Till Death (37 page)

“Whose idea was it to have the get-together on the boat?”

“Mine, of course. Dora was scared stiff of the water. Everybody knew that.”

“Did Dora agree readily?”

“She dragged everything she could. I wanted a setting where, if things got too argumentative, nobody could up and leave. The only two places I could think of were a plane or a boat. We didn’t have a plane. Once I made her see that, Dora went along with it.”

He was rattling off answers as if they’d been rehearsed. Koesler wondered how many times Rick had gone over this in his mind.

“There was a threatening weather watch on that day,” Koesler continued. “Did you consider postponing the gathering?”

“Michigan’s weather is notoriously fickle. There was a better chance that we would have ideal weather than that we’d run into a storm.”

“Even though any kind of storm would terrify Dora?”

“I thought a postponement would develop into a cancellation.”

“Just before the storm hit, you began taking precautions. The first thing you did was issue life jackets?”

“How did you know that?”

“Some of what we’re discussing I knew about because I was present at the St. Ursula gathering. Some I learned from others telling me. Most of what we’re talking about now—what went on in the boat—I learned in the emergency room when you all were babbling compulsively.” Having explained that, Koesler returned to the question at hand. “So, how about the life jackets?”

“I handed them out. A little later, Tom got out the rope that would link us together.”

“Lil helped Jerry with his jacket. And Dora?”

Casserly hesitated. “I was trying to help Dora with her jacket.”

“And you did?”

A longer hesitation. “She refused to buckle it. Said it was uncomfortable.”

“And with a storm like that coming on, you let her get away with that excuse? Knowing on top of it that she would be the most vulnerable of anyone on the boat?”

Casserly did not reply to either question. “What’s going on here, Bob?” he said. “This is some kind of inquisition?”

“You said you would go with me on this.”

Casserly hung his head. After a moment, he nodded. “I thought I … we … could get the jacket fastened when we went on deck. It would be easier than in the crowded conditions of the cabin. Debris was flying everywhere.” He looked at Koesler as if begging him to understand.

“So,” Koesler said, “this time it was Dora who had too much to drink. She went in the head to be sick. And, probably because she was embarrassed, she locked the door. You let her get away with that? The one most likely to react irrationally to the storm?”

“It … it seemed best at the time.” Angrily, “We didn’t have time to sit down and plan what was best to do. This is hindsight! This is Monday-morning quarterbacking!”

“Take it easy, Rick. You wanted my help. For good or ill, stay with me.” He paused to give his friend time to pull himself together. At Rick’s nod, Koesler proceeded. “Now, when it became imperative to go up, Dora was still in the head. Jerry kicked the door in and got her out. Not you, her husband?”

“Jerry was … was closer to the head.”

“This is crucial, Rick. When you got up on deck, you all were linked together—all but Dora.”

“We only had time to get the smaller length of rope around Dora. The giant wave hit us before we could link her to us.”

“The giant wave … the giant wave. If memory serves me, it was Jerry who spotted the wave. He pointed at it and caught everybody’s attention. How much time would you think passed between everyone’s seeing the wave and the time it hit?”

Casserly considered briefly. “It hung there for a … a …” He squinted, as if trying to recall. “That type of wave … well, waves like that, when they’re about to break, they sort of hover … I’d say for a second … maybe two.”

“Rick, it always surprises me what people can do in a second—even a fraction of a second. Athletic events—football and basketball, for instance, that depend on a period of time for the game—sometimes they use a clock or a stopwatch that records tenths, or even one hundredths of a second. Skiing, for instance: It’s amazing what they can accomplish in less than a second. A basketball player can get the ball in play and another player can take a shot—all in a fraction of a second.”

“Bob!” a shocked Casserly exclaimed. “What are you saying?”

“It put me in mind of an Agatha Christie mystery,
Murder on the Orient Express
. Each and every one of the suspects stabs the victim. No one can be the murderer because it’s impossible to determine which of the stab wounds was the fatal blow.”

“Bob!”

