Till Death Read online

  Indeed, the two educators were so close Lil almost shared her deepest secret. But in the end she could not break the omerta even with her best friend. That was the gigantic fly in her ointment. She could share her secret, her happiness, with no one—not her family, not her friends, not even her closest confidante.

  She was beginning to feel sorry for herself. That would never do. It was a fine day; the forecast was sunny skies with a high in the mid- to upper seventies. She didn’t have to go to work. Neither did her sweetheart. But even with a beautiful outdoors beckoning, they probably would spend the day in the apartment. That was their usual M.O. It was easier than being tensely on guard.

  As long as they were together. She had her man.

  She heard the bathroom door quietly close.

  She removed the bacon from the pan, replacing it with the eggs. Scrambled eggs were her forte. Her recipe called for a humongous amount of milk to be added to the eggs and the whole scrambled vigorously until the mixture became fluffily firm.

  She didn’t hear him approaching. So she was startled when she felt his lips on her neck—startled and pleased. She turned to him and they embraced. She leaned away from him. “Good morning. I love you.”

  “Good morning. I love you,” he replied.

  They grinned and kissed.

  This morning ritual they had borrowed from one of their favorite movies, Tarzan and His Mate. The first time Rick and Lil saw that film together, they adopted Tarzan and Jane’s morning greeting for themselves. As it happened, Wednesdays were the only mornings they awoke to each other, apart from vacations and unforeseen good luck.

  It had been Johnny Weissmuller’s second crack at playing the Ape Man. As far as Rick and Lil were concerned, the only authentic Tarzan was Weissmuller. Above and beyond his spine-tingling jungle call—later imitated repeatedly by Carol Burnett—Rick considered, “Me Tarzan. You Jane.” the two most perfect declarative sentences in the English language.

  Rick seated himself as Lil served breakfast. Over his pajama bottoms he wore a robe. It was one of his many thoughtfulnesses that she prized. She would not have appreciated nor found appetizing a broad, hairy chest opposite her during meals. They had never discussed it, although coming from an all-macho environment, he might be expected to be oblivious of her sensibilities. But he was not like that. And she was grateful.

  “These eggs are terrific,” he said. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “It’s the milk. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “I know. I know. But when I see all that white milk in the pan barely diluted with a touch of egg yellow … I just can’t believe it.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith.”

  She finished eating well before Rick did. That was due to a combination of factors. Twelve years of his young life he had spent in a seminary where food was carefully measured out—never quite enough to satisfy hungry, growing boys. He often claimed that if it had not been for peanut butter, he might well have starved. When he was ordained, he was a reed-thin young man.

  As a priest, he was served just about anything he wanted. Witness the stomach folds he now wore.

  Lil, on the other hand, was never hungry; she ate only sparingly. Thus, she was likely to retain her perfect body indefinitely.

  There were two elongated half windows in the apartment’s easterly exposure. The windows were half the normal height because that was all the space there was between the ground outside and the ceiling inside.

  The casual passerby might have been able to peer in. But he would see nothing because Lil had had one-way glass installed. It gave them an extra measure of the privacy they desired.

  Rick finished the toast. It was the last morsel on his plate. “Well, honey, what would you like to do?”

  Lil yawned. “Oh, I don’t know. Hang around here. I’ve got some teacher evaluations to go over.” She lowered her eyes seductively. “We could squeeze in a little lovemaking, couldn’t we, Ollie?” She mimicked a character from Erich Segal’s Love Story.

  “How pressing are the evaluations?”

  “Not urgent.” Her brow knitted slightly. “You want to spend the entire, blessed day in bed?” She hesitated. “I mean it’s certainly all right with me …” Her voice faded.

  “Looks like a super day.” He gazed at the filtered sunshine peeking through the wide, stunted windows.

  She sighed. It was a super day. Her thoughts turned to the pool that had been open for a couple of weeks now. She used the facility only when he was not there. They tried—successfully, they believed—to avoid giving the impression that they lived together.

  Rick had been a priest, functioning publicly, for thirty-five years. It was easily possible that someone who knew him as a priest might be living in this apartment complex. That he was residing both here and at the rectory was nothing to wonder at; lots of priests had abandoned rectory life in favor of a house, a condo, or an apartment. The practice left many rectories—and convents, for that matter—vacant.

  So, if someone—a former parishioner for instance—were to meet and recognize Rick … well, it was not all that out of the ordinary—as long as he was by himself, or at least not with Lil. This huge complex did not invite much neighborly fraternizing. However, poolside togetherness might prove a giveaway.

  “It is a super day” she replied. “But we can’t risk the pool.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of the pool. I had something bigger in mind …” He halted, waiting to see if she would guess correctly.

  For a few seconds she gazed at him, expecting to be told his plans. As she waited, she pondered. Then her eyes widened. “The boat!”

  He nodded. “Das Boot.” He used the German title of the popular movie.

  “Will Tom let us use it? You asked him! Why didn’t you tell me? We could have packed our stuff and been out of here long ago!” Unbridled enthusiasm from Lil.

