Lessons in Chemistry(98)

“That’s right, Elaine,” the other said. “That’s why I’m buying a new skillet.”

“I remember him now,” Wakely continued after the women had passed. “From your family photograph. What a handsome dog.”

Six-Thirty pressed his head into the man’s palm. Good man.

“Anyway, I bet you think I forgot all about this—so much time has passed—but I did finally follow up with All Saints. The truth is, I’d called several times after we first spoke, but the bishop was never in. Today, though, I reached his secretary and she said there’s no record of a Calvin Evans. Looks like we have the wrong home.”

“No,” Madeline said. “That’s the one. I’m positive.”

“Mad, I doubt a church secretary would lie.”

“Wakely,” she said. “Everybody lies.”





Chapter 34



All Saints

“What’s it called again? All Saints?” the bishop repeated in shock. It was 1933, and although he’d been hoping for a new assignment in a wealthy parish soaked in scotch, instead he’d netted a ratty boys home in the middle of Iowa where more than a hundred boys of varying ages in training to become future criminals served as a constant reminder that the next time he made fun of an archbishop he would try not to do it to his face.

“All Saints,” the archbishop had said. “The place needs discipline. Just like you.”

“The truth is, I’m not good with children,” he’d told the archbishop. “Widows, prostitutes—that’s where I really shine. What about Chicago?”

“In addition to discipline,” the archbishop said, ignoring his plea, “the place needs money. Part of your work there will be to secure long-term funding. Do that and maybe I’ll find something better for you in the future.”

But the future never seemed to arrive. By the time 1937 rolled around, the bishop still hadn’t solved the cash-flow problem. The only productive thing he’d done? Edit his ten-page list of “I hate this place” fury down to five central problems: third-rate priests, starchy food, mildew, pedophiles, and a steady trickle of boys deemed too wild or too hungry to be part of a normal family. They were the kids no one wanted, and the bishop completely understood because he didn’t want them either.

They’d been limping along via the usual Catholic means: sherry sales, Bible bookmarks, begging, brownnosing. But what they really needed was exactly what the archbishop had suggested—an endowment. The problem was, rich people tended to endow things the boys home didn’t have. Chairs. Scholarships. Memorials. No matter how often he tried to sell the endowment idea, potential donors could identify the fatal flaws right off the bat: “Scholarships?” they’d scoff. The boys home wasn’t really a school in the same way a prison isn’t really a place to rehabilitate— no one tries to get in. Funding a chair? Same problem—the home didn’t have departments, much less department chairs. Memorials? Their wards were too young to die, and anyway, who wanted to memorialize the very children everyone was trying to forget?

So here he was, four years later, still stuck in the middle of cornfields with a bunch of castaway kids. It seemed pretty clear no amount of prayer was going to change that. To pass the time he sometimes ranked the boys by who caused the most trouble, but even that was a waste of time because the same kid always topped the list. Calvin Evans.



* * *



—

“That minister from California called about Calvin Evans again,” the secretary said to the now-much-older white-haired bishop, dropping some files on his desk. “I’d already done what you’d said— I told him I’d checked the records and no one by that name had ever been here.”

“Good god. Why can’t he let us alone?” the bishop said, shoving the files off to the side. “Protestants. They never know when to quit!”

“Who was Calvin Evans anyway?” she asked curiously. “A priest?”

“No,” the bishop said, envisioning the boy who was the reason he was still in Iowa decades later. “A curse.”



* * *



—

After she left, the bishop shook his head, remembering how often Calvin had stood in his office, guilty of yet another infraction—breaking a window, stealing a book, giving a black eye to a priest who was only trying to make him feel loved. Well-meaning couples occasionally came to the boys home to adopt one of the boys, but no one ever showed interest in Calvin. Could you blame them?

But then one day that man, Wilson, had appeared out of thin air. Said he was from the Parker Foundation, a filthy-rich Catholic fund. When the bishop heard someone from the Parker Foundation was in the building, he was certain his ship had finally come in. His heart beat fast as he imagined the size of the donation this man Wilson might propose. He would listen to the offer, then, in a dignified way, push for more.



* * *



—

“Hello, Bishop,” Mr. Wilson said, as if he had no time to waste. “I’m looking for a young boy, ten years old, probably tall, blondish hair.” He went on to explain that this boy had lost his family via a series of accidents about four years earlier. He had reason to believe the boy was there, at All Saints. The boy had living relatives who’d recently learned of his existence; they wanted him back. “His name is Calvin Evans,” he finished, glancing at his watch as if he had another appointment to make. “If a boy of that description is here, I’d like to meet him. Actually, my plan is to take him back with me.”