Andrea Leyk's body is found. Father Dewey is called to the scene to administer last rites.

Chapter 3

A Very Grave Man Indeed

“To men a man is but a mind. Who cares
What face he carries or what form he wears? But woman’s body is the woman. O
Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go.”
–Ambrose Bierce


Dewey lounged outside Room 211 on the second floor of St. Teresa’s, waiting for the bell to ring for his eleven o’clock class. The hardwood floors smelled of varnish and shined like patent leather, and the radiators at the end of the hall clanged and hissed in friendly greetings. His outfit of blue golf shirt, khakis, and Reeboks added to the new boy on the block vibe. When he’d shown up at the office, Mrs. Cooper, the grey-haired, bespectacled receptionist, had said, “If you’re here to register, we don’t accept boys. This is a girls’ school.”
“No, ma’am, I’m Father Fischer, the new priest at St. Boniface. I have an eleven o’clock class.”
“You can’t be . . . But where’s your-- ?”
“My collar? I thought I’d put the girls at ease.”
“If you say so, Father,” she said, frowning and pursing her lips–like one of the nuns who’d managed Uncle Mike’s parish in Anoka.
The bell rang, a wrenching sound not unlike a fire alarm, and a bevy of girls spilled out of Room 211, giggling and pushing and shoving, until they noticed a man in their midst. They stood dumbfounded, undecided whether to scream or to swarm around him, asking if the school had suddenly turned coed.
“Don’t worry, girls,” he said. “I’m Father Fischer.”
A raven-haired charmer with Cleopatra bangs said, “I want you for religion, Father. Father Czech is such a bear.”
“I’ll be teaching the ninth and tenth graders,” he said.
“Drat,” the raven-haired beauty said. “And I had to be a senior this year. I can never win.”
“The girls moved down the hall, peeking back over their shoulders, skipping and giggling, until they came to the stairs, where the raven-haired enchantress mounted the bannister and slid down to the first floor, whooping and hollering all the way down. Dewey didn’t know whether to laugh or report her for taking such a dangerous chance. He decided to dummy up.
As Dewey entered Room 211, found a piece of chalk, and set about printing his name on the board in bold block letters, the ninth grade girls began to file in, an explosion of colors–a lavender ribbon in strawberry-blond hair; a green Tam o’ Shanter hiding fudge-colored ringlets; a blue sweatshirt, stamped with the Yale log; a vanilla blouse over a camel-plaid skirt with green tights; brown and white saddle shoes.
The girls gave him quizzical looks, until they noticed the name on the blackboard.
The alarm sounded again, and Dewey read the names on his class list. Twenty girls, and they all answered “present” in musical adolescent voices.
Dewey glanced at his watch and said, “Let’s get started, shall we? As you can see, my name is Father Duane Fischer. You can call me Father Dewey if you wish. I thought we’d talk about Andrea Leyk for awhile, if you don’t mind. I know Father Czech has met with you, but . . .”
A girl with a kinky blond perm raised her hand. “Father, why aren’t you wearing your collar?”
“And your name is?”
“Cindy Miller.”
“Any relation to Jim Miller, the deputy sheriff?”
“You know my father?”
“Not well. We met the first day I was here.”
“He chased you off the bridge,” a little redhead in pigtails offered.
“As a matter of fact he did,” Dewey said. “The girls laughed knowingly. Dewey decided to go for another chuckle. “In answer to your question, Cindy, if the nuns don’t have to wear their habits, I don’t have to wear my collar. It chokes me, you know.” The burst of laughter was mindful of the kind The Stooges got on Comedy night at the Paramount in Anoka. The girls would be a very good audience.
Dewey then handed out some paper he’d gotten from the sour Mrs. Cooper. “On a more serious note,” he said, “I just want to caution you again not to go anywhere without a friend or an adult. That is until this situation is resolved. In any event, I’m sure you’re all worried about your friend, and I thought it might help to write what you feel about Andrea. If you have any questions, you can write those down, too.”
