Requiem for Moses (2 page)

So, Koesler decided, it would have to be his call.

He wanted to refuse her. He leaned toward agreeing with the Jewish funeral home: This was a hopeless mishmash of religions. The wake, Catholic for the relatives and friends; the burial, Jewish, as was the deceased.

If he said no, the widow undoubtedly would be upset. No, that was a serious understatement; she would be in a rage. But it would be over. “No” seemed the sensible response on his part.

Still, he hesitated. In his experience, true Christianity often did not lead to a “sensible” action. “Sensible” responses came from the head. In the Bible, God said, “I will give these people a
heart
to know that I am their God. And they shall be my people.”

Very much at odds with himself, he decided to go along with the widow and family.

He turned to face her. Her countenance betrayed her anxiety. It was evident that she was fearful. Something like a lawyer calculating the verdict from the length of time the jury is out, Mrs. Green seemed to think that the longer Koesler took to decide her case, the less likely his decision would be favorable.

He returned to his desk. “Let’s just check and see if there are any more surprises.”

She beamed. “Then you’ll do it?”

“First,” he admonished, “any more surprises?”

“Not that I can think of.” Her forehead furrowed as she considered the question.

“The funeral home,” he suggested, trying to be helpful. “Which one are you using?”

“McGovern.”

“On Woodward near Birmingham? They’re good. When will they have the body ready?”

“Now, I suppose. They really didn’t have to do much. I cleaned the body before they came for Moe. All they have to do is shroud the body and put it in the casket and bring it to the church.”

“You had time to select a casket?”

“I just asked them for their best.”

“And they’re going to use a shroud?”

“They had no problem with that.”

“How do you expect to notify the others on such short notice?”

“The kids, David and Judith, are calling people.”

Koesler thought about that. “Wait a minute.… If they’re calling people, they’d need to tell them where the wake is being …” He looked at her intently with a new appreciation of her self-confidence. “And,” he continued, “they’re telling the mourners that the wake will be at St. Joseph’s downtown, aren’t they?”

Her smile was playful. “We could have called them back.”

Maybe
, he thought. But his guess was that this would have been her final salvo if all her other ploys had failed.

Not bad. She would have no way of knowing that she was borrowing the thinking behind a Church law. To students of the code it was known by its opening words:
Omnia parata
—everything is ready. A good number of canonical glitches could be overlooked in, say, a Catholic wedding because the bridesmaids are walking down the aisle and the groom is waiting and the glitch has just been discovered.
Everything is ready.
I.e., get on with it and take care of the problem later.

If Koesler’s decision had been in the negative, she probably would have noted that a hell of a lot of people would be arriving at St. Joe’s church this evening—all expecting to attend a wake. The good old parish priest might have had the onerous task of explaining what had happened.

“Okay.” A smile played about his lips even though he was feeling quite ambivalent at this point. “Level with me. Any
more
surprises?”

Certain she had won, she would now mention her final two concerns, though she was not sure he would consider them genuine problems. “Well … there is the time for visitation. We wanted it from 6:30 until … well, about midnight.”

“Midnight! Visitation routinely ends about nine. Why in the world are you thinking of midnight?”

“Aunt Sophie.”

“Aunt Sophie? Oh, the only one on your husband’s side of the family who accepted your marriage. What about Aunt Sophie?”

“Did I mention she lives in Florida? I called her right after I notified the kids. She said she would get a flight to Detroit even if she had to charter a plane. And under no circumstances were we to bury Moe until she got here and viewed him.”

“Even then! We’re supposed to keep the church open? What if she doesn’t get here tonight?”

“You don’t know Sophie. She does what she says. If she has to charter a plane, she’ll do it. She’ll be here tonight. If she gets here and the church is locked, she’ll huff and she’ll puff and she’ll blow the place down.”

“Still …”

“Father, I’m sure she’ll be here much earlier than midnight. I was just trying to be honest by drawing a worst-case scenario.”

“Can’t she visit him tomorrow morning if she misses tonight?”

