“Been at least six hours,” he said. “Dead as a hammer, and there’s livor mortis − the blood had time to pool beneath him. Could be natural causes. Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you don’t pop an aneurysm and die from it. The bloody froth could be neurologic pulmonary oedema, from some major neural insult. But I don’t think he hit his head on the tub and then climbed into bed. He was posed.”
His head sinking into his double chins, he bent close to Morganstern’s ear, emphasising the value of his information. “My take? This ain’t no accident. I saw three fresh puncture marks on his arm, not just one. There’s no needle hangin’ out of him. And there’s dried blood on the sheet − way too much spatter, unless somebody never used a syringe before and kept getting it wrong. Even then, I’m not seein’ it. The Queen’ll do the autopsy tomorrow, but I’d bet on heroin as the cause of death. Could be he shot up his regular dose, then somebody added some refreshments to the party.”
This was what she loved about DiSalvo. An undammed stream of consciousness.
“I’m also thinkin’ somebody moved his arms out,” he continued, “and then scrubbed at them to get rid of any fingerprints. There’s an old scab hangin’ by a tiny string of skin.”
“Could we have gotten fingerprints?”
“Not easily. We had one case, back in ’82, where . . .”
“This is why you’re so great to work with, Bernie,” she inserted. “You’ve seen everything. So in this case?”
It took him a minute to pack his old story back in its box and tenderly close the lid. “The kid’s skin was smooth, not a lot of body hair, which helps,” he said. “But friction ridges smear fast. If somebody on your team’s got one of those superglue fuming wands, there’s a snowball’s chance it could work. The vapour sticks to the fingerprint’s residue. Sometimes you can get a picture.”
“Let’s try.” She nodded one of the crime-scene techs over and left DiSalvo to explain what he wanted.
*
“Deep breaths,” Sarah kept saying, but every time Colin exhaled his stomach clenched tighter. “It’s called the Impossible Black Tulip of Cartography,” he managed.
She cocked her head. “Say that again.”
“The Impossible Black Tulip,” he repeated, reaching for patience. “Because it’s so fragile and so rare.”
Her eyes widened. “Then theft could’ve been a motive.”
“Aye, but who’d even know we had it? It was a gift from one of the Ricci family’s descendants, a wealthy old Italian who was writing the family history. He went to China to retrace Matteo’s footsteps, and he found the map in an antiques shop there.”
Lorenzo Ricci’s request to visit Matteo Academy had come as a surprise. Colin showed him around the school, and when he explained his vision − kids of all socioeconomic classes, swirled together in equal numbers − the old man’s eyes teared. His family’s money had made him feel guilty his whole life, he said, afraid to venture outside his class and get attacked for being lucky.
A few weeks later a courier showed up with the map and a letter.
“You never told the archdiocese?” Sarah asked.
Colin shook his head. “He contacted me directly. It was a gift to the school.” Ehrlich would’ve seized the map as an asset for the general fund, and The Impossible Tulip would have been locked away in some dark vault for the next three centuries. “I thought the students should have a chance to see the map. Jesuit history, cross-cultural communication, competing world views − there was a lot they could learn.”
Sarah kept her eyes on his.
“Okay, fine. The map was my ace in the hole. Ricci gave it outright, no strings attached. If things ever got really bad, we could sell it and keep the school going, at least for a little while.”
“Was it insured?”
He grimaced. “That was on my list of things to do this semester.” A gust picked up the top drift of snow from the patio and blew it into the cloister. He stepped back, folding his arms tight across his chest. “I should never have let Philip borrow it. But, to be honest, I was kind of pleased he was so interested. I figured the more he knew about the order’s real history, the harder a time he’d have mocking it.”
“Maybe he showed the map to somebody who realised it was worth money. His dealer?”
“Right. So many drug dealers delve into the Jesuits’ exploration of sixteenth-century China.” The sarcasm felt good, a clean cut. Then he saw Sarah’s eyes darken. “Sorry,” he muttered. “It all just seems so far fetched. But I didn’t mean . . .”
