“Perhaps I do understand, Margaret. I’m trying to understand.”
“Thank you, Archbishop, that’s all I ask.”
Cullen hesitated for a moment, then said, “Bryn told me that Ella Landers and your nephew stayed with you last night. If Mark is still there, may I speak with him?”
Margaret again put her hand over the speaker. “Mark, the archbishop wants to speak with you.”
Mark shook his head emphatically.
“Please, Mark. Please speak with him.”
Margaret held the phone in his direction. Mark realized he was nervous. Conscious that his hand was shaking, he reached across the table to take the phone from his aunt. “Hello,” he said cautiously.
“Mark, this is Archbishop Cullen. I wish I could say this to you in person and not over the phone, but I am very sorry. You were terribly wronged by Archbishop Gunnison. If you will let me, I’d like to come to visit you and tell you again in person how very sorry I am.”
Mark’s eyes blinked rapidly then closed as if he were in pain. Margaret sat, silently praying he wouldn’t explode.
“I…I’ve been waiting for twenty-five years—for a freaking quarter of a century—to hear what you just said. I shouldn’t have had to wait that long. I hope you understand that.”
“I know,” the archbishop said, “I know. I apologize that you had to wait all this time for an apology.”
Mark abruptly dropped the phone, rose from the table, and went into the living room. Margaret and Ella heard this veteran of Iraq, this hardened army sniper trained to kill, sobbing.
Ella picked up the phone as Margaret went to sit with her nephew, and to weep with him.
“Archbishop?” Ella asked. “This is Ella Landers. Margaret and I were both present when you spoke with Mark. Thank you for whatever it was you just said. He couldn’t continue the conversation. I think you understand.”
“Yes, I think I do,” Cullen said. “Please tell Margaret and Mark I’m praying for them both and, when the time is right, I want to visit them.”
“Of course,” Ella answered. “And when the time is right, perhaps a week or two after the funeral, I’d like to have you and Bishop Martin and Margaret down for dinner again.”
“I would like that very much. I really would like that. Goodbye, now.”
When Bryn Martin got back to his office, he found a phone message from Duane Moore.
“Duane? It’s Bryn Martin. Just got your message.”
“Bishop, George Havel and I have been asking a few questions of the staff at the Sheraton. We’ve come up with a few things you should know. Like soon.”
“Can you come in this afternoon?” Martin proposed. “Around two?”
“We’ll be there.”
“Bishop,” Moore began, “George and I feel that we kind of let you down. So, we decided to ask a few questions of the staff at the Sheraton. Once I mentioned ‘FBI,’ we got all kinds of cooperation. One of the registration clerks, a Patricia Crawford, was on duty the night of Archbishop Gunnison’s dinner. She remembers a priest dropping off an envelope at the registration desk for a Father Peters. The priest said Father Peters would be picking it up soon. Sure enough, less than five minutes later, a man approached Crawford identifying himself as Father Peters. She gave him the envelope.”
“Crawford’s description of this Father Peters,” Havel said, “matches our profile of the man sitting in the back of the Basilica for Archbishop Gunnison’s Mass. Duane and I think it’s the same man.”
“So do I,” Martin said. “There’s been a development.” Moore and Havel exchanged a glance, then looked to Martin, waiting for him to go on.
“Yesterday around five, a ‘Monsignor Giancarlo Foscari,’ a self-identified Vatican investigator—a man who matches our friend in the last pew of the Basilica—came to Margaret Comiskey’s home. His credentials looked authentic. She let him in.
“Margaret is certain,” Martin continued, “that he was about to kill her when his cell phone rang. After listening to the caller, the guy turned and ran out.”
“She’s a lucky woman,” Moore said.
“Very lucky,” Martin added. “I checked with the Holy See’s Secretariat of State. There is no record of anyone connected with the Vatican by the name of Giancarlo Foscari. Nor did the nuncio’s office in D.C. have any information on him.” Havel and Moore sat processing what they had just heard. “That’s all we have right now.”
“We have a little more from Crawford, the hotel clerk,” Havel said returning to their interview with the hotel staff. She told us that ‘Father Peters’ went almost immediately to the bank of elevators. What if Kempe,” Havel paused. “What if Kempe left a key card to Archbishop Gunnison’s suite for this Father Peters? Gunnison was alone in the presidential suite for at least twenty minutes, maybe thirty. What if this guy went up to the archbishop’s suite, flashed his Vatican ID, and the archbishop let him in?” “I’m afraid you might have an assassin on your hands, Bishop,” Moore said, looking to Havel for support.
“Any idea who he’s working for?” Havel asked.
“Maybe,” Martin said, regretting immediately his evasive answer and what it revealed.
An awkward silence followed. Duane Moore and George Havel, life-long faithful Catholics, stood at the very edge of the curtain separating the church’s clergy from the laity. Both men felt their friend, Bishop Bryn Martin, had just put them in their place.
