Innocence

The chanting did not cease, and like some medieval body snatcher returning with remorse what he had taken earlier, I carried my dead father down the stairs to the crypt deep under the church, which would provide covert passage off Cathedral Hill and into the lower reaches of the city. At the foot of the stairs, under a carved-limestone tympanum featuring Christ the Redeemer, an ornate bronze gate blocked the way, but it was not locked.

At the moment, the crypt was lighted only by several torchères crowned with gas flames that burned 24/7 to attest to the eternal nature of the souls of those interred here. The space was divided into sections separated from one another only by arcades of columns, and overhead were groin vaults painted with murals. Here the bishops and the cardinals and perhaps some of the most worthy parishioners from the generations of the city were laid to rest.

The floors of the various chambers, all open to one another, had been constructed with subtle integrated slopes, which Father had pointed out to me when long ago we had entered along the route by which I would now leave with him. I passed among columns, accompanied by cowled figures in flaring black cassocks that were really shadows flung about by the leaping gas flames, enhanced by my imagination. I quickly came to the corner toward which the floors would direct the water if the crypt was ever flooded.

After putting Father down, I used the gate key and then hooked the large cover off the drain, leaving a few inches overhanging. Now and then a partial passage of a psalm sung down from the church, but I knew the monks couldn’t hear me.

A vertical shaft, four feet in diameter, dropped sixty feet to a drain line large enough for a man to pass through easily in a stoop. These were among the earliest drains in the system, made of brick and mortar but still enduring.

The shaft featured embedded iron rungs for those who needed to service it, but a few of them were loose, and caution was required to avoid losing one’s grip or footing. The hole was not wide enough for me to sling the body from my back and go down with it. Anyway, I had no way to sling it.

I had one option, grim as it was, and I hesitated only briefly before sliding Father feet-first into the hole. I turned away but did not cover my ears, because I felt that I should bear witness to every detail of his journey from point of death to his final rest.

The friction whistle of raincoat fabric against brick rose as he fell. He impacted with the larger drain far below and spilled into it, but the slope was too minimal for him to travel farther.

For perhaps a minute, I stood shuddering, forcing back my tears and steeling myself for the descent.

From elsewhere in the crypt, I heard footsteps on stone and then voices echoing along the groin vaults.

43

AS OUR STRANGE COURTSHIP REQUIRED, IF IT WAS A courtship, the dining area was barely lighted: three candles in blue-glass cups on a sideboard, six others at more distance in the open kitchen, none upon the table at which we ate. I had taken off my ski mask but not my jacket, and I ate with my hood still up.

A simple glass chandelier hung by a chain above us, left dark in consideration of me, but its chrome arms were faintly traced by fluttery reflections of the blue candlelight, and the small glass bowls containing its light bulbs took the blue glow and made rings of it around their rims. Our wineglasses and the flatware likewise glimmered, and on the wall behind the sideboard, soft blue light quivered as the flames danced.

She had prepared crab cakes with a slaw of peppers and cabbage, and tiny potatoes sautéed first and then roasted in the oven. All of it was delicious, and I couldn’t tell what had been frozen and what was fresh.

I asked, “Who might be the partner that Telford mentioned?”

“I have no way of knowing. He lies as easily as he breathes, so there might not be any partner.”

“I think there is one.”

After a silence, Gwyneth said, “So do I.”

“What did he mean—your guardian is on a leash?”

“We’re going to meet him later. Then you’ll know.”

“You said even he doesn’t know about this place.”

“He doesn’t. We’re going out again to meet him.”

“Is that safe?”

“Not entirely. But it’s necessary.”

I liked the pinot grigio. I’d never tasted it before. I liked the shadow of her at the farther end of the table, too, her hands like the graceful hands of a mermaid in a pale-blue dream.

“He sounds entirely wicked,” I said.

She laughed softly. “I won’t disagree.”

“Five years ago, when he…”

When I hesitated, she completed my question for me. “When he tried to rape me?”

“You were only thirteen. You said you lived secluded on the top floor of your father’s house then.”

“Do you have a worst night of your life, Addison?”

I thought of Father shot and bludgeoned on Cathedral Hill. “Yes. I have a worst night.”

“Me too. I was living alone on the fourth floor of my father’s house when Telford came after me, but Daddy was murdered minutes before, in the kitchen.”