Fiction

HIC JACET

A Father Dowling Story

by Ralph McInerny

1

Tom Higgins walked in the cemetery every morning, to prolong his life. From his front door to the cemetery entrance and then following the looping road out beyond the far section where his parents were buried came to three miles. He had clocked it in the car, getting the mileage just right. He wasn't just guessing when he said he had walked three hundred miles since he had the operation.

"Triple bypass. It makes me sound like the Interstate."

"Not at your speed," Molly said.

"You should walk with me."

"You're the one who has to fight cholesterol, not me."

"Do you mean I don't have to fight you, only cholesterol?"

She let a dismissive noise suffice for an answer. After forty some years of marriage their communication was curt and coded, but affectionate withal.

"Withal?" Molly said over her shoulder when he expressed the thought aloud.

"Shakespeare."

She shook her head. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Molly had volunteered to teach catechism to the parish kids who attended public school. "They're as innocent of the Faith as Hottentots, Tom."

This pointed to a vast subject on which they had learned not to encourage one another: the language of the liturgy, sermons, the uneasiness in church that the priest might extemporize in any direction, the army of Eucharistic ministers that doubled the time it took to receive communion ... Only rarely were they both really irked at the same time, thank God. It was better when Tom could get Molly's mind on other things, or Molly Tom's. A more satisfying solution had been simpler than they had imagined. They began to attend Mass in the parish where they had grown up, St. Hilary's, and where Father Roger Dowling was now pastor.

The first occasion had been so wonderful they couldn't believe it. The years during which the Church seemed to be engaged in an endless series of somersaults seemed swept away. The church was packed, the congregation reverent, the priest devout, and the sermon was ten structured minutes of commentary on the readings that made old wine seem new and the applications obvious. It was not until the following Wednesday that they dared talk about it.

"I suppose he was just a visitor."

"No, that was Father Dowling, the pastor. I asked Lionel."

"Choo Choo Kelly?"

Tom laughed. It seemed right that Lionel should be remembered by the nickname he bore on the St. Hilary playground years before. The unmarried Kelly had never moved from the family house on Washburn.

"We hit him on a good day," Tom said warningly.

"He's too good to be true."

But they went back the following Sunday and it was every bit as good. So they made a habit of it, although Molly went on teaching catechism to the Hottentots in their parish of record. When the angiograph showed the blocked artery and Tom went in for surgery, it was Father Dowling Molly called to come visit him before the operation.

"We've been attending Mass at St. Hilary's," Molly explained when Father Dowling arrived.

"And came down ill?"

He was as delightful off the altar as he was edifying on it. He came by intensive care several times after the operation. When Tom was sufficiently recovered they again went together to Mass at St. Hilary's. Molly had been going all along alone. It was during his morning walk in the cemetery that it dawned on Tom what they had to do. He got home in record time and sat puffing at the breakfast table.

"We have to register at St. Hilary's, Molly. We have to become regular parishioners."

"We don't live in the parish."

"I've thought about that."

"Well?"

"We'll move back into the old neighborhood."

He had expected opposition, a rehearsal of the obvious arguments against such a move at their age, but Molly fell silent. She came back half an hour later and asked if he was thinking of buying his parents' house.

"Who told you?"

"Told me what?"

"That it's on the market."

Well, it had been. But when they drove to the old neighborhood they were dismayed to find that the house had been sold. A bright prospect for their remaining years seemed to have been snatched from them.

"Do you know what I've been thinking, Molly?"

"What?"

"Of being buried from the Taco Bell." This was their name for their parish of registration.

"Walking in the cemetery is getting to you."

"It concentrates the mind."

Choo Choo Kelly was sitting on his front porch and he leaned forward to see who was in the car that had gone slowly past his place twice. Tom rolled down the window and Molly waved. Choo Choo's mouth dropped open and he staggered to his feet, waving them over to the curb. Tom parked and they went up the stairs to the Kelly house. The climb seemed effortless, as if the remembered setting made them young again. Choo Choo brought them glasses of iced tea. He himself was drinking beer. "I've only got a few left," he explained.

"My folks' house has just been sold again."

"What do you care?"

"Maybe we would have bought it."

"Yeah?"

"You ever been sorry you stayed in this neighborhood?"

Choo Choo looked at Molly as if he had never even considered the question. "You could buy the Prentiss place."

