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Mental Reservation

by Richard Gordon

428 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0248; ISBN 1-55212-582-3; US$32.50, C$36.00, EUR26.50, £18.50

A murder mystery which soon involves the Vatican.

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about the book      about the author      chapter one      catalogue info

About the Book A priest is murdered in his rectory. Patrick Casey, the protagonist, is assigned this case because he attended a seminary, and he is a Catholic. The rest of the office is Jewish and Wasps. There is a court scene where a high ranking member of the clergy is a witness. Patrick Casey knows what Mental Reservation is, i.e, any member of the clergy can swear an oath but if he says silently, to himself, a little prayer, oath, he has sworn nothing and in essence can lie like a rug. He can say anything, even under judicial oath, that is what mental reservation is. There is a difference between a religious and a legal oath. If he pronounces a formula that expresses an oath, without the intention of swearing, then he has sworn nothing. Patrick Casey knows about this formula and he confronts the Bishop with this. He explains this to the jury. The seemingly drop-dead guilty defendant, Stanislov Kesky, is found not guilty. The priest, Bishop, knows this, he also knows that the Curia has its assassins. The story goes back to WWII and Kesky's father, a Ritter Croix winner. It goes through the cold war and the Prague spring and ultimately to America. Patrick Casey is assigned to defend Kesky; he is successful. Patrick falls deeply in love. She becomes pregnant. She has a brain tumor from a mugging which Casey saved her from, he thought. The church has the only cure available, but Susan must become a recluse in a nunnery in Quebec. The assassin finds out that he has prostate cancer, and there's no hope. He has a change of heart and wants to do one right thing before he dies. He allies with Patrick. They raid the nunnery and there is a shoot-out, and they rescue Susan. A radio report on the car radio has a breaking news big item: the Pope and one of his major henchmen are assassinated by using a rocket propelled grenade (RPG).

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About the Author Ex combat infantry man in Korea. 17 years as a rod buster (construction worker). 3 years oil barge mate, and 4 years as captain. A's in applied sciences, electrical technology. Dean's list for 2 semesters of economics at a senior college. Holder of general radio-telephone license with ships radar endorsement.

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Chapter One

He looked at the old handwritten letter with astonishment, he could hardly believe what he was reading, yet some deep down gut feeling told him it was true. There was also a photo.

He carefully folded the letter and placed it in his tunic. This required prayers ...prayers of the greatest and most beseeching magnitude he had ever offered.

He got up from his desk, crossed the room, opened the door and started toward the chapel.

There was a presence he felt behind him. He half turned. There was an explosion of light behind his eyes. He never felt the pain nor the violent concussive blow that shattered his skull and broke his neck. He was dead before he hit the highly polished hard wood floor of the rectory hall.

Patrick Casey sat at his cluttered desk in the small office. As with all public defenders in the city, his case load was almost reaching the point where it would become overwhelming.

He thumbed through the court briefs stacked in front of him. Simple assault, assault and battery, burglary, breaking and entering, possession, possession with intent to sell, even one attempted murder. All small potatoe. But they all required a competent legal defense.

Most of them had rap sheets as long as the Staten Island Ferry ride... and most of them were guilty as sin. The end result would be, for almost all of them, a plea copping procedure.

He glanced at the folded copy of the Daily News, the headline ran through his mind again (he'd read the lead story coming into work this morning)...Christ, a young priest murdered right in his rectory, by one of the workers no less. This city is really something else, it goes from bad to worse. But he wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

This was the big apple. This was where it was at, no matter what IT was. If you learned your trade, vocation, profession, or whatever, here, you learned it the best. The competition was tremendous, the pace horrendous. Every field of endeavor was represented here in the city. And all of them required that you be at the top of your game.

Being a criminal lawyer was tough enough, you had to be an expert in all facets of the profession, not the least of which was acting, yes, acting. You had to present your case to a jury. You had to be dramatic in your opening statement ...and even more so in the closing statement.

It was therefore fitting that the toughest acting schools were right here in Manhattan not out on the west coast. Here an aspiring actor had to learn to dance and sing. It didn't matter if he or she were trying to be a dramatic player, nor if they couldn't carry a note in a bushel basket or had two left feet. They had to go through the paces. It was all part of the training discipline. Not so anywhere else.

Casey loved the frantic hustle and mad tempo of the city, it was like nowhere else on earth ...and he fit right in. He was young (29) and strong (an athletic 225 on a lean 6 '1-1/2 " frame)).

Patrick Casey was an orphan ...and a bachelor. Except for Uncle Richard, he had no one else in the world. As time went on he realized more that in some ways he could count himself lucky.

In the years since he left the seminary he met a number of people, some of which became friends. They were all married, or divorced. None of them seemed happy. Those that were divorced were always bitching about alimony payments and were very bitter toward their ex's.

