The attorney said, “Yes?”
“How long would you say he was in the confessional?”
“Maybe seven, eight minutes or so. Maybe more.”
“Did he stay in the church when he finished his confession?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what about you, Miss Volpe? Did you notice?”
The girl was still shaken and she stared at him blankly.
“Miss Volpe?”
Startled, she said, “Yes?”
“The old man with the shopping bag, Miss Volpe. After his confession, did he stay in the church or did he leave?”
She stared at him glassily for a moment, then she answered, “I might have seen him leave. I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure.”
“No, I’m not.”
“But you think he might have left.”
“Yes, he might have.”
“Was there anything odd about his behavior?”
“Odd?”
“Mister Coleman, was there anything odd?”
“He just seemed a little senile,” said Coleman. “I figured that’s what took him so long.”
“You said his age was in the seventies?”
“He was up there. He was walking pretty feebly.”
“Walking? Walking where?”
“To his pew.”
“Then he stayed in the church,” said Kinderman.
“No, I didn’t say that,” said Coleman. “He went to his pew and perhaps said his penance. After that he might have left.”
“I am properly corrected, Counselor. Thank you.”
“Quite all right.” There was a glint of satisfaction in the lawyer’s eyes.
“And what about the man with the shaven head and the man in the windbreaker?” Kinderman added. “Can anyone tell me whether they stayed in the church or left?”
There were no replies.
Kinderman turned his gaze to the girl. “Miss Volpe, the man who was wearing the windbreaker. Did he seem in any way unusual?”
“No,” said Volpe. “I mean, I didn’t notice him all that much.”
“He didn’t seem annoyed?”
“He was calm. Just ordinary.”
“Just ordinary.”
“That’s right. He was smacking his lips a little, that’s all.”
“He was smacking his lips a little?”
“Well, yes.”
Kinderman thought about this for a while. Then he said, “That’s all. Thank you for your time. Sergeant Atkins, let them out. Then come back. It’s important.”
Atkins led the witnesses to the officer at the door. He was there in eight steps, but Kinderman watched him with an anxious concern, as if Atkins were journeying to Mozambique and might not come back.
Atkins returned and stood facing him. “Yes, sir?”
“One more thing about evolution. They keep saying that it’s chance, all chance, and that it’s simple. Billions of fish kept flopping up on the shore, and then one day a smart one looks around and says, ‘Wonderful. Miami Beach. The Fontainebleau. I think I’ll stick around here and breathe.’ So help me God, so goes the legend of the Piltdown Carp. But it’s all a schmeckle. If the fish breathes the air, he drops dead, no survivors, and the playboy life is over. So okay, that’s the fable in the popular mind. You want it better? Scientific? I am here to oblige. The real story is, this mackerel who came in from the cold doesn’t stay on the shore. He just takes a little breath, a little whiff, a little tryout, then he’s back in the ocean in Intensive Care and playing his banjo and singing songs about his jolly times on land. He keeps doing this, and maybe he can breathe a little longer. Also definitely possible; maybe not. But after all this practice, he lays some eggs, and when he dies he leaves a will saying how his little children should try breathing on the land, and he signs it, ‘Do this for your father. Love, Bernie.’ And they do it. And on and on it goes, maybe hundreds of millions of years they keep trying, each generation getting better and better because all of this practice is getting in their genes. And then finally one of them, skinny, with glasses, always reading, never playing in the gym with the boys, he breathes the air and keeps on breathing, and soon he’s doing Nautilus three times a week in De Funiack Springs and going bowling with the schvartzers. Of course, needless to say, all his children have no trouble breathing air all the time, their only problem is walking and maybe throwing up. And that’s the story from the scientists’ mouths to your credulity. So okay, I’m oversimplifying. They don’t? Any schlump who says ‘vertebrate’ today is automatically considered a genius. Also ‘phylum.’ This will get you in the Cosmos Club for free. Science gives us many facts, but only very little knowledge. As regarding this theory about the fish, it has one little problem—God forbid this should deter them even though this problem makes the whole thing impossible—since it happens all this practice breathing air is going no place at absolutely maximum speed. Every fish starts all over again from the beginning, and from only one lifetime nothing changes in the genes. The big slogan for fish is, ‘One Day at a Time.’
