Chapter VIII

VIII

Middle morning Ed and Ruth Ellen loaded the paddy wagon with prison­ers that had been charged with crimes. They were moving them to Cook County Jail. Momentarily at least, the station cleared out.

Art handed me an envelope. “Notes from his sisters and his niece.” Art commented. “Father Paul, too.” Then he handed me a rosary and a copy of the morning paper. “I didn’t see you pass him a thing.” We walked back to the holding cells. Art unlocked Fa­ther Tim’s cell door, and once I entered, he locked it again.

Father Tim sat on a white plastic perch that served as a bunk. The entire cell, walls, floor, bunk, and toilet were made of one piece of plastic. There was a phone on one side. It was made from a separate piece of plastic. It had a built in receiver so that it can’t be yanked off and used as a weapon. From what Art told me, the prisoner can make as many calls as he wants, but he has to stand bent over, with his ear against the wall unit. All calls are re­corded, and charged back to the prisoner’s home phone. After three minutes, each call is automatically disconnected. I’ve been told Father Tim called Father Paul several times.

“Isn’t this a little unusual?” Father Tim asked.

“Yeah, it is,” I said, passing him the envelope and the paper. I sat on the bunk next to him. “Your roomies have been charged. They’re being trans­ported to Cook County now.”

“What about me? Are they going to release me?”

“Soon, I hope. There’s notes here. Lisa, Brenna and Rose. Father Paul, too.”

“If they’re embarrassed,” Father Tim began. He looked pitiful, as gray as he was the day before, but now he had tired rings about his eyes. “Tell them I didn’t do anything.”

“They know. We all know. If you can bear with this just a little longer, Chief Weber thinks he can clear you completely.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Alan said you didn’t do anything.”

Father Tim nodded. He opened the envelope and slipped the notes out. He glanced at me and slipped them back. It was evident he wanted to be alone to read them. “I’ve never molested any child. As hard as it seems to believe, I am celibate. Always have been.”

“One last thing.” I pulled the rosary from my pocket and placed it in the center of one of his hands. “Art and Bill, they’re sorry they had to take this away. It’s required. Not allow prisoners things they can use to hurt them­selves with.”

Father Tim quickly closed his hand. “I’ve been praying all along. I mean what is this? A relic? An idea maybe? It only represents what the prayers mean. It isn’t the prayer itself.” He glanced at his hand again. “I’m trying to understand this. Like Christ on the cross asking his Father, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ I’m trying to have enough faith in God to accept that if I’m supposed to spend my life in prison for something I didn’t do, that he has a reason for this. I’m trying. It’s hard.” He passed the beads to his other hand. “I’m praying for myself obviously, and I’m praying that the Holy Mother will help all of us. Start the healing. I understand that I’m being blamed here for Bobby’s actions. And you know I’m praying for him and the others, too. All of them. The shooters and their victims. I’m trying.”

I saw Bill next about one in the afternoon, when he returned from court, and what a smile. “Something finally worked out right,“ he told us. He and State Trooper Perez faced a Judge Kathleen Bailey. “She’s usually not very cooperative,“ Bill confided. “She’s given me hell before.“

There were numerous charges against numerous drivers. Joe was charged with leaving the scene of an accident, and the several of the news people were charged with driving too fast for conditions, for following too closely and a one man was charged with driving while intoxicated. The judge dealt with it all at once. After the bailiff read a list of charges, Trooper Perez took over. He claimed he had never seen anything so blatantly unsafe. “Like Princess Diana and the paparazzi. They couldn’t just let this man alone.“

Attorneys for the others claimed that they were minding their own business. They had heard of a raucous at Roosevelt and was on their way when this man backed out on to 127^th Street. Then Bill spoke again. “I know this man. And I went to his home to pass on this ticket. These people parked outside his place of residence and waited for him to leave again.“ The attorneys tried to object, saying that Bill made that up. That he was friends with the guy who caused the accident. It was a conflict of interest. “I have photos,“ Bill retorted.

