Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial)

by Leigh Ellwood

  “Thank you, Gaetano,” the pontiff said. Though the secretary preferred to converse in his native Italian, the pontiff insisted everybody speak English for this trip, even in private, for good practice. “I trust the rest of our party is secure in their seats, as you should be, eh?”

  “See for yourself, Holy Father.” Gaetano gestured about the first-class cabin. “Everybody is strapped in, and table trays are secured.”

  Gaetano had clearly missed his calling as an air steward, or nursemaid. “And those in coach?”

  Gaetano Cardinal Manzetti straightened and unconsciously smoothed his hands down the length of his black cassock. “You needn’t worry about me, or them.” His voice, as always, was soft and heavily accented, so much that even the Italian pope often had trouble understanding his countryman. Yet, as the cardinal’s gaze drifted behind them towards the curtain that concealed over fifty journalists from around the world set to cover the papal visit to the United States, a low growl could be heard escaping the papal secretary’s lips.

  “Your concern for the members of the press is nothing short of admirable, Your Holiness,” the cardinal added, “considering how many of them have not been as kind in recent months.”

  The pontiff had to chuckle at that; this was not a new tack of conversation with the secretary. The cardinal’s growing dislike of the global secular press was becoming more pronounced with each passing day, so much that all members of the papal entourage had to stifle their amusement every time a reporter approached to request a minute with the Holy See. The shift in the cardinal’s face, the deepening of wrinkles in the man’s jowls as his smile immediately curved downward, was instantaneous and at times ghastly to behold.

  The pontiff gathered his thick-beaded rosary in one hand and dropped the sacramental in a small pocket. Outside, the colorful Miami skyline came into sharper focus as wispy clouds dissolved. Below them the Atlantic Ocean sparkled as if covered with diamond-studded fish netting. He smiled. Despite being the most-traveled pope in the last hundred years, if not in the history of the Church, this marked his first visit to the southern United States, and already he was falling in love with the city.

  Much like previous visits to the continent, this would be one for celebration. Seldom did the United States have the honor of adding a native-born saint to its still small roster, and never before had this pope traveled to a foreign country to preside over a canonization Mass. The Catholic faithful of the United States, the Vatican had been told, were ecstatic when they first learned the pope’s visit would coincide with the canonization of virgin martyr Lorena Alger, rather than leave people scraping for spare change to pay for a trip to Rome.

  His health, praise the Lord, was good, and unlike his secretary he was not bothered by the recent editorials suggesting his early, voluntary retirement in favor of a younger pope, say, somebody in his sixties at worst. That the cardinal would be so irked by mere words surprised the pontiff. Far worse had been printed about the present pope and the Church in the wake of recent scandals. To be sure, there were a number of detractors upset with this visit, accusing the Pope of masking the urgency of dealing with errant priests with something so frivolous as a ceremony for a child long dead.

  Which was exactly why the pontiff insisted on the trip. Lorena’s story, and the fidelity of those who supported her cause, he hoped, would serve to inspire faith in the Church founded by Christ. Errant priests, he had vowed to himself, the press, and the Lord, would be handled swiftly and accordingly.

  “I just don’t think those people are being fair, calling for you to step down,” the aged cardinal insisted, as if blessed with the ability to read minds. “When one factors in all you have done during your pontificate, not to mention the fact that those people can plainly see every day how well you get along, it’s absurd. The mere suggestion that a younger man will solve everybody’s problems and that you be retired like some workhorse sent to the knackers—”

  “…should not stress us to distraction,” the pope finished for him. “Now, sit down, Gaetano. You achieve far more in making me nervous than a writer does on the printed page.”

  With a heavy sigh the cardinal dropped into the chair next to the pontiff and fastened his safety belt. The sudden look of annoyance on the pope’s face as he glanced at a few vacant spaces on the other side of the cabin did not go unnoticed by those seated across the aisle. The weary cardinal bowed his head and focused his eyes on the chair in front of him as the plane dipped slightly to the right and circled the city en route to Miami International Airport.

  The cabin remained quiet for a few more minutes, and the pontiff let the dull roar of the engine lull him back into a meditative state. Within seconds he was able to remember exactly which Hail Mary in the third Glorious Mystery he had been reciting when he was interrupted, down to the last word prayed.

  …et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.

  A soft smile played at his lips as he closed his eyes to resume the prayer. Not bad for an old man some people want to see sent to the knackers, he thought.

  He did not get much farther into the decade of prayers, however. A gentle tug at his cassock sleeve diverted his attention once again to Cardinal Manzetti, who now held a thick stack of white paper between his hands.

  Gaetano thrust the papers onto the pontiff’s lap. “This family we’re going to meet, these Algers…”

  “What about them?” The pontiff was not scheduled to meet the descendants of Lorena Alger—the grandnephew Nicholas Alger, his children and grandchildren, and his mother Julia—until the actual day of the ceremony. An earlier audience, much to the pontiff’s disappointment, could not be arranged for security concerns.

