“Willow must have heard them and mistook them for the Menehune, Kim.”
“She did hear splashing around at night, but she didn’t think the Menehune were making that noise. That was Mick’s silliness, remember?” Brien nodded. I kept talking.
“Their scheme was working. What went wrong? Who set that fire in the monastery ruins and who killed Carter Jenkins just when he had his hands on the prize? I assume those packages we found were artifacts that had been stashed in that locker from the wreck Opie located.” Mitchum nodded yes in response to that last statement. Before he could reply, a shadow fell over us.
“I can help answer those questions.”
18 A Treasure Not Easily Won
“Father Bede!” I exclaimed. Brien jumped up and gave the guy a hug. “Where did you go yesterday when we got out of those caves?”
“I had a couple of things to do before I could sit down and give the detective, here, my version of what had gone on in those caverns. Besides, I was confident you two could tell him what had happened.”
“I was ready to charge you with obstructing justice or something for taking off until you turned up later. So, you two know all about the Big Kahuna, huh?” Mitchum asked as he harrumphed.
“A little, Detective,” I replied, eyeing Bede as he sat down on the sand opposite Mitchum. “A Jesuit priest and a professor of history with knowledge of antiquities.”
“And a go-to guy at the Vatican when they have a lead on stolen antiquities from what I hear,” Mitchum added. He looked up at Bede and addressed him.
“When those Krugerrands turned up, and it became a matter of public record, someone at the Vatican put two and two together. If the gold had been found, maybe the stolen artifacts could be located, too.” He looked directly at Bede. “Since you’d been here before—working with the monastery to unravel their history—they sent you after those artifacts didn’t they, Bede?”
“Something like that,” Bede said. “It was personal, too. One of the stolen artifacts was part of a collection left behind by the French mystic, Charles de Foucauld. Not to mention that we had also learned that a very dangerous man was after them, too.”
“Whoa, Kim. Charles de Foucauld is the holy dude killed in that city in North Africa,” Brien said.
“Yes, Tamanrasset.” Bede’s eyebrows raised in surprise as he said that. Mitchum gawked. He had unwrapped that protein bar but didn't take a bite.
“Not far from Assekrem hermitage where I bet he had hidden a few priceless artifacts that he had picked up on his travels throughout the Middle East.” Bede’s face registered another bout of surprise. Mitchum’s mouth hung open. He finally took a bite of that bar. I offered Bede one. It seemed rude to eat in front of the man. When he raised his hands, I tossed it his way, and he snapped it from the air.
“If you’re fans of Charles de Foucauld you’ll know that he was a remarkable man. A true mystic who spent most of his later life trying to make amends for what he regarded as a troubled legacy he'd contributed to in the area as a young soldier. We found an astounding collection he’d accumulated over decades and buried near that hermitage. There were items from his travels, many of them ancient in origin, unique, and of exceptional quality, as well as personal papers and journals. I’ve used some of those discoveries in my professional career. Most are stashed away safely in Vatican archives or returned to their country of origin. A few were on loan to the museum when that theft occurred.”
“Have you recovered those items?” I inquired.
“Most of them.” Bede could not hide his sadness. “At such an awful cost, though.”
“What about that scrap of parchment paper Brother Thaddeus found?” I asked.
“Not anything of historical value, but a key piece of evidence in another aspect of this sad story. Kenneth Hawthorne left that for Brother Thaddeus to find, hoping he’d contact me. He did, but he was under the impression I was still in Rome. I got that message several days after you did when it was forwarded to me at a post office box in San Albinus.”
“Kenneth Hawthorne’s the guy buried under all that rubble. His final resting place since I doubt anyone can ever retrieve his body. A big section of that cliff collapsed. The Abbot and Brother Thaddeus are planning to memorialize the site in some way even though he abducted and threatened to kill Brother Thaddeus.”
