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-day here.”
“Strange, I should have thought computers, like many other modern devices, would be shunned by an order such as yours. Father,” Lucas said.
“We have to adapt with the times.”
“Sort of fighting fire with fire?”
“Pardon?”
“You know, turn the devil's own devices against him.”
“We have been known to do that over the years, but I don't personally perceive technological advances as belonging to Satan, no. In the right, capable hands, computers, TVs, movies can and often are uplifting to the moral spirit of man.”
When they were all seated in the plush leather chairs here, Lucas studied the priest's eyes, which seemed etched in pain. He had obviously fought back the devil in all his many disguises, Lucas thought.
“So, please, how can I help you?”
“We have reason to believe that you were with Judge Mootry the night he was killed.”
“Really? But I told Detectives Pardee and Amelford that I was out of town that evening, gave them the exact location and time, and this was all verified. The detectives questioned me, but they said it was routine to question all of the deceased's closest relatives and friends, and I counted myself among his-”
“You shared a nightcap-wine, you and the judge; we found the glasses-goblets, actually,” bluffed Lucas, “and there were prints on them.”
The priest smiled, looking amused. “You must be trying to bait me, Detective. Someone's prints, perhaps, but not mine,” he insisted, holding his own. “Look, I understand why you're here, but-”
“You do?” asked Meredyth.
“Because my church was awarded a goodly sum from the judge's estate, but that was his wish’s-nothing foisted on him. My God, you can't possibly believe I would kill the old gentleman for his inheritance, can you?” He stared at their poker faces and then added, “Perhaps if you had an independent audit of our books here. You're welcome to do so. In fact, we're due for an audit, and if the Houston Police Department would like to pay an auditing firm to come in-”
'That might not be a bad idea,” countered Lucas. “We'll run it by our superiors.”
“Father Aguilar, we know about your association with at least two other victims of the crossbow killers,” said Meredyth.
“Killers? Did you say killers? Are there more than one? Dear God.”
“We know you had some dealings with Wesley Palmer and Timothy Kenneth Little. Now that kind of coincidence involving murder doesn't just go away, Father,” continued Meredyth. “In fact, we're rather surprised that you yourself didn't report the strange coincidence and connection between these men to authorities.”
“But I did.”
“You did?”
“Absolutely.”
“You told Pardee and Amelford, you mean?”
“Before they found me, I talked to a captain on the force, Captain… ahh, Lawrence, yes, Lawrence.”
Meredyth and Lucas exchanged a look of biting concern. Father Aguilar dropped his gaze and suddenly threw up his hands, saying, “All right… I confess.” It was the first sign of any chink in his armor. “I now confess…”
Lucas's eyes bored into the man and Meredyth's mouth dropped open. Could it be so easy?
“I have been worried about my own life after these atrocities. All of us, you see, were in school together, college fraternity, actually…
'Texas Christian,” added Meredyth. “We know.”
“Then you must see that whoever these fiends are, they have some vendetta against us from when we were young people. Something we did; somehow we wronged someone, perhaps unknowingly…”
Lucas wasn't sure he could buy into the priest's distraught act, but he withheld judgment.
“Palmer, Little, Mootry, they all contributed grand sums here to keep the order going; we would have had to shut down years before now if I had not prevailed upon my richer friends for funds, don't you see?”
“What're you saying?” asked Meredyth. “That whoever has killed these men did so because they feel a hatred toward the church?”
“No, a hatred toward the well-to-do, the wealthy; and believing their money tainted, evil, they might easily think the same of me and my church. I have, for a long time now, watched my back.”
“Exactly how much did Mootry leave you, your monastery, in his will?” asked Lucas.
“He was a wise man. He left a self-perpetuating legacy.”
“I see.” Men have killed for a hell of a lot less, Lucas thought, his eyes boring into the priest.
“I'm sorry that I am such a disappointment to you,” said Father Aguilar, “that I could not be of more help. But I've told you everything.”
“Why haven't you requested police protection?” asked Lucas, still skeptical of the man beneath the robe.
Aguilar shook his head and raised both his hands, each hand seemingly independent of the other, fluttering birdlike as if to indicate all that was around them. “No man can protect me if my God calls me to Him.”
Meredyth asked if they could see the rest of the order, commenting on how vast it appeared from the outside. “And what is it you use the fires for?”
“I'm sorry, but your presence here has already disrupted the life of the brothers,” he replied. “As to the kiln, we make our own pottery, filling orders all the time. It's quite popular, and it's our main source of revenue.?'
“Aside from legacies, you mean?” asked Lucas.
Meredyth pinched him. “How many in your order?” she asked.
“It varies, given the time of year, but currently there are twenty-nine brothers.”
“Really?” asked Lucas. “That many celibates left in Houston?”
“It is a place where men can step away from the rigors, stress, temptation, and ugliness of our modem world to study, reflect, and find their true selves, to get in touch with the one true God.” He stood to indicate their time was up.
Lucas remained tenacious, however, asking, “Can we meet some of the brothers?”
“As I said, it would be disruptive for them. This is a holy place of meditation, worship, reflection. You… you bring only discord and disharmony. Why, it exudes from your very pores, Mr. Stonecoat.”
“Just a few questions, Father.”
'They are reclusive for a reason.
“A reason like murder?”
Such foul thoughts…”
“Do you think a court order would make them and you less reclusive?” badgered Lucas as Meredyth tried to get him to settle down and shut up.
Aguilar gritted his teeth, controlling himself, and seething, he added, “I know something of the law myself, Detective. You have no mitigating circumstances to warrant such a disruption in the house of the Lord. Now, if you please.”
“Oh, you have friends in high places, in the legal system?”
“Everyone must have friends in the legal profession to get by in today's madhouse, yes.”
“Friends such as Judge Mootry?”
“Yes, he was my dearest friend, and as I said, I now fear for my own life.”
“And what about Pierce Dalton?” Lucas saw the twitch, almost imperceptible in the man's eye.
“Dalton? I only know Dalton as Mootry's attorney.”
“He was at Texas Christian about the time you were there.”
“It was a large campus.”
“What did you talk about with Mootry the night he was killed?”
“Damn you, man! I wasn't there!” He threw open the door and called to Leonard, shouting, “Show these kind people out, Leonard.”