Let the Dead Bury the Dead

by David Carlson

  Worthy caught a glimpse of Henderson, half-walking, half-running past the altar boys toward the cry room. Worthy turned his attention back to Father Fortis, even as his friend seemed to shake his head and restart the chant. Worthy saw in that moment what Mrs. Siametes had noted about Father Spiro. Father Fortis was squinting up at the far wall. There could be no question of senility this time.

  “What’s happening?” Allyson whispered.

  “I don’t know. But I will after I talk with Nick.”

  Strangely, Father Fortis seemed the calmest person in the sanctuary as he slowly mounted the steps and returned to the altar area. A young priest could be seen whispering something to Father Fortis and Father Fortis shaking his head in response.

  Worthy sat back in his chair, slightly nauseated. What had he just witnessed? If it was a charade, some clumsy attempt to spook the killer, then the bluff had worked too well. Many had reacted to the eerie echo of Father Spiro, and who could blame them? Was Mrs. Filis’ reaction or Mr. Margolis’ beet-red face any more suggestive or incriminating than his own near tumble from the balcony? The only other possibility was that Father Fortis hadn’t planned to stop at all. He had seen something, but what?

  Worthy squirmed in the pew, waiting impatiently for Father Fortis to finish administering communion. He knew the homily was next, when his friend would have to say something. There was a hushed buzz down below on the main floor as well. He wasn’t the only curious one. Finally, Father Fortis approached the pulpit and bowed to the metropolitan before scanning the congregation. “I want to apologize for what happened on the last procession. I can imagine how painful and disturbing it must have been for those of you who knew and loved Father Spiro. It was, perhaps, my own sense of getting to know your beloved spiritual father over these past few weeks that caused my reaction,” he said, looking up at Worthy.

  Does he expect me to understand something from that? Worthy thought.

  “I would invite you on this solemn occasion to think of the majority of Orthodox churches that have an icon of Christ, the Pantocrator, in the dome. When I was a boy growing up in Baltimore, I would sometimes be afraid to look up at our own icon of Christ, which was also in a dome. It was because the face of Christ in this icon is more severe than in any other icon, for here He is depicted as our final judge. As my mother used to say, ‘Christ and the saints see everything.’ But our faith tells us that only Christ will judge us.”

  Father Fortis paused to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief before gripping the edges of the pulpit. He’s struggling, Worthy thought.

  “The gospel talks about two brothers and a father. I am reminded again of being a boy myself and yes, a brother. I remember one time when my older brother—may his memory be eternal—told our father that he’d cleaned his room for the holidays. Even I believed him, but actually, my brother had used a garden rake to sweep his toys under the bed.”

  A number of parishioners laughed appreciatively, no doubt relieved for the service to be back on a more even keel.

  “But my father wasn’t easily fooled. He knew my brother even better than I did. He could read his face, and he saw it was a lie. Yes, it was what we might call today a ‘white lie,’ nothing major or damaging in the long run.” Father Fortis wiped his brow again. “God is such a father, although it seems from the media that not many people believe that anymore. So many modern Americans are like the fool described in the Psalms, the one who acted as if there is no God Who watches us. Many of us here this morning might have some doubts about such a God. Our hearts might say, ‘If there is such a God, would he not prevent the horrible suffering of our world, such as the murder of our own dear priest?’ The ancient Psalmist had an answer for that. ‘Surely, God beholds our trouble and misery; God sees it and takes it into His own hand.’ As surely as the icon of Christ looks down from the dome in traditional Orthodox churches, so God watches us, whether we are inside St. Cosmas or outside her doors. So no one here should miss the chance to be forgiven by this same judge, for as the fourth evangelist tells us, Christ came to save sinners, not to condemn them.” Father Fortis crossed himself and moved back toward the altar.

  My God, Worthy thought, do people know he was just appealing to the killer? By reflex, Worthy looked down on the heads of those below. If he expected some sign of contrition, someone running screaming from the room or falling on his or her knees, he was disappointed. But he didn’t expect that. Not from this killer.

