by Anne Emery
“Father Burke?”
“Yes.”
“Monty Collins here. I had a word with Moody Walker. I could stop by the rectory on my way home this afternoon.”
“Very well.” Click. And I thought my regular clientele was aggravating? I made a mental note to ask Rowan who was paying the shot here. If Burke was paying my fees personally, I would bill him for the time it took me to travel the few blocks to the rectory. Didn’t they take an oath of poverty? He’d be a saint in rags by the time he faced his Lord on Judgment Day.
When I arrived I was greeted by a middle-aged woman in a washed-out print dress and bedroom slippers. She had faded blonde hair and the face of one descended, perhaps through some mitotic process, from a long line of Irish aunts. I introduced myself and she told me her name was Mrs. Kelly. I followed her to a closed door.
“Someone to see you, Father!”
“Who is it?” The abrupt tone was instantly recognizable.
“Mr. Collins, Father.”
“Send him in.”
I entered a small parlour with an Oriental carpet, a dark wood desk and several chairs. The walls were lined with books. Father Burke was at the desk looking crisp and efficient in clerical black and Roman collar. “Thank you, Mrs. Kelly.” She shuffled out.
“Mr. Collins.” He stood and gestured to a couple of chairs near the window.
Dispensing with pleasantries, I started right in: “I was able to speak briefly with Sergeant Walker. He —”
We were interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. The priest snatched up the receiver. “Yes?” he barked. “Yes, Michael. Where is he? The VG . No, I’ll get the room number. I’ll run right over. Fine, Mike.” He hung up and rapped out an apology to me. “I’m sorry. That was Father O’Flaherty. A parishioner is at death’s door over at the hospital. O’Flaherty can’t get there and he asked me to go over and give the last rites. I’ll call your office and make an appointment with you. Not that I think this man Walker could possibly have anything to say.”
I watched as he donned his leather jacket, muttered “Christ,” and stuffed a few items in the pockets.
“Would you like a lift? That way, you won’t have to park.”
“All right. Thank you.”
We hurried to my car. I pulled out of the parking lot, turned left on Byrne and right on Morris. The Victoria General Hospital was several blocks up the street. “Flat!” Burke exclaimed in disgust, as he reached over and snapped off my car radio, arresting a female pop singer in mid-howl.
Other than that there was no conversation until we were within a block of the hospital, when I couldn’t help but remark: “So your cheery smile is the last thing this poor devil is going to see before he leaves this world?”
Father Burke had his foot out the door before I’d come to a stop: “What do you mean by that, Collins? You don’t see me as a great comfort to the sick and dying?” Was this more of his overweening self-confidence, or was I getting a glimpse of a dry sense of humour?
We missed each other again Tuesday morning, and then I was bogged down at the office. When I was finally free I picked up the phone and called the rectory. Mrs. Kelly informed me Father Burke had taken the junior choir over to the church for practice.
Rehearsal was under way when I arrived. I had been in St. Bernadette’s the odd time for weddings and funerals. I had never until now appreciated the acoustics. It was a modest-sized stone church built in imitation gothic style with ribbed vaulting, pointed arches and gorgeous stained-glass windows glowing like jewels. The bisque-coloured walls could have used a coat of paint, but it hardly mattered at this time of the afternoon — in true gothic fashion, the interior space was ablaze with heavenly light.
As I started up the stairs to the choir loft I heard a skidding noise behind me, followed by a crash. I turned to see a small girl with a huge mass of long, curly black hair. I recognized her from the videotaped variety show. Now, she collided with the wall, righted herself and pushed past me on the stairs. “I’m late — Father Burke is going to kill me again!” Above me, I heard another crash as a chair was knocked over.
“Alvin!” The choirmaster spoke, subito fortissimo.
“Father Burke, why you always calling me Alvin? My name is Janeece.”
“Once upon a time,” said Burke, “there were three chipmunks: Simon, Theodore, and Alvin. Alvin was never where he was supposed to be, when he was supposed to be there. That was before your time, when my brothers and sisters were small. But to me you’ll always be Alvin. So, Alvin. Locus Iste, setting by Bruckner. Recite it to me and tell me what it means.”
The young voice began: “Locus iste a Deo factus est, Inaestima — aestima —”
“Een - es - tee - ma - bee - leh, “ Burke corrected.
“Inaestimabile sacramentum. “ She took a deep breath, and soldiered on. “Irreprehensibilis est. There!”
“And what does it mean?”
This time she had it by heart and rattled it off like machine gun fire: “This place was made by God, a priceless sacrament, it is beyond reproach.”
“Thank you. Now sing the alto part, all the way through from bar twenty-two. The others have already sung it and are ready to move on. But let’s hold everything up and hear you.”
