Murder at the National Cathedral

by Margaret Truman

  “No, we just have some routine matters to take up,” said the chapter president.

  Smith stood and said to St. James, “Could we speak privately, George?”

  “Of course.”

  Once in the hall, Smith said, “I got a call on my answering machine from Clarissa Morgan. I told you about her, the British woman who’d had an affair with Paul.”

  “Yes. You said she’d disappeared from London, never kept her appointment with you.”

  “Exactly. She says she’s in Washington and wants to meet with me. I have no idea what it involves, but I’ll follow through. I just thought you should be aware of it.”

  “Mac, let me ask a pointed question you asked me. Have you called the police?”

  “Not yet. I don’t want them to get to her before I do. Obstructing justice is getting to be an epidemic around here. But I have a hunch she’ll open up to me more readily than to Terry Finnerty. And I think she represents the bigger picture, bigger than our police, bigger even than the cathedral.”

  “Do you think …?”

  “George, I don’t think anything at this point, beyond that. She sounded anxious, said she didn’t want to leave on my machine the location of where she was staying, and that she would call me again. I’ve got to get back to the house and be there when she does. If she does.”

  “Of course. Thank you for coming tonight, Mac.”

  Smith touched the bishop on the arm. “Getting complicated, isn’t it?”

  “Too complicated.”

  “Let a few hours pass where the Kelsch boy is concerned, let his folks and the police look for him. Chances are he’ll arrive home full of apologies and excuses. If he doesn’t show up soon, call me. I’ll be home all evening.”

  St. James sighed. “Again, what can I say but thank you?”

  “Try a couple of prayers for all of us, including yourself, and get a good night’s sleep. Forgive my choice of words, George, but for a bishop, you look like hell.”

  25

  A Pelting Rain in Time for Rush Hour

  When Smith returned home, he discovered a note pinned to the front door informing him that his neighbor had signed for a delivery. He went next door, where Mrs. Sinclair handed him an overseas courier envelope. The return address was Scotland Yard. “Thanks very much, Valerie,” Smith said to her.

  He returned to his house and opened the envelope. The photos Annabel had taken of the figure on horseback had been blown up into eight-by-ten-inch prints. Smith scrutinized the pictures. The fog, and the distance from which Annabel had taken the pictures, precluded a clear view of the rider’s face. What could be discerned, however, was that the rider was fairly big and broad-shouldered yet somehow plainly a woman, although her full British riding getup was almost unisex.

  Smith left the photos on the kitchen table and was about to change into more casual clothing when the phone rang. It was Tony Buffolino.

  “Hey, Mac, what’s happening?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I haven’t heard beans from you. I mean, I been off the case a little bit, but I’d like to get back on.” He spoke in a stage whisper. “Man, this place is drivin’ me crazy. I got to get away. Come on, you must have something else for me to do.”

  “Yes, I might. How are you at finding little boys?”

  “Little boys? What do you think I am?”

  “Tony, hold the comments and listen to me. Where are you now?”

  “At the club, where else? I spend my whole damn life here. That’s the problem. Mac, between you and me, I got problems here, and not just with Alicia. Things ain’t goin’ so good, financially, I mean. I don’t know, maybe I should turn this place into another topless joint like the ones on either side. Guys comin’ in and out all night, and all the owner’s got to do is pay a couple ’a girls. These acts I got here come high. They’re all direct from Vegas.”

  “Vegas, Illinois,” Mac said, “and lounge acts from East St. Louis.”

  Tony laughed. “Come on, Mac, turn me into an honest man again.”

  “Stay there, Tony. And stay as you are. Don’t go topless. I’ll get back to you in a couple of hours.”

  “You want to come down, have a meal on the house?”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  Smith went into the kitchen to make himself spaghetti. Anything was preferable to the “chef” at Tony’s Spotlight Room, another assassin. Annabel had left a message on the machine that she was taking her new assistant out for a lifesaving, or life-threatening, dinner: “To tell him he either starts earning his money my way, or he can find another job.” Good: she was taking it out on the arrogant assistant.

