November Novel: Chapter 6

[Chapter 1] . . . [Chapter 2] . . . [Chapter 3] . . . [Chapter 4] . . . [Chapter 5]

Promptly at six thirty, Jerome arrived at 1215 Old Lebanon Road and found a house overflowing with people. As well as the expected Brad, Maggie, and Abigail, the house contained a few dozen others. He found himself being introduced to numerous Dollerbys and a surprising number of Mahans. When he asked about that, Abby explained how several Mahan families realized that they could sell their two bedroom hovels in whichever city they were in and use the money to buy huge houses here. Four families of Mahans uprooted and moved to the mountains. Abby went on to brag about how two of the Mahan men were now deputies and one of the women was a police woman in the Saint Minas Department.

It was also his first real introduction to the Dollerby family. A number of Dollerbys were at the wedding, but that event had clearly been dominated by the Mahans. He met Brad's parents, Bradley Senior and Tracey. Senior had several businesses, including selling heavy equipment to the mines and the only new car dealership in Bartlette County. Tracey was a vice-principal at Bartlette Unified High School. He also met the "Aunts" - Alison, Jeanie, and Elspeth - each of whom was in her late fifties or early sixties; the group of them seemed to fill the same role in the Dollerby clan as Abby did in the Mahans. After they cornered and interrogated him for thirty minutes he was rescued by Senior who explained that he had to introduce the guest of honor around to others who were waiting to meet him.

After a couple hours of talking with various persons or groups from either of the families, Jerome finally filled a plate from the various bowls and crocks sitting on the table and counters in the kitchen and managed to escape to the back porch where he sat on a patio chair and ate in the dark. He could see the two families inside mingling cheerfully. It was a celebration of life and his arrival had been the spark that ignited it. It was nights like these when he felt the Lord's touch - or maybe tonight it was more the Holy Spirit. He had never once seen a miracle on the scale of a sea parting or water turning to wine. Yet, he constantly saw small miracles such as this. These people needed something to bring them back from blackness and anger and the Lord, through the good offices of the Bishop and the prodding of a fierce Irish matron, had sent him so that they could get together and start to heal themselves. He finished his plate and sat back in the chair listening to the the soothing murmurs of conversations that he could not quite hear.

A man walked up back lit by the light of the glass doors to the house.

He nodded his head. "Evening, Father."

Jerome nodded back and the man continued. "It's a good thing you've done here, Father, but it is going to get worse before it gets better. That man," a finger pointed toward Brad, "will charge at least two people with capital murder. If you stay here and oppose him, as you will be required to by your Church, you turn these people from great friends into enemies. Oh, Abigail Mahan will probably stand by you. Her loyalty to you and your Church is probably stronger than her loyalty to her family. She'll lose the status she cherishes so much in the family as a result. Rifts will tear the families apart and Brad probably will not be re-elected next November."

"On the other hand, these families are now strongly tied together. Without your hindrance that harmony will continue. Brad will win his trial and re-election. The publicity will probably make him a strong candidate for Attorney General. At the very least he will become a delegate or senator in the General Assembly. He'll also back Bo Ross for Sheriff which will mean the county can have an honest sheriff for years to come."

"You've fulfilled your responsibility. Go back to Richmond and tell Bishop Mannion what happened to Father Pahl. Leave these people to a better future."

Jerome struggled to see the man's face. He could never quite see the man's face. "Get thee behind me . . ."

"Satan?" The way the man's face stretched, Jerome could sense he was smiling. "I am neither Paul nor Lucifer. I do not come to tempt you Father. You have already done your duty. Thus, I cannot tempt you away from it. I just lay out the possible futures so that you can choose the proper course."

Then someone started shaking Jerome's arm and he woke up. "Hey, Mister Father?" A boy who looked all of eight stood there. "You okay? Why you sleeping out here in the cold?"

He smiled at the boy. "Sometimes we old folks just get so tired we doze off wherever we are."

The boy looked skeptical. "Huh. The Brads are looking for you. I think Mrs. Abigail wants to end the party and they want you to pray or something."

Standing, Jerome left the patio chair in the darkened corner of the patio and walked toward the glass doors. As soon as he opened the door the boy ran past him into another room where the young members of both clans had staked out as their territory earlier in the night. Senior saw him as soon as he walked in the door and called to Abby.

"Here he is Abby. No wonder we couldn't find him; he was hiding outside in the cold."

Abby hustled up, took one look at him and turned back to Senior. "Get everybody's attention. I think it's time we wrapped this up and let the Father get some sleep."

Senior let out some sort of yelp or yodel and the whole house quieted long enough for him to announce in a loud voice that everyone should come to the family room. After a minute or so, once everyone who could had crowded in and people stood as close as they could in the rooms next over, Senior called for silence again and then pointed to Abby. She looked around at all the people around that towered over her and, using Senior's arm as a brace, she climbed up on the wooden coffee table. Her voice carried through the room with a clarity that stage actors could only dream of.

