“Did you ever work with Bob Mercer, taught economics?” Ken asked. He was the portly math teacher with a gut on him, as well as a tattoo on his forearm resembling a cross between a hand grenade and an old-fashioned microphone with a grill, or maybe one of those blue light screens that zaps mosquitoes. “He said, ‘When I die, I’d like to die during an in-service, so the transition from life to death will be as little as possible.’”

Ken guffawed, and Jason got his point, that in-services were often terribly boring. Although teachers complained about in-services being a waste of time, there was no school today, which meant that there were no classes and Jason had no students. Jason was perfectly happy to have an in-service and wouldn’t mind even if he cleaned toilets. It’s not that he disliked students or teaching, per se, it was just those few nasty, troublesome students and their overprotective parents who made Jason miserable and outweighed the majority of decent students. In a class of thirty students, just one hateful, disruptive student could ruin the whole class and bother Jason enough that he couldn’t stop thinking about it outside of school.

There were donuts, orange juice, and chocolate milk on the table in the library, provided by the principal, and Jason was appreciative; it’s just that he needed coffee, especially on a cold December morning. Jason suspected that the school never provided coffee because there were so many Mormon employers in the district. Regardless, he was forced to go to the faculty lounge and get some of the coffee that Ken made, which was horrible, having sat on the burner since Ken arrived at the school at five in the morning. Jason wanted to get a k-cup coffee maker, but he was saving money to finish paying off his student loan debt.

Early in his career, Jason was appalled at the teacher whose phone went off in the middle of an in-service, right as the principal was speaking, then walked out of the room while talking loudly on her phone. Jason thought that if one of the teacher’s students had done that, she would have been furious. Teachers were terrible, talking and inattentive during in-services and coming back late from breaks, actions that they scolded students for. Jason decided that he couldn’t be a hypocrite, but needed to be the kind of student at an in-service that he wanted his students to be, so he always sat up front, paid attention, and didn’t talk while the presenter was speaking.

“Good morning,” Ms. Ylarregui began as teachers still filtered into the back of the room. “I don’t have a whole lot, so I’ll be brief. With all of the recent school shootings, we felt we had to see exactly where we’re at as far as school safety. We had some consultants come in, and they were able to park at the front of the School on Owyhee Avenue and were inside the building and in the library in 13 seconds.”

Jason did an intake of breath, as did several other teachers.

“If that was someone who had a gun, and wanted to harm students,” Ms. Ylarregui continued, “the results would have been tragic.”

So the staff reviewed security procedures, and every member of the staff was given an ID badge to wear, which the consultants recommended as an easy way to spot who did or didn’t belong on campus. The new policy was to keep the double doors next to the library locked, as well as lock the doors at the other end of the building, and have students go in through the doors in the middle of the annex, where there was a secretary in the counseling/attendance office, who could monitor who was coming into the building.

Next, they reviewed evacuation procedures, and the teachers returned to their classrooms. When the fire alarm sounded, which Jason recognized as the alarm bell that he heard in the liquor store he robbed in the Midas Game, the teachers turned off the lights in their rooms, locked their doors, and proceeded out to the softball field at the edge of the campus. In a real evacuation, the teachers would lead students out to that spot, take roll, and hold up a green card, which meant everyone was accounted for, or a red card, which meant that someone was missing. In the event of a fire, a red card meant that somebody might still be trapped in the building.

The complicating factor was that there were instances of mass shooters triggering a fire alarm in order to get as many targets as possible to congregate in the open.

Following the security training, the staff were subjected to three hours of sheltered instruction, an incredibly boring and academic exercise in lesson planning designed to help students with limited English, as well as students who struggled in school. Lunch was “on your own,” which meant that the school wasn’t providing anything, so Jason went to the 7-11 beside the campus and bought a hard-boiled egg and some cottage cheese, which were compatible with his High-Fat Low-Carb diet.

Nothing was scheduled after lunch, so he exercised in his room, doing every exercise he could think of, looking forward to boosting his performance in the game. If he was happy with today, despite its dreariness, merely because he didn’t have any students, how could he last another 42 years until he retired? Jason hadn’t expected it, but The Midas Game was the most rewarding part of his life.

