The Cotten Stone Omnibus: It started with The Grail Conspiracy... (The Cotten Stone Mysteries)

by Lynn Sholes

  Once they were alone in the break room, Ted put his hands in his trouser pockets and faced Cotten. “Want to sit down?” he asked, cocking his head toward the sofa.

  Over the years she’d learned to read Ted pretty well, and his stance and tone were clear. “This isn’t going to be good, is it?”

  Ted shook his head. “John is missing.”

  For a moment, Cotten couldn’t say anything for the jumble of thoughts and emotions that exploded inside. Finally she said, “Define missing.”

  “He and the Vatican’s foreign minister, along with a couple of security guards and a priest, flew from Rome to Moldova to meet with delegations from neighboring countries. They stayed overnight in the capital. When their local hosts came to pick them up the next morning, the hotel said that the Vatican group had already left.”

  “When was this?” she asked.

  “We just got word. The Vatican assumed that the meetings were being held in a secret location for security reasons. There’s a lot of unrest in the region. Now the Holy See confirmed that they have lost contact with John, the foreign minister, and the others in the party.”

  “So what are they doing about it?”

  “We don’t know.”

  Cotten paced in front of the drink machine. “They have to be doing something. They can’t just ignore it.” An angry thought spewed its way into her head and out her mouth. “Don’t tell me they’re doing what they usually do and leave it all up to God.” Cotten clasped her hands over her face. “Damn,” she muttered, then looked at Ted. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

  “You don’t have to explain to me. I know about those love-hate feelings you have for the Catholic Church.”

  Cotten shoved her hair back from her face. “Can we at least send someone to cover it and bring attention to what’s going on?” She glared at her boss. “We’ve got to do something.”

  Ted rested his hand on her shoulder. “I’m way ahead of you, kiddo. Our Moscow office has a truck with a three-man crew headed to Moldova. They’ll be there in the morning.”

  “Then I’m going, too.”

  “There’s no reason for you to get all worked up, yet. We have a reporter en route right now. As far as we know, this could all be unsubstantiated information. I understand how this is more than a news story to you. But let’s wait and see what we find out first.”

  “Have we tried to contact John or the foreign minister?”

  “Of course.”

  “And?”

  “No luck.”

  “That doesn’t seem strange to you?”

  “Just like the flow of news, cell technology in parts of the former Soviet Union is dicey as well.”

  “This stinks, Ted.”

  “Or it could be perfectly innocent.”

  “You really believe that?”

  Ted looked away.

  Cotten crossed her arms. “I’m going.”

  “So you fly to Moldova. Then what? Wander around the countryside asking if anyone has seen a bunch of priests? You don’t even speak the language. It would be a total waste of time.”

  She stared at the ceiling, her mind sorting through the limited choices. Ted was right. But she couldn’t stand by and wait helplessly.

  “You’re correct, Ted,” she said, “going to Moldova would be a waste.”

  “Finally you’re making sense.”

  “I’m going to Rome.”

  isle royale ping

  Amarug crouched beneath a paper birch tree in Isle Royale National Park, an island separated from the rest of the world by more than fifteen miles of frigid Lake Superior waters. She lifted the binoculars to her eyes to get a closer look at number 17, the Alpha male of the wolf pack. Inbreeding had brought about genetic weaknesses and placed the wolves’ survival in jeopardy. That, and the decline in the moose population, had taken its toll. The numbers were down from twenty-five wolves the previous year to only nineteen today.

  Amarug was part of a multi-grant-funded study group doing research on the Isle Royale wolves. When the other researchers left in October as the park closed for the season, Amarug volunteered to stay behind wanting to gather additional data until the rest of the group returned in January. The winter was harsh, but being Inuit and having grown up in a cold, inhospitable environment, she had no fear of toughing it out. And if things got particularly rough, she had the radio to call for help.

  At the sound of the seaplane, she lowered the binoculars and got to her feet. The plane brought her supplies each month, but why was it a week early? She would have hung closer to the base camp in anticipation of its arrival if she’d known it was coming today. It wasn’t the harshest of the season yet, by any means, but the days were going to get harder and she wanted to check the supply list before the seaplane took off again.

  Running through the forest, Amarug dodged firs and white spruce until finally emerging on the shoreline. The seaplane was beached two hundred yards in the distance.

  “Eric,” she shouted and waved, seeing him carrying boxes from the plane toward her yurt—the round, single-story structure that served as her home. He didn’t appear to hear her. She picked up her speed, sprinting along the narrow beach, and at last found herself winded as she approached the yurt. He was bent over stacking some boxes on the front deck.

  “Eric,” she sputtered, hands on her knees catching her breath. “What are you doing here today?”

  When he turned to face her, Amarug realized it wasn’t the regular pilot who always flew in their provisions. This man was younger than Eric, mid-twenties, black hair, and noticeably Asian facial features. “Where’s Eric?” she asked, still huffing.

  The man cocked his head back toward the mainland. “Vacation—two weeks off.” He smiled at her. “Use it or lose it.”

  “Lucky dog,” she said. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Sialuk, but everybody calls me Amarug—means wolf.”

