VC03 - Mortal Grace (16 page)

“Neither did any of mine.”

“They all said Father Joe was a decent, sweet old guy. Never raised his voice, never raised a hand, never touched them.”

Ellie and Cardozo were both silent, thoughtful. It was a moment before she spoke.

“One of mine said Father Joe tried to molest him.”

Cardozo looked at her. She sat there in her blouse and button earrings, her hair pulled back from her face, and an odd stillness was flowing out of her.

“Come on, Ellie—what have you got?”

She took a hit of her wine, and it was definitely a hit, not a sip. “A kid by the name of Tommy Lanner. He thinks he may have seen Ms. Basket Case in the chorus of one of Father Joe’s shows—and he thinks they argued—and he thinks she may have hurt her ankle.”

“He said that without coaching?”

“I didn’t coach him. But he could be mixing her up with the Hitchcock kid. That lawsuit was in the papers.”

“And Father Joe groped him?”

“Not even. Lanner says he saw Father Joe fondling himself through his trousers.”

“What were the circumstances?”

“According to Lanner, they were in Father Joe’s apartment watching a video of the Obies.”

“Do you believe this kid?”

“I haven’t decided. He obviously resents Father Joe. Funny that Father Joe doesn’t sense it.”

“You told me to think like a cop. I’m going to suggest you stop reading minds. How do you know what Montgomery senses?”

“He kept Lanner’s picture in the file. Anyone else would have thrown it out.”

“Maybe he’s in love with the kid. Maybe he’s not expecting the cops to question every face in his files.”

“My take on Father Montgomery is a little different from yours. I don’t see him chopping up kids. I don’t even see him smoking reefer or going to a porn theater.”

“Why not?”

“What you’re overlooking about Montgomery is, he’s a genuine innocent.”

“I don’t buy it.”

“Which is why he doesn’t bother masking his attraction to prostitutes and transvestites.”

“Bullshit.”

“Which is why he leaves people in his files who are bad-mouthing him. He doesn’t know enough not to be decent.”

Terri came back to the table with the coffeepot. “I agree. At the worst he’s a naughty little boy, not a dirty old man.”

“What do you know about it?” Cardozo filled Ellie’s cup and then his own.

“A little.” Terri set a plate of Pepperidge Farm sugar cookies on the table. “I auditioned for one of his shows.”

Cardozo’s eyes came around. “When was this?”

“A year and a half ago.”

“You never told me.”

“Because I didn’t get the role.”

“You never told me you were interested in performing.”

“I was interested for two minutes.”

“And you think Father Joe is a naughty little boy?”

“Definitely. A naughty little boy and a sweet old poop.”

It perplexed Cardozo that his own daughter’s perceptions could be so far removed from his own. “And you don’t think maybe there’s just a touch of a pretentious phony about him?”

“That too.”

“And you like him?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“What kind of power does this guy have? Does every kid in this town love him?”

Ellie followed the exchange with a half-smiling look, as if to say,
I’m hip to this sitcom.
“Tommy Lanner sure doesn’t love him.”

Cardozo gave the cream in his coffee a ferocious stir. “Sounds like Lanner at least can spot a phony.”

“Dad, all priests are phony. It’s their job. They have to convince themselves they love people. Just like cops have to convince themselves they care whether people shoot one another.”

“So what does that make Ellie and me, as phony as Father Joe?”

“It makes me tired.” Ellie got up from the table. “And I’ve got a long drive back to Queens. So good night all.”

“There’s more dessert,” Terri said.

Ellie kissed her. “I’m stuffed. It was a great dinner. Thanks. Next time we eat at my place, okay?” She collected her purse from the hall table. “I’ll leave the files, Vince. So you can torture yourself.”

She kissed him a chaste good night and was gone.

Terri began clearing the table. “You know, Dad, she’s obviously interested.”

Cardozo was looking through Ellie’s files. They were an endless gray drizzle of detail. At this point she didn’t know what was relevant and what wasn’t, so she’d included everything. “Who’s interested?”

“Ellie, obviously.”

He found the Lanner file. “What’s she interested in?”

“In you, obviously.”

“Why obviously me?”

