27
Brother Armagh had spent the time waiting for the call from the sheriff looking up parishes and priests in the area. The little town of Burns had an interesting church, Saint Mary’s. And Burns, he learned, had been founded by miners from Silesia who had been brought over to Colorado in the 1880s during the silver rush. As a result, the little town was still almost entirely Catholic, and the congregation of Saint Mary’s was active and lively, run by an energetic priest named Timothy Moore. Intrigued, Brother Armagh decided to make a courtesy call on Father Moore as soon as he could.
Meanwhile, he had a sheriff and some police officers to talk to. He returned to the sheriff’s office at the appointed time and was ushered into a conference room.
“Father Armagh,” said Colcord, far more warmly than before, “thank you for coming back. I do apologize for, well, not taking you as seriously as I should have. This is a high-profile case, and we’ve been deluged with unreliable witnesses.”
“Quite understandable. I’m glad it worked out. And it’s Brother Armagh—I’m not an ordained priest.”
“Oh, I see. I’d like to introduce you to Agent Frances Cash of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. She’s in charge of the investigation.”
“Thank you,” said Agent Cash, standing up and giving his hand a good firm shake. She looked like a no-nonsense woman, obviously capable, perhaps even formidable. “Brother Armagh,” she said, “the sheriff explained in brief your mission here. I want to assure you we’re here tohelp you and the church recover the relic that Mr. Castillo seems to have stolen and to solve his murder. To do that most effectively, would you be willing to answer some questions?”
“Of course.”
“May we tape the conversation?” She held out her cell phone.
Armagh hesitated. “The Holy Father,” he said, “was hoping to avoid publicity and a potential scandal.”
“And so are we,” said Cash. “Most definitely.” She put the cell phone away and took out a notepad and pencil. “Better?”
“Thank you.”
“We’ll do everything in our power to keep this confidential,” the woman said. “But there could be a connection between the Castillo homicide and this theft. So any information you can give us will benefit us both—you in recovering the relic and us in solving the case.”
Armagh nodded.
After going through some preliminaries, the woman asked, “Can you please tell us about the theft, when it took place, how it was done, and how you identified Mr. Castillo as the thief?”
“Gladly. Our order of the Irish Pallottines serves the Basilica of San Silvestro in Rome, and we are custodians of its relics. We have a long history there, going back centuries.”
Cash nodded.
He held up his phone with a wry smile. “Ready for that security footage now?”
“Yes.”
Armagh showed it to them, while filling them in about the details of the crime.
“Tell me,” said Cash when the video ended. “How was he able to bypass the alarm system?”
“The fellow had an accomplice, a man named Silva, who knew exactly what to do and supplied him with specialized equipment. He had a device that he plugged into the same circuit that serviced the alarm on the relic, tripping the circuit breakers. Unfortunately, the alarm wasn’t set up to go off during a power failure.”
“No backup battery?”
“No. I’m afraid, Agent Cash, that we weren’t as sophisticated as weshould have been. Anyway, he then went into the chapel, stood on a bench, used a handheld cutting tool to open the seam around its base and lift it. With another fitting on the same power tool, he cut out a piece of the skull and put it in a glass tube, sealing it. He then carefully fixed up the relic and replaced the cube on top, trying to make it look undisturbed.”
“When you say ‘carefully,’ ” Cash asked, “did it seem he was trying to cover up evidence of the disturbance?”
“Definitely so. I’ve seen the videotape, and he was clearly trying to make everything look as it did before, hoping the theft wouldn’t be noticed.”
“But itwasnoticed.”
“Thanks to one of our eagle-eyed brothers, who prayed to the relic every morning.”
“So how did Castillo exit the church with his relic?”
“He went back into hiding, and as soon as the church opened that morning, he mingled with the visitors and walked out.”
