Master of Ceremonies

by Donald B. Cozzens

  Tucked away in the back of a bedroom drawer was a now outdated but serviceable document camera the agency had allowed her to keep. She would need it. Then, true to her training, she began rehearsing what she would do if things went wrong. From an operational standpoint, this would be relatively easy. But would she be as good with locks as she had been so long ago? At six p.m., Margaret Comiskey sat still at her desk in the Catholic Center, hands folded tight on its blotter. With Monsignor Kempe in Rome, this was the perfect time for the “operation,” as Ella had called it. The fluorescent ceiling lights were off, and a low wattage table lamp resting on one of the filing cabinets softened the hard edges of her office, anteroom to Kempe’s inner sanctum. She remained motionless at her desk with her coat on, strangely cold—shivering from nerves rather than the temperature. Never in her life had she been party to anything close to what was about to happen. A cup of tea might have calmed her nerves, but she remained still, staring into the shadows of her office. She could still call this off. Ella would be relieved. No, she would go through with this. She turned to the credenza behind her desk and picked up the photograph of her smiling nephew and godson, Mark. No, she thought, we’re going to do this.

  It was a Friday night and only a few of the staffers hadn’t left for the weekend. In a short while the building would be empty except for the security guard in the lobby. Kempe’s office was dark, and Comiskey checked again to make sure both his door and the outer office door were unlocked. She moved quietly to the copy machine. It was turned on, the office code entered, and ready for use, the paper drawer filled. Comiskey returned to her desk. She had another twenty minutes before going down the back stairs to let Ella Landers into the Catholic Center. Nothing, she understood with absolute clarity, would ever be the same.

  Their plan was simple. Once Ella was inside, Margaret would go directly to her car and drive straight home. Ella was emphatic about this. She wanted her friend home and on the phone with someone who might testify to her whereabouts should she ever need an alibi. Margaret had provided Ella with precise directions up the back stairs to the third floor of the Catholic Center. At the top of the stairwell, Landers would turn right and move down the carpeted hallway to the last door on the right, the corner office of Monsignor Aidan Kempe. The door to Kempe’s outer office, Margaret’s office, would be open and so would the door to Kempe’s inner office. Landers had memorized the floor map Margaret had drawn up. She would move silently and quickly to his desk and, in a matter of minutes, if her long-untested skills didn’t let her down, carefully open his private file drawer.

  Ella estimated her time in the chancellor’s office, if all went according to plan, at less than thirty minutes. It all depended, she had explained to Margaret, on the amount of material that needed to be photographed or photocopied. And—she had decided not to trouble Margaret with this piece of the operation—on how much time she needed to open the chancellor’s private file drawer without leaving any betraying sign of forcible entry.

  At six-twenty-five, Margaret Comiskey rose from her chair, her eyes moving slowly over the few remaining personal items in her office—the photo of Mark, and a framed picture of herself with Pope John Paul and Bishop Martin taken during the pope’s visit to Baltimore. She had always thought it a privilege to work at the headquarters of the archdiocese. There were people she would miss. Bryn Martin in particular. He made her feel more like a colleague than a secretary. And Archbishop Cullen—always courteous, always a gentleman. Both were churchmen, but they remained down to earth and easy to approach, never stuffy or taken with their own importance, unlike more than a few of the priests who worked at the Catholic Center. And without question, she would miss the other secretaries who worked in the various archdiocesan offices. Most were underpaid and underappreciated. But the quiet pride she had taken in working at the Catholic Center guttered now like a sanctuary lamp caught in a mysterious draft. It was all a sham. Gunnison, and Kempe, so prissy and pious, were criminals in Roman collars. This long chapter in Margaret’s life was drawing to an end. She put on her coat and hat and went downstairs to let Ella in.

  At exactly six thirty, she leaned her hip against the panic bar to the back door of the Catholic Center. Ella Landers, dressed in dark slacks, a hip-length charcoal coat, and wearing Latex gloves, slipped inside. “I left my car on Park Avenue,” she whispered. “You were right. It’s less than a three-minute walk.” On her left arm she carried a large cloth tote bag with twin arm straps. Margaret mouthed a “thank you” to her friend. They stood for a moment in the semi-darkness, bathed in the red glow of the exit sign, holding each other’s gaze. Ella gave Margaret a confident nod, indicating she should go. Both women understood they would remember this moment of truth for the rest of their lives.