"I don't remember it."

They still didn't remember it after several attempts on Choo Choo's part to evoke its image from their memories. He gave them the address. He had warmed to the subject. Such eagerness in a realtor would have been a professional flaw. They drove past the house on the way home, twice. After a couple of blocks, Molly made a U turn and they went back yet again. It was what used to be called a bungalow, an almost mansard roof, solid brick and not too much of a lawn.

"No stairs to climb," Molly observed.

The master bedroom was on the first floor they discovered when Mrs. Lang the realtor took them through. They made much of that, as if that was the reason for their interest in the house. That night they sat up late explaining to one another how complicated it would be to leave their house and move to another. Mrs. Lang said she could get a buyer for theirs.

"A piece of cake," she emphasized.

They made an offer on the bungalow, far below the asking price. There followed a pro forma effort to lift them to the amount the Prentisses wanted, but Tom and Millie held fast, wondering if they would be saved from the disruptive move by a low bid. But the deal went through. Their house sold a week later. The die was cast.

Tom went through the Prentiss place with the inspector, a young man named Karl with a surprised expression, an indecisive moustache and a thoroughness that was wearying. He was an engineer and could be relied on to find any structural flaws.

"This room was added on," he said when they were in the sunporch that looked out over the miniature but highly cultivated backyard.

"You think so?"

"No doubt about it."

"It looks as well built as the rest of the house."

"No doubt of that either."

"I wonder when it was done."

Karl thought about it. He shut one eye and looked at the ceiling. "Thirty, thirty-five years ago."

After they had closed on the house and were preparing their things for moving they went one day, at Lionel Kelly's insistent urging, to the St. Hilary school which had been turned into a center for senior citizens. Choo Choo informed a little old lady that they had bought the Prentiss place but she shook her head. Assuming she was deaf and hadn't heard, Molly repeated it. And the address.

"But that's the Farrell house," the old woman said in a querulous voice.

Molly and Tom looked at one another. The Farrell house! My God, she was right. But not even Choo Choo seemed to realize that they had bought the house in which Irene Farrell was murdered nearly forty years ago. "Maybe she's right," was the most he would say.

2

In the front parlor of the St. Hilary rectory was a map of the parish with the homes of parishioners marked with a star. In the parish ledgers were recorded names and addresses as well as the passage of good souls through this vale of tears, from baptism through First Communion and Confirmation, on to marriage and more baptisms and then the marriage of children until finally a funeral, seeing a person off to the next world. Marie Murkin did not disdain such visual aids and records but after all these years she carried the parish around in her head. Not much had gone on during her long tenure as parish housekeeper that she did not know.

"The Farrells?" Marie replied to Father Dowling's question. The pastor had just returned from the school and doubtless there was a connection between that visit and his question. "Father Dowling, that was before my time."

"That long ago?"

Marie did not rise to the bait of his teasing. "How long ago do you think it was?"

"I'm not even sure what It is?"

Marie waved him to a chair at the kitchen table. She refused to complain about her legs but she was intent on giving them less reason to complain about her.

"There was a murder. A daughter in her teens was brutally murdered."

"At home?"

"The body was found in old Asbury Park, which was where the Interstate is now."

"Who did it?"

"Well, her boyfriend was never seen again. They searched the country for him, but he had disappeared from the face of the earth. Some thought he had joined the army and gone off to Korea to fight."

"Where did you learn all these things?"

It was not a question Marie could easily answer. Her sources had been many, most of them dead. But not all. "Lionel Kelly, for one."

"I don't know him."

"Small wonder. He hasn't been to church for years."

"Have you noticed the elderly couple that has been coming to Mass over the last few months, the Higgins?"

"Their families lived in the parish."

"They've bought the Farrell house."

"Glory be to God."

"Amen," Father Dowling said, and was willing to let the matter go. After all, Marie's information, however exhaustive and detailed, was secondhand. Nor did he need to know more about the house, of which it was said, according to Marie, that it was haunted. He was not at all inclined to encourage her credulity along those lines.

The Higgins moved into the house and asked Father Dowling to bless their newly acquired bungalow and he dutifully did. It was the couple's plan to go through the house a room at a time and redecorate so it looked as if they would be more than occupied by their new home. But first they wanted to extend the sunroom.

