The Greatest Evil fk-20 Page 30

  “Well, you were right about one thing: He’ll never do it. So, you can block his appointment as pastor here. It hasn’t been officially announced yet. You’ll take a good pastor away from this parish. But you figure you’ll have gotten to me. You’ll have your revenge.”

  Delvecchio shrugged. “It’s his choice. If he doesn’t want to follow the rules, so be it. But he’ll never be pastor here, or in any parish in this archdiocese.” Then, remembering that he scarcely could speak for all of Detroit’s auxiliaries in charge of territories, he added, “At least none of my parishes!”

  “‘The rules,’” Koesler repeated scornfully. “Yes, the rules. Besides speaking with Dr. Moellmann this evening, I also called Pete Jackson and Fred Haun.”

  Delvecchio, instantly recognizing the names of two priests recently transferred into his bailiwick and named pastors, winced as he realized where Koesler was headed.

  “I asked them specifically,” Koesler said, “about the Oath and Profession. Haun wondered why I asked. He Was in complete agreement with both documents. He had even suggested that the two of you make the taking of these statements a paraliturgical ceremony, inviting the parishioners to attend. You assured him that was not necessary. And in the privacy of the rectory you listened as Haun read the documents.

  “I didn’t expect such docility from Jackson. And I was right. He’s the one, the only one, I believe, who’s on record as thinking there’s no priest shortage. He said there are already too many. He also told me this evening that if ever he read those documents in your presence, he would follow that with going, to confession to you. During which he would confess that it was all a lie. And you couldn’t act on it or tell anyone because of the Seal of Confession.

  “Now I’m sure he was kidding. But the fact is that he has withstood you. His appointment as pastor is official; he is installed. And he is not going to take the Oath or make the Profession.”

  “So?”

  “So you have on record one pastor who plainly refused to read those documents, even in a private setting. And another pastor who was ready, willing, and eager to read them during a public ceremony. And in Zack Tully you have a priest who cannot in good conscience do this. While you, for your part, are insisting on the public ceremony for Father Tully that you dismissed in the case of Father Jackson.”

  “So?”

  “So, remember when you were trying to deny Christian burial to the deceased wife of George Hackett? You were making up your own rules-demanding more in that case than the Church required. And you were shot down by Cardinal Boyle.

  “What if the Cardinal were to be informed that you’re at it again? Making up your own rules? Telling one priest to forget an unnecessary ceremony, then demanding the same ceremony of another priest? And what if I let the Cardinal know why you were doing this?”

  This open threat was very unlike Father Koesler. And Delvecchio well knew it.

  “You … you would do that?” the bishop said in a near whisper.

  “If you do not promise to back down from insisting that Zack take the Oath and make the Profession, yes. I’m willing to go to the mat on this!”

  “What could Boyle do to me?” Delvecchio demanded in a mixture of desperation and bravado. “I’m a bishop!”

  “An auxiliary, not an Ordinary. It’s simple enough to relieve you of all your functions. You would be bishop of nothing, going nowhere. It’s been done. Much tougher to do that to an Ordinary, pretty easy when dealing with an auxiliary.”

  There was a pause that seemed longer than it actually was.

  “Well?” Koesler pressed.

  “I … I’ll think about it.”

  But Koesler knew he had won the day. He hadn’t actually convinced Delvecchio that he ever had failed, that he’d been wrong. That he’d ever sinned. But he had persuaded the bishop that getting even with Koesler through Tully was simply not worth the consequences.

  “And now,” Delvecchio massaged his forehead with a great deal of pressure, “I’ll be going. Here are the documents you want.” He tossed the envelope onto the pool table and wordlessly left the basement.

  As he stepped out the front door, he came face to face with the two couples just arriving for the retirement party.

  Why, they asked, was the bishop leaving? He pleaded a bad headache. The Koznickis and Tullys expressed their concern. The encounter was over in minutes. Delvecchio was gone. The other guests were in the rectory, being greeted by the two priests.

