Three Marys

by Glenn Cooper

  Sue opened the envelope and read the pages. It was ostensibly from Torres as the representative of Miracle Ranch but the language was written by a lawyer. It was a contract extension for another six months of employment. There was enough additional money for Sue to buy a house, travel the world for a few years, do whatever the hell she had always wanted to do, if she had a clue what that was.

  ‘I don’t need the money,’ Sue said in a breathy exhale.

  ‘Everyone needs money.’

  Sue ignored her and handed the letter back.

  Torres seemed to be prepared for her reaction. ‘The girls need you. All of them, especially Mary. It’s more than needing you. They love you. You have a bond with them.’

  Sue looked like she wanted to interrupt.

  ‘What did you want to say?’ Torres asked.

  She sighed. ‘Nothing. I learned a long time ago not to bother asking questions you’re not going to answer.’

  Torres nodded. It was true enough. ‘Listen to me, Sue, there’s no one else here who can take care of them like you. Definitely not me. They do not love me. They’ve no reason to. I’m not warm like you. I never had children. I don’t know how to take good care of them. If you left they’d be in turmoil. They couldn’t cope. Just six months. After six months, it will be different. Believe me, I know things. They’ll be able to let go of you. Take the money, but don’t do it for the money. Do it for them.’

  The academic year was about to start and Harvard was in its cycle of autumn rebirth with the arrival of freshmen and returning students. Cal planned to spend Labor Day weekend with Jessica at her beach house in Nantucket for a placid end to the season. While he was packing he got a call from Joe Murphy that concerned him. Murphy could never be accused of being ebullient but he sounded flat – actually more than flat.

  ‘I’m thinking of telling Mary Schott that I need to take some time off,’ Murphy said.

  Schott was the chairman of the history department. Murphy had only been on the faculty for a year but he’d already made a good initial impression for his undergraduate course on medieval history. The student ratings on Harvard’s Q Guide had been rather stellar. Of course, Cal had wanted Murphy on the faculty of the Divinity School but Gil Daniels had blocked it in an act of spite and jealousy over Cal’s celebrity status as the pope’s fair-haired academic. At least that’s what Cal had suspected. So, Cal had persuaded Mary Schott to take Murphy on and the maneuver had been a win-win.

  ‘Why, what’s up, Joe?’ Cal said.

  He knew what was up. Murphy was having a rough time. You didn’t come through a brutal kidnapping unscathed. Cal had gotten a call from one of his former grad students who did an overlapping year with Murphy at the Divinity School before getting his degree. Andy Bogosian was now an associate professor at the University of New Mexico, a rising academic star in the Department of Religious Studies.

  ‘Hey, Cal, I talked to Joe Murphy yesterday,’ Bogosian had said.

  ‘How’d he sound?’

  ‘Like shit. I’m worried about him.’

  ‘We all are.’

  ‘He should see someone.’

  ‘I know. I’m going to talk to him.’

  ‘He’s going to tell you he wants to take a leave of absence.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a great idea,’ Cal had said.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe a change of scenery would be a tonic. I’d love to get him to come to New Mexico. A New England winter’s a-coming. Bad for the psyche. I could pull some strings and get a position opened up in my department. I mean, what the hell’s he doing in the History Department anyway?’

  Cal knew that Bogosian probably could pull all sorts of strings. He was from New Mexico political royalty. His father had been attorney general. His brother was the lieutenant governor.

  ‘Don’t be poaching talent from Harvard,’ Cal had said. ‘You’ll anger the gods. I’ll look after Joe the best I can. Don’t worry. I’ll call you soon with an update.’

  Murphy sounded mechanical. Cal could picture his downcast face. ‘I don’t know. I’ve had trouble focusing on my new lectures.’

  ‘You went through a lot, Joe. It’s understandable.’

  ‘Well I don’t know about that. I thought I should tell you first.’

  This needed more than a phone call. Cal went out on a limb, not for the first time in his life. ‘What are you doing this weekend?’