  She stuck out her hand and he shook it.

  “But aren’t you early?” she asked, swinging open the door to the yurt for him.

  “Yeah, when they’re shorthanded the schedule gets crazy. Figured you’d rather we be early than late.” He lifted one of the boxes, carried it inside to her small kitchen area and set it on the counter.

  “But I could have missed you,” she said, moving her stuff out of the way for him, while thinking someone should have contacted her about the change. “Well, it doesn’t matter I guess.” She swept her bangs off her forehead with the back of her arm. After he set the box down, Amarug opened the lid and glanced inside. While she inspected the contents, he brought in another two boxes.

  “Can I see the manifest?”

  He took a folded paper from his pocket and handed it over before retrieving the final two cartons.

  Amarug pulled her ballpoint from her pocket and went down the list, checking off each item.

  “Any chance I could use your radio?” he asked. “I’m supposed to check in. The unit on the plane is acting up.”

  “It’s over there.” She pointed toward the equipment on the desk in her living area before continuing to check off the supplies.

  “Get everything you wanted?” he asked, returning to the kitchen a few moments later.

  “What’s this?” She held up a bottle of antiseptic throat spray.

  “Didn’t have the brand you wanted. That’s supposed to be better.”

  She stared at the label. “I’ll give it a try. Chronic sore throat is killing me this time of year.”

  “All right then. Been a pleasure meeting you. I’ll tell Eric you said hi.”

  She accompanied him to the door. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Hiu,” he called over his shoulder as he headed for the seaplane.

  ___

  Falling snow covered the retreating wolves’ footprints near the yurt. The thinning
moose population had altered the predator’s behavior—the struggle to survive could do that to any animal. The last kill the pack made, they ate the entire carcass, including the teeth and skull, something wolves with normal diets hardly ever did.

  The pack’s last kill was weeks ago.

  Tonight they smelled blood and death—maybe it was a kill by another pack. The scent came from inside the yurt. They circled the structure, paced the deck, pawing at the doorway and windows, trying to find a way in to stop the stabbing hunger in their bellies. Then by sheer accident, as the animals howled and scratched in a frenzy at the door, one managed to climb over another desperately trying to get at its prey. The fury of fur and flesh turned the knob just enough for the lock to slip free of the strike plate, and the door eased open.

  ___

  The droning came from the east as the seaplane banked and glided in for a landing on the surface of the sheltered inlet. A few moments later, the front edge of the pontoons crunched up onto the beach. Hiu switched off the engine, opened the door, maneuvered along the float, and jumped onto the beach. He knew the regular supply plane was scheduled for a delivery the next day, so he had only the rest of today to clean everything up.

  “Damn, it’s cold.” He pulled his collar around his neck, still not understanding who would be dumb enough to stick it out in this weather just to watch wolves fuck each other and eat moose. The researchers weren’t going to do anything to save the animals, anyway. Just let nature take its course. Waste of time.

  As he approached the yurt, Hiu noticed the open door. His first thought was that perhaps the ping had failed, that her Inuit genetics had interfered with the trigger virus, and that Amarug was out and about somewhere in the woods tracking her wolf pack. In which case, he would have a lot of explaining to do, starting with why he was there for no apparent reason.

  There was nothing surprising about the door being open. The last time he was there, it hadn’t been locked. She’d just turned the knob and poof. He supposed there was no reason to keep it secured during the winter months. There were no visitors to the island. Virtually abandoned except for the Inuit wolf woman.

  What if she had found where he disabled her radio and she somehow fixed it? But there had been no distress call. That was a good sign.

  As he stepped through the doorway into the yurt, he was almost knocked over by the stench. “Shit,” he said. “She’s dead, no doubt about it.”

  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the yurt and he was about to take a step forward, he noticed the overturned table, the bloody rug, and the ripped sheets hanging off the single bed. Hiu knew immediately what he was looking at, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end—like a cat’s when startled—or a wolf’s ruff. A few small white splinters of bone resembling fragile toothpicks poked out of the rug’s nap.

  “Jesus,” he whispered and stared at the hank of matted black hair—the only thing left of Amarug, the wolf woman.

  ransom demand

  Cotten stopped in front of John’s office on the way to the upper floor of the Government Palace where the department of the Vatican Secretariat of State was located. She turned to the Venatori agent escorting her. “Do you mind if I just take a quick look inside?”

  He hesitated. “Normally, it wouldn’t be allowed, but knowing what you’re probably going through right now, I don’t see any harm. Just for a moment.”

  “Thank you.” She gave him a grateful smile before pressing her palm to the dark wood of the door as if she might glean a sense of John’s presence.

  Cotten opened the door, stepped inside and drank in a heavy breath. She heard the door softly close behind her. Her escort had allowed her a moment of privacy. Cotten’s throat pinched at the thought that something had happened to John. She fought back, thinking of all the possibilities. Her fingertips feathered over the books on his shelf, then slid across the surface of his polished desk. She wanted to touch the things he touched, soak up whatever sense of him there was. Clutching the top of John’s high-back desk chair, she closed her eyes and rested her cheek on the leather, wrapping her arms about the backrest of the chair. She envisioned his face, his eyes—those eyes—those deep-blue-ocean eyes. “Come home to me,” she whispered. John was the only person in her life who had never asked anything of her, except to believe in herself. There had never been any man she had cared about the way she cared about this man—a man she could never have. And maybe there was safety in that. I can’t lose what I never had in the first place.

