The Judgment (34 page)

I jumped in to help. “So you see this proposed chapter as sort of an adjunct of the Holy Name Society?”

Father Chuck thought about that a moment. “I suppose so. Yes, I suppose I do.” He stopped for a moment to think. “Now, as I understand it, what I attended tonight was an open meeting?”

“That’s right.”

“Meaning visitors could attend?”

“Yes. Those are the only meetings they can attend.”

“Well, that just doesn’t make any sense,” said Father Chuck. “I have no intention of joining. This”—he raised his Scotch glass—“just isn’t a problem with me. But when
we start a chapter at Our Lady, I want to be on board. It would be a crime to deprive those men of the experience in counseling I’ve had. I think my role would be as a sort of spiritual advisor. They need me. Besides, that way, I could keep an eye on them, at least in the beginning.”

“Have you ever stopped to think, Father Albertus,” said Bob in a quiet voice, “that to these people, you, as a priest, are a figure of authority?”

“Indeed I have. I think that’s as it should be.”

“Think about this, then. For a lot of them, their problems with alcohol addiction are traceable directly to their problems with authority. That’s why we insist that alcoholics who want to quit are best helped by other alcoholics who want to quit.”

Father Chuck seemed to contemplate this as he finished the last of his steak.

At last he spoke up. “If you’ll pardon me for saying so, I think this talk of ‘problems with authority’ is so much modern psychology, and I don’t buy any of it.”

Bob waved to the waitress for the check. “I hope we’ve been of some help, Father Albertus.”

“You’ve given me a lot to think about, both of you.”

As Bob settled up with the waitress, I passed him thirty bucks, all I had in my pocket, to split the bill; Father Chuck reached over and grasped my arm.

“I want you to know, Charley, that I was really moved by what you said in front of the group tonight.” He said it in a quiet voice, not much above a whisper. “It took a lot of courage. I think I can help you. I honestly do.” Now he was whispering. “You know, these ancient curses—aging, death, suffering—these are the sort of problems that are best dealt with between a man and his priest. You blurt it out in public like you did, and you’re not going to get any help at all.”

“That wasn’t why I talked about them. I wasn’t expecting help from anyone. I was just pointing out that these human problems are there, and will always be there, whether we face them sober or not.”

He nodded vigorously. “I understood that,” he said, “and you were right to remind them. But you need help. And I can give it to you, I’m sure of it.”

At just that moment, Bob rose from the table. A reprieve. “Shall we?”

Father Chuck released my arm at last, and we stood up. Bob led the way from the dining room, now filling completely. I hopped forward to catch up with him. But too late: Father Chuck was there beside me.

“I mean it, Charley, particularly about death and suffering. I’ve got something to say about that I think you should hear. I had a loss myself.”

I wrenched loose, stopped, and looked him full in the face.

“Father Chuck, I’ve heard your ideas on these murders, and I want you to know that I’m strongly in disagreement with them.”

“Oh? Who told you?” He seemed guarded, almost suspicious.

“Sue Gillis. She’s a friend of mine.”

“She’s a friend of mine, too, now. Terrific girl. I helped her, Charley. I can help you, too. Why not just drop by the rectory sometime soon and—”

“No, I don’t think you could help me, Father Chuck. But I’d be willing to debate it with you any time you like.”

“Opposing arguments, eh? Well, I’ll tell you, I was known as a pretty hot debater back in the seminary, so I’ll just take you on, sir. I accept your challenge. You may be a trial lawyer, and a darned good one from what I hear, but I’ve got the best arguments. You’ll see.”

“We’ll both see.”

Then I turned and walked away from him. Bob Williams stepped out and stopped me at the door.

“What was that all about?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you later.”

Father Chuck caught up with us, smiled his winning smile, and we all walked out together to the parking lot. Bob and I accompanied him to his car, a Ford station
wagon, not too many years old and apparently in good condition. We did our handshakes, and Father Chuck thanked us for, as he put it, “a memorably good steak.”

Then, to me, he said, “Any time you want to get together, Charley, we’ll thrash this out.”

