The Lost Bird (7 page)

Father John cleared his throat and began again. “It’s possible that whoever murdered Father Joseph had intended to shoot me.” He spoke calmly. He didn’t want to frighten them.

The words hung in the space between him and the two Arapahos. He saw by the tight clamp of Leonard’s mouth, the steadiness in Elena’s eyes, that they had
reached the same conclusion. He hurried on: “Until Father Joseph’s murderer is found, we have to be careful.”

Suddenly the housekeeper slapped a paper plate onto the table. “So the devil that killed poor Father Joseph is gonna tell us how we gotta live? Well, I don’t care what you say. I ain’t leavin’ you alone here.”

Leonard came around the table and planted himself next to the housekeeper. “I figure the more people at the mission, the safer you’re gonna be, Father. I’m plannin’ on bein’ here like usual.”

Father John drew in a long breath. “It’s been a long, hard day,” he said, a new tack. “At least take tomorrow off. Gianelli and Banner will probably be back. Whoever killed Father Joseph isn’t going to show up at the mission tomorrow.”

Both Arapahos were quiet, eyes steady, faces unreadable. He refilled his coffee mug and started down the hallway, wondering if he’d won the argument.

A group of grandmothers were letting themselves out the front door; the cool evening air drifted down the hallway and bit at his face and hands. He turned in to the study, avoiding the prolonged good-byes, the reiteration of grief and condolences that fed his own guilt. The front door thudded shut as he sank into the leather chair at his desk. The study was dark. Obelisks of moonlight crisscrossed the carpet and speckled the papers in front of him.

He heard the shuffle of footsteps in the hall, the front door opening and closing several more times. Gradually the quiet of death began to settle over the house. He knew it well. So many houses where he had sat with bereaved families, engulfed in the quiet. Now it was here. He dropped his head into his hands and
prayed silently for the soul of Father Joseph. He prayed for himself, for the strength to deal with his guilt. And he prayed that—someday, someday—he would conquer the terrible thirst that was turning his throat and mouth into dust.

Finally he flipped on the desk lamp and pulled the phone into the puddle of light, dreading the call he had to make. He lifted the receiver and punched in the Provincial’s number.

6

T
he metallic voice of an answering machine sounded on the line. “You have reached the Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus. Our office hours are . . .” Father John hit the pound button to fast-forward the message. “If this is an emergency, please stay on the line.”

The bland, irritating sounds of canned music replaced the voice. Father John took a draw of coffee and stared at the piles of paper awaiting his attention: letters to answer, thank-you notes to send to strangers who kept St. Francis operating with a few dollars stuffed into envelopes and mailed off to Indian Country, a place they’d never seen, phone messages to return. He shuffled through the top of a pile. Elena had taken several phone messages this afternoon. Most from parishioners. One caught his eye:
Mary James called. Wants you to call back. Important.
Below the message was a number. He tossed the paper aside. He did not know anyone named Mary James. It would have to wait.

There was the sound of footsteps in the hall followed by a rap on the door. Elena peered around the
edge. “Leonard and me are gonna be leavin’ now,” she said.

He thanked her for everything she’d done.

“Your dinner’s in the fridge.”

Another thank you.

“You sure you gonna be all right?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“See you first thing tomorrow,” she said, backing into the hall, pulling the door toward her. The hinges squealed like a small, frightened animal.

“Elena . . .”

The slammed door sent a little ripple through the floor. He heard the receding footsteps, the thud of the front door, and he knew that it didn’t matter if a crazed gunman was on the loose. Elena would come to the mission anyway. She would block the door herself if she thought someone meant to harm him. Tomorrow Leonard would also be here, and the volunteers who worked at the museum in the old school. He could order them to stay away, and still they would come. He felt humbled by the loyalty and love he had found here.

As for Vicky—he exhaled a long breath. She would ask questions around the reservation, and somewhere there was a killer who would learn of her interest. With a sickening clarity he understood there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t protect her. He couldn’t protect the people at the mission.

A tinny melody, irritating in its familiarity, burst over the line. It struck him he had spent his entire life among stubborn people who dug their heels into the ground and held on to their position, no matter how foolish it might be. Who better than his own people, the Irish? He was a bit like that himself, he knew.
Contrary, his father had called him when he’d announced he was going into the priesthood. “Why be so contrary, Johnnie? You got a great future ahead of you. A couple years in the minors, you’ll be pitchin’ at Fenway Park, and that will be grand. The whole family’ll be there to cheer you on. Eileen, too. The girl loves you to distraction.”

“I want to be a priest, Dad.”

“And would you tell me something, boy? How you gonna pitch fastballs from a pulpit? The Lord give you this talent. He’ll be wantin’ you to use it. And what about Eileen? You wanna break the girl’s heart?”

“A priest, Dad.”

“God almighty, the Lord put breath into a contrary lad.”

Father John closed his eyes against the bittersweet memory, the irritating melody jangling in his ear. He had loved Eileen, and he’d been good at baseball. He might have made a different life, but something had intervened. A vocation, the Church termed it. A calling. It had come in the spring of his senior year at Boston College, with the scouts taking him to dinner and visiting his family. It was as if he had been struck to the ground by the force of it, like St. Paul struck down on the road to Damascus. He had understood he was to be a priest, a Jesuit. He would teach history at Georgetown or Fordham or Marquette. His would be a quiet, scholarly life, writing papers and books, influencing students.

