Prodigal Father

by Ralph McInerny

  Nathaniel did not respond to the knock on his door. Had he already expelled himself, slinking off now that his purpose was known? It seemed too good to be true. He wanted the object of his dark thoughts out of the house, off the grounds, gone.

  “Have you seen Nathaniel?”

  “He said he was going to the grotto.”

  Boniface looked at his informant, to see if there was any irony in his expression that had not been in his voice. But he was simply answering a question. Full of disappointment, deflated because his thought that Nathaniel had fled was not true, Boniface returned to his room.

  The body of Richard Krause, Father Nathaniel, was found at the grotto the following morning. The weapon that had killed him still jutted horribly from his bloody back, a garden tool from the maintenance shed. The victim was wearing his religious habit.

  Part Two

  1

  Do not fret because of evildoers.

  —Psalm 37

  Dr. Pippen, the auburn-haired assistant coroner, watched the officious Lubins take command of the scene at the grotto, alienating all and sundry with his many and conflicting orders. The body had been found on a prie-dieu in front of the grotto by Andrew George, the head of the grounds crew. He had come upon what he thought was one of the fathers at prayer and was going respectfully by when he saw the handle of the pickax and stopped. Captain Phil Keegan and Lieutenant Cy Horvath were listening impassively to the head gardener’s excited account.

  “What time was that?”

  “Seven, maybe a little before. Every morning at seven I go to the maintenance shed.”

  “Were you surprised to see someone kneeling at the grotto?”

  George looked from Horvath to Keegan. “That is what they do there.”

  Pippen joined them, if only to distance herself from the coroner. She was itching to get at the body, but she was damned if she would risk being pushed aside by Lubins.

  “Who was he?” she asked Horvath.

  “One of the priests.”

  “That’s weird,” she said, and then, “Isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Killed with an ax?”

  “You’re the coroner.”

  “Lubins is here.”

  The coroner was not as stupid as Pippens pretended, but Cy Horvath adopted her point of view. Stolidly and happily married, he had never felt the lures of infidelity prior to the arrival of Dr. Pippen as assistant to Lubins. Her hair was gathered into a ponytail, she wore jeans and a baggy sweatshirt against the morning chill on which Greek letters Cy did not understand were lettered. Her ponytail swished as she turned toward Lubins and then back again to Cy.

  The medical examiner’s wagon had been backed along the path from the parking lot behind the greenhouse, a lot that separated the greenhouse from the maintenance shed. It was from that shed that the ostensible murder weapon had come. George identified it when he was taken to the body. Lubins did not want the ax removed from the body.

  “That’s mine,” George said, having stooped to look at the handle. “Ours.”

  By concentrating on the handle he could avoid looking at the body. It was not a pretty sight. Lubins called Pippen over and the two of them stood on either side of the body until by some imperceptible sign Lubins gave her the go-ahead and she finally got things under way. Lubins went around letting people know he was leaving, interrupting Keegan who was talking with one of the priests, and then saying to Cy, “Well, back to the salt mines.”

  Pippen had the pickax removed, handed it to Cy as if he were assisting her at surgery, and had the body transferred to the meat wagon so she could complete the on-site investigation. Cy took the pickax in a plastic bag to Keegan, who tried its heft as Cy had, and then it went with other items thought pertinent to the inquiry. Although it was private property, the area was taped off and uniformed cops posted as if they meant to hinder the movements of the old priests. The kneeling bench where the body was found was off bounds, so any praying would have to be done from a distance. Keegan’s phrase.

  “Maybe it always is.”

  Keegan looked at Cy. “Ever been here before?”

  “Maybe when I was a kid.”

  “You ever want to know what the Church used to be, this is the place.”

  “I remember.”

  “But it was still going on here.”

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “Father Watchamacallit. Boniface, the man in charge, is in the chapel, taking this pretty hard.”

  What Phil regarded as an island of preconciliar tranquillity had been shaken by the articles Tetzel wrote in the Tribune, but things were bound to get a lot worse now. Cy spotted Tetzel skulking around the edges of the little gathering. The dead man was the one who had spilled his guts to Tetzel, sounding anxious to sell the property before Leo Corbett could get his hands on it. Coming up the drive from the county road, Cy had been reminded of the practice field at Champaign, his freshman and only year in college. An injury had ended his promising athletic career, but he had joined the force and Phil Keegan, recognizing the name of the local high school star, had moved him swiftly up the ranks in order to have him at his side.

  Cy went around the wagon in which Pippen was at work and followed the path back to the greenhouse. It was the old-fashioned kind of greenhouse, hundreds of puttied windows, green frames, the low-angled roof reflecting everything in sight—sky, clouds, trees, the swift flight of a bird. Some of the windows looked whitewashed, to cut the sun. The door was open and Cy looked in, expecting to find Andrew George, who had identified the ax. But this was a young kid.

  “I’m Horvath,” he said, still in the doorway. The kid had an egg-shaped head, large eyes, and needed a shave. Cy went inside. “Lieutenant Horvath.”