"Listen up ya bunch of heathens, Protestants, and people who really, really need to go to confession." With that last came a withering stare at a man who had been introduced to Jerome as Sergeant Luke Mahan of the Bartlette Sheriff's Department.

He beamed a smile back at her. "Abby, you know full well that I went to confession last month."

"Yeah," Abby shot back, "And from what I've been hearing you're past due to go back."

Everyone in the room, including Luke Mahan, broke out laughing. After a few seconds, Abby waved her hands to focus everyone again.

"I'm afraid that we've been having so much fun that we forgot Father Tolton's had a long day. So, in about five minutes I'm going to kick all of you out. However, in a final imposition on the good Father, I'm going to ask him to say a prayer for us, because surely some of us are in bad need of it." That came with another glance toward Luke Mahan and more chuckles around the room. As that died down she pointed to Jerome.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Seeing that less than half the people around crossed themselves he continued in a more ecumenical vein. "Let us bow our head and pray together."

"Heavenly Father, we are told in Psalm 127 that it is fruitless to build a house without you and impossible to defend a civilization without you. Please be with us as we build our house with these good people and through that house a better land with you in our hearts. Let us not turn from the difficult tasks nor forget our duty to you. We ask this in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."

There was a chorus of "amens" and the crowd started breaking up. The only person who did not move was Brad Dollerby. As the crowd broke up Jerome saw the look that Brad had fastened on him from across the room. It was a hard, determined look that was not friendly. Finally, he saw a frown that bordered on belligerence cross the man's face before he shook his head and walked out of the room.

November Novel: Chapter 5

[Chapter 1] . . . [Chapter 2] . . . [Chapter 3] . . . [Chapter 4]


Jerome sat there with the two prosecutors, holding the silence in the hope that they would fill it with the information he needed. Finally, the senior man broke it.

"Father, the investigation is ongoing.  It is far from complete and we are not in a position to make any of it public."

This time the silence came from the other men and Jerome broke it.  "I'm not here to report things to the paper.  I'm here to help in any way I can.  The only person I am supposed to report to is Bishop Mannion."

The silence carried on so Jerome filled it again.  "I expect to be here until everything is shaken out.  I was speaking to Yusif before Abby came in about possibly helping with legal matters.  I went to Boston College Law and I worked for six years at the Richmond office of Spears, Allenby, Austerlitz, Evans, and Metcaffe.  As you might imagine from the rather ostentatious name, I didn't see the inside of a courtroom for those years. There's far more money and perceived prestige," he rolled his eyes expressively, "in arguing over clauses in five hundred page contracts between IBM and Motorola than there is in going into a courtroom where you might actually affect people's lives."

He knew he was laying that on a little bit thick, but he always worried that pulling out his legal bona fides would create a gulf.  It never hurt to salve the egos of the everyday lawyers he dealt with more often in untangling the local affairs of churches.  After all, he was no longer working at a snobby multi-national law firm.

. . . . 

Yusif saw the gulf between his boss and Father Tolton widening.  The cleric seemed to lack a basic understanding of how lawyers outside of big cities operated.  A biglaw firm like Spears, Allenby, Austerlitz, Evans, and Metcaffe was something entirely alien to Brad.  Yusif understood somewhat because he worked at Boreman & Franklin in Charleston for several years before he left West Virginia to take his job here.  However, Brad was a dyed in the wool local guy for whom law school had been a step in his planned political career.  In fact, going to the University of Kentucky had set him apart from the other local attorneys.  None of the twelve lawyers in the county had ever thought that practicing law had anything to do with locking themselves in an office on the thirty-second floor of a downtown tower for ninety hours a week.

He decided to jump in.  "Brad, I was talking with Father Tolton before Mrs. Mahan showed up.  I thought maybe he could come onboard as an unpaid deputy for this matter. That way he would have a fiduciary responsibility to this office and . . ."

Brad interrupted him.  "Can't do it.  Statute says that larger jurisdictions can have unpaid deputies, but we can't have one unless the comp board approves it."

"How's that?" Yusif focused in on Brad. "The Virginia constitution only allows the General Assembly to set the laws you have to enforce and how much money you have."

"Yeah.  It's unconstitutional as H . . ." Brad stopped with a glance toward Father Tolton, "It's unconstitutional as heck, but we don't need to give defense attorneys in any prosecution coming out of this anything to work with."

. . . . . 

Brad was scrambling.  What in the world was Yusif thinking?  Thank goodness this topic came up at the last commonwealth attorney seminar in Williamsburg.  Some commonwealth in the mountains on the other side of West Virginia was running an office entirely by himself and had a kid from the University of Chicago Law School who wanted to work for him without salary for two years because some charity would pay for the kid's room and board and pay off his loans. That commonwealth attorney had been willing to deputize the kid to work without pay, but the charity's lawyers had nixed it because the statutes didn't allow it in counties with smaller populations.

The idea of having a Catholic priest as a deputy Commonwealth Attorney was a nightmare.  The Father would have a higher loyalty to another organization and if the Bishop told him to do something Brad was certain that would trump any duty owed to this office.  On top of that, he already had to deal with the fact that he married a Catholic woman.  Having a priest in his office was a problem he did not need in next year's election.

