Free Coyote by Linda Barnes

“One takes a lot on trust.”
    I waited until he looked at me again, then asked, “Are you a trusting man?”
    His lips almost formed a smile. “I trust that my fellow humans have all their share of foibles and maybe a few extra kinks I haven’t seen before. I’m a priest, but I live in the world.”
    â€œDo any of your volunteers seem odd?”
    â€œAll my volunteers provoke gossip, about the way they dress and the way they raise their children, but none is a suspected spy, if that’s the meaning of your question.”
    â€œThat’s the meaning of my question.”
    He shuffled papers for a time. I let the silence grow. “Any other questions?” he said finally.
    â€œYes. Did anyone besides me ever ask about Manuela Estefan?”
    â€œI’ve communicated all I know to the police.”
    â€œAbout me?” I asked.
    â€œYes. The women you talked to yesterday gave a fairly accurate description. The red hair, you know. And the height.”
    â€œDid they describe anybody else?”
    â€œNo,” he said.
    â€œDid you know Manuela?”
    â€œMe? No, but I don’t make contact with every one of our refugees.”
    â€œWas she known here?” I said, thinking the man would make a good crook as well as a good cop. He answered only what you asked him, didn’t volunteer information.
    â€œNo,” he said. “She was not known here. Not until you asked for her.”
    â€œI’m here because I want—I need—to make sure her death isn’t connected to my coming here.”
    â€œI see,” he said. “You feel guilt.”
    Ah, yes, I thought. That’s it. Good old guilt. I considered telling this holy minister of God a little about my childhood, about being raised in a half Jewish, half Catholic home by a union-organizing bleeding-heart mother. “It’s all right to beat yourself for your sins,” she used to say in Yiddish, “but don’t enjoy the punishment too much.”
    â€œGuilt is my middle name,” I said instead.
    â€œIt does no good.”
    â€œI know, I know,” I said. “It won’t bring back the dead, right?”
    He took a deep breath, and his face got almost animated. “I mean that I counsel against guilt in general, but not entirely. I believe in owning up to one’s sins. If you feel that you sinned against Manuela by asking about her here, I hope you’re wrong. We seek to help these people, not harm them.”
    â€œMe too,” I said. “But you can never be sure, can you?”
    He bowed his head.
    â€œBut you do what you can,” I said.
    He looked up and his eyes were clear. “I believe in taking action,” he said, “if one believes one is morally justified.”
    â€œMe too,” I said, holding his glance.
    â€œI haven’t answered any of your questions,” he said.
    â€œYes, you have,” I said.
    The volunteer women buzzed like angry bees as I left his office and walked down the aisle between the pews toward the door.
    Outside, I found a pay phone. One of the lawyers I’d spoken to yesterday was out of town, the other one swore he hadn’t mentioned my queries to anyone and wanted to know everything I knew about the murder. I told him to read it in the Herald .

12
    My next stop was up Mass. Ave. and into North Cambridge, at the Cambridge Legal Collective, a storefront operation that probably spent more on rent than they did on upkeep or impressing the neighbors. Their logo was hand lettered on a square of cardboard and masking-taped to the door. Another sign read: PLEASE KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING and por favor toque antes de entrar . So I knocked and went in. The sign didn’t say you had to wait.
    I was hoping for a different secretary, but the same guy who’d treated me like an INS spy was behind the metal desk, speaking rapid-fire Spanish into a phone. He glared at me. I sat down on a folding