Kill and Tell Page 3

  “Nine summers!” Ratigan repeated. “My God! I didn’t know you made a career of it. Here I was spending my seminary summers earning big bucks landscaping rich people’s property. And there you guys were, getting pennies for babysitting a bunch of snotty-nosed poor kids.”

  “We may not have had children of our own, but we certainly paid our dues,” said Conroy.

  “It didn’t begin all that altruistically—for me, anyway,” said Koesler. “I and some of my classmates planned on being lifeguards for the summer. We were—God!—seminary sophomores when we took the Red Cross course. Then we had to submit our proposed summer jobs for the approval of the rector . . . remember those days—when the seminary controlled even summer vacations?”

  “Yeah,” said Conroy. “That was a different era. Nowadays, the seminary faculty spends the summer on their knees just praying the students will come back for another year.”

  “Well,” Koesler continued, “the upshot was that the rector vetoed our requests to apply for jobs as lifeguards—at least at a public beach. He did, however, tell us we could apply for jobs as lifeguards and counselors at one of the Catholic boys’ camps.”

  Koesler paused to allow the implications to sink in.

  A low chuckle began deep in Ratigan’s throat. “Ah, yes. What is it you may find on a public beach that you will never find on the beach of a boys’ camp?”

  “Exactly!” Koesler affirmed. “The lesson was that while it was all right to save girls’ souls, it was not all right to save girls’ bodies!”

  All three laughed.

  “From a nice warm pool in Detroit to the frigid waters of Lake Huron,” said Ratigan, “even for high school sophomores that was a pretty stupid decision.”

  “What choice did we have?” said Conroy. “It was Ozanam—or Camp Sancta Maria way up in Northern Michigan.”

  “Well,” said Ratigan, “I hope you guys enjoyed life in your camp subculture. It’s odd, now that I come to think of it: You wanted to be a lifeguard at a beach where you could flex your muscles and impress the girls,” he glanced across at Koesler, “and you ended up at a place where girls were barred.”

  “What’s so odd about that?” retorted Koesler. “That’s the way things were in the seminary. At least back when we were students.”

  “Right,” Conroy agreed. “Remember Father Sklarski giving us our pre-vacation spiritual pep talk? One year he told us the prescribed clerical distance from anything feminine was a foot. Another year, the distance had shrunk to six inches. Eventually, he got down to ‘Look, but don’t touch.’”

  Koesler chuckled. “But it never got more intimate than that.”

  “What’s odd,” said Ratigan, “is that you asked for permission to take a job that would put you in ‘proximate danger’ of being in the presence of girls—‘the enemy’ as the seminary would have it. Save the mark, if one of them got in trouble—or pretended to—in the water, you’d have had to actually touch a girl. And there would go your priestly vocation down the drain—and all because of a cross-chest carry.” Ratigan was smiling.

  “In Red Cross training,” Koesler smiled too, “they told us it was better to hair-carry girls.”

  “I know your type. Anyway, your request for such a ‘dangerous’ job was turned down. While I asked for—and got—permission to spend the summer with Mother Nature. Watering and mowing lawns, trimming shrubs, pruning trees, and the like. And, as a completely unhoped-for, unlooked-for bonus, I got the girls.”

  Conroy’s mouth dropped open. “You did?”

  “Who do you think gets someone in to landscape their property—Mrs. Murphy on Twelfth and McGraw? Not hardly. It’s Mrs. Grosse Pointe. And who stays home all summer while the landscaping is being done—Mr. Grosse Pointe? Not hardly. He’s off earning enough to keep the family in Grosse Pointe and in gardeners.

  “So, it’s Mrs. Grosse Pointe and her nubile daughters and their swimming pool . . . and their gardener!”

  “You mean you—”

  Conroy wasn’t given the opportunity of finishing his question. “Just as you two and all of us,” said Ratigan, “I did not promise chastity until a year before we were ordained priests.”

  “But—”

  “As to the rest, gentlemen, I believe I will plead the Fifth Amendment.”

  “You should have written down your experience as a guide for us who followed you through the seminary,” said Koesler.