“I’m not saying I’m against evolution. It’s okay. Here’s the story on reptiles, however. Think this over. They come up on dry land and they lay their eggs. So far it’s a breeze, is that right? A piece of cake. But the little baby reptile in the egg needs water, or it dries up in the egg and never gets to be born. On top of that, it needs food—a whole lot, in fact—because it hatches as a grown-up, a great big person. In the meantime, don’t worry. You need it? You’ve got it. Because now inside the egg a lot of egg yolk appears and says, ‘I’m here! This is the food!’ And the white of the egg is making do as the water. But the egg white needs a whole special casing around it, or the whole thing evaporates and says to you, ‘I’m leaving.’ So a shell made of leathery stuff comes along, and the reptile is smiling. Too soon. It’s not so easy. Because of this shell, now the embryo cannot get rid of its waste. So we need now a bladder. Is this making you nauseous a little? I’ll hurry. Also, there is needed now some kind of draydle, some tool the little embryo uses to get out of its hard, tough shell. There’s even more, but that’s enough, now, I’ll stop, it’s sufficient. Because, Atkins, all these changes in the egg of the reptile have to happen all at once! Are you hearing? All at once! If even one of them is missing, it’s all over, and the embryos are keeping their appointments in Samarra. You cannot have the egg yolk come along and then keep it on hold another million years until the casing or the bladder comes along jaunty jolly saying, ‘Sorry I’m late, the rabbi talked too long.’ You get the answering service. Every change would be derhangenet right on the spot before the other one ever got to make its appearance. In the meantime, we have reptiles now up to our tokis. Talk to people in Okeefenokee, they’ll tell you. But how could this possibly come to be? All the changes in the embryo happened all at once by incredible coincidence? This notion only morons would embrace, I guarantee you. In the meantime, as regards this murder, the killer is also the killer of Kintry. Without the use of an instantly paralyzing agent, we would have no murder here today. There would have been an outcry. It couldn’t have been done. Point two, we have now five people as suspects: McCooey, Paterno, the man with the shopping bag, the man with the shaven head and the man in white pants and the black woolen windbreaker. However, these are savage, unspeakable crimes, and we are looking for a psycho with medical knowledge. McCooey I know, and he is tolerably sane within certain limits, including in his bedroom he has to keep out where he can always see them every item of clothing that he owns. He hasn’t any medical knowledge that I know of. The same with Paterno. Just to keep the record straight and absolutely on the emiss, get a medical history on him from Bullis. In the meantime, the killer wouldn’t hang around, so McCooey and Paterno are absolutely out. It’s one of the others. Point three, the old man by himself could have done it. Decapitation with a wire or a pair of shears takes little strength. A sharp knife would do it also, something like a scalpel. The old man was in the box
for a very long time and his reported senility might have been pretended. He was also the last one to see the priest. This is scenario number one. But the man in the windbreaker also could have done it. He would slide the panel shut so the man with the shopping bag doesn’t see that the priest is dead. The old man, in the meantime, is waiting, but he leaves without ever seeing the priest. It could be he gets gas, or he maybe gets tired; and if he is senile, as Coleman would have us believe, he might imagine that he actually made his confession, when in fact he was napping in the dark. This is scenario number two. In scenario three, the killer is the man with the shaven head. He kills the priest, slides the panel back shut and leaves the box. But the man in the windbreaker saw the priest next, which would mean he was alive. It could happen like this. The man in the windbreaker is waiting while the shaven head is committing the murder. It could be that the man in the windbreaker now is getting antsy with all of this waiting and decides to leave without making his confession. He might think he was missing too much of the Mass. Any reason is possible,” Kinderman concluded. “The rest is silence.”
