MASS MURDER (57 page)

“He’s gone,”
the monk said flatly
.

“Who’s gone?”

“Father Daniel
.
When he didn’t come to breakfast, we checked his room thinking he might be ill
.
He was gone.”

“I take it he didn’t just go for a run.”  Giorgio couldn’t help
feeling
smug at the thought of putting handcuffs on the
handsome young monk
.
But again, something told him he wouldn’t get that pleasure.

Father Damian
dropped
into the chair behind the desk
.
“If only he
had
gone for a run
.
His closet and drawers were cleaned out.”  He dropped his head into his hands
.
“I can’t believe it
.
I can’t believe he did it
.
He had such good references.”

“Did what?”

The other man lifted his chin with a pale glint to his eyes
.
“It’s clear isn’t it?  He ran
.
He’s the one
.
The murderer
.
It was one of us after all.”

His hand rested on the desk, but Giorgio could tell he was nervously tapping his heel against the floor
.
He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“Father, I’m not sure
what
Father Daniel’s disappearance means
.
Was there a note, or did he talk to anyone?  Was there any indication as to where he went?”

The monk shook his head without a word, star
ing at the blotter on his desk.

“All right
.
Please block off his room
.
I’ll send someone up here right away to inspect it. We’ll check the bus and train stations, airlines and car rentals
to
see if we can track him down. You don’t know if a taxi arrived here today do you?”

Damian looked up as if he’d heard a distant bird call
.
It was a full ten secon
ds before he shook his head no.

“O
kay, we’ll check on that, too.”

T
he monk seemed oblivious anyone else was even in the room
.
Giorgio left him that way and went looking for help
.
He found Father
Frances
, the young monk he’d met raking leaves, and asked him to take matters in hand
.
As Father Franc
e
s left for the Abbot’s office, Giorgio went outside to call the station and Swan.

An hour later, Swan and two other policemen finished searching Father Daniel’s small room.
It was clear Daniel had
left in a hurry
.
McCready called every bus station, train station
,
and local taxi service within thirty miles
.
No one remembered a young man with Daniel’s description
.
Giorgio wondered if Daniel was even his name
. P
riests were often asked to take a new name when they took their vows as a sign they were leaving their old lives behind
.
It would make identifying the “
old
”
friend difficult
.
Meanwhile, he went upstairs to locate the secret do
or he now knew had to be there.

He opened the closet door
on the monk
s
’
side of the building, this time pulling down blankets and whatever else lined the shelves
.
Since the bulb in the closet didn’t work, it was almost impossible to see any irregularities in the wood paneling
.
Giorgio pushed the door all the way back and threw open the heavy drapes covering the hallway window only a few feet away
.
H
e studied the small enclosure trying to see the space as Edward Applebaum would have seen it when he designed it
.
His fingers played with the key in his po
cket, but there was no keyhole.

He began running his fingers into every crevice, across every surface
,
and into every hole he could find
.
He pushed anything that looked remotely like it might be a lever
.
Five minutes later, he stopped and tried to think clearly
.
Wherever the lever was positioned, it had to be in a place that wouldn’t be found by mistake
.
That eliminated the wall sconce because routine maintenance might reveal its secret
.
As he contemplated the situation, a cold draft filled the enclosure, forcing him to step back and check the window
.
It was closed
.
A clinking sound made him turn back to see if something had fallen to the floor
.
His eyes caught sight of an
old button
sitting
on the bottom shelf
. A
familiar chill swep
t
through him
.

Slowly, he bent down to pick it up, wondering if the boy would make himself known
.
As his fingers reached out for the brass object
however
, he paused
.
The shelf support just below the button was finished with a small finial, as all the others were
.
Alvira Applebaum had said her father loved to add embellishments to otherwise plain architecture
.
Closets
didn’t normally have finials.

He crouched down and shined his flashlight underneath the shelves and into the crevices where the shelf supports met the wall
.
All the supports had been cut flat and butted up against the inside wall except for the one on the far right
.
It seemed to extend into the wall and sat ever so slightly above the supporting bracket
.
Giorgio could hardly contain himself as he backed up and grasped the small finial that embellished the front edge of that support
.

With a solid tug, the knob slid easily forward and the wooden beam came free of the wall
.
The wall didn’t move, but he could feel it release
.
With a shove, it swiveled away from him about two feet, scraping softly across the floor
and
allowing just enough space for a person to slip through to the other side
.
He crossed into the adjoining closet and out the other door
.
Mallery Olsen’s room was the first door to his left.

Giorgio pulled out his cell phone and called the station
.
Then he slipped back through the opening, remembering the sound that had led him to his discovery
.
He bent down to pick up the old, brass button
.
A
voice whispered past his ear sen
ding
him tripping backwards into the hallway so quickly he a
ctually fell onto his backside.

Giorgio sat there dumbfounded for a moment, the button still held tightly in his hand
.
He stared into the closet, waiting for the boy to materialize
. A
clicking noise made him turn towards the window instead
.
The old-fashioned window clasp had unlatched, letting in a draft of fresh air, the same way the window by the main staircase had the night
of the murder
.
The boy had been trying to communic
ate with him from the moment he was presented the case
−
from the theater parking lot to now
.
What h
ad the voice just whispered?

Giorgio got to his feet and glanced down into the courtyard
.
He could see a portion of the path below
. B
ut from where he stood,
he couldn’t see the statue of the Virgin Mary
.
Yet according to McCready’s notes, Father
Frances
had claimed to see someone that night moving past the statue of Mary
.
The moment he made the connection, the window latched again with a loud snap
,
and he remembered what the voice had whispered
.

“
Mary
.”   

C
hapter Thirty-Nine

Giorgio found Father Frances in the small kitchen helping with the noon meal.

“I called the doctor for Father Damian,” Frances reported
.
He wiped his hands on a towel as
they stepped into the hallway
.
“The doctor just gave him a light sedative
.
He’s resting now
.
Did you find Brother Daniel?”

His voice didn’t register the same accusation expressed by Father Damian
.
Perhaps
the two men had become friends.

“No,” Giorgio replied, watching him
.
“We’re checking all the
bus and train stations though.

Listen, I
just
found a secret doorway between the east an
d west wings of the building.”

The young priest’s eyes grew wide, causing his contact lenses to float free
.
“Another secret passage!  This is beginning to sound like some cheap crime novel,” he lamented, shaking his head
.
“I’m worried about Father Damian
.
I don’t think he can stand too many more surprises.”

“Father Frances, you reported that you saw someone outside the night of the murder.”