During this outburst, Koesler seemed to be recoiling as he withdrew deeper and deeper inside himself. “Those murders are still in your unsolved file,” he said, almost in an undertone.
“That’s true,” Koznicki said, as if to himself.
“Does this mean, then,” Koesler asked at length, “that you will not work with Toussaint?”
“I have been known to state that I would take a lead from the devil himself if it would help break a case.”
“Then you will!” Koesler’s relief was evident.
“But how is this possible? When last heard of, Toussaint was working in San Francisco.”
“No, he’s here. He’s in Rome. I spoke with him earlier today. He is here to help. He is determined to help. The only question was our cooperation.”
“I, too, have a question: This man was a suspect in an extraordinarily bizarre murder case. Do we count on him as our ally, or our enemy?”
“He is in our camp, Inspector. No doubt about it. He, as we, deeply admires Cardinal Boyle. It was Cardinal Boyle who ordained Toussaint a deacon. While he was in Detroit, Toussaint and the Cardinal were comparatively close.” Koesler hesitated, then having obviously reached a decision, continued.
“I have not had an opportunity to speak with Toussaint at any length, but he does agree with my hypothesis. I don’t know how much he knows . . . or what exactly prompted him to come here . . . but he has come to Rome to try to protect the Cardinal and to stop whoever is responsible for all this. I assure you, Inspector, we will be far ahead of the game with Toussaint in our corner.”
Koznicki looked searchingly at Koesler. “Then you feel that the Reverend Toussaint’s presence in Rome and his reason for being here confirms your hypothesis?”
Koesler looked sheepish. “Yes. But I was afraid that if I led with Toussaint you might have rejected the whole idea out of hand. I felt that only if you reached the same conclusion in the same fashion I did—based on your own evaluation of the facts, possibilities, and coincidences—would you be amenable to Toussaint’s collaboration.”
“You were wrong.”
“I’m glad,” Koesler said simply.
“When can we get together?”
“Tomorrow. After the concelebrated Mass in St. Peter’s.”
“Not till then?”
“He told me he had to establish some contacts here. He said he should be able to do so by tomorrow afternoon.”
“So be it, then. Tomorrow afternoon.”
Irene Casey was by no means alone in finding St. Peter’s Basilica incomprehensibly huge. This, the largest church in Christendom, is so big that it is difficult to believe that its dimensions are as colossal as they actually are.
Here, in St. Peter’s Square, where Irene now stood contemplating the view, one-third of a million people regularly gather at one time to hear the Pope speak. In the center of the square stands the red granite obelisk that Caligula took from Heliopolis and Nero later had placed in the Circus Maximus.
Then there are Bernini’s columns. The double colonnade surrounding the square consists of four rows of columns and spreads out from the Basilica, opening, as someone once said, “as in an ideal embrace from Christianity offered to the world.”
The facade of St. Peter’s alone is 374 feet long and 136 feet high. The famous central dome is 139 feet in diameter and 438 feet above ground.
Inside St. Peter’s, the central aisle is an eighth of a mile in length; a seemingly infinite number of people can be packed into the church. For the usual papal functions, some 70,000 tickets are distributed.
As she rehashed these figures, Irene studied the ticket she held. It was a pass to this Friday morning’s Mass to be concelebrated by Pope Leo XIV and the new Cardinals. A few thousand of the Cardinals’ closest friends had been invited to attend. The service would include the ceremony of bestowing on each Cardinal his strikingly simple ring of office.
Irene’s ticket did not disclose much. During this week of juggling tickets to various ceremonial events, Irene, as well as almost everyone else involved, discovered that identical information was printed on every ticket. An announcement of the event for which the ticket would gain admittance, the time, and the place of the event.
What mattered, everyone soon learned, was the color. Depending on one’s ticket color, one saw, heard, or even participated in the event. Or, one became part of the great unwashed, stuck behind barricades so that if one’s height were not well in excess of six feet, one had a magnificent view of chests, backs, and shoulders, depending on which way people were facing.
Or, one just might be stuck in Outer Darkness, where many had found themselves for the red hat ceremony, and where many had gnashed their teeth.
Irene’s ticket to this event was gold. She wondered what that augured.
“Hi!” It was Pat Lennon. “What color do you have?”
“Oh!” Irene was startled. “Oh, it’s gold. How about you?”
“Blue.” Joe Cox did not attempt to conceal his disgust. “Blue has not been kind to us this week.”
“Mine’s blue, too,” said Lennon, echoing Cox’s tone. “Say,” she continued, “I have an idea. How would it be, Irene, if Joe and I tag along with you? You show the official your gold ticket and we’ll try to follow you in.”
“It’s all right with me. But do you think it’ll work? Isn’t it risky?”
Lennon laughed. “They’re not going to throw us into the Sacred Penitentiary.”
“And besides, if you’re determined, they don’t insist on perfect compliance,” said Cox, missing Lennon’s allusion to the former Vatican office that once dispensed, among other things, indulgences.
“O.K.,” said Irene, “let’s try it.”
The three walked briskly toward the basilica.
As they walked, Irene’s thoughts turned to yesterday’s startling events. She had not been in the Sistine Chapel when Cardinal Gattari had been attacked. As far as her work for the
“Wasn’t it terrible what happened yesterday?” Irene said. “Were you there?”
“Were we there? Joe, here, chased the killer!”
“No kidding!” Irene turned to look at Cox. “What happened? Did you catch him?”
“No, I didn’t catch him. But I did learn what dreadlocks are.” Cox threw an indignantly scornful glance at Lennon.
“Oh, you mean the way a black person’s long hair hangs after it’s washed,” said Irene.
“How come everybody but me knows about dreadlocks?” Cox spread his hands wide.
“Oh, don’t feel bad, Joe,” said Irene. “We lived in a mixed neighborhood for years. So I know all about dreadlocks and do-rags and so on.”
“Look out!” Cox snapped.
Lennon was forced to literally jump to get out of the path of about fifteen nuns, swiftly advancing in close order drill, heads down and single-mindedly taking the shortest route between two points.
“Whatinhell was that?” asked Cox.
“I don’t know their religious order,” Irene smiled, “but those are Italian nuns.”
“How do you know?”
“Partly intuition. Plus there aren’t that many national groups that still have nuns dressed from head to toe in yards and yards of wool. And the Italian nuns have a habit of staying close to each other like that contingent.”
“Like an army of red ants,” Lennon commented. She was not all that happy at having been nearly run over.
The trio approached one of the officials who was scanning tickets, then sending people off in various directions. Irene flashed her gold ticket and was directed to the left. She was closely followed by Lennon and Cox,
