“A butterfly,” Nora said.
That’s what it was, all right. A round sticker about the size of a half dollar with an illustration of a monarch butterfly.
Carefully, Cyrus peeled back the flap. A set of car keys fell out on the counter.
“Hot damn,” Cyrus said.
“That looks like a padlock key.” Nora pointed at the littlest key on the ring.
“Get the thing,” he said.
Nora ran into the other room, came back with the duffel bag. Cyrus passed her another set of gloves. She pulled the chastity device out of the bag and set it on a few paper towels that Cyrus had set out.
Cyrus tried the key. The lock popped open.
“Okay, so there goes my theory,” Nora said.
Cyrus didn’t answer, too busy thinking.
“Keys in the mailbox. No stamp. Somebody found the keys? No.”
“If they just found them on the street, they wouldn’t know who they belonged to.”
“Right.” Cyrus nodded. “So somebody had the keys already, found out Ike was dead, and wanted to return them quietly.”
“Somebody who likes butterflies. Who likes butterflies?”
“Father Ike did. He had that poem in his Bible.”
“He was in love with someone who likes butterflies? Maybe? Or sleeping with someone who likes butterflies?”
“We don’t know that. It’s a guess, but we can’t say that for sure.” Cyrus turned the envelope over and looked inside but found nothing other than that one butterfly sticker.
“Doesn’t seem possible it’s just a coincidence though, does it?”
No, it didn’t.
And something else…
“Grand Isle,” Cyrus said. “It has a butterfly dome. Some kind of park, all butterflies. Ike went on vacation there in June. In July, he booked a two-month stay on Grand Isle at a different place, a real secluded place. Lady who met him said Father Ike asked what there was to do around there. She said ‘beach, nature hikes, biking, and the butterfly dome.’”
“So he wanted to go back because he likes butterflies,” Nora said. “Or because he knew someone who did.”
Cyrus needed to think and think hard and think deep.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said.
“You want me to come?”
“No, you stay here. Keep looking. I’m gonna walk from here to where we found the car again.”
“Why? We already found the keys.”
Cyrus turned so that he was facing the street. “You have any trouble getting a parking spot on this street?”
“No. I parked right in front of the house.”
“You see lots of spots?”
“Half the street was empty.”
“Right. Exactly.” Cyrus wagged his finger at her. “Ike didn’t park his car three blocks away because there was no parking here. He parked it there for a reason.”
“What reason?”
“Ike had his own apartment at St. Valentine’s, but he came here to the church’s guest house a mile away, supposedly for ‘peace and quiet.’ Sister Margaret said he likes the neighborhood. What’s so special about this neighborhood?”
“What are you thinking?”
“Maybe the man or woman he gave his keys to lives around here. Maybe that’s why he came here. I just want to see what I can see.”
“Good luck,” Nora said. “I’ll call you if I find anything.”
Cyrus left her in the house and headed out on foot. He walked slowly, carefully eying every house he passed. What was he looking for? Something told him he’d know it when he saw it. And something else told him he’d already seen it.
But what was it?
Butterflies. Butterfly poem. Butterfly dome. Butterfly sticker.
Maybe the woman Cyrus was doing kink with had a butterfly tattoo. He knew a whole lotta girls who had butterflies inked on their backs or ankles. He’d even picked one girl up at an Usher concert who had a butterfly tattoo on her upper chest so that the little butterfly’s head was at her throat, the wings on her cleavage.
Of course while he was remembering fucking the butterfly girl, Sister Margaret called him back.
“Sister,” he said. “Thanks for calling me. I know this is terrible to talk about, but I’d like to hear the recording of Father Ike’s message to you. Would you let me do that?”
She took a deep breath. “If you think it’ll help. Let me call you back on our landline, and I’ll play it over the phone. Would that work?”
“That would work fine. I’m out on the street, though. I’ll text you in a couple minutes and you can call me then.”
Cyrus jogged back to the house on Annunciation Street. This time he found Nora in the bedroom going through the dresser drawers.
“No luck,” she said. “And I turned this place upside-down. You?”
“Sister Margaret’s gonna let us listen to the message. You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Cyrus sent the Sister a text. A few seconds later, his phone rang. Cyrus put it on speaker and set it on top of the dresser.
“Ready,” he told Sister Margaret.
“All right,” she said. Her voice was hollow. “I’ll push play and hold it up. Here we go.”
A beep, and then a male voice: “Maggie.”
Nora reached out and grabbed Cyrus by the forearm. He knew how she felt.
“I’m sorry for what I’m about to do,” the voice said, “but I’d be sorrier if I didn’t do it. I can’t do this. Anyway. Forgive me. Pray for me, Margaret.”
It was one thing to hear the words repeated by Katherine, another thing to hear the words from Father Ike’s own mouth. His voice was surprisingly strong and steady, a man who had made a decision and there was no going back from it.
“That’s it,” Sister Margaret said. “Did you need to hear it again?”
“No,” Cyrus said. Nora still had him by the forearm. She looked paler than usual. “I got it. Thank you. I’m sorry to upset you.”