Those few that were still married seemed trapped. They complained about the unruly brats and the wife that wanted to pursue or continue her own career. It seemed to Patrick, as it did to many others, that marriage was a dying institution.

Patrick had plenty of girlfriends, he played the field, and he loved it that way. There was a couple of women that he had serious feelings for, but that didn't last very long, not when he got to know them better. Maybe familiarity does breed contempt. Whatever it was, he liked his lifestyle just the way it was now, maybe later...

Yes Patrick had all his ducks in a row ...except for that last one on the right. It was the duck in the shooting gallery of aspirations that mocked him. It said,'Casey, ou're still a neophyte, all the cases you handle are simple nothings, you haven't had a chance to do your stuff yet.'

Maybe he was pushing it, what did he expect? He was only two years out of law school. He thumbed through the garbage of briefs again, and again his eye caught the copy of the News. That's big stuff, really big. Maybe someday ...maybe...

A quick hard rap, only once, on his cubbyhole door brought him sharply from his reverie. He hadn't the chance to say come in. It would have been useless anyway, he knew who it was, the chief of the criminal courts division of the public defenders office. His boss, actually, his boss of bosses. And he came into anybody's office when ever he felt like it. The perfunctory knock was only Milton Myers' way to sort of acknowledge that you at least did pass the bar in New York.

He threw the door open, and in his gregarious manner plopped a dossier on top of all the other briefs. "Congratulations oh would be priest and now barrister of the fair city of New York, your ship has come in, you've hit the big time!"

Casey knew better than to banter with the sharp-witted Milton (what the hell was it with these Jews? Why were they so smart and sharp?) I'll probably never know in this lifetime.

Casey had a soft spot in his heart for the Jews. What the hell, Jesus Christ was a Jew. How many times did he get into fights, verbally and physically in gin mills with that?

Milton Myers was standing over him smiling expectantly, something like the knowing 'gator watching the unsuspecting fido testing the forbidden waters.

It was Casey's move. He looked at the hot brief, flipped the blank cover (that was for privacy reasons) then looked quickly at the defendant's name. It was better to do these things fast then think about it. He knew inherently that it had to be big stuff if Milton himself delivered it. He looked, his asshole almost fell off. He looked up at Milton, then back at the defendant's name again.

Milton Myers was smiling like a jackass eating soda crackers in January. "This is...it?" "Right, you dumb Irisher, that's what it is."

Casey looked at the name again, Stanislov Kesky. He raised his head and stared in astonishment at Myers, "But Milton, this is the big time...why..." Milton Myers smiled that crooked shit eating grin and said, "Because you're ready for it ...that and the fact that everybody else is on big stuff too, but if you don't think you're ready for it (he reached for the dossier)..."Casey grabbed it like a drunk for the last drink in the world.

"Did I ever tell you I love you boss?" "Well, not in so many words but..."

The banter was over, they were the best of friends, now it was time to get serious. But the best Casey could manage was the picking up of the brief and feebly waving it to no one in particular in this time-space continuum. It was the break of a lifetime. It was the case that would make him able to open his own business, for real money. Win or lose, he would be known as the attorney that defended the undefendable.

Milton smiled and left.

There were a lot of factors involved here. Not the least of which was that it wouldn't sit too well to have a Jewish guy defending a catholic priest killer. Oh well, God works in mysterious ways.

That last expression ...about God, got him started thinking again about it. It being the time he spent in the seminary.

And it followed that the line of thought would bring up his uncle Richard, and not the least of it was that friendly little crack about 'oh would be priest' by Milton.

Patrick Casey was the product of a mixed marriage, not racially, but through religiosity. His father was a Protestant, his mother a Catholic. The church couldn't bestow it's full benedictions upon the union. At the time they were both so much in love with each other that they thought not much of it. Patrick's father, James (the issue of a long line of Orangemen, yet four generations divorced from the old country) would have had no truck with the filthy papists.

But this was modern America, and those generations all in their graves with their silly prejudices, were relics of a dark past ...or were they?

The priest demanded, as was church law, that the children of this marriage be brought up catholic. This didn't sit well with uncle, he would deal with that when the time came, in his own way.

Circumstance had then again it's own way. There was a terrible auto accident. Patrick's parents were killed. He was three months old, the sole survivor of the wreck, the police said it was due to the heavily padded expensive child restraint seat.

Uncle Richard wanted to take the child as his ward. It seemed an easy and natural thing. He had a small thriving business, a print shop that had orders backed up to who the hell knows when. He was blood- relative-close; a solid pillar of the community, a combat veteran, not a touch of scandal, surely the courts would award him custody of his beloved nephew. But it didn't happen.

The child custody case went to court. Richard Casey vs.the holy Roman Catholic Church. Hardly a decent match. Richard couldn't at first comprehend why the so-called church would make such a fuss over one orphan child. hen it came out in court. It was Patrick's grandparents (now deceased) on his mother's side that had left a more than tidy sum to Patrick, if he became a priest.