  ‘I’ve got an impressive watch list on Netflix.’

  ‘Throw some clothes in a bag. Civilian clothes and swim trunks. You’re going to the beach.’

  Jessica’s idea of a romantic weekend on the beach didn’t comport with entertaining a depressed priest but Cal used all his charms and got her ex-post-facto sign-off. That proved to be easier than snagging a last-minute ferry ticket for the busiest weekend of the summer but he pulled that off too.

  Hanging on the railings, and taking in the choppy waters of Nantucket Sound, Murphy told Cal and Jessica he felt like a gooseberry.

  ‘What’s a gooseberry, other than the obvious?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Ah, it’s a term from the old country,’ Murphy said. ‘The ugly friend who tags along with a couple.’

  ‘You are so not ugly,’ Jessica said unhelpfully.

  On the first morning Cal left Jessica asleep in bed to do a beach jog where he found Murphy, sitting with his back to a dune, contemplating the dawn.

  ‘Nice here,’ Murphy said. ‘Thanks for the invite.’

  Cal sat beside him.

  ‘Not running?’ Murphy said.

  ‘You’re giving me an excuse not to,’ Cal said, slipping off his sneakers and digging his feet into the sand.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘So, tell me something,’ Cal said. ‘If someone – say a parishioner when you were in the business – came to you with a story that resembles yours, where they were coshed on the noggin, kidnapped, held in a cellar, marked for execution – and they told you they were feeling adrift, what would you say to them?’

  ‘I expect I’d tell them similar things to what you’re about to tell me.’

  ‘There you have it. I rest my case.’

  ‘That was easy. Go for your run then.’

  ‘Look, Joe, I don’t know if you’ve got PTSD or just plain-vanilla angst but I think you ought to see someone.’

  ‘A priest, mayhap?’

  ‘No, my friend, a psychiatrist. This is not a spiritual matter. It’s biological. Let me get you a name of someone at the medical school. See someone a few times before you blow up your semester.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘That’s better than no.’

  ‘It’s not like there are zero spiritual issues on my mind,’ Murphy said digging a shell from the sand. ‘Haven’t you been troubled by the implications of our virgins?’

  ‘Troubled? I don’t know, Joe. It’s hit me more in the head than the heart. I’m fascinated. I’m curious. I’m just not getting big-time spiritual vibes. You know Mary Riordan. You saw the videos of Maria Mollo and Maria Aquino. If you didn’t know the back stories you’d think you were looking at regular teenage girls with their regular babies.’

  ‘Do you suppose the Virgin Mary and her baby Jesus looked so extraordinary?’

  ‘Wasn’t there.’

  ‘Well now, I wasn’t either but here’s the thing. If you buy into the religious canon of the Gospels and the New Testament – as I do – then you’re confronted with the lack of prophesy regarding these Marys. There’s plenty to chew on regarding the second coming of Christ, but nothing about a new wave of virgin births and three new baby Jesuses. What does it mean? Have we missed something fundamental about the fabric of Christianity?’

  Cal’s phone beeped with a text message.

  ‘Jessica wants to know where I am.’

  ‘You should go to her.’

  There was another beep.

  ‘She’s not looking for my companionship,’ Cal said. ‘She says there’s another video.’

>   ‘Mary Riordan,’ was all that Murphy said.

  Cal clicked on the link and the two men watched her birth video, the soundtrack of organ music working nicely with the waves breaking on the sand.

  ‘Jesus David,’ Murphy said after Mary, looking into the lens, announced his name. ‘Good on her for picking her grandfather. Kenny Riordan’s a bastard.’

  This third video didn’t fade to black as the others had. It dissolved to a shot of all three girls sitting side-by-side on a sofa, each one holding her infant and smiling sweetly, almost beatifically. When this image turned to black two words were displayed.

  THE BEGINNING.

  And then a scroll unfurled with these words translated into other languages – not a dozen or three dozen but perhaps a hundred.

  ‘Something’s coming,’ Murphy said.

  ‘Please hold for President Griffith.’

