Authors: Mark Richard Zubro

The Only Good Priest (3 page)

BOOK: The Only Good Priest

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Father Clarence kept his mouth shut but left a pitying smile on his face.

All the way to the meeting with Frank Murphy, I swore at the priest, defamed the Roman Catholic Church, and cursed all self-satisfied hypocrites.

For the police station, the January thaw had proved an unfortunate event. The deeper the snow got, the more it tended to mask the flaws in the crumbling debris-encircled structure. Dirty, faded bricks, possibly once yellow, crept around a two-story disaster area. Gutters lay stacked and dented against the side of the building. They'd managed to pay for the things but forgot to allocate enough money for someone to finish the job installing them. In the autumn someone had raked leaves, rusted beer cans, and broken glass into huge piles now revealed by the retreating snow. In a vain attempt to dress up the place in the past year, someone had smeared orange paint over the building's battered old shutters. Unfortunately, the town's landmark committee now wanted the place preserved as a historical site. Because of this, for the moment, they could neither fix it up nor tear it down. They certainly didn't have the money for a new station.

Inside, the officer on duty wore a bright blue uniform shirt, crisply ironed, along with a congenial smile on his face, presenting a pleasant contrast to the grimy walls and nicked and scratched counter.

We met Frank in an interrogation room. It contained a table, three chairs, four walls, and a doorâall painted flat gray. A rusting radiator hissed at us softly.

Frank wore a conservative blue sport coat, black jeans, white shirt, and a loosened red tie. He greeted us warmly.

He and I had had some great successes and some equally spectacular failures with some very messed-up kids over the
years. Last June we attended the college graduation of a kid who spent what was supposed to be his senior year in high school in Stateville prison. We'd managed a miracle turnaround on that one. It's good to remember those kids when month after month you stand by helplessly as others toss away whole lifetimes.

We talked awhile about the coming baseball season and then about troubled kids. Frank and I had to make a court appearance in a couple of weeks in a parental custody battle. Neither one wanted the child.

I asked about Father Sebastian, explaining my interest.

He shook his head. “We're only peripherally involved. He lived here, but he died in Chicago. It was a nothing case. Thousands of people die like him every day. Too much cholesterol and they keel over. Fifty-one's not too young for that.”

I told him about Monica's perception of his health and spirits.

“She a doctor?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Do I need to say more?”

I grimaced.

He continued. “I'm not saying your nephew lied. You and I have both heard more fantastic stories from kids less trustworthy that turned out to be horribly true. But look at what we've got: a twelve-year-old kid versus a popular priest.” He held out his hands palm up and shrugged. “Who wins?”

I sighed.

“I know all the priests over at St. Joseph's. My wife and kids go every Sunday. I show up if I'm not working.” He gave us his impression of the priests in the parish. He continued the litany of kindness and light we'd heard for Father Sebastian: a good man in the right sense, willing to help, go out of his way for anybody for the smallest thing. Father Clarence he didn't care for. “I agree with your judgment. Something about that guy is wrong. He's too perfect. Does everything right. Kisses the asses of all the right parishioners. Lots of people began to ignore Father Sebastian, talked about retiring him. Poor guy, doing a
simple good job, and this flashy kid steps in.” He shrugged. “It happens.”

“You think there was jealousy?”

“Nah. Sebastian didn't work that way, and if Clarence felt it, he'd never let it show. Although â¦” He hesitated. He eyed us carefully, stretched his legs out, and crossed them at the ankles. “I hate to repeat tawdry gossip.”

We leaned forward.

“I found this out from the guys on the night shift.” He cleared his throat theatrically. “Father Clarence isn't always where he belongs.”

“Huh?” we said.

He explained. On nighttime emergencies involving parishioners needing a priestâfor last rites, for exampleâbecause the rectory had an answering machine, someone, usually the police, wound up banging on the rectory door. Several times Father Sebastian had let it slip that it was Father Clarence's night on duty. Father Clarence drove a very expensive red Corvette that Frank's source claimed often didn't appear in the rectory parking lot until just before 6 A.M.

“Where does he go?” I mused aloud.

“None of our business generally,” Frank said. “He could have a sick mother in a nursing home, or maybe he's getting a little nooky on the side.”

“I thought priests weren't supposed to have sex,” Scott said.

“They're human,” Frank said, “no matter what the Vatican tries to tell us.”

He agreed to do some discreet checking into Father Sebastian's death but didn't promise anything.

At home there was a message from Neil on the answering machine to get back to him. I called, and he said we could meet with the Faith board of directors at five and then Neil wanted to see us himself. Scott spent the afternoon responding to letters from AIDS groups around the country asking him for help with fund-raisers. These are his priority now. As a star athlete he
draws huge crowds, and he always appears free for AIDS groups. I spent the afternoon reading
The Company We Keep
by Wayne C. Booth.

I drove Scott's Porsche to the city. I guess it's juvenile, but I love its power and sexiness. My new gleaming black pickup with oversized tires and four-wheel drive has a certain sexual cachet, but his car is magic. For the forty-five-minute trip to Chicago, we took I-80 to I-57, up the Dan Ryan Expressway, and then over to Lake Shore Drive. The board met in an upstairs former dance studio on Clark Street, across from the Organic Theater. Fortunately, enough snow had melted so we found a parking space in less than fifteen minutes.

Upstairs, we entered a room that ran the length of the building. A large cluster of over a hundred metal folding chairs filled the half of the room closest to the windows overlooking Clark Street. A simple table draped with a white cloth waited for the congregation in a clear space in front of the chairs. The other three walls, including the back of the doorway, still had the floor-to-ceiling mirrors of its dance-studio days.

