Soon the flock was gone and the two priests stood quite alone on the sidewalk outside the main doors of the church.
Koesler took the collection basket to the rectory while Dunn closed and locked the church. They met again minutes later in the spacious rectory kitchen. “I hope you don’t mind, Nick,” Koesler said, “but we don’t have a housekeeper on Sundays. There’s plenty of food in the fridge, though. So help yourself.”
“That’s okay. I don’t usually have much for breakfast or lunch.” Dunn began foraging through the refrigerator.
“Good, ” Koesler said. “I’ll make a pot of coffee.”
“Great. By the way, do you have any plans for dinner?”
Koesler usually ate in on Sundays and self-served the entire day unless he accepted an invitation from one or another of his friends. Or, occasionally he dined out with some other priests. Now he realized that his young resident was on his own in a strange city. “Why don’t we go out and get something later? There are some nice restaurants in the downtown area, and a few are even open on Sunday.”
“Sounds good to me.” Dunn had found some sliced lean roast beef and some lettuce. It would make a delicious sandwich. No quarrel there.
Koesler busied himself in and around the sink and the oven. Dunn constructed his sandwich, seated himself at the large dining table, and began paging through the weekend combination Detroit News and Free Press, the Siamese twins of a joint operating agreement.
After placing a mug of steaming coffee at both places, Koesler sat down at the table opposite Dunn. He took a few of the back sections of the paper and began paging through them.
Dunn glanced at his coffee. It was still steaming. He’d let it sit a while after adding a smidgen of milk.
After some minutes and several rapidly turned pages, Dunn said, “Oh, by the way, Bob, I took the liberty of phoning St. Waldo’s this morning.”
Koesler looked up, his brow knitting. “Oh?”
“Uh-huh. Actually twice. I called at about 9:00 and then just after noon.”
For no good reason, Koesler found himself annoyed that the calls had been made while he had been out of the rectory offering Mass in church. Dunn’s action put him in mind of a willful teenager defying parental rules. “And what did you discover?”
Dunn sensed Koesler’s budding displeasure. “Well, the first call reached an answering service. The second time I got through to the rectory by implying that this could be at least a developing emergency. Of course, when whoever it was at the rectory answered the phone-some woman, maybe the secretary or housekeeper-she wasn’t at all happy with me.”
“I don’t blame her.”
“Well, people in rectories ought to be available.”
“We could argue the point, but what did you find?”
“That Father Keating wasn’t there.”
Koesler made a brief study of Dunn, who seemed inordinately pleased with his discovery. Which discovery, Koesler concluded, only further indicated that what they had heard yesterday was probably true: The poor man was dead-murdered. “You actually asked for Father Keating?”
“Uh-huh. And from the tone of her voice, I could tell something was wrong.”
Koesler was not at all sure of the accuracy of Dunn’s instincts. “Tell me, what would you have done if when you asked for Father Keating, she had put him on the line?”
Dunn grinned. “I’d’ ve been pretty surprised. I don’t think I would have believed it was the real Father Keating. I would have figured they had somebody pretending to be Keating in the interim.”
“Pretending?”
“Sure.” Dunn seemed extremely confident. “We don’t know what’s going on out there at St. Waldo’s. Maybe they’ve gotten word that Keating’s been murdered and they’re covering it up for the moment.”
“And why would they do that?”
“Maybe the police are there. Maybe the police told them not to talk to anybody until they can get the investigation under way.”
“Nick, you have an overactive imagination. But now, if you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about it. In fact, whether you mind or not, I don’t want to talk about it … ever again”
Silence. A rather uneasy silence.
Dunn sipped his coffee. The temperature was about right. But the taste!
He must’ve tasted worse coffee, but couldn’t think where. The seminary? Maybe; but, if memory served, even that was not as disagreeable as this stuff. Should he say something to Koesler? No, better not; he wasn’t off to all that good a start with the pastor as it was. No use muddying the waters. He wished he had not thought of mud. He gazed into his mug. Did the coffee really resemble mud, or was it just that it tasted so bad that it blighted everything else? He watched Koesler turn the pages of the paper all the while sipping his coffee. Was it possible that he’d prepared two separate brews? Was it possible Koesler had no taste buds?
Meanwhile, Dunn continued to scan the first of the many sections of the paper Koesler had handed him.
He was amazed at the bulk of this Sunday newspaper. It must be as large as the Sunday New York Times!
Father Dunn was not far wrong. Had he been in the Detroit area a few years earlier, he would have witnessed one of the last of the great wars between two big-city newspapers. Then, at the conclusion of a battle to blend the management of both papers-allegedly for fiscal survival-the United States Supreme Court ruled that there was no legal reason to prevent the News and the Free Press from merging their administrative offices while still competing editorially. The resultant product was not altogether acceptable from nearly anyone’s point of view. But it did make for a humongous Sunday paper.
Both priests continued to read while exchanging sections of the paper. Suddenly Nick Dunn gasped.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t believe it! This is too much! It just can’t be! I don’t believe it!” Dunn wheeled the paper toward Koesler and pointed to a photo.
Koesler studied the picture, wondering what he was supposed to. discover.
“Oh, I forgot,” Dunn said, “you didn’t see him.” He tapped his finger on a figure in the photo. “Him! He’s the one-the one who went to confession to you yesterday. I’m sure of it!”
Koesler looked more closely at the picture. It hadn’t reproduced all that clearly. But, upon scrutiny, there was little doubt: It was he. Once again, Koesler reminded himself that Dunn didn’t know that he had seen the man who had mistakenly walked into the open confessional.
The photo ran with a companion story under the heading: “Sons of Italy Honored at Charity Fete.” The caption read: “Salvatorean Father Mario Gattari, S.O.S., presents commemorative plaques to brothers Remo and Guido Vespa in appreciation of their outstanding service to the Salvatorean Mission Society.”
There was definitely a resemblance between the two, but Koesler was sure Guido was the one who had blundered into the wrong confessional yesterday and eventually confessed killing Father John Keating. If corroboration were needed, Father Dunn’s nimble index finger was tapping precisely on Guido’s pictured head.
“What I can’t figure out, ” Dunn said, “is why he’s getting a plaque. I know Detroit is big on murders, but I didn’t know that killers were given prizes! And by a Catholic missionary outfit? Who in hell are the Salvatorean Fathers, anyway?”
“They’re … they’re a … uh … an … Italian missionary group …” Koesler spoke in a half-mesmerized state. If anything, he was more surprised and puzzled by this picture than Dunn was. “I think they work in Africa. They’ve got an office here … mostly to solicit vocations.”
“But why would they be giving an award to this guy? He’s a hit man, isn’t he?”
“Donations, funding drives, contributions. If you haven’t been exposed to this yet, you will be. There are some Catholic awards-like this one-that are given to the big spenders, or big collectors, that type of VIP. It doesn’t matter that the. …. uh …” — Koeslerglanced again at the paper in search of the name-“the Vespas aren’t very practicing Catholics. Shoot, it doesn’t matter that Guido Vespa hasn’t darkened a church door more than a couple of times in his entire life. The thing is the Vespas must have given a pile of money to the Salvatoreans. Or the Salvatoreans hope this award will prime the pump, as it were, and that the Vespas will give a bundle. It’s got very little to do with saints and sinners.”