Murder at the National Cathedral (7 page)

Annabel’s earlier gasp was now a chorus echoed by many in attendance. Suddenly, it was clear why so many law-enforcement officers and press were milling about in the outer aisles. Most mourners had assumed they represented normal security precautions and press coverage of the Vickery funeral. Now they knew better.

St. James continued, “Unfortunately, we live in violent times. Not only has our dear colleague and friend Paul Singletary been brutally murdered, but it has happened right here in this House of the Lord, in the tiny Good Shepherd Chapel that is open day and night for the bereaved and troubled to seek solace through silent prayer. The shock, which you share, is considerable. Yet, in the cycle of life, we must continue. The life of our departed friend Adam Vickery must be celebrated here today, and his transport to a gentler place, carried there in the hands of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, must not be delayed. I ask all of you to do your best to concentrate on this solemn and necessary ritual. I can tell you nothing else about the death of Father Singletary. That is in the hands of the proper authorities.” He swallowed, blinked his eyes, and said, “Let us pray.”

The mood of most people following Vickery’s funeral was more soberness at the news of Singletary’s murder than grief for the former official whose obsequies they’d just attended. A hearse and a dozen long black limousines were lined up
outside the south entrance. Smith and Annabel went up to Vickery’s widow, Doris, and extended their condolences. If Mac had never particularly liked Vickery, Doris at least had a fairly pleasing and open personality.

Vickery had once approached Smith about taking a job in the Justice Department as an assistant attorney general for civil rights. Smith had turned him down. Vickery—the Justice Department itself, for that matter—had come under considerable pressure from civil-rights groups to modify his views and policies. Gains in civil rights for minority Americans, which had been hard-won over the years, stood in jeopardy during Vickery’s time in office. Smith knew that his appeal to Vickery lay in his record and reputation as an attorney concerned with defending the rights of minorities, which would have given Vickery and the administration something—someone—to crow about. Smith was not about to give them that. Besides, Mac Smith had always been impatient with bureaucracies.

It was Doris Vickery who’d managed to bring Mac closer to the family. It happened in the midst of her husband’s troubles over his alleged influence peddling. Doris had called Smith at home. She sounded distraught, which Smith assumed was the result of the pressure on her husband. He reluctantly agreed to meet with them. When he did, he was told it was their daughter, Pamela, who was the focus of their concern.

Pamela Vickery was a beautiful, bright, and rebellious young woman who’d begun running with “the wrong crowd,” according to her father. She was with her friends in California when the house in which they lived was raided by local drug-enforcement agents. Adam and Doris Vickery swore to Smith that Pamela did not use drugs, and was a victim of circumstance, in the wrong place at the wrong time. It had been a minor-league drug bust—some marijuana, Quaaludes, small amounts of both—hardly destined
to pique vast media interest. But it did, of course, given that Pamela was the daughter of the nation’s attorney general.

Adam Vickery’s initial reaction was to let her take the rap: “Maybe it’s what she needs to straighten herself out,” he told his wife. But Doris Vickery was not about to see her daughter, troublesome as she might be, have a serious mark against her in her young life for something Doris was convinced Pamela had had little to do with. That’s why she called Smith, to ask him to intercede with the right people in California legal circles and try to extricate Pamela from the ramifications of the incident. Adam Vickery could have done so with ease, but his intercession would not have been viewed as an appropriate action by America’s number-one attorney.

Smith promised merely that he would look into the situation. He did, became convinced that Pamela’s parents had accurately characterized the level of their daughter’s involvement, and worked through a California lawyer to see that charges were minimal against the young woman. Smith had one conversation with Pamela Vickery, after she was put on probation. He suggested to her that she return home and pursue her education. She told him three thousand miles weren’t nearly far enough away from her father. No thanks, she’d stay in California.

Now, outside the cathedral, Doris Vickery squeezed Smith’s hand. “Thank you for coming, Mac. How horrible about Father Singletary.” She turned to Annabel and managed a tiny smile. “Congratulations on your marriage.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Vickery,” Annabel said. “I’m so sorry about your husband.”

