The Hounds of Rome - Mystery of a Fugitive Priest

by Tom Clancy

  “Well I hardly think so, but tell me more about the Catholics around here. What do they do about Mass and the sacraments?”

  “Most of them pile in cars and travel over to Lake Winnipesaukee. There’s a Catholic Church over there in Wolfeboro. It’s about a half-hour drive, but in winter sometimes, you gotta go by snowmobile or not go at all. In fact, you see the parking lot here? All filled with pickups and SUVs? Well in winter it’s filled with snowmobiles. They didn’t have snowmobiles when you lived here I know. How the hell I wonder did we ever get around here in winter before snowmobiles? Sometimes the snow’s so deep you can’t even get here with four-wheel drive. O’course there’s always been skis and snowshoes if you didn’t mind hoofing through the snow for some miles just to get some of Miss Wakefield’s hot cakes.”

  “I remember. But my family almost always came up here in summer. By the way, you say you’re Catholic, but are you a practicing Catholic, Lew?”

  “Yes,” Lew answered guardedly, his suspicions raised by the question. “But what the hell, I’ll be honest, I’m not too regular about it. The old joke is I’m practising to become a practicing Catholic. Since St. Mary’s shut down, I get over to Mass at Lake Winnipesaukee only about once a month.”

  “I’m a priest, Lew and if I tried to get St. Mary’s started up again could I count on you to help out?”

  Lew took a long sideways glance at Steve. “I suppose so...if it don’t interfere too much with my fishing. Where’s your Roman collar?”

  “My things are in the car.”

  “You mean the young fella I used to take fishing turned out to be a priest?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What do you call yourself: Father Steve? It will be nice not having to carpool over to Wolfeboro on a Sunday. Now wait a minute, are you one of them circuit riders? I hear tell there’s a lot more Catholics these days and a lot less priests. Are we gonna see you once a month or maybe only once a year?”

  “No, I’ll be living at the pond and St. Mary’s will be my fulltime ministry. Can you put me in touch with some other Catholics in Wakefield? I’ll need a lot of help to get the church going again.”

  “What kind of help? You mean money?”

  “No, money’s not a problem. Mainly, spreading the word plus a bit of fixing, cleaning, stuff like that. But I won’t know how much until I see the building.”

  Leaving the diner, Steve and Lew agreed to drive to the old church on the following Friday. Steve was happy he had found a parishioner who could be helpful. Lew was concerned that he was getting caught up in something that would keep him from fishing.

  *****

  After leaving the diner, Steve continued up the highway. He turned the rental car in at Ossippee and took a taxi back to Pine River Pond, site of the family’s summer home. When he needed transportation he would use one of the cars stored in the garage.

  Steve found the Larkin house on the pond to be in surprisingly good condition. As Lew had indicated, the cleaning crews must have come up on a regular basis he mused, as he walked through the big house that overlooked the pond. He couldn’t remember how many years it had been since he had last seen the house. His second floor room as a boy had none of the memorabilia he had hoped to find. His baseball bat, his first baseman’s mitt, his fishing pole, all the pictures he had plastered on the walls—all were gone. In one of her fits, Mother must have thrown it all in the trash he said to himself as he peered out a window at the rippling water on the lake that reflected golden in the bright afternoon sun.

  Downstairs, he was pleasantly surprised to find the freezer in the kitchen and the pantry fully stocked. He supposed it was kept that way on the outside chance that Jonathon might want to spend a weekend up at the pond. He opened a can of peanuts as he walked around inspecting the outside of the house. In the large clapboard building they called ‘the barn’, everything was there: the canoe, the rowboat, the small Sunfish sailboat, two kayaks, two snowmobiles, half-a-dozen pairs of water skis and at least a dozen inflatable mattresses and rafts. Good God, he thought, how did we ever find time to use all this stuff?

