The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [64]
“My father died a year ago, of cancer. When I was going through his papers to settle his estate, I found the divorce papers. That’s when I discovered who my mother really was. I did some research and found out the true story, including that Paul was my brother.”
“What happened to Paul’s father?” Castle asked.
“I’m not sure,” she answered, “but from the research I did, it seems Paul’s father was killed tragically in a work-related accident, about three months before Paul was born. As best I can find out, Paul never knew his father, just like he never knew anything about me.”
Anne’s information about Paul’s father fit what Bartholomew had told Castle, that he never knew his father because his father had been killed before he was born. Castle felt sure that when Bartholomew had insisted he was an only child, the priest’s mother had never told him anything about having a different husband and a daughter born prior to her marriage with his father. Father Bartholomew was certainly in for a surprise.
“What was your mother’s name?” Castle asked.
“Anne, just like me,” she answered. “As I explained, my father was Matthew Cassidy and Paul’s father was Jonathan Bartholomew.”
“Did you try to see your mother after you found out about her?”
“No,” Anne said quietly. “It was too late. She had died a few years earlier.”
“And you say you never met your brother until now?”
“No, we’ve never even spoken.”
Still, Castle wanted to make sure he understood how the pieces fit together. “But when I saw you in the hospital, you said you came from Montreal to be with your brother. What I guess I didn’t fully appreciate was that you had never seen him before. What you are telling me now is that Paul still does not know you exist.”
“That’s right,” Anne said. “It’s all happened so fast since my father died. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do about meeting my brother. But then, when I read on the Internet about Paul suffering the stigmata, I realized I had to come here and be with him.”
“So, in the last year or so, you knew you had a brother, but you never made any effort to contact him. I want to make sure I have that right.”
“That’s right,” she said. “Like I said, I’m still not sure Paul knows anything about me, just like I knew nothing about him until after my father died. I’m not sure how much our mother, Anne, told Paul about her true family history before she died.”
Castle listened carefully to her story, determined to watch how Bartholomew greeted his sister once they were introduced at the hospital.
“What do you do in Montreal?” Castle asked.
“I’m an accountant, a numbers person. I work for a Canadian export firm. We export wood products to the United States.”
“And you never married?”
“No, I guess I never found the right person.”
There were parts of the story that made sense to Castle. He could understand why Anne never married. He himself had not found another woman he felt was capable of replacing Elizabeth in his life. Finding the right person was hard, especially as he got older. He enjoyed his relationships with women, but typically they were casual—a dinner date, or a theater date. Women friends were easy, but living with a woman seemed to involve a lot of compromises in a lifestyle he was pretty happy to not change at all, especially the older he got.
Still, he had to admit, he wasn’t sure he accepted as true everything about her story as she told it. “Just out of curiosity,” he said, “I would like to see those divorce papers. It might help me better understand Paul’s relationship with his mother.” Castle knew seeing the divorce papers would provide confirmation for Anne’s story.
“The only problem,” Anne said, “is that I left all my papers in Canada. About all I have with me is my Canadian passport.” She reached in her purse and retrieved it. “You’re free to take a look at this, if you want.”
Castle looked through the passport. She was identified as Anne Cassidy, and the date of birth worked. Her residence was listed as a street address in Montreal. The passport photo was clearly Anne. It was reassuring