The Father Pat Stories Page 9

  There was silence in the bare room. Terry looked at Hans Schmidt in disbelief. They knew there was nothing they could do or say. The prank call to Gayle was being used to justify bloated security, promote the alleged bravery of the PM and his wife and hype the media. Terry was more convinced than ever that this could just be a carefully executed con job. Maybe even a setup. They saw their guests to the door and watched as their two dark blue Chevrolet Caprices bristling with aerials spun off in a cloud of dust.

  “PAT, WHAT THE heck is going on in Ridgewood?” Deirdre was on the phone with Father Pat late that afternoon. She had the release from the Prime Minister’s Office and had already called Omega and interviewed Gayle. After befriending her, Deirdre had pried out of the nervous woman that she was now fairly sure that it was a prank. Gayle had thought it over and felt she had been a bit melodramatic with her boss, then with the RCMP. But Gayle said she had been under a lot of pressure and so on. Deirdre was going to write a story for the next day.

  “So I want to write that it’s likely a prank that the Ottawa people are blowing up for their own benefit. I don’t know where else to take it, Pat. Any ideas? You know just about every odd Liberal around those parts. Any suspects?” Deirdre was being her most persuasive best and Father Pat was feeling distinctly ill at ease.

  “Deirdre, I’m not a detective. And despite my dislike for Mulgrew, I can’t really get more involved. Terry and I spent a few hours yesterday playing Inspector Clouseau and I feel silly about it. This really isn’t my business. I don’t know what to think,” the priest, for once, felt he should not get involved.

  “You’re an old stick-in-the-mud, Pat. Come on, you know this is a PMO scam. You know what they’re up to. Let’s expose it.”

  “Not this time, Deirdre. Sorry.” Father Pat said, feeling very virtuous. He leaned down, stroked Paddy, who was curled up at his feet, and returned to preparing Sunday’s sermon. The text: Mark 8, Chapter 36 — “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and loose his own soul?” Father Pat couldn’t help thinking of the puffed up Prime Minister Mulgrew, but quickly put the idea out of his mind.

  ON FRIDAY, FATHER Pat was asked to meet at Omega at 11 a.m. to do a run-through of the next day’s ceremony. He was to be seated on the makeshift platform with other local dignitaries as a suitable backdrop for the Prime Minister. As he was listening to a young advance man drone through the routine, he noted that the press platform would mean he was in the direct line of cameras — should they show up for such a small event.

  “We’re going to have lots of media,” the advance man was saying. “It’s too bad we have to shut off the street because of the threat and can’t have a bigger crowd. But if any of you want to bring your families, just give my assistant, Jeannine, their names and we’ll give you passes.”

  Then the young man went off with Terry to do the route of the plant tour. Terry was to help look after local press. Father Pat decided to go into the lobby and get out of the brilliant noontime sun. Coming through the doors, he noticed the switchboard woman, Gayle, with her hands over her face. Going up to the counter, he could see she was holding back tears. His bedside manner clicked into action.

  “Is there something wrong? Can I help?” he asked.

  “Yes, lots Reverend,” she said, looking at Father Pat’s collar with reassurance. “Those young Ottawa guys just took me aside and told me never, never to talk to the press about the threat. I didn’t know. A woman from the Record just asked me what I thought. What did I do wrong, Reverend?”

  “It’s Father Pat,” the priest answered. “I don’t think you did anything wrong. But maybe it’s better you don’t say anything more. They’re very sensitive.”

  Father Pat was now positively angry. Clearly the PMO did not want anything to get in the way of the story that made Mulgrew seem heroic and that justified the absurd and convenient cortege of RCMP that accompanied him and every member of his family wherever they went. Then and there Father Pat quietly decided to resume the hunt for the young person who had made the call.

  He turned to see Terry coming through the door to the plant, saying a curt good-bye to the slick, young PMO type who had walked the route the PM would take through the plant. Terry came up to the counter.

  “Thanks, Father, I’m sorry,” Gayle said as the phone rang and she clicked her red nails on the console.

