Worthy walked briskly toward Captain Betts’ office, the book tucked securely under his arm. He noticed as he passed that Hubie, the precinct desk sergeant, kept his eyes down. Several others, however, gave him knowing looks. He could guess what they thought they knew.
What he knew, and they didn’t, was that Henderson had found the missing book. While the discovery posed an initial problem of it being in Greek, how big a problem would that be for Father Fortis, who was fluent in Greek?
The story of the book’s discovery was incredible, as much for what it said about Henderson as the book itself. Mrs. Hazelton had already checked, to use her words, “everywhere, absolutely everywhere,” but Henderson had found it within an hour of looking.
He had begun by inspecting the men’s bathroom, believing that Father Spiro might have not simply hidden the book, but hidden it especially from his secretary, the one person who knew best his haunts and habits. But when he’d found nothing there, Mrs. Hazelton had admitted that there was another area in the church that was off limits to her.
“She told me that she was never allowed to go into the altar area,” Henderson had told Worthy after the discovery. “And she sure didn’t want me in there without the new priest’s permission, but I went right in. I didn’t find anything important for the first half hour. But then I noticed this small niche in the back of the altar.”
“Ah, that’s where relics are housed,” Father Fortis had explained to both of them while Worthy was still at the church, sharing that every altar contained relics of one or more saints. Addressing Henderson, Father Fortis had said, “I’m quite sure if you had asked my permission to open that, I would have refused.”
“Good thing I don’t always follow the rules,” Henderson said, glancing knowingly at Worthy.
Worthy had paused before Captain Betts’ door, feeling confident of the importance of the find, when the door opened from within. He stood face to face with Sherrod. For a second or two, Sherrod looked embarrassed before a cocky grin appeared on his face. As he passed by Worthy, he left a whispered, “You’re making this way too easy” in his wake.
“Come in, Lieutenant, and shut the door behind you,” Captain Betts said. She stood behind her desk, peering at him over her half glasses.
Little wonder why Sherrod is here, Worthy thought. He gripped the book in his hand. This case isn’t over yet.
“Lieutenant Worthy, we need to pow-wow. When we first met, you seemed agreeable—mainly, that is—to what I asked. But whenever you leave my office, things seem to go haywire.”
Worthy decided to wait until his captain had finished her tirade before speaking. The nasty taste left by McCarty’s article couldn’t stand up to Henderson’s discovery. And in addition to that, Mrs. Nichols had offered more evidence that Father Spiro was not going senile but was preoccupied with serious issues in the parish.
Captain Betts shook her head. “It seems that my predecessor didn’t give me the full scoop on you. He told me about your finer points and added a bit about your loner tendencies, but he didn’t prepare me for this. Do you remember what we talked about last Friday?”
“Sure. We agreed that I was to go talk to Henderson, and that from now on the two of us are to work this case together. When we’re at the projects, we’re both there. Same with the church.”
“Did I miss something in our little talk—say, about your right to take time off without permission?” She pointed down at an open newspaper on her desk. “I mean, for God’s sake, this stunt of yours. Are you this stupid, or do you want to lose this case?”
“I didn’t pull any stunt. The reporter did it to make me look bad.”
“Well, she sure as hell succeeded.” Betts paused a moment to gaze again at the damaging article. “If you’d gotten the phone calls I have this morning, Lieutenant, you’d know that when one of us looks bad, we all do.”
Try that out on Sherrod, Worthy thought.
“Look, I met with that reporter last week,” he said. “She asked for something impossible, and she didn’t like it when I said no.”
“A reporter well regarded by Superintendent Livorno, I might add.”
“She made that perfectly clear. But it was still a stupid request.”
Captain Betts removed her glasses and let them dangle. “And it didn’t cross your mind that the best, not to mention most respectful, thing to do would be to run that by me? If what she asked was so stupid, I could have backed you up, or did you just assume that I’d side with Livorno?”
Worthy’s jaw dropped. “To be honest, I never thought about telling you.”
For a moment, Betts just stared at him. “That’s quite a revelation, Lieutenant. No wonder your colleagues accuse you of being a loner.”
Worthy could sense color rising on his face as he heard Captain Betts echo Allyson’s comment.
“Now, is it true what’s in the column, that you spent the weekend at your cabin?”
“I spent the weekend with my daughter, someone who hasn’t had much time for me since my divorce. And I only did that after I made sure everything was covered.”
“Explain everything being covered, Lieutenant.”