"I can't hire you on Father, but I can brief you up on what we know so far. However, you do have to give me your word that you will not disclose this publicly."

He waited.  Father Tolton finally spoke.  "As I said before, I will not reveal anything that you tell me except to Bishop Mannion."

After considering that for a moment, Brad continued.  "Okay.  The investigation isn't complete yet.  The only persons who have been interviewed are Captain Ross and Grant Lasley, one of the defense attorneys.  The FBI and State Police have sent a lot of stuff to labs to be analyzed and none of that has come back.  Things are going to change."

When the Father nodded, Brad dove into the description of what he knew. "The Pahl brothers were on trial for rape and abduction.  The trial broke for the day and deputies Carr and Boyd were escorting the brothers to the holding cell over in the Sheriff's office in the building next to the courthouse.  They let the brothers' attorneys and their uncle, Father Ted Pahl, go with them.  Stopping in the alley between the buildings, they let the brothers smoke while they spoke with their attorneys.  Captain Ross came out and was breaking all that up when someone, probably two people, opened fire on them from the parking area behind the buildings."

"The civilians were on the side of the alley next to the Sheriff's office and the deputies were next to the courthouse. The initial shots went into the civilians.  We don't know how many bullets were fired, but there were rounds both from a pistol and AR-15.  That first volley hit Kyle Pahl in the neck, Justin Pahl in the chest twice, Grant Lasley in the elbow, and Father Pahl in the leg.  The Pahl brothers fell where they were and Lasley, who is a combat vet, grabbed the Father by the back of his shirt and dragged him behind the deputies. The other defense attorney, Keith Tolliver, turned and ran toward the front of the alley.  He got three bullets in the lower back and went down.  The deputies took cover behind a propane tank that was next to the courthouse.  Then one of the attacker's bullets holed the tank and a white gas filled the back of the alley.  Captain Ross grabbed his keys and ran for the door to the courthouse. He got to up on the little patio to the door and four bullets hit him.  His vest caught three and one hit him in the arm and he was thrown off the porch into a bunch of plastic trash containers.  Then something, we don't know what yet, ignited the gas."

"The explosion caught the two deputies behind the tank and threw them back ten feet. They suffered concussive traumas and third degree burns.  Lasley and Father Pahl were lying on the ground and the explosion mostly missed them.  Lasley got burns on his right hand, the back of his neck, and had to have his left arm removed above the elbow, but he came through it without any other serious injuries.  Father Pahl may have already been dead when the explosion occurred.  His leg wound hit an artery and he bled out.  The explosion reverberated from the solid granite courthouse and hit the Sheriff's office hard.  It was an old inn which was converted for use by the county government about thirty years ago and about a third of it was immediately flattened.  Some of it fell on the the Pahl brothers and they got multiple internal injuries on top of the bullet wounds."

"Neither Tolliver or Captain Ross were hurt by the explosion.  Tolliver probably won't be able to walk ever again, but he's awake. He just won't talk to anyone in law enforcement about what happened.  On the other hand, Bo . . ." He paused when he saw a questioning look in the Father's eyes.  "Yes, the same Bo who came to our wedding reception.  Bo wouldn't have even gone to the hospital in Tennessee if Sheriff Minton hadn't ordered him to.  He's already back on duty with a bandage on his right forearm.  The bullet didn't even hit any muscles or bone.  It hit the arm at an angle, furrowed under his skin and lodged there.  He claims the bruises on his back are worse than the bullet wound. Apparently, the porch and the trash cans they found him under must have blocked the explosion so he didn't get any concussive injuries or burns. Sheriff's got him riding a desk for now until the arm's completely healed."

"Right now the only one dead is Father Pahl.  However, The Pahl brothers are never expected to regain consciousness and the doctors are just waiting for the old man to sign off on removing them from respirators.  Deputy Boyd is in the same condition, but the hospital can't find anyone related closely enough to make the call.  They're going to have some sort of meeting to decide what to do tomorrow.  Deputy Carr was taken off the respirator two days ago and wasn't expected to make it through the night.  His family is sitting a deathwatch with him down at Beauregard Medical down in Johnson City."

"Father, I don't know how familiar you are with Virginia criminal law.  Both killing multiple people and killing law enforcement officers call for the same thing.  This is a capital case."

November Novel: Chapter 4

[Chapter 1] . . . [Chapter 2] . . . [Chapter 3]

Yusif was looking through the through the Tyree Lee file. Tyree went into the eZee Stop in Saint Minas, grabbed a six pack of Bud, and walked out of the store while the clerk was looking the other direction. The theft was less than ten dollars, but Tyree had been in court so often that if he sneezed in the wrong place he caught a felony charge. There was a video of the theft and Tyree confessed to the Saint Minas officer who arrested him. His record was so bad that the sentencing guidelines called for him to get between a year and a month and a year and six months in jail. Yusif put down the file and started typing up a plea agreement on his computer.