She shook her head. “We’re planning on refrigerating Moe at Kaufman’s. We’ll go directly to the cemetery from the funeral home.” Aware of his growing irritation, she added, “And, Father, we’ll provide security people for the length of the viewing. We’ll guarantee the security of the church. We’ll even lock it before we leave—whatever time that will be.”

“This is growing like Topsy.”

“There’s just one last thing.”

Would this never end?

“Father, I would really appreciate it if you would just say a few words.”

“Say a few words! I didn’t know your husband. I never even met the man—”

“I know. I understand.” She might have been consoling a hurt child. “But this surely can’t be the first time for this sort of thing. A busy priest like yourself, and all the years you’ve been a priest, you can’t have personally known every individual whose funeral you conducted. You must’ve had to eulogize some people you knew no better than you knew my husband.”

Koesler was getting the notion that he was following a script that had been crafted by this woman. Every argument he made, every point he advanced led to a perfect response from her. Every move he made she checked.

“Sure,” he said, “of course I’ve had to do that. But at least the deceased and I were of the same faith. If I could not speak from a personal relationship and knowledge of the deceased, I could talk about our common belief. I have never officiated at a funeral for a non-Catholic. According to your own account, your husband was not only not Catholic, he was only ethnically Jewish. In sum, he was a man of no religion at all.”

“Father, just a
few
words. Everyone would appreciate that so very much. And remember, a good number of people there will be Catholic.”

“A few words! A few words about what?”

“I’ll tell you all about him … introduce you to some of his friends, acquaintances, his children. You’ll be more comfortable once you meet them. I know you can do this.”

“Well …”

“Just be in the church about seven o’clock. We’ll get you acquainted with some of the people … 7:30, a few words, and you’re done.”

Scheduling seemed to play a significant role in this lady’s life. By sometime tonight—at Aunt Sophie’s good pleasure—the wake would be over. A few words at 7:30 and the eulogy would be done. No one was supposed to think about any specific complication, just about conclusions.

What a woman!

“Okay … okay. Is there anything else? Anything at all?”

With a satisfied smile, she shook her head.

“All right,” he said. “There’s one thing I’ve got to ask you.”

“Of course. Just tell me what the usual offering is and I’ll double it … no, triple it!”

“No, no, not that. The point is that things may get a bit dicey about this. My decision to agree to your request is pretty marginal. I could get into some trouble over it. All I’m asking you to do is to keep this as quiet as you can. The more we can limit and kind of control the information about this wake, the happier I’ll be. Would you see to that?”

“As best I can.” She smiled. “And you may be uninterested in the offering, but I’ll be back soon after we bury my poor husband.”

Koesler saw her to the door and watched as she walked through the adjacent parking lot, entered a Lincoln Town Car, and drove away.

His lingering impression was of a petite, attractive, emotional, feminine bulldozer.

Chapter Two

Father Koesler was still standing at the door when he heard a sound behind him. Mary O’Connor, the parish secretary and factotum, had cleared her throat for no other reason than to attract his attention. He turned to face her.

“While you were with that lady, your five o’clock appointment called to cancel.”

He nodded.

“If it’s okay with you,” she said, “I’ll leave now. Everything is taken care of in the office and I left a tuna casserole in the oven for you. All you have to do is heat it. I’ve got the timer set. Just push the start button.”

He laughed. “Did you write my homily for next Sunday?”

“We all have our special talents.”

“Yeah: I preach and you do everything else.”

Her smile seemed to indicate that he was not far wrong. She slipped into her coat and out the door. As she reached the sidewalk, he called out, “Safe home.”

She looked back and waved.

No five o’clock appointment and too early to push the start button. Time to kill. He went upstairs to the den adjoining his bedroom. With this unexpected break he would be able to get several pages into Tom Harpur’s latest book. Koesler greatly admired Harpur’s concept of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Harpur was an interesting man: Anglican priest, Rhodes scholar, now a full-time writer.

Koesler eased into his favorite chair, adjusted the light, and opened the book.

The phone rang.

“Can you tell me, is there gonna be a service for Doc Green at your church tonight?”

“Well, not a service.”

“Didn’t he die?”