The recitation concerning the murder had come out in a rapid, deadly cadence. Atkins suspected that Kinderman’s digressions masked the working of his mind on some other level, and perhaps were even needed for that level to function. The sergeant nodded. He felt a curiosity about the questions that Kinderman had earlier put to Paterno concerning the sliding sounds of the panels. He knew better than to ask.
“You have the prints for me, Ryan?” asked Kinderman.
Atkins looked around. Ryan was joining them from behind him.
“Yeah, we’ve got the whole bunch,” said Ryan.
Kinderman eyed him expressionlessly and said, “One clear set will be sufficient.”
“Well, we’ve got it.”
“From the inside and the outside, of course.”
“Not the inside.”
“I am going to read you your rights. Listen carefully,” Kinderman told him.
“How the hell can we get at them with the corpse in the box?”
There it was. The words had been spoken. Stedman had finished with the body long before. All the photos had been taken. Only Kinderman’s own examination remained. He had delayed it. He’d known the dead priest. Another case long ago had brought him in touch with him, and now and then, across the years, he would see him with Dyer, who had been his assistant. Once they’d had a beer together in The Tombs. Kinderman had liked him.
“You are right,” the detective told Ryan. “Thank you for your timely reminder. I don’t know what I would do without you, frankly.” Ryan turned away and flopped down at the end of a pew. He folded his arms and looked sour.
Kinderman walked to the other confessional at the back. He looked down at the floor. The blood had been removed, and the smooth gray tiles glistened with mop strokes. They were still wet. For a time, the detective stood there, breathing; then abruptly he looked up and pulled open the confessional door. Father Bermingham was seated on the chair in the compartment. The blood was on everything, and the dead priest’s eyes were opened wide and staring out in terror. Kinderman had to look down to see them. Upright and facing out, the head was resting on Bermingham’s lap. His hands had been arranged as if he were holding it for display.
Kinderman breathed a few times before he moved, carefully lifting the priest’s left hand. He examined the palm and saw the Gemini marking. He lowered the hand and let it go, and then examined the other one. The right index finger was missing.
Kinderman carefully lowered the hand, and stared at the little black crucifix hanging on the wall behind the chair. For a time he stood motionless like that. Abruptly he turned away from the compartment. Atkins was there. Kinderman’s hands slipped into the pockets of his coat, and he stared at the floor. “Get him out,” he said quietly. “Tell Stedman. Get him out and get the prints.” He walked away slowly toward the front of the church.
Atkins watched him. So bulky a man, he thought, and yet he looked so forlorn. He saw Kinderman stop near the front of the church where he slowly sat down in one of the pews. Atkins turned away and went to find Stedman.
Kinderman clasped his hands on his lap and stared down at them broodingly. He felt abandoned. Design and causality, he thought. God exists. I know. Very nice. But what could He possibly be thinking of? Why didn’t He simply intervene? Free will. Okay. We should keep it. But was there simply no limit to the tolerance of God? He remembered a line from G. K. Chesterton: “When the playwright comes on stage, the play is over.” So then let it be over. Who needs it? It stinks. His mind drifted back to the possibility that God was a being of limited power. Why not? Such an answer was simple and direct. Yet Kinderman couldn’t help strongly resisting it. God a yokel? A putz? It couldn’t be. The leap of his mind from God to perfection had no transition. It was a motionless identity.
The detective shook his head. He found the notion of a God who was less than all-powerful every bit as frightening as none at all. Perhaps even more. Death was an ending, at least, without a God. But who knew what a God who was flawed might do? If less than all-powerful, why wouldn’t He also be less than all-good, like the vain, capricious, cruel God of Job? With all of eternity at His disposal, what fiendish new tortures might He not devise?
A limited God? Kinderman brushed away the thought. God the Father of the orbits and the spinning nebulae and the shepherding moons of Saturn, the Author of the gravity and the brain, the Lurker in the genes and the subatomic particles—He couldn’t handle cancer and some crabgrass?
