The Parish Detective

I

It was a fact that Mr. Donald Meyer imagined himself a keeper of order and a good solid fellow, who could judge a good one from a bad one in half-a-wink. He even thought himself something of a defender of virtue, with his very person, if necessary. It had never come to that once, but he had carefully planned the combat many times, and he had always been victorious. It was ever his dream to escort some brute out of an official proceeding in indignity, their hands held behind their back by him, as he jolted them this way and that, just like on TV.

Mr. Meyer looked exactly as he should; he invariably wore khakis and check-pattern dress shirts, and never a coat unless it were two sizes too big. He had a belly, but was solidly built; yea, there was ample frame to hang more if God so intended. His balding head and virile mustache attested to his station as a man of dignity and discernment.

It was due to these excellent qualities, and his natural disposition toward the imposition of order, that he had applied for, and graciously been accepted into the ranks of the quiet (nigh on silent) rural parish of St. Benedict’s ushers. It was a fit field on which to practice his inclinations to be sure, for the holy flock, holy though they were, remained a flock. They required considerable direction, and indeed correction to ensure they were of profit to their shepherd. Some mornings they straggled in, smelling still of beer, and they were not sharp about the doors! They loitered here and there as if they had been at a mall. They talked too loud and too often. They told jokes! Jokes! In the church! These were all simple matters for an usher of distinction and rank, like Mr. Meyer had become over his decades of service, to deal with, but the very worst thing that a parishioner could dare try with Mr. Meyer was to request an accommodation. An accommodation! They wanted to bring dogs in and they wanted to pilot all manner of strange vehicles into the church. One woman had asked him, what were the ingredients in the host? It was enough to vex any usher of good standing, and Mr. Donald Meyer was in good standing, there was no denying it. He had risen in the ranks to head usher, a position so high within the laity, that he considered himself more clerical than lay.

“It a sign of a fallen world.” he would lament to Sister Mary Theresa, his superior, who kept an office in the rectory across from the church.

“First, they translated the mass into the vulgar, then they made kneeling optional--I look with disdain on the ones that don’t kneel, as you know! Now people wander in with flip-flops like it’s a coffee shop. We have indulged their infirmities, and now we are reaping the crop. This is what has become of the world since Vatican II.”

This served as Mr. Meyer’s closing remark for nearly any occasion, and furnished a sign to Sister Mary Theresa that she could again pay attention to him, for his spleen had been thoroughly vented.

“Thank you Mr. Meyer, for your report. I will take it all into consideration.” said the short, plump, severe-faced nun.

“I may even suggest some things to the bishop.”

This was calculated to flatter Mr. Meyer’s vanity, and it never failed to do so.

“Well, the bishop, if I had known the bishop would hear of it, I might spend more time refining, you know, and perhaps…”

“Nonsense. The bishop is an earthy man, despite his cape. Now, if you please, I have affairs to see to. One of the sisters debauched herself with drink, and is an appalling wreck, and I am sure you have a congregation to see to. They should be arriving shortly at any rate.”

“Oh, and Mr. Meyer,” she said, suddenly remembering, “Pray do be mindful that the bishop will be sending a member of his staff to us sometime soon. They couldn’t tell me when he would be here, just soon. See that he is well accommodated when he arrives.”

“Someone from the bishop?” said Mr. Meyer blushing. “With all diligence sister. But to what do we owe this unearthly pleasure?”

“I haven’t the inclination to tell you, and you needn’t mind the business of the bishop either!” bellowed Sister Mary Theresa, losing her patience with her subordinates questions. She was a woman of the cloth, after all, and it was not only her duty to observe propriety, but to see that everyone else did so as well, and she would not suffer the laity to know the mind of the bishop, not if it could be helped.

The members of the parish were indeed arriving and Mr. Meyer’s services were needed to get the sheep into their proper pens, without too much fuss or bother, which, owing to his extraordinary abilities, was accomplished neatly. Just as he prepared to take his station in the usher’s room, just to the side of the entrance, he looked out the glass doors and noticed an unkempt and sordid creature approaching the church. He donned a scowl and prepared for an opportunity to display his brave dogmas.

