by Declan Finn
Gus opened the door while adjusting a bathrobe over his shorts and tee shirt.
“Tim’s dead,” James told him casually.
Gus blinked hard, as though trying to restart his brain so everything worked right. “Where? When?”
James showed him the body.
Gus scowled at the body, as though this was just one more thing that Tim had done just to spite him. “Go call the police. Don’t let Luraleen open up the church at seven. If the police haven’t arrived by seven-thirty, then you open up.”
“Today’s Friday,” James reminded him. “And the cops shouldn’t need to interview us for a drunk who fell down the stairs in the middle of the night.”
Gus didn’t need to be reminded of his teaching schedule, apparently. “Can’t you get someone to cover your classes? I need you here.”
He shrugged. “OK,” said James reluctantly, “but it will be like pulling teeth. Gratitude for past favors is still the most ephemeral of emotions.”
Gus wasn’t paying the least attention. He had returned to his rooms for the spare set of holy oils he kept in his room against a sick-call coming in during the middle of the night. In a few minutes, he had returned with his oils and was anointing the body and praying for the soul of his fellow priest.
The rest of the morning was a horror.
James caught his colleague, Jerry Knesny, at home and was pleasantly amazed at the sympathy and quick agreement he got from his junior faculty member. Only after James hung up the phone did he realize that he had instinctively called the one member of his department who did not yet have tenure.
I’d like to think it’s because of his good nature rather than my unintentional intimidation, James hoped.
The first patrol car arrived at 7:40, one good, solid hour after they had been called. The officers were left to do their work while Father left them to dress for the 8:00 Mass. James followed a few minutes later, figuring, correctly, that he would be distributing Communion because of Gus’s shaking hands.
The old description of a priest ‘saying’ Mass applies this morning, thought James. To say we were ‘celebrating’ Mass would be grotesque.
The mass was also said with maximum speed. James did the readings, Father used the shortest Eucharistic prayer permitted. James distributed Communion, and between them, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was turned into the “fifteen minute pre-work special.”
Sister Dymphna, Margarita Gomez, and six other people James had never seen before, were ushered out. The church was locked and the sacristy door was bolted by 8:26.
The beat cops had sent for help. The two uniforms just sort of faded into the wall paint while a salt-and-pepper team in business suits invited James and the pastor into the common room.
The tall black gentleman in the dark brown suit, white shirt and yellow club tie was introduced as Senior Detective Andrew Washington. His partner, shorter, fatter, older, tireder, with pale skin, red hair and a very red nose, was introduced as Detective Brennan.
“Is there some problem?” asked James. He studied the two of them, and began to ponder if they needed Detectives for an accident.
“No problem, sir,” responded Washington. “Your name is?”
He shrugged. “Everybody here calls me Dr. James.”
“Dr. James What?” asked Brennan.
He spelled out his last name, then smiled. “Father thought that ‘Dr. James’ would be less confusing to the parishioners.”
Brennan had lost interest already.
Washington turned to Sadowski, “Reverend, the corpse smells of alcohol…”
“Catholic Priests are allowed to drink alcohol,” responded Brennan, as if he were explaining Catholicism to a total abstinence Baptist.
“It’s not that, Lieutenant…”
“Father Lessner has—had—overindulged…in public…on occasion,” the pastor explained, apologetically. The message was received loud and clear by the officers.
Brennan was patently relieved voice. “Well, seein’ as it’s like that, Father...”
Because the alcoholism was admitted? Or because it increased the possibility of accident? wondered James, whose thoughts had started down the road to a darker alternative.
“I assume that you’ve notified the Chancery?” Brennan asked.
“I will when the offices open at nine,” responded Gus wryly. James caught the reference to bureaucratic banker’s hours.
“Is there a next of kin?” continued Brennan.
“Yes, a sister. Mrs. Jessica Saleski.” Father dug her address and phone number out of his card file and that seemed to end things.
“Don’t worry about anything, Father,” said Brennan as they left. “The officer upstairs will see that the body is conveyed to the morgue van. You’ve ID’d him for us and we’ll get the release from his sister when she comes to the morgue. You and she can make all the arrangements.”
“Thank you, very much. This is most distressing and you have both been very kind,” concluded Sadowski.
“Yeah, reverend, accidents happen every day,” observed Washington as he turned away, down the steps in front of the rectory.
Gus closed the door. “I do not like the sound of that. That is one unpleasant brother.”
James responded with great conviction and no belief. “Just a good cop/bad cop routine to sucker you into doing what you just did—admitting that Tim was a drunk.”
“I hope that’s all.”
So do I, thought James.
* * *
All told, the whole incident could have slid quietly away, if Mother Petronis’ little boy did not suffer from an advanced case of Woodward-Bernstein fever.
Petronis was a police buff. His Bearcat scanner gave him the address of the dead body call at the rectory. His detailed map of the city showed the church. He added one plus one and came up with two Pulitzers.
He pulled up at the rectory as the body bag came down the stairs. Being a stringer for the one city paper that makes supermarket rags look like the Wall Street Journal, he knew enough to avoid the direct approach.