“I’ll give you a call,” I said.

“Do that.”

With a wave, he jumped inside the car, started it, and pulled out of the parking space.

“So what do you think of him?” I asked Bob.

“This is the guy who’s going to lecture them on sobriety? Well, pardon me, but I think they’ll laugh him out of the room. Maybe he’ll manage to get the chapter credentialed from the central office, but I don’t believe so, not after I tell them what I think. I’m going to sit down with Father Phil and tell him, too.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I hope I am, too.”

By then we’d reached my Chrysler. We stood there, hands in our pockets, looking at each other and saying nothing. If I read Bob right, he was as eager to call it a night as I was.

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about tonight?” he asked.

“I guess I covered that when I got up and talked in front of the group.”

“At least you got it off your chest.”

“It helped.”

“It usually does. And what about that business between you and the priest on the way out? You were really getting into it with him.”

“I don’t know, Bob, it’s too complicated to go into now. Some other time, okay? I’ve had a pretty rough twenty-four hours.”

“Suits me fine,” he answered in his usual diplomatic manner.

I don’t think I realized how complicated it really was. This Father Chuck was getting to me in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

I
spent a good part of Monday morning with the door to my office closed, playing and replaying the interview I’d recorded the day before with Mary Margaret Tucker. I compared it to the statement she had made as a witness in the police investigation of the theft of the W-91 Fund. There were few discrepancies because there was practically no overlap at all.

When I’d read through her statement before, it seemed to me that it was rather thin. About all that had been established was that as Mark Conroy’s secretary, she knew the contents of the safe, that on occasions she had seen the pile of money inside, and was aware of the purpose of the W-91 Fund. Yes, she had accepted small amounts of cash from Mark Conroy, which she referred to as “loans,” but she did not know they came from the safe. She confessed that she had been intimate with Conroy on “several” occasions, but that their affair was now over and had ended more than a month before she left her job to begin classes at Wayne State. Quoting the date of her departure and the time she had started back to school, she had thus established her absence at the time the theft had been discovered. She had given her address as a place on Van Dyke and her occupation as “college student.”

What her statement to the investigators lacked were any details of her affair with Mark Conroy—its length, the
amounts of the “loans” she had received in cash, the fact that they had continued as regular payments from the Ad Astra account, and that she had lived rent-free in a building owned by him. There was nothing about the weekends in Chicago and Port Huron, much less a mention of her Las Vegas trip. They had treated her with kid gloves. She had been groomed as a witness for the prosecution right from the start.

The purpose of this exercise of mine was to put together questions for her cross-examination, when the time came. At the top of the sheet on the yellow pad I had in front of me, I jotted down the matter of the combination to the safe. Did she know it? Conroy had said she almost certainly did. That remark she’d made about Henry Mosler.

Mrs. Fenton buzzed me from the outer office. I picked up the phone.

“A county policeman named Bud Billings on the line,” she said.

“Put him through, Mrs. Fenton.”

The usual click-click, and there he was. “Charley? I got trouble.”

“Is it what you were afraid of? The Evans kid?”

“Yeah, his old man got some young lawyer in Mt. Clemens to take the case. They called me from the courthouse to tell me a false arrest suit against me and the county has just been filed.” He paused. I sensed what was coming next. “I was wondering, Charley, could you …?” He left it hanging in the air.

“Could I take you on as a client?”

“Yeah.”

“Bud, I don’t see how I can. If it comes to a trial, I’ll probably be called as a witness.”

“Against me?”

“No, well, maybe technically, but not really. There’s nothing they’ll get from me that’s going to hurt you.”

“You sure of that?”

“Reasonably sure. Just remember that Judge Brown denied
the
Habeas Corpus
I presented about the time the kid was released.”

“That’s important, huh?”

“You bet it is.”

There was a prolonged silence at the other end of the line. “He’s getting back at me—old man Evans, I mean. There was this case about four years ago—”

“Yeah,” I cut him off, “I read about it in the newspapers at the library.”

“Who tipped you?”

“Actually, it was Mrs. Fenton, my secretary here at the office. She is not one of Delbert Evans’s big fans.”

