Prodigal Father (17 page)

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Authors: Ralph McInerny

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective

BOOK: Prodigal Father
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“You know what a toothpick is?”
“Yes.”
“They have nothing to do with one another.”
She showed the tip of her tongue. “Ostensible weapon, pickax.”
“Ostensible.”
“Apparent, seeming.”
“Why not just murder weapon?”
“Because I want to do an autopsy before I say that.”
“Any other marks on the body?”
“I haven't undressed him yet.”
“Be careful, he's a priest.”
“Now I'll know for sure.”
“What?”
“Whether they make them all sopranos.”
“Let me know.”
“You should already know. You're Catholic.”
“I promised not to tell,” Cy said in a falsetto voice. She punched him, tossed her ponytail, and went off to her car.
 
 
“That guy Sullivan who's staying in the lodge?” Phil said. “What do you make of him?”
“He says he's on retreat,” Horvath said.
“He seems familiar.”
“His face. You saw it on the printouts Edna Hospers's son gave you.”
Eureka. The light bulb went on over Phil's head. “Was his name Sullivan?”
“I don't think so. Hogan, Horan …”
“Morgan.”
“He's making a retreat as Mr. Sullivan.”
“Go get him, Cy. I want to talk to him again.”
But Sullivan/Morgan/whoever was not in the lodge. Cy went upstairs to the third floor and found the room the man must have been staying in. The bed had been slept in, but there were no articles in the bathroom and no luggage anywhere. He seemed to have gone on another retreat.
Lord, how they have increased who trouble me.
—
Psalm 3
 
