Jeffrey’s only response was a nod.
“Did you,” Koesler asked, “set up the two suspects-Carson and Stapleton?”
Jeffrey shook his head. “I didn’t know apout them at all until Bash started running off at the mouth during the poker game. I was, of course, delighted. Made contact with them immediately and encouraged them in their plans. Warned each of them that it was vital to keep their projects a deep dark secret.”
“What were they trying to do”
Jeffrey shrugged. “A million miles from killing anybody. Though, as I say, it worked to my advantage that the police thought they were. It was all innocent enough. Stapleton, along with a few other CORPUS members, is making preliminary plans for duplication of sorts of the Vatican Council, to be held, like the earlier ones, in Rome. Only this one will be by and for all those who want to function as priests and can’t, Resigned priests, married men; women; homosexuals. Their hope? That the Church will not be able to withstand all the publicity and diat the bishops who agree with their objectives will come out of the closets.
“Fred, by the way, couldn’t understand why the cops got so excited about his aunt’s bequest. He’s known about the dotty old gal all the while, He also knew all along diat the Donovans were distant cousins. When it comes, he won’t turn the money down. But he doesn’t need it.”
“And Carson?”
Jeffrey snorted. “He’s the flip side of Stapleton. They’re opposites. I’m surprised they don’t attract each other. Carson is trying to organize the extreme Cadiolic right wing into vigilante groups-first locally, then nationwide, finally global.” Jeffrey chuckled. “They’re going to infiltrate every parish. Gather evidence-photos, recordings, testimony-of abuse of liturgy, abuse of everydiing. He ‘knows the Pope will act.’ And he’s probably right on that.
“If,” Jeffrey continued, “they hadn’t been so secretive about what they wanted to accomplish, they probably wouldn’t have ended up as suspects. But, as I said, it worked to my advantage. I even encouraged them to go ahead and, above all, to be quiet about it. If anyone, outside of their comrades, learned what they were doing, I assured them, their plans would be sabotaged.”
Koesler considered what he’d just been told. He pushed away.from the table and stood looking down at Jeffrey. “Quent, why did you drop that hint during the poker game?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The way the game was being played, I guess I thought it was unfair. I suppose I wanted to even up the odds a bit.”
“A ‘game’? ‘Even up the odds’? Quent, how can you talk like that!? This wasn’t a game! Human life is what we’re talking about. Innocent human lives! Quent, you committed murder! How can you call it a game?”
Jeffrey’s expression changed instantly, radically. “You’re right. How can we call it a game!” He appeared furious and deadly serious. “How can anyone call what the Church did to me a game!”
“‘What the Church …’ ” Koesler did not understand.
Jeffrey grasped Koesler’s unstated question. “Made me a goddam eunuch!”
“A ‘eunuch,’ ” Koesler repeated. “You mean because as a widower you can’t marry again? But Quent, you knew that from the beginning. Those were the rules of the game from the start. You knew that if you became a widower, without extenuating circumstances you couldn’t marry again.”
Jeffrey snorted. “See? Back to the idea of a game. Can you still wonder why I chose to take them on in a game of my own? My deal! Certainly I knew the rules of their game. What I did not know was how much their game was going to cost.”
“But-”
“Let me finish, Bob. Maryanne was younger than I-ten years younger. When we married, I didn’t think about either of us dying. But if I had, I would have figured I’d go first, of course. Women, on the average, live longer than men, and Maryanne was ten years my junior.
“Another thought I would have had, had I asked myself, was that if my wife somehow would precede me in death, I probably would marry again. But I didn’t give either possibility any conscious thought.
“Not until I got involved in this deacon program. Then, as you say, they stated the rules of the game. Then I was forced to consider what I’d never consciously figured on before: the prospect of becoming a widower. Having considered it briefly, I dismissed it out of hand. Maryanne was not only much younger than I and likely to outlive me, but she was in excellent health.
“Then it happened. Cancer.”
“I remember.”
“I was devastated. But I had no idea when she died that it was going to get worse over the months … over the years. It was never going to get better. I was not made for a celibate life.”
“People can accommodate-”
Jeffrey continued as if Koesler had not interrupted. “I thought dating might help. It made it worse. I was like a clumsy teenager fumbling with the problems of necking and petting, for God’s sake, when I should have been able to live the quiet, fulfilled life I had with Maryanne.” Jeffrey stopped. He seemed to have completed that line of thought.
“You could have gotten out,” Koesler said. “You could have applied for laicization. You could have been dispensed from your obligations as a deacon.”
“Been ‘reduced to the lay state’?” Jeffrey almost spat the words “I’ve never backed away from anything in my life!”
Suddenly it was clear to Koesler. Quentin Jeffrey had been locked in a vise, part of it his making. But a vise, nonetheless, that he’d found inescapable. He was trapped, and, in effect, by refusing to escape through, for instance, laicization, he trapped himself. It must have been an enormous, overwhelming pressure. How could he possibly have withstood it? Maybe that was it: Maybe he couldn’t withstand it. Maybe he cracked. But if he had “cracked,” could he be as rational as he seemingly was?
Something was happening. Koesler was aware something Was happening, but what? Jeffrey shifted in the chair. But not as if he were going to rise.
Jeffrey looked at Koesler for what seemed to the priest a long while. His expression seemed serene. He appeared far more tranquil than he’d been actually only moments before. “Well, Bobby,” he said, “you figured the whole thing out, didn’t you? More power to you. You also figured out that since I was drawing to a royal flush, I would not harm you. You are a lovely man, Robert, but you are no ace.
“Nevertheless, Robert, I doubt that you-that we-are alone. There must be police all over the place. Am I right?”
Koesler nodded. “Yes. This room has been wired to record our conversation and the police are here …” He inclined his head toward the inner doors and the side windows, in turn. “I’m sorry,” he said, “there was nothing else to do. But you can get help, Quent. We can see to that.”
“And how will we do that, Bob? Bring Maryanne back from the dead? Change the laws of the Church? No, Bob …” He shook his head. “There are no answers for me. I’ve played my hand and lost.”
His voice dropped to little more than a whisper. Only Koesler could have caught his words. “It’s time to go, Bob,” Jeffrey murmured. “Not you. Me.” With that, his right hand emerged from his coat pocket, holding a gun. The hand had barely started to move toward Koesler when a volley of gunfire erupted with a deafening roar. Simultaneously, Koesler raised his hand as a shouted “No!” was torn from his throat. Jeffrey’s body lurched every which way as it was buried more deeply in the chair.
Koesler instinctively made the sign of the cross over the dying man and whispered the words of absolution, not knowing whether they were needed, not knowing whether they did any good.
He would never be able to erase from memory the sight of Jeffrey’s face the instant before his body was riddled with bullets. It was an expression of completely incongruous tranquility. As if he were being relieved of an intolerable burden.
It was no consolation to Lieutenant Tully that an autopsy revealed that his had been the fatal bullet. Quentin Jeffrey was only the second person Tully had killed. Both deaths had been in the line of duty Both deaths sickened him to the core. Though he stayed on the job, it took a long while before he came to terms with what his duty compelled him to do.
The case was closed. The mayor, the police brass, the city’s movers and shakers, the Catholic community-all were relieved. The bad press, for some; the ordeal, for others, was over.
