The Skeleton Box Read online

  “My God, Your Honor, this—” Repelmaus began, but Gallagher rapped his gavel three times and shouted, “Quiet! You will be quiet in my courtroom, Mr. Regis. And you, Mr. Carpenter, will sit down now.”

  I’d said what I had to say. I sat. Gallagher turned to a uniformed officer standing to his right. “Bailiff,” he said, “please remove Mr. Regis to my chambers.”

  Repelmaus flushed red. “Your Honor, this is unnecessary,” he said as the bailiff moved alongside him. “You will regret this.”

  When the chambers door behind Gallagher’s bench closed, the judge addressed Catledge. “Deputy?”

  “May I approach?” Catledge said.

  Gallagher waved him up. Catledge whispered something. Gallagher replied, nodding. Catledge turned and left the courtroom.

  “Mr. Breck,” the judge said, “I assume you still have the note your mother left in her will.”

  “It’s in a safe-deposit box along with other documents, such as canceled checks from Eagan, MacDonald and Browne payable to my firm, for services rendered, right up to October of last year.”

  “About the time you arrived here, is that right?”

  “Approximately, yes.”

  Gallagher took off his glasses, set them down, rubbed his eyes with both hands, put the glasses back on. “You have subsumed much of your life to this cause, Mr. Breck,” he said. “All for the sake of a dead man.”

  “For the sake of a dead woman, Your Honor.”

  The courtroom doors swung open again. The gallery turned as one to see. Standing on the threshold amid a small phalanx of officers, with an eye swollen shut and his hands cuffed behind him, was Luke Whistler.

  Standing behind him was Darlene.

  She was hatless. The top two buttons were missing from her uniform shirt, and the fabric was torn where her badge should have been. A wad of gauze was taped haphazardly beneath her left eye. I wanted her to look around the room for me, but she kept her gaze straight ahead. In her outstretched arms she held a plastic evidence bag containing what appeared to be a wooden box.

  “Order,” the judge said. “Mr. Breck, you may sit.” Breck twisted around to see the back of the courtroom. His eyes went wide. Gallagher looked at Catledge. “Deputy?”

  Dingus rose from his seat, looking as flabbergasted as I’d ever seen him. “Your Honor, I apologize,” he said as he glanced from Gallagher to Whistler and back again. “Deputy Esper was suspended as of last night and should not be here now.” I watched Darlene for a reaction, but her face remained a hard blank.

  “Sheriff, can you please tell me what’s going on here?” Eileen Martin said.

  He ignored her, directing himself to Catledge. “Deputy, your orders were to take the prisoners directly to the jail.”

  “Yes sir, Sheriff.” He glanced back at Darlene. “This seemed relevant to the matter in court.”

  “Deputy Esper is not even—”

  “Never mind, Sheriff,” Judge Gallagher said. “Deputies, please approach the bench and bring whatever you have.”

  Catledge prodded Whistler forward. Darlene followed. The box she carried looked to be about three feet long, two feet across, and twelve or thirteen inches deep. On the front was a hasp for a padlock, but no lock. The three of them stopped at the railing.

  Darlene spoke. “Lucas Benjamin Whistler, Your Honor.”

  Whistler stared at the floor. “I want a lawyer,” he muttered.

  “He killed my mother.”

  A collective gasp rose from the gallery. I handed Mom a tissue.

  “Your Honor,” Eileen Martin said, “this is highly irregular.”

  “We passed irregular about twenty minutes ago,” Gallagher said. “Mr. Whistler, you shall have a lawyer. But now, please approach.”

  Catledge, Darlene, and Whistler walked to the bench. Darlene set the evidence bag in front of the judge. “What is this?” he said.

  “Your honor,” Darlene replied, “I attempted to apprehend the defendant approximately twenty-five miles west of the border crossing at Port Huron. He disobeyed my instructions to pull his vehicle over, forcing me to—”

  “She nearly killed me running me off the road,” Whistler said.

  “—take more forceful steps.”

  “Then she just broke into my car, clear illegal search and seizure. You’ll be throwing this one out, Judge.”

  “Since when do we have jurisdiction in Port Huron?” Dingus called from his seat. “You didn’t notify the state police?” He jumped to his feet. “Judge, I must ask that you allow me to remove these people immediately.”

