The Sacrifice (11 page)

“What!” Ron's anger was instant. “If we had been in the church then, don't you think someone would've seen us? We don't need an alibi for being alone and away from this place. We simply weren't here.”

“There were a lot of people milling about,” Zoo suggested.

“This is purely outrageous!” Ron's anger was escalating. “I am a priest. My sister is a seminarian. And we're talking about our father. You are suggesting that we tried to kill our own father. Killing
anyone
is out of the question. Killing our
father
—patricide—why, the very idea is a gross insult to both my sister and me.” The words were uttered as if they were bullets.

“This is a murder investigation, Father,” Zoo said calmly. “We ask questions … lots of questions. You're going to have to get used to this. You are not the only ones who may get angry about being questioned. We are going to get whoever did this. And, in order to do that, we must ask questions. Get used to it, Father; it's going to happen.”

Father Ron Wheatley and his sister looked daggers at Lieutenant Tully. They were furious … and deeply insulted. The lieutenant didn't care. His mind was occupied with bringing the bomber to trial. And it didn't help that his brother the priest had just revealed that he'd been the target of threats to his safety and even to his life.

This investigation had too many loose threads. Zoo dedicated himself to tying up these loose ends and getting to the bottom of this. “Now …” He took a deep breath and dived back into the cause of the delay in the ceremony—a delay that seemed to grow more important by the minute. “Now,” he repeated, “we were just at the point of determining what caused the delay …”

“You must know,” Zachary Tully addressed his brother, “that delay is mother's milk in churches. Just drawing on my own experience, I'd say that far more ceremonies start late than start anywhere near on time.”

“I know, Zack. But we can't dodge the fact that this delay made a lot of real difference.”

No one picked up the verbal ball. Everyone seemed to be waiting for someone else to either take responsibility or suggest some hitherto unsuspected cause.

At length George Wheatley said quietly, “I'm afraid it's my fault.”

All eyes turned toward him. No one was more surprised than Zoo Tully. He had never heard George Wheatley speak.

But the others were more than conscious of the resonant quality of that voice. There were those who, with some humor, called it, “the voice of God.” The implication being that if God were to speak in human voice, this was what it would sound like. The phenomenon was that such a stentorian instrument should be packaged in so unlikely a box.

To look at the hitherto silent George Wheatley, one might expect his voice to be reedy, perhaps even shrill, possibly even not particularly attractive. But when George Wheatley spoke—even merely cleared his throat—it was, indeed, “the voice of God.”

Koesler was interested in what George had to say. He also was content to sit back and listen to this magnificent organ.

Still, no one had asked the obvious question: Why did George think he had been responsible for the seemingly all-important delay?

Zoo Tully, who, with no challenge from former Inspector Koznicki, was heading this investigation, shook off his amazement at the quality of the man's voice. “Why do you say it's your fault?”

“Well,” George said, “it was the phone, really.”

His children—all three of them—broke up in laughter.

It must be an inside joke, thought Koesler. Certainly there was nothing intrinsically funny about answering a phone.

Lieutenant Tully experienced the same bewilderment: What was so funny about answering a phone?

“You must excuse us.” George Wheatley too was chuckling. “It's a bit of an inside joke. I have a nasty habit of answering a ringing phone.”

“Whenever it rings,” Alice said.

“No matter what's going on,” Richard added.

This interrogation had been so deadly serious, literally, that everyone was grateful for the levity.

“The classic example,” Richard said, “happened when we were in a rural parish, up around Port Huron. It was eleven o'clock on a cold evening. We kids had gone to bed. Mother had taken our two dogs—two
big
dogs—out for their final run of the night. Suddenly she called to my father—so loudly we kids woke up. Dad went running out—”

“We were living on about two acres—fenced in,” said Alice.

“Right,” Richard continued. “It was pitch dark … big oak trees all over the place, so there was not even any moonlight to see by. It was almost impossible for Dad to see where Mother was. She couldn't have jumped that fence unless one of our lives depended on it. But that wasn't the case. Mother and the dogs were out there somewhere.”

