“So what?”
“So this program also matches symptoms to the signatures of different types of potential threats. These patients, all of them, seem to fit the pattern of an emerging chemical weapons attack. Specifically, a mustard-based agent.”
“Mustard gas?”
“Some version of that, yes. Then I expanded the parameters to twenty-four hours’ worth of ER admissions. Picked up four more cases.”
I stared at the data on the screen. “How sure are you about this?”
“I’ve had your letter less than an hour, Mr. Kelly.”
“So you’re guessing?”
“It’s a little more than that.”
“Print me out the patient list,” I said.
Hubert hit a key, and a printer somewhere began to hum.
“What do you think?” Hubert said.
“What do I think? I think we might be fucked.”
I picked up my cell and punched in Rodriguez’s number. Hubert, however, wasn’t done.
“I got a little more, Mr. Kelly.”
I disconnected. “Go ahead.”
“I pulled background on the twenty victims. Started with the hospital admittance forms and dug from there. Focused on any religious affiliations.”
More lines of meaningless text and numbers flashed up on the screen. Hubert highlighted a line of data. “Eighteen of the twenty identified themselves as Catholic. Half of them are registered in Holy Name’s parish.”
A tingle ran down the back of my neck. “Where are the rest registered?”
Hubert waved a hand around the room. “All over. Still, it’s interesting.”
“The ones that aren’t registered at Holy Name—where do they work?”
Hubert hit a few keys, and the information reshaped itself on his screen. “Eight of them work in the Loop or River North area. Here you go.”
Hubert flashed up a map with Holy Name Cathedral at its center and small flags for each person’s workplace. The longest distance was eight blocks.
“They could have walked there from work,” I said, “which means seventeen of twenty have a possible connection to the cathedral.”
Hubert nodded. “Looks like it.”
I picked up my cell again and punched in the detective’s number. Rodriguez picked up on the first ring.
“Yeah.”
“It’s me. What’s going on?”
“Lawson and the mayor have been on the phone with the cardinal. Archdiocese wants us to sit on it until we have something solid.”
“Not too worried about their parishioners, I take it?”
“It’s called damage control, Kelly.”
“Yeah, well, I got something that might get things moving.”
“What’s that?”
“Hubert’s gonna send you some data. Shows a pattern of hospital admissions over the past day or so. Bottom line is, we have twenty cases of what might be mustard agent exposure. Seventeen with connections to Holy Name Cathedral.”
“What sort of connections?”
“The sort that makes me think you got a hot spot, Detective.”
“Holy Name, huh?”
“It fits, Vince. Remember the letter referred to the cardinals’ hats? Holy Name has the hats of Chicago’s dead cardinals hanging from the ceiling.”
There was silence, then a sigh. “Fuck me. Send over the data, and I’ll get a team down there. Hold on.” Rodriguez paused, then came back on the line. “Lawson wants everything the kid’s got sent to her computer. And she means everything, Kelly.”
Hubert tapped me on the shoulder and flipped his monitor around so I could see the screen of text he had pulled up. I nodded and continued talking to the detective.
“Not a problem. Just one more favor to ask.” Then I told him what I needed.
“Why don’t we let the feds handle that?” Rodriguez said.
“Because I’m concerned the feds will roll over and play dead.”
“And you’re going to go in there and bust balls.”
“I’m going to go in there and explain the situation. Then I’m going to get the information I need.”
Rodriguez didn’t like it, but finally agreed to make the call. “Just don’t piss this guy off.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Yeah, right. Head down that way and I’ll call you back.”
I hung up. The text Hubert had accessed still glowed on his screen. It was a newspaper article. Page 3 from yesterday’s Trib. The headline read: CHICAGO ARCHDIOCESE SETTLES SEX CASES FOR $12.3 MILLION.
Hubert watched as I read, then offered up one word. “Motive.”
“Maybe.” I slipped my cell back in my pocket and picked up my coat. “I gotta go. Send everything you have to Lawson’s computer. Include whatever you found on the old train crash. Then just hang tight.” I looked around the flat. “You okay here?”
Hubert nodded. “I’m good.”
“You’re a little better than good, Hubert. You sniffed out what might be a chemical weapons attack against the city and gave us our best lead on this guy.”
“Guess that was pretty cool, huh?”
“Bet your ass. Keep it up. We’re getting close to something. I’ll call you in a couple of hours.”
And then I left the kid, alone in his apartment, tapping away at a mountain of information, fishing for a shark in little more than a rowboat.
CHAPTER 38
It’s called the House of 19 Chimneys. I thought about trying to count them, but didn’t want to besmirch the romance of the place with anything as ordinary as fact. Instead, I got out of my car and walked a complicated path to the cardinal’s doorstep on North State Parkway.
It had taken a couple of hours, but Rodriguez finally angled me the invite—not entirely surprising given the church’s desperate need to put a lid on whatever was brewing inside their whitewashed walls. I was about to lift a heavy brass knocker when my cell phone buzzed. I stepped back to the sidewalk. It was Rodriguez again.
“You in yet?”
“On the precipice.”