  “What! And ruin all those lovely summers you were able to spend with the kiddies at camp?”

  “And all the while, you were the lifeguard at the pool!” Koesler shook his head.

  The waitress returned with their drinks. She did not bring menus. This threesome seemed to be good for one or more additional rounds.

  “So, how do you like it at St. Anselm’s?” Conroy sipped and shuddered as the scotch’s warmth suffused his small round body.

  “Just fine,” Ratigan, who had been in residence at the Dearborn Heights parish during the past three months, replied. “It was kind of Bob here,” he nodded, “to invite me.”

  Koesler smiled and shrugged. “It’s like, Where does a 600-pound gorilla sleep? Where does a bishop live? Anywhere he wants.”

  “Not true.” Ratigan chuckled. “At least not true today. And especially not true of a mere auxiliary bishop. After all, I’m not Cardinal Mark Boyle, Ordinary of the Archdiocese of Detroit. I’m merely a helpin’ bishop.”

  “Waiting impatiently for his own diocese,” Conroy interjected.

  “Not at all.” Ratigan sipped the martini. “Being an auxiliary is one very good way to learn the virtue of patience. I may very well spend the rest of my days in Detroit offering the sacrament of confirmation to kids. Unless,” he nodded at each of his two companions, “outside of emergencies they start letting priests do that too. In the meantime, it was good of St. Anselm’s beloved pastor,” again he nodded toward Koesler, “to allow me residence in his parish and his rectory.”

  “It really was nothing, Mike. You know how difficult it is to find a warm clerical body these days. It’s good to have the company. And, as I’ve said before, as far as I’m concerned, you can stay as long as you like.”

  “Thanks, Bob.” Ratigan raised his glass in salute. “Not only is it good to be with you, but the parish is central to the section of the archdiocese for which I’m somewhat responsible. So it’s very convenient. Far more convenient than the downtown chancery office, which used to be central before they split the archdiocese into regions.”

  The waitress returned. In response to her question, each of them would have another drink. And, yes, they would like to look at the menu . . . which would refer to her as a waitperson.

  “By happy coincidence,” Koesler drained his wineglass, “St. Anselm’s is also convenient to a couple of your closer companions.”

  “The Hoffmans! Yes, indeed, that was a coincidence. That they’re parishioners does make it convenient.”

  “The Hoffmans?” Conroy looked surprised. “Not Frank Hoffman! The auto executive?”

  “Yup. Frank and Emma Hoffman of automotive fame,” said Koesler. “And their friends and fellow parishioners, Charles and Louise Chase.”

  Conroy’s mouth hung open. “The Chases! I’ve read about Charlie Chase so often I didn’t think he was real. But he doesn’t live in Dearborn. The Chases are in . . . where—Bloomfield Hills, aren’t they?”

  “Oh, come on, Charlie,” Koesler chided, “don’t pretend you’ve never heard of parish shopping! It must go on even at Patronage. You’ve got to have some of those old parishioners—Poles and Italians—coming back to the old neighborhood on Sundays.”

  “Well, yes, of course. I just never thought of somebody like Charlie Chase as a parish shopper.”

  “What did you think, then: that if the Chases didn’t like their territorial parish, they’d go buy one they could live with?”

  “Funny thing,” mused Ratigan, “there was an article on that just the other day in the Journal.”


  Ratigan, thought Koesler, might not have been the only clergyman who was a regular reader of the Wall Street Journal, but he was the only one Koesler knew. The Journal had definitely added a touch of class to St. Anselm’s mail delivery since Ratigan had moved in.

  “Actually,” Ratigan continued, “I’d forgotten till I read the article that the tradition of belonging to the parish within whose territorial boundaries one lives goes all the way back to the fifth century.”

  “You may have forgotten it,” Conroy remarked, “but I don’t think I ever knew it. I thought it began in the early part of this century with the establishment of the Code of Canon Law.”

  “Nope. More like fifteen centuries. The article said the practice of parish shopping was almost unheard-of until five or ten years ago.”

  Koesler guffawed. “I don’t think the writer of that article ever heard of Father John Roth, of happy memory.”

