The Cardinal's Sin

by Robert Lane

  “Did Antinori display any recognition of that name?”

  “Claimed to have never heard it, but I thought he was lying. I figured he was covering for himself at that point.”

  “And Cynthia? Did you see her at the carnival that day?”

  “No. That was disappointing. I assumed she’d be there, and I did look, but I never found her. It was all very fast after that. The cardinal’s words frightened me, alarmed me. I realized that I’d gotten myself into a situation that I needed to extract myself from. Alex had a friend, called him his guardian. His real name was Paulo Guadarrama. Paulo was Alex’s bodyguard slash partner. He often referred to Alex as the Pope, like a kind of nickname. I think he, Paulo, killed my father, but the police aren’t telling me much. Did you happen to meet him?”

  “Briefly.” I wasn’t into self-incrimination and wanted to move on to a central question. “I’m curious, though, like everyone. Do you know why Cardinal Antinori was in Kensington Gardens and how it was arranged?”

  “I do.”

  “You do?” I was amazed the wind didn’t die and the sea pause its relentless assault upon the shore.

  “A few weeks after the carnival, Alex left his computer on one day when he went downstairs to get coffee. His apartment had two floors. His calendar was up, and ‘Kensington Gardens, Giovanni, sunrise’ was entered on a date. I asked him what that was about.”

  “He wasn’t mad at you?”

  “Kidding, right? Fucking furious. But what could he do? I was walking by and saw it. He told me to forget about it.

  “The next day he took me to brunch. Told me that something might happen in Kensington Gardens, but it would not be what it seemed. He said that Cardinal Antinori wanted a favor. Alex asked me if I thought we should be able to choose how we die. I didn’t like the talk. I remember looking at my spinach quiche and thinking, ‘Why can’t I just enjoy it?’”

  “A favor?”

  “His words. I believe I countered with, ‘What kind of favor?’ He took some time with that. Then he told me.” She looked intently at me, her eyes steady, her voice flat. “He told me that someone was going to kill the cardinal on that date, but he thought he would be killing him, Alex. The cardinal had told Alex he wanted to die, but he couldn’t take his own life. And so they would, you know, switch out. Said it was an elaborate plan that had been set up months before. That he, Alex, had been dressing as the cardinal, knowing that some people who wanted him dead were tracking him—at that point I was afraid for my own life.

  “He’d told Antinori that he had an inside source, and on a specific morning, someone would be there waiting to kill him—Alex—and Antinori could be there instead.” She took a breath and pulled her hair over her shoulder again, although it wasn’t necessary. “Alex told me, yapping over quiche, that he and Antinori had grown close, that Antinori was trying to convert him, forgive his sins, stuff like that, but instead Alex was going to grant the cardinal’s wish and arrange for his death. He thought there was great irony in that. I was…shaking, petrified.”

  I tried to hold her eyes, but I couldn’t. I took a drink of beer. I always knew. I’d known it since that morning when his eye cut through the fading dark. I knew it when the colonel stared me down on my dock. Here was something I didn’t know: someone using me irritated me more than the actual act. That wasn’t right, and now that disturbed me.

  “He lectured me that I could tell no one. But, as he’s telling me this? I’m thinking, to hell with the quiche. I’ve got to get myself away from this man. He spoke of these things in the same manner, the same inflection, that he spoke about Sunday mornings in June. Alex and Paulo were taking off the next day to Key West. The plan was for me to join them after I attended the FTA conference and saw my father. He said he’d bring the boat up to Saint Pete. I told him not on my account.”

  “Southern Breeze.”

  “Yes. The following day, while Alex was out, I packed. I noticed a flash drive that he had left out. That never happened. He was meticulous about things like that. I picked it up, on a whim—just like that,” she flicked her right hand into the air, “and I bolted out the door. I had on my new Secret Circus jeans. They are so tight, I thought for sure he’d see it.

