And then he could stand it no longer.
At four o’clock, with a substantial line of people waiting for him, he opened the door of the confessional and crossed the breadth of the church.
He entered the rectory and walked down the dim hall with the bureau blocking half the way and he entered the middle study where Father McGillicuddy sat at a small teakwood desk, writing in an account book. The week had not been unprofitable, Cyrus had noted with mingled guilt and satisfaction. Poor Martin Foley — God rest his soul — had not understood at all; he had been isolated from the realities of a world of money by the bureaucracy of the Vatican. Money didn’t grow on trees, even in Florida where we have very healthy trees, Cyrus would say.
“What is it, Father Tunney?”
“Oh, I feel ill, quite ill.” Again, the white-haired man glanced down at the carpet, his hands held before him like a schoolboy called to the principal’s office. “I couldn’t stand being in that confessional box one moment more… the darkness, it reminded me…” He let his voice die. And then: “Father, I wonder if you would be so kind as to take my place. I think I want to lie down.”
He is pale, McGillicuddy noticed, standing up, alarmed.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything?”
“No, I — well, I’m all right. I just was reminded of too much. That confessional box. When I was a captive… but—” The words failed again, as they so often did; he seemed incapable of explaining anything that had happened to him in the jungle. He had failed at the Mass last Sunday, during the sermon; he had failed several times in conversations with McGillicuddy. Perhaps the journal, because it was a silent and unjudging listener, was the only means by which he could tell what had happened to him.
“No problem,” Cyrus said gently, struck by the insight. He understood, in that moment, all the suffering that had burdened Leo Tunney for twenty years; in a moment of excruciating empathy, he finally understood. “No problem,” he repeated, patting him on the arm. “I’ll take it on for you.”
“You are kind,” Tunney said, looking up, his clear blue eyes smiling into those of the other man.
“Not kindness. It is our duty,” he said in a not atypically pompous voice.
And so, with this act of charity, McGillicuddy ended his days.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Jones, found him.
It was not like him to be late for supper or for any meal. So she had gone into the church. The place was empty, it was late, and the hour for confessions was long past.
She had hesitated, but then, supper was waiting for him. As she said, she hadn’t worked all day on it just to have it go cold because he fell asleep in the confessional. That had happened once before. That’s what she told the police.
And so McGillicuddy had been found, sitting like a child in his chair in the box, his hands folded on his lap, leaning slightly to one side, a very small neat, bloodless hole in his right temple.
The splinters of wood around the screen on one side suggested even to the newest rookie that one of the people who had been in line for confession had come with another purpose in mind. The bullet that killed Father McGillicuddy had come from a small gun, most likely .22 caliber. When the priest, in the darkness, slid back the door of the screen to hear the confession, he had been shot to death.
23
The telephone kept ringing, over and over, and she tried to bury it in her dream but the phone would not stop ringing and she finally awoke.
She was sweating, her forehead was damp and the room felt close.
Dreams? What had she been dreaming?
The phone continued to ring.
Her sleepy voice sounded odd to her; why was she sweating? But she knew it had been the nightmare she could not remember.
“Rita.”
Kaiser’s voice sounded tired and that surprised her. He never sounded tired, no matter the hour or the day or how long he had been working.
“What time is it?”
“Midnight.”
“What’s happened? What’s going on?”
“Rita. Are you all right?”
“What? What did you say?”
The barrier of sleep, of the night, of the long-distance call seemed to make his words indistinct.
“Rita? Are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” She laughed. “Of course. Except for being awakened in the middle of the night.”
“Get out of there.”
“What? What did you say?”
“There’s danger.”
“Kaiser. What’s going on? I filed the story, I had dinner, I must have dozed about nine o’clock — what’s going on?”
“I don’t know. But I just came in. Cassidy took your story.”
“Yes?”
“Two deaths,” Kaiser said.
“What’s going on, what are you talking about?”
“I don’t know, Rita. But this is dangerous—”
She tried to make a joke. “You never worried about me before. And now I don’t even work for you—”
“—my fault.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, nothing. Just listen to me, for Christ’s sake.” He sounded really afraid and he never sounded afraid; he sounded like a man suddenly shown terror in its naked form.
“What is going on?”
“Rita. Get out of there. Right now—”
“Go to hell. I will not get out of here. There’s a story here.”
“First Foley, now the other priest. I had no idea all this was going to happen.”
“Kaiser, what are you talking about?”
“Rita. Trust me. This one time. Get out of there now, tonight, get to the airport any way you can. Don’t drive, that would be dangerous. Get a cab, get to the airport, and get back here as fast as you can. I’ll take care of you.” He seemed to be raving, to be talking to others. “I have my own connections, I got you into this—”
She was frightened then, not by what he was saying but by the horror in his voice, by the edge of fear he was feeding her.
“There’s a story here, I’m not going to be scared—”
“Scared? I’m not talking scared to you, Rita, I am talking death. Dying. Final edition. Do you understand me? I did not want to hurt you, ever. That’s why I wouldn’t let you go down on the story in the first place, I should have known you would go on your own, and now it’s all—”
“This is melodrama, Kaiser, stop it, stop it—”
“Rita. Listen. Can you get a cab from the hotel where you are?”
“Yes. I think I can.”
“Do it. Call a cab right away. Get to Tampa airport right now. I know it’s midnight, you may have to wait until morning for a plane. But maybe not. I don’t know what the schedules are but the airport is the safest place for you. Don’t stay in your room a minute longer, they must know you’re there—”
“Who knows? Who knows?”
“Rita, just listen to me and don’t ask me any questions.”
She had filed the story on the murder of the old priest at eight o’clock. It was a bare account picked up from the police who seemed puzzled by it all and it was embellished by a recounting of the whole history of Leo Tunney from the moment he left the jungle. Death followed him, he had told Rita. But she did not use that line.
There was still the matter of the journal. When she had filed the story, Kaiser was not in; Cassidy took the story. So now Kaiser had read the story and something — some person? — had panicked him into calling her at midnight.