  Carefully, quietly, Comiskey pushed the door’s panic bar with her gloved hand and stepped out into the chill of the mid-February air. It stung her cheeks. She found her eyes watering. She was shaking now, more from nerves than the cold. She closed the door as silently as she could and half walked, half ran to her car. The Catholic Center’s parking garage was nearly empty. As far as she could tell, no one had seen Ella Landers enter the Catholic Center. If all was going as planned, Ella had silently climbed the back stairs to the third floor and slipped unnoticed into Kempe’s darkened office.

  21

  Wearing a black cashmere coat with a dark maroon scarf high around his neck, Monsignor Aidan Kempe walked out the main entrance of the Hotel d’Inghilterra at precisely three thirty. It would take no more than twenty minutes to walk to the Borghese Gardens for his four-thirty rendezvous. He might stop for another coffee in the Piazza del Popolo and rehearse, yet again, his report to M, the very private yet powerful Bishop Pietro Montaldo. This would be only his second meeting with the Brotherhood’s Vatican protector and he hoped they would speak, as they had earlier, in English. Montaldo was fluent in Spanish and Italian, but his English, like his French, while passable, was somewhat halting. Still, Montaldo’s accented, deliberate English was better than Kempe’s Italian.

  It was four-twenty when Kempe reached the Gardens. A few minutes later he stood in front of the Fountain of the Seahorses. There was no sign of M, so he walked slowly down the Via dei Pupazzi toward the Temple of Diana, stopping every few steps to discreetly check for a figure that could be M. At four-twenty-five he turned and strolled back to the fountain. Kempe stood off to the right pretending to admire the sculpture, which had never really captured his imagination. Tourists were sparse this time of the year, particularly at this hour. The late afternoon light faded into a purple and gold dusk. Save for the rumbling of the cascading waters of the fountain and the distant, muted sounds of Rome’s traffic, a chapel-like quiet fell over the Gardens of the Villa Borghese.

  “It’s quite exquisite, don’t you agree?”

  Kempe had not heard him approach, but there was no doubting the voice—refined but not quite effete. He turned to find M just a few feet behind him. His eyes, he had forgotten, were dark and searing, almost cruel in their intelligence. M, a good four inches shorter than the monsignor, was wearing a black cashmere coat similar to Kempe’s, a Greek fisherman’s cap, and a black silk scarf worn high to hide his Roman collar. He was, Kempe knew, in his late sixties. And while not slim, M carried only a few extra pounds at his waist.

  “Excellency,” Kempe said with a nod that M could read as a discreet bow. “Yes, the fountain is quite extraordinary.”

  “Shall we walk?” Bishop Pietro Montaldo suggested. “It’s too chilly to sit on a bench.” The two clerics turned and walked slowly down the tree-canopied stone path of the Via di Valle Giulia, with Kempe at M’s right elbow. The long shadows cast by the early evening light suggested two cloistered monks taking a prayer walk.

  But the two were far from sharing a moment of prayer.

  Though they had the path to themselves, Kempe spoke softly. “Our brother Wilfred has decided to mark his fiftieth ordination anniversary with a Jubilee Mass at the Ba
silica of the Assumption, followed by a fundraising dinner for close friends and major benefactors. He hopes to raise a hundred thousand dollars—for our Catholic Charities.” Kempe’s slight pause was enough to inform M that a portion of the gifts would be directed to the archbishop’s personal retirement needs—perhaps a generous portion.

  “Hadn’t we expected him to retire quietly?” M asked.

  “Yes, Excellency. But he has opted for what he believes is a modest celebration. Even though we know that the archbishop at times may have been…imprudent…with young men.”