“We wanted to go out and help, but we knew better,” said Alice. “And then we heard Mother yell, ‘George! The dogs! They've cornered a possum!' It was obvious she was at wit's end.”

“And then,” Ron joined in the story, “the phone rang.”

The Wheatleys broke up again at the memory.

George grew sober. He was not at all proud of his contribution at this point in the story. “I know it sounds silly, but I couldn't help it. I went back inside to answer the phone.”

“He left Mother, the dogs, and the possum out there in the dark, and came in to answer the phone!” Ron summed up.

“I regretted it,” George said, “the very instant I got back in the house. I knew I had made the wrong decision. I knew it. But by that time there was no turning back. So I picked up the phone …”

“Was it worth your while?” Father Tully had been caught up in the flow of this incident. “I mean, who was on the phone? An emergency? A sick call?”

“Well,” said George, “that's just the point. I had no way of knowing whether it might be a sick call or some other emergency. That's why I was so torn over which way to go.”

“So, who was it?”

“A wrong number.”

Now everyone, including even Nan Wheatley, laughed.

“And then?” Father Tully prompted.

“Well, of course, I got back outside as quickly as I could. From all the racket—Nan yelling and the dogs barking loud enough to rouse the dead … well, I started wondering whether we were waking the neighbors.

“Whether or not we were didn't really worry me at the moment. I finally located the foursome. It appeared to be a tableau: a lot of noise, but not much movement.

“Nan was trying to hold the snarling dogs back. The possum, cornered up against a pile of logs, seemed willing to wait for the first one of the three dumb enough to dare those bared razor-sharp teeth.

“I took hold of the larger dog's collar in hopes that that helpful gesture might win me a bit of absolution.”

“Did it?”

“It did not—at least not then. Informing my wife that it had been a wrong number didn't help either. Not until much later. It took years before we were able to laugh at it all.” He turned to his wife. “Nan was the last to find any humor in the incident.”

Lieutenant Tully looked thoughtful. “Who beside your immediate family knew of your compulsion?”

Wheatley likewise looked thoughtful, then smiled. “Almost anybody who knew me or worked with me. As I recall, I've even written about it in my column, and mentioned it on my radio program. Now that I think of it,” he added, “I've heard from several readers and listeners who say they suffer from the same addiction.”

“Did you ever,” Zoo asked, “discover what in your past might trigger such a compulsion?”

“No …” George looked around the room, stopping to focus on Fathers Tully and Koesler. “I thought you two priests might have the same difficulty.”

“Not this kid,” Tully said.

“Yes,” Koesler admitted. “I suffer from the same compulsion … though I've never had a wife to bring me to my senses.”

Everyone laughed.

“It may,” Koesler said thoughtfully, “just be that it was a different era. When I was ordained there were a lot of priests around.” He paused. “We didn't think there were all that many at the time … we didn't know what was to come.

“Anyway, my first assignment was to a large parish with three active priests. So you were on duty for emergencies every third month. But when it was your month to take calls, you were expected to go when called … false alarms and all.

“So I, for one, can understand why you went for the phone.

“On the other hand,” Koesler said, “I can well understand that your wife wasn't just yelling for you to come and see how mystical the moonlight was.” He smiled. “It was a difficult call. I'm only glad I didn't have to make the decision.”

Everyone seemed a bit more relaxed. The anecdote seemed to have loosened up the group.

Lieutenant Tully brought them back to the present. “You were going to tell us about a phone call that came just as today's ceremony was about to begin.”

“Yes.” Wheatley grew grave. “It rang about seventeen after four—a little more than ten minutes before the procession was due to start.”

“Four-
seventeen?
How can you be so certain—so precise?”

“When the phone rang, I glanced at my watch. I do that often … consult my watch … or a clock. It's another of those compulsions, I guess.”

Koesler was beginning to like George Wheatley more and more.

