Cecilian Vespers (22 page)

Brennan shook his head. “Not a clue. You’re right. They have a man on psychiatric remand, but we think they should be looking elsewhere. Most of the people at the schola were out of town when it happened. A few weren’t, and I thought I’d ask if you know anything about them.”

“Ask away.”

“The fellow they nicked is Robin Gadkin-Falkes.”

“Sounds like an English toff to me.”

“You wouldn’t be far wrong. He’s a Brit and a Benedictine monk. Brother Robin.”

“Never heard of him. Has he spent any time here?”

“Not that we know of. At least not since Vatican II. What did he tell us, Monty?”

“He was covering the last session for an English publication. That was 1965.”

“I wasn’t here for the Council, so I can’t help you there,” Kitty said. “We’re taking a jaunt to the abbey in Praglia to ask about him. But our feeling is that he’s claiming to be the killer for unfathomable reasons of his own. So, on to our other suspects. Enrico Sferrazza-Melchiorre.”

“Enrico! You’re having me on.”

“No. All I’m saying is he’s one of the people who doesn’t have an alibi.”

“Enrico’s never had an alibi for anything in his life, God bless the sinners and the saints amongst us.”

“Has he been in trouble before?” I asked.

“This is a rumour mill like none other on the planet, Monty. I have heard whispers about Enrico and a woman, but I honestly don’t know what they were about. Though that would explain the call to Gino Savo.”

“Gino Savo!” Brennan looked aghast.

“Yes. The arrest of this Robin fellow has had one benefit you may not be aware of, Brennan: Father Savo was packing his bags for Nova Scotia when word came that they caught the killer. So at least you’ve been spared that bit of aggravation!”

“What are you telling me now? Savo was going to land on me?” She may as well have told him Satan was taking over from him in the choir loft.

“Who’s Savo?” I asked.

“He is the undersecretary of the Pontifical Congregation for the Clergy,” she said.

“Which means?”

“The Congregation deals with priests around the world. It is made up of cardinals and bishops. The prefect — the chairman — is a cardinal appointed by the pope. Under the prefect is the secretary, who’s an archbishop. Then comes Gino, who actually runs the office. And he has his spoon in many other bowls as well. The Vatican is a Byzantine organization, the Great Schism notwithstanding.”

“And they were going to send this guy over to Halifax?”

“That wouldn’t surprise you, Monty, if you knew Arturo Del Vecchio, the papal nuncio to Canada. And now that I’ve heard
Enrico’s name in connection with this, I know why Del Vecchio got involved. A man can rise to dizzying heights in the Holy See — the Vatican is an absolute monarchy after all — if he has a champion, a mentor, a protector at or near the top. Enrico has a protector in the person of Arturo Del Vecchio. But the person at or near the top can falter badly and never recover, if he fecks up. Del Vecchio intends to settle for nothing less than the red hat. He plans on becoming cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, when and if the grand personage who now occupies that position moves on. Or up. In case you don’t know, Monty, that’s the Holy Office, known in former times as the Inquisition. Del Vecchio has spent thirty years rising through the diplomatic service with that goal in mind. You can be sure he has no intention of letting his protegé Enrico besmirch his reputation by being publicly associated with a murder. Or any other class of … mishap.”

“Mishap?”

“This woman trouble Enrico had, whatever it was. And Del Vecchio isn’t the only one who sees a red hat in his future. There is talk about Gino Savo being appointed archbishop of Genoa; many of the archbishops in that diocese have gone on to become cardinals. Ambition runs through the veins here like the true blood, Monty! Anyway, Father Savo was up in Ars when he got the call from the nuncio. It’s the only place Savo ever takes a vacation.”

“Where’s that?”

“In France, near Lyons. You must have heard of Saint John Vianney.”

“Heard his name. There’s a church named after him in Nova Scotia. And one of our suspects is devoted to him.”

“As is Gino Savo.”

“I was a little surprised to hear about all these people communing with the saints in this day and age.”

“There he goes again about ‘this day and age,’” Brennan said. “You’re in the eternal city, Collins. Leave the day and age behind you!”

“Is this poor lad a heathen? If he’s never recited the Apostles’ Creed — ‘I believe in the communion of saints’ — you’re not doing your job, Father Burke.”

“I’ve tried, Sister, I’ve tried.”