II

The man approaching St. Benedict’s church this holy morning was not so much walking, as he was sauntering, his form swaying from one side to another, his body pitched back ever so slightly. He wore dark sunglasses and hessian boots, and he was wrapped in a large sheepskin coat with gaudy silver fasteners. His hair was wild and unkempt.

Mr. Meyer held the door open and greeted the man. He would have liked to have turned him away on the spot, but previous instances of this conduct had earned severe reprimands from the priest and even Sister Mary Theresa herself. The moment the strange man set foot in the vestibule, it was filled to choking with the smell of strong tobacco and stale beer. Mr. Meyer was certain this man too, had been debauched by drink, among many other sundry tinctures and concoctions.

“Yes,” said the man taking Mr. Meyer’s hand, which had not been offered. “I’m here from the bishop.”

Mr. Meyer looked him up and down severely. Whatever his vague notions of what a representative of the bishop should look like, this creature decidedly failed to meet them. This man’s look and smell betokened an earthy man, lower certainly than a member of the laity, who was nigh on clerical, who served God’s own church.

“Yes, I was told to expect someone. But, the bishop sent you?” Mr. Meyer asked, scarcely dissembling his incredulity.

“Yes,” said the man perfunctorily, looking around the vestibule with an observant eye, “and he reposes the utmost confidence in my abilities!” his eye paused at a display of advertisers who had sponsored the church bulletin, along with a list of various items and services for sale by the parishioners, ranging from, “three-quarters of a cow, freezer-ready” to, “man with chainsaw and a brave heart available to hire”.

“I’m the newly assigned parish detective. You may call me the detective, or, if you are feeling familiar, Detective.”

“I didn’t mean to question the bishop of all people.” said Mr. Meyer hurriedly. “But what are you here to do exactly?”

“To peer into such dark matters as the bishop finds interest in.” the man said simply.

“Indeed. If you can excuse me, I will just need to speak to my superior.”

“Of course, everything by the book you know.” The man winked slyly.

Mr. Meyer rushed headlong back to Sister Mary Theresa’s office, resenting and wondering over the wink very much.

“Dear Sister,” he began upon barging into her room.

“Mr Meyer, really, you need to learn to afford some accommodation…”

“It’s not that sister.” Mr. Meyer explained.

“Then in the name of heaven what is it?” she demanded, her voice still rising.

“A man claiming to be from the bishop is here.”

“Well, show him here immediately!”

“I think it would be best if you came with me to meet him in the vestibule, with the protection afforded by me and the other ushers.”

“Protection? From the bishop’s man?”

“So he says. He has an unsavory look and smell to him. Smell especially. He’s dressed like a Hun if I ever saw one, and has the odors to support the pretension. Shortly madame, he appears to be the lowest sort of sot. I question the truth of his connection to the bishop, as well as his personal habits and hygiene.” Mr. Meyer finished grandly.

“Well, what can you mean by all that?” the pugnacious nun asked.

“Come and see sister; come and see for yourself!”

He led Sister Mary Theresa from her office in the rectory, along the short stone path to the church. Upon entering, he indicated the man in question, who hardly needed to be indicated to anyone. He was holding a spirited debate with one of the ushers from the ranks over his personal deportment. The man was free with his oaths concerning the personal habits of this low usher, and his questions concerning the gentleman’s episcopal mandates.

“You see the sort.” sneered Mr. Meyer beneath his breath. “I’m certain he will not kneel when the time is proper, among many other improprieties that are likely.”

Sister Mary Theresa ignored Mr. Meyer, a talent she had developed to maintain her sacred bearing and even temper. She went up to the strange creature and pulled him into the usher’s room and closed the door behind them. Here she held a conference, during which, the man revealed such information as to confirm to Sister Mary Theresa that he was in fact sent from the bishop, and on the very business the good sister was herself acquainted with, and with which Mr. Meyer had not the least required dignity to know. She allowed him to enter the church, provided he neither smoked, nor drank, nor resorted to secular language. Also, if he would be so kind as to place an incense puck in his front pocket.

