Back Bay (62 page)

“Be glad it wasn’t a rat,” said Fallon.

“I’ve had it. I don’t know why on earth we couldn’t spend the night in a hotel instead of in this hole.”

“We’re running scared,” Fallon explained, as though he were reciting the rules of a game. “Ferguson’s been doing it for a few years, so I guess he ought to know how.”

“Speaking of whom, where is he?”

“He took some money and went out. He probably needs a drink. I could use one myself.”

A rat scurried into the room. It stopped and studied them dispassionately for a moment, then disappeared into a hole in the wall.

“This is it, Peter,” she said firmly. “I’ve run scared for the last night. I don’t care whether we find the tea set or not. Tonight I sleep in my own bed.” She sat down crosslegged on the rumpled sleeping bag and picked nervously at the lint on her socks.

“You care, Evangeline.” He laid his hand on her knee. “You care as much as I do.”

“Ferguson told me my father’s story, what there is of it. And the reasons for my brother’s death are still speculation. We may never know what happened to him. I just want it all to end.” She put her hand on his. “I’d like to get to know you under normal circumstances.”

“Until we dig up that tea set, nothing in our lives can be normal.”

She picked at her socks and stared at the floor. She knew that she would stay. She was too close to turn back. “How do we figure out the missing clue?”

“We start by rereading the ones we have.”

“Could we determine the area on Boylston Street that intersects with the old Easterly Channel bed?”

“I suppose, but what if it’s a business block? What if the channel intersects at a diagonal? You could have six or seven buildings on Boylston above the channel.” Fallon shook his head in frustration. “If the Pratts have all these clues, and they don’t have the tea set yet, that last clue is absolutely vital.”

“Morning, kids.” Ferguson stepped over the tin cans. He felt better after a walk. “I bought us doughnuts and coffee and the Sunday
Globe
.” He flung the paper to Fallon. “Your apartment hallway made the front page.”

Fallon flipped back the comics and glanced at the story. Then he looked at the picture. It was a mug shot of a man with a gaunt, skeletal face, pockmarks, and a receding hairline.

“Jesus Christ,” said Fallon softly. “This is the guy. I knew I recognized him yesterday.”

“What guy?” asked Ferguson.

“The guy who shot Kenny Gallagher.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. Could you forget that face?”

Ferguson looked at the picture. “He was an ugly fucker, wasn’t he?”

“Why the hell did he kill Kenny Gallagher?”

“Maybe it was another job,” said Ferguson. “Didn’t they say Gallagher was knocked off for bookin’ horses and ballgames?”

Fallon studied the article. He learned that the police wanted to question him, since the murder had taken place in his apartment. However, it reported, Tom Fallon had told the police that Peter had been out of town for several days. Nice work, thought Peter.

“This has to tie in, Jack. It has to.”

“I think you should talk to your mother,” said Evangeline. “She seemed to know a lot about this Kenny Gallagher. She told me
about him the other night. I was looking at a crucifix on the wall in the bedroom. She told me it was Kenny’s proudest possession. He had a pair of them. He gave one to her when your brother was sick, and he gave the other to an old priest.”

“That’s it!” Fallon jumped out of the sleeping bag. “The priest. It’s been there all along and I never saw it. The old priest who said the Rosary at Kenny Gallagher’s wake. He gave me a ride from the funeral home to Broadway Station.”

He had reached the center of the web. He was certain. Two hundred years of striving led, ultimately, through a South Boston bartender to a lonely old parish priest. The astonishment filled him.

“Somehow or other the priest managed to tell me his life story while he drove. He was in love with Kenny’s mother, but he never married her.”

“You’re losing me,” said Evangeline.

“The priest said how much he loved Kenny’s mother. He called her his ‘poor, dear Mary Mannion.’ ”

Evangeline still didn’t get it. Neither did Ferguson.

“Mannion!” screamed Fallon loudly enough to knock plaster off the walls. “Abigail Pratt Bentley’s servant—the one she writes about in the diary—his name was Sean Mannion!”

Fallon, Evangeline, and Ferguson arrived at St. Basil’s Church just before ten o’clock. The parking lot was jammed for the nine-thirty Mass.

St. Basil’s was a purely functional building. No prim, austere New England steeple. No soaring Gothic extravagance. Like the summer cottages in its parish, it was a one-story clapboard shell; long and low, painted white with black trim, topped by a small cupola that housed the bell.

