Free Sign of the Cross by Anne Emery Page B

baskets with some younger kids; he signalled that he would be through in a few minutes. I waited. Good thing I did. If not for Tyler, I would still be in the dark about the door-slamming episode involving Leeza and my client. But we began with the dance.
    “Did Leeza Rae have a dance with Father Burke?”
    “Yeah, I think so.”
    “What kind of dance was this, do you remember?”
    “Waltz. But somebody may have cut in on them.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You know, somebody tapped her on the shoulder and took over dancing with Burke.”
    “Who?”
    “I can’t remember. I’m not absolutely sure it was him they cut in on. Sorry. But if someone did, he must have thought ‘oh, shit.’ Leeza was quite a babe, between you and me. Even a priest would be bummed out if he blew the chance to get hold of something like that.But I don’t know; I was paying more attention to the girl I wanted to cut in on, at the far end of the dance floor!” He grinned.
    “So, Tyler, are the priests well-liked around the centre?”
    “Oh, yeah. Old Father O’Flaherty’s a hoot. And Burke, well, he’s a pretty interesting guy. All that music and Latin... but he also played football. Back in his high school and college days. We had a couple of touch football games and he came out and joined us. And he was going to be an architect, until he switched to something priestly and boring. I like Father Burke. It just takes a while to get to know him.”
    “Do the other staff people like him, do you think?”
    “Yeah, I think so. Once they get used to him.”
    How was I going to approach this? “He’s kind of a striking looking guy. Not exactly cute and cuddly —” Tyler laughed in agreement “— but someone a woman might look at. Anybody have a crush on him, do you know?”
    “Yeah, well, one of the girls maybe. Erin. When he first got here. She used to talk to him about her problems, whatever they were. But I don’t think she’s still moony-eyed over him. She has a boyfriend now. Girls probably go through that with any priest who’s not too old and doddering. Of course, people joke about the nuns being in love with him. Well, Eileen’s not really a nun — but her and Sister Marguerite. I think people would say that, though, about any sister or church lady, and a priest.”
    “Any signs of it, though? Love?” I made a joke of the word.
    “Well, Eileen gets a bit tongue-tied around him, but he’s the type that makes some people nervous, you know? Except Marguerite. Nobody makes her nervous. She could command a battle zone. She was stationed in some scary hot spots around the world, before she came here. Practically in the middle of a gun battle, I heard. Marguerite and Burke talk to each other a lot; sometimes they seem to be arguing, but it’s about stuff that only, like, one percent of the population would understand. He’ll stick his head in her office and announce: ‘You were wrong again. It wasn’t St. Augustine who said blah, blah whatever it was.’ She caught him up in the hall once, I remember, and spouted some Bible verse, Paul’s letter to the Fallopians or something. She said: ‘If you’d read it and understood it Father,you’d be a better man for it. A humbler man.’ And he shot back something like he was already perfect in his humility. I didn’t get it, but it’s funny because neither of them ever cracks a smile at the other one. That’s not hearts-and-flowers stuff, though. I don’t really see much of that around here.”
    “Just a couple more questions, about Leeza Rae. What was she like?”
    “Screwed up. I’m sorry to say that about a dead person and all, but that’s it. Screwed up. She had this boyfriend, in prison somewhere. I think he even raped a girl. And Leeza talked about him as if he was a regular guy. He was going to marry her when he got out, and all this bullshit. He wouldn’t be getting out for years, so what was she going to do? Wait around for this creep, all through her