Body Count

Part One
1

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

She settled into the chair opposite Father Robert Koesler as he recited, “May the Lord be in your heart and on your lips so that you may rightly confess your sins.”

“It’s been … oh … may be a couple of years since my last confession-good Lord, what the hell is that?”

The priest, startled, followed her gaze and found himself staring at a green growth on the table between them. “It’s a plant,” he explained vaguely.

“You mean it’s alive?”

He smiled. “It won’t bite you.”

“I’m not so sure. It’s about the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. What is it, do you know?”

“It’s a Gynura. It’s also called a purple passion vine.”

“Then how come it’s not purple?”

“Well …” He was beginning to feel uncomfortable. It was the first time he’d been challenged to defend a plant. “… it needs a lot of light to keep its purple. And, as you can see …” His explanation drifted off. He gestured toward the tiny stained glass window. A lighted candle and a low-wattage electric bulb were the only other illumination in the small cubicle. He felt the woman was looking at him as if he were mentally deficient.

“It’s a wonder it’s alive at all … it is alive, isn’t it?” she pursued.

“Uh-huh.”

“If you’ll excuse me, Father, why put any kind of plant in a room like this?”

“The new liturgy for the Sacrament of Reconciliation suggests a table, a Bible, a candle, and some sort of plant in the place set aside for face-to-face confession Speaking of confession; That is why you came, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes … sure. I was shopping across Gratiot at the Eastern Market and I saw your steeple and it was Saturday afternoon. So I thought, why not? And here I am.”

So much for his reputation as a sensitive, kindly confessor to rival St. John Vianney, the holy Cure d’Ars. She just happened to be in the neighborhood. “So, here you are. Two years is kind of a long while, don’t you think?”

“I suppose.” She reflected. “Yeah, it is. Good grief, I can remember the good old days. Once a week. At least once a month.”

Koesler could remember the good old days even more vividly than his penitent.

“The good old days!” she continued: “I used to come to confession and say the same old things over and over: ‘I quarreled with my husband. Lost patience with the kids. Gossiped.’”

Koesler smiled. “Is that what it’s going to be today: Anger? Arguments? Gossip?”

“I wish it were. I got bigger problems than that. Matter of fact, I don’t exactly know why I’m here. It was just on the spur of the moment. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.” She moved as if to leave.

“No; wait.” She did. “There must be a reason why you came today, ” the priest said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Do you live around here?”

“No. Out in the ’burbs. Like I said, I was shopping at the market and-”

“What’s the problem?”

“Uh … the Church.”

“The whole thing?”

“I just can’t believe everything the Church teaches. Maybe I’ve lost my faith. Maybe I’m not a Catholic anymore.”

“Like what don’t you believe? In God? In Jesus Christ?”

“Oh, no, for Pete’s sake, no! Sure I believe in God, in Jesus!”

“Then …?”

“Things like birth control, divorce, remarriage, even abortion. To be perfectly frank, Father, I don’t think the Church has the slightest clue as to what’s going on in the real world.”

“Have you prayed over this?”

“Oh, yeah, I read about that in the papers: Some Cardinal in Rome said that if you don’t believe what the Church teaches, you should go pray until you do. That seems kind of silly to me.”

“Me too.”

“You too!” She was startled.

He shifted in his chair so that he more fully faced her. “When I asked if you prayed over this, I meant more in terms of prayerfully forming your conscience.”

“You did?”

“I imagine just about every institution, bureaucracy, whatever, would like to dictate what its members believe. It keeps things nice, helps keep them just the way the institution wants. But that’s not the way it works for us. I mean, we have an absolute obligation to form our conscience and follow it.”

“That does sort of ring a bell, ” she admitted. “Then what’s all this stuff about praying until you agree?”

“Sort of stretching a point, I guess you could say. I must admit it is kind of tricky. You can see where following his conscience got Hitler, for instance. Nevertheless, it holds true: We’ve got to form our own set of values-what’s right and what’s wrong. The Church tries to be extremely helpful in assisting us to accomplish this. But no one-not me, not the bishop, not even the Pope-can be a substitute for our own personal responsibility. So you may have a big job ahead of you in settling the questions you raise. You know how the institutional Church feels about artificial birth control, remarriage, and the rest. You’d have to have the strongest, most legitimate defensible reasons to disregard all this.

