Chapter 1
I thought I heard ringing like the old time rotary phones we had growing up as a kid in the Bronx, we had a phone that was in our living room. I heard it again and thought I must be having one of those dreams that happens when you're a kid. I fully expected to wake up and see my mom standing over me saying "Frankie, wake up, you just have a bad dream".
Still the damn ringing kept going on and on.
I woke up , tried to come out of my stupor and realized where I was. It was dark with that familiar musky odor that I had become familiar with over the last four years. The trouble was that this wasn't my cell phone, it was the phone on my desk that had not rung ,for all I know, since the last resident Father Edwin Gleason, lived here.
I jumped out of bed, stumbled over to the desk to pick up the phone, and said "St. Joseph's parish?". I was more amazed to hear the voice on the other end of the line. "Hi father, it's Kevin Brody out of the Four Four."
For a second I thought my ears were playing tricks. When I processed who was calling me, I missed the rest of his statement. I said, "Kevin? Why are you calling me on this phone and what are you calling me about?." He said "Sorry to bother you like this father, but you weren't answering your cell, and it's about Maria, your housekeeper.". I was still in shock for two reasons now, what would possess him to call me on this phone and why would he be calling about Maria? .Even more disturbing was him calling me "father". I know Kevin for almost 30 years, about 16 of them interrupted by my time away in the seminary followed by my service as a chaplain in the Navy for eight years. I grew up in this neighborhood and wanted to come back here to be the local priest on my way up the ladder in the church's heirarchy. Kevin did the same thing, but serving a different master.
Kevin is a member of the parish and he knew Maria quite well. He was also Sgt. in the 44th precinct, in the homicide department. Not the worst precinct, but no day at the beach.I looked at the clock on my desk and saw it was 2:45 in the morning. I remembered it was also Wednesday and that clicked with it being Maria's day off.
I started to get that uneasy feeling you get when you know a call this early in the morning is no good. I remember on mother saying to my father when we got a call this early in the morning, " is your dark suit clean"? You knew you were going to someone's funeral.
Generally someone had been in an accident or had died. I started to become more alert and realize that whatever was, it involved Maria, the parish housekeeper for want of the better word. A permanent fixture in the church. A neighborhood kid herself, she had been in our service for over 10 years, couple before I got here, and both her kids were baptized here. She truly was a member of the family.
I caught myself and said to Kevin, "what is going on Kevin?".
"You had better sit down father!" Again calling me father instead of Frank. "We just found Maria in the back of an alley over near East 138th and Rider Ave ,murdered". That was the Mott Haven area of the Bronx, not too far from Yankee Stadium, not where you would normally be at this hour of the night.
You could've hit me with a thunderbolt. If I wasn't already sitting at the desk I woud have fallen down. I didn't know what to say, feel, think, or believe. This couldn't be happening. I saw her this morning, She stopped by for her paycheck. I asked about the kids, how they were doing in school and how her classes were going and some idle chit-chat. I repeated the whole scene again in my head. I could see her with a great smile, big brown eyes and her hair in that permanent ponytail, bouncing down the parish steps off on her day to do little errands and shopping for the kids which she could always find something for them.
I was aware of the voice almost yelling at me through the phone and I realized I had mentally wandered away from Kevin and what he was sharing with me, "Sorry Kevin, but why are you calling me? I saw her this morning and that's the last I've seen of her", "where is she now, at the hospital, the morgue, is she still at the scene?".
"We just moved her too Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center for forensics and I called you because I felt you wanted to know first. Her kids look up to you like their dad and I was hoping you could come with me to alert them and her mom.
Maria's mom, Carmen, a saint in many ways. Raising Maria on her own, dealing with her disastrous marriage to Eddie, who was still doing time for armed robbery, which should have been murder, but some rookie screwed the pooch and the bastard caught a break. Carmen kept the kids like her own, she ran the household like a a well oiled machine, making every penny count, saving some and still put money in the collections every Sunday. Amazing woman. Now the light that always burned in her eyes, like every day was a blessing, was abut to be doused and Kevin wanted me to be the one to do it.
As a chaplain, attached to a Naval base in Coronado, CA, I was attached to a Seal team. Along with offering spiritual guidance and counseling, to some of the toughest, meanest, and unusually very spiritual men, I had the duty to notify the next of kin, when one of our men paid the ultimate sacrifice, but rarely face to face and never to a family member this close to me. I actually tried to think o a way around doing this. But only for an instant. This was my family, the whole parish was supposed to be my family, but this was so surreal. So close, so painful, so desperate as I could already see Maria's kids Michael, 7 and Alita, 9 staring at me wondering how this could be?
Kevin, once again broke my train of thought "Frank?" finally calling me by my name. ""I am pulling around in the blue unmarked Dodge across the street" "I'll wait while you gather whatever it is you need for this" Then he hung up.
This is the 1st Installment. Please follow me to see more tomorrow. Please comment and upvote
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