  “Take it easy, sweetie. Tom’s having some work done on it this morning. We can pick it up and take it out this afternoon. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  Tom Becker, owner of the power boat in question, had been Casserly’s seminary classmate through high school and college. He had dropped out after his first year in the major seminary.

  Indeed, that was the primary function of seminaries: to, on the one hand, enable students to choose whether to make a commitment to the priesthood and, on the other, enable the faculty to accept or reject the candidate for ordination.

  After nine years, Tom Becker, following much prayer and soul-searching, decided the priestly life was not for him. Exceptionally talented as a carpenter and builder, he went on to study architecture at the Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan.

  Dedicated to the poor, after graduation he began a career in housing restoration. He was a one-man army, going through run-down neighborhoods rehabilitating once-proud houses, making them sound and attractive again. Then, after selling them for a pittance to poor families, he taught the new owners the finer points of maintenance and repair.

  In this he was years ahead of Jimmy Carter’s popularizing Habitat for Humanity.

  His income came almost completely from various governmental grants and private foundations. This definitely did not make him a wealthy man. When he married and began a family, it was time to earn some real money.

  He joined an architectural firm and quickly climbed the executive ladder. In less than fifteen years he founded his own company. He was, of course, president and CEO. He built an impeccable reputation and made millions. Along the way he offered employment to some men leaving the priesthood.

  He retired astonishingly early, and almost immediately, to combat boredom, he planted roses and started a tree nursery, which he eventually expanded into a highly successful landscape business.

  Through it all, Tom Becker and Rick Casserly remained close friends. Becker was the only person Casserly trusted enough to confide in. He proved a source of dependable support. As far as he was concerned, his friend was at
most a bit premature. After all, married Episcopal priests as well as other married ministers were, mutatis mutandis, allowed to function as Catholic priests. Soon—and inevitably—in order to supply much-needed priests, the Church would be forced to offer ordination to married Catholic men.

  Becker’s only regret was the pressure Rick and Lil were under to keep secret their … what?… common law marriage.

  “We can have the boat all to ourselves this afternoon?” Lil’s eyes danced.

  “It’s ours. The boat is booked for tonight; otherwise we could have had it all the way through this evening.”

  “Honey, no,” Lil cautioned.

  “No? No what? No boat? No afternoon? No evening?”

  “We’ve got an engagement this evening. Don’t you remember?”

  Rick’s brow furrowed. “Oh yeah: the St. Ursula party. That’s tonight?”

  “The first Wednesday in June. That’s today. The annual bash is tonight.”

  “Well,” Rick reflected, “you could hardly call it a bash.”

  “True. It’s more like the remnant returning … like the Jews coming out of the Babylonian Captivity.”

  “Time takes its toll,” Rick said. “The number of guys and gals who served their term under dear old Father Angelico has dwindled. So many have moved away. Some died. Some just lost interest over the years.”

  “Refresh me: How long has this commemoration been going on?”

  “Oh, wow! Let’s see: I think it was Bob Koesler who started the thing. Must be almost forty years now. And he was just in residence there while he was editor of the Detroit Catholic. He didn’t have to take all that crap from Angelico. Observing it was medicine enough for him”

  “Forty years! I had no idea it’s been around that long.”

  “It was a cathexis. You needed at least a once-a-year day to blow off steam. Even after the assignment board moved you the hell out of there, it still helped. Sort of like getting together to nurse old wounds.

  “Over time it got to be a kind of convivial gathering—especially once the old tyrant died. It’s been thirteen years now. He died after you got a new job at another parish.” He grinned. “Somehow, you must’ve killed him.”

  Lil smiled. How easy it was to call to mind her years with the second-graders at St. Ursula’s. How impressionable were their innocent minds! And how legalistic and dour were the regular visits to her class by the pastor, Father Angelico. It seemed his aim was to block every direction set by the Council.

  Typical was the battle over the order of confession and Communion. In pre-Vatican II times, Catholic children were introduced first to confession—then known more properly as the Sacrament of Penance, now called the Sacrament of Reconciliation—closely followed by Communion—then, as now, more properly termed Holy Eucharist.

  However, after the Council and before a Vatican ruling, most parishes reversed the order.

  In the prior practice, a mistaken connection was drawn between confession and Communion. Catholic children, most of them second-graders, were prepared for these two sacraments almost simultaneously.

  So, most Catholic adults carried over what they’d learned as children. Many felt unworthy to receive Communion without first going to confession.

  It led to confusion on a massive scale.

  Children, whose peccadilloes could not rank with the transgressions of the occasional serious sinner, were making up sins for the confessional because—well, because they had to say something to prompt the priest to give them absolution.

  Adults grew up with this routine of going to confession on a Saturday and Communion the next day. This was followed by three communion-less Sundays until time for the monthly confession.

  After the Council, parishes regularly prepared children to receive Communion. Then, after a period of a year or more, the youngsters were taught to appreciate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Some of the fire and brimstone doctrine disappeared, to be missed only by a very vocal traditionalist minority.