“Indeed good mother,” he was saying as they left the usher’s room, “It was not a night of saintly visits last night. But our Lord ministered to the low and the fallen, and so do I. And where can one roust these wretches, but in the dimmest haunts? They are not to be found at church on a Sunday morning, that I can tell you!”

“Certainly sir, but if you could mind your language during mass I would appreciate it. And please do stop by my office when you have time.”

“Forthwith good mother. As I said, I would like to see the service. It will go a way toward informing me of the case at hand. And I do solemnly swear to refrain from secular language, when I pass that there threshold.” He indicated the glass doors to the church. “But out here, in the profane world, it is a dog’s breakfast, and we must get along as we can.”

The sister nodded diplomatically, happy that the encounter had been saved from her head usher’s performative exactitude.

“I would like to say, sir,” said Mr. Meyer, suddenly reappearing between the detective and the sister. “That the vestibule too, is, I think dear Sister, also deserving of all due reverence!” He looked impressively at Sister Mary Theresa, like a dog who had caught the hare.

“Then certainly Mr. Meyer, a man of your moral rectitude and keen observance can see that this display of the money changers must be discarded immediately, lest you turn our Father’s house into a house of merchandise, and be chased through the pews with a whip!” the detective said, indicating the display of contributors and advertisements in the vestibule. He turned on his heels with a flinging of his limbs, and marched into the church and sat in the back row.

The good sister turned a wrathful eye upon Mr. Meyer, such an eye as only a nun of proper experience can fix on a mortal, and he turned tail meekly, seeking refuge in the ushers’ room, which was now peopled with his fellows, as the service was now beginning. The tortures the good sister then imagined performing upon dear Mr. Meyer were such as would beggar the secular imagination. “There are many rigorous methods the church has perfected over the millennia,’ she seethed in her holy mind, ‘Such as would dazzle the poor minds of a layman such as Mr. Donald Meyer. He talks so scornfully of Vatican II. Humpf! It’s the only thing keeping me from rending him end from end! Oh, the old ways were much better indeed Mr. Meyer!”

III

The priest in charge of this worthy parish was named Father Ignatius Frank. He was hardly worth mentioning until now. He was a short, chubby fellow, whose remaining hair was always wetted down to his scalp, and hardly did it possess the means to accomplish what he clearly intended there. He was a quiet, somewhat nervous fellow. His eyes darted about him in alarm at something he told no one of. He was close and kept, and possessed the secretive aloofness that makes life in a quiet rural parish possible for a priest. His congregants could think of no particular compliment to pay him, nor any particular complaint to make of him, save that he never, ever missed the annual vacation the diocese allotted him, and that he often sojourned to strange places like Thailand. He would describe the missions he visited here, but he usually dwelt on the accommodations in his descriptions.

Father’s Igantius’s true talent lay in delivering speeches about people he had never met, to people who knew them intimately, and feeling no shame at the fact. Whether he was to officiate a wedding for a couple who would never attend his church, or to speak words over a corpse whose life was utterly unknown to him, he could rise to the occasion, and say such words as he found suitable. Indeed, his system had attained unto such perfection over years of practice, that he did not need to know one fact of a person’s life to deliver a suitable speech over the beginnings or endings of their mysterious existences. There was one speech for the worst wretch, and the finest, noblest Christian. It was the highest attainment of doctrine that, in the end, all received the same words without distinction. It was a testament to his abilities, and if the lay-folk complained that he did not know them, it was no fault of his. It was their duty to find and humor him, not the other way around. It was a fact that he did not know anyone who did not work at the church in one way or another, and he had no ambitions toward enlarging the circle. He kept things close and quiet.

Father Ignatius’s homilies were similarly stilted. He would relate a story that was in-congruent and stiff, and was filled with colorful characters like, “son” and, “his father” and, “an old woman”, none of whom possessed any particular characteristics whatsoever. The stories would wrap up so neatly and tie so effortlessly into the Scriptures of the day, that it was suspected that Father Igantius possessed some dusty old book of anecdotes that had been written as a concordance to the Scripture by some Midwestern father a century ago. This would go some way to explaining the prevalence of soda fountains and jazz dancing in the tales. The stories had grown old enough that they now required a concordance of their own, but Father Ignatius had no intention of writing such a thing, and could only hope someone, someday would.

