MASS MURDER (30 page)

The young officer was rubbing Grosvner’s neck.
“We found ten or twelve different prints in the closet.”

“Have you iden
tified any of them yet?”

“McCready put them through AFIS this morning.”
The cop stood and opened a folder he was carrying.
“From our current cast of characters, we have Father Damian, Father Daniels, Father Rosario, Father Julio, Mary Fields and the janitor.
The other
prints
were either unidentified or
came
from people who no longer live on the premises.”

“Check them out anyway.
I wonder why Mary Fields’ prints were in there
.
”

“I think the bigger question is,” interrupted Swan, “why
wouldn’t
they be in
there? Remember, she caters there.
She could have gone back at any time looking for extra napkins or something.”

Giorgio sat back.
“That’s probably true for almost anyone at the monastery.
It would only get interesting if we found a print from one of the conference guests.
We need to fingerprint everyone and then get to work on those fibers.”

“I’m on it.”

Maxwell gave a mock salute and patted Grosvner once more before leaving.
Giorgio looked at Swan.

“Now all we have to do is find something up there
made from coarse, gray fibers.”

Swan clasped the fingers of his two hands together and turned them inside out, cracking his knuckles.
The sound gave Giorgio the shivers, but this time he said nothing.

Chapter Twenty

It was almost ten o’clock that morning when Giorgio passed through the monastery gates, guarded now by a police cruiser.
They’d already turned away the construction crew that had returned to work on the bell tower, and the news vans were all lined up outside the gate attempting to interview anyone who ventured within striking distance.

Giorgio parked
up
near the building letting Grosvner out before slamming the door.
The sky was a blank, gray canvas
and
v
isibility extended
to
only the first quarter mile of homes in the valley.
The iron monk, so eerily real the night of the murder, stood calmly in the drab morning light.
In fact, the entire building appeared docile
now the storm had passed
.
Even Giorgio’s attack from the night before seemed in the distant past, though he was conscious of the dull ache in his head.

Two monks trimmed
nearby
bushes, while a third raked leaves just outside the cemetery.
Giorgio
had decided to walk a full circuit of the property this time, convinced either the grounds or the building itself held the key he was looking for.
When a light breeze billowed through the trees carrying the promise of another rainstorm, he zipped up his jacket and stuffed his hands into his pockets
thinking he’d better hurry
.

He skirted the corner of the building and
glanced over to where
a flagstone path curved down a grassy slope to a small pond encircled by a short, brick wall.
A rose garden was set off to the side, the blooms having already been discarded in preparation for the oncoming winter months.
The lawn was edged carefully a
round the perimeter of the pond and w
alkways were swept clean, leaving no sign of the previous storm.
Giorgio knew the Benedictine monks lived on a timetable divided into three distinct time periods: liturgical prayer, spiritual reading
,
and manual labor.
It was obvious from the pristine nature of the grounds that a good portion of their time was spent doing yard work.

A western
-
style pole fence separated the formal monastery grounds from the untilled fields below and ran from Sunnyside Drive to a bank of Aspen trees that marked the east property line a football field away.
There were
a couple of dilapidated
barns
just in front of the Aspens.
He
would have one of the other officers do a thorough search of those, just in case.
Instead, he decided to explore the backside of the property, hoping to discover how the murderer had invisibly deposited Mallery Olsen in the kitchen supply closet.

He crossed to the east side of the monastery.
In between the refectory and the bakery was a storm cellar with heavy plywood doors.
He pulled one door open and descended halfway down a set of steps.
The cellar was similar to the one he’d grown up with back in
New York
, just a square box with a hard packed dirt floor.
This one held large canisters of lard, grain
,
and spices while steel bins on the floor were marked for flour and sugar.
Giorgio remembered the storm cellar he’d grown up with had been dark and dank, filled with spiders and other creepy crawly things.
In one particularly wicked moment, Giorgio had locked a scrawny neighbor boy inside while he and Rocky sat outside and laughed.
The boy grew up to be a judge
,
and Giorgio always silently wondered if becoming a judge was his way of turning the tables on the bullies in his life.
Fortunately, Giorgio had never had to go to trial in his court to find out.

