The Cardinal's Sin

by Robert Lane

  “I can’t imagine how he would not know of him. He’s a major financial supporter.”

  “Paretsky?”

  “Who—you mean Mr. Hoover?”

  “They are the same.”

  “Yes. Well, Father McKenzie is well acquainted with him.”

  “Yet he, like Peter, denied knowing the man three times.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll need to take that up with Father McKenzie. Did you show him the picture?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet he denied?”

  “Thrice.”

  “I don’t know why.”

  “From the top, Cynthia. Everything you remember.”

  “I don’t understand what this—he, has to do with Mr. Lambert’s death.”

  “That is precisely what we are trying to find out.”

  She explained that there was no day one, or if there was she certainly didn’t remember it. I thought of interrupting her over the nonsense of that statement and pushing her to recall the first time she saw Hoover/Paretsky, but refrained.

  Mr. Hoover, according to Cynthia, strayed into the cardinal’s life when he returned to Granville Estate. “He would come by to celebrate Mass,” she concluded, “but mostly he attended dinners and events that were reserved for our big donors. He was well-heeled and gave generously to the cardinal’s causes. His gifts were—”

  “Did they have a personal relationship outside the church?”

  “Your question,” she tilted her head, “if you don’t mind me saying, exposes your ignorance. For people like Giovanni Antinori, there was nothing outside the church. The church, you see, is not a location, it is their life.”

  “What did Cardinal Antinori say about Mr. Hoover?”

  She hesitated. “Very little, only that Mr. Hoover was generous with his money.” She shifted her weight and placed her arms on her lap. “His gifts, as I was trying to say, were always unrestricted. Believe me, those are the most desirable kind. Everyone wants to give food to the poor, but precious few wish to donate funds to buy the gas and insurance that the van needs to deliver the meals, let alone a token of appreciation for the driver. His gifts carried no strings. He became increasingly prominent at the dinners. Furthermore, Mr. Hoover came to confession, although only when Gio—the cardinal—was hearing.”

  “How did he know that the cardinal was hearing confessions that day?” I recalled reading that Antinori still heard confessions.

  “That’s a very good question. They must have shared private words.”

  “Did Mr. Hoover confess to anyone else?”

  She hesitated. “No…well, it’s not something I would know.”

  “Mrs. Richardson?”

  She tilted her head in a playful manner. “Mr. Travis?”

  “Did Mr. Hoover confess to anyone else?”

  I was eager to place Antinori and Paretsky in a private setting where Paretsky might spill the beans: confess that he was a paid assassin, plead for forgiveness, and then for some God-unforeseen reason hatch the plan where I snuff out the cardinal. That scenario didn’t provide a reason for Antinori wanting to die, but at least it gave structure to the events.

  Cynthia glanced down at the table. She wasn’t one to break eye contact, and I gave her time. She didn’t need much. Her eyes found mine.

  “No.”

  I felt like I’d scored a meaningless goal. “What else did the cardinal divulge about Mr. Hoover?”

  “There was one time—you have to understand that Giovanni was an especially closed man—nonetheless, we found ourselves in the garden, and he mentioned that he was…troubled by Mr. Hoover and things that he, that is Mr. Hoover, said to him. Giovanni thought Mr. Hoover had a dark soul but seemed…” She gazed down at the table. “I often wonder,” Cynthia said to the table, “if Giovanni and…” She rubbed her hand over her right temple.

  “What?”

  “Pardon?” Her eyes flicked up to mine.

  “What do you often wonder?”

  “Terribly sorry. I was drifting there.”

  “More like blowing out to sea. Most candy men don’t possess a ‘dark soul.’”

  “He displayed nothing other than exemplary manners and courtesies when around Giovanni and me.”

  As the night progressed, she had dropped the titled name and become more comfortable with Giovanni the man versus Antinori the cardinal. Did she push away her drink out of habit, or was her abstinence limited to this conversation, fearful of what she might spill under the influence?

