David A. Schwinghammer
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Father Czech is accused of embezzling money from the church and Dewey begins to suspect his friend of Andy's murder.
Chapter 8
Love’s Keen Arrows
“Why comes temptation, but for man to meet and master and make crouch beneath his foot, and so be pedestaled in triumph?”
-Robert Browning
The Bishop dangled the tea bag over his cup, submerged it again, then peered over his gold-rimmed glasses at Dewey. “I can’t really abide this tepid swill,” he said. “But my doctor insists that my ulcer’ll kill me if I drink coffee. What can you do when you get old?”
Dewey, still dazed from Viktorija’s touch, was having trouble concentrating. Lara’s theme, “Somewhere My Love,” thrummed in his ears; the Russian winter bit at his skin; he breathed in aching winter air. He was so cold he could have been shivering in the lovers’ ice house; yet, he was sitting opposite the Bishop in the snug kitchen of the parish rectory.
Shaking off the delirium, Dewey slid the slip of paper on which he’d written the collection amount across the vinyl tablecloth. The Bishop glanced at it briefly. “I thought so,” he said.
“Did Father Czech come from a poor background?” Dewey said, grasping at straws.
“Yes, but that’s no excuse. As you know, there’s no vow of poverty for the diocesan priest, but we are aware when we commit to the priesthood parish life won’t be foie gras and champagne. He read from a little black booklet he pulled from his breast pocket. “‘The priest, although not having assumed the vow of poverty as a public promise . . . must lead a simple life and avoid anything that could have an air of vanity, voluntarily embracing poverty to follow Christ more closely.’ That’s John Paul II, from the Directory of the Ministry of Life of Priests. I have to emphasize the word priests. Doesn’t say anything about bishops.”
There was that sly grin again; and the weird green and blue eyes danced in amusement.
“Of course not. You don’t think this difference in receipts might have anything to do with the murder case then? You know, more people in church.”
“I had one of my spies count heads the last several weeks. Only about twenty more people this Sunday. You’ll be taking over the parish until I can find a more tried and true hand. We’re sending Father Czech on an extended vacation; the diocese can’t afford another scandal.”
“Yugoslavia?”
“How’d you guess?”
“He’s been talking about it.” Dewey stared out the window, where the rain was coming down in sheets. A spasm of lightning caused the phone to ping. “You knew about the embezzlement when you assigned me here?”
The Bishop dabbed at his lips with a paper napkin. “I apologize. There’s a certain amount of duplicity implicit in the job description. Ever hear about Pius XII?”
“Of course.”
“I’d have to say the old boy was hedging his bets, in case Brush Face won the war. Then there was Cardinal Richelieu. He made Pius XII look like that Oskar Schindler fellow.”
“I hope you’re not going back on your word regarding my inner city posting.”
“What would you say to Rome?”
Dewey overturned his cup. “Rome! Me? I’ve always wanted to see Rome, but I’d never guessed I’d get a chance to study there.”
The Bishop pushed back his chair to avoid the trickle of tea. “We’ve got big plans for you, my boy.”
Dewey mopped at the spill with a napkin. “Am I going to get a chance to talk to Father Czech before he leaves, or are you going to whisk him away in the diocesan limo?”
“We’re not that heartless. He really was one of the good ones, you know. I’ve known Emil since the seminary, and in the early days he was a more likely candidate for a bishop’s hat than I was.”
“What happened?”
“Emil was never one for politics. You’ve got to be able to take one on the chin if you want to be heavyweight champ, you know. Such is church hierarchy. You remind me of Emil when he was young. Still had all of his hair then. Had the mien of a pious Green Beret.”
“What made you suspect--?”
“And you didn’t? The car. The run-down church. The gold this, the gold that. It was as if he were daring us
to . . .”
“How much money do you think he took, in all?”
“The bookkeepers figure around a hundred K.”
“A hundred thousand!”
The Bishop removed his glasses, wiped them with a tissue he had up his sleeve. “Far less than it would cost to clear a sex abuse case. Those fellows are really killing us, especially those we sent to therapy after a confirmed case. The recidivist bastards.”
The rain turned to hail, pelting against the windows like hard candy being poured into a bowl. The bishop flinched when the lights dimmed.
“But what did he do with all that money?”
“My spies tell me he’s got a gambling problem. Those Indian casinos are so tempting. We can get some of it back, of course. Twenty thousand for the Lincoln.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s got some credit card bills, too.”
“Yes, we know about those. Let them try and get it. What are those bloodsuckers charging in interest these days? Sixteen, seventeen percent? ‘Happy the man who far from schemes of business, like the early generations of mankind, works his ancestral acres with oxen of his own breeding, from all usury free.’ Horace, you know.”
