Ghost image, p.26
Ghost Image, page 26
“I … sure. You’ll let me know if there’s any news, won’t you?”
“Of course. Sorry, I’d better go … there’s a detective waiting outside to talk to me.” He still sounded stricken. “If word of this gets out … good Lord. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know anything.”
Jack called after that. “Your line was busy. Xavier’s invited us for drinks at the monastery at five o’clock.”
“Did you tell him what this was about?” I asked.
“I gave him a hint,” he said, adding in a grim voice, “He can’t wait to see us. Hey, are you okay? You sound, I don’t know … sort of strangled.”
“Bram Asquith called. I’m afraid we have a little problem.”
TWENTY
The public tributes to Kevin were still piled outside the gate to the monastery when Jack and I pulled into the parking lot across the street shortly before five. Someone had culled the dead and badly wilted flowers—I remembered heaps of bouquets from the news stories—and what remained were mostly candles, plants, and letters to Kevin or photos of him sealed in plastic sleeves. Jack went down on one knee and blessed himself while I read some of the notes, many from the children of Brookland Elementary School who worked with him in the community garden.
When Jack stood up, he said, “I still can’t believe it.”
“I know.” I blinked hard and righted a candle that had fallen over. “I’m dreading this, telling Xavier what happened.”
Jack put his arm around my shoulder, and we walked through the Rosary Portico along the colonnade to the rear of the monastery and the friars’ residence. Just before the entrance to the monastery was a small herb garden, two plots on either side of the walk with white marble markers for culinary, household, medicinal, and biblical herbs. In the medicinal garden I saw what I was looking for: a small plant marker for Hyssopus officinalis.
“It’ll be okay,” Jack was saying. “Don’t worry.”
I took a deep breath, and we went inside the friary. Jack gave our names to a security guard who made a phone call. “Father will be with you in a moment. Please have a seat.”
Xavier entered the lobby five minutes later, dressed in baggy corduroys, a pale blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and sandals. Though his smile was pleasant as we followed him down a corridor to an elevator, something in his demeanor made me think we had interrupted something that still preoccupied him.
We took the elevator upstairs to the private living quarters and walked down another quiet corridor, this one with doors on either side, until we reached a staircase.
“I thought we’d have drinks downstairs in the loggia off the chapel. We’ll have it to ourselves,” he said.
The loggia was long and narrow and smelled of incense and history. Its plaster walls were painted a soft, translucent gold that glowed in the late-afternoon sunshine, and faded Oriental carpets covered a terra-cotta floor. A primitive fresco of St. Francis of Assisi smiling down on a group of birds and animals in the middle of a forest filled an alcove at the far end of the room. The other long wall was a series of sliding glass doors that looked out on a high-walled Zen-like garden of flowering trees, azaleas, and rhododendron surrounding a man-made pond with a rock waterfall.
Father Xavier led us to a group of comfortable chairs pulled around a stone coffee table. “What can I get you to drink? We’ve got everything.”
The bar was a closet in an adjacent room with well-stocked shelves, a small sink, and a mini-refrigerator. The two priests had Scotches; I had a glass of Chardonnay. As we sat down, the music of a Gregorian chant, a woman’s haunting voice accompanied by a piano and violins mingled with a men’s choir, filtered into the room from somewhere in another part of the friary. Kyrie eleison.
Lord, have mercy.
Jack stretched out his legs in front of him and crossed his ankles. “I think I’d spend my holy hour in this room every day if I lived here.”
Xavier smiled. “It’s a good place to meditate and pray.”
We drank for a moment in silence, listening to the ancient music as the sunlight faded outside. Finally Xavier stirred and said, “So, my dear, Jack said you have something you wish to discuss concerning a book that might have belonged to Kevin.”
He listened without interrupting. Jack sat with his drink clasped in both hands in his lap and also kept silent. I finished by telling Xavier about Bram’s phone call to report that someone had impersonated a courier sent by me and the book was now gone.
“Bram Asquith seems quite sure they’ll get it back,” I said. “The police are involved.”
“I see.”
“I don’t believe Kevin’s death was an accident, Father. I think it had something to do with that book. Otherwise, why would someone ransack his study room at the Library of Congress and break into my apartment to steal the documents from Asquith’s? I also believe that Alastair Innes’s death wasn’t an accident, either, and that it’s related to what happened to Kevin.”
“Also because of this book?”
“Yes. And possibly some missing seeds.” I explained what Ryan Velis had told me at Monticello and the book’s connection to the seeds that had vanished from the White House.
“Francis tells us that when we leave this earth, we can take nothing with us that we have received, only what we have given. That book, as valuable as it is in monetary terms, is not worth the lives of two good people,” he said. “Nothing is as precious as human life. I will wait to hear from Mr. Asquith and Mr. Jaine, and then we will see what happens.”
The sunlight had shifted so it backlit Xavier, his white hair shimmering like a heavenly apparition in this beautiful room. With perfect timing the music changed and a man’s voice chanted the beginning of the Gradual and Alleluia.
Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
Who was Kevin’s enemy? Edward Jaine? A colleague? Someone he’d believed was a friend?