I was in the loft by this time and tried to be unobtrusive. The choristers ranged from around nine right up to university age. Obviously, the junior kids were getting some support from their senior counterparts for today’s repertoire. There were three basses and two tenors, the rest altos and sopranos. The little girl known as Alvin, dressed in a denim jumper with a bright pink cardigan buttoned unevenly over it, had enormous chocolate brown eyes and her hair fanned out in a riot of curls beside her face and down her back. Her flawless skin was the colour of mocha. This was the closest I was ever going to come to looking upon an angel. My angel hawked and made a series of other unseemly noises to clear her throat, then proceeded to sing in a clear, low voice.
“Wrong,” Burke interrupted, and I wanted to clout him on the head. “Wrong page. Once again, you’re not singing from the same hymn book.” The priest was wearing jeans and an old grey T-shirt that said “Fordham.” He glared at Janeece over the top of a pair of half glasses. The child scowled back at him. “But what you sang was beautiful. I have a piece you might like to sing by yourself. We’ll talk about it next practice, if you deign to show up on time.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen. The Agnus Dei from Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices. Red book, Alvin. Sopranos, you’ll be singing some of the most beautiful lines of music ever written, so don’t belt it out the way you did last time. It’s the lamb of God, not the ram of God. Keep that in mind. Quiet, reverential, hopeful. You’re imploring God to grant you peace. Bring out those dona nobispacems near the end. Crescendo over the bar line. Let’s hear it the way it’s meant to be sung.”
Father Burke lifted muscular arms and the children sang to the Lamb of God. Occasionally he raised his left index finger to keep the sopranos from losing pitch. “Sharpen the tone,” the finger was saying. He brought out the crescendoes he wanted in the dona nobis lines. In a clear, straight, English style, the choir gave life to a Mass that was written four hundred years ago. The last chord echoed from the altar, and filled the acoustically blessed space. A smile spread across the priest’s stony face, and seeing it was like witnessing the Transfiguration.
When the sound faded, Alvin piped up: “Can we do something easy now?”
“What is it you’d like to sing, Alvin?”
“You know,” she said, the way a child would to a parent dense enough to ask whe
ther anyone wanted a bedtime story. “Mass of the Angels, could it be?”
“Yes.” She drew the word out with exaggerated patience.
“All right. Missa de Angelis. People have been singing this for a thousand years. But remember: it’s not ‘easy’ to sing chant. You can hear every mistake. Sing it as if you people really were — I can hardly bring myself to say it — angels. If you do a good job, we’ll sing it at Mass soon. Ready?”
He raised his arms and favoured them with a smile. And was I imagining it, or did I see a little wink directed at Alvin? What they sang was a Gregorian Mass, a melody of ageless beauty, which I recalled hearing as a child when the Mass was still in Latin. To my ears, they sang it to perfection. But he wanted more.
“Back to page one. Diction. I want to hear every k, every t.”
“Yeah but we, like, sound fruity when we do that,” whined a thin-haired boy of about twelve.
Burke peered over the tops of his half glasses. “It won’t, like, sound ‘fruity’ down there, Ronald.” He gestured with his head to the body of the church. “You’ll sound like a choir that knows the words as well as the tune. Once more.”
They sang the piece again from start to finish, every consonant sharp as the crack of a rifle. When they finished Alvin dropped to her seat with a loud thunk. She gripped her head with both hands.
“What’s the trouble there, Alvin?”
“All these k’s and t’s being spitted out, Father. I have to stop. I have nothing left!”
“Ah. Then my work is done,” Burke replied.
After the choristers had stomped their way down the stairs and left the church, Father Burke straddled a chair and faced me.
“What have you got to tell me?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. But that may be good.” Burke was my client — if a reluctant one — and I had to be as forthright with him as I could be, but I chose my words carefully. The “twisto” angle would antagonize him and make him even more difficult to deal with. There was also, simmering on the back burner of my mind, the healthy soupçon of doubt I carried with me into any criminal case. Notwithstanding his ability to coax the music of the spheres from a rabble of mortal children, my client might well be guilty, might well be a twisto, and I did not want to do anything to set him off.
“Well, what the hell evidence does he think he has, that could possibly link me with this girl’s death?”
“He says there was forensic evidence found on the body —” Burke started to interrupt but I held up a restraining hand. “He wouldn’t say what the evidence was. The police aren’t going to show their hand. But forensics are usually hairs, fibres, bodily fluids, things like that. And —” again I fended off an interruption “— there was something ritualistic done to the body or the scene. He didn’t provide details. Nor is he likely to.”
“If there were body fluids on that girl, they didn’t come from me. That should go without saying,” declared Burke in his curt Irish voice. “Hair? Maybe or maybe not.”
“What are you saying?”
“I gave the police a sample of my hair when —”
“You did what?” I yelped, lurching forward in my chair.
“When the police came around interviewing us all as witnesses,” Burke stated placidly, “they asked who had had any kind of contact with the young girl. I couldn’t remember if I had done a turn around the dance floor with her or not. There were so many people. I think she danced with O’Flaherty and, of course, with the young fellows who were there. Anyway, they took samples of my hair. With my consent, of course.”
“Obviously. So. They took samples from where?”
