Until Judgment Day by Christine McGuire Page B

Scalisi asked Mackay.
    â€œYou worry too much, Gerald.” Davidson stood. “Now, if you lawyers are finished, I’d like to go to jail.”

Chapter 20
    M ONDAY , D ECEMBER 30, 11:30 A.M.
O FFICE OF S HERIFF G RANZ
    â€œ I BELIEVED B ISHOP D AVIDSON when he said none of the three priests were sex offenders,” Mackay said.
    Escalante made brief eye contact with Granz, Miller, and Mackay. It was cold in Granz’ office and she tugged her jacket tight over her chest. “Then, they must all be part of the gambling problem. Every parish has computers with Internet access.”
    â€œHow do you know that?” Mackay asked.
    â€œBishop Davidson told me as I was walking him to the jail,” Escalante answered. “And to gamble on-line, they would have to download casino software.”
    â€œHard drive searches would tell us if they did,” Mackay observed, checking her wristwatch. “It’s two-thirty. I’ll catch Keefe in chambers. He wants to be a law ’n’ order judge, he’ll issue a search warrant to seize all three priests’ PCs.”
    â€œWhat do priests use computers for?” Miller asked, then added, “Besides layin’ down bets.”
    â€œThey post mass schedules, current events, parish news,” Escalante told him. “Shut-ins can go on-line to request and offer prayer.”
    â€œHow ’bout absolution?”
    â€œSome parishes heard on-line confessions until the Vatican banned it.”
    â€œPity. You coulda logged on, asked forgiveness, said a few Hail Marys,” Miller told her.
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œLocking up the Bishop.”
    â€œI was just following orders.” Escalante’s voice rose an octave.
    â€œLighten up, Chiquita, I was joking.”
    Miller fingered an unlit Camel, rolled it between his palms, and blew loose tobacco on Granz’ office floor. “If three priests have gambling addictions, there’s prob’ly more.”
    â€œI’m not so sure,” Mackay said, turning to her husband. “Why would Davidson give up Duvoir but go to jail to protect Thompson and Benedetti?”
    Granz stared out the window.
    â€œDave?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œI asked why Davidson would testify that one priest had a gambling addiction but go to jail rather than admit there are others.”
    â€œTo avoid acknowledging how widespread it is,” Granz speculated, gnawing his lower lip until he winced in pain. “One gambling addiction’s an illness; two’s a cancer; three—call the Centers for Disease Control, you’ve got an epidemic.”
    â€œSo, he’s buying time to find out how far the disease has spread?”
    â€œAnd to cure it on the q.t.”
    â€œYou might be right,” Mackay agreed. “At the hearing, Scalisi told Woods the Diocese hired an investigator. That means they want to get to the problem before the cops do.”
    Miller swiveled his chair back and forth and stopped when it pointed in Escalante’s direction. “If they hired a licensed PI, we could lean on him, but that could take a while.”
    â€œAnd he might not know anything yet anyway.”
    Escalante made a note in her spiral-bound, slid a color printout across Granz’ desk, and gave copies to Miller and Mackay.
    â€œDownloaded off the web,” she explained. “This on-line casino’s run by Cassava Enterprises Limited, an Antigua-Barbuda, West Indies corporation. It looks like an aboveboard gaming operation, but there are dozens more whose web sites don’t say where they’re located.”
    Miller checked the printout. “How’d you get it?”
    â€œEasy—I typed casino in my laptop’s search engine, and got a couple pages of hits. They all had one thing in common.”
    â€œWhat?” Granz asked.
    â€œThey accept VISA and MasterCard wagers.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œI have a—an old friend who’s