  The door opened. “I’m sorry, Ms. Stone, but we really have to be going.”

  “I know,” she said, straightening and sweeping back her hair. Just before leaving she peered over her shoulder one last time.

  ___

  Cotten sat in the reception area of the Vatican Secretariat of State’s office and watched a steady parade coming and going from the diplomat’s office. Most were priests, a few were laymen in suits. None looked happy.

  She had arrived on a flight from New York that morning and came straight to Vatican City. Numerous calls from Ted to the Vatican had produced tentative promises of a meeting with the chief diplomat of the Holy See. Although the Church played down the news of the missing priests, it was obvious to Cotten that within the walls of the Government Palace, everyone seemed to take the situation seriously.

  After half an hour of waiting, she was about to pull her cell phone from her purse and leave Ted an update message when the door from the main hallway opened and a priest entered. He wore a black suit and Roman collar, and carried a briefcase. As he passed, he glanced in her direction and they recognized one another.

  “Cotten!” he said, even as she got to her feet and moved toward him. “What a wonderful surprise.”

  “Your Excellency. So good to see you again.” They shook hands. A feeling of comfort came over her, seeing the friendly, familiar face of Archbishop Felipe Montiagro, the Vatican Apostolic Nuncio to the United States. Montiagro was the Holy See’s equivalent of an ambassador and they had met years ago during what the press dubbed the Grail conspiracy and her finding of the Holy Grail.

  “I would ask what brings you here,” he said, “but I can guess that it’s this matter of John’s disappearance.”

  “Can I assume that’s why you’re here, too?”

  He gestured to a couple of chairs. “Wait just one minute. Let me check in with the receptionist.”

  After he had signed in on the visitor’s log, he sat in the chair next to Cotten. “Again, let me say how good it is to see you, but sorry it is under these circumstances. Unfortunately, I was one of the principles who helped arrange for John and Archbishop Roberti to get involved in the negotiations between the three disputing parties. So you can imagine how much this has upset me.”

  “Has there been any word? Please tell me he’s safe.”

  “At this point we don’t have much information, but we have nothing to indicate that he is not.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Yes. Thank God. As you can imagine, this is not something the Holy See deals with every day. We are proceeding cautiously.”

  “So what can you tell me?”

  “The official release of information to the press is virtually cut off at this point. I can’t discuss any of the details. But believe me, I fully understand the personal relationship you have with John and I sympathize. I realize you are here both because of that relationship and in the role of a network correspondent. This must be painful for you, not knowing anything more than the crumbs of information already in the press. To be honest, I don’t know much more myself.”

  “But you believe John is all right?”

  “We are keeping the faith,” Montiagro said.

  “I understand you can’t talk to me on the record. But, Excellency, I’m here to help any way I can. Perhaps there’s something I can do to assist. I’m willing to try anything.”<
br />
  The archbishop seemed to consider her offer. Then he said, “There are few organizations in the world more secretive and downright paranoid than the Holy See. The reasons go back centuries. But suffice it to say, bringing an outsider like you into the middle of this would be unprecedented.” He smiled. “But not impossible. After all, you do have a reputation around here for getting things done.”

  “Archbishop,” the receptionist said as she placed the phone down, “the cardinal will see you now.”

  Montiagro stood and gave the woman an acknowledging wave. As he picked up his briefcase, he said to Cotten, “Give me a few moments. Let me respectfully remind His Eminence that he’s kept you waiting too long.”

  ___

  When Cotten was ushered into the inner office, she was greeted by a man she guessed to be in his mid-seventies—tall with a long, narrow face, and short-cropped gray hair. His eyelids sagged and dark puffy pockets underscored his eyes. Unlike Montiagro whose appearance, except for the Roman collar, was basic black business suit, the prelate was dressed in the traditional attire of his office—a simar which resembled a regular black cassock but with a short shoulder cape attached that reminded Cotten of Sherlock Homes. There was also a wide sash called a fascia that he wore high up on his sternum, and a skullcap called a zucchetto. The sash and skullcap had a kind of moiré pattern that gave the material a 3-D effect. John had once explained to Cotten all about the traditional garb of the clergy and told her the unusual material was called watered silk. A simple pectoral cross hung on a gold chain around the man’s neck. The buttons and piping on the cassock along with the sash and skullcap were scarlet, designating the rank of cardinal.

  “Your Eminence, may I present Cotten Stone,” Archbishop Montiagro said as she walked across the sprawling Oriental rug and came to stand before a massive, ornately carved desk.

  The cardinal came around the desk with an outstretched hand.

  Montiagro continued, looking at Cotten. “May I introduce Cardinal Giovanni Fazio, the Secretary of State to His Holiness.”