The Book of 21 (28 page)

“What?”

“In the letter I told you about earlier, Trumbull also said that the door rested at the feet of Francis. I thought he meant like a dog would rest at your feet. It made no sense. I figured it was a bunch of overblown hot air, but he meant in the footing of the building.”

Amy pursed her lips, and said, “That’s awful thin, John, and it doesn’t seem to fit the other two drawings.”

“It’s all we have right now. Give me your phone.”

“Thank God,” she said, as she handed over her phone. “Here, call for some help, I’m glad you finally decided to end this.”

After regarding Amy for a few seconds, John turned his attention to her smartphone. “Where’s the ‘on’ button on this thing?”

“It’s on. Just tap the button on the top.”

John’s eyes almost popped out of his head, and he growled, “I told you to turn this off. What do you mean it’s on?”

“Relax, it’s in airplane mode.”

“Oh, perfect,” John murmured, feeling like an ass.

He knew that meant, while the phone was on and any applications remained functional, it was off the cellular grid. Taking advantage of that fact, John snapped pictures of the stone slab and then each side of the sarcophagus with the smartphone’s camera.

“I wouldn’t want us to figure out later that we should have paid more attention to the other symbols on this thing. Now, let’s get out of here.”

As they stepped back into the blaring sunlight outside the tomb, Amy was still trying to find her tongue. After a minute, the anger finally overtook her, and she snapped, “Are you going to call for some help or what?”

“Not yet. Right now, we’re going to get in the truck and take a ride. Once we are away from here, I’ll get a connection with your nifty little phone and run a search to see how many Churches of St. Francis come up in the Philadelphia area.” John started making his way around the truck to the passenger door.

“I don’t believe you, John. This is over; it’s time to give it up and call in the police so that they can take care of it.”

“I am the police,” he growled.

“Not anymore,” she barked back. “You said it yourself; they suspended you. Let them handle it if they don’t want you around.”

The two stood glaring at each other for a second. John then shook his head, reached out, and opened the passenger door.

“Where are you going?” she snapped.

“I need you to drive so I can run the search.” He crawled in and reconnected the wires to start the truck.

Amy climbed into the truck, and asked, “Where should I go?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just get us away from here so that we don’t gift-wrap the graveyard for anyone who might be trying to find us through your cell.”

John waited for a few blocks before allowing the phone to connect to the cellular grid. He entered three terms: St. Francis, church, and Philadelphia. Only one result came back.

“There has to be more than one,” he sighed.

“Only one Church of St. Francis in the whole city?”

“Yes, unless the map program sucks, and that’s entirely possible.” He set the phone back to airplane mode and looked at Amy. “Let’s check it out.”

Chapter 36:
The Shell Game

“There he is,” said Harry Mulgrew.

About half a block ahead of him on South Carnac Street, the uniformed figure of Jake Moore stood next to a police cruiser. A few feet away from Moore, three men were carrying furniture into a townhouse from a blue pickup. Fanelli pulled up next to Moore, and slammed the car into park. Both Fanelli and Harry hopped out before the car finished rocking to a full stop.

“What’s going on?” Harry asked.

Moore shrugged. “I just got here a few minutes ago. Without an exact location, the phone is either in one of these two townhouses, or these two cars next to us. The gentlemen unloading the truck let me look in their townhouse already, so I know that McDonough is not in there. The place next door looks empty. Without anyone to let us in, we’ll need to get a warrant to check it out.”

Fanelli walked over to the cars, and said, “Well, we can see in the cars, and I don’t hear anyone making noise in the trunks. He has to be in the house. Let’s get a crowbar from your cruiser.”

“Wait a minute,” Harry interrupted, “he could be tied up in one of these trunks. Let’s see if we hear a ring from his phone.” Harry pulled out his cell phone and dialed John’s number.

“If they had to tie him up,” Moore pondered aloud, “would they really be sloppy enough to leave his cell phone with him?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Fanelli groaned. “Things happen and people get sloppy.”