“On the other hand, if you don’t actually believe what you profess to believe, you’d only be kidding yourself. You’ve got to be straight with yourself and straight with God. We can’t fool God. Not in the recesses of our conscience.”

The silence was so total the creaks and groans of the ancient church could be heard.

He had given her a lot to think about. Could she trust a guy who kept a plant in a dungeon? Yet what he said seemed to make sense. She was deeper in doubt now than she had been before coming to confession today. But now it seemed a sort of creative doubt. Henceforth, when she took time for silent prayer, at least she would know what it was she was praying about.

If nothing else, the silence reached her. She had to say something. “I don’t know what to tell you, Father. I gotta get by myself and think this through.”

“Pray it through, ” he amended.

“Yes, that’s right, pray it through. It didn’t take you long to say it, but that’s a lot to consider. I’ve felt so … uh … guilty. It started when the Pope said that the old rules on family planning were right and you couldn’t use birth control. I was sure he was wrong. But, then, how could he be? He’s infallible!”

“He wasn’t being infallible when he said that.”

“Okay. But the Cardinal said you had to agree with the Pope whether he was being infallible or not.”

“An overstatement, I think.”

“Some overstatement! It threw my life into a tailspin … my spiritual life, that is.”

Another pause. Finally, Koesler asked, “Doyou want to go to confession? Do you want to mention some sin of your past life if you’re not aware of any sin now? Do you want me to give you absolution?”

Her brow was profoundly knit. “No, no … not now. Maybe I’ll be back. Would it be okay if I come back that I come to you? I mean, I’m not from your parish.”

“It’ll be fine if you want to talk to me. When you leave, why don’t you take one of the parish bulletins in the vestibule? It’ll give you the times when we hear confessions at St. Joe’s.”

She smiled. “I’ll do that.”

He blessed her and she left.

It seemed to Father Koesler that he’d been engaged in this sort of activity-demythologizing Church teaching-for an awfully long time now. Since shortly after he’d been ordained thirty-eight years ago.

Then, as now, the most frequent misunderstanding was over birth control. Just before Koesler had been ordained, Pope Pius XII had, in effect, blessed the rhythm method of family planning. Now it seemed archaic. But at the time it was a monumental relief for Catholics, who, until then, had had no acceptable recourse but abstinence.

In his early days of hearing confessions, Koesler had been surprised by the number of penitents who told him that some previous priest had given “permission” to use the rhythm method for a specific number of months. Would Koesler grant an extension?

At that point Koesler had felt forced to explain that it was not the priest’s place to treat rhythm as a privilege to be granted, withheld or measured. If advice was sought, priests could advise, but they had no business beyond offering their opinion. And then only if the opinion was requested.

Once again, it was a matter of the individual’s conscience being the final authority. And it was the individual’s responsibility to shape that conscience.

No one had followed the previous penitent into the confessional. No surprise there. In the “good old days, ” as the woman had put it, in most parishes there was seldom an interval between penitents. People who confessed once or twice a year did so at Christmas and Easter, and were customarily scolded for not coming more often. It had been, as the woman said, a monthly experience for most, though more often for some.

Slowly-after the Second Vatican Council in the early sixties-things changed. Perhaps the most radical change, as far as confession was concerned, was a transition in the concept of sin. Particularly in the Catholic concept of mortal sin. Upon disturbing reflection, it made little sense to many that God would vacillate between sending one to heaven or hell dependent on a single event-missing Mass of a Sunday, eating a pork chop on Friday.

With one thing and another, the “good old days” seemed gone forever.

It was difficult, from the confines of the confessional, to determine whether or not there was anyone else in the church. “Old St. Joseph’s,” as it was called more often than not, truly was an elderly edifice. Established in 1856, it had now been declared a historic landmark. In addition to an abundance of Gothic arches, it was overflowing with pictures, windows, and statues depicting God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph of course, and lots of other saints. Over the years in the archdiocese of Detroit, eleven other churches had been dedicated to St. Joseph. But “Old St. Joe’s” in downtown Detroit had been the first.

