Worthy sat at his desk and reread the note. Yes, it was true. Father Nicholas Fortis—Nick, to him—had been assigned to St. Cosmas Greek Orthodox Church. That fact alone didn’t cancel out the crap he was sure to get from Sherrod, if not from this Henderson, but it certainly trumped it.
He had worked with Father Fortis for the first time four years before, when a novice monk originally from Detroit and in his second year at Father Fortis’ monastery, St. Simeon’s, was found with his throat cut in an Ohio farmer’s field. Father Fortis had been the monastery’s novice master at the time. To the surprise of both Father Fortis and Worthy, they had worked together as well as Worthy had worked poorly with his colleagues in the precinct.
The two men could hardly seem more different. Worthy didn’t see himself as shy, although everyone around Father Fortis would seem so by comparison. Father Fortis was an overly talkative, sumo wrestler of a man with a trailing ponytail. Because of his habit of breathing heavily through his mouth, Father Fortis advertised his preference for spearmint candies, the smell of which wafted from his heavy black beard.
On the other hand, Worthy was lanky, fair-haired, slightly slouched, and just beginning to gray. The stories in the papers over the past five years—at least the flattering ones—tended to refer to him as quietly ambitious, and he really couldn’t argue with that assessment. Worthy’s assigned partners in Detroit could vouch for his ambition but had tired of his lack of communication as well as his stunning successes. What surprised Worthy was that, in their work together, Father Fortis had reacted so differently to his taciturn nature. It wasn’t that Father Fortis—or Nick, as he preferred Worthy to call him—understood Worthy’s intuitions any more readily than others, or that Nick was any less critical. No, the difference was that, for some reason, the very silences that irritated his usual partners did not bother Father Fortis. Father Nick had an uncanny ability to be talking and at the same time listening deeply. Worthy knew that his own silences were not spent listening to others as much as pondering the clues of a case. He had come to understand that Father Nick somehow understood that his silences tended to precede intuitive leaps.
Of course, Nick would have expressed his attitude in another way. He would have said that his trust in those difficult and ambiguous moments wasn’t so much trust in Worthy’s methods as in God’s truth winning out. Faith was something Worthy had repeatedly told Nick he no longer had, but even that chasm between them had only brought a knowing laugh from the priest.
And now Nick was serving at St. Cosmas, the site of a grisly murder that still rocked Detroit. Father Spiro George, a priest old enough to retire, had been brutally strangled at nine in the morning and in broad daylight. The method used by the killer had apparently been to grab the vestment piece that hung around the priest’s neck and tighten it until the old man’s heart stopped for lack of oxygen. Not a pretty way to go and not a pretty way to kill—face to face until the last second.
Worthy would like nothing better than to drive out to the church and hear Nick’s initial theories—of course, he would have several, and all of them would be interesting—but department protocol prevented him from going anywhere until the case was formally turned over by the last team. And that was set to happen in fifteen minutes, back in Captain Betts’ office.
He looked out his office window at the cars whizzing by on I-94. His entire fourteen years on the force had been spent in this very office, but he’d noticed as little about the cars and trucks that flowed by as the colleagues who’d come and gone from the precinct.
Self-absorbed? That’s what his ex-wife, Susan, would say, and in his low moments he tended to agree. After all, there had to be something terribly his fault to cause his marriage to end. Now, nearly five years later, he still wasn’t precisely sure what that was.
At other moments, he felt her criticism to be far from fair. He thought of himself less than anyone else, if that were possible. If fault lay anywhere, it had to be in the way he approached his work. From his first months in homicide, he’d spent his waking moments trying to understand the mentality of those he was looking for. Over the years, he’d entered deeper and deeper into their darkness. He imagined them dreaming their deeds, planning the way they’d kill their victims, and finally gathering the courage to carry out their plans. That had been the extramarital affair that had ended his marriage.
So, what kind of person would strangle a priest with his own vestment? And did the odd weapon point to a crime of passion or an accident gone awry? The time of day and the sheer violence of the method suggested a lack of planning, a spontaneous eruption. But the newspaper story reported that not a single fingerprint, other than the victim’s, had been found on the vestment. That meant gloves, and gloves suggested a level of premeditation.
He glanced at his watch. Still five minutes before he met Henderson and had to face Sherrod again. He reached into his desk drawer for a legal pad, wanting to jot down his initial questions before Sherrod detailed his own theories.
He began with “Murder site: sanctuary” as one heading and wrote below: “How did killer go unnoticed? Any significance to where body found? Why kill this way?”
