Saints Of New York (22 page)

Father
Briley saw him from the chancel, nodded in acknowledgement, and just when
Parrish believed he might be left alone the priest started walking down towards
him. Briley was an old man, late sixties perhaps, or early seventies. Parrish
understood that he'd been offered a transfer elsewhere many times, and each
time he'd refused. Briley had been here since Parrish was
a
child,
when his father had brought him to church some Sundays because he, John
Parrish, was a just-in-case Catholic.

'Frank.'

'Father.'

'I
can sit?' asked Briley.

Parrish
smiled.

'You
are well, Frank?'

'As
can be.'

'Seems
we speak too infrequently these days, don't you think?'

'Yes,
Father, I do.'

'You
are working too many hours, I imagine.'

'The
work doesn't stop. You know that as well as anyone.'

Briley
smiled. He reached out and gripped Parrish's forearm. 'We appreciate your
generosity, Frank, as always.' 'I do what I can.'

Briley hesitated, and then he
looked at Parrish directly. 'You have about you the air of a man defeated.'

'Defeated?' Parrish shook his
head. 'Frustrated perhaps, defeated no. They haven't broken me yet.'

'You must take better care of
yourself.'

'Why do you—'

'Frank, I see what I see. I've
been here too long to be fooled anymore. You do not eat well. I imagine you do
not sleep. And there's the drink . . .'

'I'm doing what it says in the
Bible, Father.'

Briley laughed. 'That old line?'

'You know it?'

'Of course I do. Proverbs
thirty-one, chapters six and seven. "Give strong drink to him who is perishing,
and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty,
and remember their misery no more." You can't be the priest in an Irish
community and not have heard that line a hundred thousand times before,
believe me.'

Parrish looked away towards the
end of the pews.

'And your family?' Briley asked.
'How are the children? Clare?'

'Clare is Clare, and my children
are so far from children it's hard to imagine that they ever were children.
They survive in their own ways, as we all do.'

'And you are troubled by your
work?'

Parrish was silent a moment,
thoughtful, before he answered, 'Yes, I suppose I am, to some degree perhaps.
We see the worst of it after it's been done, you know?'

'And the burden grows heavier
with time I should think.'

'Either that, or you become
inured and weathered to it all.'

'Like your father?'

Parrish looked up at the priest.

Briley nodded. 'He came here
alone sometimes. Not for mass, not for anything but a little peace and quiet. I
spoke to him on a number of occasions, and he looked like you look now.'

Parrish frowned.

'As if he was carrying the same
kind of burden.'

'I can tell you now that he was
carrying an entirely different kind of burden,' Parrish replied. 'More a burden
of guilt than anything else.'

'Why do you say that, Frank?'

'Because he was not an honest
man, Father. He was a corrupt and self-serving man. He knew his job well enough
to see the lines, but he chose to step over them.'

'You know this?'

'Yes.'

'And you've always known?'

'Pretty much, yes.'

Briley leaned back. He took a
deep breath and exhaled slowly. 'How do you deal with something like that,
Frank? When someone so close is believed to be a paragon of decency and
honesty and you believe they are not?'

'I don't think that you
can
deal with it.'

'And you feel differently about
this now than you have in the past?'

'I'm trying to feel differently
about it. I'm talking about it with someone. I've never talked about it
before.'

'Talking is good.'

'I'm sure it can be. Right now
it's doing little more than making me angry at him. It reminds me of all the
reasons I had for hating him.'

Once again Briley gripped
Parrish's forearm. 'Hate—'

'Is one of the seven deadly
sins?'

'No it's not, Frank. It was a
close runner but it didn't make the last hurdle.'

Parrish smiled.

'Hate is a powerful emotion/
Briley went on. 'Sometimes
justi
fied,
I am sure, but in my experience it tends to do more harm
to
the
hater than the hatee.'

Parrish laughed. 'Well, the hatee
is dead, so I don't think there
's
a
great deal more harm that can come to him.'

'Yet sometimes the memory of the
man is more powerful
than
the
man himself. The strength of reputation, of what
other
people think of him.'

'It wouldn't do any good to
dispel the myth. As you know,
my
father
was a self-proclaimed Samaritan and all-round good
guy.'

Briley
smiled sardonically. 'I know he was neither one of those,' he said.

'I
think the only person's well-being he was interested in was his own—'

'You
don't need to tell me, Frank, you really don't.'

'I
feel like I have to tell
someone.
Someone other than—'

'No,'
Briley interjected. 'You don't have to tell me because I already know.'

