Aisle of the Dead

by Joseph E. Wright

  “Which, incidentally, the police should be told about,” Pat pointed out. “It will go easier with him if the information is volunteered, rather than forcing the police to find it out themselves. But that’s another kettle of something or other. Your hiring him was a good idea, actually, with what was going on here and with subsequent events. I’m referring to Father Mowbray’s murder. And speaking of Father Mowbray, we heard that you and he had a serious disagreement the evening before his death. Would you care to tell us about it?”

  Father Sieger got up and walked over to the windows, although it was obvious he did not do so to look out. The leaded windows made that quite difficult. He stood there for several seconds while Pat and Phillis sat in silence. When he turned around to face them, he was a different man. His face suddenly looked more haggard than it had the past few days. He seemed not only to have aged within the past minute, but there was also a hint of relaxation to his features, as though a nagging pain had gone away.

  “We fought, I’m ashamed to say,” Father Sieger began, as he walked over to them. “I shall blame myself the rest of my life for the things I said to him on the last evening I was to spend with him on this earth. It started while we were at the dinner table. Paul told me he had been out that afternoon and had seen something interesting. Nothing important. I don’t even remember what it was he said he saw. But I did ask him if he were alone or if someone was with him. He told me that his friend, Sherrill Rothe, had been with him. I made some kind of thoughtless remark about that--I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what that was--and we soon left the table. I honestly thought the conversation was over.

  “When we got to the second floor, I went into my sitting room. Paul followed me. We often used to sit there of an evening after dinner and talk for a while. That evening, I noticed Paul did not sit, but began pacing the floor rather rapidly, as though something was bothering him. He seemed agitated and stammered out something about not liking my attitude or the tone of my voice when I questioned him about how he spent his afternoons and especially who he spent them with. I attempted to apologize if I had, indeed, offended him because I certainly had no intention of hurting him, least of all about something so trivial as how and with whom he spent an afternoon. As I look back, it’s all too apparent that Paul was under extreme stress. Had I recognized it at the time, I would not have engaged in that argument. In any event, the whole situation quickly got out of control and we were soon shouting some rather nasty things at one another. I’d give anything in this world if only I could take back the things I said to him.”

  Phillis put a question to the priest: “You criticized him for being with Sherrill Rothe. Doesn’t that seem to you to reveal that deep down you’re a bit homophobic?”

  “No, no, not at all,” Father Sieger protested. “All I said was that I thought it somewhat indiscreet of him to be seen so often with this young man, especially living practically under the nose of the bishop as we do here in the city. You probably have no idea how people talk, how they can’t wait to bring real or imaginary stories to the bishop’s attention. There are people who, for whatever reasons, spend their time writing to the bishop complaining. Within our church, there is a great deal of leeway in practices, the very thing I admire most about it. Well, some of these people who write letters complain that the services are too long or too short. They feel their priests are too ‘Roman’ or too ‘Protestant.’ They object to the amount of music or the lack of music in our churches. They insist their priests should be celibate or should be married. They accuse them of being drunks, of being greedy for too much money, of spending too much time away from their parishes. There is no facet of pastoral duties about which someone hasn’t complained at one time or another.

  “Paul was still idealistic enough to think that people were as honest and as understanding as he was. He had no idea how vicious people can be. I’ve seen how people can twist the most innocent thing imaginable into something very unsavory. Once when I was a young curate, I often visited friends at the seashore. They lived next to a corner bar. There was rarely ever a parking place in front of their house, so I used to leave my car alongside the corner where most of the bar’s patrons parked. Someone went to my rector and told him that I spent much of my time frequenting that bar, that they could prove it because my car was parked outside it so often.

  “And to make matters even more serious, a letter came addressed to me from the bishop only a few days before Paul and I had that argument. In it, the bishop said he had received a letter complaining of certain things going on in this rectory. Given the mentality of these complainers, it isn’t surprising that sex is the number one subject of their letters. This most recent letter sent to the bishop said one of the priests here at Saint Alban’s was having an openly illicit affair. I felt I should tell Paul about that letter. Quite sincerely, I suggested it might be wiser for him to be a bit more… well, circumspect. I assured him I was positive the accusation was from a crank who had nothing better to do than write poison pen letters.

  “Paul did not understand what I was trying to tell him. I wish I had let it drop at that. I said I was worried about his future and that was when he informed me that his future was no concern of mine. That statement was so unlike him and that, too, should have given me some inkling that he was under exceptional stress.”

  “But you made up the next morning,” Phillis said. Request for an explanation was clearly called for in her statement.

  “You’ve heard me say more than once what a great guy Paul was. The next morning, he said he was sorry. It took a real person to do that. I’m ashamed to say it took more than I had in me. He explained why he was so uptight the previous evening. He’d been wrestling with himself and trying to come to a solution for something that was so very important, and during the night he came to an answer. Father Mowbray informed me he was about to leave the priesthood. In a way, it didn’t surprise me. I secretly knew he was in love with Sherrill Rothe. They were going to live together by the end of the summer.”

