The Cardinal's Sin

by Robert Lane

  “Suzette is her close friend from school. The three of us have a marvelous time together. Where were we?”

  “McKenzie wanted to—”

  “That’s right,” she exclaimed. “He commandeered your appointment. Why would he do that, Mr. Travis?”

  I took a long draw from the cold stout. I wasn’t sure how any of this information was going to get me closer to Paretsky. “I don’t know.” I threw it out there just to stay in the game. I recalled Cynthia’s eyes when I had mentioned Elizabeth Lambert earlier that day.

  “You knew them,” I said in an accusatory tone. “The Lamberts. Or at least Elizabeth. You knew I was coming to inquire about them, and you were looking forward to talking with me. That’s why you put her name down in the appointment book.”

  “Yes.” She said it with a tinge of regret, as if entering a sad chapter of a book she’d previously read. “Yes, I knew her. This is the part where we get to it.”

  She placed her fork down, slowly and with purpose, as if the act of placing a utensil upon a table was not to be taken lightly. “You know,” she said, raising her eyes to mine, “she’s from Harlow, and we spent some time together before her family moved away. We were childhood friends.”

  “Do you know Alexander Paretsky?” Before I rehashed her childhood, I might as well discover if she knew anything about what I cared about.

  “Who?” She looked startled.

  “You know who.” I shot it out in a confident tone, hoping to gain a confession from her. “Paretsky. Friend of the late cardinal.”

  She blinked and held my eyes, although it seemed an effort. “I…I’m afraid I don’t know who you’re referring to.”

  She looked confused, wounded. I backed down. “Never mind. You were saying you knew Elizabeth Lambert?”

  I glanced at my watch. My interest didn’t reside with Elizabeth Lambert, but it occurred to me that for an inexplicable reason her name kept popping up. I thought of Stalin’s comment, “You may not have an interest in war, but war has an interest in you.” Maybe I didn’t have an interest in Elizabeth Lambert, but, dead as she was, Elizabeth Lambert had an interest in me.

  “Yes,” she said, still recovering from my abrupt charge.

  “Tell me about her,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could summon. “Tell me about Elizabeth.”

  “I don’t know if it means anything. After all, you’re looking into her husband’s death. Such a shame to think that both of them are gone.”

  “Did you know their daughter, Renée?” I asked, swinging for the fence.

  Her once-vibrant eyes were now shadowed and with drawn.

  “I do. She and—”

  “Is she friends with Lizzy?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Elizabeth moved to the states years ago when she was a teenager.”

  “Do you have a means for contacting her?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  So close. It was like feeling a solid tug on a line, and for the briefest moment it’s fish on—then it’s fish off.

  “So…” I shifted my weight, started to check my watch, but caught myself. “You’ve never heard of Alexander Paretsky. You were secretary to Antinori before he became a rock star. You spent some childhood years with Elizabeth prior to her family being transferred stateside. You’re afraid you have no idea where Renée Lambert hangs her hat. And an incident a couple years back brought Elizabeth Lambert to the attention of Father McKenzie. Is that correct?”

  Cynthia Richardson considered me for moment, looked as if she was going to say something, but remained silent. I reached for my wallet to settle the chit.

  She pushed her plate off to the side and placed her hands neatly in front of her, mimicking her position at her desk earlier that day. “If you don’t mind me saying, Mr. Travis, you’re asking all the wrong questions, and your penchant for speed—well, sometimes, as they say, you get there fast by taking it slow.”

  I tilted my head. “OK. Why don’t you ask some questions of me?”

  “No need to be snotty.”

  “My apologies.”

  “You are interested in Elizabeth Lambert.”

  “And Renée.”

  “Why Renée?”

  “I’m not positive she knows of her father’s death.”

  That paused her. She glanced out the side window, where a motorcycle swerved between two cars. “You should be asking,” she said, “why a powerful man like Thomas McKenzie wanted to handle you today.”

  “I thought I did. The answer?”

  “About two years ago—as I was trying to say—the Lamberts returned, came over for a holiday.”