As mass began, the parish detective could be perceived to sway from side to side slowly. It was not entirely clear to an observer if he swayed with a sort of musical fervor, or if sleep was overtaking him. The Lord knew; he looked and smelled like a man who was in need of rest. As the readings proceeded, the swaying calmed, and his head began to pitch back, and he became quite still.

The homily for this mass was cut from the cloth of the others. Father Ignatius began some strange tale about a character named, “little girl”, who was making bread with a character named, “her mother”. There was something to do with dissatisfaction with each loaf as it rose, and the young girl discarding them, and in the end, having no loaves of bread to eat. To this her mother said something strange and mysterious. Father Ignatius concluded his story that never happened with a strange conjunction with the days’ readings, “Now just imagine what would have happened if that little girl was the Virgin Mary. What a right pickle we’d be in here!” It was clear enough to Father Ignatius how this all tied together, and since the subject was of some vague sexual indiscretion by the little girl, the congregation felt it was a suitable, if unoriginal comment.

By this time the parish detective had become very still indeed. In fact, it had come to be undeniable that he was not only sleeping, but was in a deep slumber. His whole frame heaved up and down in a slow, peaceful rhythm, and his breath moved audibly for all near him to hear. Then Father Ignatius concluded his story that had never happened, and broached a topic which caused the parish detective to stop snoring, and without moving his body in the slightest, open his left eye wide, darting it from one side of the church to the next.

“Brethren and sistren,” Father Ignatius began solemnly and slowly. “It is my sad duty to describe to you a heinous crime that has been committed against all of us. Last week, the Third Sunday of Lent no less, here in our hallowed, humble church, a robbery of our parish was accomplished. I hear you gasp, but it is true! After the 10:30 mass on Sunday morning, as I put things in order for the day, I discovered, to my horror, that the collection baskets had been absconded with. They have not been found yet. All the ushers and altar boys attest to those baskets being present in the sacristy after mass, but gone they are. And that can mean only one thing.”

The congregation started at this news, not least of which Mr. Donald Meyer. To him, it was not just the indignity of being victimized by some wretch whom he must now destroy, but heaped upon this affront, was his own betrayal by the ushers working the 10:30 mass. It must be here stated to the curious reader that Mr. Meyer worked the 8 o’clock mass, and considered the later mass to be an impious act, a ceremony for the indigent and lazy, “That’s what’s come of this world since Vatican II.” he told the good sister regarding it. As I said, it was a betrayal of their captain not to relate this grave crime that had occurred within his jurisdiction, and now precious days had been lost.

“The ushers!” he fumed silently. “My ushers! It’s a dereliction of duty! It’s...it’s...it’s an outright scandal. Oh, they will pay for this!”

At this point a gray-haired woman with a stooped frame and cheeks so constricted she looked to be sucking on lemon drops stood, this venerable and noble woman stood, and declared to the congregation, “I don’t mean trouble for no one, but Amelia Diedrich was an altar boy, well altar person, for last week’s 10:30 mass.” she affirmed. We must remark that any parish on the earth, of any creed or description, is filled with Donald Meyer’s, whether they bear the distinctions of the actual office or not.

The people murmured with some dissatisfaction, “I normally am an 8 o’clocker as you all know, but my husband was drunk last week, so I let us attend the 10:30.” She said quickly to save her good name and reputation and to besmirch her husband’s, who looked at the congregation in quiet guilt.

“I say, I saw her in the rectory when everybody else was scurrying around. It mustn’t have been long later that the crime was discovered…”, she trailed off cryptically.

The whole congregation turned to the Diedrichs, who were sat at the end of the middle section of pews, beneath the Station of the Cross depicting the flogging of the Nazarene by the Romans.

“I must first say,” the father of the little family said, rising with his hands respectfully folded. “That little Amelia was only assigned to the 10:30 mass by Sister Mary Theresa. We are 8 o’clockers, like this good woman.”

