"Well, there were stories that subsequent Muslim leaders often dragged the cross through the dirt before battle to fire up their armies. That only fueled the passions of true Christian believers who launched forays to get it back. One of Saladin's successors was even said to have turned down a ransom payment for the cross-forty bags of gold or something like that," Janeen says. "And over the years, as it endured further degradation, the cross was reduced to just a small piece of wood, no bigger than a book."
"So how did the Fratres Crucis get hold of it?" I ask.
"Hard to say exactly. They were a pretty secretive bunch. Didn't keep written records. And if any member of the brotherhood talked about their activities to those on the outside-even to a wife or a close friend-they were summarily put to death," says Janeen. "Best guess is that they just bided their time, waited for the fervor of the Crusades era to die down, waited all the way until the mid-1400s when the Ottomans seized Constantinople and Sultan Mehmed took over the empire. By then, as far as rousing the Muslim troops went, that tiny little piece of the cross had lost its sizzle. The Fratres Crucis didn't have nearly the manpower to lay siege to Constantinople and take it. But they had money. Lots of money. And most likely they just bribed the sultan or one of his emissaries and got what they wanted."
"Either that or the sultan knew a bunch of rubes when he saw them and sold them a worthless chunk of wood," I say.
Janeen laughs.
"Yeah, there's always that. Still, belief is a powerful thing, you know? The brotherhood believed they had the last remaining piece of the True Cross. And, in the end, that's what mattered above all else. They returned with it to Portugal and hired a goldsmith to create a reliquary to properly enshrine their treasure. And, not long after that, they built a ship."
"A ship?" Fiona says. "What for?"
"Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453. Things moved a heck of a lot slower back then. The Fratres Cruris didn't just rush off to see the sultan and zip back home. It could have taken them thirty or forty years to pull everything off. By then it was the fourteen nineties. And we all know what was going on around that time."
"In fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," I say.
"And so did the Fratres Cruris," says Janeen. "Well, not exactly. It was a few years later before they set out aboard the Santa Helena"
"That was the name of their ship?"
Janeen nods.
"After Helena Augusta, discoverer of the True Cross. They launched it in November of 1497."
"You sound pretty exact about that date, considering what you said about the brotherhood not keeping any records," Fiona says.
"As secretive as the Fratres Cruris were, building and launching a ship is pretty hard to hide. There are port logs in the archives of the Museu de Marinha in Lisbon that mention the Santa Helena. They don't go into any detail about its mission, but that's not hard to figure out."
"I'm guessing they weren't on the typical let's-find-India-and-bringback-some-gold cruise, right?"
"Not by a long shot," Janeen says. "The Fratres Cruris were out to establish their own Christian kingdom in the New World, one far from the Muslim hordes, and one that would enjoy the power that came from possessing the most holy relic of their religion."
"And they planned to do this in Bermuda?" Fiona asks.
"No, they didn't even know that Bermuda existed. No one did. It wasn't even on any maps until 1520 or so. The Santa Helena was probably on a course that would have taken it somewhere near what is now Virginia. Only Bermuda just sort of popped out and surprised them. In any event, the ship was never seen again. And the reliquary was lost with it."
We stop at a door near the rear entrance of an office supply store.
"My place is upstairs, on the second floor," Janeen says, riffling through her purse to find a key.
"You really think this reliquary of theirs could have survived more than five hundred years on the sea bottom?" I ask. "Seems highly doubtful to me."
"Well, even though it was made out of precious metal and jewels, it was still a pretty substantial piece of work. It was built to endure."
"How do you know that?" Fiona asks.
"Because the goldsmith who created the reliquary made drawings of his work, several of them, and showed them around, probably just trying to drum up more business. One of them is in the Museu de Marinha."
"The brotherhood couldn't have been too happy about that," I say.
"Oh, they were outraged. They killed him." Janeen unlocks the door and swings it open. "After they plucked out his eyes."
34.
Janeen's apartment is a tiny place-one bedroom with a glimpse of the harbor from a window in the living room/kitchen. Overstuffed sofa draped with blankets. Rattan chairs around a wooden dinner table upon which sits an oldish desktop computer. Piles of books everywhere. And a well-fed black cat lounging on a windowsill.
"The thing with the eyes," Fiona says. "Was that like their trademark when they killed people or something?"
"It came to be," Janeen says. "Originally, before they gained possession of the cross, members of the brotherhood first cut out the tongues of those who talked out of school about them. And then they killed them. Later, they switched to removing the eyes of the offenders, perhaps to signify that while the victim had seen the Reliquarium de Fratres Crucis, they were no longer worthy of such an honor."
Fiona broods, plainly unsettled by the information.
"How does this relate to my brother?" she asks. "Do you mean to tell me that there are still members of this insane brotherhood out there, plucking out people's eyes?"
Janeen holds her gaze for a long moment, then says: "Look, why don't I make us all some tea? How's that sound? Then we can sit down and talk."
I nose around the apartment while Janeen puts water on to boil.
A worn copy of The Legend of the Lost Cross, by Richard Peach, sits on the table. I pick up the book. Janeen notices me flipping through it.
"Came out about a dozen years ago," she says. "Got mediocre reviews. Even the best of them said it was little more than a rehashing of other works on the subject and did little in the way of breaking new ground. It stung Peach, stung him bad. He became obsessed with setting the record straight about the Lost Cross once and for all, and he spent the next six years, right up until the time of his death ..."
