In Plain Sight

“You find something?” the lieutenant asked.

“Father Harry’s key,” he said, holding the old-fashioned iron skeleton key up so that Callahan could see it.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I know what happened here, at the end anyway,” Alex said, standing. “Now let’s see if Doctor Bell can tell us how it began.”

6 The Client

“It’s a disease of some kind,” Iggy said once Alex and Lieutenant Callahan caught up with him. “It looks like smallpox but it’s not. Some of these people look sicker than the others — they have more spots and they’re larger, but I can’t tell you why.”

“What can you tell us?” Callahan said. “At this point I’d take anything.”

“It’s not magical,” Alex said. “And it’s not a poison. I checked the soup, the bread, and the water in all the pitchers.”

“How is that possible?” Callahan said. “That means these people all came here, contracted some disease no one’s ever heard of, and died in a matter of hours?”

Iggy nodded gravely.

“It’s time we brought in some professionals,” he said to Callahan. “Call over to the University, and wake up whoever you have to. Find out who is running their viral pathology program and get them over here as soon as possible.”

“Viral—?” Callahan started, then stopped. “What’s that now?”

“It’s the study of diseases. Now hurry.”

Iggy watched Callahan turn and head off toward a telephone, then turned to Alex.

“Anything else?”

“Father Harry must have realized what was happening.” Alex held up the key. “He locked everyone in here, then slid the key under the door.”

“He probably stopped whatever this is from killing a lot more people,” Iggy said. “I wish I had more data. Who was the first person to be sick? How long did it take for symptoms to show?”

“It took less than an hour for symptoms,” Alex said. “Sister Gwen said she didn’t wake up till two in the morning because no one rang the bells for the service. The bell rope is in the choir loft, and you can only get there from a stair behind the kitchen. That means the door was locked before nine o’clock.”

Iggy began stroking his mustache, something he did when thinking.

“We’ve got to find out how this plague came to be here,” he said. “Is there anyone new to the mission?”

Alex shook his head. “Father Harry said that the Brothers and Sisters were new, except Sister Gwen. But it looked like they’d been here a while at least.”

“What about the vagrants?”

“No way to tell,” Alex said. “Most are probably regulars but there’s bound to be a few new faces.”

Alex swept his gaze over the hall. Nothing about the staff stood out and the patrons were all the same with their shabby clothes, unkempt appearance, and worn out shoes.

All except one.

“Hey,” Alex said, pointing at a man under a blanket. He had been laid on an out-of-the-way table toward the rear of the hall. When whoever covered him pulled the blanket over his head, they exposed his shoes. His shiny, new-heeled shoes.

“Those aren’t the shoes of a vagrant,” Iggy said, seeing what Alex meant immediately. Alex nodded.

“That’s a man who doesn’t belong.”

When they reached the table, Iggy pulled the blanket off without hesitation or ceremony. The man beneath it was in his thirties with slicked back hair, a pencil mustache, and a Roman nose. He was dressed in a pair of well-made trousers with a white button-up shirt sans necktie, and his collar was undone.

“Maybe he has an identity card,” Alex said, checking the man’s pockets. He found them all empty. “No smokes, no coins, no keys,” he reported.

“I’m more interested in his condition,” Iggy said. “These boils on his skin are bigger than anyone else’s, and there are more of them. I think this man was the first person to be sick. He certainly has the worst case.”

“So who is he and what was he doing here?” Alex asked.

Iggy shrugged, his hand wandering to his mustache again.

“What does the body tell us?”

Alex felt like he was back in detective school again with professor Bell giving lessons. He ran a practiced eye over the corpse, noting every detail and trying to fit them together into a picture.

“He’s well-to-do,” Alex began. “His clothes are well made, tailored.”

“So he’s wealthy?” Iggy prodded.

“No. He’s got money, but he’s not rich. His shoes have been resoled at least twice and those are new heels.”

“Maybe he’s thrifty.”

Again Alex shook his head. “Wing tips are all the rage with the upper crust these days,” he said. “If he traveled in moneyed circles, he’d have a pair.”

“What else?”

Alex picked up the man’s arm, bending it at the elbow.

“Look at his hands.” He indicated a row of calluses along the pads where the fingers joined the hand. “Whatever he does for a living is hard on his hands. I’d say he’s some kind of skilled tradesman, a sculptor, or maybe a carpenter.”

“Not enough cuts on his hands for a carpenter,” Iggy said. “When you work with wood you get splinters. I think you’re right about him being well off, though. Whatever he does — did — it provided him a good living.”

“That means he doesn’t live around here,” Alex said. “So what was he doing here?”