Authors: Greg Herren
“How could you have married her?” Colin’s voice was low. “That was so
selfish
.”
“Do you think I’m not aware of that, Colin?” Father Dan’s face flushed. “I am so ashamed of what I did to her. I don’t expect you two to understand…how much I hated myself. How many times I thought about killing myself. When Marilou came into my life…I thought she was a sign from God. I thought God had answered my prayers. She was so beautiful, so sweet and loving…and a good Catholic.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “She’d even considered becoming a nun…I did love her, that wasn’t a lie, you know. But I didn’t love her the way a man should love a woman. I was just a teenager, and I thought…I didn’t know the difference.” He swallowed. “And when I see her now—like tonight, the bitter woman she is now—I
did
that to her, do you understand me? I’ve lived with that all these years.” He took a deep breath. “I ask God’s forgiveness every day.”
“I’m not trying to be insensitive,” Colin replied, “but I’m trying to understand. How can you have faith when one of the tenets of your religion condemns all gays and lesbians to hell?”
“
My
faith—I personally don’t believe that, Colin.” A faint smile crossed Father Dan’s face. “The hierarchy of my church does. I just don’t happen to believe that any human is incapable of error. The
humans
who run my church are capable of error, and are very capable of sin. History shows this, over and over again. Religion is often perverted to justify unspeakable acts and crimes—like war. How can a God who is about love and peace sanction war and wholesale slaughter of His children? He cannot. And I don’t believe that some ambitious old man who plays politics and gets elected to sit on a throne in Rome somehow becomes infallible, that every word from his mouth on doctrine and matters of faith is indisputably correct, that he speaks for God. No one speaks for God.”
“Careful—you’re starting to sound like an Episcopalian,” I said before I could stop myself.
Instead of being offended, Father Dan laughed and the flush faded from his face. “Scotty, you’re incorrigible. But I pray every day for guidance. I question my faith daily. But it’s not for me to understand God’s plan for me. I refuse to believe God would turn His back on His children simply because of their sexual attraction to people of the same sex. A merciful, loving God would not do that. Man, yes. God, no.” He spread his hands. “We are all God’s creations, and my faith requires me to reject the fallibility of God. I do not believe same-sex attraction is Satan tempting us to turn away from God. I know, from my own experience, that I was
born
this way; so God created me as a gay man. He has a purpose. Rejecting that purpose would be turning my back on Him.”
Our waitress materialized again. She was a pretty girl in her early twenties with brown hair and a round face. Her nametag said
Sheila
. “You gentlemen ready to order?” she asked, a pad in her hand.
“Nothing for me, but I would like more coffee.” Father Dan smiled at her.
“I want the bacon cheeseburger, medium, and can I get chili cheese fries with it?” My stomach growled again. I hadn’t even looked at my menu, but I ordered a bacon cheeseburger—every place like Chili’s serves a bacon cheeseburger. Colin ordered the same—Father Dan asked for another glass of wine.
“So, yes, I dated Marilou when we were in high school. She was a wonderful girl, really, quite pretty. I could see a lot of Marilou in Tara, actually. Marilou was quite pretty, and she loved life—she just wanted to grab life with both hands and squeeze it dry. And when we—when we”—he swallowed—“when we were together, I got aroused.” He whispered the word, his face flushing again. “So I thought the feelings I had—when I looked at boys—that maybe it was an aberration, just a phase I was going through.”
I bit my lower lip. I remembered thinking the exact same thing when I was a teenager. I remembered wondering if all boys had the same feelings, just didn’t ever talk about them or act on them. I remembered the first time I realized they didn’t—it was horrible to know I wasn’t like the other boys, that my sexual wiring was different. And he was right—I’d been incredibly lucky. My parents had been loving and accepting. They’d been excited about my being gay, rather than being horrified. They’d embraced my sexuality with a vengeance, joining P-FLAG, marching in Pride parades, and openly advocating and working for gay equality.