Fallon opened the rear door and peered into the church. Father Gerry Hale, looking tiny and frail before a large summer Sunday congregation, was saying Mass. It was the season of Pentecost, and he was wearing green vestments. The sun poured in the east windows, illuminating the dark knots in the pine paneling and the rough beams that supported the structure.

Fallon turned to the others. “The Mass will be over in a while. Let’s wait for him in the sacristy.”

They walked to the sacristy door at the rear of the building. The temperature was already nearing ninety degrees, and the sun reflected off the side of the white church with a vengeance. Evangeline noticed that the geraniums and pansies along the path were wilting in the heat.

Fallon opened the sacristy door and stopped. The small eyes were staring at him from behind wire-rimmed glasses. A pistol appeared in the hand.

James Buckley’s notes on the Gallagher funeral had included a reference to Father Gerry Hale, an old family friend of the Gallaghers. The Pratts had decided to visit him fifteen minutes before Fallon saw the newspaper.

Fallon slammed the door and pushed Evangeline and Ferguson away. “Into the church.”

Evangeline and Ferguson didn’t ask questions. They ducked into a side door with Fallon right behind them. There were angry glances and disapproving stares for the latecomers. The consecration was over, and the congregation was saying the Lord’s Prayer. Fallon shoved the other two into a pew.

“What’s wrong?” whispered Evangeline.

The woman sitting in front of her glared at Evangeline.

Fallon flashed an apologetic smile, and the woman turned around. “Pratt, Soames, and Buckley are in the sacristy.”

“How the hell did they figure this out?” whispered Ferguson.

“I don’t know, but Soames pulled a gun on me.”

“My uncle wouldn’t kill an old priest,” said Evangeline.

“Maybe not, but that little bastard with the glasses would,” said Ferguson.

The woman in front of them looked around again, as did several others.

Fallon picked up a prayer book and pretended to read it. Evangeline gazed up at the altar. She noticed a silver crucifix mounted on the tabernacle. She elbowed Fallon. He was watching the priest open the tabernacle behind the altar and remove the ciborium, which contained the communion wafers.

“We’ve got to get to him before they do,” he said.

From the sacristy, Pratt and Soames were studying the altar. Their attention was focused on the priest’s chalice, a beautifully engraved work of silver.

“We’ve got to get to him first,” said Pratt.

Soames looked around the sacristy. His eyes settled on a closet. He opened it. “We will.”

Father Hale stepped to the altar rail, and the communicants began to form a line in the center aisle. He held a host in front of the first communicant. “Body of Christ.”

“Amen,” came the reply. An old woman received Communion, stepped aside, and a child stepped up to the rail.

Father Hale once calculated that, in fifty years of priest-hood, he had given the Holy Eucharist almost 400,000 times. He sometimes had difficulty concentrating on the mystical nature of his duty. “Body of Christ.”

“Amen.”

I wonder if Mrs. Donovan is cooking muffins for breakfast. “Body of Christ.”

“Amen.”

Why must they stick their tongues out so far? All I need is the tip. “Body of Christ.”

“Amen.”

I wonder who’s pitching for the Sox today. “Body of Christ.”

“Amen.”

What bridgework. “Body of Christ.”

“Amen.”

This young man looks familiar. “Body of Christ.”

“Your life may be in danger. Don’t go into the sacristy after the Mass.”

The priest almost dropped the ciborium. His pupils closed down and his eyes fixed on Fallon.

“I was a friend of Kenny Gallagher’s,” whispered Fallon. “We met at the wake. There are people in the sacristy who may be dangerous.”

Father Hale’s eyes shifted toward the sacristy door, then back to Fallon.

“Leave by the center aisle. I’ll be outside to give you protection.”

Fallon didn’t open his mouth. He didn’t feel quite stainless enough to receive Communion. He turned and went back to his seat.

As the last communicants reached Father Hale, another priest walked onto the altar behind him. Fallon found it strange that a priest would arrive to help dispense the Sacrament when Communion was almost over. Then, he recognized Bennett Soames in cassock, surplice, and stole. Soames knelt and studied the priest’s chalice, which was sitting on the altar.

“It’s on the chalice,” hissed Fallon. “The last set of lines is on the chalice.”

