The Rose Conspiracy Read online

  From there, he could see straight down the street that was crowded with office buildings, all the way to the intersection of Indiana and C and D streets.

  Down where, amid all of the concrete office buildings and glass high-rises, he could see a large tree in full leaf, partially covering an often overlooked statue of the Masonic religious seer and Confederate officer Albert Pike.

  CHAPTER 20

  So from your research on the Freemasons, you knew the marble block wouldn’t ever hit the ground?”

  As Reverend Lamb asked that, his voice was quiet and intense.

  “That’s it,” J.D. Blackstone replied. “I had been reading, actually in the appendix of your book, how in the Masonic temples they all have these little models of a stone block hanging from a hoist.”

  “Yes, of course. But always suspended. Never touching the earth. The stone block represents strength and power to them. But then you already knew that, right?”

  “Yes, from my research. Obviously then, whoever gave me that little scare at the building site was sending me a message.”

  “What kind of message?”

  “That they are the ones who have the power. I don’t. They can crush me at will. That’s pretty elementary.”

  “So they are trying to intimidate you, scare you off from pursuing the defense of this…what is your client’s name again?”

  “Vinnie Archmont.”

  “And you’re sure this incident in the construction elevator was no coincidence?” Reverend Lamb asked.

  “I’m certain.”

  As they talked, the two men were strolling across the green lawn of the quad between the college buildings where Lamb was teaching a summer school class.

  “I realized,” Blackstone continued, “that the person who called my office and sent me scurrying over to the construction site had arranged for me to share the elevator with the chief architect—a play on words with the Mason’s reference to God as the Great Architect. And then I discovered there was a square-cornered marble block hanging over my head—perfectly rigged from the crane—and the way that block was hoisted.”

  “Someone really took the time to emulate the Masonic symbols,” Lamb added. “Complete with the antiquated Lewis grappling hook assembly imbedded into the stone. I’ve seen diagrams of that in the older Masonic writings.”

  “Which is why I need your help on this,” Blackstone said. “You’ve spent years trying to figure this Masonic business out. Written extensively on it. So, Uncle, what do you think? You want to join me in this case as my consulting expert?”

  Lamb paused and stopped walking. He shifted a few books he had under one arm, regained his grip once again on the tattered briefcase in the other, and then looked at his nephew.

  “Any more news on who did this to you?” he asked.

  “No. The police are investigating. They dusted for prints in the control booth of the crane. But I’m betting they’ll come up with zero. This was too well planned to leave some sloppy evidence behind. The construction supervisors checked it out. It was clear someone sabotaged the crane, but they have no witnesses. No one was seen going in or out of that crane before the mishap. Whoever orchestrated this disappeared like—”

  “Magic?” Lamb asked.

  “I didn’t think you believed in magic, Uncle,” Blackstone said with a tinge of sarcasm.

  “I don’t. But I do believe in the power of the prince of darkness,” Lamb replied, his voice so low he could barely be heard. And then he added, “And believe me, it is real. Though you must beware…it often comes in ways you do not recognize.”

  Then he straightened up and continued talking.

  “So—specifically, what is it you need from me?”

  Blackstone overcame the temptation to mock his uncle’s warnings, which sounded vaguely medieval. He got right to the point.

  “I’d like your help in deciphering a poem, which I think is a code for something,” Blackstone said, trying to be nonchalant. “It was an entry copied, I think, from a page of the John Wilkes Booth diary. But it may have something to do with Freemasonry.”

  “I assume you have access to it. Why don’t you show it to me?”

  “I can’t. The judge entered a pretrial order prohibiting me from sharing it directly with anyone else. I’ve got my partner filing an appeal from that order, hoping to overturn it. But I’m not holding my breath. Appellate courts are generally reluctant to interfere with the way a trial judge handles the pretrial conduct of a criminal case.”

  “Tell me, why is this poem so important?”

