The phone rings.
"Good Morning, Bloomsday. It's Tim." Father Tim, the renegade priest who blew up Rodin's The Thinker in 1970 and has availed himself to the ecclesiastical laws of sanctuary to avoid prosecution ever since. "Your colleague, Mr. Gaines, has informed me you are travelling to West Virginia this weekend."
I am packed for the surprisingly short trek from Cleveland to the southern banks of the Ohio River to a casino where my brothers and sisters of the criminal defense bar throw a weekend frat party masquerading as a seminar each summer. Higbee Gaines, my now clean and sober friend formerly known as "The Problem" has given the priest too much information about my recreational activities.
"Yes, that's true. I'm leaving in an hour or so, but there's no room at the inn, Father. At least not in my room."
"Oh, that's fine. I don't need a place to stay down there. I have friends waiting. I just need a ride."
"A gambling junket?" I ask. "I thought you were on the lamb, Father. Crossing state lines might be dangerous. Besides, this call may be monitored for quality assurance."
"I'll take the risk. I assure you my journey is spiritual business, not vice. It's not the casino I need to get to, but your destination is just a few miles from mine. You mind if I catch a ride?"
"Sure," I say with a tinge of regret. "Gotta hit the road by 10:00."
"That's perfect. Thank you, Bloomsday. I'll be waiting at the rectory. I understand the imposition, but could I ask one additional favor?"
"Sure," I say with a deeper regret, still.
"Can I bring along Sisters Beatrice or Bernice, as well?"
10:05 a.m.
I pull up and find Father Tim, crazed Michael Landon mane and priest-collared, waiting with two summery-habited nuns. They each have backpacks that they toss in the trunk of my beloved 2003 Pontiac Vibe. The nuns smile broadly as they hop in the back seat. Tim takes shotgun. I had spoken to one of the nuns, Beatrice or Bernice, over the phone a few weeks earlier; I wasn't sure which. I now understand through my rear-view mirror that they must be identical twins, utterly indistinguishable from one another.
Their gratitude is effusive as we pass the onion domes of St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Church and hop on the highway east toward Youngstown. As we settle in to highway travel, Father Tim offers some explaination.
"You're casino seminar takes you to Chester, West Virginia. Do you know what else Chester is known for?"
I have no idea.
"It's home to one of the largest landfills in America, garbage from several metropolitan areas have been transported there for years, including the garbage from Washington, D.C."
I check the mirror and notice the delightful smiles on the twin nuns (or is it nun twins?) have disappeared. Replaced by somber, tragic faces. "You mean, he doesn't know?" one says as they glance at each other.
Father Tim misses no beat: "There wasn't time, Bernice. I didn't want to tell him over the phone. He might have had second thoughts..."
"Excuse me.." I interrupt, but I'm interrupted by simultaneous voices from the back seat.
"Requiescat in pace!" both nuns cry out in unison as they cross themselves.
"Ladies, please..." Father Tim cautions. "Let us not get too wrapped up in the emotions of this. We are servants of God on a mission."
"You mean, like the Blues Brothers?" I ask.
Father Tim looks puzzled. A voice from the back seat: "Oh, I love that movie!"
Another voice: "Yes, funny. Lots of car crashes though. Tragic, tragic John Belushi."
"Requiescat in pace!" both nuns cry out in unison as they cross themselves again.
"Last year, a girl went missing from the one of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington." Father Tim brings back the gravitas. "Gangs, drugs, guns, prostitution; she was 13 and she was in the middle of it all. Her grandmother had raised her, but she lost her to the streets. A homicide detective there in D.C. came to believe that the girl, Evie Nichols, had witnessed a murder and, since her were loyalties untested, she was murdered, herself. According to interrogations of several gang members, she was shot in the head, placed in a suitcase and tossed in a dumpster just a few blocks from the hospital where she was born.
"Of course, this information was gleaned nearly six months after her disappearance, so the contents of every dumpster in D.C. had, long before, been transported to Chester, emptied, and bulldozed over with more garbage. The detective, the grandmother and church and civic leaders pleaded with city officials to search for her body with the help of a dumping schedule gridded map and GPS - every container load is theoretically locatable, but the city decided it was too dangerous and futile..."
"A needle in a haystack, they said," spoke a voice from behind. "Perhaps, the needle wasn't even in the haystack, they argued. A proper burial would elude her."
"So, are you telling me you're all bumming a ride to find a dead girl in a suitcase in one of the largest landfills in America and give her a proper burial?"
"No," says Father Tim. "We don't need to find her to give her a proper burial. We're going to consecrate the landfill, then give her proper burial rites, wherever she already is."
"And the friends you have waiting down in Chester?" I ask.
"Evie's grandmother, the detective, some friends of the family, community folks...practically a minor congregation ready to break the law and trespass for the sake of a little girl's immortal soul."
"I brought wire snippers, just in case we need them," says Bernice or Beatrice.
A long silence follows as we travel down the highway. Forgive us our trespasses, indeed.
