The Senator and the Priest

by Andrew M. Greeley

  And Tommy and I were still deeply in love, unshakeable, unassailable love, or so we thought.

  A case rolled up on Tommy’s desk in River Forest that changed our lives. It made him famous, well, a celebrity anyway in Chicago. He had to leave the house only twice, and Rosie was of course all too ready to spend the time with her granddaughters.

  The case was a particularly nasty murder in Lake County, north of Chicago. The daughter of a very rich family had been beaten, raped and murdered, as was her eight-year-old daughter. The heads of both victims had been blown off with a shotgun. The husband, a somewhat unsuccessful investment broker, a dark-skinned Italian from Brooklyn, was an instant suspect. The cops, responding to the calls of neighbors who heard the shotgun blasts, found him wandering around the house in a daze, his hands covered with blood, clutching the shotgun. After twelve hours of questioning by the local police, he confessed both the murder and the rape. His arraignment was the kind of scene the media loved, the suspect sobbing hysterically, the victim’s mother and father shouting curses at him and demanding instant justice to the TV cameras. Given what TV viewers apparently want to see, the story began the evening news every night for ten days.

  The firm sent the papers in the case out to my house hubby.

  “Notice anything in the evidence?” he asked me.

  “Offhand, no DNA evidence. Surely the cops are not that dumb up there?”

  “Precisely.”

  “They must have a semen sample somewhere.”

  “I called them and told them that I was acting for the defendant and asked if they could provide any data on the DNA. They said that they sent it off to a lab, but didn’t have any report yet. They felt with the confession they didn’t need it.”

  “Maybe they are that dumb … What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to call them twice more and then I’ll go into court and ask for an order to send it to an impartial lab.”

  “What if it’s not his?”

  “We will demand that the court order his release from prison and file a civil suit against the cops and the prosecutor.”

  That’s exactly what we did.

  And he was on the ten o’clock news that night, thankfully after the redhead brood were sound asleep.

  My husband is a very photogenic, clean cut, wavy haired little Mick with a bright smile and evident intelligence. He also speaks English and not lawyer or cop talk.

  “I told the court that we found it strange that the DNA from the victims had not been tested and asked the judge to order that it be sent to an independent lab for testing.”

  “What good would that do, Mr. Moran?”

  “If I were the State’s Attorney I would want that nailed down in case the defense asked during the trial.”

  “Do you have any reason to expect that someone else might have committed the murders?”

  “I just want to be sure.”

  “Did the judge grant the motion?”

  “She took it under advisement.”

  “Do you expect that she will rule in your favor.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “Good, Tommy,” I exclaimed. “You’re great on camera.”

  “Only on camera?”

  “All the time! Do you have any hints that there is another man?”

  “Our private eyes have dug up the dirt that she may have had a fling with a doctor from a local community hospital, a somewhat mercurial and unstable person.”

  The judge turned down the appeal. Tommy’s partners went into the state appellate court on an emergency basis and demanded an immediate order, which of course they got. The DNA found on both victims was not the same as that of the defendant.

  My brilliant house hubby immediately made his second trip to Lake County and demanded that he be released. The State’s Attorney argued that there was still the defendant’s confession.

  Tommy repeated for the cameras after the hearing what he had said in response, in the calm, measured tones I knew so well.

  I could develop a crush on that man, I told myself.

  “It is not unknown, your honor, for people to confess a crime they have not committed after twelve hours of police interrogation. I suggest to you that there is a dangerous murderer out there whose brutality makes him a threat to the community. The police and the States Attorney have failed their responsibility to the public. As for my client, patently he is innocent.”

  “Do you think she will rule in your client’s favor?”

  “If she doesn’t, she’ll face another possible reversal in the appellate court.”

  She ruled in Tommy’s favor of course and, changing her tactics, denounced the incompetence of the police and the State’s Attorney. The victim’s mother assaulted the defendant as he left the court a free man and then turned her attention to Tommy, giving him a black eye.

  “I sympathize with the poor woman,” he said. “But grief doesn’t justify assault and battery.”

  “Will you file charges or sue, Tommy?”

  Already they are calling my poor husband Tommy! The hussies.

  I put another pack on his eye and offered him a glass of Bushmill’s.

  The mother’s lawyer offered an apology which Tommy’s firm accepted.

  Tommy was too good on camera for the media to forget. They tripped out to our house twice more—when the doctor was arrested and later when he was convicted. His comments were the same.

  “All I can say is that I am happy that an innocent man was not convicted. This ought to be a warning to everyone how dangerous is a hasty search for a criminal, especially when your cameras are watching every move.” The kids were immensely proud of their father, especially because they had an answer now to the little bitches—a word I also forbid—who teased them that their mommy worked at an office but their daddy didn’t.