Father Dowling breathed a prayer for the murdered priest and then his thoughts turned to Father Boniface. What a blow to suffer
after recent events. The community had been presented as moribund but tenaciously clinging to its ill-gotten property, and now a murder on the grounds, the victim one of the priests! The man who had spoken in such derogatory tones of young Corbett's claim to the land on which his grandfather's mansion and lodge house still stood. Nathaniel had undercut the reporter's dog-in-the-manger theme by suggesting that the community was thinking of discussing the future use of the land with Lars Anderson, a possibility portrayed as vaguely philanthropic.
Father Boniface had lived into the time when he became the superior almost by default. He was not the youngest but at least the healthiest of the dwindling band. What initially seemed a small ray of hope, Nathaniel's petition for return to the community, had developed into something unexpected. One would have thought that a man who was drawn back to the community he had deserted for the fleshpots of California would be a fanatic defender of the status quo, wanting everything as it had been when he left. But it had not been so with Nathaniel.
Roger Dowling recalled his few encounters with the prodigal returned when he was making his retreat at Marygrove. How he wished now that he had spoken with him more. There had been a book called
Shepherds in the Mist
that had been passed around the seminary when Roger Dowling was a student, the account of a man who had left the priesthood and married and whose wife had died. Now repentant, he told his story as a cautionary tale. Seminarians had read it with a kind of dread. In those days, departures from the priesthood were as rare as Jesuit cardinals. The account E. Boyd Barrett gave of his life was far from the prospect of liberation and insouciance that had led to the flood of laicizations after the Council. The stigma attached to one who defected from Holy Orders was far more indelible than that of an unfaithful
spouse. Before his deacon year, the last before ordination to the priesthood, Roger Dowling had stopped at the Trappist abbey New Mount Mellary in Iowa. In those days, only the guest master, Father Louis, could speak. Outside of choir, the monks communicated by means of their own Trappist sign language developed over the centuries. There was another guest at the time, a moody man in black but wearing brown loafers seen from time to time on the paths but who otherwise kept to himself. Young Roger Dowling assumed he was a priest on retreat. At the suggestion, Father Joachim's mouth widened and great teeth appeared as he smiled. He shook his head. “He was naughty. His bishop sent him here to do penance.”
“For how long?”
“His bishop will tell him when it has been long enough.”
If the past was too harsh, the present seemed to waive all responsibility for what one had done. Roger Dowling had felt this on the marriage tribunal, a man or woman absolving themselves of the past with the suggestion that their real self had not been involved in their deeds. What would Augustine have done with this variation on Manichaeanism?
He shook off these thoughts. If he wasn't careful, he would become a theologian. If such a fate ever overtook him, he would need both the vivid portraits of Dante and the chaste arguments of Aquinas, the one inadequate without the other.
The voice of Captain Keegan was heard in the kitchen, but it was ten minutes before he could get past Marie who wanted to hear all about the murder. She came on with Phil to the study, her eyes popping out of her head.
“Boniface called,” he said in answer to Phil's question whether he had heard.
“And you didn't tell me?” Marie looked utterly betrayed.
“I have been sitting here being moody.”
“Remember the Bible college?” Phil said irrelevantly.
“Tell us,” Marie urged. “Tell us everything.”
“Let me have some of that coffee.”
“Have you had breakfast?” Marie asked.
“What have you got?”
“Some glazed doughnuts?” She avoided the pastor's eyes. Marie had no willpower when it came to glazed doughnuts and had made a solemn promise never to bring them into the rectory again, adding untruth to intemperance.
“Two,” Phil said.
“Don't speak until I'm back.” And Marie flew down the hall to the kitchen.
The two men looked at one another and silently agreed that everything must wait on Marie's return. And then she was back with a plateful of doughnuts. She took one for herself. This was an emergency.
Phil put the scene vividly before their eyes, the grotto, the kneeling figure, the pickax plunged into his back.
“Was he kneeling when he was struck?”
“That's the assumption.” But Phil acknowledged that he might have fallen onto his knees as the result of the blow.
“Fallen onto a prie-dieu? Bosh.” Marie licked her fingers. “He was praying.”
“Like Hamlet's uncle? Let's hope his words flew up.”
The other two ignored the pastor's enigmatic remark.
“The fellow in charge of the grounds, Andrew George, found the body when he was on the way to the greenhouse about seven and sounded the alarm. Meaning he called Father Boniface.”
“The poor man!” Marie said, her words encompassing the victim and the superior of the Athanasians.
“Pippen puts the time of death at about two in the morning.”
“And the pickax as the cause of death?”
Marie looked at Father Dowling impatiently. “Who would have done such a thing?”
“Any number of people,” Phil said with his mouth full. “A funny thing. Remember that guy Stanley Morgan? He's out there making a retreat.”
Marie did not find this surprising. It fitted her picture of the man perfectly. “He was looking for a priest.”
“Yes. For Father Nathaniel.”
Marie stayed another ten minutes and then went off to pass on what she had heard to Edna, to various friends, to all the ships at sea.
“You said lots of people might have done it, Phil.”
“The guy has been making himself universally troublesome since he came back. And then what he said to the reporter … Lord, these things are sticky.”
“Better wash your hands.”
While he was gone, Father Dowling filled and lit his pipe. Smoke rose wraithlike from the bowl and he sent a ring of uninhaled smoke sailing across his desk. In the doorway, Phil stopped and watched the smoke ring rise and slowly disintegrate. “I could never do that.”
“You talked to Father Boniface, I'm sure.”
“As Marie said, the poor man. I found him in the chapel, just sitting there, stunned.”
Mystified silence is a form of prayer. Father Dowling found himself dreading and anticipating his meeting with Boniface. Just in the short time since he had been there on retreat, poor Boniface had been put through a series of agonizing events. The disruptive
activities of Nathaniel, the series of articles in the
Tribune,
and now a murder on the grounds. It might seem the dramatic climax to the long years of attrition when the life Boniface had lived, the setting in which he had done so, had imperceptibly altered until only faith could underwrite the hope that better days were ahead and the downward spiral could be arrested. Would the Athanasians ever recover from the murder of Nathaniel?
“A funny thing about Morgan. He was there under the name Sullivan.”
“His meeting with Nathaniel must have been a dramatic confrontation.”
“Boniface wasn't sure they had met or talked.”
“How would that be possible?”
“Morgan wasn't staying with the community. Boniface put him up in the lodge, on the third floor, with the Georges. Mrs. George is out of town.”
“You talked to Morgan?”
“He'd been there. But apparently he took a powder.”
The search for the mysterious Californian had begun at once. Phil seemed inclined to think that Morgan was the killer.
“Think of it, Roger. He spends time in prison for something he thinks Nathaniel was responsible for. Time during which he nurses the grudge, vows to get even. As soon as he's out, he heads to the place the man he knew as Richards had mentioned. He shows up here, somehow he connects Nathaniel and the Athanasians …”
“And decides to make a retreat at Marygrove under an assumed name.”
Phil nodded as if this bore out his theory.
In the Lord I put my trust.
—
Psalm 11
 