That very morning, Giorgio Grotti, using an Italian passport bearing his given name, boarded a Continental Airlines flight at the Baltimore Washington International Airport for Houston, where a connecting flight would take him to Bogotá, Colombia. Since arrangements had been made for Archbishop Gunnison’s indefinite retreat, M thought it prudent to have his driver and personal aide spend three or four quiet weeks in the seclusion of a convent nestled in the foothills overlooking Colombia’s capital. The clear air and the prayerful quiet of the sisters’ convent life would surely cleanse his soul and help him to see that he had acted in the best interests of the church.
42
Three weeks later
For Archbishop Charles Cullen, Silver Spring, Maryland, seemed like another country. He eased his overweight frame into the chair to the right of Ella Landers. His auxiliary bishop sat to Ella’s left, and to his left sat Bryn’s sister, Nora. Ian sat across from Nora. Margaret Comiskey, uneasy in the presence of the archbishop, sat at the opposite end of the table from Ella. Mark Anderlee, had sent his regrets. It was just like his mother, Ian thought, to host a dinner party including the archbishop of Baltimore and Margaret Comiskey, nudging along their silent reconciliation at a table of communion.
“Would you lead us in grace, Archbishop?” Ella asked.
Cullen closed his eyes. “Loving and merciful God, we are still stunned by recent events. We sit in confusion and grief, yet in hope.” He paused. “We pray for all the victims of abuse, by priests and others, including Margaret’s nephew, Mark. We also lift up to you our brother Wilfred. Bless him with your unfailing mercy and goodness. Bless the church of Baltimore, in need of your healing spirit. And bless this meal. Bless Ella, our host and friend, who has invited us to her table.”
Cullen paused again. “We thank you, Lord, for delivering Margaret from harm’s way. Keep her safe in your love.”
Ella felt a lump rise in her throat at the archbishop’s gracious and generous words for her friend.
“And may we see in the food and drink before us a sign of your abiding presence and love. We ask this blessing in the name of Jesus, the Christ. Amen.”
There was a momentary pause as Ella’s guests caught one another’s eyes, now bonded by the shocking death of Archbishop Gunnison and Margaret’s encounter with the mysterious Vatican “investigator.”
“Archbishop,” Margaret said after mustering her courage. “I want to anticipate a question you and others might have.”
The archbishop looked at her with intent but kindly eyes.
“You
may be wondering how I came into possession of Monsignor Kempe’s private files.” Margaret looked for a brief instant at each of the dinner guests—all except Ella. “I’m afraid I simply can’t say.”
Ian took a sip of water. Mother, he said silently.
“It would be wrong of me to explain how I obtained the copies. I’m sorry, but I just can’t answer that question. I hope you understand.”
All but the archbishop glanced furtively at Ella Landers. Ian turned his gaze to Nora, who returned his look with a conspiratorial wink. Ella Landers, retired diplomat and former CIA operative, smiled at Margaret. Their eyes were soft now with the watery glaze of mature friendship. Ian saw the archbishop tilt his large head a degree to the right, in what looked like a silent salute to Margaret’s resolve to keep her secret.
The pregnant pause was somehow peaceful, binding the six table companions in a conspiracy of silence. Ian shook his head. Never, he had learned long ago, underestimate your mother. He saw Charles Cullen, last to join the loop, look to the poised and confident woman seated to his left, his mother, with undisguised regard and admiration. So, Cullen seemed to be thinking, what I heard was true. Ella Landers, Foreign Service veteran, was also a CIA operative.
During the drive back to Baltimore, Cullen turned and looked at Bryn, his profile changing from shadow to light as the headlights of the cars heading south on the Washington Parkway washed across his face.
“I’d like to know,” Cullen said, “if what I suspect is true.”
Bryn smiled. “Me too.” He didn’t have to ask what the archbishop’s suspicion was. “Maybe it’s better we don’t know for sure.”
“You’re probably right,” Cullen agreed, looking now straight into the darkness. They were quiet for a while.
Bryn broke the silence. “The first time I had dinner at Ella’s, Ian told us about the Combier papers he and Nora had discovered in the archives of the Carmelite monastery—and about the medieval Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple. Now, we know, by way of Aidan Kempe’s papers, of a Brotherhood right here in our archdiocese. What do you think we should do about it?”
Cullen thought for a few moments. “I’m not really sure, Bryn. But I think we should consider informing the nuncio of the Brotherhood in a confidential memo.”
“After that,” Bryn said, “I’d just let it go. You can’t prove there is a Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple active here. Aidan would simply say it’s a monthly gathering of priests for prayer and fraternal support. As for the monthly contributions the pastors made…well, we still have the remnants of a feudal system. I mean our pastors still have considerable discretion when it comes to matters of money. I don’t know if I would go there.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes.
