Free The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark Page B

from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, and we are assigned to investigate the murder of Professor Jonathan Lyons.”
    “I do understand that,” Father Aiden said mildly.
    The kind of questions he had been expecting followed in close sequence. How long had he known the Lyonses? How often did he see them? Was he aware of Professor Lyons’s friendship with Lillian Stewart?
    Here starts the dangerous ground, Father Aiden thought as he reached into the pocket of his robe, took out his handkerchief, took off his glasses, polished them, and returned the cloth to his pocket before answering carefully.
    “I have met Professor Stewart two or three times,” he said. “The latest was over three years ago, although from the altar at the funeral Mass yesterday, I observed her come into the church late. I do not know when she left.”
    “Has she ever reached out to you for counseling, Father?” Rita Rodriguez asked.
    “Many people who seek counseling do so with the understanding that their privacy will be respected. You are not to infer anything by my answer when I tell you I do not think it appropriate to reply to that question.” That attractive young detective with the deferential expression already knows that I would be the last person Lillian Stewart would come to for advice, Father Aiden thought. The question is a setup.
    “Father Aiden, we understand that Jonathan Lyons’s daughter, Mariah, has been extremely upset by the fact that her father was involved with Lillian Stewart. Has she ever discussed that with you?”
    “Again—”
    Simon interrupted. “Father, we were speaking to Mariah Lyons an hour ago. She freely and openly told us that she had complained to you about Lillian Stewart and that she felt her father’s relationship with Lillian Stewart was harming her mother’s condition.”
    “Then you know what Mariah and I discussed,” Father Aiden said quietly.
    “Father, yesterday you told Mariah that her father, JonathanLyons, had visited you ten days ago—on Wednesday, August fifteenth, to be precise,” Simon said.
    “Yes, I told Mariah, over a cup of coffee in the friary, that Jonathan Lyons believed he had found an object of immeasurable value that is referred to as either ‘the Joseph of Arimathea parchment’ or ‘the Vatican letter.’”
    “Did Jonathan Lyons visit you specifically to tell you about the parchment?” Rita asked.
    “Jonathan, as we have established, was a longtime friend,” Father Aiden said. “It would not have been unusual for him, if he was nearby, to drop in on me for a visit in the friary. That Wednesday afternoon he told me that he was in the process of reviewing ancient parchments that had been discovered in a church that had been long closed and was about to be razed. A safe was found buried in the wall there. Within it were some ancient parchments and he was asked to translate them.” Father Aiden leaned back in his chair. “You may have heard of the Shroud of Turin?”
    Both detectives nodded.
    “Many believe that it is the burial cloth Jesus was wrapped in after the Crucifixion. Even our present Pope, Benedict, has been quoted as saying he believes it may be authentic. Will we ever really know that as a certainty? I doubt it, although the proofs are very strong. The Vatican letter, or, as it is known, the Joseph of Arimathea parchment, is of the same beyond-price value. If it is genuine, it is the only example of a letter written by Christ.”
    “Wasn’t Joseph of Arimathea the man who asked Pontius Pilate for permission to take the body of Christ and bury it in his own tomb?” Rita Rodriguez asked.
    “Yes. Joseph was a longtime secret disciple of Christ. As you may remember from your catechism lesson, when Christ was twelve years old he went with his parents to the temple in Jerusalem for Passover, but when it ended he did not leave with the others. Hestayed behind in the temple and spent three days confounding the chief priests and the elders with his