It probably would do no good, but he would send the plea agreement to Tyree's lawyer anyway. Most people who were being prosecuted currently were going to get away with it this time. When the old inn burnt down it took out more than just a few offices. It destroyed records of all the investigations done by the Sheriff's Department. Worse, all the evidence which was kept locked in the basement was gone. Adding to these problems, the Clerk of the Circuit Court had his offices in the old inn too, so all the files which had the original indictments, signed by the grand jury foreman, were nothing more than ash.

"Excuse me." The voice roused Yusif from his gloomy thoughts and he looked away from the computer. There was a Black man standing in the door of his office which meant the guy was definitely from out of town. The only ethnic minorities in Bartlette County were one Egyptian-American, three Indian doctors and their families, and the Melugeons. The only African-American Yusif had seen in Bartlette County in the last year was one of the FBI agents who showed up after the attack. This rail thin man in threadbare black pants and beat up gray coat was not a member of the FBI.

Well, at least he doesn't look like a reporter either, Yusif thought. He waved the man into room. "Yes? Can I help you sir?"

The man walked into the room. "I hope so. The lady downstairs sent me up here . . ." As the man walked into room his coat swung open revealing his collar.

. . . . .

Jerome saw the moment of recognition. The man's eyes widened slightly and he immediately started to stand. Next, this man who had been perfectly cordial to him would overcompensate for imagined impropriety by becoming extremely polite and formal. He needed to nip that in the bud.

He held his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. "I come in peace, Earthling. Take me to your leader."

The man behind the desk froze. He stood there for ten seconds, then ten more. Finally, he spoke without smiling. "You know, Father, it never ends well when someone says that to Kirk."

Jerome put on his best smile. "Then I guess it's good we're not on the Enterprise."

Striding forward, Jerome stuck out his hand. "Hi. I'm Jerome Tolton. I'm looking for . . ."

The big man stopped with his hand halfway across the desk. "You're Father Awesome?"

Taking another stride, Jerome reached out and grabbed the hand which had stopped moving forward and shook it when the man squeezed back automatically. He almost regretted it a second later when the big man got a grin on his face and the squeeze became enthusiastic. "Heck, Father, I've been hearing stories about you ever since I moved to Bartlette County. Mrs. Mahan brags on you all the time. I expected you'd be ten foot tall and have lightning bolts flashing from your eyes."

As Jerome took back his slightly crushed hand it was his turn to be a little confused. "You mean Maggie?"

"No, sir." The man's grin got a few centimeters wider. "There's only one Mrs. Mahan in Bartlette County and that's Abigail Mahan."

"And she calls me Father Awesome?"

"No Sir. She brags on you so much that Maggie and Brad do though."

For a couple seconds, Jerome reflected on that. He did a lot of things over the last ten years as he became the Bishop's top troubleshooter, but not many of them felt much like they should be bragged about. "I can't say I've done much that deserved bragging. I just do what the Bishop tells me to as best God gives me the ability to. Living up to that nickname might take a little more than the abilities the Lord has given me."

"I wouldn't bet on that Father." The big man continued to grin. "And I definitely wouldn't let Mrs. Mahan know if I doubted it. I'd get a tongue lashing that would take off several layers of skin."

"Anyway," the man pointed to one of the chairs in front of his desk, "Have a seat. I'm Yusif Habib, the deputy Commonwealth Attorney. What can I do for you?"

Looking down at the two chairs in front of the desk, Jerome chose the wooden one over the one made of metal and plastic. Although both were of indeterminate age, they clearly had their best decades behind them. So did the metal desk with the Seventies era ugly green paint. The man who sat down in the equally dated orange chair behind the desk had a dark skin tone and he was offensive lineman large.

"Well, Yusif, I was sent here to help out. I'm not exactly Father Dowling, so I don't think I'd be much help sleuthing around the dark corners of Bartlette County, but I am a lawyer. I thought maybe I could be of some help here."

. . . . . .

Brad walked out of the examination room, putting his jacket back on. He might not even have a scar where they sewed his earlobe back together, although Doctor Ambedkar waffled about it the way insurance companies have trained doctors to do. At least the good doctor took off that ridiculous bandage. He gave all sorts of dire warnings about scratching the ear or getting it wet, but he allowed that it would probably be better if the ear got air as it healed.

As Brad was paying at the front desk, Maggie almost hurdled through the front door. "Get moving. We have to get to your office right now. Why aren't you answering your phone? I tried to call you four times and you never picked up."

It all came out in one breath and Brad was a little stunned by the onslaught. He pointed to a sign in the lobby which forbade the use of cell phones because they might interfere with medical equipment. It would have been more effective as an excuse if two kids in the lobby had not been texting away on their phones in the seats next to the picture. Yet, Maggie did not call him on it. Instead, she grabbed him by the arm and started hustling him out the door. "We've got to go now. My car is right outside. We'll come back and get yours later."

