Master of Ceremonies

by Donald B. Cozzens

  Doctor Ned Gannon spoke softly to the physician on duty at the medical examiner’s office. “Please inform the medical examiner that Archbishop Gunnison held a Vatican passport as well as a U.S. passport. That made him a citizen of the Vatican City State. In the name of Archbishop Cullen, I’m asking that you honor the Vatican’s request that he be spared an autopsy.”

  Across the room, Charles Cullen took the chair at the head of the presidential suite’s dining room table. Bryn Martin and Aidan Kempe, seated to his right and left, were each drafting a statement to the media and a personal statement for Archbishop Cullen to issue to the Catholics of the archdiocese. Someone, thoughtfully, had ordered coffee from room service. Cullen poured himself a cup. The three of them needed to be armed with some kind of statement before they left the Sheraton.

  “Tomorrow,” Cullen said looking like he might collapse, “right after our Masses, we meet in my office. We can’t start planning for Wilfred’s wake and funeral until I talk to the nuncio.”

  Martin and Kempe nodded.

  “I’m not sure,” Cullen said looking at his two aides, “what to do about Comiskey’s accusatory petition. If it’s going to come out, we would be better off to get it out ourselves before the media does.”

  Again Martin and Kempe nodded.

  “Charles,” Bryn said evenly, “we need to be ready to respond to Margaret’s accusations.”

  Looking at his two aides, Cullen said emphatically, “Should either of you get questions about the allegations against Wilfred, make it clear I am committed to proceed immediately with a thorough internal investigation and that the archdiocese will cooperate fully and completely with the civil authorities.” Cullen looked from Martin to Kempe. “We heard the rumors…” his voice trailed off. “But they were only rumors. I never heard of any formal complaints or allegations.”

  Martin lowered his eyes and thought what he wasn’t free enough to say: And you never really wanted anyone on your staff to look into those rumors.

  “Aidan,” Cullen said firmly, “I want you to review your files and I want to know if there are any allegations against Wilfred that somehow may not have been brought to my attention.” He held Kempe’s eyes. Kempe looked away first. “And see if there is any way we can reach out to the individuals Margaret named. See if you can get their full names.”

  Kempe tried to look composed and in control, but he wanted to scream. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. What had Giorgio done? Wilfred didn’t have the stomach to take his own life. But I’m not a psychologist. Maybe Wilfred did commit suicide. Kempe told himself to stay focused, and in that split second of clarity he understood his desperate wish was but a futile attempt to escape the horrible truth that cramped his stomach and lungs.

  Monsignor Aidan Kempe, self-proclaimed master of deftly-worded media statements, master of the art of ecclesial spins, could neither write nor say anything. He stared at the lined, yellow paper in front of him. What if Cullen and Martin find out the truth? What if the police find out? And how did Comiskey ever get hold of those names? Without looking up from the blank legal pad under his clenched hands, Aidan felt Charles’ and Bryn’s eyes on him.

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  Kempe closed the door behind him and sat on the side of the tub. He rose almost immediately, raised the toilet lid, and vomited the evil, terrifying mass in his stomach. But the fear remained. Kempe stood up slowly and flushed the toilet, went to one of the sinks, splashed water on his face and wiped the spittle and droplets of vomit from his lips with one of the hotel’s hand towels. He stood leaning on the sink counter and slowly raised his eyes. A scared, perspiring middle-aged man stared at him in the mirror. He needed a drink. He needed to talk to M. But what would he say? For the first time, Aidan Kempe’s confidence in the Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple was badly shaken.

  It was after midnight when Bryn joined Nora, Ian, and Ella. An open bottle of single malt scotch on the coffee table had barely numbed the pain of the evening. Ella Landers, veteran diplomat and one-time CIA operative, looked defeated.

  “I’m afraid for Margaret,” she said, looking straight ahead. “I could never have imagined the change that has come over her the last few weeks. I would never have believed her capable of doing what she did.”

  Bryn looked to his sister, the professor of psychology. “What do you make of this?”

