True Believers(152)

“And that was it? Edith Lawton.”

“That was it. At least, that was it on the day Father Healy died. Since then, of course, the street has been hopping. There are half a dozen people skulking around this morning. I assume they’re all reporters.”

“Fine,” Gregor said. “What about you, on the afternoon of the day Father Healy died. You said you were mostly in this room. Where else were you?”

“In the bathroom,” Roy said.

“That was it?”

“I didn’t go out even once all afternoon. I had work to do, and that evening I had a Bible study. In case you didn’t notice, I didn’t even manage to put together a picket line after the murder, although I should have. Sometimes, I can’t do everything at once.”

“Were you here alone?”

“I am never alone,” Roy said solemnly. And then he smiled. “I live in a fishbowl, Mr. Demarkian. There’s always somebody here, Fred or one of the other men. They man phones day and night, for one thing. And I’m not exactly easy to lose in a crowd, am I? By now, my face must have been on every news broadcast in Philadelphia. I wasn’t wandering around the street by myself that afternoon. I couldn’t have been and gotten away with it.”

“Shit,” Garry Mansfield said.

Gregor only sat back in his chair and tried to think.





FOUR





1


The Cardinal Archbishop had never had any patience for the sort of cleric who thought of himself literally as a Prince of the Church: the kind of man who wore robes everywhere, or traveled with an entourage, in order to make himself as conspicuous as possible. He had the same feeling of distaste for those of his parishioners who insisted on wearing expensive Christian jewelry. Christ died on a cross of wood. It made no sense to wear a cross of eighteen-karat gold with a diamond in the middle of it, the way so many of them had been after Christmas, because Tiffany and Company had had the piece in its Christmas gift catalogue. People called him an ascetic, but it wasn’t really true. An ascetic denies himself things he wants, out of a sense of duty and a will to self-discipline. The Cardinal Archbishop simply had no taste for certain kinds of luxury. If he had a failing as a pastor, he thought this was it. Most people craved luxury, and they were positively addicted to self-indulgence. He seemed to have been born without the genes for either.

Of course, at the moment, he was decking himself out with as much splendor as a Renaissance Pope, and with a good deal less money in his treasury to back himself up. Even the present-day Pope wouldn’t go out on the streets of a major city looking the way the Cardinal Archbishop was looking now. Every once in a while, the Cardinal Archbishop could feel Father Doheny staring at his back, confused and concerned, as if he thought the Cardinal Archbishop might have had a psychotic break while he wasn’t looking, and now they were all going to be stuck with the consequences. Even so, Father Doheny did his job. He handed pieces of heavily embroidered cloth across the table when the Cardinal Archbishop reached out for them. He straightened things at the back where the Cardinal Archbishop couldn’t see them. He kept a straight face, as bland as the face of a bad statue in the sort of church which bought its art from the same sculptors that manufactured its funeral monuments.

The Cardinal Archbishop looked into the mirror and straightened the bright red skullcap on his head. He had a traditional red Cardinal’s hat, but nobody ever wore those anymore, not even in Rome, and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to order it brought down from the wall of the cathedral where it hung. Even so, a scarlet cap and a scarlet cape were obvious enough, and under them he had all these … things.

“So,” he said finally. “Do you think I’ve finally lost my mind?”

“I was wondering what you were doing, Your Eminence, yes. This isn’t, uh, standard street attire in this day and age.”

“Some of it isn’t street attire at all.” The Cardinal Archbishop brushed what might have been lint and might have been a thread from the wide cummerbund that spanned his waist. “I feel like I’m about to go trick-or-treating on Halloween. Do you think it was actually the case that there was a time when people were impressed with this sort of thing?”

“I think people are still impressed with this sort of thing. Some people, at any rate.”

“Yes, so do I. And that’s part of the reason why I’m wearing all this. The other part is the press. Have we managed the press? Do they know I’m coming?”

“Absolutely, Your Eminence.”

“Good. We’re going to get a lot of phone calls when all this is over, but I wanted to tell you now that I’m not taking any from the Conference. Not a single one. I already know what they’re going to say, and I don’t particularly care.”