Her car was parked right outside the doctor's office on the yellow curb. She shoved him toward the passenger side and hit her key fob unlocking the vehicle. Once they were both in she turned the key so fast that the starter made a grinding noise and she practically stomped the gas pedal as they pulled out.

While he fumbled to get his seat belt on, Brad looked over at his wife. "What's going on Maggs?"

She kept her eyes in front as the car barely paused at the stop sign at the entrance of the parking lot. "Paula called me. She tried to call you first, but couldn't get an answer. I was in Yared doing the political wife thing at a Red Hats lunch. It took me an hour to get here and get you - still with your phone off."

Brad could tell he was going to hear about this later. Maggie considered it just this side of a sin not to be reachable by cell twenty-four hours a day. Again though, she was not fussing at him about it. Something really had her flummoxed. "Maggs, slow down. What is it?"

"Father Tolton's here. He is at your office, waiting to talk with you and you are making him wait."

Brad winced as his wife made a left turn onto Main Street, at speed, under what could have arguably been the last glow of the yellow before the light turned red, and directly in front of a town officer. "Dammit, Maggs, slow down! It won't do anyone any good if you kill us five hundred feet from the courthouse. And Tolton seemed like a decent guy. He'll understand."

She pulled around behind the courthouse and directly into the space reserved for the General District Court judge. "Bradley 'Nickel' Dollerby, it's Father Tolton and you will call him Father. I know the Father will understand. My mother, on the other hand . . ." She paused and gave Brad a meaningful look. Both of them got out of the car and strode quickly into the courthouse.

When they got to Brad's office, Paula was on the phone and she pointed upward.  They turned around and headed straight to the attic office.  When they got there, Yusif had two people sitting in front of his desk.  There was a thin black man in priestly garb and an older lady with a light blue blouse and long dark blue skirt.  Brad had just enough time to think "damn, she's wearing the pearls" before she opened up on him.

"Well, it's about time you showed up, Mister Commonwealth Attorney.  While you've been out gallivanting, Father Jerome has been sitting here for an hour and a half waiting for you to be kind enough to show up at your own office.  You do still work here don't you?"

Brad stood there. All he could do was weather the storm.  There was no arguing with this woman and even if he did argue, God help him if he scored any hits because then his wife would turn on him too.  Of course, if he remained silent his wife would start arguing with Abigail on her own in about ten seconds.  This would lead to chastisement later about how he never stood up for himself and how she always had to defend him from her mother. That was infinitely better than having the two women yelling at him in tandem.  Then, just as Abigail was hitting stride, a voice cut across her harangue.

"Now, Abby, this is my fault, not his."

Then Brad saw something he had thought impossible.  Abigail Mahan stopped in mid fuss. It was only a moment, but when the slightly built priest interrupted her she stopped.  Then she turned to the priest.

"Nonsense.  You are a guest and shouldn't be treated this way.  And you a Father even."  She scowled slightly and started to turn back to continue tearing strips off Brad's hide.

The priest stuck his hand, palm out, between that scowl and its intended victim. 

"Abby, I'm the one who's being rude here, not Mr. Dollerby. I came to town without calling anyone, showed up without an appointment, and it never even occurred to me that a man who was in a building when a massive explosion took place right outside would probably be seeing a doctor." The priest stood and took Abigail's arm, helping her to her feet. "And you, of all people, know that the fact that I'm a priest does not make me perfect.  The Bishop sent me to talk to these gentlemen about what happened last week, so I'm afraid I'll have wait until tonight to finish filling you in on all the details of what I've been up to." He walked her over to the door and looked at Maggie. "Maggie, would you be kind enough to walk Abby out so that I can talk to your husband?"  Maggie nodded and both women left after the priest promised he would show up at half past six for supper.

Brad stood there astonished.  He had never seen anyone stop Abigail once she got rolling, much less give her the bum's rush out the door.  As the priest shut the door behind the ladies and turned back around, Brad heard his assistant's voice behind him. "Wow. Now I know why they call you Father Awesome."

As Brad watched a little grin crossed Father Tolton's lips. "Don't expect it to last. I give it a day or two and she'll be pushing me around just as much as she does everyone else."  

With that, the priest returned to his seat.  Brad sat in the the old metal chair next to him.  "Father, what can we do for you?"

The priest's expression became much more serious. "I've been sent by Bishop Mannion. What can you tell me about the death of Father Ted Pahl?"

November Novel: CrimLaw Novel: Chapter 3

[Chapter 1] . . . [Chapter 2]

Chapter 3

Father Jerome Tolton stood outside the shuttered doors of the building which used to be the Archangel Michael Church in Richmond. The diocese still owned the land, but the Bishop decided to close the church when its regular attendance at its one mass a week fell below twenty regular parishioners. Jerome's first job as a priest had been to close this church. That was ten years earlier and whenever he came back to Richmond he visited the old church.

On paper it made sense. Only six blocks away Mary Queen of Heaven had a thriving Catholic community and Archangel Michael was in terrible condition. The roof leaked badly and several of the stained glass windows had holes which were covered by boards. During the winter the church held services in the basement because it cost too much to heat the high ceilinged and drafty worship area.

