VC03 - Mortal Grace (26 page)

“Wanda Gil—who?”

“Gilmartin.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone called Wanda Anything.”

“Landowska,” Sonya Barnett said. “The harpsichordist. Divine.”

“Besides her. I certainly don’t know this Gilmartin gal.”

“Did you ever hear of a young man named Richie Vegas?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Wally Wills?”

Father Montgomery shook his head.

“Tod Lomax?”

“The name’s familiar. Where do I know that name from? Sonya, help me.”

“Sorry, don’t know him.”

“How about Pablo Cespedes?”

Father Joe was thoughtful. “Cespedes, Cespedes…I used to know a Margarita Cespedes—her father was mayor of Havana in the Batista days. Margarita had two sons…terrific tango dancers…”

“Pablo Cespedes is the young man who was killed in the rectory. We found his photo in your talent file.”

The smile dropped off Father Joe’s face. “Then he must have played in one of our shows. I’m sorry, this old memory of mine is getting pretty lame. I just don’t recall the name. Sonya, help me. You’re good with names.”

“Did you bring the photo?” Sonya Barnett said. “Let me see.”

Cardozo handed her five photos.

Sonya Barnett put on her reading specs. “These were all in Joe’s file?”

Cardozo nodded.

She gave each of the photos a quick, not-interested-but-not-quite-dismissing glance. “Joe, these don’t look at
all
like your kind of talent.”

“Now, Sonya, don’t be such a snob. Talent isn’t limited to one particular look.”

“I very much doubt any of these people performed in a church musical.”

“If they performed for us,” Father Montgomery said, “their curricula vitae should have been attached to the photos.”

“There was nothing attached to the photos.”

“Well.” Sonya Barnett handed back the photos. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a little mystery.”

THIRTY-FOUR

T
HE CLEANING LADY LET
Cardozo into the rectory and led him to Bonnie Ruskay’s study. The reverend was on the phone, but her eyes signaled Cardozo to come in.

He distracted himself by studying the titles in her library. Half the volumes were in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. The books in English appeared to be works of weighty theological scholarship.

“Sorry.” She hung up the phone and rose with a welcoming smile. “You must think I’m a terrible gab. That was my brother.”

She tapped a finger against one of the framed photographs on her desk. It showed an intense-looking man in his twenties, with a dark beard, dark hair, dark eyes. He had his arm around an attractive young woman with curly hair.

“You and your brother seem to enjoy one another.”

“We’re great pals. My father’s dead and my mother and I haven’t been close since I became an Episcopalian, so I count on Ben to bring me news of the family.” She nodded toward a small art deco Tiffany clock sitting on her desk. “Ben gave me that for the first anniversary of my ordination.”

“It’s beautiful. It’s also seven minutes fast.”

“I keep it set ahead so I won’t be late.” She saw him staring at a framed photo of a fair-haired man in a business suit. He had a crew cut and he was sitting in an easy chair with two fair-haired infants in his lap. “Those are my son and daughter.”

“Wonderful-looking kids.”

“Devils, but mine own.”

“And the man?”

“Their father. My ex-husband Ernie.”

“Who takes care of the children while you’re working?”

“Their father has a housekeeper. He got custody.”

Cardozo frowned. “Doesn’t the mother usually get custody when the children are that young?”

“They’re older now. In fact they’re in school—St. Anne’s. Doing very well. I’m allowed to see them between terms.”

“I don’t mean to pry, but that arrangement seems odd.”

“My husband and children are Catholic. I was Catholic. When I converted to the Episcopal Church and became a priest, I destroyed a Catholic home. That was the basis for Ernie’s getting an annulment.”

“You said you were divorced.”

“That too. Ernie asked for a divorce because only the court can grant custody. The judge was Catholic, and she gave Ernie everything he asked for.”

Bonnie Ruskay smiled, but Cardozo sensed enormous pain behind the smile.

“That must hurt,” he said.

“Mostly when family events come up—Christmas or Thanksgiving or Parents’ Day at the kids’ school. I’d love to be with them. St. Paul said the point of marriage was children—it’s one of the very few issues that I think he may have been right about.”