Doris Vickery sighed. “Yes, thank you. How ironic that Adam’s funeral should occur on the same morning that a priest is slain in the cathedral. It’s probably just as well that Adam wasn’t here to experience it. He loved this place, Mac, put his heart and soul into it after leaving government service.
It gave him … a new lease on life, a fresh start. We needed that.”

“Yes, I know, Doris,” Smith said. She was right; Adam Vickery, despite his previous personal shortcomings, had done a remarkably good job for the cathedral and its building fund. That’s why Mac Smith had said to Annabel, “Cloud over his head or not, we go to the funeral. Washington is like the Mafia. I shoot you dead, but I turn up at the church.” To Doris, he said, “He’ll be missed.”

They were joined by Jonathon Merle, whose conduct at the service had been in his usual colorless, matter-of-fact style. Doris Vickery said to him, “Thank you, Father Merle, for your kindness. It must have been very difficult for you, knowing what happened to Father Singletary.”

“Yes, very upsetting. I suppose it’s only just begun, the scandal, the publicity, the nasty reports.”

“It may not be as bad as you think,” Smith said. “We can hope that they’ll find who did this and put it quickly to rest.”

Merle grimaced. “I’ve been saying for years that Good Shepherd shouldn’t be open night and day. We have the dregs of society coming in here at all hours—addicts, alcoholics, criminals. This is the result I feared.”

They were joined by the talented choirmaster, Wilfred Nickelson, whose boys’ choir had performed ably during the funeral service. “Excuse me,” Nickelson said to the others. He asked Merle, “Have you seen Joey Kelsch?”

“No.”

“He didn’t show up this morning. I was worried.” Then to Mac, Annabel, and Doris Vickery he said, “Our best young singer, flighty but extremely talented. Not like him to simply not be here.” He turned again to Merle. “Well, I thought I would ask. I’ll call his parents. Perhaps he took ill and went home without informing anyone. A breach of the rules, but Joey is a difficult boy.” Nickelson went off to the phone.

The Smiths stood on the steps of the south entrance and watched Doris Vickery join other members of the family at the limousine.

“Free for lunch?” Annabel asked.

“Lunch? At a time like this?”

“It’s not the food, Mac. I want some time to sit down with you so you can tell me what’s gone on here this morning.”

“Of course I will, but let me find out a little more before we do that. Why don’t you go home. I’m going back in to talk with the bishop and Terry Finnerty. I’ll meet you there in an hour or so.” She was disappointed at being excluded, but he said that he felt it better, at least at the moment, to pursue this alone.

“I’ll stop by the gallery,” she said. He kissed her lightly on the lips.

“Mac,” she added, “don’t get roped in.”

He knew she was referring to his involvement with the case of the Kennedy Center murder the past year. He’d pledged to her—more to himself—that despite his excitement and commitment when getting involved, he would remain forever esconced happily in academia as professor of law at George Washington University.

“Mac.”
She didn’t need to say more.

“I know, I know, but I do owe the bishop a little more of my time, considering that he brought me into this thing this morning—and that the man who was murdered married us. Go home. I’ll join you soon.”

Her look said it all.

It was always easy getting into something, a lot harder getting out.

Of anything, including debt, affairs, marriage, murder … 
especially
murder.

That Afternoon—Mostly Overcast Now

Smith never did make it home for lunch with Annabel, and she would not be pleased. He called twice from the cathedral to say he was still involved in sessions with the bishop but would return as quickly as possible. She responded to his first call with understanding and kindness. His second call was met with the start of the Irish iciness of which Annabel was capable, although she seldom displayed it, making its infrequent use that much colder.

Eventually—it was sometime after three—he walked into their Foggy Bottom home. “Sorry,” he said cheerfully. “I didn’t expect to be there so long.”

“Evidently,” she said.

“Don’t be angry, Annabel. I couldn’t simply walk away from George and this situation he’s in. He’s very distraught, as you can imagine. He needed a sympathetic ear.”