“You’re so defensive. You don’t see things.” Terri stacked dessert plates and took them into the kitchen. “And you’re overworked,” she called. “You can’t take care of the whole world. You’re not in good shape.”

That made him stop reading and look up. “On my last physical I scored as well as a thirty-two-year-old.”

Terri came back with a rag and swept crumbs off the table into her palm. “But you’re not thirty-two years old. You should marry Ellie. She wants you.”

“Oh, sure, no woman can possibly resist my charm.”

“You have charm, Dad. Use it while you’ve still got it.”

It seemed to Cardozo that his relationship with his daughter became increasingly implausible. She had all the answers, even when he wasn’t asking questions. “Ellie had a rotten marriage. She hates marriage. She hates men. She hates me. She thinks I’m flying on right-wing hunches and turning into a redneck.”

“It doesn’t mean you’re not charming.”

“Let’s stop worrying about my life, which I can take care of. And let’s worry a little about yours—which I’m not sure you can.”

Terri didn’t answer. He watched her fold up the leaves of the dining table.

“You don’t tell me much about your life. I’m not complaining, I’m just mentioning.”

“I don’t want to worry you. You have enough on your mind.”

“I’d have less on my mind if I knew what my daughter was up to.”

“I’m not breaking any laws.”

Sadness brushed him. “Don’t be smart like that. Your cousin Sally said the same thing the night she disappeared. She said she wasn’t breaking any laws and she wished she was.”

“I’m sorry.” Terri placed a hand against his cheek. “But stop worrying. I’m not Sally. I’m not going to disappear.”

“Did she ever talk to you?”

“She didn’t tell me much. Except she loved acting and she hated her home.”

“She said that?”

“And I don’t give a damn about acting and I love my home.” Terri kissed him. “That’s the difference.”

TWENTY-ONE

“D
OES ANYONE ELSE HAVE
a question he wants to ask?” Monsignor Flynn, the only priest in the room wearing clericals, gazed out at the space that had once been a living room. The walls were still covered in oyster silk and painted chinoiserie panels, but most of the eighteenth-century English furniture was gone. As leader and moderator of the group, the monsignor sat in the last remaining tapestry-upholstered wing chair. The twenty-seven others sat on folding wooden chairs.

“Does anyone have a problem he needs to share?”

No one answered.

“Nothing is too small to concern us. Nothing is so terrible it will shock us. The only terrible thing will be if any of you goes home tonight still carrying a burden he could have left here.”

And still no one answered.

“Very well. Shall we stand and join hands and bow our heads to recite—”

Father Chuck Romero was sitting in the second row, and at that instant two things startled him: the first was seeing his own hand shoot up into the air; the second was hearing his own trembling voice. “I have a problem.”

“Yes…Chuck. Won’t you tell us about it?”

Father Chuck stood. “There’s a boy who’s been coming to me for counseling. A teenager. He’s not a member of the parish. I’m not even sure he’s Catholic, though he says he is.”

“He must be very much in need.”

Father Chuck tried to find words to wrap around what he’d been feeling lately. “The boy is grappling with devils no child should have to face.”

“Why don’t you tell us a little about these devils?”

“He deals drugs to other teenagers. He takes drugs himself. He’s even offered me drugs. Once, to win his trust…I accepted.”

“What drug was this?”

Father Chuck stood there silent, eyes down. “Crack. I only smoked a little of it. It was in a good cause. He’s come to trust me.”

The monsignor arched a sly but understanding eyebrow. “How has this trust shown itself?”

“More openness of spirit—more confiding of the details of his life. They’re very painful.” Father Chuck hesitated. Nervousness skittered inside him. These men were fellow priests, yet he didn’t know how far he could trust their charity or their discretion. “It turns out that he’s organized his friends into a prostitution ring. He’s offered me a special rate—a house discount, he calls it—for any of the children I want.”

Father Chuck smiled, trying to lighten the horror. The monsignor did not return the smile.

“The boy doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Father Chuck’s voice was shaking badly, and his throat was so in need of a drink that he could hardly force the words out. “He doesn’t understand the harm that could come to these children or to himself. I don’t know how to wake up his conscience without seeming to criticize him—or driving him away.”