“This M, their Vatican superior or protector,” Martin said, “has probably shut the Baltimore Brotherhood down.”
“If he hasn’t shut it down,” Cullen added, “they’re going to be so deeply underground that we’d never hear about them.”
“As to their promoting reactionary candidates for the episcopacy…well, I don’t think you should go there, either,” Martin said, remembering Cullen’s efforts to have him catch the eye of the nuncio at Wilfred’s jubilee dinner.
Martin took Cullen’s silence as agreement.
They passed the exit to Andover. Martin knew he would have the archbishop at his door in less than half an hour. Maybe it was the wine at dinner, but he could see now that Charles had a right to know the theory Havel and Moore had raised. If he was going to tell him tonight he would have to tell him now. Bryn took a deep breath.
“There is something I need to tell you, Charles.”
Cullen waited for Bryn to go on.
“It’s possible that Wilfred’s death was not a suicide.”
Cullen turned to his left, searching Bryn’s face, the seat belt pressing uncomfortably across his chest and stomach. “What are you saying?”
“There was a man dressed in black sitting in the back of the Basilica during the Jubilee Mass. He had a scarf around his neck so we couldn’t see if he was wearing a collar. But at first glance I took him for a priest. Both Duane Moore and George Havel kept an eye on him, even though Moore was sure he wasn’t the man with the laser.”
“I never noticed him,” Cullen said.
“Right after Margaret named Wilfred as an abuser and made her exit from the side door, this guy got up and ran out the front door of the Basilica. Moore followed him out. Whoever he is, Moore saw him watching intently as Margaret got into Mark’s SUV. He didn’t take his eyes off her until she was out of sight.”
“I take it Moore and Havel think he was the Vatican investigator that went to Margaret’s house.”
“I do, too,” Bryn said. “But I don’t want to get ahead of myself.” He sensed Charles’ breathing change as the archbishop took this information in.
“Mother of God.” Cullen whispered.
“A day or two after the dinner,” Martin continued, “Moore and Havel went to the Sheraton and asked a few questions of the staff. One of the clerks on duty in the lobby the night of the dinner remembers a priest—we’re sure it was Kempe—leaving an envelope to be picked up by a ‘Father Peters.’ Her description of Father Peters fits our dark stranger in the back of the Basilica.”
“Let me get this straight,” Cullen broke in. “Are you saying that it was Aidan who left the envelope at the registration desk for this Father Peters? And this Father Peters fits the description of your dark stranger? Martin didn’t have to answer. He simply nodded as they approached the Baltimore Beltway.
“I was uneasy when Wilfred insisted on being alone before the dinner,” Cullen confessed, reproaching himself for not insisting someone stay with the shaken jubilarian.
“It’s possible, Charles, that this Father Peters had a keycard to Wilfred’s suite. Wilfred was alone for almost half an hour…”
“God Almighty, Bryn, are you suggesting Wilfred was murdered?” Cullen sat stunned. “Why,” he whispered, “would anyone want to murder Wilfred? Harm him? Embarrass him? Expose him? Okay. But murder him?”
Cullen ignored the seat belt pressing uncomfortably across his ample hips and tried to calculate the possibility of this bizarre scenario. His mind racing, he tried to slow his breathing, feeling a line of moisture build on his upper lip.
Breaking the silence, he turned to Martin. “Who is aware of this possibility?”
Martin stole a glimpse at his reeling archbishop. “Just Moore and Havel, you and me. And, of course, if there is anything to this, Aidan Kempe.” Martin didn’t tell Cullen of his decision to let Margaret know that Wilfred Gunnison may not have committed suicide.
Cullen just shook his head. Lord have mercy on us.
Bryn Martin turned left into the driveway of the archbishop’s residence and pulled up to the side entrance. The dashboard clock read 11:55. Cullen opened the right side door of the car and slowly, awkwardly, climbed out.
Bryn couldn’t smother the memory of another archbishop being delivered to the same side entrance at about the same time of night.
“Thanks for driving, Bryn. Call me when you get in to the Catholic Center tomorrow. I need to sort this out. It would help to have you listen to my thinking about it all.”
Martin said simply, “Sure. Good night, Charles.”
“Good night.” Cullen was too disturbed to smile. “I’m afraid I’m in for a restless night.”
Before backing out of the driveway, Bryn watched the archbishop enter the side door of his residence. He took a few deep breaths and rested his head against the head guard of his seat. Years ago, as another archbishop’s master of ceremonies, his life had taken a turn in this driveway.
The lights blinked on inside the archbishop’s house.
Peter Bryn Martin, auxiliary bishop of Baltimore, put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway, telling himself, at least for the second time in his life, that he wasn’t sad at all.
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Donald B. Cozzens, Master of Ceremonies
Master of Ceremonies Page 25