Once it had been a thriving parish with an adjacent Catholic high school for boys, run by the Christian Brothers. But with the shift in population to the suburbs, St. Joe’s had become merely a historical as well as an architectural curiosity. Then, with the erection of a series of nearby high-rise apartments and condominiums, “Old St. Joe’s” had the potential for a new life.

Father Koesler, after a lengthy pastorate in a suburban parish, had been pastor of St. Joe’s just a little more than a year now. And, due in large part to his diligent work, there had been a significant comeback. At least Sunday Mass attendance was healthy and growing.

Koesler’s satisfying thoughts about his flourishing flock were interrupted by a woman who entered the confessional and seated herself across from him.

Her appearance was in stark contrast to that of the previous woman. Koesler could not help notice the difference. He knew neither, but this woman was at least vaguely familiar. If he was not mistaken, she had been attending Mass at St. Joe’s for the past few months.

But the extreme contrast! What a coincidence that they had appeared, one after the other, on this leisurely Saturday afternoon.

Woman “A” had been dressed appropriately for just what she claimed she had been doing-shopping at the Eastern Market. She had worn faded jeans, sneakers, a sweatshirt several sizes too large, and no makeup.

Woman “B” wore a well-fitted business suit that accentuated her attractive matronly figure. Her hair looked as if it had been “done” recently. Her makeup had been carefully, artfully applied. But her lips, unlike those of Woman “A,” were thin, tight, and disapproving.

Koesler waited a moment, then offered, “Peace be with you.”

“And also with you, ” she responded.

Well, at least she was familiar with the updated formula. At this point either the priest or the penitent might have suggested a relevant Scripture reading. But she said nothing, so, in the tentative circumstances, he thought it better not to delay getting to the heart of the matter.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she said, after a moment. “My last confession was six years ago.”

“You recall that it was six years?”

“Yes.”

Odd that without hesitation she could pinpoint her last previous confession at six years. Not “about” six years, “approximately” six years, six years “more or less,” but “six years” exactly. “Was there something special that happened in your life when you made your last confession?”

She almost smiled. “I left the convent.”

Surprised, Koesler asked, “Did you leave the Church too then?”

“No, no, not that … at least I kept coming to Sunday Mass pretty faithfully. But-”

“Did you go to confession regularly while you were a nun?”

She shrugged. “I suppose that was the problem.” She thought for a moment. “No, maybe it was more the symptom.”

Koesler’s look was a question.

“I was a convert in my teens …” She hesitated. “Do you have time for this?”

He nodded. “I’m in no hurry.”

She shifted in the chair and looked away. She was remembering. “My parents had no religion, so they gave me none. Sometime during high school, I felt I was just drifting, especially compared with some of my classmates who had … faith. Who were committed to one or another religion. I became interested in Catholicism … probably because a close friend was Catholic.”

Koesler almost smiled as he recalled the old story of the Catholic girl who wanted her fiance to convert to her religion. To please her, he started taking instructions-and ended up going to the seminary and becoming a priest. Had this woman’s “close friend” been a young man who, wanting to marry her, had gotten her interested in his Catholic religion only to lose out when, tragically for him, she entered the convent and became a nun? Koesler didn’t interrupt. It was her story.

“Anyway, I found just about everything I seemed to need in Catholicism. So, as I’ve already mentioned, I entered the convent. I became a nun.

“You asked if I went to confession regularly when I was a nun.” Her smile was bitter. “Every week-to a priest whom we called our regular confessor.”

“And, ” Koesler completed her thought, “four times a year to one who was called your ‘extraordinary’ confessor.”

She glanced at him. “That’s right.”

Early in his priesthood, Koesler had been assigned as a regular confessor for a group of almost thirty nuns. Thirty nuns confessing every week! In their sinless lives these women had not prepared lesson plans, failed in promptitude, and committed similar crimes. Why a regular confessor? Who knew? There was even a regulation that, for a valid confession, a screen was required to separate the confessor and the penitent nun. Prompting the story of the nun who wanted to go to confession to her pastor in the rectory where there was no established confessional. So the priest held up a fly swatter between them.