"The daughter of the family who lived here was murdered," Molly Higgins said. She had the air of a woman who would not hesitate to look a problem in the eye.

"Did you know her?"

"We knew the parents, the way younger people would. Not well."

"I understand it happened in a park that no longer exists."

"Who told you that?" Tom Higgins asked eagerly.

"Marie Murkin, my housekeeper."

Tom sat back. "This was before her time."

"You left the parish before Marie became housekeeper?"

They had. "Our memories of the parish are antediluvian," Tom Higgins said and Father Dowling laughed.

"I'm being literal, Father. The Fox River flooded, water rose several feet above our first floor. Have you ever seen the marks on buildings in Florence that record the flood heights of the Arno?"

"What did you do before you retired?" Father Dowling asked.

"Retired? I'm not retired. I'm self-employed."

"That's like having a fool for a client," Molly said.

"What does that make my partner?"

"Don't get me started."

They were a caustic comfortable couple and Father Dowling liked them. Tom Higgins was a writer of non-fiction books for younger readers.

"I become an instant expert in whatever my agent wants and write it up as a book for kids."

He pointed at the shelves where the colorful jackets of his work filled shelf after shelf of a sizeable bookcase.

Before leaving, Father Dowling had persuaded Tom to give a talk to the people who came to the parish center.

"We'll do it together," Tom said. "Molly really is my partner. I still do everything in longhand."

"Even his book on computers."

It was a week later that the two of them came to the rectory to tell the pastor of St. Hilary's what they had discovered in the yard just outside the sunroom.

"The rock garden has to be moved."

"He shouldn't be lifting," Molly said to Father Dowling.

"There's more rolling than lifting."

The rock garden contained a basin into which water ran and then was recycled in a way Tom seemed eager to explain. Molly put a hand on her husband's arm. "You can give him your book on fountains. Tell him what you found."

Tom got squared in his chair. "There is a body buried beneath the rock garden."

"A body?"

"Bones. Human bones. I know." Another book?

"Have you told the police?"

"It's a skeleton, Father. Not a corpse. Our question is, should we report it at all?"

Father Dowling thought about it. "You should talk to Amos Cadbury."

"Who is he?"

"A lawyer."

"Our concern was more religious, Father. To take those bones further out in the yard and rebury them, well, that doesn't sound right."

"We wondered if ..."

His blessing of the house had suggested the idea to them, apparently. Might he not come out and conduct a private burial ceremony for the skeleton they had found beneath the rock garden behind their new house?

"Let me think about it. I'd like your permission to talk to some others about this. In confidence, of course."

"Cadbury?"

"And another friend of mine. Phil Keegan. He's captain of detectives downtown."

Tom and Molly exchanged a look. "I suppose it was foolish to think we could just cover this up."

"Or bury it?"

The two old people looked at him with appreciation.

3

Marie Murkin followed with foreboding the decision of the Higgenses to buy the cottage in which the Prentiss family had lived. It had been the Prentiss house for only half a dozen years and before that a series of families had come and gone in the house that Tom and Molly Higgins called the Farrell place. That was what the oldsters at the parish center called it too, as if none of the intervening families had laid sufficient claim to it. Only Lionel Kelly had called it the Prentiss house.

Marie was surprised to find Choo Choo among the others at the center. Oh, he was old enough, she supposed, although she did not like to think about what the qualifying age for senior citizenship was. Any number would be an average anyway, applicable to others, but not to her. Retirement was as far from Marie's mind as going into the real estate business.

"It's an unlucky house," someone said in an odd voice.

"Haunted."

"No one stays in the house long enough to ..."

But the voices fell silent at the approach of Molly Higgins. Marie took comfort from Molly's cool no-nonsense manner. This was not a woman to wonder whether there were ghosts prowling about the premises.

"Where's Lionel Kelly?" she asked.

"Choo Choo? He never comes here."

"He promised to meet us here."

"He is here! There. He's playing shuffleboard."

And so he was, his great bulk looking oddly graceful as he pushed the puck across the sanded floor. A great Oh went up. He had managed to knock his opponent off the board and advance his own position. He looked around with surprised delight at the applauding onlookers. Molly took his arm and led him away. Marie kept within earshot.

"Choo Choo, why didn't you tell us that it was the Farrell house?"

"What difference does that make?"

