Eva introduces us and I show him my badge.
“We have a few questions about Ana Kobe,” I say and he visibly shudders.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he says and turns, looking up and down the hall in a rather disoriented fashion, like he’s not here often. He finally zeros in on a door and strides towards it. “Follow me, please.”
The room he leads us into is cluttered up with more boxes and plastic bags full of stuff, which is crammed on metal bookshelves that line three of the four walls. The donations are also squeezed into pretty much every available nook and cranny along the walls. The room smells of fabric detergent, food and dust, and apart from the shelving also features a small desk surrounded by four chairs.
“Excuse the mess and be careful where you step,” he says, as he makes his way to the desk, patting the two chairs he wants us to sit in. He himself takes the creaking office chair.
“I was devastated to hear that Ana died,” he says. “It was I who found and saved her the first time she tried to take her own life. And I was the one who put her on the path to God after that. Please tell me it’s true that she was murdered?”
He seems very garrulous for a priest, but what do I know? I’m reading nothing but sadness and shock on his face. And he seems desperate to have his question answered.
“Yes, it is,” Eva tells him. “How well did you know her?”
“Very well,” he says. “I saw her at least once a week for the past ten years. After she outgrew the youth center, she worked here as a volunteer.”
“Doing what?” I ask.
He swings his hands to show the whole room. “She was in charge of cataloguing all the donations and getting them out to people in need. Since she fell ill the work has stalled, I’m afraid. But I haven’t had the heart to appoint anyone else. She needed this work. Coming here was one of the few things she still looked forward to in life. She told me so many times, and I could not take that away from her. I did what I could in her absence. But I suppose I will have to appoint someone now, won’t I?”
He looks incredibly sad at the idea. Like a child who just broke his favorite toy.
“You found her by the riverside very early on the morning she and her boyfriend attempted suicide. At ten to three AM, to be exact,” Eva says. “Do you often go walking outside at night?”
He shrugs. “I often find it hard to sleep. So I pray. And when prayer isn’t enough, I walk along the river and across the fields. I feel closest to God just before dawn. Don’t you?”
I couldn’t answer this question if I tried, and Eva just takes it in her stride.
“Did you happen to be out walking on the night of the fifteenth?” she asks.
He looks down at his hands, which he’s clutching together in his lap. “That’s the night she died, isn’t it? I wish I had, but no. I had the flu at the beginning of this month, so I’ve been taking it easy, which means no nighttime walks while the cold persists.”
I lean forward in my chair.
“One of the residents of the apartment building noticed a tall man in a large fisherman’s coat hanging about by the river for the last month or so,” I say. “Did you see anyone like that?”
He shrugs. “I can’t say that I have. But then again, I know most of the men who fish the river here well enough to at least say hello. Brother Pontius often fishes with them. I can introduce you, and you can ask him.”
“That would be welcome,” I say, figuring we can also check this guy’s alibi while we’re at it.
He stands up. “We can go right now. He’ll be in church fixing up the pews. They’re not in the best shape anymore, and we do as much of the repairs as we can on our own here.”
He looks at us sheepishly from his great height, “That is, if you don’t have any more questions for me.”
Eva clears her throat. “I do, actually.”
He remains standing as he nods at her politely.
“Do you only take walks around here, or all over the city?”
He looks surprised at the question. “The river calms me best, and I sometimes follow it for as far as my legs will take me. On bright nights when peace is hard to find.”
Eva glances at me with the look of someone who just heard something very significant.
“I assume you were her priest as well as her employer here,” I say. “According to her mother she was still very determined to end her life. How did you take that?”
He takes hold of the edge of the desk and leans on his arm. “Take that? I don’t understand the question.”