Good, the voice said. Now call the front desk and tell whomever answers that you need an ambulance sent immediately.
It took about fifteen minutes—during which I sat calmly on the bed, my mind blank, shocked into submission.
Father McNamee was pronounced dead immediately.
Two large men struggled to put his solid round body on a stretcher, but—with much breath and sweat—they finally got him strapped down, at which point they covered him with a white sheet and took him away.
Next, two local policemen interviewed me in my hotel room. One was tall with a mole on the end of his nose and the other was short with long sideburns. They both had freshly sharpened pencils and spiral-bound notebooks the size of bread slices, in which they scribbled furiously whenever I spoke.
We’re sorry for your loss,” Sideburns said.
Unfortunately, we need to ask you a few questions,” said the Mole.
And we apologize in advance if any of the questions seem disrespectful, given the circumstances, but we have to do our job,” Sideburns said.
I nodded.
What were you doing in Canada with the deceased?” the Mole asked.
We were on a pilgrimage to Saint Joseph’s Oratory. We were planning to visit Cat Parliament afterward.”
Cat Parliament?” the Mole said, scribbling.
In Ottawa,” I said.
The cops exchanged a glance.
Pardon my asking, but is that a peeler joint?” Sideburns said, scribbling.
What?” I said.
A . . . um . . . a gentleman’s club. A place where you pay women to take off their clothes. Strippers.”
No, Cat Parliament’s a place where feral cats can roam free. I think it’s near the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa.”
The police looked at each other again while raising their eyebrows and then continued to scribble.
Were you drinking last night?” Sideburns asked and pointed the eraser on his pencil at the empty whiskey bottles.
I wasn’t. Father McNamee drank daily.”
You found him dead this morning? Dead in his bed?”
Yes.”
Traveling with anyone else?”
Max and Elizabeth are in the lobby. They don’t yet know what’s happened.”
Would you like me to get them for you?” the Mole said.
I looked up at him, not quite sure why he had asked me that.
You seem to be in shock,” Sideburns said. “Maybe you shouldn’t be alone.”
I nodded.
That sounded reasonable.
Max and Elizabeth, you said? Those are the names I should call for?” said the Mole, and when I nodded, he said, “Got it,” and left.
Sideburns walked over to the window and looked out.
How do you think he died?” I asked.
Don’t know. Looks like a heart attack, most likely. Maybe alcohol poisoning. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy results for the exact cause of death.”
Why do you think he died?” I let escape before I could censor myself.
Come again?”
Why do you think he died? We were so close. He brought me all this way.”
I don’t understand,” said the short cop with the sideburns, no longer scribbling my every word into his notebook.
I read his eyes and could tell he was worried, like maybe he was starting to become afraid of me—I’d seen that look many times before—so I didn’t ask any further questions.
These things are always difficult,” he offered. “Maybe it’s best to leave the bigger questions for another day. A counselor might be better equipped to help you with that sort of thing.”
I thought he was probably right, even though I had failed so miserably with Wendy and Arnie, and when I looked at my brown shoelaces, the police officer looked out the window again.
A few minutes later the tall police officer returned with Elizabeth and Max.
What the fuck, hey?”
Oh my God. I can’t believe it. Are you okay, Bartholomew?”
The police officers looked at each other once more, and then Sideburns said, “We’re going to leave you alone now. But we’ll need your names, passport numbers, and home addresses.”
We told them our names and addresses—Elizabeth used their old address without explaining that they had been evicted, which I thought was smart fast thinking—and they dutifully copied down information from our passports before they gave us their cards and told us to contact them in twenty-four hours, after we had been in touch with Father McNamee’s family at home, so that we could make the proper arrangements for the body to be shipped back to Philadelphia.
Then the police officers left.
What the fucking fuck, hey?” Max said, and slapped the side of his head a few times like he was trying to get ketchup from a bottle.
What happened?” Elizabeth said.
I don’t really know.”
How did he die?”
I think he may have drunk himself to death last night. I found him dead in his bed.”
What are we going to do now?” she said.
I don’t know.”
I can’t believe Father McNamee’s really dead,” Elizabeth said.
Fuck.”
Max and Elizabeth sat on my unmade bed, and we were all quiet for a long time—it was like we were having a moment of silence for Father McNamee. Wendy might have said we were “processing what had transpired, taking in the weighty information.”
Finally, Elizabeth said, “Should we go to Saint Joseph’s Oratory?”
What for?” I asked.
Father McNamee would want us to go,” she said. “And maybe your father will be there?”
Yeah! What the fuck, hey?”
I don’t think we’ll be meeting my father today,” I said.
How do you know?”
I didn’t tell Max and Elizabeth this at the time, but when I was emptying Father’s wallet, I had found a picture of Mom, him, and me taken when I was a little boy; we were on the huge Ocean City Ferris wheel, spinning around in the sky, and—at the pinnacle of the ride—Father had held the camera out with his arm and snapped a photo of the three of us squished together. I looked terrified in the middle, but Mom and Father McNamee were smiling bookends and seemed so very happy, all alone in the sky with their arms around me. (The younger Father McNamee looks shockingly like I do right now, at the time of writing.) Finding this photo wouldn’t have made me suspicious in and of itself, but then I saw Father McNamee’s first name on his credit card and confirmed what I had seen when I gave the police his passport information.
His name was Richard.
Richard McNamee.
It’s funny how I had known him my entire life, but had never before heard anyone say his first name, nor had I ever thought once to ask. He’d always been Father McNamee. Even Mom had called him Father McNamee. Or Father. I’d never heard anyone call him Richard before.
Or maybe I had heard it, but my brain just didn’t register it.
Do you find that strange, Richard Gere?
Like maybe some part of my subconscious suspected and was protecting me—not allowing my mind to ever wonder what Father McNamee’s first name might be?
Looking back now, I’m sure his entire name was listed on the weekly church bulletin, but who reads those?
Mom had called me Richard at the end of her life. I had assumed she meant you, Richard Gere, but now I’m pretty sure she had meant Richard McNamee, her great love—and I was also pretty sure I knew why Father ate so many dinners at our house throughout the years and why Mom would confess only to him and why he would always be so quick to help us when we were in need—like the time those teenagers trashed our home—and why he had dedicated so many masses to Mom right after she died, even though I hadn’t filled out the proper card, and why he had cried on the beach after her funeral and why he had wanted to make a pilgrimage to Saint Joseph’s Oratory with me—the place where miracles happened—because he most likely understood it would take a miracle for me to forgive his lifelong deception and the fact that I had grown up without a true father, even if I had an excellent religious leader in Father McNamee.
But then again, can a Catholic priest be an excellent religious leader if he had sex with your mom?
All of this was starting to make my head throb.
Bartholomew?” Elizabeth said.
Let’s go to the Oratory,” I said, thinking I could use a miracle right about now, thinking we came this far, we might as well see what Saint Joseph’s Oratory had to offer us, if anything.
Then I picked up the keys to the Ford Focus, handed them to Elizabeth, and said, “Let’s pack up our stuff and get out of here. It’s already past checkout time.”
Are you okay?” Elizabeth said.
Yeah. What the fuck, hey?”
Max and Elizabeth were visibly frightened.
I nodded, and then we were off.
Your admiring fan,
Bartholomew Neil