by Jane Haddam
Pro-choice or not, Gregor reminded himself, Judy Eagan was Peg Morrissey Monaghan’s closest friend. However she might have looked on fetuses in the abstract, she would have thought of the ones Peg was carrying as children, because Peg would have thought that way. These particular fetuses would not have been negligible in any calculations Judy Eagan might have done with the intent of murdering Peg.
The only possible explanation, Gregor knew, was that this third murder was an act of total panic. It had to have been committed with robotic mindlessness, on automatic pilot. They were now dealing with a murderer gone out of control, killing without subtlety or reflection. It was not a comfortable thought. Cheryl Cass had seen seven people on that Ash Wednesday when she had come back to Colchester, seven people she had spoken to at length: Sister Mary Scholastica, Andy Walsh, Judy Eagan, Tom Dolan, Peg Morrissey Monaghan, Declan Boyd, and Barry Field. Two of these people were now dead, along with Cheryl herself. They were the two she had spent the most time with. Peg had given her tea and let her spend over an hour looking through old yearbooks and collections of high-school memorabilia. Andy had seen her once in the morning and again in the early evening. It was dangerous to have spent any time really listening to Cheryl Cass. Gregor wondered who else had done it.
On the surface, this was a question easy to answer. It was all in the police reports of Cheryl’s death, photocopied by John Smith and sent home to Rosary House with Gregor in a brown accordian folder. Scholastica had spoken to Cheryl for quite a while, in the convent living room, about “what a wonderful time it had been all that summer.” Declan Boyd had spoken to Cheryl for half an hour while she was waiting for Andy the second time. According to Boyd, they had talked about “love and how once you love somebody you can never really stop.” The other three—Judy Eagan, Tom Dolan, and Barry Field—claimed hardly to have seen the woman at all. They wouldn’t even have been brought into the investigation if Peg hadn’t mentioned their names to the police, as people Cheryl had said she either had or intended to visit. Judy Eagan said she’d seen Cheryl “for a couple of minutes on State Street and that was it.” Tom Dolan said he “passed Cheryl in the Chancery but wasn’t sure.” Barry Field said he’d spoken to her “at the end of the preaching hour the same as with a dozen other people.” She had come to his studio and been part of the audience for his first sermon of the day.
Gregor didn’t think he could believe any of this, for all it was set down in black and white and police jargon on the pages Smith had given him. The woman was dead, and Barry Field and Judy Eagan, at least, had had good reasons to distance themselves from her death. Field was more aware than most television preachers of the media pit he operated in. The press was hostile to what he did for a living and would have been more than happy to connect him with the suicide of one of life’s losers. The Colchester Tribune, especially, always conscious of its largely Roman Catholic readership, liked to suggest that Fundamentalism was the poisoned opium of the stupid, the despairing, and the socially dead. Judy Eagan, on the other hand, had a very upscale clientele, who liked to think of her as one of themselves. It would do her no good to have someone like Cheryl Cass advertised as one of her “friends.” Gregor knew something about provincial society. Unlike the big-city kind, which had long ago succumbed to the status systems of naked capitalism, it liked to think of itself as based firmly on blood and not achievement.
That left just what it was Cheryl had said to the people she’d seen. Gregor knew she couldn’t have told any of them her real secret, not outright. If she had, things would have happened differently. Maybe she would never have been murdered. Certainly Andy Walsh, presented with a plain-spoken truth, would not have waited six weeks to do something about it. He hadn’t had that kind of patience. And Peg Monaghan…
Peg Monaghan, acquiring personal knowledge of something really wrong, would have gone straight to the police, or the Cardinal, or whoever might be concerned. She would have done that just as she’d gone to the police to identify the picture of Cheryl that had appeared on the six o’clock news, She was the only one who had gone. Tom Dolan might not have seen it. With the life the Cardinal made him lead, he didn’t have much time for television. The picture had appeared only twice, once on the six and once on the eleven o’clock news. It was given neither much time nor much play. Even local television stations weren’t interested in people like Cheryl Cass, in losers. They might given them significant air time if they were involved in a spectacular drug bust or the kind of savage murder that made blood run in the gutters. An ordinary sordid suicide would have been a big yawn. In this case, they were doing a favor for Colchester Homicide in general and John Smith in particular, nothing more. That was before Colchester Homicide found out there might be a connection between Cheryl Cass and the Chancery, and decided suicide was a much better solution.