While the girls wrote, Dewey studied the room. A map of the Western Hemisphere on the opposite blackboard screened notes on South America scribbled beneath and next to it. Something about Brazil. The teacher’s handwriting was harder to decipher than his, and that was saying something as his was “chicken scratching,” to quote his best friend Gordon Culp.
After a few minutes, he collected the sheets of paper and read the one on top. It said, “I think Roman Platz killed Andy.”
Dewey slid that one to the bottom of the pile. The next one he read aloud, “Why would a person do something like this?” He said, “Let’s brainstorm, shall we?”
Cindy raised her hand.
“You don’t need to be so formal,” he said. “Just blurt it out. If too many of you talk at the same time, I’ll referee. I’ve always hated parliamentary procedure.” Once again the girls chuckled.
“He could have been angry at her,” Cindy said. “Maybe like a boyfriend or something.”
The little redhead said, “We don’t know that anything has happened to her yet. That’s what my parents say.”
“She’s dead,” Cindy blurted. “My dad said they found bloodstains in that old farmhouse at the edge of The Runway.”
The room got so quiet Dewey could hear the girls breathing. Some of them gripped the edges of their desks so hard he could see the whiteness of their knuckles.
Finally he said, “We don’t want to jump to any conclusions.”
“I’m not worried about her,” a heavy girl in the back said. “She was a jock; I don’t like jocks.”
The other girls hooted and turned to scowl at Rosemary, whose name Dewey remembered from attendance.
“Now, girls,” Dewey said. “Rosemary has a right to say what she thinks, even if it isn’t very charitable. In high school, I used to detest the starting flanker back who got to play while I rode the pines. I think most of us have some resentment against kids who’re higher on the popularity ladder, but that’s no reason to wish them ill. Let’s think about a time when something awful happened to an athlete with whom we could all identify.”
Cindy raised her hand. “That football player who was paralyzed. I seen him on television. He crashed into another tackler trying to sack the quarterback. I don’t remember his name.”
Rosemary said, “Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig’s disease when he was only thirty-something.”
“Yes, and we don’t feel too good when we hear about that sort of thing, do we? So even though we may resent Andrea somewhat, we can empathize with her and her family. Try to put ourselves in their places.”
The girls nodded, even Rosemary, who hated jocks.
“How about fear?” the redhead with the pigtails said. Her name was Megan according to the seating chart.
“What do you mean?”
“Whoever took Andrea is afraid of women, and as a result, he’s resentful and this resentfulness causes him to hurt them.”
“Excellent contribution,” Dewey said. “I didn’t know we had Joyce Brothers in class. Very insightful. I think you’re right. Fear does cause a lot of violence.”
“Mrs. Schultz, she’s our health teacher, tells us men who rape women aren’t really all that interested in sex,” Cindy said. “They want power over women.”
“Because they’re really weaklings,” Megan said.
At that point the teeth-chattering bell sounded and Dewey said, “We’ve had a productive session. Next week, I hope we’ll meet on a happier note. Pray for Andrea. You may be excused.” The girls shuffled out of the room, except for Megan and Cindy, who hung back to talk to Dewey.
“That was sooo cool, Father Dewey,” Cindy said. “Most of the time Father Czech just talks at us. He won’t even call on us if we have a question.”
“I feel so much better,” Megan said. “I was afraid to leave the house, but now I realize this creep is a real doughboy. If he tries anything with me, I’ll karate chop ‘em.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be too brave,” Dewey said.
“Andrea was my first cousin,” Cindy said. “My father thinks it was a lover’s quarrel. He’s going to interrogate Trace Trutwin, her boyfriend.”
“He’s a hot-shot hockey player,” Megan said. “And sooo good looking!”
Dewey moved toward the doorway, the girls following along like metal filings drawn to a magnet. “I don’t think your father would want that to get around, Cindy,” he said.