Annabel looked at him for a moment, then said, “And what do you need?” before walking into the kitchen. Smith
followed, came up from behind, placed his hands on her shoulders, and said gently, “I don’t understand your anger, Annabel. Most of all, I don’t understand your not understanding.” He almost added that his immediate concern was that the cynical adage about good relationships being ruined by marriage might be about to take place in his own life. Now that he was a
husband
, did that change the rules? Was he now involved in greater accountability to Annabel than had been the case when they were simply going together? They had never lived together because, for both of them, that would have represented a tactical mistake if nothing else. Did she have to approve his every act?

He didn’t have to ask. She turned and said in a steady, well-modulated voice, “Mac, has marriage changed us already?”

Her taking the words out of his mouth left him without words. For a moment. “Of course not,” he said. “Why would you think such a thing?”

“Because you’re acting different. Before … before we became man and wife, you involved me completely in everything you did. When you got suckered into the mess at the Kennedy Center, you wanted me at your side. You even dispatched me to New York to talk to that slimy lawyer, and I was with you every step of the way. Now a friend of ours is murdered; another friend—who also happens to be bishop of the National Cathedral—asks for help, and you send me home to make a tuna-fish sandwich for my man when he returns from the wars!”

He coughed, stepped back, and frowned the way he usually did when a student in his advanced criminal-procedure class asked a question he was not prepared to answer. “You know, Annabel,” he said, “one of the things that attracted me to you was your independence. After all, you are the owner of a flourishing gallery. Murder … law is really my domain.” It was a mistake, and he knew it the minute he said it. Annabel Reed had been a successful matrimonial
attorney in Washington before chucking it for her primary passion in life—aside from Mac Smith, of course—her gallery of pre-Columbian art in fashionable Georgetown.

She said nothing, but a hint of a smile indicated what she thought of his comment.

“Yes, I know,” he said, “you are an attorney. But you didn’t deal with criminal matters. George is seeking my counsel because the ramifications of Paul Singletary’s murder are substantial. George is primarily concerned that someone from the cathedral staff might have killed him, not a drifter or drug addict, as most people are speculating. I understand his concern, and want to be helpful. I’d think you would expect that of me. Both of us have been involved, at least to some extent, with the cathedral.”

She sighed. “Of course I want you to help. I just don’t want you to get in too deep. I just … I just don’t want …”

He stepped close to her again and placed his strong hands on her shoulders. “You just don’t want
what?
”

A mist formed in her large green eyes. “I just don’t want to be treated like a disposable wife, or see you throw away your own new life.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “But you
are
my wife. As for my new life: in no way disposable. How would you prefer I treat you?”

“I meant the law school, and I mean the way you used to treat me, like an object of your affection, your mistress, your concubine, your
fille de joie.
”

He listened patiently. “You didn’t mention ‘partner,’ ” he said.

“I don’t want to be your partner, not exactly.”

“But you said you wanted to be involved in Paul’s case. That makes you a partner.”

“A limited partner.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that I don’t want to spend my day dealing with murder, but I would like to spend
part
of my day being at
your side, being useful. Besides, I make lousy tuna-fish sandwiches, and you know it.”

“Done!” He cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. “To be honest with you, Annabel, it’s easy for me to give in. Now that I’ve spent time with George and others at the cathedral, I really don’t see much need for me. Okay, I am once again a college professor, and you are my obscenely beautiful, talented, brilliant, and successful wi—uh, wanton harlot.” He was tempted to turn her toward the bedroom, but there was something unseemly about that idea for the moment. Would he have hesitated before they were married to dismiss the nasty brutish business of murder and then act upon his carnal, lover’s instincts?
Had
marriage changed them?

Hell, no, he decided, wishing he were more convinced.

For the rest of the afternoon he graded papers, while Annabel went back to her gallery to pay some bills. She returned at six, and they settled in front of the TV to watch the evening news.

Singletary’s murder was the lead story. The police issued a terse statement—the priest had been murdered by an unknown assailant, the method of death a blow to the head. His body had been found in a chapel of the National Cathedral. There were no leads at the moment. The body had been discovered by a woman, identity unknown, whereabouts unknown. The tag line on the newscast: “Former top D.C. attorney Mackensie Smith, now a professor at George Washington University, has been retained by the cathedral in this matter. Stay tuned.”