Jerome was told that the church would be closed in four months and all he would have to do was caretake it until that time. He would say mass once a week, visit sick parishioners, ease his flock through the merger with Marry Queen of Heaven, and get some good experience as a first time parish priest.

It was a disaster. No one told the parishioners that Archangel Michael was closing before he arrived; worse, no one told him of the omission. As well, no one had told the parishioners that their new priest was African-American. When he said his first mass in front of a group of thirty-two people, all but two of whom were elderly and all of whom were White, he felt a sense of dread. It did not help when a third of the attendees did not come forward for communion. Then, at the end of the mass he stood to introduce himself a little better and read a couple announcements.

"Hello. For those of you who might not have figured it out I'm the new priest." He paused for an expected chuckle and got stony silence. He hurried on. "I'm going to be the priest for Archangel Michael until we merge into Mary Queen of Heaven in August . . ."

There was an audible gasp from someone. The parishioners all started talking at once. A man on the third pew turned red in the face before he stood and walked out. A lady on the first row stood and then crumpled back down onto the pew and dissolved into tears. After a couple minutes, two other parishioners walked her out. Jerome was stunned and when things dropped into a lull, he forgot the announcements and just did the closing blessing. He recited the blessing, but no one in the pews replied. Then no one sang the closing hymn. Jerome found himself walking down the aisle to the back of the church alone. There were two doors at the back of the church and Jerome stood next to the one on the right. Two parishioners gave him tepid handshakes as they went out the door. The others all hurried by, walking out the left hand door.

He prayed a lot that week and came back the next Sunday determined to do everything he could to mend fences and get things moving in the right direction. Then he walked into the church and found himself conducting mass for three parishioners. The following Tuesday he was served with a law suit by a group of parishioners who styled themselves the Archangel Michael Church Council. They asked for an injunction against the closing of the church. When Jerome called the Bishop's office he was told in no uncertain terms that the reason they assigned someone who was a lawyer before he became a priest to tend to the closing of Archangel Michael was that he could handle any legal matters that popped up. Thus, he ended up personally fighting a court battle against the parishioners he was supposed to be helping. It had been almost ridiculously easy to win, but it delayed the closing by three months. During the entire last seven months of Archangel Michael's time as a functioning church he never had more than seven parishioners in the pews.

It was a soul crushing experience which almost broke Jerome. He spoke with other priests about it and even approached Bishop Mannion a couple times. They were all full of encouragement, good will, and platitudes. However, no one provided much in the way of actual assistance. In the end, it was his church secretary that got him through it.

Abigail Marie Mahan was a sixty year old woman and if Hollywood was going to cast a stereotypical Irish grandmother it would have looked to her. She was no nonsense, tough as nails, and she more or less adopted Jerome. She was not happy about Archangel Michael closing and she was at least as angry about the way he was being treated. About three months in, when he had been about to fall apart, she marched him into the back office of the church and lectured him for over an hour on his duties as a priest and how he needed to buck up and do his job for both the Church and this church. She was strength from God and stiffened his backbone for the rest of his time there. Years later he found out she had also turned herself into an absolute terror for the Bishop's office over her anger that Bishop Mannion had thrown a young priest like him to the wolves. When Archangel Michael was finally closed she was its only parishioner to come to the mass he held with Father Rios at Mary Queen of Heaven. A lone Irish-Catholic woman, she stood in the middle of pews filled with African-Americans and Mexican-Americans. After the mass she gave him a fierce hug and told him if the "bastards" ever did anything like this to him again that he should call her and she would set them straight. Then she turned and left while both of them were still able to hold their tears in.

Three years later he was in Charlottesville, reorganizing Blessed Sacrament Church for the diocese, when she called. Her wayward daughter, Margeret, had come back from the Army and gone to some law school in Kentucky. Now she was living in sin with some man deep in the mountains of Virginia. Abby was going to go out there and fix that. Would he preside over the wedding? He agreed and once he set the telephone down promptly forgot the call. After all, while he never met Margeret, he had met Abby's other two daughters, Kate and Ann, who were both every bit as willful as their mother. He had no doubt that Margeret would be just as stubborn as the other Mahan women. She would not get married unless she wanted to and she would never let her mother choose the priest for her wedding.

Six months later Father Jerome Tolton found himself in a place most Virginians did not realize existed. When most people thought of Southwest Virginia they thought of Roanoke. Bartlette County was three hours west of Roanoke and he was assured by the local priest, Father Gabe Mullins, that Virginia continued on for at least two more hours of driving until you left Lee County, Virginia and went into Middlesboro, Kentucky. There was a tiny Catholic church right next to a local hospital which had been built by the Church but was now owned by some conglomerate. Saint Berlinda was a rural church with a congregation that was theoretically about seventy and actually worked out to thirty parishioners at the weekly mass. The wedding had been a joyous, if somewhat chaotic, event. The church seated about one hundred. In the church proper there were nowhere near enough seats for the Mahans, who descended on Bartlette County in droves, much less the groom's family. However, Abby and her daughter Maggie made sure that every member of the Dollerby clan who wanted a seat got one. They were Protestants of some sort and the ceremony, celebration, and length of a Catholic wedding all seemed to combine to leave them kind of happily bemused.

