Nate had asked his policeman friend why a Belgian was working at Rockefeller Center. Evidently he was hired because he was multilingual, like all the Belgians. He gave tours in English, French, German, and Dutch.
Nate studied the Rockefeller Center building for a few seconds more, then turned and pulled open the heavy bronze door to the cathedral. He found a seat near the rear, maybe fifty pews away from the altar, and waited for Mass to begin. From his seat, the priest looked like a tiny stick figure as he stood in the pulpit to read the gospel. Nate didn’t really listen to the homily. It was mostly platitudes anyway.
After Mass, Nate went back into the vestibule of the church. He stood at the spot where Manning had fallen. A little stain of blood remained on the floor, despite the best efforts of the cleaners. A vestibule is basically an entrance hall. Now it had become something of a shrine. Mourners had left flowers and candles. The maintenance staff had moved the mementos off to the side, so people could come and go.
Nate turned and faced the high altar at the other end of the cathedral, a football-field length away. He walked up the center aisle, in the reverse direction Manning had taken.
Nate got up to the communion rail at the front of the cathedral. He started up the steps to the sanctuary but was stopped by a distinguished-looking black man in a blue blazer with the cathedral crest on the breast pocket and the word Security stitched above the crest.
“May I help you?” asked the security man. An offer of help is the universal challenge to the unwanted customer.
Nate stepped down.
“I’m Nate Condon,” he said, reaching out his hand to the security guard and handing him his business card. “I was here last week when the cardinal was shot. I’m doing an investigation on behalf of the Church. Can I go down and look at the sacristy?”
“What for?” asked the guard.
“Just to see if there might be any clue the police missed.”
“I’ll walk you down,” said the guard, removing the velvet rope at the entrance of the sanctuary.
They went down the stairs behind the high altar to the sacristy in the basement. Halfway down the stairs there was a landing with a darkened flight of steps leading to a dark crypt with a gate across the entrance.
“What’s down there?” asked Nate.
“The crypt where the bishops are buried,” said the guard. “All the former Archbishops of New York and one saint.”
“An archbishop was a saint?” asked Nate, curious.
“Not hardly,” said the guard. “The saint was a black man, Pierre Toussaint. He came here as a slave from Haiti after the rebellion there and bought freedom for his whole family and a bunch of orphans, too. He was a famous hairdresser, the Vidal Sassoon of his day. He went every day to communion after the white folks had received it. He’s up for canonization. He couldn’t have sat in a front pew when he was alive, but now they bury him with the archbishops. Isn’t that just like what Jesus said? We stone the prophets when they are alive and build them tombs when they die.”
Nate had never heard the intriguing history.
“Let me ask you something,” said Nate, turning to the security guard. “Were you here the day the cardinal was killed?”
“Yep,” said the guard. “I’m always in the sacristy and in the shadows around here when the cardinal is here, in case there is trouble. There are always a few crazies in the church.”
“Was there anything unusual about Manning on the day he was killed? Did he say or do anything that people thought out of the ordinary?” asked Nate.
“Not really,” answered the guard as they went down to the sacristy and stood by the counter where Manning had vested. “He had started wearing the Kevlar vest in the past few months. He always went out to the street at the beginning of funerals. Monsignor Krakowski suggested it might not be a good idea if there were crazy folks around. But Manning always met the family at the door. It was his custom. He always did that.”
Nate thought, if the cardinal had done what the other bishops do, and waited for Sullivan’s body to be brought up the aisle to the steps of the altar, he probably would still be alive. Obviously somebody knew Manning’s habits.
The remote-controlled gun across the street would have been useless if Manning had waited at the communion rail. Somebody knew that Manning always went to the door at funerals. Somebody was well informed about liturgy and the habits of this cardinal. During Mass, Nate had noticed cathedral employees preparing for Manning’s funeral.
Beginning at noon on Sunday, the cardinal’s body would lie in state in front of the high altar for twenty-four hours. Contrary to custom, the coffin would be closed.
The funeral would begin at noon on Monday, with a forty-five-minute procession of dozens of hierarchs from all around the world. O’Toole would be there, along with a couple dozen cardinals. Security would be massive. Traffic in midtown would grind to a halt for hours. Nate planned to leave for Rome immediately after the funeral, on a late flight on Monday evening.
After Mass, Nate walked down to a bakery on 48th Street to get bagels and The New York Times. Sunday mornings had evolved into a ritual for Brigid and Nate. They always had bagels and coffee. They always read the Sunday Times. Then they went jogging together in Central Park.
When he got back to their apartment, Brigid was standing at the kitchen counter making coffee. She was dressed to go jogging.
“How was Mass?” she asked, not looking up as she pushed down on the plunger of the French press to strain the coffee. Her voice indicated she didn’t really care.
“OK,” said Nate. “I got a good look at the scene of the crime. The gun had a clear shot at the cardinal from Rockefeller Center, so long as nobody got in the way.”
He was actually excited to be investigating a crime again. It was much better than the paper shuffling for the rich that he’d been doing at the law firm.