“I’ve been told that.”

“What then? He’s not gonna be at your place?”

At this point, Koesler strongly wished he had simply said yes, there would be a service. But it was important that if the chancery got word of this, everyone be in agreement that there was no service, just a wake. “The body will be in state here. It’s a wake, not a service or a funeral.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Not quite.”

“Well, what time is the wake then?”

“You can visit anytime between about 6:30 and whenever Aunt Sophie gets here … say about nine to be safe.”

“Sophie’s gonna be there! In a Catholic church! You gotta be kiddin’.”

“I sincerely wish I were. But, all that aside, would you tell me how you learned of this wake?”

“A friend of mine, one of Doc’s patients, called.”

“Not one of his children.”

“Short notice. They got everybody helping. I forgot to ask the lady who called me about the time. So I thought I’d go right to the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”

Koesler hoped his caller did not intend the allusion. He bade farewell and hung up.

Koesler clearly recalled his conversation with Mrs. Green. He had asked how she expected to notify friends and relatives about the wake on such short notice. She had replied that her children, David and Judith, were even then calling people.

At the time, everything seemed to be on a small scale. Two people were making phone calls. That only two were involved in this task surely limited the number who could be notified.

Until this moment, Koesler had been at ease at least as to the size of this evening’s attendance.

It was so obvious. It was so inevitable. And he had been so slow. Of course David and Judith during each call would ask the notified party to pass it on …

Now he wondered and he worried. How successful would this monument to communications be? It was all growing like a worm in compost. How large would his simple but potentially explosive little favor become?

Once again he picked up Harpur’s book and found his place.

The phone rang.

“St. Joseph’s.”

“This is St. Joseph’s Catholic Church?”

“Yes.”

“Somebody called me and said you were going to have the funeral of one Dr. Moses Green. That can’t be true!”

“It isn’t.”

“That’s what I thought. So, the son-of-a-bitch
didn’t
die.”

“Oh, Dr. Green died all right. And we are going to have a viewing of the body this evening. But we aren’t going to have his funeral.”

“I’ll be damned! He
is
dead, eh?”

“Did you want to attend this evening?”

“You’re not going to plant him?”

“No, just a wake service.”

“Then tell me this if you can: When and where is he going to be buried?”

“The body will be at McGovern Funeral Home tomorrow morning. I don’t know the time or the place of burial. Somebody at McGovern’s should be able to give you that information.”

“Thanks. I’ll be there. I want to be sure they bury this jerk.”

What an odd call
, thought Koesler as he hung up. So much for
nil nisi bonum de mortuis
—say nothing but good about the dead.

Was this an isolated call, or were there more out there—a legion?—who had no love lost for the doctor. And what could cause a hatred so intense that it transcended death?

These calls that David and Judith were engendering were, Koesler assumed, going out to relatives and friends. Whoever had just called St. Joseph’s clearly was no friend. Why would he be notified? Who would notify him?

This was puzzling.

The phone rang.

“St. Joseph’s.”

“Excuse me, Father …” It was a woman’s voice. “I heard that Dr. Green passed away today. And I also heard he is going to be waked at your parish this evening.”

Finally, somebody’d gotten it right.

“That’s true. Did you want to attend?”

“I was thinking of it.”

“Then you might plan on coming sometime between 6:30 and 9:00.”

“Thank you, Father.” A pause. “I’m a nurse. I work mostly in the OR. I used to assist the doctor in some of his operations.”

“Used to? You haven’t for sometime?”

“Sorry, I thought you knew.”

I’m beginning to think there are lots of things I don’t know. How many of these things I need to know is anybody’s guess
, thought Koesler.

“You see,” the nurse explained, “Dr. Green has been ill, very, very ill for at least the past six months. A great deal of back pain. Quite intolerable. He was hospitalized, but the specialists were unable to identify what the trouble was. There was only one certainty, and that was his pain. At times it was unbearable. Eventually, there was general agreement—in which even Dr. Green shared—that he might just as well return home. There was nothing hospital confinement could do for him. From that time on, it was just a case of managing—or trying to manage—the pain.