  The speedboat floated at the private dock. The boat was covered with a protective canvas that was sunken in the middle with a few inches of rain water. About thirty yards down the beach a small clapboard building rested partly over a narrow inlet carved from the beach. Inside, a late model Super Cub floated on pontoons. Steve climbed into the cockpit. The plane was fully equipped—radio, GPS navigation, transponder, an emergency survival kit. Regardless of Lew’s complaint, Steve knew he would have to brush up with a few check flights. Climbing down, he walked back up the small private beach towards the house. Standing at the water’s edge, he dipped his hand in the water stirring up a small cloud of sand. It felt like a warm bath. In the wooded area nearby, at the water’s edge three tall paper birch trees made a high arch curving down to the water as if they were bending over to take a drink. The trunks of the tall pines that lined the pond were covered on the side facing the water with hairy green sphagnum moss. He pulled off a small patch and rubbing it between his fingers, held it to his nose to sniff the delicate fragrance. He saw two loons with dark green heads and dagger-like pointed bills floating on the sunlit shimmering water out near the tree-covered island about a quarter mile offshore. The loons were swimming silently. He never forgot their familiar haunting wail that usually came in the night when, as a boy, he lay in bed dreaming of the big fish he was going to catch the next morning.

  As Steve stood at the water’s edge, a family of brown speckled wild ducks came paddling into the sandy shallows at his feet. A truncated family of one parent and four beeping ducklings. Yes, I could learn to love it up here again, he thought, as he threw a few cracker crumbs from his pockets into the water. In a flurry, the ducklings made short work of the crumbs.

  As he walked back up to the house, taking several deep breaths of pine-scented air, Steve felt his anger drifting away like a branch floating away on the pond. A feeling of exhilaration came over him. It tempted him to forget his difficulties with the church hierarchy, his renegade status. They were not likely to look for him here, because it was not common knowledge that the Murphy’s of Wayland had this isolated home on a pond in a rural part of New Hampshire. Besides, since the property had always been listed in his mother’s maiden name, Larkin. Just about everyone thought of the family as Larkins. He wondered if he wouldn’t be safer using the name Larkin instead of Murphy, but he felt there was a limit to the amount of deception he was willing to bring to this new ministry. The only thing people had to know was that he was a priest fresh in from Arizona—which, although true, was somewhat deceptive since it was not the whole truth.

  For the moment, he felt safe in familiar surroundings, but he knew the church had tentacles everywhere, and he would have to be vigilant, just in case.

  23

  Steve and his pond neighbor, Lew, pulled into the gravel parking lot of the small whitewashed clapboard building that had once served the Wakefield area as St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

  “What do you think, Father?” asked Lew, squinting out of his good eye as the pair examined the modest building with the squat open bell tower, the bell of which had long since been removed.

  “Where’s the bell?” Steve asked looking up at the steeple.

  “It was carted off by someone from the diocese. I heard it was put in the steeple of a new church in Portsmouth.”

  “The building could use a coat of paint and a few roof shingles here and there, but overall it looks pretty OK,” Steve said as he walked around to the rear tapping on a board here and there. “No bell up in the steeple but thank heaven, no termites down below, either.”

  Inside, the floors, the pews, the Stations of the Cross on the walls, and even the altar were covered with a layer of dust so thick that as the pair investigated, they had to cover their mouths and noses with handkerchiefs. Entering the sanctuary, Steve saw that the church had a small sacristy off to the right side o
f the altar where he would be able to don his vestments and pray briefly before beginning Mass. A closet held an array of dusty vestments. On the altar, Steve lifted the altar stone and was pleased to see that the holy relic was still in place under the episcopal seal although time had faded the name of the saint who sanctified the altar on which Christ’s body and blood had been shed anew at each daily Mass. The presence of the relic told the priest this was still a consecrated church albeit one that had fallen into disuse, and perhaps all but forgotten by the diocese. “But the building and tiny lot must still be recorded on the books of the diocese,” Steve mused aloud. “Wonder why the diocese hasn’t sold it?”

  “Probably because nobody wanted to buy it,” Lew answered. “There’s already three churches here in Wakefield—Episcopal, Baptist and Congregational, and since the Catholic Church couldn’t spare a priest for the church here, it’s just stood idle. There’s no taxes to pay on church property, so they just leave it sit here.”