He looked up at the crucifix over the altar, and slowly his expression grew hard and demanding. What’s your part in this monkey business? Will you answer? Do you want to call a lawyer? Shall I read you your rights? Take it easy. I’m your friend. I can get you protection. Just answer me a few little questions, all right?
The detective’s face began to soften, and he looked at the crucifix with a meekness and a quiet wonder in his eyes. Who are you? God’s son? No, you know I don’t believe that. I just asked to be polite. You don’t mind my being frank a little bit? It couldn’t hurt. If it gets a little sensitive, maybe too forward, you could rattle all the windows here a little. I’ll shut up. Just the windows. That’s enough. I don’t need any buildings to fall on my head. I already have Ryan. You’ve noticed? This affliction Job somehow missed out on. Who slipped up in that department? Never mind, I don’t want to start trouble. In the meantime, I don’t know who you are, but you are Someone. Who could miss it? You are Someone. That is clear as a brook. I don’t need to have proof that you did all those miracles. Who cares? It doesn’t matter. I know. Do you know how I know? From what you said. When I read, “Love your enemy,” I tingle, I go crazy, and inside of my chest I can feel something floating, something that feels like it was there the whole time. It’s as if my very being for just those few moments consisted of the total recognition of a truth. And then I know that you are Someone. No one from the earth could ever say what you said. No one could even make it up. Who could imagine it? The words knock you down.
Something else, something little that I thought I might share with you. Would you mind? What’s to mind? I’m just talking. On the boat, when the disciples see you standing on the shore and then they realize that it’s you and that you’ve risen from the dead? Peter’s standing on the deck in the total altogether. So why not? He’s a fisherman, he’s young, he should enjoy. But right away he can’t wait for the boat to go in, he’s so excited, so beside himself with joy that it’s you. So he grabs the nearest garment—do you remember this?—but he doesn’t even want to take the time to pull it on. He just ties it around and jumps off the boat and then starts swimming like crazy for the shore. Is that something? Whenever I think of it, I glow! It isn’t some goyischer holy picture full of reverence and stiffness and probably lies; it isn’t some image being peddled, some myth. I can’t believe it didn’t happen. It’s so human, so surprising, and so real all at once. Peter must have loved you very
much.
So do I. Does that startle you? Well, it’s true. That you ever existed is a thought that gives me shelter; that men could make you up is a thought that gives me hope; and the thought that you might exist even now would give me safety and a gladness that I could not contain. I would like to touch your face and make you smile.
It couldn’t hurt.
So much for tea time and pleasantries. Who are you? What is it that you want from us? To suffer like you did on the cross? Well, we’re doing it. Please don’t go sleepless with worrying about this problem. We are all in good shape on that score. We’re doing fine. That is mainly what I wanted to tell you in the first place. Also, Father Bermingham, your friend, sends regards.
TUESDAY, MARCH 15
7
Kinderman arrived at his office at nine. Atkins was waiting for him. The lab results were in.
Kinderman sat on his desk and pushed aside a scattering of books with turned-down pages to make a space for the typed reports. He then went through them. The use of succinylcholine in the murder of the priest was confirmed. There were also prints that had been taken from the metal pull on the right-hand panel of the confessional, and from the wood around it as well. They matched other prints from the front of the panel, the part that faced out to the penitent’s side. They were not the priest’s.
The information from the Washington Post had not changed. Atkins had a rundown on Paterno, but Kinderman waved it aside. “No interest,” he said. “It’s the shopping bag or the windbreaker. Please don’t confuse me with the facts. Where is Ryan?”
“He’s off,” replied Atkins.
“This is true.”
Kinderman sighed and leaned back in his chair. Then he stared at the Kleenex box on his desk. He seemed lost in thought. “Thalidomide cures leprosy,” he said absently. Abruptly he leaned forward toward Atkins. “Have you any idea why the speed of light should be the top-limiting speed in the universe?” he asked.