Murder at the National Cathedral

by Margaret Truman

  Smith slowly lowered the receiver into its cradle. “I think someone beat us to it.”

  6

  Minutes Later—Clouds Moving In

  Mac Smith went outside. Six Washington MPD squad cars had arrived; they’d parked in pairs outside the three main entrances to the cathedral, their uniformed officers fanning out over the cathedral close. An unmarked car had also arrived, and Smith recognized one of the men getting out of it. Chief of Homicide Terrence Finnerty was a lean-cheeked, wiry little man with a nasty cast to his face, and once-yellow hair discolored with age. He wore a cheap green raincoat, and black shoes sufficiently scuffed to make you notice them. The two other detectives who followed were bulky, heavy men. The black man carried a two-way radio, the white man a notepad. As Finnerty came up the steps leading to the south entrance, he spotted Smith and said in what could pass for a near-falsetto, “Mackensie Smith. I didn’t know you were a daily communicant.”

  “Only on special occasions,” Smith said. “The funeral of a friend of mine is taking place this morning.” It wasn’t true that Adam Vickery was a friend. Smith and Vickery had certainly known each other well enough when Vickery was attorney general and Mackensie Smith was Washington’s most respected and successful criminal attorney. But it wasn’t friendship. Smith had found Vickery to be shrewd, tough, and unpleasant. Compounding that evaluation was Smith’s conviction that Vickery was not the most honest of men, and that the conflict-of-interest charges leveled at him had sufficient substance to ensure that had they been aggressively pursued, the result could well have been a finding of actual conflict, not just the appearance of conflict that had become a popular rationale for the sleazy behavior of some public officials. Still, Mac Smith had his reasons for attending the funeral, including the adages “Once you’re dead, all bets are off” and “Everyone is entitled to be remembered for his best work.”

  Smith glanced at the squad cars and their uniformed occupants. “Heavy artillery, Terry?”

  “Got a call about a murder here. Know anything about it?”

  “Yes.”

  Smith’s abrupt answer caused Finnerty’s face to tighten. A muscle in his right cheek pulsated, and his small black eyes narrowed. “Tell me about it. Why didn’t you call?”

  “We were about to. Who called you?” Smith asked.

  “Anonymous female.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Hey, Mac, I ask, you answer. Who got it?”

  Smith motioned for Finnerty to follow him up the steps and into the cathedral. The other two detectives followed. Smith stopped and said to Finnerty, “Have them wait outside for a few minutes.” Finnerty obviously wasn’t sure whether to honor Smith’s request, but he did, holding up his hand to halt the progress of his colleagues.

  Smith led Finnerty through the transept and into the empty War Memorial Chapel. “What the hell am I about to get, confession?” Finnerty asked.

  “Not unless you need it. Look, the funeral of Adam Vickery, the former attorney general, is about to start. A priest, named Paul Singletary, has been found murdered. Somebody put something heavy to the side of his head.”

  “Singletary? The do-gooder?”

  “The same. The bishop is concerned that this place not be turned into a zoo while the funeral is going on. Can you give orders to your officers to be less conspicuous? I’ll take you to the body and to the bishop. Once the funeral is over, the place is yours.”

  “Give me a break, Mac. You’re telling me that this priest gets wasted here in the Washington Cathedral, and I’m supposed to ice it until Vickery gets planted?” His laugh was silly. “Vickery ain’t going to know what’s going on.”

  “But his family will. Look, Terry, do what you want, but if you find it necessary to play war games for the TV cameras, count me out. I’m just a parishioner grieving at a friend’s funeral. I know nothing about murder. Nice to see you again.” Smith started to walk away.

  “All right,” Finnerty said, “as long as you and I move on this now. Wouldn’t look good to sit through a funeral while a murdered priest lays around, but I’ll do my best to keep things quiet until the funeral’s over. It ever occur to you that the murderer could still be here?” Smith pointedly ignored the question, and Finnerty sensed his annoyance. “Okay, Mac, we’ll move as quiet as possible. But we have to move.”