Whether Judy, Andy, Barry, Scholastica, or Declan Boyd had seen that picture, Gregor didn’t know, and supposed he never would. Each of them had told John Smith he or she hadn’t. What was more intriguing was this: Why hadn’t Cheryl Cass told any of these people, straight out, that one secret that Gregor was sure had served as the motive for her murder? Every report he had seen said she was neither intelligent nor committed to discretion. She wasn’t sensitive to nuance, either. Scholastica said Cheryl had talked about Black Rock Park as “the second happiest day of her life”—Black Rock Park, of all things, that all of Colchester looked on as a horror story. Cheryl had told Scholastica other things, too, about her symptoms, her aches and pains, the ravages of cancer on the most intimate parts of her body. She had had no sense of privacy. Except about that one thing.
What one thing?
Gregor Demarkian looked down at the books and papers spread across the bed. It was Holy Saturday morning. Faint shafts of light were coming through the window of his room in Rosary House, and he was cold. He did not think he had been asleep. He rubbed his eyes and sat back against the wall. Hours ago, when he had finally figured out how the nicotine had been introduced into the wine in the chalice, and had gone with John Smith to the altar in St. Agnes’s Church to verify it, he had thought he was nearly done. Then he had come back here and it had struck him: motive, motive, motive. He still had no motive, and he didn’t have a hope of finding one.
The one hope he had thought he had had, the books about saints and their symbols the Cardinal had sent to St. Agnes’s for him by way of Father Tom Dolan, had so far come to nothing. He pulled himself away from the wall and looked down again at the papers, covered with the large, well-formed, symmetrical handwriting he had been taught to produce in school.
Goat, the closest of these said, and then:
St. Margaret of Cortona (1247-97)—daughter of farmer—depicted as goat returning to farmer’s field, after having been astray—symbol for heretics and sinners returning to the church after a prolonged and public break.
St. Francis of Assisi (1181—1226)—represented by various animals, including goat. Symbol of the need for Christians to cherish all God’s creation, not only the human part of it.
St. Joseph, husband of Mary (first century)—depicted as or with goat in role as patron saint of married men—role not confirmed by Rome.
St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-97)—depicted bringing goats and sheep into a fold—depiction unsuccessful as symbol—died out early twentieth century.
St. Bridget of Sweden (1303-73)—depicted separating sheep from goats in churches—symbolic of her role in reforming the convents and monasteries in Sweden and Rome.
St. Bartfoin (also known as St. Barry) (sixth century)—depicted some medieval illuminated manuscripts, thrusting away goat—symbolic of the rejection of sexual sin.
There they were, Gregor thought, the saints of the Catholic Church who had been, at one time or another, represented in art as goats, or with goats. What did he have? An obvious reference to Barry Field that might be too obvious. An equally obvious reference to Peg Monaghan, and an apt one. A less obvious reference to Cheryl
Cass, through her confirmation name, as given to him by Scholastica in the notes and picture she’d let him have overnight. He couldn’t imagine Cheryl Cass reforming convents, or even entering one.
He picked the paper up to look at it, then started to put it down again. He should have gotten some sleep. In spite of the nonsensical image promoted by television detectives, human beings didn’t operate properly without it. His mind was stuffed full of cotton fluff. His eyes were dry and burning. He couldn’t have made the effort to chew if a three-pound porterhouse was set before him, perfectly cooked. And he still had a full day ahead of him.
“Goats,” he said to himself, picking up the paper again. “Goats.” The names and descriptions floated in front of his eyes, squiggling like worms, alive. He made himself focus and read it through again, hopelessly, because he had been reading it through all night without revelation. Outside in the courtyard, the bell on St. Agnes’s Church was chiming seven o’clock.
