True Believers (16 page)
Authors: Jane Haddam
It's Bennis's sister we're talking about here, Gregor almost saidâbut then he didn't, because he knew just what it was Henry Lord was trying to say.
He also knew that the one thing he couldn't do, and keep Bennis Hannaford in his life, was to try to arrange her life for what he thought was her own good.
Half an hour later and fifteen blocks away, it occurred to Gregor Demarkian that he ought to do something about Sister Scholastica's problem. He thought of it as Sister Scholastica's problem, because if he had thought of it as the Cardinal Archbishop's problem, he would never have gotten himself started. There really wasn't much of anything he could do at this point. Until the medical examiner made his public statement, until the police investigation was out in the open, he had nothing to work with but the Cardinal's paranoia, and that would get him no farther than Father Tibor's kitchen, frustrated and blocked off from information at every turn. Philadelphia was a Catholic town in many ways, as Pennsylvania was a Catholic state. More orders of nuns had their motherhouses in Pennsylvania than in any other state of the union, and the Catholic Church wielded enormous power in city politics. Even so, there was only so far that you could push that, and Gregor
knew it. The medical examiner's office would hold off on their press conference for a couple of hours. The police would probably hold off on an arrest for a day or two, to give the archdiocese a chance to marshal its troops and prepare for attack. The public prosecutor might even be willing to strike a better deal than he would have been for an ordinary defendant, as long as the crime wasn't child abuse and as long as he thought he could get away with it. Beyond that, any request for special handling would be ignored, and any demand for it would be met with active hostility. Gregor knew that. What worried him was that the Cardinal Archbishop might not know it. Being a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed, he might give a few, and not react too well when they were ignored. And thatâ
knew it. The medical examiner's office would hold off on their press conference for a couple of hours. The police would probably hold off on an arrest for a day or two, to give the archdiocese a chance to marshal its troops and prepare for attack. The public prosecutor might even be willing to strike a better deal than he would have been for an ordinary defendant, as long as the crime wasn't child abuse and as long as he thought he could get away with it. Beyond that, any request for special handling would be ignored, and any demand for it would be met with active hostility. Gregor knew that. What worried him was that the Cardinal Archbishop might not know it. Being a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed, he might give a few, and not react too well when they were ignored. And thatâ
“Would screw things up,” Gregor said. He looked around to see if he had said it out loud or not. Nobody was paying any attention to him, so he assumed not. There was a little convenience store at the corner. Gregor stepped inside and bought copies of the
Inquirer
and the
Star
. The television news might still be full of the deaths of Marty and Bernadette Kelly, but the papers had drifted off to other things, mostly having to do with Al Gore. Gregor tried, for the ten millionth time, to figure out why that man could make his eyes glaze over just by appearing in a newspaper photograph, but got no better answer than he'd ever had and decided to give it up. The counter in front of the cash register was crowded with candy and Slim Jims. As he folded up his papers, the old man standing next to him began laying out money for lottery tickets: instant tickets, daily tickets, the Pennsylvania Big Game, Powerball. There was at least three hundred dollars in cash on the counter. Gregor could see the holes at the tips of the man's shoes. He got his papers and got out of there. He wasn't one of those people who wanted to end all state lotteries as a matter of public morality, left-wing or right. He didn't think gambling was a tool of the devil, and he didn't think most people didn't know what their limit should be. On the other hand, there were other peopleâHe buttoned his coat up to his chin and got out of there.
Inquirer
and the
Star
. The television news might still be full of the deaths of Marty and Bernadette Kelly, but the papers had drifted off to other things, mostly having to do with Al Gore. Gregor tried, for the ten millionth time, to figure out why that man could make his eyes glaze over just by appearing in a newspaper photograph, but got no better answer than he'd ever had and decided to give it up. The counter in front of the cash register was crowded with candy and Slim Jims. As he folded up his papers, the old man standing next to him began laying out money for lottery tickets: instant tickets, daily tickets, the Pennsylvania Big Game, Powerball. There was at least three hundred dollars in cash on the counter. Gregor could see the holes at the tips of the man's shoes. He got his papers and got out of there. He wasn't one of those people who wanted to end all state lotteries as a matter of public morality, left-wing or right. He didn't think gambling was a tool of the devil, and he didn't think most people didn't know what their limit should be. On the other hand, there were other peopleâHe buttoned his coat up to his chin and got out of there.
