“Is there anything I can do for you, Father?” he asked. “Aside from having my clerk locate the Jesuits for you?”
“The odor to which you refer,” White then said, “is that of the putrefying of what I estimate to be between one hundred and three hundred corpses we have found in a hitherto secret room in Castle Wewelsburg.”
“Say that again, I.D.?” Jackson said.
White repeated himself verbatim. He added, “It is not unlike the mass graves I uncovered of slave laborers massacred by the Nazis at Peenemünde.”
Jackson walked behind his desk, slumped in his chair, and with both hands gestured Let’s have it.
White told him what had transpired at Castle Wewelsburg, concluding, “We won’t know how many bodies, or who they were, until we can get down there. And we don’t know when we can do that. Certainly not until tomorrow.”
Jackson wanted an explanation of that, too.
Cronley had just finished providing it when Kenneth Brewster came into the office.
“My God! What smells in here?”
He went to open the window wider.
“I don’t smell anything,” Cronley said. “Can you, General?”
“The faint smell of roses, perhaps,” White replied. “How about you, Father?”
The priest shook his head in disbelief and disapproval but did not reply.
“Ken,” Jackson said, “this is Father McKenna, who needs your assistance.”
“That Father McKenna?”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” the priest said.
“Does the name Heimstadter mean anything to you, Father?”
“We’ve met.”
“Where?”
“In the Tribunal Prison.”
“Then that raises the question, what were you doing with Heimstadter?”
“I took him to see Heimstadter,” Cronley said, sharply. “Okay, Brewster?”
“And you had Justice Jackson’s permission to do that?”
“Because I had his permission to take Heimstadter out of the prison, I damn sure didn’t think I needed it.”
Jackson said, “Where is your interrogatory taking us, Ken?”
“Sir, there was an incident at lunch. Party or parties unknown poured boiling water down Heimstadter’s back. He’s now in the infirmary rather badly burned.”
“It wasn’t accidental, I gather?” Jackson asked.
“No, sir. And from the moment he got to the infirmary, he’s been asking—demanding—to see Father McKenna.”
Jackson looked at Cronley. “Jim?”
“How’d you hear about this, Brewster?” Cronley demanded.