A Priestly Affair Read online

  1

  A Delicate Matter

  First thing Tuesday morning, the phone rang. “Our Lady of the Seas” appeared on the caller ID, but a man’s voice came over the line.

  “Is this Jesse Thorpe?” he asked.

  “Yes it is,” I replied. “What can I do for you?”

  “I am Monsignor Francis O'Reilly.”

  I expected him to continue talking after introducing his name, but he was either gathering his thoughts, or he expected me to respond to his persona. When the pause became a little too pregnant, I stepped in, “How can I help you?”

  “I have a delicate matter I would like to discuss,” he replied cautiously, “but I need your assurance that anything I say will be strictly confidential.”

  “At this point, you have my word,” I said firmly. “If you choose to hire me as a private investigator, our contract will include a confidentiality agreement that spells it out for you in detail.”

  “I heard about your work solving the murder of our governor, but I have to say that it sounds a little like good news - bad news. You tracked down the killers, but the whole story made the gossip columns for weeks.”

  “Do you know the name of my client in that case, Monsignor?” I asked.

  “No, I do not.”

  “That should give you some idea about my level of discretion. I went to great lengths to be sure his, or her, name stayed out of the press. There was nothing I could do to hush the news about the killers. Crimes and criminals are public matters.”

  “Indeed. Well… I would like to meet with you personally. I see on your website that you are based in Augusta, but that you work here in Portland on Mondays and Fridays. Can you come by the parish this Friday?”

  “Certainly. I’ll be driving down that morning. I can see you any time after ten o’clock.”

  “Let’s make it ten-thirty,” he said.

  While we were chatting, I pulled up the website for Our Lady of the Seas and noted the address.

  “Are you located on Old Beach Road?” I asked.

  “Yes, we have a nice view of the harbor. The rectory is just behind the chapel. I’ll be there when you arrive.”

  “See you then, Father O’Reilly.”

  • • •

  Over the previous six months, the arc of my life had changed dramatically. In June, William Lavoilette, the governor of Maine, was shot and killed. The next day, I became embroiled in the case. Then, five months later, I received a $20,000 reward for helping resolve it.

  The money provided a quick fix for the chill of late autumn Down East. I flew off to Kauai with my girlfriend for a week in paradise.

  Back home, newspapers and television stations around the state picked up the story of my involvement and ran with it for the next six weeks. When we returned from our vacation, the media circus was in full swing.

  It was now December 24th. The holiday season had ushered a welcomed pause to my celebrity. Life was back to normal…almost.

  2

  Swimming in the Kama Sutra

  ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring. Inside, that is. Out back, there was definitely some stirring going on. Two creatures were enjoying the crisp night air. The sky was clear, and billions of stars illuminated the snowy landscape. Steam rose from the hot tub.

  Just after ten o’clock in the evening, Angele and I dropped our clothes, embraced the frigid outdoor air and immersed our bodies in 103-degree water. We let out simultaneous sighs of ecstasy and relief. The sky was extraordinary.

  From our vantage point on the home planet, during the past six months, the Milky Way hadn’t changed much at all. Our galaxy still contained somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars, and despite the dramatic turn of events in our small personal lives, Earth was still hurtling through space at 400 miles per second.

  “Angele,” I mused, “a year ago to the hour, we sat in this very spot and stared into a night sky virtually identical to this one. All the constellations and galaxies that we are seeing right now are aligned exactly as they were then, except for the slight variations from the wobble in Earth’s orbit and the overall expansion of the universe.

  “That really bright star near the horizon is Sirius,” I said, pointing to the southeast. Looking straight up, I continued, “High above us is the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus, with Gemini just to the east. They are all where they belong, so to speak. Time changes their relative positions so slowly that the shift can be detected only with powerful telescopes and precise calculations. This annual regularity of the heavens leaves its imprint on human speculation. Some early philosophers believed that everything has been placed precisely where it belongs in time and space.”

  I let that thought dangle in the steamy mist for a minute before offering a further consideration. My beautiful companion allowed it to hang undisturbed in our collective imagination until I spoke again. I floated in the center of the pool, and Angele sat along the edge a couple feet away. The contrast between the warm soothing water and the cold brilliant sky was exhilarating.

  “Without electricity and the accompanying gadgetry that commands our attention today, the ancient Greeks and Romans had plenty of time on their hands, especially at night. They looked up at these stars and let their imaginations run free. When they connected the astral dots, constellations sprang to life as legendary creatures, each with its own dramatic fable. Over time, the stories became myths, and the myths became religion.”

  Angele said nothing. Her silence was not an act of acquiescence, and it didn’t imply that she necessarily agreed. It meant only that she was listening and considering.

  It’s marvelous to be around another human being who is untroubled with your own private observations and conclusions. Love has been described in millions of ways by billions of people. For me, love is the joyful cessation of an argumentative point of view.

  Angele can be fiery. She can stir the cauldron and conjure spirits to do her bidding. I’m attracted to her fire like a moth to a flame. But she has features that are more endearing. She can rest totally at ease in the moment, in no hurry to change a thing or correct an assertion. This was one of those moments.

