The Assassini (17 page)

“Evidence of what you’d call a cover-up nowadays. I never got over it. Part of my education. Taught me where I fit in the scheme of things. Lots of folks more important than a Princeton cop. Valuable lesson, all things considered.” He smiled amicably at the thought. You could see nothing was going to get his goat now.

“And what was being covered up?”

“Well, Sister, it wasn’t just what. It was also who was doing the covering up. Ben, I don’t think your daddy ever knew all this maneuvering was going on behind the scenes. I felt kinda sorry for him, probably the only time in his life he wasn’t in the know. I was deputy chief and Clint O’Neill, he was chief, and it all came down from on high and landed on Clint—he was a stubby sort of fella to begin with and he had a coupla beers one night and admitted he was just about buried alive on the Governeau thing. And he had to go along—you can’t argue with the governor, a senator, an archbishop, more heavyweights than you see introduced at a championship fight—”

“All because a priest who taught art appreciation to teenage girls went off his rocker and hanged himself?” I was scowling at the idea. “What was the big deal?”

“Problem was, y’see, he didn’t kill himself—unless he figured out a way to split the back of his skull with a hammer and then hang himself when he was already dead. Which was how it must have happened. Unless it was murder, which is what it was, natch.”

“And this story never came out?”

“Never did.” He grinned, rubbed his hand through his white butch haircut. “Never will. It was never investigated.
It became a suicide after the fact. Like I say, your dad got stuck with a body in the orchard and the rumors, you know how people talk, and he got pretty damn sick of it, but what could he do?”

“What kind of rumors?”

“Begging your pardon, Sister, you can imagine, I’m sure—”

“Pregnant nuns stashed away in convents,” she said. “Like that?”

“Sure, sure,” Rupe Norwich said, “what else? Folks just insist on being folks, don’t they?”

“They didn’t think a nun killed him, surely?”

“No, Ben. Some folks thought he got a student pregnant and a daddy killed him. All just talk. We never found a weapon—damnation, we never looked for one. Am I gettin’ through to you? It was a
suicide
.”

“Well, no wonder my father would never discuss it. The gossip would irritate hell out of him.” The idea amused me. “So why would Val be asking questions now?” It was a rhetorical question, but Rupe Norwich had an answer.

“Makes you think she already found out something,” he said. “Or had a good idea, eh? Had a theory, a suspicion, maybe. Still darned near fifty years … Long time. Cold trail.” He shrugged his square, bony shoulders. “Seems like yesterday to me. Poor bastard. Bad luck, I’d say, getting yourself murdered and nobody ever looks for the killer and you go down in the books as a suicide. Lousy luck, wouldn’t you say? And him a priest?”

When we got home Margaret Korder had everything well in hand. Several friends of the family had called and she’d attended to one and all. Funeral arrangements were in progress: the body would be released tomorrow, burial the next day. The man from the funeral home was coming by to show me photos of caskets. I told Margaret something simple and solid would be fine and she could handle it all. She’d arranged my mother’s funeral. It was just another thing she knew how to do.

Father Dunn had called from New York and would
call again. Peaches had called. There were two messages from Cardinal D’Ambrizzi’s office in Rome and they’d get back to me. There had been one call from the Holy Father’s office but, having expressed sympathy, they hadn’t sounded like they’d be calling again.

“You don’t have to do a thing,” Margaret said. “Everything’s logged, I’ve hooked up the answering machine and referred after-hours calls to my room at the Nassau Inn. I’ve moved in for the duration. Your father is resting comfortably in intensive care. He was awake for a while, pretty groggy, and he’s sleeping now. They’ll call if there’s any change. And that’s about it.”

“Margaret, you’re a wonder.”

“I’m paid to be, Ben,” she said with a wintry smile. She’d been through the wars between my father and me and she’d never taken sides. She’d also never given me anything but good advice. “The important thing now is to keep our spirits up and pull your father through.”

“And find out who killed my sister,” I said.

“But let’s make sure of the living first,” she said, turning to Sister Elizabeth. “Would you like a cup of tea, Sister? I sent the Garritys home. They were fussing too much for my taste. Too lace-curtain, I fear. And she kept bursting into little fits of sobbing. Frankly, I couldn’t take it anymore. Tea might revive me.”

