Twenty
“I’M SORRY, HELEN, BUT I cannot permit it.”
Archbishop Knowland’s categorical statement clearly displeases Helen. “Sir,” she says firmly. “Tom and I would not have driven all this way first thing on a Monday morning to ask you in person if it wasn’t necessary for me to have access to those files.”
Folding his hands and looking across his desk, he says, “But you have not convinced me it’s necessary.”
“Your Eminence,” I say, “as Helen’s already mentioned, the evidence indicates that one or two people smothered Father Stratton in the Rectory guest room with a pillow. Since it’s now clear from the autopsy that that, and not the beating he received, is what killed him, Helen needs to look for anything that would point to another suspect.”
“Couldn’t the man you had in custody simply