He walked five more blocks, made a turn, walked five more blocks, and made another turn. By then, he knew where he was going. He could see the church spires rising up over the
buildings ahead of him, two of them, next to each other. Of course, they weren't really next to each other, he reminded himself. They faced each other across a street. It was only from a distance that they looked sort of like twins. No, that wasn't true either. Even from a distance, he could tell that they weren't made of the same material. One was that grey stone that seemed to scream “Episcopal Church” all across New England and the mid-Atlantic states, as if the Episcopalians had once owned a monopoly on stone quarries. The other was deep red brick. That was a cliché, too, Gregor thought, the red brick of Catholic churches and schools and convents built at the end of World War I. You could probably write a history of society and immigration in Philadelphia based on something like that, although he had no idea where he would start. His own little corner of immigration history was mostly out of sight, lived by a group of people whose numbers had never become large enough to make an impact on the city.
buildings ahead of him, two of them, next to each other. Of course, they weren't really next to each other, he reminded himself. They faced each other across a street. It was only from a distance that they looked sort of like twins. No, that wasn't true either. Even from a distance, he could tell that they weren't made of the same material. One was that grey stone that seemed to scream “Episcopal Church” all across New England and the mid-Atlantic states, as if the Episcopalians had once owned a monopoly on stone quarries. The other was deep red brick. That was a cliché, too, Gregor thought, the red brick of Catholic churches and schools and convents built at the end of World War I. You could probably write a history of society and immigration in Philadelphia based on something like that, although he had no idea where he would start. His own little corner of immigration history was mostly out of sight, lived by a group of people whose numbers had never become large enough to make an impact on the city.
He turned another corner, and then he was on the right street, only a block away. From this close, the two churches looked huge, imposing, and blank. At this time of the day, they both seemed to be deserted. Gregor looked up at their spires to see if they told the time, and found out they did, but different times. It was either quarter to twelve, or five after. He sighed a little and kept walking, wondering if there was anything to this process of soaking up atmosphere and allowing your intuition to flower. He suspected there wasn't. He just walked around aimlessly and then, when he was tired of that, he got down to work.
He stopped right in front of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, where the glass-framed announcement board hung on a wooden frame at the end of the walk, and looked across the street at St. Anselm's. That had a glass-framed announcement board hung on a wooden frame, too. He looked at the grey stone walk that led to the church's grey stone front steps, and then across the street at the ordinary pavement that led to St. Anselm's brick ones. Both churches had their small patches of front yard framed in wrought iron, though, and both had leaded side windows that came to pointed arches at the top.
“They did it on purpose,” somebody said in his ear.
Gregor turned and found himself faced with the most elegantly good-looking young man he had ever seen, tall, slender,
almost perfectly made. For a split second, he thought he was looking at a statue. Then the man's demeanor changedâGregor could have sworn it wavered and reconstituted itself in front of his eyesâand suddenly he was all swish and mannerisms, exaggerations and camp. Gregor blinked.
almost perfectly made. For a split second, he thought he was looking at a statue. Then the man's demeanor changedâGregor could have sworn it wavered and reconstituted itself in front of his eyesâand suddenly he was all swish and mannerisms, exaggerations and camp. Gregor blinked.
“They did it on purpose,” the man said, his voice now several notches higher than it had been. “The Catholics, I mean. In 1918. This used to be one of the most socially prominent Episcopalian churches in the city, so of course they took the lot over there as soon as they could get it, and just went hogwild. They're incredible climbers, Catholics are, don't you think?”
“I don't know,” Gregor said.
The man held out his hand. “I'm Chickie George. You're Gregor Demarkian. I've seen your picture in the papers.”
Swish. Not swish. Camp. Not camp. It was like watching television while somebody flipped channels. Gregor took the man's hand and shook it.