  “It appears Margaret has suffered some trauma, some shock to her inner world or belief system.”

  “Nora,” Ella said slowly, glancing quickly at Bryn, “Margaret suffered a terrible shock recently. Do you remember the victim’s name she read first? It was Mark. Mark Anderlee is her nephew and godson. They are very close. She thinks the world of him.”

  Bryn knew very well what was coming. Nora and Ian were drawing their own conclusions.

  “About two weeks ago, Margaret’s nephew told her that Archbishop Gunnison had abused him when he was in high school, or maybe it was the summer before his first year of high school.”

  “Dear God,” Ian said, taking Nora’s hand.

  “Margaret didn’t handle the news well, and I’m afraid I didn’t help the situation. Actually, I believe I made it much worse.”

  “What do you mean, Mother?” Ian said speaking for the other two as well.

  “I can’t go into it right now. Perhaps at another time.” It wasn’t Ella Landers’ embarrassment at her poor judgment that kept her silent about the after-hours invasion of Monsignor Kempe’s office. It was her concern that she not implicate any of them, especially Bishop Martin, in the sad affair.

  The doorbell rang, surprising everyone but Nora. “You’ve got to be hungry. I’ve ordered some Chinese.”

  They moved to the dining room. Nora carried in plates from the kitchen while Ian and Bryn opened the cartons.

  “I’ve been calling Margaret every fifteen minutes,” Ella said. “She doesn’t answer.”

  “There was a black SUV waiting for her at the curb outside the Basilica,” Bryn said. “So she’s not alone. It may have been her nephew that picked her up. You’ll hear from her, Ella. You’ll hear from her.”

  They ate in silence for a while.

  “You know,” Ian said hesitantly, “if this were the late Middle Ages, Margaret might be in some danger.” He stopped abruptly, cursing his thoughtlessness.

  “What are you saying?” Ella said with growing disquiet.

  Ian had opened the door, now he had to walk through it. “I’m going back to our conversation at your dinner party, Mother, when I mentioned the Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple.” He glanced at Nora. “Thanks to Nora, I discovered the archives of the Carmelite Monastery in Towson. According to one of their earliest chaplains, a Jesuit by the name of Combier, the Brotherhood was willing to do whatever was deemed necessary to protect itself. To protect its stated mission to save the church from reformers who wanted to decentralize papal authority, the church’s ‘supreme center,’ as they referred to it. The priests and bishops of the Brotherhood really believed there was a hidden conspiracy to weaken the papacy, a conspiracy of insiders who wanted to undermine the imperial governance of the church.”

  “Violence in the name of God,” Nora said. “It’s nothing new. I remember reading of a cardinal who said he only lied in the best interests of the church. If you can justify lying for the good of the church, it’s not that big of a jump to justifying physical violence.”

  Ella wasn’t sorry she had asked Ian to go on, but hearing again of the Brotherhood only added to her worry.

  Bryn was sure that Ella knew of Kempe’s association with a group of Baltimore priests—and one dead archbishop—who called themselves the Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple.

  Ella touched the resend button on her cell and silently begged Margaret to answer. The others waited to see if Margaret would pick up.

  Ella shook her head.

  “You did it, Aunt Margaret. You did it,” Mark said as he drove a circuitous route to his Inner Harbor c
ondo. He didn’t think they were being followed, but he would continue driving north for a few more miles before heading back into the city. He touched the Sig Sauer P226 in his coat pocket. No one was going to hurt his Aunt Margaret.

  “Yes, I guess I did,” is all a drained Margaret Comiskey could say.

  Two hours after Margaret stumbled out of the side entrance to the Basilica, she stepped into Mark’s Inner Harbor condo. The harbor lights were striking—and strangely comforting.

  “Would you like some tea?” Mark asked.

  “Something stronger. I need something stronger.”

  Anderlee went into his kitchen and came back with two ice-filled glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels. They sat for a while without speaking. Mark watched as his aunt placed her glass on the coffee table and squeezed the fingers of her right hand with her left.

  “You’re cold,” he said as he got up and went to the hallway closet for a blanket.