  “Police?”

  Well, people say stupid things at a murder scene. He nodded. “Who are you?”

  “Michael. I live here.”

  “In the greenhouse?”

  “My father is in charge of the grounds.”

  “Andrew George.”

  “That’s right. Is he really dead?”

  “Didn’t your father tell you?”

  “My father.”

  “He found the body. Didn’t he tell you?” George’s story was that he ran back to the lodge and called the mansion to summon Boniface. Then, on Boniface’s orders, he had called the police.

  “I haven’t seen him yet.” The grotto was on the path that came from the lodge to the greenhouse. Of course, there were other ways Michael George could have come.

  “You live in the lodge with your family.”

  “That’s right. Is it Father Nathaniel?”

  “I suppose you knew them all.”

  “I grew up here. I went to school here.”

  “Tell me about Father Nathaniel.”

  “He was a sonofabitch.”

  The older George did not want to comment on community affairs, what did he know, but everyone knew that the one who got killed was a troublemaker.

  “Maybe you read the articles in the paper?” he said to Phil Keegan.

  “Tell me about them.”

  Phil had read the articles, of course. George’s version of them was very personal. His family’s tenure as groundskeepers was threatened by all this talk about selling Marygrove.

  “A couple months ago, last year, any time, no one’s talking about leaving here, selling the property. Things may not be good, talk to Boniface, but leave here? No way. This is where they have been since … My father worked here before me. And I have a son.”

  “He here now?”

  “I haven’t seen him this morning.”

  “Is this him?”

  A man had looked into the kitchen where Keegan was talking with George, and then withdrawn. “Hey,” Keegan called. “Come back.”

  But this was not the son. This was a man on retreat who was living in the lodge. John Sullivan. “What’s going on?”

  “You just getting up?” It was now after nine-thir
ty.

  “This fresh air! Windows wide open, I could have slept till noon. The sun woke me up, shining right in my face.”

  “Something awful has happened,” George said, putting a stop to his guest’s cheerful patter.

  “I’m Captain Keegan, chief of detectives, Fox River.” There was no special reaction. “We’ve got a murder here.”

  This got his attention. Phil let George tell him the story. How he found the body.

  “But who was it that was murdered?”

  “Nathaniel.”

  “No kidding!”

  The man pulled out a chair and joined them at the kitchen table. Cy arrived with the son, who was allowed to go on to his room after an exchange with his father.

  “Where you been?”

  “In the greenhouse.”

  “At a time like this?”

  Keegan said, “Your son work with you?”

  “Thank God his mother’s away.”

  Mrs. George had taken the bus to Peoria to be with her daughter who was about to deliver the Georges’ first grandchild.

  Cy had gotten the guest away from the table and was talking to him in a corner.

  “How come you’re staying here?” Cy asked, when Sullivan told him he was on retreat.

  “This is where they put me.”

  “They?”

  “Father Boniface.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  Sullivan thought. “It’s going on five days.”

  “How long is a retreat?”

  “That depends. You Catholic?”

  Cy nodded. “Five days seems a pretty long one.”

  “To tell you the truth, it’s open-ended. I was kind of at the end of my tether when I drove up the driveway. I had a long talk with Father Boniface.”

  “The head man.”

  “Yes.”

  “How many priests here, do you know?”

  “Eight.”

  “A big place for that small a number.”

  “I think there used to be a lot more of them.”

  “How did you hear of them?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why did you come here to make a retreat?”

  “Pure chance.”

  “So how’s it going?”

  Sullivan smiled, man to man. “It’s not like riding a bicycle. But I’m getting the hang of it.”

  “Did you know Father Nathaniel?”

  “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Father Boniface was seated in his choir stall, hands up his sleeves, staring straight ahead. He was startled when Phil Keegan whispered in his ear. Could they talk outside? Boniface nodded, got up slowly, and stepped out of the stall. He genuflected slowly, and Phil realized he had forgotten to, so he bent his knee and bowed toward the tabernacle.

  “Have they taken the body away?”

  “They’re about to, Father.”

  “I gave him conditional absolution when Mr. George called me. He was already dead.”

  “You take his pulse or what?”

  In his office, Boniface directed Phil to a chair and pulled another out from behind the desk. They sat facing one another. “He had stopped bleeding.”

  Boniface might have been remembering coming on the body, slumped over the kneeler with the ax handle sticking out the back. That was the blood he meant had stopped.

  “This has to be a terrible shock, Father.”

  “We’ve been getting a lot of shocks lately.”

  “The newspaper stories?”

  “Recent years have not been good ones for us.” He shook his head. “Now this.”

  “How old was Nathaniel?”

  “His early sixties, I think. He was young among us.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He had been away. He left the Order and lived in California for some years. He came back to us only a few months ago.”

  “Certainly no one in the community could have killed him?”

  “God forbid.”