He simply pumped Luraleen for what little she knew and embroidered the rest.
The headline read:
DRUNK PRIEST
MYSTERY DEATH?
* * *
The Reverend Patrick Aloysius Clancy got the paper from his secretary when she returned from afternoon coffee break. It was for the sake of such lines to the real world that he had repeatedly refused the bishop’s offer of a young priest-secretary. “Why not just hire a little old lady instead of turning a young priest into a little old lady?” was his response.
Mrs. Grace Newcomb’s newspaper put him ten minutes ahead of the clerical grapevine.
“Grace? Get me Bishop’s office and tell Lou to clear space for me. I’ll be there in five.”
The prelate’s agreeableness to such an intrusion on his well-buffered schedule stemmed from a decade of poker nights at Mrs. Clancy’s home, which doubled as a sanctuary for priests; it also came from thirty years of Pat and Lou covering for each other as necessity called for it.
Fifteen minutes later, instead of five, Clancy arrived in the Bishop’s office, the offensive newspaper with the more offensive headline under his arm, as well as a file.
Bishop Louis Pasquale Louisini leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his chest. “So, Patrick, what’s the crisis?”
Clancy summarized the comic book vocabulary from The Daily Blatt.
The Bishop nodded. “I remember Lessner. He was being leaned on to go to Arizona to dry out. But who’s … Sadowski, you said?”
Clancy frowned. “That’s one of the reasons I’m late. I pulled out the files from Mullins’s office on my way here, and Moony is just as lax as ever. He’s gone for the day, his assistant left at two, and the typist is out for coffee. The moron hasn’t changed since the day we drummed the theology of grace into his head before finals at the seminary.”
Clancy held up the file, and opened it up, gla
ncing at it only occasionally. “Anyway, Augustine Patrick Sadowski is the pastor. He’s six years behind us in clerical seniority. He was a straight-A student at both the major and the minor seminaries—of course that was still in the days before the students were given degrees or even allowed to know that their final grades were more than ‘pass.’ He has an MA and a PhD from St. Schlomo’s University—paid for out of his pocket.”
Bishop Lousini arched a brow. “Family money?”
Clancy shook his head. “Nope. Mother dead, father retired civil service. No cash there. It took him thirteen years, but he could have done it on the $350 monthly salary…By the way, Sadowski is black.”
The bishop nodded, understanding why Clancy brought it up. Black pastor, ethnic neighborhood, which hopefully translated into relatively few racial issues between parishioners and priest.
“He doesn’t sound very political, though,” responded the Bishop. The statement took the intonation of a hopeful question.
“No, not political. More Tridentine than Paul VI, but did the good soldier number, turned on a dime and gave no post Vatican II demonstrations or the like.”
Bishop Lousini frowned. He was not content with the file summary. “Do you know him, Pat?”
Clancy nodded. “Yes.”
Lousini made a come on gesture. “So?”
“Gus Sadowski is clever, resourceful, has no financial resources of his own, but is raising more than we could expect to keep the parish going. He lost his school first to districting, then to arson. He has no full-time curate. In short, he’s holding the fort to the extent that we subsidize him…on a very short leash.”
The Bishop raised a brow. “Clancy, for a peaceful man you run a disturbingly high number of military metaphors,” chided Lousini.
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
Lousini frowned. “Your respectfulness may be even more disturbing.” He sighed and gestured to the newspaper. “Pat, what do we do about that?”
Clancy shrugged. “Nothing much. Your secretary will contact the police about releasing the body. Figure a Monday Mass of the Resurrection at the church with yourself presiding. ‘No comments’ all around, and I’ll get a supportive word to Sadowski.”
Lousini paused for a long moment, waiting for Clancy to let the other show drop. When nothing was forthcoming, Lousini asked, “What about the doctor?”
“Doctor?”
The Bishop glowered. “I’m not deaf. Barry and company were shouting the rafters down the other day, claiming physical assault! None of them were bruised, but they kept caterwauling anyway. Also, between Yamamoto and Grante-Scarf, I know a little about his lay assistant. Philosophy prof, right? From Jersey or something?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you know how much trouble they’ve been.”
“Yes,” responded Clancy wryly, “but not since the 1700s. On top of which, you really think Sadowski would bring in a troublemaker? Now, Sister Neuhaus on the other hand…”
Lousini rolled his eyes. “Oh. Yes. She was Lessner’s steady companion, wasn’t she? I’m not sure what I dislike more – their sex lives or their fads. You know I’m still enough of an old fuddy-duddy to disapprove of priests and nuns ‘dating.’ I’d rather they just worked slowly and patiently at improving their neighborhoods than indulge in the latest national or international quick-fix demonstration.”
Clancy nodded, taking it all in stride. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Get some background on the resident layman. Make sure there won’t be any trouble.”
“OK.”
“Thanks, Pat.”
“Anytime, Lou.”
* * *
Whether that episcopal confidence was shaken over the weekend, the world would never know.
The Bishop sent his auxiliary Bishops to handle the Confirmation ceremonies which had been scheduled for large assortments of children that Saturday.
Bishop Ryan, at ninety-five, was called out of semi-retirement for the occasion and rose to the occasion splendidly.
