anywhere but in Bloomfield Hills.”?
“That’s right, Zoo,” Moore added. “We went over the stuff in his office and suite. A few phone and address books but hardly any listing for anyone outside of Bloomfield Hills. Oh, a few in Birmingham, you know, the same neighborhood. But hardly anyone with an address down-to-earth people might live at. Not even the Pointes,” she added, and then, with a touch of amusement, “The difference between old and new money.”
Moore and Mangiapane glanced at each other. Mangiapane nodded, offering Moore the floor. Moore riffled through several pages of notes. “The single item about which no one seems to have any doubt is that there could be no reason for what’s happened. Some-most of his friends were surprised to see us. They didn’t know he was missing.”
Tully seemed slightly surprised. “These people from the parish?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Their pastor misses a whole weekend of services and his parishioners don’t know he’s not there?”
Mangiapane spoke as one in the know. “All the people who go to Mass on Sunday know is there’s a priest there to say the Mass. See, at St. Waldo’s, there’s an assistant priest and two other priests who come in just to help on weekends. There’s a rotation in most places-and that’s the way it works at St. Waldo’s too.”
“Rotation?”
“Yeah, Zoo. Like one week a priest will have a Saturday evening Mass, then next week he’ll take early Sunday, then the middle Sunday Mass, then the late Sunday Mass, and then back to a Saturday Mass. But not that many parishioners pay much attention to who’s takin’ what. All they want’s a priest to give the Mass. They just want to take care of their obligation to hear Mass.”
“That’s it, Zoo,” Moore attested. “Even the ones who are aware of what’s going on wouldn’t think it was alarming if the priest they expected didn’t have their particular service. He could be ill. Or for some reason, the priests could have traded schedules.”
“What it comes down to, Zoo,” Mangiapane said, “is that that’s why none of his friends-who are also mainly parishioners-knew anything out of the ordinary might have happened. So they were surprised when we came calling with questions. The only ones who thought something might be wrong were-whatchamajigger-the inner circle: the housekeeper, the secretary-and the assistant priest and the other weekend help of course, because they had to cover for Father Keating.”
“So then,” Tully concluded, “they were the ones who brought Dunstable in on it.”
“Yeah, Zoo. He’s the parish council president,” Mangiapane added. “The council president, Zoo, is the one who-“
“I know what he does. The inspector filled me in on that yesterday,” Tully said. “So, okay, none of the friends or parishioners were on to what was going on. What was their reaction?”
Moore looked up from her notes. “Unanimous, as far as I can see, Zoo. No one could think of any reason why Keating should be among the missing-although some thought he might be taking a vacation. But that had to be a stab in the dark: When you ask them, they immediately admit that’s never happened before. Not that he doesn’t take a regular vacation. But it’s always announced well in advance. And here there’s been no such announcement.”
“Any grudges, hard feelings?” Tully asked.
Mangiapane smiled. “Not once they found out he was missing.”
“That’s understandable,” Moore said. “If a cop comes to your door, tells you somebody you know is missing, you’re not likely to volunteer that you hate the bastard and hope he’s dead. But this was different: The general reaction was surprise, surprise that he was missing and surprise that the police were looking for him. If anybody had any hard feelings, they weren’t intense enough to pop out spontaneously.”
“How about the people he worked with?”
“Guarded,” Moore said. “It got to be like pulling teeth. Monosyllabic answers. Little or no information volunteered. We concentrated on the housekeeper, the secretary, and the other priest-the assistant. But we didn’t get anywhere.”
“The funny thing is,” Mangiapane noted, “nobody seems to work for him very long.”
“Hmmm?” Tully found that of interest.
“I didn’t pay much attention when I found out the assistant priest had been in the parish only six months. That happens. Priests get moved around. Some more than others. But then the secretary said she’d been hired a little less than a year ago. That made me wonder. Then the housekeeper said she’d worked for him just a little more than a year-just before the secretary was hired.”
“So the housekeeper overlapped the secretary. She give any reason why the former secretary was let go?”
“I asked her about that,” Mangiapane said, “and she said she didn’t really know. The housekeeper got along good with the secretary. They’d eat lunch together in the rectory kitchen. Then, all of a sudden-as far as she knew-out of the blue the secretary is given notice and she’s gone and a new secretary is hired. And then I asked about her predecessor. She said she didn’t get to know her more than just saying good-bye. The two of them passed like ships in the night. But she did find out from a parishioner that the former housekeeper had been there a little more than a year.”
Tully scratched the stubble on his chin. “A pattern? Might be worth looking into. Manj, get some of the guys on the former employees. Maybe one or another of them has got some mean words for the boss. How about the priest-the assistant? He’s been there the shortest time. Anything there? Do the priests go through that revolving door too?”
“I gotta check that out, Zoo.”
“Okay. Did we bump into any pattern-any routines? Keating have any habits that can lead us anywhere?”
Moore shrugged. “I suppose there’s mornings.” She looked at Mangiapane. “Don’t they have services-Mass- every morning? I guess that would tie him up first off.”
“It’s not like the old days …” Mangiapane shook his head. “That’s the way it used to be when I was growing up. Waldo’s got two priests-which, in the old days, meant there’d be at least two Masses every day. But I wouldn’t have bet on that now, so I checked their schedule. They only got one Mass a day. Turns out Father Keating says Mass Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The other priest has Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”
“And Saturday?” Tully asked.
“That’s the start of the weekend schedule,” Mangiapane said. “There’s Mass later in the day on Saturdays, so they don’t have one in the morning.”
Tully wondered what evil fate dragged him into these cases involving organized religions. He knew little about them and cared even less.
“Well, that clears things up for me, anyway,” Moore said. “The housekeeper there told me Keating was away from the rectory a lot, but on a pretty regular basis.”
“Regular?” Tully was alert once more.
“Yeah,” Moore said. “After Mass on Sunday, Keating would take care of the collection. By that time he’d be pretty beat. He usually left late afternoon and didn’t return till Tuesday morning’s Mass. Until Manj said Keating didn’t take the Monday services, I wondered how he could manage staying away till Tuesday.”
“Okay, so he was away from the parish Sunday evening and all of Monday. Anybody know where he went?”
Moore shook her head. “No, but that’s not all. Wednesday was his ‘day off.’”
“Wednesday!” Tully exhibited surprise. “What happened to Monday?”
Moore laughed. “Apparently, he was away a lot.”
“And nobody knew where he went or why? What if there was an emergency?”
“Oh, he always had somebody covering for him,” Moore said. “There’s the younger priest-the assistant. Or, if he wasn’t available, there were the other priests who helped out on weekends. They have other jobs-one teaches at Catholic Central High School, the other is a hospital chaplain-so they’re pretty busy. But in a pinch they can take care of the few emergencies that might pop up. And there’s also an answering service.”
“Sounds like an absentee pastor,” Tully said. “Is he ever around? I mean, why did Dunstable stir up all the troops?”
“That’s the thing, Zoo,” Moore said. “He’s around when he’s supposed to be. There’s the weekend services