  “Good. This is, after all, a place of worship,” Smith said, not proud of himself.

  Finnerty went back and told his detectives to brief the uniforms while they began to look around and to guard exits. He then fell in with Smith and they walked across the nave toward the north transept and Good Shepherd Chapel. They’d almost reached it when a television crew—a cameraman with a large VTR on his shoulder, a sound man wielding a microphone, and a black woman reporter, Rhonda Harrison, with whom Smith had been friendly since she arrived in Washington eight years before—came through the north entrance. Rhonda flashed Smith a large, warm smile. To Finnerty she nodded: “Detective Finnerty.” The smile was gone.

  “Hello, Rhonda, how are you?” said Smith.

  “Who was murdered?” she asked. A powerful light on top of the VTR came to life and flooded Smith, Finnerty, and Rhonda in blinding white light.

  “Turn that thing off,” Finnerty said.

  “Can’t talk this minute, Rhonda,” Smith said.

  “Come on, Mac, what’s going on?”

  “Later, Rhonda. Sorry. Come on,” he said to Finnerty.

  Two of the cathedral’s uniformed security police had just entered through the north doors. Smith stopped them. “I’m Mac Smith, and this is Detective Terry Finnerty. There’s been a problem here this morning, and I’m representing the bishop in this matter.” He turned and saw the television crew approaching. “Keep those people out of this area until you’re told otherwise.” He could see ambivalence on their faces. One of them said, “I’ll check with Captain Porter.”

  “Go ahead, but one of you keep that crew out of here.”

  As the remaining cathedral cop moved to block the TV crew, Smith led Finnerty past the armoire and into the Good Shepherd Chapel. “There he is, Terry. We were friendly. He married my wife and me a couple of months ago.”

  Finnerty glanced at Smith and smiled. “I didn’t know you got hitched.”

  “It was time,” Smith said.

  “So she said, I’ll bet.”

  Finnerty approached Singletary’s body and bent down. He screwed up his face as he leaned to within inches of the wound. “Didn’t bleed much,” he said, more to himself than to Smith.

  “I noticed that, too,” said Smith.

  “Any idea how long he’s been here?”

  “No. The body was discovered by a woman an hour or so ago.”

  Finnerty looked up from his kneeling position next to the body. “An hour ago? Jesus! What woman?”

  Smith shrugged. “She came in here, probably to pray, discovered the body, and started screaming. The bishop heard the screams and came in. He took her to his dressing room upstairs and called his wife to come over and stay with her. She’s disappeared.”

  “Who?”

  “The woman who discovered the body.”

  “Wonderful. How come?”

  “The bishop’s wife went to get some … It doesn’t matter. She’s gone.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Finnerty touched Singletary’s eyelids and lower jaw. “He’s pretty rigid. He didn’t get it this morning, more like last night. We’ll get a better fix on it at the autopsy.” He stood and stretched. “Who has access to this chapel?”

  “The world, I think. It’s open twenty-four hours a day.”

  “It is? Just this chapel, or the whole cathedral?”

  “I think just this chapel, although you can confirm that with the bishop.”

  Finnerty shook his head and looked out the open window onto the garth and its large, abstract, siliconed bronze fountain. “Where is the bishop?” he asked, his words mingling with the gurgling water from
the fountain and the faint, sweet sound of choristers rehearsing.

  “Upstairs with his wife.”

  “Let’s go, before she disappears,” Finnerty said.

  Smith led him up the narrow stone stairs to the clergy’s rooms and into the one reserved for Bishop St. James. After Smith made the introductions, Finnerty said, “Mac told me you wanted to keep this quiet for a while, Bishop. I can’t do that. I got to move my men in right now, get Forensic over here. There may be a funeral for a dead big shot, but my concern is the dead guy—sorry, Reverend—downstairs.”

  St. James nodded. “Yes, of course, I understand. I just thought—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know what you thought, but it can’t be. Smith asked us not to make a circus of it, and we’ll try. What about this woman who found the body?”