  “If I can decipher it, then I can figure out who may have had a motive to steal it—and then I can logically deduce who killed Horace Langley. With that, I hope to exonerate my client.”

  “Alright,” Lamb said. “Then how about some hints about the poem…will that avoid violating the court order?”

  “Now we’re on the same page,” Blackstone said with a smile. Then he thought for a moment.

  “Okay,” he continued. “Let me put it to you this way—why don’t you tell me about the symbolic significance of trees in the metaphysics of the Freemasons.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “Then let me narrow it down,” Blackstone added. “As I see it, the Masons deny they are a religious order, and yet their symbols and ceremonies are laced with religious references. Christian and biblical references to be precise.”

  “Not exactly,” Lamb countered. “In my opinion, the Freemasons, for hundreds of years, have incorporated theology all right, but not of biblical Christianity, but rather, of Gnosticism—the third- and fourth-century heresy that set itself up as the chief competitor to the gospel of Christ.”

  “But the two—Christianity and Gnosticism—are related, aren’t they?”

  “In a way, yes,” Reverend Lamb said. “Like a flower and a weed are both related in proximity when they spring from the same ground. Gnosticism was like a weed that steals the nutrients from the ground and wraps itself around the flower, squeezing the life from it. And it would have ended up strangling the gospel had the factual truth of the historical record of Jesus, contained in the New Testament, not won out in the end, which is exactly what happened.”

  “Now you’ve just lost me on that one,” Blackstone shot back. “I’ve got to say that I consider it pure bunk to say that there is any reliable evidence of the historicity of Christianity, dating all the way back two thousand years. Religion is nothing but subjective opinion fashioned into certainty, built on fables conflated and expanded over the centuries—and then people simply call it faith.”

  “Nephew,” Lamb said calmly, “we have better historical verification for the life, teachings, and death, and I might add, even the resurrection, of Jesus, than we do for any other first century figure—all of the Caesars of Rome, included. Would you like to go back to my office so I can show you the historical evidence?”

  “No, I really don’t have the time for any of that, Uncle,” Blackstone shot back abruptly. He wanted his uncle to get to the point.

  “So, getting back to the reason I came to you—” Blackstone said, “you know, the tree as a religious symbol and how it plays into Freemasonry.”

  “Well,” Lamb said, thinking on it, “Masons use the acacia tree in their architecture. It is meant to refer, I think, to the wood from which the ark of Noah was built. Then there is the Christian concept of the ‘tree,’ upon which Jesus was crucified. The Old Testament prophecies talk about Messiah being hung from a tree, an obvious reference to a sacrifice that would be fulfilled hundreds of years later when Jesus was crucified on the cross of Calvary.”

  “Go on,” Blackstone said.

  “And the tree of good and evil.”

  “Garden of Eden,” Blackstone said.

  “Right, in the Genesis account,” Reverend Lamb replied. His voice was starting to take on a professorial tone.

  “And then,” he continued, “in the first chapter of the book of Psalms, a tree is mentioned
. And also a mention in the last book of the Bible, Revelation. Then there are other references in the Old Testament, particularly in the prophets, to certain pagan rituals that were practiced beneath trees. You know, J.D., the possibilities really are endless.”

  Blackstone was starting to lose patience. “But my time isn’t,” he barked so sharply that it took Reverend Lamb aback. “I am rapidly approaching a jury trial with my client facing the death penalty. I have to tell you that I really need answers, not academic ramblings.”

  “I can understand the stress a lawyer must feel in that kind of situation,” Reverend Lamb remarked quietly, studying his nephew with an understanding look. “Okay, J.D., I will help you any way I can. Let me think on this tree business.”

  “Thank you,” Blackstone replied, now having the sense perhaps that he had treated his uncle too harshly. His voice softened a bit. “By the way, if it helps you at all, I think this ‘tree’ reference may have something to do with something that the Freemason philosophers have considered to be the quest for the ultimate secret.”