She put her hand on his sleeve. “No worries. Why don’t you go up to your room, take a few minutes?”
Time out? He deserved it. “I can’t. I’ve got to . . .”
Those hazel eyes again, steady on his.
“I guess I’d better, before I lose it altogether.” He left without saying anything else. He ought to thank her for coming back, for staying. But her enthusiasm turned his stomach. Sarah was used to all this − she did it for a living. Showed up at gruesome scenes, pestered the cops for details, dug up the backstory. It was a game to her, coming this close to darkness. But it made Colin want to vomit.
Philip was only seventeen. Smart, full of questions, open to anything. If his death wasn’t an accident, then somebody had hated him beyond belief.
*
Morganstern was politely listening to the entire empty and useless report of the uniforms who’d walked the grid. Her gaze drifted a few inches, and she saw Colin McAvoy emerge from the school building. He’d put on clerics, the Roman collar crisp under his tweed jacket. Judging by his stride, he was ready to be headmaster again.
She excused herself and joined him. “Father, I’m afraid there’s not much chance this was an accidental death,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I need you to keep everyone on the premises. No child can leave under any circumstances, and I’d like your faculty to stay on campus too, if at all possible. We’ll be interviewing them all over the next day or two.”
He nodded, pale but alert.
“Philip had Narcan,” she added. “Do you know what that is?”
“A drug for overdoses, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “It’s an antagonist; it reverses heroin’s effects. Mr. Grant got a vial from a doctor friend and made Philip promise to keep it on hand. We found the vial, still full, in his nightstand. Of course, he might’ve just waited too long to use it. Nobody wants to reverse a good high. Still, if he’d overdosed on his own, we would have found the syringe near, or even still in, his body.”
“What if somebody shot him up and used whatever dose he told them? He wasn’t a cautious sort. They might have panicked when they saw . . .”
“It’s still manslaughter, Father. The county prosecutor made that clear when this heroin epidemic started.”
He nodded again. “What’s the sentence?”
“Eight to ten years for accidentally injecting an overdose. With a teenager, they’ll likely set an early probation.”
He pressed his lips together. “It’s still not fair. He’d come out fit for nothing but crime.”
“And what’s fair for Philip Grant? This crime might be a one-time mistake, but that doesn’t change its consequences. Do you really want to wait and let God sort them out?”
*
Not even Sarah managed to eat more than a few bites of Saturday evening’s dinner. Potato salad with a confetti of red and yellow peppers, fried chicken, buttermilk biscuits − it was all just a little too festive. Mrs. Dalton hadn’t planned for a murder.
Abandoning etiquette, Sarah kept her elbows on the table through the meal, resting her weight on the dark-grained oak, taking comfort from its solidity. Jimmy left halfway through the meal, and Mrs. Dalton didn’t even bother bringing in a pie. After the plates were cleared, Sarah heard a strangled sob from the kitchen. Giving Colin a wan smile, she left for the milkhouse.
Relieved to be alone, she threw a pil
low down on the floor, set her gorgeous white ergonomic Swiss laptop on the window ledge and stared at the screen. She tilted the support that raised the screen, rearranged her desktop icons, then gave up and took Simon for a run.
He was still panting when she finished tugging ice balls from between his paw pads. “Take a nap,” she said. “I have to go see Uncle Colin.”
Bach poured from his speakers, loud as a rock concert, and she had to bang on the door. “Hey,” he said, his smile surprised. “Come in.” He turned down the fugue and she pulled foil bags of almonds and tart cherries out of her purse. “I’m back to eating.”
He held up his scotch. “What about drinking?”
“Absolutely.”
He poured her a glass. “I keep trying to imagine one of our students locked up for eight years. Getting raped. Joining some kind of Aryan Nation gang for self-defence. Coming out with a prison tat.” He paced. “Maybe it was an experiment that went bad. A lousy accident. But it wasn’t murder. I know these boys.”