Now, as this colloquy developed, it must be said that it is not a regular feature of a Catholic mass to hear various arguments and opinions from the laity. In fact, it is a matter not only of poor form, but nigh on a sacrilege. This was not some hurly-burly Protestant camp meeting, this was a dignified ceremony of ancient nascence. It was not a place for the masses to give vent to their private feelings and disturbances. Where did they get the idea the bishop or anyone else would want to hear these things? Having established this method of proceeding as entirely unusual, we must notice that Father Ignatius did nothing to slow the momentum of this public inquiry. It fit entirely with his ethos, that, once difficult work has been begun by others, not to interfere, not when the hand of Heaven was so clearly at work in his stead.

“That’s all well and fine.” said the venerable old woman, a Cato amongst Caesars, “But I must take notice, little Amelia, that it is a mighty fine necklace you have on today. Paid for by me I’d wager!” She concluded with rising malice.

“If we could please not yell out things in the church…” Father Ignatius meekly suggested.

But indeed, little Amelia Diedrich was wearing an extremely ornate golden necklace of hardened plastic, festooned with stars and hearts of similarly precious color.

“Why, such a bauble is high above the station of a lowly altar girl!” the woman said impressively ignoring the priest.

“It was a birthday present!” protested her father meekly. “And it’s clearly plas...”

“We’ve all heard that before!” said Mr. Meyer, who was now officially involved, and prepared to escort anyone out of the church who needed it, including Mr. Diedrich or little Amelia. He too felt the impropriety of all these lay people talking freely in the church, and even imagined that the laity in no way involved him, as head usher was a holy office. The people whispered to each other and suspicious eyes darted amongst the congregants.

“It’s the Gollum’s defense. Search her room!” was heard from what had been the slumped form of the parish detective, who was now wide awake and also standing.

“Yes, search her room!” the cry was taken up in various frothy quarters of the church.

“She has nothing to fear if she is innocent!”

“Cease from these ominous words!” the detective cried out, strolling the aisle with an assured gait. “We are in a Catholic church, more fearful words could not be uttered. This isn’t some witch hunt. This is scientific!”

Father Ignatius was now concerned that this had become some sort of wild and woolly camp meeting. It was one thing for the laity to perform the work, it was another when they stood to get the credit.

“Tell me good sir.” he said quietly, “Who are you? I don’t believe I’ve seen you before?”

“I am the bishop’s man, a parish detective, and I am fully acquainted with the facts of the case dear padre.” he bellowed out. “Things are known by the bishop that would turn the face of the common laity white! He hears and sees many things. The bishop weighs all these great teeming multitudes in his mind, and his sagacious wisdom orders them in accord with the will of the great Church, and he sallies forth his shepherds to his flocks in need. I am that shepherd, come to you at this dark hour.”

“I have weighed this case in my mind since I was informed of it, and I tell you I don’t like it! I think it stinks! It has consumed me, and I have tried avoiding the most obvious answer, the one we stand upon the brink of. Yes, I have been mad to discredit it, but I cannot, in all my infinite powers of deduction. As your good parishioners point out dear father, only the girl had the opportunity and the means, that was obvious from the start. But now we see her in her new finery, sauntering about, making the scene, and we at last have motive. All the essential elements of an ecclesiastical charge to be preferred have been accomplished.”

“For the sake of the girl’s age, and of her families dignity, I believe we should search her premises this instant, and if nothing be found, I shall dismiss the case against her entirely!”

This was met with applause and even cheers for the good detective’s magnanimity. Father Ignatius was thoroughly befuddled. He had never so totally lost control of his normally docile sheep. Never before had such enthusiastic utterances been performed in his church. Who were these people before him?

“I suppose if the family is not unwilling…” the tepid priest struggled out with.

All eyes turned to the family. The father and mother reddened, but ultimately consented. The congregation stood immediately, and began to file out of the church, and down the street in a dense chattering mob, the parish detective holding the door, and whipping on the people. They walked on in the pale early spring sun in near ecstasy. The home of the Diedrichs was not but one rampage away.