"None. Not to Tom and me, but it might to others. Besides, we had never heard of the Prentisses."

"Molly, you saw the house, you both did. You liked it. You bought it. What difference does it make what I called it?"

"I already told you. None. But I am curious about whatever happened there. Tom is making a little research project of it."

Choo Choo frowned. "It was all in the papers."

"Of course he'll start there. What was the name of the murderer?"

"The guy who ran away? Aaron. Aaron Watkins."

"Did you know him?"

"I knew who he was. We were classmates right here. He became a mechanic."

"What was he like?"

When Choo Choo tipped back his head his eyes fell on Marie Murkin. Marie followed instinct and marched up to Choo Choo and Molly.

"Father Dowling tells me that your husband has agreed to give a talk here."

"It would have been hard to refuse."

Marie smiled up at Choo Choo. "And you must come, Lionel." A little pause. "It wouldn't be like coming to church."

She left the flustered Choo Choo and the somewhat puzzled Molly Higgins and set off for the rectory. Let the fallen away Lionel Kelly explain to Molly why he had stopped coming to church.

"Stopped?" Father Dowling said, when she recounted the episode in the center to him. "I don't remember ever seeing him in church."

"He must have gone at one time."

"You're sure he's Catholic?"

"You could look him up in your ledger."

Lionel Kelly showed up several times in the parish records. Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation. And he had been an altar boy. A yellowing bulletin indicated that he had served Mass along with Aaron Watkins.

"They were in the same class," Marie said.

"Guessing?"

"No."

"How did you learn that?"

But she smiled enigmatically and drifted back to the kitchen. A magician does not reveal his secrets.

4

"How long ago?" Phil Keegan asked in disbelief.

A cooperative reporter at the Fox River Tribune had sent Father Dowling print-outs of the relevant issues from the paper's microfilm archives. Irene Farrell's body had been found in Asbury Park and soon the search was on for Aaron Watkins, the young man she had been seeing against her parent's wishes. Watkins had repaired the young woman's car and love had bloomed among the grease guns and racks of Foley's Ford. Irene was a college girl of great promise, president of her class at River Forest. The Farrells felt their daughter should be interested in young men with interests and talents closer to her own. Aaron had not returned to his rooming house on the night of the murder and the theory was that, in guilt or panic or both, he had run. The story went on for weeks and then faded and was gone.

"What's this got to do with the body under the rock garden?"

"Cy tells me that Dr. Pippen is looking into the matter unofficially. The owners of the house hope the matter can be kept from the media."

"Pippen," Phil repeated with misgiving in his voice.

"You probably have the same thought I do."

"What's that?"

"That the skeleton is that of Aaron Watkins."

"Did you suggest that to Pippen?"

"Oh, it was her first reaction."

"Roger, what's your point? You want two murders instead of one, but where are the murderers? Gone to where the victims went long ago. The chance of getting any presentable evidence after all these years ..." Phil waved his hand, as if to chase these thoughts away. "I am not going to devote the resources of my department to a maybe murder of thirty years ago."

"I was hoping you would say that. So were the Higginses."

"The who?"

"Molly and Tom Higgins, the new owners of the house. They found the skeleton."

"Why didn't they just keep quiet?"

"They think there should be a Christian burial if it is Aaron Watkins. Apparently he was an altar boy at St. Hilary's before he became a mechanic at Foley Ford."

"And they want you to do it?"

"The body was found in my parish."

The body was indeed that of Aaron Watkins, as his dental records proved. But Dr. Pippen wore a little frown as she said it. "It's more difficult to determine time of death. There are some broken bones and the skull was worked over with something sharp and heavy."

"That sounds like a lot."

"Well, it's something. But don't you wonder how a body could have been buried that shallowly near a house and not attract notice? I mean, death means corruption and corruption means ..."

But the rock garden had running water and there were plants and all the outside olfactory competition. Dr. Pippen conceded the point with reluctance.

Amos Cadbury brought the tips of his fingers together and worked his mouth a moment before he began to speak. What he had to say emerged from a long lifetime of experience in the practice of the law during which he had attained that wisdom which, expecting little by way of heroism of himself or his fellow man, often laid him open to surprise at what men and women might do in moments of stress.

