 
## The Cosmic Ray Heresy

### Frank A. Smith

### Copyright © 2011-2016 Frank A. Smith

### Smashwords Fourth Edition

### All rights reserved.

### THE COMIC RAY HERESY is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

### ISBN-13: 978-1533251480

### ISBN- 10: 1533251487

### For my wife Helen, our children, and grandchildren

# CHAPTER 1-THE LETTER

### "Can we go yet, Daddy?"

### Olivia was sitting on the wooden office chair with one short leg, her pink sneakers planted on the front rung and impatiently rocking back and forth.

### "Finish your juice, sweetheart, and throw the box in the wastebasket. Daddy has one more thing to do"

### The Monday morning mail on my desk contained an invitation to the university's holiday gala, a bunch of ads for scientific equipment and new text books, and a manila envelope bearing some very pretty postage stamps from Vatican City. It was the return address that really got my attention. I slit the envelope and took a deep breath.

### Congregation Per La Dottrina Della Fede

### Piazza del Uffizio 11, 00193

### Roma, Italia

### Reverend Francis X. Donnelly, Ph.D

### Department of Physics

### Pennsylvania Commonwealth University

### Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19144

### USA

### Dear Father Donnelly:

### In a recent letter published in The Philadelphia Inquirer you advocated the ordination of women. You do not have the option of questioning the tradition of a male priesthood. We strongly urge you to write another letter to that newspaper correcting the original.

### In another matter we believe you are guilty of violating article 277 of canon law. Supporting photographs are included. We have asked His Excellency, Archbishop Robert K. Reilly, to investigate this charge and apply appropriate sanctions.

### We trust that both matters can be resolved satisfactorily.

### Sincerely Yours in Christ,

### Antoni Cardinal Tossi, Prefect

### Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

### Not what I expected. Four hundred years ago, when it tussled with another physicist, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was known as The Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition. Galileo lost that battle. Today the favorite targets of the CDF are theologians, not physicists.

### I could guess as to what article 277 of the Church's legal code was about. To that I could plead guilty. They had enclosed the photos to prove it. I had been seen in the company of two very pretty ladies. I love them both. One is my sister. The other is not and for a Catholic priest that is a big problem.

### Dadeee!"

### I walked and Olivia skipped across the University Quad. The morning was sunny and cool with the smell of autumn in the air; someone in the surrounding neighborhood was defying a city ordinance and burning leaves. Overnight winds had swirled leaves against the low stone walls that crisscrossed campus. I kicked up a nice pile in a corner and held Olivia's hands as she jumped from the wall.

### "One more time, Daddy. Jump with me."

### I jumped. What good is tenure if you can't act a little crazy once in a while?

### Munchkin House is a day care center for faculty and staff children housed in a Victorian mansion on the edge of campus. This is Olivia's second year and I'm running out of space on the refrigerator for her projects. After a wet kiss and a hug I surrendered my little blue-eyed blond to the student volunteer on the porch. Seven-thirty to four-thirty is a long stretch for a four-year-old, even with nap time in the afternoon. I promised to come back for her lunchtime "tea party" but at this time of the morning I needed coffee.

# CHAPTER 2-THE PIG

### Officially it's the Student Center; unofficially it's "The Pig". The students named it for the huge painting of a pig inside the main entrance. We're waiting for a rich alumnus seeking immortality to come up with a few million to name it something more appealing. I sat in one of the lounge chairs in front of windows overlooking the Quad. The building forms one side of a square surrounding a large grassy area. Some students were tossing a Frisbee around. Others were tying red and white balloons to a sign that read, "Say No to a Tuition Hike". A classroom building, the library, and the science building, my digs, complete the square enclosing the open space.

### I sipped the coffee from the Starbucks kiosk and pondered my dual roles: Associate Professor of Physics here at PaCom during the week and on Saturdays and Sundays switching hats or, more accurately, switching collars to become Father Frank Donnelly, weekend assistant at St. Elizabeth's. The letter from the CDF was just the latest manifestation of my problem juggling these roles.

I'm not that unusual. Many priests are also scientists. Of course my daughter is unusual. Not many priests have one, at least none they will admit to. This is my fifth year at PaCom. Five years ago, about a year before Connie's accident, when the Dean here interviewed me for the opening in the physics department she had commented on my history as a former Catholic priest. I said I still was a priest and told her my fascinating story. It may have boosted my diversity quotient; made me a member of an underrepresented minority. How many public universities had a Catholic priest in the physics department, let alone one with a pregnant wife? Of course, the degrees from MIT and my publication record helped.

### I capped the half cup of cooling coffee and headed back across the Quad to my office. The sky had darkened and there was a distant rumble of thunder.

### "Yo! A little help?"

### A wayward Frisbee floated over my shoulder from behind. I stepped after it, snagged it with my right hand, pivoted, and tossed it back in one motion. Smooth. My downfield receiver gave me a thumbs-up thank you.

# CHAPTER 3-THE DETECTIVE

### The tall woman at the end of the hall peering into the small window in my office door was tilted slightly to her left to balance a leather bag halfway in size between a purse and a shopping bag. A compact umbrella dangled from her left wrist.

### "Looking for me?" I said walking toward the door.

### She wore black slacks over black boots, a white blouse under a tan sweater, plain gold earrings and necklace. She was dressed too well to be a student. My intuition said textbook sales or scientific equipment.

### "Room two-eleven? Professor Donnelly?"

### "Guilty," I said inserting my key in the lock. "Please, come in. It looks like we're in for some weather out there."

### "I think we just made it," she said dropping the umbrella into her bag. She fished around in there and came out with a leather case holding a badge and ID.

### "Detective Angela Rossi," she said. "Philadelphia Police Department."

### So much for my intuition.

### Frank Donnelly," I said as we shook hands. "That was quick."

### "Quick? I was going to apologize for taking so long to get back to you."

### "The shooting was just yesterday. I'd say that was quick."

### She looked puzzled.

### "What shooting?"

### "At St. Elizabeth's. Somebody took a shot at our statue of the Virgin while I was standing right next to her."

### "Oh my god, the desecration of the statue. I saw it on the news last night. That was you?"

### To answer I held up my bandaged hand.

### "You were hit?"

### "No, I fell. Just a scratch."

### "That must have been awful. No, I'm with the cybercrime unit, credit card theft, computer scams, that sort of thing. Your emails? But tell me about the shooting."

### "Well, after saying the nine-thirty Mass I was standing on the church steps near the statue talking to a young man who had just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. I heard a loud bang and the next thing I know I was on the ground—pushed down by the soldier."

### "And the statue was hit?"

"Our Lady of Boat House Row, right through her plastic heart. Here, why don't you sit down?"

### I moved Olivia's stuffed rabbit from the chair to a bookcase and put my coffee on the windowsill. The detective lowered her bag to the floor, sat in the chair. I sat in the squeaky swivel chair behind my desk. She took out a pen and small notebook, and put on a pair of glasses.

### "Thank you. Plastic?" she asked looking over the glasses.

### "A temporary replacement. The original developed a crack last winter and has been out for repairs. The police recovered the bullet from the rose bed around the statue and will do a ballistics check."

### "How close were you to the statue?"

### "Pretty close, I guess."

### "Not a pleasant experience, I bet."

### "No, it certainly wasn't.

### "Okay, let me get to the reason I'm here. Your emails."

### "Ah, yes, I had just about given up on that."

### "First of all I must apologize for barging in on you like this, Professor. I checked your class schedule on your web site and thought I might catch you early. Do you have some time?"

"I don't have a class until ten. Fire away."

### "I read the brief bio on your web site, Professor. Very interesting. I don't think I ever met a priest who was also a physicist. Do you prefer 'Father' or 'Doctor'?"

### "Usually it's Doctor here at the university and Father at St. Elizabeth's where I'm the weekend assistant. To my boyhood friends I'm still, 'Reds'."

### She smiled. "I promise I won't call you Reds. Now your emails. Actually, another email problem dropped on my desk last week prompted my visit. It might be related to yours. Did you happen to know the elderly priest who was killed last week in a fall?"

### "At St. Gabriel's?"

### "That's right. Father Soroka. There was a notice of his death in yesterday's Inquirer. Did you see it?"

### "No, I didn't get a chance to read the paper yesterday."

### She took a folded piece of paper from her bag. "The obit was on page eleven of the Local News section. Here are a couple lines. 'Father Albert Soroka died of injuries sustained in a fall at St. Gabriel's Catholic Church in Southwest Philadelphia.' Then it goes on for two paragraphs with his bio, a list of the parishes he served in, and finishes with this line, 'Father Soroka was in retirement at St. Gabriel's since he was cited in the 2005 Philadelphia Grand Jury Report on the clerical sexual abuse of minors'. "

### "Isn't that a nice way to be remembered?" I said. "But what has this to do with my emails?"

### "We found a similar email on the priest's laptop."

### I got more interested. She crossed her legs, adjusted her glasses, and leaned forward. The chair rocked on its uneven legs.

### "We're taking a closer look at the accident."

"You think maybe it wasn't? An accident, I mean."

### "We don't know."

### She flipped through a few pages in her notebook and said, "Let me read you his email. 'Priests should be truly priests. When they are not, corrections can be made.' Very similar to yours which read—she paused and flipped again—'You are reminded again that sins should not remain unpunished. Priests should be truly priests.' Do I have it right?"

### "Yes that's it. I first received similar emails when I was ordained. Then they stopped—until recently. The 'you-are-reminded-again' part is new."

### "Any idea what they mean?"

### "My guess is that somebody doesn't like the fact that I was married when I was ordained."

### That made her sit up straight.

### "Married? I thought you were Catholic. You're an Episcopal priest?"

### "You're almost right—'am' and 'was' is more accurate."

### "Now I'm really confused."

"I am a Catholic priest and I was an Episcopal priest. When I converted to Catholicism I was ordained as a Catholic priest and when that happens, if the priest is married, he is allowed to remain married."

### "I saw on TV that the new pope was going to allow this but I wasn't aware they could already do it—and I was raised Catholic."

"It's still pretty rare but it's been Church policy since 1980. The Church doesn't widely publicize it. It's an admission that mandatory celibacy is not strictly necessary for the Catholic priesthood."

### "But it is for a regular priest isn't it, a priest who was Catholic all along?"

### "Absolutely. And, If a priest falls in love after he is ordained and wants to marry he must leave the priesthood."

### "It doesn't seem fair," she said. "There shouldn't be a penalty for love."

### "I'm sure a lot of priests feel that way; certainly ones that were forced to leave the clergy in order to marry. Then I come along, and others like me, 'Johnnies-come-lately' to the Church, and we are permitted to have something they are denied."

### "And one of them could be mad enough to send you nasty emails—or even take a shot at you."

### "I would hope a fellow priest would not stoop to that but, yes, I suppose it's possible."

# CHAPTER 4-THE INTERROGATION

### The detective took a laptop from her bag, and put it on the edge of my desk and said, "Let me get to the photo that was attached to one of your emails."

### As she reached over to open it and turn it on her chair rocked again. I took a coaster out of my desk drawer and got up.

### "If you'll stand for a minute I have a high tech solution for that problem."

### I pushed the coaster under the short leg.

### "A lot of the furniture in the state universities is made in the prisons and many of the inmates are not exactly craftsmen."

### "Thanks. I was getting sea sick."

### She remained standing and bent over her computer as she worked the touch pad. The picture came up on the screen.

### "I want to identify everyone in this photo," she said flipping a page in her notebook and sitting down in the now stable chair. I went back around my desk and tried to sit without squeaking and failed.

### She turned the laptop toward me. The picture was the one of me, Vicki, Olivia, and Joey at a picnic table at the Philadelphia Zoo. We went there for Joey's fifth birthday in late August. I had no idea who took the picture. The sender had done a cut and paste job on it and replaced a plate of cupcakes with a round bomb, the cartoon kind that Wylie E. Coyote gets from Acme mail order

### "That's certainly the one that scared me," I said.

### "No doubt. Is the photo-shopped bomb covering something else?"

### "Cup cakes," I said. "It was the boy's birthday."

### "Sick. Now, names. The boy?"

"Joey."

### "And the little girl?"

### "That's Olivia."

### "Oh, she's a doll," she said writing in her notebook.

### "And your wife's name?"

### "She's not my wife. My wife was killed in an auto accident almost four years ago."

### "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I..."

### "A natural assumption. She's Joey's mother, Victoria Meyers, a teacher in the parish school at St. Elizabeth's. Olivia is my daughter."

### She paused and looked up for just a moment.

### "Thank you. My next question is for the record. Do you consider the emails you received and this picture to be threatening and not just someone's idea of a prank?"

### "A threat, a warning, yes. That's why I sent it to you, to the police."

"I ask because your perception of it as a threat is important in establishing it as a crime. We can investigate a crime but not a prank. I assume you talked to one of our officers yesterday?"

### "A Lieutenant O'Brien."

### I took out my wallet and removed O'Brien's card.

### "Here."

### Detective Rossi looked at the card.

### "Jim O'Brien."

### "Do you know him?"

### "Not well. I've run into him a few times. He works out of the station on Gypsy Lane. You told him about your emails?"

### "I mentioned it, yes."

### "What did he think?"

### "He's pretty sure it was vandalism."

### "What about you?"

### "I doubt the shooting was related to the emails. I think O'Brien is right about vandalism."

"Would it be more accurate to say you hope he's right?"

### "Sure."

### "So you're an optimist," she said smiling.

### "Am I being naïve?"

### "You're being normal. It's we who are abnormal. Cops are pessimists. We always assume the worst. It's safer that way."

### She flipped back a page in her notebook. "Victoria Meyers. She feels threatened by the bomb picture too?"

### "I don't want to scare her. I haven't shown it to her yet."

### "Don't you think you should?"

### I promised to do so soon.

### "Doctor Donnelly, is there any possibility that someone objects to your—er—friendship with Ms. Myers; an ex-boyfriend, disgruntled ex-husband, someone who might be behind this?"

"Her husband was killed in Iraq."

### "I see. How about from your end? A professional rival, anyone with a grudge?"

### Professional rivals thrash out their differences in scientific journals and in meetings, not with anonymous emails. A grudge? Rachel? She had been mad at me but she was hardly a psycho.

"I can't think of anyone who stands out."

### "Anyone who would have known you would be at the Philadelphia Zoo that day?"

"I don't think I told anyone. It was a nice day in August. Cool. One of those days that promises autumn. It was a spur of the moment thing. I was in my office preparing notes for the start of the fall semester and Vicki, Mrs. Meyers, emailed me."

"Does anyone besides you have access to your computer?"

### "No one."

### "Do you log off when you leave your office?"

### "Usually. I might not if I'm only going to be out of my office for a short time."

### "Is it possible that a student or someone else could be in your office at a time when you step out?"

### "I never leave a student alone in my office. The only people I can think of would be Martha Greenberg and Joe Amanti. Doctor Greenberg is on the Faculty Senate with me and we frequently meet in my office to work on Senate business. Doctor Amanti is an engineer and we have been collaborating on the writing of a general physics textbook. We're in and out of each other's office all the time. They both are good friends."

### "Do you access your email through the university's web site?"

### "Yes."

### "Does anyone else know your password?"

### "Not that I know of."

### "The reason I ask all this is that if someone got into your computer to read your email he, or she, would have known you would be at the zoo that day."

### "It's easy enough to change my password. I'll do it today."

### "Maybe you should hold off on that. It's our only line of communication to your pen pal. Set up a new email account—hot mail or yahoo or something like that with a completely random password. Use that when you want to keep any personal information secure and change it frequently."

### "OK, I can do that."

### "Bear with me a minute while I catch up on my notes," she said. "They should make everyone take shorthand in high school. Okay, now the phrase 'you are reminded again' in the email suggests this wasn't the first one."

### "That's right. I had received a few similar ones soon after I was ordained."

### "Ordained as an Episcopal priest or Catholic priest?"

### "Catholic."

### "So you were married at the time. This was before your wife's death?"

"Around that time. I'm not sure if it was before or after."

### "Do you still have the emails?"

### "I'm afraid I deleted them."

### "On this desk computer?"

### "Yes."

### She made a lengthy entry into her notebook.

### "You said your wife had an accident. May I ask what happened?"

### "Connie had taken Olivia to CHOP for a blood test."

### "Children's Hospital of Philadelphia," she said while writing.

### "Yes. Coming back, the front wheel on the driver's side fell off our old minivan when she was going through an underpass on the Vine Street Expressway. Connie was killed instantly when the car hit a wall. Olivia didn't get a scratch. I thank God for the engineers who designed her car seat. You don't think there's a connection between her accident and the emails do you?"

### She answered by saying, "It would help if we could establish when you first started receiving them. You said they started around the time you were ordained and then they stopped."

### "Yes."

### "Let me speculate for a moment. Suppose you received the emails after you were ordained and while your wife was still alive but they stopped after she died."

### "Okay, go on."

### "Recently you started to receive the emails again. Now my question is..."

### "I think I know the question. Did the recent ones start after I met Vicki Meyers?"

### "You read my mind."

### "The answer is yes. I met Mrs. Meyers last April. The emails started in the summer."

### "And someone who objected to a priest having a wife might also object to a priest having a—friend?" she said.

### "More than a friend, a fiancée. Yes, and let me ask, do you think there's a possibility of foul play with Father Soroka? Someone sends a threatening email and then he has a fatal accident."

### "Reverse that," she said. "The email was sent the day of his death at 2:04 PM. The medical examiner estimated the time of death as between 9:30 and 10:30 in the morning. A post mortem threat wouldn't make any sense."

# CHAPTER 6-THE REQUEST

### "Is it just me or is it hot in here?" she said as she took off her sweater.

### "They turned the air off and the heat on last week. I think some state bureaucrat decided that there were no warm days after the first of October. Would you like some water?"

### "I would, please."

### I reached behind me and took two small bottles of Poland Spring from the mini-fridge on my windowsill and handed her one.

### "I'm afraid I don't have any cups."

### "Oh, this is fine. Thanks."

### I tossed the cap from my bottle into the waste basket in the corner. She turned and flipped her cap into the basket. As she did so she took a little extra time to scan my office.

### "Find anything interesting?"

### She laughed. "Was it so obvious?"

### "It's part of your job— and mine. I tell my students that there are two groups of professionals that are trained to be good observers; scientists and the police."

### "Part of the training at the police academy," she said smiling and taking a sip of water. "And It gives me an excuse to snoop."

### I took a long pull from my bottle. "So, did you take a mental picture of my office?"

### "It's automatic."

### She closed her eyes and rattled off a pretty good description of my space.

### "Square room about ten by ten—window across the back wall—microwave—small fridge—desk piled with papers—squeaky swivel chair—bookcases on two walls with books on physics and math—a poster of Einstein riding a bicycle—framed mementos and diplomas. You're about six-two, six-three, red hair, blue eyes, about one- eighty, one- ninety, red flannel shirt, khakis, black running shoes. Possibly a stamp collector. Anyone ever tell you that you look like a tall Matt Damon?"

### I laughed and thought briefly about who she looked like. With the glasses on a younger Sarah Palin would be close.

### I said, "Very impressive, but I don't think I look like any movie stars and the three stamps in that frame are the extent of my collection. They're commemoratives of three scientists: Nicolaus Copernicus, who proposed the 'revolutionary' idea that the earth and other planets revolved around the sun, Gregor Mendel, who discovered the laws of heredity, and Georges Lemaître, who formulated the Big Bang theory for the creation of the universe. The three were also Catholic priests."

### "Defense or aspiration?"

### "Definitely defense. I doubt if my face will ever appear on a stamp. I point to them whenever anyone suggests that my dual roles as priest and scientist are incompatible."

### "One other observation if I may," the detective said. "Except for that picture of the boy—you I assume— shaking hands with Pope John Paul II there is nothing in here that has any religious significance."

### "And you find this absence curious?"

### "Considering that you are a Catholic priest, yes."

### "Ah, but you haven't seen the closet," I said getting up.

### I opened the door of my small closet which contained a clerically black suit, shoes, raincoat, two Roman collars, and my jogging sweats and golf clubs.

"I stand corrected," she said. "You don't seem like a priest. Oh, wait, I mean you seem like a normal guy—now that doesn't sound right either."

### "It's Okay," I said laughing and trying to ease back into my desk chair without it squeaking. "I take 'normal' as a compliment. The Church has had some decidedly abnormal priests in the news recently and, by the way, you don't look like a cop."

### "Touché, Professor."

### Prompted by a flash of lightning and crack of thunder Detective Rossi checked her watch and I turned to look at the clock over my door: eight-thirty.

### "I know you have things to do. I'd like to work with you, Professor. See if we can determine who is harassing you. With your permission I could stop in another day and try to resurrect those emails that you deleted; see if we can determine if they were sent before your wife died. I'll get back to you on that. One more thing. I hesitate to ask but you might be interested."

### She reached into her bag, took out a large red leather wallet, and after a brief search pulled out a small card encased in plastic. She handed it to me.

### "This was a souvenir from one of my instructors at the police academy; three questions all officers are supposed to ask themselves at a crime scene."

### I read the card.

### What IS there?

### What IS there that should NOT be there?

### What IS NOT there but SHOULD be there?

### I gave her back the card. "Reads like a script outline for a Colombo TV episode."

### "One of my favorite TV cops, a keen observer. Now here's what I'm thinking. What could be better than a trained observer, who is also a priest, for determining what should or should not be at the scene of an accident in a church? An accident involving a priest with whom you seem to share an email history."

### "You want me to go to St. Gabriel's?"

### "It's an idea," she said pausing long enough to give me a chance to object. I was curious enough to let her continue.

### "Unofficially of course—with me. I have Father Soroka's computer and I want to ask the pastor at St. Gabe's a few questions. There wouldn't be any harm in us taking a look at the storeroom where the body was discovered. Maybe you could spot something we missed."

"Play detective," I said. "It might be interesting."

### "More like a consultant. I'd like to do it soon, before the site is disturbed any further."

### "How about Thursday? I don't have any classes after eleven."

### "Great. I'll check with the pastor. Say about one o'clock if he's available?"

### "Sounds good."

### The detective put everything back in her bag. As she did so I saw the butt of an automatic protruding from a holster in the lining. She didn't get the bag in Kmart.

### "Interesting bag," I said.

### "It's a 'Gun Tote'N Mama'. My mother gave it to me for my birthday."

### "A what?"

### "Company that makes women's bags with built in holsters. Room for everything a lady needs—including a Glock Forty," she said smiling. "Very popular with the gals in Texas. Well, I'll get going and let you get back to your work."

### We both stood.

### "Nice meeting you, Doctor Donnelly. Let's see if we can find out who's been harassing you."

### "And what happened to Father Soroka," I said

### "Right. Hopefully I'll see you Thursday."

### We shook hands again and she took the small umbrella from her bag. I looked out the window behind my desk. The sky was even darker and the wind was picking up

### "Run fast and you might not need that."

# CHAPTER 7-TOM'S CALL

### After she left I set up a new email account that has a ten character password consisting of alphanumeric characters and random symbols. It looks like the sputtering curses of a cartoon character; hard to remember but secure. I wrote it on the back of a business card and stuck it in my wallet. As a start I sent a short email to Vicki, my mother, my sister, and a few friends asking them to use this new address for personal messages.

### I put the cold coffee into the microwave on the windowsill and settled down to mark some lab reports before my first class. The same mistakes appeared again and again. My colleague, Joe Amanti, wants to streamline the grading process. He claims that about ten stickers can cover the most common errors with the addition of a smiley face for "good job" and a frowning face for "Have you considered an alternative career?" Joe might be on to something.

### My red pencil judgments were interrupted by the beeping microwave and the first few notes of "Take Five" on my cell phone. I retrieved the coffee and answered the phone. Before going into the seminary Monsignor Tom Lacey was an Assistant DA in Philadelphia and was now legal counsel to Robert K. Reilly, Archbishop of Philadelphia. He's also a canon lawyer, an expert on Church law. Commit a crime in Philadelphia and Tom can tell you both the maximum jail time if convicted and how long you can expect to spend in purgatory. At six-six "slam-dunk Lacey" is still a force on a basketball court.

### "Tom. What's up?"

### "How are you handling your fifteen minutes of fame, buddy?"

### "You heard?"

### "Channel six this morning."

### "I'll pass on that kind of fame. Actually, it was a little scary. The police think it was vandalism. They've had similar shootings in the neighborhood. I hope they're right."

### "Well, if they catch the culprit, I'll volunteer to personally prosecute. Listen, the reason I called, have you received anything from corporate headquarters lately?"

"Sitting on my desk. Not exactly what I expected."

### "I know. The Archbishop got a copy Friday. I read it."

### "They didn't even mention my petition to marry Vicki and then threw those silly charges at me. It seems so petty. A one hundred word letter to the editor? A few pictures of me with two women and some children? I'm not a theologian denying the divinity of Christ or questioning the infallibility of the Pope. What do you make of it?"

### "My guess?"

### "Yes."

### "You won't like it."

### "Try me."

### "They did not ignore your petition. This is their way of saying no."

### "Then why don't they just come out and say that?"

"If they can persuade you to voluntarily leave the priesthood by charging you with breaking the rules and generally harassing you then they would not need to deal with your petition directly."

### "Encourage me to quit before being fired. Knuckle under."

### "Exactly."

### "Ecclesiastical blackmail," I added.

### "What do you expect? You're dealing with the Inquisition. Fight back. Blackmail can work both ways. Apply some leverage of your own."

### "Such as?"

### "Such as who interviewed you and Connie on that piece Sixty Minutes did on married Catholic priests?"

### "Leslie Stahl."

### "Maybe the CDF would be interested to know that she is thinking about a follow-up, something like 'Married Catholic Priests Five Years Later: How Do They Fare?'"

### "Tom Lacey, you have a very devious mind."

### "I didn't get to be a successful prosecutor by being a pussy cat, Frank. Think it over. In the meantime Reilly wants to see you."

### "Damn."

### "That's what Reilly said according to Mary Cleary, his secretary. She said that when he opened the letter he said, 'Damn'. A little later he said, 'Damn' again. For a finale he said, 'Damn, Damn, Damn'. "

### "That doesn't sound good," I said.

### "He's mad at them."

### "Or me. I've never been sure whether he likes me or not."

"He never had to deal with a married priest before, Frank. Bishops like to move us around like pawns on a chessboard every few years. You're not portable. You have a job and income independent of the Church, a mortgage, a daughter and, let's say, a different perspective on the priesthood. He's feeling his way. At least he moved you to Saint Elizabeth's from that parish where Bishop Schmidt stuck you out in Chester County thirty miles from your home."

### "Schmidt really couldn't stand the fact that I was married and made things as difficult as possible for me. Reilly is a one hundred percent improvement yet he wasn't too happy when I asked him about the possibility of remarrying. I argued that I didn't make the usual promise of celibacy at my ordination since I was already married. It didn't impress him."

### "Well, it impresses me. How could you make a promise never to marry if you were already married?"

"He read me the rules; said I was aware when I was ordained that if anything happened to Connie I could not remarry. I was now bound by the same rule of celibacy as any other priest, et cetera, et cetera. The priesthood or marriage. Rome's way or the highway."

### "But that was before Olivia had a little talk with him."

### "What do you mean?"

### "The picnic at the seminary last month. I was standing next to him and you had your back turned and were talking to Tim Boyle. Reilly bent down and said the usual adult-to-child things—'You must be Olivia—where did you get those pretty sandals? — How old are you?' and so on. Olivia said 'I'm four but I'll be five soon.' Then Reilly said something like, 'I'll bet you'll get a lot of nice presents for your birthday.' He wasn't prepared for her answer."

### "Geez, I hope she didn't ask him for a present."

### "In a way she did. She said, 'I don't want a lot of presents, just one.' And, Reilly said, 'Well, if you close your eyes and wish real hard maybe you'll get your wish.' So, Olivia closed her eyes tight, straightened her arms by her side, made two fists, and said, 'I wish, I wish, I wish that Aunt Vicki will be my new mommy.' Then she opened her eyes and said, 'That will be the bestest present of all cause my real mommy went to heaven'. "

### "What did he say?"

### "He didn't say anything. I think he was a little choked up but Olivia quickly made him smile. She said she didn't have a pop-pop either and her friend Joey did. Would he be her pop-pop? He knelt down and said he would be happy to be her pop-pop and she gave him a big hug."

### "I missed all of that. No wonder she's been asking me when we can go see pop-pop again. I thought it was just her imagination, like the fairies under her bed."

### "I guess I can tell you this too. At least Reilly didn't tell me not to. Soon after the picnic he asked me to do some research, see what I could find out about married priests whose wives had died."

### "And?"

### "So far I haven't been able to find any, like you that is, thirty-eight with a young child. Most of them are older men. If they had children they were grown when the wife died. I couldn't find any with children young enough to need a mother. Your case is unique."

### "Unique, but apparently subject to the same rules," I said.

### "Just don't give up hope."

### "When does he want to see me?"

### "Saturday at nine-thirty?"

### "OK. I'm good with that. I'll see you then on..."

### "Don't hang up. A wardrobe tip. Wear your collar and suit. No college professor grunge. Regular shoes too, not the black Reeboks you had on the last time. He likes uniforms—naval officer blue or clerical black."

### "He'll be able to see his face in my shiny shoes."

### "That's the spirit. Just remember the basic rules. Don't call him 'Your Excellency'. Stick to 'Archbishop' or simply 'sir'. And don't try to kiss his ring. After twenty plus years as a naval officer and chaplain he might prefer you salute but don't do that either. Sleep well and don't let the CDF scare you. They've made great progress in recent years."

### "Oh really. What's that?"

### "They no longer use torture."

### "Very funny. Okay to hang up yet? I've got to get to class. "

### "Hang up."

# CHAPTER 8-PHYSICS CLASS

### I put my laptop and some notes into my brief case along with the envelope from the CDF and headed for my first class. Students were quietly filling the small lecture hall for my ten o'clock Modern Physics class. I spent half the period going over homework problems before getting to something new.

### "Time is money," I said. "We save it, invest it, and budget it. Sometimes we spend too much time on frivolous things and we may all be living on borrowed time. Money is a metaphor for time. Time is also relative. This is not a metaphor. This is a fact."

### For a week we had been studying Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. One of the simplest physical theories mathematically it is one of the most difficult to understand. It says some very weird things about space and time. I clicked on my PowerPoint presentation and the equations for the Lorentz Transformation filled the large screen at the front of the room. In the next slide I directed my laser pointer at the relativistic equation for time variance.

### "Let's look at a possible consequence of the relativity of time." Another click and we had a slide with two cartoon characters standing beside a spaceship ready for launch.

### "Let me read the caption. The type's a little small. The younger guy with the wild hair, let's call him Albert, says to the older guy, 'Goodbye, Dad. Have a good trip.' The older guy says, 'Thanks son. See you in about 10 years by my clocks'."

### Click. In the next slide the ship was pictured heading for a distant star, circling it, and heading back to earth. A speedometer visible through the ship's porthole read, ".99c" or 99% the speed of light.

### "I want you to calculate the time as measured by the son's clocks on the earth for this trip and compare it to the ten years recorded by the dad's spaceship clock. I'll give you five minutes."

### I heard a few groans and some mumbling. I should be entertaining them, not making them work. While the students got busy with their calculators I sat, took the CDF envelope from my briefcase, and fished out the photos. There was one of me and my sister, Colleen, on the beach last summer in Ocean City New Jersey, one of me, Olivia, Vicki, and Joey, at a playground in Fairmount Park, one of me and Vicki making hoagies at the parish fair, and lastly, the one showing the four of us sitting at a picnic table at the Philadelphia Zoo; the original photo not the altered version with the bomb. There was a paper plate with cupcakes on the table. My mother took the one at the beach and the school Principal took the one at the parish fair. Both were on my hard drive. I had no idea who took the playground and zoo pictures or how any of them wound up in the hands of the CDF.

### I saw the first hand go up.

"Doctor Donnelly?"

### "Okay," I said putting the photos back in my briefcase. "Hold on to your answer for a sec, Anna."

### I stood and clicked. The final slide showed the spaceship landed on earth and the occupant leaping out holding a tennis racket. He is greeted by a man with a long beard leaning on a cane. The caption under the old man read, "Welcome back, Dad, long time no see." About a third of the class grabbed their calculators to correct an error.

"The trip took ten years as measured by the dad's clocks on the space ship. Now, Anna, what did you get for the time as measured by the son's clocks on earth?"

### "I got seventy-one years. That would make the son older than the father. If the son was, say, twenty at takeoff and the father forty, the father would now be fifty and the son ninety-one. That's weird. I know that's what the math says but I don't know if I should trust it."

### "Well, your answer is correct. As for trusting it, do you have a GPS navigation system in your car?"

### "I don't have a car."

### "Okay. does anyone here have a car with a GPS system?"

### A few hands went up.

### "Keep those hands up. OK, we have three people here, four including me, that fully believe in the theory of relativity. That little GPS receiver on the dashboard is communicating with satellites that are whizzing around the earth. Both the satellites and the receiver in your car have internal clocks and those clocks must run at the same rate for the system to accurately locate your car. Problem one."

### I clicked and the next slide was a drawing of satellites orbiting the earth.

"Because of their speed the clocks in the satellites are running slower than the clock in the receiver, just as the special theory of relativity predicts. Problem two."

### I clicked again. This slide showed the earth and two clocks; one far from the earth and the other on the earth's surface.

