Vespers, p.17
Vespers, page 17
The red-head on the third row spread her leg wide.
The mass was beginning in earnest.
7'
At eleven o'clock that Sunday morning, the twenty-seventh day of May,
they buried Father Michael Birney in the Cemetery of the Blessed Virgin
Mary of Mt. Carmel, all the way uptown in Riverhead, where there was
still a little ground left in which to put dead people. The priest who
delivered the funeral oratory was a man named Father Frank Oriella, who
had been appointed by the archdiocese of Isola East as temporary pastor
of St. Catherine's Roman Catholic Church. Among the mourners was
Detective Steve Carella of the 87th Precinct. Father Oriella chose to
read his elegy from the first letter of the apostle Paul to the
Corinthians.
"The first man was of earth," he read, "formed from dust. The second is
from heaven. Earthly men are like the man of earth, heavenly men are
like the man of heaven. Just as we resemble the man from earth..."
Carella studied the small group of assemblel mourners.
Father Michael's sister, Irene Brogan--who made the arduous trip from
Japan via Los Angeles order to be here for the funeral today-- stood by
graveside now, listening intently to Father Oriella' carefully chosen
text. Martha Hennessy, the priest't housekeeper, had introduced her to
Carella he'd arrived. A petite woman with eyes, she told him she'd be
happy to help with investigation in any way possible. Carella said was
eager to talk to her, and asked if he could have moment of her time
after the service.
"... to tell you a mystery. Not all of us shall asleep, but all of us
are to be changed -- in instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the
sound of last trumpet..."
The forecasters had promised continuing weather for the entire Memorial
Day weekend. blazing sun shone down mercilessly on the black top of the
coffin poised above the dozen or more young people stood beside the
grave, listening to Father Oriella. Carella reco in the group of
teenagers the two young girls spoken to yesterday. They were dressed
sedately today, not in black- this was a alien color in a young person's
wardrobe -- dark shades of blue that seemed appropriate to day's burden.
They stood side by side, the one the black hair (Gloria, was that her
name?) and blonde girl, Alexis. Both girls were crying. For that matter,
so was the entire group of young people with them. He had been a
well-loved man, this priest.
"... then will the saying of Scripture be fulfilled: "Death is swallowed
up in victory. Oh, death where is thy victory? Oh, death, where is thy
sting?' The sting of death is sin, and sin gets its power from the law.
But thanks be to God who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ..."
Poking about the fringes of the crowd like scavenger birds were half a
dozen reporters and their photographers, but there were no television
crews in evidence, and this surprised Carella. The priest story had
received extensive coverage, especially on television, ever since it
broke last Thursday. Carella was aware that this was already Sunday. The
clock was ticking and the older a case got, the wider became the
murderer's edge.
"Lord, hear our prayers," Father Oriella said. "By raising your Son from
the dead, you have given us faith. Strengthen our hope that Michael, our
brother, will share in His resurrection."
Here in the sunshine, the assembled priests paid honor to one of their
own, standing in solemn black at the edge of the grave, listening to
Father Oriella's final words. Highranking police officers were here,
too, in blue and in braid, a show of color and support .to let the
citizens of this fair city know via the newspaper people that the police
were still on the job, if only to weep huge crocodile tears at the
graveside.
"Lord God, you are the glory of believers and the life of the just. Your
Son redeemed us by dying and rising to life again. Our brother Michael
was faithful and believed in our own resurrection. Give to the joys and
blessings of the life to come. We this, oh Lord, amen." "Amen," the
mourners murmured.
A hush fell over the grave site.
There must have been a signal, someone have pressed a button because the
coffin on its strap,. began lowering hydraulically, a photo op that
could not and would not be missed by paparazzi, who moved forward as the
coffin between heaven and earth, silhouetted against the piercing blue
sky. Another si perhaps, because the lift stopped, and the coffin
suspended now some several inches below the lip the grave, and Father
Oriella said another almost a private communication between him his
slain brother in Christ, whispering, his moving, and then he made the
sign of the cross the grave and knelt to scoop up a handful of spring
earth and sprinkled it onto the coffin gleaming in sunshine.