“Goats,” Gregor said to himself. And then he stopped. Because he saw it. He was sure he saw it. The only mystery was why he hadn’t seen it before. The damn thing might as well have been flashing in neon on the electronic billboard in Times Square.
“Idiot,” Gregor said, meaning himself. Then he got off the bed and grabbed for his last clean shirt.
John Smith wasn’t due into the squad room this morning at all. Last night he had announced his intention to sleep late and threatened both Gregor and the entire uniformed force of the Colchester Police Department with summary execution for disturbing him before noon. Gregor didn’t care. It was time John Smith got himself out of bed.
It didn’t do much to change Gregor’s mind, of course, that he himself was no longer tired at all.
[2]
At the end of the long Good Friday night, Gregor had asked John Smith and Colchester Homicide to do a few things for him. He knew how the chalice had been tampered with, but he wanted to be able to reproduce the effect himself. He needed an unblessed chalice to practice on, which Smith had promised to ask the Cardinal to get. Gregor would have asked the Cardinal himself, but he had been in no mood to speak to the man. Being in O’Bannion’s company was dangerous to coherent thought. He had also wanted some pieces of some reports collated: all the statements their suspects had made about Cheryl Cass, all the statements their suspects had made about what had gone on in the church in the hour before Andy Walsh had died, and all the statements their suspects had made in regard to the death of Peg Monaghan. These last, Gregor knew, would not necessarily be available, because they would not necessarily have been taken yet. He’d asked Smith to collate them with the others as they came in. This was the kind of work that might take hours, even days. Just asking the Cardinal to produce an unblessed chalice would take time, because Colchester Homicide couldn’t go blazing into the Chancery with an attitude. They would have to use diplomacy, and diplomacy took time.
Arriving once again at Colchester Homicide, Gregor didn’t expect any of what he’d asked for to be done. He was more than a little surprised when Smith met him in the main lobby with a black oblong box balanced on top of an armful of papers. Most of the papers, fortunately, were not the information Gregor had asked for. Having made an appointment to meet Gregor at eight, Smith had gotten in at seven-twenty and cleared a few things out of his file. He had, however, also got hold of the information Gregor had asked for which was contained in the top file on the pile, just under the oblong box. The box was a chalice case.
“We didn’t have to go all the way to the Cardinal to get it,” he told Gregor as they headed for the elevator. “I called the Chancery last night as soon as I got home, and it turns out you can buy the things in any large Catholic religious supply store. There’s one down on State Street about three blocks from the Cathedral. I had one of the uniforms roust the owner out of bed this morning and buy one.”
“How early this morning?”
“Six,” Smith said.
“I thought you were going to sleep in.”
Smith grinned. “What I do when I sleep in,” he said, “is I get up at the usual time and spend the morning doing crossword puzzles. I love crossword puzzles. Everybody around here thinks I love sleep.”
The elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside. Smith pressed the button for the fifth floor, not the location of the Colchester Homicide squad room, and said,
“We’ll use the conference room. It’s supposed to be off-limits without written permission of the Chief of Police, but nobody’s going to be using it on Saturday and it’ll be quieter. While you’re reading through all those statements, I’ll go do what I was on my way to doing when I met you in the lobby. Getting the rest of this mess down to the basement to Records.”
“Actually,” Gregor said, “the statements aren’t what I’m interested in, right this minute.”
“No?”
The elevator had reached the fifth floor. The doors slid open. Smith and Gregor both stepped out. They had obviously reached the upper levels of status and convenience, as well as of architecture. Unlike the hallway that led from the elevators to the homicide squad room downstairs, this one was carpeted with thick cream-colored pile. The walls around them had been recently painted and hung with antique prints, pen-and-ink sketches of nineteenth-century policemen in high hats and stiff collars. Gregor could tell that no ordinary suspects would ever be allowed to come up here.
Smith scuffed the carpet, said, “this is the sort of place, if you’ve got dirt on your shoes you’re not supposed to be here,” and took them down a side corridor that ended in a pair of molded double doors. He took out his keys, opened up, and let Gregor go inside.
“Not exactly the boardroom at the Morgan Bank,” he said, “but not bad. For Colchester.”
