“As you say,” agreed the Prior. “Too coincidental.”
If the boy hadn’t stolen the Crown of Thorns for his own mysterious purposes. If he hadn’t panicked before he could…do what with it…when his mates were about to find him out. If he hadn’t hidden it in a piece of pottery given to Adrian from the Prior as a gift to the Coleman-Witt. If only she had discovered it before leaving the abbey and called in Bale, who could have returned it for safekeeping, and if she hadn’t flown back to New York with it on her lap, he imagined, the whole way.
“Keep talking,” said the Prior.
“Some questions.”
“Go on.”
“How did Fintan McGregor know where to find the Crown?”
The Prior of Burnham Norton Abbey jabbed at the logs with a wrought-iron poker. “What else?”
“Who was he working for? Was it the killer?”
Berthold made a face. “Interesting distinction.”
Bale whirled to look at him. “Where did they meet, those two?”
“Do you mean—” a slow wave of the hand “—who introduced them?”
“No.” Bale raised a hand. “Where did they have discussions? Where did the ill-fated, expendable Fintan conspire with the man who was ultimately his killer?” Bale stopped there. “How are those for our early questions?”
Prior Berthold stood up very straight and walked behind his desk, trailing a hand across the walnut wood stained through the decades from wet cups and glasses, and fugitive cigar ash. When he stopped, he stretched his bony robed arms out straight in front of him, the fingers lightly tapping the desk top. “You’re forgetting, I think, the central question to this whole business.”
Was it possible? Bale stopped pacing. “Tell me.”
The Prior turned his palms upward in a gesture of wide open charity. With a smile, he asked Bale softly, “Why Fintan?”
Why Fintan McGregor. Why a nineteen-year-old boy from a working class background who was considered by his teachers generally smart and good-looking and well-liked.
In a Victorian novel, he would be the Best Boy at school. And in that novel, his interesting character flaw would be his tendency to overreach. When you had so very much going for you, there were no limits. No limits and plenty of ways then to rationalize the mistakes. It was Eli, the small, clever monk who mentioned how pious Fintan was.
Bale felt this was an important addition to the picture of the murdered boy. Well-liked, appealing—after all, when his mates were bounding across the grass to him that awful night and he had to stash the stolen Crown, it was his popularity that put him on the spot.
But where did his piety come into play? Bale sensed from the way Eli described it his piety was something Fintan downplayed. If a popular boy downplayed a trait, it was because what he let his friends see was just the tip of the iceberg.
How far beyond the liturgy they all learned did Fintan McGregor’s knowledge—or passion—really go? Too deep, too wide, for the Best Boy to let it show freely? Where had the boy spent his time away from the abbey? Who had met him, taken the measure of him, and recruited him for some dark purpose the young Fintan had no way to judge clearly?
“I’ll find out,” said Bale, setting the empty shot glass on the Prior’s desk. “And I know where to start.”
Berthold grunted. “Are you with us for a while?”
“No. Once I’ve got at least an outline of the killer, I’m heading back to New York.”
The Prior of Burnham Norton Abbey regarded the ceiling with narrowed eyes. “I’ll say you’re at a convocation of cellarers in the East 40s near the United Nations.”
Bale shook his head. “Too much information.” The Prior had a tendency to take the bones of a perfectly good cover story and add just enough unnecessary embellishment that it only aroused interest.
“All right, Antony,” the Prior warded off the criticism. “You went to a convocation of cellarers in Teaneck, New Jersey.”
“Perfect.” It was death to envy.
Bale was heading quickly toward the door to the abbey office when the Prior called, “See you at Compline, then,” in a way that would not tolerate his absence.
“Yes, right. Compline it is, then.”
“And I have a special role in mind for you.” He flashed his Cellarer a wicked grin.
Bale winced. “At your service,” he said with no particular gusto. “Does it involve a vocal solo?”
The Prior wheeled his desk chair closer to the desk and peered at some papers as though he was looking over a tablet of cuneiforms. “Possibly,” he answered, riffling through the stack. “I keep trying to work in a paso doble for you, but, alas.” At that, Antony Bale made a slight bow. Berthold went on: “We are still just a poor religious order with very little wiggle room in the liturgy.”