  “I flew to Tampa. Paulo was hot on my trail, but they had no proof that I had taken the flash drive. The cleaning service and the plumber were in that day. I was fortunate that there was so much activity. I’m alive today because of a leaking spray nozzle in the kitchen sink and Alex’s obsession with cleanliness—and with me. Paulo tracked me down at the Valencia—middle of the reception on the upstairs veranda—accused me of taking the drive, and escorted me to the boat, but I maintained an indignant innocence.”

  “You scribbled a note in the ladies’ room that night and handed it to Tracy Leary.”

  Renée’s eyes widened. “My God, did I put her in danger? Is she—”

  “She’s fine. We talked to people you came in contact with. That’s all. She passed us the note.”

  “I was worried, confused. If something happened to me, I wanted to leave a clue. But then I thought I might put her in danger, so I handed her that note that I’m afraid made little, if any, sense. I wanted to explain to her, but we were interrupted.”

  “You took the flash drive to your father the next day.”

  Her eyes flashed anger. “Thank you.”

  “I’m so—”

  “Don’t.”

  “Did you know where he hid it?” I eyed the last fish taco. Bet it was cold by now. A fly tried to move in on it, and I waved it away.

  “He didn’t want me to know. I take it you found it, or we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

  “The bait bucket.”

  Renée smiled and drifted away for a few seconds. I wondered if she’d fished with her father at the end of the dock. Donald Lambert had said he used to have a second chair at the end of his dock, but that he didn’t use it much anymore. “You do know, if you’d never taken it to your father, they would have gone after him anyway.”

  “You’re just saying that.” She blinked back tears.

  “I’m not.”

  I gave her a moment and then went back in. “Your father said he couldn’t get in contact with you.” I’d decided that Donald Lambert, not knowing my intentions, had kept me off her trail until he could hold me in more trust—a day that never came.

  “The part where I bolted out the door with the flash drive? I left my phone by my bed. I realized it halfway to the airport, but my heart was pounding out of my chest. I just got a new phone.”

  “You called him from another phone?”

  “Showed up in a cab one night.”

  Slammin’ Tammy Callahan.

  I said, “The night Paulo escorted you on board Southern Breeze—they let you walk?”

  “I know, right? I think they bought my story. It also occurred to me that maybe the whole ‘arrange a murder’ deal was off, but I was too afraid to bring it up. Plus, they never had me alone. There was another woman—”

  “Paige Godfrey.”

  “Whoever.” She wrinkled her face and flipped up both hands. “Alex said he was lonely, and he picked her up and would dump her in a second. I told him he didn’t get it; it was over between us. On the way out, I tried to save her. I told her that Alex was an assassin. Was arranging for a cardinal to die, to be murdered. But Bimbo didn’t follow me. Probably thinks I’m a wacko.”

  “Her exact word.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “She called you a wacko.”

  She nodded. “Tell her I give a fuck.” That was twice. She must be fond of the f expletive. Renée Lambert would turn heads in a graveyard, but if she and I went on a dinner date, it would be one and out. It’s like that sometimes.

  Another gnat avoided my backhand. “Listen, you going to eat that last taco?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The last taco?”

  She spread her hands, gave me an incredulous look, and leaned away from me.
“By all means.”

  I reached over and took a bite.

  “He wanted to die,” I said after I swallowed unchewed, cold fish taco. “Why? Because he sexually abused your mother when she came to him for counseling years ago?”

  “No. Why would you think that?”

  “Everyone’s saying he uttered some words to your mother when she was a young girl. That’s the story your mother sold, even to you. I don’t buy what everyone sells. I think your mother, ashamed of what occurred, altered the story. It was easier for her to explain. Less shame. Easier for her to hear, to live with.”

  “Nothing of the sort, I assure you. It was what he said, not what he did.”

  “You’re positive?”

  “Don’t challenge me.”

  “What did he tell her?” Hard to believe I was wrong.

  “That, I don’t know.”

