While Father was away, I followed the case in the news. I saw a picture of Shelly Lassiter in the paper one morning under a headline that read, D.A. SEEKS MAXIMUM AGAINST PRIEST. Lassiter was a thin, pinched-looking woman of early middle age. She had short dark hair and was wearing glasses in the picture. She talked about all the recent scandals involving clergy in the state and said that no one, not even a priest, was above the law. She called Father a “monster” hiding behind a priest’s collar.
Mr. Leo, not one to be outdone, got in a few licks of his own. He was able to get some of the counts dropped, others reduced, though Judge Askins wouldn’t buy the statute of limitations business. The judge ruled that Father would stand trial. In the news one evening, I saw Mr. Leo, in front of his office on Main Street, reading a statement. “Father Devlin categorically denies these slanderous attacks,” he said. “He has faithfully discharged his pastoral duties for close to a quarter of a century. In that time he has gained not only the respect and love but the trust of the parishioners of St. Luke’s and of the people of Hebron Falls. And I am confident that after a jury hears all the facts, they will acquit my client of all charges so he can get back to where he belongs—serving his flock.”
We didn’t hear much from the Robys that summer. Mr. Leo said that the D.A. and their own attorney Mason Elliott would keep them quiet and “under wraps” until the trial. Just as he’d predicted, Mr. Leo was able to uncover some dirt on the brothers. He’d hired a private detective to do some snooping. They had lived in town only two years, which explained why I didn’t recall them clearly. After they moved away, they’d had their problems, all right. They’d both been in and out of foster homes and reform schools and prison. The older one, Russell, had a record longer than your arm. He’d been arrested for shoplifting, breaking and entering, stealing a car, insurance fraud, you name it. The younger one, Bobby, wasn’t any sweetheart either. He’d been locked up for assault, once for hitting his wife, another time for attempted rape. And both had had their problems with drugs. They’d been in and out of detox several times. They surely weren’t the little angels their lawyer, Mason Elliott, had painted them to be.
Even the Church got in the act, though they tried to hedge their bets, play the safe middle ground. A spokesman for the diocese, Father Wozniak, a young fellow with curly blond hair and wire-rim glasses, appeared on the television with that Andrea Ladd: “Our legal counsel is in a dialogue with Mr. Elliott in hopes of getting help for the Robys,” he said. “They are, of course, in our prayers. At the same time the Church steadfastly supports Father Devlin’s contention of innocence.” Contention of innocence indeed, I thought. The gutless bastards. Pete was right. If push come to shove they’d hang him out to dry quicker than you could say “Hail Mary full of grace.” When Andrea Ladd asked Wozniak about the priest’s removal as pastor of St. Luke’s before the trial, he said only that Father Devlin was being relieved of his duties until the “situation” was resolved. He called it was a much-deserved rest. Some rest, I thought.
During the months leading up to the trial, I continued to get phone calls from people in town. Some were still supportive. There were those who offered money for the legal defense fund Pete and a few others had set up. Others donated their time licking envelopes or making phone calls or volunteering to go door to door getting names on a petition asking that Father be allowed to continue in some capacity until the trial. We had a pancake breakfast and several car washes to raise money. We even held a prayer vigil in front of St. Luke’s one night. People showed up, though much fewer than we’d hoped. Still and all, it was good to see them there. We held candles and locked arms. We prayed for Father. Several of the young folk played guitar and sang songs. One song was “We Shall Overcome.” When I walked back to the rectory that night, I felt good for a change. People were still behind Father.
But a growing number of folks in town weren’t so supportive. In fact, just the opposite. Many, including some who’d supposedly been Father’s “good” friends, thought he should just resign for the good of the parish. They said a trial would only drag the church through the mud. Whether he was innocent or guilty, some wanted him simply to go away. At a meeting of the parish board over in the community center, there was a heated debate between those that backed Father Jack and those that wanted him to step down. It got pretty ugly, with people not only attacking Father but each other as well. A young man who was new to the parish and had small children in Bible study class, accused Josh Pelkey, whose children were grown, of not caring about kids.
“It’s damn easy for you to back Father Devlin,” said the man, “it’s not your kids that’ll suffer.”
