“Did you find the carcasses of the animals?”
“Sure. Dumped in a ravine near Reservation Lake. That’s where we found the lavaliere, too.”
“What lavaliere?”
“You know, a lavaliere. One of those necklace things with a little plaque instead of a pendant. Why do you think the Cardinal gets so upset about it all?”
“I don’t know.”
“The lavaliere was from Cathedral Girls’ High. It was one of those prom souvenir things.”
“Ah,” Gregor said. “All right. Now some things are beginning to make sense.”
“I’m glad they make sense to you. They don’t make sense to me at all. Why are we talking about Black Rock Park?”
“Because Andy Walsh was talking about Black Rock Park. This morning. On television. On a talk show conducted by Mr. Barry Field.”
“That nut case.”
“Nut case or not, he gave Andy Walsh a forum and this morning Andy Walsh used it to talk about Black Rock Park. This afternoon, Andy Walsh is dead.”
Smith stuck his hands into the back pockets of his pants. “Maybe,” he said.
“It’s an avenue of investigation. Isn’t that what you wanted from me? Avenues of investigation.”
“Partly. But Black Rock Park is a dead end. It happened much too long ago. Even if I knew for certain right this minute who’d been involved in it, I couldn’t do anything about it. After all this time, I couldn’t prove a case.”
“Maybe having a case proved isn’t what somebody’s worried about. Maybe public exposure is what he’s worried about. Or she.”
“You mean somebody who was part of it grew up and got respectable and he wouldn’t want anyone to know?” Smith’s face registered increasing interest, then decreasing interest, then no interest at all. He shook his head mournfully. “No. It won’t wash. If you can’t prove it, you can’t expose it.”
“Of course you can. You can make allegations. You can go to the newspapers. You can—”
“You can what? Let’s say you get the newspapers to print these allegations of yours. Getting it past the legal department would be a trick, but let’s say you did it. Then what? You could ruin this guy’s career, but you’d probably also ruin your own. You’d be in court in a minute. And you’d lose.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe nothing. If you think Andy Walsh got killed because he was threatening to accuse somebody of taking part in that mess in Black Rock Park, I think you can forget it. He’d have ruined himself in the process. Everybody knows the Cardinal’s been trying to get rid of him for years. It’s been all over local TV. The only reason good old Andy would have done something like that is if he really hated somebody.”
“And good old Andy Walsh didn’t hate anybody,” Gregor sighed.
“That’s what I heard. Besides, what does all this have to do with Cheryl Cass?”
Gregor was tired of sitting. He stood up and stretched and looked around the church. It was almost empty now. The last of the parishioners were filing through the double doors. The principals—Peg Monaghan, Judy Eagan, Declan Boyd, Barry Field, and Sister Scholastica—were spread out among the pews, apparently in no mood to talk to each other. Gregor had suggested they be kept behind, and they were being kept. Father Tom Dolan was still at his post beside the chalice.
Gregor wanted to tell John Smith that Cheryl Cass could have had a lot to do with “all this.” A lavaliere was a woman’s souvenir. She could have been part of what happened in Black Rock Park. She could have hated someone enough to have wanted to expose him. Or her. As far as he knew, things had only really started to go wrong in Colchester after she showed up.
He didn’t insist, because there were still too many kinks in the theory to make it plausible. Instead, he looked over at the Cardinal and said to John Smith,
“All right. I’m here. The Cardinal sent for me and I’m just the man you were hoping to find. What do you want me for?”
This John Smith was definitely interested in. His face positively lit up. “Everything. Everything,” he enthused. “Just think how it’s going to look.”
“How what’s going to look?”
“You and me. Together. It’s got everything. The Catholics can’t complain, because you’re the Cardinal’s man. And I can’t complain, because you agree with me. There isn’t a chance in hell Cheryl Cass committed suicide. And the media can’t complain, because you’re famous—”
“Famous,” Gregor said ominously.