Page 1 of Pieces of Perfect
CHAPTER ONE
The air-conditioner chugged, struggling to combat the heat and humidity of a Florida summer, as Lorelei Cipriano set her purse on her lap and took the chair the private investigator offered her.
“What can I do for you?” Leon Rutledge, a heavyset man in his fifties, asked as he rounded his desk to take his own seat.
Lorelei had been saving for months to be able to hire him. She knew this would be an expensive endeavor, but she was prepared to spend the money now that she had it. The DNA test she’d taken a couple of years ago had connected her with two half-sisters she hadn’t even known about, so she’d prepared herself in other ways, too. Who knew what she’d find? Reagan and Serenity had turned out to be a pleasant surprise. They’d helped her figure out who she was and where she’d come from. But there were still so many blanks to fill in. “I’m hoping you can discover who killed my adoptive mother.”
His eyebrows, which had hairs going every which way, slid up, wrinkling his forehead. “The police have been no help?”
“I’m talking about something that happened thirty-four years ago.”
“That isn’t going to make my job any easier.”
“Exactly.” But she was counting on him to finally put her mind at ease. At the very least, she had to do all she could for the poor woman who’d adopted her and tried to give her a home. “The case is very cold, and the police claim they’ve done everything they can.”
His chair squeaked as he rocked back. “They could be telling the truth. Have you considered that?”
“There has to be more out there,” she insisted. “She deserves to have someone try harder.” And who was going to make that happen if not her? No one else seemed to be concerned. Lorelei found that heartbreaking—that a woman, her adoptive mother, could be killed and discarded like trash without her death causing so much as a ripple in the world at large. Either then or now...
He rubbed the shiny pate of his bald head. “Tell me what you know so far.”
Lorelei shifted uncomfortably on the leather seat. “It might help if I begin by telling you a little aboutme.”
“Great place to start,” he agreed.
“From what I’ve been able to dig up, I’m the daughter of a Catholic priest,” she told him.
“Your father…left the priesthood?”
“No. I’m betting my biological mother wasn’t even of age when he slept with her, which is why he’s spent the last twenty years in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.”
“Interesting.”
“It’s quite a legacy, right?”
“Have you tried to contact him?”
“No.” Although she lived in Florida, she’d considered going to “Parchman Farm,” as they called it, and paying him a visit. She’d looked at the logistics several times and almost bought a plane ticket. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.
First of all, she had no idea if he’d tell her what he knew. Even if he could remember her biological mother, it was possible he’d never met her adoptive mother. She also had no way of knowing if whatever he said would be true and didn’t want to allow him to mess with her mind. She was almost as afraid he’d tell the truth as she was that he’d lie. Did she have other siblings out there somewhere? Besides Reagan and Serenity? If so, how many?
Sitting forward again, Mr. Rutledge leaned his meaty elbows on the desk. “Go on,” he said. “You have my full attention.”
She clasped her hands around her purse. Her story was convoluted, and she wanted to make sure she explained it as clearly and succinctly as possible. “His name’s Bernard Greenstone. He was Father Greenstone when he impregnated three young women—three that we know of; there could be more—in the parishes over which he presided.”
He winced. “Parishes…plural?”
“Yes. He’d get a girl in trouble, there’d be complaints about his behavior and the church would pay her and her family off, arrange for the child to be adopted and move him somewhere else.”
“Where it would happen again.”
He was guessing, but judging by his fatalistic tone, he understood that behavior like Greenstone’s typically didn’t change. “Yes.”
“Seems I’ve seen that in a movie.”
“We all have. That was how the Catholic Church dealt with problem priests back then.”
“So…are you saying you think he killed your mother?”