Under a second heading, “Relationship,” Worthy wrote two questions for later consideration: “Did killer know victim?” and “What was on the victim’s appointment schedule for that Tuesday morning?”
Worthy suspected that Sherrod had barely considered such questions, if he’d thought of them at all. Lieutenant Philip Sherrod took the standard approach. A murder happens. The goal is to solve it as quickly as possible.
And how is a murder solved quickly? The approach followed by Sherrod and others was to chase after all known leads before they got cold. Worthy called it the “Hurry and Look Busy” approach. Sometimes it worked. The killer was sometimes caught hours after the crime, the evidence still in his possession. But even when that approach failed, as Worthy suspected it must have done on this case, it was sure to safeguard the department from criticism by the mayor and the media.
Worthy knew the method because that had been his own for his first years as a detective. But then something odd had dawned on him, changing his outlook completely. Kneeling over the bludgeoned body of a city councilman in a sleazy flophouse, it came to him that murder had a lot in common with falling in love. The face of the victim, frozen in death, often held the same look of surprise as on the face of someone experiencing that first kiss.
What Worthy had come to believe over the following years was that, in death as in love, the intersection of the two lives in question was rarely haphazard. Something in the past—some prior hope or decision, something perhaps quite small and made in secret—had made that kiss, or that knife in the heart, inevitable.
The trick was to uncover those past decisions, and that took time. Worthy painstakingly, and often maddeningly for his partner and for Captain Spicer, retraced the decisions made by the victim over the final days, weeks, and sometimes months. He collected long lists of names of those the victim had met, had wanted to meet, or was afraid to meet. But he also unearthed the odd hopes and frustrations of the victim, those tiny clues initially dismissed by witnesses as unimportant.
His approach almost invariably led to early criticism. He was dawdling, giving the killer time to leave town, or ignoring the “hot” clues. But Worthy had learned to stick with the material he was gathering, convinced that within the victim’s hopes and frustrations, the killer would be found. The three commendations on Worthy’s wall proved that his approach often worked. Other parts of his file attested to the fact that his approach was hardly foolproof.
Worthy closed his notes and exhaled deeply. Two approaches, each at odds with the other. He stood and straightened his tie, realizing as he left his office that he’d just described the real cause of the tension between Sherrod and him. It wasn’t simply that Worthy was a college grad and Sherrod had worked his way up from the neighborhood beat. Nor was it that Worthy frequently had his picture in the paper, though that didn’t help. The bottom line was that Sherrod was the poster child for the hurry-up approach. When he solved a case, he bragged as much about how quickly he’d made the bust as about the arrest itself. For Sherrod, police work was a race. The first to cross the line should win. And that is why he hates me, Worthy thought, as he headed down the hallway. And that’s why this won’t be a fun meeting.
Sherrod was already waiting in Captain Betts’ office, as was an African-American who was staring out the window. This must be Henderson, Worthy thought. The room was quiet when Worthy entered, but Sherrod looked up from cleaning his nails as if he’d already given Henderson an earful.
“Well, look who’s back?” Sherrod said. “I thought you’d died or at least been transferred.”
Worthy made no move to shake hands. Sherrod was one of those guys who, while not fat, had a fat man’s face. Round, with a comb-over and a wispy mustache to complete the look. Pushing forty, Sherrod was a year ahead of Worthy on the force and a detective’s generation ahead of Henderson.
“No,” Worthy replied, choosing a chair closer to Henderson’s side of the room. “They have me out at the academy.”
“Oh, right. Teaching them how you fucked up that missing person’s case in New Mexico.” Sherrod shot a glance at Henderson. “Hear about that, Hoops? Worthy caught a killer out there. Didn’t find the missing girl, but hey, what the hell.”
“Morning, gentlemen,” Captain Betts said, coming through the door. Sherrod stopped the chatter as their new captain took her seat behind the desk and adjusted her half glasses.
Looking up, she said, “Everyone know each other here?”
Worthy stood and took a step toward Henderson. “I’m Chris Worthy.”
Henderson barely glanced his way as he shook his hand. “Uh-huh.”
Captain Betts cleared her throat. “For the record, Lieutenant Sherrod has quite emphatically expressed his wish that he have two more weeks on this case.”
“Maybe only one,” Sherrod interjected. “Hell, Captain, give me the three days left in this week, and it could be wrapped up.” He raised a hand, thumb and finger forming a closing vise. “We’re that close.”