  Eileen St. James explained that the woman had disappeared.

  “You spent some time with her?”

  “Well, yes, a little.”

  “I’ll have somebody get a description from you.”

  The bishop vacated his chair behind a desk and pointed to the phone.

  Finnerty shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll coordinate this from downstairs. I’m going to need a list of everyone who was in this building last night and this morning.”

  “Last night?” Mrs. St. James said.

  “Yes. Can you get me that list right away?”

  “I suppose so. I’ll assign someone,” the bishop said.

  “Good.” Finnerty turned to Smith. “You coming with me?”

  “I’ll walk down with you, but I’m attending the funeral. My wife is probably here by now.”

  “Check in with me later.”

  “If you want.”

  “Yeah, I want. Looks like you’re in the middle of this mess, a friend of the corpse, here before we get here, delayed notification.”

  Smith looked at Bishop St. James as Terry Finnerty left. He certainly hadn’t intended to be in the middle of anything. His plans for that day were to attend a funeral and work on some lecture notes for class. St. James’s call had changed all that.

  “Mac, what do we do now?”

  “Concerning what?”

  “Concerning the murder and the service for Adam Vickery. Do I mention during the service what’s happened here?”

  “I don’t think you have any choice, George. You’ve got marked squad cars all over the place, and the TV crew we ran into downstairs will only be the first of many. You have to say something and do it right up front. It may be shocking news to the congregation, but speculation and rumor are worse.”

  St. James’s expression was one of abject despair. He knew Smith was right, yet making such an announcement was anathema to him. He looked into Smith’s eyes and said, “Of course, you’re right. I’ll announce it early, get it over with. Thank you, Mac.”

  Smith patted his friend on the shoulder and managed a weak smile. “I’ll look in on you later,” he said glumly, his concern not for St. James’s difficult task but for the dilemma into which he himself had suddenly been thrust. Annabel would not be happy.

  Annabel was indeed waiting downstairs when Smith arrived. So were hundreds of people who had gathered for Adam Vickery’s funeral, members of the press, and police everywhere. “Is it true?” Annabel asked. “Murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  She gasped, her eyes flooded. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it, Annie. I saw his body.”

  They joined others in the pews. The bishop, accompanied by Reverend Jonathon Merle and other members of the cathedral’s clergy, slowly ascended to the high altar, known, too, as the Jerusalem altar because the stones of which it was constructed had come from quarries outside Jerusalem. St. James climbed up to the Canterbury pulpit. He surveyed the faces before him. A closed casket containing the remains of Adam Vickery stood alone on one of the risers leading to the altar. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a sad day in the history of this cathedral. Not only have we come to mourn the death of a man whose record of public service to the nation and dedication to the goals of this cathedral were exemplary, we must also mourn the sudden and brutal death of a man of God who was loved by all, a man of God who reached out to the disenfranchised of our society in a way that our Lord Jesus intended, a man of God who served mankind and his church with vigor and sensitive devotion.” His voice broke. “I speak of the Reverend Paul Singletary.”

  Annabel’s earlier gasp was now a chorus echoed by many in attendance. Suddenly, it was clear why so many law-enforcement officers and press were milling about in the outer aisles. Most mourners had assumed they represented normal security precautions and press coverage of the Vickery funeral. Now they knew better.

  St. James continued, “Unfortunately, we live in violent times. Not only has our dear colleague and friend Paul Singletary been brutally murdered, but it has happened right here in this House of the Lord, in the tiny Good Shepherd Chapel that is open day and night for the bereaved and troubled to seek solace through silent prayer. The shock, which you share, is considerable. Yet, in the cycle of life, we must continue. The life of our departed friend Adam Vickery must be celebrated here today, and his transport to a gentler place, carried there in the hands of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, must not be delayed. I ask all of you to do your best to concentrate on this solemn and necessary ritual. I can tell you nothing else about the death of Father Singletary. That is in the hands of the proper authorities.” He swallowed, blinked his eyes, and said, “Let us pray.”

