Father Michael Murphy nodded and his face relaxed into a smile. “No doubt, Mrs. Parker, John O’Hara was the kind of good Christian who followed Christ’s examples. If he saw suffering or injustice, he would act to end it.”
“Yes, as Mrs. Parker said, there’s no doubt,” reiterated Mr. Benchley. He weighed the wisdom of speaking more frankly, and decided to share with the priest the little we knew. “Before he passed on, Father O’Hara spoke to Mr. Woollcott.”
Aleck picked up the cue: “He said, ‘Stop him. Save him.’ Do you know what he could have meant by those words?”
“I suppose it to mean that our Lord Jesus Christ offers salvation to any man, saint or sinner, upon the asking. Perhaps Father John was not speaking directly to Mr. Woollcott, but rather to our Lord as he was about to leave this world. It would be like John to consider the state of the soul of his transgressor.” The priest’s eyes glistened with moisture as he considered the character of his longtime friend. He nodded and said, “John O’Hara was the embodiment of Christ-like compassion.”
We three sat quietly for a long moment, observing the priest, each of us trying to decide how best to continue the interview. It was Father Michael who rallied with, “There was something that weighed heavily on his soul. I could see that, when he arrived here last Saturday.”
“Did he talk to you about it?”
“I sensed that was the urgency behind his visit to me. I tried that first day to give him the opportunity to share with me whatever was on his mind. But he said nothing. I did not hear his confession. I offered to hear it. Although he came all that distance to see me, we spent very little time in each other’s company after dinner the day he arrived. I sensed from his nervousness, his mental distraction when we did speak, that there was something, some dilemma with which he wrestled.”
“What did he talk about that made you concerned?”
“He spoke about the condition of mankind, the increasing violence and corruption in the government, and the poverty and ignorance that existed in his seemingly idyllic rural town in Tennessee. The Ku Klux Klan was a powerful force, and their intolerance and blatant hatred upset him. And then there was the Scopes Trial. He respected William Jennings Bryan, you know, and when Bryan suddenly fell over dead, a week after defending the faith from the trouncing he took on the witness stand from Clarence Darrow’s questioning, well, a lot of people found that troubling. Heresy. An omen of sorts. I suspect that the atmosphere down there greatly affected him.”
“Was he having a crisis of faith?”
“Perhaps he was. Bryan’s death begged the question.”
“Why would Bryan’s death cause a crisis of faith in Father John?”
“Evolution. Science challenging Genesis. Six days for the Lord to make the world, the moon and the stars . . . oh, there are lots of people, good people, very pious, who saw it as a sign.”
“David versus Goliath, but Goliath wins?” I said.
“Something like that, yes.”
“An End-Time scenario?” asked Mr. Benchley.
“Do some people see Darrow as ‘the Beast’?” asked I.
“Many blame him for the death of William Jennings Bryan.”
“Darrow has said that blaming him for the statesman’s death is nonsense,” I said (recalling Ross, with wicked delight, warning Aleck that Bryan died soon after gorging himself all day at a banquet). “Darrow claimed that he died of a busted belly.”
“I would think Darrow’s comment would not be well received among Bryan’s admirers,” said Mr. Benchley.
“Sure and it’s unreasonable to think the lawyer was to blame,” said Father Michael with a smile. “But lots of people take the Bible literally, you know.”
“Do you?” I asked brazenly.
“I do. One’s faith is tested when it’s difficult to believe, you know. I take the New Testament literally, and the Old with a grain or two of salt, I must admit.”
“I’m sorry, Father,” I said. “It’s none of my business—”
“That’s all right, really,” he said and laughed. He had a nice smile, good teeth, and I liked the way his eyes crinkled. “That’s been my crisis of faith, you see.”
“And you can think of nothing he said, thinking back on those times you spent with him, that might lend some insight as to why he was . . . troubled?”
“Mr. Benchley, the life of a priest is often fraught with opportunities that challenge our way of life. Some people call them temptations; I see only opportunities, opportunities for tests of faith. I can’t presume to say why or about what Father John was conflicted, as he did not take me into his confidence, and while here, made no confession. Had he asked me to be his confessor, I could not speak of it, you understand? But whatever the challenge, the conflict, Father John would have found his way with the help of his faith. Of that I am certain.”
