After Worthy left, Father Fortis thumbed through the stack of materials Mrs. Hazelton had deposited on his desk. There was a packet of photos from Mr. Bagios of Father Spiro’s funeral, with a note: “Thought you might want to see these.”
I will look at them, I will, he thought, but first things first. He found the phone number of Father Daniel, the seminarian who’d served at St. Cosmas. It was only two days before Father Spiro’s memorial service, and contrary to his advice to Worthy, he’d spend every moment of the next two days thinking about the dead.
But even as Father Fortis dialed Father Daniel’s number in East Lansing, he found it hard to let the disappointment of the morning go. What would Worthy do now? Peggy Hagarty wasn’t out of the picture, but was she any more a suspect now than someone like Lloyd Hartunian?
He had to admit that his concerns went beyond Worthy’s feelings. His friend’s certainty about Mrs. Hagarty had led him to hope that the case could be resolved in time for Father Spiro’s memorial. He had already thought fondly of returning to the monastery and leaving the computer, copy machines, and stresses of St. Cosmas behind. Parish ministry was for a juggler, someone who wouldn’t drop the twenty duties when one or two more were tossed his way.
He dialed the number for St. Demetrius in East Lansing and was put through to Father Daniel by a cheery secretary. After introducing himself, Father Fortis explained the main purpose of his call. “I understand the parish council already invited you to attend Father Spiro’s memorial. I want you to know that you’re invited to serve with the other clergy at the altar.”
“Very kind of you to call, Father. I’ve already asked another priest from the diocese to fill in for me. Let me put you on hold and see if he has it on his calendar.” Father Fortis could hear music in the background and was pleased to note that it was jazz. He had seen a number of converts who’d gone into the priesthood and generally found himself uncomfortable in their presence. Many converts were so intent on leaving no doubt about their devotion to Orthodoxy that they went overboard. Some dressed as if they’d taken monastic orders, and from what he’d heard, ran their parishes the same way. He’d heard of one who encouraged his parishioners to adopt the sparse diet of monks and nuns until the metropolitan had put a stop to it. That was the kind who played CDs of Byzantine chant as if it were the twelfth century, not the twenty-first. But jazz was a good sign.
Father Daniel’s voice broke in again. “Yes, everything is covered here. And I’d be honored to serve at the altar.”
“How’s the new parish going?” Father Fortis inquired.
“It’s a challenge. We had thirty in Divine Liturgy last Sunday. That’s a high number for us, by the way.”
“University folk, I suppose?”
“So far it’s a mix, really. A few faculty from Greece and Russia. Some Serbian students who are pretty regular. And some converts like me.”
“Blessings on you for taking up the challenge.”
“I think that I should be saying that to you. When I heard about Father Spiro’s death, I felt terrible, of course, but what made it worse was the thought that the metropolitan might ask me to go back to St. Cosmas. Then somebody on the parish council—I think it was Dr. Boras—emailed me about your coming. No, I wouldn’t trade with you, Father.”
“That rough, huh?”
“You should know by now. St. Cosmas is a typical parish, no worse, I suppose, than most. Are they still pulling in five different directions?”
“You mean about moving?”
“That and the whole issue of language in the liturgy. That’s what I like about East Lansing. The liturgy here is ninety-nine percent English, and best of all, no one complains.”
“The English has to happen,” Father Fortis said. “You’re just ahead of the rest of us.” He liked the no-nonsense nature of the young man, but he could see how Mrs. Filis and some of the old-timers would have resented him. “Father Daniel, do you have time for a few questions?”
“Fire away.”
“How long were you here at St. Cosmas?”
“Let’s see. I came right after my course work at the seminary. St. Cosmas started as my field experience; then I stayed on a bit. I was there three long years, but I should also say that I made some great friends there.”
“Why did they send you all the way out to Detroit, and especially to St. Cosmas? From what I’ve been told, Father Spiro wasn’t an educated man.”
“A few on the parish council, the college types there, said I shouldn’t expect to learn much. They thought that I’d been sent to bail Father Spiro out. And at first, it did seem that way. Father Spiro was getting pretty old and set in his ways. But I can see now that I learned a lot from him. Like how a priest has to have broad shoulders and a thick skin.”