### "Here's something we haven't studied yet. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that clocks closer to a large mass, like the earth, run slower than clocks farther away. Because of this effect the clock in the receiver on the dash runs slower than the ones in the satellites. (Click. A clock with legs is running to catch up with a faster clock. A few chuckles from my audience.) When you take both effects into account the earth clocks lose 38 millionths of a second each day compared to the satellite clocks. That's not much but if it's not corrected the clocks get out of sync and the system would quickly lose the ability to pinpoint the location of your car. When the friendly voice tells you 'turn left into PACom Parking lot' (Click. A car is shown headed the wrong way on a one-way street) you might find yourself headed East on the Schuylkill Expressway West. But the clocks are in sync (Click. Two clocks are holding hands and smiling).

### "You can trust the accuracy of your GPS system because the engineers who designed it believed firmly in relativity and have adjusted the clocks so that they stay together. Time is not money. It's not a thing. It can be different for different observers moving with respect to one another and if that violates common sense, then what?"

### Anna smiled. "Chuck common sense?"

### "Right, at least with our notions of time. Einstein said he had to abandon common sense to get anywhere with relativity theory, but..."

### I paused and clicked on my last slide. It was a group photograph of physicists at a conference early in the last century. Einstein was sitting dressed in a suit and tie. I aimed my laser pointer at his shoes and his bare ankles. He had forgotten to wear socks.

### "But, you may not want to go as far as Einstein did." I raised my voice above the laughter. "I told you we were going to have fun this semester. Wait till we get to Quantum Mechanics."

### No need for a bell. The clatter of forty physics, chemistry, and math majors packing up to leave signaled the end of class,

"I'll see about half of you in lab this afternoon. Lab reports are due. Will somebody please wake up Mr. Ortaldo in the back row?"

### I let Ortaldo sleep. He loads trucks all night at the UPS depot out in West Chester. Besides he got A's on the first two quizzes. I should encourage more sleeping.

# CHAPTER 9-JOE'S VISIT

### Back in my office I took another crack at finishing the coffee and checked my new emails, deleting most, marking some as spam, and saving the important ones. The most interesting one was sent from a parishioner at St. Elizabeth's— apparently the woman I had seen taking pictures of the church. She said I might be interested in a souvenir of Sunday's shootout. Attached was a short video. I was very interested and ran it again and again.

### "Playing video games again, Frank."

### Joe Amanti's two hundred-fifty pound bulk filled my doorway

### "Not a game, Joe. Did you hear about the excitement at St. Elizabeth's yesterday?"

### "Sure did. I came down to ask you what happened."

### "Come on in and I'll show you what happened.. One of my parishioners sent me a video clip taken on her cell phone. Pull that chair over."

### I turned the computer monitor so that Joe could see the screen and clicked on the attachment to the email."

### "Tell me what I'm seeing."

### "That's the side of the church near the statue. The woman who took would be standing at the bottom of the church steps."

### As the camera panned left the grotto came into view.

### "Is that you on the steps?"

### "Me with a young man who had just returned from Afghanistan. Here it comes. Listen."

### "Holy smoke. Shots?"

### The picture jiggled before the screen went blank.

### "Only one shot, and echoes, and that sharp sound like the crack of a whip that you hear right before the bang."

### I ran it again

### "Rifle shot," Joe said. "The whip-like sound is a sonic boom from a bullet travelling faster than sound."

### "The soldier thought it was a rifle too."

### "And the bullet hit the statue?"

### "Went right though the heart and out the back. A temporary replacement. Plastic. The police sighted through the holes and think the shot came from an opened window across the street. The cop I talked to thought it could have been some kids with a twenty-two who have been shooting at tombstones and statues in Laurel Hill cemetery at night. They recovered the mangled bullet and will compare it to the ones found in the cemetery."

### I ran it again.

### "Snap— bang—echoes," Joe said. "Let me hear it again. How far to the window?"

### "Maybe thirty yards."

### I ran it again.

### "Doesn't seem right," Joe said.

### "What doesn't?'

### "The time between the snap and the bang. It seems too long. At thirty yards it should be less than a tenth of a second. Tell you what. Forward that email to me and when I get time this afternoon I'll analyze it in my electronics' lab."

### I clicked on "forward", brought up Joe's email address, and hit "send".

### "Done. Thanks Joe."

### "No problem."

# CHAPTER 10-OLIVIA'S TEA PARTY

### When Joe left I went to the laboratory down the hall to check the equipment for my two o'clock lab. Two of the six groups would use the Millikan Oil Drop apparatus to measure the charge on electrons, two would use spectrometers to study the spectra of hydrogen and helium gases, and two would study cosmic rays. The oil drop apparatus was ready to go. I put a crown glass prism and hydrogen and helium discharge tubes on each of the tables with the spectrometers. The small aquariums we use for the cosmic ray experiments went on the two empty tables. Beside each I placed a felt-covered board, a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol, a digital camera, a light source, and an electromagnet. I measured the length and width of the bottom of the aquariums and called Charlie Hanson in the chemical supply room and ordered two eight by twelve- inch slabs of dry ice that I would pick up later. I locked the cabinets, turned off the lights, and headed for The Pig.

### At the salad bar I filled a Styrofoam container to take to Olivia's eleven-thirty "tea party"; quinoa with raw carrot, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, celery stick, and a generous scoop of hummus. Set a good example. At my first tea party I got a decidedly cool reception from the Organic Only/Whole Foods crowd when I showed up with a burger and fries. You would think I brought a jug of Thunderbird to an AA meeting. I tossed a bag of chips—baked not fried—onto my tray, paid, and put a plastic knife and fork and a couple of napkins in the pocket of my corduroy sport coat. I headed for Munchkin House

### Olivia had set out napkins and paper cups on a small table. Her friends Jason and Michelle sat with us.

### "What's that, Livy?"

### "Pickle slices."

### "Can I have one?"

### "Eew! It's Sour."

### Mrs. Bertino, one of the teachers, was circulating with a plastic pitcher.

### "Would you like some lemonade, Doctor Donnelly?"

### "I didn't know your daddy was a doctor."

### "He's not a real doctor, Jason. He doesn't help anybody. He's a h'retical fizz-sist."

### "She means theoretical physicist, Jason," I said and wondered if the CDF would prefer my description or Olivia's.

### "Do you stick people with needles?" Michelle asked.

### "Never."

### "He just scribbles on paper. Don't you Daddy?"

### "Sometimes, sweetheart."

### "My daddy caught a shark," Jason said.

### "They can eat you up."

### "My daddy killed it before it could eat him. He hit it on the head."

### Olivia topped that with, "I petted a shark at the Please Touch Museum."

### Fifteen more minutes of this talk therapy helped clear my head of thoughts of rifle shots and the CDF. We sang the clean up song and marched our paper plates and cups over to the Trash Monster and tossed them into his open mouth. We could use a Trash Monster in the faculty dining room.

### On the way back from Munchkin House I stopped in the Newman Center which housed the Catholic campus ministry and went in the chapel. Occasionally I help out the chaplain, Tim Boyle, and say Mass or hear confessions. I could use a little help myself and this was a good place to ask for it.

### John Newman was a nineteenth century Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism and eventually was elevated to Cardinal. I felt close to him. I had no desire to be a cardinal but I did wish to remain a priest.

I knelt at the altar and prayed. I asked God to bless my mother, Olivia, Joey and Vicki. I prayed for Connie. May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through your mercy, rest in peace. I thanked God for bringing me Vicki in the midst of my sorrow. If it be your will Lord, show me the way.

### On the way out of the chapel I nodded to a student sitting in the back and stopped to browse in the small library off the chapel. The student followed me in.

### "Doctor Donnelly?"

### "Yes."

### "Do you have a minute?"

### "Sure. What can I do for you?"

### "I'm in Dr. Amanti's physics class and we're having a big test tomorrow."

### "Dr. Amanti gives challenging exams," I said. "Were you soliciting divine help?"

### He laughed. "Something like that. I need it. I'm confused about kinetic energy, potential energy, work; all that stuff. I don't think I really know what energy actually is."

### "I'll tell you a little secret. Neither do physicists, but we know what it can do, and how to calculate it and keep track of it. What's your name?"

### "Kevin McCoy."

### "Sit down Kevin. Let's see if we can get you ready for whatever Dr. Amanti throws at you tomorrow."

### I took meeting up with Kevin just when he needed help as a sign that God was listening to people in that chapel. I hoped he listened to me.

# CHAPTER 11-MARTHA'S VISIT

### In my office I settled in to tackle a problem that had been bugging me for days. An hour later I was still frustrated and decided to switch from mathematical physics to religion. I googled "Code of Canon Law", came up with the Vatican web site, and scrolled down to the section titled, "The Obligations and Rights of Clerics". Canon 277 concerned celibacy and the second paragraph read: "Clerics are to behave with due prudence towards persons whose company can endanger their obligation to observe continence or give rise to scandal among the faithful."

### Observe continence—they weren't talking about bladder control— is a fancy way of saying, "stay away from women". Stay away from half the human race. Stay away from Vicki Meyers.

### "Got a minute, Frank?"

### Martha Greenberg poked her head in the door.

### "I looked at the clock. "How about ten?"

### "More than enough. This is the agenda for Thursday morning's Faculty Senate meeting," she said plopping a folder onto my desk and her ample self into the chair in front of my desk.

### "I hope you're as opposed to this plan to grant credit for 'life experiences' as I am. Next thing you know we'll be giving credit for breathing. The other item up for debate is the proposal to close Munchkin House. Do you know what private day care could run us?"

### Martha was the resident atheist in the psychology department and despite our theological differences we were good friends. She was one of the few persons with whom I could seriously discuss religion. Like many atheists she was more knowledgeable about the faith than many believers. "Gotta know your opponents, Frank."

### After Connie died Martha was determined to fix me up with one of her graduate students, despite my collar. "You can't be in mourning forever," she had said. "It's unnatural for a handsome red-headed Irishman your age to be alone. Surely it can't be against their silly rules to share a pizza or a movie. Celibacy is a commitment not to marry. It says nothing about being a little friendly."

### Rachel Townsend, a Clinical Psych grad student, was one of her projects. We did see a few movies and share pizzas but Rachel's idea of "a little friendly" differed from mine.

"I like your taste in sweaters," Martha said eying the windowsill behind me. "Pink becomes you."

### "It's Vicki's. She forgot it."

### "Toss it to me. I can't stand seeing it rolled up in a ball like that. By the way, how are things going with you two? Any word yet from the puppet masters in Rome?" she said nodding at the manila envelope with the pretty stamps on my desk.

### "Nothing yet. It takes a while. We're hoping for the best."

### "Uh huh. Why not a 'fait accompli' while they drag their feet? Get married and let them react."

### "I know how they would. I'd be excommunicated."

### "Black balled at the country club."

### "So to speak."

### "Join another club."

### "I like the one I'm in. I like the membership. I like the course I play on even with all its water hazards and sand traps. I just don't like the club's rules and regulations committee. Besides, Vicki doesn't want us to do it that way. She doesn't want to feel I had to trade the priesthood for her."

### "Would you?"

### "What?"

### "Trade."

### "I'm hoping it won't come to that."

### Martha stood up and gave me back the sweater neatly folded.

### "Cashmere Mist," she said.

### "What?"

### "The perfume on the sweater. It's Donna Karan— Cashmere Mist. Keep plugging, Frank, and you'll eventually score a birdie."

### "I need a hole-in-one."

### "Gotta go. I have a two o'clock seminar on Freud."

### "I thought his theories were pretty much discredited."

### Martha turned at the door. "Keep it quiet, Frank. I need the job."

# CHAPTER 12-COSMIC RAYS

### Ten minutes before the students arrived for lab I took the slabs of dry ice from the cooler and placed them in two shallow trays to keep them from sliding around. I saturated the felt-covered boards with isopropyl alcohol and put the boards on the open tops of the tanks. I then sat each of the aquariums on a dry ice slab. Lastly, I positioned the light sources to direct bright beams through the aquariums. What I had were two cheap, but effective, diffusion cloud chambers.

### The earth is constantly bombarded with subatomic particles from space; mainly protons which bump into air molecules and produce showers of other particles— electrons, pi-mesons, mu-mesons—a veritable zoo of particles. Collectively they are known as cosmic rays. The particles themselves can't be seen but when they pass through cooled alcohol vapor they leave trails along their paths, similar to the vapor trails left by jet airplanes in the atmosphere. Some tracks are straight. Some are jagged. Some look like the letters V or Y. When a magnetic field is brought close to the chambers the tracks formed by electrically charged particles curve.

### When the students arrived they formed into lab groups of three or four and got busy with the experiments. I walked from group to group checking that the spectrometers and the Millikan apparatus were working okay. Tracks were beginning to form in the cloud chambers and the students were photographing them. Despite hearing about subatomic particles since elementary school this was probably the first time the students had ever seen direct evidence of their existence and they were fascinated. Much of what we know about the composition of matter has been obtained by the study of tracks in cloud chambers and bubble chambers. When I see the tracks I experience something like what a paleontologist must feel when looking at fossilized dinosaur tracks in an ancient river bed. The creatures that passed tens of millions of years ago are long gone but the evidence of their passage remains and estimates of their height, weight, the fact that they traveled in groups, and even that an individual animal might have walked with a limp can be inferred from their frozen-in-time footprints. The tracks in a cloud chamber represent evidence of "creatures" that passed only a fraction of a second before and we can make inferences about their energies, masses, and electric charges.

### About fifteen minutes into the lab I passed by one of the cloud chambers. One of the students said, "Doctor Donnelly, can you come back here? Look at what's happening. When you're close there seems to be an increase in the number of tracks."

### "Sudden bursts are not unusual, Sam. They are random events."

### "Well, it seems funny they occur when you're close. You must have a magic touch."

### I kept an eye on the cosmic ray activity the rest of the period. I don't believe in magic but there did seem to be something odd going on.

### When the students left I dragged Joe Amanti out of his office to take a look.

### "I think you're hot, buddy. Do you have any of those radioactive poker chips in your pockets?"

### "Nothing," I said, after a completely unnecessary check. Joe was referring to plastic disks that contain small radioactive sources that we use for experiments with radioactive shielding. They're kept in a lead safe. I don't carry them around in my pockets.

### "Have any medical tests, nuclear stress test, or anything like that where a radioactive tracer may still be in your system?"

### "Not a thing."

### "Didn't something like this happen last year?"

### "In one of my labs, yes,"

### "What did you find?"

### "Nothing really. It occurred only once and then things went back to normal. If it hadn't showed up on some of the pictures the students took I would have thought I was seeing things. I emailed a couple of the pictures to some physicists friends but they didn't know what it was either."

### "You may want to try them again but I think the students are right. You have the magic touch, a cosmic green thumb."

### "Thanks for the technical opinion."

### "You're welcome. In your Wednesday lab we'll tackle this cosmic-ray mystery. Wear the same jeans, flannel shirt, and hiking boots you have on now. We'll treat it like a junior high science project. Warn your students. I may have to strip you naked."

### "I'm forewarned. Any luck with the video?"

### "Yes. Stop in my lab tomorrow morning and I'll show you something."

### "Give me a hint?"

### "You'll see for yourself but I'll tell you this—it wasn't kids with a twenty-two."

# CHAPTER 13-NIGHT CALL

### I called Vicki at nine that night. I call every night.

### "How was your day?"

### "Routine. No major crises. My students want to know when you are going to show them some more of your, in their words, 'super cool' science demonstrations."

### "'Super cool', I like that. Your students are very perceptive."

### "Maybe too perceptive. One of my girls asked me if I liked you and when these kids say 'like' it has a romantic meaning."

### "So did you tell her that you 'like' me?"

### "I said we all like Father Donnelly."

### "Nice dodge."

### "She wasn't fooled. Anyhow, how was your day?"

### "Hectic and a little weird. I had a visit from a police detective and then there was kind of a freakish observation in my lab this afternoon."

### "What's a freakish observation?"

### "Unexplained observation is a better description. Probably nothing."

### "What did the detective say about the shooting?"

### "She came about the nasty emails, not the shooting. Apparently I'm not the only one who has been receiving them. She said an elderly priest has received similar ones."

### I skipped the part about him being dead.

### "She?"

### "Detective Angela Rossi. She seemed to know what she was doing."

### "Uh, huh. When do you think the Vatican will respond to your petition?"

### "Soon, I'm sure."

### Technically this morning's letter was not a response, so it wasn't a lie—maybe a sin of omission.

### "We hope. They sure take their time. Don't forget the party tomorrow. Bounce Town. King of Prussis. Four-thirty."

"Can't wait. Love you, or should I say I like you.

"And I like you too."

# CHAPTER 14- JOE'S ANALYSIS

### Eight o'clock the next morning I showed up in Joe's office with two paper cups of coffee and two glazed doughnuts. Adequately fortified we went down to the electronics lab where Joe had a laptop connected to an oscilloscope.

### While Joe fooled with the equipment he had fun riding me about the cosmic ray experiment.

### "Was I sure I was a priest and not a witch doctor? Did I ever try rain dancing?

### Finally he said, "I want you to look at the waveforms produced by the sound on the video. Turn on the laptop and bring up the video, Frank, while I make some adjustments. There, that should do it. Okay run the video."

### When the shot occurred a few blips appeared on the scope's screen.

### "Lower the sweep speed a bit," I said and ran it again.

### "Looks good," Joe said. "Now, one more time for the money and I'll capture the screen image. Perfect. The narrow spike in amplitude on the right of the screen is from the sonic boom as the bullet passed near the camera. The broader pulse behind it is the actual sound of the shot, followed by pulses of decreasing amplitude caused by the echoes. If I count the divisions along the horizontal time axis between the crack and the shot... I get just about...450 milliseconds. So, when the bullet whizzed past trailing the shock wave that produced the sharp snap the slower moving sound made by the explosion in the gun barrel took another 450 milliseconds or almost an extra half second to reach the cell phone. With sound traveling at 1100 feet per second that puts the sound pulse about 500 feet behind the bullet, almost 200 yards."

### "And the gun even further back than that," I said. "Definitely not just across the street. Not good news. I could have been the target and the shooter missed."

### "It's a possibility, pal, but look, given a good rifle with a scope and solid support, a decent marksman could drill that statue at 200 yards. I think even I could do it."

### I took a picture of the screen with my cell phone camera.

### "All that trouble just for some mischief?" I said.

### "Yeah, doesn't sound like kids with a twenty-two, does it? Send that picture and the video to the police. They might be able to extract some information from those waveforms."

### "Yeah, I will. Thanks, Joe."

### His mouth full and the coffee cup to his lips Joe gave me a "no-problem" wave of his free hand. After a sip and a swallow he managed to say, "Tomorrow afternoon. We check you out. I'll bring a Geiger counter."

### I would send the picture and video to O'Brien, as soon as I checked out something at the statue first.

### Back in my office I downloaded some of the photos the students had taken with the digital cameras to my computer. I picked out three that showed the abnormal cosmic ray activity and three more with normal activity and used my secure email account to send them with a short note to a friend, Sal Lucasi. Sal is a Jesuit astrophysicist who has done work on cosmic rays. He spends his time teaching at Georgetown and doing research at Arizona State and the Vatican Observatory.

### In the afternoon I put thoughts of cosmic rays, the CDF, and a nasty differential equation that I was having trouble solving behind me and left early to pick up Olivia. We headed to the birthday party.

# CHAPTER 15-BOUNCE TOWN

### Late afternoon birthday parties are fine with me. The parents of the celebrant feel obliged to feed the adults and it saves me the trouble of fixing dinner. The pizza at Bounce Town is passable but for kids' parties I prefer the pizza plus salad bar at Chuck-E-Cheese's. Vicki and I were sitting on a bench in a corner while Olivia and Joey oscillated between the giant air-filled slide and the Moon Bounce. The guest of honor was their five-year- old friend, Mark. Mark looked like he wanted to skip the festivities and get to his presents which filled a big plastic tub near the door; half of them wrapped with the free paper from Toys"R"Us. I hoped his mother had an SUV or a truck.

"What did we get him?" I asked.

### "Joey is giving him a Power Ranger helmet. Looks like a motorcycle helmet but more sinister. When you wear it and talk it changes your voice so that you sound like Darth Vader. Olivia is giving him a sword that flashes and makes all kind of noise. I taped a ten-pack of batteries to the box."

### "I hope Mark's parents can tolerate a high decibel level."

### "They asked for it. I called Betty last week and that was one of the suggestions."

### I took out my wallet. "Here's my share."

### "That's too much."

### "No it's not. You had gas and the trouble. Take it. How was your day?"

### "Easy. My students were taking the diocesan achievement tests all day—let me see that hand. I got some writing done and, good news, a print publisher is interested in one of the mysteries I self-published on the internet; the one about the crime-solving gerbil—this bandage is looking pretty ratty."

### "Hey that's great! I'm in love with a famous author."

### "Oh look at Olivia on the slide!" she said pointing.

### I fell for it and Vicki ripped the soiled pad off my palm.

### "Ow!"

### "Don't be a baby."

### I looked at my palm. "Doesn't look too bad. What are you working on now?"

"I call it The Purloined Parrot. It's about a pet parrot that's kidnapped by some sixth-grade bullies" she said as she rooted around in her tote bag. "People going around shooting at shrines to the Virgin. It's not right. Serve them right if they were struck by lightning. We're not even safe at church anymore."

### "A Parrot? Ouch! That stung. What was that?"

### "Bactine spray."

### "A Parrot?"

### "A Norwegian Blue. Monty Python? The dead parrot skit? The 'ex-parrot' was a Norwegian Blue."

### "That's why it was funny," I said. "Parrots are tropical birds. They don't live in Norway."

### "They did—sixty million years ago. They found a fossil. Nicknamed it 'Norwegian Blue'."

### "Seriously?"

"Yes," she said while doing some more rooting. "I'm taking your advice and working some science into my stories. I want them to be educational as well as entertaining."

### I had read one of her stories about a hamster and suggested that she put in some "sciencey" details about the animal: diet, native environment, mating habits, et cetera.

"Mating habits, Frank? How hamsters do it?" she had said.

### "Now, that looks a lot better," she said.

### I looked at the crossed Spider Man bandages on my palm and flexed my fingers.

### "I don't know about this, Vic"

### "It's all I had in my bag. Who's going to see it anyway?"

### "Me?"

### "And you can smile when you look at it. You should be glad I carry a few basics for emergencies."

### "I do and thank you. So what's the story with the parrot?"

### "A kidnapped parrot. One that knows how to use a cell phone. You see Priscilla..."

### "Priscilla Thoroughgood. Your sixth grade sleuth character."

### "Right. Priscilla trained her parrot to answer her cell phone. She would put the phone in his cage and when it would ring he would peck a key to answer and would say, 'She's not here. Awk. I'm her pet parrot. Awk. Can I help you?' Her friends would call just to hear the parrot. Anyhow, when he was parrotnapped his abductors made the mistake of leaving him alone with a cell phone and he randomly speed-dial-pecked a bunch of numbers, always repeating his message. Well one of the kids he reached recognized his voice and..."

### "Stop. This is ridiculous. Who would go for this?"

### "My readers. Preteens love mysteries like this. They loved fairy tales when they were younger but they didn't believe—she flicked air quotes above her head— 'that pumpkins can turn into carriages or frogs into princes'. Did you ever read Dracula?"

### "Yes, I did."

### "Did you like it?"

### "Yes."

### "Do you believe in vampires?"

### "I get the point. Speaking of stories, did you get a chance to look over what I wrote about our first meeting?"

### "I'm working on it, Frank. It needs a little tweaking."

### "What's wrong with it?"

### "Well, for one thing, it sounds like the beginning of a bad private eye novel. Pink toenails peeking out of my sandals? A strap across my breasts? The gentle touch of my fingers in a handshake that gave you goose bumps?"

### "That's just a little poetic license. Make it interesting."

### "Why stop there?" she said as she reached into her tote bag and pulled out a pair of scissors, a small bag of Doritos, and a compact first aid kit before coming up with a folded sheet of paper.

### "What else do you have in there? A defibrillator? Oxygen tank?" I reached for the bag.

### "Nothing doing," she said grabbing it.

### She unfolded the paper and smoothed it on her lap. "I think this is more what you mean. Ready?"

### "Shoot."

### "The first indicators of a change for the better that crummy afternoon were the wet pink toenails peeking out of a sandal in the half opened door of my office. She didn't wait for an invitation to come in. 'Vicki Meyers,' she had said as she held out her hand. The gentle touch of her cool fingers gave me goose bumps. 'I need your help,' she said as she sat and lit a cigarette. 'Someone put a bullet between my husband's eyes last night and the Philly coppers are trying to pin it on me. I could use a drink. You got any scotch in this dump you call an office?' "

### Vicki squealed and clutched the paper to her breast dramatically as I reached for it.

### "Well, I declare, Reverend Doctor, Herr Professor Francis X. Donnelly, I do believe you're trying to take advantage of li'l ol me. A man of the cloth? And in front of all these in-cent li'l chilrun."

### "You almost had me for a minute," I said laughing. "I thought you were serious."

### "Just tone it down a bit. We're not Bogey and Bacall," she said. "Remember we met on the church steps."

### "And I did get goose bumps."

### "That's sweet, Frank."

### "It's true."

### "You deserve a quick kiss. See anybody from the CIA around here?"

### "It's the CDF."

### "Whatever."

### As if to protest that show of public affection there was a scream from the Moon Bounce as two heads tried to violate a fundamental law of physics and occupy the same space at the same time. Across the room two boys on the slide were whacking each other.

### "Meltdown , Frank. Party's over. "

# CHAPTER 16-WHEN I MET VICKI

### After I put Olivia to bed that night I opened MS Word and clicked on the document titled, "We Meet", the one Vicki said needed tweaking. The writing business started with an innocent remark I made a few months earlier. I implied, or maybe I came right out and said it, that writing stories about hamsters and turtles was a lot easier than writing scientific papers. Big mistake.

### "Oh, you think so Donnelly? Show me something you wrote."

### I had dug out an article I had written for the American Journal of Physics. She read a paragraph or two and offered her critique.

"Listen to this. You wrote, 'When the function was integrated from zero to infinity the unexpected non-zero result of two pi was obtained'. The whole article is like that. All passive voice."

### In my defense I had said that was common for scientific papers. She didn't buy it.

### "Well I'd hardly call that 'writing'. You did this integration, right?"

### "Yes, an integration is a mathematical..."

### "I know what it is. I had calculus in high school. Why not write, 'I integrated the function from zero to infinity and, big surprise, instead of coming out zero it was two pi?' Sounds better doesn't it? I mean you wouldn't write, 'The supermarket receipt was checked and the unexpected non-zero charge of five dollars for a can of peas was discovered.' Don't these journals have any editors?"

### That led to our contest. I try to write things like she would, as a novelist that is. She tries to put information in her juvenile fiction that will teach her readers some science.

### Last Spring, shortly after I was assigned to St. Elizabeth's, I had mentioned at Mass one Sunday that I would like to get involved with some activities in the parish school. A few days later I received an email from one of the teachers. She requested some help with experiments on light for her sixth grade class. We exchanged a few more emails and I volunteered to lend her some equipment.

### So, I worked on my rewrite of that first meeting. I "tweaked". The pink toenails and the strap across her breast were out. The goose bumps stayed. Bogey and Bacall were out. Frank and Vicki were in.

### We Meet

### "My, my, now aren't you a pretty little girl?" the woman had said as Olivia and I stood on the church steps after Mass.

### "Yes, I am. My daddy said so."

### Regrettably I did not know her nephew, Father Martin in Abington, or her cousin, a nun at St. Barnabas in West Philadelphia.

### "Being so new I'm afraid that I know very few people in this parish let alone the diocese. Maybe you can help me out, Mrs. Cahill. I'm supposed to meet Mrs. Meyers, the sixth grade teacher, to help her with a science lesson. Is she the woman standing with those children over by the grotto?"

### "Oh, good heavens no, Father. Mrs. Meyers would fit three times over in that woman. But there she is heading this way with her son. Her husband was killed in Iraq a couple years ago; one of those road bombs, I think. Poor little thing. Her students love her. Put a school uniform on her and she could pass for one of the eighth-graders. I'll let you get on with your meeting."

### It had been almost four years since Connie was killed and I still had the irrational hope that every petite blond I saw at a distance would miraculously turn out to be her.

### "Father Donnelly, I'm Vicki Meyers. It's so nice to meet you. I feel I already know you from our emails," she said offering her hand.

### There was a strong resemblance but she was a few inches shorter than Connie and her blond hair a few shades darker but the eyes were the same deep blue and the wire-rimmed glasses gave her the same studious look.

"Yes, I feel the same. It's nice to meet you too," I said taking the outstretched hand bent at the wrist. Her touch gave me goose bumps.

"This is, Olivia."

### She bent down and said, "Well hello Olivia, and, how old are you?"

### "Almost five years old," Olivia said while holding up five fingers. "When will I be five, Daddy?"

### "Not for quite a while, honey."

"Well then you're almost the same age as Joey. He's almost five too. Joey, say hello to Olivia and to Father Frank."

### Joey gave Olivia a mumbled hello and stuck his hand out to shake hands with me. Olivia stuck her hand out for a shake also.

### "Polite little boy," I said.

### "Your hand is sticky," Joey said to Olivia. She looked at her palm and wiped it on her dress.

### Mrs. Meyers stood. "Polite but no politician."

"Let me just change out of my vestments. Don't go away. We'll be right back."

### "Why don't you let Olivia stay with us and we'll meet you over at the swings in the school yard. Take your time."

### I returned to the sacristy, hung my vestments in the wardrobe, grabbed my jacket, and returned to the playground where two screeching kids were swinging in sync as Victoria Meyers pushed them both. I took over pushing Olivia. One hour and a skinned knee and bruised elbow later we had exhausted the possibilities presented by the swings, sliding board, seesaw, and monkey bars. While the kids played on a mock-up of Noah's Ark I took Mrs. Meyers over to my car and raised the hatch on the Outback.

### "Okay, let's get you fixed up with some equipment."

### I took one of the small lasers out of a large cardboard box. About the size of a brick it had a white metal case. An on-off switch and the power cord were at one end and a small hole for the laser beam was at the other. "Ever use one of these before?"

"I've never seen one before, outside of the movies that is. Goldfinger tried to cut James Bond in half with one."

"Do you expect me to talk?" I said in my best imitation of Sean Connery's Scottish brogue.

### Laughing she countered with Goldfinger's line, "No Mr. Bond. I expect you to die."

### "Hey, pretty good. You must be a Bond fan."

### "Movie fan. I'm studying for my master's in drama at PACom."

### "Perfect. I'll tell the Dean that by lending you equipment I'll not only be helping a local school but also will be contributing to interdepartmental cooperation."

### "Glad to help," she said. "Now, how do you turn one of these things on?"

"You flip up this switch in the back and then you make sure that this little sliding thing in the front is pushed to the left so that the light can come out of this little hole. The beam is very low power and safe for the students to use but you still don't want to get the beam in an eye. Be careful of them."

### Mrs. Meyers was looking puzzled and less and less like Connie. When she died Connie was completing her master's in electrical engineering. The technical befuddlement got worse.

### "This plug. Can't they work on batteries? There aren't any outlets near the students' desks."

### "You'll need some extension cords. I can get you some. When are you planning on doing these experiments?"

### "This week. Tuesday or Thursday. We have science from two to three."

### Afraid they were missing something Joey and Olivia had wandered over. I lifted both of them so they could see in the box. Joey was disappointed. Olivia had told him they were ray guns. I decided to take the plunge.

### "I have lab on Tuesday afternoon but not Thursday. Why don't I just come down here and help you with the experiments?"

"Oh, that would be so much better. I was afraid to ask if you could do that. I have a key to the school. We could put the box in my classroom."

### "It's easier to just leave it in my car. I'll throw in some extension cords on Thursday. It will be fun. It will be a nice change for me. We'll do a few short experiments and I can also show them some amazing things you can do with a laser and maybe answer questions if we have time."

### "Super. Be prepared for anything if they ask questions. They are just as likely to ask if your collar itches or whether you can dunk a basketball as ask a question about science."

### "I'm forewarned and the answer would be 'yes' to the first question and 'maybe' to the second but I'm wise enough not to try. Where are you parked?"

### "We walked. We live just two blocks up the street."

### "Want a ride?"

### "Oh, thanks but it's so nice out we'll walk and I want to stop for some milk on the way home. I think Olivia and Joey had a good time," she said.

### "It was fun. We'll have to get together again sometime—all of us of course— not just you and—like the Zoo or—well, nice meeting you, Mrs. Meyers," I said finally calling a halt to my babbling before she thought I was one of her sixth-graders.

### "That would be nice," she said smiling "and please call me Vicki, Father."

### "And Frank," I said awkwardly, "and I'll be here Thursday."

### We shook hands. More goose bumps. Joey very formally shook hands with me again. Olivia hugged Joey and gave Vicki a kiss and a hug goodbye before climbing into her car seat. I handed her a stuffed rabbit as I strapped her in.

### For over an hour I had a family again if only a pseudo family. I had forgotten how pleasant it could be. The joy of watching a child at play was doubled, quadrupled, raised to the nth power when that joy was shared with someone else.

### "Oh look, look," Victoria Meyers had said when Joey and Olivia were climbing the steps of the sliding board. "He's helping her climb. Isn't that sweet?" It was very sweet.

### In the rear view mirror Olivia had Mr. Fluffy pressed against her cheek as she massaged his ear between her thumb and forefinger, a prelude to sleep.