“After we graduated from high school, we both started going to UNO.” He went on, his voice shaking. “It was at UNO I met a guy who was openly gay, wasn’t ashamed to shout it to the world.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “But you have to remember—AIDS was ravaging the community in those days. There was no treatment. It was a death sentence, every diagnosis meant a horrible death…so little was known! My parents—my church—believed it was God’s judgment on the gays, his terrible wrath on their sin. I was so afraid—I couldn’t imagine what I would do if I got AIDS, but I wanted him, oh, how I wanted him!” His eyes got a faraway look in them. “He was so out and proud—I’d never known such a thing was even possible, you know? He used to wear a pink shirt that said ‘I’m gay, get over it.’ I couldn’t believe anyone could have the courage to wear a shirt like that to school, to risk the abuse that must have come with it, you know what I mean? And I—I slept with him.” He closed his eyes. “We used condoms, of course—but I was still terrified, absolutely terrified, that I’d have to explain to my parents, or to my priest, that I had AIDS. I hated myself so much for doing it, for enjoying it so much. It just felt right, I can’t explain it better than that. It just felt right. Afterward I hated myself for giving into the sin.” He swallowed. “I thought about killing myself, I didn’t think I deserved to live, but I couldn’t go through with it. But the guilt was so horrible. I decided to ask Marilou to marry me…I thought if I married her, you know, that would be the end of it. I thought—but it doesn’t matter what I thought. It was such an incredibly selfish thing to do.”
“It really was,” Colin replied in a rather nasty tone. I kicked him under the table. He glared at me.
“I know it was,” Father Dan said. He licked his lips. “I didn’t think of her as a person, someone who had feelings, who deserved to be loved. I just thought of her as a solution to my problem.” He sighed. “I hope someday God can forgive me. Marilou never has, and she never will. I can’t blame her.”
“That was the woman who slapped you at Dove Ministry, I take it?” Colin asked.
He nodded. “Yes, it was. We got married. She was so happy. And all I felt was trapped.”
Oh, no.
It came to me in a flash. “You were Tara’s father, weren’t you?” I asked slowly.
He nodded. “God help me, it didn’t take long. After we got married I knew I had made a terrible mistake. But she was so happy—and I didn’t know what to do. I prayed. I prayed a lot for guidance from God—but I sinned.” He hung his head. “I thought”—his face contorted—“I thought it wasn’t
cheating
,
you see. The lies we convince ourselves are truths, so we can justify our own sins! I convinced myself that if I were with another man, it wasn’t
really
adultery.” He laughed bitterly. “The truth was, it was worse. At least to Marilou, it was. And if I hadn’t been so selfish, so concerned with myself, I would have known that. But I wasn’t thinking clearly. Obviously.”
“Here you go, gentlemen!” Our waitress reappeared, placing our burgers down in front of us. I almost moaned with pleasure and my stomach growled so loudly I was afraid everyone in the place could hear it. “Can I get you anything else? More coffee?”
Father Dan nodded at her, and she swept away.
“She found out.” He shook his head. “They always do, you know. I think it’s possible I wanted to be caught—because I was taking some ridiculous risks. I’ll never forget that day as long as I live.” He stared off into space. “Marilou was at work—and so I had him meet me at our apartment. We were in the bed I shared with her. She left work because she didn’t feel well. She found us—in our bed.” He closed his eyes again. “As long as I live I’ll never forget the look on her face. She became hysterical—as she had every right to. Tom pulled on his clothes and got out of there as she screamed at me, hitting me.” He traced a finger along his front teeth. “She broke both of these teeth—she threw an ashtray at me and hit me right in the mouth. And then she left, went home to her parents. She wouldn’t talk to me. She filed for a divorce and refused to ever speak to me again. And she was pregnant.”
“Which was why she left work early that day to begin with,” Colin prompted.
“When I found out, she told me it wasn’t mine. But I knew Tara was my daughter, I always knew.” He sighed. “She got married again before the baby was even born, you know, she married Johnny Bourgeois. He went to high school with us, too—he’d always had a thing for her, and now she was available. As for me…” He rubbed his eyes. “The only thing that got me through all of it was my faith, and I heard the call. I’ve been a priest ever since.”