"I knew Jamison Farrell, Father Dowling. He was a lawyer in this city. He survived his daughter by three years and I was the executor of his estate. Among his effects was a long letter in which he told of the devastating effect on him of his daughter's murder. It was a blow from which he never recovered."

"How did he himself die?"

"He committed suicide."

"God rest his soul."

"Indeed, indeed. I have had Masses offered for him to that end over the years. Did I mention that he was a member of this firm? The manner of his going caused us no end of trouble, as you can imagine. Jamison's clients particularly had to be reassured. Many feared that he had been a peculator and their fortunes were at risk. The fate of his poor daughter occurred to very few of them. Odd, isn't it, that the one thing that obsessed Jamison had faded from the memories of others?"

"Was there any great revelation in his letter to you?"

"Such as?"

"Did he offer any clue as to how Aaron Watkins' body ended up beneath the rock garden in his yard?"

"Yes, he did."

Father Dowling waited. A rictus of pain had momentarily twisted the normally implacable countenance of the lawyer. He looked at Father Dowling from the far end of decades of experience of human folly.

"He identified the young man's murderer."

"Himself?"

The lawyer's head shook his head. "Oh, no. No, that wasn't it at all. He had become convinced that his wife had killed the young man."

No wonder Cadbury spoke in such sepulchral tones of that long ago day. His erstwhile partner was dead, a suicide; still grief stricken at his daughter's death three years earlier, but he had gone to his death in the conviction that his wife had killed Aaron Watkins. Cadbury picked up the pages that had lain before him on his desk and handed them to the priest. Father Dowling looked at the firmly written lines, the ink periodically darkening, then fading until the nib was once more dipped in ink. This was not the nervous scrawl of a hysteric about to take his own life. Somewhere among Jamison Farrell's effects there must have been a certificate attesting to his mastery of the Palmer Method of Penmanship.

On the night Irene was murdered but before we received the terrible news, Aaron Watkins came to our door. I refused to speak to him. I ordered him from my house. Mrs. Farrell laid a restraining hand on my arm, as well she might have. I was about to smite this insolent pup who persisted in pursuing my daughter. Irene refused to see him for what he was. She had driven away the young man she had hitherto favored. And for this ruffian! 'I will speak to him,' Josephine said. Could she accomplish by sweetness what I had failed to bring about by threats? I went out to my car and drove aimlessly for an hour. When I returned there was a police car at the curb and the worst experience of my life was about to begin.

There followed a graphic description of being taken to the scene of the murder to identify his daughter, the endless questioning by police, the newspaper and radio reporters, the nationwide search for the absconded Watkins. And then, after making a firm line across two thirds of the page, Farrell began again.

Jason, I now know why the young man was never found. That night, while I was out driving, he too was killed and in my own house. All these years he has been lying in unconsecrated soil in my backyard, beneath the rock garden put up in memory of Irene. A strange odor that I had noticed for some time was no longer a mystery. It was while I was moving rocks to get at the garden's water supply my pick unearthed a human hand. I proceeded more carefully but I think I knew from the beginning whose body it was I had discovered. The realization came to me like a flash of light. Josephine had been more opposed to Irene's interest in Aaron Watkins than I had been. Somehow she had managed to kill him and drag his body into the yard. Hysterical mothers can lift the vehicles that pin their child. But Josephine would have done calmly what she felt had to be done. I have said nothing. I covered up the dreadful thing but I cannot confront her with my discovery. I cannot live with this terrible knowledge either. Jason, I entrust the disposition of the matter to you. You will know the wise and prudent thing to do.

Father Dowling returned the pages to the desk top. "What was the wise and prudent thing to do?

"Nothing."

"Ah."

"Jamison's death made Josephine almost autistic with grief. Her hair turned white, or perhaps she simply stopped dyeing it. In any case, overnight she became an old woman. I asked myself what earthly good could be accomplished by acting on her husband's guess."

"Guess?"

"What else was it, after all?"

"You have some other explanation of the young man's body ending up beneath the rock garden in the Farrell backyard?"

"I treated that as hearsay."

"But now the Higgenses have discovered the body."

"There are so many things I cannot explain."

"Did you ever speak to Mrs. Farrell about it?"

"Not to this day."

"This day? Is she still alive?"

"At St. Paul's Nursing Home."