  “Those lapses in judgment,” Kempe felt a need to emphasize, “occurred before he was named to the episcopacy.” Kempe hesitated, glancing at M’s silhouette in the descending darkness. “He doesn’t see the public celebration of his jubilee as ill-advised.” Kempe paused briefly to see if he could catch M’s expression. He couldn’t. The bishop’s face was turned to the trees and shrubs that lined the Via di Valle Giulia.

  Kempe knew he had to get to the heart of the matter or M would dismiss him as a fool wasting his time. “The Mass and dinner represent a risk to our Brotherhood, and possibly an embarrassment to the archbishop and to Holy Mother Church,” Kempe said in the argot of church-speak.

  Montaldo, for the first time, turned to search the face of his American counterpart.

  Kempe cut straight to the heart of the matter. “A short time ago a man confronted the archbishop with an allegation that he abused him when was a boy. The accuser is now in his late thirties, and recently retired from the army.” Kempe paused. M’s eyes were now fixed on him. “I have used the Brotherhood’s purse to help this accuser get on with his life.” Still, M remained silent. “The archbishop is gambling that this accuser, this army veteran, will remain discreet. We can only hope.”

  Kempe’s stomach dropped. M had listened without so much as a word, his face expressionless in the declining light. Coming to report personally to M was a mistake, a terrible mistake.

  Kempe hesitated, then, in spite of his mounting panic, plunged ahead. “Then something quite bizarre happened, Excellency,” his voice betraying his anxiety. “After a Confirmation Mass, during the recessional, a number of the priests and the laity saw a laser beam resting squarely on the archbishop’s chest. The red dot disappeared almost immediately. But not before Wilfred noticed it. I’ve been told it shook him to his core.”

  M paused as if thinking, and then turned to Kempe. Finally, he seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. “Go on,” M said returning to his slow pace.

  Kempe’s composure returned. “The same thing happened at the archbishop’s next confirmation. You can understand, I’m sure, that our brother is quite anxious, quite fearful. I’m afraid, Excellency, he is so unnerved that he is, as we say in America, close to the edge.”

  As if in support of Kempe’s shaky but growing confidence, M nodded.

  “Fragile,” he said quietly.

  The two members of the Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple walked on in silence.

  M, at last, spoke, “What do you make of these events, Aidan?” His voice, like his expression, was flat, impatient for the complete assessment of the situation that had brought Kempe to Rome.

  “So far there has been nothing in our media. That is a blessing. But this business with the laser makes me think the archbishop, and the Brotherhood, are in danger. Something is brewing.” Kempe immediately regretted the expression. M would have no idea of its meaning. “I fear something is developing. I fear something terrible might happen at his jubilee celebration.”

  M stopped a second time and turned his shoulders toward the American. “And?” he said coolly.

  “I fear, your Excellency, that the archbishop is likely to expose and embarrass us.

  “There are a few, perhaps four individuals,” Kempe continued awkwardly, “who have accused the archbishop of inappropriate behavior when they were boys. Thank God, the allegations were brought to my attention. I was able to defuse each situation discreetly, thanks in no small part to the purple purse. Again, thank God, the families of the alleged victims agreed to spare the church scandal.”

  M already knew from his own sources that Kempe, as financial secretary of the archdiocese, had protected the church from scandal with his adroit handling of Wilfred Gunnison’s indiscretions. “And we know, Aidan,” he said, “how the media in your country enjoy sensationalizing questionable allegations of misconduct by a few priests—and sometimes by our brothers wearing the sacred purple.”

  Kempe heard a hiss of air part the lips of M—like a sigh. But it wasn’t a sigh at all. On the short rush of air from M’s lips floated a hint of garlic. What he had just heard wasn’t a sigh at all. It was, Kempe now understood, a guttural “ugh” of contempt.

  “We know only too well how your secular legal system allows greedy attorneys and so-called victims to sue our holy church for millions of dollars. We in the Vatican see your legal system and your media as enemies of our church. Your culture, dear Aidan, I mean no offense, is simply corrupt.”

  Kempe could not allow himself to take offense. “Sadly, Excellency, we have liberals controlling our government, our media, our education system—and they are intent on subduing and humiliating our church.” They walked in silence for a few minutes, hands deep in their coat pockets.

