She couldn’t ask Colin which priest would have known Jimmy best, back in their seminary days. In college everybody adored him. A few decades earlier he’d have been the perfect ‘extra man’ at a dinner party − flawless manners, a droll wit, and manners you didn’t expect from a seminarian. Colin certainly didn’t have them. He was courteous in a studied way, taught by a mom who had aspirations for him, but no social ease herself. It had left him rigid, over formal. And, if she was honest, self-absorbed. Compassionate the minute he knew you were in trouble, but otherwise pretty oblivious. Jimmy always knew what everybody in the room was feeling.
Interesting, with his privileged background, that he never claimed the centre for himself. Colin didn’t exactly claim it either, but he fell into it time and time again. People sensed his seriousness and heaped responsibility on him. Jimmy seemed happier to stand back, offering suggestions and comic relief.
She searched for the phone number of the Jesuit’s Missouri Province office. “Hi, this is Sarah Markham from Gateway,” she said, automatically reaching for a pen. “I’m doing a story on seminaries, looking at what’s changed over the last ten to twenty years. Do you have anybody teaching locally who’s been around that long?”
“Yes, we do,” the receptionist said. “Our public relations person is out of the office, but I’ll let him know you called.”
“Great.” Sarah recited her contact information and added, “You know, you sound like you’ve already thought of somebody. I’d love to start trying to get in touch with him.”
“Well, sure, I don’t think that would do any harm. It’s Father Henle I was thinking of. When he retired as president of Georgetown, he was sent here to teach the young seminarians. He’s on the seventh floor of Jesuit Hall now − that’s the infirmary − but he’s still sharp as a tack.”
“He sounds perfect.”
*
The old elevator trundled up to the seventh floor, and when the doors opened she saw wheelchairs clustered in the solarium, old men with their heads sunk into the loose skin beneath their chin, dozing in the late afternoon sun. One had an IV pole attached to his chair, and she recognised him as her World Religions teacher. Should she introduce herself? Surely he’d hate to have her see him like this. Or was that just midlife’s shallow bias? Philip’s was the real tragedy. He’d died pretty − his body had no chance to fail him.
A nurse came up, saving her from the decision. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Father Henle.”
The nurse smiled. “That makes it easy. He’ll be in the library.” She showed Sarah to a small, book-lined room at the end of the hall. Henle was its only occupant. Unlike the other men, who were clad in plaid bathrobes or track suits, he wore black slacks, a black Roman-collared shirt, and a herringbone jacket. There was a lit magnifying glass on a stand in front of him, a thick book beneath it.
“Father Henle?”
He switched to a different pair of glasses and looked up. “Pardon me, my dear. I didn’t see you come in. I’ve been reminding myself of the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin. A friend of mine, Walter Ong, roomed with him in Paris.”
“Father Ong roomed with Teilhard de Chardin?” Memory flooded her. Ong was SLU’s most brilliant scholar, a tiny egg-shaped man equally at home with the ancients and the internet. “I’d love to hear those stories someday. My name’s Sarah Markham − I graduated from SLU quite a few years ago. I’m here because I’m trying to learn more about a Jesuit you taught in seminary.”
“And who might that be?”
“Jimmy Cadigan.”
“Ah, yes.” Was it her imagination, or had his voice tightened?
“May I join you?” she asked, stepping closer to the table.
“By all means.”
She caught a quick grimace of pain as he rose, ignoring the cane propped next to him, and pulled out a chair for her.
“Why do you want to know about Father Cadigan?”
She’d prepared a vague explanation, but she decided to chance the truth. “There’s been some trouble at a school where he’s assistant head, and I need to know more about him. A good friend of mine runs the school, and I don’t want to offend him by asking directly.”
“Colin McAvoy, Matteo Academy?” Henle asked. “I’m not living entirely in the past. McAvoy’s a fine young man. What’s Cadigan done?”