He detected a hint that she wanted very much to change the subject. “You don’t sound like a fan of St. Paul’s.”

Her hand went up and grazed the bindings on a shelf of books. “I didn’t write those because I agreed with him. Paul was a self-loathing closet case.”

The books had fighting titles:

The Serpent and the Grail: Antifeminism and Homophobia in Hebrew Scripture and in St. Paul;

No Biological Resemblance to the Savior: Roman Catholic Doctrinal Opposition to the Ordination of Women;

The Son of God Was Also a Daughter: Reclaiming the Holy Anima as Spiritus;

St. Paul’s Hostility to the Female: An Inquiry into the Religiously Sanctioned Marginalization of Sexual Identity and Sexual Choice;

Prophet of Fear and Loathing: What St. Paul Actually Preached.

Cardozo looked at her, impressed. “You wrote all those?”

“Guilty as charged.” Her cheeks colored faintly.

“Which one’s the easiest?”

“Easiest?”

“For someone like me to read.”

She laughed. The sound had an edge of uneasiness. “They’re technical homiletics—you wouldn’t be interested.”

“I would be. Seriously. Which do you recommend?”

She hesitated. “
The Son of God Was Also a Daughter
had some good reviews—but most bookstores don’t carry theology. You’d have to go to a religious shop.”

“Can you recommend any in the neighborhood?”

She jotted several addresses on a notepad. “These are good all-purpose shops.” She handed him the sheet of scratch paper. “I hope my handwriting’s legible.”

“Very legible.” He folded the paper and opened his billfold. He slid the list into one compartment and from another he took out the Xerox of the anonymous note. “Do you recognize this handwriting?”

She stared at the page. She probably wasn’t aware that she was biting her lower lip. “Are you asking if it’s mine? Since you just foxed me out of a sample, why bother to ask?”

“I’m asking if it’s familiar.”

She shook her head.

“Do you recognize the letterhead?”

“Naturally—it’s church letterhead.”

“Do you have this letterhead?”

“Of course I do.”

“Could I see some?”

She stood absolutely still, and then she yanked open a drawer of the maplewood desk. “How much do you want?”

“Four or five sheets will be fine.”

She handed him five sheets of church stationery. He slid them into a large departmental business envelope.

“Who else has that letterhead?”

“Father Joe has it, but anyone who comes to the church could get hold of it.”

“Do you think a parishioner wrote the note?”

“I wasn’t thinking of parishioners. But our last cleaning woman, Olga Quigley, left on bad terms….”

“Did she quit or was she fired?”

“A little of both. She claimed she had to spend three nights a week with a sick mother. We discovered she was moonlighting at other jobs. If you decide to speak to her, you should realize that she doesn’t like us.”

“Do you have an address for her?”

“She used to live here in the maid’s room. I don’t know where she lives now.”

“Can you give me her social security number?”

Bonnie Ruskay reflected a moment. She looked through several ledgers before copying down the number.

He took the piece of paper from her outstretched hand. He could feel she was irritated with him.

He broke the moment of awkward silence. “I noticed you don’t have a Bible in your library.”

“I’ve got a Bible.” She pointed out a set of black bindings. “The New Testament in Greek and the Old in Hebrew. I don’t believe in translations—they’re pretty rotten. But let’s not get into that.”

He was staring at a curious implement mounted above the bookcase as a wall decoration. It looked like an ancient wooden back-scratcher with little pieces of piano wire mistakenly attached. “What’s that odd-looking gizmo right above
Serpent and the Grail
?”

“That? It’s something St. Paul himself might have invented. It’s called a castigator.”

“What does it do?”

“You flagellate yourself with it. Monks used it in the Middle Ages to quell sexual impulses.”

“What are you doing with it?”

“As little as possible. I’m interested in the pathology of Christianity. Can you believe they were still using those things in the seventeenth century—eighty years before the Declaration of Independence?”

“Nothing people do surprises me.” His eye traveled past the little whip to an ancient-looking framed etching. It showed a priest in a jungle clearing, serving communion to a group of bandaged Hawaiians.

“That’s Father Damien,” she said. “A very different sort of Christian from St. Paul—and unfortunately far less influential. He’s a hero of mine.”

