The Fatal Fall

Two-1

Two

“I HAVE THE BOXES YOU requested, Father Greer.”

I look up from my laptop at the student assistant, who’s just wheeled a cart carrying four six-inch by twelve-inch gray archival boxes to my table in the Myer College Archives and Manuscripts Reading Room. She’s a young, bespeckled coed wearing a burnt orange sweater and a skirt that catches her just below the knee.

She bears no resemblance to another young coed I met in the same area fifteen years ago, but she still makes me uncomfortable.

“Thank you, Gwen,” I say quietly. I peer at the labels. “So these are Father O’Connor’s papers from when he was Rector at Saint Clare’s? Doesn’t seem like very much.”

“This is just his personal correspondence,” she replies. “Also his diary, which is fairly detailed. The parish records are at the Archdiocesan Archives.”

I smile slightly. “Yes, I know.”

“He was at Saint Clare’s during the Depression? That was a hard time for this area.”

I look at her. “I’m doing my senior honors thesis on that period,” she explains.

“Ah, I see. Well, he was here at the beginning. He was assigned in 1927, but died in his sleep in 1933. Which is interesting in and of itself, considering he was only forty.”

Gwen’s eyes get big. “Really? You—you don’t think—I mean, is that why you’re—”

Changing the subject, I say, “So, you’re majoring in history? That was my major as an undergrad.”

“Was that before you became a priest?”

I look at her and smile. “Oh, yes,” I say. “A while before I became a priest. I didn’t even think about becoming a priest then. It wasn’t until—”

She gasps and puts her hand to her mouth. “Oh! Of course! I remember now. I’m so sorry, Father.”

I put my hand up. “It’s fine. I’m surprised you even know the story.”

“Are you kidding?” she squeals. “I mean, you and the Chief of Police are a big deal among my friends, and most of us aren’t even Catholic. It’s just such an incredible story. So romantic.” Gwen pauses, looking like she wants to ask me something.

I raise my eyebrows. “You have a question, Gwen?”

She blushes even as she says, “Well—er—ah—we were talking—my friends and I—and one of the other girls—well, she said she saw it in an interview, and Mrs. Parr said that—well, that is to say, she said—”

“Yes,” I say simply, knowing what she’s trying to ask.

I know, because it is THE BIG QUESTION Helen and I get in every interview we’ve done since the Pope granted me a dispensation to marry and our engagement was announced to the world.

Gwen’s mouth falls open. “Really? You mean, you two have never—”

“That’s right,” I nod.

“I mean, I know you can’t—what I mean is, you can, but you’re not supposed to. Right?”

“Yes, they’re very strict about that,” I say.

“Gwen!” I turn in the direction of the sharp voice and see Linda Danes, the head archivist—my old job—glaring at her young student.

“Yes, Ms. Danes?” Gwen says quickly.

“Please leave the patrons alone,” she says. “This is not the place for you to add to your no-doubt ample supply of gossip.”

The young lady swallows, nods, and scurries off. To Danes, I say, “She wasn’t bothering me, Linda.”

“I just thought you’d like me to run off another—do you call them fans?” she says with a smile.

“I call them fans,” I chuckle. “Helen, well, has another word for them.”

“When am I going to meet this woman, Tom? You need to bring her sometime.”

I sit back and shake my head. “Alas, Helen does not have my love of dusty stacks and the smell of old paper.”

“That’s unfortunate, considering you share her love of solving crimes,” she replies.

I wave away the comment. “I don’t love it, in spite of any evidence to the contrary.”

“You could fool me,” Linda says. “If the papers are right, you’re the real Father Brown.”

“They exaggerate—though Helen did buy me a saturno for Halloween. No, I just find myself involved. I don’t go looking for it. Sometimes, it seems that a crime finds me.”

“You need to be more careful, then,” Linda laughs. “I’ll leave you to do your research.”

She walks away from my table and I open the box with my white-gloved hands. Removing a folder, I lay it on the table and carefully open it, revealing exquisite handwriting in blue ink on aged, lined paper.

“You did have excellent penmanship, Father,” I whisper with admiration. I begin to read the first letter and start transcribing the contents.

Now, you may wonder what I’m doing in the Myer College archives, reading the 100-year-old correspondence of my predecessor. Frankly, I decided I needed a hobby to help relieve stress. After Dr. Martin Maycord told me that I needed to lower my blood pressure, I began riding my bicycle regularly. I’ve come to not entirely hate it—especially when I’m riding with Helen—but along the way, I realized I needed something to relax my mind as well.

