“What do they think happened, then?” Andy asked as he backed out of the base cabinet.
“That maybe he took that nosedive into the sand on purpose,” George said. He waited for the drama of his words to sink in.
“That’s nuts,” Andy said.
“Well, there’s more.” With the fan secure, George climbed down from the ladder. “My brother and a couple of other cops have been talking to some witnesses—experienced pilots who were there. It looked to them like an intentional stall.”
“Maybe it was part of his performance,” Andy said. “Maybe he was going to” -George interrupted him.
“That other priest at St. Esther’s. The old guy, Father Wayne? He told my brother he’d been worried about Sean lately. He said Father Macy had been withdrawn and upset. He thought Sean might have been screwing… Excuse me. There’s a lady present. He thought Sean might have broken his vow of celibacy.”
Daria was incensed. How far had this rumor spread? The man had been dead only a few days, and already his memory was tarnished.
“That’s all just speculation,” she said. “And it really bothers me to hear it. Why does everyone always have to look for the dirt? Sean Macy was a really good man and a good priest. He wouldn’t have” -She suddenly remembered Shelly’s prediction that the priest would kill himself, and an eerie sense of dread filled her chest.
“He wouldn’t have what?” George prompted her to finish her statement.
“I just wish you wouldn’t spread this kind of thing around until you have some facts to back it up.”
“Don’t listen, then, Miss Priss.”
George continued talking about Sean Macy and what the cops had or had not been able to uncover, but as Daria resumed her work on the cabinets, her thoughts were on Shelly. Shelly had always been unusual in her ability to see things others could not, but she’d never before displayed psychic powers. If Sean Macy had indeed killed himself, how had Shelly predicted it?
That night, Daria sat at the picnic table on the Sea Shanty porch with Chloe and Shelly, eating cold roasted chicken and potato salad for dinner. No one was talking much; neither Chloe nor Shelly was finished with her grieving. And although Daria knew the timing was poor, she had to bring the subject up.
“There’s a rumor going around that Father Macy might have killed himself,” she said halfway through the meal.
Chloe looked up from the chicken breast she had barely touched.
“I’ve heard some rumblings to that fact,” she said, her voice flat.
Daria looked at Shelly, who kept her gaze fastened on her plate.
“Shelly?” Daria prompted.
Shelly looked up.
“What?”
“I know you thought that might happen. That Father Macy might commit suicide.”
Chloe looked surprised.
“You did?” she asked Shelly. “What would make you think that?”
Shelly shrugged and poked at her potato salad with her fork.
Daria looked at Chloe. “About a week ago. Shelly was upset, and she told me she thought Father Macy might kill himself,” Daria explained.
“I thought she was… I thought she’d misinterpreted something he’d said. Now I’m not so sure.”
Shelly began to cry. She pushed her plate away and pressed her napkin to her eyes.
“I knew he was going to do it,” she said.
“I should have done something about it.”
Daria leaned forward, her elbows on the table.
“Why on earth did you think he was going to do that?” she asked.
Shelly sat back on the bench, her nose already red from crying.
“He said he was upset with himself,” she said.
“He said he was a… sinner.”
“A sinner?” Daria repeated.
“What did he mean by that? Did he say why he thought he was a sinner?”
Shelly shook her head. “He always talked like a puzzle to me. I was never sure what he meant about things.” She picked up her fork again and poked it into the potato salad. “He asked me if I thought it was wrong to kill yourself, and I said that I thought it was. And he said, that he thought God would forgive a suicide if it was done to save somebody else.”
Daria and Chloe exchanged looks of confusion on their side of the table.
“Who would he be saving?” Daria asked.
“I think you must have misunderstood him.”