  Lamb stopped on the steps of the liberal arts building, and turned to Blackstone.

  “Ultimate secret, you say?”

  Blackstone nodded.

  “You know,” Lamb said, “the Gnostic heretics based their entire cosmology, the whole fabric of their belief system, on the idea of secret knowledge. He who learns the secrets controls the keys to all spiritual power. Or so they believed. But for the Christian, of course, he already has direct access to the mysteries of God. For the follower of Christ, it has already been clearly revealed.”

  Blackstone chuckled.

  “I suppose I have a certain admiration,” he said to his uncle with a smirk, “for your persistence in believing your own brand of the Jesus fairy tale. Particularly when even you had to admit, in that book of yours you gave me, that the history of Christianity is one long tale of theological squabbles between the so-called believers and the ‘heretics,’ stretching over two millennia.”

  Lamb didn’t answer him at first, but turned to mount the last few steps to deliver the lecture in the religion class for which he was already late. But when he reached the top of the stairs he stopped and turned, looking down at his nephew at the bottom.

  There was a grin on his face as the mild breeze blew through his thinning white mane of hair, mussing it a bit.

  “You see,” Lamb said brightly. “I told you you’d end up reading my book.”

  CHAPTER 21

  J.D. Blackstone left Capital City College and cruised off in his Maserati Spyder toward the fashionable Old Town section of Alexandria.

  As he drove, he was still ruminating over his conversation with his uncle. Their walk together on the campus quad had left Blackstone with a bad taste in his mouth. He really wondered whether, in order to get Reverend Lamb’s help as an expert on Freemasonry, he would be able to endure his endless religious proselytizing.

  But there was also something else on Blackstone’s mind. He was stewing over his client, Vinnie Archmont. He hadn’t heard from her for almost two weeks, despite e-mails, letters, and several phone messages he’d left on her voice mail. He had a bag full of questions for her and few answers. Now he had decided to drop by her Alexandria art studio, unannounced, in an effort to track her down.

  He was beginning to get that nagging feeling, that hollow, graveyard echo in the gut that lawyers dread—the awareness of impending disaster brought on by the realization your client has been secretly playing you for a complete sucker. And you’ve fallen for it. Those cases can end only one way.

  The way that Blackstone would often illustrate to his law students.

  “When representing criminal defense clients,” he would say, “remember the celebrated case of the Wild West lawyer. He agreed to represent a bank robber who sued his compatriot because the other thief refused to split the stolen booty with him, fifty-fifty, as they had agreed. The judge patiently heard the case. Weighed the evidence. Then announced his decision. The judge ordered the client to be promptly hung, and the lawyer permanently disbarred. So, students, try to learn something from this august example. Don’t let your zeal for a client’s case allow you to be played for a sucker.”

  The thought of Vinnie’s almost psychic, not to mention economic, dependence on Lord Dee kept haunting Blackstone. But when he saw how Lord Dee and his client had apparently assumed the likenesses of Albert Pike and Vinnie Ream, those two nineteenth-century star-crossed almost-lovers, he knew something very weird was going on. Something that could, perhaps, explain why the two of them, or one of them possibly, could have conspired to murder Horace Langley and steal the Booth diary entry before it became public. It was a working hypothesis. One he didn’t think was actually probable for a number of reasons, but at least feasible. And if it was feasible, then a smart prosecutor like Henry Hartz would be able to make it look true beyond any reasonable doubt.

  Blackstone didn’t want to think of the beautiful Vinnie being complicit in the crime, for reasons that were now beginning to plague him and threaten his objectivity. He was beginning to feel like someone being sandwiched into an already crowded elevator. But he was still objective enough to know the things that might compromise his usually cold-steel powers of analysis. The fact remained that Vinnie seemed to be nothing but a bit player in her contacts with Horace Langley. Lord Dee, on the other hand, was rich, politically powerful, and had a fourteen-karat-gold motive—his undisputed obsession with the Booth diary.

