7

This was much later than I'd hoped, but here it is. A new character gets introduced and I hope you like him. Again, any comments are more than welcome. If something is anachronistic (in the wrong time period), I'd love to know.
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Inspector Johnston, if nothing else, is an honest man; and so I believed him when he said I was going to remain in the cell until he’d sorted out the murder of Agnes Wolfe. Fortunately for me, I managed to get a phone call placed to Marion and quickly told her that ol’ Leon was up to his old tricks again, and I was going to be at what I call my “summer home” for a couple of days. Marion, God love her, rang up the Priest, and he came on down to visit me. One of the privileges of the clergy, I suppose, is that no one really wants to risk eternal hellfire by fighting with you. So, a few hours after I first arrived at my summer home, I heard the very familiar voice - laden with expletives and tinged with the last remnants of an Irish accent - echoing down the stone hall leading to my cell. I just smiled and lay as I was on my bed, hands behind my head, looking up at the ceiling. The Priest was here to spring me, yet again.

Sean Patrick Fitzgerald was born and raised here in Milwaukee, but his parents were born in Ireland. So, his accent isn’t really his, but is one he inherited from his family. He wears the collar of a priest - and he earned that collar by taking the Holy Orders from the Catholic church in Rome. Not that he’s ever been to Rome. Hell, I’m not even sure he knows where exactly on a map Rome is; he just refers to “Mother Rome,” from time to time, and people just nod reverently. People always nod reverently around Priest; to avoid the aforementioned hellfire, but also because there is a pretty decent chance they’ll get thumped on the forehead with a hard knuckle and asked about the state of their eternal soul that they would refuse to listen to a man of the cloth.

I stayed on my bed until I heard the metallic tapping of a ring against the bars of my cell, closely followed by a loud, “Are you going to layabout, my son? Faith, sloth is one of the deadly sins, you know. Have some care for your eternal soul, to be sure.”

“My eternal soul? Well, I don’t know much about that sort of thing, Priest. All I know is that my eternal soul’s earthly body and mind would very much like out of this box,” I replied wryly, sitting and then standing up. “So, unless you know a prayer to get a man our of a metal cage, maybe you’d like to see if your dear and fluffy lord can work me a miracle.”

A big toothy grin broke out on Priest’s face and he said, “That is His forte, after all. Maybe it will be like Saint Paul and Silas in prison. Earthquake, and the door swings open!”

I just rolled my eyes.

Priest walked away, but was gone only for a moment, returning with a different officer than the one who put me here. “My son,” he said to me, “this is officer Earthquake.” And then Priest laughed. His laugh sounds like an avalanche of mirth; it starts quiet, as though it was far off in the distance. But it isn’t at all, it’s just building momentum until he’s guffawing loudly, head tilted back, mouth wide open, whole body spasming with the effort of it all.

I just rolled my eyes.

The officer, perhaps worried that there was some sort of exorcism about to take place, hurriedly opened up the door and beat a path down the hallway. The iron bar door creaked noisily and clanged when it struck the barred wall, a sound which I believe roused Priest from his giddy laughing fit. “Oh, you’re an absolute card,” I said drily, “Mass with you must be a laugh riot. How did you get him to open the door, anyway?”

“Few people want to risk excommunication, my son,” Priest began, “and fewer still want to risk my left hook. No one ever sees it coming, but it often makes very profound arguments. Now, let’s get going. I may minister to those who are in chains and prisons, but that doesn’t mean I feel like spending my night here, to be sure.”

The thing about Sean Patrick Fitzgerald is that, for all his talk about one’s
eternal soul, he’s just as likely to call you a damned fool as he is to pray for you. He’ll hear your confession, but if he sees you doing that very thing later in the day, he is not above shaking you by your shoulders until your head hurts and you cease whatever sin you’re in the process of committing. He spends most of his day not in the church building, but seemingly wandering around the neighbourhood; dispensing wisdom at Nick’s, haggling over fish, playing baseball in the street with children, and even pummelling wouldbe purse-snatchers with the bat he was just using for baseball. Whatever kind of priest he actually is, it’s a fair bet Rome has no idea just what they signed up for when they gave him his collar. More’s the pity, too. A priest like that could make a man want to stop in at a church and see what sort of hellion from below he does battle with when he’s actually in the office. I have nothing bad to say about religion; it does for many people. Me, I have faith of my own. And right now, I was feeling pretty convicted that I hadn’t spent any time with Pastors Jack and Daniels.

Priest and I walked out of the Police Station and paused under the overhang which covers the stairs. “One more thing,” he began, “you owe me $3 for the cab ride over here. You can pay me in four visits to Mass, or live the rest of your life knowing you owe a man something.” He wore that smug grin he gets whenever he knows he has you, and he knows you know. Thunder suddenly rolled from above - a sign from On High, perhaps - and muted my bitten off curse.

“I’ll tell you what, Priest,” I replied with a grin, “If this rain doesn’t stop by the time I get this case solved, I’ll see you at Mass for a month. See if God will punish a whole city just to get one lapsed soul into His house.”

“Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,” Priest quoted at me, just before we headed out into the rain once more. Just when I thought I might be dry. Fortunately, Fargo was waiting where I had left her, and she started just the same as she did when I parked her there.

I dropped Priest off at Nick’s - perhaps there was some wisdom that needed dispensing - and headed back to my office. Since the only time I’d ever seen Agnes was in my office, it was the only place I had to begin. I did the backstroke from the now-invisible curb to my office building door and headed upstairs. Once inside my office, I hung my drenched coat on the tree and looked around. The police, while thorough, were not apparently much for leaving a place as they found it. My papers were everywhere, my drawers had been emptied onto my desk’s top, the chairs were upended and scattered, and my closet looked like someone had decided that everything inside needed to be aired out for spring. And, on top of all of that, they had decided to leave my window open.

I cleaned up a little, corrected my chairs, and then sat down at my desk to collect my thoughts. As it happens by beautiful coincidence, I collect my thoughts best when there’s a glass of scotch in which to catch them. I was also going to need a few belts of scotch in me to write a properly enraged letter to the Milwaukee Police Department regarding the shoddy work they did in cleaning up my office. Ransack it if you need to, but courtesy is courtesy.

Unfortunately for me, I had precious little time to collect my thoughts, enjoy my scotch, or write my angry letter. My pen was out and at the ready when my phone rang. I could tell I needed the drink because I was so startled I proceeded to spill half of it on my wrist. A private eye shouldn’t jump at a phone ringing, that’s just not natural.

I answered the phone and all I heard was, “Lakefront. One hour,” before the line went dead. The operator was no help in tracing the call, either. Just one more angry letter I needed to write. But not now. If I didn’t hurry, all of Milwaukee was going to be Lakefront property, the way the rain was coming down. I half-hoped Priest was building an ark; not that I thought I would be one of the very righteous who would be saved, but I figured watching that crazy man build a gigantic boat out of gopher wood might distract me from the miserable rain.