“My father goes to buy a motorcycle. The salesman takes him over to a bike.”
Bram laughed softly, his eyes watching a distant memory.
“Dad starts launching into this lecture of what’s wrong with the motorcycle. The cam chain tensioner isn’t calibrated to exact zero. The front hydraulic fork isn’t welded properly to the brake caliper. The rear drive sprocket…” He smiled. “All these years of education and I still don’t know what a sprocket is.”
“It’s the teeth in a gear that fit into a wheel,” Decker said.
“Good for you. I can see why-” He stopped midsentence. “Anyway, Dad blew the salesman away. They became instant friends. He’s been riding with this hard-case leather pack for a couple of years now. They call him Granddaddy Sparks.”
Bram looked at the card, handed it back to Decker.
“Apparently he enjoyed it a lot more than he let on. Which was typical of my father. He kept it close to the heart. It’s nice to know my father indulged in fantasies.”
“Did you call them to come to the service tomorrow?”
“You mean his motorcycle friends?”
“Yes.”
“No, tonight I only called the relatives and Dad’s church friends. I wouldn’t even know how to get hold of these guys.”
He thought a moment.
“I suppose I could call the dealership tomorrow.” Again, the priest smiled. “Now that would be something to see. Dad’s biker buddies sitting next to the church ladies.” His eyes suddenly moistened. “So needless. What a horrible, horrible… tragedy. As much as I try to fight it, say it was in God’s hands…because we’re all in God’s hands…I keep asking myself why my father? Why Azor Moses Sparks? Who did so much good. Just a colossal…waste!”
“I’m sorry.” Decker waited a beat, then said, “If you’re up to it, I’ve one more question.”
“Sure.”
“I was comparing notes with a few of my detectives. Did you often eat Sunday dinner with your family?”
Bram looked at Decker. “Why do you ask?”
“Please, Father. Just bear with me.”
“If I had no church obligations, I would eat Sunday dinner with my family. Why?”
“Ever any tension at the dinner table?”
Sparks gave Decker a quizzical look. “Lots of opinionated people under one roof. Sure, there was occasional friction. In general, the dinners were remarkably polite. You can’t judge us by the way we were this evening.”
“I realize that.”
“No, it goes even further than the fact that we were all in terrible shock. My siblings and I have an enormous respect for our parents. We keep the conflict to a minimum when they’re around.”
“Always?”
Again, Sparks stared at Decker. “What do you want to ask me, Lieutenant?”
“Your father once had a colleague of his and her husband over for dinner.”
“A colleague of his and her husband.” Bram brushed long hair out of his eyes. “Dr. Fulton. Her husband’s name was Drew. Drew McFadden. Funny. I couldn’t remember her name earlier this evening. But her husband’s, a man I met maybe two times…I remembered his name in a snap. What would Freud say about that?”
Decker said nothing.
Sparks said, “Maybe he left a bigger impression on me than she did. Anyway, what about the evening?”
Decker looked the priest in the eyes. “He said you got into a big argument with your father. Something about evil thoughts.”
Sparks maintained eye contact. “I don’t argue with my father, Lieutenant.”
Decker said. “Maybe I should say your father was arguing with you.”
Again, Sparks pushed hair from his face. “I don’t know a thing about Mr. McFadden or his wife, Dr. Fulton, or their relationship with each other. Not a thing, all right?”
“Fine.”
“So this digression is theoretical, okay?”
“Go on.”
“Suppose Mr. McFadden is a passive type of person. A guy who might be happy to stand back and let his wife support him, take care of him. So he can do his own thing. A person like that, who lets others run his life, might choose to avoid confrontation. In that person’s misguided perception, it is possible for him to misinterpret a theological discussion as an argument.”
“A heated theological discussion?”
“Not heated. Nothing much more than what you witnessed earlier this evening with my sister, Eva. Would you call that heated?”
“She was aggravated.”
“She was stunned over her father’s untimely death.”
“So Mr. McFadden was wrong? There was no argument?”
“No argument. There was a discussion.”
“Funny, because he told us that it was very much an argument. As a matter of fact, he told me it wasn’t just your father. He said everyone was dumping on you. And you just took it.”
“Why is this important? Are you trying to establish a year-old animated discussion between my father and me as a motive for murder?”
Decker raised his brow. Maybe. Because at the moment, he was grasping at straws. He said, “I’m merely asking a question, Father.”
Sparks exhaled, rubbed his eyes. “I remember the discussion. We were talking about the different religious perceptions of evil thought versus evil action. Were the two equivalent? Not in a judicial sense. No one was debating the difference between evil thought and action in American jurisprudence. We were talking theology. Before the eyes of God, are evil thoughts indeed evil actions?”
Bram looked at Decker, gauging him. “Yes, it’s weird. But it beats ‘how ’bout them Dodgers.’”
Decker said, “I understand what it’s like to live in a religiously driven home.”
“Thank you.”
“Go on.”
Sparks said, “Evil thought as a moral trespass is a Christian concept-a very Catholic concept as well. Evil thoughts require confession, penance, and absolution just like evil action. Why? Because if evil thoughts aren’t dealt with…atoned for and expunged from the idiore-pertoire of our mental workings, they will lead to evil action.”
“Okay.”
“Two schools of thought. Evil ruminations grow into monsters unto themselves until the individual is forced to act upon them. Or my philosophy, which certainly isn’t original, that with ninety-nine percent of us, evil thoughts are pressure valves. A way to release our frustrations or lusts or anger. Ergo, are penance and atonement really necessary for evil thoughts or immoral fantasies? Furthermore, are religious representatives-such as myself-doing a disservice to their flocks by convincing them to drive away these thoughts? Cutting off an avenue of escape from tension. I suggested this kind of narrow-minded repression might even be potentially harmful. My family-especially my father-took exception. Said a clean mind was tantamount to a clean soul. Words that my mother agreed with wholeheartedly.”
“How’d you respond?”
“I didn’t. I backed down. And that, my friend, is it.”
Decker rolled his tongue in his cheek. “Why’d you back down?”
“My, you’re inquisitive.”
“I’m a detective. It’s my job to find things out. Not unlike yours, Father.”
“Hardly, but why go into that now.” Sparks looked down, then up. “I don’t argue with my father because we don’t have parity. As religious and learned as he is, he is at a distinct disadvantage simply because I’ve had more theological education. I can pull rabbits out of my hat. He can’t. As far as my sibs go…Lord, I’m tired.”
Decker waited.
“I backed down with my sibs because I didn’t want to come on too strong in front of our parents. Religion is my field, my calling, my life. If I make a brilliant analysis using theological exegesis, in their eyes, I’m not Bram, the learned priest. On the contrary I’m Bram, the golden boy, scoring brownie points with my parents. Uh-uh, I’m not going to play that game.”
“You’re all adults.”