“I suppose you’re right. I wouldn’t like it if somebody thought I did it.”
“I think Rosemary did it,” the redhead said, a mischievous glint in her eye. “Did you notice the venomous tone in her voice? She sounded like the man in that story we had to read in English Lit., ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, where that guy bricked his friend up in the wall.”
Before Dewey could chide Megan, the P.A. sounded. “Father Fischer?” Mrs. Cooper said.
“Yes.”
“There’s a call for you. Jim Miller.”
“Daddy’s on your trail,” Cindy said, with a little giggle.

#

Twenty-some miles north of St. Gervais, some pheasant hunters noticed Andy Leyk’s hand protruding from the sand in a gravel pit, and aware of the kidnapping case, notified the sheriff’s office. One of them contaminated the scene by scooping sand off Andy’s face and chest, enough to reveal her nakedness.
Jim Miller, who’d taken the call, squatted on the edge of the gravel pit, feeling sick to his stomach. Andy Leyk, his sister Helen’s girl and his favorite niece, lay below, her eyes still open. As he thought about how he’d bounced Andy on his knee, acid tears rolled down his cheeks. Unmarried at the time, he’d spoiled Andy as he would his own daughter, got the little girl her first Barbie Doll and playhouse. Cost him fifty dollars he didn’t have.
Miller wanted to go to the stream he could hear gurgling in the background, wet his handkerchief, and wipe the sand out of her eyes. As he sat hunched over, his breath coming in short painful breaths, Jim Miller reacted irrationally, removing his cellular phone from his belt and dialing a number.
A voice said, “St. Boniface rectory. Viktorija Gashi speaking.
“May I speak to Father Fischer,” Miller said, his voice quavering.
“He is at the young women’s school. Do you wish to leave a message, please?”
Miller gave the foreign-sounding woman his cellular number. “It’s an emergency,” he said. “Tell Father Fischer to call back as soon as he gets the message.”
He’d make sure Andy got the proper blessing before he let the medical examiner and the crime scene people touch her.

#

In a hurry to get to the crime scene, Dewey overlooked the gas gauge indicator dipping dangerously low. He wondered if an eighth of a tank would get him there.
As the little car wound its way down the narrow, twisting lane leading to the gravel pit where Miller said he would find Andy’s body, he heard eerie, chant-like singing. A requiem. Missa pro defunctis. The mass for the dead. Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine. Give them eternal rest, O Lord. As clear as the jazz music he usually listened to on his Walkman during his early morning strolls before classes at the seminary, the dirge persisted as the Renault came abreast of Miller’s blue and white cruiser parked in a turnaround off the trail.
Dewey shut down the clunker, got out, and slammed the door as hard as he could to announce his presence, just in case the cop grew trigger-happy. He’d heard of worse things happening. Besides, he had a case of the heebie-jeebies. Never saw a murdered person before. How would he react? Please Lord, don’t let me faint! he prayed.
Ahead, he spotted Miller slumped on the ledge of the gravel pit, mouthing soundless words. Could he be praying? The cartoonish aspect gone, his sandy brown hair and gunslinger’s mustache gave him the look of a monkish Marlboro man.
“Thank God you’re here, Father,” the deputy said. Remaining in his crouch, he stared up at Dewey with brown searching eyes, the bruised, red-flecked eyes of a little boy who’d just lost his little sister. “I didn’t want anybody else to touch her until you set her soul to right.”
Dewey forced himself to examine the partially uncovered girl. Andrea’s blonde hair lay fanned out behind her head, as if arranged prior to burial. The size of the girl’s breasts dwarfed any he’d seen, and Dewey felt a slight stirring in his loins. Pinching himself hard and cursing beneath his breath, he chided himself for being unable to control himself. You’re a priest, for God’s sake! Get hold of yourself.
Stupid pun.