  “You won’t believe what I heard this morning, buddy,” Terry said, motioning Father Pat to follow him into the parking lot. “I was in the hardware store and Ron, the owner, told me that yesterday he sold a box of high powered shells to a woman who said her husband needed them … and it isn’t even hunting season! Think there’s a connection?”

  “Terry, I think you’re going overboard. Don’t buy the PMO’s line. Relax. Let’s find the kid and prove the PMO’s having us all on. Come on. I’m in now. Let’s phone Deirdre and meet at the rectory in an hour. I’ll get out my old riding lists. We only have until her paper’s deadline today. Deirdre’s writing and maybe we can head her off while we poke around. Her deadline’s at six isn’t it?” Father Pat hiked up his pants and tightened his belt a notch in preparation for a major adventure.

  BY THREE THAT afternoon the three amateur sleuths, Terry, Pat and Deirdre, had narrowed the search to one family, the Lockes. Father Pat remembered that the husband, John, had been caught when they tightened up unemployment insurance rules and had been very angry, looking up Father Pat to complain bitterly. He remembered they had a young boy who had already been in some trouble and were very active Liberals in the riding.

  They all piled into Deirdre’s car and drove to the address on the old riding list. It was in Pinewood Acres, a 1950s development on the south side of Ridgewood. A neat split-level.

  At the door, a middle aged woman in curlers greeted them impatiently. Deirdre introduced herself as a reporter from The Record.

  “I don’t know why everyone is looking for the Lockes today. There was an RCMP man here just half an hour ago,” the woman answered Deirdre’s query. “They moved out three years ago, after the husband died. And we bought the house.”

  “Do you know anything about the boy? And where they might be living now?” Deirdre asked as calmly as possible. She had her notebook poised.

  “Well, not much. The neighbours weren’t sad to see the kid go, though. He was a real prankster. Apparently almost set the neighbour’s garage on fire one Halloween. Mrs. Locke is having a tough time, and I don’t know where she lives now. She had to take a waitressing job at Highland’s. That’s all I know.”

  Highland’s Snack Bar was on the main street. The local hangout. It was closing as they pulled up and the owner, Jake Richmond, told Deirdre that the police had been by there too. He was worried about Mrs. Locke and had made out that he didn’t know exactly where she lived. He only told them she had moved lately to a cabin north of town. Jake thought she might owe money or something. After some female persuading, he told Deirdre that it was a cabin on a hill about eight miles up on the 18th.

  Deirdre returned to the car with the news. Grasping the steering wheel strongly, she realized that the story was about to escape her. She had to get back to the city to finish writing just when this trail was warming up. Terry had to write speaking notes for Hans Schmidt’s gracious acceptance of the medal. His client was waiting. That left Father Pat.

  “Guess you’re it, Pat,” Deirdre said turning and smiling at her friend who was slouching disconsolately in the front seat. “And I’m expecting a call before 6:30 with the story or I’m canceling our regular lunch next Wednesday. Better take Paddy, never know, the kid may be a weirdo!”

  FATHER PAT SET out up the 18th concession, feeling that this was perhaps the most ridiculous goose chase he had ever been on. Yet the RCMP seemed to have zeroed in on the Lockes for their own reasons. Father Pat remembered the family well and was certain that the boy couldn’t be serious if he indeed was the one who made the call. Perhaps if he got there first he could be
an intermediary, and convince the police that it was just a prank. Perhaps, perhaps.

  He recalled the one visit his prime minister had made to his riding when he was the local member. It was a summer Saturday riding event, hot dogs, races for the children. Late in the afternoon the PM arrived early in a lone unmarked cruiser with a single RCMP bodyguard. Father Pat saw the car pull up, and went alone to greet him before the crowd even noticed he was there. The PM motioned for him to come and sit in the back seat beside him.

  “Pat, I have to go to confession. Anyway can you set it up before the hot dogs?” he asked looking intensely at the priest/politician. O’Reilly was a Roman Catholic, but until that day Father Pat had not realized he was a serious and practicing one.

