Galileo Read online

  Table of Contents

  Titlepage

  Praise for Galileo

  Also by Ann McMan

  Dedication

  Scripture

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About Bywater

  Praise for Galileo

  “Galileo is the work of a mature writer who has full control of her story and characters and dares to delve deeply into the eternal moral predicaments of human experience. Ann McMan writes with a fierce intelligence and sympathetic heart. In Galileo, she once again elevates lesbian literature.”

  —Lee Lynch, trailblazing author of The Swashbuckler

  “It took courage to write Galileo, to take on its controversial themes, and it took talent to write it this exquisitely—Ann McMan has courage and talent by the bucket load. Galileo is powerful, elegant—and in the best tradition of storytelling—a page-turner that is impossible to put down.”

  —Ann Aptaker, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of the Cantor Gold Mystery Series

  “McMan’s characters clash and smash and carom off one another as if in heavy surf. And indeed, the heavy surf is the current zeitgeist, which McMan under­stands and portrays adroitly. Her subplots are complex and relevant.”

  —Elizabeth Sims, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of the Lillian Byrd Mystery Series

  “Galileo is a tight, well-paced, and timely mystery that handles dark subjects with a light and sure touch—Ann McMan is a wonderful writer.”

  —Michael Nava, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of the Henry Rios Mystery Series

  “Ann McMan’s newest Evan Reed mystery, Galileo, tackles a hard and complicated subject, one she deftly surrounds with her signature wit and humor. With a sure hand, one that leads us inexorably toward the truth, McMan creates characters we grow to love—and others we don’t want to take our eyes off of for fear of what they will do next. This is another winner, not to be missed!”

  —Ellen Hart, Mystery Writers of America Edgar Grand Master Award Winner

  Also by Ann McMan

  Hoosier Daddy

  Festival Nurse

  Backcast

  Beowulf for Cretins: A Love Story

  The Evan Reed Mystery Series

  Dust

  Galileo

  The Jericho Series

  Jericho

  Aftermath

  Goldenrod

  Story Collections

  Sidecar

  Three (plus one)

  For Buddha—first, last and always (which, in retrospect, sounds like our shared understanding of how wine should be served at every meal).

  For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and

  to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

  Luke 12:48

  Chapter One

  Whose woods these are I think I know . . .

  She ought to know. She’d cooled her heels on this low ridge at the back of her property many times before—on other cold nights, when there had been vague promises that the elusive aurora borealis would blaze a meandering trail across the Pennsylvania sky. Experts said that if you were lucky and could find a place dark enough, you’d have the best shot at witnessing the spectacular light show that was a rare enough occurrence any time in Chadds Ford, but was virtually unheard of in December.

  Finding dark spaces was never difficult for Evan. Making her way back out of them was the part that caused problems.

  It had snowed steadily all day. Evan assumed that meant the sky would remain too overcast to reveal anything tonight. But, miraculously, the snow had stopped an hour before nightfall and the clouds rolled back to reveal a brilliant canopy of stars. The new moon was riding low on the horizon, and Saturn was shining so brightly Evan swore she could see the glow of its rings with only her naked eye.

  All good omens for getting a ringside view of the elusive light show.

  With that in mind, she garbed up and trudged through the drifts of powdery new snow, equipped with an ancient wooden camp stool and a silver flask of VSOP cognac that had been a gift from Julia, “For those cold nights I’m not around to keep you warm.”

  Tonight certainly qualified. Julia was stuck in Albuquerque for two more days, doing advance planning for the American Booksellers Association’s annual Winter Institute.

  Evan had complained about the trip. “You have to be out there an entire week? Why can’t you just Skype in, like a normal person?”

  “Honey,” Julia said with exasperated patience, “I’m the committee chairperson. I cannot require all of the other members to hoof it out there, then cavalierly opt to Skype in just because it suits me better not to be away from you for a week.”

  That last part got Evan’s attention. She wasn’t used to reacting like a giddy teenager when someone addressed her with an endearment. That evolution was a change—one of many since Julia had entered her life.

  And those hits kept on coming.

  After her estranged husband’s murder, Julia’s vow never to return to their Park Avenue apartment soon morphed into her decision to move her company’s head office from New York City to Philadelphia. Donne & Hale’s Pennsylvania office was smaller than the publishing firm’s other satellites in Boston and London—but there was precedent for making it the center of operations. Julia’s father and former company board chair had always preferred to run the family business from its Market Street digs in Center City—which was especially true after he’d married Julia’s patrician mother, a descendent of the Hires family. The fabled union of blue-blooded bona fides netted a lot of ink in the nation’s leading newspapers, and wishful prospects for many heirs apparent tantalized readers of The Social Register for decades.

  But, alas. The golden duo produced only one offspring—a girl, named Julia Lewis—now heir to the combined fortunes of two faded family dynasties.

  First editions of Poe’s Tamerlane and root beer floats . . .

  The bizarre combination was like the question lurking at the end of an obscure Jeopardy! clue.