The two men smiled at each other. “If you could find some, Berthold,” said Bale softly, “then I believe I would be happy in this life forever.”
The Prior settled himself and from the stack chose what appeared to be a bill from the local hydro company. Never a pretty sight. “Yes, Antony,” murmured Berthold. “I know that’s what you believe.” Then he gave him one of those fond looks Bale imagined a good father cannot keep from his face when he realizes a beloved son wants to become a sculptor, and not a widget-maker, like himself, instead. “But who,” said Berthold quietly, setting his reading glasses in place, “would be your partner?”
17
Bale let the boy Eli drive Brother Martin’s old Toyota Tundra pickup truck on their errand together. The young monks referred to the brute as Tunnie, and, to Bale’s knowledge, not one of them had ever been enlisted as driver. Until that afternoon when Bale had found the boy raking through a cover crop that had been planted for the winter in one of the distant beds. The boy had the doomed look of a galley slave on his face. Bale had to silently agree: this one was terribly underused. In fact, in ten years’ time, Bale might nominate him to replace himself in the ad hoc intelligence work.
When he invited Eli to come along in Tunnie—Eli could even drive—to help out Brother Martin by picking up some manure near Mundesley, the rake got dropped, then tripped over, and off they went. As the boy shifted into third, his eyes kept darting from side to side as they tooled along. Bale could tell that the boy behind the scratched wheel of the old pickup was hoping something would dash out in front of them—even a rabbit would do—that would let him test his prowess. Back straight, foot straining to reach the gas pedal, slightly discomfited without his robes…it made Bale sad that for a boy of nineteen in a religious order, driving an old farm truck on a pretext of an errand constituted a wild adventure.
No wonder he and the others, Fintan included until the final night, escaped after the Night Office into the woods to smoke and drink and exchange colorful exaggerations about their sexual experiences back in their former lives. Their lives in struggling neighborhoods where the “calling” to the monastic life often signified security and even a kind of stature. Bale looked away from Eli. They were too young, by him, to be recounting stories of long-ago love like old graybeards by a woodstove.
In sudden astonishment, the boy neatly jolted Tunnie out of the way of a pothole where the winter’s ice had done its worst on that patch of road. “Good save,” commented Bale, mildly. The boy acknowledged the compliment with a quick, tense nod. He was now on the hopeful lookout for other road hazards, although avoiding a misguided rabbit might still make a nice statement about his regard for life.
“Priestley’s Farm, then, is it, Antony?” Eli shot him a quick look.
“Down this road another five kilometers.” Since Bale had already given Eli this information, he could tell the boy was hankering for some conversation. So was he, only he was undecided how much to tell the young monk. Trust is the thing in life that shatters completely. And irreparably. What was the least the boy Eli needed to kno
w about his friend Fintan McGregor that he would take Bale’s questions seriously? That Fintan had stolen and then misplaced the Crown of Thorns from the Crucifixion and was then murdered, possibly for his carelessness?
All Eli now knew—because Prior Berthold had squelched the suspicions about Fintan’s death—was that Fintan had peed in an urn, which he then surreptitiously searched for in his mates’ lockers, and fallen off the ridge to his death. From Brother Martin, Bale had learned that the lads were jumpy and hangdog, reassessing a world, Martin thought, where in their simple, young minds, a disrespectful pee leads to a tumble over a cliff. Could have happened to any of them. No, if it could happen to Fintan McGregor—smart, handsome, pious old Fintan—it was for shit sure it would happen to the rest of them, only worse. Whatever that was.
Which was the better innocence for this boy to lose in their next moment together, rattling along in Tunnie on a needless errand? That his mate Fintan was a terrible thief of now historic proportions? Or that the salve of death by misadventure had befallen the Best Boy? Something had happened to him. Not a story wherein what the young monks would see as an act of sin—the terrible theft—would make them have to reconsider what they had all thought they had known about the dead boy. He had fooled them all. Excluded them all. Stolen a holy relic either for gain or fame or—worse yet—just to hurl a grand Fuck You to the abbey where Compline was always lovely and the monks were such regular blokes.
