Since he’d posed as a potential customer, the owner called him back immediately. A man, a Robert Hill, said the house was available for most of October and all of November. December was booked, however. Cyrus pretended to take the dates and prices down and promised to call Hill back.

So. What did that tell Cyrus? He could only guess at Father Ike’s motivations, but, as a detective, half of his job was guesswork. Father Ike had a place he could’ve rented pretty cheap, cheap compared to the Honeymoon Cottage he did rent. So why rent that place instead of his usual place? Maybe Father Ike wanted to go back to Grand Isle, but for some reason, he didn’t want anyone to know exactly where he was on Grand Isle. But if he didn’t want anyone to know where he was…why go back to a place he’d visited before?

Because there was something there he wanted to see again?

Something? Or someone?

Someone…yeah, maybe someone was there. Maybe someone he’d met in June when he’d gone there for his vacation.

Cyrus turned that over in his mind.

June. Father Ike heads down to Grand Isle for a three-week vacation. He’s been there before. Only wants some R and R. But. Maybe. He meets somebody there. A woman, let’s say, on vacation herself. She and Father Ike hit it off. He’s on vacation, right? No priest collar, no black jacket, no clerical shirt. He’s wearing khakis. He’s wearing flip-flops. He’s a good-looking sixty. She’s forty, fifty. And maybe she’s kinky. And maybe she’s from New York City. And maybe she knows the “legendary” Mistress Nora.

People from New York came down to Nola all the time on vacation. Why not Grand Isle? Beautiful place.

All right. So Ike meets a lady. Maybe a man, but Nora got a straight sort of vibe from Ike. So did Sister Margaret. Maybe this kinky New Yorker lady and Ike have an affair. Happened a billion times before, right? Solo vacations were made for getting laid by strangers you never meant to see again.

So Father Ike went for it. Had a grand old time on Grand Isle. The lady’s heading back to New York at the end of her trip. Bad news. Sad news. She tells Ike, “Hey, don’t worry. I know a local gal who might give you want you want and need, just like I could. You don’t even have to go all the way to New York to get it. Mistress Nora. Here’s her card. We used to party together before she moved down here. It’s a cell phone, so that’s probably still her number.”

Father Ike takes the card and keeps it.

And later on in June, maybe he starts getting notes or threatening phone calls…

Okay, so somebody knows about his lady. Somebody knows Ike got wild with a kinky lady at his vacation home. Only two hours from Nola. Anybody could go there on a day trip.

Or maybe the lady herself figures out she’d been sleeping with a Catholic priest and she gets mad he lied to her—it could happen—and she threatens to tell on him. He’s got over half a mill in a retirement account. A lot of money. Very tempting to blackmail a priest for that money, trip to hell be damned.