The mourners came now with baby ros distributed by the funeral home,
came in a orchestrated effort to lend dignity to death, came staged and
solemn farewell, each passing this for the last time, pausing at the
grave with its shiny black coffin waiting to descend, tossing the roses
onto the coffin, the priests from churches all over the city, the brass
from Headquarters downtown, the priest's sister Irene Brogan, and some
forty parishioners from St. Catherine's, and the dozen or more teenagers
from the church's Catholic Youth Organization, all filing past to toss
their roses in farewell, and now the pair from yesterday, Gloria, yes,
and Alexis.
And then it was over.
As they moved past the grave and away from it, starkly illuminated in a
clear sharp light the photographers must have loved, there was another
unseen signal, and the hydraulic lift began humming again, and the
coffin dropped slowly into the grave, deeper, deeper, until it was
completely out of sight.
Two gravediggers freed the canvas straps from beneath the coffin. They
were beginning to shovel earth onto the coffin and into the grave when
Carella walked over to where Irene Brogan was standing with Father
Oriella, telling him what a beautiful service it had been.
He stood by awkwardly.
At last, she turned from the priest who had replaced her brother, and
said, "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. Please forgive me."
Tear-streaked face. Blue eyes shining with tears.
Close up, in this harsh light, she looked to be in her early forties. A
woman who just missed being pretty, her separate parts somehow not
adding up completely satisfying whole. They walked to to where the
funeral home limousines were wai in line, shining in the sun. Standing
beside the of the closest limousine, Carella watched mourners moving
past behind Irene, heading their cars or the closest public transportati
Riverhead was a long way from home.
"Mrs., Brogan," he said, "I don't mean to on your family privacy..."
She looked at him, puzzled.
"But in the course of the investigation.., early as a matter of fact...
I read a letter you wrote to brother. Which was when I started calling
you in Diego." "I think I know the letter you mean," she said.
"The one referring to his letter of the twelfth."
"Yes."
"In which he told you... I'm just putting all together from what you
wrote, Mrs. Brogan. Bu seemed he was deeply troubled about somethin "He
was."
"What would that have been?"
Irene sighed heavily.
"My brother was wholly devoted to God," said.
"I've no doubt," Carella said.
And waited.
"But even Christ was sorely tempted in wilderness," she said.
And still Carella waited.
"Let's... can we get in the car?" she asked. lie opened the back door of
the limousine for her and then followed her into an interior as secluded
as a confessional. The door closed behind him with a snug, solid click.
And now, here in this dim and secret space with its tinted windows and
its black leather seats, Irene Brogan seemed to find the privacy she
needed to tell her brother's story. She described first the receipt of
his letter... "It was postmarked the twelfth, but I didn't get it on the
Coast till the following Thursday, the seventeenth. My husband and I
were leaving for Japan that Saturday. He sells heavy machinery, this was
a business trip, he's still there, in fact. I... I called my brother
that Friday. And when.., when he told me what was really troubling
him.., the letter... you see, the letter had only hinted at it... but
when I called him that Friday..."
At first, he is reluctant to speak about it, The Priest.
He tells her it's nothing, really, he shouldn't have written the letter
at all, everything's fine now, she must be very excited about the trip
to Japan, hm?
But Irene knows him too well. She was thirteen When he was born, which
puts her at forty-five now, and she raised him almost as if he were her
own child, her mother being a businesswoman who ran off to work every
day and then complained of utter an all weekend long. She knows her
brother all too well, and she knows he is hiding now, excited about the
trip to Japan indeed; she accompanied her husband to Japan on evi
business trip he's made in the past six years! So bides her time, and
listens patiently to him telling about someone in the congregation who
umbrage over his sermons about the tithe... "He mentioned Arthur Fames,
did he?"
"I don't remember the man's name. But, yes, . was one of the things
troubling him..."
... and someone's mother coming to seek and advice about her homosexual
son's involw with, of all things, devil worship.., and about... "He was
beginning to rattle on by then," said, "do you know the way people
sometimes When they're trying to avoid what''s really them? I'm not
saying these things weren't bothering him.., the tithe.., and the
drugs... the ... "The what?" Carella said.
"Well... drugs, yes. My brother seemed to someone was using the church
as a sort storehouse. For drugs. He tore the whole place one weekend,
looking for where they were but..."
"Are you saying illegal drugs? substances?"
"Well, yes, I'm sure that's what he meant."
"He found drugs inside the ohurch?"