### "Can Joey come to our house for a play date Daddy?"

### "We'll see sweetheart."

### "Promise Daddy?"

### I promised and it was a promise I intended to keep. I ejected Miles Davis' moody "Kind of Blue" from the CD player and replaced it with "Ella Fitzgerald in Berlin"; happy, bubbly, joyous Jazz. Olivia was asleep. I turned the volume down and thought of a few more science lessons that a sixth grade class might enjoy. University outreach— I could spare an hour a week.

### I saved the document and emailed a copy to Vicki. Hopefully it no longer sounded like a "bad private eye novel".

# CHAPTER 17-NO PROBLEM

### On Wednesday Joe's junior high science project was a flop. No need to strip me naked. There was no increase in the number of tracks when I was near the cloud chambers. My magic touch was gone. Everything was right with the world again. The Case of the Errant Cosmic Rays was closed.

### When I called Vicki that night I said," What do you think/"

### "Much better, Frank. Love at first sight. I like that."

### "I think I knew right away. How about you?"

### "Oh, no. My first reaction was that it was a shame you were a priest."

### "Oh, really?" I said laughing. "It didn't seem to inhibit you. You were the one who suggested we take the kids to the Franklin Institute the next Saturday. The attraction of forbidden fruit perhaps?"

### "Nope. Bathroom dynamics. Joey was getting too old to slip him into the ladies' room with me. I figured you could take care of Joey while I took care of Olivia—sort of a tinkle buddy."

### "Just using me, eh?"

### "That changed when we went through the hall with all those big machines and you explained how they worked,—efficiency, work in, work out, mechanical advantage—so authoritative, so sexy..."

### "Sexy pulley systems, eh, that's when you knew?"

### "Not yet." Now she was laughing. "Not until we walked through the giant heart. I think it happened in the left ventricle. Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump. I realized that my own heart was beating louder than the mechanical one."

### "You discovered you loved me."

### "I discovered I might like you."

### "I knew I liked you."

### "Another thing about your rewrite. That 'technical befuddlement' you referred to?"

### "What about it?"

### "Worked, didn't it?

### "Goodnight Vicki. Tinkle buddy?"

### "Night, Frank."

# CHAPTER 18-A DEAD PRIEST

### Thursday morning Martha and I attended the Faculty Senate Meeting. It was short.

"Motion to adjourn?"

### "So move."

### "Do I hear a second?"

### A short burst of seconds.

### "All in favor."

### An explosion of "ayes" trailed off to a few late responses like a bag of popcorn in a microwave.

### Munchkin House was safe for another year. My plea was unnecessary. The provost's grandson attended. Granting credit for life experiences had a mixed response. Military training made it. Veterans would no longer be required to take the one-credit physical education requirement. It would avoid embarrassing situations like the one we had last year when a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer was forced to take Beginning Swimming because the archery and tennis courses were filled. We voted down a request from a student who was fluent in Italian to use that to satisfy her foreign language requirement. I asked if she could satisfy the language requirement by taking Introductory Italian. Yes. Wasn't that the same as the Coast Guard rescue swimmer? That triggered the motion to adjourn from a member of the foreign language department.

### Angela Rossi called at noon to confirm that she made the appointment to visit St. Gabriel's at two o'clock. She told the pastor, Monsignor Smith, that she wanted to bring a priest/investigator to take a look at the scene of the accident.

### "I'm an investigator?"

### "I didn't say what you usually investigate. I thought it might sound more official."

### She hinted it might help if I wore the uniform. After lunch I locked my office door, stuck my cardboard "Go Away" sign over its small window, and traded my khakis and denim shirt for my black suit and collar. I kept the black Reeboks on.

### Her police cruiser turned out to be a white Jetta with a police radio scanner and a portable gum ball on the back seat. KYW Radio's "Traffic on the Twos" warned us away from the jammed Schuylkill Expressway. Instead she went out City Avenue and down Sixty-third to the Cobbs' Creek Parkway. The GPS plugged into the cigarette lighter "recalculated" us around an accident on Baltimore Avenue. "Smart little bugger, isn't it?" she said. I resisted an impulse to give her my lecture on GPS systems and relativity theory.

### When we got to St. Gabriel's Detective Rossi pulled into the first driveway which led to the church parking lot. The rectory was between the church and the school. We parked in a small area behind the rectory next to a black Lexus. Not bad for a parish priest, I thought. We rang the bell under the small plaque reading "Msgr. D. Gregory Smith, Pastor." Monsignor Smith greeted us warmly and invited us in. Tall and slim, he looked to be in his mid to late fifties. He wore black slacks and black penny loafers and a gray turtle neck sweater that matched the color of what little gray hair he had left. Horn-rimmed glasses magnified his dark eyes. He invited us into the small living room off the entrance hall.

### "I'm Frank Donnelly, Monsignor. This is Detective Angela Rossi."

### We shook hands all around.

"Were you at St. Charles?"

### "No, I'm a clerical immigrant. I studied at a seminary in Massachusetts." I did not mention that it was an Episcopal seminary.

### "I'm sorry for your loss, Monsignor," Detective Rossi said. "I still have Father Soroka's laptop and expect I'll be able to return it to you soon."

### "He had a sister. I haven't been able to contact her yet. I suppose it should go to her with the rest of his personal possessions, which weren't much, just his clothes, a small TV, his CDs, a portable stereo, and an ipod and cell phone. His eyes were bad and he liked to download audio books to his computer and put them on the ipod. I packed everything up. He didn't own a car. Were you able to find out anything useful from his computer?" he asked Detective Rossi..

### "So far I've found a data base containing church records, an inventory of items in the storeroom, and some eBooks. No more threatening emails though."

### "Church records you say?"

### "Baptisms, marriages, deaths. Things like that."

### Monsignor Smith nodded.

### She took a notebook and pen from her shoulder bag. "Would you tell us how you discovered the email, please?"

### Monsignor Smith shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. The grandfather clock in the entrance hall chimed once in the otherwise silent rectory. All three of us glanced at our watches.

### "The first respondents to my 911 call were two uniformed officers. They arrived a few minutes before the ambulance."

### Detective Rossi interrupted. "What time was this?"

### "I'd say about four-fifteen."

### "Thank you," she said making a note of it. "Go on please."

### "One of the officers remained in the church driveway off the street to direct the ambulance to the door in back of the church. The other officer accompanied me down to the basement. He is the one who discovered Father Soroka's laptop on a back shelf. The screen was blank but when he touched a key it came on. I guess it was sleeping. There were two windows open on the computer. One was a spread sheet. There were no entries in it. The other window was his email inbox. The subject line in one of the emails read, 'Priest should be truly priests' all in capital letters. It stood out from the rest. I guess that's why he took the computer."

### "Yes. We want to make sure it's not related to Father Soroka's accident. I know you have gone over this before but please tell us how you came to discover his body."

### "Sure. I was out most of the day. I left the rectory about eleven o'clock to meet with some friends for lunch out in Newtown Square: Father Jim Mahon from St. Benedict's and Monsignor John Tobin, the principal at Cardinal O'Haren High School. I left the restaurant about two and stopped to visit a former parishioner in Saint Martha's nursing home in Media. I got back here about three-thirty."

### "And that's when you discovered him?" I asked.

### "About a half hour later. I figured he was over in the church but started to worry when he hadn't returned. He was eighty-three, you know, in reasonably good health but a little shaky on his feet."

### Detective Rossi paused to catch up on her notes and said, "You say you left for the luncheon at eleven. The medical examiner put the time of death at around nine or ten o'clock. Before you left that morning was there anyone here besides you and Father Soroka?"

### "Not in the rectory, no. I think there might have been a few cars in and out of the parking lot dropping off items for the clothing drive."

"I see. Did Father Soroka have a history of falling?" she asked.

### "He fell on the ice and broke a hip last year. He had a hip replacement. He was shoveling snow in front of the church. He wanted to help. He had a very limited ministry. I don't know if you know his past history. He..."

### "The grand jury report just about says it all," I said.

### "Tragically, yes. He wasn't allowed to say Mass on Sundays, or preach, or hear confessions. He did say the six-thirty morning Mass on weekdays when no more than a handful of people would be present. Other than that he did a lot of the odd jobs that a sexton would do if the parish could afford one. He swept the church out on Monday mornings and kept the altar clean. He even cleaned the rest rooms. I think he viewed it as a kind of penance. He also took charge of ordering supplies for the church—missals, candles, altar wine, hymnals—items kept in the storeroom where he was found."

### "May we see the storeroom now, Monsignor?" Detective Rossi asked.

### "Of course."

# CHAPTER 19-THE STOREROOM

### The door leading to the steps down to the storeroom was in back of the main altar. The room itself was about ten feet wide by about sixteen to eighteen feet long. It was illuminated by three bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The stone walls were lined with wooden shelves on three sides. The shelves along a long wall were filled with old missals, hymnals, and parish bulletins that would never be looked at again. Other shelves contained boxes of altar candles, bottles of sacramental wine, votive candles, cleaning equipment, and about a century's worth of discarded junk and dust. There was an electrical panel on the middle of the other long wall containing glass-enclosed fuses. A small box of utility candles, a candle stub stuck in a candle holder that wouldn't be out of place in a Dickens' novel, and some spare fuses sat on top of the gray metal panel. A pipe about three inches in diameter ran along the full length of the wall about a foot above the floor.

### I turned to Monsignor Smith. "Is that a waste pipe?"

### "No. It serves no purpose now. It was a steam pipe. The church originally had central plant heat. There was a huge coal plant about a half mile from here that produced steam and delivered it through underground pipes to houses and other buildings in this area. It folded back in the sixties. We have an oil furnace now."

### An outline of Father Soroka's body was chalked on the concrete floor. Monsignor Smith pointed to a long wooden tool box on the floor near the wall. "We think he must have tripped over the tool box, fell backwards, and struck the back of his head on the pipe as he went down."

### Detective Rossi took a laptop from her bag and brought up a gruesome photo of the bloody depression on the back of Father Soroka's head.

### "That's consistent with the photos of the body," she said, "and with pieces of wax embedded in the wound that are mentioned in the autopsy report."

### I noticed the wax drippings under the electrical panel on the pipe and on the floor—heavy directly under the box and tapering off on either side looking like a mathematical normal distribution. Detective Rossi knelt on one knee and scraped at the wax with a manicured fingernail.

### "Look at this, Fra... Father Donnelly. Does that look like dried blood?"

### "Could be," I said. "Maybe that's where he hit. Could you back up to the first picture you were looking at?"

### "What are you thinking?" she asked.

### "Geometry," I said. "Let me show you something." I got down of the floor and aligned my body with the chalked image and propped myself up on my right elbow so that the back of my head was touching the pipe.

### "Look at the angle made by the pipe with my shoulders."

### "About sixty, seventy degrees," Monsignor Smith said.

### "I'd say about sixty also," Angela said. "And...?"

### "And if I was falling and hit my head on this pipe the depression in my skull should also be...."

### "About sixty degrees with respect to your shoulders," she said.

### I stood up and tried to brush myself off. Monsignor Smith looked baffled. I filled him in. "The depression in the back of Father Soroka's skull is almost parallel to his shoulders; maybe five or ten degrees at most. That's not consistent with the assumption about how he fell."

### "What if he didn't trip over the tool box? What if he was standing in the middle of the room and just fell almost straight back against the pipe?" he asked.

### "Not with the position in which the body was found," said Detective Rossi. "He would have been lying perpendicular to the wall, not along it."

### "Maybe he moved after he fell," Monsignor Smith said.

### "Even if he wasn't dead it's unlikely he was conscious after he hit the pipe," I said. "The body could have been moved. Maybe someone hit him with a baseball bat or something and then tried to make it look like an accident."

### Detective Rossi laughed. "Whoa. Accident to murder. That's a big leap, Father. A baseball bat wouldn't drive wax into his skull and if he was moved there should be marks on the floor."

### "But the floor looks like it was recently swept. It's clean except for a little dirt in the chalked outline of the body," I said. "He could have been moved and then the floor swept when the killer saw the marks in the dust."

### Detective Rossi walked over to the shelves on the far wall. "Look at the dust on these shelves. Looks like years of accumulation. Now this is curious." She turned to Monsignor Smith. "What was on the shelves before these books?"

### "What do you mean?" he asked.

### Both Monsignor Smith and I went over to the shelf to look. Underneath the stacks of books were three larger rectangles free of dust.

### There was something else on this shelf until recently," she said. "Do you know what it was, Monsignor?"

### "I'm afraid I don't. I haven't been in this room for months."

### She removed the books from the shelf, took a small tape measure out of her bag, and measured the size of one of the dust free areas.

### "I get fifteen and a half by twelve and a half," she said jotting the figures into her notebook. She started to put the books back on the shelf.

### "Wait a minute," I said. "Let me try something." I took a file folder box labeled "Marriage Records" from another shelf and fitted it over one of the rectangles. It fit perfectly. "That's what was here; three letter-sized file folder boxes. Any idea what they may have contained, Monsignor?"

### "No. Like I said I haven't been in here for quite a while. Maybe boxes of junk that Father Soroka got rid of to get more space."

"Well, I don't think there's anything more we can do here," Detective Rossi said. Would it be possible to see his room, Monsignor?"

### "Certainly. Follow me."

### "Wait just a minute," she said and took a small clothing whisk from her bag. What else did the thing hold? She brushed off her slacks and turned to me.

### "Hold up your right arm and turn around. You're a mess. Your black suit doesn't help. That's better."

# CHAPTER 20-A BROKEN CANDLE

### Detective Rossi went up the steps first. The door opened into the semi-circular space behind the altar. Turning left she immediately bumped into a chair.

### "It's easier to go around this way," Monsignor Smith said as he turned right. "That side is filled with items we use frequently so we don't put them in the basement."

### In the dim light I could see extra red upholstered chairs, kneeling benches, a cross on a pole, a large paschal candle, and two small tables.

### "Now that's a candle," Detective Rossi said, looking at the huge candle in its stand. The candle itself was about four feet long and two and a half to three inches in diameter.

### "A floor lamp of a candle, isn't it?" Monsignor Smith said. "It's a paschal candle for Easter. Father Soroka must have just got it in. Our old one was down to a small stub. They last for years."

### "That's a little scary," she said pointing to a wide brass ring slipped over the candle near its base. The ring was cast to look like a crown of thorns with three thorns about an inch long sticking out of the crown. Monsignor explained what it was.

### "Quite symbolic," she said. "Even some red wax representing blood. Very realistic."

### "This ring should really be near the top of the candle not the bottom," I said. I gave it a tentative twist. It wouldn't budge.

"Oh, that's Ok. Leave it where it is. I'll get to it later," Monsignor Smith said.

### I gave it a good twist and pushed it up the candle. When I removed my hand the candle collapsed, broken at the point where the ring had been holding it together. The upper portion of the candle was kept from separating from the lower piece by the wick running through its center. It dangled and swung back and forth briefly. The red wax that we thought represented blood was a little too realistic. I went to touch it.

### "Don't," Detective Rossi said grabbing my arm.

### "Did that autopsy report mention what kind of wax was found in the wound?" I asked.

### "It just said wax. Why?"

### "Because the wax in the candles in the box on the electrical panel is paraffin. This candle is beeswax."

### "You can tell just by looking at it?"

### "It's a matter of canon law—church law. The candles used on the altar must be made of beeswax. If the specks of wax in Father Soroka's wound are beeswax...."

### "Then we may very well have a murder rather than an accident," she said, her cell phone already on her ear.

### "I want to get a crime scene unit out here to get a sample from the candle and the wax on the pipe and to dust the candle for prints," she said to me as she waited for an answer.

### She identified herself, where she was, and what we found, paused to listen, gave me a you-don't-know-what-I have-to-put-up-with look, and rolled her eyes up to look at the angels painted on the ceiling.

### "Of course I'm sure. No, it wouldn't be a 'virtual' scene." She stretched the word so it came out as virt-you-all. "Now be a good sergeant and get me the CSU."

### She put her thumb on the slits in the mouth piece, glanced sideways at me and then back at the ceiling. "He thinks sitting at a desk all day answering the phone makes him more of a cop than me and our cyber crime team. I swear if I had to call for backup he'd ask if I wanted the Geek Squad."

### Not Geeks but two technicians were on their way. In the meantime she asked Monsignor Smith to lock the storeroom door and the church doors. He looked a bit shaken and then said, "Detective Rossi, there is something I forgot to tell you in the rectory. Before I left that morning I saw an SUV pull out of the parking lot around 10:30. Maybe a parishioner making a visit to the church or dropping off items for the clothing drive."

### "Did you notice the make of the SUV by any chance?"

### "It was a smaller one. I didn't notice the make. Dark gray."

### "And you say this was about 10:30. Are you sure of the time?"

### "Certain. The clock chimed the half hour as I looked out the window."

### She made a note of that and said, "Thank you."

### I asked Monsignor Smith if he could make alternate arrangements for the morning Masses and confessions and Masses on the weekend. He said there was a small chapel in the basement of the closed school that had been used for Sunday overflow back when the parish was thriving. He would arrange to open it temporarily.

### While we waited for the crime scene unit Monsignor Smith took us to Father Soroka's room. Detective Rossi rooted through the box of Soroka's personal possessions and pulled out a cell phone. She turned it on, pushed a few keys and said, "Monsignor, this is a Smart Phone and could contain some useful information. Do you mind if I take this with me? I'll return it with his computer?"

### "No, please do. Anything that might help."

### When the crime scene techs arrived we showed them what we had found and left.

# CHAPTER 21-FAUX PAS

### We made a left out of the parking lot onto Chester Avenue and another left onto Sixty-fifth. I made a suggestion. "Let's drop the 'Father' and 'Detective' appellations and just be Frank and Angela."

### "Good idea. So who's your prime suspect, Frank, assuming we actually do have a murder?"

### "I'd say pen pal. How about you?"

### "I have four suspects. If the emails are really threats then pen pal looms large. Then there is the driver of the gray SUV. Also, Monsignor Smith, simply because he was there. He had the means and the opportunity but no motive. The fourth suspect is 'none of the above', say a thief caught in the act, a junkie looking for a golden chalice he could sell. No connection to the victim. They're the toughest to solve."

"So, what's the next step?" I asked.

### "The next step will be up to the homicide detectives if—and it's a big if— this turns out to be murder. In the mean time I'll pay a visit to 'phurkfull' and see if they can mine any more information from Soroka's laptop and cell phone."

### "Phurkfull?"

### "That's what I call it. The Philadelphia Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, P-H-R-C-F-L. Quite a mouthful, isn't it?"

### "What is it?"

### "Just what it says, a computer forensics lab—out in the suburbs, in Radnor. It's a joint partnership between the FBI and state and local law enforcement. PPD is a participating agency. Their examiners will squeeze every bit and byte of digital information out of Soroka's computer and cell phone. If a mouse tap danced on his keyboard they'll know it.

"Meantime you can keep your scientific nose to the ground and feed me anything you think is relevant. But be careful. If pen pal is involved in this we could be dealing with a killer and not just a crank."

### She tuned off sixty-fifth and down a cobblestone ramp back to the Cobbs Creek Parkway.

### "By the way, that was nice work Sherlock. You'd make a good cop."

### I laughed. "You realize that if I'm 'Sherlock' that would make you 'Watson' and he never sounded very smart."

### "You've got a point there. How about 'investigative partners' then?"

### "Better. Now, partner, while we are still in an investigative mode, what are you doing this evening?"

### "Oh, wait a minute, Frank. You're a nice guy and all but I just..."

### I laughed again. "Relax, Angela. I'm not asking you for a date, just some help with an experiment at the scene of Sunday's shooting."

### "Right, right. I didn't really think...I mean you being engaged and all."

### Whoops. I could have phrased that better. She'd turn me down if I was asking her out but now she's hurt that I wasn't.

"Not that I wouldn't want to ask you out—under different circumstances of course—I mean a beautiful woman and intelligent—who wouldn't..?"

### Now she was laughing.

"Frank, stop, stop. Truce. Let's agree if I hadn't just broke up with my boyfriend of two years, and you weren't engaged then if you just happened to ask me out then I just might have said yes— even though it would be pretty weird to be going out with a priest. How's that?"

### "I'd say it takes care of both our egos. Now, can you spare a half hour or so early this evening—for an experiment, not for a date?"

### "Experiment?"

### I told her about Joe's analysis of the video and that I wanted to check out O'Brien's "window-across-the-street" theory.

### "What time?"

### "About seven-thirty at the statue."

### "Should I bring anything?"

### "No, I'll bring everything we need.

### She turned on to City Avenue.

### "You're going back to PaCom, right?"

### "Right."

### I checked my watch. "I'll have about an hour to get some work done before I pick up Olivia at her play school."

### "You, know, a question has been bothering me, Frank."

### "What's that?"

### "Wasn't it odd that Monsignor Smith didn't know who you were?"

### "There are a lot of priests in this diocese, Angela."

### "How many are widowers with a child? Does he live in a bubble?"

# CHAPTER 22-AN EXPERIMENT

### I checked my new email when I got back to my office. One was a request to call Sal Lucasi about the cosmic ray photos I sent him. He picked up on the second ring.

### "Frank, old boy. Man of mystery."

### "What do you think, Sal?"

### "My first reaction was a solar flare, but there hasn't been any lately. You know Karl Kurtz?"

### "I know of him. Cosmologist, right?"

### "Right. Big Bang, cosmic background radiation, Anthropic Principle. Big stuff. I showed him the photos."

### "And?"

### "He thought it was probably just a temporary anomaly, a statistical fluke, but then asked me if the person who sent the pictures happened to be a priest. I thought that strange since I only told him that the pictures came from a lab in Philadelphia. I said yes and told him who you were."

### "Was he surprised?"

### "Didn't seem to be. He just nodded and asked me to keep him informed if the anomaly continued. So, keep me informed, buddy. Okay?"

### "Will do. How's your mother doing?"

### "Not so good. I try to get up to Philly as often as I can to see her. I'm hoping to get up next week. If the cosmic ray weirdness continues maybe I can take a look."

### "That would be great. Take care."

### I doubted it would continue but if it does the more eyes on it the better. I checked one more email. It was from Angela Rossi. The subject line read, "FYI: Ballistics". The message was: "Bullet a .223 Remington. Not a match for the .22 slugs recovered in the cemetery. Sorry. See you tonight."

### Not as sorry as I was.. Before going for Olivia I took a small penlight type laser from the Optics lab and rooted through our supply of glass tubing in the storeroom until I found a two-foot long piece that the laser fit in snugly. I took both back to my office, dropped them in my briefcase and added the range finder from my golf bag in the closet.

### That evening I dropped Olivia off at my mother's and went to St. Elizabeth's. While waiting for Angela I amused myself with a little ballistics research on my iphone. She showed up at exactly seven-thirty.

### "Thanks for coming."

### "Did you get my email?"

### "I did."

### "Unlikely it was vandalism, Frank"

### "It doesn't look that way. The video pretty much ruled that out too. What we want to do know is see if we can determine where that shot actually came from."

### "Shouldn't you be talking to O'Brien about this, Frank, and not me?"

### "Could be a bit dicey," I said. "He might not appreciate that we're checking up on him."

### I got the glass tube, laser, and range finder from my briefcase and took a pair of small binoculars from the glove compartment.

### "What are you planning?"

### "A little experiment with some light amplified by the stimulated emission of radiation."

### "In English, please."

### " L-A-S-E-R?"

### "Of course. We should hurry up, then, it's getting dark."

### "All the better."

### I walked over to the statue and stepped over the yellow police tape surrounding the grotto.

### "I don't like this, Frank. What are you doing?"

### To answer I threaded the glass tube through the exit and entrance 'wounds' in the statue.I slipped the laser into the tube and turned it on.

### "What do you see?" I asked after adjusting the position of the tube.

### "Where?"

### "The windows across the street. Top floor."

### "Okay, I see it on the shade in that window."

### "The window the police saw when they looked through the exit and entrance holes," I said. "But the size of the exit hole suggests other possibilities. Now, here's where I need your help. Step in here and hold the end on this tube while I step outside the grotto."

### "Okay, I got it."

### "Now, slowly move the end on the tube down. There's plenty of slack."

### The spot moved up toward the roof.

### "Push down a little more but don't force it."

### "It's gone, Frank. The beam must have cleared the roof."

### "I raised the binoculars to my eyes and scanned the side of a darkened office building some distance away.

### "See anything?' she asked.

### "Move the tube a little side to side.—Okay, I see it now. Leave it like that and come over here and take a look."

### Angela ducked under the tape and I handed her the binoculars.

### "The white brick building, near its roof, under the third window from the right."

### "Oh, I see it. Bright red, about the size of a quarter or half dollar."

### "You got it. What's your guess as to the distance to the building?"

### "Hmm, maybe one-seventy, one-eighty yards. A good three iron shot."

### ."Funny you should mention golf," I said taking the range finder that Vicki gave me for my birthday out of my pocket.

### "Oh, that's cheating," Angela said.

### "I'm a high tech golfer."

### I sighted on the flag pole on the top of the distant building that was glowing with the last of the sun's rays.

### "I get two-twenty .You'd be short."

### "I meant to the base of the building. You measured to the top. I was pretty close."

### "You can hit a three iron one-eighty?"

### "One-eighty five with a good roll."

### "Huh. What's your handicap?"

### "Six. I practically grew up on a golf course. My father was a club pro in Florida. I spent my free time in high school either caddying or playing golf."

### "Remind me not to play golf with you."

### "I'd spot you your handicap. What is it?"

### I pretended not to have heard her and took out my cell phone. I tapped the screen and brought up the results of my earlier research.

### "Listen to this. The manufacturer claims that the muzzle velocity of its point two-two-three Remington is 3240 feet per second and drops to 1300 feet per second at 500 yards. A bullet shot from that building would clearly be above the 1100 feet per second velocity of sound when it arrived at the statue. That's consistent with the sharp crack, the sonic boom, heard on the video. No doubt about it, the bullet came from that distant building. I hope the shooter was a pretty good shot and the statue was the target and not me."

### "You're assuming that the target was you or the statue," she said. "What if it was both?"

### "Meaning?"

### "The bullet was intended for the statue, but the message, a warning, was intended for you. Also, if you were actually the target, why didn't the shooter try again when he saw he missed? You were a sitting duck lying there on the pavement."

### "Makes sense, Angela, but what's the message?"

### "Maybe the same vague message that was in your emails; leave the priesthood because you're not a true priest. You were married, have a child, and now you have a girlfriend."

### "Fiancée."

### "Worse. But even more important than the message is who is the messenger?"

# CHAPTER 23-ALONG THE KELLY DRIVE

### Eight-thirty Saturday morning I passed joggers and bicyclists on the wide pavement beside the river as I drove down the East River Drive headed for the archbishop's center city office. Officially it's the Kelly Drive, named for Jack Kelly an Olympic rower and former Philadelphia city councilman. The Chamber of Commerce does not object if tourists wish to believe it was named for his sister, Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco. To native Philadelphians the Drive will always be known as the East River Drive and decades after the name change some of the road signs still read "East River Drive", as if the streets department is also reluctant to part with the name. By any name it's a beautiful winding road running from PaCom's neighborhood in East Falls along the Schuylkill River to the Art Museum and the Ben Franklin Parkway.

### "I'm freeeeezing! I'm freeeeezing!"

### Olivia was strapped into her car seat with a baggie of Cheerios, a sippy cup of orange juice, and Scooby Doo on the DVD player strapped to the back of the front passenger head rest. I closed the sun roof and settled for just a crack in my window.

### "How's that? Better?"

### Her mind had already moved on. "Look at the boats, Daddy."

### Small sail boats and racing shells were already on the water. I spotted the red hull of a PaCom eight gliding in midstream, the low morning sun flashing rhythmically from the wet oars. Passing Boat House Row I made a hard left onto Pennsylvania Avenue and pulled into a parking space in front of the huge apartment complex across from the Art Museum. When dad died mom sold the house in Chestnut Hill and bought her small condo.

### The burly African American retired policeman at the security desk gave Olivia his usual greeting.

"Hey, stuffed olive, how you doin' today?"

### "I am not a stuffed olive, Mr. Johnson. I'm an Oliv-eee-ah."

### "Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Oliv-eee-ah."

### "Is my granny home?"

### "Well, I don't know. Let me conduct an investigation." He dialed a number and mumbled a few words into the phone. "Looks like she is. You can go up now. Do you know her number?"

### "Nine-three-two."

### "That's right. Now, do you know what button to push in the elevator?"

### "You push nine, silly," she said giggling and holding up her thumb. "My granny lives on the ninth floor so if you push a nine you get there. It's easy."

### "Thanks Henry," I said.

### "No problem, Reverend."

### Mom made sure that everyone knew I was a priest. She was still a member of the congregation at the Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill so people assumed she meant Episcopal priest. I tried to get her interested in going to St. Elizabeth's, and she would go once in a while when I said Mass, but she preferred St. Michael's, said it was more "catholic" than a Catholic church.

### "With all those guitars and tambourines at St. Elizabeth's I don't know if I'm at Mass or a hootenanny," she had said. "And all those—what do they call them—extraordinary ministers giving out communion. Ordinary, I'd say. Why I had to take communion from a young man wearing an Eagles' sweatshirt. A sweatshirt, mind you. It's just not dignified."

### Mom had my sister's old Fisher-Price castle out on the living room floor and Olivia was busy unloading the little people from a shoebox.

### "Frank, I thought we'd go over to the park across the street a little later—about eleven— it's such a nice day. Eat our lunch there. If we're not here when you return come over. I'll pack an extra peanut butter and jelly for you. Just call my cell if you can't find us."

### Rounding the Eakins Circle in front of the Art Museum, I headed down the Ben Franklin Parkway. I opened all the windows and the sun roof. A few drops of a cool wind-blown mist touched my cheek as I passed the Swann fountain. I circled it three times, said a prayer to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost parking spaces, and found a metered spot a half block from the Chancery. I have adopted the position of Danish physicist Niels Bohr who kept a horseshoe nailed above his door; it may be superstitious but so what if it works.

# CHAPTER 24-THE ARCHBISHOP

### "Frank, maybe you can explain why a priest in my diocese is standing on a beach with his arm around a very pretty woman in a bikini."

"That's my sister, sir. The picture was taken by my mother last summer on the beach in Ocean City."

### We all laughed. Good start. I suspected Archbishop Reilly already knew Colleen was my sister. I knew Tom did.

### "That's zero for the CDF and one for us," Archbishop Reilly said giving a thumbs-up. "We're making progress already."

### He put aside the playground photo. "Make it two up." He passed me a third photo. "How many sisters do you have?"

### In the photo I was dressed in my clerical suit and collar and wearing a straw hat. Vicki, in a long dress and floppy hat, was standing beside me at a long table in the schoolyard. We were making hoagies along with some of the eighth-grade girls.

### "That was a fundraiser last May at St. Elizabeth's, sir. We called it 'An Old Time Picnic'. Raised nine hundred dollars for the parish school."

### "We're three up. By the way, Catholic Charities could use a little help."

### I shouldn't have mentioned the money. Still trim at 62 it was easy to believe that the Archbishop spent over twenty years as a naval officer and chaplain. His only concession to age seemed to be his wire-framed glasses and the gray in his close-cropped hair. The Archbishop and Tom and I sat in three leather easy chairs surrounding a small table in front of a stone fireplace in his office. A large crucifix hung above the mantle and below it the gas log in the fireplace battled the morning chill. I estimated the large room to be about fifteen by thirty feet. Windows overlooking the street lined the long side opposite a wall of built-in bookcases. A long rectangular conference table sat in front of the windows. Dark wood paneling covered the walls not lined with books. A large mahogany desk was in a corner of the room between the windows and the door. Its polished top contained a large blotter, and a ball point pen stuck in a base which looked like a battleship. Empty wooden "in" and "out" trays flanked the battleship.

### The wall next to the desk held a few pictures. There was a photo of a fighter jet landing on an aircraft carrier, one of a younger Reilly in a naval uniform shaking hands with Bill Clinton, and an even younger Reilly crashing through the line in a long ago Army-Navy game; a game that would have been played just a few miles down Broad Street. On the wall on the other side of the door was a large photo of the Pope.

### Despite my shaky relationship with Reilly, I admired him. When installed as Archbishop of Philadelphia two years ago one of the first things he did was to sell the palatial residence that was the traditional home of Philadelphia Archbishops and move into an apartment in the diocesan seminary where he could occasionally be observed playing touch football or shooting hoops with the seminarians. He also sold his predecessor's limo and found the driver a job in the administrative offices. Reilly preferred to drive his black Buick himself. Before he came into the office there was a file folder centered on the green blotter on his desk. The file was now open on the table in front of me. He passed me the zoo picture, the original version with cupcakes, no bomb.

"Same woman, no hoagies?"

"Yes sir, Victoria Meyers. That's her son, Joey. Olivia and he have become pals."

"A little birdie told me that Olivia has also become attached to Victoria Meyers," he said. "I assume that this is the woman you spoke to me about?"

### "Yes sir. Victoria and I wish to get married."

### "You know if I had half the priests in this diocese that left to get married in the last twenty years I wouldn't be closing parishes for lack of priests. St. Elizabeth's needs you, Frank."

### "Twenty thousand, sir," Tom injected. "About twenty thousand left in the past twenty years—nationwide that is."

### "Too many," the Archbishop said.

### "That's why I hope to get permission to marry without leaving the priesthood. I was married before so it doesn't seem much different to me. Ordained while married, married while ordained—isn't the end result the same?"