  “Any idea who might have? Did he ever mention being under threat?”

  “He was killed with an ax.”

  “That’s right.”

  “The ax belonged to us, Mr. George tells me.”

  In his oblique way, Father Boniface seemed to be telling Phil not to discount too quickly a local murderer.

  Pippen summed up her preliminary exam for Cy. Death had occurred perhaps six to eight hours ago. It was now ten in the morning.

  “Between two and four?”

  “You work that out right in your head?” But she smiled prettily. Cy had been sure his attraction for her would diminish when she married four months ago, but she seemed to have passed into another and riper phase.

  “Weapon, pickax.”

  “What is a pickax?”

  “You know what a toothpick is?”

  “Yes.”

  “They have nothing to do with one another.”

  She showed the tip of her tongue. “Ostensible weapon, pickax.”

  “Ostensible.”

  “Apparent, seeming.”

  “Why not just murder weapon?”

  “Because I want to do an autopsy before I say that.”

  “Any other marks on the body?”

  “I haven’t undressed him yet.”

  “Be careful, he’s a priest.”

  “Now I’ll know for sure.”

  “What?”

  “Whether they make them all sopranos.”

  “Let me know.”

  “You should already know. You’re Catholic.”

  “I promised not to tell,” Cy said in a falsetto voice. She punched him, tossed her ponytail, and went off to her car.

  “That guy Sullivan who’s staying in the lodge?” Phil said. “What do you make of him?”

  “He says he’s on retreat,” Horvath said.

  “He seems familiar.”

  “His face. You saw it on the printouts Edna Hospers’s son gave you.”

  Eureka. The light bulb went on over Phil’s head. “Was his name Sullivan?”

  “I don’t think so. Hogan, Horan …”

  “Morgan.”

  “He’s making a retreat as Mr. Sullivan.”

  “Go get him, Cy. I want to talk to him again.”

  But Sullivan/Morgan/whoever was not in the lodge. Cy went upstairs to the third floor and found the room the man must have been staying in. The bed had been slept in, but there were no articles in the bathroom and no luggage anywhere. He seemed to have gone on another retreat.

  2

  Lord, how they have increased who trouble me.

  —Psalm 3

  Father Dowling breathed a prayer for the murdered priest and then his thoughts turned to Father Boniface. What a blow to suffer after recent events. The community had been presented as moribund but tenaciously clinging to its ill-gotten property, and now a murder on the grounds, the victim one of the priests! The man who had spoken in such derogatory tones of young Corbett’s claim to the land on which his grandfather’s mansion and lodge house still stood. Nathaniel had undercut the reporter’s dog-in-the-manger theme by suggesting that the community was thinking of discussing the future use of the land with Lars Anderson, a possibility portrayed as vaguely philanthropic.

  Father Boniface had lived into the time when he became the superior almost by default. He was not the youngest but at least the healthiest of the dwindling band. What initially seemed a small ray of hope, Nathaniel’s petition for return to the community, had developed into something unexpected. One would have thought that a man who was drawn back to the community he had deserted for the fleshpots of California would be a fanatic defender of the status quo, wanting everything as it had been when he left. But it had not been so with Nathaniel.

  Roger Dowling recalled his few encounters with the prodigal returned when he was making his retreat at Marygrove. How he wished now that he had spoken with him more.
There had been a book called Shepherds in the Mist that had been passed around the seminary when Roger Dowling was a student, the account of a man who had left the priesthood and married and whose wife had died. Now repentant, he told his story as a cautionary tale. Seminarians had read it with a kind of dread. In those days, departures from the priesthood were as rare as Jesuit cardinals. The account E. Boyd Barrett gave of his life was far from the prospect of liberation and insouciance that had led to the flood of laicizations after the Council. The stigma attached to one who defected from Holy Orders was far more indelible than that of an unfaithful spouse. Before his deacon year, the last before ordination to the priesthood, Roger Dowling had stopped at the Trappist abbey New Mount Mellary in Iowa. In those days, only the guest master, Father Louis, could speak. Outside of choir, the monks communicated by means of their own Trappist sign language developed over the centuries. There was another guest at the time, a moody man in black but wearing brown loafers seen from time to time on the paths but who otherwise kept to himself. Young Roger Dowling assumed he was a priest on retreat. At the suggestion, Father Joachim’s mouth widened and great teeth appeared as he smiled. He shook his head. “He was naughty. His bishop sent him here to do penance.”

  “For how long?”

  “His bishop will tell him when it has been long enough.”

  If the past was too harsh, the present seemed to waive all responsibility for what one had done. Roger Dowling had felt this on the marriage tribunal, a man or woman absolving themselves of the past with the suggestion that their real self had not been involved in their deeds. What would Augustine have done with this variation on Manichaeanism?

  He shook off these thoughts. If he wasn’t careful, he would become a theologian. If such a fate ever overtook him, he would need both the vivid portraits of Dante and the chaste arguments of Aquinas, the one inadequate without the other.