That wasn’t how it had gone, not how it had gone at all. He’d spent most of a year in Grace House trying to parse out what had happened, how he had become an alcoholic priest who had let down his family, his superiors, and everyone who had believed in him.
When he came to St. Francis, he had welcomed the emptiness of the reservation, as if the great open spaces could cover his shame. Gradually he’d been drawn in by the people until, instead of losing himself, he felt he had begun to know himself. Now this: someone here wanted him dead.

“Wisconsin Province.” The man’s voice startled him out of his thoughts.

“This is Father O’Malley.” He gripped the receiver tightly against his ear and added: “At St. Francis Mission.”

He could hear the quiet intake of breath on the other end, the unspoken thoughts: Who? Where?

“In Wyoming.”

“Oh, yes, Father O’Malley. The Provincial is in the office between eight and five. You can reach him tomorrow.”

“I have to talk to him now.” Father John heard the stubbornness in his tone. “Put him on.”

There was a short silence, a muffled cough. The voice said, “Is this some type of emergency?”

“Father Joseph Keenan is dead.”

Another silence. “I see. Well, that’s very unfortunate.”

“He was murdered.”

A gasp, like that of a small bellows, sounded through the line. “Please hold.”

The canned music returned. The imitation of a waltz, light and merry, the strains of an imaginary ballroom: ladies in gowns swishing across the floor, gentlemen in tuxedos. Hardly appropriate for the news he had just delivered. He drained the remainder of the coffee. It was cold and thick as syrup. Then he
picked up a pen and began tapping the edge of the desk, a crescendo of impatience.

“John, what’s this all about?” Father William Rutherford’s tone was peremptory, annoyed, the tone Father John remembered from their days in the seminary together. Television noise sounded in the background.

Father John explained. Father Joseph had taken a call to an isolated part of the reservation. Someone had shot him.

“Good Lord.” Shock and disbelief sounded in the Provincial’s tone. “What’s going on out there?”

Father John was quiet. He didn’t know the answer.

“Some kind of drive-by shooting? Are there gangs on the reservation?”

Father John said he didn’t believe so.

“A random shooting? A lunatic?”

“The FBI is investigating.”

“The FBI! My God.”

“They handle homicide cases on reservations.”

“Oh, yes,” the Provincial said, as if he’d momentarily forgotten some important piece of information that it was his job to remember. “Well, Joseph Keenan dead,” he mused. “I believe he was prepared. Yes, I believe he went there to die.”

“What?” Father John tossed the pencil across the desk. The Provincial had a doctorate in psychology, he knew, but he was in no mood for psychological babble. Nobody went someplace to be shot.

“Joseph’s prognosis was not good,” the Provincial was saying. “His heart disease was quite advanced. You knew that, of course.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” Father John said. He was thinking that had the Provincial mentioned the fact, he would have suggested that, perhaps, a mission on
an Indian reservation might not be the best place for a man with advanced heart disease.

“He was fully aware his time was limited,” Father Rutherford said, a steady, matter-of-fact tone. “Joseph Keenan was not a man content to await his death in a retirement home. When he heard I was looking for an assistant priest at St. Francis, he came to the office and insisted on taking the job. I turned him down, of course. Frankly, I didn’t think a man in such poor health should be sent back into the field.”

Father John could feel the guilt curling inside him like a snake gathering its deadly strength. An old man with advanced heart disease, who’d spent the day driving across the reservation—that was the man he’d allowed to take an emergency call miles away.

Father John picked up the coffee mug. Empty. It didn’t matter. Coffee was a poor substitute. Slamming down the mug, he struggled to follow what the Provincial was saying: Father Joseph had kept coming back, determined to return to St. Francis Mission.

The Provincial hesitated, as if searching for the argument he’d used to convince himself when he’d given in to the old priest’s entreaties. “Frankly, John,” he said finally, “I wasn’t having much luck finding anyone else, so I agreed to send him there on temporary assignment. Just until I found a permanent man. Joseph had very fond memories of St. Francis Mission.” A pause, then: “Yes, I believe he went there to die. Of course, he couldn’t have known anything like this would happen. But he knew his time was approaching. He chose the place, and left the rest in the hands of God.”

Father John pushed back in the leather chair, tilting the front legs off the carpet, trying to make sense of
what the Provincial said. Something was missing, the logic skewed. Even if Father Joseph had been a popular pastor and people still remembered him, he hadn’t been on the reservation in thirty-five years. He’d had a distinguished career, other assignments. Why would he choose to spend his last days here? Unless the man had nowhere else to go, no one he wanted to be with.

This new thought filled Father John with sadness. Was this the culmination of a priest’s career? In the end there was no one? Suddenly he realized Father Rutherford was talking about the funeral arrangements, saying he would contact Joseph’s family.

“He had a family?” Father John heard the surprise in his voice. A family made the man’s decision to come to St. Francis all the more perplexing.

“A couple of nephews, I believe,” the Provincial said. “I’ll have to notify them. In the meantime . . .” Another hesitation. “We must take the necessary precautions, John. We don’t know what Father Joseph’s murder is all about, do we?”

Father John admitted that was true. He had a theory, which he realized he hadn’t mentioned to his superior. What was there to say? Someone had shot the wrong priest?