  Randall Anning was not the type of man who owned a Caribbean estate. He had a Caribbean island. When the call came in he was driving a golf cart from his house down to the harbor where he was expecting a yacht-load of children and grandchildren for the long weekend.

  ‘Randy, how the hell are you?’

  ‘I’m good, Mr President. Are you in Washington?’

  ‘God forbid. I’m down in Florida on Jupiter. Bill Finke lent me his estate. You know Bill, don’t you?’

  ‘Sure I do. We’re on the Business Roundtable together. What can I do for you?’

  ‘You’ve seen the newest video? This third girl, the Irish one, with her own Baby Jesus.’

  Anning smiled. ‘Yes, I’ve seen the video.’

  ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘Stirs the heart of this old Catholic,’ Anning said. ‘We seem to be awash in miracles.’

  ‘The last time I got such a rise out of religion was when Sister Veronica was spanking my bare bottom. Still think about that damned nun.’

  ‘We all have a Sister Veronica in our past.’

  ‘So, here’s what I want to know,’ Griffith said. ‘What do you think Pope Celestine is making of these latter-day Marys and Jesuses? Do you think he’s shitting himself?’

  Anning’s motor yacht was approaching the dock. He waved to the children waving at him.

  ‘I expect he is, Lew.’

  ‘That all you have to say to me?’

  ‘For the moment. Stay tuned.’

  ‘I’m the goddamned President, Randy. There’s only so many times you can tell me that.’

  NINETEEN

  Cal, Jessica, and Father Gooseberry, as Jessica had taken to calling Murphy, were having oysters on the patio of Cru on Nantucket wharf when Cal got a call from a blocked number.

  ‘Is this Professor Calvin Donovan?’ the caller asked.

  ‘It is. Who’s this?’

  ‘It’s George Pole, Professor.’

  ‘Cardinal Pole,’ Cal said in surprise, catching Murphy mid-oyster and causing the priest to stare.

  ‘I’m not a cardinal any longer. Call me George.’

  ‘All right, George.’

  ‘Is this a good time?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Excellent. I know the Vatican’s gotten you involved with the virgin girls. You’ve been following all the recent developments, I trust.’

  ‘Of course. The newest video. The Beginning, whatever that means.’

  ‘Theatrical, don’t you think?’ Pole said.

  ‘That’s exactly what I think.’

  ‘So, Professor, how’d you like to play a part in this drama, visit the Marys, kiss a few babies, and see for yourself what’s going on?’

  Jessica’s picture window was glowing orange in the setting sun. Cal was doing his best imitation of a bartender, shaking up frosty batches of ultra-dry vodka martinis and trying to avoid the second coldest thing in the house: her icy glare. The moment he told her that he’d be cutting the weekend short and departing the island in the morning on a private jet, he had become the gooseberry and Murphy had become her preferred partner in conversation.

  ‘Do you want me to fire up the grill?’ Cal asked.

  She was a little drunk by now. ‘I think I heard a voice. Joe, do we want this man to fire up the grill?’

  Murphy had declared that his goal for the evening was to acquire a taste for vodka and he reached for his martini glass. ‘Is it a requirement as your house guest, Jessica, that I be in the middle of this domestic spat?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she said, wrinkling her nose at Cal.

  ‘Then yes,’ Murphy said. ‘I do think that you should light the grill, Cal. I’d do it myself but I see you’re on gas here. I’m not a propane man. Now if it had been charcoal you wanted then that would have been a bird of a different feather.’

  Over steaks Cal tried to worm his way back into Jessica’s good books.

  ‘DNA,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘What about it?’ she asked, deigning to acknowledge him.

  ‘If I’m going I should try to get DNA from the babies, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t care about the babies,’ she replied, not very helpfully.

  ‘Well, putting that aside, how would one go about getting the DNA?’

  ‘If I tell you, will you do the dishes while Joe and I drink dessert wine under the stars?’