"Well, no, he didn't. But he certainly looked for m. At least, that's
what he told me. As I said, he tas starting to get a bit hysterical by
then. Because he was coming to what the real problem was, and it didn't
have a damn thing to do with any of the little
things he was talking about. It had to do with..."
A woman.
Her brother is involved with a woman.
He does not tell Irene how this started or even how long it has been
going on, but it is tormenting him that he has violated his vows of
chastity and himself in a situation from which there is no honorable
escape. He loves Jesus Christ and he loves this woman and the two loves
are incompatible and irreconcilable. He mentions that he has considered
suicide... "He told you this?"
".Yes. On the telephone."
"Had he considered a way of doing it?"
"What?"
"Did he tell you how he planned to kill himself?."
"Well, no. I mean, what difference would that make?" "A lot," Carella
said.
"It frightened me, I can tell you that," Irene said.
"I almost cancelled the trip. I thought I'd come east instead, be with
my brother, see him through this..."
But he tells her that taking his own life would be even greater sin than
breaking his solemn vows.
swears to her and to the good Lord Jesus that he will not even think
such thoughts again, swears on the telephone. At Irene's urging, he swe
well that he will tell this woman he cannot go! with a relationship that
is tearing him apart, continue deceiving God in this way, destro, " is
dearest to him. He will once again renounce flesh, as he'd sworn to do
so long ago, and pray God's help in living forevermore a chaste
spiritual life.
He promises this to his sister.
"And then.., when I got the call from Quentin... we'd just come upstairs
from dinner.i was a lovely night there in Tokyo, the blossoms still in
bloom, the air so sweet.., and he told me my brother was dead. And...
and... first thing I thought was that he'd killed He'd done it. He'd
broken his promise to me."
The limo went still.
"But this is worse, isn't it?" Irene "Someone killing him that way."
Yes, Carella thought. This is worse.
Not to kill him, no. To talk to him. To ask him her. Because you can't
condemn a person first hearing his side of the story, isn't that true?
can't just begin hating a person until you prove sure that there's
really a reason to hate him. this is a man of God, don't forget, this is
not someone like you or me, this is a man dedicated his life to God. And
if he's going to break the rules that way, then he shouldn't be saying
one thing and doing another thing. The rules should apply to everybody.
That's the way rules work.
Everybody knows you have to stop when a traffic light turns red. If you
don't stop when it's red, then nobody is obeying the rules, and there'll
be an accident, and someone might get killed. Of all people, he should
be the one obeying rules, especially the promises he made to God. If you
make a promise to God, you have to keep it or God will strike you dead.
That's in the Bible, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
Kissing her. But maybe there was some explanation. On the lips.
Maybe he had some explanation for why he was doing that. Maybe there was
something in church custom or church law that you had to kiss a woman on
the lips in order to whatever. Bless her maybe.
Greet one another with a holy kiss, that's in the Bible. It was all
right to kiss in Scriptures, it was common practice. The one I shall
kiss is the man and he came up to Jesus at once and said Hail, Master,
and he kissed him. Or when he's sitting at table in the Pharisee's house
and the sinner brings an alabaster flask of ointment and wets his feet
with her tears and kisses his feet, this was Jesus getting his feet
kissed.
It was common in the Bible, look at Solomon, O that you would kiss me
with the kisses of your mouth for your love is better than wine, your
anointing oils are fragrant, your name is oil poured out, therefore the
maidens love you. So maybe there was. explanation, and if you go to the
person and ask what the reason is, if there is a reason, then can tell
you, explain that he was only greeting holy kiss, you shouldn't judge a
book by its ask and it shall be delivered unto you. Was intention. To
ask. To inquire. To discover. To from his own lips that this kiss was
not appeared to be, was not a man kissing a beautiful woman, in fact,
but was instead a holy priest, performing some kind of of do whatever it
was he was doing. A holy kiss, the Bible, there are holy kisses, what's
in the true, every word of it. Not to kill him, no. To ta him. To ask
him about her. But how could he his hands under her skirt, her panties
down her ankles, this was not a holy kiss, this could have been a holy
kiss, not with her blouse open her naked breasts showing, Oh, may your
like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your like apples, and your
kisses like the best wine goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and goes
down smoothly, goes down no this was holy kiss it was not that no.
The call came at twenty minutes to one afternoon, not five minutes after
Willis had gone for the Sunday papers. The moment she heard voice,
Marilyn realized they'd been watching ouse, waiting for him to leave
