Sophie Medina: Ghost Image Part 6

By the time I left the church, it was just after six o'clock. The temperature had dropped and the overcast moonless sky made it seem later. The lights in the arched Gothic church windows and along the colonnade of the Rosary Portico glowed like lanterns, gilding the gardens so the place looked like an enchanted fairyland. Except for the two MPD cruisers parked at oblique angles in front of the statue of St. Christopher carrying the Christ Child, the Franciscan Monastery seemed serene and peaceful. Ursula Gilberti's Mercedes was gone, and presumably Yasmin had left, too.

After everything that had happened today, I hoped Ursula still didn't expect an answer to whether I would photograph Yasmin and Victor's wedding for free.

Someone called my name. Standing in one of the arches of the portico was a Franciscan, hood pulled low over his face, a dark silhouette backlit by the soft yellow light. I caught a flash of snow-white hair as he pushed back his hood.

Father Xavier. I walked across the lawn to where he stood.

"Officer Carroll said she just finished interviewing you," he said. "I wanted to make sure you were all right after what you've been through. Kevin spoke warmly of you, my dear. He was very fond of you."

"Thank you, Father. I was fond of him. I still can't believe he's dead."

"Nor can I."

"Did you know Kevin thought someone was following him? He told me about it when I saw him this morning. It really bothered him."

The old priest looked troubled, his face lined with fatigue and sadness. "Officer Carroll just asked me about that. I knew nothing about it. I wish Kevin had said something to me. To be honest, I was more worried about his health after what happened the other day."

"What are you talking about?"

"He went to the ER at Providence Hospital complaining of chest pains three days ago," he said. "Thought it might be his heart. They kept him overnight and released him."

That explained Officer Carroll asking me if I thought Kevin hadn't looked well this morning.

I pulled the key out of my pocket. "Do you recognize this, Father? Does it unlock something at the friary? A door or a locker?"

He shook his head. "No. We have few locked doors or cabinets. The church and the chapels are another matter; it is a regrettable fact of life that we can no longer leave the place open as we once did. For insurance purposes and for general safety we installed a security system. But that key does not unlock anything here that I know of. Why do you ask?"

"I think Kevin might have dropped it today. I was going to return it, if it was his."

He took the key and turned it over, rubbing his thumb over the etched number 58 on the head of the key. "Perhaps it opens a locker, as you suggest. Why don't you ask Edward?"

"Edward Jaine?"

"Yes, Kevin's benefactor." He smiled at the expression on my face. "Ah, I see you are surprised. You didn't know about their relations.h.i.+p? He was very generous in supporting Kevin's research, paying for his trips and anything he needed for his work."

"Last night at the Austrian amba.s.sador's home I overheard Kevin arguing with him. And when Edward Jaine arrived at the party and walked into the room with Senator Gilberti, Kevin was really upset."

Xavier's forehead furrowed. "Are you sure? When I saw Kevin this morning at breakfast, he said he had enjoyed himself last night." His smile was tinged with regret. "Not that he would say any differently. Kevin kept himself to himself."

I nodded. Kevin was also a peaceful person. So why had he been arguing with the man who paid for his research?

"Is there something else, Sophie? I didn't mean to upset you further."

"I apologize for asking so soon, but I was wondering if you had any idea yet about . . . arrangements."

"You mean Kevin's funeral?" I nodded, and he said, "Yes, of course. Kevin planned it himself."

"He did?"

"It's one of our requirements," he said with a small smile. "Each of us must specify the readings, the music . . . everything must be on file. Don't look so shocked . . . we all leave this earth to join G.o.d someday. So far, I haven't heard of a single soul who's found a way around that immutable truth."

I smiled. "So you already know?"

"His funeral Ma.s.s will be here at Mount St. Sepulchre, of course, and he'll be buried with his brothers in our cemetery. But it probably won't take place for a few weeks to give Kevin's colleagues and friends from all over the country-all over the world, actually-time to make arrangements to attend."

"Can I do anything to help?"

"Keep us in your prayers, my dear. I am expecting an onslaught from the press once word gets out. Kevin was an international celebrity, and the media attention we'll likely receive will be difficult for many in this quiet community to handle. In his professional life as a scientist Kevin was revered and admired for his work around the world, but, as you know, there were others who found him a threat for speaking his mind."

I walked back to my car mulling over what Father Xavier had just said, along with Kevin's worry-fear, actually-that he was being stalked. His death was no accident. He hadn't slipped and fallen on those wet stairs or suffered a heart attack.

Someone had killed him.

Possibly someone who didn't like his politics, what he stood for, and decided to deliver his message in person this afternoon. Or had it been someone who knew about Kevin's current research, the discovery he'd mentioned to me this morning that he needed to keep secret?