Some phoned the rectory to cancel their financial contributions, others to put a stop to wedding or baptism plans, and still others to say they were switching parishes, going over to St. Catherine’s in Montville or to Our Lady of Hope down in Belmont. Despite it being Father Duncan who was now handling the altar server training, parents called to say their kids wouldn’t be coming anymore. They gave various excuses. Only Lillian Hodel, who along with her husband Clifford ran Hodel’s Market, came out and said it was because of Father’s situation. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always liked Father Jack,” Lillian told me. “But I have to think of my daughter.” Masses now were sparsely attended, even the big Sunday one at half nine, which used to overflow the main church and spill over into the annex. Now it had fewer than a hundred people, and hardly any children to speak of. People squirmed in the pews as they tried to hear Father Duncan, who spoke just above a whisper. That was of course when I still bothered to go to church, back before Father’s permanent replacement arrived.
This whole thing was beginning to tear the parish—in fact, the entire town—apart. There were editorials in the newspaper. Some backed Father, referring to all the good he’d done during his time here or asking that we suspend judgment till he had his day in court. But even more took the opposite view. As Mr. Leo had warned, they assumed Father was guilty just because he was a priest. And they thought it scandalous that such a thing had gone on in their town, in their church, or that anybody, least of all a Catholic, would lift a finger to help such a man. Here and there around The Falls, you’d see signs up calling for Father’s permanent removal or one of those TORCH leaflets tacked to a phone pole with some quote from the Bible about sin: THEN THE LORD RAINED UPON SODOM AND UPON GOMORRAH BRIMSTONE AND FIRE. One afternoon I came out of Hodel’s Market to find one jammed under my windshield wiper: CASTRATE THE BASTARD.
As the weeks rolled by that summer, I found myself staying in the rectory more and more. Before all this, I liked getting out, getting some exercise. Walking into town to do my shopping or to mail something for Father. Or in the evening, after I cleaned up from supper and while Father was working in his study, I might walk over to the park and watch the kids playing on the swings. But no more. I didn’t like bumping into folks and having them give me the third degree about Father. What did I think? And what was going to happen? And had I heard Mrs. Such-and-such had said So-and-so told her this or that or some other bloody nonsense. Why I couldn’t stand listening to all that rubbish. No sir, I could not. Besides, Mr. Leo had told me to keep my mouth shut about the case and that’s what I aimed to do. I even avoided working in my garden. I worried that someone passing by out on the street would see me and take it as an open invitation to come over and start jabbering. Weeds overtook it and with a lack of water the heat scorched my plants. They withered, turned yellow, and slowly died.
I tried to keep busy, but without Father around there wasn’t a whole lot needed doing. I realized it wasn’t so much a house I looked after as the man who lived in it. So I’d make up these lists of jobs just to keep myself out of trouble. I went through all of Father’s things—straightening out his drawers, arranging his shirts by color, tossing out a ratty old sweatshirt or a sock lacking its mate. Father tended to wear things till he was coming out at the elbows and every now and then while he was away, I liked to go through his things, weeding stuff out for the Goodwill box. I ironed his trousers and hunted for missing buttons and loose threads. I packed his winter clothes in boxes, threw in some mothballs, and brought it all up to the cedar closet in the attic.
I cleaned the house with a vengeance. I did things I’d been meaning to get to for ages. I got up on a stepladder and dusted the chandelier in the foyer. I scrubbed all the venetian blinds, every last one. I removed the food and condiments from the kitchen cabinets and put down new shelf liners. I finally got around to cleaning out the hall closet. I took some paste wax and had a go at the banisters, buffing them till I could see my distorted face in them staring back at me.
When I did go out it was usually only to drive over to Montville, where I’d taken to doing most of my shopping, though with just me and occasionally Father Duncan staying for dinner, I didn’t need much in the way of groceries. Once, seeing as I was going to be over there on some errand anyway, I decided to bake a soda bread and bring it to Mr. Leo. I was hoping to use it as an excuse to find out how Father’s case was coming along. He wasn’t in though, and I ended up giving it to his secretary.
“This is for Mr. Leo,” I said.
“Who?” replied Gina Demarco. She was seated at her desk and reading one of those supermarket checkout magazines, the sort where some woman’s always getting herself pregnant by a chimpanzee or some such nonsense. “Oh, you mean Mr. Manzetti.”
