“How long did the Nolans stay?”
“Not long, Miss Prudence. Not more than five or ten minutes. Mr. Francis Nolan is always in a hurry, always going somewhere. He took Mr. Joseph with him when he left.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Ellen? Or about Nora?”
“Ellen and I were planning to spend this afternoon together in Central Park. Mick McGuire was supposed to be on patrol.” Colleen’s face collapsed as the tears began to flow. Mrs. Morgan put an arm around her shoulders and led her toward the door. Cameron watched them go.
“I’ll speak to her, Miss Prudence. She’ll need time to settle, but she’s a good girl and she’s desperate to help find the person who killed her friends. A dollop of whiskey in her tea will help; she’ll forget she’s talking until there’s nothing more to tell.” Cameron beckoned German Clara into the library. Mrs. Hearne had sent the maid up with an opulently laden tea tray for Miss Prudence and her guest.
“Thank you, Cameron.”
The only sound after he left was the crackle of flames in the fireplace.
“I think we know what the common place was,” Geoffrey finally said. He held Prudence’s chair as she got up and walked toward the table where German Clara had laid out their tea.
“It has to be Saint Anselm’s,” Prudence agreed. “It has to be.”
“You can put six names on your list of suspects.”
“Francis Nolan, Joseph Nolan, and the sacristan Jerry Brophy.”
“Don’t forget the priests. Father Mahoney, Father Kearns, and Father Brennan.”
“I cannot imagine that a priest would commit such heinous crimes.”
“No one is exempt, Prudence. I’ve known criminals with the faces of angels and the manners of society gentlemen. The worst thing you can do is eliminate a suspect because he seems to be above suspicion. It hamstrings you from the beginning.”
“Is that something you learned when you were a Pinkerton?”
“I’ve always known it. You forget I’m a Southerner. We grew up on our plantations surrounded by hatred, nourished by distrust, drunk on our own importance, and blind to whatever threatened the make believe world we’d created. No one was innocent where I was born and bred, Prudence. It was a dark place; I was glad to leave it.”
“We have to go to Saint Anselm’s, Geoffrey. We need to talk to the priests.”
CHAPTER 16
“Have you ever questioned a priest about a murder?” Prudence asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever interrogated a priest about anything,” Geoffrey said.
“Not even when you were a Pinkerton?”
“Not even then.”
“It’s bound to be awkward. Just calling them Father all the time will feel odd.”
“If you’d rather not go …”
“Half my household staff is Irish and Catholic. Yet I’ve never set foot inside Saint Anselm’s or spoken to a single one of the priests there. How very blind of me.” Prudence spoke the last words softly, as if she were alone.
“I doubt anyone in your social circle would find that the slightest bit odd. Servants don’t inhabit the same world as their employers.” Geoffrey held out his hand to help her from the carriage to the sidewalk in front of Saint Anselm’s rectory.
A housekeeper answered the door and ushered them into an empty parlor warmed by a recently kindled fire. A large crucifix hung on one wall, a portrait of Pope Leo XIII over the fireplace. New York’s controversial Archbishop Michael Corrigan stared from a place of honor on the wall opposite the crucifix. Brightly painted statues stood in the corners, each with either a lit votive candle or a small vase of flowers on its pedestal. The air was heavy with the smell of burning firewood, wilting flowers, and melting candle wax.
“I’m Father Gerard Mahoney, pastor of Saint Anselm’s.” The man introducing himself to Geoffrey was nearly as wide as he was tall, with a florid complexion and tufts of white hair floating around his ears. The top of his bald head shone as brightly as the recently waxed and buffed parlor floor. He wore a clerical collar and a cassock with a row of tiny buttons marching down the front. Black trouser legs and a pair of shiny black indoor shoes peeped out from beneath the cassock’s hem. Father Mahoney’s ringless hands were as white and soft as a woman’s.
