Chapter 3

The bishop came on Wednesday, as promised.

He arrived in a plain black car driven by a young priest, who stayed in the car with the engine running and a book. Bishop Ostrowski walked up the gravel lane in his cassock with a small black bag in one hand. Arlene had swept the walk and set two coffee cups on the kitchen table. She had not baked, because she was not going to bake, and she had almost changed her mind about that four times.

The bishop came in, thanked her for the coffee, sat down, and said, without preamble, "Tell me about the second gift."

"I don't know how to."

"Start with what you know."

Arlene told him. She told him about finding the letter in the drawer after the funeral and reading it once and closing the drawer. She told him about the memo line on the check stub. She told him about the cardboard tube.

The bishop did not interrupt. When she was finished, he sat back in the chair and rubbed his hand slowly over his mouth, up and down, the way a tired man does when he's thinking.

"The School Annex Fund," he said.

"What is it?"

"It was a plan. In 1996 and 1997, there was a proposal to build a parish school annex—a gymnasium, four classrooms, a small kitchen. Small towns in this part of the state were losing their Catholic schools one by one, and the bishop at the time wanted St. Casimir's to build the annex as a regional school so families wouldn't have to drive forty minutes to the public district in Badger Creek."

"What happened?"

"The building fund was short. The diocese had committed a certain amount, the parishioners had pledged a certain amount, and there was a gap." He looked at her. "A lot of gaps in those years. Churches in this part of Minnesota were facing a choice between keeping their schools and keeping their roofs."

Arlene waited.

"The annex was never built," the bishop said. "The proposal was dropped in 1999. The parish council voted to suspend the project. The money that had been raised for it was moved into the general building fund and used for repairs on the church itself—the roof, the furnace, the basement restrooms. That's the official record."

"And what's the truth?"

"The truth is that there was a bequest in the late nineties that was specifically restricted for the school annex, and it was never spent, because the annex was never built, and after a few years the restriction was quietly forgotten by everyone except whoever was keeping the paperwork." He looked at her steadily. "The diocese takes restricted bequests seriously, Mrs. Kasparek. Even twenty-five years later. Even when the buildings they were meant for were never built. We are legally bound to find them and either spend them as directed or return them to the estate."

Arlene's hand went to her mouth.

"It was Walter's," she said.