Mixed Messages (A Malone Mystery) (42 page)

She looked out the kitchen window to check on Danielle and Davey
.
She smiled as she watched the two of them as they took turns running and diving into a large mound of leaves
.
They were having so much fun. She remembered how much she and Marnie loved doing that when they were little girls.
Oh, to be a child again, she thought; to have such complete freedom and joy with none of the adult inhibitions
or worries
.
She cranked the window open and listened to their giggles and squeals of delight, remembering that she had once been that happy and wanting desperately to feel that way again
.

Chapter
40

FATHER ANDREW WENT INTO HIS BEDROOM
and flipped the wall switch to turn on the overhead light
.
He
was weary, drained of all his energy both physically and spiritually
.
The anointing of the sick, still referred to as “the last rites” by some of his older parishioners and a few elderly priests who were too set in their ways to accept change, always had that effect on him
.
He took off his
coat
, laying it on the bed
.
How ironic, he thought, as he removed his clerical collar, that
, even as a child,
I never could stand anything tight around my neck
.

After he forced himself to
finish undressing and slipped into his bathrobe,
he
went
over to his desk and sat down.
Because he was so tired and definitely not in the mood for any distractions, h
e’d decided to work on the notes for his sermon for the Saturday evening and Sunday morning masses at home instead of in his office at the church. Although tomorrow was All Saints Day, because it
fell
on a Saturday
this year
, it was not considered a Holy Day of Obligation. So,
there’d been no special masses to prepare for this week;
he
’d
only ne
eded to write a regular sermon and he’d put that off
till
the last minute
.
He picked up a pen and
sat there for several minutes, tapping
it
on his desk
, trying to come up with an idea.
B
ut his mind
refused to focus
on the task at hand
.

All he could think about was
how shocked and angry he’d been earlier that day when he found Ann Kern in his bedroom
.
He
pushed his chair back, stood up and
walked across the room
.
He
stood gazing for several minutes at the photograph of his sister
.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” he said aloud
.
“I’m sorry that woman came in here
.
I was careless; I left the door unlocked
.
It will never happen again.”

Even so, he thought, even though I should’ve remembered to lock the door, how dare
she
invade my private
space
!
He picked up the picture of his sister and sat down on the edge of the bed, clutching it to his chest
.
“Oh, Mary
!
I still miss you so much
!
Why did you have to leave me
?
Why did you have to die
?
You’re the only person I’ve ever truly loved.”

He
lay
back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about the years since Mary had been killed
.
All those lonely years in the seminary, never connecting with anyone, never having anyone that he could really talk to
.
The holidays were the worst, he remembered
.

Everyone else had a family to go home to but, without his sister there, he’d seen no reason to go home
.
His parents had never pushed the issue either, he remembered. They were too busy attending their numerous social events to be bothered with him.
So instead of delicious home cooked meals, he’d ordered carryout and eaten alone in his room
.
I was so young back then and I hadn’t learned yet how to deal with my aloneness, he remembered
.
So I suffered in silence; I held it all in
.
I had no outlet, no way to vent the pain and anger inside me.

The holidays are still difficult for me, he thought
.
Usually,
at least
one of his parishioners invited him to have dinner at their house with their family
and sometimes he accepted the invitation.
He never fit in though
.
He felt uncomfortable and out of place making small talk and trying to be sociable
.

If only you had lived, Mary
.
I would have a family of my own
.
I would come over every week for Sunday dinner and I would spend holidays with you and your children
.

He
closed his eyes and pictured
himself
in the living room
at his sister’s house
.
Mary
was in the kitchen
, whistling a
cheerful
tune, as she
set the table
.
He could smell the aroma of
her
homemade lasagna baking in the oven.

“Read me another story,” his
young
niece pleaded, looking up at him with her soft, big brown eyes and sweet smile
, so like her mother when she was that age
. “Please.”

“No,” his nephew argued. “Uncle Andy, you promised you’d come outside and toss ball with me.”

Andrew smiled. The image of spending time with a family who loved him warmed his heart. He wanted to stay in the daydream.

But that’s what might have been, he thought
.
Instead, I have no one; I was lonely then and I’m lonely now
.
I became a priest, someone who has no real life of his own, who lives vicariously through others, celebrating other people’s marriages, the births and confirmations of their children and all the other joyous events in their lives
.

I listen for endless hours to other people’s problems
.
I hear their confessions
.
I help them to resolve their conflicts and assuage their guilt and, in the end, I offer them peace and solace for all eternity
.
Yet
, I’m
nothing more than a guest in their homes
; I’m not a member of any of their families
.
How many parishes have I served in since I took my vows
?
And, in none of them have I felt like I really belonged
.
I’ve been at St. Pat’s for
seven
years already
, the longest I’ve stayed anywhere,
and I’m still and always will be
an
outsider
.