As he pushed the send button on his cell phone, Harry winced. “Or, maybe they wanted us to find him. Hopefully, we’re not too late.”

In the air, the three of them heard a faint ringing. It was a slight sound, almost imperceptible. It was not coming from the cars in front of them.

As Fanelli slowly turned toward the sound, he saw a man in the blue pickup bend over and pick up a small box. After looking at it for a second, the man walked toward his friend and pointed at the device.

“Hey Joe, is this yours?” the man asked, with a voice as faint as the ringing phone.

Fanelli pointed toward John’s ringing cell. Moore was already running past them toward the sound. Fanelli and Harry rushed to catch up.

The man named Joe asked, “Should we answer it?”

His friend tapped Joe on the arm and pointed to the men running toward them.

As Joe focused on Jake Moore’s uniform, he muttered, “Oh, shit…”

Harry held out his hand, and said, “I’ll take that. Can you tell me how it wound up in the back of your truck?”

“No,” Joe answered as he handed Harry the cell. “We’ve been moving this stuff all morning. I thought I heard something ringing on the way over here, but I couldn’t figure it out until now.”

Moore looked at Fanelli and nodded. “These guys left me in their townhouse to look around as soon as I asked. They seem legit.”

“Where were you guys coming from?” asked Fanelli.

“Over towards Penn Commonwealth, my old place was over there.” Joe motioned toward his friend. “He came over from Old City.”

“Officer Moore is going to get some information from you,” Fanelli said. “We just need to know how to contact you, in case we have any other questions.”

Moore took the two men aside to get their information, while Fanelli and Harry inspected the cell phone. The list of recent calls showed Kim’s call, Harry’s call, and a call from someone named Amy Ritter.

Harry stopped and furrowed his brow. He looked at Fanelli and asked, “Who the hell is Amy Ritter?”

Chapter 37:
Stop at the House of God

Through the windshield of the truck, Amy peered at the Church of St. Francis and sighed, “Wow.”

“Wow, is right.”

“This is like the old Gothic cathedrals of Paris or London; I would never have guessed this would be sitting in a Philadelphia suburb. It’s awesome.” She admired the hand-carved gargoyles and flying buttresses, but the statue in front of the church was why they were there. She turned back to John, and realized he was staring at it. “That statue looks exactly like the carving on the sarcophagus lid,” she prodded.

“I know.”

Behind the statue, the church sat alone the middle of a nine-acre block. Its gray stone walls were surrounded by an expanse of beautifully manicured lawn. Four small flower gardens, each shaded by several large oak trees, sat in each corner of the block. A broad walkway, paved with slate native to the area, extended from the concrete sidewalk up to the doors of the church. Smaller slate-paved paths led off toward the four gardens.

“See that?” John asked, pointing at a small annex extending from the rear left corner of the church. “That’s new. They did a good job of trying to match the style, but the wear on the stone doesn’t match the rest of the church.”

“So?” Amy countered, “The congregation probably built it to offer refreshments after Sunday mass and hold the occasional wedding reception.”

“That would fit. When we circled around the place earlier, I saw a driveway in the back that goes up to the back door of the church and service doors of the annex. That would allow workers and servants to slip in and out a back door without interfering with the view.”

Heaving a sigh, Amy asked, “Do you think the book is literally under the feet of the statue?”

“I don’t know; it may be. I don’t think it would be good to go up and just knock the thing over, though, and I don’t see any images of a woman out here that might be the Virgin Mary. She was the next link on the key.”

“Well,” Amy said with a cock of her head, “Should we go in and take a look around?”

“Why not? We’re here. I guess that’s the least we could do before we start trying to demolish a statue of a saint.” After a few seconds of silence, John continued, “I think we should have the place to ourselves; the few people we see on the street don’t seem to be going in, just walking through the neighborhood.”

They opened the creaking doors of the old Chevy pickup and stepped onto the pavement. John found that if he walked slowly, his injuries caused him minimal pain. As he crossed the street and headed toward the church, John looked for the date on the cornerstone, which read, “1706.”