Bale made up his mind. “Eli, we’re trying to understand what happened to Fintan that night.”
The boy’s head whirled to face him, then his eyes turned back anxiously to the road. Bale could see the boy’s foot pull back slightly from the gas pedal. “So am I,” he said with a catch in his voice. “No one tells us anything.” It wasn’t a complaint as much as a statement. “Death by misadventure,” he snorted, giving Bale a very skeptical look. One that confused Bale. Did the boys somehow know Fintan had been murdered and were a source of information just waiting to be discovered?
“What do you think happened to him, then?” Bale said softly.
Although Eli’s eyes were on the road, Bale could tell what the boy was looking at had nothing to do with road hazards. “Fintan had been sneaking around so much lately…”
“How lately?”
They rumbled over a cattle grid. “I’d say the last, oh, month, maybe. I caught sight of him one afternoon in town, when Fintan had mentioned he was off to town to mail a package to his auntie in Leicester.
It was the first any of us had heard of this person, you know what I mean? Then, when I was helping Brother Martin turn over that new garden bed and I swelled up from that bee sting, and Prior Berthold drove me into town, that was when I caught sight of Fintan coming out of the Olde Bandylegs Pub with a girl.”
“Who was she?” Bale kept his voice casual.
“That American girl who works there. Her name’s Melanie. Word has it she’s doing a year abroad at Norfolk.”
Finally, thought Bale, a lead. He’d find this girl later. “What else?”
“What else did I see that day?” When Bale nodded, Eli went on quickly. “Oh, I stayed out of sight well enough and watched the girl hand Fintan her bar apron in a way that looked plenty playful. Then the two of them got on a motorbike and went out of town.”
“Which way?”
“Toward the beach.” Eli bit his lip. “The Vespa,” he added gravely, as if all the truth about Fintan’s fate resided in this one detail, “was pink.”
“I see,” murmured Bale.
At which the driver of the farm truck heaved a mighty sigh. “We’re pretty sure Fintan was, well—” the boy monk seemed uncomfortable with something—the slang, the image, something “—shagging the American girl.”
Bale scratched his brow. “Because he rode a motorbike with her?”
Eli snorted. “Because he kept it a secret. That’s the way Fintan was. Not like the others, who have to blab about every dirty thought they’ve ever had, or let out hints about stealing altar wine. Or like me—” The boy made a sweeping, oratorical gesture, then quickly grabbed the wheel again. “I have no life of sin…either to blab or tease or hide with all my might.”
“Eli—” said Bale humorously, about to rumble the idea by his driver that perhaps pride in sinlessness was sin.
“No, really, Antony. I’m just not drawn particularly.” The sign just ahead on the right was a matter of local granite and gray, weathered poplar. PRIESTLEY’S FARM was burned professionally into the wood. “Actually,” said Eli as he turned smoothly off the road and into the driveway, “I think I’ll most likely have to confess tailing Fintan that time, maybe just a week ago. Which way, Antony?”
Eli braked Tunnie, which meant his entire leg was fully extended on the pedal. The gravel drive angled off to the right, toward one set of well cared for white buildings. Whatever lay straight ahead disappeared over a hill that obscured anything beyond.
Antony sat forward, leaning his arm on the dash. “Make a right, Eli.” With a roar Tunnie picked up speed and Bale lurched. “What do you mean you tailed Fintan?”
For a minute, the boy fell silent. Bale thought he was regretting the slip. They bumped along—Tunnie’s shocks, thought Bale, needed to be replaced—and it was the first time since they climbed into the abbey’s farm truck that the young and clever monk beside him seemed less than frank. Then the boy blurted, “It’s probably worse than I thought at the time, Antony, now that I think about it, but—” He looked quickly at Antony Bale, his voice suddenly high and trembling. “I really couldn’t help myself.”
Bale gave him a small smile. “Sin’s like that, you understand.”