There was a police barrier at the entrance of the grounds, and on the country road long lines of cars went slowly by in each direction, curious passengers staring at the barricade. The cop put up a hand when Father Dowling pulled in, then saw his collar and came around to the driver's side.
“Father Dowling of St. Hilary's. Father Boniface is expecting me.
“Righto, Father,” he said, giving a salute and then moving the sawhorse aside so Father Dowling could drive past.
“Thanks, Officer. You're drawing quite a crowd.”
The cop nodded. “It's been like that ever since I was posted here. They'd see more watching television.”
“It wouldn't be the same.”
“I guess you're right, Father.”
Father Dowling did not share the cop's attitude toward the curious. It was human, all too human, to draw near to the tragedy that does not wound, other people's troubles. But how easily they could be our own.
The media had indeed been admitted, and now, hours afterward,
teams of cameramen and reporters were beaming accounts back to their studios. Not just the local channels; the major Chicago stations were represented, as well as those of surrounding communities. Here were the surrogates of the curious who were driving slowly past the entrance of Marygove. The dimensions of the scandal were impossible to ignore. What strange notions of Catholicism and the Church would be fed by the news of a priest found axed to death while at prayer. Doubtless Nathaniel's colorful history away from his community would come to light.
Boniface was not in his office where they had agreed to meet, and no wonder. Cameras were filming everywhere and watchful men and women with notebooks hovered. When they saw Father Dowling, they rushed toward him, cameras pointing, pencils poised.
“Tetzel, Father Dowling. From the
Tribune.
I recognize you.”
Questions were shouted. Who was he? Tetzel turned and gave them his name. Why was he here? Who had sent him, the cardinal? Ye gods. How had Boniface managed to escape? He tried to answer without saying anything, words that would be played back again and again on news reports in the region. He was asked who he thought had killed the priest, he was asked what his connection with the Athanasians was, he felt caught in a net from which there was no escape when a burly figure pushed his way through the mob.
“Cy,” Father Dowling said with relief.
Cy took his arm. “I'll get you out of here. He's in the chapel.”
And Cy waded through the chattering media as once he had gone through opposing defensive teams. He might not even have heard the questions shouted at him, the protests, reminders of the people's right to know. And then they were through a door, Cy closing it decisively.
“They're not supposed to be in the building. They're everywhere else, like locusts.”
In the chapel, Boniface sat in his choir stall as Phil had described him earlier. Father Dowling sat down beside him and put a hand on the old priest's arm. Boniface turned.
“I should have warned you not to come.”
“Nonsense.”
Boniface was clearly glad to see him. The other Athanasians were safe in their rooms in the mansion. Boniface stood, then knelt, and Father Dowling followed suit. After a moment, they rose and went through the chapel and onto a path blessedly free from the representatives of the media. The rustle of leaves in the trees over their heads, the swoop and songs of birds, a general buzz of insects in the hot summer air made the place seem as peaceful as it had when Father Dowling had been making his retreat some weeks before.
“I hold myself responsible, Father,” Boniface said. “Last night in the common room, I exposed Nathaniel's plan, or at least what seemed a relevant part of it.”
“What did he say?”
“I told them what you said about the alienation of Church property. Of course, none of them had dreamt for a minute of profiting personally from what Nathaniel was advocating.”
“Did Nathaniel admit his aim?”
“In a sense. He went away when it was clear he had lost his following.”
“So why do you feel responsible for what happened?”
Boniface looked at him with a bottomless dread in his clear eyes. Did the old man think one of his conferes had killed Nathaniel?
“The police think it was the man who called himself Sullivan,” Boniface answered.
“Morgan. Nathaniel had been responsible for his spending time in a California prison.”
“A strong motive.”
“Perhaps.”
“You doubt it, Father?”
But all Boniface's certainties and doubts were scrambled now. Or perhaps the certainties about the range of human weakness he had learned as a priest overcame any doubt that an Athanasian had murdered Nathaniel.
“I could have done it myself, Father Dowling. How I had come to hate that man and his return and what he was doing here. Hate. It was a new experience for me, as if God were showing me that any one of us is capable of any sin.”
The old man had to talk, to say things he could not have said to the other priests. The roles that had been theirs when Father Dowling was on retreat seemed reversed. They came to the grotto and the fluttering yellow tapes that marked off the site where Nathaniel had been killed.
“When George called me, I came immediately. I gave him conditional absolution.”
“And felt no hatred.”
“I was acting as a priest.”
“And when have you not, Father Boniface?”
Tears stood in the old priest's eyes. “I know I want you to give me absolution.”
Father Dowling did so, with the statue of the Blessed Virgin looking down on them, the Mother of Mercy. Whatever dark thoughts Boniface might have had toward Nathaniel, they were
the extent of the burden on his soul. He would not have asked for absolution on the basis of what he had already told Father Dowling if that were not so.
“I told you that the police suspect Morgan. Who has now disappeared.”
“I did not believe him when he told me why he was here. The first time. Later he came to me and told me the truth.”
“About Nathaniel?”
“Yes.”
“He was bitter?”
“Of course. He was driven by the desire for revenge. But he said he did not know how he would exact it.”
“Perhaps he found the way.”
“Perhaps.”
“The police will want to know what he told you.”
“And I will tell them.”
They walked on to the lodge where they came upon Michael George. He stopped and started to turn away, but Father Dowling called to him. “I want to speak to this young man, Father Boniface.”
“Then I will leave you.”
“Boniface, if you would like to come stay at St. Hilary's …”
“And leave my brothers? Thank you, Father, but there is no place where I can hide.”
And Father Boniface went off in the direction of the mansion. Father Dowling turned to Michael George.
“When did you learn that your houseguest had left?”
“My father told me.”
“Michael, if his room was on the third floor, you must have heard if he went out during the night.”
“But I didn't.”
Father Dowling told Michael something about the man who had been staying in the lodge with his father and himself. “His name wasn't Sullivan. He is a man named Stanley Morgan who was in some kind of business with Nathaniel in California. Morgan came here looking for Nathaniel.”
“Well, he found him.”
“You didn't like Sullivan.”
“He was too smooth. And he flirted with Rita. In Spanish.”
“I talked to your father. He came to see me.”
“Yes.”
“You are in a dilemma, Michael. And I don't know what the solution is.”
“Wouldn't you want me to become a Catholic?”
“It is not something you can pretend.”
“I want us to be married, as soon as possible.”
It seemed odd, with death in the air, to hear this confession of desperate love. “Bring her to me, Michael. What you say of her, what her father says of her, makes me want to meet her.”
“She is an angel.”
He was about to say that would be an impediment to marriage, but he sensed that on this matter, and perhaps all others, Michael had no sense of humor. The first ardor of love, like all first ardors, cools with time, and if Michael abandoned his family faith to marry Rita, with the passage of the years this could become a barrier between them.
“Bring her to St. Hilary's. Call before, if you like, but I am usually there.”
Michael put out his hand and Father Dowling shook it. “I have to help my father.”
Watching him go, Father Dowling thought again of Romeo and Juliet. Not a very happy outcome to that romantic dilemma. This
place was suddenly Shakespearean, with Nathaniel killed at his prayers, perhaps, and with all his sins still on his soul.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thought never to heaven go.
 