  Shortly after that case, both of Tommy’s parents died, his mother first from a massive stroke, his father a month later from a heart attack, a broken heart Tommy had said. They were both in their early seventies, not all that old these days, but in poor health for a long time. They were shy, quiet, respectable people, the sort that almost never married. But the sting of passion had caught them at the outer limits of fertility. They produced Tony less than a year after they were married and my Tommy five years later. They were great readers, a habit Tommy had acquired very young in life. His father taught history, his mother math. Tommy told me after we had buried him that his father had worked for thirty years on a history of the Irish in America which he had burned the day we buried his mother.

  “He wouldn’t let anyone read it. He was afraid they would ridicule it. I read a few pages once. It was brilliant.”

  Father Tony was a whirling dervish during the first wake and funeral. Everything had to be perfect, the way his parents would want it—the flowers at the wake, the prayers, the liturgical details, the music. He could not eat or sleep. He had to drive himself half mad making sure his mother had the funeral she deserved. He moved his poor father around like he was part of the scenery. He said the Mass of course, but asked one of his fellow Clementines—“The best preacher in this country”—to give the homily. It was high-flown, abstract, and meaningless, a success as a homily only if you were into a rich, sonorous, and sanctimonious voice, as some of the Irish are.

  My family are heavy into making wakes and funerals. Father Tony barely spoke to them at the wake and at the cemetery.

  He was a different man after his father’s death, a pale ghost of what he had been at the first funeral, quiet, mournful, dependent.

  “Thank you for being with us during these difficult times, Mary Margaret,” he said to me at the cemetery as he held both my hands. “They loved you and your beautiful daughters very much. They were never demonstrative, but they did admire your courage and your generosity.”

  “Uncle Tony was different this time,” Mary Ann whispered to me. “Like he kind of loved us.”

  “I’m sure he always had, hon.”
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  She nodded, still puzzled.

  “I’ve never seen him like that,” Tommy said later on. “I wish he were that way all the time.”

  I thought to myself that the energizer bunny was much nicer when his batteries ran down. I hoped the change would last but it didn’t, especially when we turned to the next phase of our life.

  CHAPTER 8

  THAT AUTUMN and winter was a tumultuous one for our a family. Everything happened, almost all at once it seemed. Even when I try to play the tape in my memory of those months it seems to turn into fast-forward. Tommy’s success in freeing an innocent man and then filing a suit against the Lake County police and States Attorney made him a public figure, one with powerful television charisma—his fifteen minutes of fame, I told him, though I was enormously proud of him. Then the Atlantic Monthly published a segment from his book Attack Politics: The End of Civility. The publisher immediately increased his advance from ten thousand to a hundred thousand dollars, for fear another publisher might try to seduce him to back off from a contract that seemed to me to be almost unenforceable. Poor dolts, they never realized that my Tommy would never do anything like that.

  The book was mostly history, Tommy’s favorite subject. I often told him that he should go back to school and earn a doctorate. I’d be glad to support him. He said it was more fun to do history his way, which was certainly true. The last couple of chapters, however, talked about attack methods in contemporary American politics. He argued that the deliberate destruction of an opponent in American political life was a dangerous threat to our society, both because such a strategy was far more effective in an age of television and, worse, created a polarization which had never existed before. The people of the country, he argued from surveys, were pragmatic. However, the activity of well-organized and well-funded interest groups polarized politics. The result was that politics had become more vicious, and dislike and distrust for politics and politicians was increasing dramatically. Precisely because of the power of the media, including the Internet, attack politics was much more destructive to the fabric of the body politic than it had ever been before.

  I’m prejudiced, but I think he made a very strong case.

  “Be careful, Tommy love, your fifteen minutes of fame may last for a half hour.”

  A couple of our neighbors, more active in politics than either of us were, visited us one night in early November to suggest that Tommy make a run for the State Legislature next November. They were eager to turn the district around. Demographics, they assured us, had already made it a Democratic district. He should try out his tactics—never attack his opponent and never ask anyone for money. In such a race, you didn’t need much money anyway but they’d raise whatever we needed.

  Tommy looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders.

  “We’ll think about it,” he said, “and call you tomorrow.”

  “Well, you didn’t say no.”

  “Well?” he said to me.

  “Tommy, one of my colleagues who served in the legislature says that Springfield is like Ash Wednesday all year long.”

  “I won’t win.”

  “I’m not so sure. You have TV charisma.”

  “Yeah, but who sees local candidates on TV?”

  “True enough … Still it’s a chance to test your theories.”

  “And maybe prove them wrong.”

  “In this country, Tommy love, nothing succeeds like failure with the possible exception of martyrdom. If you want to do it, I’ll support you totally.”

  We consulted the children. They thought it was no big deal.

  “Can we travel with you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Will Daddy be on television a lot? He’s really cute!”

  “Will we meet a lot of Latinos?”

  “You bet.”

  That was that. They were adventurers.

  Joe McDermott, our friend from Loyola years and Tommy’s best man, signed himself on as our legal counsel. He was still the big blond power forward, even if he had put on a couple of pounds. He always cleared his throat before making one of his solemn high pronouncements. He treated me with courtly respect to which my madcap laughter often did not entitle me.