  “You don’t—”

  “Alex said Antinori would rather die than carry the weight of his words. He had carried them too long. There were other issues. Alex thought Cardinal Antinori was bipolar, you know, people who soar high and then crash? Such people are often larger than life, but they fight dark demons. Evidently, Cardinal Antinori went down one too many times, and he couldn’t get up. Breaks my heart. He felt that all his good deeds, all his ideological shifts, meant nothing. His life, his religion, was constructed around beliefs that he had long ago jettisoned. Alex said they had long conversations and that he, the cardinal, wondered what current beliefs would be tossed out and discarded at some future date. I had a hard time giving a shit.”

  “Certainly your mother told you something. Gave you some clue.”

  “I said she shared most everything with me. Not that. She only said that he said horrible things to her. Things that no twelve-year-old should ever hear. Said she didn’t want to prejudice me against the church. Against God.”

  “How’d that work out?”

  She spit out a puff of air.

  “There is one who knows,” she added. “My mother told me she confided in her.”

  “She told me she didn’t know. That I needed to ask you.”

  “Then you need to explain to her that the game’s up, and she needs to get off her high, stuffy, proper British ass and tell you. For both of our sakes.”

  CHAPTER 40

  I remember that night because Kathleen wore a summer dress that raked the sand as we strolled the beach at sunset and kicked the remnants of waves as they thinned out over the sand. I remember that more than John Wayne coming on like a bull, his long leather coat taking flight behind him. He flew over the dunes, his Civil War cannon blazing at me. I remember that dress more than I remember thinking that Garrett would never get a good shot off; we were too close. I remember the dress more than the bullets, the pain, the blood, the sand that washed into my eyes as I lay dying on the beach where I run. A coquina shell was the last thing I saw, and Paige Godfrey’s toenails was my last thought. Kathleen’s wet dress the last thing I felt. Her hand the last thing I reached for.

  It was the second time that a cowboy came in handy.

  Renée and I parted, and I headed back to the house. Garrett and I assumed that Paulo was sent to kill Kathleen, and Paretsky likely fingered me as the one who erased his accomplice. The assumption had strength, as the disc contained my address. We also assumed that Paretsky knew we were on to him and that, at least as of yesterday, he was still in our neck of the woods. We discussed our plan. Garrett said he’d contact Wayne. Morgan had a date with Tracy Leary, who was in town visiting family. He was taking Tracy, her sister and husband, and their recently divorced neighbor on a sunset sail that would conclude with a campfire on a beach. Pretty much his favorite thing to do. He offered to cancel, but I said no.

  It was late in the afternoon when Kathleen came around to the screened porch and flitted in the room. The door bounced behind her.

  “You going to fix that?” She settled into her seat, and I poured her a glass of red wine.

  “Check the fridge; pretty sure it’s on your list.”

  “Good luck with that,” she said and studied the glass of wine. “Sophia and I met for drinks at Mangroves.” She took a sip. “I’ve probably had enough.”

  “Sad words.”

  To the southeast, in front of us, the sky had morphed to pewter, and the clouds and bay were one color, indistinguishable from each other. Sheets of rain rolled over the distant land like a freight train, but I doubted it would hit us. That track rarely runs over water. Hadley III leapt onto her lap.

  The dress.

  It was one of those full, body-hugging wraps of cotton. A female cocoon. She had never worn one like that before. It touched the rug when she sat. Low in the front, but not too low. Lower in the back. Thin straps. Layers of beads crossed her chest. That laid-back, chic hippie style like you might see on a summer night at Tanglewood or Blossom, or what a redhead Irish lassie might wear to a fall, Sunday-afternoon sidewalk art show. Cream with wide blue stripes. Big fat deal, right? Different things jingle our chains, and I’m telling you, mine was clanking like a drunken brass circus band, all the clowns blaring their horns.

  “Nice dress.”

  “It’s new. You like?”

  “I do.” Her hair was in a ponytail. It was the color of the sun in the western sky as it fought through thin, late-afternoon clouds. “Won’t it get dirty on the beach?”

  “And God invented dry cleaners.” Her toe nudged Wayne’s badge. “What’s this?”