Taking the seat closest to the fire, he waved his visitors to two uncomfortable-looking horsehair upholstered armchairs. So far, the pastor had avoided looking directly at Prudence, as if, being a woman, she were of little importance. Or perhaps just invisible.
“How may I help you today?” he asked Geoffrey, blue eyes bright with curiosity.
“Miss MacKenzie and I are making inquiries, Father, and we have reason to believe that you might be of assistance.” Geoffrey handed him their business card. He wondered if Mahoney would continue refusing to look at Prudence now that she had been named and introduced.
“We’re not here on church business per se, Father,” Prudence said, compelling his attention. She hadn’t liked him from the moment he walked into the room and pointedly ignored her.
“A member of your parish was murdered on Saturday night.” Geoffrey clipped his words so they sounded like the staccato knocks of a fist against a door.
The priest crossed himself, but his face remained expressionless.
“Ellen Tierney,” Geoffrey said.
“She worked for the Nolan family,” Prudence contributed. “Francis and Lillian Nolan. Their son Joseph. Daughter Alice. I understand the family members are very generous benefactors of Saint Anselm’s.” It was the wildest of guesses, but she had to take the chance. Every church had its core of wealthy men and socially competitive wives who saw to it their place of worship was worthy of them; churchgoing was as much a part of society’s fabric as having the right ancestors and a large bank account.
“May she rest in peace.” Father Mahoney was a cautious man. He knew about Ellen Tierney’s death, of course, because Father Brennan had described the early morning call in painstaking detail, but what he needed to find out was on whose authority these two expensively dressed strangers were asking questions about her. You didn’t advance in Archbishop Corrigan’s conservative Catholic world unless you knew when to keep your mouth shut and your head down. Saint Anselm’s was a comfortable ministry, not the finest in the city, but far from being the worst. The merest breath of scandal could cause a transfer to one of the tenement parishes.
“Detective Phelan may have spoken to you about Ellen.” Look at me, Prudence commanded, and he did, as if unable to resist the silent pressure of this confident young woman. “Mr. Hunter and I have been asked to investigate her death.” She raised a hand to ward off the question the priest seemed about to ask. “We are not at liberty to reveal the name of the individual whose interests we represent. Mr. Hunter is a lawyer with an office on Wall Street.”
There. She’d dropped what amounted to a social bomb, leaving Father Mahoney to draw the inevitable conclusion that Mr. Francis Nolan had hired expensive investigative counsel from the bastion of New York’s business community to look into the affair of his maid’s murder. The priest would have to ask himself why. The lack of an answer should unsteady him just enough to provide more information than he intended to give.
“Ellen was in Saint Anselm’s on Saturday evening for confession.” Geoffrey took a notebook out of the breast pocket of his well tailored suit. It was a leather-bound version of the grubby pads on which the Metropolitan detectives made their notes and reporters scribbled their stories. Just seeing a pencil move across paper intimidated witnesses. They wouldn’t later on be able to deny what they’d said because the words written down were preserved forever.
“I wasn’t hearing confessions Saturday. You’ll have to talk to Father Kearns and Father Brennan.” The silence lengthened until Father Mahoney felt himself forced to fill it. “Father Kearns is my assistant pastor. Father Brennan arrived at Saint Anselm’s a few months ago.” More silence. “He did give the last rites to t
he Nolan girl who was killed. The Nolan maid, I mean. I remember now that he was the priest on duty when the call came in.”
“Her name was Ellen Tierney,” Prudence said softly.
“Yes, of course. Ellen Tierney.”
“Where was Father Brennan before he came to Saint Anselm’s?”
Father Mahoney seemed relieved to be able to look away from Prudence to answer Geoffrey’s question. “England,” he said. “London, to be precise.”
“Isn’t that unusual?”
“The Church is universal.” Score a point for Father Mahoney. He didn’t particularly like the new priest assigned to what he thought of as his parish, but the urge to defend the man was as natural as the necessity to protect Holy Mother Church from criticism or scandal.