The judge demanded silence, even threatened to have some arrested if they didn’t quiet. She took a good look at each photo. After a moment’s break, she cleared her throat. “Are you telling me that the damage to your vehicles was caused because of this accident?“ she asked one driver.

“Yes, Ma’am.“

“And not because of an earlier accident.“

“My van was pristine before this,“ the driver of the news van with the greatest amount of damage claimed. “Nothing. No accidents, no scratches. Not a thing.“

She held up two photos of similar vans. One was scratched and dented while the other had a dented bumper. “Is this yours?“

He shrugged, not sure whether he should answer her or not. The attorney did. “Not sure if that’s the same van or not,“ he explained.

She held up a second photo, this one of his license plate. The front fender had a huge scratch in it. She then issued a judgment. “We don’t have a point system in Illinois,” she explained. “Plain and simple. Three moving violations and you lose your license.” She turned first to the driver of the news van. “Driving too fast for conditions and following too closely. One more offense and you walk.” She handed him a stiff fine, and then suspended the license of the man charged with driving under the influence. She dealt just as strongly with the others involved before turning to Joe. “Mr. Spyres, I can understand the circumstances and how threatened you felt at the time. Although as a driver it is your responsibility to keep your wits about you at all times. I can’t just allow you to walk away from this without some kind of penalty.” Bill said that she then took a good hard look at the others. “Therefore,” she began again, “I am fining you ten dollars. Please pay the clerk on your way out of the building.” She banged her gavel and ordered the bailiff to call the next case.

Bill and I returned to St. Michael the Archangel later that day. We sat in the school li­brary with Father Paul and the teachers, listening to the kids tell stories about Father Tim. Poor Bill chewed on the plastic tip of an unlit ci­gar, sometimes tucking it in his uniform shirt pocket, but then taking it out and playing with it again.

One little boy went on and on about his first Mass. “Father Tim,” he said, “Was holding that dish. The one with the chips in it.”

“The Eucharist,” Father Paul corrected.

“Huh?”

“The Eucharist.”

“No, the chips. Those chips you get at Communion.”

“Those chips are called the Eucharist.”

The boy nodded at Father Paul, and returned to us. “You know, the chips. He was passing out the chips when he dropped the whole thing on the floor.” The boy laughed out loud and slapped his buddy on the back. “Remember? Father Tim getting down there, trying to pick them up?”

“He almost fell over,” the buddy said. “It was so funny. He kept trying, but he couldn’t do it. He had to put the dish on the floor again.”

“And he stepped on his dress,” the first boy said. “And he dropped the dish again.” Both latched onto each other and laughed harder. “He’s still trying to pick up the chips. They’re all over. And he’s holding onto the altar boy, trying to stand up.”

“This is embarrassing,” Father Paul said once the kids had filed out. “Father Tim  is a recovering alcoholic. He was drunk.”

Bill turned to me and tried not to smile. In the end he laughed. “I thought you said we arrested a saint.”

There are two kinds of people in this world; the kind you can trust with your life, and the kind you can trust to slit your throat while you sleep. Jimmy McCafferty is the second kind. When he and Brenna were married, he drank, he cheated on her, and when she com­plained, he knocked her around.

After talking to Rose about her situation, it makes me wonder what their father was like. I don’t remember seeing him hit anyone, although I do re­member that he drank quite a bit more than other fathers did on our block. Was this a cycle? Did they marry the type of man that their mother had married?

While Jimmy was at the police station, shouting at Art about Father Tim; Lisa and her stepmother were in court. The second Mrs. McCafferty man­aged to convince several law­yers and a judge that Lisa’s well being was at stake. As long as she lived with her mother, she was easy prey for a child molester.

And before that school day ended, Jimmy and Lisa McCafferty showed up at Roosevelt. Joe told me about this, and later Lisa confirmed the story. Even though Jimmy is no taller than Brenna is, he tries to be intimidat­ing. Like I said earlier, he’s muscular. Even in the worst of winter, he’ll wear an open work shirt, with a tight T-shirt underneath. He charged into the attendance office, and slammed a stack of papers on the counter. “I want Spyres, now,” he demanded.