  “Is there any way of contacting Mr. Hoover?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of. His contact information was a box number, his money wired from an offshore bank. Unrestricted gifts, Mr. Travis, unrestricted. You just can’t imagine the good that does.”

  “The carnival,” I said gently, having previously been accused of ambushing her, “in which Elizabeth Lambert and Cardinal Antinori had words?”

  She seemed to consider whether to proceed. I didn’t know what had happened to her, but she was like a windup doll that was down to the last few clicks. “Yes.”

  “Was that about the time that his beliefs took a seismic shift?”

  “Pardon me?” She considered me as if I was a new and potentially dangerous acquaintance.

  “Around that time,” I said, as I recalled Morgan’s insistence on how difficult it would have been for Antinori to change beliefs midcareer, “approximately two years ago, Giovanni Antinori renounced—”

  “I think that’s a little har—”

  “Don’t quibble. We both know it’s correct. He renounced much of the dogma he was raised under and charted new waters. Do you think, Cynthia,” I leaned in, “that Mr. Hoover’s reappearance in his life or the cardinal’s encounter with Elizabeth Lambert had any bearing on the cardinal’s compass suddenly losing true north and spinning wildly as the man struggled, perhaps for the first time in his life, to understand his religion and, therefore, his life?” The words didn’t sound like me, but I thought Morgan would be proud.

  I sat back. Cynthia’s jaw dropped, but nothing came out. She closed it. She straightened her back and sat erect.

  “Are you with the church?” she demanded.

  “No. I told you—”

  “Yes.” Her voice was curt. “I know what you told me. But your knowledge of the cardinal’s progressive theological awakening is hardly congruous with a private investigation of Donald Lambert’s death.”

  I gave a slight shrug. Progressive theological awakening. I had no idea that I was even capable of discussing such a thing.

  “I will only ask once, Mr. Travis,” Cynthia said with an air of authority that was ill-fitted for her, “and, I remind you, I have been extremely forthright and cooperative with you.” She paused as if to preface her final act. “Why are you here?”

  Crunch time. She had been cooperative; the jury was out on the forthright verdict.

  “As I indicated, I’m trying to prevent Mr. Hoover from killing Renée Lambert. That is why I came. There’s a good chance that I have already failed.”

  “I see.” She took a sip of tea as if I’d just proclaimed a slight chance of evening thunderstorm. British to the bone. She said to her cup, “Would Mr. Hoover do that type of thing? Kill another person, one he knows?”

  “Yes. Does that surprise you?”

  “I…oh, my, I don’t know. Tell me what you think.”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  Cynthia nodded deliberately, as if I’d confirmed what she previously suspected. She lobbed a few questions about my quest, focusing more on Antinori than the Lamberts, but I fended them with deniability and lies. She professed no other knowledge of Mr. Hoover or his entanglement with the cardinal. “He was,” she said, referring to the cardinal, “at the core, as I said, a very private, introverted man. Especially so in the last two years.” She inquired if McKenzie knew of my true motive. I said that, although I felt he harbored suspicions, I never confirmed anything other than that I was there to track down D
onald Lambert’s killer.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Was his progressive theological awakening related, in your opinion, to the reappearance of Elizabeth Lambert in his life?”

  She buttoned two buttons on her sweater as the cooler night air permeated the pub. “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s no need to make things harder than they are. I do believe that his seismic ideological shift, I’m paraphrasing your words, was related in some manner to Elizabeth Lambert’s reappearance in his life. Elizabeth, in my mind, was the catalyst. I know it’s all conjecture, but conjectures aren’t necessarily false.”

  “You seem certain.”

  “Giovanni Antinori was a man without ripples, Mr. Travis. Elizabeth Lambert was a storm on the sea of his life. I believe that, for Giovanni, the waters never settled again.”

  “Do you know why he was killed?”

  “Certainly not. Why would I know such a thing?”

  “But you have a theory?”

  “I assure you, I haven’t a clue, let alone a theory.”

  “You’re holding back.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “I think you are.”

  “I think you’re impertinent.”

