William Kienzle - Masquerade

“What the hell is this doing here?”

Father Ed Sklarski glanced around the large room, but got no answer from the sprinkling of relaxing priests. No response forthcoming, he tried a slightly different tack. “Who brought this here?”

Father Jim Tracy looked up from the book he was reading. “What is it?”

Sklarski rattled the heavy stock paper. “I don’t know. I just found it on the table here. Some sort of brochure. From Marygrove. A writers’ conference or something. Something about religion and murder mysteries.”

“If it’s about religion, it’s in the right place here.” Tracy smiled and returned to his book.

Sklarski, with nothing better to do at the moment, read on silently from the artsy pamphlet.

Featured Speakers:

Klaus Krieg, Founder of P.G. Press, and internationally famous evangelist of the P.G. Television Network.

Rev. David Benbow, Rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Chicago, Illinois, and author of three novels. The latest: Father Emrich and the Reluctant Convert.

Sister Marie Monahan, IHM, Director of Continuing Education for the Archdiocese of Miami, Florida, and author of Behind the Veil.

Rev. Augustine May, OCSO, Trappist of St. Francis Abbey, Wellesley, Massachusetts, and author of A Rose by Any Other Name, as well as many articles in monastic publications.

Irving Winer, Rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, author of a series of mystery novels from which the popular “Rabbi” television series has been adapted.

Sklarski, feeling a little mid-afternoon numbness, decided to make himself a drink. He glanced at the bar. Plenty of scotch; no hurry. He studied the brochure more carefully. To no one in particular he said, “Who are those people, anyway? I don’t recognize anybody but that jerk, Krieg. Does more damage than an army of goddam devils.”

Tracy had been paying only marginal attention. At that, it was more advertence than anyone else in the room was giving Sklarski. “Krieg? The television producer? What about him?” Tracy asked.

Sklarski pointed to the name, a useless gesture. “Says he’s going to be featured at this workshop at Marygrove.”

“Really!” Tracy lowered the book and removed his bifocals. “That’s odd, even for a relevant place like Marygrove. Who else is on the list?” Sklarski focused with some difficulty. “Um. . David Benbow, Anglican. . ”

“Mystery writer,” Tracy identified.

“Marie Monahan, a nun. .”

“Mystery writer.”

“Huh! Augustine May, aTrappist. .”

“All of them, eh?”

“And Irving Winer. A rabbi, would you believe?”

“You must know him,” Tracy said. “That TV series on Sunday nights is based on his books.”

“The one about the rabbi?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Now that you mention it. But. . you know all these people?”

“They’re all mystery writers. They all have religious sleuths that correspond to themselves. The priest has a priest sleuth, the nun, a nun; the Trappist, a monk, the rabbi, a rabbi. It’s quite a good idea, really, if you want to follow the dictum, ‘Go with what you know.’”

Incredulity was evident in Sklarski’s expression. “You mean you’ve read them all?”

Tracy smiled. “I haven’t read Monahan yet. But the others? Yes.”

Sklarski slowly shook his head. “What is it with you? All you ever do is read books. God! How many books can you read? There’re only twenty-six letters in the alphabet!”

Tracy chuckled and returned to his present book.

Sklarski, while continuing to read the brochure, moved to the bar, where he selected the one glass that, by common consent, was reserved for his use and his alone. It was never washed.

“Aha!” There was triumph in Sklarski’s voice.

The other priests gave him their startled attention. It was at this moment that Sklarski blew the cobwebs out of his glass and splashed in a bit of scotch. Sklarski’s routine constituted an act of faith in the antiseptic powers of alcohol.

“Aha!” Sklarski repeated. “Now we have it. Here’s the reason. That’s why this pamphlet is here.” No one asked what that reason might be, so Sklarski, pointing at the revelatory line, continued. “See here? It says: Resource person: Father Robert Koesler, whose religious background and periodic contact with the Homicide Division of Detroit’s Police Department will provide valuable authentication to our workshop.

“Where is he?” Sklarski bellowed. “I saw Koesler a little while ago. He must have brought this thing with him. Where is he?”

Actually, if Father Robert Koesler had been closer to the Paternoster clubhouse, he could have heard Sklarski easily. But, as it was, Koesler was communing with nature close by on the Lake St. Clair shoreline.

For some time, Koesler, albeit somewhat absently, studied the ground. At length, he selected a flat stone, then skipped it over the barely undulating water.

Six skips. Not bad, but hardly championship caliber.

He inhaled deeply. The air was undoubtedly polluted; wasn’t everything? But, somehow, with no factory or other industrial complex in sight, on a clear brisk September afternoon, at the shore of this pleasant adjunct of the majestic Great Lakes, everything seemed salubrious.

However, as pleasant as it was here, he had no intention of joining the Paternoster Club. His duties, as well as his priorities, were too demanding to make practical such an investment of time and money. He was there this day as a guest of his friend and classmate Father Patrick McNiff, whom a parishioner had once accurately described as “somewhat stuffy but never uninteresting.”

Founded in the early fifties by and for priests, the club was intended as a facility for R, R amp; R: rest, relaxation, and reflection-to which could be added retreat. In the early sixties, the membership had peaked at sixty. Now, thanks to the clergy shortage, it was approximately half that.

Located in Ontario, northeast of Windsor near Stoney Point, the club’s spacious cabin sits on ten acres of land at the tip of a peninsula embraced on three sides by Lake St. Clair and a man-made canal.

Koesler selected a thinner, flatter stone. Four skips. He would not be entering any competition.

If I shot an arrow, thought Koesler, it wouldn’t go very far. But if it were to hit U.S. land on the other side of the lake-out of sight of this spot-it most likely would hit Harsens Island. That was home to Ed Sklarski, now retired-or who, in popular parlance, had achieved Senior Priest status.

Koesler shook his head. Senior Priest status was one of the many fruits of the Second Vatican Council. Before Vatican II, in the early sixties, priests just did not retire. They died, like as not, on a Saturday afternoon while hearing kids’ confessions, halfway through an absolution, bored to death. Somehow, it all seemed more appropriate-dying in the saddle, as it were.

Now there was mandatory retirement at age seventy. Retirement to what? The priest had no wife to live out with him “the Golden Years.” No family with whom to visit or to invite home. Today’s Senior Priest might move to a warmer clime, there to vegetate. Or hang in there doing whatever parish chores he chose. What with the vocations crisis, priestly retirement was a luxury the Church could ill afford.

Koesler hunched his shoulders. Was it getting cold?

He was beginning to develop a philosophy that “nothing is as good as it was.” Not the music, not the movies, not the newspapers; not entertainment, not cars, not pride in workmanship, not anything. Well, if he was developing into a full-fledged curmudgeon, he was of an age at which it seemed appropriate.