  Pat was on good terms with the local Roman Catholic priest, Father Calucci, and the RCMP officer got him on the cruiser’s cellular phone. Calucci was delighted to take a Prime Ministerial confession on a moment’s notice and they wheeled down to the new Catholic church in Ridgewood. The PM insisted that Father Pat come along. “Maybe you can help me prepare,” he suggested wryly.

  Father Pat cooled his heels for the fifteen minutes or so it took his Prime Minister to make his confession. The tall, elegant figure emerged with a big smile on his face and swung into the back seat beside the rumpled Father Pat.

  “There, I feel better.” he said, coming back to the car. “Sometimes I don’t know what morality has to do with politics. But it all comes out in the confession. Do you think it’s possible to be an ethical politician, Pat?” He turned and fixed the priest with his piercing blue eyes.

  “Well, for sure, today’s personality politics are against you if you have any moral sense at all. Or worse still, humility! I’ve found it very difficult.” Father Pat felt he had to say something important that was really true in front of one of the most demanding intellects of the day. “I guess I do think of Christ and make a valiant effort to think what he would do in any given situation. After all he was very political.”

  “Do you think he was a clever politician?” Father Pat had been warned about the PM’s taste for probing dialogue. But this was his first real exposure to it as the countryside rolled by and the riding event seemed in another world even though they were only about five minutes from the old fairground where Pat’s political faithful were waiting for the arrival of their hero.

  “I guess he pushed the establishment until they couldn’t ignore him. And he was killed for his ideas. So I suppose in this day of accommodation and practical, what’s-possible politics he’d be considered not so clever. But we need a leader like this every now and again. Otherwise there’s really no point, is there?” Father Pat felt he wasn’t doing so well.

  “Maybe … maybe.” was the only answer. O’Reilly slouched in the seat and was silent for the few minutes it took them to reach the event. That year he was defeated taking on the country’s biggest conglomerate which he believed was engaged in illegal arms sales to an African nation engaged in a civil war. In effect he was “killed” and retired to his country home north of Montreal never to be heard from again, Father Pat thought.

  Father Pat pondered the radical change in national leadership as he drove through the rolling countryside, bathed in late afternoon light. Long bright ribbons flashed across the road as it wound its way past scrub woods interspersed with fields of corn and barley. Then the hills became steeper and his little pickup bounced on the increasingly rough road. Paddy scrambled to stay upright on the worn seat beside Father Pat.

  Finally, around a sharp corner, Father Pat looked up to his left and there was a small cabin perched precariously on a round, almost bare hill. Two dirt ruts wound past an old gate lying half off its hinges. Father Pat swung his little pickup through the opening and was relieved to see that only a small newish sedan was parked beside the cabin. No police, yet.

  Paddy stayed in the little truck and Father Pat walked up the dirt path to the door of the cabin. It was an old prefab, greatly neglected. A boy’s dilapidated ten-speed was leaning against the front of the house. So far so good, Father Pat thought.

  The door swung partly open and Janet Locke peered out in surprise.

  “I wondered who the hell was coming up the drive,” she said. “Aren’t you Father Pat, from St. Bart’s? What the hell brings you up here? Come in!”

  Janet Locke was a small, not unattractive but somewhat wild-eyed woman with harsh blue makeup above her eyes and half-bleached hair in a messy bun. She was still in her waitress uniform. The one-room cabin was dominated by a huge television set and, aside from a couple of couches and one standing lamp, had little furniture.

  “Sorry about the place,” she said, noticing the priest taking in the room. “Since John died … well, you know. You know what the government did to us. You were our member once, weren’t you?”

  Father Pat barely had time to offer greetings and condolences. “Yes, and I’m sorry about your husband and that I couldn’t…”

  “Bloody should be sorry. I am. Lost my husband, and lots else too. Great life. John contributes for years to UI, then when we desperately need it they tell him he hasn’t been looking hard enough and take it away …” Janet continued speaking more and more quickly, recounting a story that obviously haunted her every waking hour.