“Then, ” Koesler said, “there came a time when there were no more regular or extraordinary confessors.”

She nodded. “Then, ” she added, “there came a time when the ‘community’ disappeared. So many of my Sisters left. So few women were entering. So many nuns decided to get into apostolates that had nothing to do with the purpose of our order.” She shook her head, “There was nothing left.”

“So you left religious life.”

“There was nothing to leave.”

Koesler knew many former nuns. Most were leading well adjusted, productive lives. Many were married. If anything, this one did not appear to be all that well adjusted. Something was troubling her. What?

“How have you done since leaving?” he asked.

“Materially? Quite well.”

“Oh?”

“I’m in estate planning.”

Appropriate. The way she came across, she did not appear to be the type who would work well person to person. Better that she juggle figures than do counseling.

“I have no financial worries, ” she continued. “I’ve got a comfortable apartment at 1300 Lafayette.”

Thirteen hundred Lafayette, among one of the pricier high rises on the edge of downtown, was within walking distance of St. Joe’s. Koesler knew it well. “I’ve rung some doorbells there,” he said, “But I haven’t run into you.”

“You probably called during the day. I’m seldom home until late in the evening. But I’ve heard of you. I’ve attended Sunday Mass here over the past couple of months. You seem down to earth. So I decided to try confession.”

“You’re familiar with the new form? What we call the Sacrament of Reconciliation?”

She smiled, but there was no humor in her eyes. “I saw the signs outside the confessional: private confession on the other side, face-to-face here. I chose this. Yes, of course I’m familiar with it. Vatican II happened some twenty-five years ago. I left the convent only six years ago. Actually, this is one of the very few changes that I came to like. I always thought the screens, the sliding panels, the anonymity was silly.”

“That brings up a question: The Council, indeed, took place in the early sixties. What took you so long to leave?”

She seemed overcome by the memory of all those years. “I had a commitment. I was determined to fulfill it. As it turned out, I should have left years earlier. By the time I was forced to decide, there was nothing left. I was skating on water. All the reasons I had chosen Catholicism over the other religions disappeared after that Council. I just wouldn’t let myself believe it. I kept telling myself the changes were God’s will-that, in time, things would work out. I was wrong. And, in my mistake, I wasted some twenty years of my life-twenty very precious years.” She seemed drained.

So that was it. The lady was bitter. Well, in a way, she deserved to be resentful. On the other hand, the wasted time was her own responsibility. No one had barred the convent door, imprisoning her. Although in her circumstances a decision to leave or stay had to be painful, nonetheless it remained her decision to make.

“Isn’t it a bit overdrawn, ” he suggested, “to say that your time in religious life was a complete waste? I’m sure you accomplished lots of things you can be justly proud of. You don’t seem the type who would just vegetate all those years-or stand in some corner and pout.”

She sat up straight, head erect. “Oh, yes, I accomplished some things. I signed up to teach, and I taught. That’s not the point. The point is I wasted my life. The life I should have lived. The things I should have done … they’re gone. They will never come back.”

Koesler reckoned that nothing would be accomplished by trying to find a silver lining in the seemingly impenetrable cloud she had made of her years as a nun. Not now in any case.

He led her through a confession that revealed little beyond her having been a careless Catholic-missing Sunday Mass, neglecting any sort of purposeful spiritual life, and the like. For a penance, he urged her to try to set aside a regular time to read and meditate on the Bible. She expressed sorrow for sin. He absolved her and, seemingly somewhat mellowed, she left.

Strange: consecutive penitents, women of approximately the same age, yet how different from each other. They were almost the embodiment of the present delicate state of the Church, the disparate byproducts of that Second Vatican Council.

For some Catholics, the Council had not come anywhere near to achieving what it had set out to do. Penitent “A” would be one product of that.

