by Steve Richer
“Donnie!” she said with shock and more enthusiasm than she’d been able to muster in years.
“The hell’s going on here?”
“Nothing, we were just talking.”
“Oh, talking. You were just talking. Sure, I talk to other people’s wives all the time while holding their hands, practically on top of each other.”
“Detective Beecher,” the man said.
“You shut your fucking mouth,” Donnie spat, pointing a finger at him. He turned to his wife who was standing. “You? You tell me how long it’s been going on?”
“Donnie, it’s not what it looks like. He just drove me from the hospital.”
“Bullshit. You don’t think I know who this is? You don’t think I’ve known you’ve been screwing this guy for a year?”
She was taken aback by that. “You knew?”
“I’m a detective, remember? So what is it? You think having cancer gives you permission to whore around?”
“Hey!” Simon said, standing up and placing himself between the husband and his wife. “Don’t you dare talk to her that way.”
“You’ve done enough damage here, Lambright. Grab your jacket and hit the bricks.”
“Calm down, buddy.”
Simon came closer to Donnie, trying to appease him.
“Don’t you fucking talk down to me. I said to grab your shit and get the fuck out of my house!”
“Not before you calm down. Not before I know you’re not a threat to Nicole.”
“A threat to my wife?” Donnie repeated, disgusted by these words.
He had honestly thought he had deserved his wife cheating on him when he had first discovered it. It had been an evening much like tonight when he had come home unannounced. That time, he had found them half naked, kissing, before disappearing without a trace.
As angry as he’d been, he had blamed himself. He had even expected that it would happen one day. He was never home. He devoted more time to his job than he did to his family. He had thought that things were over between them after she was diagnosed with cancer. Apparently, he was wrong.
And now he’d had enough.
Not giving it a second thought, he cocked his right arm back and punched Lambright in the face.
“Donnie!” Nicole screamed.
Simon fell back against the couch and knocked the coffee table sideways. He wasn’t bleeding but he nonetheless yelled out in pain. As he made a move to get back up, Donnie reacted instinctively, putting a hand on his sidearm.
“Detective Beecher!”
The voice was different and Donnie swiveled his head to the right. Emma was standing there, agape. She had witnessed the whole scene and it brought him back to his senses. He let go of his weapon.
“I’m getting the fuck out of here,” he growled.
He ran up the stairs, packed a bag in ten seconds flat, and left the house. It was either that or burning it to the ground.
Chapter 16
Late at night was Colm’s favorite time to pray. After midnight, activity in Vatican City was winding down. Traffic was light, there was barely any sound anymore. He could focus on speaking with God.
His apartment was small, a one-bedroom in a building that had once been used as a monastery. The kitchen had been considered modern in the 1950s. Nevertheless, it was clean and well-maintained. He himself painted the walls once a year to preserve its pristine condition. And the smell of paint reminded him of his family since his father had been in this trade.
When he prayed, he usually knelt in his bedroom, facing the closet. He had never admitted this to anyone, but it was his way to make sure there were no distractions. A child in Indonesia had once asked him if he really had conversations with God. He had said yes, of course, but it wasn’t how it was for him.
What happened was that when he focused hard enough, entering a sort of meditative state, he could feel like God was there listening to him.
A part of him, probably due to his rebellious youth, conceded that this may be nothing more than wishful thinking. Perhaps there was a scientific explanation about how your own thoughts echoed through your mind, making you think you were not alone.
Yet Colm had faith and that it was how it worked. He couldn’t explain it, but he truly believed God was paying attention.
Most of his prayers were focused on others. He prayed that his family was doing well in terms of health and finance, that they were happy. He prayed for the orphans he had met through his missionary work, hoping that their future would brighten up. He felt that these were good, tangible things to pray for.
Tonight it was different. Tonight he was praying for himself.
For the first time since he’d joined the priesthood, he was having doubts. They weren’t doubts about his faith, but rather about his role in the Church. He had been more than happy to step into more administrative duties over the years. Anything that helped to run the Holy See smoothly also helped the faith.
Only he wasn’t sure if what he was helping Cardinal Blanchet do was helping the faith. What if the Archbishop of Maribor had been right and that his superior was plotting to become the next pope himself? Was that a sin? Was that putting one’s own goals before Christianity’s?
Colm needed guidance tonight and he prayed harder than he ever had before. He needed the strength to understand what God’s will was in the matter.
The phone ringing brought him back to reality. He opened his eyes and blinked several times. Was that God’s way of telling him to give up? Some priests saw God’s mysterious ways in everything, but Colm had a more pragmatic view. It was just a phone call.
In fact, it was Cardinal Blanchet. “Yes, Your Eminence?”
“Come to my apartment right now, will you, Father Colm? I need you now.”
The line went dead before he could utter a word. Colm did a final sign of the cross to conclude his prayer, otherwise he felt it didn’t count, and got dressed although he didn’t bother with formal attire. He wore jeans and a sweatshirt.