* * *

Yellow police tape blocked off the door to the rectory standing beside the St. Michael’s Shelter for Wayward Souls. Squad cars lined the streets, while an ambulance had pulled up to the rectory, and parked over both the sidewalk and the grass. Several members of the press were there, identifiable by badges and the bulky black cameras they carried, complete with huge flash attachments. It was unusual for a priest to be murdered, and an outrage, so a formidable crowd was gathered outside the rectory. This era in American history was plagued with anti-Catholic bigotry, leading to Catholic churches being burned to the ground, which forced one to wonder if that same hatred led someone to murder Father Milligan.

Jason arrived at the church while the police were still investigating the crime. He wanted to find out firsthand how the priest had died, but there was no way the police would allow him into the crime scene. Unless…Standing outside the church, Jason rummaged through his pocket for a dime. “Monkey! Oh Monkey! Where are you?” he shouted while looking around him.

An old woman with a red complexion gave him a curious stare as she passed him, which made him realize that he looked like a lunatic.

“Oh, uh, ‘Monkey’ is the name of my dog.” Jason smiled to reassure the woman that he wasn’t crazy. “She’s a tiny little terrier, always climbing on things like a monkey, ha ha.”

The woman continued to eye him warily, even craning her neck behind her when she was on the other side of him.

“You look like you’re looney tunes, standing out here yelling about a monkey.” The capuchin squatted next to Jason, reaching only as high as the young man’s knee, so he adjusted his red fez on his head as he looked up.

Jason dropped a dime into the monkey’s cup. “Can we go into ghost mode? I need to get inside the rectory and see what happened to Father Milligan.”

“Advice costs a dime.” The monkey rattled the change in his tin cup. “Ghost mode is free.”

“Do I get my dime back?” Jason asked, but the little monkey had already scampered off and walked under the yellow tape line. When Jason reached the tape line, he ducked under it and joined the monkey.

“What are you ducking for?” the monkey scolded him, shaking his head. “You could have just walked through it.”

The door to the rectory was closed, and a policeman in blue stood outside it. The monkey waved his long slender hand, indicating for Jason to follow, then walked through the closed door. Jason hesitated, but followed, and found that the experience was like walking through the mist outside a waterfall. “Cool!” he exclaimed.

“What’s with the 60s slang?” The monkey rolled his bulging eyes. The two of them approached a nun, who was being interviewed by a detective.

She was in her fifties, a squat woman with black eyeglasses, a large nose, and a chin that looked as though it had been fastened to her jaw by a poor special effects artist. She wore a habit in black and gray, including a cord that struggled to find her waist.

“There were four of ‘em, big brawny men tellin’ the father he couldn’t hold a mass,” the sister told to the detective. “He said, ‘Ya got no right ta tell me I can’t conduct a mass, the constitution says I got a right.’ So then the lot a them goes down ta the kitchen, and the burly man in a gruff voice says, ‘We’re closing ya down.’ The father says ‘Ya can’t do that—what’r the men gonna eat? They got nothin’. Ya gonna let ‘em starve?’”

The nun became very animated in her story, her voice changing and mimicking the various speakers as she recounted the conversation.

“So who were these men?” the detective asked.

“Said they were from the mayor’s office, and what kinda self-respectin’ God-fearin’ group a men calls ‘emselves RAPE?” I’m ashamed ta say the word.” She shook her head sadly, then launched right back into her narrative. “So they were all gathered in the kitchen, and the big lout says, ‘This place ain’t sanitary,’ and dumps the whole kettle full a corned beef onta the floor, spillin’ it everwhere. ‘Hey!’ the father shouts, ‘what d’ya think yer doin’?’ and one a the lugs laid a hand on the father like he’s gonna slug him.”

The nun cocked back her hand and assumed a fighting stance as she recounted the ensuing confrontation.

“Father Milligan was a godly man, but he had a frightful temper, and he was fit to be tied after they ruined the men’s supper. So it was fisticuffs all ‘round. Well, the father was like the wrath a God, and was landin’ haymakers on the big toughs, who weren’t so tough as they thought, but there were four a them and only one a him.”