Neil got up and came over from the circle of people sitting in the far corner. His pink-and-purple-checked sweater vest hung over his paunch. It covered his faded blue-jeans shirt and the top third of his tentlike pants.

“You're just in time. We just finished,” he said. He glanced around quickly at the group at the far end of the room, then whispered, “I've got to talk to you after this!” Everything is a crisis with Neil. His having to talk to us could concern something as simple as a hangnail or as heavy as a nuclear disaster. As he led us up to the group, he said, “I'll introduce you; then you can ask questions.” Five people besides Neil sat in the circle. We pulled up folding chairs and joined them.

Neil introduced us. To my left sat Monica Verlaine, whom we already knew, dressed today in a black wool skirt, a red wool form-fitting jacket with black buttons down the front, black silk scarf splashed with red and white draped over the right shoulder of the suit jacket, black earrings, low-heeled suede
boots, and matching purse. No cigarette holder or smoking for now.

Next to Monica sat a man in his seventies, at least, bald and smiling: Bartholomew Northridge, former accountant and treasurer of the organization. His hands shook sporadically. Every few minutes he'd hold them together in rigid stillness, only to have them wander apart moments later to shake again. He spent much of his time darting nervous glances at other members of the group.

Then came Father Larkin, who nodded pontifically.

I knew the next person from a bar we frequented: Prentice Dowalski, twenty-three or -four, part-time bartender and hustler, willowy thin, strikingly handsome face, smart-mouthed, who generally hid behind a string of rude or stupid comments. Several years ago I'd accidentally learned that Neil occasionally pimped for Prentice. This was only for exceptionally high-class clients who paid over $1,000 an hour. I couldn't imagine what a hustler could do to earn that much an hour. Then again, maybe I didn't really want to know. I hadn't been around him for long enough stretches of time to know if his stupidity was congenital or an act. He and a Chicago cop used to be lovers, but they'd broken up a year ago over the hustling issue.

Between Prentice and Neil sat Brian Clayton: short hair and mustache, a hint of a paunch, desperate to look thirty while rapidly approaching forty. Secretary and chairman of the membership committee, he smiled warmly and fussed over Scott and his fame.

Neil cut him off. “We've agreed that we think somebody killed Father Sebastian, and we want Tom and Scott here to look into it.” Heads nodded. Neil continued, “We knew Father Sebastian best. Our insights might guide them to the truth.”

“What we need to know,” I said, “is the type of man you think Father Sebastian was, what you remember from that last day, if you noticed anything different in him lately, and where each of you were at the time of the murder.”

Their memories of the last day coincided fairly well. During
the board meeting the week before, Father Sebastian had seemed as placid and calm as ever. Mass had been the usual. No one had noticed anything alarming or different in Father Sebastian's sermon that Sunday.

After the service, the group had a social hour. Father Sebastian had gone downstairs to the sacristy, really more of a storage room for the group's files and paraphernalia. That's where they'd found his body. Except for Clayton, who found him, no one admitted leaving the dance room we sat in, but each would be hard pressed to prove their continued presence there. During social hour people mingled, formed groups, and dispersed as at any party.

“So any of the people present could be a suspect, which was how many?”

“Eighty-six,” Clayton said. “I always keep accurate count and seek out any new members to make them feel welcome, encourage them to join formally.”

“Anybody new this week?” I asked.

No strangers had shown up. It'd been a day of ice, snow, and rain just before the current thaw. The inclement weather kept the size of the group down.

I pointed out the impossibility of our questioning all those people with no official sanction. A collective look of helplessness was followed by silence. In the mirrors I watched them shift uncomfortably.

Neil spoke. “I know it's tough, but our friend is dead. We have to do
something
.”

“Besides the police explanation of natural death and the possibility of someone at the Mass killing Father Sebastian, there's always the stranger or tramp from the street solution,” I said. They fell silent.

“What the hell is this?” a voice snarled from the door. I turned to see a woman in a bright-red vinyl jacket, tight Levi's jeans, and white high-top basketball sneakers advancing toward us.

Neil introduced her as Priscilla Kapustaglova, President of
Faith Chicago. He explained why we were there, adding what Jerry had told us. “We think they can help,” he finished.

She snorted. “A macho two-bit jock and a schoolteacher?” Hair unkempt, anorexically thin, no makeup, and what I suspected as a perpetual sneer on her lips, she straddled her chair backward like a Western movie extra. “You don't want much from a couple of amateurs.”

“They're our best hope. Tom Mason is trusted everywhere in the gay community. If he asks questions, people will take to him,” Clayton said.

Priscilla pointed to Brian. “You're drooling because you think they're hot men.” Clayton turned slightly red. Priscilla continued. “Father Sebastian died. The cops questioned us. They said it was natural causes. No conspiracy. No murder.”

“I wouldn't expect you to trust the cops.” Bartholomew alternately clutched the back of his head and twined his fingers together as he spoke.

“At least, one of them was a woman,” she snapped. “And yes, I trust the cops in this. I wouldn't trust the fucking Cardinal if he swore on a stack of cathedrals. But a female cop? Sure.”

“NaÃ¯ve.”

Monica uttered the one word, and Priscilla became slightly quieter but no less hostile. She asked, “Why was this decision made without me present?”

Neil spoke quickly. “You had another meeting today. This was urgent.”

After ten more minutes of squabbling, they declared a truce in their internal politics.

After we got the Father-Sebastian-was-a-saint litany, even from Priscilla, she said, “See? Nobody had a reason to kill him. Give up. Go home.”

BOOK: The Only Good Priest

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