“The thick skin I understand, but explain the broad shoulders.”
“To deal with everything people tell you, and I’m not just talking about confession. In his own way, he really knew those people, and good Lord, did he love them. I’m not sure they realized that.”
Father Fortis considered the point. “Did he ever tell you what those burdens were?”
“Some of them, but I could tell he kept a lot to himself.”
Father Fortis decided to overrule Worthy’s warning. “I’d like to tell you something in strictest confidence, Father.”
Father John hesitated for a moment before asking a question of his own. “I’m okay with that, but I’m wondering if Dr. Boras was right when she said you investigate murders.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way. It’s fairer to say that a good friend of mine is heading up the investigation. A very good detective. I help him out when and where I can.”
“I don’t know that I have anything helpful to add,” Father Daniel said, “but please go ahead.”
“Thank you, Father. The police have discovered that Father Spiro kept a secret diary of some of the tougher issues. Only Mrs. Hazelton knows that we found it, and we’d like to keep it that way for the present.”
“That doesn’t sound good. Of course, with Father’s memory problems, I suppose what you’re saying makes sense. He never told me about it, if that’s what you’re asking. But to keep it from the parish? Hmm.”
“Don’t read too much into that,” Father Fortis tried to reassure him. He could see now his request for confidentiality would only make Father Daniel more curious. “You talked about Father Spiro’s memory problems. Did you see that getting worse while you were here?”
“Parishioners warned me about it, of course, but Bernice—Mrs. Hazelton, I mean—would keep him on track. I’d forgotten about Bernice. I suppose she’s taking all this pretty hard.”
“She told me the very morning I arrived how guilty she felt.”
“Guilty?” Father Daniel repeated.
“Yes, for not being at St. Cosmas that morning,”
“That’s so much like Bernice. But then I admit that I felt the same when I first heard. Would he have died if I’d stayed on staff there? Guilt catches you coming and going, doesn’t it? But about your other question. Father Spiro’s memory did get worse, and quite suddenly over my last months there. It was like someone threw a switch. He missed appointments, couldn’t be reached by phone, that sort of thing. He left me in the lurch more than once. That’s when the parish council started pushing him to consider retirement.”
Father Fortis asked, “All of a sudden? When was that?”
“I’d say sometime in early fall. I asked him if he was okay. He just shrugged.”
“Mr. Margolis told me Father Spiro had talked about retirement but then didn’t want to consider it for some reason.”
“Same with me. I asked him about it when I knew I’d be leaving St. Cosmas. I didn’t want him to think that I was trying to push him aside. He told me he had some things he needed to get straightened out. Then he’d retire.”
“Were those things at St. Cosmas?” Father Fortis asked.
“That’s what I assumed. I suppose it could have been something else. Like I said, he never said what he was so worried about. But then he always saw me as a seminarian, someone sent by the metropolitan. I’m not saying he resented me, but sometimes I got the feeling I was in his way.”
Father Fortis would have gladly welcomed some help from a young priest like Father Daniel. He sounded like a juggler, someone who enjoyed the challenges being thrown his way. Funny that an old priest like Father Spiro hadn’t appreciated it. “Did anyone ever tell you what happened on Father Spiro’s last Sunday, Father?” he asked.
“Someone from the parish council—was it Dr. Boras? No, I don’t think so. Anyway, someone told me at the funeral about some fit he had.”
“No one really knows what happened,” Father Fortis said, “but he did stop right in the middle of one of the processions. You knew the man in a way maybe no one else did. After all, you served in the altar area with him. I’d be interested in your theory as to what happened.”
“My theory? Well, I heard he just lost it—blanked out, I guess you could say. What else could it have been?”
“Someone else said she saw him staring at the side wall when he stopped. He could have been looking at the icons in the windows.”
“Really?” Father Daniel asked. “I used to do that at St. Cosmas.”
Father Fortis sat up. “Oh?”