She thought of Luke, bent over the chess board. Funny little Ben Lo. Sweet Max. Colin was right − these kids couldn’t survive prison. Philip might have. The rest weren’t anywhere near as worldly.
Except Graham.
He wants it to be Graham, she thought. The interloper. The kid with a suspicious record who was foisted on him. He wants it so badly he can’t even say it out loud.
She said it for him: “If this is murder, Graham’s the obvious suspect.”
“Aye. But that doesn’t mean he did it.”
They fell silent, then both spoke at once.
“Who else . . . ?”
“How can we . . . ?”
Colin curved his palm toward Sarah.
“Who else could have done this?” she asked. “Was there anybody he hung out with, did drugs with?”
“I didn’t even know he did drugs until this morning.”
“There was no sign at all?”
“I’ve seen him a little . . . blurred. But he tried everything from transcendental meditation to absinthe. Heroin never occurred to me.”
Firelight gleamed through the scotch as she swirled it.
“Here’s a thought. What if he was more depressed than you realised, and he overdosed on purpose, but he arranged with somebody ahead of time to take the syringe?”
“Why bother?”
“I don’t know. So his dad could collect insurance money? Or give him a proper Catholic burial and not feel guilty?”
Colin slowly shook his head. “One, Philip wasn’t that thoughtful. Two, he wasn’t that depressed.”
“Then somebody killed him. On purpose or by accident?”
“It had to be an accident. I can’t wrap my head around anything else.”
They fell silent again.
“Let’s find out who his dealer was,” Sarah suggested.
“Right.” He tilted his head back and drained his scotch. “We’ll Google it.”
“No, really. I can call . . .”
“Wait, let me guess. You’ve got a guy.”
She wasn’t liking this new sarcasm. “Yeah, actually, I do. He’s a retired private eye.”
“And he won’t charge us?”
“Never has. He’s bored.”
Reaching over, Colin took a handful of her almonds. “Okay. See what your guy can tell us. But, for God’s sake, tell him to keep it confidential.”
“We also need to know if there were any students who used with Philip. Or who hated him.”
“Jimmy can find out. They open up to him.”
Back in her room, she called O’Rourke, who answered right away. When she launched into the long story, he cut her off. “I saw it on the news. You’re out there?”
“Yeah, and I need to know who the dead boy’s dealer was. Think that’s possible?”
“Give me a day.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
O’Rourke called back Sunday morning while Sarah was dragging on a pair of tights. She hadn’t been to Sunday Mass since she left grad school. It didn’t seem right to skip it though. Not under these circumstances.
“You need to talk to Sgt. Bob Wingert,” O’Rourke said. “He’s one of the cops in the Chesterfield MEG.”
She sat on the bed, tights scrunched at her knees. “I don’t want a cop. I want a dealer.”
“Have a little faith, Markham.”
That sank in. “You don’t mean . . . ?”
“Remember my message the other day? The bent cop? He heads one of the MEGs − Municipal Enforcement Groups. They’re out there on their own, playing cowboy while they cultivate drug informants. Except he’s been buying more than information.”
She gulped. “Holy shit. Your guy was Philip’s dealer?”
“He uses kids to make the deliveries, but yeah. Gotta say, I didn’t expect to get that lucky. I called just to see if he knew who’d cover your school, and it turns out he keeps the rich teenagers for himself. Higher risk, higher profit.”
“When can I meet him?”
“You realise this blows your scoop?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Switching the phone to her left hand, she stood and tugged the tights into place. “This is more important.”
“You’re in Aberdeen, right? There’s a little deli.”
“I get my coffee there.”
“Meet us tomorrow morning at eight.”
“I’ll be there. And O’Rourke?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re the best.”
