The Man Who Murdered God

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  “What happened when he came home?” McGuire asked softly. “Did he come back from the monastery catatonic? Unable to speak?”

  She didn’t reply, not until Deeley reached across and touched her hand again. “Please answer him, Mrs. Griffin,” he said. “Please tell him what happened to Bobby at the monastery.”

  “Bobby had seen God,” she answered boldly. “Brother Halloran told me that’s what happened to him. He had laid eyes on the glory of God and the Blessed Virgin.”

  “You know where this place is?” McGuire asked Deeley, who nodded. “Let’s go,” McGuire said.

  Muriel Griffin rose with them, distressed. “Father, you’ll stay, won’t you?”

  Deeley begged off, saying he would return perhaps the next day, when he would be pleased to discuss her son and his ambitions for the priesthood. The promise seemed enough for Muriel Griffin. “Take comfort,” Deeley said as they stood at the open door.

  “Comfort?” she asked, confused. “I have my comfort and my peace of mind, Father.” She smiled, smoothing her dress and patting her hair.

  “About your son, I mean.”

  The smile didn’t fade. “My son is fine, Father,” she said. “We stay in touch. He phones me often. In fact, he called me just last evening.”

  McGuire and Lipson froze in place. “He did?” McGuire asked. “Where was he? What did he say?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied defiantly. “Bobby never speaks. He never has to. He just calls and I hear . . . I hear him there, I can feel him there. Sometimes he’s so caught up in the grace of God that he just cries quietly like he did for so long after his father died. And I hear him crying, and I tell him I love him. He doesn’t say a word. But I know it’s Bobby. I know it’s my Bobby.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Mattie received the telephone call at four thirty-five in the afternoon. By four-forty she had announced the news to everyone at Jenkins Real Estate, including the president, Izzie Jenkins, who smiled broadly and told her he always knew she could do it, managing to pat her on the ass all the while. It was something he frequently tried to do with Mattie. This time she let him succeed.

  By five o’clock Mattie was driving east along the highway, watching the early commuters from Boston shielding their eyes against the steeply slanting rays of the late afternoon sun. A rock and roll revival station played loudly on the car radio, and she tapped her hands on the steering wheel and sang along with Buddy Holly on the choruses of “That’ll Be the Day.”

  Pulling into the driveway of her home, she left the car almost before it was stopped, and bounded inside and up the stairs. In the midst of her excitement she was halted by the rich aroma drifting from the kitchen and by the sight of Bobby wearing her oversized oven mitts.

  “Hi,” he said as shyly as ever. “The soufflé.” He nodded at her oven. “It’s almost ready. Another ten minutes or so.”

  Her head swung in the direction of the rich cheese and egg aroma that filled the house, then back to Bobby. “Guess what?”

  Bobby shrugged his shoulders. “What?”

  Her voice, which had been a hoarse whisper until now, exploded in its full throaty range. “I sold the Delisle estate! Can you believe it?”

  Bobby glanced nervously towards the oven, bending slightly at the waist to see if her outburst had deflated the soufflé. “Is that good?” he asked nervously.

  “Good? It means I just earned Jenkins Real Estate about a hundred and twenty grand. And my share of it will be fifty thousand bucks. Isn’t that great?”

  Bobby smiled back at her and nodded. “That’s wonderful, Mattie.”

  She reached out and hugged him. “Fifty thousand! That’s the biggest commission I’ve ever made. It’s the biggest commission anybody’s ever made at that office.” She pulled away from Bobby and held him at arm’s length. “Gee, kid,” she said in mock seriousness, “you get any more hysterical about this, you’re gonna fall asleep.”

  Bobby shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “I think it’s very nice that you’ve been—”

  “What the hell is that?” Mattie squealed, looking over his shoulder.

  Bobby followed her eyes to the window of her wall-mounted oven. “The cheese and onion soufflé,” he said. They both moved reverently over to the oven. “It’s looking good, isn’t it?”

