A Great Day for the Deadly(9)
Gregor did know exactly that. He found it hard even to imagine John Cardinal O’Bannion in the middle of a breakdown. That big man with his bass voice, his thick body, his air of being able to charge right into the middle of any situation and fix it, by sheer energy. How does somebody like that break down? The answer presented itself as soon as Gregor walked into the Cardinal’s office. John O’Bannion was sitting in the swivel chair behind his massive oak desk, smoking a cigar and trying to read a piece of paper through the fumes. It was a characteristic pose and should have had a characteristic effect. Instead of being impressed—and on the verge of overwhelmed—Gregor found himself feeling suddenly, desperately sorry for the man. The ruddy, broken-veined complexion of a man who enjoyed himself too completely and too often was gone, replaced by skin as dry as paper and the color of new ash. The bright blue eyes seemed to be dulled and drowning beneath a wash of yellow film. For the first time in the four or five years since Gregor had become aware of him, the Cardinal looked old.
Gregor shut the office door behind him, walked over to the chair at the side of O’Bannion’s desk and sat down. “Stop pretending to work, Your Eminence. You can’t see anything through all that smoke anyway. Tibor’s worried about you.”
“Tibor’s worried about everybody.” O’Bannion put the paper down. “Tibor’s a saint. Hello, Gregor. I hope you don’t mind my saying that I was praying never to have to see your face again.”
“Let’s just say I’m willing to take it in the spirit in which it is intended.”
“Good,” O’Bannion said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t have the energy to be socially politic these days.”
“Did you ever?”
“No,” O’Bannion said, “but I did make an effort when I was living in Rome. Do you want some coffee? Sister’s not modern. She keeps telling me she’d be happy to make me some.”
“That’s all right, I drank too much coffee on the train.” Gregor shifted in his seat and tapped his fingers against the Cardinal’s desk. O’Bannion looked so ill, Gregor was having a hard time looking directly at him. “Your Eminence,” he said, after a while, “I know you don’t take well to advice, but—”
“But I should get away somewhere and get some rest?” O’Bannion raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Everybody’s always telling me I should get away and get some rest. What they really mean is that I should go see a shrink and get over feeling guilty about all that last year. I went up there, you know. Checked in. Maybe satisfied my curiosity.”
“And?” Gregor sat very still.
“And,” the Cardinal said, “our friend is catatonic. Absolutely not home. And likely to stay that way. Whether that’s a fitting punishment for murdering three people, I don’t know.”
“In this case, I think we could let it go.”
“In this case, I don’t want to let it go. Never mind, Gregor. In spite of all the fussing people are doing over me these days, my present condition is not the result of torturing myself with guilt over what happened last year. In the first place, I have jaundice—”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain in the office, Gregor. It upsets Sister. And before you go off half-cocked, the jaundice is a side effect of gallstones and I am having both the jaundice and the gallstones seen to. I’m not a complete idiot. I will admit, however, that I haven’t been getting much sleep.”
“You never did get much,” Gregor said. “Is the insomnia of the moment caused by the death of Brigit Ann Reilly?”
The Cardinal hesitated. “Partially. I have, of course, had the Reillys here quite a bit over the past week. That was necessary, under the circumstances. But it’s not so much the murder, Gregor, as it is what’s going on around the murder. You read the material I sent you?”
“Twice. The girl died from coniine poisoning, that was obvious. I was wondering if you’d had any trouble with the police, over whether you could legitimately call it murder.”
“I never have any trouble with the police,” the Cardinal said blandly, “especially when the chief is named Pete Donovan. But no, on the question of murder, suicide, or accident, there was never any doubt. The dose she took was massive. She would have to have taken it within half an hour or forty-five minutes before she died, unless we’re going to assume she stood on the lawn of the library munching decorative border leaves for Heaven only knows how long—there’s hemlock in the library border; that might not be in the report—anyway, unless we’re going to assume that, we’re going to be stuck with the fact that someone must have fed it to her. Deliberately.”