  “You tried to talk him out of it?”

  “Of course. I thought he was throwing away his career, the thing he worked so hard for all these years, for… for an infatuation.”

  “Infatuation?” Pat echoed. “I’d hardly call it that. It’s so damned unfair! If he was in love with a woman, it would have been all right, but because Sherrill is a male, their love had to be condemned. I would have expected more understanding on your part, Father.”

  “I really did understand, Pat. I understood a great deal more than you might realize. It was just that I thought Paul ought to wait a little longer, that’s all.”

  Phillis could sense that her brother was getting angrier by the moment. She changed the subject. “Father, is there anything else you have not told us, anything else that happened that you thought wasn’t important? Even something minor could be of profound importance in a murder investigation, you know.”

  Father Sieger shook his head.

  “Did Father Mowbray say anything these past few weeks that at the moment seemed out of character, strange coming from him?” she persisted. “For example, you told us just now that he told you to keep out of his affairs, that his future was no concern of yours, things like that. Can you think of anything, anything that may have bothered you at the moment, but that you didn’t pursue?”

  Again Father Sieger shook his head. “No, he was his usual self, except for that evening we fought. I can’t remember his saying…. No, nothing really.”

  “Are you sure?” she pressed him. “You were about to say something just now. What was it?”

  “There was something, but it really wasn’t serious.”

  “Father, there is nothing more serious than murder and someone did murder Father Mowbray. Personal feelings of others can’t be allowed to stand in the way of the truth.” She stood up and confronted the priest. “Please tell me what it was that you were about to mention.”

  “It was something Paul said at din
ner one evening several weeks ago. He was talking about priests and how they’re expected to help everyone, no matter how important or how trivial the problems, how we’re expected to be advisors, psychiatrists, family counselors. He mentioned that he thought he may have said the wrong thing to someone recently. I asked him what it was and he told me he thought someone had used him to take sides in a family squabble. I don’t remember the whole thing, but it evidently had something to do with someone forcing a parent to leave Philadelphia and go live with them in another city.

  “Paul then began going over matter I’d heard him cover before: that priests should not be alone, that they should have someone. If straight, then a spouse; if gay, then a partner. He was adamant on the subject. Said priests more than most get a bit funny in the head when alone too much. I argued that priests are alone less than most people. I said it just to get a rise out of him. Naturally, he pointed out that when he said ‘alone’ he was not talking about not having people around, but about not having one special someone to whom one could talk, confide one’s problems, share one’s dreams. I secretly agreed with him, but I was sort of playing devil’s advocate, you see. In his discourse, he told me I should have someone, then he stopped suddenly. It was then that he said something that has been with me these past few weeks, something strange. He looked up from his plate and said, ‘I’m wrong. You’re better off. People can be the cause of so much harm. No, stay just the way you are.’ And the more I think of those words of his, the more I realize it wasn’t what he said. It was the way he spoke those words. There was something in the tone of his voice that made my blood run cold. There was almost a… a….”

  They waited for the rector to continue. He didn’t.

  “A what, Father?” Phillis asked him.

  He stared at them for a moment. “Huh? I’m sorry.”

  “What was it that was in his voice?” Phillis asked again.

  “A warning, I think. Yes, I do think he was trying to warn me of something.”

  “Or someone?” Pat suggested.

  Father Sieger seemed shocked. “But who? Who would Paul have been trying to warn me against?”

  CHAPTER XX

  Pat and Phillis went upstairs to Pat’s room, where he called Nelson Paquette.

  “Mr. Paquette, Father Sieger asked us to do some investigating in areas in which it might be better for the sake of the parish not to involve the police,” he said in response to the vestrymember’s question concerning their involvement in Father Mowbray’s death. “There are a few questions we are trying to get answers to, and we’ve been told by several people that you are in a position to help us, with your years of membership in this parish and the important role you play in the vestry. I’d be very much in your debt if you would give me a bit of your time today.”

  “Since you put it that way, young man,” Nelson Paquette said, “I don’t suppose I could very well refuse now, could I? I won’t disguise the fact that I had no time for Father Mowbray, but I have even less time for murderers, and I now understand that’s what Father Mowbray’s death was, out and out murder. Not that it surprises me, you understand. His type, someone who lived the way he did, associating with the element he associated with, is asking for trouble. Could you stop by my office later this morning? It’s Saturday and I only work a half day. Say, about… let me see… eleven forty-five?”

  Pat assured him he would be there.

  “Does he know you’re gay?” Phillis asked as soon as Pat hung up.

  “Surely you josh. If you’ll see Jeremy Knollys and try to get some information out of him while I’m with Paquette, we can meet afterwards and compare notes, okay?”

  At eleven-forty, Pat stood in the hall on the fifty-seventh floor of the William Penn Building. The gold lettering on one of the doors announced that behind it were the offices of Paquette, Nielson, and Coruthers, General Insurance. He entered. A smartly dressed blonde secretary looked up from her computer and, without smiling, asked, “May I help you?”

