Manhattan Is My Beat

of the sanctuary.
    Still whispering, she said to the man wearing black minister’s robes, “This is a totally radical church, Reverend.”
    “Thank you, Miss Kelly.”
    At the door, she turned and curtsied awkwardly toward the altar. The minister of St. Xavier’s glanced at her curiously. Maybe curtsying—which Rune had just seen a character do in some old Mafia movie—was only for Catholics. But so what? she decided. Stephanie was right about one thing: short of devil worship and animal sacrifices, ministers and priests probably aren’t all that sensitive about technicalities.
    They left the sanctuary.
    “Your grandfather didn’t mention any children when he stayed with us in our residence. He said his only relative was his sister but she’d died a few years ago.”
    “Really?” she asked.
    “But then,” the minister continued, “he didn’t talk much about himself. He was a bit mysterious in some ways.”
    Mysterious
…
    “Yep,” she said after a moment. “That was Grandfather. We used to say that about him. ‘Wasn’t Grandfather quiet.’ All of us would say it.”
    “All of you? I thought you said there were just two of you. You and your sister.”
    “Oh, well, I mean all the kids in the neighborhood. He was like a grandfather to them too.”
    Watch it, Rune told herself. It’s a minister you’re lying to. And a minister with a good memory.
    She followed the man through the rectory building. Filled with dark wood, wrought iron. The small yellow lights added a lot of churchy atmosphere to the place, though maybe they used small-wattage bulbs just to save money. It was very … well,
religious
here. Rune tried to remember a good movie she’d seen about religion and couldn’t think of one. They tended not to have happy endings.
    They walked into a large dormitory, newer than the church, though the architecture was the same—stained glass, arches, flowery carvings. She looked around. It was some kind of residence hall for senior citizens. Rune glanced into a room as they passed. Two beds, yellow walls, mismatched dressers. Lots of pictures on the walls. Homier than you’d think. There were two elderly men inside the room. As she paused, looking in, one of the men stood up and said, “‘I am a very foolish fond old man, fourscore and upward, not an hour more or less, and, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind.’“
    “I’ll say you’re not in perfect mind,” his friend chided. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
    “Oh, you think you can do better?”
    “Listen to this.”
    His voice faded as Rune and the minister continued down the corridor.
    “How long was Grandfather here?” Rune asked.
    “Only four, five weeks. He needed a place to stay until he found an apartment. A friend sent him here.”
    “Raoul Elliott?” Rune’s heart thudded harder.
    “Yes. You know Mr. Elliott?”
    “We’ve met once.”
    So, Elliott had been confused. He hadn’t sent Mr. Kelly to the Florence Hotel but here—to the church. Maybe Mr. Kelly was staying in the Florence when he visited the screenwriter and the poor man’s mind just confused them.
    “Wonderful man,” the priest continued. “Oh, he’s been very generous to us here at the church. And not only materially … He served on our board too. Until he got sick. A shame what’s happened to him, isn’t it? That Alzheimer’s.” The minister shook his head then continued. “But we have so few rooms, Robert didn’t want to monopolize one—he wanted to make it available for somebody less fortunate. So he moved into the Hotel Florence for a while. He left the suitcase here, said he’d pick it up when he moved into a safer place. He was worried about break-ins. He said the bag was too important to risk getting stolen.”
    Rune nodded nonchalantly. Thinking:
One million dollars
.
    She followed him to a storage room. The minister unlocked the door with keys on a janitor’s self-winding coil. Rune asked, “Did Grandfather spend much time in the church itself?”
    The minister disappeared into the storage room. Rune heard the sound of boxes sliding along the floor. He called, “No. Not much.”
    “How about the grounds? The cemetery? Did he spend much time there?”
    “The cemetery? I don’t know. He might have.”
    Rune was thinking of the scene in
Manhattan Is My Beat
where the cop, his life ruined, was lying in his prison cell, dreaming about reclaiming his stolen million dollars, buried in a cemetery. She remembered