  He filled a large pot with water and put it on the stove, poured mushroom sauce in a saucepan, grated a chunk of Parmesan cheese, and cut a lettuce wedge.

  The phone rang; he moved more quickly than he ordinarily would have. Clarissa Morgan was on his mind. That was the call he wanted.

  It wasn’t she. The dean, Daniel Jaffe, was inviting Mac and Annabel to a party at his house a week from Saturday. Smith’s mind wasn’t exactly on university party-going. He told his boss it sounded fine to him, that he would check with Annabel, and got off the line.

  The water was boiling, and, adding a teaspoon of vegetable oil to keep the spaghetti from sticking, he snapped strands in half and placed them into the water, adding a pinch of salt. He turned the flame low under the saucepan and dashed oil and vinegar on the lettuce. All of this was observed with keen interest by Rufus, who could usually count on Smith to share. This was not always true with Annabel, however. It was a matter of philosophy, of dog rearing. “Of course he begs at the table,” she often told Mac. “He begs because you give him something.”

  “Yes, but now that he’s gotten into that habit, it seems a shame to disappoint him.”

  It was never a serious debate, and the dog knew it, like a child playing one parent against the other. He was better at it than most kids.

  Smith watched the TV news in the kitchen while he ate. The discovery of small but electronically discernible traces of blood on the floor of the Bethlehem Chapel had been announced by the police. While that represented a significant finding, it did not move the investigation closer to identifying the murderer.

  He fed a few strands of spaghetti to Rufus by holding them above the dog’s head and watching him snap them off inch by inch. It wasn’t a terribly humane way to reward the animal’s patience, but Smith could never resist it when spaghetti was involved. Then he gave Rufus a real serving in his dish.

  He put the dishes in the dishwasher and looked at the clock. Annabel should be home soon, unless her career-counseling conversation had been more complicated than she’d anticipated.

  Smith was much on edge, and he knew it. Ordinarily, he was able to settle into his recliner and read on evenings like this when he was alone. Not this night. He found himself pacing the house, stopping only to look at the telephone as though it had a life of its own, or should. He tried reading the newspaper but found it lacking. Television didn’t appeal, nor did preparing for his next class.

  Then, with a ring that jolted his nervous system and threatened to alert all of Washington, the phone went off.

  “Hello,” Smith said loudly into the receiver.

  “Mr. Smith?”

  “Yes. Miss Morgan. I’ve been waiting for your call.”

  “I’m sorry to be so elusive, Mr. Smith, but I think it prudent. When might we meet?”

  “Any time that’s good for you. Do you want to tell me a little about why we’re meeting?”

  “No, not on the phone. I thought …” There was much pain in her laugh. “I thought it might be appropriate for us to meet at the cathedral.”

  Smith glanced up at a clock. It was almost eight. “At the cathedral? At this hour?”

  “I know it sounds an unlikely place, but it would suit me. Will you?”

  Smith thought for a moment. The cathedral could do without new late-night visitors. But he mustn
’t lose the contact. “I suppose so. When?”

  “Would an hour from now be rushing you?”

  Smith’s concern was that he would not be home when Annabel returned. He’d leave a note. “Yes, I’ll meet you at the cathedral in an hour, Miss Morgan. How about the Good Shepherd Chapel—it’s open at all hours.”

  There was silence on the other end, and the thought process she was going through was almost audible. “I’ll call you back.”

  “Miss Morgan, is anything wrong? Can you confirm? Are you—”

  A sharp click announced that the conversation was over.

  Smith hung up and thought about what had just taken place. There’d been background noise—traffic, some voices. She’d obviously been calling from a phone booth.

  He resumed pacing, but was interrupted by a call from George St. James. “Mac, I just received a call from Joseph Kelsch’s mother. The police haven’t come up with a trace yet.”

  Smith glanced at his watch. “I have a private investigator who’s done work for me. I’m putting him on this. He’s … he’s between assignments and anxious to start a new one.”

  “How could he help? I mean, if the police haven’t been able to find the boy …”

  “Yes, I agree, except that he is a former Washington cop. He has resources of his own.”