For others, the Council had virtually destroyed the Church they loved. Penitent “B” fell into that category. For the rest-the passive majority? — something had happened, they knew not what. But give them a relatively quiet Sunday liturgy without too many demands made of them, and they would go along with most of this foolishness-even the handshake of peace.

Koesler’s mental ramblings were cut short by the sound of someone entering the opposite confessional, the one labeled “private confessions.”

Actually, the “private confessions” confessional essentially was no different from the ones Catholics had been used to for centuries. Equipped with a kneeler and an armrest fixed to the wall facing the priest, the cubicle had a rectangular opening fitted with a curtain and/or screen and a sliding panel that could be opened and closed by the priest. The purpose of this arrangement was to offer anonymity to the penitent, who waited, in the dark-there was no light fixture-for the priest to open the panel, at which point the penitent was instructed to speak in whispers. Thus unseen and speaking only in a whisper, the penitent’s anonymity was virtually guaranteed. Almost all Catholic churches were now well equipped with the “face-to-face” setup as well as some form of the earlier confidential facility.

In Old St. Joe’s, one of the former private cubicles had been remodeled and outfitted with the penitent’s chair, the table holding the Bible, a candle, and, in this case, the execrable plant.

Koesler could hear the unseen penitent’s fumbling footsteps as he felt his way in the dark before dropping to his knees on the low step. Without bothering to turn his head toward the curtain and screen that separated him from the penitent, Koesler slid open the panel.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” came the whisper. “My last confession was about a month ago.”

Seems like old times-the whispered voice, the monthly confession.

“I was angry at work a few times. And a couple of times I blew up at my secretary. But she is incompetent. Only I can’t fire her. And … here’s the one that’s got me puzzled: My wife says I’m creating a wrong attitude in my son … giving him a false set of values.”

“Oh?”

“See, one day last week, my son’s school showed a movie on Nelson Mandela. The kids who went to the movie were supposed to donate a dollar. The proceeds were to go to the Afro-American Museum. I made sure he had the dollar before I left for work. So when he got home from school, my wife asked him about the movie. He told her that the projector broke down in the middle of the first reel. And, he said, they didn’t even give his dollar back. Then my wife bawled him out for being so stingy. She told him how the dollar went to a good cause and he shouldn’t even think about getting it back.

“But I didn’t know about any of this. So when I got home from work, I asked him how the movie was. And he told me how the projector broke down so he didn’t get to see the movie. And then I asked him if they gave him his dollar back.”

Father Koesler’s shoulders shook with repressed laughter. Gently, he sided with the man’s wife, while sympathizing with the penitent’s initial reaction to the contribution with no dividend. After issuing a penance, as the penitent recited the prayer of contrition, Koesler absolved him.

After a few moments, Koesler heard the front door of the church clang shut. Which meant that the man who’d just confessed had departed, or that a new penitent had arrived-or both. From inside the confessional, there was no way the priest could tell.

Koesler leaned back in his chair and again became lost in thought. His memory stretched back into the days before the Council.

Twenty-five or thirty or more years ago, Saturday afternoons usually found an unending line of kids streaming in and out of the confessional. All said virtually the same thing: They “just obeyed” their mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, baby-sitters, garbage collectors-casual strangers, for that matter. Not only were they habitually disobedient, they also committed “adultry” before they knew what it was or what it involved.

Then there was always the kid whose previous confession had been just last week, but in that time, he’d missed Sunday Mass four times.

Don’t ask! Interrupt the little ones in their by-rote recitations of memorized sins, and the computers in their little heads would shortcircuit, reducing them to impenetrable silence. Then how to get them to finish the list and conclude the confession?

In this, Koesler had proved a quick learner-uncharacteristically. After only a couple of minor disasters with kids stopped dead in their tracks because he sought clarification, he just accepted whatever they said-no matter how contradictory or impossible-issued a penance of a certain number of prayers, and absolved them from their fancied transgressions or peccadillos.

At one time during his early years as a priest, Koesler figured that was how he would die: on a Saturday afternoon, listening to the repetitive confessions of children-from boredom.

