I caught a glimpse of Joe looking down with one hand holding his forehead when an old adage came to mind—there are no coincidences.
“Joe,” I said, feeling that my old buddy wasn’t entirely at ease, “do you have anything to add?”
“I don’t think so. My brain is straining in trying to keep up with you.”
“Really? I always believed that you were smarter than me.”
“You give me too much credit, Rich.”
“Maybe, but you were so good in philosophy. I remember a debate that you had in Professor Brown’s class. The topic was something about the morality of telling someone an untruth. The example used was lying to the Gestapo about hiding Jews in one’s house during WWII. I remember. Would it be morally wrong? If not, what would be the guiding principle?”
“It would be an untruth,” said Joe, “but to some, it wouldn’t be a sin. The Gestapo did not deserve the truth. If I remember, it was a fascinating debate. It carried over into two class periods.”
“It was an interesting debate, and you won.”
“I did, but what does this have to do with what we are talking about?”
“You never told the police about Firmino coming to your rescue in the parking lot where you were mugged.”
A lopsided grin grew on Joe’s face before he gave a reply. “I didn’t know that Firmino was anywhere near me until I was ambushed by those two thugs at the diner.”
“What Padré Joe says is true,” said the Vatican agent. “He didn’t know that I was following him. When he saw me . . . eh, why didn’t you report me to the police?”
“I was instructed to kept things quiet. Don’t get people involved.”
“Well, that worked out just dandy, Joe,” I quipped. Then after a moment’s thought, I asked, “Who told you to be so, eh, clandestine with your movements? Father Mason?”
“Yes, Father Mason. He was very concerned about people knowing things that they ought not to know.”
The grammatical construction of my friend’s answer followed too closely to my question for my liking. It was a talent he had since I knew him, the ability to truthfully answer questions while not giving any new information.
“But it wasn’t just Mason who wanted you to be quiet about things—right?”
Joe’s grin disappeared. He took a breath. “Please, Rich, don’t ask me more.”
I could see that he was sincere, but I was too far down the trail to turn back. “Joe?”
He didn’t answer but flitted his eyes; I got the message.
“Your friend Jorge asked you . . . oh. Oh,” I muttered, connecting another dot. “Everyone, please, go into the main library. Joe and I must talk . . . alone.”
Before Kyle and Firmino could protest their exclusion from the discussion, Morgana leaped to her feet. “Okay then, everyone outside. Let Richard and Father Joe have their privacy. The sooner they settle things, the sooner this whole mess gets cleared up.”
Chester, Peterson, and Heike obligingly went into the main library without comment. But Kyle and Firmino hung back.
“That also means the two of you,” said Morgana.
“Excuse me, Senora, but I think that I should stay where I am.”
“Me too,” declared Kyle folding his arms as he sat in defiance.
“Firmino, it is okay,” said Joe, who then said something in Italian to him.
Reluctantly, the Vatican agent stood up, nodded to Joe, and silently walked into the adjacent room to join the others.
“Kyle,” said Morgana, politely commanding him as if he were a stubborn child.
My brother looked at my wife and then to me for an exemption.
“Go, Kyle,” I said. “I will brief you of anything important. Joe and I want to talk in private . . . as old friends.”
Reluctantly, Kyle complied. As Morgana closed the door, Joe and I found ourselves alone. It was now time for honest talk, hard questions, and some straight answers.
“Okay, Joe, what in hell is going on?”
“Are you referring to the map?”
“I don’t believe the map has anything to do with . . . well, you tell me.”
“By now, I guess you deserve to know, but I can only tell you so much. There is a lot that I don’t even know. And there are a few things I can’t tell you under any circumstances.”
“Under the seal of confession, eh,” I said half-jokingly.
I must have hit a nerve because an unexpected pause lapsed before Joe spoke again. “I trust that you will be discreet with what I tell you.” My old friend shot a glance at the closed door.
“All I can promise is that Kyle will be told only those things to keep him out of trouble. Will that do?”
“I suppose it must.” Joe grinned and sat back into his chair. “What you have worked out for yourself is pretty accurate, as far as I know. And it is true, the authenticity of that old map and substance of Father Steinmetz’s research papers are less important now than they were decades ago. What the Vatican is concerned about now is the origins of the money associated with what you discovered—Operation Hotspur.”
“You are telling me that this whole rotten business is just about the money?”
“Back in the 1950s, there were people in the Vatican who were very concerned about the Steinmetz Papers. Now the Vatican is concerned about the money.”
“And I thought with the present Pope, the Church had lost its interest in money.”
“The Church has a very keen interest in this particular lump of ill-gotten cash. These funds secretly made their way into the Vatican bank for its safekeeping. In doing so, these funds made the Vatican bank an accessory to shady financial deals over the decades.”
“That must be where the Luger connection comes in,” I said.
“Correct. The Lugeri-Luger family had connections with the Vatican Bank, and it was they who were instrumental in hiding the Hotspur loot in the Church’s financial institution.”