Joe was speaking on the phone at the time. When he heard Jimmy, he made an excuse and hung up. “What do you want?” Joe demanded. He told me later how hard it was for him to resist swearing at Jimmy, or tossing him physically from the building.

“I’m transferring my daughter,” Jimmy said. “Now.”

“According to my records, Brenna has custody.”

“Right here,” the man said, pushing his stack of papers across the counter.

Joe turned to his secretary. “Get Brenna McCafferty on the phone now.”

“Hold this up, Spyres,” Jimmy threatened, “And I’ll get the cops in here to do it for me. You got that?”

“Call anyone you want. If you think I’ll hand over one of my students to any piece of crap that walks through that door, you’re crazier than I think you are.” He leaned forward, his hands on the counter, and towering over McCafferty. “You don’t like that, McCaf­ferty, you go ahead and call the cops. See who they back up.”“Fine, I will call the cops.”

Joe turned back to secretary. “When you’re done with Brenna, call Art Weber and tell him what’s going on.”

“Mr. Spyres?” Lisa crept up to the counter next to her father. “He’s right. He has cus­tody now.”

Joe studied her closely. He said that even that night in the cafeteria, she looked better, happier. He thought quickly, and nodded. “I need your books.”

“They’re here.” She unslung her book bag from her shoulders and laid it on the counter.

“Come on in, and we’ll go through them.” He opened the gate in the counter for her. When Jimmy tried to follow, Joe slammed it. “Sit down. Before I call security.”

“My daughter.”

“My books. And technically she’s still mine until I sign her release. Sit down.”

“I have Mrs. McCafferty on the line,” the secretary told him at just that moment.

Joe escorted Lisa into his office, and closed the door. He put Brenna on the inter­com. “Brenna, it’s Joe Spyres. I have Lisa with me. The door is shut and Jimmy is in the outer office. What the hell is going on?”

“He’s trying to say that Tim molested her. I can’t fight him. I can’t afford a lawyer.”

“Were you molested?” he asked Lisa.

“No,” Lisa said without a thought. “He doesn’t do things like that.”

“That isn’t what the cops are saying.”

“Joe,” Brenna broke in, “They haven’t even charged him yet.”

“They haven’t?”

“No.”

He finished up his business quickly. Then Brenna asked if she could say goodbye to her daughter. “Lisa, darling, I love you. You know that.”

“Mom?”

“What is it, Lisa?” 

“I need paint. Burnt ochre and raw sienna. That art store on Cal Ridge Road.”

“You should be telling that to your stepmother.”

“I’m not staying that long. And Mom?”

“What is it, Lisa?”

“I love you. And Uncle Tim, too. Tell him that. Please? Tell him I love him.”

“I will, Lisa. I promise.”

“I told the judge, and I told him,” Lisa said once they had finished with Brenna. “He turns his back and I’m gone. I won’t stay with him.”

“If I could do something now to stop him, you know I would.”

“I know.”

He made up his mind, I think, at that moment. “You know how to get a hold of me?”

“Annie.”

“Fine. You need help, call Annie.”

“Thank you.”

From what Lisa told me later, her father took her straight to her step­mother's gynecolo­gist for an examination. “I told him,” Lisa said, “I told them both that I’m a virgin. He wasn’t going to believe me until that doctor told him that. And even then he starts screaming at the doctor, telling him that he was an idiot. That I was abused by my uncle and all he had to do was look.”

People who had gathered early at the police station left soon after talking to Art. When school ended, a person I least expected arrived. Hannah Schreoder, tall, thin, with waist length blonde hair and a nervous smile, ad­dressed a startled mob of police officers. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just thought I’d say something in Father Tim's defense.”

Art eased her and I into an interrogation cell. We sat, each of us glancing at each other. A moment passed before Art got down to business. “You weren’t molested?”