  “How did you reconnect with her?”

  “Facebook,” she exclaimed, as if she had just discovered the key to the universe. “I had not seen her since we were little girls—or young women—somewhere in that time slot. We all went to the cardinal’s carnival together. Every year he—”

  “I’m familiar with it.” I also recalled Lambert telling me that he and Elizabeth had been back. Visited the place a couple years back.

  She gave me a quiet stare. “Very well.” She folded her hands in front of her. “There was an altercation between Elizabeth and the cardinal. Words, loud words, were exchanged.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not right. Elizabeth screamed in his face. It was…it was just a terrible thing. Elizabeth snapped and started yelling about Renée, shouting, ‘You killed Renée.’”

  “I don’t get it. Did Antinori know Renée, and why would Elizabeth think her own daughter was dead?”

  “No,” Cynthia said and shook her head. “Not that Renée. Not the one you seek.”

  “There’s another?”

  “The one she’s named after, Mr. Travis. The one who died.”

  CHAPTER 24

  It was as if every effort I expended, every calorie I burned to get closer to Paretsky only served to push me further away. I wasn’t sure where the Lambert/Richardson chronicle led, but my curiosity was piqued, and with luck the more I learned about the family trees, the greater the likelihood that one of their branches would enter my world. I made a note to not bid her good night until I inquired if she had any clue as to why Cardinal Antinori had been in Kensington Gardens that morning.

  Lizzy came around and cleared the table. She and Cynthia laid out a preliminary schedule for their girls’ day. A light rain sprinkled the sidewalk, and the air turned summer damp. I realized that I’d never heard from Rondo regarding a posting Renée—the living one—left on the WAP message board. Maybe he forgot. I checked my phone to make certain that I had not received any calls or texts.

  “Do you wish to go on?” Cynthia said.

  “My apologies. Business. By all means.” I pocketed my phone. “Two Renées—please, continue.”

  “We were a tight little group.”

  “Who are you referring to?”

  She placed her elbows on the table and linked her hands. She gazed at me, but for the first time that evening she seemed to drift away.

  “Elizabeth, Renée Sutherland, and myself. We grew up not far from Granville Estate. All on the same street. We were very close, although we went to separate schools. Elizabeth and I were Catholic, and Renée’s family was Protestant. This was nearly forty years ago, Mr. Travis, a different world, a transitional world. Great progress on the surface, but underneath, people’s beliefs—some people’s beliefs—remained relatively unchanged from centuries ago.”

  “Such people exist today,” I reminded her.

  “They do.” She placed her hands down. Although her pint was still half full, she shoved it away. “And, I’ll remind you, in religion there is a fine line between honoring one’s heritage and traditions and—well, the more oppressive and even aggressive nature that often accompanies unquestioned beliefs. Do you follow me?”

  “Seems to be a major issue in the world.”

  “I’ll give you the short version. I think,” she gave me a coy smile that confirmed my enigmatic but borderline-matronly I
-want-to-let-my-hair-down diagnosis, “that you are a man who would appreciate that.”

  “Take as much time as you’d like.”

  “Hmm…yes. Well, we, the three of us, played nearly every day. Girls with dolls and not a care in the world.” She waved her hand at me. “You wouldn’t know.” The rain had stopped, and the smell of the Old World hung in the air. “We promised that when we had children of our own, we would name our daughters after one another. Little girls making big promises.

  “Renée’s body had other plans. Life and death, Mr. Travis, I’ve come to believe are the same. They are identical twins separated at birth and destined to reunite. Death kick-starts the heart in the womb and vanishes, leaving you with the beating illusion of life, and only later does it dawn on you that it’s a ticking clock that’s been left in your chest, charged with holding your memories, your loves, your lust—all the while counting down the seconds. Renée’s clock didn’t tick very long. She got cancer and died at age twelve. Renée and Elizabeth were very close; I was two years older and always felt like the third person. Although I was close to Elizabeth, she and Renée were inseparable. God forgive me, but when Renée died I was thankful that I was the third. It hit Elizabeth so very hard…that age, you just can’t imagine.”