Since there was no door linking the cellar to the main building,
Giorgio backed out and turned toward the cemetery where a young monk raked leaves from around a large oak tree.
Several plastic bags filled with debris sat next to him.
The monk introduced himself as Father Frances
,
and Giorgio remembered he was one of the new recruits.
Dressed in a long brown robe and black rubber boots,
the young monk
appeared to be in his mid twenties
. He had
blonde
hair, dark eyes
,
and an easy manner.
Giorgio paused to talk with him while Grosvner took the opportunity to lift his leg on
one of the leaf bags
.
Giorgio grimaced.

“It was a terrible thing, Detective,” the monk said, stopping to lean on the rake.
“I hope you’ll have more luck today with your investigation.
Father Joseph said we’ve already lost some bookings
,
so I hope you’ll be able to finish up soon
.”

“We can’t be finished until we’ve found the murderer.”

“Of course,” the young monk said with an apologetic nod.
“Is that why you’re back here today, Detective?
Are you hoping the murderer will return to the scene of the crime, just like in the novels?”

“My guess is the murderer never left.”

The dark eyes flashed in mild surprise. “You think it’s one of us, then?”

“Not necessarily.
But it was someone here that night and most likely they were here the next day as well.”

“I see.”

Father Francis had a swarthy complexion
and
strong hands with thick fingers and calluses.
The fingernails showed dirt in the crevices, a result of working outside for long periods of time.
Giorgio thought about the difficult life the monks led as he watched the young man lean over to pull
a twig from the pile of leaves.

“I was never very good at puzzles,” he continued amiably.
“I admire your ability to sort all this out.
Even in Jesuit school I had trouble with, what did they call it, cognitive thinking.”
He used the rake to shape the loose pile into a neat dome as he spoke.
“I’m better at supplication I suppose
.”

“You enjoy being a monk, then?”

He turned to look at Giorgio, his whole face aglow.
“I do.
It’s given me a purpose, a reason to get up each day, to serve God.”

“Where did you grow up?” Giorgio asked, feeling the need to change the subject.

“San Francisco.
I
love it there.
There’s nothing quite as beautiful as the
San Francisco
Bay
on a clear day.
Then, there’s the culture and of course, the diversity.
You can be whoever you want to be there, no questions asked.”

Giorgio wasn’t sure what he meant and remained silent.
Father Francis
must have

mis
interpreted his silence
because he
was quick to
clarif
y his comment
.

“I know what you’re probably thinking,” he said, his face flushing slightly.
“People think all priests must be gay
,
or
that
we hate women.
That’s not me.
That’s not even true.”

The misunderstanding had opened a floodgate and Father Francis was now a bundle of

nervous energy
.

“I like women a lot and I’ve dated more than my share,” he said, trying to
strike a masculine pose.

Inside, Giorgio chuckled, thinking he’d either just exposed a latent homosexual or a kid with an ego problem.

“Did your parents encourage you to go into the church?” he asked, thinking of his mother and trying to change the subject again.

The young man’s face grew dark and he leaned on the rake again, all bravado gone.
“Both my parents are gone
.”

Grosvner sauntered up, sniffing the ground as he came and stepping on his ears every few feet.
Father Frances
finally acknowledged
the dog.

“
I see you have a friend today.”

He leaned over and invited Grosvner to approach
.
Grosvner responded with his head lowered almost to the groun
d
.
Frances knelt down and drew his hand across the dog’s broad head in a friendly gesture, alleviating Grosvner’s shyness.

“A friend of mine in college had a Basset.
She had to leave him on her small patio when she went to classes
. T
hat dog howled from the moment she left until the moment she got home.
She was kicked out of two different apartments and finally had to get rid of him.”
He chuckled.
“She swore that dog was smarter than most people though.”