  He gave her his name and added that he had an appointment with Nelson Paquette. She asked him to be seated while she stood up and quietly slipped though a door behind her desk and disappeared from sight.

  “Mr. Montgomary to see you,” she told her employer as she entered the inner office.

  Nelson Paquette had his back to her. He did not respond. She waited a discreet moment, then repeated her statement.

  “Ask him to wait,” Nelson said to her without turning around to face her. He was seated in his high back chair behind his desk in front of a window which ran the width of the room. From where he sat, he had an almost uninterrupted view of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which ended at the Greco-Roman Art Museum and beyond that the Schuylkill River and Boathouse Row. The events of the past few days had had their effect on Nelson. He looked much more than his sixty-three years. His face was haggard. He was worried. Murder had been committed at his beloved Saint Alban’s. He wondered if he had been a bit too outspoken with the police in voicing his dislike of the priest who had been murdered. He rested his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. “I don’t care any more,” he said to himself in a whisper. “I have little left to live for.”

  Nelson Paquette’s mother had been fat. His father had been even fatter. He had three sisters who, presuming they could be persuaded to go en masse to a truck weighing-in station, would have tipped the scales at close to eight hundred pounds total. What chance did the young Nelson have? By first grade, he was already twice the recommended weight for his height and age. Through grade school he continued to grow, and by the time he was in high school he had so much difficulty fitting into the seats in the classrooms that special accommodations had to be provided for him. With the cruelty of adolescence, his peers endowed him with such nicknames as “Porky,” “Hippo,” and “The Blob.” These names bothered him, true, but he came to live with them. The one name which truly hurt was “Paquette-Inn.”

  Nelson compensated. He was not able to take part in sports, and social activities such as parties or school dances were out of the question since he didn’t know a girl who would go with him. He made it up by excelling in scholastic activities. He was the head of the debating society, directed the senior year dramatic class’ production of Death of a Salesman, took additional language courses to become president of both the Alliance Francaise Scolastique and of the Deutschsprechenverein. Through college, he continued to grow, both physically and culturally.

  Nelson’s family had a long tradition as stalwart members of Saint Alban’s and he followed their example. During his last year of college, a young woman joined the church. She had transferred from New York with her family. She had a delightful sense of humor, a beautiful face, intelligent (graduated from Columbia, majoring in English Literature with emphasis on medieval romances)‎, and weighed in at close to two-sixty. It was love on both sides from the first pound, and by the time Nelson was out of college for little over two years and was beginning to make a respectable income in his father’s insurance business and she was teaching in a private school on the Main Line, wedding bells rang out at Saint Alban’s on a June morning for Nelson Paquette and Celeste Rose Colazandro.

  They were a happy couple, lending truth to the old saw that fat people are jolly people. Each Sunday, they were seen in church, usually holding hands, exchanging love-sick glances at one another, and on the whole a shining example of true love to the rest of the congregation. Like his father before him and his maternal uncle, Nelson ran for membership in the vestry of Saint Alban’s. He was popular and, with his expertise in insurance matters along with his studies in architecture, not only won membership in that body, but immediately became a great asset to the church. About that same time, he began taking over his father’s business until he was virtual owner, the other partners becoming more and more silent.

  The years rolled on. A few hairs on Nelson’s head turned gray. He gave up trying to lose weight, especially since it would mean giving up Celeste’s l
asagna. She on her part made modest inroads in the local literary world, publishing first a light, romantic novel along the lines of an updated Victorian love story. Next came a book of poetry, which she published under a nom de plume because of the erotic nature of the verses. Their lives were, on the surface, quite perfect-- except for one thing: Both wished to have at least one child, something, it seemed, which would never happen. They gave up hoping. At least Nelson did. It was while they were having dinner in Firenze Restaurant on the evening of their twentieth wedding anniversary that she broke the news to him. She was already two months pregnant. No, there was no chance of a mistake.

  Nelson was ecstatic. He told everyone he met, even strangers that evening in the restaurant. The next morning, Sunday, Saint Alban’s was abuzz with the good news. Parishioners Nelson barely knew came up to him and offered their congratulations. This was the beginning of the longest seven months of Nelson’s forty-one years.

  Celeste was delivered of a healthy seven pound, six ounce boy. Seldom has a father made such a complete fool of himself at the birth of his child than Nelson did the day his son, Eliot (God’s Gift)‎ Phillipe Vincenzo (for his paternal and maternal grandfathers)‎ Paquette was born. Not content with cigars for business associates, candy for his secretary, champagne for family and friends, Nelson had a sign custom made for the back of his car which read, “World’s Greatest Son on Board” which he proudly displayed the day he brought Celeste home from the hospital. They were now complete: a family. Nothing, Nelson knew in the depth of his heart, could ever come between them; nothing could ever separate him from his son.