“Are you the pastor here? Or do I say priest?”
“Well, Dan's a priest, technically, yes. I'm just a parishioner, and I do some work on church business when we need a hand, which we usually do. We don't ever seem to have any money, and whatever we do have we must spend on the building. I mean, nothing else explains it. Most of the time I'm a freelance art director. I do food.”
“You do food?”
“Well, yes,” Chickie George said. “There's a reason why the food in magazines all looks like it could hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and when you make the same recipe at home it doesn't. I do presentations. Then the photographer comes in and ruins the whole thing with execrable lighting, but there's nothing I can do about that but take a Prozac and get over it. Have we had a murder here? That's what you do, isn't it? You investigate murders.”
“Sometimes,” Gregor agreed.
Chickie looked up the street. “I suppose it's too much to hope that somebody had finally decided to ice Rapid Roy, isn't it? My hope has always been that one of his lunatic church members would just lose it one day, and there would be Roy, all over the ground in pieces. Probably be the best he ever looked in his life. Sort of like Jackson Pollock.”
“I'd heard he had a church on this street,” Gregor said. “But I don't see a church.”
“That's because there isn't one. They've got a row house down there. Actually, it's two row houses knocked together. Beautiful spaces, really, you could do something with them. But they haven't.”
“How do you know? Have you been inside?”
Chickie George snorted. “If I'm going to commit suicide, I'm going to have some fun doing it. Give me sex, drugs, and rock and roll any day.”
“So how do you know they haven't done something you might approve of with the interiors?”
“Because I can look in the windows and see the art. Christ dying on the cross, badly painted and as bloody as the victim in a slasher movie. Blood and death, that's all they think about. And I used to think the worst of that kind of thing was those awful pins that said âMy Boss Is a Jewish Carpenter.'”
“Do they wear pins?”
“If they did, they'd say âAll Fags Burn in Hell.' Do you know the Richard Pryor routine about the word ânigger'?”
“What?”
The swish was gone again, as gone as if it had never existed in the first place. Gregor found himself standing in front of a very serious young man, with as much force of personality as the Cardinal Archbishop of Philadelphia, and maybe as much determination.
“Richard Pryor,” Chickie George said, “went to Africa. And when he came back, he worked this thing into his routine. You can hear it on the
Live on the Sunset Strip
video. About the word ânigger' and the way black people use it among themselves and think they've reclaimed it. That when they use it it doesn't mean what it means when white people use it. Except it does, you see, and when they use it they're really perpetuating it. So Pryor was trying to get people to stop using it, for black people not to call each other ânigger' among themselves. If you see what I mean.”
Live on the Sunset Strip
video. About the word ânigger' and the way black people use it among themselves and think they've reclaimed it. That when they use it it doesn't mean what it means when white people use it. Except it does, you see, and when they use it they're really perpetuating it. So Pryor was trying to get people to stop using it, for black people not to call each other ânigger' among themselves. If you see what I mean.”
“I think it's pretty clear.”
“Yes. Well. I think we ought to do the same thing. The âGay Community.' Excuse me if I can't say that with a straight face. I don't mind âgay,' but âcommunity' drives me bananas. Anyway, I'm beginning to think that we should stop using
them. âFag' and âqueer' and all of that. That we're never going to get rid of Rapid Roy and his friends until we do.”
them. âFag' and âqueer' and all of that. That we're never going to get rid of Rapid Roy and his friends until we do.”
“Ah,” Gregor said.
“It's too bad somebody hasn't murdered him, really. Death is what turns him on. Sometimes I think death is the only thing that turns him on.”
“I've never seen him.”
“Stand on the street long enough and you will. Especially if you stand here. He'll throw up pickets before you know what's happened to you. It's cold out here. If you want to come inside, I could give you a cup of coffee. We always have excellent coffee, and French pastry. We don't settle for cheese Danish from the supermarket at St. Stephen's.”
“Thank you. I'm supposed to be meeting someone for lunch. I just wanted to get a look at the neighborhood.”