“We should do this more often!” wheezed Mr. Donald Meyer at their head.

The parish mob arrived at the home of the Diedrichs and conducted their search with great alacrity. The humble room of Amelia Diedrich was duly turned over. There was revealed there a horde of gaudy plastic jewelry, various sequinned gowns, and other curious royal garments, but no collection basket, or even so much as a loose coin. Though they had their suspicions, there was no way to prove that Amelia Diedrich’s finery was purchased through crimes against the parish. Mr. Donald Meyer was crestfallen that his immense powers and dignity would once again remain unexercised. He also took note that the parish detective could not be seen amongst them, not since they turned the corner from the church.

The mob went home, and the Diedrichs pieced little Amelia’s room back together. The parishioners contemplated the heart of crime and the presence of evil in their midst. The Diedrichs pondered these same things, and wondered of the feasibility of becoming Protestants at this late hour of the world. Mr. Meyer delivered several speeches concerning the fallen world they now dwelled in to Sister Mary Theresa and anyone else who he could lay hands on. “This is what has come of the world since Vatican II!” was heard as regular as the church bells chiming the hour.

Unknown to the congregants, a new crime had been discovered after the flock had performed their search of Amelia Diedrich’s room.

IV

Sister Mary Theresa did not care for trouble, or even anything outside of the normal hum-drum of ordinary life. Ordinary was best to her mind. Ordinary Time was free and easy, and the church was not filled to brim with part time Catholics. It was therefore to her great consternation that the ordinary had been chased off the field that morning by the strange detective. She had heard something of the commotion, and saw the parish streaming forth from the church, to begin their casing of the Diedrich joint. She went to the church to find it utterly empty, candles still burning, lights on, the flock fled, and even the good shepherd, Father Ignatius, was nowhere to be seen.

She fretted over what this could mean, and quieted herself with the fact the bishop had sent his man, and he must know what he was about. She then entered the bathroom in the usher’s room upon clerical business and made a discovery that would haunt her for her remaining days. There was a bumper-sticker stuck to the toilet cistern that read, “A trans person peed here and everyone was okay.” Contrary to the sticker, Sister Mary Theresa was decidedly not okay. She fled from the church into her office and there heaved with anger and anxiety.

A short time later Father Ignatius returned to the rectory, and she laid the case bare to him. Father Ignatius sighed with the fatigue of a man who already knew all about it, and that he may even know more than the good sister. He asked her not to fret, that he would look into it all, and call the bishop if necessary.

“You could consult the parish detective.” she said. “He is here from the bishop after all.”

“Indeed.” said the priest dryly.

Father Ignatius said nothing more to anyone. Indeed, there were many things he hid in his heart, which he would fain have secreted away forever. He was as quiet as a spider upon its web, and he would not stir, but for his life. In his dim rectory, Father Ignatius rolled many dark turns over in his mind.

V

The sleepy parish waited for the next week’s mass with an anticipation that was utterly foreign to it. No news had emerged from Father Ignatius or Sister Mary Theresa regarding the affairs of the previous weeks. The parish detective, now a source of burning curiosity for everyone, seemed to have vanished into mysterious air. There were strange reports of him being spotted in various bars and undignified haunts, at the most ungoldy of hours, deep in a state of alcoholic perturbation, but as no one would ever affirm it was they who had witnessed this, and were therefore in the same iniquitous haunts, partaking in the same immoralities, the reports did little but add an air of the enigmatic to the unusual detective. The cheese shop clerk claimed the detective had appeared before him as if out of thin air, placed an order for a six foot wedge of cheddar, and when he looked back up from the register, the detective had vanished.

The day and hour for the 8 o’clock mass came, and the congregants filled the pews with nary a whisper of accommodation, and indeed so very peaceably and soberly that Mr. Meyer found himself without much of a field to practice his methods upon.

Father Ignatius sweated and heaved with a quiet fury in the sacristy. He did his best to dissemble, but it was clear to anyone who came across him that morning that he was transported into a different world of considerations that he would not utter. He made no mention of the sticker that had been discovered, and asked the same of Sister Mary Theresa. The priest regarded this all dimly. He knew many things, and saw many things, and it was his heart’s desire to let them by without comment.