5

Father Dowling drove slowly up the drive to St. Paul's Nursing Home. He was not a stranger to this last station on life's way. But he had never visited Mrs. Farrell. Of course he would have, if someone had told him she had lived in St. Hilary's. But she had been here for so long, perhaps no one remembered where she had come from. Her large wary eyes met his when he stood in the doorway of her room.

"Mrs. Farrell?"

She said nothing. He crossed the room to the chair she sat in, her eyes following his progress. He sat beside her.

"I am Father Dowling. From St. Hilary's. I am pastor there."

His visit was a long monologue. But that was considered to be the most one could do for one in her condition. Talk reassuringly, give news of the outside world, say nothing to upset her.

"Does she ever speak?"

The nurse had the harried look of someone who dared not sit for fear of being summoned. "Not really."

"But she can?"

The nurse's name was Lobkowicz. She seemed unsure. But her job was to care for the patients, not to analyze them. In any case, she would not have had time to sit and chat with any patient, let alone one as mute as Josephine Farrell.

"I have offered Mass for you," he said on the second visit.

The great eyes registered no reaction.

"And for Irene and Jamison too." He had decided that such remarks could not disturb her if she did not understand them. But her reaction indicated that she did understand. Her eyes moistened and tears began to form in their corners.

"And now I shall pray for the man whose body was found buried behind your house."

The old woman gasped and her skeletal hands gripped the arms of her chair.

"Aaron Watkins," Father Dowling said.

"Oh, my God."

"You knew he was buried there, didn't you?"

The reticence of years trembled in the balance and then she began to nod vigorously. "Yes, yes, yes, of course I knew."

The floodgates opened then. The nurse came into the room and looked with astonishment at the old woman, animated by grief. Father Dowling took her hand and hers tightened on his. It might have been a boney hand emerging from the soil, clinging to him, begging to be pulled back into the light. He nodded to the nurse and she went squeakily away.

"God is merciful, Josephine."

"I know, I know. But there are some sins ..."

"All sins can be forgiven."

"I want to think that. I believe it. But ..."

"How long has it been since your last confession?"

The question puzzled her.

"This conversation can be your confession, Josephine. Put yourself in God's hands. God is mercy."

"But can I confess for him?"

It was Father Dowling's turn to be surprised. He sat there for a minute without speaking, wondering what she had meant. Perhaps he had been wrong to think she had emerged so easily into clarity of mind after so many years of elected silence.

"Tell me what happened, Josephine."

Her account did not have the clarity and straightforwardness of her husband's, but then he had been composing a narrative for his partner Amos Cadbury to read. Josephine just let the words come. What she had to say was significantly different from what Father Dowling had read in Amos Cadbury's office.

As in Jamison Farrell's letter to Cadbury, Aaron had come to the house. Her husband threatened to throw the mechanic out on his ear, but Josephine had calmed him. She would appeal to him as a mother. He must see that her daughter's promising future would come to nothing if she succumbed to Aaron.

"He said he loved her, of course. He thought that was enough."

Father Dowling listened to her jumbled account of the conversation she had had with Aaron Watkins. He agreed he was not good enough for Irene. But Irene insisted. She had told Lionel. She must have told her.

"Lionel?"

"The worst of it was that he was right. If it had been a play or a story, the sympathy of the audience would have been with him. I was the stupid old mother, standing in the way of true love. I think that infuriated me more than anything else, knowing we were wrong to oppose this."

"How did he die?"

"The sirens sounded then, coming closer. I think I already sensed they were bringing horrible news. When they stopped in front of the house, Aaron started to go out to them, but I pulled him back and told him to leave."

"And he did?"

"He went back through the house and out the back door."

Father Dowling looked closely at the old lady, but her expression was that of someone trying to remember exactly. That long ago evening seemed to be playing like a film in her head. He could hear the sirens. With her he opened the door to the police. How much time had passed before they made clear to her what had happened? But they had begun with questions about Irene. When had she last seen her?

"Last seen her! And I had seen her for the last time without realizing it. And we had quarreled."

"About Aaron."

"Yes."

"What happened to Aaron?"

"Amos Cadbury knows. Jamison wrote him a letter before killing himself."

"I have read it."

She opened her hands. "Then you know."

"Jamison said that you had killed Aaron."

She shook her head, the mildly corrective movement of a schoolteacher. "No, no. I found the body in the yard. Can you imagine, he had left it lying where it fell. I saw in a moment what had happened. Of course I couldn't leave the body there."