“No. I just got out of the hospital,” she said. This was Hannah Schreoder. The same Hannah Schreoder that Tony LoBianco had thrown Megan Boyle over for. The same Hannah Schreoder that Bobby Boyle had tormented so badly on the night of the shoot­ings. This girl, who scowled so badly in the pictures, owned a gentle smile and a nervous twitch in her upper lip. “Father Tim’s the chaplain at the hospital,” she continued. “He was there for me every day. And he didn’t touch me.”

Art bit his lips first, before asking the next question. “Okay, Hannah, don’t take this wrong. We send you in for a physical, are we going to find you had sex?”

She blushed. “Well, yes.”

“You aren’t a virgin?”

“No.”

“And Father Tim didn’t do it?”

“No. Tony. We were in love.”

After leaving the police station, I drove to the newspaper office. I had two stories to type and pictures to download, and a stack of mail Renita wanted off her desk. Tom Koehler caught up with me as I typed, and read over my shoulder. “You know something,” he said, “This is getting boring.”

“What is?”

“Are they charging this poor fool or not?”

“Who? Father Tim?”

“No, the Pope. Who do you think I’m talking about?”

“They haven’t charged him with anything yet.”

“So, they’ll let him rot in jail until they do? I thought this was America.” He shook that off, drawing his lip down again and covering his teeth. “So, you have anything else you’re working on?”

“The Romaro Antique Store was broken into last night.”

“Since when do you do police blotters?”

“I’m not. Nick Romaro’s parents.”

“Why is that name familiar?”

“One of the Portland Five. And someone hit Rose Boyle in the head with a rock. And Warren Devers’ mother is missing. And I have pictures of the lynch mob that showed up at the police station this morning. Small lynch mob anyway.”

“Okay, give me some of that. Tomorrow, find something else. No more interviews until you come up with something to hang this doofus with.”

After work Brenna stopped by the art store and bought the paint that Lisa asked for. At home, she laid out the new tubes on the worktable in her daughter’s room. A collec­tion of brushes, other paints and various art im­plements each had their place, and Lisa had room to build her frames and stretch canvas. Off to one side of the table stood an easel and a high inten­sity light.

Brenna flipped on the light and sat on Lisa’s bed. The picture Lisa had started a few days before was a quarter of a woman’s face. A shear veil, the color of the October sky, dropped just above one blue eye. A teardrop made a path beside the nose. Dark hair was tied at that side of her face. Kelly Raye’s holy card was still clipped to the upper corner of the canvas.

Brenna said she prayed; unconsciously at first, but then consciously counting out her Hail Mary’s. Like her brother had the night before, she used her fingers to make her way about an imaginary rosary. She fell asleep before she finished.do you think I’m talking about?”

“They haven’t charged him with anything yet.”

“So, they’ll let him rot in jail until they do? I thought this was America.” He shook that off, drawing his lip down again and covering his teeth. “So, you have anything else you’re working on?”

“The Romaro Antique Store was broken into last night.”

“Since when do you do police blotters?”

“I’m not. Nick Romaro’s parents.”

“Why is that name familiar?”

“One of the Portland Five. And someone hit Rose Boyle in the head with a rock. And Warren Devers’ mother is missing. And I have pictures of the lynch mob that showed up at the police station this morning. Small lynch mob anyway.”

“Okay, give me some of that. Tomorrow, find something else. No more interviews until you come up with something to hang this doofus with.”

After work Brenna stopped by the art store and bought the paint that Lisa asked for. At home, she laid out the new tubes on the worktable in her daughter’s room. A collec­tion of brushes, other paints and various art im­plements each had their place, and Lisa had room to build her frames and stretch canvas. Off to one side of the table stood an easel and a high inten­sity light.

Brenna flipped on the light and sat on Lisa’s bed. The picture Lisa had started a few days before was a quarter of a woman’s face. A shear veil, the color of the October sky, dropped just above one blue eye. A teardrop made a path beside the nose. Dark hair was tied at that side of her face. Kelly Raye’s holy card was still clipped to the upper corner of the canvas.

Brenna said she prayed; unconsciously at first, but then consciously counting out her Hail Mary’s. Like her brother had the night before, she used her fingers to make her way about an imaginary rosary. She fell asleep before she finished.

Link to Chapter VIII *