But in all likelihood it was not to be. Kids were no longer coming to confession weekly, daily. Adults did not come. Nobody came. Not as they had. The weeks before Christmas and Easter had once been Monday-through-Saturday, dawn-till-night confessions. Now a few hours would take care of the entire load.

Abruptly, the door to the open confessional was flung back. There stood-no, towered-one of the largest men Koesler had ever seen. His body was mountainous. His head was huge. His lips, his mouth, his teeth, raised visions of Jaws. His ears were sagging shutters; his bulbous off-centered nose seemed to have been smashed many times over. His eyes seemed to have been put in his face as an afterthought; so small were they that had it not been for their beadiness they would have almost disappeared in the moon-crater face.

Why did he have the feeling he had seen this man before? In a previous parish? At a meeting? In a gathering? The news media, television, the newspapers? The boxing ring? The movies?

The man seemed as startled to see Koesler as Koesler was to see him. “What the hell! What’re you doin’ here?”

“I’m …” Koesler had to think about this one, “I’m hearing confessions.”

“Then where’s the wall? Where’s the goddam window?”

Ah, that was it. “It’s on the other side. You came in the wrong door. Go in the other door … the one that’s marked ‘private confessions.’”

The door slammed shut. Koesler could hear him grousing as he barged through the other door; the entire cubicle shook as that too slammed in the behemoth’s wake.

Koesler slid the small window open. He could hear the man groping his way toward the kneeler. Koesler could hear it all but could make out nothing in the dark. But of course he had already seen the man. So much for anonymity.

Finally, the man was kneeling-and grunting. Then, after several extended moments of silence, “How do you start this thing again?”

“Bless me, Father …” Koesler prompted.

“Bless me, Father …” Silence. “Then what?”

“… for I have sinned.”

“… for I have sinned. Oh, yeah: Bless me. Father, for I have sinned. That’s right.”

Another silence.

“My last confession. …”

“My last confession …?” the man wondered.

“How long has it been since you went to confession last?”

“Oh. Oh … oh … I guess my last confession was the first time.”

“Your last confession was your first confession? When you were a child?”

“Near as I can figure.”

“Not even when you were confirmed?”

“What’s that?”

“Confirmation. When a bishop confirms you. You weren’t confirmed?”

“I don’t think so. I would have remembered that, I guess.”

This, thought Koesler, was one of God’s neglected children. The man’s swarthy cast, together with his features and pronounced accent, suggested a Mediterranean heritage, possibly Sicilian. In Koesler’s experience, such people frequently were either extremely religious or total strangers to church. He recalled the man who had stopped in at a Detroit rectory and asked for Monsignor Vizmara, only to be told that monsignor had died five years previously. “Oh, that’ sa too bad,” the man said, “he was-a my regular confessor.”

In any case, something extraordinary must have happened for this man to have come in after all these years. What?

“All right, ” Koesler said, “it’s been a great number of years since you’ve been to confession. What brings you back?”

“Well, see, I killed a priest.”

“You what!?” Koesler suddenly realized that not only had he and his penitent been speaking aloud instead of whispering, but that he himself had just shouted. Koesler was embarrassed. “You what?” he repeated in a whisper.

“I said I killed a priest. You hard of hearing?”

“No. And you should whisper, like I am … now.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“You killed a priest, ” Koesler repeated, his tone a mixture of wonderment and near astonishment.

“That’s what I did all right.” He was not whispering.

“Well … why?”

“A contract.”

“A contract?”

“Yeah. A contract. Somebody put out a contract on him. They gave it to me. I felt bad about it. I never wasted a priest before.”

“You never wasted … uh … killed a priest before. Does that mean you have killed others-others who were not priests?”

“Oh, yeah. But never a priest. This was my first time.” His tone communicated pride in his achievement.

In all his years as a priest, Koesler had heard murder confessed only a couple of times. He considered murder the ultimate crime, if not sin, and he was shocked. But he tried to regain his composure as he forced himself to consider the theological implications of murder.

Obviously, no matter how repentant a murderer might be, there was nothing he could do for his victim. There were other considerations though. Damnum emergens-as a result of the murder, were there any ramifications, complications, consequences?