“Because of that mess that happened across the street, I suppose. Well, have a good time with it. And if you see our boy Roy, shoot first and ask questions afterward.”
“Right,” Gregor said.
Chickie George turned away and began walking up the stone path to the church's front doors. Gregor watched him go, not sure which Chickie he was seeing now, the swish one or the real one. What an odd young man, Gregor thought.
Then he turned away himself and crossed the street to St. Anselm's.
For almost three years, Dan Burdock had known that there would come a day when he would have this particular request sitting on his desk. The only thing that surprised him, now that it had come, was that he was so calm about it. That was a good thing, because Aaron Wardrop was watching him, very intensely. If he showed the least sign of distress, this interview would change character in no time at all. Dan was no stranger to the shifting emotional landscapes of true believers. Ever since he had come to St. Stephen's, he had imagined himself in the role of Sane Older Friend, the one who wants to hold the hero back from doing something foolish, the one nobody listens to until it is too late. The ones like Chickie George were bad enoughâand Scott Boardman. Everybody said that Scott had been trying to commit suicide most of his life. Dan thought all that crowd were, the ones who went trolling in the bathhouses at four o'clock in the morning, the ones who kept score in five figures, the ones who thought that if you did it stoked to the gills on vodka and methamphetamine, it didn't really count. Except, Dan thought, that wasn't really true about Chickie. Or might not be.
“What?” Aaron said.
“I was thinking about Chickie George,” Dan said. “About how I always think of him as being like Scott, you know, because of the camp. But I don't think he is.”
“This isn't about Chickie George, Dan. Why don't we try sticking to the subject.”
Dan looked down at this desk again. Aaron, of course, did not go trolling in the bathhouses at any hour of the day or
night. He would consider it beneath his dignity, and he was far too fastidious to put up with the dirt and mess. This form had been fastidiously done. It was so perfect, it might have been produced by a professional printer.
night. He would consider it beneath his dignity, and he was far too fastidious to put up with the dirt and mess. This form had been fastidiously done. It was so perfect, it might have been produced by a professional printer.
“You must have run this through the scanner,” Dan said. “I've never seen one of these so flawlessly done.”
“I was just being careful. Under the circumstances.”
“Under the circumstances.” Dan pushed the paper away, off the felt blotter, onto the polished hardwood of the desk. “So what do you want me to do, Aaron? Say yes? Say no? Give you a fight with me or a fight with the bishop or a fight with the city of Philadelphia? What's the point?”
“The point is that Marc and I have been together for twenty-three years, and now we would like to make it official.”
“Quite.”
“That really is the point, Dan. I'm not saying there aren't other points, but that's really the important one and has been for the past six or seven years. We would like to make it official. We think we should have the legal right to make it officialâ”
“But you don't.”
“But we don't,” Aaron agreed. “So we're looking to do the next best thing. We're looking to have our church, this church, where we have given of our time and our money and our devotion for a decadeâWe're looking to have our church validate our union. That's it. It's not hard, Dan.”
“When Scott died you were warning me not to do anything tooâobviousâthat might jeopardize my position here.”
“I know. At the time, I thought, Marc and I thought, that we would want to do this quietly. Just a small gathering. Nobody would have to know. We've changed our minds.”
“Why?”
Aaron shrugged. “I don't know that it's only one thing. Marc has always been more intense about this than I am. He's always taken more risks.”
“Well, this would be a risk, all right. Forget the bishop, for the moment. Forget the media. Think of our friend Roy down the road. Do you really think you and Marc would be able to have this ceremony without a lot of unwanted company?”
“What makes you think it would be unwanted?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“That means I'm arguing your side of this issue, Dan. At some point, we've got to be honest about it, about ourselves, with other people. If we're not honest about it, we only feed into people like Roy. We don't want anything camp. Marc isn't going to dress up in a white gown like Dennis Rodman, and neither am I. We don't intend to put on a freak show. We just want what any other two human beings who have been together as long and as faithfully as we have been together would have by right. We want to get married. And since we can't actually do that, we want the closest thing we can get. Why is this so hard?”