Rotting flesh ought to dampen the lust in even his wretched heart. But he couldn’t take his eyes off of those marvelous breasts. His former girlfriend, Abby, whom he’d almost married, owned a rather boyish figure, not that that deterred him from begging her to go braless.
Dewey took a deep breath, trying not to look at Andrea. “Ah, shouldn’t she be wearing a hair tie or something? You know, to keep the hair out of her eyes while she was skating?” Miller scratched his head, gave this some thought. “She was.” I saw her at Bank Square, waiting for the light to change, with those skates slung over her shoulder. Had on one of those elastic things the basketball girls all use. Scrunchies they call them. Green, I think.”
Couldn’t help himself; he took a closer look. No sign of strangulation. Not a mark on her. Buried under a shallow layer of sand for a week but just as virginal as the morning she’d set out on The Runway. “I can’t really give her the last rites until the forensic people have seen her. I’d have to touch her, I’m afraid. We’ll pray for her until the criminalists get here. It’ll sooth her spirt, I promise you.”
Miller wiped his eyes with a crumpled handkerchief, then unsnapped his cellular and dialed a number. “Jerry? This is Miller. I’ve found Andy Leyk . . . Yeah . . . Yeah . . . I’m there now. It’s a gravel pit about twenty miles north off Highway 10. I left an orange flag at the entrance to the access road. Tell Doc to look for a barn on the left with a windmill. There aren’t too many of them around anymore. Yeah . . . Just me and Father Fischer . . . I called him . . . She’s my niece.” Miller hung up the phone. “Asshole. Excuse my language, Father, but he was on my case for letting a civilian near the crime scene.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jim.” He clasped the cop’s callused hand. “We’ll say a rosary for Andrea. Do you know the sorrowful mysteries?”
“The Agony in the Garden. The Scourging at the Pillar. The Carrying of the Cross. That’s all I remember, Father.”
“Very good, actually. Let’s start, shall we?”
Dewey did not go back to the Renault for his rosary but continued to hold the man’s hand and whisper the Glory Be, then the Apostle’s Creed, and the Our Father. Soon they got to the long string of Hail Marys, and Dewey put it on auto pilot as he’d often chided himself for doing. They got into a rhythm of Dewey intoning, “Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed at thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,” and Miller murmuring, “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” And they both said, “Amen.”
How strange he felt holding a man’s hand. How repulsed, actually. He wanted to drop Miller’s hand and take another gander at Andy’s corpse. Spotted several clues already–her loose hair, her unmarred skin. What would he find if he took a really close look? At the end of the first mystery, Dewey said an extra Hail Mary, and Miller, obviously keeping track, cleared his throat. The man must think saying an extra Hail Mary would foul the machinery.
Dewey gazed up at the sky. As clear and placid as the Blessed virgin’s holy raiment a half hour ago, it had turned an ominous blue-green, and with it, the eerie requiem chant returned. Nasal tenors and bombastic basses, droning a dissonant bomp-bompa-bomp.
When Dr. Alexander, a grey-haired curmudgeon sporting a porkpie hat, got there, he chewed Miller out for contaminating the scene, would brook no interruptions as the deputy tried to tell him about the hunters uncovering Andy’s face and chest and that he’d wanted to wipe the sand out of her eyes. And then the poor shlep started to cry. Dewey hugged him, patting him on the back–a bit too hard, like a diner who’d gotten a chicken bone stuck in his throat.
The forensic specialists did a grid of the scene, took pictures, and vacuumed the body for fibers; then the doctor, peering over Ben Franklin glasses, did a preliminary exam. “Looks like she’s got a broken hip. You can cover her now,” he said to Dewey.
“Would it be all right if I gave her the last rites,” Dewey said. “Deputy Miller is her uncle.”
“Good God Almighty! No wonder he’s been acting like such a ninny. Sorry, Miller. Be my guest, Father.”