“Okay. On Friday, I met with Henderson and worked out the new arrangement.” Worthy paused and decided not to explain that the empty weekend was Henderson’s choice. “With Bales in the hospital, the only thing we could have done over the weekend was interview a person of interest from the church. But then Father Fortis, the priest, said this person asked to see him.”
“Are you telling me that you asked the priest to cover for you?”
Worthy didn’t know whether to panic or laugh when he understood how low her trust in him had sunk.
“No, of course not, but we both thought that my tagging along would make our person of interest clam up.”
Betts studied him for a moment. “Go on.”
“It turns out that the guy did spill some things to the priest. Nothing that’s going to break the case right away, but Henderson and I are going to follow up on it.”
“And that’s enough to put you in a good mood?”
“No, but this is.” He handed the book across her desk.
Opening it, she looked up. “What is it? It’s all in another language.”
“It’s in Greek,” he said and explained the trail from the photo to the book’s recovery.
“I take it this is the missing book that you mentioned in one of your emails. Where’d you find it?”
“Henderson found it.”
Betts’ eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
She’s thawing, Worthy thought. “I’d never have found it, but he looked somewhere I’d have missed.”
“Are you telling me that Sherrod forgot to check it?”
Worthy was in a magnanimous mood. “Sherrod and I both missed it. Even the secretary never thought of looking there.”
She opened the book again and turned the pages. “But how do you know it’s important? Are you telling me you read Greek?”
“No, but the new priest does. And I’m betting that all the recent sensitive problems at the church are listed in there. As you can see, the dates cover the last four months.” Worthy decided to go out on a limb. “In a few days, we should know what was troubling the priest at the end.”
“And the projects?” Captain Betts asked.
“I’ll interview Bales with you whenever he’s ready.”
The captain closed the book and leaned back in her chair. “There are a lot of ‘ifs’ in your theory, but I think I understand your good mood. Now, help me recover my own good mood. Are you saying Henderson is working out?”
“Like I said, he found the book. So yes, I guess he is working out.” Worthy stood. “Any way that I can stop bumping into Sherrod every time I come in here?”
“He works here too, Lieutenant. And that makes him one of my officers.”
Worthy reached over and retrieved the book. “He’s poaching, Captain. He’d already been over to the Catholic church.”
“And he found something.”
“I know about the brick.”
Betts gave Worthy a sharp look. “But do you know it’s from an old construction site behind the Suffolk projects?” She paused before continuing, “And Sherrod’s not your only problem. There are some higher-ups who are asking if your investigation has any direction.”
“Well, what does this prove?” Worthy posed, raising the book.
“Okay, but that could mean nothing. Part of your reputation, Lieutenant, is that you tend to complicate matters. People are wondering if that’s what is happening again here.”
Worthy could feel his face redden. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal. After we interview Bales, if you still believe he could be behind this crime, then I’ll charge him. Detroit can have its quick result, the newspapers will be happy, and we’ll let the courts decide if we’ve got the right guy. But if Bales doesn’t fit, which I don’t believe he does, then you send Sherrod the hell back to Siberia, and let me investigate the case my way.”
The room was silent for a moment. In a calmer voice, he added, “You and I both know that most murders aren’t simple. I don’t ‘complicate’ cases for the fun of it. I simply recognize when they’re not simple, and most of the time,” he added, “I solve them.”
He strode to the door, knowing that the interview with Bales would reveal to both of them if he’d just been bluffing.
At the end of a long Tuesday, filled with hours checking and rechecking the details of the coming memorial service while at the same time trying to make sense of the book that Father Spiro had hidden, Father Fortis felt hung over from the cumulative fatigue. And he needed to be alert, given the group already gathered down the hall in the library. He hoped Mr. Margolis would take charge and not count on him to lead the memorial subcommittee meeting.
It wasn’t that the translation of the journal itself was proving difficult. As an immigrant, Father Spiro had not surprisingly lapsed into archaic words, but Father Fortis’ vacations with his family in Greece served him in good stead. And the book was proving fascinating. It was, as both Worthy and he had hoped, Father Spiro’s confidential journal and contained material that the priest wanted protected. Best of all, a quick review of the dates provided by Mrs. Nichols revealed exact matches with the journal.
What was frustrating, however, was the total absence of names in the journal. Instead, Father Spiro had used a puzzling code for each entry, four different Greek letters that carried no obvious meaning.
Also troubling Father Fortis had been Worthy’s final comment when he dropped the book by that morning. “No one in the parish is to know that we found the book. It’s too bad that even Mrs. Hazelton knows about it.” That meant that Father Fortis would have to deliver a bald-faced lie to the parish council waiting for him down the hall. He was indeed in a unique and demanding position at St. Cosmas. He was a monk trying to be a good priest to a community that was grieving over a terrible tragedy. But he was also a type of detective, one who needed to remember that these same parishioners were all suspects.