It wasn’t bad for anywhere. A long, heavy, antique cherrywood conference table took up most of the space in the room, surrounded by matching chairs. A wall of windows looked out on Colchester in the direction of the Cathedral. Gregor could see the spire rising into the air above a nest of lower buildings. Black-and-white photographs framed in walnut and covered with glass were everywhere, showing one Chief of Police with President Kennedy, another Chief of Police with Vice President Nixon, a third Chief of Police with Jimmy Carter. Gregor caught a picture of good old J. Edgar Hoover and winced.
“Sit down,” he told Smith, sitting down himself, “we have to talk.”
“I know we do.” Smith sat, but on the edge of a chair. He was ready to get up and move as soon as the polite preliminaries were over. “We can talk all day. I’ve just got to bring this stuff down to Records. And you’ve got enough to do to occupy you for ten or fifteen minutes. You can mess around with the chalice.”
Smith handed over the oblong box. Gregor took it, opened it, and looked at the large gold cup inside. Smith must have made a major impression on the patrolman, or picked one of unusual (for Colchester) intelligence and efficiency. What was in the box was not only a chalice, but one of exactly the right size and kind.
“I told him to ask for a duplicate of the ones they use for the Archdiocese,” Smith said. “The Archdiocese doesn’t buy its religious equipment in supply stores. None of the parishes are allowed to now that that Cardinal is the Cardinal, if you know what I mean. It’s all centralized. The Chancery buys this stuff in quantity, and the parishes buy it from the Chancery. Unless someone gives them a special gift, of course.”
“I wonder if they’re like that about everything,” Gregor said. “Linens for the rectories, say. Dishwashing detergent.”
“Plant poisons?” Smith laughed. “Yeah, they are. I checked that as far back as the investigation into the death of Cheryl Cass. The Chancery runs a kind of co-op for the parishes. The only thing they don’t do is food.”
“Wine?”
“Sacramental wine, that they do.”
It was the wine Gregor had been thinking about, not the plant poisons. Although the plant poisons made sense. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket
and took out the two pieces of paper he had been looking at that morning, Scholastica’s list of Confirmation names and his own of the use of the goat as a symbol for Catholic saints.
“Look at these,” he told Smith. “Look at them hard. Tell me what you see.”
“Look, Mr. Demarkian—”
“No,” Gregor demanded.
Smith bent over the lists, read them once, read them twice, read them three times. Then he looked up and shook his head.
“Maybe I’m a little distracted,” he said, “because I do have to get these papers downstairs. The only way I get away with the stuff I pull around here is by never ruffling the bureaucrats, and the bureaucrats get very ruffled when their paper isn’t treated with reverence.”
“I know. John, the bureaucrats are going to have to wait. I have to tell you something.”
“What?”
“A story,” Gregor said, “a story about a priest named Father Andy Walsh, who went on a popular morning television program and said, ‘It’s not just the sin you have to think about, it’s what the sin engenders. It’s what the sin spawns. If you look at the sin you see an incident. If you look at the life that follows the sin, you see a catastrophe.’”
“I don’t get it,” Smith said.
“I didn’t either. I think he made it more explicit, later. I didn’t get to hear because Father Declan Boyd was shouting in my ear. One of the things I want to do today is to go over to Barry Field’s studio and see if he has a tape of that broadcast.”
“In the meantime—”
“In the meantime,” Gregor said, “you will sit still and listen.”
[3]
In the beginning, of course, John Smith didn’t sit still at all. He fidgeted and jumped, he made faces and turned away to stare at the ceiling. Gregor knew that one of the problems with this case, from the beginning, had been its intricate connections to the past. So much of it was basically background, not clearly relevant to the business at hand: six people who had known each other since early childhood, who had protected themselves from the uncertainties of adolescence by facing them in a tight little knot of belonging, who had thought of themselves as having everything in common, including their worst sins. But they hadn’t had everything in common. They hadn’t been similar people at all, not even in the beginning. Then along had come a seventh person, Cheryl Cass. Like the worm in the apple of the garden of Eden, she had spoiled everything.