He drove his small Renault outside of the boundaries of Vatican City. Cardinal Blanchet lived just off Via della Conciliazione, the prestigious street which led straight into St. Peter’s Square. There were still tourists around, but he was there in minutes. He parked, used his key to enter the four-story building, and climbed to the top floor.
“Colm? Is that you?”
The young man entered the flat and couldn’t hide his astonishment. It was always the same. The place was five thousand square feet, one of the largest apartments owned by the Vatican. It was said that the Pope had chosen to live in a two-bedroom which was twelve hundred square feet, but Cardinal Blanchet’s accommodations looked like they belonged to a banker or movie star.
The ceilings were fifteen feet high, some of the walls were covered with Renaissance frescoes. The furniture was gilded and otherwise deserved to be in a museum. There were six bedrooms. Yet Cardinal Blanchet lived here alone with two nuns which acted as domestic help.
He found his superior in the ornate library. There were three loveseats arranged in the shape of a U and the walls were lined with ancient books. At one end of the room was a hand-carved mahogany desk while at the other end was a modern flat-screen TV.
Blanchet was laughing hard and so were the two other men with him, Cardinal Stagnaro and Bishop Lewandowski. They were all drinking red wine and were in fine spirits.
“Colm, come here, come here!”
“Yes, Your Eminence?”
“Come here, it’s my computer.”
Blanchet drained his glass and headed to his desk. Colm followed him.
“I want to pull up the spreadsheet you made me this afternoon. I filled it out, but now it won’t open.”
“All right, let me see…”
Colm pulled the keyboard closer to him and tried to access the file. There was an error code.
“Oh, there was a bug. I think you may have shut down your computer while it was updating.”
“I don’t have time
for this nonsense! The file is important. We need to see how the College of Cardinals is leaning for our next pontiff. I spent all afternoon making notes.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
“This computer is a tool of the devil!” Blanchet burst into laughter and so did the two other men. “And when you’re done, put up the spreadsheet on the big television.”
“Of course,” Colm said.
He went into the computer’s configuration and forced the software update. At the same time, Cardinal Blanchet refilled his glass and drank with thirst.
“Do you really think our next pope will be from Africa, Jean?” Lewandowski asked. “People are talking.”
“Hogwash. It’s popular to say so, it makes us look progressive and we all know how progressive is all the rage right now. But no one really wants a black pope.”
“No, of course not.”
“Can you imagine what people will say? What people will call him? Here comes the Monkey Pope!”
There was another round of laughter and Colm felt sick to his stomach. He had never seen Cardinal Blanchet drunk before and it was a scary sight.
He himself had given up drinking upon entering the priesthood. You needed to make sacrifices when you became a man of God, he believed. As much as he craved a cold pint once in a while, the sacrifice was worth it to validate his faith.
While the computer rebooted and a nun came in with a new bottle of wine, Cardinal Stagnaro lit a cigarette and joined Colm at the desk.
“I’m sorry we had to call you so late, my son.”
“It’s fine, Your Eminence.”
“Does Jean tell you he appreciates your work? Because he does, I know it.”
Colm smiled tightly. “It’s very kind of you to say, Cardinal.”
“If you keep this up, after the chips are in play, you can have a bright future ahead of you.”
“I’m already happy with my station, sir.”
“It can be much brighter than it is now, young man. You could be elevated to bishop. Would you like that? Think about it.”
Stagnaro winked, puffed on his cigarette, and walked back to the couch where he resumed drinking.
As Colm finally fired up the spreadsheet and made it appear on the television, his mind wandered away. What would it be like to be a bishop? He would be much more powerful than he is now. He would be in a better position to do good around him.
On the other hand, what would he really have to do to get the job?
Chapter 17
Donnie walked slowly behind Emma as they entered her apartment, setting his carry-on bag down.
He had calmed down, but he was still on edge. After she had essentially escorted him out at his house, keeping an eye on Simon, Nicole, and him so that there wouldn’t be any more violent flare-ups, they’d gotten back into his car.
He had wanted to be alone, swearing up and down that he would kill Simon, or at the very least pummel his face beyond recognition. But Emma had instead suggested they grabbed dinner together. Donnie resisted, but she had been oddly persuasive.
So they had gone to Applebee’s and had a long, drawn out dinner. She had insisted on appetizers and dessert, everything to make them stick around longer at the restaurant. Donnie had to admit that the strategy had worked. His rage had dissipated by the time they returned to the parking lot.
And then she had made her case for him to spend the night at her place.
“Seriously, this feels weird,” he said while she locked the door behind him. “I should go to a hotel.”
“Please, don’t be foolish. I have a pullout couch and it’s almost never been used.”
She dropped off her keys and turned on some lights. Donnie couldn’t shake off his police instincts and immediately surveyed the premises. The apartment was a one-bedroom, but it was in an older building so it was rather spacious. The kitchen and living room were separated by a wall.
The furniture was new enough, tasteful. There was an LCD TV and cable box. There was a rack of DVDs beside the TV. It seemed like half of them were Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.
“What gives?”