As he walked down the hallway to the meeting, it struck him that the double life he found himself in had been Father Spiro’s predicament as well. The translated bits of the journal proved that the old man had borne several heavy burdens in secret, while in public view he functioned as St. Cosmas’ presbyter, or priest. No wonder the man had been losing his hair.
“Ah, Father, good,” Mr. Margolis said as he came into the library. “I think we can now get started.”
Father Fortis took the chair at the head of the table and gazed around the room. Next to Mr. Margolis were the two professors, Dr. Stanos and Dr. Boras. They were a tag team, he thought, and it was clear who was the leader. Across the table sat Dr. Pappas—straight from the hospital, given the name tag pinned to his lapel. “Chief cardiologist,” Father Fortis read. Next to him sat Mr. Sanderson, an accountant and a convert, if he remembered correctly. At the far end, sitting by himself, was the outspoken restaurateur, Mr. Angelo.
After offering the prayer, Father Fortis turned the meeting over to Mr. Margolis. “I’ll contribute where I can, but of course I didn’t really know Father Spiro.”
“Of course, Father,” Mr. Margolis said before thanking those present for being so prompt. “And I’m sure we all want the same thing, something fitting for our dear Father Spiro.”
“Something with dignity,” Dr. Boras inserted.
“That’s assumed,” Dr. Pappas said with an indulgent smile.
“Of course, of course,” Mr. Margolis added. “I’d suggest that we begin by making a list of ideas. You should know that the women’s group has suggested a nice granite stone for our memorial garden.”
The restaurateur cleared his throat. “And what would we do with a hunk of granite when we move?” Answering his own question, he added, “Here’s what I suggest. I say we announce next Sunday that we’re going to move the church in his honor. We’ve been arguing about it for too long—is the neighborhood safe, can’t we add on here—but all that is past. It took our own beloved priest getting strangled in our very sanctuary, our temple, to show us that we’ve waited far too long.”
Mr. Sanderson spoke. “Mr. Angelo, moving the church, even if the parish agreed on it, is years away. The reality is that the parish hasn’t even found an appropriate plot of vacant land.”
The restaurateur countered with a gnomic, “Reality is what reality is.”
“A very Buddhist perspective, Jimmy,” Dr. Stanos said with a laugh. “But—”
Dr. Pappas interrupted. “Look, Jimmy, tonight is not the night to fight about land and moving the parish. I propose a plaque. A nice bronze one with Father Spiro’s likeness etched into it. And if we move, we can take that with us.”
“How much money are we talking about?” Dr. Stanos asked.
“Cost-wise? A few thousand. No more, I’d think,” Mr. Sanderson, the accountant, offered.
Dr. Stanos smiled across the table. “Mike, here I am a mere college professor saying this to a cardiologist—a Chevy talking to a Mercedes—but a few thousand dollars sounds cheap.”
The comment was met by loud laughter from Dr. Boras, but Father Fortis sensed something else in the room. Dr. Pappas was being challenged by Stanos, with Dr. Boras backing him up.
“I’ll have you know, John, that it’s a two-year-old Mercedes,” Dr. Pappas countered with his own laugh. “I take it that you and Lydia have another suggestion. I thought I saw you huddling out in the parking lot.”
“Well, actually, Lydia and I,” Dr. Stanos said, nodding deferentially to the woman next to him, “do have a suggestion. Some of you remember that the two of us had been working for about a year with Father Spiro on an icon exhibit and lecture over at the college. We’d like the committee to consider going forward with that, which is already in our budget, but using the event to announce an annual lecture series in Father’s honor. We could title it, ‘Hellenic Culture and Orthodoxy in the Modern World.’ ”
“It’s a golden opportunity to make a connection between St. Cosmas and the college. And it would be a lasting connection,” Dr. Boras added, “one that would carry on if the parish were ever to move.”
“A lecture series?” Dr. Pappas questioned. “Father was a wonderful man, but hardly a scholar. I’m not sure that he even finished college.”
“Yes, he did!” the restaurateur insisted. “In Thessaloniki.”
“Well, taking a few courses for priests back in the old country hardly makes someone an intellectual—”
The restaurateur sat forward, his fist pounding the table top. “Who’s talking about an intellectual? No offense, professors, but what good are they anyway? Father had wisdom.”
Dr. Pappas’ eyebrows arched knowingly toward the academics.
