“Thank you very much.”

“You’re good and we both know it. There. Happy?”

“Thrilled. Now please tell me what the hell is going on here. Even if I don’t take the case, whatever you’ve found, you know I’m not going to tell anyone.”

She gave a dry laugh. “It’s not even seven yet, and Archbishop Dunn’s already making phone calls. He says everyone knew Isaac Murran suffered from depression. That’s all. Open and shut and lock it up. We are not allowed to investigate this, I’ve been told. And when someone tells me not to investigate…”

“Catholic Church trying to cover up something embarrassing? This is my shocked face.”

“Right,” she said. “That’s why I called you. I need you to dig.”

“Dig for what? What aren’t you telling me?”

“First of all, Sister Margaret swears up and down that Isaac Murran was not depressed. Not now, not ever, from what she could tell. She’s got a degree in counseling, and she’s been pouring his tea for fifteen years. She knows the symptoms of depression, and she knows him. Knew him.”

Cyrus stuck his hands in his suit pockets. He was tired. He’d been on a stakeout all last night watching the comings and goings of a man who was going places he shouldn’t be going and coming with people he didn’t need to be coming with.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Katherine said. “I wish I knew someone else to call. I was here for ten minutes before Captain Latour was telling me to drop it. I shouldn’t even be back here now. I’m going to get hell for it.”

Katherine had been in a turf war with the Catholic Church for years. She’d been sent to investigate a robbery at a church, and the priest had demanded a male officer instead. He’d said police work was too dangerous for women, especially for a woman who dressed so “provocatively.”

“Sometimes people kill themselves and we never figure out why,” Cyrus said.

“I might know why.”

He raised an eyebrow. Now she’d gotten him curious.

Katherine reached into her blouse and pulled something out of her bra. She held it out to him, and he reluctantly took it. A business card in a plastic evidence bag.

“You didn’t get this from me,” Katherine said. “You didn’t get it from anyone. That card doesn’t exist. Unless I decide it needs to exist.”

“Where’d you get it from?”

“Our victim’s pocket.”

“You’re contaminating a crime scene and interfering with a police investigation, Katherine.”

“Not if there’s no investigation to interfere with. Look at it.”

He exhaled heavily before looking at the card.

“Red business card, black ink,” Cyrus said, flipping it over. “Only a phone number. No name. That’s unusual. A 212 area code. New York City?”

“Manhattan,” she said. “The number’s a Chinese place now, but it used to be registered to a woman named Eleanor Schreiber. She writes dirty books under the name Nora Sutherlin.”

“You’re worried Father Ike liked dirty books? He’s a sixty-year-old celibate priest. Give the man a break.”