“He hasn’t done anything that I know.” Henle’s quick grasp was unnerving. “And please, Father, would you keep this in confidence? I was just curious what Jimmy was like as a young man.”
He brought his cane forward and curved his fingers over its brass lion’s head, his expression grave and thoughtful. Sarah averted her eyes, trying to look fascinated with the globe on the bookshelf behind him. The fastest way to dry up a stream of recollection was to demand it.
“He tried too hard,” Henle began. “Always. It must have been exhausting for him. His brothers were brilliant, athletic, natural leaders. Jimmy wasn’t stupid, just came a close second in every category. He was always almost good enough. Which is far harder, I suspect, than being lousy.”
“He was the one who became a priest, though.”
“Yes, and I worried that was his motivation. He wanted a way to be special. And if that was the root of his vocation, priesthood would only corrode his character further. There’s an old saying, Envy is the lust of the celibate.”
“That’s a good line,” she said, startled.
He nodded. “And all too often true. It’s insecurity at the core, of course. But after you see it play out a few times and rip holes in your community, you know to be wary.”
Wanting to keep him on topic, she just nodded.
“After Jimmy applied, I got to know the family better. We all knew of them, because they gave so much money. I was curious what they’d be like in the intimacy of their home, when they let their guard down and stopped competing. So I accepted several dinner invitations.”
“And?”
“They never stopped competing.”
Sarah felt a rush of gratitude to her parents. Much as she’d yearned for a sister or brother, she’d never had to vie with anyone for love or a sense of sufficiency. “What was Jimmy like before seminary, do you know? Was he wild at all?”
“He did cocaine for a while. He was quite forthcoming about it. Swore to me he’d stopped, and I believed him.”
“He never used anything else? What about heroin?”
“Oh, I’m sure not. Heroin’s about escape. It sends you into a bliss that requires nothing of you − a little like some of the drugs they use up here. Jimmy didn’t want that kind of reprieve. He needed to try.”
She nodded eagerly, pretending to agree, but something inside had slumped at his words. Her disappointment horrified her. Did she want Jimmy to be a murderer? Of course not. But she’d had such a strong gut feeling about it. And if he’d spent any time at all as a heroin addict, he would have known how to handle the injections. “Overall, what did you think of him, Father?”
“Well, he was charming. One of those rare young men who come into the priesthood with looks and social skills as well as devotion. I worry about young men who are charming at eighteen though. When they’ve had to learn charm that early, something’s gone very wrong.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll be direct. I thought Jimmy was shallow. He spent more time bantering and deflecting than really engaging with the world. Although I will say, when he came back from Kenya he seemed much more mature.”
“That’s what Colin said. Did Jimmy teach at the Jesuit school there? Teaching religion to boys who’d had to struggle just to live − I can see how that would make an impression.”
“Everyone who goes over teaches in their second year, and he may well have taught religion. But I suspect what really made the difference was that first year. Working in hospice can’t help but change you.”
“The Jesuits ran a hospice? What do the priests do − pastoral care?”
Sarah nodded. “I’m sure it did.” But she wasn’t thinking about compassion. She was thinking about needles, morphine, and IV drips. Wingert had said hospices in England actually used heroin . . .
How could she ask it? “Nothing’s trivial at a deathbed,” she said. “And if he had the ability to give a shot to ease someone’s pain . . .”
Henle nodded. “It stops you from feeling helpless.”
*
When Sarah pulled into the school’s parking lot her body was thrumming − not even a double shot of espresso could throw her into such a high alert. Jimmy had worked in Kenya, where flashblood originated. He’d worked in a hospice in Kenya, so injecting heroin would be easy, and he knew how to buy stuff on the street. He’d been weird lately, moody in a new way, running all the time. He’d spent a suspiciously long time in Philip’s room.
She pulled out her phone and stared at it. Sure as she was, she still couldn’t call Colin. She punched in Kat’s number. “I think it’s Jimmy.”