“Not when I first got there. No, I was too worried about messing up my lines during the procession. But one Sunday, I turned the corner in the back and looked over to the window and read the letters on this one icon. It turned out to be St. Barbara, the martyr, who is my wife’s patron saint, and I thought for a moment that she was looking at me. It sounds stupid, but I always noticed her after that. I liked to believe she was smiling, although from the stories we know about her, I’m not sure she was the smiling type.”
A fragment of a thought, out of focus and ablur, flitted through Father Fortis’ mind, departing as quickly as it had come. He remembered looking up at the stars with his brother when he was a kid. His brother had this unerring ability to see shooting stars, and would call out, “There, Nicky!” But his own luck was always bad. He’d spin around in the yard and stare up, only to hear his brother say that he’d just missed it.
Worthy pulled up in the driveway and left the motor running. He jogged up to the door and knocked. Susan came to the door.
“Chris, what is it?” she asked, giving him a wary look.
“Is Allyson here?”
“She’s upstairs, doing homework.”
“Can I borrow her … take her somewhere for about an hour?”
Susan hadn’t yet opened the door to let him in. “Where? What’s going on, Chris?”
“It’s hard to explain. Can you just tell her I’d like her to go with me to Henderson’s house?”
“Henderson? Who’s he?”
“He’s my partner. She knows about him. Tell her I need her.”
Susan gave Worthy a puzzled look. “You’re going to have to ask her that yourself.”
“Fine, fine. Just tell her I want her to go to Henderson’s with me.”
Susan disappeared. He waited, hoping Amy wouldn’t try to pull him into the house. Minutes passed, and he expected to see Susan’s face again through the screen. What sense would Allyson make of his request? She probably thinks I’m trying to prove my point, to rub it in, he thought, acknowledging with a grimace that’s exactly what he had wanted that morning.
To his surprise, Allyson came out with her coat on. Without a word, the two walked to the car and drove off.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Whatever. Anything to get me away from that chem report,” she said, but he noticed she sat erect in the seat, her eyes glued forward.
They drove in near silence across town, as if both were ready for what was about to happen. Worthy, however, knew only how things would start. From there, it was up to Henderson.
He knocked on the door, with Allyson standing next to him. Henderson’s wife answered and gave Worthy the same kind of wary look Susan had. It must be written all over my face, he thought.
“Carnell isn’t here,” she said.
“Mrs. Henderson, this is my daughter, Allyson. Will your husband be back soon?”
She looked from one of them to the other for a moment. “Please come in,” she said.
Worthy followed Allyson into the house. On the couch, Henderson’s boy Jamie sat ramrod straight, watching TV as he had the last time. “Do you mind if we wait in here with your son?” he asked.
Mrs. Henderson started to respond, but stopped and only nodded. “I’ll make some coffee. What would you like, Hon?” she asked Allyson.
Allyson pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. “Coffee’s fine.”
Worthy sat down on the couch next to Jamie, while Allyson took a seat in a chair. Without looking their way, the boy reached for an open bag of potato chips and drew it next to him.
“Hi, Jamie, remember me?”
The boy didn’t look away from the TV.
“What’s on?” Worthy asked.
This time the boy glanced at Worthy before returning to a cartoon show. “Who’re you?”
“My name is Chris. I work with your Dad. And this is my daughter, Allyson.” He waited, but the boy’s attention was solely on the TV, his hand rummaging in the snack bag.
“Do you know the name of this show, Ally?”
Before she could respond, the boy rose from the couch and walked stiffly toward the kitchen. His pants seemed too high, his belt too tight. At one point, Jamie steadied himself on the corner of Allyson’s chair before leaving the room.
Again, Allyson sat quietly, as if she understood her father perfectly.
In a moment, the boy returned and sat down in the same place. “Momma said to tell you it’s Pinky and the Brain.”
“I do remember that,” Allyson said. “Pinky’s always trying to take over the world, right?”
The boy nodded. Worthy looked over at the boy, whose back was straight despite the soft couch. He remembered what Bales had whispered to Henderson, driving him over the edge: “You look like a guy who needs shock therapy.”
“What the hell is this?” Henderson said, coming through the door with a white bag in his hand. Worthy could read the name of the pharmacy on the side of it.
“Carn, don’t,” his wife pleaded, carrying a tray into the room. “They’re guests.”
“They?”
