Father John waited for a couple beats. “I’ll give you a statement,” he said, “but then I have another story for you.”
“Great!” A look that almost passed for glee came into the reporter’s face. “So what do you have to say about the lawsuit?”
There was little he could say. Most of what he knew his assistant had told him in confidence. He couldn’t repeat it to anyone, let alone a reporter. He said, “It’s an unfortunate situation for everybody involved.” He was thinking that in two days he would have to give an interview to Don Ryan’s lawyers.
The reporter kept his pen poised over the notebook, waiting. “That’s it?” He let out a gust of breath. “That’s your statement on a one-point-five-million-dollar sexual misconduct suit?”
Father John glanced across the newsroom: the light falling in slats across the crowded desktops, the raincoat dangling from a coattree. He brought his eyes back to the reporter, who was tapping his pen impatiently on the notebook. “Father Don Ryan was at St. Francis three months,” he began, selecting the words that he wanted to read in tomorrow’s paper. “He’s a hardworking, dedicated priest. Very popular with the people, who, I’m sure, are going to miss him.”
The reporter scribbled something onto the page. “So he’s left the mission?”
“He left today to return to Milwaukee.” That was a nonconfidential fact.
The reporter was still writing. “St. Francis is party to the lawsuit, Father. Should judgment go against Father Ryan, how will the mission pay its share of the damages?”
Father John drew in a long breath. He could see the headline: MISSION TO SELL LANDS. The box-store developers would tramp into his office.
“You’ll have to ask me that question if and when it happens,” he said, struggling to mask the anger still smoldering inside him at what he’d come to think of as Don Ryan’s selfishness. Not unlike his own, which made it even more appalling, as if he’d happened past a mirror and unexpectedly caught a true vision of himself.
The reporter shook his head. “Okay, Father O’Malley. I get the picture. You Jesuits are circling the wagons, gathering around to protect one of your own, no matter how guilty the guy might be.” He sat back, locking eyes with him for a long moment. Finally he said, “What’s the other story about?”
“Duncan Grover.”
There was a flicker of recognition in the reporter’s eyes. “The suicide?”
“He was murdered.”
“You don’t say!” The reporter’s eyes widened behind his lenses. “Coroner’s report says he jumped off a two-hundred-foot cliff at Bear Lake.”
Father John waved away the objection. “The coroner’s report is wrong. I believe Duncan Grover was thrown off a ledge.”
“What makes you think so?”
Father John cleared his throat. Careful, careful, he told himself. He began explaining: Grover had a job waiting at the Arapaho Ranch, he’d been taking instructions from a medicine man, he’d gone to Bear Lake, a holy place, on a vision quest. A man like that didn’t kill himself.
Hartley had begun scribbling on another page. After a moment he looked up. “Any evidence somebody tossed him over the cliff?”
Father John was aware of the hum in the fluorescent lights overhead, a pipe knocking somewhere, the splash of traffic outside. He didn’t have any evidence. He had a confession that he couldn’t use. He said: “There was a warrant out in Colorado for Grover’s arrest on robbery charges. He’d been hanging around with some tough characters. He came up here to start over. Somebody could have followed him and killed him. The killer could still be in the area. It could be a man named Eddie.”
“What’s your source, Father?”
Father John pushed back against his chair. If he gave the reporter Ali Burris’s name, the girl would deny she’d ever heard of Eddie. “Let’s just say,” he began, “I have an anonymous source.”
Hartley let the pen drop onto the notebook. “Sorry, Father. I can’t print a story based on your anonymous source. I need names, telephone numbers so I can confirm—”
“You rely on anonymous sources all the time, Hartley.” Father John reached across the desk and lifted a folded newspaper. “How many anonymous sources did you use in this issue?” He tossed the newspaper aside. “Check out the warrant in Colorado. Check out the Denver Indian Center where Grover and Eddie hung out. You’re a reporter,” he said. “Go after the real story.” He was thinking that a reporter asking questions might convince Slinger to reopen the investigation.