Captain Betts leaned back and gazed at Sherrod for a moment. “Given all the work you’ve put into the case, your desire is natural. But as I made clear this morning, this meeting is for you to turn the case over to Lieutenant Worthy. Apprise him of the most significant developments and demonstrate the collegiality I know you’re capable of by giving good counsel. As everyone in this department will find out, collegiality is key for me.”
“All I’m saying is that I’m this close.” Sherrod’s thumb and finger remained aloft.
“I’m sure you meant to say that Sergeant Henderson and you are that close.”
Sherrod looked puzzled. “Isn’t that what I said?”
Worthy noticed Henderson’s attention remained on the view outside. Was he even listening?
“Proceed with your summary, Lieutenant,” Captain Betts suggested.
“No problem.” Sherrod moved to the edge of his chair. “What we have here is a robbery gone sour. The file describes the article stolen as an altar thingamajig, a piece of silver of some considerable value, but what’s the market around here for something like that? Anyways, I figure—we figure—the perp or perps came over from the projects, from Suffolk. There’ve been three break-ins in the neighborhood over the past ten months, and after a little pushing on some contacts I have over in Suffolk, three names keep popping up. We were in the process of bringing them in for questioning when the feds requested my assistance. One of them, a guy named Bales, is a real nutcase. Picked up twice on battery, once on assault. So, Hoops, start with him and lean hard.” Sherrod looked in Henderson’s direction. Getting no response, he turned back to Captain Betts. “Like I said, if you could give me a few more days ….”
Captain Betts jotted down a note. “So you’re going on the assumption that the priest interrupted a burglary.”
“Assumption? No, it’s a fact, ma’am,” Sherrod replied, looking pleased with himself.
“Why would anyone break in at nine on a Tuesday morning?” Worthy asked. “Why not the night before when the place is empty?”
“Because they’re stupid fucks,” Sherrod said, glaring at him.
“But smart enough to leave no signs of forced entry. Not even a fingerprint.”
Sherrod’s eyes narrowed. “Ever heard of gloves and dumb luck? Look, we did our homework, smart guy. It was friggin’ cold that morning—nine miserable degrees. So they wore gloves. And we figure the priest turned off the security, so they just followed him in.”
Worthy could feel Captain Betts’ eyes on him and remembered her appeal for finesse. Welcome to the real world, Captain, he thought. “If I have this right,” he said slowly, “you’re saying this robber or robbers knew the old man was around because they followed him in. But then this same priest surprised them a few minutes later in the sanctuary, so they killed him.”
Sherrod shook his head, pointing the nail file at Worthy. “Look, they did fucking surprise him. The priest must have come in and gone down to his office. Maybe then he hears something in the sanctuary. Like maybe they dropped the piece, okay? So he comes in, and they realize he could ID them. Work for you, Einstein, or you gotta better theory?”
Worthy looked down at the questions on his sheet. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t say there’s a lot here from the interviews at the church.”
Sherrod stood up and glared down on Worthy. “Look, I’m telling you, those church folks are only going to get things balled up. Hell, half of them don’t even speak English. Hoops will tell you that none of them know nothing. And please, for Christ’s sake, have the basic courtesy to read the report. That will tell you that the priest was there alone that morning.”
Worthy nodded. “Of course, of course. Well, I don’t see why Sergeant Henderson shouldn’t carry on with your three suspects from Suffolk. I don’t think the interviews will take more than a few days.”
Sherrod stood, red-faced, as he ran a hand through thin strands of hair. “Look, Worthy, it won’t be interviewing, but re-interviewing. I give you a case practically done, but you can’t just tie the bow and be done with it, can you? No, you have to over-complicate things.”
Captain Betts cleared her throat.
“No, let me finish, Captain,” Sherrod said, hands planted on his hips, his right hand gripping his holster. “Look, Worthy, almost everyone we arrest in this city is, at bottom, a simple fuck. There are no great ideas floating around in their heads. No masterminds out there; that’s what I’m trying to say. That morning, this guy or guys figures the easiest way is to follow the old priest in once he gets there. That way, no alarms go off. You see, it’s simple.”
Worthy kept his eyes on his notes.
“Okay, fine,” Sherrod said. “Screw things up, if that’s what you need to do. But I’m out of here.”
Worthy sat silently as Sherrod left the room, slamming the door.
Nicely done, Worthy thought. Now everybody in the precinct knows exactly where things stand.