  I leaned over and picked it up. “John Wayne’s badge.”

  “Naturally. You going to wear it?”

  She hadn’t a clue to whom I was really referring, nor could I summon the energy to explain. I thought of Wayne’s comment. Maybe if I wore it, I’d be an honest man tonight. I started to pin it on, but I didn’t feel like putting a hole in my T-shirt, so I wedged it in the pocket. It was a tight fit. “Still mad at me?”

  She took a sip of wine and ran her hand down Hadley III’s back. “Why? You have a box you’re waiting to check off?”

  “That reminds me.” I retrieved the gift-wrapped package from Harrods and took my seat.

  “Pulling out all the stops, aren’t you?”

  “Haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

  She unwrapped the box and lifted out the dress she had coveted but passed on. “Thank you.” She folded the dress, placed it back in the box, and gazed at me with a thin smile. “You remembered.”

  “I can’t forget.”

  We tested the ground a little bit more with talk of her day. When that ran its course, I filled her in on my meeting with Renée Lambert.

  “The cardinal knew you were going to be there and that you would kill him; you’ve assumed as much. But why wouldn’t he, the cardinal, say something to you? Why just—what was it he said?”

  “Forgive me my sin.” I stretched my legs out on the glass table.

  “Forgive me my sin,” Kathleen repeated. Her legs joined mine on the table, her feet sticking out from the bottom of her dress, her right big toe almost touching my calf muscle. Not quite there. Not yet. “Morgan thinks,” she continued, “that he was a man without faith. That all he had ever believed in was destroyed and he felt he was better off dead than facing the crowd and renouncing not only his beliefs but those of his flock as well.”

  “Morgan came up with that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Kathleen was not an uh-huh type girl. First the dress and now her speech. How long had we been apart?

  Hadley III fled Kathleen’s lap and pounced on top of the grill. She maneuvered her hindquarters down like she was a chicken getting ready to lay an egg.

  “Despite Renée’s adamant denial of my thesis…” I inched my leg so that we touched—there we go, everything’s back to good. “I still think Antinori abused her mother. When she circled around in his life two years ago, he was confronted with his past. She committed suicide six months ago, and he couldn’t live with that.”

  �
��Your theory is that Cardinal Antinori sexually abused twelve-year-old Elizabeth…”

  “Maiden name is Masterson.”

  “Decades later, unable to shake his demons, he voluntarily walks the plank.”

  “You’re on board now. You know what they said about Elvis’s death?”

  “I think you’re going to tell me.”

  “Great career move. If Antinori was about to get busted for something he did to Elizabeth Masterson, then his early exit off the stage was brilliant.”

  “I see. You’re a real buckaroo, did the man a favor, is that it?”

  “In no way did I imply that.”

  “What’s next, you going to tell me the church’s PR department ordered the hit?”

  “Just say it.”

  She shrugged her left shoulder. “I don’t agree.”

  “About?”

  “The whole sexual abuse line. You’re wrong.”

  I don’t handle those words well.

  She continued. “You’re limiting your explanation to your understanding of the world. Plus, the sexual abuse angle doesn’t account for the cardinal’s theological shift. It was wrong then; it’s wrong now. Morgan thinks it was a shift in his beliefs, that—”

  “Shift in beliefs? For Christ’s sake, Antinori got a stiff one and stuck it—”

  “You don’t know that. Besides, it’s always physical with you, isn’t it?”

  Here we go. “Be my guest.”

  “Pain. You always think it’s physical. That’s how we got here. You can’t imagine damage being done—person to person—that’s not physical. Words are feathers, and swords are steel; laugh at me, for I don’t feel.”

  “The heck that—”

  “My variation of ‘sticks and stones.’ Worst lie ever taught to children—that words don’t hurt.”

  I give myself a lot of credit here. Despite the wine and vehement internal disagreement over her last comment, I remained silent. There was nothing I could say that would advance my case or make me look good. I clammed up, shut down, and sat back. It was the new me; I would no longer talk, just drink.