“An unfortunate end to a wasted life. Dr. Kenneth Hawthorne was a brilliant man with an incredible career ahead of him. Hawthorne was one of my instructors and a mentor until his behavior became increasingly more erratic as the man pursued one fantastical objective after another. He missed classes and meetings with faculty and students. His appearance became more and more disheveled, he rarely ate or slept, and eventually became incoherent. As his graduate student assistant, I stepped in to cover for him when the University ordered him to seek treatment.”
“That didn’t work?”
“At first he appeared to be more stable. Not for long though, and he was never the same toward me. I finished my graduate education and took a job. Five years later, I ran into him again. Not under pleasant circumstances. Authorities had caught him stealing from the Vatican archive. I happened to be there, working on an entirely different investigation when they apprehended him. He blamed me, claiming I had set him up once before. That’s when I discovered my old mentor had become my adversary, insisting that I had caused the trouble for him years before. It was purely a coincidence that I turned up at that moment, but his mind had begun to connect dots in imagined conspiracies, and I played a key role in some of them. After that incident, I lost track of him for several years and then I heard he had suffered disfiguring burns while attempting to escape from a psychiatric facility. The next time he tried to get away, he succeeded but not without killing a member of the staff.”
“How awful. That explains why the man's face looked that way,” I said and suddenly felt ashamed about the things I had said about him. “I’m so sorry about the way I reacted to him.”
“You weren’t repulsed by his face, Kim. It was the rage and malevolence behind that face you sensed that repelled you. I had the same reaction in his presence once he became that dark and disturbing creature you confronted in those caves. That was true even before that fire burned his face, I’m afraid.”
“Not to mention the screaming and the dagger and setting another fire. Whoa! Did he kill the diver, too?”
“Yes,” Mitchum said. “Carter Jenkins lugged that locker into the cave, using the same underwater opening you did. He had pried the lock off when Hawthorne hit him from behind and knocked him out. Carter Jenkins drowned so Hawthorne must have held him underwater after that.”
“Why? He had the contents of that locker. Why not just knock him out as he did and take what he wanted?”
“Because what he wanted wasn’t in that locker. What he wanted doesn’t exist.”
“Like the Maltese Falcon, Bede?”
“Yes. Like that. For years Hawthorne had searched for a signet ring—the Seal of Solomon. The legend of the ring comes from medieval Arabic writers who claimed it was given to Solomon directly from heaven. The ring supposedly gave Solomon the power to seal written commands that controlled good and evil spirits. A disagreement about that ring brought about one of the earliest confrontations I had with Hawthorne. It came up again when authorities arrested him at the Vatican. In his derangement, Hawthorne not only came to believe it existed but that I had found it in Algeria. I’m not sure how he came to believe it was among the artifacts stolen from the Museum in Miami. Not to find it in that locker must have enraged him. It’s possible Hawthorne mistook that diver for me or took out his rage on Carter Jenkins even though he and the Jenkins brothers were working together.”
“Wait a second. If Hawthorne killed Carter Jenkins inside the caves, how did the body end up outside? And, that locker and the discarded artifacts, too?”
“That’s an excellent question, Kim. I’d like to hear the answer to that one, too.”
“Misty Tate,” Bede said. “I had hoped she’d get away and start over before it was too late for her.”
“No!” I exclaimed.
“Not a righteous surfer dudette after all,” Brien murmured. He shook his head sadly.
“I hate to disagree with you Father Bede, but I’m delighted she didn’t get away. Misty Tate didn’t kill anyone, but she might have been able to stop Hawthorne from killing Carter Jenkins, and she didn’t do it. At the very least, she’s an accessory to murder after the fact. She’s the one who moved that body, the locker, and the artifacts back outside the cave. Misty Tate is not a fan of yours, Bede. Her hopes for you have more to do with rotting in hell than having a nice life.”
“That’s harsh,” Brien said.
At least he could speak. I couldn’t. Misty’s smiling face floated before me. That fervor I had witnessed as she talked about Bede had a whole new meaning for me now. How Bede could see anything in her other than that monstrous delight she took in her service to his archenemy is beyond me.