  She only stopped long enough to ask: “Can I get you a cup of tea? How impolite. Here, sit over here.” And she pointed to a couch that made an ill fitting L shape with what looked like a single bed with a throw on it. Janet busied herself at the stove as Father Pat eased himself gingerly on to the couch. He looked over at the bed and caught his breath. There, lying in the middle of the bed, was a large box of .303 rifle shells.

  Oh no! he thought. It was Janet Locke who had bought the shells at the hardware store. Ron, the owner, must have told the police what with all the paranoia whipped up by the Prime Minister’s Office, and that’s why the police were on her trail. What if they were about to arrive? Was it still possible her boy made the call, and what in God’s name was he supposed to do now?

  As in a dream, he moved quietly to the bed and jammed the shells in his pocket, at the same time noticing a rifle lying below the bed on the floor. This he pushed under the bed with his foot, humming loudly to mask the sound, and returned as casually as he could to the couch. Janet turned, and not noticing any change in the room, said in an offhand way, “Maybe you had better bring your dog in. I saw him through the window. He’s jumping up and down in your truck and barking.”

  “OK, yes,” Father Pat got up and moved to the front of the house. “By the way, where’s your son?”

  “Oh, he’s out west. I couldn’t take it. He was getting into too much trouble.”

  Like three quickly fired bullets Father Pat simultaneously was struck by this information, then by the sight of two burly men leaving a plain sedan that they had parked blocking the drive and finally by the realization that it was Janet who had made the threatening call, and that the threat might have indeed been real.

  It was save-your-skin time. Father Pat grabbed Janet, and stooping to stuff the compromising rifle under his loose black jacket, pulled her out the side door, out of sight of the police and into his truck. Then he pulled around and with the police running back to their car across the drive, Father Pat drove straight across the field down the other side of the hill and away from the 18th.

  “I don’t know where we’re going or what you’ve done, but 1 know we’re both in deep trouble,” he said. “You’d better tell me what’s going on. I have the shells in my pocket and what about this rifle?” And with that he opened his window and pitched the shells and the rifle into a passing thicket.

  “Oh God, Father, you don’t know what I’ve been through,” Janet’s face was flushed as they bounced down the hill. “Lost my husband and my son. It’s been awful. And when I heard a guy at Highland’s last week talking about this visit by Mulgrew, I thought, that’s it. I’m going to ruin that guy’s day. He’s ruined enough of mine. I hate him so m
uch. The bastard …”

  Father Pat’s little truck lurched so severely that Paddy landed on his lap with a wild yelp. Wrestling the steering wheel with one hand, Father Pat shoved the dog over to Janet with the other. The shock seemed to calm her. Father Pat saw an abandoned lumber road across a lightly wooded valley and aimed for it.

  “So I decided to use a boy’s voice and make a threatening call. I knew it would send them into a panic. I’ve been reading about how they’ve been going crazy on his security. Then I read that he was coming anyway. The bastard. And he was looking good thanks to my call. I couldn’t believe it. So I decided to get some shells for my husband’s old rifle and throw a real scare into the jerk. Maybe fire a few shots in the air from nearby when he was on the platform.

  “But then I read the Record. Gayle at the factory saying it was a kid, a prank. I thought the public isn’t stupid. They’ll see through this security trick of his. It’s just to get attention. The reporters will call his bluff. I don’t have to do anything. It was like a huge relief. I decided not to do anything — you know I’d already done it in my mind … do you understand?”

  The old road through a second growth of spruce and alder was now coming out to a highway, and aside from a very weak looking board bridge across the ditch, it looked as though they were in the clear.

  “Yes, I guess I do,” Father Pat answered. “But I don’t know how we’re both going to get out of this.” Paddy wagged as they pulled on to the highway. It was the main road into Ridgewood.

  Father Pat’s mind raced ahead. The incriminating evidence was thankfully lost deep in a thicket. The police had not seen them get in the truck. But Ron could easily identify Janet as the woman who bought the shells, and Father Pat’s little truck was well known in the community. He had to buy some time and decided to take Janet directly to the church. He could park behind it, and maybe the police would respect the sanctuary it supposedly offered long enough for him to think of something.