“Not likely.”
'Tell me more about Father Aguilar. Of the three, he does sound the most tempting as a suspect. Don't ask me why, but I've never fully trusted religious leaders, not even among the Cherokee.”
“Mootry leaned heavily on the priest for spiritual guidance, and he paid him well for his time.”
“Aguilar could have come and gone freely from the house, could have easily gotten close to Mootry.”
“If we're playing guessing games, then maybe he pulled the same scam on Palmer after the tragic death of Palmer's fiancee. Palmer would need all the spiritual guidance he could afford after that, wouldn't you think?”
“I think… I think… I don't know what to think.”
TWENTY-S EVEN
They had arrived at the ancient spired cathedral that was the centerpiece of the monastery. The structure dwarfed them and their little car. It was like looking up at an ominous, squatting dragon ready to breathe fire. They could smell smoke, and looking down an alleyway, they saw smoke spiraling up from a foundry like smokestack that rose skyward.
“Whataya suppose they're burning?”
A street person, her face like a baked apple gone bad, cackled witchlike and replied to Lucas's question, “Don't know what they burn but sins; stinks to high heaven some days. Complain to the cops, but they don't do a damn thing, not once. Off limits, I 'spect.” Then she cackled more.
“Let's step around to the front, shall we?” suggested Meredyth.
“Oh, don't you be so uppity-pissy, missy,” complained the old woman. “Someday, if you live to my age, you'll be as dried-up as I am!” Again the woman erupted in a rooster's cackling as she strode off.
“Grab a cauldron and two more like her, and we can call you Macbeth,” Meredyth told Lucas.
Oddly enough, perched on each of the huge front door handles was a book, a candle, and a stark black raven, all lit by the eye of God. Over the door were some Latin letters, inscribed there from the day the church began, which Meredyth translated loosely to read God brooks no evil here.
“Well, I guess we can go home,” Meredyth joked lightly.
Lucas said nothing, merely rang the bell when he found the doors locked.
“This place is positively medieval.” She kept talking as if it might dispel the gloom that descended over her spirit even here, standing in the blinding, burning sun of a Houston morning. “Everything but a moat,” she continued.
“They say there were more murders per capita during medieval times than there are today,” ventured Lucas on noting a date at the base of the stairs that told them that the place was built at the turn of the century. High overhead, at the pinnacles, gargoyles stared down at them.
A small door, a peephole, opened up in the door and a pair of dark eyes ran over them. “Can we help you?” asked the man behind the door.
“Police officers,” declared Lucas, holding up his gold shield to impress the man. “I'm Detective Stonecoat, and this is Dr. Meredyth Sanger. We're with the Houston Police Department. Here to see Father Frank Aguilar.”
“Really? Indeed? Does Father Aguilar… is he expecting you? Do you have an appointment?”
“No, we're here conducting an investigation into the murder of Judge Charles Mootry, and we have a few questions for him.”
“But you have no appointment?”
Lucas sighed heavily. “No, didn't see the need, but if you like, we can return with a warrant.” Lucas thought the man behind the door was being testy, and he gave him the same.
“Is Father Aguilar in to see us?” Meredyth said in her most pleasant voice.
The eyes behind the door darted about, a pair of pin balls seeking an answer. “I'll ring him, let him know you're here.” He snapped the peephole closed and they heard his footsteps echo off.
After fifteen minutes of standing about the hot stone stairs, they'd located a place in the shade where they might sit. “This place is built like a fortress,” she said.
“Yeah, storming it would be a trick. You've got to wonder if the bars on the windows and the locks on the doors are to keep the rats out or in.”
'To keep the world and evil out, no doubt.”
He nodded. “But evil has a way of seeping through a hairline crack.”
“I wonder where they got this magnificent stone?” She didn't expect an answer, and Lucas wasn't providing one, so when they heard an answer, they both looked up to see a man in a cloak and cowl who had inched the heavy door open.
'This magnificent structure was built in 1900 with stones shipped up from Mexico via Veracruz and Galveston.” The man's smile was wide, white-toothed, and genuine. “I am Father Aguilar.” His hair was white and gray, a beautiful peppered color. He appeared bronzed by the sun, in his fifties, perhaps, but virile, strong and straight beneath the great monastic garb he wore. Meredyth was reminded of the actor Sean Connery. The man had a magnificent presence and grace about him. “I am here to help you with your questions to the best of my humble ability. Brother Leonard tells me it is about the unfortunate business with my friend Charles Mootry. How can I help you?”
“Can we come inside, out of the sun, Father?” asked Meredyth.
“Oh, yes, of course, forgive my ignorance. We can go to my office in the library. This way.”
Lucas was reminded of The Name of the Rose as they passed along the corridors inside this dark, magnificent place.
As they moved along, Father Aguilar pointed out favored pieces of artwork on the walls and in the vestibules. “We nowadays have to keep the church doors locked; so much vandalism and theft, and no way to police it all. Everyone wonders how the world will end one day, by fire, water, ice, you know. I think it will come through moral decay, long before the earth's forces take us all.”
“That's a rather cynical view, isn't it, Father?” Lucas asked.
“Working in these streets, like you, Detective… Ahh-”
“Stonecoat.”
“Yes. Stonecoat. Well, you should know of cynicism, and I admit to an occasional indulgence myself. But, of course, I've repented for it.”
How often? Lucas wanted to ask, but didn't.
They were ushered into Aguilar's office, a spacious room with a window overlooking the mammoth library. Lucas's eyes played over the bric-a-brac, ancient photos on the walls, and the office machinery here. He nudged Meredyth when his eyes fell on the state-of-the-art computer behind Father Aguilar's desk. Father Aguilar noticed their interest in his PC, and he began extolling the virtues of the miraculous machine. He rattled off the many uses it held for such a place as his, the day-to-day bills, the operation of the place. “And, of course, we can keep an eye on the stock exchange through our monitor,” he added. “We are heavily invested these days, but then, what church isn't?”
“I see, and is the Vatican interested in your… investments?” asked Meredyth with a glimmer of a smile.
“You mustn't misunderstand the Order of the Sepulcher. We long ago tore away from the Church and their iconoclastic teachings. Look around you.” He hesitated, to allow them time to gaze about his office and the temple like library. “Here you will find no icons. My followers have given me full control, and so long as I can pay the rent and keep operations going here, I have no trouble with the Vatican. Have you any idea the number of such churches and monasteries that have closed over the past ten or fifteen years, Dr. Sanger? Most of them adhering to Vatican rule?”
“No, I can't say that I have.”
“Appalling, absolutely appalling. Therefore, it has been my duty to brook no such interference here, so long as there is breath in the order.”
“So, your computer is used to follow the daily transactions on Wall Street?” Lucas said with a nod. “Maybe if my people were smarter, they'd play the white man's big money game, too.”
Aguilar ignored Lucas. “I use the computer primarily to watch the board, yes, but also to monitor the day-to-