  “I would concur,” Eileen Martin said.

  “Noted,” Gallagher said. “Sit.”

  Dingus started to say something else, stopped himself, and sat.

  “Deputy Esper,” the judge said, “is it true that you arrested this man some—what?—two hundred miles from your jurisdiction?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” she said.

  “And where did you get this box?”

  “It was in the trunk of the suspect’s car. I believe it’s stolen property.”

  Gallagher studied the box and the three people standing before him. In the gallery we waited, dumbstruck. I thought of Darlene chasing Whistler’s Toronado, forcing him to the shoulder in the dark middle of nowhere. They must have struggled, I thought. How else could she have sustained a cut or Whistler a black eye? I wanted to ask her what had happened, why she had decided to go alone, why she had left me behind. I wanted to know how she had restrained herself from taking even more drastic action against the man she believed had killed her mother. I thought I knew what was in the box on Gallagher’s bench, but I wanted to see it for myself, not hear about it days or even weeks on, when the state forensics guys finished with it.

  I stood. “Your Honor,” I said. “We can end this now.”

  Gallagher looked at me, his eyebrows high over his horn-rims. “Just whose courtroom do you imagine this is?”

  “We can solve this case right now.”

  “We can, can we? I’ll humor you—what do you propose before I have the bailiff roust you from this courtroom forevermore.”

  I glanced past him at the door to his chambers. He followed my eyes. “As you say, Your Honor, it’s your courtroom,” I said. “But we can solve this case as well as the one that’s half a century old. But you will need me, and you will need my mother.”

  I looked at her. Her head was bowed over her handbag.

  Gallagher looked at Whistler and Breck and Darlene. He picked up his gavel and stood. “In my chambers,” he said. “Ms. Prosecutor, Sheriff Aho, Deputy Esper. All of you. Bring Mr. Breck and Whistler, please, and Medical Examiner Schriver.” He pointed his gavel at me. “Augustus Carpenter,” he said. “And Beatrice? You, too.” He rapped once more. “This court is in recess.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The blotter on Judge Gallagher’s L-shaped mahogany desk was framed in leather the color of blackberries. Gallagher pointed at it and said, “Remove the box from the plastic and place it here, please.” Catledge did. The judge fluffed the back of his robe and descended into a leather-backed chair. “You may uncuff these men, Deputy.”

  I tried to get Whistler’s attention as Catledge removed his cuffs, but he kept his eyes down, rubbing first his wrists and then his pinkie ring. I recalled picking the ring up off his desk, how heavy it seemed, and the initials engraved inside: EJPW. Elizabeth Josephine Pound Whistler. Bitsy. His mother.

  He sat alongside Breck, facing the judge. Dingus stood behind them. Repelmaus stood with the bailiff. I sat with Mom on Gallagher’s left, while Eileen, Darlene, and Doc Joe sat in a semicircle across from us. I finally caught Darlene’s eye. She didn’t smile, but she winked, and I thought maybe I’d done something right.

  The judge opened a desk drawer and produced a package of latex gloves. He unwrapped it and pulled the gloves on. “Now,” he said, looking around the room, “I plan to take a look at what is inside this box. Unless there’s an objection.”


  “I must respectfully object, Your Honor,” Eileen Martin said. “This risks contaminating what could be vital evidence.”

  “Really, Ms. Martin? How do you know what’s in here? It could be nothing.”

  “But Your Honor, could we at least have some photographs—”

  “Overruled.”

  Dingus spoke. “Your Honor, don’t you think—that is, wouldn’t you prefer, that the police handle the investigation and we’ll come back to you—”

  “With what? Yet another suspect?” Gallagher said. “You suspended the only deputy who’s actually gotten anything done on this case, is that right?”

  “Your Honor, the deputy did not follow—”

  “You came into my courtroom this morning to charge this man”—he pointed at Breck—“with some very serious crimes, and an hour later we’re sitting here with another man whom I would wager you plan to charge as well, am I right, Sheriff?”

  Dingus shifted his bulk, folded his arms. “No objection, Your Honor.”

