Brush Back

Father Gielczowski’s picture was on the wall facing the windows, along with the other priests who’d served the parish. Their names, German, Polish, Serbian, Italian, reflected the waves of immigrants who’d come to the South Side to work the mills. The current incumbent was Umberto Cardenal. I imagined addressing him if he was made head of the archdiocese: Cardinal Cardenal.

The desk, which was as battle-scarred as the walls, sat near the windows where Father Cardenal was working. I moved the visitor’s chair across the room, since chunks of plaster were dropping almost faster than the priest could fill in the hole.

When he finally climbed down, a gray sheen covered his face, glued on by his sweat, and the tone in which he asked what I wanted was barely civil.

“I don’t mind waiting if you want to wash up,” I offered. “I can even put the ladder away if you tell me where it goes.”

The lines around his mouth relaxed. “I look that bad, do I?” He opened a closet door and studied his face in a small mirror hanging inside. “Yes, this face would do for the Day of the Dead, but perhaps not for church business. The ladder goes in the utility storage room next to the parish meeting hall.”

I went with him to the hallway, but he headed toward the rectory, waving a vague arm to his left. I opened doors but didn’t see a meeting hall or a utility closet. At one point I found myself in the side aisle of the church, where a young woman was clutching the arm of a short squat man. He looked so much like Da

“Uncle Jerry, please! We just can’t do it anymore.”

He shoved her roughly away. “You should have thought of that when—” He caught sight of me. “Who are you and what do you want?” Even his husky voice sounded like DeVito’s.

“Utility closet, the one where this ladder belongs.”

“In case you didn’t notice, this is the church, not a closet.” He turned back to the woman. “Get out of here before you get me in trouble.”

“Are you okay?” I asked the niece.

“She’s fine. She’s leaving because she’s on her lunch hour and she can’t afford to get fired.”

The niece wiped her eyes with her sleeve and started down the aisle to the front entrance.

I followed her. “Do you need help?”

She turned to look at her uncle, shook her head at me and kept going. I put the ladder down and went after her, but she pushed me away.

“Don’t bother me. I can’t afford—it was a mistake—I just thought—never mind.”

I pulled out a card. “If you change your mind, give me a call. If he’s hurting you, I can get you to a safe place.”

She shook her head again, but at least she pocketed the card. When I turned back up the aisle for the ladder, Uncle Jerry had disappeared through one of the many side doors that littered the building. He’d left behind his old voltmeter, the pre-digital kind. In a spirit of malice, I carried it with me. When I finally stumbled on the utility room, I put the meter on a shelf behind the ladder. Let him spend an hour or two hunting for it.

When I got back to the church office, Cardenal was at his desk, wearing a clean T-shirt, his face scrubbed shiny. He was working at his computer, but he stopped when I carried the visitor’s chair to its original spot.

“What is it you need so badly that you are willing to lug around building equipment?” he asked.

I couldn’t help smiling. “Help with one of your parishioners.”

“And you are not one of them. I recognize most people who come to Mass more than twice a year, but you I don’t remember seeing.”

“You wouldn’t: I moved away from this neighborhood a long time ago.” I explained who I was.

“Frank Guzzo asked me to make some inquiries on his mother’s behalf,” I added. “She’s always been volatile, and now she seems even more so, but—you know she was in prison for a good long stretch, right? For the murder of her daughter?”

“The gossip has been here, ever since Mrs. Guzzo showed up at Mass two months ago,” Cardenal admitted.

“I just spent half an hour with her, and I am worn out and confused. She says she’s looking for an exoneration, but it sounded as though what she really wants is to pin her daughter’s murder on my family.”

Cardenal raised an eyebrow. “Does your family have a vendetta against her?”

I smiled sadly. “Stella used to spread the word around the neighborhood that my mother was seducing her husband. And then, when Mateo Guzzo sent A

Cardenal thought it over. “I don’t know your family or hers, so I can’t evaluate who is right or wrong or if there even is a right or a wrong. What is it you think I can help you with?”

I hesitated. “Being in prison is hard, and Stella was in for a long time. I don’t know if she really thinks there’s some missing evidence that might exonerate her, or if she spent her time in Logan twisting events to make them my family’s fault. Do you have any idea what is actually going on with her?”

Cardenal pulled at the flesh under his chin. “I’ve been here two years and some of the old Eastern European women still don’t trust me: Can a Mexican really administer the Sacrament? Some even take a bus all the way to Saint Florian’s to hear the Mass in Polish. Mrs. Guzzo, she at least comes to Mass here, but she hasn’t wanted to confide in me. Not that I could repeat a confidential statement, of course,” he added hastily.

“Of course,” I agreed. “What about a nonconfidential statement? I’m wondering what she said when she arrived at the bingo game the night she killed her daughter. Or why Father Gielczowski thought he should testify for her at her trial. Do you know if he’s still in the Chicago area?”

Cardenal shook his head. “He has advanced dementia, from what I’ve heard. The Polish ladies visit him sometimes and come back sad because he doesn’t know them.”

Gielczowski with dementia. What a horrible punishment, even for someone as hurtful as he had been. “Would he have written something down? Notes for his testimony at her trial, something like that?”

“If he made notes for trial testimony they’d be in his private journals, not here.” He held up a hand as I started to ask. “No, I don’t know if he even kept a personal diary, or who has it if he did. Parish records are about money and meetings.”

“Can I look at the meetings the night that A

Cardenal made a face. “I wish you’d asked me when I still was covered with plaster dust, but yes, we can find them, I guess.”

The records were in yet another chilly room with a cracked ceiling and dirty windows. Cardenal left me alone with the cartons. They weren’t stacked in any particular order, and the parish had celebrated its 125th a

I put the registers back where I’d found them, and brushed as much of the dust from my shirt and jeans as I could. Father Cardenal wasn’t in his office when I went to say good-bye, so I left a short thank-you note. I added a twenty, with a message to put it into the building fund.