  I thought of Donald Lambert lying to me. I hadn’t pressed hard enough. I leaned in across the table. “Talk to me, Cynthia Richardson. Tell me what you’re afraid to say about Mr. Hoover and Giovanni Antinori.”

  She squirmed in her seat. “Now you’re just being rude. I assure you, I am done. I am finished here.” She shook her head, and her lips quivered as she fought her emotions.

  “You know. Tell—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” It came out vehemently and as a single word. She cast me an angry look. She summoned her composure, but it took a great effort. “I have told you everything.”

  I reached for my wallet, tired of the whole damn day.

  “Why could it possibly matter?” She shrugged her shoulders as if trying to regain her composure or, more important, questioning her decision to terminate the conversation. “Like Peter’s denial. It all just happened, and then,” she flicked her right hand, “it is finished.”

  Her eyes pleaded with mine. There had to be some words that I could spin out that would open her up, but that part of me never was worth shit.

  “He was so sullen,” she continued, “the last six months or so, like a cloud had settled on his spirit and suffocated all his joy. He was always a man of extreme highs punctuated with unpredictable lows—he fought that battle his whole life—and toward the end his low moments took the field and never yielded. Why could it possibly matter now?”

  How about because he used me to end his sorry-ass existence?

  We stood and said our good nights. She was holding back, but I didn’t see how further questioning would land me closer to Paretsky or Renée. I’d taken her to near tears, and she’d slammed the door.

  “The cardinal,” she added as an afterthought as her eyes scanned the pub, no doubt searching for Lizzy, “was planning a visit to the States. Your neck of the woods. Florida, I believe. He was so looking forward to it.”

  “Why was he going to Florida?” I had another question queued up, but it escaped me.

  “I don’t know.”

  I extended my hand. We shook. “Yes, you do.”

  She smiled weakly. “Thank you for dinner.”

  I strolled out the front door, leaving her chatting with Lizzy. I was about to merge with the sidewalk traffic when she called from behind.

  “Mr. Travis.”

  Cynthia stood under the doorframe, no more than an arm’s length away from me.

  “Yes?”

  “Let me know if you find out who murdered Giovanni. I’m not much for heaven and hell, but there must be a hell for such a man. A conscious inferno.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  I turned, as did she. Then I spun back to her as I remembered what I’d wanted to ask earlier. “Cynthia?”

  “Yes.” She halted and looked at me. A man with a red attaché case brushed between us without muttering an apology. I took a step toward her to close the gap.

  “What caused the cardinal to be ‘sullen’ about six months ago?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That was when Elizabeth Lambert committed suicide.”

  She looked at me blankly, her eyes as guarded as they’d been all evening. “Good night, Mr. Travis. I wish you a safe trip, wherever you’re headed.”

  She blended into the crowd. I allowed myself to be swallowed up by a mass of people on Bond Street who didn’t know me and didn’t care. It was the perfect place for me.

  I slogged through the dark London streets. I couldn’t do the hotel room. Not yet. The relationship that Cynthia enjoyed with her daughter struck me as the stuff of dreams, but what do I know about mother-daughter relationships? About anything? Cynthia was holding back, but whether her unplayed cards would help me, I couldn’t be certain. If I thought my pensive demeanor would bring forth answers and unveil hidden truths, I was grossly mistaken.

  I kept their comments at bay as long as I could, but the game was over. Like a doctor waiting to deliver bad news, after the chitchat you just want to get it over with. Father Tommy McKenzie: Mad little men whose cowardly deeds destroy greatness. Now Cynthia. White-sweater Cynthia with a bow in her hair and a solo strand on her neck: There must be a hell for such a man. A conscious inferno.

  A conscious inferno. Not bad—I liked the ring of that.

  I tired of my thoughts, and I was damn certain my thoughts were tired of me. I stumbled back to the hotel bar, where a jazz combo occupied a corner. The bartender set me up with Black Barrel straight. I assured him after the third—or maybe the fifth—that I was staying on the premises. The piano player mesmerized me as his hands electrified the keys. At one point he played only with his right hand, and I would swear that in no way could five fingers do what his five fingers did. I wondered why, amid the smorgasbord of life, he had felt possessed to master that skill and marveled at what a finer thing he did than I. I hoped his future didn’t include arthritis.