“You didn’t upset me. I was already upset. Goodnight.”
She hung up.
“Well?” Nora said. “That’s it then.”
Was it? Cyrus pulled his reporters’ notebook from his pocket and flipped back.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Cyrus read out loud. He looked up. “That’s what Katherine told me. But that’s not what Ike said. He said, ‘I can’t do this.’ Pause. ‘Anyway…’”
There was a world of difference between “I can’t do this” and “I can’t do this anymore.” A simple mistake. One word. But it reframed everything.
“I can’t do this—period,” Nora repeated. “What’s ‘this’? He can’t mean his suicide because he just said he was going to do it.”
“He was talking about doing something else,” Cyrus said. “I’m going to kill myself because I can’t do…what?”
Nora only shook her head. Maybe when they figured that out, this fucking case would finally be over.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Cyrus returned to his apartment. Paulina had asked him over for dinner, and though he’d been tempted to say “yes,” he told her he had to work on the case. He knew they were close. He didn’t want to stop. Not now.
Paulina was a born detective’s spouse. She said, “You do what you have to do. I’ll save you the leftovers for tomorrow.”
God damn, he loved that woman.
Back in his apartment, Cyrus spread out a plain white towel on his kitchen table and placed everything on it in a line.
Pink envelope with the butterfly sticker.
Car keys.
Rumi poem about the butterflies.
The chastity device.
Then Cyrus typed and printed out a timeline of events, beginning with the trip to Grand Isle in June, the engagement party in July, and coming up on today, finding the keys in the mailbox.
He sat at the kitchen chair and looked one by one by one by one at the items on the table. Then he closed his eyes and b
egan to breathe deliberately. Breathe in for four—one, two, three, four—hold it for three at the top—one, two, three—breathe out for four and hold it for three at the bottom.
One.
Two.
Three.
Cyrus did this again and again, until he’d breathed himself so deep into his mind that he couldn’t see or feel his own body anymore.
But he didn’t need his body, just his brain. His brain and the river that ran wild through it.
When he opened his inner eye, he was already in the river.
This had never happened before. Always he’d come to the river, waded in, found what he needed to find there. Now he was knee-deep in the river.
And the water was rising.
Already it had risen from his knees to his waist. He had to get out before it was up to his neck. He started forward and found he couldn’t get out. Something had him around the ankle. He lifted his foot. A chain was wrapped around his leg, a chain padlocked shut.
Okay, so he needed the key. They had a key. They’d found the key.
He patted around his pockets. There, in the breast pocket of his suit.
He took the key out of his pocket again and opened his hand. The key turned into a butterfly and flew away.
Cyrus opened his eyes.
He collapsed back in his kitchen chair, breathing hard. Didn’t take a psychologist to tell him what he’d seen deep in his own mind—fear. Fear this case was going to kill him if he didn’t unlock the secret like they’d unlocked the padlock.
Unlocked the padlock.
They had unlocked it. They found the key and unlocked it. Cyrus stared at the chastity device. The padlock, open, was still on it. Why? Because Nora had said the lock held the two pieces together.
Cyrus removed the lock and let the two pieces of the device fall apart. Curious, he studied the two parts in his hand—the cage, as Nora called it, and the ring.
He saw something.
At first, Cyrus thought it might just be some kind of maker’s mark, like the kind he’d seen on the bottom of old silver plates and other antiques. But it wasn’t that. He narrowed his eyes. Two letters were engraved inside the device, followed by three numbers.
MT 529
And underneath…there was a tiny butterfly.
Cyrus wasn’t nearly as religious as Paulina, but he knew a Bible verse when he saw it.
Matthew 5:29.
His heart raced with excitement. Something told him this was the thing. This was it. This would break the case.
Cyrus called Nora. She picked up on the first ring.
“It’s engraved,” Cyrus said before she could even get out a quick “hello.”
“What? What is?”
“The cock thing. The chastity thing. It’s got a butterfly and a Bible verse engraved on the inside. Couldn’t see it when the lock was on but it fell apart and I saw it. Matthew 5:29. I haven’t looked it up yet but—”
“Søren,” Nora said. He must have been with her. “Matthew 5:29.”
Cyrus held his breath. His lungs nearly burst while he waited.
“Okay,” Nora said. She repeated after Søren: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”
“Søren’s got that memorized?”
“Are you surprised?”
He wasn’t. “What do you think it means?”
“That you should do anything you can to avoid sinning, including amputation.”
“Not the verse,” Cyrus said. “That he’s got it engraved inside his chastity thing. Why would he do that?”
“It was actually engraved in there? Like how?”
“I don’t know. Like you engrave anything.”
“Not written in Sharpie or scratched in with a knife?”
“No, I said engraved, and I mean engraved. Fancy letters made by a pro. Why?”
She went silent. Then, “Give me one minute.”
Silence again. Cyrus pressed the phone to his ear as hard as he could. He held his breath and heard the low, low murmur of voices. Sounded like Nora was asking Søren something else.
Then the phone crackled.
“We need to go to the Ritz-Carlton.”
“What’s there?”