“Would you see he gets that?” I said. “By the way, any news on Father Devlin’s case?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give out information about clients,” she said.
“But he’s a close friend, Father Jack.”
“I’m sorry. You’ll have to ask Lee—I mean, Mr. Manzetti.”
Mostly though I stayed cooped up in the rectory. Sometimes entire days would slip by and except for a phone call or Dina, I wouldn’t hear another human voice. Although Father Duncan filled in for Mass and heard confession, he didn’t stay at the rectory but would drive over from Worcester and then head back after performing his duties. He said he had other commitments at the monastery, and I believed him, though I couldn’t help but wonder if I was in his shoes would I like staying here, what with everything going on. Rumor had it they were going to send us a full-time replacement but weeks passed and no one came. It was almost as if the diocese just wanted to forget about us entirely. The big house suddenly felt like an enormous cave with just me in it, sounds echoing throughout the place. During the day it wasn’t so bad. I had my work. I’d keep busy, going from one mindless task to the next. Trying not to stop. Trying to lose myself in my work. So I wouldn’t fall into one of my moods and start hitting the bottle.
But the nights were another story altogether. There was nothing to do, no one to talk to. Nothing to keep me from chewing on my own morbid thoughts, till they left a foul taste in my mouth. One evening, I decided I couldn’t stand it any longer. I needed to get out, be with people. I got cleaned up, put on some makeup and walked down West Street to the Falls Tavern. It felt good to be out of the house. The day had been hot and oppressive, but the summer evening had turned cooler the way it does up in the mountains. There was even a light breeze blowing. Walking down the street in the dark, peering into the windows at families doing ordinary things like watching television or eating supper, I felt a little better. Things weren’t as bad as they seemed. When this business was over, I told myself, Father would come back and everything would return to normal.
Inside the Falls Tavern, I took a seat at the bar near Reuben. He was doing paperwork, and Ed, who worked nights, was tending bar.
“She’ll have a Jameson straight up,” he said to Ed.
“No, no,” I said. “Make that a ginger ale.”
“So how’s it going?” Reuben asked.
I shrugged.
“They have a date for the trial?”
“It was supposed to be in September. But last I heard it was postponed again.”
“Somebody told me you’re going to testify for him?” he asked, looking up from his paperwork.
“And why shouldn’t I?”
“Just wondering.”
“Someone needs to stick up for him.”
“I got nothing personally against the man, Maggie. You know that.”
“But most around here would just as soon skip the trial altogether,” I said, raising my voice. “Go straight to lynching him.”
“Easy,” Reuben said. He nodded his head toward a table over in the corner. “See who’s over there?”
It was Joe Abruzzi and a couple of the salesmen from the dealership he owned.
“Let the bastard hear me,” I said. “I don’t care a fiddler’s fart.”
“Maggie, don’t go out of your way to make trouble for yourself.”
“I changed my mind, Ed. I’ll take that drink after all.”
I was on my third glass of Jameson when I felt this tap on my shoulder. I turned to see Joe Abruzzi.
“How are you, Ma Quinn?”
I recovered enough to say, “Just fine.”
Abruzzi was a tall, thin man with narrow, stooped shoulders. He had a year-round, orangish tan he got from going down to Florida all the time.
“And Father Devlin?”
Reuben cut in. “I don’t want any trouble here, okay, Mr. Abruzzi?”
“No trouble,” the man said. “Just asking her how Father is.”
“Oh, he’s fine and dandy,” I said. “Couldn’t be better.”
“It’s just terrible what’s happening,” he said, somehow managing a straight face. “I know we’ve had our differences in the past, he and I. Tell him he’s in my prayers.”
“You know what you can damn well do with your prayers, Mr. Abruzzi.”
“What kind of way is that to talk?”
“Don’t be trying to cover up your spots with me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We both know where you stand. You’ve never liked Father Jack and you’d like nothing better than to see him run out of town.”
“No, I don’t like him. And yes, I do want him out. But not like this.”
I warned myself to let it go. But the drink, as it has a way of doing, had loosened my tongue. As my father was wont to say, in vino veritas.
“You mean to stand there and tell me you’re not pleased as punch this is happening to him?”
“No, I’m not. This is bad for everybody. The whole town.”
“Huh! And I suppose you had nothing to do with those two?”