They moved to the living room of their apartment with the bagels and coffee on a silver tray. By New York standards, their apartment was gargantuan. They actually had separate rooms for each purpose. But Sunday was just about the only day they used the living room. Brigid sat at one end of the couch, Nate at the other, with the paper spread out between them. He took the sports and business sections; she took the front page and the travel sections.
“Manning’s all over the front page,” said Brigid. “The Times is practically canonizing him.” The headline was “Cardinal’s Death a Mystery!”
Below the fold on page one, the story about the man who had immolated himself in front of the Nunciature appeared. The Times had a photo of the man’s body being loaded into the ambulance by the EMTs. It was from a different angle than the one they’d seen the day before in the Washington Post.
Brigid adjusted her glasses and pulled the paper closer, studying something closely in the photo. Then she said, “That’s him!”
“Who?” asked Nate.
“The man with the big arms. The man I saw with Peggy Tracy. The man who might have been in our room at the Four Seasons.”
“So what?” said Nate.
“There he is in the photo. He’s standing right there in the crowd watching as the man burned. Look.” She passed the paper to Nate’s end of the couch.
“See him? Standing right there by the stretcher.”
Nate looked at the photo.
Nate went to the desk in his study and got a magnifying glass and scissors. He looked at the photo through the glass. He could see the big-armed man, with a shaved head, standing near the stretcher.
“I’ll cut this out for future reference,” said Nate. “It could be nothing, or it could be something. Odd that he would be outside the Nunciature and then with Peggy the next day.”
“Odder still that he should be in our room,” said Brigid.
“We don’t know that for a fact,” said Nate. “Still, he’s worth remembering.”
“Who do you think killed Manning?” asked Brigid. “Did Tracy have any idea?” Apparently, sh
e couldn’t help her curiosity, now that he was investigating the most notorious murder of the year.
“Bill gave me a long list of suspects, from the Israelis to drug dealers. I don’t think it’s the Israelis. They don’t care enough about the Church. It had to be somebody who really cares about the Church—some group that has good reasons to be angry.”
“You mean like victims of pedophilia?” asked Brigid.
“Yeah,” said Nate. “Maybe. Or somebody who wants to use the Church. It has to be somebody with a global concern. Otherwise, why would they kill cardinals in Chile or Mexico City? That wouldn’t make sense for a purely American group.”
“The Mafia has a global reach,” said Brigid. “And they do a lot of money laundering. So do drug dealers. At the IMF we’re running down the movement of their money all the time.
“When I go to Brussels, I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” she continued. “One thing about the euro, it gave criminals a whole new alternative currency.”
“How long do you think you’ll be there?” Nate asked.
“One meeting Thursday and Friday. Then another one Monday.”
“Why don’t you come down to Rome when you’re done? I could use the help. It would be a lot more fun to be in Rome if you’re there.”
“You’re not there for fun, honey. Besides, my expense account wouldn’t pay for a detour to Rome.”
“Pay for it yourself,” said Nate. “When am I ever going to have a reason to be in Rome again?”
“You might be there quite a lot, from the looks of it,” said Brigid. “Come on, let’s go running before it gets too hot outside.”
From their apartment on Park Avenue, it was a couple of long blocks and about eight short ones to Central Park. They were your classic upper-class jogging couple, with matching iPods strapped to their arms and Under Armour outfits.
Even back at Georgetown law school, they had already begun to chase after the good life. Their move to New York reflected their goals. The glamor and energy of New York provided a better backdrop for their lifestyle than the gray bureaucracy of Washington, DC.
They announced their engagement at their favorite watering hole in New York, the Papillon Bistro and Bar, a two-story French restaurant in midtown Manhattan. Fourteen years later, it remained their favorite place to meet with friends after hours of being “on” at work. Men and women alike gathered at a seventy-foot-long oak-paneled bar, saluting the good life with a cigar from Davidoff’s and a glass of Chivas. Did they live superficial lives based too much on appearances? Nate wondered to himself, but they never talked about it.
They entered the park near the pond across from the Plaza Hotel. Both in their late thirties, they were in great shape. Running came effortlessly. They jogged along at a pretty good pace without talking, past the pond and along East Drive. Then they cut over to the great mall that went straight up through the park to the elaborately ornamented Bethesda Fountain. Winded, they sat down on the low wall surrounding the fountain, facing the statue of the Angel of the Waters.
New Yorkers call it the Bethesda Fountain. Most would be stunned to know that the angel statue is a reference to the pool of Bethesda mentioned in the Bible, in the Gospel of John. The sick used to lie beside the waters of the pool of Bethesda, at the sheep gate entrance to Jerusalem, waiting for the angel to disturb the waters. They believed that when the angel moved the waters, the first person into the pool would be cured. In the Bible, Jesus met a poor, paralyzed man who had lain there for thirty-eight years. Because of his paralysis, he was never able to be the first in the water. Jesus cured him on the Sabbath and told the paralytic to pick up his mat and walk.
The significance of the fountain’s name was lost on most passing New Yorkers. They just thought it was a nice statue of an angel. Brigid knew the fountain was designed by a woman, Emma Stebbins, and that it was the first major piece of public art in America done by a woman. Brigid liked the statue because of that. Nate liked the pool, because it was a place to rest.
