“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?”
“Maybe we’re assuming something we shouldn’t,” Iggy said. “Maybe he’s not out of place here. Father Harry got donations from many sources; maybe he’s a patron.”
“In which case Sister Gwen might know him.” Alex turned but stopped. Sister Gwen had seen far more than a saintly old woman should. How could he, in good conscience, subject her to more of this nightmare?
“I’ll make sure all the brothers and sisters are covered,” Iggy said, reading Alex’s hesitation. “As long as they’re not visible, she should be strong enough.”
“She’s strong,” Alex said. “I’ve never met anyone with more grit. It just isn’t fair to make her relive what happened when she opened those locked doors.”
“She wants to know what happened here as badly as we do,” Iggy said, and put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. He wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t make Alex like it any better. He started off toward the kitchen and Iggy left to cover as many bodies as he could.
Five minutes later, Alex led Sister Gwen through the Great Hall’s open doors and across the stone floor to the table in the back. Her steps were steady and purposeful, but she clung to Alex’s arm like she was walking the edge of a cliff with certain death awaiting a misstep.
“I know him,” she said after she’d stared at his face for a few moments. “He’d come in here every Sunday for Mass.”
“Do you know his name?” Alex prompted.
“Charles Beaumont,” Sister Gwen said. “I remember him because he used to ask Father Clementine to bless him every week.”
“How did Mr. Beaumont know the Father?” Iggy asked. Sister Gwen sighed and shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know anything else about him?” Alex asked.
The old nun hesitated as sadness washed across her features. “I probably shouldn’t say.” She looked up at Alex and her dark eyes bored into him like they had done so many times in his youth.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We just want to get to the truth. For Father Harry and for you.”
She nodded and patted Alex on the cheek with her worn, gnarled hand.
“The Father once told me that Mr. Beaumont was a thief,” she said.
Alex hadn’t been expecting that. He looked to Callahan, who had just returned, and the big Lieutenant leaned over the dead man.
“Nobody I know,” he said. “I’ll have the local boys take a look.”
“Thank you, Sister Gwen,” Alex said, taking her hands in his. He had a momentary flash of all the times she had held his hands and comforted him as a boy. Now it was his turn.
The policewoman led Sister Gwen back out of the Great Hall and a fresh wave of anger washed over Alex as he saw how stooped and tired she looked.
“What now?” he asked, turning back to the body of Charles Beaumont.
“Here,” Iggy said, pressing two dollars into his hand.
“What’s this for?”
“Cab,” Iggy said. “Go home. Get some sleep.”
Alex opened his mouth to protest, but Iggy cut him off. “You’ve done all you can here. I still have to draw blood samples from half a dozen more victims and I need to brief the University people when they get here, otherwise I’d be going with you.”
“There must be something else we can try.”
“Like what?” Iggy said. “You’ve been over the whole room with your lantern, twice. You’ve interviewed the only witness, and now we know the name and possible occupation of the only person in the room who looks like he doesn’t belong. And he looks like the first one infected. At least here.”
“But—”
“Until something else comes up, we’re stuck. Now, you have a business to run, and Leslie will expect you in the office tomorrow bright and early. Go home.”
Alex knew he was right, but his mind railed against it anyway. He was a detective, damn it, there ought to be something he could do.
But there wasn’t.
“All right,” he said, tucking the bills in his pocket. “But if something comes up, you call me.”
“Of course, old boy,” Iggy said, then pushed Alex toward the door.
As he passed the sheet-draped body of Father Harry, Alex stopped. Iggy had rolled him on his back and composed his hands on his chest before covering him. Reverently, Alex knelt down and pulled the sheet back from the old man’s face. It looked exactly as it had the previous afternoon except for a few angry-looking boils. He looked like he was just asleep, calm and peaceful.
But he wasn’t.
Alex had faced death before, but never like this. Father Harry hadn’t died in his sleep or from some horrible accident. Someone had done this to him. This was murder.
“I’m sorry, Father,” Alex said, his voice horse and raw. “I should have stayed. I should have been here. Maybe I could have stopped this.”
He looked down into the serene face but received no answer.