As Dewey closed Andy’s eyes, they slid down like a doll’s, but when he touched the girl’s forehead, electricity coursed through his body, like the time lightning zapped his nine-iron out of his hand while playing pasture pool, and he jumped back as if he’d touched a hot stove, took a deep breath, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Other than this, he felt curiously serene as he stroked the skin of her hand. Not at all the mannequin-like texture one might predict. The girl’s skin envied the soft, pliant skin of the first girl he’d held hands with at the Paramount, if a bit gritty from the sand. He found himself envisioning what must have happened:
Andy is gliding down The Runway on her skates when a car approaches from behind, the driver honking his horn. She turns as the car comes abreast, recognizing the driver. Dewey senses a combination of frustration and anger. The girl blames herself for leading the guy on and she’s upset with him for his inability to take a hint. Dewey follows the girl’s perspective as she searches for help. He sees a hay field on the right, wheat stubble on the left, and an empty road. Her focus swings back to the car. What color is that? What make? Damn it, it’s one of those noir delusions–black and white.
“Dr. Alexander,” Dewey said. “Were there any paint chips affixed to her skin?”
“If there were, the techs will find out when they run the vacuuming under a microscope. Why? You think she was hit by a car?”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it? The broken hip.”
The doctor wiped his glasses with his shirttail, shoved his porkpie back on his brush cut. “Not necessarily; he could have knocked her down or whacked her with an iron bar. Everybody wants to play detective.”
“Got a nice tire track back here,” one of the techs yelled. The other one went to join him; they took pictures and did plaster casts of the indentations.
“Those probably belong to the hunters,” Miller said. “They drove right up to her.”
“Just in case,” the tech said. “We’ll take impressions of the hunters’ tires, and if they don’t match . . .”
As they finished, the sky opened up, dumping buckets of rain on them. Dewey remembered he’d left the window open on the Renault, but, nonetheless, helped the doctor fit Andy into a body bag.
“I want those hunters brought up on charges,” Miller said.
“The doctor tsked. “What for? If not for them, we wouldn’t have the body.”
“Bunch of perverts if you ask me.”

#

A blazing fire crackled in the grate that night as Dewey and Father Czech sat in the parlor. Dewey stared into the flames, visualizing Michael and his band of archangels destroying Lucifer and his diabolic legion, one of them the progenitor of the scum who’d snuffed out Andrea’s Leyk’s life.
Too bad he didn’t believe in the devil.
After confirmation of Andrea’s death, The Leyks and Viktorija had reconciled and she’d gone to comfort her adopted parents.
“Damn shame about the girl,” Father Czech said from his recliner by the fire. Despite the grey cardigan he wore, the pastor had complained about it being a big nippy and Dewey had added a couple of logs. Mutt lay at Father Czech’s feet, the priest resting his malodorous stockings on the retriever’s back.
Dewey nursed a wounded finger from a wood splinter, as well as hurt feelings. Turns out Father Czech called social services the moment Viktorija and Roman got back from their ditch-cleaning adventure, and they arrived an hour later to pick up the boy.
Father Czech touched his tongue, turned the page on a pamphlet about Medjogorje, the Croatian village where a group of children–-young men and women these days–-had been communing with the Blessed Virgin since 1981. Another surprise. Father Czech seemed more of a by-the-book Cardinal O’Connor type than someone who would gush over specious miracles. Already several times tonight he’d said, “Just looking for a loophole,” in his W.C. Field’s voice, and “I wonder if Viktorija knows anything about this place. Croatia, that’s pretty close to Kosova, isn’t it?”
“My ninth graders had some interesting ideas concerning Andrea’s kidnapping today,” Dewey said. “Two of them were especially impressive: Cindy Miller and a young woman named Megan.”
“Oh, yes, the Miller girl. She’s Deputy Miller’s daughter, you know. Chatty little thing. I had to send her out of class once.”
“They think the murderer is afraid of women.”
