embarrassed. In retrospect, I believe my grandfather’s death tortured her for most of her life. She was”-he stopped and looked at the table-“an increasingly sad woman.”
“But she kept the truth-or her version of it-from you.”
“Perhaps she didn’t want it to torture me.”
“But now it does.”
He chose not to reply.
“She didn’t commit suicide, did she?” I said.
“Melanoma.”
“And what is the truth?”
Breck looked at the shift room door. “Aren’t you going to take notes?”
“On the record?” I said.
“Absolutely.”
I took out my pen and notebook and opened the notebook and wrote BRECK, JAIL, WED at the top of the first blank page. I looked up at him. Only then did I notice.
“Did the cops confiscate your glasses?” I said.
“I don’t wear glasses,” he said.
“Go ahead.”
“My grandfather,” he said, “did not kill Sister Mary Cordelia Gallesero.” He clasped his hands together on the table and leaned over them. “He may or may not have had romantic feelings for her. But he did not kill her. The truth is, he knew something about what happened to the nun, and so Father Nilus Moreau made sure he was eliminated. My grandfather wasn’t even arraigned. He was tried, convicted, sentenced, and executed in this very building in a matter of two days on a weekend.”
“That’s all public record.”
Breck continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “He tried to call the only person in the world he trusted-his daughter, my mother-but she was away at a wedding, and there was no voice mail or mobile phones to track her down. She heard about his death a good twenty-four hours after it happened.”
“He got in a fight with the wrong guy.”
Again he ignored me. “As a fellow investigator, Mr. Carpenter, you’ll be interested to know that I found the priest who supposedly heard my grandfather’s confession.”
“Impressive.”
“Emile Waterstradt. Saint Robert Bellarmine. Otsego Lake. Glenfiddich.”
“Glenfiddich?”
“Scotch. A bottle a day. Waterstradt finally left the priesthood in his shame. I found him living in an apartment above a bar in Hillman.”
“How do you spell Waterstradt?” I said.
“He’s dead. But if he were still alive, perhaps he would tell you, as he told me, that my grandfather didn’t kill the nun, but that he did see what he believed to be the remains of the unfortunate nun.”
“Where?”
“In a crawl space beneath the old church. They were about to start building the lovely new church, and Grandpa was cleaning things up. He found her remains beneath a pile of dismantled pews. At first he thought it was an animal. But there were shreds of cloth.”
“Her habit.”
“Correct.”
“And he told the priest.”
“The charming Father Nilus, yes. As for the ‘wrong guy,’ after Rupert Calloway was released on the pretense that he had acted in self-defense, he subsequently moved north and enjoyed splendid employment at a home for retired priests on Lake Superior. He mowed the lawn and plowed the walks and in return received room and board and the convenience of a whorehouse in Ishpeming.”
“Rupert Calloway is-”
“The man who cut my grandfather’s throat. He died in ninety-seven. Unfortunately I didn’t find him in time to ask him a question or two.”
“You’re saying someone arranged for this Calloway guy to kill your grandfather?”
“I’m not saying it. Father Waterstradt said it, while crying like a child into his coffee cup of single malt. He and Nilus were close.”
“Entertaining story. But you didn’t go to the authorities.”
“What did the authorities say happened to the nun, Mr. Carpenter?”
“Your grandfather dumped her in Torch Lake.”
“But her body never washed up.”
“Sometimes bodies don’t wash up in that lake,” I said. “Sometimes boats don’t.”
Breck smiled. “I’ve heard all about the underground tunnels that suck things out to Lake Michigan.”
“Why should I believe a man who helped the church defend pedophiles?”
“Do not judge lest you be judged.”
“Enough with the biblical claptrap.”
“Believe what you like,” he said. “I saved most of those men from much harsher treatment at the hands of my clients.”
“Eagan, MacDonald and Browne, representing the archdiocese.”
“Indeed. To say they were ruthless would be an understatement of the first rank. My research, which the lawyers put on the record quite selectively, didn’t always help the archdiocese’s case. So they were forced to settle on less-than-palatable terms, at least financially. The men were compensated handsomely, and they went on with their lives.”
“You’re a hero. Congratulations.”
The door opened. Skip Catledge ducked in. “Five minutes,” he said.
The door closed. Breck said, “You’ve no doubt noticed that my name didn’t show up on any of these sex abuse cases until the early nineties, after my mother died.”
“So that’s why you got close to the church, to find out what happened to your grandfather.”
“The law firm would be careful, of course, with an outside contractor like me. But I made a few friends, learned a few things.”
“Like, they’re buying up land on the lake.”
“So you have done some homework. After I learned about the first purchases, last summer, I focused my research. And when I heard what they were offering for the Edwards parcels”-Tatch’s property-“I decided it was time to act.”
If only Tatch had taken the money and sold his land, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe Mrs. B would be at Mom’s house now, drinking rose over a game of Yahtzee.
“Have you enjoyed your little messianic charade?” I said.
“It is nothing compared to your colleague’s.”
“My collegue?”
“I’m sure Whistler hasn’t mentioned that he came to me a few years ago to ask about my grandfather. He said he was researching a story.”
“Bullshit.”
“He came with a woman. It was a hot summer day and I had a window open. I could hear them out in the parking lot, bickering. Then I heard tires screeching and he came in alone.”
A woman? “How did he find you?” I said.
“My mother’s name was in the papers when my grandfather died.”
Of course. That’s how I had made the connection. I felt a little sick. When Breck had told me outside the drain commission meeting that I was being “led astray,” I hadn’t thought he was referring to Whistler.
“But how would Whistler have known there was a story?” I said.
“He’s fifty-six. Born in June 1943. And yet his father, supposedly one Edgar Whistler, was killed in April 1942 at Bataan. Which doesn’t add up. But if little Lucas was born in one town-let’s say Clare, an hour away, but another world back then-and his mother moved him back to Starvation as a baby, people there wouldn’t doubt he was the