“A young, unstable woman, Detective. Misty fell in love with a man well past the point of reason. It’s a classic Folie à deux—a tragic one. Why wouldn’t she hate me after falling for Hawthorne’s lies and delusions?” Bede shrugged, but his shoulders bowed as if bearing a burden.
“Don’t be so sure it was all Hawthorne’s doing. Misty was onboard with the idea of finding those stolen artifacts when she offered her services to the Jenkins brothers while writing a travel article in Australia. She was knowledgeable about Corsario Cove and offered to be their tour guide. It was only later that she met Kenneth Hawthorne and learned he was the mastermind behind the treasure hunt. I’m betting she fell for his wild ambitions to rule the world by finding that ring.”
“That scrap of parchment was a calling card he left so at some point I’d know he’d taken my prize from me. I doubt he expected Brother Thaddeus to pursue him into the caves as he did. That most likely triggered the fire. Maybe Hawthorne did that at the urging of Mark Jenkins. Someone also procured the gasoline and gave it to him. You’re in a better position than I am to find that out, Detective.”
“We’re on it, now that the Fire Marshal has officially declared it arson.”
“Hawthorne was madly searching the caves for those artifacts even while his conspirators worked to get rid of the residents in Sanctuary Grove. Then Misty turned up and found me among the dwindling number of inhabitants in the surfer village, maybe that’s what pushed all this madness to a fever pitch.” Bede looked at Mitchum, and then at Brien and me. He smiled. Like a kid at a scary matinee movie, Brien had reached out, grabbed my hand, and held it as Bede resumed his tale.
“When I discovered they were posing as monks, I acquired the disguise—including the mask that mimicked Hawthorne’s mangled face. I hoped I could infiltrate their group, and sow dissension or disrupt their plans. I hoped my masquerade might throw Hawthorne off balance when I located him, as it did in that cavern when he had Brother Thaddeus at the point of death.” We nodded, understanding what he meant. Mitchum nodded, too, since we had told him all about it.
“Brother Thaddeus is in good shape despite his abduction and captivity. That monster struck him with the butt of that dagger several times. He’ll recover from the beating, scrapes, bruises, and marks left on his arms and legs by those zip ties used to restrain him. A happy outcome, considering how far gone Hawthorne was when Brother Thaddeus allowed that madman to take him back into the caves. Brother Thaddeus says he didn’t put up a fight to avoid putting others at the monastery in harm’s way. Your demented professor pal kept him alive because he was convinced Brother Thaddeus knew where you kept King Solomon’s Seal, according to Misty.”
“How did she get away?” I asked.
“When Brother Thaddeus swore he didn’t have the ring, she went to find Bede at a cottage he had rented in town.” Detective Mitchum then spoke directly to Father Bede.
“They didn’t know you were already in those caves. Kenneth Hawthorne and Misty Tate hoped to lure you into the caves in pursuit of your friend, insisting that you bring that signet ring to them as ransom. They planned to kill you once you gave them the ring, and to kill Brother Thaddeus or use him as a hostage to escape, if necessary. You and Brother Thaddeus were both extremely lucky.”
“Given my Jesuit training, I’d attribute the outcome to Divine Providence, Detective. Even before Hawthorne abducted Brother Thaddeus, I was closing in on him. In another day or two, I believe I might have had him cornered, or he and his associates might have been forced to leave empty-handed. Except for the fact that you two showed up, and with Brother Thaddeus’ help, gave them those coordinates. Timing is everything, isn’t it?”
“I’m not condoning what these two did, or your meddling monk friend, Brother Thaddeus, but confronting Hawthorne by yourself was risky business. Things could have turned out even worse than they did. Next time, call a cop.”
“I had a few other tricks up my sleeve, Detective, but I understand what you’re saying.” In the silence that followed, I jumped in with a question.
“Those words Hawthorne screamed—God is not pleased—why those words? They were in French on that parchment Brother Thaddeus found. Did they come from Charles de Foucauld?”