“I’d love some tea,” Elizabeth said, and they went off to the kitchen. Elizabeth, in her slacks and penny loafers and heavy blue sweater, was reminding me more and more of Val, which was good and bad, I guess.

I went upstairs and soaked in a hot tub for an hour, thinking about the snapshot Val had hidden in the drum and the fact that our suicidal priest’s murder had been covered up. Was the snapshot as old as the murder? Why was it French? Who were those guys—D’Ambrizzi and who else? What had prompted Val, in what was virtually her last act on earth, to call Sam Turner about the hanged priest? What had she wanted to tell me? And who knew that killing her wasn’t enough, that her briefcase had to be stolen as well?

When I came downstairs, Margaret had left for the inn and Elizabeth was watching Dan Rather sign off the
evening news. She looked up. “The pope’s office called you? I don’t know whether to be impressed or horrified. Val couldn’t have been one of his favorite people.”

“No, but my father is. More or less. Are you hungry?”

“I assume that’s a rhetorical question.” She stood up and took the teacups to the sink. “But first, they’ve unsealed the chapel. Would you mind if I spent a few minutes there? I won’t be long, but let’s face it, I need some help—the kind I’ll get there.”

“I guess that’s what it’s for. Would you like me to walk you out?”

“No, I’ll be fine. We’ll have some dinner when I come back, okay?”

Father Dunn turned up while she was still in the chapel.

“I called earlier,” he said, “but you were out. I understand you have a houseguest. Remarkable girl. Where were you?” It was cold outside and he was warming himself before the fire in the Long Room. He gave the drinks table a yearning glance and I uncapped the Laphroaig. “Good idea,” he said. “I’ll have mine in a glass, thanks.”

“Doing a little research,” I said.

“Into the life and times of Father Governeau?”

“Just his death.” I handed him the drink and poured my own. “Dredging up the past.”

“
À la
your sister—and? And?” He gave me the crinkly Barry Fitzgerald look.

“It wasn’t a suicide,” I said. “The man who was deputy chief back then says it was murder. And a cover-up. Governor, senator, archbishop, the works. So there was no investigation.”

Dunn stared at me across his scotch. He pursed his lips and sat down, sipped. “This damn thing gets worse and worse. I feel rather as if someone is laying out the pieces of a story and our job is to build the plot. D’you mind my talking like a writer? Writing’s a mug’s game, but it’s a good deal harder to do than an amateur might suspect.” His flat gray eyes were still, as if they were waiting for something, someone. “I’ve been in New
York. No good news there either, though what would qualify as good escapes me. But if we had any doubts, we can forget them … the same gun was used on your sister, Lockhardt, and Heffernan.” He drank again, looked up, grinned, but the eyes never changed. “If I weren’t so brave, I might be starting to feel hot breath on the back of my neck.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re so brave, Father. But a murder conspiracy stretching across half a century and killing my sister forty-eight hours ago scares the daylights out of me. And by the way, what does this mean to you?” I fished the snapshot from my shirt pocket and handed it to him.

He took the picture, gave it a quick look, then took it over to the table and held it under the light. “Where in the world did you get this?” I told him. He shook his head, and with admiration in his voice said, “She hid it in the
drum
. Women are amazing creatures. Resourceful. I wonder where she got it.…”

“Does it ring any bells?”

“Sure. The fella with the banana for a nose is Giacomo D’Ambrizzi, of course. It’s printed on French paper. I’d say it’s forty years old, anyway. World War Two at a guess. Paris.”

“You get a lot out of a beat-up old snap—”

He shrugged. “D’Ambrizzi was in Paris during the war. I was in the army, the boy chaplain. I was there after the Liberation. That’s where I met D’Ambrizzi. But it stands to reason the picture goes back to that period, doesn’t it? I met him just that one time … and then not again until many years later. These other men? They could be anybody.”

“So why was the picture so important to Val?”

Dunn handed it back to me. “Beats me, Ben.”

The front door opened and Elizabeth came into the Long Room. Her face was flushed from the wind and cold.

“Sister Elizabeth, my dear!” Dunn went to her. Several emotions crossed her face before he got there, and she settled for a very small smile. “I’m so sorry about Sister Valentine.” He took her hand in both of his.

“Father Dunn,” she said coolly. “Of all people.”