Jerry “The Fighting Father” Milligan fought successfully as a middleweight boxer, but Jason had only met him once, when Jason arranged to get checkups for the men at the shelter, which the priest happily agreed to. Father Milligan must have pummeled the RAPE goons pretty well, but ultimately, it was four against one.

The nun was winded from acting out the fight, but she continued. “Those ruffians would a thrashed father Milligan soundly, if it wasn’t for the fact that he got ahold a his shillelagh, and beat ‘em all within an inch a their lives. He was whalin’ on ‘em, and cracked at least one skull. They had ta carry out one big ox, who was out like a light, and bleedin’ ta beat the band. One a them shouted as they skedaddled, ‘We’ll be back! Nobody defies the mayor!’ But the father says, ‘Try bringin’ some men next time!’ Not a very Christian thing ta say, but he was riled up.”

The detective took notes in a little booklet. “Why would agents from the mayor’s office act like that? Did Father Milligan provoke them somehow?”

“The hooligans were angry before they even got here yesterday,” the nun explained. “Two weeks ago, they told the father he couldn’t hold mass, but he held it anyway, defied the mayor, which is why they came back, lookin’ ta teach him a lesson.”

“Were there any men at the shelter who held a grudge against Father Milligan?” the detective asked. “Maybe there was some kind of argument between the priest and somebody recently.”

Jason began to move to the stairs, which led to the priest’s room on the second floor, where the murder apparently occurred. He heard the sister talking behind them as he and the monkey ascended the stairs.

“No, all the men respected Father Milligan, who would a given his last cent ta any a them. He was a strong man, not given ta emotion, but he loved the whole lot a them, and they knew it.”

The landing to the second floor was tiled, and a heavy bag hung in the corner. The door to the priest’s room was open, and the room was crowded with detectives, one of whom was crouching and taking photographs of the priest, who lay on the floor. Jason and the monkey passed a cop who stood at the window outside the room, which had been opened just a crack so that he could blow out smoke from his cigarette.

Inside the room, several detectives were crouched around the sheet on the floor covering the priest’s body.

“Cause of death?”

“Blunt force trauma. I’m guessing it’s either a baseball bat or a lead pipe.” The detective pulled down the sheet and pointed to the side of the head behind the ear, where there was visible swelling. “I’d say that was the fatal blow. No evidence of stab wounds or bullet wounds. Except for this.”

The detective reached down to the bottom of the sheet and threw it up over the corpse’s waist. One of the investigators had cut the priest’s slacks with a surgical pair of scissors, going up both legs all the way to the belt line. “We’ll need an autopsy, but here we see contusions on the shins and ankles, damage to the kneecaps, and there are contusions on the genitals.”

“Torture?” The other detective flipped up the sheet to look at the priest’s wrists, which were free of scrapes or rope burns. “No signs that someone held him or tied him up.”

“We checked. No signs of ligature. What kind of monster beats a priest to death?”

The detectives covered the corpse with the sheet and nodded to the ambulance attendants, who loaded the body onto a gurney and rolled it toward the stairs.

The detective stood up and massaged the back of his neck. “If we don’t get this wrapped up and get our perp, there’s going to be fire in the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. I need a drink.”

The detectives walked right past Jason and the capuchin as though they weren’t there. Jason studied the door closely. “No signs of forced entry,” he told the monkey, “but I don’t think the priest would open the door for a stranger with a lead pipe or a baseball bat.”

Investigators continued to take pictures of the room and used forceps to pick up items from the floor or the dresser. They dusted the drinking glass and the bottle of Jameson’s whiskey on the nightstand for fingerprints.

Jason walked to the window and steeled himself, then stepped right through the wall. He found himself floating weightlessly outside the second-floor window of the rectory. Like an astronaut doing a spacewalk, he gently pushed himself downward with his hands, inspecting the drainpipe, until he reached a bracket anchoring it to the wall.

Looking closely at the bracket, a section of curved metal holding the pipe in place, he saw all the evidence he needed, and knew who killed Father Milligan.