The question was so ridiculous, even Aaron couldn't ask it and go on looking him straight in the faceâand Aaron could do anything. Dan had seen him negotiate with sharks. Still, Aaron walked away, to pretend to be looking at the stained-glass window. Dan looked down at the form again, the answers typed out instead of handwritten in pen, the questions printed slightly bolder and numbered in green. The odd thing was, although he was upset, he wasn't upset for the reasons Aaron probably thought he was. The idea of performing a marriage for two gay men didn't bother him. He was sure that, twenty years from now, that would happen in the Episcopal Church as a matter of course. It would happen because it had to happen. It was the only right thing that could happenâthe only way this problem could be resolved in a way that was consistent with Christian love. There were bishops in the church right this moment who agreed with him, and more than a few laypeople. Spong had ordained a sexually active gay man in Newark. One of the new women bishops was rumored to be a lesbian. If she wasn't, she had a lot of sympathy with gay “issues.” Dan made a face and rubbed his hands against his forehead, as if he were wiping off sweat. There was no sweat. If anything, he was far too cold. He hated the words that were used in cases like this. Issues. Community. Outreach. Maybe he would have felt better if he had been a priest in the Diocese of Newark. Maybe he wouldn't have, because as much as he admired Spong's stands on a lot of things, he did not like Spong's relentless skepticism.
He looked up to find that Aaron had crossed the room from the window and was standing right next to the desk.
“Well?” Aaron asked. “Will you do it?”
“Of course I'll do it. That's why you brought it up in the first place. Because you knew I'd do it.”
“We guessed, yes.”
“Have you got a date picked out for when you want it done?”
“The end of the month, we thought. We aren't interested in having any sort of big reception, if you know what I mean. It's not the way either of us operate.”
Dan nodded. “What about banns? Do you want us to publish them?”
“That's up to you.”
“What about announcements? Do you want to put one in the paper? The
Inquirer
would probably take it. I don't know about the
Star
.”
Inquirer
would probably take it. I don't know about the
Star
.”
“I thought you were interested in keeping this quiet.”
“Not exactly.” Dan got up and took the form with him. There was a filing cabinet on the other side of the room where he kept “official” papers like this, but of course the whole parish was now run on a computer. If he gave this form to Mrs. Reed, she would copy it laboriously into her files, and then it would disappear, the way all forms disappeared, so that if they should desperately need it again, they would have to go through her elaborate system of classification to find it. He hesitated over the filing cabinet, then walked past it and into the outer office. Mrs. Reed was already off to lunch, or somewhere. None of them quite knew what she did or where she went, only that since she had come there had never once been a problem with scheduling or the budget. Dan put the form down in the center of her desk, where she would be sure to see it, and then looked for a moment at the small framed photograph of her two daughters and their children. Somehow, he couldn't imagine her any younger than she was now, with her hair streaked grey and held back in a knot on the nape of her neck, with her shirtwaist dresses and her string of pearls. Years ago, the marriage form had asked for the bride's name and the groom's. Now it asked only for the names of the “communicants.” Dan didn't know if that was lucky, or what.
He went back into his office. Aaron was sitting in the big leather chair, his legs stretched out in front of him. He would have looked better if he had been smoking a cigarette. It was
that kind of pose. But men like Aaron Wardrop didn't smoke cigarettes anymore.
that kind of pose. But men like Aaron Wardrop didn't smoke cigarettes anymore.
“There,” Dan said. “It's done. We'll see what Mrs. Reed has to say about it.”
“She won't blink an eye.”
“Probably not.”
“Maybe you ought to take the rest of the day off and see a movie. It's a weekday. Nobody will be expecting you around here. Except that you always are here.”
“I'm fine,” Dan said. He reached into his trouser pocket and found a tube of soft mints, half-eaten. He took it out and offered one to Aaron.
Aaron hesitated. Dan could see his ambivalence as if it were a physical thing. There was something wrong with the atmosphere in this room. A woman would have gnawed away at it. A gay man like Chickie would have made fun of it. Aaron didn't know what to do with it. At some other time, Dan might have helped him out. Now he only waited, almost desperate for Aaron to be gone. That was in the air, too.