“Why are you whispering?” Kat whispered back. “Is he there?”
“I don’t know why I’m whispering. Except I feel bad even thinking it. He’s one of Colin’s best friends.”
“So walk me through this. Why do you think he did it?”
Sarah inhaled deeply and launched into her theory.
Kat didn’t answer right away. When she did, her tone was apologetic. “It’s not enough, Sarah. All that just says he could have done it. But so could a lot of other people. Even your Colin.”
First Morganstern, now Kat. Was she in denial? Somebody should invent a litmus test, a piece of paper that would stain bright red if you were kidding yourself about somebody you loved.
“Don’t hate me for this,” Kat said, venturing into the silence that had opened between them. “But what if Colin is the one who slept with Philip? You say he’s straight, but has he ever shown the slightest sign? Has he ever even kissed you?”
Months of charged silences and awkward half gestures. Accidental contact, fingers touching or knees grazing, and neither of them pulling away. All that tension, snapped in a single rainy night.
They’d both been more than ready.
Afterward, Colin said, “I refuse to feel guilty about this.” He took both her hands in his and looked into her eyes. “It was precious to me.”
Her heart soared. She smiled back, too shaky to answer yet.
Then she saw his worried look and realised he was already feeling guilty. She gathered every ounce of will and made her voice breezy. “I say we pretend it never happened and decide it never will again.”
Her penance had been wishing it would. She’d married Paul, more as a distraction from that longing than anything else. And she’d never forgiven Colin for staying silent on the subject, not warning her that the guy was a selfish jerk.
Since that spring night, there’d been only a few quick, platonic kisses, always in public, Colin’s lips gone by the time she felt their warmth. In private, he’d grabbed her hand, touched her cheek.
“Not what anybody today would define as a sign,” she told Kat. “But he’s a priest.”
“And he has a school to protect. Look, I see what you mean about Jimmy, but there are just too many other possibilities. And you’ve got no real evidence. Hold tight, let the police do their work. And watch your back. Whoever killed that boy is hypervigilant right now. They’ll pick up on the slightest hint of suspicion.”
*
O’Rourke glanced at his phone’s display and groaned, recognising Wingert’s number. Bastard was calling in a favour already? He grabbed the remote and lowered the volume on the football game.
At least Wingert didn’t bother discussing the weather. “Hey, O’Rourke? You know your fancy school?”
“Yeah.” O’Rourke jerked the recliner forward. “Something up?”
“Story said she heard a priest in West County bought some Devil’s Breath. Might be your guy.”
“Her source reliable?”
“Reliable as any junkie. Story hangs with people like her, kids who grew up rich and turned wild in high school. Her friend thought the whole thing was pretty funny, because the priest had taught his freshman religion class in high school. The priest didn’t recognise him, so he didn’t say anything.”
O’Rourke’s brain moved fast, rearranging his theory, snapping the pieces into a new configuration. “Description?”
“She didn’t get one. And it sounds like her friend’s too nice a kid to think of blackmail. He told Story just for fun − said it seemed like a movie scene, a priest buying The Devil’s Breath.”
“How about that,” O’Rourke said, keeping any reaction out of his voice.
“Yeah. So now you owe me double.”
*
The engine was off, and Sarah’s teeth chattered as she sat in the cold car, thinking. Morganstern was right. Colin was more invested in Matteo Academy than anybody. The school was his dream. Was he capable of killing to save it?
Anybody was capable of killing. And now her feet were numb. Stumbling a little, she climbed out and slammed the car door. How was she supposed to ‘hold tight’ with one boy dead and another only alive by chance? Morganstern was busy building a case against Colin. Sarah could at least talk to Jimmy and gauge his reactions.
Jimmy was an archetype: the priest who wins the street gang’s trust, who goes to the one per cent’s parties and voices their conscience, who buys the prostitute a cup of coffee and asks her how she defines a good time. In college, he’d notice a shadow cross somebody’s face at a party and stay up half the night listening to their problems. What could have twisted that goodness?