  The mood of most people following Vickery’s funeral was more soberness at the news of Singletary’s murder than grief for the former official whose obsequies they’d just attended. A hearse and a dozen long black limousines were lined up outside the south entrance. Smith and Annabel went up to Vickery’s widow, Doris, and extended their condolences. If Mac had never particularly liked Vickery, Doris at least had a fairly pleasing and open personality.

  Vickery had once approached Smith about taking a job in the Justice Department as an assistant attorney general for civil rights. Smith had turned him down. Vickery—the Justice Department itself, for that matter—had come under considerable pressure from civil-rights groups to modify his views and policies. Gains in civil rights for minority Americans, which had been hard-won over the years, stood in jeopardy during Vickery’s time in office. Smith knew that his appeal to Vickery lay in his record and reputation as an attorney concerned with defending the rights of minorities, which would have given Vickery and the administration something—someone—to crow about. Smith was not about to give them that. Besides, Mac Smith had always been impatient with bureaucracies.

  It was Doris Vickery who’d managed to bring Mac closer to the family. It happened in the midst of her husband’s troubles over his alleged influence peddling. Doris had called Smith at home. She sounded distraught, which Smith assumed was the result of the pressure on her husband. He reluctantly agreed to meet with them. When he did, he was told it was their daughter, Pamela, who was the focus of their concern.

  Pamela Vickery was a beautiful, bright, and rebellious young woman who’d begun running with “the wrong crowd,” according to her father. She was with her friends in California when the house in which they lived was raided by local drug-enforcement agents. Adam and Doris Vickery swore to Smith that Pamela did not use drugs, and was a victim of circumstance, in the wrong place at the wrong time. It had been a minor-league drug bust—some marijuana, Quaaludes, small amounts of both—hardly destined to pique vast media interest. But it did, of course, given that Pamela was the daughter of the nation’s attorney general.

  Adam Vickery’s initial reaction was to let her take the rap: “Maybe it’s what she needs to straighten herself out,” he told his wife. But Doris Vickery was not about to see her daughter, troublesome as she might be, have a serious mark against her in her young life for something Doris was convinced Pamela had had little to do with. That’s why she called Smith, to ask him to intercede with the right people
in California legal circles and try to extricate Pamela from the ramifications of the incident. Adam Vickery could have done so with ease, but his intercession would not have been viewed as an appropriate action by America’s number-one attorney.

  Smith promised merely that he would look into the situation. He did, became convinced that Pamela’s parents had accurately characterized the level of their daughter’s involvement, and worked through a California lawyer to see that charges were minimal against the young woman. Smith had one conversation with Pamela Vickery, after she was put on probation. He suggested to her that she return home and pursue her education. She told him three thousand miles weren’t nearly far enough away from her father. No thanks, she’d stay in California.

  Now, outside the cathedral, Doris Vickery squeezed Smith’s hand. “Thank you for coming, Mac. How horrible about Father Singletary.” She turned to Annabel and managed a tiny smile. “Congratulations on your marriage.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Vickery,” Annabel said. “I’m so sorry about your husband.”

  Doris Vickery sighed. “Yes, thank you. How ironic that Adam’s funeral should occur on the same morning that a priest is slain in the cathedral. It’s probably just as well that Adam wasn’t here to experience it. He loved this place, Mac, put his heart and soul into it after leaving government service. It gave him … a new lease on life, a fresh start. We needed that.”

  “Yes, I know, Doris,” Smith said. She was right; Adam Vickery, despite his previous personal shortcomings, had done a remarkably good job for the cathedral and its building fund. That’s why Mac Smith had said to Annabel, “Cloud over his head or not, we go to the funeral. Washington is like the Mafia. I shoot you dead, but I turn up at the church.” To Doris, he said, “He’ll be missed.”

  They were joined by Jonathon Merle, whose conduct at the service had been in his usual colorless, matter-of-fact style. Doris Vickery said to him, “Thank you, Father Merle, for your kindness. It must have been very difficult for you, knowing what happened to Father Singletary.”