  He glanced at the cryptic headline trailing along the top of one sheet and frowned. “Surely you know I’m already aware of the problems the family experienced with Lorena’s abduction? This is not news,” he chided Gaetano. “She was returned safely, yes?”

  Gaetano nodded. “Yes, Your Holiness. That unpleasantness was resolved a long time ago.” He tapped a long fingernail against the one sheet the pope held up to the light. “This is an entirely different story about the family, something that happened more recently.”

  “I see.” The pontiff squinted at the minuscule black lettering. The papers had apparently been printed from a Florida news Web site, obtained by one of Gaetano’s underlings through the wireless connection. He reminded himself to inform the younger, more pleasant assistant to look into a better quality printer for future trips. Or perhaps a larger font.

  “Your Holiness,” hissed the secretary over the increasing volume of the engines, “don’t you think, given this new information, we ought to consider postponing the ceremony?”

  “Why would we consider that? The qualifications have been met for canonization, and the area churches have invested a great amount of time and money in seeing this to fruition.” The pontiff skimmed the article with a bemused smile. “I am certain that this is certainly no more scandalous than what the Algers had previously suffered. Surely you know the Mother Church has weathered far worse storms over far many more years.”

  “I know,” the secretary sighed, and the pontiff noted immediately the look on the man’s ashen face. Gaetano, it was obvious, was resisting the urge to throw one last disdainful glance at the curtain behind them. A quick glance across the aisle told the pontiff that his secretary’s facial tics continued to be noticed by the rest of the staff. “It’s just that this sort of thing—”

  “—is in need of a happy ending, Gaetano, which we will provide. We didn’t fly all the way here to wave and get back on the plane.” Any further thoughts the pope had intended to voice were cut short by the pilot’s announcement of the plane’s final clearance and approach to the runway. With that, the old man in the pristine white cassock offered a silent prayer of thanks for their safe arrival to the United States, then proceeded to finish the article that had so excited his secretary.

  Chapter One

  Three
months earlier

  Gina Hayes gazed at the framed poster hanging on the living room wall with mild contempt. “Ron, why are you still holding onto this thing?” She gestured to the two-dimensional unsmiling cast of A Fish Called Wanda positioned humorously in a police lineup. “Aren’t you a bit too old for posters? High school’s over.”

  “I think it looks nice. It lends a bit of whimsy,” said Julia Alger, their maternal grandmother, as she accepted a warmed mug from her other granddaughter, Ronnie Lord. The three ladies, for lack of a place to sit in the living room of Ronnie’s new townhome, paced slowly around the room’s perimeter and sipped their coffee.

  “Yes,” Gina snorted, “if there’s anything lacking in Ronnie’s life, it’s whimsy. As if the box of Beanie Babies I carried in can’t accomplish that.”

  Ronnie toed the box in question as she circled her first house guests. Many of the stuffed animals had been gifts from students, some from Gina’s sons, but Ronnie elected not to point that out at this time. She wanted to savor every bit of her sister’s ranting, assuming it would be one thing she would miss now that she had moved from the Hayes’ basement.

  “At least she has the poster in a nice frame, and it’s not sticking to the wall by mismatched thumbtacks,” Julia said with a shrug. “Oh, Arthur and your father used to have pictures all over their walls. Left tiny pinpricks everywhere when they left for college.”

  “Well, I think it’s juvenile,” Gina insisted. “Ron, you’re in your late-thirties, for crying out loud—”

  “Mid,” Ronnie interrupted.

  Gina cast her sister a withering look. “Late thirties. If you’re going to hang things on the walls, at least consider something a bit more tasteful and artistic.”

  “Oh?” Ronnie raised an eyebrow and moved behind her sister. “How is this not tasteful? At least Jamie Lee Curtis is wearing clothes.”

  “She wasn’t wearing much in the movie,” Gina grumbled, and Ronnie bent her face into her mug to stifle a giggle, amused at the notion that a simple movie poster could irk her more rigid sister. She took a deep drink; a mouth busy with coffee could not retort with words that she knew she should not say in front of Nana.

  She licked a stray drop of coffee from the rim of her mug and smiled. “You know,” she said casually, “that ocean landscape you have in your living room would look great, once I get the couch in here.”

  She relished the look of surprise on her sister’s face. No way in a million years would Gina ever surrender that painting, not after they had seen one by another artist of the same school appraised on Antiques Roadshow, and especially not after their mother had recently revealed the landscape’s actual worth. If Gina was going to be a frequent visitor, she would have to adjust to the eclectic décor of pop art and action figures. It was a far better alternative to letting her move back into the Hayes’ basement, so Ronnie had gathered by the look of unrestrained glee on her brother-in-law’s face that morning as he helped pack her car.

  “Ronnie, the picture poster is fine,” Nana said, setting her mug down on the only table in the otherwise sparse room. “Once the rest of your new home is unpacked I’m sure everything will look very nice.”