“Why’s that?”

“He went into a hostile environment and ministered to the lepers when no one else would.”

Cardozo wondered if ministering to the socialites was her way of doing the same thing. “Father Damien caught leprosy himself, didn’t he?”

“He regarded it as God’s blessing.”

Some blessing
, Cardozo thought. He noticed a piggy bank on the shelf below the etching. “Saving your pennies?”

“That’s an antique.” She took it down and placed it on the desk. A red-and-white striped pig wearing a Panama hat and a blue-and-white starred apron stood in ready-to-waltz position on top of a cash register. “Do you have a penny?”

He handed her a penny. She dropped it into the coin slot. A music box inside the cash register tinkled a snatch of “Swanee River.” With the concluding tinkle the drawer popped open.

“Sometimes with all the man-made grief around us, it’s good to see human ingenuity spent on something harmless.” She took out Cardozo’s penny and handed it back to him. “Don’t you agree?”

“Or on something beautiful.”

She looked at him with interest. “Such as?”

He opened the departmental envelope and drew out the gold-trimmed cloth from Pablo Cespedes’s bedroom. “What would you say this is—an altar cloth or a shawl?”

She unfolded it. “It’s a priest’s stole.”

“Does it belong to St. Andrews’?”

She examined the border. “It’s ours. This is our mark.” She pointed to a letter
A
indelibly inked into the hem. “Thefts have been up in the neighborhood, so the police recommended we mark all our possessions.”

“We found it in the dead boy’s bedroom.”

Her eyes had a questioning look. “Was he a professional thief, then?”

“He had a juvenile criminal record. We found his photograph in Father Joe’s talent box.”

The Tiffany clock made a muted ticking in the sudden silence.

“His name was Pablo Cespedes.”

“I never heard the name.”

Cardozo showed her the photo.

She shook her head. “No, I don’t recognize him.”

He handed her the four other photos.

She looked through them slowly. When she came to Lomax, her forehead wrinkled.

“They were all in the talent box.”

A line of bafflement furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand it. Are these people runaways?”

“We’re looking into it.”

“Are they…” She broke off.

“Are they dead? We’re looking into that too. Is it possible they played in any of Father Montgomery’s shows?”

“I don’t recall his ever mentioning any of them. But the records are in his office if you want to check.”

“Would you mind?”

The blinds were drawn in Father Montgomery’s study. She turned on the desk lamp. While she searched the card files, he examined the framed posters for
The Boy Friend
and
Zip Your Pinafore.

“My niece played in these shows.”

Bonnie Ruskay glanced up. “Really? How was she?”

“I couldn’t say. I never saw them.”

“Me neither. They were before my time.” She closed the Rolodex, frowning. “None of these people played in any of the shows; they didn’t do tech work; there’s no record at all of anyone by any of these names.”

Cardozo watched her replace the files in their drawers. Her movements had a relaxed precision.

“Could I have some of Father Joe’s letterhead?” he said. “Just for comparison.”

“Five sheets?” She opened the middle desk drawer and counted them from the top of a neat stack.

Cardozo slid the sheets into his envelope, reversed so that he could tell whose was whose. “Tell me something, Ms. Ruskay. Was there a young man living with Father Joe?”

She glanced over at him. “From time to time Father Joe lent the guest room to needy youngsters.”

“But was there one needy youngster in particular?”

“Lieutenant, what are you trying to get me to say?”

“Is Father Joe bisexual or gay?”

For that one instant her eyes seemed to hold flame. “Father Joe is one of the most Christian, kindly, concerned, loving, one-on-one ministers of the gospel that I have ever had the joy of knowing. In a social sense, perhaps that’s perverse—he loves all human beings, and he goes the last mile for them; but in a moral sense, it’s exactly what Christ preached.” She closed the desk drawer and stood. “As for sex and sexuality, Father Joe is celibate. He’s taken a vow. There’s no secret about it. He even wrote an article on the subject for…” She broke off, as if the sound of her own voice had startled her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lecture.”

“I apologize for deserving the lecture.” Instinct told Cardozo not to back off. “I understand Father Joe sometimes invited strange types into the rectory.”