  Worthy turned to Allyson. “Want to do some detective work?”

  Allyson’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

  “I need to get down to the priest’s office and wait for Father Nick, but I don’t want everyone to see me. That means I need to leave before the last part of this service is over, the memorial for the dead priest. Father Nick said it would take about thirty minutes.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Right after the service, go to the back door by the parking lot. You know, where we came in. Stand just outside the door and listen to what people are saying as they leave.”

  “Won’t that be a bit obvious?”

  “Just act like you’re waiting for someone to pick you up. People tend to ignore someone they don’t know. Okay?”

  Allyson nodded.

  Worthy waited until the part of the memorial service when the metropolitan rose to begin his remarks. He moved quietly down the stairs and made his way to the parish office. Slipping through the door, he stood in the darkness. A candle beneath an icon offered the only light. Some saint sat astride an armored horse in the act of spearing a dragon. The warring figures seemed alive in the flickering light, the dragon’s tail writhing, like a barbed vine, toward the saint’s leg.

  After about twenty minutes of waiting that seemed like twenty hours, Worthy heard a single pair of footsteps pause outside the door. Because it was too early for Father Fortis, he waited for Henderson to enter. But just as suddenly the footsteps retreated, even as another set approached from the opposite direction.

  Two knocks, but Worthy remained silent. “Worthy, are you in there?”

  Worthy opened the door and let Henderson in. His partner’s eyes danced. “Too fucking weird. Just too fucking weird.”

  “Anyone in the cry room?” Worthy asked.

  “No, it was empty.”

  “How about just now? Did you see anyone in the hallway? Anyone walking away from the door, I mean?”

  “Nope, just a group setting up coffee down in that big hall. So, what’s it all mean?”

  “It means something,” Worthy said. “Father Nick doesn’t go in for theatrics.”

  “It freaked people out; I’ll say that.”

  The doorknob turned suddenly, and Father Fortis practically fell through the opening. Shutting the door behind him, he moved quickly toward his desk. “I only have a few minutes. I don’t have time to explain everything, but I figured out the diary, Christopher. I figured out the code!”

  Worthy tried to check his disappointment. They already knew enough about the diary to conclude it didn’t help. But he didn’t say anything as his friend opened one drawer after another until he placed his translation of the diary on one side and unrolled architectural drawings on the other.

  “I have to get back to the metropolitan. Pray to God I can think up a good story to cover things,” he said, as he moved from one drawing to another. “I know it has to be here someplace. Yes, here it is.” He lifted one out and placed it on top.

  The two men stood on opposite sides of the priest. “What the hell is it?” Henderson said. “Sorry, Father.”

  “It’s a scale drawing of the icons in the sanctuary, Sergeant.”

  “The icons?” Worthy asked. “I don’t follow.”

  Father Fortis pointed a finger at the left door of the icon screen. “Just as I came out this door on the second procession, something caught my eye. Of course, it’s been there all these weeks, but I didn’t really see it until today. Just like Father Da
niel said.”

  “Father Daniel?”

  “Sorry, my friend. My mind is ablur. Look, every icon has a few Greek letters on them to identify the saint being depicted. So, in this first icon of St. Nicholas, for example, the first letters of the Greek phrase, ‘the holy Saint Nicholas’ are abbreviated NI.”

  “NI,” Worthy repeated. “But the code has four letters.”

  “Right. I thought the same thing until I came to the end of the aisle and turned the corner.”

  “Where the dead priest lost it as well,” Henderson said.

  “Exactly. I was walking down the side aisle, trying to remember what icon was next—up at the front, I mean. My mind blanked, despite all my years in church. But look at this architectural drawing. St. Nicholas is next to St. John the Baptist, who begins with IO. The next icon over is of Christ, but the lettering on His begins with IC.” His finger flew across to the other side of the drawing. “The icon of the Theotokos, the Blessed Virgin Mary, begins with MR. Next to that is the icon of the parish, CO for St. Cosmas. Finally, there is the icon of St. George, GE. Do you see now, Christopher?”