  “I’ve asked the archbishop,” Kempe went on, “to consider postponing the jubilee celebration. I suggested he could claim illness. He wouldn’t hear of it.” Kempe knew he must be careful here. He was close to condemning a fellow brother of the Sacred Purple. “I fear Gunnison is out of control, Excellency. Even on the verge of a breakdown. And I suspect the public adulation that will accompany his jubilee might be the prod that motivates one or more of his alleged victims to go public. The archbishop seems to think that the brotherhood’s purse will make his problems go away, that it can buy the silence he desires.”

  Kempe paused, giving M an opportunity to comment. He didn’t.

  Knowing his words were hammering the final nails into Gunnison’s coffin, Kempe said, “Wilfred moves from paranoia to denial and from denial to supreme confidence that nothing can possibly go wrong.” He paused again, glancing down at the little Italian bishop on his left.

  “What do you think would be best for Holy Mother Church, Aidan?”

  And for the Brotherhood, Kempe thought to himself.

  “It would be best, Excellency, for Archbishop Gunnison to relocate his residence outside the United States, as soon as possible after his jubilee. His presence in Baltimore puts the church at great risk of scandal.”

  M’s silence gave Kempe hope. The bishop was considering his advice. M led his friend toward the Garden entrance closest to the Fountain of the Tortoises. “Yes, yes, Aidan,” he said, “we have reason to be concerned.”

  Outside the Garden, M approached a black Audi sedan parked at the curb with a driver at the wheel. Kempe hesitated briefly, then followed. At the door of the car, M said thoughtfully, “I will send my personal representative to the archbishop’s Jubilee Mass and dinner. I ask you, Aidan, to arrange to have him meet with our brother Wilfred as soon as possible after the celebration to convey my personal congratulations, and to persuade him to relocate outside the archdiocese. My envoy will identify himself to you as Monsignor Giancarlo Foscari. He will not, however, vest to concelebrate the Mass and he is not to be introduced to any of the bishops or guests at either the Mass or the dinner. In particular, do not introduce him to Archbishop Cullen or to the nuncio.” M paused to let his instructions sink in. “And do not mention his presence even to the priests of the Brotherhood,” he added. “Monsignor Foscari’s short visit is to go unnoticed. Do you understand, Aidan?”

  “Yes, Excellency,” Kempe responded quickly. “I understand.”

  M padded Kempe’s forearm. “You were correct to bring this situation to my attention.” At these few words from the mysterious and powerful M, Kempe regained his confidence, embarrassed now at his momentary pangs of self-doubt
.

  Aidan opened the right rear door of the Audi and M slowly backed his small frame on to the seat, lifting his legs in after him. Before allowing Aidan to close the door, he looked up at him and asked, “When do you return to Baltimore?”

  “I leave tomorrow morning.”

  “Then let me drive you to your hotel. You will be rising early,” M said as he slid over to the left side of the back seat.

  “Thank you, Excellency, that is very kind of you.” The driver, a large, dark figure, didn’t turn to inspect his new passenger, though he did steal a glance at Kempe in the rearview mirror.

  “Andiamo, Giorgio,” M said, with a flutter of his hand.

  The driver nodded, and put the Audi in gear. He appeared to Kempe to be a muscular man, and tall for an Italian. Kempe and M sat in silence during the kilometer or so drive to his hotel.

  “Grazie, Eccellenza,” Kempe said as the car pulled up to the hotel’s entrance.

  But as Kempe reached for the door handle, M reached out and took hold of his left arm, holding him in his seat.

  “Let me take this opportunity to offer you a fraternal word of counsel, Monsignor.”

  Kempe, suddenly on guard at the formality of M’s address, braced himself.

  “Your visit to a certain coffee bar this afternoon was ill-considered. And your weekend escapades in Chicago have not gone unnoticed. I refer to the bars on Division Street, the bars that cater to men with special interests. Prudenza, Monsignor, prudenza.” He patted Kempe’s arm and added in a paternal, unctuous tone, “Discrezione.”