Mr. Benchley nodded. “We would like to speak to people who knew him well, and those from his parish church who might shed some light on what may have been troubling him, and whether he suspected he was in danger.”
“You aren’t saying that you believe someone actually murdered him with malice aforethought?”
His choice of the legal term for premeditated murder struck an almost-comical note of high melodrama coming from the holy man’s mouth. There was a sinister bent to the expression that sent a shiver down from the nape of my neck.
“It’s a possibility,” I said.
Malice aforethought.
Aleck, his whiskey gone and his calm evaporated, stiffened his back. “I believe the murderer intended to kill me.”
“But, the police said—”
“Yes, that it was random,” said Aleck, nodding slowly, his voice low, expression grave. “Alas, no! I believe I was the intended victim!”
“But Mr. Woollcott, who would want to murder you?” asked Father Michael, his voice raised an octave, his expression, incredulous disbelief.
“You’d be surprised,” I said, not quite under my breath.
Aleck flashed me the Evil Eye.
Woodrow Wilson whined.
Mr. Benchley said, “On the chance that Father O’Hara was in fact trying to warn someone, trying to protect someone from violence, Mr. Woollcott even, would you be so kind as to telephone should you remember anything, anything at all, that he might have said that may give a clue as to why he may have been in danger?” He handed the priest his card.
“Yes, of course, whatever I can do,” said Father Michael, as Mr. Benchley and then Aleck rose from their chairs. Woodrow Wilson leapt from the priest’s lap.
“We’ll want to speak with the godson, Timothy . . . ?”
“Yes, Timothy Morgan. I’ll ask him to telephone you when he gets in.”
“He’s here, in New York?”
“He’s arriving today from Michigan. Perhaps he can tell you more about his godfather’s state of mind.”
The degree of Aleck’s upset was evident from the fact that he did not ask Father Michael to refill his glass, and when we departed the rectory, he insisted on taking a taxi home instead of suggesting a stop at Tony Soma’s speakeasy for a cocktail. It was only a bit after four o’clock, but the afternoon sun had dipped low into the horizon as twilight fell over the city. The short November days gave in without a fight to endless nights, as the winter solstice encroached with cold indifference upon the lives of Manhattanites, egged on with the stiff competing gusts of wind off the rivers that bordered the island east and west.
I’ve always watched dusk, the time of day that the French call l’heure bleue, with a sense of trepidation. I don’t know why it affects me so, but that hour of the day saddens me. Profoundly. I’m sure some student of Dr. Freud could tell you I’m afraid of change, or of the dark, or that the hour signals a time in my childhood when I felt unloved or unwanted or endured suffering. But, I’m not afraid of change, really, as I’ve little to lose, or of the dark; and what child hasn’t at some time or another felt bad about something or other?
>
And it seems that, just before the arrival of this time of the day, when I need to light a lamp to chase off the creeping gloom, I seem to have forgotten; I suffer amnesia of sorts, forgetting the experience of the previous day’s melancholy. I don’t anticipate the moment, so it always takes me by surprise and dismay. Others must feel as I do, for as if to battle the gray that cloaks the city at dusk, thousands of lights come on to brighten the shadowy spaces, to chase away the baleful blues, and soon the atmosphere changes in aspect from dreaded dreary to deliberate and determined celebration.
With each new light comes another beam of hope.
My spirits revive. How could I have forgotten that I am not alone?
Because that is what I fear: walking through the shadows alone.
I suppose, then, that with each lamp lit I am made aware that I am not alone in this city of seven million people, even though in most respects I am alone in this world. My parents are dead, my brother disappeared mysteriously a decade ago, my aunts and uncles have gone to their graves, and my husband home to his snooty mother in New Haven. There is only my sister, Helen; at least there is she. And Woodrow Wilson.
