“I thank you, dear Lord, that Cordelia did not appear to suffer.”
“Liar,” Whistler said.
Mom was doubled over now, quietly sobbing.
Nilus and Bitsy buried Cordelia in a crawl space beneath St. Valentine’s. Two years later, in 1946, Bisty and her young son moved downstate.
“With temptation removed, I redoubled my efforts to dedicate myself to you, Lord, by raising the necessary means to build a church that would give you greater glory.” Nilus wrote. “Circumstances arose, however, in which the Archdiocese of Detroit felt obliged to direct my actions. And so it is at the urging of Father Timothy Reilly that-”
“Your Honor,” Repelmaus said, “I demand that this, this, this proceeding, whatever it is, be adjourned now, before more rank speculation and unconfirmed evidence is allowed to slander the good name of my client.”
Gallagher looked at him. “You have a client named Father Timothy?”
“Actually, Your Honor-”
“Let me guess: attorney-client privilege?” Gallagher said.
“Father Timothy Reilly,” I said, “was the spokesman for the archdiocese quoted in the stories about Wayland’s murder in 1950.”
“You may leave now, Regis,” the judge said.
“Your Honor, you can’t be-”
“Bailiff?”
When the door had closed, Gallagher read the rest of the letter.
Nilus told Father Timothy about the nun buried beneath the church. Father Timothy, Nilus wrote, came to see him one night that August of 1950. He told Nilus that someone tearing down the old church might find the remains. He suggested that Nilus disinter Sister Cordelia and rebury her somewhere she would never be found.
And so, on August 21, 1950, he had.
His letter didn’t say that my mother had helped.
“Some confession,” I said. “He blames everybody and everything but himself for the murder of a nun and the subsequent cover-up.” I looked at Breck. “I’m sure you noticed there’s no mention of your grandfather.”
“I am not surprised,” Breck said.
“Mr. Whistler,” Gallagher said, “are you the son of Father Nilus Moreau?”
Whistler had turned pale. “Technically.”
“Horace,” Mom said. “I’ve had enough.”
“I can imagine,” he said. “Mr. Whistler, it would be prudent for you now to keep in mind that anything you say can and will be used against you.” He turned to Eileen Martin. “Ms. Prosecutor, do you plan to file charges against this man?”
“I need to confer with the sheriff,” she said.
“Then do so expeditiously. And what of Mr. Breck?”
“You have his plea, Your Honor.”
“And a paucity of evidence. However, I suspect Mr. Breck may have information that could be useful to your investigation. Did you hear that, Sheriff Aho?”
Dingus was whispering with Doc Joe. “Sorry?” he said.
“Sheriff, you ought to listen up,” Gallagher said. “You haven’t exactly covered yourself in glory these past few weeks.”
Dingus’s mustache twitched. “Yes, Your Honor. May I interrupt?”
“Interrupt.”
“That ring,” he said. “I’ll need it.”
Whistler grabbed his pinkie ring with the other hand. “First I want a lawyer.”
“They’ll confiscate it at the jail,” Gallagher said.
“Doc Joe, you’ve got the gloves on,” Dingus said.
The coroner held a gloved hand out. Whistler slipped the ring off and handed it over.
“So,” the judge said, “when we return to the courtroom, I will bind Mr. Breck over for trial in the hope that he might find ways to be helpful.”
“Noted, Your Honor,” Eileen said.
Gallagher placed the pouch back in the box and closed the lid.
“These items are now sealed until the court rules otherwise,” he said. “Deputy Catledge, please cuff the prisoners. Sheriff, I turn Deputy Esper back over to you for whatever you must do. But now let’s get back in court- everyone but you two.”
He meant Mom and me.
“Why?” I said.
“You can leave through my clerk’s office.”
“What are we supposed to do, Horace?” Mom said.
“As your son said, solve the case.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I trust you’ll figure it out.”
Everyone stood. Mom and I watched the others file back to the courtroom.
“Wait,” I said. “Darlene.”
I started toward her. She turned around and came to me. Dingus didn’t try to stop her. We embraced, Darlene burying her face in my chest.
“I had to go myself,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s almost over.”
We held each other for a long minute. Dingus finally took Darlene by an elbow.
“Careful, Dingus,” I said. “You don’t want to lose your best deputy.”
Gallagher was last to leave. “Take care of your mother,” he said. “And Bea, you take care of your son.”
TWENTY-NINE
When’s the last time you were here?” I said.
Mom and I had left the courthouse and, at my insistence, walked down Main to Estelle, then turned north and gone six blocks. We stood now behind the empty rows of varnished wooden pews in St. Valentine’s Roman Catholic Church. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to go there. Maybe to jog Mom’s memory, maybe to make her feel things she preferred not to feel. Maybe for me. It felt like the only way.
“Funerals and weddings,” Mom said. “But Sunday Mass, not lately.”
“It seems like a nice church.”
“It’s a building. They knocked the other down and they can knock this one down, too.”
Stone columns embellished with gold-leaf carvings rose four stories to a vaulted ceiling painted sky blue with stars of gold. An enormous crucifix, Christ’s head lolling to his right, hovered over the marble altar. A statue of St. Joseph was missing three fingers. The patterned rugs running the length of the church were worn to a pinkish gray.
“There was quite a row over the stained-glass windows way back when,” Mom said. “The archdiocese said they were too expensive. Nilus ordered them anyway. There were special collections every Sunday for years to pay for them.”
“So the parish paid for Nilus’s guilt.”
She walked to one of the windows, unlocked a transom, and pushed it open. Cold air blew into the church.
“Look,” Mom said.
I walked over and leaned my head down so I could see out the transom. All I saw was a stand of snow- covered scrub pines at the bottom of a slope. “What about it?”
“That’s where the old church was. See the foundation?”