Parrish
raised his eyebrows.

'Don't
look so surprised, Frank. Really, you'd be amazed the things people will tell a
priest, even outside the confessional box. Your father was here a month or so
before he was killed, and he alluded to certain things, certain events, that
troubled him.'

'L-like
what?' Parrish asked, his voice catching in his throat, his disbelief evident
in his expression.

'Nothing
specific. No names, no dates, no places. I don't remember precisely what he
said. This is - what? - fifteen, sixteen years ago? He began with the usual
explanations and apologies for missing Mass and Confession. I asked him if he
wanted to confess, and he said he didn't, that it was too late. He said that he
had done some things, that he had abused his position of trust, that he had
taken advantage of the fact that he was a police officer. He said that he had
taken things that did not belong to him, that evidence had been suppressed,
even destroyed, and people who were guilty had walked away as free men.'

'And
what did you say?'

'What
could I say? I acknowledged him. I told him to seek repentance. I suggested he
take Confession, that he attend Mass, take Communion . . . that he should work
to rectify the wrongs and make good.'

'And
did he? Come to Mass, confess . . . ?'

'Not
as far as I know. He certainly didn't come here again. Like I said, it was only
a month or so before he was killed.'

'And
when you heard he'd been killed?'

'Well,
I pondered on what might have brought that about. Whether he had finally been
overcome by his own torment and put himself in a situation where he could be
killed, or if he had tried to change things . . .'

'Change
things?'

'I
wondered whether he'd said or done something that worried those around him,
those who wanted to stay in whatever business they were involved in. I wondered
if he'd said something that I made them feel he couldn't be trusted anymore.'

'You
think he might have done that?'

'Honestly?'
Briley shook his head. 'He might, but I don't really believe so. I think when I
saw your father he was long gone. I think he'd walked so far down that road
that there was no turning back.'

'And
you never told anyone?'

Briley
smiled. 'The church is a sanctuary, Frank, you know that.'

'And
me? You never told
me.
All those conversations we had when Clare and I were breaking up, and you never
thought to mention the fact that my father came and spoke to you about what
he'd done?'

'What
good would it have done, Frank? What good is it doing you now? You have your
own difficulties to deal with, and they're enough for any man.'

Parrish
started to get up from the pew. 'Seems like I should have said something . . .
seems like you should have said something—'

'I
couldn't
say anything. You know that. And you?
What would you have said, and who would you have said it to? We draw lines
everywhere, and then we stay inside them. That's the way we stay alive, Frank,
especially in our line of work.'

'I
don't
know ...
I just don't know . . .'

'Don't
know what?'

'I
don't know what to think. I don't know what to feel about this.'

'Nothing.
These things have occurred, my son. It is too late to do anything about them
now. The sins of the father should not
be
carried
by the son. You are not your father. He wasn't you. However, unless there's a
great deal about you that I don't know, then it seems to me that you have not
taken such a different path than him . . .'

'You
don't know what you're talking about,' Parrish interjected. 'There is a world
of difference between me and my father.' He
got
up from the pew and stepped into the aisle. 'I have
to go now,' he said quietly.

Briley
rose. He stepped ahead of Parrish and gripped his shoulders. 'I am here,' he
said. 'I've been here for a long while, will more than likely be here for a
good while longer. You know where I
am.'

Parrish
said nothing. He turned and walked back down the aisle to the front door.

As
he left the church he felt that gnawing pain in his lower gut once again, but
this time he couldn't tell whether it was fear or hatred or something
altogether more insidious.

Radick
was waiting for him in the office. He didn't ask where Parrish had been, and
Parrish didn't ask why his partner was late.

'Today?'
Radick asked.

'I
need to go back to County Records and Archives and chase up some possible
connections to Child Services.'

'Valderas
has been down here,' Radick said. 'I think I should stay, do some work on these
other things. It doesn't need both of us to go over there does it?'

'No.
Makes sense.'

Radick
got up, started to put on his jacket. 'I'll drive you,' he said.

'No,
I'll get the subway. I'll be fine.'

'You
sure?'

'You
spend some time on these other things. Call me if you need to go out and see
people. I won't be more than a coupla hours anyway.'

Parrish
left, relieved that he was alone, relieved that it had been Radick's
suggestion. Could he trust Radick? Hell, in all honesty
he
didn't know the guy from any other suit.
The fact that he
did
good
someplace else was no testament to his reliability
or
trustworthiness.