As if he read my mind, Xavier said, “The police have concluded Kevin’s death was an accident based on the medical examiner’s report. Perhaps I need to make a phone call in light of what you’ve just told me.”
I nodded. “May I ask a favor, Father?”
“You may.”
“I would like to take a look at Kevin’s papers from his study room in the Adams Building at the Library of Congress.”
“They’re here,” Xavier said. “One of our seminarians collected them a couple of days ago. They’re in a box in one of the unoccupied bedrooms upstairs. What is it you’re looking for?”
“I believe Kevin had either figured out what happened to the seeds that went missing from the White House, or he was on the verge of figuring it out. Maybe there’s something in his notes that might make more sense to me after everything that’s happened.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key on a Miraculous Medal key ring, which he held out to me. “The third room on the left. This key will unlock the door. I only ask that you not remove anything, but you may look through what’s there. Would fifteen minutes be enough time?”
I didn’t want to push my luck. “It would be fine.”
“There’s something I’d like to discuss privately with Jack, so I’ll leave you to it.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll stop by for you at quarter to six, all right?”
I stood up. “Thank you. See you in fifteen minutes.”
The empty bedroom was small and spartan. Other than a few pieces of furniture, only a wooden cross over the bed and a framed print of St. Francis, a flat two-dimensional portrait that reminded me of a Russian icon, made the room seem less sterile. Kevin’s box of books and papers sat on the desk.
I removed the contents and set everything on a small dresser. Whatever I was looking for probably was among the papers rather than in a book. When I was done separating the books from the documents, I had a stack of papers about six inches high. Kevin was methodical, a scientist and a researcher, so in theory everything should have been organized by subject. But the documents had been scattered by whoever broke into his study room, and the person who packed them up—I figured it was the seminarian who’d been sent to the library—threw everything in the box like he’d been told the place was on fire.
Kevin’s notes were slotted between photocopied documents, so I pulled them out first. At least they were dated. It looked like he’d been spending the final days before he died researching Francis Pembroke, the Leesburg doctor who was Meriwether Lewis’s cousin and the recipient of the letter from John Fairbairn. One of the last dated pages I found was Kevin’s hand-drawn reconstruction of the Pembroke family tree, which took up an entire sheet of legal paper and included relatives who apparently were still alive. I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo. There was a red circle around one of the names, Francis P. Quincy, presumably Francis Pembroke Quincy, who was the original Pembroke’s grandson and had passed away in 1925. In the margin of the page Kevin had used the same red marker to write the initials FPQ and connect them with an arrow to another name: Charles Moore-McMillan. Three exclamation marks.
I had three minutes left. Charles Moore-McMillan. The name rang a bell. I flipped through more documents, and then I found something. A photocopy of a twenty-year-old newspaper clipping from the Loudoun Times-Mirror. The great-granddaughter of Francis Pembroke had donated his effects, including his medical bag and equipment, his books, his papers, and his diaries, to the Loudoun Museum in Leesburg.
Had the seeds ended up in Leesburg along with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? Maybe they had come into Francis Pembroke’s possession. As Zara Remington had said, by that time Thomas Jefferson was wrapped up in plans for Monticello and designing the University of Virginia, but Pembroke, an herbalist who also was an amateur botanic artist, would have cared about them.
Through the door I could hear Jack and Xavier talking on their way up the stairs. I finished taking pictures and placed everything back in the box, though the top document caught my eye as I was about to close it up again. The Report of the Senate Park Commission. The Improvement of the Park System of the District of Columbia. The formal name of the McMillan Commission, which had been instrumental in reviving Pierre L’Enfant’s plan for Washington and turning the National Mall into what it was today. I had just read about it in “No Little Plans” in London the day before yesterday. And what I remembered was that Senator McMillan’s first name wasn’t Charles; it was James. Kevin wasn’t referring to a person with a hyphenated surname; Charles Moore had been Senator James McMillan’s aide, as well as the secretary to the commission. For some reason Kevin had linked Charles Moore, Senator McMillan, and Francis Pembroke’s grandson together and thought it was important enough to warrant three exclamation marks.
The door opened and the two men walked in. I slammed the cover on the box, spun around, and said to Xavier, “All done. Thank you for letting me look through those papers.”
“Did you find anything?” he asked, his eyes flicking from me to the box.
“I’m not really sure. I’m still trying to connect the dots.”
“Well, if you do connect them, I’d appreciate it if you would pass along what you learn.” He gave me a polite smile, but his eyes were bright with interest.
Jack and I said our goodbyes, and on the drive back to Gloria House he grilled me about what I’d found in Kevin’s box of documents.
“You want to explain that little tap dance back at the monastery? ‘I’m still trying to connect the dots.’ What was that all about?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know when you’re lying. Your nose starts to grow.”
“Very funny.”
“So what did you find that you didn’t want to share with Xavier?”
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to share it with Xavier.”
“Lying to a priest could earn you a time-out in that big waiting room in the sky someday. Double points when it’s two priests.”
I burst out laughing. “Okay. I might have an idea where the seeds are. Or at least I might have figured out where Kevin thought they could be.”