  “The Greeks and the Romans took religion very seriously,” she said, finally. “Take Socrates, for example. He was sentenced to drink hemlock because he refused to pay homage to Athenian gods. His free-spirited ideas offended a few vengeful individuals with misappropriated authority.

  “If an enlightened age ever visits our earth, Jesse, ideas will be regarded as poetry, and love will be the only authority.”

  “Angele,” I replied, “I love it when you talk dirty.”

  Suddenly she was upon me. She clasped both her arms around my shoulders, lunged her gorgeous body onto my own and dunked me backwards under the water with a single surprising thrust. For a brief moment, I thought I might drown. Before I resurfaced, it occurred to me, “Socrates never had it this good.”

  The instant I came up for a breath of air, Angele took it away again with a passionate and prolonged kiss.

  She whispered, “Jesse Thorpe, you are one sexy private eye.”

  Then, allowing me no time to recover, she surrounded me in the exact position pictured in the aquatic section of the Kama Sutra. Angele Boucher knows how to straighten me out and put things in motion.

  Half the water had spilled from the tub by the time we finished making love.

  • • •

  We slept like babes through the night. Saint Nick came and went without waking us up.

  3

  Men Need Not Apply

  Three presents sat expectantly under my miniature Tannenbaum.

  Angele and I had made a pact; one gift each would be our holiday limit.
Temporary financial success wasn’t going to turn us into reckless consumers. As the festive day approached, however, I reneged slightly and bought a gift to supplement the surprise item I had been preparing privately on my word processor. I’d gotten cold feet from worry that my narrative might not cut the Christmas mustard.

  “I thought we agreed on one gift each, Jesse. Why are there two presents under the tree with my name on them?”

  “The second one is not so much a gift as it is an offering,” I suggested.

  She opened the smaller item first. It was a cream-colored Pashmina shawl, hand spun and woven in Nepal, made of fine cashmere wool. She loved it immediately and wrapped it around her neck. This sent a flush of endorphins through my system.

  “It’s soft and beautiful, Jesse,” she murmured.

  In a moment my face was in her hands, and she gave me the first of her two holiday gifts, a slow wet kiss all over my mouth.

  I sighed happily and picked up the thin 12x12 item she had wrapped and tagged for me. I knew what it was before the bow, ribbon and paper had come off. The only question was, “Where will we be vacationing next year?” But I kept that thought to myself.

  The calendar was entitled “Italie.” I flipped slowly through the first few pages and realized I would not only be enjoying the Italian landscapes all year, but I’d also be learning the French word for each of the twelve months. I stopped at March, which read, “Mars,” the month of my birth. The photograph displayed a rolling green countryside embracing a small Tuscan village.

  She was looking over my shoulder when I said, “Let’s go here when I turn 40.”

  “Wait a minute, Jesse,” she blurted out. “You’re 34, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “If it’s all the same to you, we’ll go there when you turn 35.”

  I had to admit, that was an enticing prospect.

  “OK. Deal,” I said, “provided we can afford it, and we’re not in the middle of an important case.”

  Angele eyed me suspiciously.

  “Let’s get that notarized,” she said and waved her left hand in the air imitating her signature.

  “Ah…hah,” I replied. “As I recall, you are a notary.”

  “It’s a verbal contract, signed in the ethers,” she said definitively.

  I raised my right hand and added my signature at the bottom of the page.

  Angele smiled and said, “OK. Now let’s see what this second gift is all about.”

  The paper flew off in a trice, and she held up the first draft of my novel, swaddled in a white, three-ring binder. After staring at the title for a few moments, she issued a slightly forlorn look and said, “The Sunshine Cabin?”

  The decibel level of her voice peaked on “sunshine” and then trailed noticeably downward, as though she were sliding into an abyss, on “cabin.” I sensed immediately that slogging through the edits of my first mystery novel was going to be an exercise in tolerance.

  “It’s just a working title,” I suggested. “I’m not enamored with it.”

  “I hope not,” Angele replied. “Copies of Pollyanna are not exactly flying off the shelves at Barnes and Noble.”

  “You’re right,” I offered in a humble, yet reflective, tone. “What was I thinking?”

  Angele eyed me carefully and remarked, “I hope this thing is not a collection of rhetorical questions and male anecdotes.”

  “No way,” I said with conviction. I then retreated in silence and rued the inclusion of numerous quips that almost certainly would prove her last comment prophetic. I felt a sudden urge to change the topic of conversation.

  “Angele, I’ve got to see a man about a dog.”

  “We’ll chat when you return from your canine junket. I’ll be here unraveling your yarn.” She then added, “As I recall, there are no red pens in your desk. Pick up a ten-pack at Cosco on your way home.”

  “It’s Christmas day, Peaches. I think Cosco is closed.”

  “That store never closes, Jesse.”

  “Maybe I should just forget the dog and make breakfast. Are you hungry?”

  “Ravenous,” she replied. “Our swim last night put the spark back into my appetite.”