  The facts showed that Dee was an obvious candidate for mastermind of the murder and theft. If Vinnie was involved at all, she might well have been merely an unwitting pawn.

  The task for Blackstone was to find the evidence to hit a home run on the unwitting part.

  The Torpedo Factory building, which housed Vinnie’s studio, was just off the Potomac River. It was in a classy, restored area draped with restored history and not far from old brownstones and three-story mansions.

  Blackstone wandered around some of the other shops and galleries until he located Vinnie’s studio. Her name, together with the phrase TIMELESS ART AND SCULPTURE, was etched in the glass.

  He walked in the door and a chime sounded. There were tables decoratively filled with pottery, busts, and figurines. There were a few historical personages caught in bronze. One was a bust of Abraham Lincoln.

  A few moments later Vinnie poked her head around the corner from a back room. She had an artist’s apron on, her sleeves were rolled up, and her hands were stained with gray clay.

  “J.D.,” she said brightly. “I am so glad to see you. How is my very brilliant lawyer?”

  “Not happy,” he barked out. “And when I am not happy that makes me feel less than brilliant.”

  “What’s the matter?” she said taking a few steps toward him and tossing a tight curl away from her face coyly.

  “You,” he said sharply.

  “Me?” she said with a little pout on her lips. “Don’t be such a big, bad, angry old man. I like you much better when you’re happy.” Then she put her hands on her hips like she was doing a Shirley Temple impersonation.

  “Do me a favor,” Blackstone said. “Cut the Betty Boop baby-doll act.”

  Vinnie flinched a little at that. Then she dropped her hands to her side and closed both of her eyes, and tilted her head slightly to the side and gave out an overblown sigh.

  “You can leave now,” she said quietly. “I was very peaceful and calm before you came here.”

  “Peaceful is where you are heading,” Blackstone barked back. “Unless you start cooperating with me and responding to my calls and e-mails. Permanently peaceful is the place where the AUSA is trying to put you—if you are convicted, they’ll lead you from the death-row section of the prison to a table where they will strap you down and put an IV full of poisons into your veins. Then you’ll get real peaceful. Is that what you want?”

  “No,” she said quietly.

  “Alright then, let’s talk.”

&
nbsp; “Let’s go into the back, where my studio is,” she said.

  He followed her into the back room, which had a skylight and several large work tables, and a manually operated pottery wheel for throwing pots. There was a smaller table, higher than the others, with a clay bust on it, with what looked like a work in progress. There was something familiar about the face that was the subject of the bust.

  There were two wooden chairs, and Blackstone sat down in one. Vinnie wiped her hands and pulled the other chair up so close that her feet were in between his.

  “I am all yours,” she said with her hands in her lap.

  “First question,” he asked. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

  “J.D., dear, I haven’t. I’ve been busy with several art shows. Two in the Midwest. One in New Mexico. Besides, that’s why I hired you, to manage my case. I trust you completely, J.D. Really. I put myself totally into your hands. Body and soul.”

  He felt her foot touching his so he scooted his feet under his chair.

  “I appreciate your trust—” he began, but she cut him off.

  “Not only my trust, but Magister’s too.”

  “Lord Dee?”

  “Right. He called me to let me know that the two of you had met in England. He said you were every bit as smart as he had figured. He was quite impressed.”

  “So,” Blackstone said, “you were too busy to return my calls, but you took his?”

  Vinnie threw him a wounded look and said, “That’s not fair. Please, J.D. dear, don’t say that.”

  Suddenly Blackstone had the sinking feeling that their attorney–client conversation was devolving into a minor spat between a couple on a date that was not going well.

  “Let’s keep this objective,” Blackstone shot back. “I ask the questions. You answer. So here goes—first question. Why do you and Lord Dee dress like two long-dead figures from the 1800s? Your hairstyle like a nineteenth-century artist. His beard and hair, his whole look, is patterned after Albert Pike.”