“We just ran some field tests at Holy Name.”
“That was quick.”
“Our guys kept things quiet and went in as a cleaning crew. Got a preliminary positive for some sort of mustard agent. Fucker spiked the holy water.”
I wasn’t surprised, but still felt a chill. Strange days, indeed.
“Does the archdiocese know?” I said.
“Not yet. Lawson’s got the cisterns sealed off and wants to run some more tests first, so keep it to yourself.”
“Fine.”
“You really think our guy’s an abuse victim?”
I looked up at the residence, swore I saw a curtain twitch, and, for just a moment, was back on the South Side. “I think it’s worth a conversation.”
“Guess it can’t hurt.”
“What about the press?” I said.
“What about them? They don’t know a thing about the letter or Holy Name.”
“What about Alvarez?”
“She’ll be our mouthpiece. We get the story out the way we want, when we want. And she gets her exclusive.”
“So you got that handled?”
“You worry about the cardinal, Kelly. Let me worry about Alvarez. Call me when you get done.”
“Okay.”
“And, Kelly …”
“What?”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
I cut the line and walked back up the cardinal’s path. This time I picked up the brass knocker just as the door swung open. On the other side was a nun, dressed entirely in white and looking at me like she knew better. Behind her were three more nuns, hands tucked into their starched sleeves, faces cast in perpetual shade. The nun at the front door stepped aside without a word, and I walked in. The head of Chicago’s two million Catholics swept around a corner with a smile and a handshake.
“Mr. Kelly.”
Even at seventy-three years old, Giovanni Cardinal Gianni was still a bi
t of a rock star. On his seventieth birthday, Newsweek had dubbed the sturdy dark Italian “America’s Own Pope.” I wasn’t sure how well that went over in Rome, but Gianni was here, smiling and, best I could tell, still in one piece. He ushered me into what I guessed to be a study and gestured to an armchair wrapped in velvet. “Please, sit down.”
Like most Chicagoans, I’d driven by the cardinal’s residence and wondered what the elegant pile of red brick and sandstone might look like inside. It was about what I’d thought. Floors of polished wood interrupted by hallways of polished marble. Large rooms cluttered with furniture no one used and pictures of saints no one knew. Bunches of flowers, bloodred and bone white, lurking in distant corners and sucking all the air out of the place. To my left and right, walls of books. Most of them, I was betting, Bibles.
“Can I get you some coffee, Mr. Kelly?”
“Thanks, Your Eminence. That would be nice.”
Gianni raised a finger without turning his head. Somewhere behind him I heard some movement. A nun, I guessed, in search of a cup of joe. “We’ve already served lunch. But if you’re hungry, I’m sure the sisters would be happy …”
“No thanks,” I said. Gianni nodded and waited, one leg crossed over the other, dark face loose and relaxed, entirely empty of any sort of clue.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here?” I said.
Gianni spread his hands, palms up. “I spent most of the morning on the phone with the mayor and the FBI. They ask me to spend my afternoon with you, who am I to refuse?”
The cardinal’s stick-on smile mirrored my own. He got up and walked to a picture window that looked out over a half acre’s worth of bare trees and front lawn.
“So much for keeping things under wraps,” the cardinal said. I followed his gaze out the window. A TV truck had just pulled up in front of the mansion. A camera crew scrambled out and began to shoot pictures. So much, also, for Rita Alvarez’s exclusive.
“You know this town, Your Eminence. There’s very little that remains secret for very long.”
“We’re not asking anyone to keep secrets, Mr. Kelly. Just a little discretion.”
Gianni had been a rugby player in his day. I could see the game in the heft of his shoulders and the small, rough scars around his eyes when he scowled.
“So what happens next?” the cardinal said.
“We’re checking out Holy Name, as we speak. Depending on what we find there, we’ll develop a plan to sweep the rest of your churches.”
“You know how many parishes there are in the archdiocese?”
I shook my head.
“Three hundred fifty-nine. You’re going to check them all?”
“I don’t know, Father. But we’ll try to keep disruption to a minimum.”
Gianni’s laughter stopped just short of derision. “We’re not a business, Mr. Kelly. People look at their church as a sanctuary. A place where they feel safe.”
“Yeah.”
The cardinal circled away from the window. “Not a fan of the church?” His Eminence could smell the lapsed Catholic in me clear across the room.
“All due respect, Father, how safe were the parishioners at Holy Name this week? How safe would they have been next week if we’d kept a lid on this thing?”
A moving statue of a nun emerged from the mists, carrying a silver service of coffee and momentarily saving me from eternal damnation. Gianni sat back down and poured us each a cup. The nun disappeared from whence she came.
“What is it I can help you with, Mr. Kelly?”
I took a deep breath and dug into it. “We’d like some information. About some of the sexual abuse claims from the past.”
Gianni ran a thumb across his lower lip. “Go ahead.”
“It’s a natural line of inquiry, Your Eminence. Someone takes their revenge on the church for a wrong that was done to them as a child.”
The cardinal looked past my shoulder, at his church’s version of original sin, a history for which there was no simple act of atonement. No easy way to erase the stain.
