The Lost Bird by Margaret Coel Read Free Book Online Page A

worldly possessions. They’d talked on several occasions in the last two weeks. On a warm evening last week they had sat on the patio after dinner drinking coffee. Father John had asked about St. Francis Mission thirty-five years ago. Had Joseph’s responses been noncommittal and abrupt, as he’d thought, or had he simply not taken the trouble to draw out the other priest? Had he not wanted to get to know someone who would soon be saying good-bye? There had been so many good-byes. Was that why he’d stopped asking questions? They’d spent the rest of the evening talking about the World Series, for God’s sake. The memory stung. He blinked it back and, excusing himself, made his way through the crowded room.
    He found Elena in the kitchen ladling a casserole onto paper plates. Spread across the oak table were half-empty casserole dishes and platters piled with sandwiches and brownies. He knew she was preparing plates of food for the elders and grandmothers to take home. The rest she would send to the shut-ins, the sick, people out of work. It was no secret who could use extra food. The moccasin telegraph kept everyone up on the news.
    “You should eat something, Father,” Elena said, the familiar scolding tone laced with undisguised concern. So like his mother, the way she tried to stuff food down his skinny frame when he was a kid.
    “Maybe later,” he said, pulling a foam cup from the stack on the counter next to the coffeemaker. He poured himself some coffee. It was the thirst he wanted to satisfy.
    Leaning back against the counter, he wondered how he would tell the woman that he didn’t want her atthe mission for a while. Everything had changed. If the killer had intended to kill him, and not Father Joseph, everyone at the mission could be in danger.
    The housekeeper was snapping sheets of plastic wrap over bowls and plates as if the task might fill up her thoughts. For the first time he saw the pinched look of grief in the woman’s round, flat face.
    “Did you know Father Joseph in the 1960s?” he asked. He wasn’t sure how long Elena had been the housekeeper at St. Francis, only that it was an indeterminate length of time. “Long as I can remember,” was the way she’d put it whenever he’d asked. And when she disapproved of something he planned to do, she would remind him she had been here long enough to know that it would never work.
    Now she raised her eyes to his and shook her head. “Alvin and me wasn’t even livin’ on the res then.” Reluctance seeped into the words, as if she didn’t like admitting to a time when she was not the housekeeper at St. Francis.
    Father John gestured toward the casseroles and sandwiches. “People thought a lot of Father Joseph,” he said, still absorbing the fact that his temporary assistant had once been a much-loved pastor here.
    She gave a little nod, and he saw that she was fighting back tears. “All he was doin’ was tryin’ to help somebody. He was a real good priest.” She lifted the corner of her white apron and began dabbing at her eyes. “If you’d been the one that got the call, you would’ve been shot. Then what would we’ve done?”
    Her words stung him; he hadn’t expected them. She was grieving for
him
, the man the murderer had intended to kill. “Oh, Elena,” he said, setting down the mug and placing his arm around her.
    She huddled next to him, trembling. “I don’t want nothin’ to happen to you.” Her voice sounded thick and muffled against his shirt. “You’re like my own son, John O’Malley.” Suddenly she pushed him away and lifted her head. A little smile played at her mouth. “Big, tall, redheaded, Irish son. Imagine the Lord givin’ me such a boy! So stubborn, too. And such a worry. What was He thinkin’?”
    From outside came the crack of boots on the back steps. Another instant and the door swung open. Leonard Bizzel stepped inside, trailed by Walks-On, who loped over to the corner and stared forlornly into an