“Father Spiro clearly had gifts of ministry, even if he wasn’t well educated in the American sense,” Dr. Stanos said. “But the truth is that Orthodoxy in America is too passive, too easily intimidated. We hunch over with an inferiority complex. Do you know that Greeks are near the top, percentage-wise, among those who pursue higher education? Let me tell you after twenty-five years in the academy that few see us that way. A lecture series would be our chance to show our faith and culture in a public and positive light.”
“So you’re proposing a lecture every year?” Mr. Sanderson asked.
“Two hours of high-brow talk with baklava and Greek coffee afterwards,” Dr. Pappas joked.
The restaurateur hooted from the other end. “I can just see our old-timers sitting through a lecture.”
Dr. Boras leaned forward. “The lecture would, of course, be open to the parish, but its primary purpose would be to attract faculty and students.”
The deliberations of the committee continued with little being decided. Father Fortis found himself viewing the group in light of Worthy’s comment about suspects. Power flowed back and forth in the room, and the jockeying for influence soon prompted Mr. Margolis to raise his voice. But could any of them have killed Father Spiro? Mr. Margolis himself had admitted to disagreeing with the old priest, fighting with him, most recently over the issue of retirement. But was that a motive for murder?
Jimmy Angelo, the restaurateur, was clearly the angry type, as many restaurant owners were, in Father Fortis’ experience. Working six days of week without a vacation for thirty years could do that to a person. But Mr. Angelo’s prickly reaction to Dr. Pappas had passed quickly. He was quick to anger, but also quick to let it go.
Dr. Stanos? The professor obviously knew Father Spiro well and was bold enough to challenge Dr. Pappas’ supremacy on the council. And he was willing to use the tragedy for his own faintly shielded advantage at the college. But the same could be said for Dr. Boras.
Michael Sanderson was harder to read. A convert under Father Daniel, he’d enough support within the parish to get elected to the council. Quite a feat for a recent member, much less a non-Greek.
Finally, what about Dr. Pappas, the Mercedes-driving cardiologist? He was the power behind the council and obviously didn’t hold much respect for Father Spiro. But it had been Father Fortis’ experience that many physicians held little respect for anyone beyond other physicians. Disdain might be typical of doctors, but that was hardly a basis for murder. And what would have been Pappas’ motive?
“Father Fortis, can you tell us?” Mr. Margolis asked.
“Hmm? I’m sorry, it’s been a long day. What have you decided?”
“About the memorial? We’ve decided to bring the three suggestions back to the parish council.”
“Three? I heard a plaque and the lecture series.”
“The women’s group proposed the memorial stone.”
“Oh, yes, right. Well, that sounds fine,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Shall we close with prayer?”
“Just a minute, Father,” Mr. Margolis said. “We want to know if you have an update. About the investigation, I mean. We’ve all had parishioners call us, first about the break-in at St. Michael’s, and then about the article in the paper. Will Lieutenant Worthy remain with us?”
“Of course. Why not?” he replied shortly. “You may tell this to whomever asks you: that reporter was not ethical. I for one won’t speak with her again.”
“Come now, Father,” Dr. Pappas said. “The reporter made a valid point. I know Lieutenant Worthy is your friend, but to take the entire weekend off?”
“He didn’t take it off,” Father Fortis snapped. “Sorry, I’m just a bit tired. Lieutenant Worthy had an opportunity to spend two days with his daughter, who had previously refused his overtures. You see, he’s been through a painful divorce.” As soon as the last line came out, he regretted the pleading tone of it.
“I for one hope that he does stay on,” Dr. Stanos added, much to Father Fortis’ relief. “I appreciate his independence, his willingness to follow his own trail and let his partner follow his own. It’s the kind of initiative that I appreciate in my students.”
“If we see it in our students,” Dr. Boras added.
Dr. Pappas ignored her comment and spoke directly to Dr. Stanos. “But it doesn’t take an intellectual to see that the two robberies are amazingly similar, John.”
The doctor likes to have the last word, Father Fortis thought as he invited those present for a second time to rise for the closing prayer.
“One last thing, Father. Have you heard any more about that book?” Mr. Sanderson asked. “You know, the one in the photo? Did the police ever find it?”
Father Fortis looked over the parish council members to the Christ icon on the wall The severe face gazed down at him, waiting to hear his response. Was it fair to pray for the courage to lie?
“As far as I know, they are no longer interested in the book. I guess every case, from what they tell me, has clues that seem promising but then don’t pan out.” Seeing that Mr. Sanderson wasn’t finished, he hastened to add, “Now, please join me as we pray. Our Father, who art in heaven ….”