Checkmate

by Steven James

  When my wife died two years ago, some of my friends gave me advice on how to get through it and some didn’t seem to know what to say.

  In the end, the ones who’d ended up helping me the most weren’t those who tried to give me answers, but those who just walked with me quietly through the questions without necessarily offering me any solutions.

  Today, when I met the family members of the deceased, I told them the perfunctory things we always say: that I was so sorry for what had happened, that I was here for them if they needed anything. I added that I was going to do everything in my power to bring the killer to justice.

  But I knew it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough.

  Even though I wanted to somehow comfort them, no other words of comfort came to me. But maybe silence was what they needed.

  I hoped that was the case.

  * * *

  As the service was about to begin I took my place beside Lien-hua.

  Brineesha had her arm in the crook of Ralph’s. She was a devout woman and clutched a well-worn Bible in her free hand.

  Even in her loose-fitting dress she was obviously well along in her pregnancy and, although she was petite and not nearly as tall as Ralph, by her poise she appeared to be his equal in every way. Which she was.

  None of us said anything, but the steel in Ralph’s eyes spoke volumes.

  The minister pulled out a Bible that, compared to Brin’s, looked like it had never even been cracked open. “Our scripture for today comes from 1 Corinthians 15:54 and 55.” It seemed to take him longer than it should have to flip to the right page. Finally, he read, “When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’”

  I’d heard those words at funerals before and, honestly, they seemed more like wishful thinking than anything else.

  Where is the sting of death?

  Well, right here, in the hearts of the surviving family members and friends.

  Where is the victory of the grave?

  Spread out now, all around us. The grave always wins in the end.

  Most of his homily was benign and easily forgettable. He spoke of how in times like this we’ll be tempted to question God’s goodness or his power but that we needed to hold on to our faith, to trust in the power of hope, the power of the future, rather than be overcome by thoughts of the inevitability of the grave.

  But then he said, “That is what it means to live as a believer. That is what it means to find victory in apparent defeat. These men, these women came from different backgrounds, from different faiths, but they all shared a common goal: Creating a better life for their families, for their country, for other Americans. They served us all bravely and we can learn from their example of service. They are gone but not forgotten. They will live on in our hearts and in the love that we offer to others.”

  No, I didn’t buy it.

  Clichés and worn-out half-truths.

  These people wouldn’t live on in the love we share with others—they were dead. Simple as that. Yes, for a little while they would be remembered, but soon enough they would be forgotten—the destiny that awaited us all. Soon enough their names would disappear into the sands of time and more people would fill the void they’d left behind.

  Just like taking a handful of water from the ocean. The waves roll in and roll out again. And a moment later, in the cosmic sweep of time, no one notices the water is missing.

  Sure, I understood where this pastor was coming from. He was trying not to offend anyone and just give us all a feel-good message, but I wished he would just be straight with us: The last thing people have power over is death, regardless of how many positive thoughts and common goals they may have. And if God doesn’t have power over the grave, then let’s just admit it: there’s no hope for us overcoming it either. No matter how long we might “live on” in someone’s heart.

  * * *

  Afterward, Brin, who was not one to shy away from a confrontation when it dealt with something she believed in passionately, told the minister, point-blank, “You forgot the rest of the passage.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The rest of the passage. You only read the first part.” She didn’t even need to open her Bible, but said the words from memory: “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  She waited.

  “And?” he said.

  “And it’s not the common goal for a better world that makes a difference, it’s the Lord who does. The victory doesn’t come from us showing love to each other but from God showing love to us.”

  “Yes, well,” he said at last. “I wanted to be inclusive. Now, if you’ll excuse—”

  “Really? Inclusive?”

  “That’s right. Inclusive.”

  Ralph’s eyes narrowed: Careful about that tone of voice, buddy. That’s my wife you’re talking to.

  Brin went on undeterred. “Jesus died for all, sir. What’s more inclusive than that?”

  “That’s your viewpoint.”

  “If it’s only my viewpoint and not the truth, then I am to be pitied above all people. Read the first part of the chapter. Reverend.”

  Then she took Ralph’s arm, spun, and led him away.

  As Lien-hua and I followed them to the car it struck me that the minister, though he may have had the best intentions in mind, had edited the truth by not taking into account the broader context of what was being said.

  The very thing you did when you lied to Sherry Ritterman.

  The pastor had tried to give hope without offense by softening the truth. But when you do that with the truth you only end up with a lie wearing fine clothes.

  If your goal is to offend no one, you’ll never tell the truth, at least not the whole truth.

  Remember, Pat: The truth is the one thing no one needs to be protected from.

  Yes, I needed to tell Sherry what Stu had really said. I would clear things up, not for my conscience, but because the truth, even when it hurts, heals.