  I should have called PC, Morgan, and Garrett—see if I’d missed anything. I knew that if I had, they would have called. Piss on it. Piss on it all. When that cloud comes over me, it rents me. I went up to my room. It had a minibar. What a mad world.

  He came that night. We were at the statue of Peter Pan, and the world was black and white, and I knew that wasn’t right. I told him I’d discovered that his sugar daddy was a ruthless killer. “Mr. Hoover?” he said. “We do go back a bit.” He spoke with an Irish brogue. I wondered if his accent had anything to do with the black-and-white world and thought I might be dreaming. Of course you are, you idiot. Now milk this guy for everything he’s got.

  “I apologize if my death has caused difficulties between Kathleen and you.”

  Difficulties. I thought it a strange word to drop into a dream. Proper. Formal. Not dreamlike at all.

  “It is a strange word for a dream,” he replied.

  “You knew I was coming for you,” I insisted. “You weren’t surprised. I did what you wanted me to do. I was your Judas. I have no guilt.”

  “Did I say you should?”

  “Why were you there?”

  “I need to ask you something, Jake.” How did he know my name? How’d he know Kathleen’s?

  He got into the paddleboat with the giant swan head that was beached by the pond behind the statue. The other side of the pond was bathed in color, as if Renoir’s palette had been splattered across the far shore in preparation for the boating party’s lunch. He was younger than he’d been the night I’d killed him. I wondered if I too was younger. I thought of looking for a mirror—have you ever seen a mirror in a dream? I walked over to the boat. He smoothed his robe with his hands.

  “What?” I demanded in response to his statement.

  “Have yo
u forgiven me my sin?” As he spoke, he gazed across the flat water toward the vivid colors of the promised shore.

  “If your sin is that you used me to kill you—forget it. I couldn’t care less.” It came out like a bad line in a bad movie, the kind they used to only show after midnight. I knew that I was trying to convince myself, but if we can’t do that in a dream, then why dream?

  Giovanni Antinori glanced up from his boat. “Forgive me my sin.” He started pumping his legs, his robe rising and falling with the motion, his vestments dragging in the water beside him. Like the hairs of a paintbrush, they left streams of brilliant color in their wake.

  Peter Pan said, “She’s here.”

  I turned. The lady jogger with the tube socks and nice legs stood staring at me.

  “I saw you looking at my legs.” Her voice was a monotone, as if she too were dead. “I know you. I know you. I kno—”

  I bolted up in my bed, my breathing labored. A siren wailed on the street below. I picked up the bottle of water on my nightstand and went to the window. I pulled back the draperies. I searched for a latch, but the window didn’t open. I peered down upon the dark streets. The drone of traffic was barely diminished from hours ago. Great cities are the engine room of humanity. I drank the bottle. I took a seat on the cloth chair. I must have fallen asleep, for I was startled awake by the tinkling of a bell from the street below. The sun, for some unfathomable reason, had come back around, if not for me, to at least shine on little girls with white bunnies.

  CHAPTER 26

  Running is my salvation.

  For forty-five minutes, as the ball of fire climbed upward in the clear, summer sky, I atoned for last night’s morose. I consumed an English farm for breakfast and stopped by Harrods on the way to Gatwick.

  I settled in an empty corner by my gate and worked the phone. Rondo said the message board was down yesterday, and he would check it again. He was on a tee box. Good for him. Beats dumping beer out a second-floor window.

  Nothing new from PC. Garrett and I discussed Paretsky’s alias. We concluded that he likely had a dozen names. Nonetheless, he would contact the colonel and see if “Mr. Hoover” carried any significance. We assumed the colonel would ask the church for financial records of Mr. Hoover’s gifts, and that road would be a dead end. Paretsky was certainly capable of hiding a money trail. I called Binelli and left her a voice message regarding the Hoover alias and recapped the pertinent points of my conversation with Cynthia. She rang back within ten minutes.