Vengeance. Mystery Writers of America Presents B00A25NLU4

night. With the Kings of Solomon in the South End, 77 Love in the North End, and city and state budget crises, the police are spread thin. There are precious few resources to dedicate to the eastern fringe of the city near the defunct Colt’s gun factory and Dillon Stadium, where the old Hartford Knights used to play semipro football back in the day. The oldest Catholic church in Hartford, however, still stands on a tiny wooded lot, serving a small but devoted parish whose members live in the projects nearby.
    After I told them what happened, the patrolmen stared at me as though I were a self-indulgent moron. They exuded the arrogance of the armed and immortal. One of them looked like Mr. Clean, with a shaved head and a physique that could double as a battering ram. His partner was long and wiry, with an untrustworthy-looking pencil mustache that he might have lifted from an uncooperative nightclub owner.
    Their eyes told me I was wasting their time. There were serious crimes being committed in other parts of town.
    A priest must be a mediator. Just as Moses revealed the law to Israel, the priest brings the human family together through eternal redemption. In this case, though, I needed to redeem myself for appearing to be a pain in the ass in the cops’ eyes.
    “I didn’t mean for you to come out,” I said. “I didn’t dial nine-one-one. I told the dispatcher not to send anyone if you were busy.”
    They continued glaring at me, as though motives mattered little in their world. “Hot June night, Father,” Mr. Clean said.
    “Probably kids from Franklin Avenue, Father,” Pencil Mustache said. “They break into the stadium to party. They never hurt no one. But we’ll drive around and take a look for you.”
    “Yeah, Father,” Mr. Clean said. “We’ll take a look.”
    The police car radio squawked. They jumped inside, answered the call, and peeled out of the driveway, lights flashing and siren blaring. They took off toward the center of town, away from the stadium. Understandably, there was no time to drive around, no time to take a look.
    Maria was at the base of the stairs with her arms wrapped around Manuel when I went back inside.
    “Why were the police here, Father Nathan?’ she said. “Are they here to deport us? Are we being sent back to Mexico?”
    “No, no one is sending you back to Mexico. Would you make us some tea, Maria? I can’t stop thinking about that
tres leches
cake you made. Is there another piece left in the fridge?”
    Twenty-two years ago, Maria’s mother was my teacher at the Consultoria Española y Lingüística in Santa Volopta, Mexico, where I studied Spanish and worked with Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s Missionaries of Charity. Maria was nine years old at the time.
    Santa Volopta lies within the Golden Triangle of the Chihuahua state, the most violent territory in the world outside of actual war zones. Not all the violence is a result of the drug trade. Over the past ten years, 937 women have been murdered, their bodies tossed in random dumps and ditches. Although no arrests have ever been made, high-level policemen and prominent citizens are suspected.
    At age eighteen, Maria married a lawyer in Volopta. When he became the municipal prosecutor, he launched an investigation into the murders of the daughters of Volopta; it led to his own assassination. Maria’s mother called me immediately after his body was found, put her daughter and grandson on a plane, and sent them to live with me in Connecticut. She didn’t trust the municipal or federal governments. She was certain her son-in-law’s murderers, the drug czars, and the high-level officials responsible for the killings of the daughters of Volopta were one and the same. In Maria’s mother’s mind, her daughter and grandson were as good as dead if they stayed in Mexico.
    From the moment Maria and Manuel arrived, my goal was to provide a spiritual and physical home for them while they integrated themselves into the community and began new lives. The gossipers in the parish, of course, didn’t want to see it that way. It was far more entertaining to contemplate a priest violating his vow of celibacy with the beauty living beneath his roof.
    As soon as Maria started appearing in church, attendance and contributions at Mass increased. A dozen men, single and married alike, received a thunderbolt of devout inspiration and started showing up daily. When I turned from the altar to bestow a blessing during morning Mass, I