“Well,” Aaron said. “That's it, then. I'm somewhat at a loss for words. I expected more of an argument.”
“Why?”
“I don't know. Loyalty to the institution, maybe. A wish to protect the Church from controversy. A natural hesitancy. Something like that.”
“The Anglican Communion is not a stranger to controversy.”
“Right,” Aaron said. “Never forget Henry VIII.”
Dan smiled, and said nothing, and waited. The air in the room had become thick with something like a miasma, the residue of emotions left unfelt, of positions left untaken. Aaron shifted his weight uneasily from one leg to the other and back again. He was in such perfect shape, his discomfort looked deliberately chosen, as if it were a dance move.
“All right,” he said. “That's it, then. I've put down the first Saturday in March. That should give us all enough time.”
“For what?” Dan asked.
“For deciding how we want this to play on the evening news.”
Somebody else might have accused Aaron of being in it for the publicity, but Dan did not, because he knew that there
was going to be no way to keep this
off
the evening news. Instead, he waited patiently while Aaron decided to get out, looking more uncertain and uncomfortable by the minute, the way people do when they expect to have a fight and get acquiescence instead. Except that Dan wasn't really acquiescing. That was not what was going on here. It was much more complicated than that. Aaron backed out of the office door and looked around, probably to make sure that Mrs. Reed was still gone. She must have been. Aaron said nothing to anybody, not even to Dan. When he had backed away far enough so that he was clear of the door, he turned around and began to hurry out of sight.
was going to be no way to keep this
off
the evening news. Instead, he waited patiently while Aaron decided to get out, looking more uncertain and uncomfortable by the minute, the way people do when they expect to have a fight and get acquiescence instead. Except that Dan wasn't really acquiescing. That was not what was going on here. It was much more complicated than that. Aaron backed out of the office door and looked around, probably to make sure that Mrs. Reed was still gone. She must have been. Aaron said nothing to anybody, not even to Dan. When he had backed away far enough so that he was clear of the door, he turned around and began to hurry out of sight.
Dan waited until he heard steps on the stairs. Then he got out of his chair and went to the window on the other side of the room from the one Aaron had been looking at. He didn't want to look at stained glass, at a mosaic of St. Stephen being stoned to death in Jerusalem. He wanted to see the street and the traffic and the weather and the things that were really real.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see. This was never a very busy street. There weren't any businesses on it. Anyone who wanted to have a cup of coffee or buy a paper had to go around the corner where the plate-glass storefronts were. The only time this neighborhood ever really heated up was on Sunday, when the churches were all having services at once and the asphalt was choked with cars whose owners couldn't find enough places to park. If he strained sideways, he could see just far enough to catch the white cross on the sign in front of Roy Phipps's place. Sometimes Roy had his people out on the sidewalk with signs, for no reason Dan could tell. Sometimes they were gathered there on their way to a demonstration at a gay bar or the local offices of the Gay and Lesbian Support Advisory. Today, there was nothing, just dead air. Roy Phipps might have been nothing but another neighbor with a job in a bank and a car that needed to go to the mechanic's place almost every month.
Dan retreated back to his desk, sat down again, and sighed. Before Aaron had shown up today, he had almost made up his mind to announce his homosexuality from the pulpit this Sunday. He was still unhappy that he had withdrawn from his initial impulse to announce it at Scott Boardman's funeral. Now he didn't know if he could do it without putting Aaron
and Marc's enterprise in jeopardy, and he didn't know what was more important. His head was throbbing so badly it felt as if it were going to split open at the seams.
and Marc's enterprise in jeopardy, and he didn't know what was more important. His head was throbbing so badly it felt as if it were going to split open at the seams.
He had no idea how long he sat there, thinking nothing, totally blank. The next thing he was aware of was Mrs. Reed, back from wherever she had gone, standing in his open doorway. She looked as placid and thoughtless as she always did. If she disapproved of what went on at St. Stephen's, if she longed for a more traditional version of religion, she never gave any indication of it to anyone in the church.
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