  “I hope so, too. It’ll be nice to have something for people to sit on besides the floor.” Ronnie sighed at the stacks of boxes in the galley kitchen and in the one bedroom visible from where she stood. Their contents had spent the last two years languishing in a North Jacksonville storage facility, where Ronnie had put them after moving out of the home she and her late husband Jim shared. A small lump lodged in her throat at the thought of having to unpack everything. Memories waited for her in those cartons, memories of a happy marriage cut short.

  Though Ronnie was slowly rebuilding her life after his death—too slowly for her family’s tastes, but the move was a big step forward—she was not certain how strong she could be in the simple act of opening a cardboard box. Who knows what personal objects Jim had owned—a book, a cigarette lighter, some unidentifiable souvenir he insisted on getting during their vacation to the Smoky Mountains—would cause her to dissolve into tears. She could already picture the bemused look on Gina’s face, wondering aloud why the sight of a petrified walnut with glued-on google eyes, perched on a plastic platform bearing the inscription I’m just nuts about Dollywood, would upset her so much.

  “Where is the couch, anyway?” Gina glanced impatiently at her watch. “Father Joel should have been here by now, you think?”

  “You’d think,” Ronnie said. She cringed as her grandmother innocently opened a small file box that happened to contain Jim’s collection of guitar music books, then turned sharply away and focused instead on the small window facing the main street of the new Ash Lake Townhome Villa complex. An overgrowth of ragged azalea bushes covered a great part of the view, and Ronnie doubted she would be able to see Father Joel Mitchell pulling up in the rumbling white panel truck used by the Blessed Lorena Alger Catholic Church’s ministry thrift shop. The priest had volunteered himself and a few of his charges to deliver the couch she had purchased from them.

  Saint Lorena Alger, Ronnie reminded herself, relieved she had not said anything aloud. Gina would surely have reprimanded her for the error, even though Lorena’s canonization ceremony would not be held for another three months. Therefore, she was still technically a Blessed until the Pope made everything official. Or the good Lord Himself. Ronnie was still unclear on a few things.

  “Father’ll be here,” Ronnie said. “He probably just needed to find somebody to help load it into the truck. The thrift shop’s short on help as it is, and I’m sure he needed the time to track down somebody who wouldn’t throw out his back trying to lift something.”

  Gina nodded. “I’ve been meaning to go over there and put in a few hours, but the boys’ schedules are so erratic in the summertime with soccer and Boy Scouts. Maybe when the school year starts I’ll work some community service into the home school curriculum.”

  “I’d volunteer if I had the time, what with the full load I’m teaching for the second summer semester, and in the fall,” Ronnie offered.

  Nana pried open another box, revealing many picture frames wrapped in newspaper. “I’d volunteer, too, if I didn’t think I’d buy everything in sight,” she added wistfully. “They get such nice things at the thrift shop.”

  “Oh, Nana.” Ronnie moved over to her grandmother and took her into a gentle embrace, not so much to reinforce affection but to prevent the silver-haired widow from opening any more boxes. All Nana had to do was produce one of those framed photos of her married life and Ronnie knew she would not be able to hold back the tears.

  “Nana, you’re already involved so much with the church, serving on all those committees,” she continued. “Plus, you have all the canonization planning going on…”

  “Which will soon be over,” Nana interrupted, her voice excited and youthful, easily betraying her advanced age. “Though I don’t mind telling you I’ll be relieved to be done with it. Every time I think about meeting the Pope, I just get so nervous. I’ve been praying for weeks that I won’t say or do something silly in front of him.”

  “Like what? ‘Take me away from all of this’?”

  “Not that silly,” Nana giggled.

  Ronnie watched her sister’s hands tighten around her mug, and she wondered if Gina, too, was thinking the same about herself. To her memory, neither woman had encountered anyone of great importance, in the world of religion or otherwise. The Vatican had been courteous enough to express mail a packet containing protocol information that everyone in the family had memorized. Though, Ronnie decided, it would do little good. Meeting the Holy Father would be akin to taking the SATs; no amount of studying will have been worth a damn when the test is administered, when the answers are sliding noiselessly out of the brain.

  She downed the rest of her coffee and retreated to the kitchen for a refill. Actually, she realized, she had not been truthful with herself. The family did know a celebrity;
rather, they had been more acquainted with her well before stardom.

  As to whether or not a soap opera actress garnered the same importance as the spiritual leader of the entire Catholic population…

  “Hey,” she called unseen from the kitchen. “Any more news on Allayne Witt?” She returned to the living room to find that Gina and Nana had taken seats on two of the sturdier boxes. Gina wiggled her posterior against a plastic one marked Books and grimaced.

  “No wonder the Ash Lake campus of FCCJ has such a lousy library,” she griped. “I’m probably sitting on everything you stole from it.”

  Ronnie relaxed against the entranceway to the kitchen. The fabric eternal calendar with the butterfly design would look nice on the bare strip of wall separating the two rooms. She hoped she would be able to find a thumbtack in the mess before her. “Hey, it’s not my fault they don’t send overdue notices to faculty,” she joked. “’Course, had those been computer application manuals, the school would have sent the SWAT team here to reclaim them.”