Halfway down the hall, Ally reached into her pockets for her gloves but found them empty. She remembered placing them on top of a filing cabinet. She pushed back through the office door into the darkness, adeptly feeling her way around until she made contact with the familiar knitted folds. Far less familiar was the feel of two arms wrapping around her waist as she stood with her back to the door, frozen with the sensation.
Those same arms turned her around so she now faced their owner, Steve, who moved his face toward hers with surprising fluidity, his eyes closed as his lips pressed sloppily against hers. Ally’s mind was in a fog as Steve groped her. His hands slipped under her shirt, and her body involuntarily responded to his fingers tracing around her breasts and down to her hips. She’d begun kissing him back, she knew, but could not recall ever desiring him, even now. When he pushed her up against the wall, pressing into her, sliding his knee between her legs while pinning her arms at her side, Ally Larkin knew this was a deciding moment. Steve was accustomed to getting what he wanted. He had spoken often and disparagingly of his exes. Girls whose fathers owned corporations and private islands and who bored him not long into their short-lived relationships. Ally suddenly realized she’d be just another conquest for Steve and saw the true nature of the situation. Any brute physical desire she may have felt for him dissipated, fading like the heat from her embarrassment.
She gave him an aggressive shove. “Not a chance, Tilden.” He slumped against the filing cabinet, his head lolling back in a precursor to the headache that would greet him in the morning. She ducked out the door and skip-hopped down the hallway, looking over her shoulder once to see him shuffling into the hallway with labored steps.
The incident had happened months before, and while he still spoke to her with a mocking superiority, beneath his attitude ran an undercurrent of shame and, Ally sensed at times, fear.
It was also most likely why, when they went to the office to type up notes after returning from Philadelphia, Steve had lingered after she’d left, and opened the file outlining her strategy for answering Archer’s proposed tax on religious institutions. The next morning, she noticed that the printouts didn’t seem to be as tidily organized as she thought she’d left them, and the folder was now on the side of her desk where she usually kept inane items like train ticket receipts.
She pulled out her copy of the strategy and reviewed it. Late last night as she was trying to sleep, another idea had occurred to her. Her original proposal called for churches engaged in business transactions to develop a local development corporation model—nonprofit/business hybrids that often engaged in projects with for-profit potential but enjoyed tax benefits because of their mandate to work for specific communities or neighborhoods. Anytime the parish intended to make a significant profit through its activities, the development corporation would facilitate the transactions. The profit would be taxed, though not at as high a rate as Archer was calling for, and it sent the message that Wyncott still respected the special role of religious entities in American society, while forcing those organizations to reinvest a portion of the profit into their immediate communities to receive the highest tax break possible.
But as she mulled the day’s events over, she felt restless about all of it—her conversation with Horta, the closures, her proposal. She still believed that the campaign’s response had to address the “Church as profiteer” perception. And that to keep his supporters in organized religion happy, Wyncott would have to do so without fundamentally affecting how much money they actually made. But thinking back to Horta, she tried to figure out what had so discomfited her about his comments. It was the way he implied there was an ethnic or even maybe class bias to the closures. Maybe he was right. It was hard for her to imagine the Church closing a school in one of Philadelphia’s more affluent neighborhoods. She understood that what angered Horta, as much as if not more than the actual closures, was the way the communities appeared to have no voice in the decisions or any ability to respond—the Church wielded unilateral power over what happened to them.
Archer’s staffers were shrewd, Ally knew. They had already proven themselves ahead of her team by reaching out with their tax proposal. Any response from Wyncott that didn’t include a community voice in decisions would have limited impact. She’d sat up in bed around 3:00 a.m. and begun scribbling notes. After filling several pages she moved to her desk and laptop.
Her modified proposal called for a split governing structure. The actual churches and affiliated parishes would maintain their status and tax breaks, while financial transactions with third parties would be managed by a nonprofit with an operating board of directors. The nonprofit would pay the monthly bills for the churches—phone bill, rent, electricity—which would qualify as charitable giving. Having an operating board would create accountability, showing that the Church wasn’t possessed of sole power to do anything it wanted with no thought for the consequences. In all likelihood the board would consist of figureheads or allies personally chosen by church leaders. But having at least one community member serve on it would create the perception of outreach and allow dissenting opinion to go on record—even if it was guaranteed to be outvoted when it was time for hard decisions to be made.
Ally had mixed feelings about the proposal. She knew it was like so many other aspects of politics and governance she had discovered in her short time with the campaign—a paper tiger meant to convey a call to action that would never actually materialize. But having an independent operating board at least afforded certain avenues for members of the public to challenge church decisions, something that didn’t currently exist.
Parishioners would have the chance to do something about it if they wanted to. Whether that was ever likely to happen wasn’t really the point. Neutralizing the idea that religion was a machine and that Wyncott was in bed with it was. Giving Wyncott a platform to place the onus for change on the American people and make him their vehicle for it was. She had begun typing at 3:30 in the morning, napping only briefly before coming into the office, so receiving the Conference reception invitation gave her the extra burst of energy she needed to finish her changes before the morning meeting.