“Did anyone depend on this priest?” Koesler asked in a whisper. “I mean, was he supporting anyone, as far as you know?”

“He wasn’t married.” The man was definitely not whispering. “At least I don’t think he was married. He couldna been married, could he … I mean, he was a priest after all!”

“You should whisper, ” Koesler admonished. “I mean, was he supporting any relative-a mother, sister, something like that? Did anyone rely on him for support-financial support?” The implication being that if anyone suffered as a consequence of this killing, the murderer would incur that responsibility.

“Geez, I don’t think so.”

“Has any innocent person been accused of the crime?”

“Are you kiddin’? I just did it yesterday. What’s with all these questions?”

“I’m trying to cover all the possibilities. For you to be truly sorry for what you did you have, to be willing to make reparations for any evil consequences-any bad things that happen because you killed this man, this priest. For instance, if an innocent person were to be accused of this crime-especially if an innocent person were convicted of the crime-you would have to come forward and confess publicly. Would you do that?”

Pause.

“That’s a safe enough bet, ” the man said finally. “If they tagged somebody, I’d sing. But I wouldn’t put my last chip on that happening.” Pause. Then, “These are crazy questions. I thought you’d want to know who bought it.”

“Who bought it? You mean who got killed? Well, it’s not absolutely necessary for your confession. But, yes, of course, I’d like very much to know the name.”

“Keating.”

“Keating? John Keating? The pastor of St. Waldo’s?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But why? Why would you want to kill Father Keating? No, wait: You don’t have to answer that. I just got a bit carried away.”

“That’s okay. Like I told you, he had a contract on him. He had too many markers he couldn’t buy back.”

“Markers …?”

“Debts. Gambling debts. Everything. Horses, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, numbers … you name it, he had a piece of it. Only he wasn’t too savvy. He ran up some steep bills. He couldn’t make good-so, the contract.”

The penitent couldn’t see Koesler shaking his head. “This is hard to take, ” the priest whispered. “Poor Jake …”

“There’s something else, ” the penitent said.

Koesler shook himself as if to clear his head. “More?”

“I dunno. Maybe it’s a sin the way we stashed him. I dunno. I don’t think so. But maybe. I was gonna ask …”

“The way you stashed him?”

“I had him buried with Father Kern.”

“Kern? Monsignor Clem Kern?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right, he was a whatchamacallit-a monsignor.”

“You had Father Keating buried with Clem Kern? I don’t understand. Why? How?”

“How? We just went to the cemetery last night, slipped the guard a mickey, dug up Father Kern, opened the coffin, put Keating in with him-Father Kern wasn’t all that big, there was room-and planted the box again. It was very smooth. No one would tumble.”

“My God! Why would you do a thing like that?”

“Why? Well, see, we’re usedta sending messages when we hit somebody. You know, you musta read about ’em. Like when we dump a body in the drink we send the family a dead fish. It tells ’em the guy is sleepin’ with the fishes. It’s a message. Sometimes a warning … you know.”

“But why would you bury the poor man with somebody else?”

“Hey! You wouldn’t want us to return the body with its hands cut off and stuffed in the guy’s mouth. I mean the guy was a priest, for God’s sake. We had to treat him with some kinda respec’, you know.”

Koesler was beginning to wonder if any of this made any kind of sense. “Well, then, why Clem Kern? Why did you bury him with Monsignor Kern?”

“It made sense. I mean Father Kern was the kinda priest the guy shoulda been. Besides, Father Kern always took care-a people who were down on their luck, even priests. And there ain’t no doubt about it, this guy Keating had definitely run outta luck. Anyway, I was wonderin’ if that might be a sin too … I mean buryin’ the guy with somebody else? I never did that before. So I never thought about it until after we did it.”

Koesler ran his index finger across his brow. Even though the church was pleasantly cool, he was perspiring. “I don’t think so. We’ve got enough to deal with here without spending much time on your cock-amamy burial detail.”

“My what?”

“Never mind. Let’s see … you murdered Father Keating. And you mentioned there were others. How many people have you killed, anyway?”

“Oh … I dunno. Right off the top I couldn’t come up with a figure.”