“Perhaps this boy needs to be criticized,” the monsignor suggested. “Perhaps he needs to be driven away.”

“No. Too many others have done just that. He needs help.”

“Obviously. But must it be your help? Remember what brought all of us into this room: the recognition that we’re limited, finite, fallible human beings. Has this boy committed crimes?”

Behind the monsignor, a grandfather clock bonged the quarter hour.

Father Chuck nodded. “Petty crimes.”

“Perhaps you should talk with the diocesan liaison to juvenile justice services.”

“I hate to throw him into the maws of a bureaucracy.”

A hand went up. “I was in a situation exactly like this, and it pulled me under faster than quicksand.”

There were murmurs of agreement.

“Chuck,” another voice said, “watch your step.”

And another voice said, “Chuck, watch your ass.”

There was laughter and Father Chuck felt he was under assault. He had to fight to keep his knees from buckling. But he stood through the laughter. He even managed to join in, showing he was a good sport. And he stood through the concluding prayer. He’d never been so happy to reach an
amen
in his life.

Monsignor Flynn approached and touched his elbow. It was a touch so light it hardly seemed to impose its will, but it steered Father Chuck away from the group, toward one of the arched windows.

“Tell me, Chuck—has your behavior changed as a result of meeting this boy?”

“No.”

“Do you find yourself thinking obsessively about him or his problems?”

Father Chuck concentrated on the view from the window, on the night where high rises made necklaces of light. “I wouldn’t say so.”

“Are you behaving compulsively? Neglecting your duties to others?”

Father Chuck turned. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being judged. “I don’t believe so.”

“Have you neglected prayer?”

“No.” Father Chuck met the monsignor’s challenge the only way it could be met: straight on, eye-to-eye. He noticed something that startled him: Monsignor Flynn’s left eye was pale brown, but his right eye was pale blue.

Father Chuck wished he hadn’t noticed. It broke his concentration. He heard himself stammer, “I p-p-pray…regularly.”

“Are you drinking?”

Something in the space between him and the monsignor seemed to gather itself together and turn solid.

“Only moderately. There’s been no increase. I have things under control.”

“Control can be dangerous. You know, Chuck, as priests we often overlook the needs of a very special sinner in our lives—ourselves. I have the name of a good man if you’d care to discuss anything privately—and in depth.”

“A psychiatrist?”

“A psychiatrist
and
devout. You don’t find that too often nowadays.”

“It’s the boy that needs help, not me.”

A ridge of pain formed across Monsignor’s brow. “You’re throwing water down a well, Chuck. Will you at least think about seeing this man?”

He thinks I’m crazy
, Father Chuck realized with a jolt. He looked around the room, which was full of priests milling in civvies.
Half of them think I’m crazy and the other half think I’m dumb.
He felt a burn rise to his face.

Monsignor patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll let you socialize. Good night, Chuck.”

But the bantering good cheer of priests in recovery grated on Father Chuck’s nerves. He hurried down the curved marble stairway of the old Cassandra Guggenheim mansion, now a school run by the Sisters of Mercy. Crystal chandeliers shone down on unicorn tapestries and steel-frame desks. He stepped through the carved Gothic doorway into the night.

Across Fifth Avenue, three boys were taking baseball bats to the windows of a Porsche. It seemed to Father Chuck that in this city even the breaking glass had a New York accent.

Poor boys
, he thought.
No one cares. No one helps.
He felt a weariness that went to the marrow.

He had intended to take the subway, but the thought of changing trains at Queens Plaza depressed him. A taxi was approaching. For the second time that evening, he was surprised to see his hand, independent of his will, rise into the air.

At the sound of the whistle, Olga Quigley looked up from her article in
TV Guide.
Steam was shooting out the spout of the kettle.

She got up and filled the teapot, adding a couple of bags of Sleepytime herb tea to the pot. She arranged three chocolate macadamia chip cookies on a plate—they were Father Romero’s favorite bedtime snack. Now the tray was neat and ready.

It took a moment to check her reflection in a hanging copper pan, to tuck a loose strand of dark hair back into place. Now Olga Quigley was neat and ready.