"So you buried it."

"Yes."

"And Jamison helped you?"

"When he saw what I was doing, he helped me, yes. Neither of us said a word about how the body of that boy had come to be there. But Jamison's manner told me all I needed to know."

"You think he killed Aaron."

"Father, dreadful as that was, it was forgivable. But to kill himself ..."

And so the visit ended with him consoling the widow who thought her husband had been a murderer as well as a suicide. And the husband had written solemnly that he believed his wife had killed their daughter's unwelcome suitor. They could not both be right. But could they both be wrong?

6

Father Dowling sat with the Higgenses on their front porch after the reburial ceremony, sipping the hot chocolate that Molly had made.

"The backyard has lost some of its charm for us."

"I used to walk in the cemetery every morning," Tom said.

His wife made a face. "Now you won't even have to leave home."

It was early evening but darkness had fallen. The little ceremony in the backyard had been conducted in the gloaming. Amos Cadbury's response to Father Dowling's formal question as to the legality of what he proposed to do had been uncharacteristic. He covered his eyes, then his ears, then his mouth. That was his answer.

Phil Keegan had laughed mirthlessly when asked if he intended to try to resolve the conflicting stories of Josephine and Jamison Farrell as to what had happened to Aaron Watkins in their backyard the night their daughter Irene was found murdered in Asbury Park.

"Do you want me to send Cy Horvath out to St. Paul's nursing home and have him grill the old lady?"

"If she said anything it would be that she thinks her husband did it."

"And he said that she did."

"But they buried the body together."

"In a flowerbed below the windows of the sunroom."

"Not a smart way to get rid of a guy they couldn't stand."

"Kill him?"

"Bury him under their noses."

Cy Horvath, acting unofficially, had helped collect the bones beneath the rock garden, placing them in a wooden crate. Thus were the bones of St. Anthony kept in the cathedral at Padua, worn smooth with veneration and carefully stored away. Father Dowling had seen a photograph of a recent opening of the repository. Mitred prelates seemed to be elbowing one another to get a glimpse of the contents of the casket. But their predecessors had sorted and stacked the bones.

Tom and Cy lowered the crate into the hole that had been dug at the end of the yard and it was there that Father Dowling called down the mercy of God on the remains of Aaron Watkins. It was distracting to wonder about the circumstances of the young man's death at that moment. Cy shoveled the dirt back into the hole, covering the crate and Tom eased a stone onto the tamped-down dirt.

"Maybe I'll take Choo Choo up on his offer to relocate the rock garden here."

They crossed the yard to where the rock garden now was. Water sputtered from a vertical pipe, trickling into the concrete basin. The overflow was carried around behind the basin and eventually would emerge once more from the pipe.

"You'd have to run water out there," Cy said.

"There's a sprinkling system. Maybe we could tap into that."

"Does Choo Choo know how to build a rock garden?"

"Anyone can build a rock garden," Tom said.

"You've written about them, not built one," Molly said.

At the edge of the concrete basin there was an inscription. Father Dowling leaned over to read it. "LK 1963."

"Choo Choo," Tom explained. "He built it as a memorial to Irene Farrell."

"That was thoughtful."

"I think he had a crush on her," Molly said.

Cy couldn't stay for chocolate, so the three of them adjourned to the front porch.

"Do you regret moving back into your old neighborhood?" Father Dowling asked.

"As long as there are no more grisly surprises."

"It's good to be in St. Hilary's," Molly said.

Her tone suggested that she would like to go on. Father Dowling had heard something of their grievances with the parish from which they had come. He had no reason to doubt what they said. Nor was he able to explain why such aberrations went on. But that wasn't his job. His job was to be pastor of St. Hilary's and he must do it as best he could. That is what he would be held accountable for, not the general state of the Church in North America.

7

The turn-out when Tom and Molly spoke at the parish center was historic. Husband and wife bantered with one another and it was as much a comic routine as an informative presentation. Molly had the foresight to bring a supply of books and afterward Tom sat signing them for those who wished to present them to their grandchildren. Tom might write books for young adults but there had been nothing condescending in the way he had spoken to his audience. Marie Murkin led a somewhat embarrassed Lionel Kelly up to Father Dowling.

"The lost sheep has been found," she announced triumphantly.