Captain Betts took her glasses off and looked over to the window. “Sergeant Henderson, we haven’t heard anything from you.”
Henderson didn’t respond.
“Did you hear me, Sergeant?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I don’t see nothing wrong with the two of us going our separate ways. I’ll take Bales and his buddies from Suffolk. The lieutenant can take the church.”
Betts raised her eyebrows and turned her attention to Worthy. “Lieutenant, because I’m sure Sherrod will make his displeasure known to my superiors, maybe you’d be so good as to tell me what you hope to gain from interviewing the same people at the church over again.”
Worthy sat forward in his chair. “I just want to make sure we don’t have this whole thing backwards.”
Henderson turned toward him.
“Go on,” Captain Betts said.
“What if somebody made it look like a robbery? I mean, what if the priest was having problems, maybe even some at the church. That’s all I want to find out.”
“Okay,” she said, unconvinced, “but churches usually give their ministers or priests ulcers. They don’t generally kill them, Lieutenant. Any other thoughts, Sergeant?” she asked.
“Like I said, I’m fine with it.”
“Fine, fine, fine,” Captain Betts snapped back. “Tell me why you’re fine when somebody suggests a completely contradictory theory to what you’ve been pursuing for two weeks.”
For the first time, Henderson met his new superior’s gaze. “All right, here’s what I think. But remember, you asked me. I think Worthy’s angle is full of day-old shit, but yes, I’m fine with that. Because at the end of the day, it’s going to make me look all the better.”
Father Fortis hit the print command on the church office computer so hard that the keyboard jumped, but for the third time nothing happened. He felt like the new schoolboy, having to ask the church secretary, Mrs. Hazelton, how to do something. The monastery in Ohio had only four computers, and Brother Basil guarded them jealously.
The buzzer beeped on his desk. “Yes, Mrs. Hazelton?”
“Father, there’s a policeman here to see you.”
Father Fortis took a deep breath. So it was time to meet the infamous Lieutenant Sherrod, the detective who’d managed to alienate nearly everyone at St. Cosmas. He stood, straightened his robe, and managed a serious scowl. Let’s see how he does with me, he thought.
The door opened, and Christopher Worthy walked in. Father Fortis let out a yell and scampered around the desk to lift his friend off the ground.
“Easy on the ribs, Nick,” Worthy said, laughing.
Father Fortis set him down and laughed in return. “Did you like that look on my face when you came in?”
“It looked like you had gas.”
“It was supposed to intimidate you. I thought you were someone named Sherrod.”
“Intimidation, huh? You couldn’t scare anyone if you tried.”
“Sit down, my friend, and bring me up to date. How are things with you? More importantly, how are things with Allyson? The last time we talked, you were hoping to make some headway.”
Worthy shook his head, not knowing what to say about where things stood with his older daughter. After the case in New Mexico, he had indeed returned to Detroit more committed than ever to connecting with his troubled daughter. Two and a half years before, Allyson had run away, and for five months Susan and he had no idea whether she was dead or alive. Then one day, she walked back into the house as if she’d just come home from school. She’d told no one—not her mother, her father, her younger sister, or her counselor—where she’d been in those months or how she’d survived.
Despite Allyson’s stonewalling, Worthy had come back from New Mexico with a pledge to give their relationship another try before Allyson went away to college. But his renewed attempts over the last eighteen months to talk with Allyson had made no headway. Until four days ago, that is.
“All I can say, Nick, is that I’ve tried a new tack. I had to do something. The counselor kept saying the same thing to me, through Susan. ‘Don’t upset your daughter. Don’t put her in a corner.’ It was like the safest thing I could do was never talk to her again.”
“So what did you do?”
Worthy sat down in the chair. “Maybe something really stupid. I just don’t know. Anyway, it must have been last Monday when I stopped at the house after work. Allyson was alone in the kitchen. To use her words, Amy had conned Susan into buying her more clothes for school. So I took a deep breath and asked if she’d go up some weekend to the cabin. Just the two of us.”
“And she said yes?”
“Not exactly, but at least I didn’t get the standard ‘you have to be kidding’ response. She wanted to know when, exactly. So I said the weekend after next, and then I stupidly added we could leave on Friday night if she wanted. As soon as I said it, I realized how that sounded, like I was saying she didn’t have anything better to do than spend the whole weekend with her dad.”
“So she said no?”
“Well, she ignored me for a few minutes. I’m used to that. She finally told me that Amy would make better company. She said the cabin is boring.”