“What?” he said, his eyebrows arching so you could see these white lines along his lids that the sun hadn’t reached.
“You didn’t put them up to saying those things?”
“Are you crazy? Of course, not! Why would I do that?”
“Why, indeed,” I said.
He stared at me for a moment.
“You ever consider they’re telling the truth?”
“In the pig’s bloody arse,” I said.
After that I didn’t go out if I could help it. I found myself looking forward to Dina coming in in the afternoon. Somebody to talk to. We’d sit at the table having a smoke and jabbering about her social life. Some party she’d been to out at the reservoir or necking with this Brian fellow up at Pelham’s Overlook. Like I said, she was a hot ticket, put me in mind of my own greener days. No matter what sort of mood I was in she usually cheered me up.
We were sitting there one afternoon right before her mother picked her up.
“Brian’s older brother remembers them,” she said.
“Who?”
“Those Robys.”
“What’s he say about them?”
“He didn’t know them real well. He remembers the older one getting sent down to the principal’s office a lot.”
I took a drag on my cigarette.
“Tell me, love,” I said. “What do the kids say?”
“About the Robys?”
“About all of it.”
“I don’t know. They think it’s kind of weird.”
“Do they believe it?”
She shook her head. “No. They believe Father Jack.”
“All of ’em?”
“My friends anyway.”
“But there are some that don’t?”
“I guess so. They know I work here. They don’t say much around me.”
“You must hear things.”
Dina shrugged.
I told myself to let it drop, that there was no sense going on. What was I looking for? What did I want to hear? I felt sort of like I was in the dark groping around in a box of needles looking for a certain one. I was just as likely to get myself pricked as find it. But there’s a stubborn, pigheaded streak in me that sometimes doesn’t leave well enough alone.
“What do you hear?” I asked.
“I should get my stuff,” Dina said. “My mom’ll be here any minute.”
“Hold on. What do they say, love?”
Dina fidgeted nervously in her seat. Finally she said, “The usual stuff.”
“And what’s the usual stuff?” I asked.
“Some of the kids say, well…that Father Jack’s…you know, gay.”
“Gay!” I exclaimed. “They say that, do they?”
“Some do.”
“Because of all this business with the Robys?”
“It was going around before that.”
“Before that?”
“Yeah. That’s the rumor anyway. You never heard that?”
“Of course not. Father Jack’s not gay,” I said. “How long has that been going on?”
“I don’t know. Awhile.”
“Why on earth would they say such a thing?”
“I guess because he married those two women. And he supports all that gay rights stuff.”
“So because he believes in doing what he feels is right, they think he’s gay?”
“No, not just that.”
“Then why?”
“Because he’s kind of like…well, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. Tell me.”
“Well. Friendly with kids.”
“And that makes him gay?” I said, raising my voice. “Because he’s friendly.”
“I didn’t say that, Ma. I’m just telling you what some say.”
Right then we heard a car horn honk out at the road. Dina hurried into the office, got her things and started for the door. Yet she stopped before she left.
“If you talk to Father, please don’t tell him I said those things.”
After she was gone, I chewed on what she’d said. That some thought Father gay. How ridiculous! Yet she’d said that had been going around long before the trouble with the Robys. Why had I never heard it before? I was right here. I was always talking to the kids that came around. How come I never heard that rumor? I thought how Dina had said some considered Father too friendly, as if being friendly was a crime. And yet, in some ways I guess I knew what she was getting at. When I first come to work for him, I must confess I thought some of his ways a bit peculiar for a priest. How he let kids hang out at the rectory or was always taking them places. Or the way he’d fool around with them, wrestling and being playful. And how he was always hugging them, putting his hands on them. Touching them. Till I got to know Father anyway, I admit I didn’t think it looked right.
The thing is, you were brought up to think a priest should act a certain way. Priestly, I guess you’d call it. He was supposed to be formal and reserved. He was supposed to make sure the rules were followed and those that broke them were punished. I could never remember touching or being touched by old Father Pearse, except occasionally when he grabbed you by the scruff of the neck when you’d done something wrong. Though well respected, even well loved by many, Father Pearse was a strict, exacting class of man, who’d just as soon box your ears as look at you. He kept his distance. You didn’t want to get too close, nor did he allow you. You didn’t think much about his private life, what went on behind the rectory’s door. You were always a bit afraid of him, too, the way you are around a policeman. But Father Jack was different. He was friendly and warm, especially to the kids. Like I’d told those detectives, he didn’t care a fig for all the Church rules and regulations, or for how things looked. It was people he cared about.