  As Steve turned about on the altar to face the dozen or so dusty pews, he saw a figure seated in the last pew. It was an elderly woman. “Can I help you, Ma’m?” he asked, voice raised but muffled through the handkerchief.

  “Are you the new priest?”

  “Yes, I am. I’m Father Murphy. And may I ask who you are?”

  “I’m Mrs. Winters. You can call me Gladys. I live just a few doors down the street from the church. I come in and clean the church once in awhile. I always offer it up, you know, to atone for some of my past sins. Not that they were mortal sins, good heavens no, only venial sins and such. Just like at home, when I bend over, painful as it is what with my arthritis, and pick up a little piece of thread or a bit of paper on the floor, I always offer it up. I figure it’s worth more to the Lord when it hurts so to do it.”

  Steve had a sudden uncharitable thought which he later regretted. “It’s not likely” he said to himself, “that she’s done anything in a long time in here to offer up. This place hasn’t been cleaned, really cleaned in years. She must be blind as a bat.” Out loud, he said: “But we’re happy to have you here, Mrs. Winters. You know Lew, of course. He and I have been checking the building over to get it going again as a church. I plan to hold regular services here once more.”

  “Fine, Father, but are you really going to be here, I mean actually conducting a ministry here or are you one of those circuit riders who used to come around once or twice every six months but now don’t even come around anymore.”

  “I plan to say daily Mass right here, Mrs. Winters. And we’ll have novenas, too. A full liturgy. I live just a few miles away at Pine River Pond. Lew and I are neighbors.”

  “What about bingo, Father? We used to have marvelous bingo games on Wednesday nights.”

  Steve demurred, saying, “Well we’ll have to see about that, Mrs. Winters. Perhaps in a few months.”

  The old lady peered through thick glasses at Steve’s companion, “How are you, Lew?” she asked. “I guess we won’t need you to drive us over to Wolfeboro to Sunday Mass any more. Not that you ever did it more than once a month. Seems like whenever the fish were biting, the good Lord had to hover over your pond and watch you fishing instead of praying. You better hope that on Judgment Day the Lord don’t turn his back on you and just go off fishing. Leave you in the hands of the Devil he might.”

  Steve walked down the center aisle of the church and sat in a pew in front of the woman. Resting an arm on the back of the pew, he turned to face her. “Mrs. Winters, can you spread the word to some of the people in the old parish and have them here for nine o’clock Mass next Sunday so we can get this church going again?”

  “I’ll do my best, Father. You know, I can’t tell what you look like with that handkerchief covering your face.”

  Steve pulled the handkerchief down.

  “My, but aren’t you a handsome young fellow. But Father, I have to tell you, there’s some things going on in this town you should know about...dangerous things...heretic things.”

  “What do you mean? What things?”

  “I may be talking out of turn, but some of the supposedly Catholic ladies in Wakefield have taken to holding their own services—without a priest.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with that,” Steve said smiling.

  “What if I was to tell you they was saying Mass without a priest?”

  “But that’s impossible,” Steve replied frowning. “Only a priest can perform transubstantiation and you can’t have a real Mass without it.”

  “Well some of them are doing it anyway,” Mrs. Winters said matter-of-factly as she labored to get to her feet. As the old lady slowly left the church hobbling along with a cane, Steve was suddenly consumed with guilt. He realized that no matter how hard Mrs. Winters might have tried and no matter that she said she was always ready to seek opportunities to offer up good works to the Lord, in her condition she had no hope of keeping up with the dust that blew into the church from chinks in the doors and windows.

  “Lew, you heard Mrs. Winters. Do you know anything about some women having Mass without a priest present?”

  “I heard tell of it. I do know that some of the women who used to go to Wolfeboro stopped going. I assumed they just lapsed like some Catholics do, but later I heard they were holding services.”

  “Where?”

  “Why, in their homes o’course. Maybe when the priests stopped coming here, they thought the time had come for the women to step up and perform services.”