Father Fortis sat down next to Worthy. “I’m so sorry, Christopher.”
Worthy shrugged. “It may not be over yet, Nick. I told her that Amy and I can go another time. The way I figure it, Amy is only twelve and hasn’t yet decided that I’m the cause of all her problems. So I told Allyson that I know the cabin can be boring, but with it being mid-January, we could go skiing or ice fishing. I tried to crack a joke, saying we could be bored together for a while, just like the old days. She rolled her eyes at that and told me to skip the ‘good-old-days stuff.’ ”
“You never fail to make me glad I’m celibate, my friend,” Father Fortis said. “Teenagers’ brains are much too quick these days.”
“No argument there, Nick. That’s when she really opened up on me. She said she had a theory as to why I was asking her to go. In talking with Rachel, her counselor, she’d worked out that my time out in New Mexico had changed me. How I’d been sent out to find a missing girl, and how I’d failed. So I’d come back worried that she’d run away again. I don’t know if that’s her thought or the counselor’s, but I can’t say she’s completely wrong.”
“You haven’t told her what actually happened in New Mexico?”
“Not in so many words. The fewer people know what really happened out there, the safer things are. Anyway, just when I thought she was leading up to a big ‘no’ on the cabin plan, she said she’d think about it. With my luck, she’ll say yes just about the time my new case ties me down here.” Worthy shook her head. “ ‘Just like the old days,’ she’ll say.”
Father Fortis sighed. “This is Allyson’s last year of high school, right?”
“Yes, and after that, who knows?”
“Blessings on you, my friend. I truly mean that. And congratulations on getting a case, although I suppose that means someone’s been murdered.”
“Any case is better than being at the academy, Nick. And I think this one could be a challenge. It’s complicated, though not everyone agrees with me on that. But speaking of complicated, I understand you’ve got your own problem here.”
“Indeed we do. That’s why I thought you were this Lieutenant Sherrod. Do you know him, by the way?”
“Oh, yes. Sherrod and I go back a good ten years. Unfortunately, we’ve never actually been friends.”
“Well, he hasn’t made a very good impression around here.”
“He never does. Sorry you have to deal with that.” A smile played across Worthy’s face.
“You find something funny?” Father Fortis asked.
“I’m just jacking you around. What if I told you Lieutenant Sherrod isn’t your problem any longer?”
Father Fortis studied his friend’s face. “He’s been reprimanded?”
“Better. He’s been promoted to a federal case.”
Father Fortis’ heart leapt for joy. “Thank you, St. Nicholas or St. Cosmas, or St. Whoever! I don’t suppose you know who’s taking his place?”
Worthy’s smile widened.
“Christopher, don’t tease me.”
“Think we can work together again, Nick?”
Father Fortis jumped up and planted a big kiss on the crown of Worthy’s head. “Watson reporting for duty, Holmes.”
“Better, I’ll be that Flambeau guy and you be Father Brown,” Worthy countered.
“Well, now I know you’re teasing me. No, it’s going to be hard enough trying to be a good parish priest. That’s a bit of a stretch for this monk, let me tell you. Nothing to keep me awake at night like remembering that I’ve been given the care of over three hundred grieving families. So, I’ll settle for a very weak impersonation of Dr. Watson.”
Worthy rose. “Well, then, Watson, shall we start by you showing me where it happened?”
“Of course,” Father Fortis replied, moving toward the door. “At least that will get me away from the blasted printer problem. I think the computer is possessed.”
Worthy walked around the desk and studied the computer screen. He hit a series of buttons and a new screen appeared. “It says that you’ve sent three documents to a different printer. That’s probably the one out in your secretary’s office.” Worthy hit another button, and Father Fortis heard the paper jump in the printer next to him.
“Bless you, my friend. I am so in over my head here.”
Worthy took Father Fortis by the arm. “You’ve got your printer. Now show me my crime scene.”
Out in the hallway, Father Fortis pointed down a side corridor to another door. “We can take this shortcut to the altar area, or we can walk around to the narthex and come in that way.”
“Is that shortcut door usually locked?”
“Yes. Always, in fact, except on Sunday morning.”
“Then let’s go the other way. I’m guessing that’s the way the killer entered and probably left.”
That the very hallway they were in had been used that fateful morning when Father Spiro was murdered was not a new thought to Father Fortis. In fact, he’d had a hard time thinking of anything else as he struggled to write a homily that morning. No doubt that’s what the parishioners would also be thinking on Sunday, no matter what he said.