Her computer clock moved closer to the 8:30 mark of the meeting. As she typed, her eyes darted to the corner of the screen, registering the advancing time and calculating how close she was to finishing. She hit “Print” at 8:24 and was at the photocopier by 8:25. The collated, stapled copies were still warm with the tacky scent of fresh print when she rolled into the conference room two minutes later. She passed Casey’s office on her way and spotted him on the phone. He had a folder on his desk and was talking animatedly. The entire staff was assembled by the time he walked into the room several minutes later, unusually tardy.
“Let me just begin by saying I know the past few weeks have been a lot of work,” he began. “We were behind on the religion front and we didn’t even know it. But you’ve all come up with some really great information and ideas.”
He turned to Steve and smiled. “Did you bring enough copies for everyone?” Steve rose and began passing out a document. Despite sitting kitty-corner to Ally at the table, he didn’t look at her once. She soon figured out why.
Steve’s handout was almost verbatim what Ally had prepared and left on her desk after they returned from the meeting. Recognizing it immediately, she looked up and tried to catch Steve’s eye. His gaze remained cast down anytime he turned in her direction. When he finally raised his head to speak, he spoke over her, focusing on the back of the room or on objects, never on the people sitting at the table, Ally included.
For much of Steve’s presentation, Ally sat in stunned silence. She wasn’t so naïve that the concept of something like this happening hadn’t ever crossed her mind. But that he had done it so brazenly shocked her. More importantly, so did Casey’s failure to question how someone whose ideas had been consistently mediocre had suddenly come up with a brilliant plan now. Steve’s duplicity left her livid, but Casey’s
inability to spot the sham surprised and disappointed her.
After several minutes in a daze, she recovered, thanks to Steve’s thoroughly undynamic presentation style. She scanned the page to see how he’d phrased the tax break element she’d replaced this morning. She couldn’t distribute what she’d brought with her. It was almost exactly like Steve’s and, given Casey’s public acknowledgment, she couldn’t pass hers out without expecting colleagues to assume she had pilfered the idea and not the other way around. Even if Casey figured it out or agreed with her, she had no desire to embarrass them both in a public meeting.
At the end of Steve’s presentation, Casey nodded approvingly. “There are a few specifics still to work out, but assume that this is the counterproposal we’ll eventually be going with and start thinking about the best ways to market it.” Steve took a seat, and while Casey beamed with pride, Ally inhaled slowly and raised her hand. Steve finally looked at her, a cross between fear and smug triumph on his face.
“It’s a very good proposal,” she started. It physically pained her to have to publicly acknowledge her idea as someone else’s. “But I wonder if we’re not missing an opportunity to demonstrate Wyncott’s concern for church communities by giving them a more direct voice.”
Steve’s eyelids fluttered. “In what way?”
Ally went on to highlight the components of her modified proposal, the idea that establishing this board would provide members of the community with a say in how financial matters of the church that impacted their communities were handled. She concluded with her analysis that it would ultimately be up to the original churches whether they used it as a genuine agent of change or stacked the deck against the community. But at least Wyncott would be seen as facilitating a direct line of communication and accountability in a way that even Archer’s plan did not.
Casey nodded in agreement. “Works for me.” He turned to a legislative research assistant. “Have a look at how we’d need to structure it in reality, but in the meantime”—he nodded at the press team—“start writing a press release to highlight Wyncott’s commitment to helping preserve faith-based communities.”
He dismissed them. Steve took off, anxious to avoid Ally. She packed up her folders, her lips pursed in anger. Casey stopped her as she headed for the hallway.
“I know, by the way,” he said evenly. “I’m not an idiot.” He squeezed her arm and ushered her out the door with a smile. But it wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot.
CHAPTER 10
Owen Feeney stared at the saddlebag he had brought home from the office. Peeking out from under the leather flap was the edge of James Ingram’s folder. He leaned forward to reach for it, thought better of it, and settled back onto the couch with his glass of wine. On the television, a nondescript pundit with a pudgy belly and shock of silver hair was ranting about something. In recent months, he’d begun tuning them out in much the same way he tuned out Sister Anne Marie. But he also knew he should try to remain well informed. Turning up the volume, he sat up straight and tried to focus on the words, but the presence of the folder kept pulling his attention back to the bag. At the commercial break, his distraction was almost unbearable. An advertisement for irritable bowel syndrome medication didn’t help. A couple, not much older than Owen himself, frolicked in a montage of septuagenarian bliss. Riding their bikes along the sea, walking hand in hand with ice-cream cones, seated on a blanket with a basket and bountiful spread before them. Suddenly from the lush tree above them, a red-suited gremlin labeled “IBS” descended on their picnic, cackling, kicking the plates of food in a drunken jig, and wreaking havoc as both husband and wife looked ill, clutched their stomachs and took off running for the restrooms.
The giggle started in the bottom of his chest and rippled slowly to the surface, erupting into full-blown laughter that came in waves again and again until tears streamed down his face. He doubled over, gasping for breath, and reached for his phone, his thumb punching in the last number as he raised it to his ear. It rang once, twice, and then picked up. “You won’t believe this ad!” he panted into the receiver.