Edward Jaine, maybe? Kevin said what he found might be worth "millions of dollars." Jaine was a multibillionaire, even though he'd invested in a few flops. He didn't need money, so perhaps that knocked him out as a suspect.

Then who was it? Who had cornered Brother Kevin Boyle, one of the kindest men I knew, in the Grotto of Gethsemane, a sacred place of agony and death, and killed him?

6.

I got in my car and turned on my phone. A text message flashed on the screen.

Just leaving work. Going straight to Trio's. If I get there first, I'll order us a bottle of red.

I leaned back against the headrest and closed my eyes. The message was from Grace Lowe, the first person I met the day I started school in Virginia after Harry and my mother got married. Last week she and I made dinner plans for tonight so I could fill her in on the book project I'd discussed with Kevin this morning.

As kids, Grace and I had been as close as sisters; even our teachers mixed us up, which we thought was hilarious since we looked nothing alike-my dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin inherited from my Spanish father, and Grace, a cool, fair, blue-eyed blonde. What had cemented our friends.h.i.+p for more than twenty-five years was a bols.h.i.+e, restless curiosity that occasionally got us into trouble but eventually led us both to careers in journalism, me as a photographer and Grace as a writer. Now she was a senior reporter on the Metro desk at the "other" Was.h.i.+ngton newspaper, the Tribune.

A month ago she covered what was supposed to be a feel-good story about the reopening of an elementary school not far from her home in Adams Morgan after a fire. When the interview was over, one of the teachers took her aside and told her about the kids in her cla.s.s who missed school regularly because their parents could afford only a single pair of shoes, which all the children had to take turns wearing. Then there were families who lived in their cars, barely a rung on the ladder above being on the streets. Pride, the teacher said, kept most of the parents from asking for help. Grace had been so devastated by that kind of poverty in her own backyard that she came to me and asked if I'd help her raise money for new shoes for every child in the school. We wrote checks and pa.s.sed the hat among our friends and family. Two weeks later, we had enough cash, so we went looking for a shoe store to sign on to the project. On Sat.u.r.day, Sole Brothers Shoes in Adams Morgan was closing to the public for the afternoon so the kids and families could buy their shoes.

The idea behind the photo book was that the profits would go toward continuing the shoe project and also to raise money for the run-down Adams Morgan Children's Center, where most of those children went after school. The very last thing Kevin had said to me before he kissed me goodbye was that I could count on his help. The thought of taking this on without him was heart-wrenching.

I pressed the Call b.u.t.ton on my phone. When Grace finally answered, I heard the familiar doorbell chime of the D.C. subway and a m.u.f.fled voice announcing the doors were closing.

"I just got on the Metro," she said. "What's up?"

"Gracie." I raised my voice so she could hear me over the din. "I've got some bad news. Kevin Boyle is dead."

She gasped as though someone had elbowed her hard in the ribs. "Oh, my G.o.d, Sophie, that's awful. What happened?"

I told her, and then she said, "I need to call the desk. Actually, I probably need to get off this train and go back to work. Someone's going to have to get out to the monastery and cover this."

I ma.s.saged my forehead with the back of my free hand. Father Xavier said he expected to be inundated by the media because of Kevin's notoriety. I had just opened the floodgates. But if I were in Grace's place, I would have done the same thing.

"Are you going to do it?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "We're also going to need an obit. I'm sure we don't have one on file. Kevin wasn't that old, only in his fifties, and n.o.body expected . . . oh, my G.o.d, I can't believe he's gone."

"I know," I said, and for the first time my voice wavered.

"Oh, honey. Soph . . . are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Look, Grace, can you keep my name out of the story?"

"I'll do what I can. Have you told anyone else?"

"No. Certainly not anyone from the press. I'll call Nick when I get home. And Jack. This is going to kill him."

"Oh, Jesus. Yes, Jack. He's teaching tonight. I spoke to him earlier."

"I'll leave a message, tell him to call right away. I don't want him finding out on the Internet or hearing it on the radio or television before I get a chance to talk to him."

"I'd better go," she said. "I think it's going to be a long night."

I left vague messages for both Nick and Jack, though it would be awhile before Nick and I spoke because of the eight-hour time difference between Was.h.i.+ngton and Riyadh. As for Jack, his cla.s.ses finished at nine o'clock, but he often stayed late for students who needed to talk to him.

By the time I heard from him it was a few minutes before eleven. I knew from his voice that he didn't know about Kevin, but Jack can read me like a book. "What's wrong?" he said. "I hope it's not Nick."

I was upstairs in bed with a gla.s.s of wine, channel surfing in the dark. I flipped to Channel 4 to wait for the eleven o'clock local news and hit Mute.

"It's not Nick," I said. "I'm sorry, Jack. Kevin Boyle is dead. I found him today at the monastery at the bottom of a flight of stairs in the lower garden. When I got there it was too late. He was already gone."

