“We have to leave, Father,” Toni said. “When we get back we need you to come down to the medical examiner’s office to formally identify his body. If we have time—when we bring you back—we want to see Father Manny’s office upstairs and that red diary. Will that be all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
Before leaving the rectory, Toni asked the Crime Scene team to do a complete survey of Father Manny's second-floor office: video; photographs; the collection of potential DNA evidence, the works. And to shut the water off in the kitchen after they lifted any prints from the faucet knob. She imagined the running water was the only sound that resonated throughout the rectory until the single shot was fired and the coffee cup shattered.
