On the drive back to the vineyard, I kept thinking over and over that I couldn’t be right. Father Niall O’Malley could not be the one blackmailing Gino Tomassi. If he was, it would be like the ground opening up under Veronica House and swallowing it without a trace. He was Veronica House, as Frankie had said, thanks to the sheer force of his personality: the way he bullied, cajoled, charmed, and occasionally shamed everyone in the community into acknowledging a shared responsibility for the people he served. Gently reminded us we were all our brother’s keepers and that there was no excuse for poverty and homelessness in a region of so much easy affluence and abundant wealth. Frankie thought he walked on water. If what I suspected was true, I couldn’t bear to think how she would take the news.
I had also asked Quinn to bring the copy of Decanter magazine with the page torn out about the Tomassi-Bellagio deal. Father Niall had been over at the vineyard more than usual lately because of the fund-raiser coming up. Maybe he’d been waiting for Frankie and killed some time by looking through the magazines in the library, found that page, and saw an opportunity.
Or maybe I was completely wrong.
After I spoke to Quinn, I had called Veronica House. The woman who answered the phone said Father Niall was busy with some of the guests in the day shelter but that she’d be glad to take a message.
“It’s Lucie Montgomery,” I said. “We’re hosting a fund-raiser for your center tomorrow night. Something has come up and I really need to talk to Father Niall. Could you please tell him I’m calling about a financial matter?”
“Give me a moment,” she said, and put me on hold.
He came on the line, probably because I’d mentioned money, as I figured he might, and my heart sank.
“Lucie,” he said, “lovely to hear from you, my dear. What can I do for you?”
Maybe I was listening for it, but I thought he sounded tense and ill at ease.
“I need to talk to you about something, Father,” I said. “It would be better to do this face-to-face. In fact, I’m on my way over there now. I’d be grateful if you could spare a few minutes for me.”
“Is anything the matter?”
“I hope not,” I said. “I’ll be there in about half an hour. We can talk about it then.”
“I know you spoke to Frankie,” he said in a grave voice. “She called me about an hour ago. I hope you’re not reconsidering about tomorrow night, donating the money you raise to Veronica House. We’re just so terribly grateful for what you’re doing for us. And we’ll get our financial house in order, sure and we will.”
“That’s what Frankie said,” I said, wondering what, exactly, Frankie had told him. “But I still have a few questions. And we’re bringing more coats for the shelter. I’m sure you can use them with this frigid weather.”
“‘We’?”
“Quinn Santori is coming with me,” I said. “We’ll see you soon.”
By the time we pulled into the parking lot at Veronica House, I’d told Quinn about Pauline Islington Chase—Izzy—and how she’d adopted her best friend’s daughter and kept it a secret after Zara died. And that Roxy Willoughby was that child. He’d been floored.
“And now you think Father Niall is blackmailing Gino because he’s got the birth certificate?”
“Mac told Roxy he didn’t know who her real parents were,” I said, “which was a lie. But apparently Roxy was determined to find out. Father Niall visited her all the time; plus, he was her spiritual adviser. He’d keep her secrets. Maybe he used the adoption papers to work backward to find out who had given her up. It was a priest who forged the documents to begin with. Mac said the adoption papers came with a letter, so Father Niall would have had a place to start.”
We pulled into the parking lot at Veronica House and Quinn said, “I can’t believe you’re actually going to ask him if he’s blackmailing Gino.”
“I’m not,” I said. “You are.”
“Me?”
“It’s your family. You didn’t think I was going to do this, did you?”
* * *
FATHER NIALL’S MOUTH WAS set in a grim line and there was a tightening around his clear blue eyes when Quinn and I met him in the lobby of the day shelter a few minutes later. But when I took off my glasses, his face registered such shock and dismay that I wondered if we were making a mistake, that I had gotten this completely wrong.
I really didn’t want it to be him.
“How are you doing, Lucie?” he asked, putting an arm around my shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “I hope they catch whoever did this to you. And I’m ever so glad you’re all right. God was really looking out for you, I think.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m a lot better today than I was yesterday. Father, could Quinn and I talk to you for a moment? In private?”
“Of course,” he said. “Unfortunately, my office is full of people, since we’re getting the books in order before the diocesan audit. But we can talk in the chapel without being disturbed. Follow me.”
The chapel was a rustic one-room structure that looked like a log cabin and was connected to the rest of the rambling center by a corridor that seemed to slope downhill. Father Niall pushed open one of the double doors and stepped back so Quinn and I could enter first.
It was as plain inside as it was outside, and I’d always loved its beautiful simplicity on the occasions I’d visited the center. The pews were wooden benches and the unadorned crucifix above the rough barn-wood altar was made of more reclaimed barn wood, with tree branches overlaid on top of it. The two stained-glass windows provided the only light in the room and were equally primitive: simple modern depictions of Jesus holding his hand out to a man and a woman in one, and surrounded by little children in the other. Each had a quote from the Bible carved in another piece of wood, the letters stained black to stand out.
Sunlight streamed through the window where Jesus stood among the children, lighting a swath of pews, which glowed with a light that almost seemed celestial. Father Niall pointed to the benches and said, “Shall we sit over there? It’s very peaceful.”
Quinn and I took one pew; Father Niall sat by himself on another and turned so he faced us. “What can I do for you?”
“I believe you have something that belongs to my family,” Quinn said to him.
I should have known Quinn wouldn’t beat around the bush. Father Niall didn’t even blink.
“And what is that?” he asked.
