“Why? He express his regrets, Father?”

“He still bears the burden of what he did- never stops blaming himself. Talking to the police brought it all back. He didn’t sleep at all last night- was in the chapel, on his knees. I found him and we knelt there together. But he couldn’t have had anything to do with her disappearance. He’s been here all week, never left the building. Working double shifts. I can attest to that.”

“What kind of work does he do?”

“Anything we need. For the past week it’s been kitchen and latrine duty. He requests latrine duty- would do it full time.”

“He have any friends?”

Andrus hesitated before answering. “Friends he’d hire to do wrong?”

“That’s not what I asked, Father, but now that you mention it, yeah.”

Andrus shook his head. “Joel knew that’s exactly the way the police would think. He hired someone to sin once before; therefore it was inevitable that he’d do it again.”

“Best predictor of the future’s the past,” said Milo.

Andrus touched his clerical collar and nodded. “It’s an incredibly difficult job you do, Officer. A vital job- God bless all honest policemen. But one of the side effects can be fatalism. A belief that nothing ever changes for the better.”

Milo looked around at the men on the plastic chairs. The few who were still staring turned away.

“You get to see much change around here, Father?”

Andrus twisted one end of his mustache. “Enough,” he said, “to maintain my faith.”

“McCloskey one of those who’s maintained your faith?”

The flush spread from the priest’s ears to his neck. “I’ve been here five years, Officer. Believe me, I’m not naäive. I don’t take convicted felons off the street and expect them to turn into someone like Gilbert. But Gilbert’s had a good home, nurturance, education. He’s starting from a different baseline. Someone like Joel has to earn my trust- earn a higher trust. It did help that he brought references.”

“From where, Father?”

“Other missions.”

“Here in town?”

“No. Arizona and New Mexico. He worked with the Indians, put six years of his life into helping others. Paying his legal debt and enlarging himself as a human being. Those he worked with had only good things to say about him.”

Milo said nothing.

The priest smiled. “And yes, that did help him obtain parole. But he came here as a free man, Officer. In a legal sense. He works here because he chooses to, not because he has to. And in answer to your question about friends, he has none- sticks to himself, denies himself worldly pleasures. A very tough cycle of work and prayer constitutes his entire life.”

“Sounds pretty darn saintly,” said Milo.

Anger tightened the priest’s face. He struggled to fight it and managed to put on a calm expression. But when he spoke, his voice was constricted. “He had nothing to do with that poor woman’s disappearance. I really don’t see why there’s a need to-”

“That poor woman has a name,” said Milo. “Gina Marie Ramp.”

“I’m aware of tha-”

“She’s been sticking to herself, too, Father. Cut off from worldly pleasures. But in her case, it’s not out of choice. For twenty years, since the day McCloskey’s hired creep destroyed her face, she’s been living up in a room, too scared to go out into the world. No parole for her, Father. So I’m sure you can understand why lots of people are upset at the fact that she’s disappeared. And I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me if I try to get to the bottom of it. Even if it means inconveniencing Mr. McCloskey.”

Andrus bowed his head and clasped his hands in front of him. For a moment I thought he was praying. But he looked up and his lips were still. All the color was gone from his face.

“Forgive me, Officer. It’s been a hard week- two men died in their beds; two more were sent over to County General with suspected tuberculosis.” He cocked his head toward the men in the chairs. “We’ve got a hundred more heads than beds, no letup in sight, and the archdiocese wants me to raise a larger share of my own funds.” His shoulders dropped. “One searches for small victories. I’ve been trying to think of Joel as one.”

“Maybe he is,” said Milo. “But we’d still like to talk to him.”

The priest shrugged. “Come, I’ll take you to him.”

He’d never asked to see ID. Didn’t even know our names.

The first door in the hall led to an enormous dining hall where food smells finally overtook the stink of unwashed bodies. Wooden picnic tables covered by peacock-blue oilcloth were arranged in tandem, creating five long rows. Men sat hunched over their food, cradling their plates protectively. Prison dining. Spooning and chewing nonstop with all the joy of wind-up toys.

Along the back wall was a steam table fronted by a glass partition and aluminum counter. Men were lined up holding their plates out, Oliver Twist style. Three figures dressed in white shirts and aprons and hairnets ladled out food.

Father Andrus said, “Wait here, please,” and we stood by the door as he walked behind the steam table and said something to the middle server. Still working, the man nodded, handed his ladle to the priest, and stepped backward. Father Andrus began distributing food. The man in white wiped his hands on his apron, stepped around the table, through the line, and came toward us.

He was about five five, with a stoop that robbed him of an inch he couldn’t spare. The apron reached below his knees and was stained with food. He shuffled, barely raising his feet from the linoleum, and his arms remained at his sides as if glued there. Strands of white hair straggled from under the hairnet and adhered to a pasty, moist forehead. The face below was long and sallow, thin yet flabby. An aquiline nose had conceded defeat to gravity. White eyebrows. No fat under his chin, but a flap of loose flesh shook as he came closer. His eyes were hooded, dark, deep-set, very tired.

He walked up to us, expressionless, and said, “Hello,” in a flat, phlegmy voice.

“Mr. McCloskey?”

Nod. “I’m Joel.” Listless. Open pores on nose and cheeks. Deep crevices flanking a down-turned, dry-lipped mouth. Eyes nearly shut under the heavy lids, yellowish scleras surrounding nearly black irises. I wondered when he’d last had a liver-function test.

“We’re here to talk about Gina Ramp, Joel.”

“She hasn’t been found.” A statement.

“No, she hasn’t. Any theories you’d like to share about what might have happened to her?”

McCloskey’s eyes shifted to one of the tables. Some of the men had stopped eating. Others cast covetous glances at the untouched food.

“Could we talk in my room?”

“Sure, Joel.”

He shuffled out the door and turned right into the corridor. We passed dormitories crammed with folding cots, some of them occupied, and a closed door marked INFIRMARY. Moans of pain filtered through plywood and echoed along the hall. McCloskey turned toward the sound, briefly, but didn’t break step. Redirecting his gaze forward, he shuffled toward a brown-painted staircase at the back of the hall. The treads were covered with hard rubber, and the banister felt greasy.

We followed his steady, slow climb up three flights. Now the disinfectant smell triumphed.

Just off the landing on floor three was another closed door taped with a piece of shirt cardboard. JOEL was written on it in black marker.

The knob had a keyhole, but he turned it and the door opened. He held it and waited for us to enter.

The room was half the size of Gina Ramp’s closet- no more than eight by eight, with a cot covered by a gray wool blanket, a wooden nightstand painted white, and a narrow three-drawer, wood-grain chest. A Bible sat atop the drawer, along with a hot plate, a can opener, a cellophane-wrapped cracker-and-peanut-butter combo, a half-empty jar of pickled beets, and a tin of Vienna sausage. A calendar painting of a haloed Jesus looked down approvingly on the cot. A yellowed, fly-specked shade was half drawn on a single barred window. Beyond the bars was a wall of gray brick. Light came from a bare bulb in the center of a ceiling spotted with mildew.