  Mattie turned her head slowly to look into his eyes, her mouth open in disbelief. “You’re . . . I can’t believe you,” she said. “Will it taste as good as it looks?”

  “I hope so,” Bobby answered, watching the soufflé turn golden brown in the heat of the oven. He straightened up and walked to the breakfast table, where some washed and peeled vegetables lay waiting. “I’d better get started on the salad.”

  “Hey.” Bobby turned to see Mattie standing near the oven with her arms extended.

  “C’mere,” she ordered.

  He walked uncertainly back to her, and she hugged him again, squeezing him to her and rocking him slightly. The gesture caused him to place his arms tentatively around her, and she buried her face in his neck. “You’re a treasure,” she said into his ear. “An absolute treasure. And I’m glad you’re here to help me celebrate.”

  She pulled herself away to look at him. “And I’ve got just the thing to celebrate with.” She turned to the refrigerator, knelt down to reach the lower shelf and withdrew a bottle of Mumm’s champagne.

  “Been keeping this sucker cold for months,” she said, holding it up triumphantly for Bobby to see. “Real French stuff. A guy I know, he’s a bartender, gave it to me one morning.”

  “One morning?” Bobby asked.

  “For the night before,” Mattie replied, reading the label as she spoke. “Said I deserved it for an award-winning performance. Hell, with all the faking I did, he should have nominated me for an Oscar.” Setting the champagne on the table, she looked back at him and batted her eyelids in mock exaggeration. “I do believe, dahling, it’s time for me to dress for dinner, n’est-ce pas?”

  Bobby grinned foolishly as she struck a pose, one hand behind her head, the other on her hip.

  “Do have the servants prepare the table for us, there’s a good chap.” Prancing by him, she leaned over to peck him on the cheek, and he watched her swivel-hip her way to the bedroom, his shoulders shaking in quiet laughter at her.

  “So then I get the call, just an hour ago, and he’s at the airport.”

  Mattie gestured with her fork as she spoke. She had chosen a red silk blouse, cut deeply in front, to wear with her tight black skirt. Her hair was pinned in an upswept style, and small ringlets bobbed and swung as she spoke. Two candles, rescued from the remains of a small buffet dinner she had held the previous Christmas, flickered in the evening light.

  “Just as calm as could be,” she explained. “He said he’d thought it over and decided to take it. Two million four, and he’s talking like he’s picking out new underwear.” She pointed to the soufflé on her plate. “God, this is good. Where’d you learn to cook like this?”

  Bobby shrugged. “Out of books. And practice.”

  Mattie sliced another fork full of soufflé and held it in front of her as she spoke. “So I asked him what about his bimbo girlfriend. Except I didn’t put it that way, of course. I said, ‘Gee, how does your fiancée feel about the decision?’” She slid the fork into her mouth. “He said she would come around eventually, and if she didn’t, he’d buy her off with a new Corvette. Can you believe it? This guy’s got money like you and I’ve got dirty laundry. He just can’t seem to get rid of it.”

  “Money isn’t everything,” Bobby said softly.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. It can’t buy happiness. But it can sure as hell make a good down payment on it.” Mattie filled her mouth with more soufflé, tucked it into her cheek, and asked, “By the way, how’s your leg? The one the drunk hit last night?” She giggled.

  �
�It’s better. The bruise is still there, but it’s not as stiff as it was this morning.”

  Mattie smiled a wicked smile. “Anything else getting stiff?”

  Bobby looked puzzled. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Never mind. Listen, Bobby, I still don’t know a damn thing about you. I mean, here I am on the biggest night of my real estate career, having dinner with a good-looking young guy, who can even cook. I mean, it’s all wonderful, but the part about not knowing anything about my date is a little too familiar. If you know what I mean.”

  It was clear from Bobby’s expression that he didn’t.

  “Okay, so tell me. You’re a gourmet cook, a natural artist and a sweetheart guy. So where’ve you been all my life? You go to school, you got a job, you’re just drifting, what?”

  “I guess I’m just drifting,” Bobby replied.