Take this one time. It’s hardly worth relating but I will all the same to make my point. Father and I had gone to Ginny Nolan’s funeral. Ginny, who used to sing in the church choir, died in a car accident out on Route 38. We were at the cemetery. Her youngest, Katie, was taking it pretty hard. I was standing right next to Father. I remember him putting his arm around the girl, trying to console her, saying not to worry, that her mother was in heaven. What any priest might do. Nothing out of the ordinary. But the thing I remember most was how Father got down on his knees, took the little girl’s face in his hands, and kissed her ever so lovingly on each cheek. Kissed away the child’s tears. I glanced around. I saw people sort of exchanging looks. I saw that. But I don’t think in all my days I’d ever seen a more tender, a more loving and compassionate gesture from anyone. Not from a priest. Not even from a mother toward her child. And if you’d been there, seen the trusting sort of way Katie looked up at Father, as if surrendering her pain to him, then you’d have felt that way too.
Or take the time up at Father’s cabin, when those boys got their hands on some booze. I never heard all the details, but as I understood it they got themselves liquored up and went swimming bare-arsed in the lake. Nothing more than what boys do, but it happened to be while they were with Father. He found himself in hot water that time, though he said it wasn’t any big deal. Just boys having themselves a bit of fun.
“I don’t mean to stick my nose in, Father,” I told him later on. “But hadn’t you ought to be more careful?”
“Careful?”
“You know. Those boys doing what they did up to your cabin.”
“They’re just kids, Margaret. Just kicking up their heels.”
“I know, Father. It’s just that it might give some the wrong impression.”
“Wrong impression?” he said, staring at me.
“Well, you know how they like to talk around here.”
“Let them. Do you think I care what those small-minded fools think? Nothing wrong happened up there. Nothing.”
You see, the thing about Father was he could be naive. Smart as he was, he didn’t always know how people thought, the way they looked at things. How the world worked. But I think it wasn’t just being naive. Truth is he had what you might call a certain arrogant streak to him. That’s a fact. I want to give you as true a picture of the man as I can, warts and all. Maybe it was that blue-blood upbringing of his or that he thought himself smarter than most people, which he was. In any case, he wasn’t one to suffer fools gladly, not Father Jack. If he thought he was right, the rest be damned. Sometimes that put him on thin ice. You see, most don’t mind if their priests are cold fishes or dumb as doorknobs or give boring sermons, or if they’re a tad too fond of their vino. But they don’t like them to be smarter than they are, and they surely don’t like them to be upsetting the settled way they think about things. They want their priest to be a bit like a train conductor—to give them a nice smooth ride from baptism to last rites.
One late summer day several weeks before the trial was to start, I took some brass cleaner and went around polishing the doorknobs. The house has all these antique brass doorknobs, and you wouldn’t believe how grimy they get from people’s hands. So I like to have at them every once in a while. I was in the downstairs hall when I heard Dina call me from the kitchen. As soon as I saw her, I could tell something was wrong. She looked about like she was going to start crying any minute.
“What’s the matter, love?” I said, thinking it was boy problems.
“I…my parents…”
The poor thing suddenly burst into tears.
“There now,” I said, going over and hugging her.
“My parents. They…won’t let me…work here anymore,” she said between sobs. “I tried to tell them Father didn’t…do those things. But they wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s all right,” I said, comforting her. “When are you leaving?”
“Right now. My mom’s waiting out in the car. I have to go.”
As I stroked her hair, I realized she was in some ways like a daughter to me. And like her mother, I, too, would want to protect her, even if it meant hurting others’ feelings.
“I’ll miss you,” I said.
“I hate to do this…to Father. And to you, Ma.”
“I understand, Dina. Don’t worry. We’ll manage.”
“Tell him…” she said. “Tell Father it wasn’t me.”
“I will, love. He’ll understand. When this is all over, you come back, okay?”
“I will,” she said.
I watched her walk out to the car and get in. I knew she’d never be coming back.