"Perhaps, but they won't see it that way. Let me tell you a little story. Once I was saying Mass on the flight deck of a carrier. I noticed one of the sailors light a cigarette, right in the middle of the consecration. So after Mass I got hold of the smoker and chewed him out: gross disrespect, for me, for those around him, for the dignity of prayer, etcetera. He took my dress-down with multiple yes sirs, sorry sirs, I'll-never-do-it-again sirs. When I finished he asked permission to ask a question. He said that before hitting the sack every night he prayed the rosary while smoking a cigarette. Was that wrong too? Was praying while smoking just as bad as smoking while praying? He said this with a straight face but I burst out laughing. The little twerp had me. It was the same thing."

### "What did you tell him, Sir?" Tom asked.

### "What anyone in authority would do in a situation like that. I ignored logic and told him to have his smoke while praying the rosary but keep the cigarettes in his pocket at any Mass I was saying. And that," he said, holding up the letter, "is is just what the CDF is doing with this, Frank. The Church hasn't permitted an ordained priest to marry in eight hundred years. That tells you something about your chance of success."

# CHAPTER 25-AN OFFER

### We were interrupted by a knock on the door and Mary Cleary, secretary to the Archbishop and to three of his predecessors, came in with a coffee carafe on a small tray with mugs, cream, and sugar.

### "Better warn them about this, Archbishop. It's strong—the way you like it. Caffeinated mud if you ask me."

### She placed everything on a small table near the desk. When Mary left we went over and fixed our coffees. I dumped a few tiny packets of sugar and some cream into my chipped stone mug— battle ship gray with a drawing of an aircraft carrier on one side—a big change from the fine china used by the late Cardinal. The archbishop left his black. He took a tentative sip and winced.

"At ten in the morning Mary just lets me have the coffee. After four there's always some good Irish whiskey in it."

### After a few sips both Tom and I lied about how great it was to get a real cup of coffee. We all went back to our seats and Reilly took a small envelope about the size of a thank-you note from his CDF package.

### "Frank, this is a personal note to me from Cardinal Tossi with a message that he asked me to pass on to you; a message that he calls an offer. Before I read it to you I want you to know that I will support your decision on this either way."

### I swallowed hard and put my mug on the table. "All right, sir."

### Reilly adjusted his glasses and read. "If Father Donnelly should wish to petition for voluntary laicization we would be willing to approve the petition immediately and relax some of the usual accompanying restrictions."

### "Is that all?" I asked.

### "That's it."

### "They're suggesting that I willingly resign from the priesthood? With due respect, sir, what kind of an offer is that?"

### "It's an offer of an honorable discharge, Frank, and in their minds they are making concessions. The process usually takes years, especially for younger priests. You would be able to marry immediately. They seem to be willing to offer other concessions but the Cardinal doesn't specify what."

### "Sir, if I wanted to resign to get married that's what I would have asked for in the first place."

### "I take it you reject the offer," the Archbishop said.

### "Yes sir, I do."

"Good. No retreat. There is still hope for a victory. The fact that they are willing to make any concessions at all is a clue that you have them worried. Perhaps a little pressure of our own is called for, a bargaining chip so to speak. I spent twenty-four years of my life negotiating the 'you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours' bureaucracy of the military. The Vatican isn't much different."

### "I have no bargaining chips, sir."

### "Don't be so sure, Frank. At the least you pose a threat of unfavorable publicity. Here's another chip. On the Sunday after Christmas we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family; Jesus, Mary, and Joseph; mother, father, and child. Where's the Holy Family without Mary? Where is any family without a 'Mary'? What a wonderful thing it would be to unite two fractured families. I'm going to suggest to the CDF that it is the right thing to do and, coincidently, a marvelous public relations opportunity at a time when the church is being rocked by sexual abuse scandals. I'll also remind them of the Pope's message last year on Holy Family Sunday when he said, and I quote, 'Every child deserves both a mother and a father.' He did not add, 'unless that child is the daughter of a priest'. "

### I was stunned. Had a four-year-old triggered all this?

### "Sir," Tom said. "It's, it's...."

### Reilly smiled and peered over his glasses at Tom. "Machiavellian, Monsignor, Machiavellian; a concept well understood in the Vatican. Let's move on."

### He took a paper from the file, adjusted his glasses and said, "Now, this other matter about advocating the ordination of women. What have you written besides this piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer?"

### "Nothing, sir. and I did not say I favored ordination in the editorial. I was just responding to Auxiliary Bishop Schmidt's letter the week before in which he stated that the Church would never ordain women because the apostles were all men."

### "You said that some biblical scholars thought that Mary Magdalen might have been an apostle. That implies that the Church's argument that it can only ordain men might be flawed. Am I right?"

### "I was more interested in suggesting that Bishop Schmidt's reasoning was flawed," I said.

### "You also wrote, 'The apostles were also married, Jewish, uneducated, and mostly fishermen. If we want to strictly follow the Bible we should only ordain male Jewish high school drop-outs who are married and have a passion for fly fishing'."

### Tom laughed. "Sort of limits the pool, doesn't it?"

### I think the Archbishop smiled.

"You're not only advocating the ordination of women but are also strongly hinting that we should allow priests to marry. You've touched on two of the major flash points in the Vatican."

"The Episcopal Church has been ordaining women for years and I know some of them personally. They are fine priests."

### "Okay, but that's the business of the Episcopal Church and not us. Let me tell you another story. In my Navy days I frequently rode the back seat of fighters. There were a number of women pilots that I was more comfortable flying with than some of the male hot dogs we had. Arrogance can be even more deadly in the cockpit than it is in the pulpit. I say this to make the point that I believe women can be just as competent as men in a traditional male role and I have backed up that belief by literally trusting them with my life. This women's ordination though is different. The Church claims the ban has biblical origins. Don't give the CDF any more ammunition with public pronouncements on the subject, Frank. Agreed?"

### "Yes, of course sir."

### Tom glanced at the pictures on the far wall and changed the subject. "What's it like to land on a carrier in one of those jets, sir?"

### "Never had a problem. Closed my eyes, said a Hail Mary, and prayed the pilot wasn't doing the same."

### With that the archbishop rose and walked over to the windows and looked out without speaking. He turned back towards me and looked at his watch.

"I have Confirmations in a parish up in the Northeast and we better end this. Oh, and give Mary the date for Olivia's birthday. She invited me to her party you know."

### Tom walked me down to my car. "Well, what do you think of our Archbishop now?"

### "I couldn't believe it. I expected to be chewed out."

### "Reilly loves the battle. He considers the CDF to be the ecclesiastical equivalent of a congressional oversight committee."

### "I need all the help I can get. I definitely do not want to resign from the priesthood."

### "Get yourself some more bargaining chips, Frank. Make them an offer they can't refuse. By the way, do you have any idea who might be supplying information on you to the CDF?"

"I wish I did. Someone is watching me closely and that's more worrisome than the letter from the CDF."

### "Do you think it could be Schmidt?" Tom asked.

### "He did everything to get rid of me before Reilly was appointed but I can't see him hiding behind a bush in Fairmount Park snapping pictures of a picnic, or shooting holes in a statue of the virgin."

### Tom laughed. "I just had an image of him and those yes men he surrounded himself with all dressed in Cardinal's red leaping out of the bushes shouting 'Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!' — Monty Python style."

### I laughed at the image and opened the back door of the Outback and traded my jacket and Roman collar for a PaCom sweat shirt and a baseball cap.

### "Nice wheels, buddy. Like to trade it for a ten-year- old Civic?"

### "The state's a little more generous with its employees than the Archdiocese," I said.

### I lifted the rear hatch, sat, and grabbed my sneakers. "Why don't you duck out and come with me?"

### "Wish I could. What are you planning?"

### "A quick jog along the East River Drive to clear my head before I meet up with Olivia and my mother."

### "Kelly Drive," he said correcting me.

### "Not in my neck of the woods," I said between grunts tying my laces. "Check out the gigantic overhead road sign up in my neighborhood sometime. Big arrow to the right—Ridge Avenue: big arrow straight ahead— Lincoln Drive: big arrow to the left—East River Drive. Even the streets department prefers the original name. It tells you it's a road running along the east side of the river and similarly the West River Drive runs along the west side."

### "Martin Luther King Drive now," Tom said.

### "Same sentiment."

### I slammed the hatch and walked around the car, settled into my seat, shut the door, turned the key, and lowered the window. Tom supported himself with his hands on the roof as he leaned forward.

### "Remember, Frank, bargaining chips, and don't forget the game next Friday night."

### "Who are we playing?"

### "St. Monica's men club in South Philly. You might remember them from last year. They thought we were sissies for calling fouls when we weren't bleeding."

### "I'll wear my football helmet. See you, Tom."

# CHAPTER 26-JOGGING WITH VICKI

### My parking space in front of mom's building was gone. Saint Anthony deserted me. Veteran saints can get lazy. New saints, however, are always eager to get a few more miracles under their belts to solidify their promotions and an open parking space near the Art Museum on a beautiful Saturdayy might qualify as a miracle. I tried John Paul II and made a right on 27th street—nothing. A left on Swain—still nothing. A left on Pennock—not a thing. Another left back onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Two open spots, and no meters. Definitely a miracle. Thank you JP. I walked a block down to the playground. Olivia and Joey were on the swings shouting, "watch me, watch me." Mom and Vicki were on a bench trying to have a conversation. I snuck up behind the bench and covered Vicki's eyes.

### "Guess who?"

### "Hmm, y'all wouldn't be that awful Rhett Butler a comin' back to beg mah forgiveness, and tell me y'all really do give a damn?"

### When Vicki turns on her Atlanta accent it's like opening a tap and having molasses ooze out instead of water. "Guess again," I said.

### "The Brad Pitt look-alike who leaves a single rose on the hood of mah cah ev'y mornin'?"

### "Nope."

### "I can't imagine—unless you're that handsome Irishman that keeps pestering me."

### "That's me."

### Both mom and Vicki tuned back towards me.

### "We'll I declare, Joan, it is that pesky one. A gal isn't safe anywhere."

### I bent down between them and gave mom a peck on the cheek and got one in return from Vicki.

### "This is a pleasant surprise," I said, looking at Vicki. "How long have you been here?"

### "About an hour. Your mother gave me a call and convinced me that sitting on a park bench was a better choice than vacuuming my apartment on such a beautiful morning. She didn't have to try hard."

### "Especially when I mentioned that my handsome and intelligent son would be here later."

### Mother fancied herself a match maker.

### "I don't know why you two don't just get married," she recently had said. "You're obviously crazy about each other. Two families broken by tragedy joining to form a whole again. I think God arranged for you to meet. If you explain it that way to the proper authorities I'll bet they'd wave their silly rule. Why you're an asset to the Church."

"Don't be giving him a big head," Vicki said.

### "Oh. he got the head long ago, Vicki, when he got both a National Merit scholarship and athletic scholarship offers to a half dozen colleges."

### I tried to switch the focus. "Vicki went to Villanova on a track scholarship, Mom."

"Partial," said Vicki, "and I can still outrun you any day."

### "Like to try? Up to the Fall's Bridge and back? Will you be okay for about a half hour, mom?"

### "You kids go ahead. Joey and Olivia are entertaining themselves."

### Vicki stood and took a rubber band from her wrist and gathered her hair into a ponytail. She wore running shoes, jogging shorts, and a "Wildcats" sweatshirt faded from deep blue to a bluish gray. I helped her thread her pony tail through the opening in her matching sweat-stained VU baseball cap.

### "See what I put up with mom?" I said laughing. "To go for a simple jog in the park I trade my jacket and collar for a pair of sneakers. Vicki prepares for a marathon."

### The marathoner was standing on one leg, the ankle of the other resting on the back of the bench, while she grabbed the toe of her shoe and pulled back.

### "If I was running a marathon I'd shed the sweatshirt and fanny pack," she said. Twisting her head toward my mother she added with a wink,"he jogs— I run."

### And it's a beautiful sight when she does; smooth, graceful, effortless. We started slowly, joining the end of a line of tourists on Segways passing Boat House Row. The guide at the front of the line tossed names of rowing clubs over her shoulder into the gentle breeze. I caught "Vespers, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Girls" before we passed them. We ran at a leisurely pace side by side along the wide path next to the river for the first mile.

### "I'm going to run a little, Frank."

### "Just remember the story...of the...tortoise and the hare," I said between breaths.

### "This bunny will see you later. I'll stop at that bench by the statue over there on the way back."

### There was no visible change of gear, no noticeable effort, only a momentary shift in the motion of her pony tail from rhythmic swinging, to chaotic motion, and then back again to a higher frequency oscillation, and she was moving away from me, her hair waving goodbye. While I chugged steadily along she settled into the easy fast pace of the long distance runner. The path curved and she was gone.

### A mile below the bridge she was headed back towards me smiling. She looked as fresh as when she started. I was congratulating myself on my pain. No pain, no gain.

### "At the statue, Frank," she said as she passed.

### When I got there she was doing her cool down exercises. Mine consisted of putting both hands on the back of a bench and bending over to catch my breath. A little more gain than I really wanted.

### "Well that was refreshing," she said. "Why don't you sit while I get us some lunch?"

### Vicki took some money from her fanny pack and walked over to a vendor with a blue and white push cart. We sat on the bench eating soft, salt-encrusted pretzels smeared with yellow mustard and squirting water in our mouths from a shared bottle of Aqua Fina. Out on the river tiny white sail boats tried to keep out of the way of the racing shells that were coming and going from the boat houses.

"Wow," she said. "How many days like this does God give us in a lifetime?"

### "Not enough," I said.

### She took a small notebook out of her fanny pack. Writing juvenile fiction started as a hobby and then expanded to selling them on the internet as publish-on-demand books. She has a writer's habit of jotting down anything she thinks might be useful for a future story: the colors of the sky, grass, flowers, the sounds of birds chirping, children playing , oars thumping, coxswains shouting, the sidewalk bicyclists, skaters, and young moms jogging behind three-wheeled strollers— everything, including road signs and a rough sketch of the area. I told her she'd make a good cop.

### "It comes in handy when I'm writing a story. It may be fiction but if I get the traffic on Chestnut Street going the wrong way, or have someone park on a street under a 'no parking this side' sign, or maybe put the Art Museum on the wrong side of the river, anyone who knows Philadelphia may be turned off enough to stop reading."

### Looking over her shoulder I said, "You didn't put anything down about the light on the water. Look at the oars when they come out of the water; the way the light reflects and refracts."

### "Good idea. Wait till I jot this down. Give me a few minutes. I've got an idea."

### I watched the traffic on the river while she wrote.

### "Okay, I got it. 'Out on the water the coxswain in the St. Joe's heavy eight leaned forward, megaphone strapped to his mouth, urging his crew to reach deep for one last mighty effort. Crossing the finish line the oars tilt up, sunlight dripping from their tips, as the exhausted crew slumps, heads on their knees, and the boat glides silently. It was a few moments before anyone noticed the unnatural position of the coxswain; his left arm over the side of the boat—not sunlight but blood dripping from his finger tips.' How's that?"

### "I like it .What are you going to call it?"

### "How about Murder at the Dad Vail Regatta? It'll be the opening paragraph. Want to hear some more?"

### "Can't wait but we better get back. I told my mother a half hour.."

"Just a few minutes more. It's nice we don't have to worry about any old ladies from the parish snooping around here."

### "Or our personal paparazzi," I said.

### "Who?"

### No time like the present, I thought. I told her about the altered zoo photo, Detective Rossi's concern about the email connection to a possible homicide, and what we found out about the shooting—the whole mess.

### "Jeez, Frank, do you think we're in danger?"

### "Personally I think someone is trying to scare me. I think if they really wanted to hurt me, or you, they would have done it already. Why warn me?"

### "To toy with you? This guy, or gal, sounds like a nut. A psycho maybe. Gets his or her jollies by playing with the victim. Are you scared, Frank?"

### "No. Are you?"

### "Darn right and you should be too. And all of a sudden I'm cold. Hold me, Frank."

### "How's that?"

### "Better. It's so peaceful here I hate to leave."

"It's like a nineteenth century painting," I said.

### "Yes. Look at that double passing the pilings under the bridge— straight out of a Thomas Eakins painting."

"Not a chance," I said.

### She looked up at me smiling. "No? And why not, Mister Doctor of Philosophy? Too high tech? Moving too fast?"

### "Nope."

### "Fiberglass boat? Aluminum oars instead of wood?"

### "Wrong again," I said enjoying the game. "I'll give you one more guess."

### She looked at the boat again and raised one finger. "I've got it. The boat is too colorful. It's bright red and white and Eakins' boats were drab."

### "Sorry, miss. Your time is up. But you get a kiss anyhow."

### "I like this game. Okay, tell me. What is it?"

### "Describe the oarsmen."

### "Well, they're wearing red Temple sweatshirts, and, you know, it's not quite proper to call them oars-men. They're women."

### "And if it's a Thomas Eakins painting where are their long dresses and parasols?" I asked.

### "Oh, that's not fair!" I got a punch on the arm. "I'm supposed to be the feminist, not you."

### "We'd better get going," I said. "I have to shower and dress and get back to St. Elizabeth's for confessions at four o'clock."

### "Maybe I'll come to you for confession. I'm a naughty girl, you know. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

### Then she whispered, "I'm in love with a priest. What would you give me for penance?"

### "Hmm. that sounds pretty serious. How about three Hail Mary's and you spring for brunch tomorrow?"

### "That doesn't sound too bad. I was afraid you might want to spank me."

### "Maybe I would but I don't want to get arrested. Race you back to the Art Museum?"

### "No contest," she said. "I'll wait for you at the top of the steps. We'll have a Rocky Balboa moment."

# CHAPTER 27-VICKI'S BOSON

"Throw the pebbles into the water, Joey, not at the ducks," she shouted.

### I had managed to get through Sunday morning's Mass with no shots fired. Now we were sitting on a bench facing the Wissahickon Creek in front of the Valley Green Inn on Forbidden Drive. We had just finished a late brunch. "Forbidden Drive" was appropriately named as you can not drive to the Inn. You can park some distance away and walk, ride a bike, or arrive on horseback. There was a small stable next to the inn for the convenience of the equestrian crowd. The bike rack was full and three horses waited patiently at hitching posts.

### "How were your Belgian Waffles?"

"Great," I said "and they tasted even better knowing it was your treat."

### "My penance you mean."

### "Remind me to hear more of your confessions. How did you ever find this place? It's hard to believe we're in the city."

### "See that narrow path up there," Vicki said pointing to the ridge across the creek. "It's a mountain bike trail. Before Joey was born, Joe and I used to ride the trails. There's over fifty miles of them in the park. Every time we passed this spot he said we should come here to eat sometime. But, he never got that chance."

### "I'm sorry. I..."

### "It's OK. I can talk about it now. Six months after we were married his National Guard unit was called up. I received a letter from him describing how he was helping to build a school in the village where he was stationed. A week later he was dead. It was an IED. He never even saw Joey. The village was left with a hole in the ground and the foundation for the school. Life goes on and it's a beautiful day and I have something for you."

### "A drawing?" I asked, looking at the pad on her lap.

"It's an illustration for a lecture of yours; the one I caught the tail end of when I stopped in to see you two weeks ago."

### "Refresh my memory. What was I discussing?"

"The particle that the physicists in Switzerland found, the boson. Unlike many of your students, I was paying attention."

### "Hanging on my every word."

### "Evaluating your teaching."

### "How am I doing?"

### "Not bad. You could write bigger on the blackboard, though, and use more visual aids. That's what this is. I'm making one for you," she said while shading in part of her drawing with a pencil.

### "What's that—thing?" I said pointing at the drawing.

### "It's supposed to be the Higgs Boson."

"It looks like an amoeba with a face."

### "That's the way I think of it. How do you picture it? What's your mental image?"

### "A particle, a blip, a small dot, a symbol on a piece of paper. Who knows?"

### "No imagination. My boson is cuter. Has personality."

### "Does he work in McDonald's? He's standing at a counter with a menu behind him."

### "I call it McDonnelly's. The menu is a list of the masses of other particles. You said in your lecture that the Higgs boson gives mass to the other particles."

"Not exactly. I said that the Higgs field gives them mass. The Higgs boson is the particle associated with the field. Find the boson and you prove the existence of the field. That's what they are doing with the Large Hadron Collider."

### "Whatever. Anyhow, other particles come up to the counter and order a mass from Higgy. The electron asks for one, the proton—you said the proton has a mass 1836 times the mass of an electron, right?—so he asks for 1836, the mu meson for 207. See, I drew the masses like miniature burgers, sliders, lined up on a rack behind Higgy. Over here you can see the particles pick up their orders. The electron—the tiny green worm— gets a tiny bag—only one burger. The muon—she's the one that looks like a purple lady bug—has to drag this giant sack with 207 burgers. The poor proton—the hairy grapefruit with legs— has to load his order into a shopping cart. The alpha particle—the obese four-headed blob—needs a u-haul..."

### "OK. I get it. Higgy assigns the proper mass to each particle."

"Yes, and my version of the theory can be understood by children. You need a PhD to understand your version."

### "In reality it's more complicated. The particles have electric charge, and spin, and...."

### "Higgy knows all that, Frank. He asks each particle if they'd like to add fries to their order."

### "I know what you're up to. If I say you need to specify whether the charges are positive or negative you'll say that Higgy always asks if they want ketchup or mustard. Whatever they need, He has it."

### "Right. For the neutron with no electric charge Higgy shouts 'hold the onions!' Don't knock it, Frank. You guys spent billions on super-colliders to find your boson. I already have mine working, albeit at minimum wage, but he'll be in the management program soon."

### Vicki scribbled her name at the bottom of the page and tore it off the pad.

### "Scan this and put it into a PowerPoint presentation. Now your students will have something to look at the next time you lecture on the Higgs."

"Not a bad idea," I said looking at the drawing. It really wasn't. "Thanks. It might at least hold their interest."

### Vicki slid closer on the bench and I put my arm around her shoulder.

### "Hope nobody's taking pictures of us," she said.

### "Let's smile."

### She did and said, "We're a good team, Frank."

### "We are. Now if I could only convince the Vatican to put us under contract."

### "You'll think of something—or we use plan B."

### "Plan B?"

### "I become your mistress. I was thinking, it's a better deal than wife anyway. Mistresses don't cook or wash clothes, they get to eat in the best restaurants and get nice presents. Besides, I read where some of those cardinals in Rome have mistresses. What's good for the goose..."

### "Uh, huh. I don't think your 'plan B' will fly very well at the Vatican."

### Vicki tapped the tip of my nose with her index finger. "That's why they need to get crackin'—avoid another scandal."

### "I still prefer plan A. I'd miss the cooking and washing."

### I looked at the drawing she gave me. "Any more suggestions for visual aids?"

### "I have some ideas for your sermons."

### "My sermons?"

### "Yes. Oh, wait," she said standing up and shouting. "Joey and Liv, keep away from that dog and get rid of those sticks. Now!"

### Vicki sat and pointed at the dog. "Look at the size of that thing. Put a saddle on it and tie it to the hitching post and it could pass for a Shetland pony. Where was I? Oh, yes, sermons. If you don't mind me saying so they could be jazzed up a bit."

### "Jazzed up?"

### "A big screen TV behind the pulpit would be a good start. Slides to illustrate the sermon. I saw it at my parent's church in Atlanta. I could help you with it, and... Joey. Stop! We better go, Frank, before we get arrested."

### The kids were back to throwing pebbles at the ducks.

# CHAPTER 28-SHORE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

### Monday morning Angela Rossi called.

### "I have something that might interest you, Professor."

### "I thought we agreed that I'm Frank."

### "Okay, Frank, I did a little research over the weekend in the obituary archives of local newspapers looking for the deaths of priests in the last year. Came up with a list of eight names and cross-checked the names with a list of the priests named in the Grand Jury Report. Got a hit with a Father Anthony Cinelli. The obit was in the Camden Courier Post last July. He died at Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point, New Jersey. He was retired and lived with his sister across the bay in Ocean City."

### "Finding a priest on the Grand Jury list that died doesn't seem very unusual," I said. "Most were elderly."

"I agree, but there's more. I called the hospital and talked to a nurse who was on duty at the time of Cinelli's death. I identified myself and told her I was investigating the possible homicide of another priest and was looking for information that could help. I asked her outright if there was anything about the death that might be considered unusual. She wouldn't tell me anything about the medical details but did say that a priest who was visiting him left just when the code blue was called. She thought it strange that the priest did not stay to offer some prayers or at least to learn the outcome of their efforts to revive Father Cinelli."

### "That is strange. I've been present at a bedside when a code was called. You step aside and let the medical team do its job. If the patient dies you administer the last rites, if that hasn't already been done, and offer prayers for the repose of the soul. I can't imagine a priest leaving."

### "Neither can I. I'm going to take a ride down to the hospital today, flash a badge, and see if I can find out anything more. I also called the sister and she agreed to talk to me. I could use your sleuthing ability again."

### "I can't possibly get away today, Angela."

### "No, no. I don't want you to go with me. I want you to see if you can find any connection between Soroka and Cinelli. They were both in their eighties. Did they know each other? Were they in the seminary together? Did their lives intersect at any point?"

### "The archdiocese must have records on them. I have a friend at the chancery who may help, a former assistant DA."

### "Who?"

### "Monsignor Tom Lacey."

### "Slam-dunk Lacey?"

### "You know him?"

### "No, but he's a legend in the department. He was a big factor in putting away the Philly Mob."

### "I'll give him a call. Good luck at the shore."

"Thanks. One more thing. I could take a look at your computer tomorrow morning. When do you come in?"

"I'll get there about seven-thirty to drop my daughter off at day care. How about eight?"

### "Eight it is."

# CHAPTER 29-JESUS IN MY POCKET

### That afternoon in lab my green thumb was back. The students were getting a kick out of it. I was beginning to feel that maybe Joe was right and I was a witch doctor. When the lab was over Joe and I went into the adjacent storeroom and pulled a Geiger counter off a shelf. While Joe took a background count I emptied everything from my pockets and laid it all out on a table. We took a count of each individual item: my keys, handkerchief, wallet, a ball point pen, a small daily calendar, thirty-seven cents in change, a metal case for communion wafers, a small Swiss army knife, and a pack of Lance peanut butter crackers. Nada. Nothing with anything above a background count. Ditto for my belt buckle, clothing and shoes. Whatever was the cause of the unusual cosmic ray activity I was not the source of any stray radioactivity.

### On the way home Olivia and I stopped at Clara Murphy's apartment. Clara is an eighty-year-old in a wheel chair and can't get to church so I bring her Holy Communion on Monday afternoons. Whether it's the Eucharist or Olivia our visit is probably a high point in Clara's week. She had lemonade and cookies ready for us.

### "And how was your day at Munchkin House sweetheart?"

### "It was fun. I made you a pumpkin. Here."

### "It's a beautiful one, Olivia. Did you do this all by yourself?"

### "I cut it out with scissors. Miss Julia said I'm an ex'lent cutter."

### "I can see that. Put it right over there by the TV so I can see it all the time. What else did you do?"

### "Jason is in trouble again for pushing and hitting Megan, and Clarence said that Jesus would punish him because Jesus was everywhere and could see Jason. And then I said, no, he's not everywhere. He's in my daddy's pocket. Isn't that right, Daddy?"

### "You're right honey, and Clarence is right too."

### I reached into the inside pocket of my sport coat and took out the small metal case with the flat wafer I had consecrated the day before at Mass. I knelt on one knee in front of Clara's wheelchair and held the host in front of her.

"Clara, this is the body..." I stopped. My hand shook as I mentally added a few words to what Olivia had just said. "Jesus is in my daddy's pocket—but only on Mondays and not on Wednesdays." Only on Mondays when I got the strange cosmic ray behavior in my lab. Not on Wednesday when things were normal.

### Clara looked at me. "Are you okay, Father Frank?"

### "Yes, I'm fine, just a thought." Then I repeated those words that I have said thousands of times; so often that it has become routine. This time my voice trembled as I said them. "Clara, this is the body of Christ."

### "Amen," she said as I put the host in her palm.

### Clara, as did I, believed those words to be literally true, that she received the body of Christ. Did this same host have something to do with the cosmic ray phenomenon or was it just pure coincidence. The lab was scheduled again for Wednesday. I needed to tighten controls.

# CHAPTER 30-EMAIL RESURRECTION

### Angela Rossi showed up at eight-fifteen the next morning to check out my emails.

### "How was your trip to the hospital yesterday?"

### "Good. I got a partial description of the priest that visited Cinelli from one of the nurses," she said taking a notebook from her bag. "Tall, slim, six feet or more, probably older. She didn't get a good look as his face."

### "Anything suspicious about the death?"

### "Initially there was. They found a syringe on the floor next to Cinelli's bed. It was a type not commonly used by the hospital. There was no autopsy but they did do a blood test. Nothing unusual, and the syringe was found to contain a small amount of a saline solution. Harmless. He died of cardiac arrest. It was not a surprise. He was in bad shape."

### "What about the sister?"

### "Nothing very interesting. He lived with her for the past three years across the bay in Ocean City. On nice days he would go up the boardwalk and sit on a bench for hours. I asked about a computer. She said he never owned one."

### "No 'priest-should-be-truly-priest' connection," I said.

### "No. Pretty much a dead end."

### "I want to do a few things in my lab before class. Is there anything you need here before I go?"

### "I think I'm all set. I arranged for temporary administrative access to the system with the university's head of Information Technology. I promised only to look at your emails. Two things, though, before you leave."

### "Shoot."

"How long have you been at PaCom?"

### "This is my fifth year."

### "So we have potentially four full years of email traffic. And...I need a signature," she said pulling a sheet of paper from her bag. "This is a form giving me permission to snoop on your computer."

### She wrote a few lines on the paper.

"You have to sign. I'm restricting my access to emails only. No Internet history or anything like that."

### "Okay," I said and signed. "I'll leave you to your work. There's water in the fridge and snacks in the bottom desk drawer. Help yourself."

### "Wait, Frank, your 'New Mail' icon is blinking. Want me to see what it is before you go?"

### "Yes, please."

### "Well, well, well," she said. "Look at the subject space."

### It read: "PRIESTS SHOULD BE TRULY PRIESTS"

### "Respond to it. Quick!" I said.

### "Who are you?" she typed and sent it.

### "No response Frank. Wait. Here it comes."

### "Quisnam es vos?"

### "What is that, Spanish, Portuguese?"

### "Latin. It translates to, 'Who are you?' Let me sit there."

### I typed: "Frank Donnelly. Et Quisnam es vos?"

### We waited.

### "Looks like he's not there, Frank."

### And then, "Dico mihi "M".

### "He said, 'Call me 'M'. I have an idea."

### I typed: "Introibo ad altare Dei" and sent it.

### "That's the priest's opening prayer in a traditional Latin Mass, 'I will go unto the altar of God.' I want to see if he knows the proper response. Come on, come on, surprise me. Okay, here we go."

### "Very clever, Father. Am I priest or perhaps a former altar boy? Ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me. How's that?"

### "Keep me informed, Frank. Did he give the proper response?"

### "No, but it's just as good. The Latin translates to, 'deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.' It's another line from the Mass."

### We waited. There was nothing else.

### "Pen pal, aka 'M', just made his first mistake, Frank. Now we know something about him. He could be a priest or a former altar boy."

### "Or a classical scholar," I said. "Or a Latin teacher, or a seminarian, but it certainly narrows the field. I need to get to class. I'll be back about ten-thirty."

# CHAPTER 31-EEQMC2

### "I forgot to give you my password," I said when I returned after class.

### She flipped a few pages in her notebook, held her hand over the bottom half of a page, and showed me what she had written.

### "Am I right?"

### She had written, "EEQMC2."

### "Yes," I said, surprised that she had it.

### She moved her hand and uncovered the rest of the page.

### "Meaning this," she said "Einstein's famous equation, E=MC2?"

### "Right again," I said "but how did you...?"

### "I had it with me when I came in. I guessed it over the weekend. I tried combinations that would be meaningful to you—your birth date, address, et cetera, even the name of your pet dog."

### "Daisy," I said. "Where did you find that?"

### "Same place I found your password; your web site."

### She typed briefly on her laptop and came up with my web site and clicked on my bio.

"Here's the picture of you with the dog standing next to your car. The caption mentions her name. German Shepherd?"

### "Yes. It's my mother's dog. When she moved into a condo Daisy moved in with us. She's great with kids and a good watch dog too."

"Anyhow, the back of your car with Pennsylvania tag EEQMC2 is clearly visible in the photo. I went to the PaCom web site and logged on using your email address as ID and EEQMC2 as the password. It worked. Very appropriate combination for a physicist but not very secure, especially since it's also your license plate. Hackers know it's a favorite and it probably took no longer for your pen pal to guess it than it took me. By the way, did you set up that new account I suggested?"

"Yes, a hotmail account for family and friends."

### "Good. Leave your university password as is. We don't want pen pal to know you suspect a leak."

### "OK," I said. "Did you find out anything about the emails?"

### "Quite a bit. Did you know that you had six hundred plus unread emails?"

### "What?"

### "Apparently this is what happened. Almost four years ago your original email address was changed from fdonnelly2@pacom.edu to fdonnelly@pacom.edu. The numeral two was dropped when the owner of the original fdonnelly handle, Fiona Donnelly, retired from the faculty."