“That many!”

“Not many. But I’d have to think about it a while.”

“Well … good heavens … are you sorry for all these murders?”

“Not really. They were stric’ly business. Hey, that’s what I do for a living. You know. It’s not natural to be sorry for your job. I mean, a man’s gotta have some pride, you know.”

“Good Lord! Well, what about other sins?”

“I didn’t do nothin.’”

“Do you go to Mass on Sundays? Did you ever go to Mass?”

“No. Like I said, I didn’t do nothin’.”

“I give up. I don’t know where you fit in the theology manuals, but you must be confined to the fine print. Well, let’s see, you came here to confess killing Father Keating …”

“… and planting him with Father Kern.”

“Yes, and burying him with Father Kern … that about it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Then I guess I’d better give you absolution, though I can’t guarantee that it’ll take.”

“Do your best, Father. That’s good enough for me.”

“And for your penance … wow! I don’t suppose you know any prayers?”

“I think I knew the ‘Our Father’ once. But I ain’t sure. Tell you what: How about I go home? I got a record of Sinatra singin’ the ‘Our Father.’ How about if I listen to the record?”

Inspired. “Okay. I’ll give you absolution now, but I’m not exactly sure why. Except that’s why you came here, and you very definitely are a sinner.”

“Ain’t I supposed to do somethin’? Seems to me when I went to confession the last time I had to say somethin’ while the priest blessed me.”

“What a memory! Okay, repeat after me: ‘Oh, my God …’”

“Oh, my God …”

Maybe that’s as far as we ought to go, thought Koesler. But he continued. “‘I am heartily sorry …’”

“I am heartily sorry …”

Truth in advertising, thought Koesler. But he continued to lead the man through the traditional Act of Contrition, and then gave him absolution.

The man got up, grunted, then stumbled his way out-leaving the priest somewhat the worse for wear.

Did I do the right thing? Koesler asked himself over and over again. What would somebody else have done in my shoes? Undoubtedly some other priest-maybe most priests-would have just told the guy to hit the road. Should the man have been denied absolution? Who could say for sure?

Koesler had been hearing confessions for thirty-eight years. The majority were familiar, repetitious, routine, dull. Once in a great while a confession could be a small miracle in removing an oppressive burden of guilt or as a vehicle for transforming a life. Some few confessions proved unnerving. But this confession-the one he’d just heard-was the oddest ever.

Ostensibly, the man had come for absolution. Was his case so far removed from that of neurotics and psychotics Koesler had absolved in the past-sometimes entire hospital wards of the pitiful people one by one?

In the final analysis-the bottom line, as current culture would have it-this remained a matter between the sinner and God. Koesler believed, firmly, that Jesus gave His disciples the power to forgive sin and that the disciples, in turn, passed on this power to their successors. Koesler could see the wisdom of it. The talking cure. Long before psychotherapy stumbled upon it, God would have known what would comfort and relieve His children. But no matter what power the priest might have as an intermediary, or how important it was that people should forgive each other, God forgave sin.

So it did not much matter whether the murderer was sincere or not in his expressed repentance, his contrition for what he’d done; God would not be tricked. Should a sinner try to fool God, it would be the sinner who played the fool.

Abruptly, Koesler became aware that it had been quite a while since the penitent-the murderer-had left the confessional. He glanced at his ever-present watch: 7:30. He’d been sitting there half an hour overtime, with no penitents on deck. He had fallen behind in his Saturday evening routine. He had to lock the church and return to the rectory.

Hurriedly, he blew out the candle, turned out the light, and stepped from the confessional.

He was pulled up short by the sight of a figure seated in a nearby pew.

The very first thing Koesler noticed was the young man’s clerical garb: black suit, black vest, and at the top the roman collar-not the fairly modern and more comfortable narrow white plastic insert, but the full white collar that encircled the neck. Koesler also noticed French cuffs peeking out of the jacket sleeves.

The young man stayed seated, smiling all the while.

Koesler approached him. “Father?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Is there something I can do for you?”

“I hope so. There may even be something I can do for you. I’m your new associate.”