“Neither am I Listen, Charley, they’re taking me off the case.”

“Off the case? Does that mean Sue’s handling it alone?”

“Not exactly. They’re going to move Larry Antonovich from nights starting tomorrow. By the way, she’s working on some new angle, something she says you gave her.”

“I gave her?”

“That’s what she says.”

I tried to think what that might be. All I could come up with was the advice from Mark Conroy I’d passed on to her the night before last at dinner. She certainly hadn’t seemed very receptive to it then.

“I’ll have to ask her about that,” I said. “But Bud, about your immediate problem, I’ve got a suggestion to make. Give John Dibble a call. Walk over and see him. I think he’s the right guy to handle your case.”

“Why do you say that? He’s the country club lawyer.”

“The reason I say that is because he told me that Delbert Evans had come to him and tried to get him to take this false arrest suit. John sent him away, told him he didn’t have a case. So, in effect, he’s already declared for your side. And as far as him being a country club lawyer, he won’t charge any more than I would.”

“Should I tell him you sent me?” Bud asked.

“Suit yourself, but I think you’d both be better off if he thought he was your first choice.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. Okay, then, Charley, I’ll try it your way. Thanks for your trouble.”

“Think nothing of it, Bud. If there’s any other way I can be of help, just let me know. I mean it.”

Poor Bud Billings. He had just begun living every cop’s nightmare. It was only by an accident of years of service that he was down as the arresting officer on Sam Evans’s sheet. The senior investigating officer was the one who signed off on it. Sam had actually been Sue’s project. Or what about Stash Olesky? He’d feel properly guilt ridden, I’m sure. But when you came right down to it, Mark Evola was the one who bore the brunt of the blame. If he hadn’t called that press conference on the steps of the Kerry County Police Headquarters and announced that an arrest was imminent, there would have been no pressure on the cops to hold Sam Evans overnight.

But parceling blame was useless in a situation like this. Bud Billings was the fall guy. And while I’d presented things to him in a positive light, it wasn’t really so certain that he’d win in a walk. If the case went to trial before a jury, then all bets were off. You could never really tell how twelve citizens might vote. I decided to get the name of this young lawyer in Mt. Clemens and find out a little more about him. I’m sure John Dibble wouldn’t mind a little sidelines coaching—if it was offered in the right spirit.

I went back to Mary Margaret Tucker. I was getting tired of listening to her. There was something in her voice I found annoying. She seemed self-regarding and self-indulgent, yet at the same time she assumed an attitude of moral superiority, especially about Vegas. And she carried all that, somehow, in her tone of voice. Surprising. Conroy evidently got a lot from her, and she certainly got a lot from him, materially. Maybe the two of them deserved each other.

I’d made a few more notes on the yellow pad when Mrs. Fenton rang me again from the outer office. It was Stash Olesky this time. He sounded glum.

“You heard about Bud Billings.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I heard.”

“I feel shitty about this,” he said.

“Well…”

“Meaning, maybe that’s just how I should feel, huh?”

“No, come on, Stash. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Mark Evola.”

“Don’t remind me. Was it you who recommended John Dibble to Bud?”

“Yes, but I told him to keep it to himself. Obviously I couldn’t take the case. No need for John ta think he was second choice.”

“Agreed. How about we have lunch and knock this around a little?”

“Where and when?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I always go to Jimmy Doyle’s on Courthouse Square.” He hesitated. “Would that be okay with you?”

Jimmy Doyle’s was basically a bar that served food, good food, but it was still a bar. Stash knew about the booze and me. He was being considerate.

“Jimmy Doyle’s is fine,” I said. “Best corned beef and cabbage in the world.”

“Sue Gillis may be along a little later. You won’t mind that, will you?”

“Certainly not. As long as it’s not your boss. You know how I feel about him.”

“Get real, Charley. Have I ever inflicted Mark Evola on you in the past? No, something’s come up, and I asked Sue to come by and meet me there at one.”

After we agreed to meet at twelve-thirty, I couldn’t help wondering just what this lunch was really about.