"I just came for the talk," Lionel protested.

Father Dowling led him away. "Marie has a missionary impulse but she means well."

The lights along the walk that led to the rectory were on. Father Dowling pointed to a bench and they sat down. Choo Choo eased his considerable bulk down with a puffing effort. He looked around and nodded.

"It's the same, only different. These lights are new, aren't they?"

"And the bench."

"That's a good use for the school. I wish it was still a school, but this is better than shutting it down."

"You went to school here, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"And served as an altar boy."

"We still had to memorize the Latin then."

"Introibo ad altare Dei."

"Ad deum qui laetificat iuventutem meam." Choo Choo's mouth fell open. "Now how did I remember that?"

"Why do they call you Choo Choo?"

"Did you ever have a train when you were a kid ?"

Of course. "Lionel Trains."

"That was Irene's nickname for me."

"Irene Farrell."

"We were classmates here."

"Along with Aaron Watkins."

Choo Choo lowered his chin to his chest. He might have been commemorating his dead classmates. Father Dowling let the silence prolong itself and then said, "I wonder where we might put a rock garden here."

Choo Choo looked at him.

"You made a rock garden for the Farrells, didn't you?"

"How did you know that?"

"I noticed your initials."

"It was a kind of memorial."

"For Aaron."

Choo Choo frowned. "For Irene."

"Tell me what happened."

"What do you mean, what happened?"

"Have you ever visited Mrs Farrell? She's at St. Paul's Home. All these years she has been convinced that her husband killed Aaron."

Choo Choo shook his head. "Why would she think that?"

"He thought she did it."

He told the huge man of the letter Jamison Farrell had written for his lawyer to read.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I think you know."

"Yeah?"

"Both Mr. and Mrs. Farrell can't be right. They buried the body together."

"I know. I found it when I put up the rock garden."

"And said nothing."

"What was there to say?"

"If neither of the Farrells killed the boy they buried, someone else did. Someone who was as upset as they were about Irene's going with Aaron. Did you kill Irene too?"

The huge man pushed at the priest and then tried to heave to his feet. He teetered forward but couldn't raise himself to a standing position. He plumped down on the bench again and it rocked backward. Father Dowling managed to get off before it toppled backward rendering Lionel Kelly as helpless as a turtle.

Back along the walk the lighted school was visible and the sound of voices drifted on the night air. Father Dowling knelt beside Lionel.

"I can't get up by myself."

"None of us can, Lionel. But the help we need is always there for the asking. Tell me what you did, tell me as a priest."

"Confession?"

"God wants you back, Lionel. He wants you more than anyone."

The lost sheep Marie had called him, speaking more truly than she knew. Lionel had stalked his rival after killing Irene in Asbury Park, tracking him to the Farrells. When Aaron emerged, Lionel fell upon him and killed him. He looked at Father Dowling with an awed look in his eyes.

"I seemed to be someone else. These things seem something someone else did."

Father Dowling did not encourage this effort to attribute the dreadful deeds to some mysterious other. That other is ourselves, and Lionel knew it. He had darted into the shadows when Mrs. Farrell came outside, perhaps to see if Aaron had gone. She let out a cry when she discovered the body.

"But right away she started to dig. Then he came along and they buried the body in the flowerbed beneath the windows."

"Where you built the rock garden?"

"I kept thinking of someone finding the body."

Lionel was not in the most dignified position to confess his sins and receive the pardon of the Lord, but that is what happened. He had finished when Cy Horvath came along the walkway.

"Hey what happened?"

"Give me a hand with Lionel, will you, Cy? This bench fell over."

Cy had Lionel on his feet with one great tug. He was lifting the bench when the penitent looked the priest in the eye. "Should I tell him?"

What could human justice add to the divine mercy? At most there would be a flurry in the media, a prurient recalling of a long ago murder in a park that no longer existed. Choo Choo could shout his guilt at the top of his lungs and nothing would come of it. The police would not devote their finite resources to investigating a slaying that had long since passed into the record books. Whether or not there was a statute of limitations on murder, evidence disappeared, witnesses died, nothing could be known with certainty.

Father Dowling once more took Lionel's elbow and steered him toward the rectory. Over his shoulder he thanked Cy for his help. To Choo Choo he said, "I don't think it will be necessary to mention this to anyone else, Lionel."