So, in this great city at dusk, at this hour of mourning for all that has been lost, for all that has not yet been accomplished, with each lamp lit there is human solidarity against the approaching darkness. It is better to make the night gay, we all seem to agree, as we await the dawn together.
Tell Dr. Freud I figured it out. (My friends pay big bucks to lie on divans in Park Avenue offices talking to bewhiskered alienists. Being broke like me proves mighty thrifty.)
Aleck slammed the door of his taxi, gave the order to the cabbie, and without even a “Good evening” to Mr. Benchley and me was off to his West Side flat. It was unlike Aleck not to offer to share a cab, so we knew how badly affected he’d been by the events of the past two days.
Mr. Benchley and I looked inquisitively at each other; Woodrow Wilson waited patiently at our feet, looking from one to the other of us for direction.
“Neysa’s?” I asked Mr. Benchley. We’d been invited to our friend Neysa Mc Mein’s for cocktails at five.
“We’ll arrive quite early. Very well, shall we taxi uptown?”
The street was relatively free of pedestrian traffic this far east on 43rd, a side street off the busy avenues, which we attributed to the long holiday weekend making for a subdued rush hour. Woodrow Wilson need not be employed for taxi roundup.
Mr. Benchley stepped to the curb, stuck two fingers in his mouth, and let out a blood-curdling whistle in the direction of Second Avenue. Arm raised, he hailed a cab coming around the corner.
I stooped down to lift Woodrow Wilson into my arms, and was rising with my little fellow tucked under my elbow when I heard a car backfire and the ping of metal. Woodrow yelped and struggled to be set free. He is easily disturbed by lightning and thunder or a knock on the door; any sound piercing the calm will set him off yapping and jumping and circling frantically. As I had not yet straightened up when he leaped from my arms, his leash tangled round my arm and I fell hard to the sidewalk. Just then, the taxi drove up to the curb.
Mr. Benchley was kneeling at my side. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head, and that was cue enough for him to open the taxi’s passenger door and lift me onto the seat. He told the cabbie to drive around the block and to wait for him on the avenue. Taking Woodrow’s leash in hand he bolted down the sidewalk.
But when another report pierced the gray-blue hour and set the hanging sign of a podiatrist’s office out front of the building next door to the church to swaying, I had trouble believing a backfire had produced such a result. The cabbie and I ducked down in our seats. I heard Woodrow Wilson’s fervent barking, so I rose up to look through the back windshield as my pup turned suddenly, head up, sniffing at the wind, and with a violent yank gave chase along the sidewalk with Mr. Benchley in tow.
The cabbie was pulling out into the street when I shrieked, “Stop!”
He stomped on the brake so suddenly that I was sent sliding off the leather seat and onto the floor. Cursing under his breath, he flashed a visual sentiment at me through his rearview mirror. I pulled myself up by the window strap to kneel on the seat, facing out the back window. Mr. Benchley dodged the steady flow of traffic on the avenue as he followed my bloodhound. “Follow them,” I ordered the cabbie.
Another shot sounded; people screamed; then the shrill screech of car brakes. Pedestrians dispersed, rushing for cover. Police whistles sounded with insistent repetition. And with the sound of sirens the crowd reassembled to rush forward once more to witness the cause of the commotion. From where I sat, there was little I could see other than heads bobbing over the black hoods of automobiles. I opened the door and got out of the taxi, much to the objection of the cabbie. I fished out a dime from my coat pocket and handed the coin to him before I fled up the street. A police whistle cut through the jumble of excited voices.
All I could think about were the fates of my beloved Mr. Benchley and my most precious puppy. Again the police whistles cut through the cacophony of car and truck horns, the cling-clang of the trolley jiggling along its tracks, and the booming rumble of the el train passing over the avenue. A siren ululated in the distance, its whirring whine ricocheting against the taller buildings of Midtown. The smell of gunpowder mingled with the smell of onions frying at a restaurant on the corner and the belching musty coal smoke of furnaces. Funny how one notices mundane details at times of intense experience: the black cat diving through the overflowing trashcan in an alley, the street cleaner’s impressive moustache, the election bill still posted on a brick wall weeks after election day, the spidery pattern of shattered glass on the windshield of the auto parked at the curb; smells and sounds and sights bombarding the senses.