“What can you tell us about Ellen Tierney?”
“The police have already asked about her. Detective Phelan was here this morning.”
“And what did you answer, Father?” Prudence kept her voice low, insistent, urgent. If Father Mahoney were uneasy around independent women, he would be thrown off balance by one who pushed and prodded, refused to allow him to retreat behind the safety of his clerical collar.
“I don’t understand why I should repeat that information to you.” There was the faintest hint of belligerence in his voice. This man rebelled against following any woman’s orders.
“I think it’s in the best interests of your parish that you do, Father. If, that is, you wish to continue to enjoy the generosity of one of your most munificent laypeople.”
“You should ask someone in the Nolan household, someone who worked with Ellen.”
“We’re asking you.” Prudence suspected he wouldn’t have recognized Ellen Tierney in church or on the street, and was embarrassed to admit it. “Perhaps Father Kearns and Father Brennan might join us?” she suggested.
She watched Father Mahoney tug on the bellpull that summoned the housekeeper, listened as he gave her instructions, and sat quietly while they waited for the other priests to join them. Silence could be as unnerving as the most pointed of questions.
By the time the parlor door opened to admit the junior priests of Saint Anselm’s, Father Mahoney’s round red face was streaked with trails of nervous sweat. He pulled a large white handkerchief from the pocket of his cassock and wiped his forehead and cheeks.
“They’re asking about Ellen Tierney,” he explained after brief introductions had been made. “Mr. Nolan doesn’t seem to think the Metropolitan Police are up to the job of finding out who killed his maid.”
“We didn’t say that, Father,” corrected Prudence in the same steady tone of voice that had already unnerved the priest. “We never revealed the name of our client. We most especially did not mention Mr. Francis Nolan in that context, either in so many words or by inference.” Which convinced the three priests that it had indeed been the head of the Nolan family who had set these interlopers on the trail of whoever had deprived him of the services of a trained servant.
“Of course. I didn’t mean to imply that you had.”
“Ellen was a lovely girl,” Father Kearns said, coming to the rescue of the man he worked for. “She was walking out with the policeman Mick McGuire.” He knew that she had been doing much more than walking out, but that was privileged information protected by the sacred seal of the confessional. A priest was supposed to be willing to die rather than reveal what had been told him in the confidence of the Sacrament of Penance.
“What else can you tell us about her?” Geoffrey took over the questioning. “How often did she attend Mass? Did she work on any of the church committees or join any of the organizations the parish sponsors?”
“Ellen had very little free time. She was a junior servant, remember. A housekeeper or a butler might have spare hours in the week, but not a maid. She had her half days off, but not much more than that. Lately she’d probably have spent them with Mick McGuire.”
“Was there talk of marriage?”
“It may have been too soon, Mr. Hunter.” Father Kearns knew it was actually a bit late.
“So she didn’t volunteer with any other ladies to polish the church pews or iron the surplices worn by the altar boys?”
“Not to my knowledge. She might have done it occasionally, but not on a regular basis. Ellen usually attended the early Mass on Sunday.”
“What about confession? Did she come to that? Saturday afternoons, as I understand.”
“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Hunter. What passes between a penitent and his confessor is secret and sealed. Names are not required.”
“I didn’t ask what she might have said in confession. Only if she came to Saint Anselm’s on Saturday afternoons when confessions were being heard.”
“Again, Mr. Hunter, I wouldn’t know.”
“Wouldn’t know or refuse to tell?”
“Believe whichever you choose. I have nothing more to say on the subject.”
Geoffrey turned to Father Brennan, the priest recently arrived from London. “What can you tell us about Ellen Tierney?” he asked.
“Nothing, I’m afraid.” Father Brennan spoke with a faint Irish brogue, as though his years in England hadn’t quite succeeded in uprooting him from the country of his birth. “I was called to the Nolan house to administer the Last Sacrament. It was all very pro forma. I may have seen the girl while she was still alive, but I can’t be certain. I’ve not yet managed to meet all of the parishioners. If put to the test, I’m not sure I could remember the names of the ones I have been introduced to.” He smiled wryly, as if both amused and dismayed at his apparent failure.
