Part 25 (2/2)
The loggia was long and narrow and smelled of incense and history. Its plaster walls were painted a soft, translucent gold that glowed in the late-afternoon suns.h.i.+ne, and faded Oriental carpets covered a terra-cotta floor. A primitive fresco of St. Francis of a.s.sisi smiling down on a group of birds and animals in the middle of a forest filled an alcove at the far end of the room. The other long wall was a series of sliding gla.s.s doors that looked out on a high-walled Zen-like garden of flowering trees, azaleas, and rhododendron surrounding a man-made pond with a rock waterfall.
Father Xavier led us to a group of comfortable chairs pulled around a stone coffee table. ”What can I get you to drink? We've got everything.”
The bar was a closet in an adjacent room with well-stocked shelves, a small sink, and a mini-refrigerator. The two priests had Scotches; I had a gla.s.s of Chardonnay. As we sat down, the music of a Gregorian chant, a woman's haunting voice accompanied by a piano and violins mingled with a men's choir, filtered into the room from somewhere in another part of the friary. Kyrie eleison.
Lord, have mercy.
Jack stretched out his legs in front of him and crossed his ankles. ”I think I'd spend my holy hour in this room every day if I lived here.”
Xavier smiled. ”It's a good place to meditate and pray.”
We drank for a moment in silence, listening to the ancient music as the sunlight faded outside. Finally Xavier stirred and said, ”So, my dear, Jack said you have something you wish to discuss concerning a book that might have belonged to Kevin.”
He listened without interrupting. Jack sat with his drink clasped in both hands in his lap and also kept silent. I finished by telling Xavier about Bram's phone call to report that someone had impersonated a courier sent by me and the book was now gone.
”Bram Asquith seems quite sure they'll get it back,” I said. ”The police are involved.”
”I see.”
”I don't believe Kevin's death was an accident, Father. I think it had something to do with that book. Otherwise, why would someone ransack his study room at the Library of Congress and break into my apartment to steal the doc.u.ments from Asquith's? I also believe that Alastair Innes's death wasn't an accident, either, and that it's related to what happened to Kevin.”
”Also because of this book?”
”Yes. And possibly some missing seeds.” I explained what Ryan Velis had told me at Monticello and the book's connection to the seeds that had vanished from the White House.
”Francis tells us that when we leave this earth, we can take nothing with us that we have received, only what we have given. That book, as valuable as it is in monetary terms, is not worth the lives of two good people,” he said. ”Nothing is as precious as human life. I will wait to hear from Mr. Asquith and Mr. Jaine, and then we will see what happens.”
The sunlight had s.h.i.+fted so it backlit Xavier, his white hair s.h.i.+mmering like a heavenly apparition in this beautiful room. With perfect timing the music changed and a man's voice chanted the beginning of the Gradual and Alleluia.
Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
Who was Kevin's enemy? Edward Jaine? A colleague? Someone he'd believed was a friend?
As if he read my mind, Xavier said, ”The police have concluded Kevin's death was an accident based on the medical examiner's report. Perhaps I need to make a phone call in light of what you've just told me.”
I nodded. ”May I ask a favor, Father?”
”You may.”
”I would like to take a look at Kevin's papers from his study room in the Adams Building at the Library of Congress.”
”They're here,” Xavier said. ”One of our seminarians collected them a couple of days ago. They're in a box in one of the unoccupied bedrooms upstairs. What is it you're looking for?”
”I believe Kevin had either figured out what happened to the seeds that went missing from the White House, or he was on the verge of figuring it out. Maybe there's something in his notes that might make more sense to me after everything that's happened.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key on a Miraculous Medal key ring, which he held out to me. ”The third room on the left. This key will unlock the door. I only ask that you not remove anything, but you may look through what's there. Would fifteen minutes be enough time?”
I didn't want to push my luck. ”It would be fine.”
”There's something I'd like to discuss privately with Jack, so I'll leave you to it.” He glanced at his watch. ”We'll stop by for you at quarter to six, all right?”
I stood up. ”Thank you. See you in fifteen minutes.”