  See what? he thought. “So you got letters off the icons. But I don’t see how they get us to the four letters in the diary.”

  Father Fortis silenced Worthy with a hand. “It was when I stopped. That’s when I saw how the code worked. I turned the corner and saw what Father Daniel said he noticed. That the icons on the far wall look down on us as we profess. And every one of those has Greek or sometimes English letters as well.”

  “For example?” Henderson said.

  Father Fortis sifted through the drawings again until he found the one of the wall icons. “Here’s St. Barbara. That’s BA. That’s when it all hit me. If someone sits anywhere in the sanctuary, their seat could be identified by lining up the letters from the closest icon on the icon screen and the closest icon from the side wall.”

  “A grid,” Worthy said. It was suddenly all so simple, so obvious. “Father Spiro was worried his mind was slipping, but he didn’t want to write out the name. So he used a code to remind himself where someone sat.”

  “But who the hell sits in the same place in church?” Henderson asked.

  “ ‘Creatures of habit.’ That’s what Mrs. Nichols said. She always sat in the same place and said most people do. And she’s right,” Worthy added. “It was the same in the churches I grew up in.”

  “But how does that help us?” Henderson objected. “Hell, they may sit in the same seat, but we won’t know who sits where without photos. And tomorrow—”

  “Tomorrow isn’t here yet,” Worthy said, but he saw the same problem.

  “Just a minute,” Father Fortis said as he searched through a pile of mail on the edge of the desk. “I forgot about the photos Mr. Bagios took at Father Spiro’s funeral. Yes, here they are,” he said, pulling out a manila folder and tearing it open. “I couldn’t see why they’d be important at the time, but thank God for Mr. Bagios!”

  Worthy studied each of the photos as Father Fortis laid them out on the desk. He put aside the close-ups of the casket, leaving a series taken of the sanctuary from the balcony. Would they show enough?

  “Oops,” Father Fortis said as he rose and hastened toward the door. “The metropolitan is probably on the phone trying to find some replacement for me as we speak. Do we have enough to go on?”

  Worthy shrugged. “We’ll see, Nick. What’s your schedule like this afternoon?”

  “Very full, my friend. Brunch with the metropolitan, then take him back to the chancery. After that I’m expected to take communion to several shut-ins. Should I cancel some of that?”

  Worthy fought off the pressure of tomorrow’s deadline. “No, we want everything to look normal. When is the soonest you can be back here?”

  “About three thirty. Can I call you if I get delayed? The metropolitan is one of those slow, ponderous types.”

  Worthy remembered Allyson waiting for him out in the parking lot. “Let’s make it four.” He reached in his pocket for his address book. “And you can call me on my daughter’s cellphone. She doesn’t hate those phones like I do.” He gave Father Fortis the number before turning to his partner. “How about you?”

  Henderson shook his head as he looked down. “Sorry. We’re supposed to take a look at a hospital this afternoon. I’m not free until tonight.”

  “Come when you can. I got a feeling we’re going to be here a while,” Worthy said. “Nick, before you leave, tell me those letters again.”

  “MRAG, NISP, and IOAG. Oh, and you might also check out GESP.”

  “Where did that last one come from?” Worthy asked.

  “It’s probably nothing, but it was the last thing Father Spiro wrote in the journal. He put a question mark beside it.”

  “Really? I thought you said the last entry was about NISP or IOAG.”

  “I did. But there was these four letters on the next page. I couldn’t see how they’d mean anything.”

  Father Fortis opened the door and was halfway through it when Henderson called after him. “Just a second, Father. The old priest must have devised the code months ago, right?”

  “So I know why you stopped there, but why’d he stop right there?”

  Father Fortis pulled on his beard. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  Worthy put his own finger on one of the photos. “I think I know. He stopped there because he’d just passed someone in one of the pews, someone he realized he needed to talk to.”