 
He ran into Cy Horvath again as he was going to his car. Dr. Pippen the assistant coroner was with him. She was the kind of self-assured, successful woman who is often uneasy in the presence of priests. But Cy's easy manner made her more comfortable.
“Interesting wrinkle, Father. You know the body was found at the grotto.”
“Kneeling.”
“With an ax buried in his back. The question becomes, when was it buried there.”
Dr. Pippen did not wince at this manner of speaking of the deceased, but then she was a coroner.
“When I examined the body, I noticed that the area around that … kneeler, do you call it? Well, it looked swept. But farther along the path to the maintenance shed, there were traces of blood. And in the maintenance shed, things looked all scrubbed up, and even repainted.”
Cy listened to Pippen talk as if to a prize student reciting.
“She's in the wrong line, Father. She should be a detective.”
“You couldn't afford me.”
“You're suggesting that he was not killed where he was found?”
Pippen nodded and her ponytail bounced.
“Do you want me to run interference for you again, Father?”
“Are you going that way?”
“We'll drive you around,” Dr. Pippen said when she learned where his car was parked.
The reporters were still swarming as Pippen drove past them. Eager faces peered at them, as if wondering whether a shouted question might get a printable answer. But when they saw the impassive face of Lieutenant Horvath in the passenger seat, such wild hopes died.
Delivered safely to his own car, and heading down the drive to the barricaded entrance to the grounds, Father Dowling thought that Dr. Pippen had come up with an interesting wrinkle indeed. If Nathaniel had been attacked in the maintenance shed, and then somehow managed to drag himself to the grotto and die upon his knees, the fact that the body was found there had far deeper significance. If he had been struck with all his sins upon his soul, he would have arrived penitent and, one hoped, forgiven at the grotto.
And, of course, this possibility had significance for discovering who had killed Father Nathaniel.

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