Chapter 15

Detective McLaren arrived at the church at 9:30, fifteen minutes into the 9:15 mass. The parishioners of the Holy Mother parish weren’t happy that Father José Lopez was saying the mass without forewarning. People are creatures of habit. They come to the 9:15 service because they’ve always come to the 9:15 service even though masses are also said at 6:00, 8:00, 10:30, and 12:00. Also, they were here to hear their weekly homily delivered with the soft Scottish voice of Father MacCailein and not the staccato delivery of Father Lopez. Some had left and planned to come back for the noon mass, hoping that Father Ewen would be there.

Bruce McLaren rang the doorbell again at the rectory front door, a Spanish mission style building with stylish black iron bars over the windows. Finally, a distraught-looking woman answered the door. “May I help you?”

“Mrs. Neil? I’m Detective McLaren from the Vero Beach Police Department, this is my partner Detective Lisa Clark, we’re concerned about Father MacCailein, and Steve Anderson asked us to take a look into his whereabouts.”

“Please come on in,” said Estell Neil. “I’ve been here taking care of Father Ewen for years now and I’ve never seen him miss saying a mass, and now we can’t find him.” Miss Neil led Bruce and Lisa to Father Ewen’s office, where the office was neat and clean, and incredibly orderly. A series of bookshelves on one wall were dedicated to the works of Charles Spurgeon.

“Now why would a Catholic priest study the works of a man that hated the Catholic church?”

“Because they agreed on everything else,” said Estell without a pause.

“So many candles!” gasped Detective Clark. She was starting to wonder if there were rituals taking place in the office.

“He liked the pure light of the flame,” said Estell.

“Nothing better for reading than a kerosene lamp,” said Bruce as he looked through the papers on the Priest’s desk, touching them with the tip of a penknife and not his hands. He noticed the strange looks he was getting from Lisa and said, “What. Ain’t you ever been camping?” The detectives gently taunted each other over the advantages of propane lanterns versus kerosene hurricane lanterns, then Bruce put on the surgical gloves and opened the desk drawer to find the priest’s schedule. “Does he keep his data on a computer?” Bruce asked Miss Estell.

“No, he handwrites everything and gives it to me to enter in the computer. He doesn’t like computers; he says they take the humanity out of writing.”

Bruce pulled Father Ewen’s leather bound planner and slowly paged through it. Ewen’s handwriting was neat and orderly. “I wish I could write like this, this is a work of art. My handwriting is chicken scratches.”

“No shi ... uh, no kidding,” said Lisa, who has spent far too much of her life trying to decode Detective McLaren’s chicken scratches.

“Careful!” teased Bruce as he turned to today’s date in the planner. It was nice and neat. He was planning to say 8:00 AM mass, 9:15 AM mass, and the noon mass leaving the 6:00 AM and 10:30 masses for Father Lopez. Bruce flipped through the planner and saw future appointments, meetings, classes, and every Tuesday and Thursday he saw Conf. scheduled at a few points throughout the day. “Miss Estell, what happens every Tuesday and Thursday at 10:00 AM?”