#
Later on Dewey sat on Father Czech’s stripped bed as the old priest packed his bags.
“Sorry I never got to hear you play the organ, Dennis.” He’d doffed his shirt and wore only a v-neck T-shirt, his matted arms and chest glistening from the exertion. Some of Emil’s suits had to’ve cost a bundle. If they weren’t Armani, Dewey was a monkey’s stepson. But Dewey was already feeling guilty about having finked to the Bishop about the collection receipts. He wouldn’t tell the Buddha about the suits.
“You know it feels good to get the monkey off my back.”
“What made you do it, Emil?”
“Who knows. Maybe the Black Bear holiday junket with the Christian Mothers and the Knights of Columbus. They’d given me a small stipend, you know. Lost that in an hour playing blackjack, and there I sat twiddling my thumbs. Felt like a third wheel. After that, the old Buick wasn’t good enough. Doing without when my old classmates were fat and lazy and comfortable. Different strokes for different folks, too. The Bishop lives high on the hog, but that’s okay ‘cause he’s the bishop.”
“I understand you two were in the seminary together.”
“He was the last person you’d think would become a bishop. You’ve heard of the Peter Principal.”
“I think so: each of us rises to a level of incompetency.”
“That’s it.”
“I wouldn’t say that about the Bishop. He reminds me of the prelate in that Joan of Arc movie we watched the other night.”
“The Peter O’Toole character?” Father Czech doubled over in laughter, sat down on the carpet, tears streaming down his cheeks. Suddenly Dewey realized the pastor was crying for real.
He slid off the bed, hugged the old priest, said, “There, there.”
“You know what I said about Mrs. Hanover?” Father Czech sobbed.
“Yeah. The Bulldog.”
Tears, like holy water, splashed on Dewey’s neck. “Not . . . true . . . either,” the pastor choked. “She quit because I made a pass at her. I’m surprised . . . she never . . . said anything.”
#
That night, after Father Czech had left, Dewey paced up and down in Father Czech’s sitting room, his fingers linked behind his back, Mutt the dog following along behind, as if it were some kind of new and not-too-stimulating game. Logs crackled in the fire place, the occasional spark leaping free and spending itself on the hearth. It was too warm and Dewey discarded clothing as he paced, scolding himself for having set the fire. Twice he grasped the black rotary-style phone, then dropped it, and continued his trek to nowhere. Finally he stopped, took up the receiver and dialed his Uncle Mike in Arizona. The phone rang and rang, and just as Dewey was about to hang up, Uncle Mike answered in a thin-sounding voice, as if he’d lost it cheering for the Arizona Cardinals and Jake “the Snake” Plummer.
“Uncle Mike. Are you all right?”
“Duane?”
“Yes, it’s me. Thought I’d check to see how you’re doing.”
“Did you get my ordination present?” Uncle Mike said, his voice cracking.
“Yes, yes, the money came in handy.”
“I didn’t know what else to get you.”
Uncle Mike’s voice was so faint it seemed as if he’d gone without talking for days. “They keep you busy there, Uncle Mike?”
“Not much I can do. My arthritis, you know.”
“It’s that bad?”
“Rheumatoid arthritis is bad. What am I going to say? You sound anxious. Is anything wrong? I can be there by tomorrow if you need me.”
“It’s more like is anything right. We’ve had a murder here and the pastor is retiring. The bishops says I’ll be in charge until they find someone more experienced, but I don’t
really--”
The phone clicked as if someone had picked it up and put it back down again when he’d discovered the line was in use. “Trust him?” Uncle Mike said. “That’s a bishop for you. I’m afraid I led you down the garden path, didn’t I? If I recall correctly, I assured you--”
“It’s not the murder or the pastor or the Bishop.”
Uncle Mike coughed. “What is it then?”
“I think I may be in love.”
“They won’t leave you alone, eh? You being such a good-looking young fellow, I thought that might happen. Who is she? Not anybody’s wife I hope?”
Mutt whuffed at Dewey from his place by the hearth, a strict father telling his son to get off the phone. “No, she’s a refugee. From Kosova.”
“Well, you’re being tested a little earlier than usual, and apparently you’re getting it from all sides. I know this sounds simplistic, but have you tried prayer?”
“So much has been going on I haven’t had--”
“Find a Bible, an Old Testament Bible. Read the Book of Job. All of it. It’s about how to conduct oneself in the face of suffering.”
“I’ve read the Book of Job. Did you ever slip, Uncle Mike?”