“It must have been horrible to hear Tara spout that homo-phobic nonsense at the Miss United States pageant,” I observed.
“Until then, I was so proud of her.” The waitress refilled his coffee mug, and he smiled his thanks to her. “I never knew her, you know. Marilou and her family made sure of that, and I don’t know, maybe it was for the best. But I always kept an eye on her. I watched her grow up—from a distance. I think the proudest day of my life was when she became Miss Louisiana. I was there. I actually wept with joy when they put the crown on her head.” He shook his head. “Pride is a sin, you know. But I never blamed Tara for the things she said, the things she did after the Miss United States pageant. That was all Marilou. Marilou raised her to hate gays and lesbians, to think they were evil.”
It’s just the way I was raised
,
I heard Tara saying again in my mind.
“I just kept thinking if I could talk to her, make her see how wrong it was to hate people…” Dan finished his coffee. He pulled a twenty out of his wallet, and put it down on the table. “And now she’s dead—and even after all this time, Marilou still can’t forgive me.” He stood up. “Enjoy your dinner, boys.”
“Father Dan.” Colin stopped him. “I know you were at Mom and Dad’s the night Tara was murdered, but where were you on Monday morning?”
“You think I killed Marina Werner?” His eyebrows went up, and he laughed. “I suppose you have to ask. No, I didn’t kill Marina Werner. I was at the Mission on Oretha Castle Hailey all morning, ministering to the homeless. You can check it out. Please do.” He patted me on the shoulder and winked at Colin. “I’ll see you boys later.”
My mind was reeling, but I was so hungry nothing could stop me from devouring the bacon cheeseburger in a matter of moments. When all that was left was a puddle of ketchup and some French fry debris, I said, “He could have taken the gun.”
Colin finished chewing the last bite of his burger and swallowed. “I don’t see Father Dan killing Marina, frankly. You’ve been awfully quiet since we left the Dove Ministry, though. What are you thinking?”
“That place makes me sick,” I replied as our waitress slid a small tray with the bill on the table. “And it was sickening the way Werner and that MacGillicudy woman are using the murders to further their own agenda.”
“All zealots are like that, opportunistic.” Colin slid an American Express card into the tray and took another drink of his iced tea. “It’s reprehensible, but you have to admire how quickly they can think on their feet. They probably raked in about a hundred grand in donations for the church and her group tonight.”
“False prophets,” I said aloud, remembering the feeling I had while we were sitting in that awful place. “They prey on the weak, and then bilk them out of money.”
“What I’m more curious about is why your aunt was there.”
That jolted me. In my shock over the whole Father Dan thing, I hadn’t given Enid another thought. “And she was right there in the front pew with Marilou Bourgeois,” I said.
“And you said she said some homophobic things to Frank on Monday night.” Colin smirked. “Just what is her connection to the Dove Ministry and the Bourgeois family, anyway? You know, she’s the only person we know of who is connected to both victims.”
“Enid couldn’t kill anyone,” I scoffed.
“You don’t think she’s changed since she had the gastro-bypass?” Colin asked as he signed the credit slip and put his card back into his wallet. “Frank does.”
“He hasn’t said anything to me.”
“She’s your aunt, Scotty.” Colin patted my leg as I slid out of the booth and put my coat back on. “It’s not cool to badmouth someone’s relatives.”
“Certainly not a problem with my crazy family,” I retorted as we walked back out into the parking lot. “Frank knows that. So, what did he say?”
Colin shrugged as he started the car. Another car started farther down the row from us. His eyebrows came together as he peered out into the rain and shrugged again. “Frank said Enid was nuts but harmless before she had the surgery. After she started losing the weight and got her own place, she started changing. He said she was more mean-spirited and malicious than she used to be.”
“That’s because he didn’t know her all that well before,” I replied as he pulled out onto Veteran’s Boulevard. “She’s
always
been that way. She pretends like she’s sweetness and light—all the little presents and the cards are just window dressing to cover what she’s really like.”
He made a U-turn and headed back for New Orleans. “What is it with you and her?”