  “All right, Mac. Maybe I should call Mrs. Kelsch and inform her.”

  “Sure, but I don’t think it’s really necessary. My investigator will be checking quietly. I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Good. Have you heard from Miss Morgan?”

  “Yes, twenty-one minutes ago. We were in the process of arranging a place and time to meet when she hung up. I think she was calling from a booth. Maybe ran out of coins. Or courage. She suggested meeting at the cathedral, of all places, but I think she might reconsider. How late will you be up?”

  “Late. I’ll be here in my office at the cathedral probably until midnight. Carolyn and Jonathon are somehow producing drafts of their report, even though they’ve accused each other of murder. And I have reports to get out. The world is made of paperwork.”

  “We’ll all end up drowning in it one day,” Smith said. “Listen, I want to clear this line. I’ll be up late, too, and I’ll be here unless I run out to meet Lady Morgan. I’ll call you.”

  Buffolino took Smith’s call in his tiny office at the rear of the club. “I only have a minute,” Smith said. “About the missing boy. His name is Joseph Kelsch, Joey.” Smith filled Buffolino in on the circumstances surrounding Joey’s disappearance, his address, school, parents. Buffolino knew several places where runaway kids tended to go, and he promised to go out looking. “I’ll be up late, Tony. Call any time.”

  Smith checked the news again. His friend Rhonda Harrison was anchoring that night, and had just begun an update on the FBI’s arrests. She said that a statement had been issued by the director of the FBI that the sweep was the result of an ongoing and long-term investigation of Word of Peace. According to the director, the Bureau had worked in concert with law-enforcement agencies from other countries.

  The investigation was focusing on two aspects of the organization’s activities. One had to do with the diversion of funds to the personal bank accounts of some of those arrested. The other dealt with subversive activities. Word of Peace concealed, according to the FBI’s statement, a network of espionage activity, with the organization used as a cover. Sufficient evidence had been gathered to make a strong case against certain individuals within Word of Peace for the passing of sensitive and classified information to their respective countries or to stateless groups.

  According to the FBI, those arrested had established an elaborate web of informants who reported on the activities of a wide range of people involved with Word of Peace. Secretaries, postal workers, custodians, and bank clerks received regular payments in return for passing on information considered useful to some of the group’s leaders. Meticulous records had been kept and have been secured, and the individuals named in them will be part of the continuing investigation.

  Rhonda concluded, “The director took pains to point out, however, that while many individuals have been accused of wrongdoing, the indictment is not directed at Word of Peace itself as a charitable and well-intentioned movement. Many outstanding individuals and institutions have given considerable support to Word of Peace, according to the director’s statement, and it was his feeling that a worthwhile organization had been misused by these named in the indictment.”

  As Smith watched television, Brett Leighton walked into the lobby of the small and popular River Inn on Twenty-fifth Street N.W., a few blocks from Smith’s Foggy Bottom home. He said to the nicely tailored young woman behind the desk, “I’m here to meet Miss Morgan. Clarissa Morgan. She’s a guest.”

  The receptionist checked. “Yes, Miss Morgan is in room twenty. The house phone is over there.” She pointed across the lobby.

  “Thank you,” Leighton said, smiling. He walked slowly toward the phone, glanced over his shoulder, saw that she’d turned her attention to a computer printer running off a reservation, and he quickly stepped into a waiting elevator. Room 20, he thought. He pushed the button for the second floor, stepped out into the carpeted hallway, and went to the door with 20 on it. He rapped lightly. No response. He knocked again, a little louder this time. Still no sound. “Too bad,” he muttered, retracing his steps to the lobby and going out to the street. He turned deliberately and walked north, although unsure of which direction to try.

  Had he gone south on Twenty-fifth, he would have come within minutes to a public telephone across from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and seen Clarissa Morgan standing a few feet from it.