  Due to the comparative lateness of the hour, they all went directly to the dining room.

  As he took up the rear of this procession, Father Koesler at least knew that this entire matter was finished … ended.

  Even the theory-unproven and undocumented-that there had been some sort of conspiracy on the part of somebody-one or more of the Delvecchio kids? — either to kill Frank Morris or cause him to take his own life … that scenario, Koesler had long since concluded, was nothing more than the pipe dream of an elderly pastor with an extremely active imagination.

  All the i’s were dotted. All the t’s were crossed. There couldn’t be anymore to this story.

  Could there?

  30

  Father Koesler hoped the party and light conversation would lift his spirits. After what had gone on in the basement, he needed this convivial gathering.

  He knew he had won. But he wished there didn’t have to be a loser. He abhorred confrontation and avoided it whenever possible.

  This evening it simply hadn’t been feasible. He was resolved that Zack Tully be pastor of St. Joe’s. All the more so when he’d realized that Zack had become Delvecchio’s sacrificial lamb as the means to get back at Koesler.

  And Koesler deeply regretted having to dredge up all the unpleasantness of the past. But there was no avoiding it; it was a continuum.

  He promised himself that once settled in retirement, he would try to mend his shredded relationship with Vince Delvecchio.

  “This is excellent soup, Mary,” Anne Marie Tully said.

  “Indeed, yes,” echoed Wanda Koznicki. “You’ve got to give us the recipe.”

  Mary O’Connor chuckled. “Better yet, I’ll give you the address of the caterers who made it.”

  The two officers’ wives looked at each other and laughed. “You not only could, you did fool us,” Anne Marie said.

  “Say,” Zoo Tully said to his brother, “that bishop we met on our way in: Is he the one you told us was giving you a hard time about something?”

  “Uh-huh,” Father Tully affirmed.

  “Well,” the lieutenant pressed, “did it work out okay? You gonna be pastor here, and our neighbor as well?”

  Father Tully had no clue how the meeting between Koesler and Delvecchio had gone. The bishop’s departure had coincided with the arrival of the guests. Tully hadn’t had any opportunity to quiz Koesler.

  Now, with the question on the table, as it were, Tully looked inquiringly at Koesler, who smiled and nodded reassuringly.

  “I guess,” Tully said to his brother, “it all worked out. I’m going to be your neighbor. And,” he added quickly, “your pastor. Somehow I’ve got to get you in the fold.”

  “Good luck,” Anne Marie said.

  Soup course finished, Mary O’Connor was clearing away the bowls.

  “And how about yourself, Father,” Inspector Koznicki asked Koesler, “have you firmed up your retirement plans? You will continue living here, I assume.”

  “No.” Koesler shook his head. “No in answer to both questions. Much as I would like to stay here-inertia being so basic a part of my life-the diocese prefers that a Senior Priest move on. It makes sense to clear the old guard out and let the new pastor do things his way without some parishioner appealing a decision to one or the other. No whipsawing.

  “But,” he continued, “I don’t have any firm plans for after retirement. Not even where I’m going to live. So”-he turned to Zack-“I hope our hew pastor will tolerate me a little while longer.”


  The two priests, smiling, inclined their heads in a mutual bow.

  “The future for me,” Koesler said, after a moment’s thought, “is kind of exciting, I think. There’s just all sorts of things opening up. I could go back to school, travel, baby-sit parishes, see if they want me to teach in the seminary, take in some theater-I haven’t done much of that lately … Or,” he added, “all of the above.”

  “Or,” Lieutenant Tully suggested, “you might continue solving crimes.” He turned to the inspector as if for affirmation, then back to Koesler. “We can use all the help we can get.

  “And,” he added, “though I didn’t think so when we first met, I’ve got to admit: You’ve got a knack for it.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “This is funny,” Inspector Koznicki said, “but the other evening we were watching a rerun of that detective series, “Diagnosis Murder,” where Dick Van Dyke plays a physician who is a consultant to the local police department. And”-he smiled at Koesler-“I thought of you.”