“So, the Berlin Wall came down in 1989,” I said, ordering the facts in my head. “And in that same year, the Hotspur guys saw their chance to come out into the open, so to speak, and started HITF—”
“Why not? They had the expertise and ready access to funding. In a very true sense,” added Joe, “the HITF owners were lending their own ill-gotten money to their company via the Vatican bank—a very lucrative situation.”
“So, a spanking new company, born in a recent ex-communist Soviet Bloc country, gets financial backing—seed money, and this company, HITF, grows unexpectedly fast into one of Europe’s most successful conglomerates.”
“Helped along,” added Joe, “by financial and non-financial services provided by the Lugeri-Luger family syndicate and their friends.”
“Everything was going great for the Hotspur Gang until—”
“The Stoner Papers surfaced,” said Joe.
“Exactly. It must have been quite a shock to those involved.”
“After more than sixty years of silence, HIFT and Luger must have thought Steinmetz’s documents with their incriminating information about the Hotspur were lost forever.” Joe shook his head. “They were living in a fool’s paradise.”
“Neither the folks at HITF nor Luger and his organization would want the Hotspur money origins to be connected back to them or to the Vatican bank,” I remarked, mentally making sense of it all. “Tell me straight, Joe, is this where you fit in this puzzle? Because from where I sit, I believe that you and this Father Mason knew each other and are deeply involved in this quagmire.”
My friend’s head dropped for a moment with a sigh. Then raising his head and looking me straight into my eye, he said, “What I told you when I first arrived was true. I met Mason only once, and that was when he gave me the card to give to your Uncle Raymond.”
“But still . . .” I didn’t continue. I waited—having a gut feeling there was something that Joe was keeping from me.
“If things went according to plan, I was to bring any personal papers of Stein
metz back to Rome.”
“The map and research documents?”
“No, they were to stay with your uncle or, as it turned out, to the college.”
“I was only to take Steinmetz personal stuff—the hidden microfiche. This was something that your Uncle Raymond and Mason had prearranged years ago.”
“And since the envelope with coded messages under the stamps was a personal letter from an old friend—”
“I would be taking the letter, the envelope, and the messages back with me.”
“And my Uncle agreed to be a part of this intrigue? I just don’t see it. Why? This entire affair skirts around legalities and flirts with danger. Why would he get involved?”
“You don’t know?”
“Don’t tell me it was out of his unflinching love for the Church.”
“Well, that may be part of it.”
“There had to be more.”
“It was his house.”
“What? The old gatehouse?” I was taken aback, but it made sense. My Uncle Raymond knew a good financial deal when he saw one, but still. “Are you kidding me?”
“No,” Joe said. “Your Uncle’s home was once owned by Father Mason, who inherited it upon his father’s death.”
“The German bootlegger!”
“Now, you begin to see how this played out. Your uncle meets up with Mason many years ago on that fateful day at the Austrian-Hungarian border. Mason, after being shot at and seeing his brother die . . . he didn’t know whom to trust. He gives the Steinmetz papers to your uncle for safekeeping. In exchange, your uncle gets Mason’s gatehouse for his home. A family property that he had no use for anyway because of his . . . religious calling.”
“That is pretty far-fetched. One doesn’t give a stranger a bunch of old papers for safekeeping and give him a house for his troubles.”
“True, but who said that your Uncle Raymond and Father Mason were strangers?”
I was momentarily struck dumb.
“I can’t say that they knew each other . . . but I can’t say that they didn’t. Mason and your uncle went to the same college, which gives one something to think about. It would have been a great coincidence for these two men to meet each other when they did for the first time at the Austrian border.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences, Joe.”
“I usually don’t believe in them either, but they do occur. In my profession, coincidences are many times called . . . the will of God. But with your Uncle Raymond and Mason, I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“And was it the will of God that after all these years, you showed up on my doorstep a few days ago?”
The grin on Joe’s face melted into an expression of concern. “No, that was improvisation. Trust me, Rich, the powers-that-be wanted you out of this affair. They wanted to keep you and yours safe.”
“Well, that plan worked like a charm,” I gibed. “When were you going to fill me in on the details?”
“If things went as planned, there wouldn’t have been any need for you to know.”
“Right—” how I wished that things had gone as scheduled—“So, what’s to be done, my old friend? The floor is ready for any suggestions.”
“To be done? You are asking me?” said Joe with a grimace.
“You are up to your eyeballs in this mess. Who gets the Stoner Papers, the map? Does the college, the Vatican, the US government, HITF? Who? Who gets to keep Steinmetz’s box of trouble? How does this whole affair work itself out?”
“Well, if you want my counsel, let me offer a few suggestions . . .”
#
CHAPTER 41
Joe said his piece. His suggestions were good. In fact, they were excellent—especially when they dovetailed with my own thoughts and feelings. I pretty much used all the ideas that he had offered, particularly the ones that freed me of the Stoner Papers and all of their problematic encumbrances.
