Gentle Murderer by Dorothy Salisbury Davis Page A

which served the few farmers in the area. Most of the buildings were in need of paint, including St. Teresa’s church and parish house.
    An arthritic looking old woman came to the door in answer to his knock. “Father McGohey?” she said to his inquiry. “He’s out yonder.” She motioned to the cemetery. “He’s been dead fifteen—sixteen years. Do you want to see his grave, Father? We’ve a terrible time keeping them up.”
    “Presently,” he said. “Did you keep house for Father McGohey?”
    “I did. And Father Blake before him, and Father Hanrahan before him, God rest his soul. He was my brother.” She opened the door a few inches wider but kept herself squarely between him and the house’s hospitality. “Is it about the missions you’ve come, Father? You can see we’re a poor parish. The church roof is leaking in three places and a lump of plaster fell on Mrs. Cartright’s head last Sunday. She said it was enough to make a Lutheran of her. All the farmers hereabouts is Lutherans and they have all the money.”
    She had the poor mouth as his mother would have said, Father Duffy thought, and the melancholy was in her bones. “I’m not looking for a donation, Mrs.—”
    “Miss Hanrahan.” It was only then that she opened the door its full width. “Will you come in and sit down, Father? I’ve nothing but a bit of bread and tea in the house, but I’ll put on the kettle.” She led him into a parlor that matched the tale she told.
    “Don’t trouble, Miss Hanrahan. I had lunch a short time ago.”
    “I hope it was tasty,” she said, sitting on the edge of an old wicker chair. “I’ve no taste for food myself no more. And fortunate that is, the poor share of it we get from charity. Are you related to Father McGohey?”
    “No. As a matter of fact, I never met him. But I heard about him.” He was not sure how he hoped she might construe that, but it started her talking, as almost anything would in her loneliness. And that was what he wanted. If there were information for him in Marion City, he had come first to its best source.
    She screwed her mouth into a sort of smile. “There’s more people heard of Father McGohey than ever saw him, I dare say. He was a hard man to work for, plagued as he was with the bad temper. But he made up for it in his own fashion. It was like the devil was plaguing him but the Lord won him.”
    She nodded approval of her own summary, and then looked up at him. “You never heard him preach? No, you said you didn’t meet him. He’d start a sermon and all you’d know was the first word and the last till you got on to his way of talking. He’d string all his words into a jumble and be started and finished before you knew whether it was Advent or Pentecost. They say he got that way during the war. He was an army man, and do you know, I think he was sorry having to come home? He was real military in his way of doing things. He trained his altar boys like little soldiers, and he had enough of them to attend a cathedral. You’ve no notion how lonesome it gets, Father.”
    Father Duffy looked at his hands. Somehow he had known this of Father McGohey. He felt very humble in having followed this instinct.
    “Would you like to wash, Father? Are you off a train? Father Mullens is at a diocesan meeting. He won’t be home till supper.”
    “No thanks, Miss Hanrahan. You’ve been here a long time?”
    “Fifty-five years. This was my brother’s first parish. He died here of pneumonia.”
    “I’m sorry,” the priest said.
    “He would of died some place else. He was always too delicate for a priest.”
    “Is there a parochial school?”
    “There was till ten years ago. My brother laid the cornerstone and never lived to see it up, and me living to see it burned to the ground. There was more children in the town then. There was coal mines and plenty of work for them able to do it. Now the children get their instructions Tuesday and Friday afternoons and go to the public