The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,89
every day. But just to say hello and chat a little. Why? Did he do something?”
Cyrus decided now was the time to start answering her questions. He let her hold onto the photograph. Might help jog her memory.
“I’m afraid he’s dead,” Cyrus said. “His family hired me to look into it.”
“Dead? Was he killed?”
Cyrus nodded. He was killed. That was true. He didn’t mention that Ike himself pulled the trigger. The woman gasped and covered her mouth with her fingertips in shock.
“I just…he was so nice. I can’t imagine…was he mixed up in something?”
That was movie talk right there. Mixed up in something. Cyrus liked playing the part of the TV detective since that was what people expected of him.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out, ma’am. Did you see him with anyone at the house while he was here? A visitor? Someone who might have stayed with him? Overnight possibly?”
“You mean like a girlfriend? No, he didn’t have a girlfriend. Or, you know…” She lowered her voice. “A man friend.”
“I see,” Cyrus said, disappointed. There goes that theory. “Do you remember if he stayed at that house every night? Or maybe he stayed with someone else around here? Or somewhere else?”
“Oh, I think he was there every night,” she said. “Liked to walk every morning on the beach. By the time he got back, I was making breakfast. I could see him from the kitchen window climbing his steps.”
All right. So he didn’t have company at the house and Ike didn’t go to anyone else’s house at night.
“Did he…do you think he had a girlfriend,” the woman asked, “and she killed him?”
“It’s a theory I’m working on,” he said. Cyrus decided to shake up the woman a little, shake her and see what he could shake out. “Ma’am, were you aware that Isaac was a Catholic priest?”
Her eyes widened, big as the sand dollars painted on her mailbox.
“He was?” she said. “He never told us that. Why wouldn’t he tell us that? We’ve had several priests stay at that house. We’re not Catholic, but we don’t have any problem with priests.”
“Oh, a lot of reasons. Priests can make people feel uncomfortable. Or people immediately want to tell priests everything they did wrong or get into theological discussions. He may have just wanted his privacy while he was here.”
“A priest…that just doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Louisiana is a very Catholic state,” he reminded her.
“I guess you’re right. He asked me about my grandchildren, and I think…well, I thought he had grandchildren, too, since he seemed to know a lot about children.”
“He worked in a school.”
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “Well, that explains that. I said something about it being paradise down here but that my grandson hated visiting, nothing to do. I remember him saying a lot of kids hate being away from their things and their friends. Not even a big beautiful beach makes up for it. It just sounded to me like he knew kids. But if you say he worked at a school, that makes sense. Although…I could have sworn—”
“What could you swear?”
“Oh, he asked what there was for kids to do around here. I thought for sure he had kids or grandkids of his own. Grandkids, at his age. I told him a few things and he wrote them down.”
“Maybe he was thinking about field trips or something.”
“Maybe so.”
She shook her head. “Murdered…I can’t even imagine…he was just so nice.”
“Yes, he was,” Cyrus said.
“You find out who did it to him, you hear,” the woman said.
“I plan on it, ma’am.”
She nodded, managed a smile. “I need to get lunch started. Is there anything else?”
Cyrus took her name and number in case he had follow-up questions, and thanked the woman profusely for her time. He turned to leave but then thought of a question. He knocked and she answered the door with a real smile this time.
“Forget something?” she asked.
“Just real quick,” Cyrus said, “what did you tell him when he asked what there was around here for kids to do?”
“Oh, the usual.” She lifted her hands. “Swim at the beach. We got a park, too. And the butterfly dome.”
“Butterfly dome?”
“Just a nature park, all butterflies. Schools visit it all the time.”
“Got it. Thank you. Have a nice day, ma’am.”
Cyrus tried a few more houses on the street. If anyone was home, they weren’t answering. He did catch a couple people walking back from the beach, but they were tourists and had nothing to add.