  “When you told me what you were going to do, Aunt Margaret, you kept me out of a heap of trouble. I was thinking of doing something pretty stupid. But your plan was better than mine—far better.”

  Margaret pulled the blanket around her and sipped her drink. Mark had never seen his aunt look so frail, so very tired.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. I know I ruined Gunnison’s jubilee. And if what I said about him gets into the papers, I’ve ruined his reputation. But the man’s a pervert. A hypocrite. And it’s not just what he did to you, Mark. There were others. I found out there were many others.”

  “Aunt Margaret, why don’t you stay here with me tonight? I don’t want you staying alone in your house. It’s just better for you not to be alone.”

  Margaret shook her head. “I’ll be all right.”

  “I’ll stay with you.”

  Margaret hesitated. “If you don’t mind, I think I would feel better with you in the house.”

  “Just let me grab a few things.”

  Before turning out the lights to his condo, Mark slipped his Sig Sauer into his duffle bag and helped his aunt into her winter coat. The attached hood came down over her forehead, hiding her eyes. Mark thought she looked a like a monk or nun.

  “Thank you, my dear, dear Mark,” Margaret said softly as they walked to the elevator. “I really don’t want to be alone tonight.”

  Mark pressed the button for the garage level. When the doors opened, an older couple, two of Mark’s neighbors, stood waiting to enter. The woman was in tears.

  “What’s wrong?” Mark asked.

  The man, whose name he had never caught, said, “We were at Archbishop Gunnison’s jubilee dinner.” Putting his arm around his wife’s shoulders, the man stammered, “He’s dead. The archbishop apparently took his own life.”

  Margaret’s knees buckled and Mark dropped his bag in an effort to keep her from falling. “How awful,” Mark responded automatically, holding on to his trembling aunt. If the two neighbors had been at the Mass, neither one seemed to recognize the woman before them as Gunnison’s accuser. It may have been the hood, or perhaps they skipped the Mass and went straight to the dinner. It didn’t matter. What mattered was his aunt. He was afraid she would collapse. “Good night,” Mark said abruptly, leading Margaret carefully to his Explorer.

  Before he could put the key into the ignition, Aunt Margaret, tears running down her cheeks, sobbed, “Oh God, Oh God! What have I done?”

  35

  Aidan Kempe noticed the slight tremor in his hands that grasped the outer edges of the Sunday edition of the Baltimore Sun. He had spent a sleepless night dealing with the shock of Gunnison’s tragic death—he couldn’t bring himself to say “murder”—and wrestling with terrible, baffling questions he kept repeating. How did Comiskey come to know what she obviously knew about Wilfred’s mistakes as a young priest? How did she know the boys’ names? How would Wilfred’s exposure affect the Brotherhood? He had to call M, and soon. And without even a hint of shame, he pondered how yesterday’s events would affect his career.

  Kempe’s late night call to the paper’s city desk editor had paid off. It could have been much worse. In fact, considering the circumstance, it couldn’t have been much better. Below the fold, in the left lower corner of the front page, the headline read: “Retired Archbishop Dies Suddenly at Inner Harbor Hotel.” The article was brief.

  “Retired Archbishop Wilfred Gunnison,” it said, “celebrating his fiftieth ordination anniversary at a fundraising dinner for Catholic Charities at the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel, was found dead yesterday in his presidential suite shortly before the start of the dinner. The cause of death remains undetermined.

  “A spokesperson said the archdiocese would issue a statement later today.

  “Archbishop Gunnison was praised at a Mass in the Basilica of the Assumption preceding the dinner as a strong supporter of Catholic Charities and Catholic education.”

  Kempe folded the paper and rose from the table. No mention of Comiskey’s outrageous prayer. That was a break. Yes, it was a break, but he had influenced it, more or less. More, he thought, than less. Wilfred’s death would certainly be featured on the 6:00 p.m. local news. He glanced at his watch. He had time to get to his office before meeting with Cullen and Martin. Aidan Kempe had to know before the meeting if his private files had been opened.

