Bryan Gruley - The Skeleton Box

Joanie ducked around him past the glass cases holding golf balls and hats and thirty-five-dollar shirts bearing the Lost Valley crest. “We doing this in there?” She pointed into the grillroom. “Oh,” she said to someone I couldn’t see. “Good morning, Father.”

“Excuse me,” Repelmaus said. He took Joanie by the arm to tug her back into the pro shop. “Could we talk about some ground rules first?”

Joanie yanked her arm away. “You didn’t say anything yesterday about ground rules.”

His smile did not falter.

“I totally understand how you could see it that way.”

“We see it that way,” Joanie said, “because that’s the way it is.”

That’s why I loved Joanie McCarthy.

“Please, hear me out,” Repelmaus said. “We think that once you hear what Father Tim has to say, you’ll be considerate of his privacy, and that of the people he represents, so that we may correct the record without undue harm coming to anyone.”

I brushed past him and went into the grill.

“Wait, Gus, please…”

I smelled frying onions. The room was dark with green carpeting, dark paneling on the walls, a low ceiling framed by dark wooden beams, and stilled ceiling fans, the only light leaking in through the windows and off some Christmas decorations strung along the wainscoting. Four stools upholstered in fake brown leather stood at a short bar stacked with red plastic burger baskets.

The priest hunched in a heavy wooden chair at one of the little round tables, gazing through a picture window at the first tee. White curls lapped the rim of his plaid flat cap. A coffee cup and a bottle of Jameson whiskey stood beside each other on a green vinyl tablecloth. His pale hands, riven with blue veins, gripped the blade of a pitching wedge propped between his knees. Bits of grass and mud were strewn on the carpet around his two-toned shoes.

“How’d you hit them?” I said.

He turned. I saw the Roman collar beneath his Lost Valley fleece. He smiled, his cheeks pink. He looked tired.

“Not as bad as yesterday,” he said. “See, they let an old man come play the first hole a couple of times a day, and I say an extra prayer for them at morning Mass.”

“Nice arrangement.”

“Had a birdie on the first try and then, of course”-he looked heavenward-“a double bogey, to set the world back on an even keel.”

I extended my hand. He took it. “Gus Carpenter, Father.”

“Apologies, Father, he just barged right in.” It was Regis, but the priest’s eyes stayed on mine. “Yes, Mr. Carpenter,” he said. “I’m Father Timothy. Please.” He gestured for me to sit. I did, to his left. He looked up at Regis and Joanie, standing at my shoulder.

“You must be Ms. McCarthy,” the priest said, offering his hand. “My mother was a McCarthy, and she was just as redheaded and lovely as you, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“Not at all,” Joanie said. She sat down across from me and set her notebook and pen down in front of her.

Father Tim looked up at Repelmaus. “Well, Mr. Repelmaus,” he said. “Are you going to join us?”

“Of course,” he said, sitting. “I was hoping we could establish a few ground rules first.”

“Give it up, Regis,” Joanie said.

Regis started to say something, but Father Tim interrupted, speaking to me, “Are you a Catholic, son?”

I answered as politely as I could. “Can I ask why that matters?”

The priest leaned forward on his iron and smiled. “So you’re a smart aleck, but you are not a Catholic, are you?”

“Not really, Father.”

He chuckled, his wattle jiggling. “You’ll have to do a good bit more than that, son. I understand your given name is actually Augustus. You remind me of another saint, Augustine. Are you familiar with him?”

“No.”

“He was, I’m guessing now, a little older than you when he wrote a series of books-I suppose today they would be called memoirs-in which he renounced his sinful youth and embraced Christ.”

“They’d probably be best sellers today.”

“That they would. Ah, Lolly.”

A woman in a gray sweatshirt stitched with the words LOUNGE STAFF appeared with a coffeepot. “Top you off, Father?” She poured without waiting for his reply.

“Anyone else like a cup?” the priest said.

All three of us demurred. Father Tim told the woman, “A three and a six today, Lolly. You’ll mark them down?”

“Indeedy,” she said. She lifted the Jameson and poured a splash into his cup before going back behind the bar.

The priest flipped the iron over and leaned the grip against the table. “I like to keep track of my scores,” he said. He took a sip of his coffee, set the cup back down, and folded his hands on the table. “So, your mother,” he said. “Beatrice Damico, yes?”

I was so startled that Joanie spoke before I could. “What’s that got to do with anything?” she said.

“I met your mother, Augustus. Just briefly. A long time ago, before she was Carpenter. I was on a little vacation, a cabin at Burt Lake, and came down to visit St. Val’s, met with a number of the classes. I recall that your mother had a devotion to the Blessed Mother.”

“Did she?”

“When Mr. Regis told me your name was Carpenter and you had come from up north, I wondered if it could be Beatrice’s son.”

And I wondered how he would have known that Mom eventually became a Carpenter.

“So that’s why you agreed to see me? To reminisce?”

“I wish,” he said.

“You must have known Nilus then-Father Nilus, that is. And Sister Cordelia?”

“I’m sorry,” Repelmaus said, “but Father Timothy, we really should go off the record.”

I ignored him. “Are you representing the archdiocese, Father?” I said. “We asked to speak with somebody from the archdiocese. Excuse me if I think it’s a little weird to be sitting at a golf course with a priest who’s drinking before ten a.m., questions my religion, and then claims to know my mother.”

I thought Joanie might flinch. She didn’t. Neither did Father Timothy. Repelmaus said, “That’s quite unnecessary, Gus.”

I turned to him. “Who are you representing, Regis? Not the archdiocese, of course.”

“My client is a Detroit law firm that represents the archdiocese.”

“You mean Eagan, MacDonald and Browne?” I said.

“I have not been authorized to-”

“That will suffice, Regis,” Father Timothy said. “Yes, Augustus, I speak for the archdiocese, and yes, Mr. Repelmaus is here on behalf of that firm.”

“Then maybe you can tell me why the archdiocese is buying up land around Starvation Lake?”

I was taking a chance, jumping my question to a conclusion in the hope that they’d think I knew the answer anyway, so they might as well tell me. The priest shrugged. Repelmaus said, “The Detroit archdiocese hasn’t had jurisdiction up north in decades.”

“That doesn’t mean they can’t buy land,” I said.

“Have you documented this?”

“I can document that your buddies at the law firm are buying land. But no way they’d be interested on their own. They must have a client who wants it, or wants control of it.”

“Please tell me why you think that client would be the archdiocese,” he said.

“Who’s interviewing whom here?” Joanie said.

“Maybe the archdiocese is interested for the same reason Wayland Breck is.”

I turned to the priest, who wore a purposeful smile.

“Ah, Mr. Breck,” he said. “Our lost sheep. We had high hopes for him.”

“He works for you,” Joanie said.

“No,” Repelmaus said, a little too quickly.

“Bullcrap,” she said, pointing the notebook at him. “He digs up dirt on-”