Jack gave me a sideways glance. “You’re kidding me. Where?”
“The Loudoun Museum.”
“The little museum in Leesburg?”
I told him about the newspaper article and Francis Pembroke’s great-granddaughter’s donation. “Don’t you think it makes sense? Maybe the seeds were in packets in his medical bag,” I said. “I’ll call the museum tomorrow. They’re only open for a few hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but perhaps I can make an appointment to come by. I also found out there are a couple of Pembroke descendants living in the area, or at least there were twenty years ago.”
“Are you going to try to track them down?” Jack asked. “Assuming they’re still alive, that is.”
“Yup.”
“Wouldn’t that be something? All this time the seeds are right under our noses in a museum forty miles away.”
“Probably in their archives or in storage somewhere,” I said. “I doubt they’re in the museum or Kevin would have known about it.”
Jack nodded and fell silent.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Xavier told me Kevin’s memorial Mass will be next week at the monastery. The funeral’s this weekend in Jersey.”
“Was that why he seemed so upset?”
“Not really. He’s dealing with a vocational problem, trying to decide what to do, whether this kid just doesn’t belong with the Franciscans or whether he doesn’t belong in the priesthood at all.”
“That must be a tough decision.”
“You know as well as I do we need new blood. But not everyone who believes he has a calling really does.” He pulled up at a stoplight at the end of North Capitol Street and gave me one of his looks. “I trust Xavier. He’ll make the right decision. He’s a good man, a good guardian for the Franciscans.”
“Yes,” I said. “He seems to be.”
“So back to my original question. Why did you lie to him just now?”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell the whole truth.”
“Don’t even go there, cupcake.”
“Okay. All this time I’ve been thinking that whoever killed Kevin knew about his research, a colleague or another scientist. What if it was someone at the monastery?”
He hooted. “Xavier? Are you kidding me? That is flat-out crazy, Soph.” He banged his fist on the steering wheel. “No way. How could you even think that? Besides, who among any of the friars would stand to gain professionally or financially from Kevin’s death? They take a vow of poverty, so it’s not about the money. And no one else is doing the same kind of research Kevin was involved in, so there’s no professional motive, no rivalry, either.”
I held up my hands like a shield. “Okay, okay. Uncle. Sorry.”
“You’re looking in the wrong place,” he said with that same intense conviction. “Maybe you’ll find out something tomorrow when you call the Loudoun Museum.”
Directly ahead of us, the Capitol dome was lit up against the cobalt-blue evening sky. I stared at it and tried to imagine what it had looked like the night the British set fire to it. The dome hadn’t been built yet, but the sight of the two wings of the building in flames, visible everywhere in the night sky since this was the highest point in the city, must have devastated anyone who saw it, not only because of what the building symbolized but also the deliberate, vengeful destruction. By then Dolley Madison had left town, escaping just before British soldiers marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, looting the mansion and heaping the furniture—most of it Thomas Jefferson’s—into a huge bonfire.
What happened to the seeds after that awful night?
Maybe Jack was right.
Maybe tomorrow I’d find out.
TWENTY-ONE
When I finally went to bed, I slept like the dead and didn’t wake up until Jack came back from Mass downstairs in the chapel. He knocked on my door and handed me a coffee mug. “Bagels in my room when you’re ready. I figured you could use this now.”
“Thank you. I have no idea what time zone I’m in anymore.”
Twenty minutes later I walked into his suite. He had thrown open the doors to his second-floor balcony overlooking Stanton Park, letting in cool morning sunshine, a fresh breeze, and the sound of rush-hour traffic. The pages of the Washington Post fluttered on the seat of his reading chair. I picked up the paper before the wind blew it around like dry leaves. It was folded to a front-page story on Ursula Gilberti’s primary race.
“It looks like she might not win,” Jack said.
“I guess when it rains, it pours,” I said. “I wonder how she took the news of Victor and Yasmin’s wedding being postponed.”
“Some reporter is bound to ask her about it, so she’ll have to say something.”
“Especially since she’s been courting the press to cover it. She probably can’t get away with ‘no comment.’” I put a bagel in the toaster and let him refill my coffee mug. His mug said WHEN GOD MADE ME HE WAS JUST SHOWING OFF.
“Gracie’s latest tacky Catholic birthday gift,” he said with a grin. “You should see the card. Jesus holding out the loaves and fishes and the crowd kvetching about whether the fish contained mercury and was the bread made with organic flour.”
I laughed, and it turned into a yawn, which I tried to stifle.
He gave me a sympathetic look. “Rough night?”
“I stayed up too late studying Kevin’s drawing of the Pembroke family tree. I did some searching and it looks like no Pembrokes live in Leesburg anymore. Either they passed away or they moved. I did find out that Francis P. Quincy was a senator from Virginia from 1900 until 1912, and a member of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, which Senator McMillan chaired. But he wasn’t a member of the McMillan Commission.”
“I bet the folks at the Loudoun Museum can help you out since the family was local.”
“I left a voice mail a few minutes ago. Maybe someone will call me back even though they’re not open today.”