Mass passed through its usual courses, as everyone squirmed in their seats. At last, the homily arrived, after a reading from Matthew 6. The crowd moved to the edge of their seats as Father Ignatius rose wearily. “In today’s reading, Matthew tells us, “...when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. It reminds me of a story about a little boy and his father...”

“What news of the money!” called someone from the pews.

“Yes! The thief! Have they been found?” begged another.

The good father sighed deeply and began, “Today is not a day for…”

Just then the parish detective stood, and addressed the assemblage boldly, swaying gently from side to side, likely the effects of whatever the reader’s imagination may supply.

“Good padre, I’ll snatch this one up if you don’t mind.” he said as the priest grew ever redder. “This case remains a sticky one my good people. The search was...inconclusive. But a search isn’t everything. Not by a long shot! Nor is physical evidence, not when there are more Platonic methods at our disposal. I have begun a train of deductions, each deduction coupled to the one before it, and it is a big one! I would share this with you now, without delay, if it were not that the good father is hiding another great crime from your simple hearts!”

At this the crowd started and Father Ignatius’s head snapped to stare intently at the detective.

“There was discovered in the usher’s bathroom, a sticker of profane description, indicative of a person of transgressive gender practices having micturated in our fair parochial toilet!” The parish gasped, though most were not quite sure what had been described to them. The key words were quite outrageous enough.

“Why the good father did not deign to share this with you, perhaps he can explain. Perhaps he feels some sympathy with this sort of thing?”

At this Father Ignatius’s face went from red, to a pulsing sort of purple and he shouted shrilly, “You, sir, placed that sticker there!”

The parish looked back at the detective, who stood unfazed.

“I, sir, did not, and you now defy the bishop himself!”

“I called the diocese, they have no record of you, sir! You, sir, are a cheat and a fraud!”

“Do you think the bishop would be such a fool as to put people of my skills on the books? Do you think black-ops have paper trails? Do you think the inquisitors receive W-2s from the Holy See? Can your mind begin to understand the great behemoth you labor beneath? It has launched a million ships and a million men at the far corners of the globe!”

“I can prove it!” shouted the priest, and scarcely understanding himself, and despite his own frantic mind begging him to stop, he went into the sacristy and came back to the altar with a laptop computer. He opened it and brought up a video from what was clearly a camera secreted in the usher’s bathroom.

“Here you see the so-called parish detective placing the very sticker himself!” he said, and indeed the video did show exactly that.

The parish detective was unabashed, “Aha!” he yelled, “Aha! The serpent reveals himself at the last! Can you explain, good father, why in this quiet, sleepy parish, you have a camera secretly recording your parishioners using the bathroom?”

Father Ignatius stammered a good many things, none of them amounted to sentences, and previous few of them were words.

“Mr. Donald Meyer,” declaimed the detective, “I call on you, the bishop, who will know your good name, calls on you, to escort this degenerate from our fair midst!”

Donald Meyer was ready to accost and apprehend the first person that was called for, by whomever called for it. He had waited for this moment all his life, since he was a little boy stumbling into church at his mother’s austere side. He marched boldly up to Father Ignatius, and pulled his arms behind his back, and marched the stammering priest out of the church before him, as the parish jeered and shouted, and Mr. Meyer jerked the stupefied priest this way and that, such as suited his whim.

After being tossed ignominiously out, the parish never saw Father Ignatius Frank again. There were whispers that the church had ferreted him away in some far flung corner of the world, where his crimes would not be known. Such were the usages of the time. The parish detective also seemed to vanish into thin air after that fateful 8 o’clock mass, though dim reports of his carousing still met the congregant’s ears. The following week, mystery was heaped upon mystery, as a small, meek, thin-haired man, dressed in a polyester suit, turned up to the church and inquired of Donald Meyer, head usher, and new favorite of the bishop, whether Father Ignatius was there. He had been sent by the bishop to investigate an issue regarding parish funds.