  “When I was your age, it was called finding yourself. You trying to figure out who you are?”

  Bobby quietly placed his fork back on his plate. “No,” he said softly, his head down. “I’m just looking for peace.”

  Deeley sent his driver back to the bishop’s office and rode with McGuire and Lipson through the late afternoon sun towards Brookline. On the way he explained to the detectives about the Cesenas, a sect of monks who had broken away from the Capurnians to establish their own order. A purely local phenomenon, the Cesenas sprung up in New England during the nineteenth century. They called themselves Brothers of the Order of Cesena, choosing the name of a town in Italy, whose citizens had been brutally massacred in the fourteenth century by Robert of Geneva, a ruthless cardinal appointed by Pope Gregory the Eleventh.

  “The Cesenas chose that name to prove they were more closely allied with the citizenry, the common people, than with the Mother Church,” Deeley explained. “But over the years, they’ve moved at least under the umbrella of the Church, if not within it.”

  “Why the hell would anybody want to become a Catholic monk in this day and age?” McGuire asked.

  “I suppose I could come up with an answer,” Deeley said coolly. “But I’m not sure you’d fully appreciate it, McGuire. Anyway, the Cesenas have acquired a reputation for being quiet fanatics. They believe the best way to serve the Church is by training small numbers of dedicated priests who earn moral standing and respect through self-discipline and study, then taking their message to the world outside through normal Church channels.”

  “A few good men,” Lipson, who was driving, said. “The marines, that’s what it sounds like.”

  “That’s not a bad analogy,” Deeley commented. “In fact, more than one marine commander has spent time with the Cesenas learning how to be totally self-sufficient while giving himself up to a higher authority.” He leaned back in the seat of the car, crossed his legs and folded his hands loosely in his lap. “Now tell me why you think that woman’s son is mixed up in these terrible killings.”

  By the time they reached Brookline, McGuire had provided all the details linking Bobby Griffin with the killings of the three priests and Alvin Chadwick.

  “It’s not what I expected,” Deeley said when McGuire had finished. “Not an intelligent young man. Not someone of the Church, who has lived within its glories and shelter.”

  “What were you expecting? McGuire demanded. “A Russian Commie with horns and a tail, drooling at the mouth?”

  “It would have been closer. A lot closer.”

  McGuire seized the radio microphone and called headquarters. The dispatcher connected him with Janet Parsons, who told him that Kavander had been trying to reach him all day. “I’m not talking to Kavander,” McGuire said brusquely. “Just give me the important stuff.”

  “Okay,” her voice crackled over the radio. “Anne Murison, the lady from the aquarium, called us today. She admitted that the young blond guy hadn’t caught a cab like she said he had. She watched him walk directly to the subway station and enter it—”

  “What time?” McGuire interrupted.

  “Five-fifteen. It fits, Joe.”

  Lipson whistled softly.

  “Anything else?”

  “You got a couple of phone messages here—”

  “Leave ’em,” McGuire interrupted again. He looked up to see Lipson steering them through an open gate in a high brick wall. Straggling ivy clung to the bricks, some of which were crumbling away. Ahead of them the roadway sunk into a low ravine before rising again towards a large brick structure whose intricate Victorian lines and detail were hidden beneath layers of grime and more untamed, rampant ivy.

  “Tell Kavander we’re close to wrapping things up here. Then make sure we’ve got an APB with an armed and dangerous warning on the kid.”

  He switched off the microphone and snapped it back in its holder, watching open-mouthed as the car wound its way into the ravine and closer to the monastery building that loomed above them, dark and defiant.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They were in the living room, Bobby seated primly on the edge of the chair in the corner, Mattie sprawled on the couch with one leg raised, one hand resting on the floor holding the empty champagne bottle by the neck.

  “You gotta laugh more, Bobby,” Mattie slurred. “Listen, we’re here and soon we’re gone, and if you don’t get your share of laughs while you can, what the hell’s the use, right?”

  Bobby offered a smile and stared down into the champagne glass he held as though it belonged to someone else. “Don’t you ever worry about the future?” he asked quietly.