“Oh, Lord, I was afraid you’d ask that question.”
#
“Do not, therefore, let sin rule your mortal body and make it obey its lusts; no more shall you offer the members of your body to sin as weapons for evil. Rather, offer yourselves to God as men who have come back from the dead to life, and your bodies to God as weapons for justice. Sin will no longer have power over you; you are now under grace, not under the law.” Romans: 6:12-18.
The words had resonance for Dewey when he’d been fighting the celibacy issue in the seminary. Tonight nothing seemed to register; he kept reading over the same pages as if they were the directions from a computer manual. Finally, he snapped the Bible shut, got between his freshly laundered sheets, and took up the most recent Larry McMurtry, COMANCHE MOON. He’d heard Blue Duck, the savage half-breed from LONESOME DOVE, had made an encore appearance. Before he got two pages into it, his eyes fluttered and he was asleep.
When Wagon Master Czech raised his gloved right hand to halt the chain of wagons, Dewey noticed the warriors on the rim of the butte in the distance. The braves, astride their painted ponies, waved their lances and let out a war whoop, a kind of chant, an homage to Moloc, God of war. Backlit by the dying sun, the warrior’s ghostly painted faces howled their defiance. One of them wore a blue foraging cap and tunic with the three yellow stripes sewn to one of the sleeves. Still others wore nothing at all, except a lone eagle feather. The chief sat astride a Don Quixote-like nag, his headdress of eagle feathers resembling a bishop’s mitre.
Waving a white handkerchief, Wagon Master Czech spurred his Buckskin toward the subchiefs to parley at the base of the bluff. Meanwhile, Dewey signaled for the drivers to form a circle. The war chief and Wagon Master Czech got down off their horses. The war chief, his vestment of bear claws jangling, scolded Wagon Master Czech, then pointed to the Buckskin, then back to his own chest. “You give,” he said.
Wagon Master Czech spit tobacco juice at the scowling chief’s moccasins. The war chief hurled his lance into the sand and war whoops echoed throughout the canyon. Wagon Master Czech remounted the Buckskin and calmly rode back toward the wagons. As the warriors descended the bluff, an arrow hurtled toward the Conestogas, and the lead wagon exploded in flames. Women and children were herded to safety; saddles were tossed beneath the wagons; tarps were wetted down; a skirmish line was formed and commenced shooting at the screaming, onrushing braves, one of whom took a bullet, his chest streaking red.
With all of the wagons ablaze, fierce-looking braves hugging unbridled ponies raced by, firing limitless arrows, and Emil Czech, arrows protruding from his chest, lay sprawled at Dewey’s feet, his eyes open, a stream of crimson trickling down his chin.
A flaming arrow landed at Dewey’s feet as he tried to lead Viktorija to safety. He fired his pistol at a brave who’d breached the circle and the warrior somersaulted to his death, but a war club split his scalp, and he found himself lying face down in the Fels Nafta-tasting sod. As he lay there stunned, two swarthy braves tore at Viktorija’s clothing, baring her melon-like breasts. Dewey clawed his way to his feet, found his pistol and went wild, clubbing and bludgeoning until the bloody savages lay dead on the ground.
It was then he heard the trumpeting of a bugler and the thunderbeat of cavalry horses. Later, he and Viktorija lay, their legs entwined, Dewey kissing her neck, nuzzling her amazing bosoms, stabbing ineffectually at her cleft. And embarrassing himself with premature ejaculation.
The pounding of his heart awakened Dewey, and he sat up in bed, sweating, frightened more by his clueless lovemaking than the Indian attack. Dewey hurled the bed covers to the floor, rose and stumbled to the bathroom, urinated, squinted at himself in the mirror. The sullen mugshot of a felon blinked back at him. He scooped up a mouthful of tepid water, rinsed, and spit.
He checked his wristwatch. Four o’clock, and he needed to be up early for Andy Leyk’s funeral. The police had finally released her body for burial, and with Father Czech gone, Dewey would have to cover the funeral mass. He shuffled back to bed and, surprisingly, sunk back into fitful sleep.
Andy Leyk was skating down The Runway. He could hear tinny music coming her Walkman headphones. Ironically, “Walk Don’t Run,” an oldie by the Ventures. As she skated, a head popped out of the ditch next to the road. Roman Platz, grinning up at her, brandishing a spent prophylactic. Behind him his mother opened the cab of the blue pick-up and came to stand behind her son, her chapped hand resting on his shoulder.
