11

Alvirah and Willy heard the breaking news that Zan Moreland might have been responsible for the disappearance of her son on the eleven o’clock news that night. They had been preparing for bed after their dinner with Fr. Aiden. Shocked, Alvirah called Zan and left a message when she did not answer her cell phone.

In the morning, Alvirah met Fr. Aiden in the Friary adjoining St. Francis of Assisi Church. Together with Neil the handyman, they went to the office to view the playback of the tapes from the security cameras starting at 5:30 P.M. on Monday evening. For the first twenty minutes there was nothing unusual in the frames of people entering or leaving the chapel. As she waited, Alvirah, her voice filled with concern, told Fr. Aiden that the media was reporting that Zan might be involved in Matthew’s disappearance.

“Aiden,” Alvirah said, insistently, “they might just as well be saying that Willy and I stole Matthew from his stroller. It’s so absolutely ridiculous that you wonder how anyone would swallow it. If they have some kind of pictures, I can only say that that guy in England doctored them to make money from that magazine.” Then she leaned forward and gasped. “Neil, can you stop the video? That’s Zan. She must have paid a visit here on Monday evening. I know how upset she had to have been because Matthew was turning five yesterday.”

Fr. Aiden O’Brien had also recognized the expensively dressed young woman in the dark glasses with the long hair. It was the woman who had come into the Reconciliation Room and told him that she was involved in an ongoing crime and that there was a murder about to be committed. He tried to keep his voice calm as he asked Alvirah, “Are you sure that is your friend Zan?”

“Aiden, of course I’m sure. Look at that suit. Zan bought it last year after it was reduced. She’s so careful about money. She went through every cent her mother and father had left her, spending it on private detectives to help find Matthew. Now she’s saving so that she can get someone new to start hunting for him.”

Before Aiden could reply, Alvirah urged Neil to start running the tape again. “I’m dying to see if I can pick up the guy who was eyeing you, Aiden.”

Aiden phrased his words carefully. “Do you think he might have been accompanying or following your friend, Alvirah?”

Alvirah seemed not to have heard the question. “Oh, look,” she exclaimed, “there he is coming in, the guy I’m looking for.” Then she shook her head. “Oh, you can’t see his face, and his collar is up. He’s got those dark glasses on. All you can see is that mop of hair.”

For the next half hour, she reviewed the rest of the tapes. They could easily distinguish the agitated figure of the woman Alvirah identified as Zan leaving the church. She was still wearing her dark glasses, but her head was bent and her shoulders shaking. Holding a handkerchief to her mouth as if she were trying to stifle sobs, she had rushed out of the church and out of the sight of the camera.

“She didn’t stay five minutes,” Alvirah said sadly. “She’s so darn afraid of breaking down. She told me that after her parents were killed in that accident, she simply couldn’t stop crying. She was afraid to go out in public. She said that if that happened again because of Matthew, she wouldn’t be able to work and she needed to work to keep herself from going insane.”

“Insane.” Fr. Aiden whispered the word so softly that neither Alvirah nor Neil could possibly have heard it. “I am an accessory to a crime that is ongoing and to a murder that is going to happen very soon. I don’t want to be part of it, but it’s too late to stop.” In the last two days that frantic statement was embedded in his mind.

“There’s that guy again, leaving. But you can’t tell anything about him.” Alvirah signaled to Neil to turn off the tape. “You see how upset Zan appears Monday night? Can you imagine how she feels right now with the news story about her kidnapping Matthew?”

That was the other thing the young woman told him, Fr. Aiden thought: You’ll read about it in the headlines. Had the murder she claimed she could not prevent already been committed? Had she already killed her own child, or probably even worse, was the poor thing still alive and about to die?