"Wait, wait, wait," I interrupt. "How do you know all this stuff? About the Fratres Crucis? About Richard Peach? How do you know he was obsessed? You'd never even heard of him until after he and Boyd were killed, right?"
My words come out more strident than I intended. They cause Janeen a moment's pause.
"Yes, you're right. And sorry, I can get carried away on this subject. But after covering the story of their murders for the Gazette, I became rather obsessed myself," she says. "I interviewed Peach's wife when she came here to claim his remains. She's the one who told me what Boyd and her husband were doing in Bermuda and how they came to believe that the Santa Helena wrecked here."
Janeen plops tea bags into mugs, fills them with hot water, hands one to Fiona and then me. We sit down around the table.
"Margaret Peach and I kept in touch after she returned home to England, and I did my best to keep her updated on the progress of the investigation, such as it was. We grew to be friends. Margaret was a dear, dear lady. She could never quite bear to return here to Bermuda, but I visited her in England on three or four occasions.
"Shortly before her death, this was just last year, she asked me to come and help catalog her husband's papers. It had gotten to be too much for her, and she wanted the papers to be in some sort of order before she donated them to the University of Leeds, where Peach began his teaching career. Let's just say it turned out to be a more extensive project than I had envisioned. I wound up taking a three-month leave of absence from the Gazette so I could see it through to the finish."
The black cat leaps onto the table. It sniffs Fiona's mug, then jerks its head away.
"Come here, you." Janeen picks up the cat and cradles it, stroking it as she looks at Fiona. "I must ask you to promise me something."
"What's that?" Fiona says.
"That you will give me the exclusive rights to your brother's story."
"My brother's story?"
Fiona and I look at each other. Neither one of us says anything.
"I don't want to come off as paranoid or anything," says Janeen, "but I have to look out for my own best interests here." She lets go of the cat and it leaps off her lap. "You should know that I resigned from the Gazette because I want to give my full attention to this. I want to get to the bottom of it. I'm planning on writing a book."
"A book?" Fiona says.
"Yes, Margaret Peach was adamant that her husband's work not just get stuffed away in some dusty old library. She wanted his death to count for something. And she gave me the publication rights to her husband's research. It was one of the last things she did before she died."
Janeen grips her mug with both hands, takes a sip of tea.
"The only strings Margaret attached were that, should a book get published, I share credit with her husband, list him as the coauthor. I had no problem with that. He had already done so much of the research. It's solid stuff. And the story of how the reliquary may have wound up in Bermuda is fascinating. Had Peach and Boyd actually succeeded in finding it, there's no doubt the book would have been an international bestseller, maybe even a movie. Even as it is, based just on Peach's research and some other information I've cobbled together, well, let's just say I've got high hopes for the book I intend to write. But I want to keep all that under wraps, OK? I don't want someone coming along, stealing this story away from me, and coming out with a book of their own."
Fiona sips tea, considers Janeen across the top of her mug.
"So how far along are you on this of book yours, anyway?" she asks. There's a distinct edge to her voice. But Janeen doesn't seem to notice as she lights another cigarette.
"Well, having the rights to Peach's work helped me get an agent. A good one in New York. Still, nothing has really happened as far as landing a publisher. I mean, it has been a long time since Peach and Boyd were killed. Plus, as my agent keeps telling me, the story is unresolved. The murderer has never been caught. The cross has never been found." She takes a drag on her cigarette, blows smoke out the side of her mouth. "But when I called him the other day and told him about your brother's murder, he got really excited and ..."
She stops.
"I'm sorry, Fiona. I don't want to make it sound as if I'm exploiting Ned's death to my own advantage."
Fiona bristles.
"But that's exactly what you're doing, isn't it?"
Janeen looks away, doesn't say anything. Fiona sets down her mug, sloshing tea onto the table.
"I am so glad your agent was excited by my brother's murder. Hope it lands you a giant book deal. Good luck with the goddamn movie rights, too."
"Fiona, please, I didn't mean for it to come out like that." Janeen turns to her, pleading. "Just hear me out on this. There's more, so much more."
Fiona ignores her. She gets up from the table, looks at me.
"I'm done here," she says.
She marches across the living room and out the door. To her credit, she does not slam it.
Janeen slumps into a chair at the table. She takes a final drag on her cigarette, then snubs it out in a seashell ashtray.
"Guess I really blew that, huh?"
"Not what I'd call a diplomatic coup."
"I didn't mean for it to come out sounding like that, really I didn't."
I get up from the table, look down at her.
"Cut to the chase, Janeen. Do you know who committed these murders?"
She doesn't say anything.
"You better tell me what you know and you better tell it to me now."
"There are still some pieces missing," Janeen says. "I still can't say for sure."
"But you've shared what you know with the police?"
She looks away.
"No," she says. "I haven't."
"Why not?"
She doesn't say anything.
"Let me guess why not, Janeen. You're saving it all for this book of yours, aren't you?"
She doesn't say anything.
"Because it's in your best interest if the police don't catch the killer. It gives you a little more juice. You can reap the glory, watch your book climb the best-seller list. Pretty goddamn selfish, if you ask me."
Janeen looks up at me. Her eyes are hard.
"I've worked my ass off for this," she says. "I deserve something out of it."
"The three dead guys deserve something, too. It's called justice. Go to the police, Janeen."
I head for the door.
"Zack, please," she calls out. "There's so much you don't know."
"Story of my life," I say.
35.
Fiona is waiting for me in the alley behind Janeen's apartment. "Sorry for storming out like that," she says as we walk back to the car.