The icy voice of an operator informing him the number was no longer in service stopped him in his tracks. The phone felt suddenly heavy in his hand. Of course the number was disconnected. James had been dead for well over a month now. He knew that. In his heart and mind he knew it, but his body didn’t always remember. He slammed the receiver into the cradle and yanked the brown folder James had given him out of his bag. The first letter in it brought color to his cheeks. He knew it well. He’d dictated it to his secretary when he was serving in the Archdiocese of Chicago for a brief period before moving to Rome. His words, terse, matter-of-fact, and completely stripped of his usual oratory indulgences, assured a Mary Keenan of Parkchester, Illinois, that her concerns had been registered and that Father William Hartnett was being removed from the school and would no longer have contact with children in any capacity. The letter closed with his assurances that her concerns were valued and a wish for God’s peace to be with her.
Behind that letter, printed on formal stationery, was another letter from him dated just days after the response to Mary. It was meant, it said, to serve as an introduction of Father William Hartnett to a Monsignor Sexton overseeing the parish of Good Shepherd in Claremont, Pennsylvania, where Hartnett was due to begin his assignment as the youth retreat coordinator. Father Hartnett, Feeney emphasized in the letter, was a well-respected member of the clergy who had distinguished himself in service many times over and would be a fine replacement for the outgoing retreat coordinator. The parishioners of Claremont, Feeney stated in conclusion, would benefit from his time serving them. At the bottom left of the page a CC list jutted out. The third name down read J. Ingram, SJ.
Even now, Owen had no idea how James had put the pieces together. The phone in his office had rung one afternoon just about nine months ago. Sister Anne Marie stuck her raptor-like head around the corner and informed him that Father Ingram was on the phone.
“I’m a bit busy at the moment, Sister. Please take a message.”
A few moments later, he again heard her deferential shuffling outside the door.
“Yes, Sister?” he called out.
“Sorry to bother you, Your Excellency,” she croaked. “He says it’s quite urgent and he does sound distressed.”
He shooed her away with an acquiescent nod and picked up the phone. It wasn’t like James to be so insistent.
“Jimmy? Are you okay?”
“No, Owen. I’m not.” His voice was hard. Gone was the usual warmth that seemed as much a part of him as a vital organ. “How long did you know?”
“Know what? Jimmy—what’s wrong?”
“About Hartnett. How long did you know?”
Owen’s chest constricted. He opened his mouth to speak but held back, reminding himself that he needed to figure out just which incident James was talking about first.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to be a little more specific,” he said smoothly.
“What I want to know, Owen”—the way Ingram said the name was sharp and bristled with disgust—“is if you knew Hartnett was molesting kids before or after you recommended him to replace me in Claremont. Before or after you asked me to introduce him around.”
Owen hadn’t been expecting that. James clearly knew more than he thought. He took a breath and collected himself.
“Look, Jimmy. Of course I didn’t know. And as soon as I found out, I made a few calls to move him out of there as soon as possible. You know that.”
“When did you find out?”
“We moved him out of Claremont just as soon as we could. So maybe a month before he left. April of that year, I guess. Look, you’d been gone for ages by that point so none of this casts a shadow on you.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” James said with a trace of sarcasm. “But that’s not really the point.”
He sounded less angry now. Owen relaxed a little. “Believe me, we didn’t see
it coming.”
“Do you ever?”
“Exactly!” Owen slammed his hand down on his desk. It was part of what drove him crazy about public reaction to this sort of thing. It was as though people thought he was supposed to have some sort of superhero X-ray vision to tell him who was a pedophile. The first time charges had been brought against a priest serving under him, he couldn’t have been more shocked. He’d spent hours around the young man, planning events and filling out paperwork. Never once did he sense anything was off with him. In fact, he had disregarded the charges as a modern-day witch hunt led by overbearing and hysterical mothers. Only when the archdiocese’s legal representative came to see him did he reconsider. The attorney came into the office with a furrowed brow. He tossed a document on his desk—affidavits from three different children intimately describing a birthmark on the priest’s right inner thigh, mere inches from the scrotum. Feeney was still trying to wrap his head around the graphic descriptions—one boy said the birthmark changed color in the summer, grew darker after hours in the sun spent swimming naked in the retreat house lake—when the lawyer slapped another one down. A photo of the priest’s leg with the telltale birthmark. Owen recoiled at the image.
“Trust me on this, Owen,” the lawyer told him with an air of defeat. “We’re going to have to settle this one out of court.” And they had. To the tune of $40,000 for each boy and a guarantee they wouldn’t make any public statements about the abuse.
“That’s exactly it!” he shouted again at James through the phone. “We never know until we know. It’s awful. I don’t like it any more than you do. But it’s like being allergic to bees. You don’t know if you are until you’re stung, and you better hope you’re close enough to a hospital to get through it and be all the wiser after.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Jimmy?”
The Shepherd's Calculus Page 9