  “You think the future’s worrying about me?” Mattie demanded. “Bobby, you’re what? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? Whatever. And you’re a nice, sweet, shy kid. But I bet you think you’ve got it all figured out, right? ’Cause I did when I was your age. I had it all figured out. I was a New York model, flying here and flying there, doing fashion spreads for Bonwit-Teller and perfume ads and swimsuit stuff. And it wasn’t just the money. It was the attention. I’d show up at a photo session and all the guys, the account executives and the clients and the photographers, they’d all hug me and make kissy-face and invite me to parties on Long Island, you know?”

  She paused and looked up at the ceiling. Bobby watched as her eyelids began to blink rapidly.

  “And after a couple of years . . .” She swallowed and began again. “After a couple of years things got slow, and I went to France for six months with a friend. I figured, what the hell, I’d try some modelling over there. I mean, I was big in New York, I could be big in Paris, right? But I wasn’t. After I sat around for a couple of months, I took a fling with a guy and moved in with him in his villa near Cannes. Away up in the mountains, it was. I’d get up in the morning, and there was the whole Mediterranean spread out before me. White yachts in the harbours. Palm trees all around. Sometimes we’d go to parties on those yachts.

  “Then one day the guy, who was a Frenchman of course . . . dirty bastard . . . one day he said he had to go to Geneva for a week on business, and I said okay, I’d wait for him. And we had a maid, a cook and a chauffeur there, and when I came back from a shopping trip the maid and cook were gone. And the place was locked up.”

  She turned from the ceiling to look at Bobby. “And all my luggage was stacked on the porch. There was an envelope taped to my bags, with a note and one-way ticket to Paris inside. The note said ‘It was fun. Merci.’ Just like that. And the chauffeur stood there looking bored, waiting to drive me to the airport.”

  She brought her finger to her mouth and bit down on it. “Talk about being dumped. The bastard. So I came back to New York, and I got my old address book, and I made the rounds. And it was like I had never been there. Nobody wanted to see me. They wouldn’t return my telephone calls. When I took my comp book with me to show the photographers, all my best shots in it, they’d send their juniors out to look at it, just to get rid of me.”

  Mattie removed her fingers from her mouth and covere
d her eyes with her hand.

  “Six months, and I go from the top to zero like that. Because they don’t want my look anymore. I’m not hot anymore.” She wiped her eyes and tried to smile. “I was so upset, I went out and married a Goddamn car salesman, if you can believe it.”

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry.” Bobby said softly from the corner.

  “Come here, will you please?” She dropped the empty champagne bottle on the floor and held her arms out to him. “Please, Bobby? Just give me a hug, all right?”

  Bobby set his glass aside. He rose and walked uncertainly towards her, and she wrapped him in her arms. “Thank you for listening,” she whispered. “It’s so hard to find someone who listens anymore.”

  She shifted her weight, making room for him. “Stretch out and talk to me,” she said. Her eyes were dry, and her smile less bitter. “I want to know all about you.” Awkwardly he lay beside her. “You need a mother, Bobby. I can tell, you poor kid. God, we all need mothers, don’t we? Fathers, they can all go to hell, but mothers are so precious.”

  Bobby lay unmoving next to her, his eyes growing wider.

  “Will you let me mother you, Bobby?” she asked, taking his head in her hands. “Will you be my good little boy and let me mother you?”

  He nodded solemnly in reply.

  Mattie reached up and kissed him, long and deep. Slowly, Bobby responded, but she could feel him holding back. Unwrapping her arms from around him, she stretched behind her and unfastened her brassiere. Step by step she unbuttoned her blouse and shrugged out of it, casting both blouse and bra aside while Bobby watched, wide-eyed. Her breasts were full and round, the nipples erect and tingling.

  Placing a hand behind Bobby’s head, she brought him to her, felt the nipple enter his mouth, thrilled at the touch of his tongue and shivered at the sight of his body stretched out beside hers.