Page 25 of Monkey Business

“Then I take it you don’t believe he murdered those people and left them in the desert?” said Luc.

“Absolutely not. When I tell you it’s impossible, it is impossible. I argued with the investigators and anyone who would listen. Gus wasn’t capable.”

“Were you aware that Gus was showing signs of dementia?” asked Antoine. Sutherland let out a long, slow breath, nodding at them.

“Yes. I was aware. It was heartbreaking when he couldn’t remember things. Gus prided himself on remembering names and faces. He was struggling with that, but he would have never forgotten who he was, and he would have never put those men, women, and children in the back of a hot trailer.”

“He did some business for a circus. Do you know anything about that?” asked Antoine.

“I knew a bit, just because most of the time, he did it for half the price if they agreed to give tickets to the less fortunate parishioners.”

“He gave away tickets?” asked Luc.

“Yes. The circus knew how dedicated he was to our community and offered him the option of a discount on his fee if they gave him tickets for the parishioners.”

“Were there ever any issues with the circus?” asked Antoine.

“Issues?” he asked with confusion, shaking his head. “No. I don’t think so. I mean, we had a few parents complain that their kids were taken advantage of with the midway games or that someone tried to get them to join the circus schools to teach new generations of acrobats and such. Nothing unusual.”

“Archbishop, do you have any insight into what happened here? My brother and I feel certain that Gus didn’t kill those people, but this is a tough one to prove, and, well, we need to prove it.”

“Why?” asked the man, staring at them. “I mean, you didn’t know Gus. Why is this so important for you? I sense it’s almost like a mission for you.”

The brothers were quiet for a moment, then Luc stood walking toward the photographs, paintings, and prints on the wall.

“When we were little, our parents took us to church every week. It was part of our routine, part of who we were as a family. My brother and I, and our other seven brothers,” grinned Luc, “we all joined the military and served. We got away from going to church for a while. It felt contradictory. I mean, we were fighting bad men, sometimes killing them. That felt against what we’d been taught in church. Coming home made all those childhood memories come back for us.

“What I learned, what we learned, was that if you were a good man who performed good deeds, one bad thing didn’t designate you to hell. It didn’t suddenly make you a bad man.

“We believe Gus was a good man. A good man who heard or saw something that either changed him or forced someone to frame him for these murders. They wanted him gone.”

“I’ve always believed he was innocent, and I never liked that his body wasn’t found. He wouldn’t have just disappeared. He had no one, nowhere to run,” said Sutherland. “I believe in Gus’s innocence. I don’t think he could hurt a fly. It wasn’t inside him.”

“If he heard something during confession, is there any way to find out what that could have been?” asked Antoine.

“Oh, well, that would be difficult with him being dead,” said Sutherland. “Sometimes, a priest will keep journals.”

“Did Gus?” asked Luc.

“He did. They’re stored in our archives since he had no family to leave them to.”

“You didn’t give them to the authorities?” asked Luc.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No. We didn’t offer it up, and they didn’t ask. That might feel wrong, but those were Gus’s personal notes during his priesthood. That happened years before years before the incident with the truck.”

“Sir, may we see them? Would it be possible to read them? We want to prove that Gus wasn’t a killer,” said Antoine.

“I’ll do you one better,” said the old man, standing. “I’ll allow you to check them out of the archives for one week. In one week’s time, I want them back here, or I’ll come and get them.”

“You have our word.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Antoine and Luc returned with the journals and set about reading them. What they hadn’t counted on was the large number of journals. It seemed Gus had been writing his thoughts out since he was just a child.

They read those from the ages of ten to twenty but knew that they wouldn’t provide great insight. He seemed a happy child, happy teenager, although bullied somewhat for his slow intellect.

When they began reading at the start of his priesthood, they knew they would need help. Gus was a storyteller and wrote about everyone and everything. Calling in Grace and Alexandra to help read them they knew the two women would be able to pull out details that the two of them might miss.

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