“This is my daughter, Allyson,” Worthy said, starting to rise.
“Hi,” Allyson offered weakly.
“Can we talk somewhere in private?” Worthy asked.
Henderson handed the bag to his wife and walked down the hallway. Worthy followed him into the study, where a computer screen was on. On the walls were more photos like those he’d observed on his earlier visit—Henderson as a young basketball player.
Worthy walked over and stood in front of one. “So you played at Michigan State.”
Henderson went over and switched off the screen. He turned around and remained standing. “Two years until my knee blew out,” he said tightly. “That was a long time ago.”
“You were on scholarship?”
“Like I said, until my knee blew out. They took the money back, so I finished up at Grand Valley State.”
“And was that where you met your wife?”
“You out for a drive with your daughter and decide you wanted to find out my life story?”
“No. Something else. May I sit down?”
“No one’s stopping you.”
“I don’t know if you know my daughter’s story. She ran away a while back. That just about scared me to death.”
Henderson remained standing, eyeing Worthy. “That right? It looks like she’s back.”
“Yeah, she’s back. But she never told us why. It still scares me … and my ex-wife.”
Henderson sat down. “That’s right, you’re divorced.”
“Yeah, that happened over a year before she ran away. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the two are connected.”
Henderson pulled at his socks. “So, why you telling me this?”
Worthy took a deep breath. “I know why you laid into Bales.”
Henderson glared up at Worthy. “So? We already went through that. Over and done.”
Worthy’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. “I don’t think so. I know what Bales whispered, and I’m pretty sure that I know about Jamie.”
Henderson rose from his chair and stood over Worthy. Here’s where he uses my head for a basketball, Worthy thought.
“I know I made it clear that you should mind your own business. You think your daughter is going to keep me from throwing you out? You think you’re some goddamned genius. You don’t know shit!”
Worthy shook his head slowly, trying to see another way forward. “You take off early because your wife needs you here … with your son.”
Henderson didn’t move. “That’s nothing to do with the case. Let me remind you who found the damned book. So leave my family out of it, and I’ll do the same with you. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your daughter, okay?”
He turned and walked back to the desk. Picking up a coat off the back of the chair, he reached in and pulled out his badge. He gazed at it for a moment, then brought it over and dropped it into Worthy’s lap. “Fuck you, fuck the police department, and fuck Detroit. Take that back to the captain. Now, get the hell out.”
“No, I’m not going to do that,” Worthy said, his own voice tight in his throat. “Is this what you want to do for your wife and son—spend the rest of your life punching people?”
Henderson swayed as he hovered over Worthy. He turned slowly and slumped in his chair, head cradled in his hands.
Worthy rose and walked to the window. “The case threw me for a loop today.”
Henderson remained silent.
“I thought I had it all figured out,” Worthy continued. “I was sure that the diary made it all clear. I thought your problems and mine with my daughter didn’t matter because we’d have the killer. You and I would go our separate ways, and that would be that. But now, I’m not sure I know anything. And I can’t go on alone. I’ll drown.”
“You wouldn’t understand if I told you.” Henderson’s voice was slow as if he were dragging a weight up from a deep hole.
Worthy turned and faced his partner. “You’ll have to try me.”
Henderson sat in silence for a moment, studying the floor between glances at Worthy. “Last year, the school asked for a conference,” he began in a very tired voice. “The counselor looked us straight in the face and asked if Jamie used drugs. An eleven-year-old kid. ‘No way,’ I said.” His voice started to shake. “But we both knew something was up. Jamie’s never been social, but then I’m not either.”
“I noticed,” Worthy said.
Henderson nodded, as if he deserved that. “But with Jamie, it’s that he only likes to watch cartoons.”
Worthy looked to a side table that held a series of family photos of the three of them. With each passing year, Jamie stood more off by himself, his mother’s arm failing to draw him in. “Did you have him tested?”
“Yeah. I thought he might be depressed, but the psychologist started using some other big words. Scary words. I had to look them up on the Internet.”
“Like what?”
“Like borderline personality disorder. Then they focused on us and asked that we get tested. Know what schizophrenogenic is?”
“No.”
