church history, kid, even if it’s news to you. Keith Scully went to Fordham Law School. He’d have this figured out even if I was walking a beat in Coney Island,” Mike said. “See that altar right there?”
I’d forgotten the police commissioner had a Fordham Law degree. I nodded as Mike pointed to the rear of the church where a decorative piece, elaborately carved with a relief of the Last Supper, stood next to the entrance.
“Yes. It looks like it came out of a museum.”
“Well, it’s the original altar from Old St. Pat’s, and it was installed here by Cardinal Spellman in the 1940s, a gift from the archdiocese. I may have encroached on a bit of the killer’s lead time, but the church hierarchy would have come to the same conclusion and connected that cathedral to this little chapel before the sun sets tonight.”
“So you’re right, Mike. The perp’s gaming us and he’s gaming the whole religious establishment as well. What are you doing now?”
Mike was running his hand along the wall, back and forth below Matthew’s window. “One more thought. I was looking for a crevice, a hiding place — but the stained glass is mounted flush into the wall.”
Although the window’s elevation stretched almost to the ceiling, its bottom was not much higher than our heads.
“You still think?…”
“One more place. There’s a reliquary here, at the end of the east transept. A shrine to Saint Jean de Brebeuf. There’s a Frenchman for you.”
I jogged to try to catch up with Mike.
“He was a Jesuit priest who was captured by the Iroquois and tortured to death,” Mike said. “Mutilated.”
That sort of eliminated any questions I had about why this would be a fitting place for a connection to our victim.
“He was so brave he never even whimpered during the torture,” Mike said, before he turned away from me again. “So the Iroquois cut out his heart and ate it, to try to internalize his courage.”
The reliquary was in the darkest recess of the church, marked by a small plaque that listed the other martyred Jesuit priests it honored. It was mounted high on the wall. On a shelf beneath it, far above us, was a silver chalice, like the kind used at communion.
Mike stood as tall as he could but wasn’t able to reach the shelf.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he ran past me and up the steps of the main altar.
“Stay put.”
He disappeared through one of the doorways to the right, and less than a minute later emerged carrying a wooden ladder I guessed to be six feet tall.
“What?. .”
“Watch it, Coop. Every altar boy needs a boost now and then to get up to the candelabra to put out the flames. There’s always a ladder backstage.”
I steadied the legs as Mike climbed the steps. Directly over his head there was a crossbeam, closer to the ledge of the reliquary than he could get with his outstretched arm. I closed my eyes for a second and imagined a winged man suspended from it. The exhaustion was playing tricks with my imagination.
“Get me closer,” he said.
I pushed the ladder slowly so as not to dislodge him.
Mike reached out again and grasped the stem of the chalice. He glanced into it, then pulled it to his chest to secure it, holding it there with his right hand while he guided himself down the rungs with his left.
When he had both feet on the floor, he extended the silver cup toward me. There within it was the discolored, putrefied tongue of the woman who’d been murdered at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral earlier that day.
TWENTY-TWO
IT was almost five o’clock when Mike dropped me off at the Hogan Place entrance to the District Attorney’s Office. Lawyers were pushing shopping carts full of case folders and evidence back from courtrooms in the overflow civil courthouse across Centre Street, ending wearying days on trial. I crowded into an elevator with two of the junior assistants and rode up to the eighth-floor office suites.
“Hey, Laura. Start with the good news.”
“Can’t think of any. You’re going to need a shovel to get through all the stuff that’s been piling up since you left.”
“Battaglia?”
“Better send out for a cocktail before you go in there. Something to steady your nerves. He’s been like a raging bull today.”
“Now?”
“Go rescue Nan. She and McKinney have been in with him for an hour.”
“Take off. See you tomorrow.”
“Not a prayer. You need an air-traffic controller for these messages. I’ll wait till you’re out.”
“Thanks.” I picked up a legal pad and headed through security to the executive wing. Rose looked as grim as an executioner.
Pat McKinney practically exploded with delight when Battaglia, who was talking on the phone, scowled at my entrance. “What was it? Chapman’s class reunion that took you back to the Bronx?”
“And to think Mike didn’t invite you to come along, Patrick. You could have been homecoming queen.”
News of our important find hadn’t reached the DA yet, or McKinney wouldn’t have been quite so snide about my absence.
I sat next to Nan at the conference table and leaned over to whisper to her. “I am so sorry to have dragged you into this mess.”
“I’ll get you back,” she said, patting my hand. “You’ll owe me for months.”
“Alexandra will be a little late for that meeting, Keith,” Battaglia said, crushing the cigar with his teeth as he raised his voice. “We’ve got some business here first.”
Battaglia had been talking to Commissioner Scully. I didn’t know whether that would be worse for Mike or for me, since we had both disappeared for the afternoon.
“So what else does your crystal ball tell you?” McKinney asked. “You sure nailed that St. Pat’s location for the second body.”
I didn’t answer. I was most anxious to ask Battaglia to find out from Bishop Deegan who the man in the courtroom during his testimony was. I was certain I had seen him at St. John the Divine the day before, but for the first time in my years under Battaglia’s watch, I worried about giving up information like that when there was clearly a backstory between the district attorney and the bishop to which I was not privy.
“They had a solution for that kind of prognosticating in Salem,” McKinney said. He was, as usual, the only one to laugh at what he thought passed for humor.
“Nan was just telling us that there might be a Bellevue connection,” Battaglia said, eyeing me, waiting for me to speak.
“Mercer come up with anything solid yet?” I asked her.
“Risk management’s doing their usual dance,” she said, referring to the legal arm of the hospital, always vigilant against the potential for lawsuits. “Patient privacy, medical privilege — we’ll be lucky to have our first shot at records by Monday.”
“Surely Chapman’s got a hot nurse or two he can lean on there to break the rules,” McKinney said.
“I won’t forget to ask him.”
“Scully’s having the Homicide Squad bosses in at six for a briefing. He wants you there,” Battaglia said.
I was certain McKinney had been lobbying to take me off the case. His girlfriend had just been dumped from