  Pro bono he insisted. We were to announce our candidacy at the Unity Temple, Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous church in Oak Park. Good Catholics that we were we’d never been in it before. It was a kind of creepy place.

  It was the week before Thanksgiving and almost a year before the election. The primary in Illinois is in March, eight months before the election. That makes for an absurdly long campaign. We would probably not have any primary opposition, so we would not have to start active campaigning till June, still a long time.

  Joe had all five TV channels there for the announcement. My friends from the neighborhood had assembled a little crowd of supporters.

  Tommy was his usual adorable self—relaxed, gracious, charming. Just a nice looking young Mick with a red-haired wife and three adorable little girls. Then when he began to talk, without a podium and without a script he became magical—a decent man, with candor and integrity and honesty.

  I’m announcing my candidacy for the General Assembly from the Fourteenth district. My wife and three children are my only supporters and the kids can’t vote—though if we move back into Chicago, maybe they could.

  I’m making three promises today that I will keep throughout the campaign.

  I will never permit a negative ad against my opponent. Attack ads which harm the candidates and their families are an evil which will disappear from American society only when enough candidates solemnly pledge never to use them, even if that pledge means losing an election.

  I will never ask anyone for a financial contribution. My friend Joseph McDermott will preside over campaign finance. He will never ask for money either. Nor will he tell me who has contributed and who has not. Only when enough candidates adopt these rules will the pernicious effect of money on elections be eliminated.

  Finally, I promise to make no campaign promises. In our country only a majority of a legislative body can deliver on a promise. I can promise no more than that I will work for better schools, better public transportation, better housing for the poor, fair treatment for immigrants and respect for the environment. I certainly am a Democrat and in some respects a liberal Democrat though not in every respect. I look forward to an interesting campaign.

  There was absolute silence for a moment. Everyone seemed to sense that something new had happened. The kids led the applause.

  “Any questions?”

  The reporters asked the usual questions we might have expected—property taxes, public schools, pension reform, the influence of the Catholic Church.

  To the last he replied, “My brother is a priest, my wife’s brother is a priest, and her uncle is a monsignor. On both sides we’ve been Catholic since before St. Patrick. I have learned two things from the tradition of Catholic social teaching. The first is that we must be on the side of the poor and the needy and the oppressed. The second is that we accomplish social change by cooperation, not conflict. Neither position is incompatible with being a Democrat, not in Cook County anyway.”

  That broke it up.

  Tommy watched as the media left, his eyes seeing something far away.

  “Tremendous,” Joe McDermott said shaking his hand. “You wowed them. Some of that will be on all the channels tonight … . Wasn’t he great, Mary Margaret?”

  I was also staring at something far away. I couldn’t make out what it was, however.

  “I think I just saw my husband crossing a river,” I said.

  “The Des Plaines?”

  “I think they call it the Rubicon.”

  We shook hands with the people and thanked them for coming. The daughters joined us and they thanked the people too. Like I say, adventurers. Joe passed out petitions to get Tommy’s name on the ballot for the primary.

  “You were magical, Tommy,” I said.

  “Don’
t look at me with those shining eyes, woman,” he said with a suggestive wink.

  We met Rosie and Chuck at their favorite ice cream parlor on Chicago Avenue and celebrated with sodas and sundaes and malts.

  Tommy watched me very carefully during our courtship, his eyes probing me, studying me, analyzing me. I didn’t pay much attention. I thought he was just admiring me or maybe, as time went on, desiring me. I didn’t understand that he was figuring me out, gauging my responses, exploring my moods, checking out my quirks. By the time we were married I had become pretty transparent to him. Then he turned the same search light on my sexuality, though he had already guessed that beneath all the crisp authority and strong opinions I was a deeply sensuous person, despite my modesty. It didn’t take me long to realize that he had scoped me out and that I was in every respect naked to him. At first I didn’t like that at all. Women weren’t supposed to be that way with men. You lost control if you let that happen. Married women my age often discussed how you could keep your husband dangling—as though it was a woman’s right and duty to do so. How could you be real power in your family if you couldn’t do that? You control men by rationing sex, right?

  I didn’t like that strategy because I loved my husband and besides I was determined to be the perfect married lover just like I was the perfect daughter and the perfect student and the perfect tennis player and the perfect lawyer. So I read all the books about sexual techniques and was not, I must confess, turned on by them. So I was a perfect target for Tommy’s careful study of me, a pushover sexually. Sometimes all he had to do was look at me with a certain faintly sinister smile and I lost all my modesty and all my ability to resist. A voice inside me suggested that I was nothing but a whore. But he was my husband and I loved him. I spoke to none of my friends about this problem—if it was indeed a problem. I asked Rosie what she thought—in an indirect and round-about way.

  She laughed and said, “Hon, a lot of men and women play silly games about wanting and refusing sex. It’s all foolish nonsense.”