  However, as we climbed into Ralph’s car, I found myself wondering who this minister was and why Brin seemed to know her Bible better than he did. Something didn’t seem quite right about it. Who had hired him? Which family knew him? It was something I decided to look into.

  We’d left the graveyard and were about five minutes from Ralph and Brin’s house when the text message came through on my phone.

  23

  Ralph was driving and I was beside him, with Lien-hua and Brin in the backseat.

  The women were talking quietly about the funeral. It sounded like Brin had moved past her issues with the sermon and she and Lien-hua were listing the people they’d seen there that they knew, discussing follow-up calls they might want to make to some of the family members who were grieving.

  Ralph had just turned onto his road when my phone vibrated.

  I tapped the screen and a text message came up from an unknown caller:

  Cur homo mortalis caput extruis at morieris en vertex talis sit modo calvus eris.

  “That’s weird,” I muttered.

  “Whatcha got?” he asked.

  “Somebody sent me a message in Latin.”

  “Who’s it from?”

  “I have no idea.”

  The most obvious answer would have been Tessa, but this was from 426-2225, which wasn’t her number.

  No area code came up.

  I tapped at my screen to put a call through to the number but no one answered. No voicemail. After letting it ring a dozen times I hung up and called Cyber to have them trace the number.

  The conversation in the
backseat faded as our wives’ attention shifted toward what was going on in the front.

  I copied the Latin text and pasted it into an online translator, but the translation it brought up didn’t make any sense: Why a mortal head up but such is only going to see the top, you will be bald.

  Ralph’s house was right up ahead and he began to slow down.

  “What did you get?” Lien-hua asked me.

  “It’s nonsense.” I read it to them.

  “You should have Tessa help you with it.”

  That was not a bad idea.

  We pulled into the driveway.

  But first things first.

  While the others filed into Ralph’s house, I went over to touch base with the agent who’d been assigned to watch the house.

  I thought it would be Agent Woods, but apparently Danner had relieved her, and as I approached the car he rolled down his window. An empty burrito wrapper lay on the floor next to him.

  I asked him how things had been. “All good. Quiet,” he told me. “I knocked on the door once, checked on them. They were watching TV.”

  “Thanks. Hopefully, we won’t have to call you back again.”

  There was a tiny pause. “Yes, sir.”

  Inside the house, Tessa and Tony were in the living room. Tessa had the remote control on her lap and the wide-screen TV that stared out across the room had been paused in the middle of Star Trek Into Darkness, one of Tony’s favorite movies. I imagined that they’d been watching it as a necessary distraction from having to think about where their parents were.

  Better to go to a funeral than to a party.

  Maybe it depends a little on how old you are.

  “Hey,” Tessa said to me.

  “Hey.”

  “Did it . . . did it go okay?”

  “Yes.”

  Brin and Lien-hua disappeared into the kitchen to round up some lunch and I said to Tessa, “I wonder if you can help me with something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  She handed off the remote to Tony, who went back to his movie. Then she followed Ralph and me to the room that had been set aside as the nursery.

  “Yes?” Tessa asked inquisitively. “What do you need?”

  “A translation. I tried plugging it into one of those online translators and what came up didn’t make sense.”

  “Yeah, well, those things are pretty much useless unless you’re just trying to find out how to ask someone where the bathroom is or how much the sombrero costs.” She held out her hand. “Let me see what you have.”

  “It’s Latin.”

  “Perf.”

  I gave her the phone and she settled into the rocking chair beside the crib. Some baby clothes sat neatly inside it. The pink hat that Brineesha had knitted for the baby lay on top of them.

  Tessa studied the phone’s screen. “Well, it starts with cur, so it’s a question—why? Homo is ‘man,’ mortalis is an obvious one—even if you don’t know Latin you should be able to translate that.”

  “Mortal, deadly?” I said.

  “Yeah. Caput is ‘head . . .’” It sounded like she was thinking aloud. “‘Why, mortal man . . .’ Extruo is ‘to build up, pile up, raise . . .’ So: ‘Why, mortal man, do you raise up your head . . . ?’”

  She paused and I wasn’t sure if she was expecting us to reply, but I didn’t interrupt, just waited for her to go on.

  “Okay, so that’s the first part, then at morieris en vertex . . . In Latin the word at means ‘but’ or ‘while’ or ‘on the other hand’—anything along those lines. Morior can mean ‘to expire’ or ‘fail’ but also ‘to die.’ And en is a command—‘look!’ ‘Behold!’ . . . So I’m thinking it’s, ‘When, behold, you will die.’”

  She scrunched up her face and studied the phone. “And then there’s vertex. It’s usually the crown or the peak or top of something, but that just doesn’t really make . . .” She mumbled a few comments about talis and calvus and eris and the random subjunctive construction of some sort. Then, finger-swiping to a Latin vocabulary website, she looked up a couple of definitions.