His silence went on for an eternity. Then I heard his heavy sigh and what sounded like a bottle being uncorked and liquid splashed into a gla.s.s. "My G.o.d, Sophie. We were all together just last night. I'd been expecting to hear from him today, so that explains why I didn't."

"I'm so sorry," I said again. "I'm pretty sure it's going to be on the late news. I didn't want you to find out that way. And Grace knows . . . we were supposed to have dinner this evening. She might be writing the story for the Trib. Or the obituary."

I stumbled over the last word, and Jack said, "What happened?"

I heard the tinkle of ice cubes. Probably a Scotch on the rocks.

"I don't know for sure. The police came . . . they had to. The officer who talked to me said there would be an autopsy to determine the cause of death."

"The cause of death?" He sounded as if he was still trying to process that Kevin was gone. "How could Kevin fall down a flight of stairs? That doesn't sound right."

"I don't think he fell. I think he might have been pushed."

"Are you serious?"

So I told him about Kevin's fear that someone had been following him. "Unfortunately, Kevin didn't tell anyone else about it. And no one at the monastery wants to believe what happened could be anything other than an accidental fall."

"Why would someone push him?"

"I can think of two reasons. A lot of people hated Kevin's views on climate change and the environment. Not to mention the businesses he alienated that had to hire lawyers to fight him in court and drug dealers who had to move when he tried to clean up a couple of parks."

"If not liking someone's politics or what he stood for was enough of a motive to commit murder, Was.h.i.+ngton would be a ghost town, Soph. It's a big step off the edge into the abyss to go from hating someone to actually doing something about it. What's your other reason?"

I heard voices in the background on his end of the phone and glanced up at the television. "Here it is," I said, unmuting the sound on mine. "I'm watching Channel 4."

"Me, too."

We were silent as an attractive blond reporter did a live stand-up in front of the monastery gates. The harsh spotlights lit her and the scenery behind her as if it were daytime while the camera panned to show bouquets of flowers, lighted votive candles, and handwritten notes placed in tribute in front of the entrance to the Rosary Portico.

"The tight-knit Catholic religious community in Brookland, often called 'Little Rome' because of the many Catholic inst.i.tutions located here, is reeling tonight from the death of one of their own," the reporter said. "Brother Kevin Boyle, a Franciscan friar and internationally known environmentalist, was found-tragically-on the grounds of the Franciscan Monastery's magnificent gardens in northeast Was.h.i.+ngton, a place he knew and loved so well."

She continued talking as the picture switched to B-roll of the monastery, showing the gardens in full bloom, dazzling sweeps of color against vivid greens, on a sun-dappled day. Eventually, the camera zeroed in on the Gethsemane Grotto, and the reporter didn't miss the opportunity to play up the irony.

I heard Jack's sharp intake of breath. "That's where you found him?"

"Yes . . . shhh, listen. She interviewed Father Xavier."

The brief taped interview was poignant, and the old priest looked more weary than when I'd seen him this evening. The picture cut back to the reporter, who wove together Kevin's pioneering work as an environmentalist into the story of Francis of a.s.sisi, the patron saint of plants and animals, before doing her sign-off.

Then the screen flickered to the story of the twelve-year-old boy who'd been shot, his mother's anguished face. I couldn't bear to watch her raw grief and turned it off.

After a moment, Jack said, "You were about to tell me the other reason why someone would push Kevin down those stairs. And why he thought someone was following him."

"I think it might have something to do with his research." I told him about the key. "I was going to ask Kevin if it was his, but obviously I can't anymore. Father Xavier didn't recognize it. He suggested I ask Edward Jaine. Did you know he was underwriting Kevin's research?"

"No." Jack sounded as surprised as I'd been. "I didn't."

"They were arguing about something last night at the party. I overheard them."

"Sophie," he said, "maybe you should just do what Xavier said and ask Jaine about the key."

I didn't reply, and he said, "Let me guess. You want to keep it so you can try to find whatever it unlocks."

"Not keep it, just hang on to it for a while. If Kevin and Edward Jaine were arguing, Kevin probably wouldn't want him to have it anyway."

"You don't know that."

"I just want to see if I can find out what it opens."

"And if you do?"

"Then maybe I'll know why they were arguing and what to do next."

"And if you don't?" When I didn't answer, he said, "It's a slippery slope, kiddo."

"Come on, Jack. If the key is Kevin's, then why did he have to find someplace that he considered safer than the monastery to store something . . . or hide it? If the autopsy shows he died because of a fall and there are no witnesses who saw anyone with him, the investigation ends there. The crime scene's contaminated to h.e.l.l. Every friar who was at the monastery went down there to pray over him. It's a mess. The police may never find out what really happened."