“Given my work related to Charles de Foucauld, the choice of a French phrase was not accidental. More to the point, though, that passage was a message to me in another way. ‘God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the Kingdom’ are the opening lines of a warrant issued on October 13, 1307, by King Philip the fourth of France ordering the arrest of French Knights Templar. Later that year, Pope Clement the fifth issued a Papal Bull ordering all Christian monarchs to do the same. He disbanded the order formally known as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon.”
“And the Knights Templar were no more. That’s a sad story,” Brien said.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that since many Knights Templar joined other orders or created new ones. Conspiracy theorists have continued to muddy the waters arguing that they merely went underground as a secret cult sometimes tied to Freemasons or the Illuminati. At other times, to my order—the Society of Jesus. I believe my affiliation as a Jesuit was at the center of Hawthorne’s delusions about me and my work. One of his convictions was that the Knights Templar when housed at Al-Aqsa Mosque which was assumed to stand on the site of Solomon's Temple, gained access to that ancient temple. They claimed Solomon’s secrets and that signet ring. He believed they later passed those secrets on to the Jesuits, including me.”
“Brother Thaddeus mentioned that the Jesuits were kicked out of Mexico and that’s how Father Serra ended up establishing Franciscan Missions in California.”
“Yes. There have been many factions in the Church, and different orders have fallen in and out of favor over time. Some, like the Knights Templar, were even determined to be heretical at one point only to have the charges revoked later. In 2001, The Chinon Parchment was discovered in the Vatican archives revealing that Pope Clement the fifth had absolved the Knights Templar of charges of heresy in 1308. The history of our order has been the same. The Jesuits have often become entangled in political intrigue within the Church and rivalries between nation states and the Vatican. The sort of disputes that led to the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries from Mexico in the 18th century.”
Father Bede seemed weary. The events of the past few days must have taken an enormous toll on him. I had many more questions for him. Who were the first monks to arrive and seek refuge in those caves? Did he know more about that cavern of forgotten dreams or the skeletons now buried in the rubble? What antiquities had he recovered? He seemed despondent. I held my tongue.
“Truth is a great treasure not easily won. We seemed hard-wired for faith, but wh
ere to put our faith isn’t always easy to discern.”
“The Conservancy Group just got another lesson in putting too much faith in promises of money, that’s for sure,” I said.
“Lies, superstitions, intrigue, and conspiracy make it hard to know what’s going on even while we’re alive. It’s even more difficult to unravel the mysteries of our past. We never know how the past will affect our future either, do we? The superstition that Friday the 13th is unlucky may have originated with that arrest warrant served on the Knights Templar. October 13, 1307, was a Friday.” He smiled as he looked at Brien and me. "You two have already stumbled upon one of life’s great secrets, though, haven’t you?"
He did not say it, but I knew he was talking about love! Brien nodded as though he understood too, giving my hand a squeeze. Truth is not a treasure easily won but what an adventure it is to search for it! My heart raced. I could not wait to discover what adventures lay ahead for us in Corsario Cove. Cowabunga, Baby! It had been a wild ride already.
THE END
Thanks so much for reading Heinous Habits, Corsario Cove Cozy Mystery #3. Please, please, please take a moment to leave me a review. It means a great deal to me. I also hope you’ll check out the first two adventures in this series, Cowabunga Christmas http://books2read.com/u/mdKPlX and Gnarly New Year http://books2read.com/u/b6Q7x6. Radical Regatta! Coming soon.
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Radical Regatta Sneak Peek: Coming Soon!
1 Dawn Breaks
When the sun rose, we were already out on the beach. Not surfing, yet, but meditating if you can believe that. Cynical, street kid, me, and my hunky, surfer dude husband, Brien, sat silently in the sand near Bede Greco. Brien wasn’t moving either. I knew that because I’d raised my downcast eyes and glanced sideways at him. At first, Brien seemed to have as much trouble as me sitting still. One of the times when I’d glanced his way, he was doing the same—sneaking a peek at me. Our eyes had met and we’d stifled a giggle before looking away. Did his stillness now mean that he’d he settled into a meditative state sometimes called quietus?
Heinous Habits! Page 15