The duo made their way past the statue and toward the large double-door entranceway that was topped by a Gothic arc. On either side of the front doors, towers adorned by statues and carvings rose up about four or five stories. John pulled one of the heavy doors open.

Inside, they found a floor of mosaic tile. The tiles formed ornate patterns of vines and flowers until they hit a red border that surrounded the pews. Inside that border, the patterns became more geometric. A large white marble slab sat at each of the four corners of the red border, and each slab was inset with large shield bearing a red cross.

“Look familiar?” John asked, pointing at the closest shield.

She folded her arms, looked at John, and said, “I think we found it. Let’s go get help.”

“Not yet. Mary was the next link in the key, not the shield. Right now, these shields mean nothing. Let’s look for Mary.”

John let his eyes wander over beauty of the church. About ten feet from the red border around the pews, massive stone pillars divided the austere seating area from an outer causeway that was also about ten feet wide. The outer walls of the causeway recessed into grottoes. There were six of these little caves along the right side of the church, with the same number duplicated on the left, for a total of twelve. From his vantage point at the door, John could not tell what was in the grottoes, but he was assuming that one of them might be a good place for a statue of Mary.

John moved to his right and closed on the closest grotto. There, he found a statue of a man in a red cloak and blue sash. He was holding a staff and standing solemnly with his head bowed in prayer. John stood for a minute and wondered whom the statue was supposed to represent.

“Welcome,” said a soft male voice. The word seemed to seep into the church, and echoed through the stone arches.

From the altar, a priest in simple black garb was making his way toward John and Amy. They moved slowly to meet the man in front of the fourth statue from the front door.

“I am Father Lamb,” claimed the priest as he extended his hand.

A slight smile escaped John’s lips as he took the priest’s hand and shook gently.

“Welcome to our church,” the priest continued. “If there is anything that I can help you with, please let me know.”

“There is something you can answer for me, Father,” John replied. “These statues, can you tell me about them? I see you have twelve alcoves, are they the twelve disciples?”

“No, they are simply people who were thought to be instrumental in the creation of the church.”

Father Lamb turned to the statue that stood directly next to them. It was a man standing on a rock and looking to the heavens. He was wearing a white biblical-style frock with a red cloth draped over one shoulder. His right hand shielded his eyes and his left hand held a crown of thorns.

“This statue does happen to be a disciple. It is St. John.”

“I don’t think I have ever quite seen him portrayed that way. It’s very interesting. Would you be kind enough to tell me about the rest of the statues?”

“I would be delighted; we don’t often get the chance to show visitors around.” The priest began to move toward the altar.

While John followed the priest toward the next statue, he sighed, “Your church is quite beautiful. I’m surprised you don’t have tourists flocking to it.”

“We exist to do God’s work, not to market ourselves for commercial gain. It is a shame that so many churches and cathedrals that were built with the contributions of the poor have turned into tourist traps that promote only their own sustenance.” Father Lamb nodded at the next statue. “This is a statue of St. Jude, also a Disciple of Christ. He was the patron saint of lost causes.”

John looked at the statue of man dressed in green and white biblical-era clothing. John was familiar with St. Jude, as there was a children’s hospital in Philadelphia that bore the saint’s name. After thinking about the idea of lost causes, John wondered if someone was trying to tell him something.

The priest let him stare at the statue for a few seconds and moved to the next. The next statue was of a woman with long red hair. She wore a red cloak over a blue gown and pointed into the church. It was an exact depiction of the bas-relief on the lid of the sarcophagus, except that this one had color.

“This is St. Mary Magdalene, the Penitent. Many of our visitors mistake her for the Virgin Mary, but she was far from that. She was a prostitute that repented, showing that all who repent for their sins will be forgiven and loved.”

John followed the pointing finger to the floor of the church, where his gaze landed on a corner of the red border around the pews. On that corner, sat one of the marble slabs adorned with a Templar shield. It was at a forty-five degree skew to the red border, which caused the bottom tip to point outward toward the corner of the border. This angle also caused the shield to recline at the angle shown in the bas-relief he saw earlier.