Worthy broke into his thoughts. “I’ll need to interview your secretary next.”
“Go gently, please. Mrs. Hazelton feels terrible that she wasn’t here that morning.”
“Perhaps she was lucky,” Worthy replied.
“That’s what I told her, but guilt isn’t logical.”
In the narthex, Father Fortis paused before the icon of Christ, crossed himself, and prayed for Father Spiro’s soul, the church, and the killer.
As the two men moved through the doors into the sanctuary, Worthy said, “You’ll have to explain a few things, Nick.”
“What do you mean?”
“All this,” Worthy said, gesturing toward the altar and to a side wall of glass icons set in floor-to-ceiling windows.
Father Fortis nodded. “Ah, my mistake. We’re such good friends, Christopher, that I just assumed you’d be familiar with our churches. Ask whatever you want.”
They walked down the center aisle of the darkened sanctuary to stand at the foot of the raised platform. In front of them, a row of candles flickered below the icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary.
“Actually, I was only at your monastery for that one case, and I think I was still smarting from my own problems at the time. When I look around this place, I realize that I’ve always known you were an Orthodox monk, but I never quite understood what that means. I do remember a time in my junior high school years when a Greek Church was on my paper route. One afternoon, I was walking by the church, and they must have had some service going on. I looked into a room full of smoke and candles burning beneath paintings just like these. I remember wondering if there could be any place more different than my dad’s Baptist church.”
“Ah, yes, my friend,” Father Fortis said. “A lot of people find us very different. It’s hard for many to accept that we Orthodox are every Christian’s oldest relatives. No Christian group has avoided changing over the centuries, but because of a series of circumstances outside of our control and conscious choices, we Orthodox have changed the least.”
“I thought that honor went to Catholics,” Worthy said.
“In a sense, that is also correct. Pope John Paul II was right when we said that the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches represent the two lungs of the ancient Church. Of course, the Catholic Church changed quite a bit after Vatican II in the 1960s. The Orthodox Church might be considered the eastern lung and the Catholic Church the western lung. Does that help?”
“I never thought of being Baptist as being modern,” Worthy replied.
“Maybe the difference would be better understood like this. The Protestant Reformation centered on each person’s relationship to Christ. The Orthodox were mainly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Russia at the time of the Reformation and were not directly affected. For us, Christian faith centers not so much on a person’s relationship to Christ as on Christ’s relationship with a people, with the Church. As a Baptist convert to Orthodoxy once expressed, ‘We Orthodox don’t focus on having Jesus in our hearts. We focus on desiring to be in Jesus’ heart.’ Does that help or just make things worse?”
“Don’t worry about it, Nick. I promise that I’ll attend services here at St. Cosmas, so maybe I’ll have some more questions. Right now, I think we should focus on the murder scene. He died right there, didn’t he?” Worthy pointed to the square of new carpeting.
“Yes, my friend. The carpet piece is just temporary, of course.”
“Speaking selfishly, I’m glad they’ve waited to re-carpet the whole area,” Worthy said as he knelt down, laying a folder next to him. It struck Father Fortis as odd to see his friend kneel as parishioners do, and not far from the icons before which confessions in the Orthodox Church generally occurred. But that, he knew, wasn’t in the cards for Worthy. Large parts of Worthy’s life had disintegrated with his divorce and then with the strain of Allyson’s running away. Faith in God had been one of those casualties.
“What have you learned about Father Spiro?” Worthy asked.
“Not as much as I had hoped. Naturally, no one wants to speak ill of a dead priest, but I get the feeling his mind was slipping a bit.”
“The file says he had some sort of spell on the Sunday before he died.”
“A ‘spell’? I guess you could call it that. I was told that he just stopped in his tracks during one of the processions. But there were earlier indications of some problem. It wasn’t the first time he’d forgotten parts of the liturgy. And he’d missed a few meetings recently.”
Worthy looked up from the carpet square to the rear of the sanctuary. “I was looking at a photocopy of his schedule for the day he died. There was an asterisk by the nine o’clock slot, but no explanation. And then there was nothing on the docket until six that night, when a land acquisition committee meeting was scheduled.”
Fortis folded his arms across his wide chest and nodded sagely. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Hazelton told me about the asterisks. That was something Father Spiro had added recently, and she has no idea what they meant. Mr. Margolis, the head of the parish council, put it this way: being with Father Spiro was like driving an old classic car. The ride was smooth, very polished, and you could be lulled into thinking everything was fine. But suddenly the transmission would slip. The motor would keep right on humming, smooth as ever, but the car wasn’t going anywhere.”