  But Julia Donne lived up to the potential of all that upper-class privilege. Private school at Exeter. Undergraduate degree at Yale. Postgraduate work at Oxford. Assuming the mantle of power when her father retired from the publishing house—followed by her picture-perfect marriage to a charismatic young politician who trampolined into the United States Senate after serving one term as governor of Delaware.

  It was a storybook tale that had morphed into one woman’s personal nightmare.

  But all of that was in the past now. A past Julia was determined to leave behind.

  It was freezing out here.

  The cold weather wasn’t doing the aching joint in her shoulder any favors, either. Evan stomped her feet in a futile attempt to knock the snow off her boots. She pulled off a glove and uncapped her flask of cognac. Heady aromas of cedarwood, apricot and vanilla mingled on the night air, filling her with a promise of warmth ahead of her first careful sip.

  The truth was, Julia wasn’t the only one with a desire to let the past lie buried. Evan was doing a credible job tiptoeing around her own cranky pack of sleeping dogs. It was anybody’s guess how long the two of them could keep their tentative pas de deux going.

  She took a taste of the fragrant liquid. It slid down the back of her throat and raced out along her extremities like wildfire. She stared out across miles of rolling fields at th
e horizon. The landscape was dotted with small copses of naked trees. They cast long, purple shadows across the new snow. She could hear a dog off in the distance. There was always something doleful about a dog barking in winter. The lonely sound traveled along the frigid night air like a hopeless cry to heaven.

  She was trying hard to keep her gaze open—not to focus on any one thing. Just to watch the sky—all of it—for any sudden flickers or changes in hue. For any flashes of fluorescent green or magenta. So far, nothing. Just deepening darkness and an expanding marquee of stars.

  Let’s get this damn show on the road.

  The unmistakable sound of boots trudging through the snow startled her. She turned around on her stool and stared at the dark figure making its unsteady way across the field. It was a man. That much she was certain of. A big man. But who? And why the hell was he out here at this hour of the night, making a beeline straight toward her?

  She tightened her grip on the flask, prepared to hurl it at the intruder if she needed to.

  It turned out she didn’t need to hurl anything—except expletives.

  “Evan?” The hulking figure asked. “What are you doing way out here?”

  It was Tim. Father Tim—her childhood pal and erstwhile Catholic priest. He was also her daughter, Stevie’s, godfather.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Tim. You scared the shit out of me. What the hell are you doing skulking around out here?”

  He shrugged. “Isn’t that obvious?”

  “I have a damn cell phone,” Evan remonstrated. “Why the cloak and dagger crap?”

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  “In Chadds Ford?” Evan narrowed her eyes. “Doing what? Offering last rites to wayward Holsteins?”

  “Something like that.” He said. “I had the night off and thought I’d head your way and beg for company.”

  Evan checked her watch. “It’s nearly ten o’clock. By now, you should be safely locked up in your little priest cell back at St. Rita’s.”

  “They only lock us up on weeknights.”

  “It’s Saturday,” Evan noted. “Don’t you have to work tomorrow?”

  He shrugged.

  “What’s going on, Tim?”

  “What makes you think anything is going on?”

  “Gee. Lemme think.” She indicated the landscape. “You’re forty miles from your parish, standing in the middle of a snow-covered field in the dead of night—probably freezing your sainted ass off. Nope. Nothing unusual about that.”

  “I just wanted to talk, okay?”

  Evan smelled a rat. “About?”

  Tim cleared his throat. “What are you drinking?”

  “High-dollar swill.” Evan extended the silver flask. “Want a sip?”

  “Yeah.” Tim took her up on the offer. “You’re right about one thing. It’s cold as hell out here.” He took a healthy swallow of the cognac and proceeded to cough.

  “Smooth, isn’t it?” Evan asked.

  “Wrong pipe.” Tim cleared his throat. “Why are you out here?”

  “I’m watching the heavens, looking for signs and portents.”

  “Isn’t that my job?”

  “You tell me,” she quipped. “You’re the one with all the letters after your name.”

  Tim seemed to think about what she’d said. “The aurora?”

  Evan nodded.

  He looked at the sky. “Think it’ll show?”

  “Stranger things have happened.” She was tempted to add “you showed up,” but thought better of it.

  He handed the flask back to her. “Don’t suppose you have an extra stool on you?”

  “Nope.” Evan started to get up. “Maybe we can find a log or something?”

  Tim gestured for her to stay seated. “Don’t get up. I’ll look around.”

  A minute later, Tim spotted what was left of a rotting tulip poplar stump and dragged it over to the spot where Evan sat. He dusted its top off with his gloved hand. “This’ll work just fine.”

  “You’ll freeze your ass off.” Evan rummaged around inside her backpack and pulled out a folded section of old tarp. “Use this.”

  Tim took the thick, green square from her. “You carry this around?”

  She shrugged.

  “What are these things?” Tim spread the square of canvas over his stump. “Some homage to A Room With A View?”

