Bishop as Pawn by William X. Kienzle

then—we had to cut back. The cost of running a high school got to be prohibitive. We started running out of nuns. Had to hire lay teachers at lots more than we paid the sisters. The high school was closed in ’71.”
    “And the elementary school?”
    “Same thing. We tried to keep it going. But the expenses kept skyrocketing—salaries, mostly. Even though our teachers made great sacrifices—we couldn’t pay them anything close to what their counterparts in the public schools got. So the tuition had to be raised almost every year. At the same time, the makeup of our parishioners was changing. The Latino community was growing. They weren’t rich by any means. The handwriting was on the wall. We finally shut down the whole school about … oh … six years ago.”
    “Then the Head Start program came in.”
    “Uh-huh.” Bell was almost offhand.
    “But the Head Start program could be carried on anywhere there was an empty building. You just happened to have one,” Williams said matter-of-factly.
    “What are you getting at?” Bell leaned forward. His manner was combative.
    “There was talk of closing down St. Gabriel’s.”
    Bell said nothing. He had to be most cautious here. How much had these officers been told about his situation in this parish?
    “Earlier, Father,” Williams said, “you mentioned what it was like to be pastor of a parish. You said” —here he consulted his notes—” that the pastor can become part of his parishioners’ families. That if you were assigned some other parish, you couldn’t just pull up stakes and move on without caring very much.”
    Bell gazed at Williams intently. This was clearly The Enemy.
    “Well, I was wondering, Father,” Williams continued, “if it is so difficult to move along to another assignment after being so wrapped up in your former parish, how much more difficult it would be if the parish you loved but had to leave just … ceased to exist.”
    Bell cocked an eye. “Why are you so interested in St. Gabriel’s? We’re not going out of business. The buildings are in full use and they’re in pretty good repair. We’ve got a zillion programs going on. Lots of the good people here depend on this parish for help in everything from food and jobs to counseling to immigration. And we respond! We make a realistic contribution to the CSA. In a word, we’re healthy! So why are you harping on this parish closing down?”
    “The word we got was that Bishop Diego was considering closing it.”
    “He couldn’t do it!” The tone was aggressive.
    “A bishop couldn’t do it?”
    “Are you a Catholic?”
    “Yes.” Williams did not qualify his answer as he had with Quirt. If he were to admit he was no longer a practicing Catholic, Bell would dismiss out of hand his competence in the matter. Besides, Williams had gone to school in his earlier questioning of the other three priests.
    Bell had not expected so absolute a response. Taken aback somewhat, he said, “Bishop Diego was an auxiliary bishop. He was here to help Cardinal Boyle. The Cardinal is the archbishop. He runs this diocese, not an auxiliary bishop.”
    “Still … a bishop …”
    “Why are you leaning on this? Are you trying to come up with some reason why I would hate or resent Bishop Diego? God Almighty, are you trying to accuse me of … of killing the bishop?!”
    “We’re not accusing you of anything, Father.” Williams tried to sound reassuring. “Like I said, we’ve got a lot of questions. We’re looking for answers. As much as anything else, we’re trying to figure out what kind of man this Bishop Diego was.”
    “Then you’d better ask the high-priced lawyers, the judges, the top brass at G.M., Ford, Chrysler. Those were his buddies.”
    “We’re asking them. What we want to know now is, what was he to you?”
    They knew. Or, they thought they knew. Well, better they hear it from his own lips. “He was a pain in the ass to me.”
    The detectives were relieved at the