Free Cecilian Vespers by Anne Emery Page A

council.”
    “Well, I’ll have a word with them. It’s no fault of yours, Mrs. Kavanagh. Carry on.”
    Things went from bad to worse when the baby was born. “And she wrapped him in bands of cloth, and put him in the place where the animals had their food.”
    “I have to stop you again there, Mrs. Kavanagh.” Burke’s eyes swept the scene, taking in all the children. “Who can tell me why Mary would wrap her baby in bands of cloth? Why not put him in rugby shorts and a T-shirt?”
    “I know, Father, I know!”
    “And what would your name be?”
    “Jeremy.”
    “All right, Jeremy, tell us why.”
    “Because they weren’t invented yet!”
    “Exactly. What did they wrap the newborn babies in two thousand years ago?”
    “I don’t know.”
    The catechism teacher jumped in at that point and said: “They don’t know what swaddling clothes are or what a decree is, if that’s what you mean, Father.”
    Wrong thing to say. “You know what they are, don’t you, Mrs. Kavanagh?”
    She laughed. “Yes, I do.”
    “I do, too,” Burke said. “How do you and I know all that, Mrs. Kavanagh?”
    “We’re grown-ups, Father.”
    “We didn’t learn this stuff as grown-ups, though, did we? Somebody explained to us when we were very young children what the words in the Christmas story meant. And that’s what’s going to happen here. So instead of not teaching them, and then removing the words they haven’t been taught, and pretty soon having no words at all we can use, we’re going to teach them the words and put those words back where they belong.”
    “Um, well, I only have the children for another half hour, Father. Then I’m not in again until next week. But I could —”
    “I won’t trouble you about it any further, Mrs. Kavanagh. This is a situation not of your making. I’ll take the children myself for an hour after Mass on Sunday. Then we’ll go out for hot fudge sundaes to ruin their lunches and get their mothers’ knickers in a twist.” Apprehension turned to joy among the cast. “And when you see them next week they’ll know all about Caesar Augustus and swaddling clothes. And that the animals had their food in something called a ‘manger,’ as in ‘Away in a Manger.’ And I shall provide you with a Bible that tells the story in language we can all be proud of.”
    “That went well,” Fred Mills remarked when the rehearsal was over, and the teacher had shepherded the children out.
    “If they want things to go well,” I replied, “if they want the Father Burkes of this world to remain benign and good-humoured and stay out of everybody’s hair, they should never attempt to dumb down the Bible. Or the liturgy. Or the music.”
    “Now they know. So, what brings you gentlemen to call on me today?”
    “My lawyer and I are doing a bit of investigating,” Burke explained. “I thought that was all done. Brother Robin under arrest, end of story.”
    “That’s probably it, you’re right,” I agreed. “But it will help wrap things up if we can account for everyone else’s whereabouts that afternoon. That will make the case against Robin all the more solid.”
    “I see.”
    “Right. So we’re trying to place everyone the day of the murder.”
    “You want my alibi.”
    “Alibi is merely a Latin word that means ‘elsewhere,’” I responded.
    “And that’s where I was. Elsewhere.”
    “And that’s all you’re going to tell us?”
    “No. I can also tell you I was nowhere near Stella Maris Church that afternoon, and I did not take an axe to Father Schellenberg.”
    “And that’s it?”
    “That’s it. Now, let me give you a little vignette or two about your friend Father Burke.”
    “He knows more than enough about me already.”
    “He was never a student of yours, Brennan, so he doesn’t have thefull picture. We were all getting along just fine at Sacred Heart Seminary. Then we received distant early warning signals about this hard-ass priest who was coming to