The mother and the girl had an aura of golden light about their heads. The women turned and called to someone coming up the road behind them. Dewey strained to hear. “Father, why have you forsaken us?” Their voices were like keening. Dewey’s left brain tried to wake. What did they expect of him? He wasn’t a police officer; he’d done all he could to help Roman.
#
Audrey Leyk, her blond hair styled in a French braid, gave the eulogy at the funeral mass for her sister. Through tears she said, “Andrea would have really been something. A senator, maybe even president. When she was in sixth grade, she’d whip me one-on-one, and I was the starting point guard on the basketball team. I’ve never met anyone quite as intense as my little sister. Everything had to be just so for her, even when baking cookies. If it hadn’t been for those . . . if it hadn’t been for those skates, that monster . . . never would have been able to.” At that point she broke down completely and her mother had to hurry up to the pulpit and lead her to her pew.
Father Dewey gave the nun a cue and the seventh and eighth graders from St. Boniface Elementary burst forth in a rousing rendition of “Faith of Our Fathers.”
Dewey scanned the congregation. Gordy and Viktorija were huddled together in the fifth pew on the right behind the Leyk family. The two of them looked so good together. If he were a photographer, he’d hire them to pose for those family shots you saw in the Christian magazines, the ones where mom and dad are pushing little Johnny on the inner tube swing.
How he hated that swine Gordy.
Before mass Gordy had stopped at the rectory. They’d visited in Dewey’s third-floor room. Gordy, his legs interlocked beneath him, bounced on Dewey’s yellow comforter, causing the springs to creak like an old jalopy during spring thaw. Behind him, resplendent in Wisconsin red and white, Ron Dayne stiff-armed a Stanford tackler.
“If you don’t knock that off you’re going to break the bed,” Dewey said.
“Remember that time we used your bed as a trampoline? We were like what, ten or eleven?”
“Yeah, Mom thought a tree had hit the house when the frame broke.”
Gordy, clad in a black long-sleeved polo shirt, looked as sleek as an otter, the dark color heightening his tousled blond hair. “A kid’s got to practice his tumbling someplace,” he said.
“How’s your case going?” Dewey said, paging through his missal, searching for the funeral mass. Andy Leyk’s would be his first.
“The man is a total nut case,” Gordy said. “Wants to cop a plea so’s he can get a prison close to his family. I keep telling him the evidence is circumstantial.”
“What about the license plate number?”
“Bunch of crap,” Gordy sniffed. “I can prove that girl knew one of Blom’s alleged former victims. This is nothing if it’s not a frame.”
“If you say so.”
Gordy dabbed at his nose with a Kleenex. “Looks like I’m going to have to ditch him, though. The guy just won’t listen. Seen too many Perry Mason reruns; thinks he knows more than I do.”
“Viktorija tells me she and you had a date.”
Gordy’s slate-colored eyes lit up. “She’s really something, isn’t she? Smart as a whip. Most chicks can’t even remember their own social security number. Fits me like a glove.”
Dewey gave Gordy a hard stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, just a figure of speech. What did you think . . .? Oh, I get it.”
“Like I said, the girl is very religious.”
“Yes, Father.” Gordy gazed around the room. “Speaking about religion, where are all the holy pictures? This place looks like a dorm room.”
Dewey marked the funeral mass with the red ribbon. “As the Calvinists say, adornment is pure idolatry. Besides, I’m into religion twenty-three hours a day; I need to get away.”
“Never thought you’d go through with it. You were going hot and heavy with Abby. You two ever do it?”
Dewey sighed, closed the missal. “Mind your own beeswax.”
“Don’t get all huffy on me. Somewhere I got the idea you two went shopping for a ring.”
“Yeah, well, we came to our senses. Getting married at eighteen just didn’t seem to be the thing to do, and she knew I had the church in the back of my mind.”
With a kind of satyr’s grin, Gordy had said, “I tell you I felt her up once?”
Dewey’s felt blood rush to his face.
“You don’t hate me, do you? It was after you’d dumped her.”
“I didn’t dump her, and I don’t hate you. How could I hate you after the Rich Prairie game?”
Gordy swept the dandruff from his shoulders. There was a flaw in the Greek god after all. “What do you call that, third string-flanker syndrome? All I did was throw you one pass.”
Dewey strode to the window seat, below which Pete Wielinski, the groundskeeper, was raking leaves. “A touchdown pass that won the game!”
“Yeah, and the coach benched me the first quarter of the next game for doing it. As I recall, the play was supposed to be a quarterback draw.”
“I wouldn’t have even been in the game if Henley hadn’t sprained his ankle and Rich Erickson hadn’t come down with the flu. Anyway, it may be small potatoes to you, but you and I will always be goombahs because of it.”