Henderson twisted one hand in the other. “It means you’re the kind of parent who makes your kid schizophrenic. Nice, huh?”
Worthy started to say he was sorry, sorry for Henderson’s problem, and sorry he’d had to ask. But Henderson cut him off. “This is going to come out better if you don’t say a damn thing.” He paused before continuing. “I’ve always made a point of taking what life gives me and making the best of it. You know, letting it motivate me ….” His voice trailed off. “That’s not working this time.”
The room was deadly quiet until Henderson roused himself and asked, “You remember how high I was right after I found the book?”
“Sure.”
“Then I pulled back. Right?”
“Yeah, that you did.”
“My wife called me. She said she noticed a mark on Jamie’s arm after school. Jamie didn’t say anything, but when she rolled up his sleeve there were these marks up and down his arm.” His eyes brimmed with tears as he looked down at his own arm. “My boy has been rubbing his skin off with a pencil eraser at school. Can you believe that?”
“Yes, I saw it once.”
He watched his partner fold his hands behind his head and stare at the ceiling. Henderson’s jaw muscles clamped and released over and over again. “Where was that?”
“I had a job one summer during college. It was in a halfway house.”
“For nutcases, right?”
“No. For kids trying to figure things out.”
“Fucking nuts.”
Henderson’s wife poked her head in. “Everything okay in here?” Worthy could tell that she’d been crying and guessed that she’d been listening as well. What is Allyson thinking? he thought.
“Fine, baby. Jamie okay?”
“He’s okay. Allyson is reading him a story. He’s probably already asleep.” She offered Worthy a feeble smile and closed the door behind her.
“I told the doctor that I’d seen psychotics before in my job. I told him Jamie was definitely not that. Do you know what he told me? He said that Jamie may not have had an episode yet, but he was probably hallucinating at school. Maybe even while watching TV.”
Worthy sat silently, heavy with the vision of what he knew was likely in store for Henderson and his wife. There would be trips to treatment facilities with their smiling staff members. There would be hope held out for new drugs and treatments, as well as tantalizing stories of amazing recoveries. Meanwhile, their eleven-year-old would become a teenager and then an adult, curled up in a bed somewhere.
“So, when Bales whispered about shock therapy—”
Henderson sat forward in his chair. “Why’d he do that? I mean, it was like he was reading my mind.” He looked up at Worthy with sad yet hopeful eyes.
Worthy wanted to tell him not to expect any wisdom from him. His wife had divorced him and his daughter had run away, and he understood neither. But then a memory came back from his summer in college.
“There was this guy at the halfway house. Really wired, a lot like Bales. When I’d come into work, he’d be right in my face, pulling his hair, and then he’d say something right out of my life.” Worthy could feel Henderson hanging on his every word. All he had was a story that offered little or nothing. “So anyway, we’d just hired this new college kid. He had a girlfriend in town, someone he’d met at a bar. She used to drop him off at work in her convertible, sometimes wearing a bikini top. So one day, the new college boy comes into work ten minutes late and has to thread his way through the clients to get to the nursing station. That’s where we gave out meds. Suddenly, this guy grabs the new kid and looks him right in the eye. ‘Backseat rodeo, backseat rodeo,’ he keeps saying. ‘You told her not to stop, told her to ride the bronco until you got done.’ ”
“So what happened?”
Worthy shrugged and looked down at Henderson. “The trainee just stared at the kid, got white all over, turned, and walked out. Just quit. That’s what Bales is like. They just know things.”
Henderson sat back in his chair, his brow furrowed. “Maybe that’s what happened. The day before the doctor said that Jamie might need to be hospitalized for observation …. I don’t remember anyone talking about shock treatments, but who knows? I know I wanted to hit somebody. Man, that Bales. I wanted to pull my gun and kill the son of a bitch.”
“But you didn’t,” Worthy reminded him. “You need to tell your story to the new captain. She’s not like Spicer.”
“I don’t want sympathy,” Henderson protested.
“Sure you do. We all do.” Worthy walked to the door. “See you tomorrow?”
Henderson offered a feeble nod. “You know I can’t promise anything. I got to take care of my family first.”
“Yeah, I think I’m beginning to understand that.”