“Kingsley’s there. He’s not answering his phone, which probably means he’s eating dinner. He hates it when people talk on phones during meals. But if he’s there, he’ll tell us. I’m sure he knows.”
“Knows what?” Cyrus was so excited he was almost shouting at her.
“He’ll know who engraved Father Ike’s chastity device.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Nora ended her call. She looked at Søren, who was standing with his back to the kitchen counter, a glass of white wine in hand. Casually, he sipped at it, but she noticed his grip was a little tighter than it needed to be.
“Cyrus is coming to pick me up,” she said. “Break in the case. Maybe.”
“So I gathered.” He sipped his wine while she sat at the table and slipped on her shoes.
“Not sure when I’ll be home.”
“You could just call the hotel,” Søren said. “Ask them if Kingsley’s in. He’ll take an emergency call from you, even if they are having dinner.”
“If he has a name for us, we’ll probably go and see them right away.”
“Of course. I suppose we’ll have to reschedule our evening plans.”
Nora winced. In her excitement over Cyrus’s phone call, she’d forgotten she and Søren were supposed to be having a date night. Nothing special. Nothing fancy. Indian for dinner—it was on its way now. A movie—The Third Man, Criterion Collection. Kink and sex afterward most likely, though maybe not. Maybe they’d just drink wine until they were sleepy, go to bed, fall asleep together like a normal couple. That’s what normal couples did, right? Like she would know.
“I’ll be back. If not, tomorrow night,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He set his wine glass on the counter.
“You’re already used to it.”
“What?”
“Having time together.” he said. “In the past, every evening together between us was guarded, special. Now, if we don’t do it tonight, there’s always tomorrow night.”
She laughed a little, at herself. He was so good at seeing the why behind her what.
“Maybe so,” she said. “Kind of nice. Are you mad?”
“Not even remotely.” He picked up his wine glass again but didn’t drink. The way he said it, she knew he was telling the truth, but not necessarily the whole truth. “Maybe I’m getting used to it, too.”
She heard a car horn discreetly honk. Cyrus.
She rose up on her toes to kiss him. “I love you, Sir,” she said. “If you eat my korma, I’ll kill you in your sleep. Don’t watch the movie without me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She left him in her kitchen, grabbed her bag, and ran out to Cyrus’s car.
“Sorry,” she said as she hopped in and yanked on her seatbelt. “Had to kiss Blondie goodnight.”
“Did I interrupt something?” Cyrus asked.
“Nothing that can’t be rescheduled.”
“You could have told me. We could have done this tomorrow.” But he was already pulling away from the curb.
“Let’s get it over with,” she said. “I have to know.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and they headed to the Ritz-Carlton, Cyrus’s foot heavy on the gas.
Even exceeding the speed limit by a healthy margin, it was a good twenty minutes to the Ritz. They were both tense, Nora could tell, and it made the quiet in the car heavy. Cyrus broke it with an inane question, the kind people ask when they’re nervous but don’t want to show it.
“You get your security alarm installed?” he said.
Nora smiled to herself. Such a man question. He’ll be asking if she’d gotten her car’s oiled changed recently.
“King’s taking care of it.”
“Good. Hope it’s witchproof.”
“I didn’t ask. Don’t get mad, but I went to talk to her.”
“What?” Cyrus said it loudly and dared to take his eyes off the road just to give her a furious look.
“Don’t be like that. She’s a person, not some kind of monster.”
“She’s been stalking you, Nora. Stalking. I gotta explain what that is to you?”
“I know what it is. But I just… I just couldn’t believe she was dangerous. I went to her shop to talk it out with her. She’s not going to hurt me. I don’t think she has it in her.”
“Everybody has it in them. Everybody. And if I didn’t believe that before, I sure as hell believe it after spending a week with you.”
She took that as a compliment. It wasn’t one but she took it as one anyway.
“I don’t want you to be my next case,” Cyrus said softly. “Okay?”
Nora smiled to soothe him, the way women did when humoring men. “Okay.”
At the Ritz, she told Cyrus to drop his car with the valet. They went straight to the concierge desk. Cyrus seemed to know the way.
“You been here before?” Nora asked.
“Some men like to cheat in high style,” he said. “Grab that guy, Manny. I always see him here. He knows everything.”
Nora saw a handsome twenty-something Hispanic man in a black suit walk away from an older woman who’d stopped him in the lobby. Nora put on her best smile and oh-so-sweetly asked him if he’d mind checking around for a guest of theirs, a Kingsley Boissonneault. Family emergency, Nora explained, giving her name.
Manny, concierge extraordinaire, told her to leave it to him. Less than a minute later, Kingsley walked into the storied marbled lobby. He held both hands out in a question and gave her a look that said, This better be good.
“What’s he doing here?” he asked Nora.
“Hey, Pierre Capretz,” Cyrus said, “I’m standing right here.”
“This is important,” Nora said. Kingsley rolled his eyes. “Cyrus, cover your ears.”
“What?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to hear this.”
“Weird sex stuff?”
“Gay stuff,” Nora said.
The Priest: An Original Sinners Novel Page 27