“This would be just the opposite,” Koesler continued. “No one killed Dora. She died because no one helped her. During her funeral Mass, in the Penitential Rite, we recited these words:’… I have sinned through my own fault … in what I have done
and in what I have failed to do’
After that I heard a sob. Was that your subconscious, Rick? In being particularly sorry about what you failed to do?”

Even in the fading light of early evening, Koesler could see that Casserly’s countenance had become ashen.

“It hasn’t taken you long,” Casserly said, “to narrate what happened on that boat. It took even less for the actual event to happen. Do you mean to say that in that brief and pressure-packed time the four of us entered some sort of conspiracy to kill Dora? Did we have time to plot all this?”

“No, not plot. Time enough to create an atmosphere in which this could happen. Look at it this way, Rick: Before Dora took center stage in your lives, everything was sailing smoothly. Then she got pregnant and you lost your most precious possession—the priesthood. Lil lost you and you lost Lil. Tom Becker ached for you, his best friend. Jerry Anderson lost Dora. Dora managed to foul everyone’s life. Dora was Public Enemy Number One. The atmosphere was created to take revenge on Dora.

“If you want another indication of how long-standing this atmosphere was, look at laicization. At the meeting at St. Joe’s, Jerry told us how quickly he had been dispensed. You came out very forcefully in favor of playing by the rules. For someone at odds with the Church, it was strange to hear you argue for laicization as the honorable path. Yet in all the time between the wedding and her death, you never even began the process—although you knew this was an opportune and appropriate time to apply. Why not? Because if you were laicized, as was Jerry, you never would be readmitted into the active ministry?

“When Dora reached out to you to save her, in that split second, did all that atmosphere overwhelm you? You didn’t need time to plot; your subconscious had done it for you over a long period of time. In a sense, you, as well as the other three, choreographed the whole scenario.”

Rick recalled charging Dora with the same accusation: that she had choreographed the situation.

“Is it possible then,” said a shaken Casserly “that we are—all of us—guilty of murder? That I am most guilty of all? I was her husband. Yet I took every aid, every help, every support she needed away from her. In her last moment, she reached out to me—she literally reached her hands toward me. And I stood there and watched her be swept away.”

Koesler thought he saw tears coursing down Casserly’s cheeks. The shadows were growing long.

“Rick”—the priest’s tone was compassionate—“whatever went on in that boat, it wasn’t murder—not in the legal sense.” Koesler paused to reflect. “Once I formed this theory,” he said, thoughtfully, “I asked around—discreetly—and learned that there is no Michigan law that demands one citizen help another.” He paused again. “Now, if any one of you had, say, pushed Dora overboard, it would have been murder, plain and simple. But with no law in Michigan regarding this matter, we’re considering not legality, but morality. And that judgment is within the conscience of each one of you.

“That’s why I was so reluctant to bring this up … to mention your possible involvement from a moral standpoint. But you are the one having nightmares. You wanted my help to get rid of them. You couldn’t—because I think you’ve blocked it out—recognize what was going on beneath the manifest content.

“Remember just a few minutes ago telling me about your stage-acting dream? You spoke about the other actors needing you, depending on you for their cues. You couldn’t give them any help.

“Remember when you were on that boat? And Dora needed, depended on you, to save her? You didn’t—you couldn’t, perhaps—help her. You didn’t insist she fasten her jacket. You didn’t force her to unlock the door to the head. You didn’t get her out of the head—Jerry did. And, most definitively, you didn’t try to save her when she was swept overboard.”

Rick looked like a limp washcloth. It was obvious he was overcome with guilt—deep, encompassing, pervasive guilt.

“Now,” Koesler, not unkindly, “it’s time to hear from the defense. Rick, I don’t think any of your actions were premeditated in any way. You had an excuse for everything you did. The boat was a means … it was supposed to prevent an angry exit. It would be easier to get Dora’s jacket on after you left the cabin. And so on.

“Do I think you committed murder? Obviously, in the legal sense, absolutely not. There was no law for you to break. Morally? I don’t think so. Just as your immune system fights off infection, so your psychic personality fought off the block to your priesthood. It went on fighting even after you lost that priesthood.

“It might not have been your finest hour. But you would never, under any circumstances, have deliberately killed that woman—or anyone else, for that matter.” Koesler sat back, but looked at Rick intently. “One more thing: I don’t think you’ll ever have those nightmares again.”