  After abruptly hanging up on Smith—she’d had the feeling that someone was watching her—she’d gone inside the Kennedy Center and wandered around its massive red-carpeted and white marble foyer; it was like a cathedral of another sort and purpose, she thought. She was tempted to use one of the public phones in the center, but there were too many people and too much noise to make the call. Eventually, she left the building and returned to the booth from which she’d originally called Smith. Now she was caught in a bout of indecision. She knew Smith lived in the neighborhood; maybe it would be better to simply drop in on him. No, she didn’t like that idea. It would have to be another phone call. Where should she suggest they meet? He hadn’t seemed to like the idea of the cathedral at first. She couldn’t suggest her hotel because she knew they would probably know she was staying there. They knew everything. Not that she cared, at least she hadn’t up until this point. The hell with them. Damn them all. But it wouldn’t be fair to Mackensie Smith to bring him into the midst of something even nastier than he’d already experienced—to say nothing of his bird-watching wife.

  The cathedral.

  It had to be the cathedral. He’d show up. She didn’t know it well, but had been there, had a sense of it. It was so large, there would be many places, like that chapel, where she could meet him, tell him everything. For it was time.

  She stepped into the booth and reached in her purse. She had a few shillings, but she was out of American change. She swore softly, returned to the Kennedy Center, and went to a gift shop, where she bought a key ring with a ballet dancer dangling from it. She used a traveler’s check and asked to be given a portion of her change in silver. This time she ignored all the well-dressed people milling about. There was safety in numbers. She stepped up to one of the public phones and dialed.

  26

  Now Raining Cats and Rufus-size Dogs

  Joey Kelsch sat in darkness behind the Jerusalem altar, at the east end of the nave. It was deathly quiet; he wondered whether the sound of his own breathing, which he tried to control, could be heard everywhere, by anyone in the building. Next to him was the small suitcase packed with underwear, jeans, two sweaters, socks, and his favorite Ping-Pong paddle.

  He sat on a brilliant blue needlepoint kneeling cushion decorated with sprays o
f wheat, grape clusters, a spear, and a crown of thorns, symbolic of Holy Communion and the Passion and the crucifixion of Good Friday. He’d taken the cushion from in front of the elaborately carved wooden communion rail that separated the sanctuary from the chancel.

  Joey heard movement in the nave and slowly, carefully peered out over the altar; he saw nothing and glanced up. Looking down on him, or so it seemed, was a large carved figure of Christ set in one of three reredos. Quotations from Saint Matthew’s Gospel were written on another:

  For I was an hungered and you gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick and ye visited me; I was in prison and ye came unto me.

  Farther up was the trompette en chamade, Willie Nickel always called them, the imposing pipes of the great cathedral organ.

  He looked over the altar again at the nave’s vast emptiness. At the far end, more than four hundred feet away, was the west rose window, a soaring circle and an acclaimed tribute to the art of stained glass.

  If there had been a noise, the source of it was not visible. Joey sank down onto the kneeling pad again, drew his knees up to his chin, and wrapped his arms about them. He was cold and frightened, and had no idea what to do next. He’d entered the cathedral after having decided he could no longer stay at school. Nor did he want to go home and face the questions, the scolding that were sure to ensue. There was too much on his mind, too many things to sort out, too many decisions to be made. Damn Willy Nickel, he thought. If Nickelson hadn’t given him that stupid punishment of sorting music in the choir room, none of this would have happened. He would have played in the Ping-Pong tournament and probably won. Instead, he was forced to witness the most horrible thing he could imagine—yet could do nothing about it. There was no one he could trust or turn to and tell what he saw, what he knew. It hadn’t been easy calling the police that next morning to tell them a murder had been committed in the National Cathedral. He’d blurted it out fast to the officer who’d answered the phone, and hung up immediately. The policeman thought he was a woman. That’s what the newspapers and television said. Joey was glad. After making the call, he had visions of some special machine attached to the phone at police headquarters that could immediately identify boys and where the call was placed and the school of whoever placed it—some supercomputer. He’d heard about voiceprints, and how each person’s voice was unique and individual. Yes, he was very relieved when he read they thought a woman had called. But it was a fleeting and minor relief. Because he still knew, still had been a witness to the event.