“It’s what makes it irresistible, I guess,” said the boy darkly. “Devil in a blue dress and all that.”
“Or on a pink motorbike.”
The boy leaned closer to the wheel, and growled. “Oh, it was nothing like that. I didn’t catch them…at it.” He rolled his eyes. “There are more sins than that, you know.” He shot him a look that reminded Antony of the fourth grade teacher who confiscated his stash of X-Men comics.
“If it’s even a sin,” Bale put out there lightly. “What did you see, Eli?” He touched the boy’s shoulder. “Here’s the horse barn. You can pull over.”
As Eli inched closer to the proud white barn that seemed to speak to them in muffled whinnies, he was shaking his head in disbelief, it seemed, at his own craven behavior. “It was that day I saw Fintan skulking around corners. Like I said, he’d been acting strange and, oh, aloof. At that moment I thought, now this is getting ridiculous, and I was going to tail him and find out what he was up to.” The boy jerked Tunnie to a stop.
“What was he up to?” asked Bale.
Eli turned to face Antony and slung a companionable arm over the back of the seat. Even in the midafternoon sun on that April day, shielded from them by the horse barn, Bale could tell the boy’s eyes sparkled. With a fond shove at Bale, Eli laughed, “Fintan was following you.”
After he delivered Eli and a load of Priestley’s manure to Brother Martin, who waggled his long, strong fingers in glee, Bale headed to Sidestrand to the Olde Bandylegs Pub. From the little more Eli had told him, he realized how Fintan McGregor had discovered the secret cache where the monks safeguarded the Crown of Thorns. And Bale himself had unwittingly led the little thief right to it. As Cellarer it was his routine to make the rounds of the abbey’s treasures on the first of the month. Truly, it was a bit like his and Adrian’s great Aunt Cecilia who overvalued her Depression glass and Hummel figurines, because she believed in her kindly old heart that if she treasured something—Apple Tree Boy was her favorite—it was one of a kind and priceless.
For the most part, the abbey treasures were not particularly either old or valuable. A silver communion plate presented by the Vatican to the first prior back in 1924 when the Burnham Norton Abbey was rebuilt. Mass-prod
uced altar linens from a cotton mill in Leeds back in 1867. Still, on the first of every month, Antony the Cellarer dropped by the storage places for each of the treasures. Kind of a roll call. Just to be sure no mice, for instance, had gotten to what Prior Berthold called the priceless altar linens, or that the communion plate Brother Sebastian particularly loved for its grapevine decoration was tarnishing. Or that the Crown of Thorns was undisturbed in its hidden place.
Antony Bale went down into the crypt whose single occupant was the first head of Burnham Norton since the rebuild. At the far end of the small, dank room where they would really have to take a harder line against mold one of these days was the single coffin on a stone plinth, and there, just two rows up from the floor, was a cache. To check on the Crown, he had to kneel, carefully pulling out the two gray stones that looked no different from any of the others, set them aside, and draw out the soft purple and gold velvet bag that protected the relic. On that day nearly two weeks ago, Bale was pretty sure he had opened the flap and gently pulled the object partially out of the protective bag.
Today the cache was empty.
It must have been that day Fintan followed him to the crypt, listened while Bale jimmied the two stones from their places, holding himself carefully out of sight. In the dim light that somehow only intensified the smell of ages and decay, the boy must have held his breath as he witnessed the drawing out of the holiest relic in Christendom. How could he have kept from exclaiming? And how could he possibly have known that what felt like soaring victory was really the first step in the inevitable direction of his own violent death? And Adrian’s?
Misadventure never shows itself until it’s too late.
For the first time since his sister’s murder for the stolen Crown, Bale felt strangely responsible. He must have gotten too damn complacent in his monthly treasure rounds. It had never struck him he was being followed. Maybe he trusted—that word—the monks, the brothers, the formidable walls of Burnham Norton Abbey so dangerously and completely that he in his carelessness had set in motion the circumstances that had led to Adrian’s murder. He shuddered as he pulled up to the pub and rested his head against Tunnie’s steering wheel.
A Killer's Guide to Good Works Page 12