Brimstone (Pendergast #5)(11)

“Quite all right. I just hope I can be of help. This is a tragic business.”

“We’ll take as little of your time as possible. Perhaps we should begin with the telephone call.”

“As I told the police, the call came to my home at 3:10 in the morning—the answering machine registered the time—but every year I take a two-week retreat here, and so I wasn’t home to receive it. I check my messages upon rising—it’s a violation of the rules, but I’ve got an elderly mother. I immediately headed out to Long Island, but, of course, it was too late.”

“Why did he call you?”

“That’s a complicated question requiring a long answer.”

Pendergast nodded at him to proceed.

“Jeremy Grove and I go way back. We met at Columbia as students many years ago. I went on to the priesthood, and he went to Florence to study art. In those days, we were both—well, I wouldn’t call us religious in the usual sense of the word. We were both spiritually intrigued. We used to argue to all hours of the morning about questions of faith, epistemology, the nature of good and evil, and so forth. I went on to study theology at Mount St. Mary’s. We continued our friendship, and a few years later I officiated over Grove’s marriage.”

“I see,” murmured Pendergast.

“Grove stayed in Florence and I visited him several times. He was living in a beautiful villa in the hills south of the city.”

D’Agosta cleared his throat. “Where’d he get his money?”

“An interesting story, Sergeant. He bought a painting at an auction at Sotheby’s that was billed as being by a late follower of Raphael. Grove was able to prove it as the hand of the master himself, turned around and sold it for thirty million dollars to the Met.”

“Nice.”

“Indeed. Anyway, while living in Florence, Grove had become quite devout. In an intellectual kind of way, as some people do. He loved to engage me in discussion. There is, Mr. Pendergast, such a thing as a Catholic intellectual, and that was Grove.”

Pendergast nodded.

“He was very happily married. He adored his wife. And then, quite abruptly, she left him, ran off with another man. To say that Grove was devastated is not saying enough. He was destroyed. And he focused his anger on God.”

“I see,” Pendergast replied.

“Grove felt betrayed by God. He became . . . well, you certainly couldn’t call him an atheist or an agnostic. Rather, he picked a fight with God. He deliberately embarked on a life of sin and violence against God, which in reality was a life of violence against his own higher self. He became an art critic. Criticism is a profession which allows one a certain license to be vicious outside the bounds of normal civilized behavior. One would never tell another person in private that his painting was a revolting piece of trash, but the critic thinks nothing of making the same pronouncement to the world as if he were performing a high moral duty. There is no profession more ignoble than that of the critic—except perhaps that of the physician presiding at an execution.”

“You’re right there,” said D’Agosta with feeling. “Those who can’t do, teach, and those who can’t teach, critique.”

Father Cappi laughed. “Very true, Sergeant D’Agosta.”

“Sergeant D’Agosta is a writer of mysteries,” explained Pendergast.

“Is that so! I love detective stories. Give me a title.”

“Angels of Purgatory is his latest.”

“I’ll buy it immediately.”

D’Agosta mumbled his thanks. For the second time that day, he found himself feeling embarrassed. He would have to talk to Pendergast about sounding off about his abortive writing career.

“Suffice to say,” the priest continued, “Grove made a splendid critic. He surrounded himself with the most degraded, selfish, and cruel people he could find. Everything he did was excessive—drinking, eating, sex, money, gossip. He gave dinner parties like a Roman emperor, and he was often on television, savaging this person or that—in the most charming way, of course. His articles in the New York Review of Books were avidly read. Naturally he was a huge hit in New York City society.”

“And your relationship to him?”

“He couldn’t forgive me for what I represented. Our relationship simply couldn’t continue.”

“When was this?” D’Agosta asked.

“Grove’s wife ran off in 1974, and we had our falling-out shortly thereafter. I haven’t heard from him since. Not until this morning, that is.”

“The message?”

The priest removed a microcassette recorder from his pocket. “I made a copy before turning it over to the police.”

Holding it up in one hand, he pressed the play button. There was a beep. Then:

Bernard? Bernard! It’s Jeremy Grove. Are you there? Pick up the phone, for God’s sake!

The voice was high, strained, tinny.

Listen, Bernard, I need you here, now. You’ve got to come. Southampton, 3001 Dune Road. Come immediately. It’s . . . it’s horrible. Bring a cross, Bible, holy water. My God, Bernard, he’s coming for me. Do you hear? He’s coming for me! I need to confess, I need forgiveness, absolution . . . For the love of God, Bernard, pick up the phone—

His voice was cut off by the message machine using up its allotted time. The harsh voice echoed into silence in the bare, whitewashed room. D’Agosta felt a shiver of horror.