I know I’m not the only lonely person in this world, he thought, picturing the faces of the elderly people he visited at the Westside Nursing Home
.
It was so sad,
seeing
them sit there day after day waiting, hoping that someone would come to see them
.
So many of them had lost all their old friends and
their siblings. T
heir families, if they had families,
usually consisted of
their children
and
grandchildren
,
who
were too busy most of the time to take a few minutes out of their busy schedules to visit their aging relatives
.

On the rare occasions that family members did manage to give up a precious hour of their time, out of guilt or pity or both, it was obvious by their body language that they couldn’t wait to escape; that seeing people who have trouble walking or talking or remembering was just too much for them
.
How can people be so selfish? he wondered
.
Don’t they realize that, if they’re fortunate enough to live that long, someday they too will be old
?
How will they feel when no one has time for them
?
When people look at them with pity and even disgust in their eyes? Don’t they know that what goes around, comes around
?

He
thought about the eight
y
-seven year old woman he’d
visited that afternoon on her deathbed
.
How many times had he gone to spend hours with
Doris
Schweitzer at her apartment, listening to her reminisce about her life
?
He smiled, remembering how she always had a freshly baked batch of his favorite oatmeal raisin cookies waiting for him when he visited her
.

When
he was ready to leave, she’d
always
insist
ed
that he take the rest of the coo
kies home with him because, she
told him, she was on a diet
.
He smiled to himself
.
She weighed all of a hundred pounds, if she was lucky, he thought
.
She was such a sweet, considerate woman
.
She even gave me a key to her apartment, he remembered, because it took her so long to get to the door with her walker and she didn’t want me to have to stand out in the hallway waiting.

But there would be no more visits with her, he thought, remembering the peaceful
expression
on her face as she’d passed over
.
She too had died with no friends or family at her side, to hold her hand, to say goodbye to
.
True, she hadn’t had any children of her own but where were the nieces and nephews who would inherit all her worldly goods
?
They were all too busy
.
Would they be too busy to be there the day the will was read?

He opened his eyes and sat up
.
At least Mrs. Schweitzer lived well into her eighties, he thought
.
She had a long and, for the most part, happy life
.
He held his sister’s picture at arm’s length
.
“You weren’t so lucky, were you, Mary?” he asked aloud
.
“
You never got the chance to live your life, to fall in
love, marry,
and have children of your own, children that would be my nieces and nephews
.
All of that was taken from you and from me by a careless, stupid drunk
.
In an instant, he ruined both of our lives
.
”

He set his sister’s picture down on the bed and picked up his
coat
, reaching into one of
the pockets and pulling out a folded piece of paper
.
He unfolded it and
stared
for several
minutes at the line with Ann Kern’s maiden name. “Malone!” he said aloud.
He’d done his homework, looked up the family in the church records.
Ann Malone Kern’s
father was the drunk
driver
who had killed his sister
.

Slowly, he stood up and gently placed his sister’s picture back on the table. “Mary, at
least
you’re with God and I know you’re at peace, my love,” he said
.
As he turned off the light and left the room, he whispered, “If only that were true of me.”

Chapter
4
1

WHERE DID THE TIME GO?
Ann wondered as she hurried to make dinner. She reached over to grab a spoon out of the container on the counter that held many of her large kitchen utensils and knocked over her purse.
The contents spilled out onto the floor.
“Damn!” she exclaimed. She bent down, scooping up her wallet, hairbrush and keys and toss
ed
them back in
to
her purse. The postcard that Lawrence had given her that morning was lying flat on the floor, face up. “SEX OFFENDER NOTIFICATION”
was printed in bold
black
letters across the top.

Her
eyes scanned the card. It listed the name and physical description of a
ninety-year-old
man the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office
classified as a sexual predator
.
Ninety years old! How could he be a threat to anyone?
she wondered.
But, at what age would they draw the line?
She knew that i
t was their responsibility to report any sex offenders
who had moved into the area
to
local
residents and, a
ccording to the address listed for
the man
, he
lived only a couple of streets away
.
Evidently, he was convicted a long time ago
and either
he was recently released
or
he
had just moved into the
neighborhood, she reasoned
.
She looked at the
grainy
photograph i
n the right hand corner of a heavy, bald man wearing glasses.
He looked ordinary, like people she passed every day on the street.
He looked harmless enough but what about all the other perverts out there?
The ones that hadn’t been caught?
Her shoulders tensed up as she read the rest of the information. The man had served time for child
abduction and
molestation!