“Roxy Willoughby’s birth certificate. Not the fake one some monsignor in California doctored for Pauline Islington, but the one with her real birth mother listed on it: Zara Tomassi, Johnny Tomassi’s first wife. Johnny is my great-grandfather, by the way.”
Even in the warm shaft of light from the stained glass, I could see the color leave Father Niall’s face. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Quinn. I’m sorry.”
Quinn and I exchanged glances. “Mac MacDonald has family papers and correspondence that prove all this,” I said. “That Roxy was Zara’s daughter.”
That wasn’t exactly true, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to let him think it was.
Father Niall folded his hands together in his lap as if he were praying and said, “And why are you telling me?”
“Because you’re blackmailing Gino Tomassi,” Quinn said. “Roxy gave you her adoption papers and asked you to find out who her birth parents were. Once you got hold of her birth certificate, you knew who she really was. But maybe by then she had died and you’d learned about her new will, along with everybody else. The only ones who inherited anything were Mac, Roxy’s nephew, and Uma, her granddaughter. Had she promised you something, Father, that you were surprised not to get?”
Father Niall gave an abrupt laugh. “We’re always needing money for Veronica House and I’m not shy about asking for it to help God’s poorest children, as you well know. But I don’t resort to blackmail, son.”
Quinn leaned over so that his face was inches from the priest’s. “I’m not enjoying this one bit. But you’ve got two choices. You can give me the birth certificate and I’ll call off Gino. Or you can try to get your money from him and see how far you get. He’s got a private detective looking for you, an ex-cop, and friends you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. His best friend is the head of the biggest Mafia family on the West Coast. Good luck with that.” He stood up. “Come on, Lucie. We’re done here. We warned him.”
I wasn’t ready to go, not just yet. The copy of Decanter was in my purse. I pulled it out and flipped it open to the place where the page had been torn out, then set it down on the pew. Father Niall said nothing, but something flickered behind his eyes.
“I think you might know where the missing page is,” I said, “with the article about the proposed deal between Gino Tomassi and Dante Bellagio.” When he didn’t answer, I said, “I’m really sorry about this.”
“Lucie.” Quinn reached for my hand. “It’s okay. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
I picked up my cane. “Good-bye, Father.”
He let us get all the way to the double doors before he said, “Wait.”
Neither of us turned around.
“Please come back and sit down again. Both of you.”
I glanced at Quinn, who nodded. We went back and took our seats.
He held up his hands in a sign of surrender. “I meant no harm. I did it for the center. But you’re right: An opportunity presented itself when Roxy asked me to find out who her birth mother was once she’d learned she was adopted. Unfortunately, she passed away before I could tell her,” he said. “And I realized I was sitting on an unexploded time bomb.”
“So you blackmailed Gino.”
“The Tomassi family turned its back on Roxy when she was born. And Gino is a multimillionaire. Roxy was going to help the center, leave me—us—money in her will, until she found out she was adopted,” he said in a bitter voice. “Once I learned the identity of her birth mother, it seemed only fitting to get the money Roxy would have given us—should have given us—from the family that abandoned her. Besides, what’s two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Gino Tomassi? Especially if it will help the poor, the homeless, who have nothing?”
“You’re right. It’s pocket money,” Quinn said. “Gino said as much. But Father, the nuns taught me the Ten Commandments in Sunday school, including ‘You shall not steal’ and ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.’ They were written on stone, not rubber. You don’t bend them to make them work for you.”
“What happened to the money that’s missing from Veronica House?” I asked.
Father Niall stared out the window. “It’s probably a series of careless mistakes. We—I—should have paid more careful attention to the books, but there’s always so much to do here, I’m afraid I let it go. Anyway, I already told Frankie I plan to take full responsibility for anything that can’t be accounted for.”
“Frankie said it’s probably going to end up being in six figures,” I said. “That’s a lot of bad math and careless mistakes, don’t you think?”
“I couldn’t say.” He still hadn’t looked at either Quinn or me.
“Did you know the money was missing before your staff started getting your finances ready for the auditors?” I asked.
“Don’t be daft,” he snapped, swinging his gaze to us now. “Of course I didn’t.”
In the painful silence that followed, one thing became crystal clear: Father Niall O’Malley was lying. He’d known about the missing money all along.
“Did you take it?” Quinn asked him.
“I’m done answering your questions. I’d like you both to leave.”
“You didn’t answer that last question,” I said. “Did you take the money? Is it gone? What did you do with it? Spend it?”
His eyes flashed, but he remained silent, and I thought about Frankie’s comment about the posh town house he owned on Capitol Hill, left to him by a wealthy former parishioner, how he didn’t want people to know about his bolt-hole in Washington. A house like that required upkeep and maintenance; there were property taxes. Where had Father Niall found the money to pay for those expenses?
“Forget it, Lucie,” Quinn said. “It won’t be too hard to find out where the money went once the auditors finish going over the books. If you didn’t have any twinge of conscience over blackmailing Gino, Father, I suspect you’ve got a few other secrets buried somewhere in your life.”
The light shifted and a shaft of blue light from the stained glass caught Father Niall’s face and hands, freezing him as if he had turned to stone.
“What do you plan to do now?” he asked finally. “Turn me over to the police?”
“I’ll call off Gino for you once I leave here. That’s my gift to you,” Quinn said, sounding disgusted. “And maybe you could do yourself a favor and get out in front of this before the auditors figure out what happened to the missing money. Because they will. What did Saint Matthew say in the Bible? ‘No one can serve two masters, God and money.’ Not even you, Father. The real question is what do you plan to do now?”