  Evan made a face. “You should be happy I got something out of that damn movie—especially since you made me sit through it four times.”

  “It was Judi Dench,” Tim protested.

  “I know who it was. And that’s not why I carry these.”

  “Why then?”

  “Because I come out here a lot.”

  “Even on nights there isn’t a cosmic light show?”

  “Even then.”

  “You’re an enigma.”

  “I’m an enigma? Don’t you have that backwards?”

  “Me?” Tim sounded confused.

  “Yeah,” Evan clarified. “You’re the one who runs around wearing a medieval garrote.”

  Tim raised a hand to his neck. “Not tonight.”

  Evan didn’t reply. They sat together in silence for a minute. The damn dog that had been barking must’ve finally given up on its lament and hunkered down beneath an obliging porch. The ensuing quiet was deep and peculiar—oddly deafening, the way silent nights in winter often were.

  Tim spoke first. “I came out here because I wanted . . . needed to talk with you.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “I guess it is.” He kicked at a clod of snow.

  “So, you waited until the dead of night to drive forty miles? How come?”

  Tim gave her a half smile. “It seemed appropriate. That’s usually when you show up, wanting to talk with me.”

  “That’s different,” Evan said.

  “How so?”

  “For one thing,” she said, “you’re working. So, when I need to talk with you about important stuff, I have to crawl inside a box, perch my ass on a hard bench, and stare at a mesh screen.”

  “It’s called a confessional. And you know you can come see me when I’m not ‘working.’ We’ve had this conversation.”

  “True,” Evan agreed. “So, I suppose this nocturnal visit is some kind of quid pro quo?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You know,” she said, “I never really understood the Church’s need to make a difficult process even more unpleasant for penitents.” Evan considered her remark. “On the other hand, I guess that practice is pretty consistent with the rest of the methods of Catholicism.”

  “Normally, I’d argue with you.”

  “But tonight, you won’t?”

  He didn’t reply.

  Evan realized that the night air closing in around them wasn’t the only example of how deafening silence could be.

  “Do you wanna tell me what’s going on?” Her tone was softer.

  He seemed to choose his words carefully. “I’m thinking about leaving.”

  “Leaving?” she asked. “Philadelphia?”

  “No. The Church.”

  Evan was stunned. “The priesthood?”

  He nodded.

  “What the hell?” Evan leaned toward him. “Did something happen?”

  He didn’t answer. She gave him a few seconds to rethink his lack of reply. He didn’t.

  “Do you want me to guess?” She asked. “I’m pretty good at it.”

  He gave her a half smile. “So I’ve heard.”

  “Tim?” Evan didn’t know what else to ask.

  “I know. It’s . . . complicated.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Evan rested a hand on his knee. “Lucky for you, I don’t have another thing planned for the rest of this evening.” She held up her flask of cognac. “Except maybe finishing this.”

  He stared back at her. Evan thought he looked a little lost. Uncertain. The way he used to look when they were kids, and she’d drag him off beyond the boundaries of thei
r known world to explore the dark realm of mysteries that rumbled and steamed south of West Passyunk Avenue. Growing up, she never understood why Tim seemed so content to live his life within the confines of the potholed streets and forgotten avenues that crisscrossed the lopsided trapezoid of their South Philly neighborhood like broken threads. That dichotomy they shared had always been a paradox. Evan couldn’t will the years separating her from adulthood to melt away fast enough. All she ever wanted was out. Tim, on the other hand, seemed only too willing to embrace a life and calling that were guaranteed to play out among the same bits of broken pavement and sagging storefronts they frequented as kids. Tim attended the parish school at St. Margherita, which everyone just called St. Rita’s, for his early education. Evan preferred to call it his indoctrination. She, on the other hand, went to public school at Stephen Girard. He studied the sacraments. She learned how to shoplift cigarettes. He attended seminary at St. Charles Borromeo. She majored in anarchy at Penn. He returned home to West Passyunk to pursue ordination into the priesthood. She laid a patch getting away from the old ’hood, and never looked back. But at no time during their disparate life journeys did Evan ever doubt that Tim was intended for anything other than a life of celibacy and service to God. So, this? Walking away from all of that after so many years?

  It made no sense.

  She tried again. “You came all the way out here to talk about it. Do you want to give it a try?”

  He gave her a slow nod. “So, I suppose you’ve been following the State grand jury report on sexual abuse by members of the clergy?”

  “Kind of hard not to.”

  “The cases and claims are all being handled by laypeople outside the diocese.”

  “That makes sense.” Evan felt her insides begin to knot up. “Have there been any reports at St. Rita’s?”

  He met her eyes. “Not yet.”

  “And?”

  He shrugged.

  “Are you protecting someone?” She knew she was flying by the seat of her pants. And she hated playing Twenty Questions. But Tim was acting like a squirrel caught in the headlights of an oncoming car—it wasn’t clear which way he was going to jump, but it was certain he was poised to flee.