The five hour reception dinner and party afterward at the local hotel and bar stunned the entire town. When a town policemen showed up at eleven thirty to calm them down some idiot who married into the family actually threw a punch at him. Before the local officer could get up off the floor three of Abby's nephews had slammed the attacker to the floor and were flashing their own badges. They helped the officer up and asked him to let them take care of the moron their cousin married. The local cop looked around, nodded his head, and left. About thirty minutes later four local officers and three deputies showed up to shut the party down. The Mahans reacted to that mostly with good humor and started to head back to their rooms until one of the local officers decided they were moving too slowly and got mouthy. The confrontation which followed was almost word for word from a movie.

A large Mahan looked down at the officer. "You'd better have the National Guard out there to back you if you think you can make us do anything."

The town officer snapped back, "Hell, we don't need no army. We got us a Bo."

On cue, a deputy walked through the door. He turned sideways as he did so and ducked his head under the door frame, then straightened out. None of the Mahan men were small, but they all looked up at Bo, who seemed to be as large as any three of them put together. The room got very quiet as Bo walked up. He had lieutenant bars on his collar and pointed at one of the other town officers.

"Get Mouse out of here before he gets me in another fight." The town officer who was making trouble gave Bo a sullen look, but went without a fuss. Then Bo pointed at the bartender. "You know that no alcohol can be sold after twelve. It's seven after."

The bartender looked like he was used to this. "Aw Bo, it's an open bar. I ain't selling anything."

Bo looked singularly unimpressed. "Don't care. You can serve these folks one more round and then you shut down if you want to keep your license."

Finally Bo turned to the Mahans. "Gentlemen, we got noise ordinances and drunk in public laws. I got little old ladies who live down the street who think that any drinking is a sin and who will be bugging the living crud out of my Sheriff tomorrow. He's already going to be on me for not shutting you down earlier. I hear some of you are officers and I'm sure you know what that's like." Several of the Mahans nodded as he continued. "Get a last round and break it up by one. I'm certain we'll get a couple more complaints by then and we'll swing by. Anybody who's still in the bar or partying in the halls will get to spend the night in jail on a drunk in public. Have a good night."

As Bo turned to leave, one of the younger Mahans started forward only to be grabbed by a couple of his elders. One of them whispered loudly enough that everyone in the bar could hear it through the continuing silence. "What the fuck's wrong with you? Don't you have enough sense to recognize a force of nature when you see it?"

People laughed and started to talk again. As he got to the door the big deputy stopped and turned back. "One last thing. Whoever punched Mark here," Bo pointed at the local officer, "had best be out of the county before eight in the morning. Mark doesn't mind letting it go, but he's going to have shiner and that means he has to file an incident report. His boss will get to the office about nine and read that report. He don't take kindly to people attacking his officers. We don't have a name right now and if he's gone from the county I don't expect much follow up. If he's still here, hitting an officer is a felony with a mandatory six months in jail. Make sure he's gone." With that Bo left and the other lawmen went with him.

Jerome was sitting in a back corner with Father Gabe, Abby and the bride. Abby chuckled and looked like she was suppressing a guffaw. "You know, that man just became a legend in Boston, New York, and Richmond. There are at least three officers from each of those cities here and by the time they get back Bo will be nine foot tall and when he walked in the door he bent a steel bar just to get everybody's attention."

Father Gabe turned to Abby with a bit of conspiratorial gleam in his eye. "You know, Abby, the reason he's a deputy is that he was the runt of the litter and his daddy thought he was too small to do real work on the farm."

Abby stood with a smile. "Oh, that's too good. I'm going to go up and get our last rounds at the bar and make sure everybody knows that." She turned to her daughter. "Maggie, you better go round your husband up. You know what they're doing to him."

Maggie stood up too. "I know. Heck, I figure they've already got him so snookered that he'll be worthless in bed tonight." Then she raised her voice as she turned to walk away past a table where some of the young Mahan women were gathered, commiserating on the lack of worthwhile men at the party. "But, you know, if I wanted to marry a man just because he was great in the sack, I'd probably have gone after Bo."

Jerome smiled at the memory and brought himself back to the present. That was the last time he had seen any of the Mahans, much less Abby. Abby stayed in Bartlette County and they kept in touch through phone calls and email, but for the last year Jerome was assigned to merge two monasteries which each had less then fifteen brothers apiece. It should have been easy since both were from the same order. However, like everything else the Bishop sent his troubleshooter to do, it turned out not to be anywhere near as simple as it first seemed. He spent the majority of the last year cloistered with a bunch of men in monasteries which forbade talking, much less phones and internet. He had just finished a meeting with the two abbots when a message arrived from Bishop Mannion. He was to return immediately to Richmond and get briefed about going to Bartlette County. It was a little after seven when he left the monastery and started driving back to Richmond. He stopped at a church on the way back and tried to call Abby, but got her voicemail. He could not think of anything the Bishop would think important enough to send him to Bartlette County. Whatever it was, he was certain that Abby had something to do with it. Why else would the Bishop be sending him? He looked at his watch. It was ten and the appointment with His Excellency was at eleven. He needed to get going so that he could make sure he got there on time. He walked back to the beat up old dodge truck the diocese was kind enough to provide him. On the third try the truck's engine coughed to life and he started driving.
. . . . .