  “Roth?” Ratigan tried to place him. “Wasn’t he pastor of some parish in Garden City?”

  “Exactly. St. Raphael’s. If parish shopping did not predate Roth, then he certainly launched it. He used to perpetuate pleasant practices like forbidding couples with small children from occupying newer sections of the church—so the little darlings wouldn’t ruin the new pews.

  “And when parishioners parked their cars across the yellow lines marking parking places, Roth had his ushers go out and slash the offenders’ tires. And that must have been . . . oh, some thirty years ago when I was an assistant at St. Norbert’s, the neighboring parish. We had our hands full trying to stem the tide of parishioners trying to escape the wrath of Roth—families who were very definitely parish shoppers.”

  The waitperson returned for their order. After quickly consulting the menu, Ratigan ordered the filet and another martini. Koesler ordered chopped sirloin and Conroy the prime rib; each declined another drink.

  “And that was back in the days when you needed a letter from the pastor of your proper territorial parish granting permission for the switch,” said Conroy, picking up the conversational thread.

  “The article in the Journal,” said Ratigan, “noted that only about half of those who describe themselves as Catholics regularly attend Mass now. And in the mid-sixties, that figure was more than 70 percent. The article also said—and I imagine it’s true—that most pastors welcome anyone who comes.”

  “It is true,” said Koesler. “We’re a mobile society now. Nearly everybody who comes to Mass on Sundays, at least in the suburbs, drives. It is not that difficult to drive a few extra blocks, or even miles, to get to the parish of your choice rather than your territory. I know we have people who live in St. Anselm’s parish attending Mass elsewhere. As well as people coming from outside the parish. Instead of Norbert or Anselm or Raphael, they just ought to name parishes St. Conservative or St. Liberal.”

  Conroy chuckled. “Which would Anselm be?”

  “I’ll answer that,” said Ratigan. “St. Right-Down-the-Middle—with a bit of a hook to the left. Very representative but ordinary liturgies with good, solid homilies.”

  “Gee,” said Koesler, elbow on table, chin propped in hand, “you read that just about the way I wrote it.”

  Ratigan grinned, then began eating his tossed salad. “Of course, I don’t approve of parish shopping. I don’t suppose any of us really does. The philosophy behind the territorial parish is as sound now as it was in the beginning. Parishes, at least the nonethnic ones, are set up to serve a given territory. What happens when a Roth comes along? People go shopping—burdening other parishes that weren’t set up or prepared to care for the swelling number of parishioners. Meanwhile, for lack of contributors, Roth’s parish sickens, maybe dies. As, eventually, Roth must do. Then we have neither a Roth nor a St. Raphael’s. But then,” Ratigan made a helpless gesture, “when you have a couple of the caliber of Charles and Louise Chase . . . well, then, we’re back to where does a 600-pound gorilla sleep.”

  “But are people like the Chases and the Hoffmans all that active in the parish?” Conroy was first to finish his salad, as he would be first to finish each of the courses.

  “As active as they can be, I guess,” Koesler responded. “Actually, the Chases have been parishioners much longer than the Hoffmans. Unless I’m mistaken, the Chases were charter members of St. Anselm’s. Lived in the parish when it was founded, long before I was assigned there. Used to be quite active until they moved out to Bloomfield Hills.

  “The Hoffmans aren’t that active. But they are, I guess, busy with lots of other demands. Actually, I don’t know why they haven’t moved out of the parish. They certainly can afford to.”

  “They’re making a statement, Bob.” Ratigan knew the Hoffmans much better than even their pastor did. “On the one hand, they live in an adequate house. On the other, Frank has a master plan for his life and a timetable for accomplishing that plan. He intends to climb to the highest rung of The Company. And as he climbs, he will move to the appropriate neighborhood, join the appropriate club, and so forth. For the moment, Dearborn suits him nicely.”

  “That’s very interesting.” Koesler felt a twinge of embarrassment at not having been let in on that little secret. But then, he reflected, a pastor is not necessarily a friend to be invited in to share secrets. Bishop Ratigan was that friend. “For a long while, I simply assumed that the Hoffmans would move, if only to put more space between them and Angie Mercury. There seems to be no love lost between those two.”