  I smiled broadly until it occurred to me that there might not be enough sex in my opus to satisfy Angele’s hyperactive libido. “Well, it’s just a first draft,” I told myself. “Zucchini-potato pancakes coming up,” I said audibly.

  Angele skimmed through my book as I rustled up some vegan grub. I was nervous, to say the least, but I was hoping that would pass as soon as she got into the nitty-gritty of the storyline. There were, I figured, at least a few places where she would laugh out loud—icebreakers, so to speak.

  When the cakes were almost done, I went to the fridge and extracted Angele’s special pancake syrup. It’s not sweet, so it probably shouldn’t be called “syrup.” It’s creamy and pale green in color, and I have no idea what’s in it; I prefer it that way. Besides, it really is delicious.

  Just then, I heard a loud chortle coming from the living room.

  “Jesse,” she called out, “I love what you’ve done with the Dennis Jackson character. But you know,” she said as she entered the kitchen, “it’s not a novel if it all actually happened.”

  “It’s embroidered,” I replied.

  “If it’s embroidered, it’s an op-ed,” she countered.

  “Well, that’s true, but if I embellish it enough, I should end up with something that is more or less fiction.”

  “More or less fiction?” she pondered out loud. “I guess the library will have to build a new shelf for an emerging category.”

  • • •

  It was Christmas breakfast, but I wanted to talk shop. In all likelihood, crimes and misdemeanors would persist through the holiday season, and in its own unique way, Jesse Thorpe and Company was now officially a crime-fighting team. It said so on our business card.

  As we ate, Angele and I reviewed recent changes to our PI status.

  Eric Cochrane was still playing lead guitar in our rock band, Ocean Noises, but now he was also working full time for me in our Augusta office, which doubles as my home—a farmhouse four miles from the center of town. Billy Mosher, our keyboard player, was working for me as well, but only part time, on Fridays and Mondays when I was out of town.

  I had opened a second office, in Portland, for two reasons: primarily because Angele resides there, and secondarily because that’s where a lot of Maine’s illegal activity takes place. Usually, I’d drive down on Friday and stay with Angele through Monday or sometimes Tuesday. Angele worked Mondays with me, but she kept her regular, more solid day-job with the law firm, Schroeder, Wilson and Fines.

  Randall Bradford, J.D. was my attorney on call in Augusta. He and I had worked together on the Lavoilette murder case, and he now engaged me on a regular basis to do investigative work for him. When I needed a lawyer in Portland, Angele would line up a junior partner from her office. On rare occasions, Schroeder, Wilson and Fines hired me to do legwork.

  I should also note that occasionally I invited a psychic to assist me in stubborn cases that had no significant physical leads. Allison “Misty” Starbird filled that bill nicely, except that her notoriety had skyrocketed across the state and lower New England. The media dubbed her the “Tie-Dye Darling” after they discovered that she had played a pivotal role in the Lavoilette murder case.

  Word of Misty’s “gift” spread quickly in telepathic circles. Celebrities soon began flying in from California for personal readings, but Misty has been kind enough to lend me a clairaudient ear whenever I need supernatural help.

  If Misty happens to be too busy to get away, she’ll send over Nancy Clearlight in her stead. Misty hired her to help keep up with the metaphysical demand. Nancy is trained in Tarot, palm reading and telepathy, and applies one or more of those techniques as she sees fit.

  Misty has been grateful for the publicity, and she insists on working for me at no charge. Billy set
up and maintains her Internet site, “The Starbird Web: Circle of Psychic Detection.” Misty, by the way, never touches a computer; she says it distorts her readings for weeks. Nancy handles their email and web inquiries.

  After I finished my coffee, I said, “Angele, we’ve come to a fork in the PI road. We need to either hire extra help or begin referring some of our clients to other investigators. My work is getting a little slipshod. I know what needs to be done in most of our cases, but there aren’t enough hours in the week to do it all without cutting corners.”

  “You’re right, Jesse. When we billed Andrew Farnsworth last week, I felt that he had been shortchanged. It’s been a week and a half, and we haven’t located his sister yet. There are several leads begging for attention, but we have too many lesser causes dividing our time.”

  “Let’s try a two-pronged approach,” I said. “Tomorrow, we’ll place an ad in the help wanted section of the Portland Times. On Monday, you can interview the applicants personally. We’ll see who turns up. If you find a winner, we’ll hire her. We’ll be looking for a woman who is intuitive and smart.”

  “Should the ad read, ‘Men need not apply’?”

  “I guess so,” I replied. “There just aren’t many men who qualify in both those departments.”

  “Nary a one,” Angele suggested, “present company excepted.”

  “I appreciate the exceptional notice, honey.”

  “You’ve got a spot of green syrup on your chin, dear,” she replied.

  “That’s why you’re doing the interviews; you notice everything.”

  “How about calling Misty to ask if she can sit in with me during the interviews,” Angele suggested. “Two heads are better than one, and she can spot hot prospects fifteen minutes before they walk through the door.”

  “Good idea,” I replied. “Hopefully she’ll have a little extra time on her hands over the holidays. When you talk with her, insist on paying for her time. Travel, alone, will take up her entire day.”