“What?” she asked innocently, putting away her jacket in the closet.
“The Terminator movies? The entire Die Hard series?”
“I have the Death Wish box set on the bottom, too. You were expecting me to own the complete Flying Nun collection?”
Donnie shrugged. “Uh, yeah!”
“Not my style.”
He looked around again. There were no pictures of Jesus and Mary, not even a plain crucifix. There were colorful pillows and drapes, modern art on the walls. This was just like any other apartment.
“Totally not what I was expecting,” he said.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. You’re gonna have to give me a minute here to process this.”
“Come join me, I’ll make some snacks.”
He wasn’t hungry, but food was a good excuse to not make the situation awkward. He removed his jacket and his gun, putting them both on the coffee table, and joined her in the kitchen.
He sat at the counter as she went about putting out chips and peanuts in small pink dishes.
“So what’s the story, Emma? How does a nun become a cop?”
“I don’t know, I guess I was always the weird girl in school. I never fit in.”
As she said that, she removed the pins from her hair, letting her auburn mane fall down onto her shoulders. At the moment she looked neither like a nun or a police officer.
“I have trouble thinking of you as weird.”
“I was, I swear. Even the band geeks and goths thought I was weird. The truth is that I didn’t really belong, you know? My favorite part of the week was going to church on Sundays. My parents weren’t really devout or anything, it was just something we did every week. But I became alive there. It was the only place where I felt accepted.”
“So you became a nun? Just like that, you thought it would be a good idea to start your own personal version of The Sound of Music?”
Emma giggled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “No, I went to college. I thought I would become a social worker and help awkward kids like me. But all this time it was like I was being drawn back to the Church. I can’t explain it. That’s when I decided that maybe a life in the service of God was for me.”
She stopped talking and turned around. He thought this was getting too emotional for her but instead there was something she needed to do. She opened the cupboard over the fridge and pulled a bottle from it.
“What’s that, bourbon?”
“I know you had a couple of beers at the restaurant, but given what you’re going through, this might not be a bad idea.”
Donnie straightened up on his stool. “It’s a damn fine idea!”
“Ice?”
When he said no, she got a glass and sat down herself at the end of the counter, pouring him a drink.
“You’re not having one?”
“No, I don’t drink.”
“You said you weren’t a nun anymore.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. I just don’t like the taste. I keep this bottle for when my dad visits.”
Donnie took a sip and immediately understood why she didn’t like the taste. This was cheap, off-brand whiskey that should have been used exclusively to dissolve toxic waste. All things considered, it was what he needed to drink after the fight with Nicole.
“Then what happened?” he asked, taking another long, painful sip.
“I really became a nun this time. I joined the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. I was at a convent in the Bronx. We had soup kitchens, helped homeless people. Then I was offered a chance to do missionary work.”
“You were a missionary?”
She made a face. “It sounds swankier than it really is. I basically just taught English and math to children in India. It’s not much different than somebody in the Peace Corps, or any NGO f
or that matter.”
“Still, that’s kinda neat.”
“Yes, it was,” she replied, her eyes becoming unfocused as she relived the memories. “I met some great people there, priests, other sisters, people from around the world. We had a nice community.”
“And you just gave it all up?”
“I had an affair with a man. He was a Swedish photographer, we’d spent a couple of days together, and it just happened. I broke my vows. I couldn’t serve God after that.”
“No offense, Emma, but I’m sure you’re not the first one it happened to.”
“I know, but I didn’t want to be a hypocrite. I had taken a vow of celibacy. I had made a sacred promise and I broke it because I was too weak.”
“It’s not weak, it’s human nature.”
“Maybe you’re right. You probably are. But I decided this was God’s way of telling me I wasn’t cut out to be a nun. So I defrocked four years ago and decided there were other ways to serve my community without me living with this on my conscience.”
“And so you joined the mighty NYPD. Why not a social worker like you wanted to be?”
“Because I look good in uniform,” she said with a wink.
They laughed and Donnie had to confess it felt good to do so after everything that had happened today.
She shrugged before continuing. “Honestly, I don’t know. I thought maybe I’d be able to make more of a difference being a police officer. It’s why I requested the Juvenile Justice Division. I think it works. I think I’m doing some good.”
“I’m sure you are. So what now? Are you dating anyone? I mean, you’re allowed now, right?”
“Yes, I’m allowed. Just not really interested. I dated a little bit in the beginning, when it was new and shiny, but nothing serious. And I’m not looking for somebody. Maybe I’m not cut out to be with a man.”
“That’s bullshit,” Donnie said gazing into her eyes. “I’m sure you’d make somebody very happy.”
Man, she was gorgeous, he thought. The way she looked down timidly, the way she was biting her bottom lip with embarrassment… He was immensely attracted to her and yet he didn’t move.
Was it because she was a former nun and it was something you didn’t do, like go out with your best friend’s sister? There was a bit of that, but mostly Donnie thought about Nicole. In spite of everything, it was her he loved. It was also why it hurt so much.