He pointed to the top of his head, then to the temples. “Black ones from here, white from here. Though I didn’t have as many grey hairs before this torment —” He caught something in my expression. “What?”
“Just from your head, then?”
“What exactly do you mean?”
“Did they ask...”
“For something below the — neck? No.”
“Good.”
“I wouldn’t have been so cooperative if they had. Do you think I’m daft?”
I didn’t respond. If there was a common thread running through the great majority of my criminal clients, it was that they could not keep their mouths shut in the presence of the police. Oh, the hard cases, the professionals, knew better. But most of my clients believed the officer when he said he just wanted to get things cleared up, and would appreciate hearing from the client what really happened. They all thought they were clever enough to outwit the police (wrong), and that whatever they were saying would help exonerate them (wrong again, because they had no idea how their words would fit in with, or confirm, other evidence the police were keeping to themselves). Even the most innocent-sounding (to the clients) admissions often served to nail into place the cases against them. Now here was a worldly, highly educated, very intelligent man, one of the most self-contained, tight-lipped individuals I had ever met, and he had turned out to be just as gabby and naive as all the rest of the sad, hopeless parade of humanity I had seen shuffling through the justice system over the years. Burke was sitting there unperturbed.
I started again. “The police told you they wanted hair samples from you, if you were willing, so they could ‘eliminate you from consideration, of course Father.’ Maybe a little laugh from the officer — they were only trying to find the source of the evidence found on the body. And you rolled over for them. So now they have their evidence, and Moody Walker thinks you did it.”
“Mr. Collins, if my hairs were on her clothes, then they were on her clothes.”
“And now there’s no room for doubt on that point, thanks to you.”
“On her clothes from whatever contact she had with me at the dance. I would have given them whatever they asked for. I was a witness, not a suspect. I didn’t kill her.”
If only life were that simple. “Why didn’t you tell me this when we met in my office?” I asked, thinking: If he says because I didn’t ask, I’ll go for his throat.
“That appointment wasn’t my idea, as you know. I found it hard to take any of this seriously. Now it seems I have no choice.” Burke leaned over and reached for his jacket, then stopped. Going for a cigarette, I guessed, before he remembered where he was.
I sighed and moved on. “Tell me then, if you will — or would you rather go down and phone it in to the police? — tell me about the dance.”
He gave me a cool look and said: “The youth centre — does anyone use the word ‘youth’ in normal conversation? Nobody under forty says it, you can be sure. The centre puts on these dances a couple of times a year. This was for Valentine’s. Not a big day on my calendar, but I’m a good sport as I’m sure you can tell, Mr. Collins. They draw a good crowd. Kids from sixteen to their early twenties. They serve soft drinks and some kind of sugary punch.” He made a face. “This was the first one I had been to. Father O’Flaherty supervised, along with the centre’s director, Sister Dunne. In the past, apparently, they’ve hired an off-duty policeman for security, but they didn’t this time.”
This time they had you, I thought. “How late did the dance go on?”
“Started at nine, ended at one. It wasn’t bad as dances go. Recorded music, of course. We couldn’t spring for a band. There were no fights or anything. A strict no booze policy helps there, I’m thinking.”
“Do the grown-ups abide by the no liquor rule, or is it just for the kids?”
“Nobody drinks.”
“Is there a lot of mixing at these dances? I mean, does everyone make it to the dance floor or is it just boyfriend and girlfriend sticking together for the night?”
“They mixed it up pretty well, I thought. One of the girls, I can’t remember who, initiated a couple of games to encourage people to change partners.”
“All right. Now who did you say was in charge, and who all worked at the dance?”
“Sister Dunne, Marguerite, is the centre’s director as well as being principal of the school, so she’d have been the woman in charge. She and Eileen Darragh, her assistant. But it was actually run by two of the college students who volunteer at the centre, Erin Christie and Tyler MacDonald. Tyler also played the music. A couple of fellows from the parish council helped out. Bertie O’Halloran ran the bar, such as it was. Rudi Martini was on the door, taking tickets and keeping an eye on things. Mike O’Flaherty and I were inside as well.”
I would try to speak with all these people, keeping my questioning as low-key as possible. I decided to consult Rowan and see whether we could pass off my involvement as an investigation on the part of the choir school. Protecting its interests without saying as much.
“Now. Do the priests and nuns dance with the kids on these occasions?”
“There was only one nun, and she didn’t have her dancing shoes on. But my understanding is yes, it’s considered something in the way of a friendly gesture for the priests to dance with the girls for a bit.”
“And did you? Dance with the girls for a bit?”
“Yes, I had short dances with a number of the young girls. It’s a bit of a lark, that’s all. Mike O’Flaherty is the man for dancing with the ladies. He was on his feet all night.”
“Did you dance with Leeza Rae?”
“I probably did. I’m assuming I did... But I just cannot remember for sure.” Let us hope so, I said to myself, given the hair samples he had handed over.
“If you danced with her, or when you were dancing with any of the girls, would these have been close waltzes, or what?”