Silence. Not a sound in this old house but floors that squeaked in memory of priests who had served here through the years.

There is an expression: a shadow of one’s former self. It applied to Rick Casserly now. He took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes. He would do that many more times in days to come.

Father Koesler moved to the couch and sat down next to his friend. Koesler put his arm around Casserly’s shoulder and held him. Nothing more. Just held him. Occasionally Rick would sob softly. But neither man said a word. Dinnertime came and went. Still they sat together.

It grew very late.

Casserly rose mutely, donned his suit coat, and stood motionless for a short time. He took Koesler’s hand and held it tightly. And then he left. He was composed, but shaken to his core.

Koesler watched him leave. And then it was night.

Twenty-seven

“Well,” Father Tully said dully, “here it is Wednesday. I’m well and I don’t need a priest or a doctor.”

“Too bad,” Father Koesler replied, “you’ve got one right next to you.”

“A doctor?”

“That’ll be the day. Even
honoris causa.
”

The two, in their clericals, were waiting for the start of a movie in a dingy theater on the outskirts of Detroit. The choice had been Tully’s. He was a movie buff and this theater had a policy of showing film classics. Koesler came along to ride shotgun. This neighborhood was
not
Detroit’s answer to New York’s Fifth Avenue.

Koesler smiled at Tully’s large tub of popcorn and giant soft drink. Zack indulged in this gastronomic madness only and always at the movies. “Do you remember,” Koesler said, “what we were doing a year ago tonight?”

“How could I forget? We were hosting a reunion of St. Ursula survivors. Speaking of survivors, whatever happened to Rick Casserly? I haven’t heard much about him after that storm and the boat incident.”

“Oh, he’s in Arizona, working things out.” Koesler didn’t add that Rick had joined a religious order called the Theresians—the male counterpart of Dora’s order. When Rick explained what he’d learned about himself and Dora, Bishop Waldo gave him permission to join the strict group with the proviso that should he wish, Rick could return to Flint. Rick had only one reason for joining that order: atonement. He could not bring himself to believe he was innocent of Dora’s death. He had to make amends; to God and to Dora. But his nightmares had not recurred.

“Strange, isn’t it,” Koesler asked rhetorically, “what the choices we make can do to our lives?”

“Uh-huh.” Tully nodded, and filled his hand with popcorn.

“Take Dora Riccardo, for instance. If she had chosen practically any other religious order than the Theresians, this whole thing we’ve lived through this year probably wouldn’t have happened. Any other order that had paid attention to Vatican Two would have utilized her talents to the maximum, instead of going nuts over rules and regulations.

“Whereas, getting pushed and abused by her religious colleagues, Dora set her cap for Rick. Rick had already chosen Lil and Lil had reciprocated. Jerry had chosen Dora. And Tom Becker chose to be Rick’s best friend. A lot of choices going on. With lots of strange effects.”

“Uh-hmm,” Tully agreed through a mouthful of Coke.

“I mean,” Koesler continued, “there’s the maxim, Play the hand you’re dealt. I think most people who cite that expression believe that God is the dealer in this game of life. If they suffer great evil, they may do the best they can and they figure they are shouldering their burden: They are playing the hand they’ve been dealt. But they blame God for dealing that hand.

“Actually I think most people never consider that in large part they themselves are the dealers. We have no choice about our parents; God may have dealt that. But shortly, the hands are dealt by us. And we have to take responsibility.”

Koesler was aware that Tully was not paying much attention. It didn’t matter. Koesler wanted to sound himself out on the matter of responsibility.

“Rick,” Koesler continued, “dealt himself a relationship with Lil. It changed his life. For one, he proved a man could be a superior priest when married—for all intents and purposes—to a strong, beautiful woman. But he had a lot of cards to shuffle. Dora dealt herself a high card when she seduced a drunk.

“And on and on it goes, Zack. We’ve got to play the cards we’re dealt. But we have to realize that most of the time
we
are the dealers and we have to take responsibility for the way we play the game, as well as for who dealt them. We did!”