  “Thank you. Now, Mr. Regis?” Gallagher said. “I’ll allow you to witness this, so long as you tell me you promise to behave, which is to say, keep your mouth shut.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Repelmaus cleared his throat and showed the judge a cell phone he’d pulled out of his jacket pocket. “Although it’s my duty to inform you that you may soon be getting a fax from Judge Wallace in Detroit.”

  “Federal judge Joseph Peter Wallace? A good man. Not much of a golfer, but a good man.”

  “Yes sir. My client has asked Judge Wallace for a temporary restraining—”

  “No,” Gallagher said, clapping his hands together. “Not another word.”

  “—order to halt this ad hoc proceeding and—”

  “I’m sorry,” the judge shouted over Repelmaus, “I haven’t heard a word you said and if you speak another, Judge Wallace will have to post your bail.”

  Repelmaus pursed his lips.

  Gallagher turned back to the box. Dirt was caked around its hinges, and it was tall enough that all we could see of the judge was his head and the few stray tufts of silver the chemo had spared. He motioned to Doc Joe. “Could you come over here?” Doc Joe came around behind the judge. Gallagher handed the coroner a pair of latex gloves, then turned to Whistler. “Mr. Whistler,” he said, “can you tell us why you’re here?”

  “I demand a lawyer, Your Honor.”

  “Well, then, Mr. Breck?” Gallagher said. “Can you tell me why Mr. Whistler is here?”

  A fax machine resting on a credenza behind Gallagher sputtered to life, chugging from hum to clatter as it began spitting out a page.

  “Pardon me,” Gallagher said, turning to Doc Joe. “It’s impossible to conduct a conversation with that thing clunking along.” Doc Joe reached behind the credenza and yanked a plug from its socket. The machine went silent.

  “Judge, you can’t be serious,” Repelmaus said.

  “Much better,” Gallagher said. “Mr. Breck?”

  Breck looked at Whistler. “He obviously made a mistake,” Breck said. “He must have worried that my arrest would lead to his, and he panicked and went looking for that”—he nodded toward the box on the judge’s desk—“and somebody figured it out.”

  Darlene and me, I thought. Finally.

  “And why would Mr. Whistler care about what’s in this box?”

  Breck made a show of turning to look at Repelmaus. “Because he thought it might be worth a lot of money to the archdiocese. Like maybe five million dollars.”

  I looked at Whistler, who appeared ready to explode, his cheeks crimson, his pinkie ring tap-tap-tapping on his chair arm. I wanted to hear from him.

  “Not only that,” I interjected, “but he and his partner, one Beverly Taggart, sought to get women in town to help them with their little extortion plot under the guise of writing a history of St. Valentine’s Church.”

  Whistler took the bait. “It wasn’t a ‘guise,’” he said.

  “So, Mr. Whistler, you do want to speak,” Gallagher said. “What would this history of yours say?”

  Whistler looked around at his audience. He couldn’t help himself. “Everything Breck says about the church framing his grandfather is true,” he said.

  “Preposterous,” Repelmaus said.

  “They had to frame somebody because Father Nilus Moreau had killed Sister Cordelia with his bare hands and buried her beneath the old church. Later he moved the bones so they could build the new church.”

  “How do you know this, Mr. Whistler?” Gallagher said.

  “My mother knew Nilus. Only too well.”

  “Why wouldn’t the archdiocese just hand Nilus over to the authorities and wash their hands of him?”

  “It was too late for that,” I said. “They were already covering up years of Nilus screwing his parishioners.”

  “Your Honor,” Repelmaus pleaded.

  “If the murder of a nun came out, everything would come out,” I said. “The archdiocese couldn’t help but look complicit, and who knows what else.” I looked at Repelmaus. “Your pal Reilly didn’t tell you about the paternity suits, Regis?”

  “Judge,” he said, “this man has zero credibility as a journalist. Why is he even in here? What kind of crazy court is this?”

  My mother jumped up. “Don’t you dare say that about my son.”

  “Hush, all of you,” Gallagher said. “Beatrice, please, sit.”

  “God damn you to hell, if he hasn’t already,” she told Repelmaus. She sat.

  “Maybe Sheriff Aho should hire your son, Bea,” Gallagher said.