And what’s more relaxing to a former archivist than a couple of hours immersed in the records of the past?

Minutes later, I’m reading a letter from Father O’Connor’s sister—his actual sister as well as a Sister with the Daughters of Charity in Emmitsburg—when someone taps me on the shoulder.

I jump and turn to find Nate Rodriguez grinning down at me.

“Hi, Father Tom,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“Morning, Nate,” I respond. “Just doing some research.”

He peers at the box on my table, and the letters in front of me. “Oh, Father O’Connor, huh?”

“Yes. You recognize it?”

“Oh, yes,” he says. “I looked at the same boxes researching Victoria Myer for the article I did for the Gazette.”

I try not to grimace. That article he wrote, saying the Myer Mansion was haunted by the ghost of Victoria Myer, was at best a mixed blessing to the parish. It sent ticket sales to the Acutis Society’s Fairy Tales and Frights through the roof. It also put us on the map of every “paranormal investigator” in the country.

It also made me much more aware of my responsibilities to pray for all the members of my parish, even those who died over 150 years ago.

“I spent some time reading Winthrop Myer’s letters as well. There’s actually a copy of a letter Myer wrote about Victoria’s death in one of his letterbooks,” Nate says. “So, what are you researching?”

“Frankly, Nate, your article—for all the problems I had with it—got me interested in the history of the town in general and the parish in particular So, I decided to do some research into Father Liam O’Connor. I learned about him in seminary. He was well known in Maryland for his work against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.”

“Interesting,” he nods. “Are you going to write a book?”

I smile. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just a way of relaxing, taking my mind off things for a few hours. What are you doing here?”

“Just researching another article for the Gazette,” he grins.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. There was so much attention for my article about the Mansion, they wanted me to do an article each month about something related to the history of the area.”

“That’s great, Nate,” I say. “And you’re still cleaning up crime scenes?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, this is fun and what I really like to do, but that pays the bills. Besides, I still owe Gladys for the money she loaned me to start the business.”

“I haven’t seen you two in a few days. How are things?”

He smiles. “Really good, Father. Best they have been in a while. We’re still working through some things, but at least we’re talking instead of yelling.” He pauses. “A few days ago, Gladys asked me if I was disappointed in her after she told me about her past.”

I don’t say anything, letting Nate tell me what happened in his own time.

“I didn’t answer for a long time,” he says quietly. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her the truth. Then I admitted that I was.”

“Did you tell her why?” I ask.

He nods. “That I’d built this vision of her in my mind, and in one fell swoop, she knocked it down. She wasn’t the sweet, innocent girl I thought she was—I’d known she wasn’t, you know, after she told me about Richard Davenport, but I still—I don’t know—I thought that was an anomaly, I guess. So yeah, I was disappointed. But I realized I still loved her and, even though I did something wrong and stupid for the dumbest of reasons, that never changed. And it wasn’t going to.”

I stand up and clap him on the shoulder. “That took a lot of courage, Nate. I’m proud of you.”

He swallows and manages to say, “Thank you, Father. That means a lot.”

“Nate,” Gwen says behind him. She has another cart, but with only one box on it this time.

“Oh, great! Thanks, Gwen,” he says. “Sorry, Father, I’ve got a job this afternoon, but I want to look at this first.”

“Totally understand,” I say. Looking at the time on the clock in the reading room, I add, “I don’t have much time before I need to meet Helen for lunch. By the way, what’s the article about?”

Nate grins, his eyes flashing with his usual exuberance. “No ghosts this time, Father. Buried treasure.”

I blink. “Excuse me?”

“OK, maybe not buried treasure. I’m doing an article on the embezzlement of $150,000 from the Bank of Myerton in 1928.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that?”

“Oh, it was a huge scandal back then. The vice president of the bank took off with a Western Maryland and Ohio Railroad payroll and neither he nor the money was ever seen again. There have been all sorts of rumors over the years about what happened to the money. Well, I think I’ve figured it out.”

“Oh? So, where’s the money?”

Nate grins again. “You’ll just have to find out with the rest of the town.”

He grabs his cart and goes to a table on the opposite side of the room. I return to the nun’s letter, trying to focus on the contents.

But I can’t help feeling disquieted about Nate’s latest project.

***