“You know,” said Brigid, “you are going to need an angel on this job. You are going to be in a much bigger and troubled pond than this one.”
“Yeah,” said Nate. “If these deaths are linked, there is some kind of struggle going on in the Church.”
“In most mysteries they say ‘cherchez la femme,’” said Brigid. “What would they say in the Vatican, I wonder?”
“Maybe they would blame it on the butler,” said Nate. “That’s what they did in the last scandal.”
“This has to be somebody pretty high up to pull off murders on four continents. Somebody is pretty pissed off,” said Brigid.
They sat there watching the fountain for a while. Then they jogged across the brick-paved mall and up the elaborate steps that led to the terrace that framed the fountain.
“Come on,” said Nate. “I’ll race you to the club. We can shower and change there and have lunch in the bar.” The club was the New York Athletic Club on Central Park South, private and favored by rich and powerful Catholics in government and business. Nate’s Knights of Malta pals were all members.
Brigid and Nate had to go around the back entrance on 58th Street, because they weren’t dressed properly for a lobby entrance. They climbed the back stairs and then took the service elevator to the locker rooms, where they kept a change of clothes for these Sunday outings.
After a sauna and shower, they met in the Tap Room overlooking Central Park for lunch. Nate was in a jacket and tie. Brigid was in a dress and light sweater. The club had a strict dress code. People looked like they stepped right out of the 1950s.
Nate liked the club, but Brigid thought it unbearably stuffy. For a working-class fireman’s kid from Charlestown, Massachusetts, it was a head trip to be a member of the elite New York Athletic Club. His membership told others that he had arrived in New York. Just as importantly, it told Nate and Brigid that they had arrived.
“Tomorrow will be a mess around midtown,” said Nate. “What with the cardinal’s funeral and all. Before the funeral, I’ll have to go into the office to close up a few things. Then I’ll head back to St. Patrick’s.”
“You’d better pack tonight,” said Brigid. “Maybe on the way home we can stop and buy you an Italian phrase book. Something tells me you might need it.”
“I’m looking forward to the wine and the pasta,” said Nate. “Thank God St. Peter had the good sense to die in Rome. If the Church is going to have a headquarters, it might as well be where they know how to live la dolce vita.”
“From what I’ve seen of the clergy,” said Brigid, “they certainly know about la dolce vita.
“But then,” she said as she put a thick linen napkin on her lap, “so do we.”
8
ALL PUSILLANIMOUS TWITS
ABOUT THE SAME TIME BRIGID AND NATE SAT DOWN TO lunch at the New York Athletic Club, Monsignor Matthew Ackerman exited the front door of the Villa Stritch on the Via della Nocetta in Rome.
The American monsignor was dressed as a layman, in mufti, as clerics like to say. His white polo shirt, tan linen slacks, and Gucci loafers could have been the uniform of any Roman metrosexual.
Even though he was not dressed as a monsignor, he loved the title, which means “my lord” in Renaissance-style Italian. He never let five minutes pass in any conversation without making people aware of his status. His was the most insidious form of clericalism, pretending to be just a regular guy but constantly reminding others of his superiority.
Ackerman wanted to be incognito for the later part of his spring evening out in Rome. Being dressed as a priest in Rome is sometimes an advantage, but often an irritation. It makes you a target for the pious and the profane.
The first part of Ackerman’s evening would be ordinary enough, dinner with other English-speaking priests who also were working in Rome. The second part of his evening remained relatively unplanned. However, if past were prologue, Monsignor Ackerman’s appetites would lead him to the place where he felt most comforta
ble, Angelo Azzurro, Rome’s venerable gay bar in Trastevere, the medieval neighborhood just across the Tiber River from the ancient city.
Spring evenings in Rome are glorious. They’re warm enough to go without a coat, but cool enough to be pleasant. In late May, the setting sun paints the sandstone façades of the buildings a warm pink. The sun is also reflected in the upper-story windows. The Romans say they are glowing eyes looking down on the street.
Romans usually dine late, but on Sunday evenings they go out a little earlier. By the first of May, the trattorie have put their tables in the streets of Trastevere. The patrons dine al fresco, just inches from the passing cars in the narrow streets. The outdoor tables fill up first. Nobody wants to sit inside and miss the life of la strada.
Ackerman walked rapidly. He knew the streets of Rome well. He had lived there for nearly eighteen years. A native of St. Louis, he had been sent over to Rome to study at the North American College at the age of twenty-two, just after he finished college at St. Louis University.
In his better moments, Ackerman still had some of the air of the naïve Midwesterner about him. He was Germanic-looking, with blond hair and blue eyes. But his hair was beginning to thin, and his waist was beginning to thicken as he pushed forty.
When he’d arrived in Rome, he’d been intoxicated by the international atmosphere of the city and entranced by the power of the Church. At the time, he thought himself destined to become a bishop, “on the fast track to the purple sash,” as Roman seminarians say. But now Ackerman was a disappointed careerist and a self-loathing homosexual. Both those attributes made him part of a substantial confraternity within the Vatican bureaucracy. The Roman newspapers sometimes referred to it as the gay lobby within the Vatican: jaded, cynical, and sad.
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