Worthy rose from his knees. “Why is the church thinking about land acquisition?”
“Ah, that I do know about. The parish council president said that some in the parish are discussing quite seriously the possibility of moving. One reason is that this facility was built back in the 1960s, when the Greeks wanted to fit into America. So what you see here, this rectangle of a room, isn’t traditional Orthodox architecture. That would be a more Byzantine design, with a dome, for example. As someone at the monastery who’d been here before told me, St. Cosmas looks more like a Methodist Church with icons. Of course, the ultimate decision about moving will be made by the metropolitan.”
“And what is a metropolitan?” Worthy asked.
“Sorry. A metropolitan is the same as a bishop. He visits each parish in the diocese when it suits him, but he receives regular updates from each of his churches. I’m sure he’s heard the arguments on both sides about St. Cosmas moving.”
Father Fortis looked over his shoulder and pointed to the street outside. “Those in favor of moving have raised another argument, one that will now gain strength. That faction says this neighborhood is too dangerous. They’re particularly worried about one of the projects nearby.”
“I bet that’s Suffolk,” Worthy said. “Sherrod thinks the killer is from over there.”
“That theory would have a lot of support around here.”
“Hmm, yeah, maybe,” Worthy said vaguely as he rose to his feet. “Do you have a few minutes to look over some photos of the body?”
“I do, but you know me and crime photos. I remember nearly fainting when you showed me the photos of Sister Anna in New Mexico.”
“Let’s take this front pew,” Worthy said as he opened the folder he had been carrying. “I’ll warn you; they’re pretty gruesome, but you know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need some help figuring out Father Spiro.”
“You always speak as if the victims are still living, Christopher.”
“Yeah, I’ve been told that before. In some ways, they are alive for a lot of people. I know that’s true for those who loved them.”
“I would say that’s true for the people of this parish,” Father Fortis added.
Worthy held the photos in his hand. “When someone we love dies suddenly, and especially if they are killed, the most natural thing in the world is to believe that death cheated them. Everyone thinks about the future that won’t be lived. Now, in Father Spiro’s case, people might be thinking about him not being here on Sunday or not being in his office when they need him. Or, they might think about him being cheated out of his retirement years. To most people, unexpected death is this great thief.”
“But isn’t that true?”
“Only partially, Nick. The problem with seeing things that way is that it doesn’t help one bit in solving the murder. In fact, it gets in the way of solving it.”
Father Fortis sighed. “When my younger brother died in Vietnam, I felt the same way. Every year on his birthday, I realize I still do. I think about how old he would be and about how many nephews and nieces I’d have if he and his fiancée had married.”
“But in a murder investigation, it’s different,” Worthy countered, “at least I hope it is. Yes, death interrupted an old priest’s life. But for me, cruel as this sounds, that’s simply a given. What I want to find out is what Father Spiro was worried about that day and what he was hoping would happen if he were still alive.”
“Give me an example.”
“Sure,” Worthy said. “Was he looking forward to retirement or dreading it? Did he want St. Cosmas to move from this neighborhood or stay?”
“Ha, well, that may be a bit difficult. Father Spiro tended to contradict himself on almost every point.”
“Then I need to understand why he contradicted himself so much. At bottom, I have to know why the victim gave death some sort of opening.”
Father Fortis exhaled deeply. “I wouldn’t share that thought with the victim’s family and friends. It makes murder seem invited.”
“If I do my job right, they won’t even know I’m asking that question. Look, I’m not saying people want to be murdered. But most of the time, the victim did something to make it more likely.”
“And you think Father Spiro can somehow still help you?”
A frown crossed Worthy’s face. “Maybe, if I ask the right questions of those who knew him. It’s this way, Nick. I need to know why Father Spiro came into the sanctuary early that morning, a half hour before his mysterious appointment. And if I don’t know why he put an asterisk in his calendar, maybe I can determine if this priest was sleeping well in the days and weeks before or if he was seeing his doctor for some problem. And I especially want to know what caused that spell on Sunday.”
“What if Father Spiro didn’t tell anyone about any of that?”
“Then I hope something in his patterns will speak anyway,” Worthy said. “Which is why I need you to take a look at these photos.”
Father Fortis sighed. “Yes, of course.”