  “I’m sorry. That must have been—”

  “Long time past.” She straightened up. “Little over a year later, the Mastersons—that’s Elizabeth’s maiden name—moved to the States. I wrote to Elizabeth, and we visited them once, but the magic of youth was gone. For Elizabeth, it died with Renée.”

  “Lizzy,” I said, as it hit me.

  She smiled. “Yes. Her name is Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Lambert named her daughter after Renée Sutherland.”

  “It seems that little girls can keep big promises.”

  “On our own, we honor every word.”

  I leaned in. I needed to see if this story was a dead end or not. “Tell me about the cardinal and Elizabeth’s shouting match. Did they previously know each other?” I recalled reading that Antinori’s first parish was close to Granville Estate.

  “You see it now, don’t you? He was in charge of our parish. He counseled young Elizabeth in her attempt to cope with Renée’s death, although I can’t say it ever did any good or she ever got over it. He…”

  “He what?”

  “So sorry. Lost track of where I was.”

  “Did you go to counseling?” I wondered what had distracted her.

  “No.”

  I waited for more, but nothing came. “Just no?”

  “My father was what you would call a progressive thinker. He didn’t want the church counseling me. Elizabeth’s parents were devout, and they insisted that she attend. My mother wanted me to see our pastor, but my father was an Easter and Christmas man. He was a young boy on the East Side of London in 1940 when the Huns in their flying machines tried to burn the city. They drove his family, like rats, to the tunnels. You know your history, Mr. Travis?”

  “My share.”

  “Yes. Well, my father didn’t discuss it much, but he wasn’t one to ever conjure up an image of a supreme being watching over us. He wasn’t the only one. Do you know that Churchill, when addressing Parliament at the end of the war—that exalted and glorious moment of victory—never mentioned or evoked God? Not once? The church, at that time, was still infected with residual thinking, like a medieval virus, from centuries back. My mother wanted me to get counseling, but my father said I’d be better off drinking poison.”

  “What exactly did Elizabeth, two years ago, shout to the cardinal?”

  She hesitated and then came in with a defiant tone. “As I said, that he ruined her life and killed Renée, forever. An ugly pall over the day for anyone unfortunate enough to witness it.”

  “I don’t get it. Killed Renée forever?”

  “Her words.”

  “But she had cancer.”

  “Nothing to do with the physical death, I’m quite sure.”

  What other death is there? “How did he ruin her, Elizabeth’s, life?”

  “The words he said when she sought him out for counseling. I’m not sure exactly what those words were. Perhaps her daughter knows. I wasn’t privy to that.” It tumbled out fast. She moved on. “Her husband, Donald, at the carnival that day, had to restrain her. It got quite ugly, I must tell you. Quite ugly, indeed. Father McKenzie summoned security, but the cardinal waved them off. Mr. Lambert finally led her away, but not before she turned, just as they were leaving the entrance, and her screaming—oh, one should never have to hear such things.” She let her breath out and reached over for her mug. She took a gulp. She brought her eyes up to mine and lowered her voice. “On the way out, Elizabeth screamed, ‘My mind’s on fire. You burned it. You burned my mind.’” She held my eyes as if I was expected to understand that she had just answered the central question of the universe. Problem was, I didn’t know the question.

  Morgan’s voice in my head. Something happened in your cardinal’s life two years ago to force him to make such an abrupt turnaround on his beliefs. Now Donald Lambert describing his wife: her mind was a rough place to live. Did the cardinal’s encounter with Elizabeth Lambert alter his beliefs? Did his first encounter with her as a twelve-year-old girl lead to her madness and eventual suicide? Did his altered beliefs have anything to do with him using me to kill him? The whole mess sounded like a cheap tabloid story.

  I skipped ahead to the salient point. “Why was Cardinal Antinori in Kensington Gardens?”