“Well, what about you, Kitty?” I persisted. “Do you count any particular saints among your closest confidants?”

“I have enough on my plate trying to make saints of the scoundrels I see around me every day. A woman’s work is never done. But others are more in tune with the supernatural element of our faith. Some indeed —” she nodded towards Brennan “— are a strange mix of the worldly and the otherworldly.

“So. Gino takes his vacation every year at the home of Saint John Vianney, and Arturo Del Vecchio knew he could reach him there. He called, told him about the murder, no doubt told him Enrico Sferrazza-Melchiorre was on the scene, and ordered Gino to Halifax to investigate and control the situation. And control it he would. I believe the expression is ‘control freak.’ That’s Gino all over.”

“Does that mean he’s learned to control his temper?” Brennan asked.

Kitty laughed. “Not that I’ve heard. He’s still known for flying into a rage and terrorizing his staff. A bit of a tyrant, is Gino.”

I brought the conversation back to the investigation: “So the Vatican is worried enough about Enrico Sferrazza-Melchiorre to send over this enforcer? It doesn’t sound good for Enrico.”

“I imagine Gino’s mandate would have been broader than just checking up on Enrico. Del Vecchio would have wanted him to handle the situation no matter who committed the murder, given that it all centres one way or the other on the church. Del Vecchio is the pope’s man in Canada, after all. And Gino himself would want the matter solved. Gino knew Schellenberg. He admired him, spoke highly of him whenever his name came up. Apart from all my blather about arse-covering manoeuvres by Del Vecchio and Savo, they both would have been terribly upset about Schellenberg’s murder. So my advice to you, Brennan
acushla
, is to make sure the murder gets solved and stays solved! That way, no Vatican strongman shows up to complicate your life!”

“That’s why we’re here. We’re hoping to find out what might have happened in the past between Father Schellenberg and our suspects.”

“Can you picture Enrico as a killer?” I asked her.

“No! He is ambitious and he has had some obstacles in his path to the top. If he does not rise higher in the papal court, it could be seen
as a disgrace to his family. After all, there have been Sferrazzas and Melchiorres at the pope’s side for centuries. So if Reinhold Schellenberg was for some reason in a position to thwart him further … But Enrico is a dedicated priest. I can’t see him doing this, or anything remotely like it.”

“Was Father Schellenberg in a position to thwart Enrico’s ambitions?”

“I’m not sure. They taught at the Lateran University at the same time. Schellenberg was head of the theology department back before he joined the Cistercians. It was the late 1970s, I suppose, when Enrico taught there. Just after you left Rome, Brennan. And there’s lots of talk these days of new appointments to the diplomatic corps. So if Enrico is trying to get out of exile, and back on the road to a diplomatic career, and if he applies for a position, the powers that be would speak to Schellenberg about their time at the Lateran. Now, I do know Enrico spent a semester teaching at the University of Florence a couple of years ago, before he went to Africa. He would almost certainly have been in contact with Schellenberg when he was there. Whether Schellenberg was aware of any mischief Enrico got into, who can say? But killing a fellow priest to keep him quiet would not be in Enrico’s bag of tricks, in my opinion.”

“All right. William Logan. Does that name sound familiar to you?”

“The American?”

“
The
American? Is he well known?”

“He isn’t. But his letters are.” She rolled her eyes and signalled the waiter for another round. “If it’s the same person.”

“He left the priesthood in 1981 to marry one of your sisters.”

She was nodding. “Him and thousands of others after Vatican II. Funny how they all fled when things lightened up instead of in the harsher old days. But it sounds like him. They know his handwriting here now. He addresses his letters to the Holy Father, though he’s smart enough to know they never get within a ten-foot pole’s distance of the pope. They go to the Secretariat of State with all the other letters from Catholics and crackpots around the world. Logan is one of the regulars known to the long-suffering Gary Sloane. He’s an American priest who handles a lot of the English-language correspondence here.”

“What does Logan write about?”

“Everything. Church doctrine, the clergy, this or that bishop who’s pissed him off, the liturgy, a lay ministry he wants to start up, a counselling service or encounter group he’s running, the moral teachings and moral failings of the church, Vatican finances, the choir at midnight Mass at St. Peter’s as seen on television, the repairs they’re doing in his parish. On and on. He’s a figure of fun over here, at least among the few who have heard of him, but it’s sad really.”