  Cal was the only passenger on the private jet that came for him the next morning at Nantucket Memorial Airport. The pilot and co-pilot cheerfully informed him that their skills at serving food and drink weren’t all that wonderful and that he might do just as well helping himself to whatever he wanted from the well-stocked galley.

  ‘So, guys,’ Cal said, checking out the empty cabin, ‘want to tell me where we’re headed?’

  ‘They told us you’re not supposed to know that, sir. We’ve also been instructed to keep the window shades down for the entire flight.’

  ‘I promise not to peek.’

  The flight lasted four and a half hours and Cal managed to do some prep work for the courses he’d be teaching the coming semester and fire off an email to Cardinal Da Silva and Sister Elisabetta about his unexpected invitation from George Pole. Before landing he got a reply from Da Silva expressing a high level of concern that Pole was in some way involved with the girls. He asked Cal to contact him immediately, any hour of the day or night, when he had information to report.

  When the plane touched down, the door was opened, and the stairs deployed, Cal got a blast of hot, dry air. He hardly got a chance to check out the brown, featureless landscape because an SUV with blacked-out windows was waiting a few feet from the stairs.

  ‘Long drive?’ Cal asked the driver, settling into the back seat.

  ‘Not very.’

  The guy must have been a comedian because a minute later the SUV stopped and the driver opened the door for Cal. Standing at the front portico of a red-bricked mansion was George Pole, wearing a lightweight, tan suit.

  Cal had never met him although he knew a lot about him, particularly his unabashed conservative politics and his penchant for picking public spats with the pope.

  ‘Your Eminence,’ Cal said, extending a hand.

  ‘Just George now,’ Pole said. ‘Welcome, Professor.’

  ‘So, judging by the flight time and the weather I’m guessing we’re in Texas or Oklahoma,’ Cal said.

  ‘Well, we just call it the ranch,’ Pole said lightly.

  Beyond the circular drive Cal saw a convoy of landscaping trucks heading down an access road loaded with mature trees with huge root balls wrapped in canvas.

  ‘Please come in. It’s hotter than Hades although we’re certainly not there.’

  Pole took him through a marble-floored entry hall into a formal living room decorated with southwestern art and Frederic Remington bronzes that looked suspiciously like the real thing. A Latina woman with a black uniform and white apron came in, asked Pole if they wanted something to drink and she left with an order for a couple of coffees.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable, Professor. I
expect you’d like to know why I asked you to come.’

  ‘I expect you’re right. Are the girls really here?’

  ‘They are. And three special little fellows. I’m sure you were among the billion or so people who watched the birth videos.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Then you saw the message. The beginning.’

  ‘A teaser if ever there was one.’

  ‘Yes, but truthful. We wanted you to see the Marys and their infants because in the coming days, weeks, and months people will question many things about them. We live in an age of conspiracy theories. People still believe the moon landings were faked. We wanted someone with impeccable credentials and impartiality to see firsthand what has happened here at the ranch. We want you to bear witness.’

  ‘You keep saying “we.”’

  ‘I’m but a cog in a wheel, Professor. There are others, of course. This is a large endeavor.’

  ‘Seems to me you’re a pretty big cog. Was your resignation tied up with this?’

  ‘I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with you by lying. I was aware this was coming, yes.’

  ‘I’m happy to hear you aren’t going to lie,’ Cal said. ‘Tell me what you have to say about the allegations that the girls were kidnapped.’

  ‘I’ve read the reports. I don’t believe they are credible or correct. Yes, the parents of the girls were given money but this was done to support them and make the girls comfortable in the knowledge that their families were taken care of in their absence.’

  ‘Cindy Riordan isn’t comfortable. She’s dead.’

  ‘Again, I’m aware of the investigation into her death. My understanding is that the autopsy was inconclusive. Natural causes are still very much on the table.’

  ‘She begged a colleague of mine to come and see her and when he arrived she refused to tell him the full story. She was scared and she wasn’t the only one.’

  ‘How is Father Murphy? He had an ordeal.’

  ‘He’s doing fine,’ Cal said, hitting Pole with an arctic stare.