Quite handsome men, Prudence decided, her eyes on the two younger priests. She’d written off Father Mahoney as any kind of viable suspect or witness, but she was curious about what the women of the parish thought of Fathers Kearns and Brennan. Catholic priests did not marry, and were presumably celibate; she wondered how many of them actually kept to the letter and spirit of their vows.
“There’s another young woman we need to ask you about,” Geoffrey continued. “She may have been at Saint Anselm’s two weeks ago, also on a Saturday afternoon. Also for confession. Her name is Nora Kenny.”
“I don’t recognize the name,” Father Kearns said. “Is she a member of the parish?”
“May I know why you’re inquiring about her?” Father Mahoney asked. As pastor, he was the individual ultimately responsible for the spiritual welfare of the men, women, and children nominally under his care. It didn’t hurt to remind these strangers and his two assistants who was in charge.
“She’s dead. Her body was mutilated in the same way Ellen Tierney’s was.” Geoffrey watched closely as comprehension slowly came to the clean shaven priestly faces.
“Desecrated.” The way Father Kearns pronounced the word left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he now realized the murder itself may have been only one of the sins committed against the dead girl.
“I don’t understand why you’ve come to Saint Anselm’s with these questions.” The pastor’s face was nearly as white as his hair, then his cheeks flushed with anger. “Where was this other girl killed?”
“Nora Kenny,” Prudence reminded him in that same soft but insistent voice. She kept her face impassive when he glared at her.
“Her body was found in Colonial Park on the Sunday morning after she was murdered.” Geoffrey looked intently at Father Brennan, but the priest didn’t volunteer the information that he had administered the church’s Last Sacrament to this murder victim also. “We don’t know where she was killed.”
“The police never asked us about her,” blustered Father Mahoney. “I would have been informed if Saint Anselm’s was involved in any way.” He glanced at his assistants for confirmation. “Father Kearns? Father Brennan?”
Kearns answered for both of them. “You’re right, Father. There can’t be any connection between this Kenny girl and Saint Anselm’s. Especially if she wasn’t a parishioner.”
“Except that Nora Kenny
and Ellen Tierney knew one another. It’s possible that both of them came here for confession. To one of the three of you.” Geoffrey leaned into the silence his accusation produced, studying each priest’s reaction. “Let’s go back to Nora Kenny. That would have been two Saturdays ago. November tenth.”
The seconds stretched on, the tension tight and unbroken.
“As it happens, I remember that I was the only one hearing confessions that Saturday,” Father Brennan finally said. “Father Mahoney was ill and Father Kearns had been called away to a deathbed.”
“What time did confessions begin?” Geoffrey asked.
“At three-thirty. We start early in winter so as to finish before dark.”
“You must have gone into the church before three-thirty.”
“About fifteen minutes earlier.”
“Were there people already waiting?”
“Yes.”
“Describe them for us, Father.”
“I’m not sure I can. I didn’t look closely at anyone. Sometimes it embarrasses people.”
“Explain that.”
“We try to maintain anonymity in the confessional. The idea that it’s a nameless penitent speaking to God’s representative on earth. The distance makes it easier for a sinner to confess. It’s not always true, but usually.”
“So you came into the church and walked up the side aisle and into a confessional booth without recognizing anyone kneeling in the pews?”
“I would say that’s accurate. I wasn’t trying to identify anyone.”
“Nora Kenny was a very small girl with black hair and blue eyes. She was born in America so she wouldn’t have had an Irish brogue.”
“I don’t remember anyone like that.”
“Are you sure?”
“If you’re asking me because you want to know what she said in confession, I couldn’t tell you anyway. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Seal of the Confessional?”
Lies That Comfort and Betray Page 16