  Koesler’s brow knitted; he looked at his longtime friend. “That thought never entered my mind. But”-he grinned-“as James Bond says, Never say never.”

  The party was doing the trick. Father Koesler was feeling increasingly relaxed.

  Bishop Vincent Delvecchio was feeling increasingly distressed as he drove north on Woodward Avenue toward his parish.

  He never should have agreed to tonight’s meeting with Bob Koesler. To all appearances, Bob was feeling fine; whereas he himself was under the weather, to say the very least.

  Vince could not recall a headache ever afflicting him as agonizingly as this one was. Undoubtedly, that argument with Bob had worsened his condition.

  Even compromised as he was by that horrible pain, he’d done pretty well in the thrust and parry with Bob-until it came to the matter of Tally’s taking the Oath and Profession.

  Vincent knew that Cardinal Boyle did not much like him. That was evidenced when he was about to deny Church burial to Hackett’s wife. Boyle had come down on him pretty hard.

  Clever of Bob to bring up that incident! Vince’s demand that Tully take the Oath publicly would look silly in the context of Vince’s having turned down Fred Haun’s proposal for a similar public ceremony. Added to which was Pete Jackson’s flat-out refusal to swear-an unfortunate precedent. Boyle would never support his bishop when he heard all that.

  How had Bob found out about Hackett?

  It must’ve been Joe McCarthy.

  McCarthy and Jackson! True, the Church needed priests, but if Vince were an ordinary, his priests would know they would be disciplined. Priest shortage or not!

  Bob was wrong in citing Beth and Tully as means to get even with Tony and him. That was because Bob didn’t trust in providence as Vince did. Beth and Tully had been sent to Vincent by God to make His will done on earth as it is in heaven. It was cruel of Bob to think otherwise.

  Ohhh! The pain in Vince’s head forced a moan from his lips. After all, why shouldn’t God provide Vince a special measure of Divine Providence? He had passed the test with that Olivier woman. And besides the woman, Bob was the only one who knew about Vince’s major temptation.

  The pain was becoming close to unbearable. It brought to mind his mother. Perhaps he should join his suffering with that of Christ, as Bob claimed his mother had.

  She couldn’t have done that … not without confiding in Vince. No, it was crystal clear what she’d intended to use the morphine for. God may not have granted the miracle cure he’d prayed for, but God surely was not going to let Mother condemn herself to hell as a result of the greatest evil.

  If anyone on earth, anyone in all of history, understood what Vincent had to do, it was Mother.

  He was driving a steady fifty mph, the official speed limit on this section of Woodward’s boulevard. He would keep the law even though he yearned to be home in bed coping with all this pain.

  He thought again of Bob Koesler. He may have won this confrontation, but there would be others. Vince would even the score. He would triumph for God.

  Bob probably was enjoying himself tonight. But even though he was retiring, there would be a way to get at him. If nothing else, Vince could depend on Divine Providence.

  A pain like nothing he had ever experienced washed over him like an angry wave.

  He ducked involuntarily as if he could somehow elude this overpowering throbbing. When he raised his head he realized he was about to hit the left-hand curb. He tried to swerve, but it was too late; he and his car were hurtling across the median strip.

  Flashing before his eyes was the image from his favorite morality tale: the disgraced priest flying off the freeway hell-bent on suicide. The greatest evil. But Vince wasn’t attempting suicide. This was an …

  The car was almost wrapped around a huge tree.

  Vince was above the car now. Everything seemed quite peaceful. He looked down and saw two wheels spinning in place.

  Then he seemed to be somewhere else. It was dark-very dark. There was a light in the distance. It was moving toward him. It was … his mother. Her arms were open to him. Then she faded. It was dark again.

  For some reason he dreaded what was to come.

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