After zigzagging around curved steel, chrome headlights, and running boards, I finally poked through the tightly knit crowd gathered on the corner. Automobiles honking like frightened geese or the hee-haw of donkeys reached an ear-splitting crescendo as scores of impatient rush-hour drivers, unaware of the incident, sounded their horns. The noise faded with the throbbing beat of my own pulse in my ears. The rush of adrenalin burned like hot embers on my eyeballs, my stomach and chest were gripped with the paralyzing pressure of panic at the thought of what I might discover just beyond the last wall of topcoats.
“Fred!” I screamed, tears blurring my vision, as I pushed on, forcing breaks in the mass of bodies with insistent fists.
And then I heard the metal clinking of Woodrow’s collar and tags, and his yipping response to my voice! My brown-eyed treasure broke through and under and around the legs of the hulking bystanders, his leash trailing, to leap up into my waiting arms. As his tongue windshield-wiped the tears from my face, I was only half relieved of my anxiety. I was sick to my stomach with fear.
“Fred!” I yelled hoarsely with no response, clutching my dog to me as I elbowed through the wall of bystanders.
“Fred . . .” I whispered, now, the affectionate name I sometimes used for Mr. Benchley, my voice breaking like heartache.
“He’s dead,” I heard a man’s voice ring out clearly over the rumble of noise.
I clutched Woodrow closer, my face searching for solace in the plush of his winter coat. I felt my world dropping out beneath my feet; I was reeling in space and would have fallen to the ground had I not been propped up by the pressing crowd.
Woodrow whimpered. A constant shiver wracked his small body, and through my tears I could discern one large brown puppy-eye regarding me fiercely as he wiggled for relief from my stronghold. I loosened my grip, and with what I’d attribute as gratitude, he once again licked the tears streaming down my cheeks.
I couldn’t face the horrible scene of my dead Fred lying out on the street before me, and yet, I could not leave my place in the crowd as long as he remained there—beyond the tall, unrelenting onlookers blocking my view. How could I go on without my friend, my best friend? What would m
y world be like now that he was gone? “Oh, Fred!” I cried out weakly, and the anguish I heard in my own voice brought a new knowledge to me. Mr. Benchley had been the only person in the world, other than my sister Helen, whom I deeply loved. And now, he, too, had been taken from me!
“Dottie?” The sound of his voice was only inches away, and then the hand appeared to guide me to him. My relief was so complete as I was clutched in an embrace. I leaned in to feel the soft cashmere fabric of his overcoat against my inflamed cheek. I’d lost my hat in the scuffle, and his warm hand patted my head like a reassuring parent’s.
A coat button pressed painfully into my forehead; Woodrow Wilson fought for air. I pulled away to look up into the smiling face of my best friend.
“You’re all right?” I asked, looking him over; all was good with the world!
“Why, Mrs. Parker, what made you think I wasn’t?” he said, leading me away. “Are you all right, my dear?”
I turned to look back from whence he’d appeared, as the circle of spectators closed in. “I am now. I thought you were—but, you’re not.”
With a reassuring arm around my shoulder, Mr. Benchley led me to the sidewalk. “As much cannot be said for the murderer, I’m afraid, the man who shot at you, Mrs. Parker. He ran in front of a truck just over there.”
“Is he . . . ?”
As he had no clean handkerchief, Mr. Benchley took the purse from my wrist and opened the latch. Finding a clean lace hankie, he proceeded to wipe the devastation from my face as he spoke. “Dead, yes. From your description of the fellow you saw kill Father O’Hara, I’d say you and Aleck have nothing to fear any longer, my dear.”
For a change, I was speechless. And so very, very happy. I allowed Mr. Benchley the belief that it was for my own safety that I smiled.
Father John and Father Michael when young seminarians
Chapter Five
After we were questioned for a couple of exhausting hours at the police station, and having given our sworn statements, we were given leave to go home.
[Dorothy Parker 02] - Chasing the Devil Page 7