  The chancellor unlocked the door to his outer office, Margaret Comiskey’s office. The desk was bare, as were the walls. All her belongings had been removed. He opened the top drawer to her desk. Empty. Then the side drawers. Empty too. He stood still for a moment shaking his head. How could you do this? You betrayed me, Margaret. You betrayed the church. You betrayed the holy liturgy with your treasonous attack on Wilfred. God forgive you.

  Kempe, terrified of what he might discover, unlocked the door to his inner office and stepped cautiously inside. He saw it immediately. An envelope lay squarely in the middle of his desk. It was addressed to him in Comiskey’s handwriting. But at this moment the letter was of secondary concern. He was moving now in slow motion and eased himself into his desk chair. His private file drawer looked intact. Let it be locked. It was. Thank God, he said under his breath. He unlocked it as if it might have been booby-trapped. Again he whispered, Thank God. Everything was there—his journal, the cash and check book, his private notes, account records. How could she have known? There were no signs of forced entry. How could she have known? he asked himself again. He had the only key…the only key.

  Only then did Kempe pick up the letter and reach for his letter opener. It was short. Only three sentences.

  Monsignor Kempe,

  I hereby resign from my employment at the Catholic Center of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

  By the time you read this letter, my reasons for terminating my association with the archdiocese will be clear to you.

  Kempe bolted upright in his chair as he read the third and final sentence.

  Instead of Daniel 5:7, you might read Luke 14:11.

  Margaret Comiskey

  The bitch. He knew the reference to Luke 14 without having to reach for his Bible. “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

  But it was Comiskey’s citation from the book of Daniel that chilled him: “You shall be clothed in purple.” Daniel_5:7 was the password to his personal computer. How in the name of God almighty could she know that?

  Charles Cullen arranged for sandwiches and coffee to be brought to his office. The three men seated at the archbishop’s conference table, each bone-tired from a restless night, knew they would be there for as long as it took. A statement had been promised, and the media would hold them to it. Controlling how the circumstances of Wilfred’s death were made public would help defuse the scandal that was certain to erupt in a matter of hours. It could make the difference between two or three days of bad publicity or two or three weeks, or more, of painful stories and media probing.

  Both Martin and Kempe brought working dra
fts to the meeting.

  “Before we take a look at your drafts,” Cullen said, “we need to consider some points I find tricky. First, do we say that the cause of Wilfred’s death has yet to be determined by the medical examiner or do we acknowledge that it appears he took his own life? I don’t think we can wait for the report from the medical examiner. And maybe that’s to our advantage. Second, do we say anything about Margaret’s prayer? If we do mention it, how explicit should we be? And three, should we emphasize that Wilfred, over the past few weeks, has been anxious and depressed? I think we agree he had been anxious, and we might rightfully assume depressed, since the laser beam incidents.”

  Both Martin and Kempe took notes.

  “Finally,” Cullen continued, “can we honestly state that we are unaware of any formal allegations made to the archdiocese or to civil authorities against Wilfred?” Cullen looked at Kempe. “Is that accurate, Aidan?”

  Kempe nodded that it was.

  Cullen’s instincts said don’t push this. Not now, anyway, but soon.

  “Let’s take a look at your drafts,” Cullen said, somewhat irritated. Kempe seemed eager to get his draft on the table first. Cullen caught Martin’s eye as Aidan slid copies to each of them.

  For Immediate Release

  The Catholic Center, Archdiocese of Baltimore

  Sunday, February 25, 2007

  With deep regret and profound sadness, we announce that Archbishop Wilfred Gunnison, the retired eighteenth archbishop of Baltimore, died suddenly, on Saturday, February 24th, prior to a Catholic Charities fundraising dinner in honor of the archbishop’s fiftieth ordination anniversary.

  While the cause of death remains to be confirmed by the county’s medical examiner, it appears that Archbishop Gunnison may have taken his own life. In recent weeks those close to the archbishop saw indications of anxiety and depression in our beloved shepherd, community leader, and friend.

  Funeral arrangements have not been finalized.