  “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking about the second half: ‘When, behold, you will die and the top, or crown of your head, will become as bald as this’—calvus, that’s bald—‘as this’ . . . what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it’s referring to something bald and dead, you know, like a skull, but it’s just implied. It’s not implicitly stated.”

  “So,” Ralph put the whole thing together: “‘Why, mortal man, do you raise up your head when, behold, you will die and—’”

  Tessa cut him off. “‘End up as bald as this skull.’ I mean, you can condense it some; that’s basically what it’s saying, contextualizing it into English.”

  Ralph pulled out the bulletin from the funeral, wrote her translation on it, and examined it.

  I wondered what that text might mean to the investigation.

  You will die? Is it referring to one of the people we buried today? Someone else entirely? Another victim?

  The message could easily be taken as a threat against me.

  We really needed to find out who sent that text.

  “So what’s it from?” Tessa asked. “This phrase, I mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “But it’s a case, right? It has to do with this bombing?”

  “Tessa, I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on. A mystery note in Latin about death and an awareness of the finite nature of human existence arrives right after the funeral of those killed in the explosion? And it just so happens to be sent to one of the FBI agents who actually survived the bombing? The guy whose book was left at the scene of a homicide that’s related to the case? Seriously? You don’t have to be C. Auguste Dupin to figure that one out.”

  Most people might have said you didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out, but Tessa hated Holmes, was convinced that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle plagiarized and based Holmes on Poe’s detective C. Auguste Dupin. But that was a rant for another day.

  “Tessa.” I gestured toward the door. “Give us a minute, okay?”

  “I already know what it says. Why can’t I listen in?”

  “This is official FBI business.”

  “So it is a case.”

  “Tessa, you have to . . .” I paused. She probably knew Latin as well as, if not better than, anyone in the Bureau. It made sense to use her expertise as long as she was here. Besides, she’d already worked through the translation. “So, you haven’t heard it before? You don’t recognize it from any readings you’ve done?”

  “No.” She looked deep in thought. “It sounds like something a medieval philosopher might have written.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, the grammar is all weird and loose. It’s not smooth like it would be if it were written by a Roman, by someone who really knew the language well. Besides, in all my reading I’ve never come across it. And there’s no question mark, which is a little odd.”

  “Lunch is served,” Brineesha called from the other room.

  “Alright,” Ralph said. “We grab a bite to eat and then Pat and I look into this, see what we come up with.”

  “Pat and you?” Tessa’s tone made her disappointment clear.

  “Yes. Pat and me.”

  24

  After Brineesha said grace and offered up a prayer for those who’d lost loved ones in the attack, we passed the food around. No one really seemed to have an appetite, not even Tony or Ralph.

  The meal was uneventful and we decided to wait until later for dessert.

  After we left the table, Ralph and I went to his basement for a little privacy.

  He and Brineesha had a one-room apartment down
here, where Brin’s mom had stayed with them before she died late last summer.

  Lien-hua spent some time here recovering after she was attacked by Richard Basque in April. Brin was a nurse, so rather than stay at my house, it had made sense to have Lien-hua stay where Brin could help her if necessary. Also, the basement had access from the driveway so she hadn’t had to deal with the stairs.

  Using my laptop, I looked for anything relating to the Latin phrase—even excerpts of it—but didn’t come up with anything.

  Ralph took the opposite approach and searched for Tessa’s translation online to see if it was a quote from somewhere.

  Nothing.

  It might not appear anywhere. It could have just been written by someone to taunt you.

  Yes, that was a possibility.

  I heard footsteps on the stairs. Tessa’s gait. “Can I come down?”

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Did you solve it yet?”

  “Not yet, but—”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. I might have something for you. Can I come down or do we have to do this whole talking-to-each-other-up-the-stairs thing?”

  I looked at Ralph, who shrugged. “Come on down,” I told my daughter.

  She joined us in the basement. Ralph had his weights set up in the corner of the room and she took a seat on the weight bench.

  “The language of the Church is Latin,” she said. “Maybe it’s something from one of their catechisms or the Vatican archives . . . or . . .” Her voice faded out as she got caught up in her thoughts. “With the whole skull deal maybe it’s an inscription on a sculpture or something. You might want to have your team search medieval books or writings from the Church. . . .”

  My cell rang.

  Angela’s ringtone.

  “Hold that thought.” I answered the phone. “What do you have, Angela?”

  “Nothing is coming up for the phone number that the text came from.”

  Why didn’t that surprise me. “So whoever’s behind this has found a way to send texts from numbers that aren’t his?”

  “Unfortunately, that’s not too difficult. For less than ten dollars you can download apps that’ll do it. I’ll search for mnemonics and look a little more closely to see if I can decipher the origin of the text.”