  “Hah,” Whistler said. “He’s clueless.”

  “Enough out of you,” Gallagher said. Then, to Repelmaus, “This is not a courtroom, sir, this is my chambers. There is no jury. The rules of evidence do not apply. But since you’re so keen on having the facts correct, please tell us: Did Mr. Whistler endeavor to extort money from the archdiocese?”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor, I would have to claim attorney-client privilege.”

  “Ah. Maybe Mr. Whistler isn’t the only one with something to hide.” He waited for a reply, but Repelmaus had none. “All right, let’s see what could be worth the risks you people have taken.”

  Gallagher stood. He lifted the hasp on the box. He took hold of the lid with his gloved hands and eased it open. A musty odor floated up from the open box. I imagined the sort of line that would appear in a newspaper story: The room filled with the smell of death. I watched Gallagher’s face as he examined the inside of the box. Doc Joe moved closer. His face blanched as the judge, whose face did not blanch, reached into the box and handed something to Doc Joe.

  The coroner took the skull in one hand, rolled it over into the other. It wasn’t much bigger than a softball and was about the same color and roundness, except for a small, irregular oval circumscribed by a hairline crack in the rear left part of the skull. The dent looked like one a ball-peen hammer might make in a sheet of drywall.

  “Jesus God,” Breck said. Whistler dropped his head to his sweatshirt.

  I looked at Mom. Her eyes followed the coroner’s hands as he turned the skull this way and that, peering in through the eye sockets and up through the neck.

  “Your professional opinion, Doctor?” Gallagher said.

  “Purely unofficial, of course,” he said. “But on first glance, looks like a female skull, based on its size.”

  “Human,” Gallagher said.

  “Certainly.”

  “And this?” The judge indicated the dented area.

  “Probably some sort of blunt force. Hard to tell whether it’s passive or aggressive. It’s possible she fell. It’s possible somebody hit her with something. Not too terribly different from what happened to Phyllis, actually.” He peered over his glasses at Mom. “I’m sorry, Bea.”

  She shook her head softly, pressing a wad of tissue against her lips.

  Gallagher put a hand out and Doc Joe placed the skull in it. The judge set it back
inside the box. He rested his hands on the edges of the box.

  “Beatrice,” he said.

  Mom had begun to rock back and forth in her chair, her tongue bobbing inside her lips, making an “N”: “Nonny Nonny Nonny.”

  “I haven’t heard that name in a long, long time,” Gallagher said. “Whatever was it supposed to mean, do you know?”

  Mom shook her head again. “Nothing,” she said, barely audible.

  “Sister Cordelia made cakes for the kids’ birthdays,” I offered.

  Gallagher’s smile was gentle. “That’s not quite correct,” he said. “I was a couple of years ahead of Bea, but St. Val’s was a tiny school. Sister Cordelia always made cookies for birthdays. She made cake for Bea’s. Didn’t she, Bea?”

  Mom nodded.

  “Bea was her pet.”

  “She used to keep me in from recess to work on my spelling.”

  “Did it work?” Gallagher said, still smiling.

  “No.”

  Gallagher addressed the whole room now. “I used to listen to detective dramas on the radio,” he said. “I always wondered why that body never washed up. Doc, is there a way to get positive identification?”

  “Teeth are loaded with DNA, but I highly doubt we’ll find family to match it with,” Doc Joe said. “Maybe, with the help of the forensics guys in Lansing, we can reconstruct her smile and compare it to old photos, if we have any.”

  “Clerk’s office,” I said. “In the microfilm.”

  “Here, Horace,” Mom said.

  I watched as she loosed my hand, unzipped her handbag, and removed her wallet. She unsnapped a wallet pocket, dug inside it, and produced a small black-and-white photograph. She handed it to Gallagher, who looked at it, smiled, and then handed it to Doc Joe.

  “This should do,” the coroner said.

  “There’s something else here.”

  Gallagher reached into the box and plucked out a leather pouch that looked to be wound with white electrical tape. He turned the pouch around in his hands, inspecting it, then grabbed the scissors from the leather cup on his desk.

  “Your Honor,” Dingus said. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  “That is evidence, Your Honor,” Eileen said.