  “His killer?” Henderson asked.

  “Could be,” Worthy said cautiously.

  “God, I hope so,” Henderson said.

  “Amen to that, my son. Now, wish me luck.”

  “Just a second, Father,” Henderson called after him.

  Father Fortis’ head reappeared in the doorway. “I thought the idea was not to raise suspicions.”

  “Fine, fine, Father, but what are the chances you’d stop exactly where he did?”

  Father Fortis blushed. “Maybe we should leave that in the mystery of God.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I stood by the back door, just as you said,” Allyson told her father, “but all I heard was people asking the same thing I want to know. Why did your friend, Father Nick, stop like that in the service?”

  Worthy pulled into the Steak and Shake parking lot and turned off the motor. People wearing what he’d been raised to recognize as church clothes streamed into the restaurant. “To answer that, I’m going to have to tell you some things about the case. I’d rather not do that in there,” he said.

  “Then let’s go through the drive-up and sit out here.”

  “What about the movie?”

  Without looking at her watch, Allyson replied, “We still have time.”

  Sitting with their burgers and an order of fries between them, Worthy explained about Father Spiro’s diary, how he’d been mistaken about Peggy Hagarty, and how Father Fortis had somehow solved the code in the middle of the procession that morning.

  Allyson took a long sip from her shake, her brow furrowed. “So the code describes where people sit in the church. Does that mean you know who killed him?”

  “It’s not that simple. Henderson and I have some photos that might help, but we won’t know anything for sure until Nick can join us. I’m to meet with him later this afternoon.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Look, Ally, it’s probably going to be boring. Besides, I can’t. It’s against regulations.”

  Allyson rolled down her window, pulled a pickle off her burger, and threw it outside. “Now you’re going to make up some numbers like thirty-four, dash seven, Section B, about how children of police can’t look at evidence.”

  Worthy smiled. “Something like that, I suppose,”

  “At least tell me what you’ve figured out so far. Who knows, maybe I’ll solve it.”

  “Be my guest,” Worthy said. He’d like someone to make sense of what Henderson and he had puzzled o
ver. “We learned enough to find out Father Fortis was right. The code matched some people we knew about.”

  “Vague. Give me details.”

  “One series of letters matched a woman we’d already talked to. We also matched up one of the codes with this strange little guy we’d interviewed. Another part of the code showed us a teenaged kid, a boy who has his mother pretty worried.”

  “Could he—?”

  “No, he couldn’t have done it, and we’re pretty sure the odd duck didn’t do it either. But we had one other piece of the code. That proved more interesting. Also more confusing.”

  Allyson munched on her burger. “So, spill it.”

  “The old priest wrote one other piece of code on the last page of the diary. No comment, no explanation. But we think we’re able to match it with a section of three or four rows of pews. All together, we have about a dozen people in that area. Some of the people we don’t know. That’s why we need Nick’s help.”

  “But some people you do know,” Allyson pressed.

  “Some we do. One of the photos shows pretty clearly a woman from the parish council sitting next to a doctor in the parish. He’s also on the parish council. Sitting pretty close by is a rabbi.”

  “A rabbi? Sounds like we’re playing Clue. The rabbi did it in the sanctuary with the menorah.”

  “The rabbi is innocent. Trust me. But then we looked at another photo taken from a different angle and realized some other people were sitting close enough to be considered in the area. There was a family of five—three kids looking to be in high school or college—but their backs are to the camera in each photo. Next to them are two people who shouldn’t have been there at all. Henderson spotted them.”

  “Really? Maybe the killers?”

  “Not likely. One is the police superintendent and with him is the newspaper reporter.” Even now, in repeating aloud what Henderson had discovered, Worthy struggled to make sense of it.

  “The bitch who wrote that article about you?”

  Worthy nodded, surprised at his daughter’s grasp of the details.

  “Look, maybe she did kill the priest,” Allyson said excitedly. “She needed a good story to boost her career, so she strangled—”