He shook his head sadly. “Too bad. You always were a terrific piece of ass.”
“Oh, Brad, you have such a way with words.”
The waitress brought their drinks. In keeping with Kleimer’s pressing schedule, they each ordered a small salad.
This modest order was not great news for their waitress. Her only hope was a tip out of all proportion.
Kleimer unnecessarily smoothed the tablecloth with the palms of both hands. “Well, let’s come to the point of all this. Four years ago, you and I were married. We were married in a Catholic ceremony at, as I recall, St. Owen’s in Bloomfield. Not far from where we are now. You were Catholic. I was Protestant. The Catholic Church has problems with that sort of situation. We needed a dispensation. We got it.
“You may remember I went a bit further than that. Partly because I’m fascinated by all law-civil or canonical-and partly because I didn’t want to leave you any loopholes, I looked up all the laws of your Church governing marriage. I made damn sure that when we ‘exchanged consent’-much more canonically correct than ‘speaking our vows’-you were locked into this until death do us part.
“You wouldn’t agree to a prenuptial agreement. So my only consolation was that you’d never be able to remarry in your Church as long as I was alive.
“I never had the opportunity of telling you before now, but that’s why I was doubly delighted when you married Lou Schuyler. Not only was my financial responsibility for you ended, but you had to be married by a judge.”
They fell silent as the waitress brought their salads.
“You really are something else, Brad.” For the first time there was anger in her tone. “If you went hunting, you wouldn’t just shoot the deer, you’d torture it to death. But …” She softened. “… all’s well that ends well.”
“Yes,” Kleimer said, “that does bring us to what you mentioned earlier. You claim you were married by this priest-Carleson. I find that incredible. I would stake my considerable reputation in the law that you had no escape whatsoever from our marriage-as far as Church law is concerned. We could have gotten ten divorces in civil law and it wouldn’t have cut any ice with the Church.
“If there’d been any way out in canon law, you never would’ve had to be married by that judge. I’m sure you can see why I consider your statement incredible.”
She stabbed a portion of lettuce and inattentively dabbed it in the dressing. “I didn’t pay that much attention when we got married. I knew you seemed terribly interested in the impediments to a Catholic marriage and to the dispensation I needed to marry a non-Catholic. It was silly, but I thought you might actually be interested in the Catholic Church and that one day you might convert.”
He almost choked as he started to laugh and then abruptly stopped in favor of breathing.
“I know. I know. I said it was silly. But it wasn’t until Lou and I wanted to get married that I finally tumbled to what you’d been up to. We visited quite a few priests to see what we could do about our marriage-yours and mine, I mean. Some of those priests were pretty knowledgeable-we even saw a reasonably kindly priest in the Tribunal. But they all said pretty much the same thing: I didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting an annulment. The only possibility I had was if you were to cooperate unconditionally. Even then the Tribunal priest judged our chances as somewhere between slim and zero.
“That was when I swallowed a whole lot of pride and called you. Remember?”
“Absolutely!”
“Remember how you responded?”
He nodded vigorously. “It gave me the laugh of a lifetime.”
“That’s when it came through crystal clear. You’d contrived the whole thing at the time of our marriage. Your laugh slammed the door on any hope I might have had.”
Kleimer pushed aside his all-but-empty salad plate. “Which brings us, at last, to the bottom line. Mind explaining what you said earlier about Carleson?”
“Of course.” The waitress removed their dishes and took their order for two coffees.
“Lou and I continued going to Mass, but we never joined a parish because we couldn’t receive Communion. That was carefully explained to us before we got married out of the Church. We were ‘living in sin.’” She looked at him intently. “It just occurred to me: It didn’t bother you in any way, shape, or form that Lou and I had to live a sort of tortured life. Oh, we were very happy together. But it takes some of the enjoyment out of life when you can’t forget that you’re going to hell. Far from that disturbing you, you enjoyed our dilemma.”
He merely smiled.
“Well, anyway, one day a friend told me about this priest who, very quietly, handles cases like mine. Lou and I talked it over-we didn’t want to go through any more disappointing, doomed procedures. Finally, though, we agreed to give it a try.
“Enter Father Carleson and dear old Ste. Anne’s. We explained everything to him. We didn’t leave out any detail. And he took us through the whole process step by step.
“The basic condition was our consciences, he said. Lou hadn’t ever been married. So that wasn’t the problem. It was my marriage to you, as you well know.
“So, Father told us it was our decision-not his, not the Church’s. Did I-did we-consider my marriage to you a genuine, loving relationship in which we both grew and developed? Or did we honestly consider it a nice try but, unfortunately, a failure?
“He insisted that we be brutally honest with ourselves. We could fool him with no great trouble. But we certainly could not fool God or ourselves.
“If, finally, we were satisfied and at peace in our consciences about our marriage-Lou and me-he would witness our marriage. He said at best it would be a convalidation.
“So” — she smiled broadly-” a couple of months ago, we did it. And since then we’ve been ecstatically happy. And I’m sure” — her tone dripped sarcasm-” you’re happy for us.”
Kleimer sat agape. Only slowly did he close his mouth. “He can’t do that!”
“He did it.
“It’s a direct violation of Church law.”
“We went over that. He showed us how little Church law had to do with the law of Christ. Canon law was by no means infallible. It’s constantly changing.”
Kleimer thought about what he might be able to do. “He violated his own Church’s law. I could report him.”
“We kept everything very quiet. There wasn’t any scandal because there wasn’t anyone around to be scandalized. Father said if anyone brought it up it would be of no importance to the media, particularly since the divorce happened so long ago. And, anyway, he said he was willing to take his chances with Cardinal Boyle. This was one of the reasons he had chosen to work in the archdiocese of Detroit.”
“I’ll-!” But he could think of no other threats.
“There’s something else, Brad, that hasn’t occurred to you. But it would after you gave this whole thing more thought.”
“Oh?”
“Actually, Lou thought of it-credit where credit is due. You won’t be able to try him.”
“What?! You’re crazy!”
“No. You see, Lou takes much more interest in law than I do. Picture it, Brad: You’re in the middle of the trial when the judge finds out that the defendant blessed the remarriage of your ex-wife. Supposing the defense attorney questions the defendant, and the jury discovers what I’ve just told you. You no longer are the disinterested seeker of justice: You’ve got a very serious personal stake in this. Your prosecution could be perceived as a vendetta- revenge. Wouldn’t that sort of cloud the jury’s judgment? Wouldn’t the judge have to ask you to remove yourself from the case?”
If it were possible for a brain to fry and the smoke to escape from one’s nostrils and ears, Brad Kleimer would be vaporizing. He’d had his dream case in hand. And now, like a bird set free, it was gone.
There sat Audrey, not gloating, not smirking. Passive and tranquil. Metaphorically, she had dislodged the weight of the world from her shoulders and dumped it on him. She had anticipated this moment as one of victory and triumph. She just was not cut from Kleimer’s cloth.
Kleimer threw his napkin on the table, and jumped to his feet. “We’ll see about this!”
It was a flaccid response, and he knew it. Under the circumstances, it was the best he could do. He stormed