By the end of the week, Joe and Firmino flew back to the Vatican with the microfilm. Two weeks after their return, HIFT publicly announced that it was donating three million euros to NGOs that provided health services to refugees in Eastern and Central Europe. It was also announced that Tibor Lovas, the last living founder of HIFT, had resigned from the company’s board of directors. The reason given was health issues due to age. HIFT also reported something else that piqued Chester’s interest in particular. Dr. Vera Krauss, a granddaughter of one of the co-founders of HIFT, had retired from her corporate board position. The reason given was that she wanted to devote more time to pursuing academic matters.
And the surprises didn’t stop with that. I learned from Chester that HIFT sent another $100,000 donation to the college’s scholarship fund. Chester commented to me that the gift was most likely hush money concerning the recent events, which was more than okay with him—after all, money is money.
Also, Chester took my suggestion and kept the Adamus Bremensis map and the Steinmetz research work—with my permission, of course. The fraudulent map is presently on exhibit in the lobby of the college library as part of an exhibit about propaganda through the ages. Accompanied by Heike Fuerst’s findings, the Steinmetz Papers exhibition has received some degree of celebrity in several college journals—not bad for old Chester.
The microfiche information turned out to be the key to unlocking the wheels of justice, which were frozen for so many years. Soon after the changes in the HIFT leadership, Luger was arrested in Brussels, along with some of his associates. Through the grapevine that runs through Serena Boswell’s backyard, I learned that dozens of warrants were issued against Luger and his crew by Italy, Germany, The United States, and Hungary. Charges ranged from bank fraud to murder. And Father Galamb, Mason’s assistant, was arrested for unlawful obstruction.
As mentioned before, no charges were filed against Bernie and Heike concerning the theft of the Stoner Papers. The fact that the documents were eventually located at my uncle’s place—the residence of the man who technically owned them—provided enough legal cover for the two of them.
Dispelling the fear of the possibility of going to jail gave great comfort to Heike and Bernie and allowed them to embark on other matters. The two of them had been secretly close friends since Heike’s student days at the college. So close, in fact, they got married in Vermont the day after Thanksgiving. They live happily together in their love nest above Bernie’s workshop. As a wedding gift, Morgana pulled some strings and got Heike Fuerst an interview for a position at Bennington College and is now in a tenure-track teaching position at the school.
The only disappointing outcome of this affair was that Kyle and I didn’t inherit Uncle Raymond’s house. It happened that the letter accompanying the Mass card that Joe received from Mason to give to my uncle was Mason’s wistful reminiscences of a European trip the two old gents took together in the 1960s. But amid these recorded memories were references to their old agreement. An agreement that was ultimately reflected in Uncle Raymond’s will.
My uncle left all his financial assets, personal property, and household goods to Kyle and me, but his home and the land it sits upon were given to the Diocese of Burlington. To be honest, I was more than a little saddened when Albert told me the news. My uncle’s home held many childhood memories. But considering the recent events, the expense of maintaining the house, and the strange circumstances by which my uncle got the property, I concluded that it was best, for all involved, that the Church take possession of Uncle’s homestead.
Morgana agreed. She never liked the place—too damp for her comfort. Kyle concurred. He said his bones ached every time he entered the house, though I believe his pangs of discomfort were due more to his lack of exercise and agility than to dampness.
There was a slight entanglement concerning the diocese taking ownership of the house, which had to do with Tuthill and his band of Civil War re-enactors. Remember, Peterson promised Tuthill, in my name—something I hadn’t authorized him to do—in exchange for his and the group’s cooperation, the re-enact
ors could use Uncle Raymond’s grounds for their military training exercises. But since I wouldn’t own the property, I couldn’t give permission. That was when I called in a favor from Joe.
My old friend pulled some strings and helped me to formulate my request to church officials. My position, simply put, was based on guilt. I stated that my uncle’s generosity has assisted the Church in clearing many of its recent debts. Therefore, the diocese should honor my modest request to give the re-enactors permission to practice on the old grounds.
Our guilt trip was a success. Tuthill and his Civil War enthusiasts got the okay—in writing—to drill on the grounds of my uncle’s place during the spring and summer months.
I could never establish a clear prior connection between Father Mason and my Uncle before they met at the Austrian border. The two men could have known each other, though. I learned that they both lived in Vermont when they were young and went to the same college. Could have the two men met before the War? Possibly. But there is no hard evidence that they did. So, as of now, the origins of their friendship still remain a mystery.
As for further catamount sightings, there were none. It seems that I was the last person to see the wild cat. The Mapledales and the locals feel a little safer as each day passes. I, on the other hand, feel a little sadder. I had come to fantasize that, in some strange way, Uncle Raymond’s spirit and the catamount were somehow intermingled. That the two of them were out prowling in the neighboring woods protecting nature from civilization. I know it is a silly thought, but it is a comforting one.
Presently, Morgana and I are on our way to Puerto Rico for a two-week, over-due vacation. Sun, surf, and Mojitos await us when we land in four hours.
Oh, one more thing before I forget. Heike Fuerst told me on the sly, at her wedding reception, that Morgana’s nickname—the one that her randy male students gave her back in the day was . . . Hotspur.
#
THE HOTSPUR AFFAIR
By Jack Flanagan
The Hotspur Affair: A Richard & Morgana MacKenzie Mystery Page 37