“Love you, too, buddy. Can a priest be a best man? I think Viktorija may be the one.”
This time Dewey was able to suppress the urge to fight. Instead, he said, “Ah, where have I heard that one before?”
“She’s different,” he sniffed. “I haven’t met anyone else like her since . . .”
“Since Erica?”
“Yeah . . . Erica. I don’t suppose you knew she decided to call it off before her accident?”
Dewey sat down on the bed next to Gordy. “You’re a million surprises today. Why would she do that?”
“During one of my periodic breaks from school, I wrangled a tryout with the Bears, and she was peeved because I hadn’t discussed delaying law school with her. At least that’s what I thought.”
“What do you mean?”
“She wouldn’t take my calls. Her mother told me she didn’t want to see me anymore.”
“But she went riding with you.”
“She said she wanted to tell me face to face, that she hadn’t really made herself clear. Riding was an activity we both really enjoyed. She said she always wanted to remain friends. That was when her horse spooked. Family thought I did it. Called the cops and everything. The saddest and most frightening experience I’ve ever been through. You got any more tissues? I’ve got a cold that just won’t go away.”
There were blotches of red on the Kleenex Gordy had been using.
“But what led them to believe you were responsible?”
“I suppose they didn’t think I’d take it well. Her sister Carolyn knew what Erica had planned. The witch spread stories about me smoking dope, that being the real reason Erica dumped me. Don’t tell Viktorija about Erica.”
“Sorry, I already have. I told her you were a little touchy about the subject.”
Gordy threw a pillow at Dewey. “Damn you. I’ll bet you want her for yourself.”
Dewey caught the pillow and set it behind him. “You can’t mean that.”
“Not entirely. It’s just that I get the feeling you don’t think I’m good enough for her.”
“You just don’t seem the type to . . .”
“I’m more like her relatives, is that what you mean? The ones who wouldn’t have anything to do with her anymore after she was ruined.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“They had to throw us out at Lakeside. We’d been there since six. Seemed more like a half hour.”
“You should be careful, Gordy. She’s here on a visa, you know. She told me herself she’s after a husband so’s she can stay in the country.”
“You meet the veterinarian fellow Booker?” He said the name with such venom Dewey flinched.
“She mentioned him. Said she’s worried he might not give her a job in his clinic if she doesn’t date him.”
“I think you’ll be losing your housekeeper anytime now if that’s the case. The man will do anything to impress her. I think it’s her eyes that get to me most. Ever notice they’re kind of half-closed.”
“Bedroom eyes.”
“Like Greta Garbo.”
“And that voice.”
“Hey!”
When Gordy left, the brass band in Dewey’s head played the Mephisto Walz; he saw red urchins prodding vestal virgins with lethal forks; smelled pitch so biting it hurt the hairs on the inside of his nose. Erica’s riding accident had set off a burglar alarm. Why had Gordy waited so long to clue him in? Was there something else Gordy was keeping under wraps? Gordy did have an awful temper. Coach Owens hadn’t suspended him for throwing that pass to Dewey; it had been for his profane reaction when the coach had called him on it. And that bloody nose. Dewey’d heard a lot of movie stars and professional athletes were into sniffing coke. Dewey followed Gordy out the door to check the color of his car. A black MG sports coupe. Deputy Miller had said the car that hit Andy may have been silver-colored. But Gordy could have had it repainted. Shouldn’t be too hard to check.
Dewey traipsed into Emil’s bathroom, examined his appearance in the medicine cabinet mirror. My your eyes are green, he told himself. And, to think, they used to be blue. “Envy and wrath shorten the life, and carefulness bringeth age before the time,” he whispered, quoting Ecclesiastics.
He slapped his forehead. “The car in the picture,” he said, suddenly remembering the framed photo on Mrs. Culp’s piano. “What color was it? It was some kind of fancy sports car, I remember that much. But what would be the connection between Gordy and Andy? Erin Reese--the sophisticated man at the Dairy Queen. Of course. He had to talk to her again.
Dewey shook hands with the mourners on their way out of church and said a few sympathetic words to Ron and Helen Leyk and the still-weeping Audrey.
As Andy had in the dream last night, Audrey glared at Dewey accusingly. Or so it seemed, due to the girl’s naturally petulant expression. Dewey had to admit Audrey gave him the creeps; she was such a match for her sister it was as if the naked girl at the gravel pit had opened her eyes, dusted off the sand; then showered, had her hair done, got fitted in a brand-new blue chemise, and delivered her own eulogy.
When Ron Leyk tried to take Audrey’s arm, she shrugged him off.
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Mystery Writer
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