  Short of some interferences from the Vatican, children were welcomed to Communion at every Mass in which they participated. To attend Mass without receiving Communion was compared to going to a banquet and not eating. Confession was another matter entirely.

  But not at St. Ursula’s. Not under the regime of Father Angelico. This, as well as so many other anchors driven into the past, was brought home to the fledgling teacher Lillian Neidermier once she learned that she was expected to teach from the Baltimore Catechism, a book of religious questions and answers. The questions were fundamental. So were the answers.

  “Who made you?”

  “God made me.”

  Everybody studied and learned from the Baltimore Catechism. Among other frightening bits of doctrine was the view of God that held our Creator as a harsh judge ready and able to snatch our lives an instant after the commitment of a mortal sin (a pork chop on Friday), and consign us to eternal damnation.

  It was unfortunate that Lil left St. Ursula’s before Father Angelico died. Otherwise she might have come to understand that religion could be a loving experience.

  Eventually, of course, her knowledge of God as Love did come about. But how neat it would have been to experience this in a St. Ursula’s newly bereft of Father Angelico.

  “It wasn’t a case of my killing Father Angelico …” Lil laughed lightly. “I always thought if we both stayed in the same parish long enough, he would kill me. That look! When the skin stretched across his bony face, I could never guess whether he was smiling or furious. I learned in the school of hard knocks that most of the time he was barely containing rage.”

  Rick’s brow was knit as if he were thinking through a complex problem. “To understand Father Angelico properly you should remember that if you were convicted of heresy, Father Angelico would have accompanied you to the pyre. He would have prayed with you, and then he would have lit the fire.”

  She laughed heartily. But, as her chuckles subsided, her face grew thoughtful. “By the way, honey, you do want to go to the party tonight, don’t you?”

  “Oh, sure. I just forgot.”

  “We each got an invitation—sent to our separate residences naturally.”

  “What can I say after I say I’m sorry? I forgot. I barely remember getting the invite. Where’s it supposed to be?”

  “Old St. Joe’s downtown.”

  “Hmm. I wonder why.”

  “Well, for one thing St. Ursula’s is no more. We couldn’t have it there.”

  “Did you ever think”—Rick stretched elaborately—“when you worked there that the day would come when the old place would be closed?”

  “Mmm”—she pondered—“I guess I wondered why they bothered building it.” She smiled. “But not why they would bury it.”

  “But the memory lingers on. Thus, tonight’s party.” He rose from the, table and slipped out of his robe. “We’ve got plenty of time before we can get the boat. What do you want to do?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” she replied impishly. “But I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

  Two

  “What day of the week is this?” Jerry Anderson asked loudly.

  “Wednesday,” Dora Riccardo answered just as forcefully.

  “Then don’t get sick.”

  “Because all the doctors and priests will be out golfing?”

  “You got it!”

  In her office at the far end of the editorial room, Patricia Lennon looked up, startled. Then she smiled. She hadn’t heard that old bromide since her days at Marygrove, then a Catholic college for young women. Now it was coed but still very much alive deep into Detroit’s northwest side.

  Pat Lennon was continuing her long and distinguished journalism career in Detroit. She’d been at it approximately thirty-five years.

  In her time she had worked at both Detroit daily newspapers, establishing a reputation of excellence. In a profession where bylines on news stories were routinely overlooked, her authorship was consistent
ly recognized.

  But when she reached age fifty and looked back at thirty years of pressure, deadlines, and the gradual demise of professionalism among many of the younger crop of journalists, she decided to pack it in. With very few regrets, she gladly accepted the golden parachute and was off on a leisurely, extended vacation.

  No sooner did she return to her high-rise apartment in downtown Detroit than she was contacted by a man she knew all too well.

  Chris Reynolds was considered by many as Michigan’s Donald Trump. Responsible for the proliferation of strip malls throughout the state, he also owned chains of movie houses and many varied publications.

  Whenever possible he was a hands-on manager. But the sheer number of his enterprises made it impossible for him to attend to everything personally.

  At the time Pat Lennon called it a day in newspaper journalism, Reynolds was on the brink of closing his Oakland Monthly. The magazine primarily served Oakland County, the third wealthiest county in the United States. Oakland County provided a substantial answer to, Where do all those fabulously rich auto giants, high-priced lawyers, inheritance-heavy people live? Some of the old money dug in at one or another of the Grosse Pointes. Much of the fast-lane wealthy staked out Oakland County.

  So, Reynolds asked himself, why should a magazine featuring this toddlin’ county fare so poorly in circulation and advertising revenue? No one seemed to have the answer. But Chris Reynolds was determined to solve the puzzle before or instead of shelving the magazine.

  One of his many vice presidents informed him that Pat Lennon was voluntarily unemployed.

  Reynolds was familiar with Lennon’s high standards and professionalism. He discovered that she had next to no managerial experience. Reynolds had no problem with that; lots of managers he knew could not manage.

  After considerable thought, he decided that for weal or woe Lennon would be the ultimate answer to the survival of Oakland Monthly. So he put on the full-court press.