Even the ambush interview by Geraldo Martinez failed, as Bishop Ryan looked at the obnoxious reporter with a deeply myopic squint and said distinctly into the microphone, “All I know, Jerry, is that you were the worst altar boy I ever had because you were too loud and clumsy even then.”
The blushing reporter withdrew.
CHAPTER TWELVE:
BLOWBACK
A rectory can never disconnect its phones because of the urgent needs of man and his right under church law to the last sacraments if available. However, if the phone could have been disconnected, that Friday afternoon would have been the time to do it. Gus took care of the door while James took care of the phones.
Actually, James had the easier job. After fifteen ‘no comments’ in fifteen minutes, he simply dialed out to City Hospital. “Chemistry, please,” James requested.
Click. “Chem lab.”
“Abby, please.”
“Hold on.”
“Hello.”
“Abby? James.”
“Hello, stranger. I expected a call from you days ago. What’s going on down there?”
James outlined the newspaper story and added some details on finding the body and on the conversation with the two detectives.
“Did he fall or was he pushed?” asked Abby with the blunt candor he had come to expect from her. As a clinical chemist, she was used to positive or negative results and anything in the middle was a source of professional concern to be investigated immediately.
“He had the breath of the still on him. I’ve never seen him without a stagger. I’ve no reason to think he was pushed.”
Abby thought about it a moment. “We had a priest in my parish who set new records in alcohol consumption and he never had trouble getting up and down the stairs.” She paused. “In fact it surprised the hell out of us when he married the nun who ran the school… Did your corpse have a girlfriend?”
“Funny you should mention that.” James narrated the scene from Wednesday-to-Thursday night.
“Hell hath no fury…”
“Forget I told you anything about it.”
“James, talk to Father Sadowski about it.”
He sighed. “I’d rather not.”
“Do it,” she said firmly.
“Why?”
“Because it might come back to him as new information from some unexpected quarter. Because he should be prepared for it. Because it is better for it to come from you than from a total stranger. Because you can tell him in private. Because I hope he’ll agree that it is something the police should know. Because…”
“Enough already. Or as your grandfather would say, Basta!”
Since neither James nor Abby had an ancestry from just one country, she affected a preference for her fifty percent Italianate heritage and he for his own Irish ancestors, despite the fact that one of them was in America before the French and Indian War of the 1700s.
Abby was not that easily distracted. “Are you going to do it?”
“Have I ever NOT done something you wanted me to do?”
“Good boy.”
“I miss you.”
“That’sa nice. What do you propose to do about it?”
James sighed, and partially growled. “Dammed if I know. Gus tells me that the weekend is the busy time and I’ll be lucky to see my way clear by Monday night. How about Monday night, subject to confirmation on Sunday?”
“I guess it’ll have to do. Look, the samples are stacking up here. Be talkin’ to ya.”
“Bye-bye.”
The phone rang as soon as it was put down, as if in protest. “Parish house. Can I help you?”
“Father Sadowski, please.”
“Whom shall I say is calling?”asked James in his most formal Upstairs Downstairs voice.
“Father Clancy.”
James instantly relaxed. At least it wasn’t another reporter. “I’ll get him for you.”
James relieved Sadowski in the front parlor as th
ey swapped stations.
Then the doorbell rang.
James closed the book seconds after opening it.
One damn thing after another, doesn’t this place have any happy medium between Death Valley Boredom and Send In the Clowns?
Since the front door had no peephole, James left the chain on and opened the door a crack while keeping his weight against the frame.
The woman at the door was skinny and sharp-featured, a woman in that twilight zone between forty and sixty. It was not the thinness of a model, but rather gave the general impression of being ground down. A waitress at a diner for losers.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m Father Lessner’s sister, Jessica Saleski.”
James nodded. “Come in, please. Please forgive the questioning at the door; we’ve been having a little trouble with media types and the plain curious.”
“You’re not Father Sadowski.”
“No, I’m Dr. James. Can I help you?”
Her face twisted into a snarl. “No. I want to talk to the black bastard who pushed my brother down those stairs.”
The only reaction to that was for James to raised his brows. He had been here too long. Nothing shocked him anymore. “I don’t think it happened quite like that—”
She got in James’ face and jabbed him with a knife hand. “That’s right, buster, you don’t think. Timmy told me what a rotten sonuvabitch Sadowski was, and if he thinks he is going to get away with it, he hasn’t ever tangled with li’l Jessie. I can handle night-shift truckers, think I can’t handle some little wimp in a collar?”
“Oh?” James said casually. “What do you do?”
“Don’t grease me, honey—won’t work. I do twelve hours six nights a week at the truck stop out on the interstate, and no pencil pusher like you is going to stop me from seeing that creep.”
“Hello, I’m Father Sadowski. Can I help you?”
Jessica Saleski froze and James jumped. He hadn’t even heard Gus coming. She was quicker to recover. She pulled out a cigarette, tapped it arrogantly on the parlor table and slowly lit it. Her eyes crinkled from the smoke and her glare was cold hate. “Why did you kill my brother?”