### "I had forgotten about that."

### "Well you continued to receive emails at the fdonnelly2 address. It was never closed. You would be unaware of their existence unless you logged on under the old name; which evidently you never did."

### "But I had sent out email notices to everyone informing them of the change of address."

### "To everyone on your contact list, but your pen pal never got the notice and kept sending emails to the old address— for a while—until he probably noticed the change on your website. Of course, the spam also kept pouring in to the old address too."

### "Usually when I received one of the "priest" emails I replied with 'who are you'. Any address that I send an email to is automatically added to my contact list. If I received any emails from pen pal before the address change he would have been on that list and received the notice of the change."

### "He would have been on the list but I doubt he read your notice. Look at this list I made of the thirteen emails with the 'PRIESTS SHOULD BE TRULY PRIESTS' subject line. I traced the locations they were sent from."

### I looked at the list. The locations were mainly libraries and senior centers in Philadelphia, the surrounding suburbs, and South Jersey. There was one from the airport and one from somewhere on campus. Also, all the email addresses were different.

"I may have more than one pen pal."

### "I don't think so," she said. "I've run into this before. It's a way to avoid being traced. Go into a library, a senior center—incidentally, we now know that pen pal is a senior citizen or can pass for one— or any place where there are computers for public use and set up an email account with yahoo or hotmail or any of a dozen other providers of free accounts. Send your message and walk out. No credit card number, no billing address, a phony name and birth date. I can trace the location but not the sender. Pen pal probably used an email account once and then abandoned it. That's why he never got your notice of an address change. Check the dates of the emails on that list. I am interested in whether any of the dates precede your wife's death."

### I checked the list. The dates were clustered in two groups; one almost four years ago, the other about two years ago. I took a pen and circled one of the emails.

### "This earliest one is dated five days after Connie's death," I said.

### "So none before," she said as she scrolled down a list on my computer. "The earliest date on any of these unread emails is for some spam the day that the account was switched. And that is—let's see—about two weeks before your wife's death, which means there were no pen pal emails before your wife was killed."

### "Which rules out the emails being intended as a threat to Connie," I said. "Thank God."

### What do you want to do with these unread emails in your old account? They're mostly spam and university memos."

### "Just leave them, I guess. I'll root through them to see if there is anything important when I have time. Thanks for doing this, Angela. Anything more on the Soroka case yet?"

### "They'll compare the blood sample from the candle to see if it came from him and analyze the wax samples. Also, the CSIs found a hair embedded in the candle. That will be checked too. They found a few smudged prints on the candle but nothing where it would have been held if swung like a club. It was wiped or whoever handled it wore gloves."

### "How about the FBI cyber forensic lab?"

### I'm taking the computer and cell phone out there this afternoon. I'll give you a buzz when I know something definite. Meantime I'm outta here."

### Angela Rossi wasn't gone a minute before Martha was at my door.

### "You know, Frank, for a minister of the gospel there seems to be an unusual number of good looking women in and out of your office; all those coeds who just can't solve a problem without your help, and Vicki of course."

### I laughed. "That one was a cop, Martha. Philadelphia Police. It wasn't a social call. I have a problem with thefts of my email. She's trying to trace the culprit."

### "Any luck?"

### "Not yet. What do you have?"

### "Here's the minutes of the Senate meeting. Do me a favor and look them over before I copy them and send them out. Wasn't that a hoot about the foreign language thing? We'd make Freud take Psych 101."

### "Or Einstein take introductory physics," I said

### "I'll get these back to you tomorrow."

After lunch I called Tim Boyle in the Newman Center. On Wednesdays he celebrates Mass at noon in the chapel. Occasionally I give him a break. I volunteered to say Mass the following day. "Go over to Juniata Park and play nine holes, Tim." He jumped at my offer.

# CHAPTER 32-MORE COSMIC RAYS

### More students than I expected showed up for Wednesday's Mass, probably because of mid-terms. After Mass I stopped in the faculty dining room, ordered a salad and a turkey sandwich, and suffered through twenty minutes of conversation about the economy at a table with faculty from the business school. I tried to steer things toward a more interesting subject by asking if anyone had ever petted a shark. That triggered a dissertation on the investment opportunities in fish farming. In desperation I tried "Hey, how about those Eagles on Sunday?" I got some relief with that.

### Walking back to my office I put my hand over the case in my breast pocket containing the host I had just consecrated at Mass. I felt uneasy about planning to experiment on it but I had to know. The plan was that if I got an increase in cosmic ray activity in my lab I would get Joe Amanti's help with more controlled experiments later. The lab was scheduled from two o'clock until three-fifty. I asked Joe if he could be available to help me with something at four o'clock if I needed him. He said he was good until five.

### At one-thirty I set up the aquariums and then went back to my office to give the dry ice a chance to cool the alcohol vapor before the students arrived. I straightened up my desk and lobbed Olivia's empty morning juice box into the waste basket under some framed mementos: a diploma from Kenyon College, two from MIT, and two photos. In one I was shaking hands with John Paul II and in another I was dunking the ball in a high school basketball game. The two are separated by seven years and a miracle. In the first I was a sickly ten-year-old with no hair undergoing chemotherapy. In the second I was a healthy teenager free of any cancer. Supernatural intervention or medical cure? I don't know. I do know I made a bargain with God; cure me and I would become a priest. God kept his side of the bargain and I kept mine—so far anyhow. I looked at the picture of John Paul. He didn't just shake my hand that day. He asked my name, what my illness was, and put his hands on my head. He told me he would pray for me and then said words that he had repeated often to millions around the world, especially when he addressed young people. He said, "Be not afraid." I sat and picked up a pencil from my desk and waggled it at the picture.

### "I'm trying JP. I'm trying, but I could use a little more help."

### I went to lab. A half hour later I called Joe on my cell phone. "Joe, I can use your help. About a half hour or so at four?"

### "You doing the rain dance again?"

### "I'm afraid so."

### "I'll bring a Geiger counter."

### By four o'clock all of the students were gone from the lab. Joe came in with a small Geiger counter. He put it on a lab bench along the wall, plugged it in, and turned it on.

### "I'm setting the timer for a five-minute background count," he said.

### He threw the start toggle and walked over to where I was sitting.

### "So, what are we up to here, Frank?"

### "Go over and take a look at the cloud chambers."

### Joe went over and said, "Looks pretty normal, Frank."

### "Now watch."

### I walked over and stood next to Joe. There was an immediate increase in the number of tracks.

### "Yikes," he said. "It is you."

### "Sit down, Joe. I want to show you something."

### I took the small case from my pocket and laid it on the table.

### "Do you know what this is?"

### "Looks like a woman's compact; a small one. My wife has something similar only a bit larger. It has a small powder puff and a mirror inside."

### "Does it have a cross engraved on the top like this one?"

### "Compact for a stylish nun?" he quipped. "A very small nun."

### I played along. "Yeah, the Little Sisters of the Poor."

### I opened the case and pushed it closer to Joe so he could see the host inside. "It's used for carrying Holy Communion to patients in a hospital, or nursing home, or to shut-ins. I had one in my pocket last Monday and Monday a week ago."

### "Days you saw increased cosmic ray activity," Joe said.

### "Right, but not last Wednesday when the activity was normal."

### "So, you suspect that the host or the case or both is responsible."

### "It's got to be. Let's get to work," I said and opened a spreadsheet on my laptop to enter data.

### A half hour later we had exhausted every possibility. Nothing we tested produced a count significantly different from a background count; not the host, not the case, not anything on me or anything in the vicinity of the aquariums.

"Can you think of anything else, Frank?"

### I could not and must have looked upset.

### "Are you OK, buddy?"

### "I'm OK. I just don't like this. Your witch doctor joke doesn't seem so funny anymore."

### "Look, Frank. There has to be a rational explanation for this. Maybe it's the Geiger counter."

### "We can check that easy enough."

### I went into the storeroom next to the lab and took a radioactive disk out of the small lead safe and brought it back to the lab.

### "Flip the switch," I said while I held the disk under the Geiger tube. There was an immediate response from the counter.

### 'There's our answer," I said. "It's not the equipment."

### "Why don't we take another shot at it with a scintillation counter?" Joe said.

### "No, that's enough. We're beating a dead horse. I don't get it. We can see the tracks from the increased activity in the cloud chambers when I bring the host near. We can photograph them. We're not imagining the thing. So why aren't the particles causing the tracks also triggering the Geiger counter?"

### "Like I said, Frank, there has to be a rational explanation. We just haven't hit on it yet. Let's sleep on it."

### "Yeah, we'll come up with something. Thanks for your help, Joe. You go. I'll close up shop and pick up Olivia."

# CHAPTER 33-IT'S MURDER NOW

### Tom Lacey called me that night. "Frank, here's what I've found so far. Soroka and Cinelli were stationed at the same parish together in the late sixties— Good Shepherd in North Philly. Soroka came to the parish in '66; Cinelli in '67. In February '69 both were transferred; Soroka to a parish in Buck's County after spending three months at a retreat house. Cinelli was made chaplain of a retirement home for priests in Downingtown."

### "They didn't last long at Good Shepherd," I said.

### "No. The usual assignment to a parish is for five years and routine reassignments typically occur in the summer, not in the middle of winter. They were transferred for a reason. There was a credible accusation of sexual abuse brought against Cinelli by a John Toner who was an altar boy at the time. Toner was questioned by the Grand Jury. I got his phone number from the DA's office. He was reluctant to say much about it. He did say that there was a least one other boy involved. Toner was in the eighth grade at the time and graduated in June of '68. He thinks the other boy was in the sixth or seventh. No full name, just a nickname, 'Mickey' or something like that."

### "What about the pastor at the time?"

### "No help there. Long deceased and most of the parish records were destroyed when a water main burst in 2001 and flooded the church basement."

### "Okay, Tom, thanks. I'll pass this on to Detective Rossi. She may want to talk to you. She tells me you're a legend in the police department for putting away some of the mob."

### "I played a small part in that, yes. Some of the guys I put away are getting out soon."

### "Worried?"

### "Not really. They were gangsters but not crazies. In fact I became friends with one of them, a guy by the name of Fatty Mullica. I visit him occasionally at Graterford. Darn good chess player. He's had plenty of time to practice."

### "They all had nicknames, didn't they?"

### "Oh yeah. Benny the Rat, Joey Chicken Wings, Cheesecake Anthony. They were some bunch. I think the local media is mad at me for removing their source of colorful mob stories. I have a few myself. Remind me to tell you about the softball game between the mob and the cops sometime."

### "Can't wait. Thanks again."

### I did pass the information to Angela. She wasted no time in adding to it. I got a call from her the following afternoon.

### "Frank, the blood on the candle matched Soroka's and they got a positive match on the hair also. The wax in the wound was 55% beeswax; same as the candle. No bees wax in the sample from the pipe. All paraffin. We now have a murder investigation. Nice going. Two homicide detectives were assigned to it. I met with them yesterday and gave them everything that I've found concerning the emails and the possible connection with Cinelli's death. I'm to work with them on the information technology aspects of the case. I interpret that broadly so I went up to Good Shepherd this morning to see if I could find some information. Most of the parish records from the sixties were destroyed by water in the church basement but not the records for the altar boys. They were supervised by the nuns and the records of their assignments were kept in the school. Father Gonzalez, the pastor, showed me where they were and I rooted around in the filing cabinets but not for long. I found the files in about five minutes. Those nuns were incredibly organized."

### "Find anything interesting?" I asked.

### "Yes. John Toner's name appears on the Mass assignment lists in '66, '67, and '68. I assume that he was in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades those years. I searched the names in those years for ones that would fit the 'Mickey' nick name. There was a Michael Jerome Eddy in the records for '68, '69, and '70. Assuming that in those three years he was in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades it puts Eddy two years behind Toner and makes him a possible fit for 'Mickey'. By the way, do you remember what your pen pal called himself the other day?"

### "Dico mihi 'M'. Call me 'M'," I said.

### "Right. So now I need to find a Michael Jerome Eddy. If he's still in the area it shouldn't be too hard. It's not a common name. You can help, Frank. Most of the boys graduating from Good Shepherd at that time would have gone to high school at Northwest Catholic in Roxborough. The school was closed ten years ago but there may still be an alumni association with records. Could you check it out?"

### "Sure."

### "There is something else. The forensic lab scrubbed Soroka's hard drive and came up with good stuff. They discovered some interesting accounting methods in St. Gabriel's financial records. Looks like Father Soroka was embezzling money from the Sunday collections. Also, the threatening email he received the day of his death at about two o'clock came from a computer in a senior center in Allentown. If the killer was in that gray SUV Monsignor Smith saw leaving St. Gabe's about 10:30 he would have had plenty of time to get to Allentown by two."

### "But why send a threatening email? If the sender was the killer he would have known that Soroka was dead."

### "I don't know. Possibly so that you, and others, would ask that very question, Frank. A red herring. Make it look like he had no idea Soroka was dead."

### "Yeah, maybe."

### "Now here's another gem," she said. "They found an email from last year announcing a reunion of all priests who were ordained from St. Charles' Seminary in the 1950s. It was sent to a group and one of the addresses on the list was 'ACinelliOC@aol.com'."

### "Anthony Cinelli Ocean City," I said. "But he didn't have a computer."

### "Anna Cinelli Ocean City," Angela said. "The sister. I called her. She used to have a computer but hardly ever used it. It broke down and she never replaced it. Her brother occasionally used the computers at the Ocean City senior center. Apparently he took over her email account as his own. When she told me he never owned a computer I never thought to ask if he had an email account."

### "Can you find his emails?"

### "Already have. I asked her if she'd check and she said I might as well check them myself and gave me the password. The New Mail file contained mostly spam and a couple of acknowledgements of book purchases from Amazon and Borders. The reunion announcement was in the Old Mail file along with a bunch of the 'priest-should-be-truly-priests' ones. They stopped after his death."

"Holy smokes! So, he may have been threatened like Soroka."

### "But not quite the same as Soroka," she said. "Remember, Soroka's email arrived a few hours after he died."

### "Whatever that means," I said.

### "You, Cinelli, and Soroka were on your pen pal's list," she said.

### "And two of us are dead," I said. "I'm not happy about that."

### "I don't blame you. I wonder who else might be on the list. How difficult would it be to contact every priest in the diocese and ask if they have ever received a similar email?"

### "I have no idea but I'll find out."

### "Good. I'm still bothered by the behavior of that priest or pseudo priest who visited Cinelli before he died. The hospital gave me the names of two priests from Somers Point and Ocean City parishes who usually visit the sick at the hospital. I contacted both. One had visited him when he first went into the hospital but neither said they visited him the day he died."

### "It could have been a friend of his."

### "I asked his sister about that possibility. She said a number of his priest friends attended his funeral and concelebrated the Mass but she could think of none that fit the description the nurse had given me. I wish the hospital had done an autopsy on him."

### "They had no reason to."

### "No, and I'd need more than an email and my uneasiness about a mysterious man in black to have him dug up."

### "Anything on his cell phone?"

### "Nothing there."

### "Well, keep me informed, Angela."

### "Will do."

### When I called Tom and asked if he could check alumni records for a Michael Eddy he said the name rang a bell and promised to look into it and also see about contacting the diocesan priests about the email question.

# CHAPTER 34-BLESSING THE ANIMALS

Georgina Rutherford and I dated briefly in college and have remained friends ever since. Her first year at Kenyon she was a physics major and then switched to psychology. Our paths crossed again years later when she was ordained an Episcopal priest one year after me. Now she was at Holy Trinity in Bryn Mawr. I needed to talk to her. She was tied up most of the week. Saturday was "Bless the Animals" day. The blessings would be on the lawn in front of the church at ten. She suggested I come out and bring Olivia and her pets. Did she bless rodents? "Anything. Last year I blessed a tarantula."

### Saturday morning, after a detour to pick up Vicki and Joey, I headed for Bryn Mawr with Vicki and me in front and Joey and Olivia strapped into their car seats in back. The Deluxe Hamster Habitat rested on the seat between them with the center seat belt looped around it. Daisy sat in the back of the Outback staring out the rear window.

### "Do your mice like water?" Joey asked.

### "They're not mice," Olivia said "they're hamsters. Why?"

### "Cause they're gonna get soaked. 'Jever get a blessin'? The priest runs around church with a big rattle and shakes water on you."

### "They'll be in the Habitat. They won't get wet."

### "Then the blessin' won't count. You gotta take 'em outa the cage."

### "Daddy, I don't want Jack and Maria to get blessed. They'll run away. 'Member when we gave them a shower in the bath tub and Maria tried to run down the drain?"

### "You won't have to take them out sweetheart. They don't have to get wet," I said.

### In the rear view mirror I caught Olivia sticking her tongue out at Joey. Vicki turned toward me with an incredulous look on her face.

### "You didn't really try to give hamsters a shower did you?"

### "Why not? They were smelly and needed it. It was safe. They couldn't get out of the tub. Hand-held shower. Baby shampoo. Very gentle. You just have to be sure the stopper is in the drain, otherwise they might wind up doing the backstroke in a sewer plant."

### "The poor things must have been terrified. You're lucky they didn't bite you."

### I didn't say anything.

### Vicki laughed. "They did bite you. Serves you right." She leaned forward in her seat and pointed. "There's a parking space next to that minivan. Geez, look at them all. I thought there'd be mostly dogs and cats. Can a horse really be considered a pet?"

### "Mom, look at the chickens," Joey said. "Can I get one?"

### "They're not good in an apartment, Joey."

### Vicki turned toward me and added sotto voce, "I like to see you give a shower to a chicken."

### Olivia and Joey got at the end of the line with the hamsters and Daisy while Vicki and I found a bench near where Georgina was giving the blessings. She waved to us as we sat down. Children were introducing their pets and saying a few words about them before they were blessed. When it was Olivia's turn she said that Maria was always throwing up. Somebody asked how she knew which one was a boy and which a girl. Olivia said she just knew. After six months with no offspring I suspected that maybe Jack was really a Jacqueline or Maria a Mario. Joey told the crowd that Daisy was a police dog. I don't know where he got that idea.

### After the last gerbil and goldfish was beatified Georgina came over to the bench and I introduced her to Vicki. I showed her the digital photos of the cloud chamber tracks and explained their origin.

"How sure are you of this?" Georgina asked.

### "I've replicated the results a number of times."

"On the phone you said you wanted me to help. I would be interested in seeing the experiment. Is the equipment still set up?"

### "For the next four weeks. The students do the lab on Mondays and Wednesdays from two to four."

### Georgina checked a pocket diary. "I could make it this Monday."

### "Great," I said. "I was wondering if you might also consider the ecumenical experiment I mentioned which could..."

### "Whoa. For now I'd like to be an observer not an independent variable. Okay?"

### Vicki interrupted with "What's the big mystery?"

### "A simple extension of the cloud chamber experiment," I said to Vicki.

"Monday afternoon then. I'll give your name to the guard at the faculty lot."

### We pulled Olivia and Joey away from a group of children petting two small goats and headed back to the city.

### "My hamsters didn't get wet at all," Olivia said "and Maria hasn't thrown up once."

### "I liked the baby dragon," said Joey.

### "Lizard," Vicki said.

"McDonald's?" I asked.

"No fries though—apples," Vicki said.

# CHAPTER 35-GEORGINA IN THE LAB

### Georgina arrived Monday afternoon about fifteen minutes before my lab ended. She wore a dark blue business suit, white blouse, and small gold cross on a thin chain around her neck. I introduced her as a visiting professor to the students. That wasn't a lie. She has a Ph.D in Philosophy and is an adjunct professor at Eastern College where she teaches occasional courses in ethics and the philosophy of science. During the lab she walked around the room with me. I had the case with the consecrated host for Clara in my jacket pocket. Every time we went near the cloud chambers there was a burst of activity. I gave the case to Georgina and she got the same result.

### Back in my office I fixed us both a cup of decaf. "Were you surprised?" I asked.

### "Yes, it's very strange. I felt like a magician who could perform a trick but didn't know how I did it. Are you sure the case isn't radioactive?"

### "Positive."

### "Are you considering divine intervention?"

### "Reluctantly—as one of many hypotheses. Right now I'm trying to accumulate facts. So my question now is, do you want to participate?"

### Georgina took a sip of her coffee and put the cup on the edge of my desk. "In support of your reluctant hypothesis? Let me tell you my thoughts. Suppose we repeat the experiments with a host that I have consecrated. I believe that a consecrated host is truly the body of Christ, the same as you, despite the fact that your church considers my ordination invalid. Let's further assume that the experiment 'works', that is we get the same result that you got with the hosts you consecrated. What do we then have?"

### "We have this peculiar behavior of cosmic rays in the presence of a host," I said, "a host consecrated by either an ordained Catholic priest or an ordained Episcopal priest who happens to be a woman."

### "Ok, let's call all that 'Stage One'," she said.

### "Stage One it is."

### "Good. Now, Stage Two. If your divine hypothesis is correct my successful experiment would testify to the validity of Anglican Holy Orders and the validity of women's ordinations, both of which are denied by the Catholic Church."

### "It would be revolutionary," I said. "Physics in support of religion."

### "I'm not so sure Rome would see it that way," she said. "I think 'physics in support of heresy' might be closer to their take on it. Also, physics replacing religion has historically been the case: Greek gods moving the planets, angels flapping their wings to keep the same planets moving, earth gods causing volcanos, sea gods causing hurricanes. Not a single supernatural explanation of a natural phenomenon has held up against scientific scrutiny. Not one."

### "And," I said 'I believe we will eventually find a natural explanation for this cosmic ray strangeness too but let's just explore the divine hypothesis, unlikely as it may be."

### "Okay, let's speculate that the explanation of these strange observations is that a consecrated host contains the real presence of Christ who then— you'll have to help me out on this —who then does what?"

### "Who creates, channels, redirects, whatever, the sub atomic particles that make the tracks; direct intervention by the deity into the physical world."

### "Which is the definition of a miracle," she said. "Let's examine that. I find major problems both scientific and spiritual."

### "I'm listening."

### "The spiritual first. The only reason that we would entertain a divine hypothesis at all is because of our belief. Give the results of these same experiments to non-believers and the probability that they would come up with divine intervention is zilch. They might agree that the phenomenon is mysterious or weird but they are not going to inject God into the mix."

### "Okay. Good point. What's your scientific objection?"

### She drank the last of her coffee and threw the cup in the basket. "The hypothesis is 'ad hoc'. It applies only 'to this' phenomenon. We don't use God to explain any other physical phenomena. Not anymore. If we use God to explain the cloud chamber tracks how do we know that God exists? Where's the proof? Belief isn't good enough for a scientific explanation."

### "I know this has weakness as a scientific experiment but supposes we look at it as purely a religious experiment. I'll repeat my original question. Do you want to participate?"

### "I'm undecided. Let me tell you why. First of all, what you are asking me to do is to test my faith. I don't need proof of my beliefs. Now you ask me if I want to test them out, to make a choice which you did not have to make. You just fell into this."

### "True," I said.

### "Secondly, I think you're jumping the gun. I think you probably will find a rational explanation for all this. Give yourself a chance to find it and if that fails then we can take the divine hypothesis more seriously and I'll reconsider my involvement. Does that seem reasonable?"

### "Fair enough," I said. "So you are interested?"

### "How could I not be? This is fascinating. Keep me in the loop. I wish I knew where you go from here."

### I thought about what Georgina said when she left. Maybe I didn't know where I was going but I knew where I wanted to go. I wished that my life could get back to normal. I turned on my laptop to check emails but opened its "restore" utility instead. If the performance of the computer deteriorates I can restore the system to an earlier point in time when there was no problem. I have the setting adjusted so that the computer automatically establishes restore points weekly. I scrolled down the list of points to a week last summer in mid august. I had just finished summer school classes and Olivia and I were down the Jersey shore at my mother's place. Vicki and Joey came down and we spent a couple of idyllic days on the beach during the day and putting the kids on the rides at Wonderland on the boardwalk at night. If our lives had a "restore" utility, that week would be my restore point. No CDF. No threatening emails. No murders. No errant cosmic rays. Life does have restore points of a sort. It's called nostalgia. There's just no return key. No, my life couldn't return to normal. "Normal" priests did not have daughters, girl friends, or fiancées. Almost normal would be nice though.

# CHAPTER 36-KING KONG

### Gravity is certainly normal and Tuesday morning I immersed myself in it. We no longer need angels flapping their wings behind the planets to keep them moving. Newton replaced the angels with a force; the same force that makes an apple fall to the ground— or a giant ape fall from the top of a building. I wheeled a large cart into the lecture hall. It held a small stuffed monkey, a two by eight-foot-long slab of plywood, cut and painted to vaguely resemble the Empire State Building, and a box of stop watches. Class on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 to 10:15 was physics fun time.

### When I started at PaCom I inherited the department's general education physics course. It bored the students and it bored me so I changed the syllabus slightly and renamed the course "Hollywood Physics"; same physics principles but different applications. Now we use physics to calculate how fast Superman must be travelling at takeoff to actually "leap a tall building with a single bound". It's more interesting than the same problem using a cannon ball. So is a calculation to determine if a thin spider web is strong enough to support Spiderman's weight and also supply the centripetal force necessary to swing from building to building. Now we have a waiting list to get into the course. This was "Retro Week" starring the 1933 version of King Kong.

### "Those of you on the ends of the rows please come up and grab some stop watches and pass them down your row. There's not enough for everyone, so share. I want you to observe this film clip carefully. I'll ask a few questions about it when it finishes." I clicked on the laptop plugged into the projector.

### Arms lifted, wounded in the chest and bleeding, King Kong rose to his full height and swatted at the planes as if they were annoying mosquitoes. A Curtis biplane headed directly at him, its twin nose guns blazing. Rat-a-tat-tat. Clutching the fatal wound to his neck Kong gave up the fight and fell to the street below. Barump! I clicked the pause button and faced the students.

### "Okay. Before I showed you that clip I asked that you observe it carefully. How many did?" Most hands went up, some tentatively. "All right. When Kong let go and fell, about how long did it take for him to hit the ground? One second, five, ten?"

### Most hands quickly went down. I called on one of the remaining brave souls. "John?"

### "About five seconds?"

### "How many think five? — more than that? — less?" I'll get back to that question in a minute. Let's talk about the fall. Obviously the film makers didn't take a huge gorilla up to the top of the Empire State and push him off. Right?"

### Some laughter. They were waking up. "No, they used a model." I walked over to my plywood Empire State Building that was standing upright on its wooden stand. "Here's my version of that model—straight from your local Home Depot. And, here's King Kong," I said holding up the stuffed monkey. "Curious George has agreed to stand in."

### More laughter. Some of the students were smiling and leaning forward in their seats anticipating my next move. "We're going to make our own King Kong movie —at least pretend to. I think we're all set. When I drop George start your stop watches and stop them as soon as you see him hit the floor. I'll drop on 'go'. Ready, get set—go!"

### Lots of stop watches clicking, lots of mumbling, and a few curses.

### "Not so easy, is it? The fall takes less than a second. What are some of your results?"

### I put a sampling of the shouted numbers on the board. They ranged from about a half second to a little under one second. "Quite a scatter," I said. Okay, good. Now, watch the film clip again. This time use the stop watches to time Kong's fall on the screen. Turn on when his feet separate from the building and off when you hear him hit the ground."

### I clicked on the "play" button. Kong leaned back. He fell, bumped a ledge, fell the rest of the way. Barump! "Okay. Before I ask what times you measured let me ask this question. When Kong fell did it seem realistic? What I mean is did the time of the fall feel right? Not too fast or not too slow? The real time of fall for the miniature Kong in the film to fall from the model building was just about what you got with our model—an average of about seven tenths of a second. Now, what times did you get for the fall on screen?"

### I wrote "Screen Time of Fall" on the chalkboard. "Carl?"

### "I got eight point two seconds"

### "Maria?"

### "Seven point nine."

### After collecting about twenty measurements I had the students average them. They got eight point one seconds.

### "So, in the studio it took about seven tenths of a second for the model Kong to fall but on the screen it takes over eight seconds. What did they do? Peter."

### "They played it back in slow motion—slowed down the projector in the theater by a factor of—he grabbed his calculator—a factor of eight point one divided by point seven or...eleven point six. Roughly twelve times slower."

### "You're almost right, Peter. However, they did it at the other end. Filmed the drop faster than the normal frame rate so that when the film is played back at the normal projector frame rate in a theater it takes much longer. You'll have another chance to observe King Kong before Thursday's class. Pick up the hand-out problems on your way out. In one of them you must use the kinematic equations for free fall to calculate the time to fall from the real Empire State Building and to fall from the model used in the film. Take the height of the model to be eight feet." One hand went up.

### "What's the height of the Empire State Building?"

### "That's part of the problem. Google it. Also, the 'youtube' address for the clip I just showed you is on the sheet."

### My cell phone vibrated on my belt. Caller ID displayed the number for Munchkin House. Was Olivia sick?

### "Okay, see you Thursday," I said to the class.

# CHAPTER 37-OLIVIA'S CLOSE CALL

### I stepped into the adjacent storeroom to take the call.

### "This is Louise Carpenter, Dr. Donnelly. I just wanted to check with you. We have only the names and pictures of your mother and Mrs. Meyers as authorized to pick up Olivia and Mr. Donnelly is here and wants to take her..."

### "Who?"

### "Mr. Donnelly. Your father?"

### "Louise, listen to me closely. My father died five years ago."

### "Oh my gosh!"

### "Stay calm Louise. Can this guy hear you?"

### "No. He's on the enclosed porch. But he can see me."

### "Are you on the phone in the hallway?"

### "Yes."

### "Where's Olivia?"

### "She's in the library with the other children for story time."

### "Okay. Now, push the button by your phone for campus security. When you hang up pick up a child's jacket, any jacket, from the coat rack and walk into the library as if nothing is wrong and you're going to fetch Olivia. When you get inside lock the door. I'll be right there."

### I would have sprinted to Munchkin House if I could. Classes were changing and getting through the hundreds of students and faculty crowding the Quad was like trying to pick my way through a maze. When I finally got there four campus police Segways and a Philadelphia Police Department squad car with its roof lights flashing were in the driveway. I bounded up the porch steps and through the door, my heart pounding, and bumped headlong into Chief Robinson of the campus police.

### "She's okay, Doc. She's okay. The guy was gone when we got here. The PPD officers are in Mrs. Carpenter's office taking a statement. They'll want to get some information from you also."

### "In a minute," I said. "I want to see my daughter." I headed toward the library door where Mrs. Bertino was standing.

### "Olivia doesn't know anything about this, Doctor Donnelly. Maybe it would be better to leave it that way; not scare her or the other children. They're in the middle of a Peter Rabbit story."

### To ease my fears Chief Robinson came over with another campus cop.

### "Doc, this is Carlos Ramirez. Carlos is going to remain here for the rest of the morning and this afternoon 'til the shift change at three when another officer will stay until closing. What happened today should not have occurred. I'll send an email or a letter out today to the parents of every child at Munchkin House describing what happened and my decision to tighten security by assigning an officer to permanent Munchkin House duty. No one should have to worry about their child's safety when at school. I'll worry about my budget later."

### I shook hands with Robinson and Ramirez and thanked them. Both were armed. Our campus police are not "rent-a-cops" but real police with full arrest powers. Robinson led me into Mrs. Carpenter's office where I talked to the PPD officers for a few minutes. The younger of the two officers said they had a description of the suspect and would arrange for someone from police headquarters with an Identikit to visit Mrs. Carpenter in the afternoon in the hopes of getting a likeness. The older officer said that maybe I would be able to identify "the creep".

### I left after thanking Mrs. Carpenter and picked my way through the small group of students who had been attracted by the flashing bar on the squad car.

### "Was it a bomb threat, professor? Was anyone hurt?"

### Another kind of threat I thought. I stopped in the chapel at the Newman Center. I needed to calm down and talk to my boss.

# CHAPTER 38-OLIVIA GETS HER WAY

### I lied to Tom Lacey. I do scare easily. After I left the Newman Center I walked around campus letting off steam and resisting the impulse to go back to Munchkin House and take Olivia home. Finally, I forced myself to go back to my office and prepare for my one o'clock class. Lunch was a pack of peanut butter crackers and a Hershey bar from the emergency rations in my desk drawer. My mind refused to get serious about celestial mechanics so I lifted some problems from a couple of textbooks and made six copies of the set for the students in my theoretical physics class.

### "I want you to work on these problems together this afternoon. Make yourselves comfortable in the seminar room. None of the four are easy but to make it worthwhile I guarantee that at least one of them will be on the test next week. I'll be in my office if you need help." The students did a good job hiding their disappointment at missing my lecture on planetary transfer orbits.

### I puttered in my office, straightening books on the shelves, wiping the inside of the microwave, and taking everything out of my briefcase and holding it over the wastebasket to knock out the dirt and crumbs. That was such I good idea I did the same with each of my desk drawers. I found a lost pair of sunglasses, a half-eaten candy bar, and a golf ball. When my office looked better than it had in years I tidied up my computer, defragmenting the hard drive, scanning for viruses, and getting rid of temporary files. While deleting emails that the spam filter had missed a new entry announced itself with a beep. In the subject bar, all in capital letters, appeared, "PRIESTS SHOULD BE TRULY PRIESTS." The message was, "JUST WANTED YOU TO SEE HOW EASY IT WOULD BE. DON'T IGNORE MY WARNINGS."