His Excellency Bishop Wayne Mannion waved Jerome into a chair in his office. He was on the phone at the time and Jerome waited patiently while the Bishop finished speaking to some politician about how he should vote in a manner consistent with his faith. He was unable to tell whether the Bishop was going after a Republican for the death penalty or a Democrat for abortion before the conversation ended with the usual meaningless amenities.

Then Bishop Mannion looked at him with an unpleasant scowl. "Father Tolton, ever since the incident in Bartlette County, we have not been able to keep that Irish attack dog of yours at bay. She keeps insisting that you come out there to investigate. She won't leave us alone. She even called Rome." He glared at Jerome. "Do you know how much I hate getting calls from Rome questioning me about whether I have been lax in investigating attacks on the Church? And we're also getting calls from a Monsignor Reilly out of the Archdiocese of Newark who wants to know how one of their priests got killed. She called the Archbishop's office too."

Bishop Mannion's rant ground to a halt, but he continued to glare across his desk at Jerome. Jerome sat there in shock for a few seconds before he began to speak very carefully. "Your, Excellency, I have been either at Sacred Trinity Monastery or Christ the Savior Monastery. I've not had contact with the secular world at large."

The Bishop sat back for a second. "Then you don't know?" When Jerome shook his head, Mannion leaned forward again. "Well, that explains why she kept accusing us of hiding you or ordering you not to talk to her."

Jerome stayed silent and after a couple seconds Bishop Mannion sat up. "All right. I guess I can't blame you for something you didn't even know about. And I never can stay angry at you too long anyway. I don't know how you do it, but every time I send you out to do something which should make everyone hate you, you do it and make friends along the way. Of course, none of the others are quite as fierce as that Mahan woman. Next time you talk to her find out how she got the personal assistant of the Prefect of the Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei to call me at five in the morning." He grinned crookedly. "Let me tell you, it's quite a shock to be woken up and told the Inquisition is holding for you on line three."

"Anyway, you need to know what's going on. A week ago in Bartlette County a bunch of people were ambushed at the back door of the courthouse. During the gunfight, someone shot a big propane tank and it exploded. The explosion destroyed a building and sent about a dozen people to the hospital. The only one to die was a Father Ted Pahl - a priest from the Archdiocese of Newark."

"And now you know about as much as I do. For all I know it was some sort of Hatfield-McCoy thing and the Father Pahl just got in the way. I don't know. You need to find out."

Jerome took it all in and sending him to poke around Bartlette County seemed like a spectacularly bad idea. "Your Excellency . . . "

The Bishop waved his hand. "You're out of the doghouse. Stop with all the formality."

"Yes sir." The Bishop rolled his eyes as Jerome went on. "It may not be a good idea to send an outsider to look into this. My understanding is that they don't like it when outsiders poke their noses into local business. Also, this is a part of Virginia where people openly fly Confederate flags. I may not be the person who can handle this most effectively."

"Because you're Black?" Jerome cringed inwardly as Bishop Mannion's voice rose. He had heard that tone before. "Part of the Church's job is to combat moral ignorance. If they are too stupid to make use of your considerable skills because you have more melanin than they have, then they are idiots. But, we're going to make sure that they know they're idiots because if they don't accept your help you'll figure it out anyway - won't you?"

Jerome nodded. What else could he do? The Bishop had already made up his mind and now he had fastened a moral imperative on top of the need to investigate. To get there, he had badly misinterperated what Jerome meant. Local officials would cooperate. It was the guys out in the mountains who unabashedly flew Confederate flags who bothered him. He was fairly certain that he would not be welcome there. He was now equally certain that Bishop Mannion was not going to let him out of this.

Two hours later Jerome found himself back at his truck with instructions to drive immediately to Bartlette County. After meeting with the Bishop, he waited for another ninety minutes while the Bishop's aide de camp scared up a cell phone and portable computer for him. His clothes, New Jerusalem Bible, and rosaries were already packed in the old army duffelbag sitting on the passenger seat of the truck. He coaxed the truck back into life and started the five hour drive. This morning the Brothers at Christ the Savior woke him up at two thirty so he could participate in Lauds and then help with morning chores. He would be dead tired soon and no one in Barlette County even knew he was coming. It would be best if he found a place to bunk down tonight in Roanoke and then finished the part of the drive through winding mountain roads tomorrow.  He called directory assistance and asked for the number of one of the Catholic churches in Roanoke.