Father Czech took a sip of wine. “Speaking of women, I don’t think it’s a good idea for Viktorija to be staying here overnight. A young man like you . . . did the Bishop tell you I’ve lost three assistants in twenty years?”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“You know there were even rumors about me and Mrs. Hanover.”
“Haven’t met her yet, Father.”
“You’d laugh if you did. She’s got a face like an English bulldog.”
Dewey rose and stirred the fire with a poker. “Awfully cold for early September,” he said. “It started raining while we were out at the scene, and I haven’t been able to get warm since.”
“Mutt wormed out from beneath Father Czech’s stockings and did a stroll around the room, sniffing under the couch and in the plant holders, as if searching for his new friend Roman.
Finally, he gave up and padded back to the recliner to serve as Father Czech’s footstool.
“Mrs. Cooper said you were teaching class without your collar today.”
“Yes, at first she thought I was a new student applying to the wrong school. Funny, huh?”
“You do look awfully young, Dennis. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with it. Why do we need to wear black? Don’t you think we’re sending a subtle message?”
“I guess I’m just an old fogey.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Father.”
“You know I’m sixty-two?”
“You don’t look it. You’ve still got the black hair and the rugged good looks.”
Father Czech choked on his wine. “Not only do you look like Dennis Day, but you’ve also been blessed with the Irish blarney.”
Strains of “Danny Boy” piped through Dewey’s mind, reminding him of the Wicks-Hendrickson. “I was wondering if it would be okay for me to play the organ during high mass this coming Sunday,” he said.
“You play the organ?”
“Sure do. At one time I had visions of becoming a composer.”
“You never cease to amaze me, Dennis. Be my guest.”
“Are you doing that on purpose, Father?”
“What, calling you Dennis?”
“You are doing it on purpose. I had another idea, Father. You know Mrs. Culp?”
“Yes, a particularly tight-fisted old crone.”
“I was best friends with her grandson, growing up in Anoka. I’m thinking she might throw in a few smackers to help repair the roof on the church. I noticed some water spots . . .”
Father Czech’s face turned a beet red, visible despite the dim light from the fireplace. “Don’t you think I’ve tried, Father Fischer? When the Bishop visits, I feel like hiding my face in my hands, and he always makes a point of calling my attention to the leaky roof.”
“If you’d rather I didn’t . . .”
Father Czech ran his fingers over his crinkly receding hairline; he looked rather ashamed of himself. “I’m just being a prideful old fogey again.” He let out a sigh, leaned down and stroked Mutt’s coat. “It’s almost time for ‘Murder She Wrote’. I wonder what Jessica’d think about the Leyk killing.”
“I know one thing,” Dewey said. “He kept something belongs to her.”
“What makes you say that?”
“They all do.”
“Really, how do you know that?”
“I read this book by John Douglas, an FBI agent. He’s the guy on whose career they based the profiler in Silence of the Lambs.”
“You like that kind of thing?”
“Why not? You watch ‘Murder She Wrote’.”
“That’s different, just a story. Was Andrea raped?”
“Looks like it. The body was nude.”
Father Czech’s mouth gaped wide, as if he’d opened for an oral hygienist. He sputtered, “It’s t-too bad you had to see that. I’m surprised Jim Miller didn’t ask for me.”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? He did. Mrs. Cooper paged me when she couldn’t find you.”
“I was at the Leyk house. The mother is taking it awfully hard. Who do you think did this, Dennis?”
“You’re going to keep that up, aren’t you? I’d have to say it’s some outside person. Some predator. A local person would have shown some previous tendencies. Torturing animals, panty raids, and such. The police would know about any local person with those proclivities.”
“The Hendriksons think Roman Platz did it. That’s one of the reasons I ran him out of here. We’ve got enough trouble
without . . .”
“Who are the Hendriksons?”
“The three brothers who run the barbershop. You’ll meet them when you get your hair cut for Sunday.”
“Is that a hint, Father?”