### I immediately replied, "Who are you?"

### No answer. The sender's email address was a chilling "icuOlivia@gmail.com." Again I typed, "Who are you?" Nothing, but I already knew who it was; Pen Pal, aka "M", aka "the creep". I saved the message and forwarded copies to Angela Rossi and Chief Robinson.

### I had enough threats for one day and picked up Olivia early. We went to her favorite playground where she played on the "big girl" swings. Olivia has the pumping action down pat and can now hit the bumps without any help from me. We made a stop for Chinese take-out and another stop, by request, at McDonald's. My mother was surprised and happy to see us.

### "This is a treat, Frank. I was getting ready to open a can of soup for myself. I love chicken with broccoli. Now, I don't want to interfere but how can you feed chicken nuggets and French fries to this child? And a chocolate milkshake?"

### "She can eat her peas and carrots tomorrow, Mom. Today she wanted a happy meal and today Olivia gets whatever she wants."

### "Can I have two stories before bedtime, Daddy."

### "You can have three."

### "And you won't skip any pages, Daddy?"

### "Not a one, sweetheart."

### I learned a few things that day. Since Father Soroka's death was not an accident then the email was likely from his killer and the veiled threats in the previous "priests should be truly priests" emails were now all too real. Could they also be connected to the threats to my priesthood from the CDF?

### Olivia fell asleep half way through her second story. I tried to watch TV. A Fox News commentator was strongly hinting that God was on the side of the Republicans. On MSNBC He seemed to be favoring the Democrats. Was He on my side or the CDF's? I was certain He wasn't on a killer's side. I prayed for guidance; for how to protect those I loved, for how to deal with the CDF, with what was going on in a two-gallon aquarium in my lab, and most of all, with my quest to marry Vicki.

### Later I took my Bible from the drawer in my bedside table. I fanned the pages, and stuck my finger blindly on a page. I read a passage from Joshua.

### Be strong and of good cheer,

### be not afraid,

### neither be thou dismayed:

### for the Lord God is with thee,

### withersoever thou goest.

### "Be not afraid"; the words that John Paul had said to me so long ago. Okay, I'd try. In the meantime I was not going to sit around waiting for another shoe to drop, either from "the creep" or from the CDF. I needed help from Angela Rossi and her colleagues to nail pen pal. This had to stop. And I needed help with the cloud chamber experiments

#

# CHAPTER 39-DOUBT

### The following afternoon I took the digital cameras from the cosmic ray experiment back to my office and transferred almost four hundred photos into the computer. Fifty-three showed noticeably increased activity; presumably those taken when I was near the cloud chambers. Most of the extra tracks were not unusual except for some straight and horizontal tracks which did not resemble typical cosmic ray activity. It was not beyond my students to perpetrate a hoax. Last year one of the lab groups got me going with a photo showing some unusual curved tracks. It was a week before I discovered that if I looked at the curved tracks as a group rather than focusing on individual curls I was looking at a line drawing of Mickey Mouse. There were no cartoon characters in the present photos.

### I created a file named "CosmicRayPhotos" and transferred three photos to it with increased activity and the straight tracks and three with normal activity for comparison. I wanted Sal Lucasi to take a look. Opening my secure hotmail account I typed in Sal's address and added, "Sal, what do you make of the straight tracks?" I included the photos as attachments. Using my secure account the message would be safe from the prying eyes of pen pal and, assuming he is the one leaking information to the CDF, safe from their eyes as well. If they found out about the experiments they could—what? Just what would be the reaction of the CDF? I delayed sending the email and saved it as a draft. I needed to flesh out an idea, something that was rattling around in the back of my head about the archbishop's "bargaining chips".

### That night Olivia brushed her teeth, said her prayers, and chose Ariel's Glittering Sea for a bed time story. She has it memorized, so I just turn pages. She tells me the story. When her version differs from that on the printed page I have learned not to correct her. I tucked her in along with four dolls and her stuffed rabbit.

### Tom Lacey was coming over to watch Monday Night Football—two days late. Neither of us had caught the game Monday but I had recorded it. I know, that's about as exciting as yesterday's pizza. I enticed Tom with the promise of gourmet snacks. I needed to talk to him. In the kitchen I opened the fridge. Two bottles of Bud, Cracker Barrel cheese, a half tub of hummus. I took some Ritz crackers and Tostitos from a cabinet.

### Tom brought a six pack. By the second quarter the Eagles trailed the Cowboys by fourteen. At halftime I paused the DVR and entertained Tom with the saga of the cosmic rays. He already knew I was getting some strange behavior in my lab. Now he got the full story including my plans for Georgina Rutherford.

### "You're kidding."

### "I wish I were. I don't know what to make of it. How about some advice?"

### "About what? I struggled with physics in high school."

### "Not with the science—with the CDF. How do you think they would react if they knew of the experiments?"

"An interesting thought. They would react negatively to any questioning of Church doctrine but your experiments don't question doctrine; if anything they confirm it. So, they should welcome the good news," he said getting up from his end of the couch.

### "Refill?" he asked, picking up my empty bottle.

### I nodded.

### Heading for the kitchen he asked, "They would know about Georgina too?"

### I nodded again.

### He came back from the kitchen with two bottles of Corona Lite, gave me one, and plopped back down on the couch with a sigh.

### "Good news until they thought about it for a while— for about as long as it took me," he said taking a swig and glancing at me sideways with a smile.

### "And, those thoughts would be?" I said urging him to go on.

### "Those thoughts would be that this former Episcopal priest, this notorious advocate of women's ordinations, this violator of canon 277 might just be devious enough to repeat his experiment with a host consecrated by an Episcopal priest and, worse yet, a woman Episcopal priest."

### "And they would not want me to do that for fear it would succeed and contradict the Church's teachings, right?"

### "Yes, that of course, but I see another more immediate problem for them."

### Tom put his head back on the couch and searched for words in the cracks in my ceiling.

### "Assume that the CDF gets wind of your experiments. They might think, one—you're a quack. Two, you're a schemer. It's all a hoax to influence their decision on your petition to marry. Or, three, you're legit and immediately realize the danger of an extension of the experiment with Georgina, an extension that would directly test—assuming that your divine hypothesis is true—directly test the validity of Anglican ordinations and, egad, women's ordinations also. Agreed?"

### "Agreed."

### "And, the Church claims that both Anglican ordinations and the ordinations of women are invalid. Still in agreement?"

### "Yes."

### "And to doubt that is heresy."

### "Now I don't know about that, Tom. I might prove the Church was wrong with the cosmic rays."

"Maybe. Now, here's the real problem for the CDF. The Church claims that its position on both of these issues must be 'definitively held' by all the faithful, that its position is both true and unchanging. It is infallible. Along comes this snot-nosed—their assessment, not mine— young American priest with his cosmic ray heresy who may have the means of putting that position to the test."

### "You put it so dramatically."

### He sat up straight, took a swig of Corona, and leaned toward me. "It gets better. Not only are they worried that snot nose will perform the experiment but they are upset by the fact that they are worried in the first place."

### "Because?"

### Tom put his beer on the coffee table and stood. I watched my friend the priest morph into my friend the former Assistant District Attorney. He paced back and forth, head bowed, right hand massaging his chin as if deep in thought.

### "Why? Because if they truly believe the Church's position on these ordinations then they should also believe that such an experiment must fail. And, where does that leave them? Logically they should welcome the experiment, secure in their faith that it would fail and confirm the Church's position. But, they worry. They worry that the experiments will not fail and that very worry bothers them because they realize that it indicates that they have..." Tom stopped, smiled, and extended an upturned palm towards me.

### "That they have doubts," I said.

"That they have doubts!"

### Tom walked over to the dining table at the end of the room and addressed the picture of the Last Supper on the wall.

### "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury—correction, make that just gentlemen— let me conclude by saying that the very congregation that sanctions others for doubting Church doctrine would be guilty of the same sin, and they'd know it."

### Tom turned his back on his ancient jury, came back and plopped down on the couch. Arms folded across his chest he said, "I rest my case."

### I played along and shouted, "Guilty! Guilty. String 'em up!"

### We woke up Olivia. She was standing in the doorway to the hall clutching her lady bug pillow pet and sucking her thumb. I got her back in bed without a fuss and went back to the living room.

"Seriously, Tom, what do you think they'd do?"

### "I have no idea but I know what I'd think if I were on the CDF."

### "What's that?"

### "I wouldn't get past the quackery option."

### The Eagles lost by one. They missed a fifty-yard field goal in the last twenty seconds that would have won the game. When Tom left I retrieved the email draft with the description of the cosmic ray experiments and the photos and added a sentence about involving a woman Episcopal priest. I sent it to Sal before I went to bed. The rattle in my head was gone. I used the PaCom account, not the secure hotmail one. That was as good as sending it directly to the CDF. They want to keep me hanging on my petition to marry Vicki? Let them hang a little too. I had nothing to lose.

# CHAPTER 40-THE SPIRALS

### The walls of Olivia's bedroom were a deep purple. They were purple when I bought the house and purple they remained. Vicki said the room was hideous. The next Sunday afternoon we did something about it. I promised my mother and Vicki burgers from the barbeque if they'd help me paint. Vicki cut in around the woodwork and ceiling with a paint pad and I manned the roller. My mother watched the kids in the backyard. It took two coats of pink to cover the walls. While I cleaned up Vicki wandered around eyeing the walls in the other rooms. I caught up with her in my den.

### "Isn't it depressing," she said "to be surrounded by four dark walls?"

### "Or warm and cozy," I said.

### My computer was on. The monitor was asleep.

### "What are you working on?" she said.

### I tapped the space bar and one of the cosmic ray photos came up on the screen.

### "The cosmic ray problem I told you about. It has us all stymied. I'm trying to sort out these photos. I've got hundreds. I'm putting some into a PowerPoint presentation. This one is from a small group I sent to a friend of mine at Georgetown."

### "Run the slide show. Let me see them."

### I set the timer for five seconds between slides and let it run.

### "Okay, now the first three are without the communion host," I said.

### "They're pretty in a way, aren't they?" she said. "Sort of black and white modern art. I love the spirals."

### "The spirals are caused by a magnetic field," I said. "Now these next three were taken when I placed a communion host on the table next to the cloud chamber. You'll notice that there are a lot more tracks."

### "I can see that. Twice as many at least."

### "The mystery is 'why'?" I said. "Where do they come from? That's what has us stumped."

### "Why don't you want to consider a miracle?"

### "Miracles are what you have left after all attempts at rational explanations fail and we have not exhausted all the possibilities."

### "Didn't you and Joe think they came from something radioactive?"

### "Initially, yes, but we quickly ruled that out."

### "I'll have to put Priscilla on the case," she said.

### "Your sixth-grade sleuth would be out of her league. She's great at solving mysteries involving crime-solving gerbils and kidnapped parrots but these photos are of real events. But, just for the fun of it, what would she suggest as an explanation?"

### "How about hallucinations? The tracks aren't real."

### "Uh, uh. You can't photograph hallucinations. Strike one."

### "A mirage then, like that picture of that castle floating in the sky in your physics book. That's something that is not real but you can photograph it."

### "Looming, caused by the bending of light in the atmosphere coming from a real castle on the ground," I said stressing the word 'real'. "Strike two."

### The slides continued to run.

### "Priscilla is very curious. She might have questions— like there," she said pointing at the screen "that slide with the little bunch of straight tracks and those faint little spirals up in the corner. Why are some straight and some curved?"

### I paused the slide show.

### "You know, that's a good question. I hadn't noticed that. The curved tracks indicate that the magnetic field was on. There can't be any straight ones. Let me see."

### I took a six-inch plastic ruler from the drawer under the table and held it next to one of the straight tracks.

### "Almost straight but curved slightly. You've got a good eye."

### "Give the credit to Priscilla, Frank. She was on the case. Is that an important clue?"

### "Could be."

### "Well, Priscilla will leave the cosmic ray problem in your hands. Meantime, how about those burgers you promised?"

### "Coming up," I said turning off the computer.

### Vicki looked at the walls again.

### "You know you wouldn't need such bright lights in here if you got rid of these gray walls."

### "Green walls," I said.

### "Only if you're color blind,"

### "Maybe a little shade blind," I said.

### "Really? Might explain that shirt."

### I turned out the lights and looked down at my shirt.

### On leaving the room Vicki said, "I think an off white would brighten up this room. Next weekend. Maybe light beige."

### What had I started?

# CHAPTER 41-SAL WILL VISIT

### The following Wednesday morning the sun was streaming through my office window when my cell phone rang. It was Sal.

### "Still got the comic ray problem?"

### "Monday afternoon. Strong as ever."

### "Your photos, Frank. Very interesting."

### "Any thoughts?"

### "They look typical of tracks in a cloud chamber except for the goups of parallel straight tracks."

### "Almost parallel. They are slightly curved."

### "Right. They look like the tracks of alpha particles. Very fast alphas. Any chance there was an alpha emitter nearby?"

### "No. We checked."

### "How about in the tank?"

### Nothing in the tank except air and alcohol vapor."

### "What's the white streak on the glass?"

### "Probably the reflection from a helium discharge tube another group of students were using in a spectroscopy experiment. Since I've got your interest I'll send you some more. Maybe you can spot something I missed."

### "I can do better than that. I've been coming up to Philly every other Friday afternoon and staying to Tuesday to visit my mother. She's getting worse and I have to make a decision soon about what to do. I hate to think of putting her in a nursing home."

### "Gee, I'm sorry to hear that."

### "Thanks. Anyhow, I'll be up next weekend. Can we get in your lab on Saturday so I can take a look?"

### "Sure. I need somebody to tell me I'm still sane. Saturday morning okay? Olivia has a soccer game in the afternoon."

### "Fine. You said you only get this phenomenon when you are carrying a consecrated host. That is really weird. You're sure you didn't have anything radioactive on you?"

### "Positive. That's the first thing we checked."

### "Who's 'we', Frank? How many people know about this?"

### "Besides you and me my colleague Joe Amanti and Vicki. Also, Tom Lacey, a priest working for the Archbishop, and Georgina Rutherford, a friend of mine. She's the Episcopal priest I mentioned. If a plan of mine works we can add Cardinal Tossi to the list."

### "Prefect of the CDF? Why would he know anything?"

### I told Sal about my intentional leak.

"You want them to know?" Sal sounded incredulous.

### "Tom Lacey has this theory that my petition to marry worried them. They offered to speed up the usual lengthy process for laicization if I would resign. I figure if my experiments can worry them even more they may be willing to make concessions more to my liking."

### "I don't know, Frank. You're playing with fire."

### I laughed. "No danger there. They don't burn heretics any more."

### "Do you remember I said Karl Kurtz was interested?"

### "Yes. The cosmologist. I've read a few of his papers. I could never tell if it was science or science fiction."

### "Yeah, Karl can be pretty far out. Anyhow, I showed him these new pictures. An hour later he came back to me with an intriguing theory. Do you happen to have a Cavendish Balance?"

### "We have one. I haven't used it for years, Why?"

### "Part of Karl's theory. Think you could get the balance in working order by Saturday?"

### "Shouldn't be a problem."

### "I'll explain when I see you. This Episcopal priest you mentioned. Has she agreed to your experiment?"

### "Not yet. I'm working on it."

### "I'd like to meet her."

### "I'll see if she'd like to come on Saturday."

### "I've got to get going, Frank. I have an early class. Ciao."

# CHAPTER 42-THE CAVENDISH BALANCE

### Early Saturday morning Sal and I met in the Modern Physics lab where I had set up a cloud chamber to show him the phenomenon. He was impressed and as baffled as I. After about half an hour we moved to the Optics lab where a Cavendish Balance sat on an optical table in the middle of the room. I had invited Georgina to meet us for lunch and she showed up as we were about to start a second run of the Cavendish experiment. I introduced her to Sal and explained what we were doing.

### The apparatus sat in the middle of the perfectly flat steel surface of the table. The table looked from the sides like a pool table with extra fat legs. The actual balance resembled a small glass box on a stand, a box about the size and shape of a video tape cassette. Inside the box was what looked like a small dumbbell with two small lead balls at the end of a 6-inch rod. The rod was suspended from its center by a quartz fiber about the thickness of a human hair. Two larger lead balls sat on supports outside of and at opposite ends of the box. The sole purpose of this device was to measure the incredibly small gravitational force between the small and large balls, a force that would cause the dumbbell to rotate and twist the thin fiber that supported it. There was a helium-neon laser near the edge of the table. The only other thing on the table was a consecrated communion host. We had previously run a trial without the host and now we wanted to see if we got any different results with the host near the balance.

### I sat on a high lab stool next to the table. Georgina, dressed in jeans and a red blouse, sat on a windowsill swinging her legs. A small gold cross dangled on a chain over the blouse. She looked at the blackout shades behind her and the flat black walls of the lab.

### "Kind of gloomy in here isn't it?"

### "It's basically a large darkroom," I said. "Raise a couple of those shades. The laser is bright enough."

### Sal adjusted the laser so that its narrow red beam was directed toward a tiny mirror attached to the quartz fiber. The beam reflected off the mirror and was projected onto the whiteboard at the back of the lab.

### "It's this table we want," Sal said and pushed down on its edge with his thumb causing the gas piston legs to hiss as they adjusted the level. The laser spot on the back wall jiggled momentarily.

### "It isolates the balance from stray vibrations in the building or trucks passing in the street— even our footsteps."

### "Very high tech," Georgina said.

### "The laser and the table just make things a little easier," Sal said.

### I reached over and carefully moved the large balls so that one was close to a small ball on one side of the case and the other was close to the small ball on the other side. The pistons hissed again like angry snakes. I pushed the start button on the lab timer. The beam reflected from the mirror jiggled and then started to move across the whiteboard, magnifying the twist of the fiber caused by the gravitational tugs in opposite directions by the large balls on the smaller ones. The red spot moved so slowly it was barely perceptible.

### "How long before it comes to rest?" Georgina asked.

### "It oscillated back and forth for almost an hour in the trial we did earlier," Sal said.

### "Well, it's almost noon and Frank promised me a free lunch. We're not going to speed anything up by sitting here and watching that beam. It's like watching a pot boil."

### "I move we eat," Sal said.

### I seconded the motion, put out the lights, and locked up.

### The faculty cafeteria was almost deserted and we had no trouble getting a quiet booth. Georgina and I had the tuna salad platters; an ice cream scoop of tuna on a lettuce leaf surrounded by slices of hard boiled egg, olives, and pickled beets. Sal had a cheese steak. We all had ice tea. I treated.

### "Now I know you're trying to bribe me," Georgina said digging a fork into her tuna.

### "Frank tells me he's trying to get you to upset the Vatican," Sal said.

### "Oh, I wouldn't want to do that. Have you seen the cloud chambers, Sal?"

### "This morning. Very interesting."

### "Do you think it's a miracle?"

### "Not yet," Sal said. "What do you think about what we are doing with the Cavendish Balance?"

### "To tell the truth I'm not sure what you are doing with it. What's the connection with the cosmic ray business?"

### "How much physics have you studied? Frank said you were both physics majors at Kenyon."

### "I was for the first year," she said. "That's how we met. Then I switched to psychology."

### Sal nodded and I knew what he was thinking. I straightened him out.

### "Not because she had trouble with physics, Sal. She aced both semesters of the introductory course."

### "Why switch if you were doing so well?" he asked.

### "I had no trouble with the problems but I also wanted to reflect on what it all meant— the big questions. No time for that. Move on or we won't get to the end of the book. You know the routine."

### "Did psychology satisfy your need for meaning?"

### "No, that's why I switched to philosophy in graduate school and spent four years quibbling about the meaning of words and 'proving' that nothing had any meaning. I finally found my home in religion; an act of the will. I chose to believe."

### "Well, if you are interested in big ideas then Karl Kurtz's theory might interest you. It may sound crazy but it's not all that complicated. He claims that the strength of all fundamental forces, not just the gravitational force, would be different in a nearby universe—if such a universe exists."

### "A very big if," Georgina said "and what does that have to do with Frank's cosmic ray problem?"

### Sal wiped some cheese off his chin with a paper napkin. "Kurtz speculates that in such a universe the strong nuclear force that holds the particles in the nucleus together may be weaker than it is in our universe. He sees the communion host causing a rip in our universe allowing a portion of the adjacent universe, a bulge if you will, to protrude into ours—sort of a cosmic aneurysm. This could upset the tug of war between the nuclear force pulling the charged protons in the nucleus together and the electrical repulsive force tending to push them apart. In our universe the nuclear force wins that battle but if the nuclear force was weakened then the stronger electrical force could blow out protons and alpha particles from molecules in the cloud chamber producing the extra tacks. "

### "Assuming that the electrical force isn't weaker also." she said."

### "Right," Sal said.

### "Okay, but if you are interested in nuclear forces, why the Cavendish Balance?"

### I said "The idea is that if we can find differences in the gravitational force, which is easy to measure, maybe the nuclear strong force, which is not so easy to measure, is also affected."

### "And what do you think the chance is that the gravitational force is affected?" she asked.

### "We will soon know," I said.

### "Taking any bets on the outcome?" she said spearing an egg slice.

### "What's your guess?" Sal asked.

### Georgina used her knife to push tuna onto her fork.

### "My guess is that Kurtz's idea is just as loony as it sounds."

# CHAPTER 43-WHAT IS SQUARE ONE?

### I preferred "failed hypothesis" to "loony" but either way her guess was right. When we got back to the lab the red dot on the wall had stopped at its final position—exactly the same position it had stopped at earlier when the communion wafer was absent. We ran the numbers but it was obvious that there was no effect on the gravitational force.

### "Okay, Kurtz's idea was pretty far out but we had to test it," I said.

### "What now?" Georgina asked.

### "Back to square one," I said.

### "And what would that be?" Georgina asked.

### "We go back to the basic observations in the cloud chambers."

### "You know I get it that two are intrigued by the physics of this strange phenomenon," she said. "but you are running out of ideas for a natural explanation. What about your "reluctant" divine hypothesis, Frank? Don't miss the forest for the trees here. This is the way I see it. No consecrated host—normal. Consecrated host—lots more tracks. Ergo, the consecrated host causes the increase. I am less interested in what those tracks are than why they are there in the first place. Could it really be a direct intervention by the deity into the physical world and if so for what reason?"

### "Perhaps to remind us that miracles can still happen," Sal said.

### "Which would fall into the category of' 'miracles on demand' wouldn't it?" Georgina said. "Set up your cloud chamber, bring a consecrated host near it and, voila, instant miracle. Even a casual reading of the Bible will reveal that Jesus consistently rejected such theatrics. He rebuked the Pharisees who demanded a sign from heaven saying, I quote, '...no sign shall be given'. He rejected the devil's invitation to turn stone into bread or jump from the pinnacle of the temple and have angels rescue him. He rejected cheap tricks".

### "She has a point, Frank," Sal said.

### "Which brings me to another point," Georgina said. "You have considered multiple hypotheses to explain the physics of this anomaly: stray radioactivity, bulging universes, etcetera. How about another hypothesis to explain the quote 'supernatural' aspect of the phenomenon?"

### "What do you suggest?" I asked.

### "An explanation suggested by he who is interested in cheap tricks. If we are to consider a divine explanation we should also include a diabolical one."

### "You can't be serious," Sal said. "The Devil? What, he throws some sort of a demonic tantrum in the presence of a consecrated host and starts hurling subatomic particles around?"

### "Maybe. I'm serious. I'm suggesting a hypothesis which is just as logical as the divine hypothesis. As long as we are willing to consider 'bulging universes' or 'cosmic aneurysms' I think I'm entitled to throw the devil into the mix."

### "All right. I'll grant you that," I said. "Any suggestions for testing out that hypothesis?"

### "Yes, but I haven't worked it all out yet. Right now, though, I better get going. I have an appointment this afternoon."

"You're going to leave us hanging?"

### "Not for long. Are you doing the cosmic ray experiments again in your Monday lab, Frank?"

### "Two to four."

### "Then I'll see you Monday. Sal, nice meeting you," she said shaking hands with him.

### Georgina headed for the door and turned smiling. "I'm getting out of here before the lightning strikes."

### She pointed to the Van der Graff generator in a corner of the lab which could generate 50,000-volt electrical discharges at the flick of a switch.

### "Of course physicists are capable of generating their own lightning. Make sure you don't get burned."

# 

# CHAPTER 44-A FLASH OF LIGHT

### When Georgina left Sal said, "Interesting lady but I don't know about her devil-did-it idea."

### "Weird as it sounds," I said "she's right. The God hypothesis and the devil hypothesis are logically equivalent."

### "Well, you better hope she doesn't show up Monday ready to drive out evil spirits."

### I laughed. "Yeah but you know, Sal, she's right that we may be ignoring the forest for the trees."

### "Such as?"

### My cell phone sounded off..

### "I better check this."

### It was a text message from Vicki.

### I'll bring appetizers tomorrow. Make sure you have enough charcoal-Love V.

### P.S. Are you coming to the game? Both J and O are playing.

### "Why don't we wrap it up here, Sal, and digest what we have found. I have to get to a soccer match."

### Sal was pulling down the blackout shades Georgina had raised.

### "What are you doing tomorrow?" I asked.

### "I'll take my mother shopping and then watch the game later."

### "Why don't you come over to my place? It's my turn to host our neighborhood 'Fan Fest'. We get together to watch the Eagles' away games. I'll throw some burgers on the grill if the weather holds out. Bring your mother if she's up to it."

### "That would be great—with conditions. My brother is going to Japan on business for a few months and I'll have his Eagles' season tickets. You have to promise to go to at least one of the games with me. Is that a light lock?" he said looking at the door.

### "Yeah. Total darkness when we need it."

### "Also promise not to introduce me as 'Father' Lucassi. I don't want to spend the game listening to people apologize to me every time someone says 'hell' or 'damn' when the Eagle's fumble."

### "And no talk about cosmic rays, either," I said. "We need a break."

### "Agreed. I know you need to get going but do you mind if I hang around a while? I want to look for a few more trees—in here."

### It took just a few minutes to move one of the cloud chambers from the Modern lab to the Optics lab.

### "I still don't know whether to believe this," Sal said.

### "Well, have fun," I said "but make it quick. I'd say you have about an hour left with that dry ice. About one-thirty tomorrow. Kick off is at two and the only mystery will be the outcome of the game."

### "Oh that's not a mystery, Frank. The Redskins will win."

# CHAPTER 45-PEEWEE SOCCER

### In one half hour I made the transition from sub atomic particles to large black and white balls. The PeeWee Soccer game was half over by the time I got to the field in Fairmount Park. I found Vicki standing on the sidelines. I peeled the blue cloth carry bags from two camp chairs and opened them.

### "Madam."

### "My hero to the rescue," she said as she sat down. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to make it."

### "We ran a little late. How are the kids doing?"

### "Joey scored. He's having fun. Olivia missed a shot on goal and then sat down on the grass and pouted while the ball made a couple trips up and down the field. When she came out of her funk she made a couple of nice steals and was praised by the coach so she's feeling good now. How was your meeting with Sal and Georgina?"

### "The experiment didn't work out but we made some progress." I resisted the impulse to say we had a devil of a time. "Sal is still playing with one of the cloud chambers."

### Vicki was on her feet and shouting. "Way to go, Tommy. Nice play!"

### "Who's Tommy?"

### "Number 10—on the left—blue shirt."

### "Why are you rooting for the other team?"

### "Just Tommy. His father has been on his back the whole game. 'Go after the ball, don't let him do that to you, focus, Tommy, focus.' Constant criticism. No praise. You know the type. The two moms screaming over on that bench aren't much better. I was talking to them before the game. They asked me where my husband was. Natural assumption since the both of us are usually at these games and we both still wear our wedding rings."

### "You set them straight?"

### "I hope so. I said, 'Oh, Frank? He's my fiancé. He's also a Catholic priest, a college professor, and is helping a woman detective catch whoever is trying to kill us.' They gave me a weak smile. I don't know whether they pitied me or wanted to stone me."

### "No one is trying to kill us."

### "We hope."

### "Your friends look like they want to stone the ref. Why is Joey swinging from the top bar of the goal?"

### 'That's his latest time-out diversion."

### Olivia trotted over to our chairs.

### "Hi Daddy."

### "Hi princess. Aunt Vicki said you're doing so good."

### "I missed a shot and that big boy kicked me. I hate him!"

### Vicki cleared her throat and uncapped a water bottle. "Drink some water, hon. It will make you feel better. Now get out there and have fun and, Olivia, kick him back, sweetheart."

### Vicki handed me the water bottle. "Here, have some, and wipe that big smile off your face."

### I took a swig but the smile stayed. "Did I just witness the hint of a latent 'pit bull with lipstick' there?"

### Now Vicki was smiling . "Frank, there is nothing wrong with encouraging a little spirited play. I don't stand on my chair and shout, 'Kill the bums'. Planting a suggestion quietly can be more effective."

### A moment later Vicki was on her feet shouting again.

### "Oh, so now you blow your whistle?"

### She sat back down, took the water bottle from me, finished it, and put the empty into her tote. "I said kick, she tripped. Don't you just love girls with minds of their own?"

### I put my arm around Vicki. "You know I do."

### She snuggled closer and said, "Don't forget to get the ground beef and hot dogs for tomorrow."

### "I'll stop in Wegmans on the way home. I so cherish these romantic conversations."

### "Charcoal, too."

# CHAPTER 46-FAN FEST

### Sunday afternoon Sal brought a bottle of Pinot Grigio and a bucket of hot wings to Fan Fest but no mother.

### At half time Vicki carried a pack of individually wrapped Kraft cheese slices out to me at the grill.

### "Have you noticed?" She said

### "Pretty hard not to. I don't think they've seen much of the game. How many want cheese?"

### "I'll put a slice on half of them when you flip. They'd make a handsome couple, don't you think? Maybe we could go out with them some night. Get a pizza, see a movie, or..."

### "Whoa, young lady. Back up. He is probably boring the heck out of Angela with the fine points of astrophysics and are you forgetting that Sal is a priest?"

### Vicki tapped my nose with her finger.

### "And exactly what, Father Donnelly, are you?"

### I flipped the burgers and Vicki dealt out a half dozen cheddar slices.

### "It's different. I was married. I have a dispensation."

### "You had a dispensation, my dear and you may be able to get another, but right now we are just as illegal as Angela and Sal. Isn't forbidden love soo delicious?" she said rising on her toes to give me a kiss.

### The burgers sizzled. The cheese melted.

### "I think we better get these inside before they burn and while I'm still functional. Don't offer Sal or Angela any more wine."

### The Eagles won. Sal took it well. I'm not sure he watched much of the game. He spent most of the time talking to Angela. I guess I should have expected it. They were the only two unattached adults at the party. When most of my neighbors had left I got a chance to talk to them.

### "Has he been boring you with astrophysics, Angela?"

### "Not at all, I find it fascinating. Scientific investigations aren't that much different from police investigations you know. Also, we discovered that we both love mystery stories—particularly locked room murder mysteries."

### "Fictional mysteries, Frank," Sal said. "Like there's a dead guy in a room with a bullet hole in his head, no murder weapon, and the doors and windows all locked from the inside."

### "No way for the murderer to get in or out," Angela said.

### "Something like alpha particles in a fish tank," Sal said. "But enough of that. We have an agreement."

### "You found something yesterday, didn't you? Are you going to keep me hanging?"

### "Temporarily. Sleep on it."

### Before I could probe further Vicki came in from the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron, a bit tipsy from her two glasses of merlot. She stood beside me and steadied herself by putting her arm in mine.

### "You guys like movies? There's one of those new theaters where you can eat dinner out in Esh...Exton and we could..."

### I nudged her and said, "They've been plotting against me, Vicki, to keep me awake tonight."

### "Oh, I've got that covered," Vicki said squeezing my arm harder.

### "She's just kidding," I said.

### "Isn't he cute when he brushes...blushes?"

### "Any clues to your closed fish tank mystery?" I asked to change the subject.

### "Hmm, let me think. A clue. "Okay, what is the color of a glowing helium discharge tube?"

### Vicki shifted weight from one foot to the other and tried again. "We could all play Clue shumtime. Colonel Mustard and ropes and..."

### I nudged her again.

### "Your question is too easy, Sal."

### "The color is not as important as why I would ask the question. Like I said, sleep on it."

### When they all left I drove Vicki home with Olivia and Joey strapped into their car seats. When I walked Vicki and Joey to the door Vicki said, "I think I embarrassed you."

### "You never embarrass me. Give me a kiss goodnight."

### That produced a 'yuck!" from Joey and a giggle from the back seat of the Outback.

### Vicki opened the door and Joey slipped in. She turned and said, "I meant it, you know. About keeping you awake."

### "I know."

### She smiled. "So what do we do?"

### "Continue with Plan A.

### "When?"

### 'Soon."

### "Maybe we could try Plan B in the intrum...in-ter-um...in-ter-im"

### "Give me another kiss and get to bed."

### More giggles.

### "One last question, Frank. When did you say we are going to the movies with them?"

### She laughed and darted through the door before I could answer.

### I did have trouble sleeping that night. The answer to Sal's question was easy. The color of the light from a glowing helium tube is pink. I take other peoples' word for that because it appears pure white to me; my shade blindness. Why ask me...? Then I remembered. I told Sal that a white streak on one of the slides was probably due to a reflection from a nearby helium tube. It couldn't have been a helium tube. It was from something else and that's what Sal was looking for after I left him. But what? After tossing and turning for an hour I thought I knew.