“They must have seen the engraving from the sacristy,” said Ferguson.

“I think we’ve lost,” whispered Evangeline.

Soames read the line on the chalice and he returned to the sacristy. Father Hale had not even noticed him. He pulled off the vestments he had found in the closet. “I think we have what we want.”

“Let’s go, then,” said Pratt.

Soames hesitated. He did not want to leave. He wanted to end Fallon’s interference for good. To do that, he would have to eliminate the girl as well. Pratt would not approve, but Soames no longer cared about Pratt’s approval. He stepped to the sacristy door and looked into the church. The Mass was almost over. The priest was cleansing the chalice of any remaining droplets of wine and shooting nervous glances toward Soames.

Fallon, Evangeline, and Ferguson were sitting about halfway down the left side of the crowded church.

“They’re going to present a problem later,” said Soames.

“We’ll deal with it when it happens,” said Pratt impatiently. “I don’t intend to stay around here.”

“Do you see their car in the parking lot, Mr. Buckley?”

“I don’t know what they’re driving.”

“Gentlemen,” said Pratt, “I am leaving, and I have the keys.”

“Don’t be too hasty, Mr. Pratt.” Soames peered out at Fallon. “I think we should face our problems when they present themselves.”

The priest looked again toward the sacristy. He was polishing the Communion plate. His hands stopped in mid-motion, he pulled out of his old man’s slouch, and he bellowed with a voice
that rumbled from deep inside him. “Leave my church! Get you out of the House of the Lord!”

Pratt headed for his car. Soames decided to deal with Fallon later.

“I haven’t yelled like that in years,” said Father Hale in the living room of his rectory after Mass. He was still shaking. “It’s good to know that you still have the voice of the prophets when you need it.”

“You were wonderful,” said Evangeline.

The old man beamed.

“May we look at the chalice, Father?” asked Ferguson.

The priest removed the chalice veil and burse. Christ knelt in the garden, carried the Cross, and was crucified in Samuel Blossom’s engravings.

“It’s beautiful.” Evangeline reached out to touch it.

Ferguson grabbed her wrist gently. “Only the priest can touch the chalice. It’s consecrated.”

“Indeed,” said Father Hale. “Consecrated over fifty years ago. Given to me by my poor dear Mary Mannion. It was her ordination gift to me, a family heirloom that she wanted me to have. She had tears in her eyes when she gave it to me. I never knew if she was happy for my happiness, or crying because she knew we could never be together.” He paused, then added wistfully, “She was so beautiful.”

“Could you read the inscription?” asked Fallon gently.

Father Hale picked up the chalice. “It’s from Milton.
Paraside Lost
. ‘Some natural tears they dropp’d, but wip’d them soon.’ ”

Fallon repeated the line. It offered them nothing.

“It’s not often that you find a chalice, especially one from pre-Vatican II days, engraved with an English phrase from a Puritan poet,” said Father Hale. “It’s not often you find a chalice with any sort of engraving on it. Usually, chalices are raised when young priests take their vows. I needed special dispensation from Cardinal O’Connell himself before I could use this. However, Mary’s grandfather, who had given her the chalice, was an important Boston bricklayer, very influential with the church. He said that he wanted to see his family treasure used in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and so it was done. His name was Joseph Mannion.”

“He would have been Sean’s son,” said Fallon.

“Did he ever say where he got the chalice?” asked Ferguson.

The old priest took a moment to dig back into his memory. “From some Back Bay dowager who had employed his father. It was her token of appreciation for a lifetime of service.”

They were certain that this was the final clue.

“What is the context of this line, Father?” asked Evangeline.

“It comes at the very end of
Paraside Lost
. Adam and Eve are being cast from the Garden of Eden because they have sinned. They cry for what they have lost, a perfect world, a world of everlasting happiness. Before sending them out of the Garden, the Archangel Michael has told them of the things that will befall their descendants. They cry for that, too. But he has also given them God’s promise—that one of their descendants will be God’s Son, and He will bring Redemption. That knowledge, and that alone, gives them the fortitude to go forth.”

He lifted the chalice with reverence, awe. As he spoke, he seemed to be reminding himself of the things he had believed for so long. “The contents of the saving cup is the fulfillment of the promise, the Blood of Christ. It gives hope to all men. It offers all men a chance to renew their lives, to wipe away the tears and go on with living.”