Mike said nothing, just stared at the bag that hung from my shoulder.
Mrs. Meserole said, 'There's no change, Donald. All we can do is pray. It was good of you to come.'
I wondered if there was some way I could stick the lethal needle into her, but this was not what Mike had in mind, or what Stu would have wanted-so far as I knew-so I acceded to the wishes of others in choosing who in the room would be eased over the precipice.
'I'm sorry,' I said.
'Yes, it's so sad. But he's so peaceful.'
Mike followed me into the corridor. I handed him the bag. 'There are clear instructions inside,' I said.
He placed the strap over his shoulder and caressed the bag, as if examining its strange properties with his fingertips.
'She's leaving at six,' Mike said, 'to go with her sister to the movies. It seems I've finally earned her trust.'
'Oh.'
He shrugged miserably.
'You don't have to do it now,' I said. 'Or at all. He's not suffering.'
'I'm not doing it for him,' he said. 'I'm doing it for me. I want this over with.'
'Sure.'
'Maybe I'm doing it for Rhoda and Al too, because it's what they want, but they don't know it. Is that too presumptuous?'
'I think it is.'
He thought about it. 'Yeah, but-I can't live this way. Maybe they can, but I can't. Don't I count?'
'Yes. What you're doing's not wrong. He's as good as dead, after all. Stu's long gone. What's going on now is just ceremony.'
'Well, it's the longest damn ceremony I've ever had anything to do with.'
This was where Stu was supposed to stick his head around the corner and say, 'Didn't you watch the Academy Awards this year?'
But he didn't do it.
I said, 'I'd do it for you, but I don't think you want me to. It's too- It's about as intimate as two people can get.'
'That's right, Don,' he said. 'That's exactly what it is. Thanks for your help.' He pulled my cheek against his and held it there, and then he turned with the bag on his shoulder and walked back into the room.
I stood there for a minute, feeling light-headed, and wondering if there was a lounge nearby where I could sit down for a while, or maybe curl up in fetal position and weep, when two people walked out of the room across the hall where the comatose truck driver and Bishop McFee lay.
One of the two was a middle-aged woman with a tight perm in a primary color. She said, 'Arthur's been a tower of strength through all of this, Edna, so I don't think it's up to you to criticize him.'
'June,' said the other woman, equally permed to within an inch of her life, 'he had no right to talk to you that way about your own brother. I'm sure the Murphys have a skeleton or two in their own closet somewhere, and Arthur just had no right.'
'Mrs. Murphy,' I said, and she turned. 'I'm so sorry about your brother. Has he shown any signs of improvement?'
'No,' she said, and both women gazed at me mournfully. 'The bishop is sleeping peacefully, but we don't know if he's going to wake up or not.'
'It doesn't look good,' the other woman said.
June Murphy said, 'All we can do is pray. We just hope the bishop is having sweet dreams.'
'It's a tragedy,' I said. 'How long has he been in his coma?'
'Since June eleventh. It's coming up on seven weeks now. We're all praying for a miracle.'
'But it doesn't look good,' the other woman said.
'Your brother-what? Slipped in the rectory?'
'One of the brothers had just waxed the floor,' June Murphy said somberly. 'Mort was hurrying down the hall and he slipped and fell backwards, and he tragically landed on the back of his head and it affected his brain. And he'd been so vigorous and active right up until the time of the accident.'
'And so admired throughout the diocese,' I said. 'I'm Bob Mills, by the way, and I know your husband, Art. We've bowled together.' They both nodded and smiled wanly. 'Sometimes I gave your husband a lift on Wednesday night when your brother was using his car.'
It took a second for this to register, but then it did, and she said, 'Oh, yes, the bishop always left his car to be waxed out at Byrne's Wednesday night and Mortimer used Art's car to make his calls. Wednesday night was his night to visit the homeless.
Mortimer never forgot the unfortunate, even after he became a media personality.'
'I suppose the bishop's accident must have been almost as hard on Art as it was on you, Mrs. Murphy.'
I could see that this made them both a little uncomfortable, and she said, 'Yes, Arthur is deeply saddened,' and let it go at that.
'Maybe I'll just look in on the bishop and say a little novena,' I said.
'Thank you,' Mrs. Murphy said. 'It's all anyone can do now.'
We said good-bye, and as the two moved on down the corridor I heard Mrs. Murphy's friend say, 'Well, now, that was nice of him, wasn't it?'
I walked into the room past the vacant-eyed truck driver and stood at the side of the bed of the vacant-eyed bishop. He was surrounded by flowers and cards and statuary, as if he'd already arrived at the cemetery, but instead of a white clerical collar around his neck, he was hooked up to a feeder and a respirator, and he had a big white bandage wrapped all around his head.
I leaned down to his ear and whispered, 'Hello there, Ail-American Asshole Mega-Hypocrite.'
If, in his mind, he formulated a furious reply, he did not speak it. end user
23
I drove over to the Cityscape office on Greene Street and found Joel McClurg about to leave for the day.
'Do you keep a Times Union library?'
'Only as far back as 76.'
'Good enough.'
'What are you looking for?'
'I found John Rutka's Mega-Hypocrite-the one he told you was evil and John was scared to death of. Now I want to find out how he knew the man was evil. I'll bet I know, but I want to confirm it.'
McClurg's eyes got big. 'You actually found the guy that killed Rutka?'
'No, not yet. That's somebody else. That part will be simple, I think. But first things first.'
'You're not telling me a thing, Strachey. And after all the help I gave you.'
'Just let me look something up. Then we'll take a ride and you can take a picture of the murder car. How would that be? Or do you have someplace else you have to be?'
McClurg led me quickly to the Times Union index and showed me how to use it. Within a minute I'd found the October 1982 newspaper with the front-page story on Father Mortimer McFee's investiture as bishop of the Albany diocese. The ceremonies were of only passing interest to me; it was Father McFee's background I wanted to learn about, and I did.
Born in Buffalo in 1931, and raised there, Mortimer McFee had attended seminary in Batavia and served as assistant pastor at a church in New Rochelle for three years. Then he became pastor at St. Joseph's in Water-town, where he ministered from 1956 to 1968. In April of 1968 Father McFee was appointed parish priest at St. Michael's in Handbag, where he served until his elevation to bishop of the diocese in 1982. During Rutka's troubled teen years, full of turmoil and lies, his parish priest had been Mortimer McFee.
As we drove out to the diocese headquarters in Latham, I described to McClurg the chain of evidence and