“So,” Tully pursued, “by your time it was a little more than ten minutes before starting. Why would you answer a ringing phone in a house that, at least for the present, was not yours?”

“Oh, I didn't answer it, Lieutenant.” He smiled. “I admit it took all my resolve not to pick it up. But I didn't.”

“Yes …?” Tully encouraged.

“A young lady in a white jacket … one of the catering crew, I guess. She answered the phone.”

“You know her name?”

“Not the slightest clue. Just one of the caterers.”

“Okay.”

“She told me the call was for me. That struck me as odd. But remember the dogs being held away from potential suicide while I opted for the phone.”

“Was this call from someone you knew?”

“That's what I assumed. But I couldn't tell: Something was wrong with the voice.”

“The voice? You couldn't tell whether the caller was male or female?”

“Unh-uh. There was something vaguely familiar about it … but it sounded …” His brow knitted. “Well, it sounded sort of like—you know: those electronic gadgets used to disguise a person's voice. The ones they use on TV to protect someone's identity. They backlight the person so you can't identify him or her by sight. Then they mix up the sound. The result is that the subject is shielded from identification.

“But as I say, Lieutenant, our conversation was not long enough for me to get a fix on who it might be. It could, I suppose, have been somebody who had a congenital problem with his voice … or maybe someone with a vocal cord injury—or someone covering the mouthpiece with a handkerchief. The end result, in any case, was that I had no way of knowing who it might be.”

“You said ‘his.' It was a man?”

Father Wheatley sat silent in recollection. “I think it was … I assume it was.” He looked up at Lieutenant Tully. “All I can tell you is that it didn't sound like a woman.”

“Okay,” Tully said. “Someone—we don't know who, just yet anyway—phoned you shortly before the procession was about to start. What did this person want?”

“To go to confession.”

“That close to starting time?”

Wheatley shrugged. “Yes. We in the ministry”—again he nodded to Fathers Tully and Koesler—“must be pretty used to that sort of thing.” He turned back to Lieutenant Tully. “It can't be all that different for the police. Your time is their time. It doesn't matter that you're eating or going off duty or busy on another case. There's this person who needs you
now.
Then you're faced with the decision: Shall I listen to this insistent person, or go on with what I'm doing?”

“You agreed to hear this person's confession? I mean, you could have taken care of … that person … let's suppose for convenience the caller was male: You could have taken care of him after the service.”

“I am well aware of that, Lieutenant. But this person—he—sounded truly distraught. At the end of his rope … perhaps literally.”

“You thought he might be suicidal?” Koesler asked.

“I really thought he was. I can't remember all he said verbatim. But I got the definite feeling that he was at the point of doing himself serious harm. Yes”—he nodded—“to the point of taking his own life.”

“But,” Lieutenant Tully said, “the ceremony was only minutes from starting.”

“I know. And I knew that then. But”—Wheatley shrugged—“remember the dogs and the ringing phone.

“He assured me,” Wheatley returned to his narration, “that it wouldn't take long. As a matter of fact, he insisted it would take no more than a couple of minutes at most. The urgency concerned where he had to go and what he had to do next—after confessing to me. His meeting with me was of eternal significance. Heaven and hell. He said he was calling on his cell phone from just outside the rectory.

“I didn't hesitate. After all, what is a moment or two on earth compared with eternity? So the procession would be delayed a few minutes. It wouldn't mean the end of the world. But denying him those few moments meant to him—apparently—salvation.” Wheatley looked almost stricken at the thought.

“I hope,” he said after a moment, “that I have adequately described what went on in my mind. You have to realize, Lieutenant, none of us had the slightest inkling that there was a bomb. Furthest thing from anyone's thought. For me, the scales were clear. On one side, a soul in agony. A person, a human being, an immortal soul redeemed by Jesus Christ, was crying out in agony for a hearing. On the other side was the minor inconvenience of a patient congregation, most of whom were accustomed to services that began late.”