“I understand the logic behind your query. All too well. Do you have a suspect?”
“No.”
“Would you tell me if you did?”
“Maybe.”
“And you think this spate of violence might be specifically tied to the abuse scandal?”
“At this point, Father, it’s just a theory.”
“I see.” The cardinal sat back and fixed up his coffee with cream and sugar. Then he took a sip and continued. “As you know, our policy is clear. None of the archdiocese files are to be made public, save that which has already been revealed pursuant to a court order or negotiated agreement. If we feel there’s an ongoing danger, we will contact the authorities with information. If the police have an identified suspect, we will also cooperate with respect to that specific person. Unfortunately, what you are suggesting is more like a fishing expedition. And, if I understand your request, might involve revealing the names of possible victims.”
“You asked if I was Catholic before. At least that’s what I got out of it.”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t willingly stepped foot inside a church for ten-plus years. Want to know why?”
The cardinal’s features tightened and the fingers of one hand rolled against the rub on the arm of his chair.
“Certainly, Mr. Kelly.”
“I don’t believe in your church. What was once my church. I think it’s more an institution than a church. One that is out of touch with its people. One that likes to make up rules and hide behind them.”
“Those rules, as you call them, are the bedrock upon which the church is founded. Without them, we would have no anchor to keep us steady, no foundation upon which to build. As the waters got deeper, the currents faster, as the ground beneath us began to shift its shape, we would find that, without those rules, we would have no faith at all.”
As Gianni spoke, I felt the familiar sting of childhood, the lash of Catholic arrogance. It was palpable in the soft flow of words and dismissive tone. This was not a discussion between equals. It was a lecture. One steeped in beneficence and understanding, but a lecture all the same. Except I wasn’t ten years old anymore, and I wasn’t in the mood.
“All due respect, Your Eminence, but if those are the same rules that tell a woman she doesn’t have what it takes to be a priest, or asks men who have never been married to counsel a couple considering the same, I have a problem with that.”
“Those are doctrinal matters, Mr. Kelly.”
“And the inherent evils of the condom, Your Eminence?”
The cardinal started to get up. “I suspect we have taken this as far as is practical, Mr. Kelly.”
An image floated through my mind—Rodriguez counting the many ways I could be an asshole. I needed to play another card, and quickly.
“You know, Father, when I was a kid, I remember learning about something called the seamless garment of life.”
The reference bought me a moment’s pause. His Eminence lowered himself back into his seat. I kept talking.
“The idea was to accord life the highest value in any moral argument, in determining what is fundamentally right and wrong. If you made life the trump card in ordering your priorities, you would find it to be an unerring compass, one that would always lead you down the right path.”
Gianni’s dark lashes fluttered. “I’m familiar with the concept, Mr. Kelly.”
“You helped to champion it, Your Eminence. It was the first major plank in your career as a theologian.”
Gianni waited.
“Life is what’s at stake here, Father. We’re talking about real people dying. Potentially, a lot of people. But the number isn’t even important, is it? If there’s even one life at risk, that life must be weighed against your rules concerning the privacy of any records. And that life must prevail. Isn’t that the calculus I’m asking you to make?”
Gianni tilted his head and looked at me as
if I’d just walked into the room. “You studied under the Jesuits?”
“Maybe.”
The cardinal laughed. “I knew it. Very well, Mr. Kelly. The church will help if it can. But we must use tremendous discretion in handling these records.”
“Discretion’s my middle name, Father.”
Gianni made a gesture I assumed to be hopeful. We both stood up and began to walk.
“Maybe we can talk specifics once we have a handle on the threat?” I said.
“And when might that be?”
“I’d hope by day’s end.”
The cardinal stopped. “But you suspect this man is targeting the archdiocese because of the abuse scandal?”
“I said the scandal was a logical avenue to pursue, Father.”
“But not a theory you necessarily subscribe to?”
“I don’t subscribe to any single theory right now. This man is attacking the entire city, not just the church. And I think there is more at play here than we know. Maybe a lot more.”
Gianni looked at me closely, but didn’t respond. I glanced out the window. There were now three news vans and two live trucks parked outside the mansion.
“Maybe I could sneak out a side entrance?” I said.
The cardinal raised his eyebrows. “If only we all had it so easy, Mr. Kelly.”
He led me to a service door that backed out onto an alley. I walked around to the front and found my car a half block down the street. My cell phone buzzed just as I slipped inside.
“Hubert, what do you have?”
“Where are you?” The kid seemed a little breathless.
“Just left the cardinal’s residence. Why?”
“I took a closer look at the maps and letter you sent me. Then I talked to Detective Rodriguez and got a little more information on the originals.”
“What’s up, Hubert?”
“The street map this guy sent to the reporter. It was downloaded from MapQuest.”
“So what?”
“I got a couple of pals who do a lot of work with them. MapQuest logs all its location requests, keeps records of all the computer IP addresses.”
“In English?”
“The map sent to the Daily Herald was requested by a computer located at 1555 North State Parkway.”
The Third Rail Page 13