She expected to sit a minute, her mind blank, then admit she’d gotten carried away. Instead, all sorts of possibilities flew into her head. Envy, after years as second string or second-in-command? Lust, twisted and magnified by celibacy? A festering hatred of Philip, because he seized the freedom Jimmy had never allowed himself?
Or maybe Jimmy had just lost his grip, descended into some private hell. He’d always been good at surface impressions, adroit at conveying what was expected. But if he’d gone crazy enough to kill Philip, surely there’d be some flicker, some tell.
The master schedule was posted just inside the school door. Classes were over for the day, and Jimmy was listed as ‘open period’, meaning he needed to be available if kids needed individual help. He wasn’t likely to be out jogging then. He’d be in the music room.
Colin wouldn’t listen to her suspicions, but maybe he’d go with her if she cooked up a pretext. She started up the stairs, then faltered, remembering how he hadn’t wanted O’Rourke to dig around. How fierce he’d been when Graham taunted him about his mother. Maybe Colin was bisexual, and he and Jimmy had . . .
Right there she hit a wall. A smooth, white plaster wall that stopped her cold. Easier to think he was a killer − and how messed up was that?
Morganstern had told Colin he was the top suspect. Sarah had thought it odd, almost unprofessional, at the time. Morganstern seemed too smart to tip her hand like that. But maybe it was a way to build the pressure? And maybe Jimmy suspected Colin, too, and that was why he’d been running three times a day − running away from his friend’s guilt.
She had to talk to him alone.
Halfway down the stairs, she turned and ran up two flights. Colin wasn’t a killer, she’d stake her life on that. Besides, if she was wrong, Jimmy would be there to protect her.
Connie looked up smiling, but shook her head when Sarah asked for Colin. ‘Told him to go take a nap,’ she scribbled. ‘He hasn’t been sleeping well.’
Sarah felt like she’d stepped into an open elevator shaft. “Okay, well, if he comes back, tell him I’m with Jimmy and
he should join us.”
The older woman gave her a long, careful look, then put a hand on her arm as though to detain her.
God, Sarah thought, are my nerves that obvious? “No worries,” she said lightly. “I just need to talk to Jimmy.” On impulse, she kissed Connie’s cheek. “Glad you’re here. You’re the still point at the centre.” She doubted Connie read T.S. Eliot, but the line would still convey her meaning.
Connie reached for her pen. Reading upside down, Sarah watched the retort appear. ‘The world’s turning a little too fast around me!’ She had indeed read Eliot.
*
The music room was a tangle of black chairs, metal stands, leaning cellos and gleaming brass. In the far corner Jimmy sat keying notes into a laptop, stopping every few bars to glance at the sheet music propped on a stand. A bell rang bright and clear from his stereo speakers, and the air danced in response.
“Yo,” Sarah said from the door. “Am I disturbing you? That bell’s beautiful.”
Smiling, he spun the chair to face her. “It’s a tingsha. Tibetan prayer bells.”
Surely a man who listened to prayer bells couldn’t kill somebody? “So this is where you make your music,” she said, looking around the room.
“They make the music. Right now I’m just trying to dumb down ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ so they have a fighting chance.”
Picking her way through the rows of stands, she rolled a stool close to his chair. “Jimmy, I need to talk. I keep going over everything in my head, and I just can’t make sense of it.”
“Pretty simple, if you ask me. Graham killed Philip. Then he couldn’t stand it anymore and had the good sense, God forgive me, to kill himself.”
“Except that’s not what happened. They found another drug, something called The Devil’s Breath, in his bloodstream.”
A muscle twitched at the corner of Jimmy’s mouth. Or had she imagined it? His voice sounded easy. “Maybe he wanted to make sure to finish the job.”
A Circumstance of Blood Page 29