Death's Door Read Online Free Page B

Mike’s fall and gotten more banged up than he had. The hardest part was getting him back on his feet and half carrying him to a bed. Croft had summoned a doctor from the RAF hospital on base, who examined Big Mike and then asked who the devil had discharged him from medical care so soon after surgery. Big Mike was silent on the subject, but agreed to stay prone for the rest of the day. I took the file he’d brought and settled into an easy chair in the library. Croft was right, SOE knew how to live. Not to mention die.
    It quickly became clear that Monsignor Edward Corrigan was connected, and not only to FDR via his cousin the bishop. He worked for the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, the outfit that until the start of the century had been called the Inquisition. I was pretty sure they weren’t burning heretics at the stake anymore, but it made me wonder if there was any religious connection to the killing. I’d been an altar boy back in Boston, and I heard enough gossip about bishops and archbishops to know that church politics was a game of hardball.
    But murder? Revenge, maybe. He’d been killed up close, face to face, with a knife thrust between the ribs, and that could mean it had been personal, the murderer wanting Corrigan to see who was ending his life. Or the killer simply knew how to use a knife.
    An orderly brought me tea. I’d hoped for more coffee, and hadbeen surprised when Croft had had it served this morning. This was an English outfit after all, and tea was in their blood, even though I noticed more Brits picking up the java habit whenever they could get ahold of American supplies. I read through the file, focusing on what little information there was, trying to read between the lines to tease out any thread of substance that would give me something to go on.
    I spread out the documents on the floor, and soon was sitting cross-legged among them, as I’d seen my dad do dozens of times, when a case was going nowhere. A Boston PD homicide detective, he’d often come home with a leather briefcase stuffed with documents, and after dinner he’d be in his den, on his knees, staring at the papers all around him. It was a good long time before he’d let me look, the crime scene photos not being meant for kids in short pants.
    So I played out that scene here, far from my home in Southie, leaning into the motions of my father, hoping by some mysterious means to fall into his routine and absorb his experience—moving files and papers around, tapping key phrases with my finger as if casting a spell and drawing out the truth from a mass of tangled details and the occasional well-placed lie. I found myself doing this more and more, copying the rhythms of my old man, fooling my mind into thinking I had half his smarts, until I failed all on my own—or something clicked and the movements became my own, the memory of then mingling with the here and now, and I saw what had been hidden in plain sight. But not today.
    I was lost in thought when Kaz came in and flopped down in a chair opposite mine, hitching his trousers up as he crossed his legs.
    “Well, this ought to be fun,” he said.
    “You heard?”
    “Captain Croft gave me the news as soon as I got here. The driver stopped at that fleabag hotel of yours and packed up your gear. It’s in the room next to Big Mike’s. He was sleeping when I looked in on him.”
    “Easy for him,” I said, getting up and closing the door, keeping my voice low. “He’s not visiting Rome ahead of the Allied armies.”
    “Billy, we are on a secure base, in an SOE building. Do you think there are spies about?” Kaz gave a little laugh, to show he wasn’t serious, but I saw in his eyes that he was, as worry briefly furrowed his brow.
    “Of course there are spies here, Kaz. That’s what these people do. Which means there could be double agents, too. Or SOE security checking on us.” It sounded crazy, but the secret stuff was the craziest part of this war,