He accepted the first one, a gruesome shot of an old man stretched out on the floor before them, blood oozing from his eyes and nose. “I will never understand how you live with this, Christopher,” Father Fortis whispered.
Worthy didn’t offer an explanation. Instead, he pointed to one feature in the photo. “Tell me why he was wearing a robe that morning.”
Father Fortis studied the photo. “He’s vested in a rasa and what we call the epitrachelion.”
“Which is which?”
“The rasa is the robe, and the epitrachelion is the vestment piece that goes over the shoulders and down the front of the robe.”
“Epitrachelion,” Worthy repeated. “That’s what strangled him. Is it usual for a priest to wear a get-up like this on a weekday?”
“Father Spiro was old school, or so I’ve been told. For them, the rasa is quite normal. You can see I have mine on. But the other, the epitrachelion, is perhaps suggestive.”
“Suggestive of what, Nick?”
“It’s usual for hearing confessions. But that doesn’t quite fit. Yesterday, Mrs. Hazelton told me the pattern at St. Cosmas is to hear confessions on Thursdays.”
“So either Father Spiro was a bit confused that Tuesday morning or—”
“Or he’d scheduled a special confession, off the radar screen,” Father Fortis mused.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could trust the old guy, Nick? Now, take a look at this next photo. Anything strike you about it?”
Father Fortis looked at a view of the body photographed from the feet upward. The legs dominated, the right one unnaturally bent beneath the other. “I don’t know what to make of this, Christopher.”
Worthy glanced up at the stain. “Nick, do you have one of those epitrachelions here?”
“Of course. I’ve stored several of mine behind the icon screen.”
“Do you think there are some of Father Spiro’s still back there?”
“Yes, I’m sure I saw quite a few when I hung mine up. Why?”
“Something’s not right about this photo. Not the legs, but something else.”
Father Fortis walked through the doors of the icon screen and bowed toward the altar before going toward a side room with a wardrobe closet. On the far left he found several epitrachelions, most well worn.
He returned to the sanctuary and laid five of them on the edge of the platform.
Worthy approached slowly. “Am I allowed to handle them?”
“Of course, my friend. But what are you looking for?”
“Watch.” Worthy picked up each of the five and felt the fabric. Taking one, he lifted it to eye level before letting it fall to the carpet. He did the same with the others before returning to the pew, a smile on his lips.
“You look pleased,” Father Fortis said.
Worthy picked up the photo. “The legs are what draw our attention, but the way the legs are crossed only tells us what we’d expect—that Father Spiro was already unconscious when he fell. He may have already been dead, in fact.”
“So there’s something else you see,” Father Fortis said, studying the photo.
Worthy pointed next to the epitrachelion in the photo. “Look how it lies on his body. Straight as a die. Compare that with those I just dropped on the carpet. See, they’re full of folds, just as we’d expect.”
“Well, I’ll be. Straight as a die, indeed,” Father Fortis observed.
“From his shoulder right down the side of his body to his feet. It’s almost rigid.”
Father Fortis pulled on his beard. “That’s not very likely, is it?”
“Nope.”
Father Fortis looked at the first photo. It was the same. “So unless Father Spiro was wearing a particularly stiff epitrachelion that morning, the only other explanation is that someone straightened it.”
“And after he fell. Probably after he died,” Worthy offered.
“And who found him first?”
“The file says it was a Mrs. Filis who’d come to water the plants.”
“Ah, yes, I know her.”
“And she testified that she didn’t touch the body,” Worthy said.
Father Fortis scratched his head. “So that would mean it had to be the killer.”
Worthy nodded. “Now ask yourself this, Nick. Why would somebody from the projects who’d come here to rob the place do something like that?”
Father Fortis studied the photo again. “I’m not sure why anyone would do that.”
“Think about it, Nick. Don’t assume the killer did it consciously.”
Father Fortis sucked in a breath. “Good Lord. The killer did it because he knew Father Spiro.”
“It was at least someone with an ingrained respect for the priesthood.” Worthy walked up on the platform and bent down over the carpet square. “Whoever strangled Father Spiro that morning bent down right here, trying to figure out what to do next.” Worthy looked up at the altar. “Maybe that’s when he saw the altarpiece and took that to throw us off track.”
Father Fortis leaned forward in the front pew. “And that’s when he unknowingly straightened the vestment.”
Worthy nodded, eying his friend. “I think you know what that probably means.”
Father Fortis groaned, a sick feeling rising in his stomach. “If you’re right,” he muttered, “then the killer could be one of my parishioners.”