“Sad how?”

“Well, he never got over it, did he? He left the priesthood. His correspondence at that time told the church to get stuffed. The church was the people. Priests and religious were unnecessary and irrelevant. The papacy was a medieval relic. Tear the whole structure down. Et cetera. But he can’t leave it alone. I’m sure you’ve seen it yourself, Brennan. Catholics who leave. Or think they’ve left. If you’re not Catholic anymore, what’s the difference what jiggery-pokery we’re up to here? Write us off and join the United Church! But they can’t let go. No matter how far away they’ve gone, and how they’ve liberated themselves, what the church does still matters to them. Logan is one of those. You say he’s with your group in Halifax?”

“That’s right.”

“There you go then. What’s he doing there? I’ll take you over to the Apostolic Palace to meet Gary Sloane. He knows more than he ever wanted to about Logan.”

“All right. Thanks,” I said. “Next one: Janice Ford.”

“Never heard that name.”

“Luigi Petrucci. A layman from New Jersey.”

“No.” “He set fire to a church there in 1979.”

“You’re coddin’ me!”

“Nope. How about Father Fred Mills?”

She shook her head.

“I know Fred,” Brennan stated. “You can cross him off the list of suspects.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Almost. Final name: Kurt Bleier, a police officer in the former German Democratic Republic.”

“Unless he was skulking around St. Peter’s Square in May of 1981, I don’t imagine such a man was one of our visitors.”

“May of ’81; that’s when —” I began.

“The Holy Father was shot, yes. May 13.”

We stayed at the bar for another round; then Kitty had to return to the Vatican for a meeting, so we walked her back.

“Treat you to a gelato at our old spot?” Brennan asked her.

“I wouldn’t say no.”

We stopped at a tiny place near the Vatican and ordered three cones of incomparable Italian ice cream:
amareno
for Brennan,
pistacchio
for Kitty,
fragola
(strawberry) for me.

When we got back to the Vatican City State, Kitty escorted us to the Apostolic Palace, familiar to anyone who has ever seen the pope appearing in the window of the papal apartments on the top floor. We walked down a long marble corridor and entered the office of Father Gary Sloane, who was barely visible behind the stacks of paper on his desk. Kitty introduced us, told him why we were asking about William Logan, and left for her meeting.

“Logan. Yes, I answer all his letters or, at the very least, acknowledge them. But I don’t know how I can help him. I’ve suggested counselling, but I don’t think he pays much heed to my poor attempts at advice. His marriage fell apart. The kids are with his ex-wife, who was a nun but now follows some new-age guru. Logan is upset because the kids have no religious beliefs at all. He goes from one job to the next; he seems to be in a spiral of poverty. He’s fifty years old and nothing’s worked out for him; he’s sinking farther and farther from the reach of the American dream, so-called. Now he’s got the second wife, and she wants to start a family.”

“He tells you all this?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. He tells us what’s wrong with the church, in minute detail, and gives us almost as much detail about his own life. Everything that goes wrong for him is, as you might expect, somebody else’s fault. His correspondence to us suggests it’s the church at fault. But, who knows, maybe he’s a regular correspondent with the U.S. government and, when he’s got them on the line, it’s the CIA’s fault. It’s a sad case.”

We thanked Gary, and left the palace.

“I’ve lined up somebody else for us to see,” Burke announced as we walked through Bernini’s colonnade. “I sussed out Graziella Rossi’s
schedule. Made sure she wasn’t off to the Sydney Opera House or somewhere. She may have some information about Enrico Sferrazza-Melchiorre.”

“You and Enrico are friends of Graziella Rossi?”

“Oh, ‘friend’ isn’t a word I’d be tossing around with respect to herself. Woe betide anyone who thinks he or she is a friend of La Rossi. But we’re both acquainted with her. It was through Enrico that I met her; he’s known her forever.”

“Will she talk to us?”

“She’ll talk to us as soon as we get to her apartment. She’s expecting us.”

Thinking of that “woe betide,” I asked him, “Were you on good terms with her when you left Rome?”

“Ah, well, good terms … I wouldn’t say so exactly. But the woman loves to talk. And if she can pass the time slagging someone, she’ll run on, you can be sure.”