She heard the phone click. The man could trace a missing child to an island in the Pacific and shove the sadistic kidnapper into a live volcano, but he couldn’t handle a compliment.
*
The black leather breviary was old, its pages soft with wear. Colin flipped it open with the first ribbon, a dark green silk, and murmured the daily prayers, hoping to quiet his mind with those timeless words.
He still needed a homily. He’d had one, about the destructiveness of fear. Now fear seemed like the only sane response.
Leaning back, he laced his fingers behind his head. Images flashed − Steven slapping his head in panicked frustration. Philip motionless, his skin the blue-white of skim milk. Graham practically daring Colin to accuse him.
He closed the breviary fast, like it could keep the ghosts from escaping. The lectionary was open to Sunday’s readings, and he scanned them. Just how was he supposed to find ‘good news’ in senseless violence? Every sentence he wrote he scratched out. Other priests seemed so sure. They could spout theological wisdom on the spot, tailored to any crisis. Just platitudes, most of the time. Still, they soothed people. He could sort truth from the world’s distractions, hold fast to principle, guide young minds to clarity. But in the face of evil, he stood tongue-tied.
Picking up his pen again, he clicked it on and off as he thought. Maybe he could focus on how much difference a human being can make, even in a few short years. By refusing to lie, Philip had more impact than most people have in eight decades. Certainly more than Colin with his formal, hollow preaching . . .
He crumpled the sheet and threw it across the room. He would not rationalise this death. Starting fresh, he wrote disconnected phrases about violence, suffering, the illusion of control, the honest need for God when no rational explanation will suffice.
As the words trailed off, fear flooded in to take their place. Would Ehrlich close the school? Could he? They’d had a brief conversation the day before, the bishop offering the services of the archdiocesan media relations officer and Colin saying he’d call if that became necessary. He wanted to blurt, “This doesn’t mean you’ll cancel the scholarship money, does it, Bishop? It’s just the one murder . . .”
Twenty-three parents had already called in a panic, threatening to withdraw their kids. Connie had soothed quite a few by email, but now he really did miss her soft voice. Just last summer, it had calmed so many mothers who were about to send their sons away fo
r the first time.
And now she couldn’t speak, and one of those boys was dead.
He shoved his notes aside. The words would have to come in that last moment of panic, when he looked out from the altar and saw faces eager for comfort. Glad for the release of action, he quickly sorted out the white cotton alb, the heavy white chasuble he’d wear over it, and a deep green stole, crosses embroidered at each end in gold. He’d go early, make sure the choir director wasn’t planning on any rousing hallelujahs. Better put extra hosts in the ciborium too. A scandal drew more souls than Easter Sunday.
Matteo Academy used St. Vincent’s, a tiny church high on the bluffs, at nine every Sunday morning. Colin felt silly driving over − the walk was easy − but he didn’t want to cut through the woods with a hanger hooked on his finger and vestments slung over his back. Should he stop by Sarah’s room and offer her a ride? Too pushy. She hadn’t been to church in years. Let her sleep.
*
The pews of the small stone church were packed tight. Sarah left the pews to the parishioners and sat off to one side, on the marble steps of a side altar unused since Vatican II. Max and Luke joined her, hair still damp and clean parted, Matteo crests on their navy blazers.
Terrified of popping up when everybody else knelt, she sat, stood, and knelt half a beat behind the boys. The rest of the congregation moved as one, rising in a single rustle, like geese taking flight in perfect formation. Aiming at heaven.
When Colin lifted his arms, gesturing to them to rise, Sarah felt odd, almost lightheaded. She’d never gotten used to seeing him at the altar. In college they’d gone to Mass together, but they’d both sat in the pews. This set him apart, made him a shaman with special powers. He stretched his arms, and the gentleness that felt so intimate was extended to everybody in the room.
She sat again, wishing her wool skirt were thicker. The marble beneath her had been cold for centuries. Shivering, she folded her arms tighter and waited to hear Colin’s homily.
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