“Sexually obsessed,” Dunn said, munching on a ham sandwich. He looked at the last of the scotch in his glass, burped softly, said, “I’m switching to milk. Possibly for the rest of my life.” He went to the sink, rinsed his glass, and poured milk. “Yes, sexually obsessed, and that’s a quote. No way out of it, Sister. There it was in black and white. I’ll bet you missed her review of my latest, Ben, but authors read them all—”

“And never forget the bad ones,” I said.

Sister Elizabeth was leaning forward with her elbows on the kitchen table, her chin resting in her cupped hands. “Would you call it a bad review, Father?”

“Good gracious, no. I’d call it a review that sold books. Couldn’t have done better myself. And I fancied some of my colleagues were looking on me with freshly minted respect.”

“My colleagues, too,” she said. “You’re very big in convents, I suspect. Sex is good business. So, you owe me one.”

“But did you mean it, Sister?”

“Sexually obsessed? Really, Father, would I lie? It seems to me the question is, was I right? You
seem
well versed in the area of literary sex.” She shrugged provocatively. “Perhaps you only have a vivid imagination.” She winked at me.

“Imagination helps, don’t you suppose? For instance, you mentioned convents—but what, I wonder, do you know of convent life?”

“Enough, Father.” She grinned. “Just exactly enough.”

Inevitably we talked about the murders, concentrating on Val, trying to avoid the emotion. Just as inevitably Elizabeth fixed Dunn with one of her appraising stares. “I don’t quite understand how you’ve gotten so involved in all this. Did you know Val? Or is it the Princeton connection?”

“I never met Sister Valentine, and Ben here is my first Driskill. No, I’m here by accident. Just a random blip on the screen but, as it turned out, I know the man
in New York investigating those murders. I thought I might be helpful to Ben. Of course I did know Curtis Lockhardt slightly—”

“Excuse me, Father, but do you have a parish? An office? You must be assigned somewhere—”

“Oh, officially I’m connected to the New York archdiocese. Cardinal Klammer, God rest his soul—no, don’t look so concerned, he’s only
brain
dead, Sister—Klammer has the benefit of my counsel. He needs all the counsel he can get. Perhaps I should write a sitcom.” He smiled genially at her. “Look, Sister, I’m not a particularly easy person to have around, but our masters make the best of it. I live here in Princeton and I have a condo in New York. I’m an inconvenience in some ways, but I also have the kind of mind the Church can always use—”

“And what kind of mind is that?”

“Devious? In the present instance you might say that I am acting as Cardinal Klammer’s eyes and ears. Have you any other questions, Sister? Might as well trot them out.” He was smiling, but he’d had about enough.

“I’m just curious,” she said. “Leading two lives, priest and novelist, must be exhausting.” She wasn’t backing off just because he was a priest, a man. Together, she and Val must have been the scourge of Rome’s male chauvinists. The Church barely tolerated women with influence and the prestige to speak out. But Dunn was enjoying the parry and thrust.

“I bear up as best I can,” he said. “I study the Church rather like a scientist studies a section on a slide—”

“But the scientist is not dictated to by the goo on the slide.”

“Ah, point to you, Sister. But still I do study the Church, how it reacts to pressure. First, there is my own case. I’ve observed how the individuals and the mechanism dealt with me. Then I watched it deal with the activists, from the Berrigans on through Sister Valentine and the gay rights activists.… The Church is a huge organism. Poke it and it squirms, challenge it, threaten it, and it fights to preserve itself. In the last few days the
Church has gotten poked pretty hard.” He raised his eyebrows, bushy gray thickets. The flat gray eyes blinked. “And here I am. Watching. Studying. It’s a life’s work.”

“The Church has gotten poked,” I said. “Presumably Val was doing the poking, making the organism squirm. And in that case haven’t we been seeing how the Church strikes back to preserve itself?”

Sister Elizabeth shook her head. “God knows I’m no apologist for the Church, take that as a given. But I cannot seriously believe that the Church sanctions murder. Not in the twentieth century. The Church did
not
dispatch a killer to do these horrible things—”

“What is the Church?” I asked. “Men. Some of whom have a lot to lose.”

“But there are so many other ways to deal with problems—”

“Oh, come on, Elizabeth! The Church has always murdered people,” I said. “Friends and enemies. Our evidence indicates it was a priest who—”