  “And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Steve explained, “as long as the services are non-Eucharistic like prayer meetings and bible readings. Stuff like that. Isn’t that what they’re doing? Mrs. Winters must have it all wrong.”

  “It’s a bit more than that, I’m afraid. They’re saying Mass and giving out communion. They take turns. One week it’s in one woman’s parlor, then the next week, it’s someone else’s.”

  On hearing his fears confirmed, Steve was dismayed, but decided not to say anything about it for the moment. “Lew, are the fish biting over at the pond?”

  “Nope, Father. Haven’t had a nibble in two weeks.”

  “Then maybe you and I can spend a few days cleaning this place up. What do you say?”

  “Why I suppose I’ll do like Mrs. Winters does—I’ll just offer it up. I could use a few brownie points in heaven.”

  “We all could,” Steve replied.

  24

  The water swirled, leaving behind a silent vortex as the paddler propelled the canoe—alternately on one side, then with dripping paddle, over to the other. The pond was calm with only an occasional ripple stirred up by the warm breeze. It was a sunny day and since there had been no rain, the water was a clear greenish-blue free of the pine needles and leaves that sometimes littered the surface. Closer to shore, one could see the bottom covered with small rocks but out in the middle it was too deep to see into the murky depths. Steve sat at the stern leisurely paddling. Janet reclined in the center of the canoe against a slanted board covered with a pillow. Her arm rested on the gunwale. Her fingers stirred a bubbly trail as the canoe moved through the water.

  Steve couldn’t take his eyes off the lovely figure in the shimmering white bathing suit, legs outstretched towards him, her pink toenails almost touching his feet. He had almost forgotten how beautiful she was.

  Swimming ahead of the canoe and keeping a constant distance, was a family of loons. “Steve, one of the babies is riding on the back of what I suppose is the mother. The other baby is swimming along.”

  “The mother is letting the less mature one cop a ride. Do you see that tiny island? It was created by the pond association as a nesting island for the loons. It protects them from any of the land predators that can’t swim this far out. The pond has several of these islands. The loons are protected because they give a distinctive character to these northern lakes. And, by the way, are you sure you can only stay up here one day? Can’t you spend the night and drive the rental ca
r back to Logan Airport tomorrow? Two hours up from Boston and two hours back is a lot of driving for one day.”

  “I’d love to, Steve, but we both know how risky that would be.”

  “Risky? I would think four hours behind the wheel in one day is dangerous. What harm can come to you here?” he asked with a broad grin on his face.”

  “Is that Mount Washington I see in the distance up north?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

  “No, you can’t see Mount Washington from here. I think what you’re looking at is called Mount Chorcorua.”

  “You think?”

  “Hey, I haven’t been up here in years. I was lucky I could still find the family home on the pond. I hate to admit I even made a few wrong turns on the way through Wakefield when I came up last week. By the way, can I ask you to box up my stuff and send it up here? And about my car in Washington, I want you to keep it. It isn’t worth much. Keep it as a gift. I’ll send you the title.”

  “I can’t do that. Maybe I can sell it and send you the money.”

  “Janet, please. I may have a lot of problems, but money isn’t one of them. I came into an inheritance from my mother—a magnanimous expression of her deathbed guilt, I believe.”

  “Tell me about the monastery in Arizona. What did you do there—pray all day? Meditate? Work in the fields?”

  “I don’t want to say much about it. I’m trying to forget it. Let me just say it’s a miserable place. It’s run by monks—Passion Brothers who seem to want the resident priests to suffer. They’re hung up on Christ’s suffering on the Cross.”

  “What do you mean by wanting the priests to ‘suffer’? You mean actual physical pain?”

  “Yes, some of that, but mostly just harsh treatment. I suppose what could be called harassment or browbeating, plus hard labor in the fields. They treat priests like they were criminals. You wear a number on your robe. No names. And, if for example, you break the vow of silence, there’s hardly any food on your plate at dinner. Plus other stuff. I really don’t want to talk about it. I’m just happy I’m not there anymore.”