The empty bedroom was small and spartan. Other than a few pieces of furniture, only a wooden cross over the bed and a framed print of St. Francis, a flat two-dimensional portrait that reminded me of a Russian icon, made the room seem less sterile. Kevin's box of books and papers sat on the desk.
I removed the contents and set everything on a small dresser. Whatever I was looking for probably was among the papers rather than in a book. When I was done separating the books from the doc.u.ments, I had a stack of papers about six inches high. Kevin was methodical, a scientist and a researcher, so in theory everything should have been organized by subject. But the doc.u.ments had been scattered by whoever broke into his study room, and the person who packed them up-I figured it was the seminarian who'd been sent to the library-threw everything in the box like he'd been told the place was on fire.
Kevin's notes were slotted between photocopied doc.u.ments, so I pulled them out first. At least they were dated. It looked like he'd been spending the final days before he died researching Francis Pembroke, the Leesburg doctor who was Meriwether Lewis's cousin and the recipient of the letter from John Fairbairn. One of the last dated pages I found was Kevin's hand-drawn reconstruction of the Pembroke family tree, which took up an entire sheet of legal paper and included relatives who apparently were still alive. I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo. There was a red circle around one of the names, Francis P. Quincy, presumably Francis Pembroke Quincy, who was the original Pembroke's grandson and had pa.s.sed away in 1925. In the margin of the page Kevin had used the same red marker to write the initials FPQ and connect them with an arrow to another name: Charles Moore-McMillan. Three exclamation marks.
I had three minutes left. Charles Moore-McMillan. The name rang a bell. I flipped through more doc.u.ments, and then I found something. A photocopy of a twenty-year-old newspaper clipping from the Loudoun Times-Mirror. The great-granddaughter of Francis Pembroke had donated his effects, including his medical bag and equipment, his books, his papers, and his diaries, to the Loudoun Museum in Leesburg.
Had the seeds ended up in Leesburg along with the Declaration of Independence and the Const.i.tution? Maybe they had come into Francis Pembroke's possession. As Zara Remington had said, by that time Thomas Jefferson was wrapped up in plans for Monticello and designing the University of Virginia, but Pembroke, an herbalist who also was an amateur botanic artist, would have cared about them.
Through the door I could hear Jack and Xavier talking on their way up the stairs. I finished taking pictures and placed everything back in the box, though the top doc.u.ment caught my eye as I was about to close it up again. The Report of the Senate Park Commission. The Improvement of the Park System of the District of Columbia. The formal name of the McMillan Commission, which had been instrumental in reviving Pierre L'Enfant's plan for Was.h.i.+ngton and turning the National Mall into what it was today. I had just read about it in ”No Little Plans” in London the day before yesterday. And what I remembered was that Senator McMillan's first name wasn't Charles; it was James. Kevin wasn't referring to a person with a hyphenated surname; Charles Moore had been Senator James McMillan's aide, as well as the secretary to the commission. For some reason Kevin had linked Charles Moore, Senator McMillan, and Francis Pembroke's grandson together and thought it was important enough to warrant three exclamation marks.
The door opened and the two men walked in. I slammed the cover on the box, spun around, and said to Xavier, ”All done. Thank you for letting me look through those papers.”
”Did you find anything?” he asked, his eyes flicking from me to the box.
”I'm not really sure. I'm still trying to connect the dots.”
”Well, if you do connect them, I'd appreciate it if you would pa.s.s along what you learn.” He gave me a polite smile, but his eyes were bright with interest.
Jack and I said our goodbyes, and on the drive back to Gloria House he grilled me about what I'd found in Kevin's box of doc.u.ments.
”You want to explain that little tap dance back at the monastery? 'I'm still trying to connect the dots.' What was that all about?”
”What do you mean?”
”I know when you're lying. Your nose starts to grow.”
”Very funny.”
”So what did you find that you didn't want to share with Xavier?”
”It wasn't that I didn't want to share it with Xavier.”
”Lying to a priest could earn you a time-out in that big waiting room in the sky someday. Double points when it's two priests.”
I burst out laughing. ”Okay. I might have an idea where the seeds are. Or at least I might have figured out where Kevin thought they could be.”
Jack gave me a sideways glance. ”You're kidding me. Where?”
<script>