He stepped around the rookie officer and hurried down the few steps to Father Gregory. “Father, I’m so sorry to drag you out this late.” The two men shook hands as the freshening wind off the ocean several blocks away swirled around them. The breeze carried just a hint of pine, the harbinger of spring.
“No, please, it is my duty to come to those in need. However,” Father Gregory paused to arrange his words, “this man tells me that I have come too late. I sincerely hope not, Chief J.”
No one else on the entire island called Julian “Chief J,” and he winced slightly. Julian put it down as one of the Indian priest’s famous attempts at humor and could not bring himself to say anything on the matter, though in recent months some of his own officers had taken up this new form of address and invariably delivered it with a smile. He threw a glance at Sergeant Dunbar, who had escorted the cleric, but his face remained as closed and stoic as ever.
The police chief paused. “Well, yes and no, Father. When I had you called, Mrs. Fischer was still alive, if just barely…” Now it was his turn to choose his words carefully. “I could tell from her wounds that she didn’t have much time left; that’s why I had you contacted to respond here instead of waiting to get her into the hospital… it turns out I underestimated the damage… she’s dead, Father.”
Father Gregory still grasped the chief’s hand and now patted it gently, as if Chief J were one of the newly bereaved. He knew Mrs. Fischer, of course, “Kitty,” as she was known to everyone — though why she should be equated to a young cat the priest was at a loss to understand. He blamed his imperfect comprehension of American speech and promised himself that before he returned to Goa, he would master its intimacies. “I see,” he murmured. “I quite understand, dear man.” He patted the chief’s hand once more before releasing it. Behind him he heard a snort. Unperturbed, he demanded, “Take me to her, Chief J.”
Julian responded with, “Prepare yourself, Father,” and then nodded at the officer with the notepad, who stood aside to let the two men pass. As they did so, Julian said to him, “Father Gregory Savartha…” then added for the benefit of the puzzled rookie whose pen remained hesitatingly aloft, “common spelling on Savartha.” He led on with only the ghost of a smile.
The sixty-five-year-old woman lay on the grimy linoleum of her kitchen floor within full view immediately upon entering the house. Father Gregory found that he was not prepared, and said simply, “Oh…” upon seeing her. “Oh, dear lady.”
In spite of all the medical packaging that lay strewn about her, clearly none of their contents had been useful — she was quite shockingly dead. The blood that had leaked from the numerous gashes in her skull had congealed into a black pool and she lay with the back of her head resting in it, her features grey and slack, the whites of her eyes gone the color of dirty sheets flecked with red. Even to his untrained eye, the priest could see that she had originally been facedown in the mess and had been turned over by the officers and rescue personnel attempting to save her life. As a result, one half of her face was war-painted a sticky scarlet — a final indignity for a woman he knew as a quiet and intensely devout member of his flock.
“She was always kneeling and praying,” he murmured sadly. “I believe she must have lit a thousand votive candles in the brief time I have been here. This is a damn shame.”
Chief Hall threw him a surprised look. “I don’t need to tell you not to touch anything, I’m sure,” he nonetheless reminded the priest. “Though the scene’s been pretty thoroughly photographed and processed up to this point. In fact, I think the investigators from the prosecutor’s office have already cleared.” He glanced over at the Viking-like patrol sergeant who filled the doorway behind him, completely obscuring the young rookie on sentry duty. The sergeant nodded once but made no move to enter the room. “These folks,” and here the chief indicated two figures suited up in what appeared to be paper pants, shirts, and caps and wearing surgical masks and gloves, “are our M.E.’s best.” The two sexless, faceless figures appeared to glare at the senior policeman over their masks. “They’re a little annoyed with me,” he continued in a mock confidentiality meant for the entire room to hear. “They’re anxious to package up Mrs. Fischer, the cadaver, that is, and be off — it appears we are holding them up with our superstitious ways.”
“I see,” Father Gregory replied uncomfortably. “Well, this shan’t take but a moment or two, I am thinking, as the time for the viaticum has, unfortunately, passed. Some patience is in order, however, for a simple prayer.” He set his valise on the floor, no longer requiring its contents, and knelt next to his unfortunate parishioner, though being careful to stay well out of the blood. As he drew closer, an odor began to reach him, cloying and carnal, that would shortly become rank. How distressingly mortal the poor body is, he thought, even as he grimaced at the smell of new, and violent, death.
Sketching a cross in the air above the corpse, he intoned, “In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” and began to pray for the soul of one Katherine Denise Fischer. Julian automatically followed suit and crossed himself, refraining from kneeling due to some unarticulated concern over his professional reputation, but bowed his head for the prayer nonetheless. Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw that Sergeant Dunbar and the medical examiner’s investigators were all but tapping their feet.
In what seemed an almost inappropriately brief time, the priest completed his prayer with an Amen, and rose once more. With a sigh, Father Gregory removed the stole from his shoulders and returned it reverently to his valise. “Such a shame,” he whispered to Julian while studying the sad remains. Suddenly the little priest appeared to remember something and said, “I was too late to administer to her, of course, but perhaps she had last words that I should be informed of. Is this possible?” he asked the chief.
Julian looked inquiringly around the room, meeting the blank, hostile glare of the M.E.’s people and coming to settle on the sergeant. “Anything?” he asked out of politeness.
Sergeant Dunbar backed out of the doorway while simultaneously seizing the rookie and thrusting him bodily in through the same. “He was first on scene,” he spoke from the porch. “Says she made some kind of statement. Read it,” he demanded of the thin young officer who had suddenly become the center of attention.
With the slightest tremor in both his voice and hands, the policeman flipped back through several pages of the notebook he held and appeared to find the passage in question. Taking a moment to clear his throat and draw himself up to his full and uncommanding height, he read aloud, “My prayers have been answered… thanks be to God.” He slowly closed his book and looked up to gauge the effect of his reading upon his audience. Everyone stared back at him.
“That’s all she said?” Chief Hall asked.
“Yessir,” the rookie confirmed. “That’s it.”
Julian grunted in dissatisfaction. “I guess it’s too much to expect that she should name her killer,” he asked rhetorically of the room at large.
Father Gregory stared up at him in seeming astonishment. “Chief J,” he asked shyly, “may we confer in private?”
Julian gave the nod to the medical examiner’s investigators, even as he took his parish priest by the arm and led him into the living room. The last thing he saw in the kitchen was the hasty unfurling of the body bag.