# CHAPTER 47-ANSWERS AND QUESTIONS

### After I dropped Olivia off at Munchkin House in the morning I went to the storeroom, got a fresh slab of dry ice and a bottle of alcohol, went to the Optics lab, and rejuvenated the cloud chamber that Sal had used Saturday. I put the communion host destined for Clara Murphy next to the cloud chamber and doused the lights plunging the lab into total darkness. Twenty minutes later I was back in my office dialing Sal's number. Unavailable. I sent a text message. Just two words: "Cherenkov radiation".

### Later first Tom and then Angela called.

### "Nice time yesterday, Frank. You're a good host. Interesting neighbors too."

### She didn't mention Sal so neither did I.

"I just found out something interesting about a mutual friend of ours."

### "Michael Eddy?"

### "How did you guess?"

### "I was just talking to Tom Lacey about him, but you first."

### "I've got a few things here. Let me see. He has a Pennsylvania driver's license. Born February 23, 1957. That would make him eleven years old in 1968, about the right age for a kid in the sixth grade. Info on the license: six-one, brown eyes, looks slim' poor photo and a Philadelphia address in the Manayunk section of the city."

### "Not too far from where I live," I said. "What about his car?"

### "Vehicle registration is for, get this, a dark gray 2008 Ford Escape."

### "And Monsignor Smith said he saw a gray SUV leaving St. Gabriel's the morning of Soroka's death. It could have been Eddy."

### "Most certainly it was. Our crime scene guys went dumpster diving at St. Gabriel's and came up with a long plastic sleeve complete with label for the candle. Eddy's prints were on it, among others."

### "Nice. The candle too?"

### "No prints on the candle. It might have been wiped. Eddy's prints were on file for two reasons. He was in the service and he is a retired cop, Atlantic City PD, and, you'll be interested in this. While in the Navy he earned a ribbon as a sharpshooter. If Eddy was your St. Elizabeth's shooter he was aiming at the statue, not you. If he was I wouldn't be talking to you."

### "I guess that's a comfort."

" Now, you said you have something, Frank?"

### "Yes. When I mentioned Michael Eddy to Tom Lacey last week he said the name sounded familiar. Here's what he came up with. Eddy is the unofficial president of a radically conservative Catholic group called the Union of True Believers, the UTB. They're against almost every change introduced in the Church in the last forty years; the Mass in English instead of Latin, lay people giving out Communion, nuns who don't wear the traditional habits, you name it. Eddy is also a regular participant in protests outside abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood offices.

"He has no record of violence but Tom said that the DA's office did a background check on him a few years ago. He's a former priest. After ordination he spent two years teaching religion at Nazareth College and was forced to leave the priesthood when it was discovered he was romantically involved with one of his students. He married the girl after she graduated."

### "And as a former priest he'd know Latin. I think we found your pen pal."

### "Who might not be too happy about priests who are allowed to be married when he wasn't," I said "or happy about child molesters, rapists, actual criminals who are allowed to remain priests and escaped any punishment."

### "An avenging angel," she said.

### "It makes sense and here's the connection to St. Gabriel's. Tom also said that Eddy now works part time as the local sales rep for a church supply company; furniture, tabernacles, chalices, crosses and crucifixes, prayer books, holy cards, that sort of thing."

### "And candles?"

### "And candles," I said.

"Which means that if the candle was delivered by Eddy his prints should be on the wrapper," she said.

### "Doesn't make him a murderer, does it?" I said.

### "No, but he's certainly a suspect. Do you have the name of his company?"

### "Hold it. I wrote in down somewhere. Here it is. Harrisburg Church Supplies. Is this enough to pick him up?"

### "The homicide boys have been looking for him for questioning without any luck. They visited his wife and she doesn't know where he is and she's worried. He always calls her when he will be away overnight. By the way, she confirmed that he had attended Good Shepherd. I'll contact the Harrisburg company. They might know something. I'll get back to you with anything I find."

### "Sounds like we're making progress, Angela."

### "Progress which demands caution, Frank. Suppose Eddy is your pen pal, and a murderer. What's the message in the 'priests should be truly priests' emails?"

### "That I'm not a true priest and, I guess, the implication that I should quit."

### "And you don't. So, he escalates the threat by drilling the statue from over two hundred yards away and then attempting to abduct Olivia—maybe a real attempt or just another threat."

### "Designed to scare me and it did."

### "And to warn you that he can hurt you or those you love."

### "Warnings that I have ignored."

### "Yes."

### "Find him, Angela."

### "We will. The question is when."

# CHAPTER 48-NOT IN THIS UNIVERSE

### My cell phone vibrated twice during my Modern Physics class. I called Sal when the class was over.

### He skipped the greeting and answered with, "I make it to be Cherenkov radiation too. Alpha particles from hell."

### Cherenkov radiation is light from a particle moving through a substance faster than the speed of light in that substance. In our case it was flashes of white light from the groups of alpha particles, faint but readily apparent in a darkened room. It is the light equivalent of a sonic boom.

### "Don't joke," I said.

### "I don't know of alpha particles moving that fast in this universe," Sal said. "They're the lumbering giants of the particle world not the high speed bullets. I'm assuming an index of refraction for that saturated air in the fish tank to be approximately one point triple zero three."

### "Sounds about right."

### "Which gives me a speed of light in the tank greater than 99.9% of the speed in a vacuum."

### "And the alphas moving faster than that," I said.

### "Which is insane, Frank."

### "I agree."

### "Besides the incredible speed we also have the problem of where they came from. They couldn't pass through the glass walls of the aquarium."

### "Your reference yesterday to a locked room murder mystery. Where's the secret passage into the room?"

### "Exactly. I'm back to Kurtz's "hole in the universe", Frank. Crazy phenomena require crazy explanations. Ciao."

### Georgina Rutherford had her own "crazy" explanation. She showed up towards the end of my afternoon lab with a briefcase and a very novel plan.

### That evening I received a reminder that if Michael Eddy was my pen pal he had not completely disappeared; a new email. "PRIESTS SHOULD BE TRULY PRIESTS—THEY SHOULD NOT PLAY AT BEING POLICE—DROP IT!" The sender's address was "icuVictoria@gmail.com". There was an attachment; the picnic photo again. This time Vicki had been digitally cut out of the photo. Only a white ghostly outline of her remained.

### If I ignored threats to myself I could not ignore threats to those I love. First Olivia, and now Vicki. What do I do, tell her to make herself scarce? Get her out of town before she was really erased? The following weekend that's exactly what I did do—got her out of town that is— with help from an unexpected source.

# CHAPTER 49-FLIGHT 719

### Our seats in the front of the plane were behind the bulkhead separating us from first class. With no seats in front of us I had plenty of leg room to stretch out. Vicki had the window seat and I was on the aisle—about as private as it gets on a jumbo jet. She had been taking notes since we boarded; what we ate, the attendant's pantomime to the recorded safety instructions, a sketch of the cabin and its two-four-two seating arrangement.

### "Another novel?" I said. "Murder on Flight 719?"

### "Never can tell. Did you notice the two priests in the back of the plane?"

### On boarding I had nodded at the two in recognition of our shared vocation.

### "One's a bishop," I said.

### "Even better. They both look like rugged guys which gave me an idea for a story. Suppose there is a commotion by a passenger. The priest and the bishop go up to help the flight attendant who is trying to calm the passenger down. Everyone assumes they are reasoning with the passenger, but my heroine, an amateur sleuth on vacation with her parents, notices something unusual."

### "Priscilla," I said. "Your sixth-grader."

### "Right. Priscilla spots a pistol in a hip holster when the bishop's coat falls open. Now who are they? Priests? Terrorists? Vatican assassins?

### "Assassins? With pistols? You think anyone could get though that security check we went through with a pistol?"

### "You're being too logical, Frank. Okay, maybe sky marshals with a terrific cover. Right away we have a mystery. Are they good guys or bad guys? What would you say?"

### "Can't tell," I said. "We don't know enough."

### "Okay, good. Next thing you know another flight attendant comes up to the group and Priscilla hears her say to the guy dressed as a bishop, 'Do you need any help, Ben?' She knows them."

### "Then the bishop is not a bishop," I said. "It would be unlikely the stewardess would call him by his first name if he was."

### "Right again," Vicki said pointing an index finger at me for emphasis. "Priscilla also notices that the stew is wearing high heels. She thinks that's odd so she follows her back to the galley pretending she's headed for the bathroom. She spots her fixing a drink and pouring something into the drink from a bottle with a label that reads in big red letters, 'WARNING'."

### "Poison!" I said laughing.

### "Okay, poison. Let's go with that. Now, what's the story? Who are these guys? Make something up that fits Pricilla's observations."

### "All right. Let me see. How about this? The two are terrorists and the stewardess is in cahoots with them. She is fixing a drink to knock out a passenger who discovered who the guys are. How's that?"

### "That's fine but you're wrong. The guys are sky marshals. They're trying to calm a passenger who is having a seizure. The stewardess is fixing some medicine for the passenger."

### "Is she a doctor?" I asked.

### "No, of course not."

### "She's practicing medicine without a license."

### "Too logical again, Frank. It's a story for kids."

### "Okay, but what about her high heels?" I asked.

### "The shoulder bag with her comfortable working shoes was stolen at the airport lounge. Same observations, two different stories, terrorists versus sky marshals. It's the way I come up with plots for my stories. First I make up some facts. Then I make up a story to tie all the facts together. Throw in a few red herrings and I can get two or three stories that will fit the same set of facts. That's what makes it fun to read."

### "Sounds simple," I said.

### "It's not."

### Our US Airways flight had left Rome's Fiumicino International on time at noon and was scheduled to land in Philadelphia at 4:00 PM local time. Factoring in the time difference we were in for a 10 hour trip. Our tickets for a Friday flight over and return Monday morning had arrived by way of the diplomatic pouch to Washington and a messenger to my office. I was stunned by the polite request to visit Rome and meet with Cardinal Tossi and discuss my petition to marry and future plans. I say "request" but such a request from the Prefect of the CDF to a priest can't be refused. The invitation for Vicki to accompany me could be refused but she jumped at the chance for a weekend in Rome. Olivia, Joey, my mother, and Daisy all went to my sister's house just outside the city in Lafayette Hill for the weekend. Vicki had arranged for a sub to take her classes on Monday and I asked Joe to cover my Monday class and lab.

### The flight attendants were clearing away the remains of our meal and were passing out pillows to anyone who wanted to take a nap. Vicki took one for each of us and punched hers and put it behind her head.

"I still can't believe it," she said pushing the button on the arm of her seat to tilt the seat back and raise the foot rest. "It was so easy. Cardinal Tossi could not have been more gracious. It was hard to believe he was the same man who had signed that letter to you from the CDF."

### The Cardinal had been impressive. About seventy years old with a full head of white hair he had risen from his desk to greet us as we were ushered into his office. Ramrod straight his patrician bearing added inches to a stocky frame. He greeted us both by name, shook my hand, kissed the back of Vicki's hand, and held it sandwiched between his two hands as he inquired about the suitability of the accommodations he had arranged for her at a nearby convent. I had a room at the North American College, the seminary for elite candidates for the priesthood from North America.

### "The tea, the pastries, he's a real old world charmer," Vicki said. "I had the impression though that it was a test, like when a big company is thinking of hiring an executive and they invite him and the wife to dinner so they can check her out. Make sure she doesn't look like a biker chick or have purple hair. Make sure I wouldn't cause a scandal."

### "Well, if it was a test, you passed with flying colors. By the way you never told me about what happened when you went off with that nun."

### "She was an art historian and she gave me a very interesting tour of the building and a mini lesson in medieval paintings. I know it was to get me out of the way so you could have a private chat with the Cardinal. Was it all about us?"

### "Partly. Mostly we talked about physics and a few theological issues. It seems the Cardinal has an interest in cosmic rays."

### "The kind that you and Georgina Rutherford are interested in?"

### "Definitely those kind."

"Did you talk about bosons too?"

### "The Higgs boson too. The real one, not your 'Higgy' version.. He is interested in many kinds of experiments, those which have been performed and those which may yet be done, particularly those that may be very tempting for a priest/physicist."

### "You're being uncharacteristically coy, Frank, and you look like a kid who just raided a cookie jar. Why did he suddenly agree to let us get married? Did you make some kind of a deal?"

### "I believe the Cardinal thinks so."

### "And what about you?"

### "His deal was fine with me."

### Vicki sat up and fluffed her pillow. "Well if you're going to continue being so cryptic I think I'll take a nap. Why don't you do the same? Kill some time. Do you realize that this will be just the second time we have slept together?"

### "When was the first time?"

### "Flight 718, the flight over—correction—it's the second time for me. It's the third time for you."

### "Oh really. How did you arrive at that imbalanced equation?"

### She turned toward me and tapped my temple with her index finger. "Kimono, Frank. Think kimono."

### "Nothing happened with the kimono," I said.

### "Oh, but you wanted it to happen. You thought I was trying to seduce you. You were very disappointed. In your head you had already slept with me."

### "Hmm. 'In my head' may count as a temptation but it doesn't count as a sleep over."

### "It does in the bible," she said smiling.

### "Now you're being cryptic."

### Vicki looked at the ceiling and raised a finger. "I tell you whosoever looks at a woman and wants to sleep with her has already slept with her in his heart."

### "You've taken some liberties there. That passage is about adultery."

### "Well I'm going to sleep and I'm counting this as number two for me and number three for you. Here are a few thoughts to help you doze off. One of the first things I'm going to do when we get back to Philly is look for a real kimono, not just a bathrobe that looks like one. Real silk. And a pair of those flip flops they wear. And, point of information, I will not be shopping for Bermuda shorts or sweaters. I won't be shopping for anything else."

### "You won't throw any DVDs at me?"

### "I promise. You think about your reaction to tea ceremonies because the next one will be a faithful rendition of that French movie."

### "Those thoughts will keep me awake, not help me sleep. You know, I've been thinking. The way science works is not too different from the way you write your mysteries. Frequently more than one hypothesis can fit the same set of facts. The Copernican hypothesis that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun and the older Ptolemaic one in which the sun and planets revolved around the earth are perfect examples. Originally both hypotheses could fit the facts, or the way they put it then, 'save the appearances'; the 'appearances' being the motions of the sun and planets as seen from the earth. The Copernican idea wasn't fully accepted until new observations were made of the planet Venus. You see, Vicki, Venus has phases just like the moon and—Vicki?"

### I must have a soothing voice. My lectures seem to put a lot of people to sleep.

# CHAPTER 50-DREAMS AT 30,000 FEET

### I put my pillow behind my head and pushed my seat back. Soon I was in that half awake state where it is difficult to distinguish between conscious reminiscing and dreaming: kimonos, French movies, tea, breaking up, Martha. It all ran through my mind. It was last spring, right before finals. Martha had brought coffee for both of us and was sitting in my office. Thank God for Martha. Thank...

"Tell me about it, Frank."

"About what?"

### "About your girlfriend. I heard you were finally dating someone."

### "Heard from whom?"

### "Julie Thomson in Theater Arts. She has a grad student, a teacher who is dating you. At least that's what the girl told Julie. Vicki Meyers? Hello? Ring a bell? Did something go wrong? You've been moping around here for days."

"We're just friends. I help her with science lessons in her teaching."

### "That's all? Julie said she saw you both downtown a couple weeks ago near Independence Hall—holding hands."

### "Ok, I might as well tell you. It might help."

### "You have my ear, Frank, as your friend and as a professional if you need that."

### "Vicki teaches sixth grade in the parish school where I'm an assistant. When I first started at St. Elizabeth's she asked me if I could do some science demonstrations for her class. I did and it became a regular thing as I helped her work some fun physics into the one period a week she was expected to teach science. We became friends, at first through our children. Turns out we both liked to go to center city theaters that showed foreign films and we accidentally met one Sunday afternoon outside the Ritz at the Bourse."

### "With Olivia?"

### "She was with my mother."

### "Accidentally?"

### "Oh, I don't know. Maybe she had mentioned something about going there. It would have been ridiculous for two people who knew one another not to sit together. Watching a movie is so much better when you have someone to share it with, right?"

### "Frank, you know how I feel. You don't need to justify anything with me."

### "I know. So, we began to occasionally go to movies together. My mother baby sat for us. Afterwards we would stop for coffee and talk or play games."

### "Play games? A little footsie?"

### "Board games. There's a small coffee shop near the Art Museum in Fairmount that has lots of board games. I taught her how to play chess. At least I think I did, but sometimes I wonder. Occasionally she beats me when I'm not trying to lose. Her favorite game though is Clue."

### Martha got up from her chair and sat on the edge of my desk and folded her arms. "This is getting interesting. What else?"

### "Sometimes we would take a walk along the East River Drive down by Boat House Row and watch the boats on the river or just sit. She reads me things she is working on. She's writing a play for her master's thesis— a murder mystery. Fascinating story. Most of the time we had Olivia and her son Joey with us: the park, playgrounds, the Please Touch Museum, the dinosaurs at the Academy of Natural Sciences— that sort of thing."

"So you two are dating."

### "I don't know if I'd call it that."

"Well, when you go to the movies do you go in the same car, sit next to her, buy her popcorn?"

"I like butter she doesn't."

### "You're dating. Are you in love with this 'friend'?"

### "Desperately."

### "Now we're getting somewhere. Here's something that fascinates me. The priest who is the weekend assistant at St. Elizabeth's is regularly visiting their sixth grade teacher and taking her out. No one notices this?"

### "Some of the kids did. There were a few eighth grade girls that would talk to Vicki about 'girl stuff'—boyfriends, sex, 'my parents are ruining my life' —stuff like that. She had a big-sister relationship with them. One day we were walking down the hall and a group of these girls giggled and tripped their way past us. 'Hi Mrs. Meyers. Hi Father Donnelly'. Vicki said not to pay any attention to them. She said they thought I had a thing for her."

### "And they're right," Martha said.

### "Past tense. I blew it."

### "What happened?"

"Last Sunday we went into center city to see a new French film. When I took her home she asked me up to her apartment to get some DVDs she promised me. My mother had the kids for the afternoon."

### "Oh, Oh."

### "Let me finish. She went into the kitchen to make tea. A little later she came back with the tea on a tray. She was wearing flip flops and a robe that looked like a kimono and said, 'This is the only way to serve tea.' That was a line from one of the scenes in the movie we just saw in which the French actress, wearing a kimono, proceeded to pour tea for her boyfriend and herself, add sugar, milk— very formal, like a Japanese tea ceremony. Vicki started to act out this scene."

### "Very dramatic. She takes her movies seriously."

### "Yes. In the film the actress eventually sheds the kimono and she's naked. It was a prelude to a sex scene."

### "Wow. And you're, what, running for the door or waiting for her to drop the robe? The spirit or the flesh? A classic conflict."

### "I'm afraid the flesh was definitely winning that battle."

### "Don't apologize to me for being human. Save that for the confessional. So, what happened?"

### "She dropped the robe and..." I paused.

### "And what? Don't keep me in suspense."

### "And she saw my look of disappointment. She still was wearing her Bermuda shorts and sweater."

"Then what happened?"

"I don't know. She got mad when she realized I thought she was trying to seduce me. I was embarrassed. I said the wrong things. Asked what I was supposed to think with her wearing a kimono after the movie we just saw."

### "You blamed the misunderstanding on her."

### "Yes. Then she said something like, 'I was serving tea, Frank—not me. It's not my fault you expected Victoria's Secret rather than J. Crew.' Before things got even worse I headed for the door. She flung two DVDs at me and said, 'Make sure you slow-mo through the love scenes. You might learn something— and don't bother to return them."

### "Cripes, no wonder she was mad at you. She plays out a fun way to serve tea and you assume she is trying to get you into bed. Did you call her and apologize?"

### "I thought it best to leave it that way. I wasn't prepared to make a choice."

### "Between Vicki and the priesthood?"

### "Yes. I want both and I can't have that. Now I miss her. She made me a better person just being around her. I'm the priest but she is more Christ-like the way she deals with people, and her students, with such kindness and understanding. My spiritual side is more intellectual. I have to stop and think my way through human scale problems. I would theorize about solutions to the problems of the homeless while Vicki would stop and talk to every bag lady we passed and hand them money. I felt more...complete when I was with her."

"And you should be with her. I wish you had handled that situation a little better."

### "How? I wish I had. I feel terrible about it."

### "You know those DVDs that include alternate endings and scenes? Okay, imagine you played the scene this way. When you found out you were an idiot, suppose you went over and hugged her and told her how sorry you were to cause her pain, sat her on the couch, dried her eyes with your handkerchief, let her blow her nose, told her how much you loved her, can she ever forgive you? Ya-da, ya-da, ya-da. How's that sound, Frank?"

### "Fine, but I'm not the one who acted out the scene that led to my mistake."

### "Forget about that. It was your fault, not hers. For the finale, the next day you send her flowers and a card that says, 'Please forgive me'. Can you agree that might have been a better alternative?"

### "It probably would have—if I had thought of it at the time. Yes, I wish I had done something like that."

### "You still can. Send her the flowers."

### "Is that your professional advice, Martha?"

### "That's my advice as a woman. My professional advice would cost you a hundred-fifty an hour."

### I skipped the professional advice and sent the flowers.

# CHAPTER 51-BACK TO REALITY

### I drifted in and out of sleep.

### Flowers—the smell of cut flowers at a funeral—trying to comfort a family in their sorrow—saying the rosary at a wake—Connie's wake—why wasn't God with her that day?—Vicki—Olivia—threats from a killer—who?—clues —Colonel Mustard—in the library—with a knife—Michael Eddy?—in a storeroom—with a candle?—cosmic rays—divine?— no demonic —ladies and gentlemen...

### "Ladies and gentlemen. Please secure your seat belts. The captain expects things to get a bit bumpy."

### Vicki raised her head from my shoulder. "Are we there?"

### "Not yet." I checked my watch. "Two more hours to kill."

### "How long did I sleep?"

### "About an hour. You better not sleep any more or you won't be able to sleep tonight."

### "How about you? Did you get any sleep?"

### "I dozed a little."

### Vicki fished her iPad out of her small backpack. "I've got a chess program loaded on this. How 'bout I beat you at a game?"

### "I have another idea. Let's play detective. Open up a blank document and make a list of what I tell you."

### Five minutes later we had a list of everything Angela Rossi and I had on Michael Eddy and what we discovered at St. Gabriel's.

### "Okay," Vicki said "now what?"

### "Now we put your precocious Priscilla character to work. What does she think of our hypothesis tying all of this together? I'm not sure Angela and I have it quite right."

### "This sounds like fun, Frank. State your hypothesis as simply as you can."

### "All right, try this. Michael Eddy is 'pen pal'. He has been sending me and others threatening emails. He murdered at least one priest cited in the 2005 Grand Jury Report and possibly another. Also, he attempted to kidnap Olivia and was the shooter at St. Elizabeth's, and, he probably fed information to the CDF to try to harm me. Knowing that the police are looking for him he has fled."

### "Let me get this down," she said. "Now, what is it that bothers you?"

### "First of all, placing Michael Eddy at St. Gabriel's the morning of the murder," I said.

### "You have a gray SUV leaving the parking lot about the time of the crime and Eddy drives a gray Escape," she said. "What about that?"

### "We only have Monsignor Smith's word on that."

### "You think he might be lying? But why? Don't forget, you also have Eddy's fingerprints on the plastic sleeve the candle came in."

### "But Soroka was buying church supplies from Eddy," I said. "That doesn't necessarily place him in the storeroom that morning."

### "True. Priscilla just thought of something else," Vicki said. "The name 'Michael Eddy' first pops up at Good Shepherd. You said Tom Lacey discovered that Soroka and Cinelli were stationed there in the sixties. An altar boy, a John Toner, who was molested said that another boy was also molested and his name was 'Mickey or something like that'. Were those Tom's exact words?"

### "Yes, I think so."

### "Do you know if Tom was accurately quoting this guy Toner?"

### "That I don't know."

### "When Detective Rossi searched the records for a possible 'Mickey' she came up with Michael Eddy," Vicki said.

### "Right."

### "What about the 'something-like-that' part? Mickey, Ricky, Dicky? Michael, Ricardo, Enrico, Richard?"

### "Good point," I said. "I hadn't thought of that. Eddy's name would have come up anyhow though when his prints were found on the candle sleeve."

### "True, but as you pointed out, if the candle was purchased from Harrisburg Supply his prints should have been on it."

### "Your Priscilla is pretty sharp."

### "Your case against Eddy is purely circumstantial."

### That was soon to change.

# CHAPTER 52-A JOB FOR JOE

### After my first class on Tuesday I stopped in to see Joe.

### "Thanks for covering for me yesterday, Joe. I owe you one."

### "No problem. I left the tests on your desk."

### "How did the lab go in the afternoon?"

### "No errant cosmic rays but one of the power supplies for the discharge tubes in the spectrometer experiment is shot. I replaced it and ordered a new one. I put the students' lab reports on the counter in the back of the lab. How was the Eternal City?"

### "Great. We had a meeting with Cardinal Tossi on Saturday and were free the rest of the weekend. We did all the touristy things: the Vatican, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's, the Spanish Steps, the works. I showed Vicki the hotel we stayed in when I was a kid and my father was stationed in Europe."

### "So, your meeting went well? I take it they didn't drum you out of the priesthood."

### "The meeting went very well. So well, I'm going to need your help again."

### "Anything."

### "How are you at making toasts? I need a best man."

### "Fantastic!" Joe said leaping up from his desk and high-fiving me.

### "Congratulations! You do mean that they will let you remain a priest, right?"

### "Right."

### "Unbelievable? A special exemption from the Pope himself?"

### "I don't need it. Cardinal Tossi chose to interpret my original exemption as covering my remarriage. He only asked that there be as little publicity as possible about the wedding. The media could blow it all out of proportion. It does not represent an historic change in Church policy. The big news was years ago when I was ordained while I was married. This is just an extension of my exception, not a new thing."

### "C'mon Frank, you know that this is something new and revolutionary."

### "That's the way they want to play it, Joe, and that's fine with us. Vicki and I don't want to be freaks; just a normal family. We've been given that chance."

### "What made him change his mind, Frank, a little 'quid pro quo'?'

### "Something for something? I guess you could characterize it that way. The Cardinal got what he wanted and I got his approval of our marriage, but from my perspective I'm more inclined to characterize our agreement as 'nihil pro quo'; nothing for something."

### "You're being very mysterious, Frank."

### "Just temporarily, Joe."

"Well, wait till I tell Marge about this. She said it would never happen."

### "I was beginning to give up hope myself."

### "When are you thinking?"

### "We don't have a date yet. Soon. Probably between Thanksgiving and Christmas, before they have a chance to change their minds. Vicki is making plans already. Her mother is coming up from Atlanta to help her."

### "Let me know if there's anything Marge and I can do."

### "I will, Joe, and thanks again."

### Back in my office I grabbed a brown paper bag from my fridge before heading to Munchkin House. It contained a cheese sandwich—fat free— a pear, a small bottle of Poland Spring water, and a pack of tiny cupcakes.

### Olivia's friend, Jason, was drawing on his paper placemat. He shoved the placemat toward me along with the half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich resting on its corner.

### "That's a nice elephant, Jason."

### Olivia, sitting next to me, peered over my arm.

### "Dadeee, can't you tell a dinosaur from an elephant?"

### I looked again. I guess it could be a dinosaur. "Jason, who's right, me or Olivia?"

### "It's a T-Rex," he said, both palms up as if it couldn't be more obvious. "See his fat tail and his little arms, and big teeth? Elephants have skinny tails and long noses and no teeth."

### "Yes they do have teeth. Their tusks are like teeth that went all crazy," Olivia said.

### "Well they can't eat you like a T-Rex," Jason said.

### "They can step on you and squash you, right Daddy?"

### "They sure can."

### "And stick you with their tusks" Jason said. "I saw some elephants in the zoo—and a baby dinosaur—are you gonna eat your apple?"

### Olivia answered by taking a big bite. Jason eyed my pear. Between chews Olivia said "You didn't see...a dinosaur. They're dead."

### "OK, then it was a dragon, a little baby dragon."

### Olivia gave me her how-can-he-be-so-stupid look.

### "It was a lizard, Jason. They look like dragons."

### Olivia stood up and brushed crumbs from her smock. "I saw some real dragons on TV. Kokomonga dragons"

### "Kamoda dragons, " I said. "They're big lizards."

### "Yep, really big and they slobber and have really bad breath," Olivia said.

### Jason leaned forward and whispered. "Just like Mrs. B—yucky!"

### That triggered a round of giggles and a bout of hiccups from Jason. We sang the cleanup song and hit the Trash Monster. I said hello to Officer Ramirez on the porch as I left. If the police find Michael Eddy we might not need him.

### Things were looking up. My life was returning to some semblance of normality.

# CHAPTER 53-A BULLET IN HIS HEAD

When I returned to my office there was a voice mail from Angela, "Call me ASAP".

### I called."What's new?"

### "Lots. First of all Michael Eddy and his Ford Escape were found in a parking lot at Philadelphia International. He had a bullet hole in his head."

### "My God, what happened?"

### "Looks like he tried to kill himself. He's still hanging on in a coma down at Jefferson. Lost a lot of blood. Shot though the left temple with his service revolver. The bullet exited above his left eye and shattered the E-ZPass transponder on the windshield before it fell to the dashboard. He was lying across the center console and partially on the passenger seat and the floor. Keys in the ignition. Doors unlocked. Gun in his left hand. Rosary beads in his right. He was discovered early Sunday morning when a woman pulled into the space next to him. His laptop had the emails he sent you and others. Dozens of them."

### "I thought those emails were sent from public terminals."

### "Oh they were. He sent copies to himself. Also, it contained the pictures he stole from hacking in to your computer. No doubt about it, he's your pen pal."

### "I'm both relieved and saddened. He must have been a tortured soul. Too bad you didn't get to him before this. Has he been charged?"

### "He's not going anywhere soon even if he survives. We certainly have him for the thefts of your pictures and for terroristic threats. A murder charge would be a little shaky. The DA wants more evidence."

### "I see. Any suicide note, confession, or anything like that?"

### "No suicide note. I'd say it's highly likely he did Soroka. I'm not sure if he played a role in Cinelli's death. We don't even know if he was the mysterious visitor that day. We may never know if he dies. In the meantime you can rest a little easier."

### "Yes it's good to have some closure. I was beginning to doubt that Eddy was our guy. Keep me posted on his condition, will you?"

### "Sure thing."

### "Hey, do you know if Eddy is left-handed or right-handed?" I asked.

### "Good question, Frank. I'll check."

# CHAPTER 54-WEDDING PLANS

### Vicki and her mother were looking for a dress for the wedding. That seemed simple enough. I suggested they pick a color and go to a store and buy one.

### "Frank, you don't understand how complicated this is. If I were looking for a bridal gown we'd go right to a bridal shop. If I was looking for a nice dress, the kind I'd wear to someone else's wedding we'd go to Macy's. It's this in-between area that's tough. More like a bridal party dress but not quite. In a shop in Conshohocken they kept showing me dresses that would be perfect if I was going to the senior prom. It's brutal."

### "Are you enjoying yourself, Vicki?"

### "Immensely."

### The "in-between" area was by the request of Cardinal Tossi and Archbishop Reilly. The wedding should be small but not private, modest not ostentatious, an extension of a rare, but existing, Church policy, not something new. We settled on a noon nuptial Mass at St. Elizabeth's on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Vicki and I would both be off from that Wednesday until the following Monday. We would save the honeymoon until Christmas vacation. The wedding party would be just Joe as my best man and Vicki's sister Marie as her maid of honor. Olivia would be the flower girl and Joey the ring bearer. By his request Archbishop Reilly would officiate and celebrate the Mass. Our pastor, Monsignor Carey, and Tom Lacey would concelebrate. This would send a message that the marriage was fully sanctioned by the Church. The parishioners would be invited and there would be an informal reception following the wedding in the parish hall. Ladies from the parish would take care of it. The eighth grade girls in the parish school had their suspicions confirmed and something to tweet about.

### Vicki and I were pleased with the plans. She could concentrate on the dress. My amusement about her dress dilemma disappeared when it became evident that what I should wear needed to be fine tuned. It took a conference with the Archbishop and Tom Lacey to decide. Should I wear clerical garb with a Roman collar, vestments, a suit and tie? Archbishop Reilly zeroed in on a sensible approach. Marriage is a contract between a woman and a man, not a woman and a priest, or a woman and a professor. Vicki was marrying me, not the Church. We settled on the civvies; black suit and tie. Vicki suggested the crosses. I would wear a gold cross on a chain around my neck. Vicki would wear an identical one.

### Vicki also suggested a solution to our problem with the rings. We both wore our original wedding bands, each of us reluctant to sever the final link with our former spouses by removing them and replacing them with new rings. It seemed so disloyal.

### "What if we exchange rings?" she had said. "I'm sure Joe would want me to be happy and marry you and you have said the same about Connie. If we give each other the rings they gave us we can allow them to symbolically show that approval. Their love will be with us on our wedding day and forever. What do you say?"

### I was too choked up to say anything so I answered by twisting my ring off. It hung loosely on her thumb and hers fit snuggly on the tip of my pinky.

### "Some surgery may be called for," I said. "We'll take them to a jeweler and have them resized. He can cut a piece out of mine and use it to make yours bigger."

### Vicki held my ring up to the light to read the inscription inside and smiled through her tears. "Oh my."

I read the inscription in hers. It was the same as in mine: Together Forever.