  Lizzy cut into my question as she placed a hot tea in front of her mother. I thought it an odd follow-up to the beer. Cynthia glanced up and said thank you, but Lizzy was gone. The joint was filling up. My afternoon drinkers had abandoned ship, and the after-work crowd circled the barstools with an energy and enthusiasm that the day drinkers had long since lost or never possessed, which led them to being afternoon drinkers in the first place.

  “I have no idea,” she replied to my question.

  “You were his secretary for years.”

  “Nearly a decade. But during that time I took a sabbatical to France. I was gone for over a year. When I returned, I worked for him for less than a year. He was short-listed for greater things and placed on the fast track. When he returned years later as a cardinal to reside at Granville Estate, he arrived with his entourage. He inquired if I wanted to resume some sort of secretarial position with him, but we—I requested the receptionist post. It’s a plum job. No pressure, great pay.”

  “The ‘no’ lady.”

  “A polite ‘no’ lady.”

  “And you never heard of Alexander Paretsky?”

  “That name you ambushed me with earlier? No.”

  “I didn’t mean to be so harsh,” I said.

  “Of course you did.”

  “You haven’t heard from Renée Lambert?”

  “I have not, but if you do find her, please tell her my thoughts are with her.”

  “Why did her mother commit suicide?”

  “You do jump around, don’t you?” She leaned back and crossed her legs. “I don’t know why. I never saw her again. It was nice seeing her at the carnival—they actually stayed two nights with us—but we weren’t close. Too many years. Although my husband and Mr. Lambert certainly hit it off, but you men can do that, can’t you? Smack that little white ball, hit a pub, and find common ground so effortlessly. You seem like a resourceful man, Mr. Travis. Do me a favor?”

  “Gladly.” I reached for my shoulder bag.

  “Keep me apprised. I would love to meet Renée someday. I’m not sure why. Perhaps to close the circle.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thank you for meeting me. You were, I believe, familiar with this place?”

  “Here about a week ago.”

  Her eyes narrowed as I pulled out a picture of Renée and the Guardian at the Valencia. I placed it on the table, thinking I should have told her I was last here a month ago.

  “I know h
is back is turned,” I said, “but does anything look familiar about the man she’s with?”

  When I glanced up at her, she was staring at me. She quickly focused her attention to the picture. “No. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Elizabeth shared photos with me and posted on Facebook, but it’s been a while. You said you were in London a week ago?”

  “Closer to two.” I modified my statement, sensing dangerous ground. I took out the picture of Renée and Alexander Paretsky that the colonel had given me. “And you never saw this guy, right? Alexander Paretsky?” I checked my watch again. I might give Rondo a call. Try PC and Morgan as well. I wanted to believe that while I sacrificed two days some progress was being made in my absence. “We believe that he poses a grave danger to Renée. Perhaps fatal.”

  “Oh, my—” Her hand flew to her mouth. It struck me as a staged move—my single-bow friend wasn’t a theatrical person. “Why, that’s—that’s Mr. Hoover.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Hoover.” She pointed to Alexander Paretsky. “He’s… an old friend of, or was, I should say, of Gio—the cardinal. I never knew that he…”

  “What? That he what?”

  “Went by a different name.”

  I leaned back, grabbed my mug, and treated myself to a hearty drink. The first break in any investigation is the hardest. This one was a long time coming, but it was a doozy. A real zinger. Cynthia’s words echoed in my head: Get there fast by taking it slow.

  “Tell me,” I said, as Cynthia Richardson leapfrogged to the second-most-important person in the world spot, “all about Mr. Hoover.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “He’s a sweet man, really.”

  “This guy, right?” I pointed at Paretsky. “You’re sure? He’s the candy man? Sammy Davis Junior?”

  She gave the picture a cursory glance. “Oh, yes, quite. So soft-spoken. You think he’d hurt Renée?” She drummed her fingers, a new act for her.

  “They have, or had, a relationship. How they met, I don’t know. Does Father McKenzie know of Mr. Hoover?” McKenzie had done a fair job of hiding his recognition of Paretsky’s name and picture.