  “Indeed there is not,” Ratigan affirmed. “If it were not for the strong bond between Frank and his sister Cindy Mercury, the relationship between Frank and Angie would never have existed.” He speared a piece of filet. “In any event, we may just get to see this entire cast of characters interacting at the dinner at the Mercurys this Saturday. You’re coming, aren’t you, Bob?”

  “Indeed I am. I intend to go and see who eats what.”

  5.

  Locked into a space capsule-like steambox, a towel wrapped around her graying red hair, she faced a sign that ran the length of the rectangular room. The sign read: Tirana’s Aphrodite Clinique de Beauté. And beneath that: Tirana shares her Albanian beauty secrets with you.

  There was little to do but read the sign—over and over—while hoping that the attendant who had fastened her into this cabinet would remember to return and unfasten it while she was still medium rare.

  “Wasn’t it Saint Lawrence,” Louise Chase commented, “who, facing martyrdom by being roasted on a gridiron, said to his tormentors, ‘You can turn me over now; I’m done on this side’?”

  “Feel that bad, do you? Just hang on,” Emma Hoffman reassured her, “it can’t be but a few minutes more.”

  “It’s not possible they could have forgotten us . . .?”

  Em shook her head and allowed a tight little smile to escape briefly. “Not likely. They haven’t lost a customer yet. Can you imagine the fat headlines if Madame Tirana ever lost one of her VIP patrons?”

  “Never mention that word in here,” said someone in another steam cabinet.

  “What word?” Em couldn’t turn to see who had spoken.

  “‘Fat.’”

  “Oh.”

  The roasting ladies in the various steam boxes drifted in silence into their solitary thoughts. Only the soft sound of pressurized steam was heard.

  This was Louise’s first adventure into Tirana’s famed clinique in the swank North Plaza of the Orchard Lake Mall. She was there at the invitation of Emma Hoffman, a Tirana regular.

  The relationship—Louise and Emma’s—was an odd one on more than one level.

  As longtime parishioners of St. Anselm’s, they had, of course, known one another for many years, though not well. Their husbands’ backgrounds were in the auto industry. Each man was a self-made success: Chase as a supplier, building up his own company until it was the largest of its kind in southeastern Michigan; Hoffman as a mechanical engineer, graduating from the University of Michigan and later earning an MBA from
that same institution. He had joined The Company immediately after graduation and worked his way up in the Plastics, Paint, and Vinyl Division to his present position as general manufacturing manager.

  In the automotive pecking order, through all those years, Hoffman’s had been the higher position because he was an executive with The Company, while Chase, no matter what his personal wealth, had been merely a supplier. Then, suddenly, the pecking positions were reversed when Chase was absorbed into The Company. Though the two were in comparable management brackets, Chase was now a level above Hoffman. And that spelled a significant difference, not only in salary but—which most galled Emma Hoffman—in perk levels.

  Chase could and did belong to the prestigious Bloomfield Hills Country Club. Although Hoffman could have afforded a like membership, particularly since his wife had an inherited fortune of her own, he would not have been welcomed by the members of the BHCC, by whose standards his position in The Company simply was not high enough to warrant such membership.

  Hoffman was a member of the equally exclusive but somewhat less prestigious Orchard Lake Country Club.

  So there they were, Louise Chase thought as she simmered, crisscrossing each other at so many points in their lives.

  All things considered, she concluded, it was a miracle that the two men got on as well as they did. Everything indicated there should be so much friction between Chase and Hoffman that their relationship would ignite and explode. But Charles had assured her that, contrary to his expectations, Frank had been a continuing source of help in the nitty-gritty workings of The Company—even to making available his own most trusted advisers.

  For all of this Louise was grateful.

  “Come now, ladies; eet ees time.” The attendant opened the boxes containing Louise and Em’s stewed bodies. “All tze pores are now made open.”

  Louise considered the attendant’s accent to be an ersatz combination of Italian, French, and gypsy.

  The attendant ushered the two women into a smaller room containing several massage tables. The decor was all in blues and pinks. The carpet was plush. And there was something about the walls . . . .