### Domestic plans proceeded as well. Joey would get the third bedroom that I used for an office and I'd move the office down to the large finished basement. The avocado appliances straight out of the seventies and the chipped Formica counter top in the kitchen would be replaced by stainless steel and granite. The vintage washer and dryer from my mother's old place would go. We would shop for larger ones.

### "Figure two to three times the loads you were doing," Vicki said.

### "Can't wait for all that cookin' and washin'," I said.

### The bathroom and powder room were put on a wait list. The vertical blinds with the mismatched slats on the sliding doors to the patio had to go. A new bedspread replaced what Vicki referred to as "that thing on your bed." All our decisions were "shared". I was familiar enough with married life to know what that meant. My share would be the technical aspects of purchases, like the horsepower of the garbage disposal unit, or the efficiency rating of the refrigerator. Vicki's share included color, shape, texture, materials—everything visible. If the Vatican decreed tomorrow that all priests had the option of marriage I doubt many would survive it. I kid my celibate colleagues. "How many people with incomes near the poverty level have servants?" Many of the priests I knew who lived in large rectories had cooks and housekeepers. I put Tom Lacey up for a week when the rectory where he lived was being painted. The first morning he sat at the kitchen table and asked what was for breakfast. I explained that breakfast was a do-it-yourself activity, mentioned the deleterious effects of bacon and eggs on the arteries, and pointed to the Cheerios box smeared with grape jelly on the counter. The following day I put a clothes hangar on his bed with a sign that said "Hanger." I put a similar sign on the floor that read "Not a Hanger." Tom refers to that week as his week of domestic rehab.

### A week before Thanksgiving Michael Eddy came out of his coma. Maybe we could get some answers after all. While driving home that day it hit me.

# CHAPTER 55-E-ZPASS

### I called Angela Rossi on my cell.

### "I just had an idea," I said. "I've been thinking about that question of whether Eddy was Cinelli's mysterious visitor. This may be nothing but you said he had E-ZPass. If he went to Shore Memorial from Philadelphia that day...."

### "Hey, you're still cookin', Sherlock. Unless he used back roads he'd have had to pass through some tolls. I'll see what I can find."

### Two days later she got back to me. "Frank, I've been wading through Eddy's E-ZPass records this morning. I got data for July through August. Still waiting for September and October. Their system is down for some reason. Good news so far. On the day of Cinelli's death I have Eddy passing through the tolls on the Atlantic City Expressway at 10:02 AM. Twenty eight minutes later he got off the Garden State Parkway at exit 34, Somer's Point."

"That's only about a mile from Shore Memorial," I said.

### "Yes, and that afternoon, at 3:33 PM he passed through the AC Expressway tolls again heading back toward Philly and crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge at 4:15."

### "He was at Shore Memorial," I said.

### "Very likely. However, we still don't know what he was doing there. It's not a crime to dress in a black suit and Roman collar."

### "What about the syringe found on the floor?" I said.

### "The residue in the syringe was from a saline solution. Plain old sodium chloride; the same stuff that was being fed into Cinelli's left arm from a bag of it on a pole. And, if Eddy injected him, so what? A few more milliliters of saline wouldn't kill him. The DA is not impressed with my theory of Eddy as killer. He wants hard evidence. I don't have any. I'll check the E-ZPass record for the day of Soroka's murder as soon as I get the October list and also the day of your daughter's attempted abduction. In the meantime keep thinking, Sherlock. The game is still afoot and pray for the health of Michael Eddy. I want to ask him some questions. By the way, I asked Eddy's wife that question of yours. He's right-handed."

"Another loose end," I said.

### "Right," Angela said. "Why would he shoot himself with his left hand?"

# CHAPTER 56-GOOD SHEPHERD

### I shared the DA's caution. Okay, Eddy was pen pal and Eddy visited Cinelli, but was he a killer? Linking Eddy to Soroka's death was still shaky. TV cops always make a list of suspects and stick pins in a map on a wall in the squad room. I settled for my laptop and started my own list:

### 1. Tom Lacey found that Cinelli and Soroka were both stationed at Good Shepherd in the late sixties and both were abruptly transferred.

### 2. An altar boy, John Toner, was abused by Cinelli and claimed that a younger boy was also—a boy named "Mickey" or something like that.

### 3. Angela Rossi connected the "Mickey" nickname to another altar boy at Good Shepherd, Michael Eddy. We assumed that Eddy was also abused by Cinelli, in which case he might not be happy with abuser priests. He starts to harass them with the "Priests-Should-be-Truly-Priests" emails.

### 4. Michael Eddy heads a radically conservative Catholic group. He might see himself as a vigilante.

### 5. Eddy was booted out of the priesthood because of an affair with a woman he later married. I was allowed to be a priest and be married; something he was denied. Maybe that's why I got added to his email list.

### 6. Michael Eddy, dressed as a priest, probably visited Cinelli at Shore Memorial the day he died. What was he doing there? Did he have anything to do with his death?

### 7. Monsignor Smith saw a gray SUV leave St. Gabriel's the morning of Soroka's murder. Eddy drives a gray SUV. Eddy's prints were on the plastic sleeve that probably held the candle used as a murder weapon.

### I highlighted items three and seven on the list and changed the color of the type to red. If Michael Eddy was the killer he had to be "Mickey" and the gray SUV had to be his gray Ford Escape. Before I powered down the laptop I added one more item to my list.

### 8. If Eddy was pen pal and the killer, why did he send the threatening email to Soroka after his death?

### Soroka was murdered in the morning—the email arrived in the afternoon. Either Eddy was not the killer and unaware of Soroka's death or, if he was, the email was the red herring suggested by Angela; a purposeful deception. I decided to pay a visit to Good Shepherd. I could get there from PaCom in about fifteen minutes.

### Angela was right. The nuns at Good Shepherd were organized. After checking in with the pastor I found the altar boy files from the sixties without any trouble and pulled the Sunday Mass assignments for '66, '67, and '68. There was a separate sheet of names for each month. I moved some boxes from a dusty table under a small window, laid the sheets out, dialed in "macro" mode on my digital camera, and photographed each sheet. Fifteen minutes later I had thirty-six photos; one for each of the month's for '66, '67, and '68. I put the sheets back in their folders, and left.

### That night I transferred the photos from the camera to my laptop and went though each list, copying and pasting to a separate list any name that remotely might warrant the nickname "Mickey" or " something like that". Beside each name I put the boy's grade level in 1968. Michael Eddy was the only "Michael." My list now included:

### John Toner (8)

### Michael J. Eddy (6)- Mickey?

### Charles Magee(7) and Charles B. Chelius (8) —possible Chick or Chicky

### Richard A. Daniels (6) and Richard Soltis (8)—possible Rick, Dick, Ricky or Dicky.

### Nicholas Falgiatore (7) and Dominic G. Smith (7) —possible Nick or Nicky

### Victor Marchei(7)—possible Vic or Vicky.

### John Toner had told Tom that he thought the other boy was younger, probably in sixth or the seventh grade. That ruled out the two in the eighth grade and left five names. Before I went to bed I sent an email to Angela with an account of what I did at Good Shepherd and the list of the five new names and the question, "What do you think?"

### When I checked my email the next morning the curt reply from Angela read:

### Can Tom Lacey find out anything on these people from diocesan or high school records?

### AR

### P.S. I would have gone with you if you had asked.

### Oh, oh.

### I replied:

### My bad—mea culpa. Sorry.I'll check with Tom.

# CHAPTER 57-A NEW EMAIL

### On the Monday of Thanksgiving week I got an email with the subject line, PRIESTS SHOULD BE TRULY PRIESTS. The message was TWICE WED = TWICE DEAD."

### It was sent from a gibberish hot mail account. I got a call from Angela Rossi five minutes after I forwarded it to her.

### "This is bad news," she said. "It wasn't sent by a man in the hospital."

### "What if Eddy composed it weeks ago and put it on a delay for sending?" I asked.

### "Uh, uh. How would he know you were getting married? No, Frank, someone else sent this. We have to take the threat seriously. I wish your wedding wasn't going to be so public. Anyone can walk into that church."

### "Well, it's too late for us to change things now. It's probably just something meant to scare me anyhow."

### "I hope so. Let me make a few calls to see if I can arrange some security."

### It took about an hour for her to call back.

### "Frank, two uniformed officers from the ninth district will show up a half hour before the wedding. One will direct cars into the parking lot off Green Street and the other will stand on the side of the church steps."

### "Do you think this is necessary, Angela?"

### "It's not a SWAT team, Frank. Captain Mullen planned to assign one officer for traffic duty anyway. He said weddings at St. Elizabeth's jam up traffic in the area. The idea is just to have a visible police presence as a deterrent. Of course I'll be there too."

### "Hey, you're a guest, Angela. I didn't want to put you to work."

### "I'll be a guest, Frank, but a trained observer too. Remember? Police and scientists?"

### "Thanks for doing this, Angela."

### "No problem. Here's some news for you. I went through Michael Eddy's impounded SUV with a fine-toothed comb yesterday and found some four by six index cards clipped to the back of his sun visor. On one he had listed an appointment with Father Soroka for 8:30 AM on the day of his death. The notation read, 'Del Cdls & col bsks.' I'm thinking 'deliver candles and something else."

### "How about collection baskets? There were some new ones in the storeroom."

### "That works. Anyhow, we have Eddy at the scene of the murder. He'll be charged."

### "A little early, though," I said. "Monsignor Smith didn't see the SUV leave until ten-thirty."

### "Maybe he arrived late she said. "Now relax and enjoy your own wedding, Frank. I'll see you Saturday."

### I was enjoying it. Olivia and I were to meet Vicki and Joey at five o'clock at the King of Prussia Mall to buy outfits for the flower girl and ring bearer.

# CHAPTER 58-THE WEDDING DAY

### On Saturday Olivia and I picked up my mother on the way to Saint Elizabeth's.

### "Daddy and Aunt Vicki are getting married today, Grandma, and I'm the flower girl."

### "I know sweetheart, isn't that wonderful. You're going to have a new mommy and Joey will have a new daddy."

### "Just like the other kids at Munchkin House. Mommies like to play with dolls too but don't worry, Grandma, I'll still play with you."

### "Oh, I'm glad, Olivia. You'll have Joey to play with too."

### "Joey doesn't like my dolls. He has action figures. Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers— boy dolls.""

### "Remember my G.I. Joe toys, mom? Very similar," I said as I made a right onto Green Street.

"There's Joey and his grandma and pop pop on the steps," Grandma, "and Aunt Colleen, and Uncle Stephen, and Grace."

### People were already going into the church. I dropped my mother and Olivia off, waved to my sister and brother-in- law, and was directed into the parking lot by the policeman. Another officer stood at the top of the steps to the Church's side entrance. He looked bored. Angela Rossi was on the sidewalk across the street talking on her cell phone and looking at roof tops. I parked in back of the church next to Archbishop Reilly's Buick. About half a dozen priests were standing in a group near the back door to the church, some of them smoking. The Archbishop had invited priests from the surrounding parishes to attend. He wanted no question about the legitimacy of the marriage.

### I went over to the priests and thanked them for coming. A few made typical bachelor comments about balls and chains and the effects of marriage on one's golf score. The youngest priest asked me what my secret was. How did I convince the Vatican to let me marry?

### "Cosmic rays, Vince, cosmic rays," I said as I headed for the back door.

### Vince shouted, "What are you talking about?"

"Call me and I'll explain," I said taking the steps three at a time. The door led directly into the sacristy behind the altar.

### The Archbishop, Tom, and Monsignor Carey were putting on their vestments. "Last chance to back out, Frank," Archbishop Reilly said as he tied the long rope-like cord of the cincture around his waist.

### "Not a chance, sir. I don't want to disappoint the CDF."

### That got a laugh from everyone. I took the Archbishop's richly embroidered gold outer vestment, the chasuble, from its hanger and held it up. "Let me help you with this."

### "Thank you. I'll keep my homily short, Frank. As part of it I'll read the original letter to my predecessor granting you the papal exception to be ordained and remain married. I'll also read this short letter from Cardinal Tossi extending the exception to this marriage. I want everything out in the open to avoid speculation, Okay?"

### "That's fine, sir. I agree."

### "Good." He checked his watch. "Now get out of here. It's ten minutes to twelve. If we're lucky your bride won't be too late."

### "Oh she won't be late, sir. I know the woman I'm about to marry."

# CHAPTER 59-GET DOWN!

### Joe Amanti and I stood waiting near the altar and watched the last guests being seated. Two parishioners were serving as ushers. Vicki's mother was escorted up the aisle and the church became quiet. The two ushers rolled the white carpet runner down the center aisle.

### At exactly twelve o'clock the first note of the organ sounded. Olivia, in a white dress, black patent leather slippers, and white sox with little ruffles around the ankles started up the aisle with her basket of flowers, tossing pink rose petals onto the white runner with a flourish. She accented the slow cadence of her walk with giggles and an occasional skip. Joey, dressed in khaki slacks and a blue blazer, took his role more seriously. He balanced the two velvet ring boxes in the lid of a shoe box covered in wedding gift wrap and a pink bow. The silk pillow he was supposed to carry didn't work out well in rehearsal as the ring boxes kept sliding off. Joey looked straight ahead wearing a permanent frown. Vicki's sister, the maid of honor, followed and when she was about halfway down the aisle Vicki started on the arm of her father.

### Smiling from ear to ear Vicki wore a pink, silky dress that came down just below her knees, a short veil, and pink shoes with a medium length heel. The only jewelry was the diamond stud earrings borrowed from her sister and the small gold cross I gave her for a wedding present.

### The florist had constructed a nosegay from white roses piled on Vicki's old First Holy Communion prayer book. Thin baby blue ribbons trailed from it. An angel lacking only wings.

### The Archbishop, Tom, and Monsignor Carey stood on the altar facing the center aisle, their hands folded. The guest priests stood on each side of the altar. Joe Amanti and I stood at the bottom of the altar steps. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a late arriving priest hustling out of the sacristy adjusting his vestments.

### As Vicki neared the end of the aisle the Archbishop stepped forward and Vicki's father handed his daughter off to me. Vicki took my arm and we turned and faced the Archbishop. He began to speak.

### "Victoria and Francis, family and guests of the bride and groom, Monsignor Carey, parishioners of Saint Elizabeth's, the teachers and good sisters of St. Elizabeth's, students of the bride, and my fellow priests. Today we..."

### "Stop! Get down! Get down!"

### Angela Rossi was running up the center aisle. The two uniformed policemen were running up the side aisles. Half way up the aisle Angela reached into her leather shoulder bag and dropped to one knee, holding the Glock automatic with two hands.

### "Vicki! Get Down!" she shouted again.

### I felt like I was hit by a truck as Joe Amanti slammed into me and Vicki and the three of us hit the marble floor. Two shots rang out in quick succession. I covered Vicki with my body and turned my head in the direction of the sound from the collapsing folding chairs set up for the visiting priests. Monsignor Smith was sprawled on the floor in the midst of them covered in broken glass from the sanctuary light hanging from the ceiling; the light shattered by the bullet intended for me or Vicki. The gun he had been holding slowly spun amidst the shards of glass on the sanctuary floor. Now I knew who Angela had been aiming at. The two uniforms were on him immediately. Smith was conscious and there was a growing bloodstain on the front of his white alb like a liquid rose in a lapel.

### Angela Rossi ran onto the altar and stood in front of Smith. She put the Glock 40 back in her bag.

"D. Gregory Smith, also known as Dominic G. Smith" she said nodding her head at me, "you are under arrest for the murder of Father Albert Soroka and the attempted murders of Victoria Meyers and Michael Eddy. You have the right to remain silent...."

### The people trying to get out of the church, realizing that the danger was over, stopped to watch the drama unfolding on the altar

### .

### The ambulance arrived ten minutes later. The archbishop was great. "Just another routine day in the life of your local clergy and the Philadelphia Police Department, folks," he said from the pulpit. "Now, before we were so rudely interrupted, I think we had a wedding going on. There will be a slight change in venue. We are now sitting in what I believe is called a 'crime scene'. The police want us to leave so we are moving over to the parish hall to finish what we started. There are tables and chairs set up for the reception so you can all sit down for the ceremony. We will exit down the center aisle and out the main entrance and cross over..."

### "Pop pop?"

### Olivia was standing in front of the pulpit.

### Reilly looked down.

### "Yes Olivia."

### "Can I throw my flowers? I have a lot left."

### Olivia and Joey led the procession. Olivia tossed flowers and skipped. This time Joey skipped too. Everyone thought it was the best and certainly most exciting wedding the parish ever had.

# CHAPTER 60-THE RECEPTION

### At the reception following the ceremony I spotted Angela surrounded by a group of boys and girls from the parish school. I went over to rescue her.

### "Can we see your gun?"

### "How many people have you shot?"

### "J'ever kill anybody?

### "Ever stick anybody's head in a toilet to make them talk?"

### "Do you do Karate?"

### "Sorry guys," I said. "I have to borrow Officer Rossi now. Police business."

### I took Angela's arm and steered her toward the table with the wedding cake constructed by Vicki's students out of dozens of cup cakes. The top layer was crowned with a plastic bride and groom.

### "Thanks Frank. I was breaking under the third degree. I think those kids are watching too much TV."

### "You're the local hero. I have a lot of questions of my own."

### "Fire away," she said, handing me a cup of pink lemonade and ladling one for herself out of the big punch bowl.

### "How in the world did you discover that Smith was the killer?"

### "A lie and your list of altar boys at Good Shepherd," she said taking a sip.

### "What lie?"

### "Last night I finally managed to get Michael Eddy's E-ZPass record for October. On the day of Soroka's death he entered the Pennsylvania Turnpike at King of Prussia at 10:42 AM and exited an hour later at Allentown. I checked my notes and Monsignor Smith told us that the gray SUV he spotted left the parking lot at 10:30. He was sure of the time because he said the clock had just chimed the half hour. Now if that SUV was Michael Eddy's there is no way he made the forty miles to King of Prussia in 12 minutes. So Smith lied or the gray SUV was not Eddy's."

### "Or Smith was mistaken about the time," I said. "Smith said the clock chimed the half hour. Maybe it was 9:30."

### "That wouldn't jive with his luncheon date," she said. "Monsignor Smith said he left the rectory soon after he saw the SUV to pick up a friend in Newtown Square at 11:30. This morning, when I was standing outside the church, Father Mahon, Smith's friend at St. Benedict's in Newton Square, returned my call and confirmed that Smith had indeed picked him up about 11:30 on the day of the murder. It would take him about 45 minutes to get from St. Gabe's to St. Benedict's. That squares with the 10:30 time on the clock; 9:30 would be too early. That's when I suspected Smith was lying about the SUV. Also, I remembered that Smith didn't give us the story about the SUV until after you discovered the broken candle. But I still wasn't sure. The gray SUV could have been owned by a parishioner dropping off something for the clothing drive."

### "How does the altar boy list fit in?"

### "Just as your bride pulled up to the church a black Lexus pulled into the driveway, stopped, and the driver asked Officer Ortiz a question. We saw a black Lexus in the driveway of Smith's rectory. I took the plate number and used the computer on the dashboard of the squad car to check the tag. It was registered to Dominic G. Smith."

### "D. Gregory Smith - Dominic G. Smith," I said "and there was a Dominic G. Smith on my altar boy list"

### "Right. So now I added the possibility that Smith was called 'Nicky' in grade school to the possibility he was lying about the SUV."

### "And if he was 'Nicky'," I said, "then he could have been the one abused by Cinelli as a boy."

### "Abused by Cinelli or Soroka. I think it was Soroka. Toner just said he thought a younger boy was abused. He didn't know who was the abuser. And if it was Soroka then Smith had a motive to kill him. It was too much to ignore so I briefed the other officers and we went into the church. It turns out, just in time. I could see Smith on the altar struggling with something under his robe. You two were lucky. I could see the gun caught in that rope around his waist. That gave me just enough time to warn you before I dropped him. Incidentally, he'll survive to stand trial. It's a shoulder wound. They'll be an Internal Affairs investigation of the shooting. There always is but the two veteran officers that were with me can testify to the fact that Smith's gun was pointing at Vicki and you when I fired."

### "So can a church full of people," I said. "I'll tell you something, you'll never have to worry about not being considered a 'real' cop again."

### She laughed. "Yeah, no more 'virtual cop' jokes. I think you're supposed to dance with your bride now. I'll talk to you later."

### I saw Vicki standing near the student disc jockey and waving to me. I put my empty cup on the table as Louis Armstrong began to sing "What a Wonderful World".

# CHAPTER 61-THE NEW NORMAL

### It was well into January before all the pieces fell into place. Michael Eddy was in rehab and doing well. It looked like the loss of his left eye would be the only permanent effect of the shooting. The only charge he faced was the one for theft of my emails. Michael felt betrayed by Smith, whom he thought was his friend. He would be the chief witness for the prosecution if Smith is ever brought to trial. Smith faced charges of murder, attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, and of making terroristic threats. He's in bad shape— mentally, not physically— and has made a full confession, many of them— some to the Pope no less. All day he paces his padded cell. "Bless me Holy Father for I have sinned."

### While I read in bed Vicki was doubled up on the bedroom chair, her chin resting on one knee, as she fanned her just-painted toenails.

### "Guess what?" she said squeezing the words between her teeth. "I saw Angela at registration last night. She's taking a computer sci course on the same night as my writing course. We had a little chat."

### I put down my book. "Oh?"

### "About your friend, Sal. There's a lot we didn't know about them, Frank, and it's partly our fault. We shouldn't have invited them both to see the game that Sunday."

### "Why not? They're both our friends."

### "You should have made it clear that Sal was a priest when you introduced them."

### "I didn't introduce them. Sal introduced himself. Besides, if I remember correctly, you were trying your best to be a matchmaker."

### "I thought she knew he was a priest. He should have said something."

### "When you meet some one do you say 'How do you do? My name is Vicki Meyers. I'm a teacher?"

### "No, but if I was talking to someone for three hours I could certainly work it into the conversation. What luck. Angela meets a great looking Italian guy who is not married, not divorced, not gay—who she says is definitely not gay—and after she falls for him he tells her he's a priest. And, it's worse for them than it was for us. You had a chance for a dispensation and he doesn't. These are almost dry," she said looking at the toes. "You know, I don't understand him and I still don't fully understand exactly what happened over the past few months."

### Happy to change the subject I said, "Well jump over here and I'll tell you a bed time story."

### "Don't skip any pages, Frank"

### "Not a one. It started when Eddy and Smith were altar boys at Good Shepherd."

### "Way before I was born," she said snuggling closer.

### "Way before. Smith was sexually abused by Father Soroka and probably abused by Cinelli too."

### "I thought it was Michael Eddy who was abused by Cinelli."

### "That's what we originally thought based upon our assumption that Eddy was the "Mickey" mentioned by Toner and the fact that Toner was abused by Cinelli. Eddy was never abused himself but he knew about the abuse of other boys."

### "Were Eddy and Smith friends at Good Shepherd?" she asked.

### "No. They probably knew each other but Smith was in the seventh grade when Eddy was in the sixth. After high school Smith went directly to St. Charles's seminary and Eddy went into the Navy for four years. After the navy Eddy entered St. Charles. He would have been five years behind Smith so..."

### "So, they still didn't have much contact," she said.

### "Right. After their ordinations their careers took different paths. Eddy left the priesthood— was forced out actually— to marry a former student. Smith was sent to Rome for an advanced degree in theology and then was made a monsignor at an early age. He was on a path that could easily have led to being made a bishop."

### "What happened?"

### "He was derailed by love— the parish secretary where he was pastor— but opted to remain in the priesthood rather than marry. The secretary was devastated. There was a scandal. Goodbye fast track to a bishopric, hello St. Gabriel's."

### "Eddy gave up the priesthood for the woman he loved. Smith gave up the woman he loved for the priesthood," Vicki said. "Love stories with two different endings."

### "And both of them were mad that the third option was denied them; the one I had when I was ordained while married to Connie."

### "Why you and not them, right? No wonder you were on their sh—radar screen."

### "Right. Eddy and Smith reconnected when Eddy started his job as the church supply rep. Eddy bragged about his work with the Union of True Believers and his email harassment of errant priests. Smith encouraged him to make actual threats and to add me to the list, the only married priest in the Archdiocese. He also encouraged Eddy to visit Cinelli at Shore Memorial and, in Eddy's words, 'pull the plug on the pervert'. Eddy planned to just give him a good scare but the plan backfired. He said that he told Cinelli he was going to inject him with a lethal solution of potassium chloride. He actually had a harmless solution of sodium chloride in his syringe. Eddy certainly succeeded in scaring Cinelli. He probably scared him to death."

### "Geez, Frank, Priscilla would love this story. How did Father Soroka fit in?"

### "When the 2005 Grand Jury report fingered Soroka as a sexual abuser of minors he was forced into retirement. Smith volunteered to let him live at St. Gabriel's. Soroka never knew that Smith was one of the altar boys he had abused. Smith took his revenge by treating Soroka like dirt. He had him clean the church each week, wash his car, even scrub the toilets in the bathrooms. Smith's mistake was to let Soroka handle the storeroom and the church supplies."

### "Why?"

### "Apparently while computerizing the storeroom inventory Soroka decided to transfer the parish records to a computer data base; modernize the record keeping. In the process he discovered Smith's private IRA. Soroka had confronted Smith with his discovery that fateful morning and paid for it with his life. A forensic audit of the financial records in Soroka's laptop revealed that someone was skimming money from the Sunday collections. The police originally thought it was Soroka. The financial records, which Smith had removed from the storeroom after the murder and had hidden in the rectory attic, revealed that it was actually Smith. When I showed up with Angela Rossi he pretended not to know who I was and when we discovered that Soroka was murdered with the candle he tried to throw suspicion onto Michael Eddy with the SUV story."

### "So Eddy was not at St. Gabe's the morning of the death."

### "He was there. He had met with Soroka early in the morning and delivered the new candle and some collection baskets. Eddy claimed he left before nine o'clock and went to visit a customer in Allentown. When he was there he sent the two o'clock email to Soroka. He had no idea Soroka was dead. It was after Eddy left St. Gabe's that Smith killed Soroka. The coroner estimated death to be around ten o'clock. Smith picked the ten-thirty time for the SUV story to be compatible with that time."

### "Why did he try to kill Eddy?"

### "As soon as Eddy found out that the police were investigating the Soroka death as a murder and that they wanted to question him, he figured out what had happened. He went to St. Gabe's to confront Smith. Eddy said he wanted to convince Smith to give himself up to the police and clear him and if that failed to "arrest" Smith himself. He had his old service revolver with him. Somehow Smith got the gun, forced Eddy to drive to the airport, shot him, and staged it to look like a suicide. Smith then took the shuttle van from the parking lot to the airport terminal, got the train into center city, and the trolley out to St. Gabe's. That's the point at which Smith should have called it quits. He thought Eddy was dead, the only one who knew he was the killer, and that we believed Eddy was guilty. Instead he sends me a threatening email which I can't possibly believe came from Eddy after he was shot."

### "Crazy. But what did Smith have against me?" Vicki asked.

### "Smith was over the edge and not acting rationally. In his mind he had solved two of his problems with murder and I was responsible for his present troubles."

### "Which he could solve by getting rid of you."

### "Or, punish me by hurting you, or Olivia. It was Smith who was at Munchkin House."

### "What about the bishop who gave you all that trouble?"

### "Bishop Schmidt? Neither Eddy nor Smith said they had any connection to him although I still think Schmidt might have been the one feeding information to the CDF about me."

### "Well, it's all over now, Frank. We can relax. By the way, did Georgina Rutherford ever do that experiment you wanted her to do?"

### "Not exactly, but she did help resolve the cosmic ray mystery. It suddenly disappeared."

### "Before we went to Rome?"

### "Yes."

### "Did you tell Cardinal Tossi?"

### "He never asked."

### "I thought you said you made a deal with him."

### "He thought so."

### "You devil," she said punching my shoulder. "You let him believe you were going to do that experiment with Georgina. I'm glad it disappeared. I think it upset you."

### "I was bothered that I had no scientific explanation for it."

### "You had a divine explanation."

### "I did. Georgina had a different explanation."

### I saw no need to scare Vicki with any talk about the devil.

### "Let's say we both had a 'supernatural' explanation of a phenomenon that pushed the CDF into letting us get married."

"A marriage made in heaven" she said smiling. "I like that idea. A divine push. Read your book for a minute, Frank. I'll be right back."

### The first indicators that I was going to lose some sleep that night were the wet pink toenails peeking out of the bathroom door. She sashayed into the room twirling the cord from her half opened kimono, threatening to shed it with a tug and a shrug. A cigarette (no a toothbrush) dangled from her parted crimson lips. She stopped at the bottom of the bed. Her voice? If a clarinet could whisper it might be close.

### "Listen, handsome. It's raining cats and dogs. My car broke down in front of your house. My triple A membership has expired. I was wondering if you could give a lady—a push."

### Later I showed Vicki what I had written.

### "A clarinet, huh? I like that. You're improving, Frank"

# CHAPTER 62-EPILOGUE

### Sal and I were sitting in the back booth of a pub in Chestnut Hill with the remains of a pepperoni pizza and two bottles of Sam Adams. He had called me with an idea about the cosmic ray problem. I owed him an explanation.

### "An exorcism? You can't be serious."

### I wiped tomato sauce from my mouth and shrugged.

### "No more unexplained tracks in the cloud chambers, consecrated host or not. It was Georgina's idea. Remember that day when we did the Cavendish experiment and she proposed her 'demonic' hypothesis? An outrageous suggestion like that deserves to be tested out experimentally, and that is exactly what we did. We certainly weren't getting anywhere with a scientific explanation."

### "And Archbishop Reilly went for this?" Sal asked. "You'd need a bishop's approval to perform an exorcism."

### "I didn't do it. Georgina did. A DIY operation. She performed the Catholic Rite of Exorcism."

### "Holy smokes, Frank, either you just hit on a coincidence and the phenomenon went away on its own or you caught the devil by the tail. What do you think?"

### "I'm content to let Georgina take the credit," I said grabbing another slice of pizza.

### "That doesn't answer my question, Frank. What do you think happened?"

### I chewed thoughtfully before answering.

### "I think the phenomenon appeared spontaneously and disappeared spontaneously. The disappearance happened to coincide with Geogina's exorcism. That's what I think most likely happened. Still...?"

### "Still some doubt remains," Sal said. "The weird physics of the whole cosmic ray business was fascinating. I'm disappointed though. I thought we were getting somewhere."

### "Well, it was fun while it lasted, wasn't it? On the chance that Georgina's exorcism really did do the trick Tom pointed out a bonus. According to canon law the only one who can do an exorcism is a validly ordained priest."

### Sal downed the remainder of his beer and said. "So, Georgina performs the rite, it works, ergo, her ordination is just as valid as mine or yours,"

### "Which Georgina never had any doubt about in the first place. As for challenging the Catholic Church's contention that all ordinations in the Anglican community are invalid, though, our questionable exorcism experiment is worthless. Georgina and I were the only witnesses and the experiment is not reproducible."

### "But we know that the errant cosmic rays are gone," Sal said "at least temporarily. Maybe they will come back again. Who else knows about them?"

### "Just Tom Lacey and Joe Amanti; five altogether including me, Georgina, and now you. Six with Vicki."

### "Exactly when did you do this?" Sal asked.

### "Right before Vicki and I went to Rome to meet with Cardinal Tossi."

### "Did you tell him about it?"

### "Nope. I didn't want to give up my main bargaining chip in my quest to marry Vicki. Tossi didn't ask—I didn't tell. What he did ask is whether I intended to do the experiment I had planned with Georgina. I said no."

### "No you wouldn't do an experiment with a phenomenon that no longer existed. You traded that for his approval of your marriage petition?"

### "Nihil pro quo," I said. "He got what he wanted and I got what I wanted."

### "Jeez, Frank, you should have been a Jesuit. We're the ones with a reputation for being devious."

### Sal tried to take another swig from his empty beer bottle and looked thoughtful. "So Tossi still thinks the original experiment you had planned with Georgina could still be done."

### "Right."

### Sal smiled as our waitress put down two fresh bottles of beer.

### "Thank you. We'll take a check when you get a chance," he said to her. "And," after he took a good swig "Tossi found about the experiment in the first place from that email you sent me."

### "That's the only way he could have known."

### "He also knows that I'm a physicist and capable of carrying out such an experiment with Georgina myself."

### "A nice insurance policy," I said. "Case you ever have trouble with the CDF."

### "Or, if I need to petition them for anything. By the way, I'm sorry I didn't get back to you about the Eagles' games. I know I promised to let you use one of the season tickets I inherited from my brother-in-law."

### I pretended not to have guessed what happened to the tickets. "I figured you have so many cousins and..."

### "Not my cousins. Angela Rossi. I took Angela to the games."

### Sal grabbed the check. "My treat," he said and tilted his bottle toward me. "Your petition to marry, Frank, how was that actually worded?"

### The End

### ABOUT THE AUTHOR

### Dr. Frank A. Smith was Professor of Physics at West Chester University of Pennsylvania until his retirement. He is the author of numerous papers in professional journals and of an internet study guide for introductory college physics. The "Cosmic Ray Heresy" is his first novel. In addition to his tenure at West Chester University Dr. Smith has been an adjunct professor at Temple University, Gwynedd-Mercy University, and Philadelphia University. He resides with his wife in West Chester, Pa and Ocean City, NJ.

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