Naturally, with the vows of poverty that priests were to take, the money would in effect become the property of the church.

Uncle Richard was a bachelor. As far as the ladies were concerned, he loved them all so much that he found he couldn't, in all honesty, devote himself to just one. That went over in court like the proverbial fart in church.

Patrick became the chattel property of the church.

Uncle Richard didn't give in. He saw him as often as possible, that wasn't as much as he'd like, but he counted himself lucky, the red whore in Rome didn't reach that far into the environs of American jurisprudence ...yet. They had to give him access to Patrick at least sometimes.

In the first years Patrick was nothing but a baby and a toddler. As the years passed Uncle Richard's love for the child grew...the priests damned him more for his visits, but the laws of the City of New York held that he had the right to see the child.

It wasn't so much that the uncle was a Protestant, it was what the man said to the child.

On Patrick's eighth birthday uncle Richard put a bug in the child's ear that he never forgot.

"Have they gotten around to teach you things? I suppose they have."

Young Patrick, in all innocence asked, "What things, Uncle Richard?"

Uncle Richard mused, looking up and around the courtyard of gray stone everywhere, it was the only place he was allowed to see and talk to his nephew, the surrounding cloistered walks looked to him like a prison, a prison of the mind.

He wasn't allowed to take Patrick out of this depressing place until he was a bit older.

"What things, Uncle?"

He looked back at the child and thought of what St.Thomas Aquinas said, 'give me a child until he's seven, and I'll give you a catholic for life!

"What do you call the priests?" Patrick looked at him curiously.

"Why, Father, of course." "Do they let you read the Bible?"

"I'm only in the third grade they tell us that the Bible is very difficult to read and understand."

"They would."

The child was very bright. Uncle Richard didn't know how far the bastards had led him on the path of lies.

"The church doesn't like people reading the Bible, as a matter of fact, a long time ago, in the year A.D.1229, they forbid their own from reading it. I know you don't understand much of what I'm saying, but I must try to tell you things now because soon they will indoctrinate you so much that there will be little hope for you to be objective, so let me leave you with this.

In Matthew, that's the first book of the New Testament, Jesus The Christ himself says, 'And call no man your father upon the earth: For one is your Father which is in heaven."

The boy looked at his uncle in awe and confusion.

"But...but."

"I know. It's a little confusing. I also know what they'll say if you tell them this. They will tell you that they are the representatives of God and Jesus upon this earth. But remember Christ said, call no MAN your father.

Out of the corner of his eye, Uncle Richard saw a priest slowly walking toward them from out of a stone cloister. It was the signal that his time was up for visitation.

Uncle Richard hugged the boy and said, "It's time to go, don't let them fill your head up with all their pagan rituals. I have much more to tell you ...and explain to you, and don't forget, I love God and Jesus, and I believe in the Holy Spirit too." The priest approached and smiled benignly, with a condescending oily voice he said, "It's time for Patrick to take his evening meal."

Uncle Richard knew that meant,'take off, you pagan bastard.'

As the years passed and Uncle Richard still didn't get married, he became more attached to young Patrick. He studied the Bible, he read books about the Bible, he took a number of courses in comparative religions. He went so far as to join a church that believed Saturday was the Sabbath, he even took their Bible course.

Uncle Richard became quite a Bible scholar. All through the years Patrick spent in the parochial school system, Uncle Richard never missed a weekly visit. He constantly tried to show young Patrick the fallacies of the teachings of the Roman Catholic church. It was to no avail. Young Patrick stayed in the church.

In his early forties, Uncle Richard finally did get married. His wife was a good ten years younger than him. When, after a year and a half, they didn't conceive a child, they sought professional help. The doctor told Uncle Richard that he could never produce a progeny, something to do with his genes and sperm count.

Now that he knew he'd never have any children of his own, he became even more adamant that young Patrick should forget about becoming a priest. The family name would die, and for what? Nothing!

Didn't God say, "Go forth and multiply?" Why did they bring this stupid rule of celibacy for priests into the church? From the second century to the eleventh century they had no such thing. It was introduced over a thousand years since the birth of Christ and advent of the New Testament ...in 1079 A.D. It wasn't natural for a man not to have sex. If God meant this to be, He'd have made priests without balls, maybe he did.Most of them didn't have the courage to face life's trials and tribulations with real jobs and the harsh realities of interactions with other people and groups.

They lived in a pagan ritualistic world of their own. Sure,they got involved with trying to help desperate people like drug addicts and run away kids, but that wasn't the same as having to cope with those same problems in your own family.

He always had to laugh when people were called my son by a priest, what the hell were they saying? They weren't supposed to have any sons ...or daughters.

What the hell did they do? Sprinkle some 'holy water' on the people and give them a 'blessing?' Holy water was another man-made invention of the so-called church, all it consisted of was plain water with a pinch of salt, that was invented in 850 A.D.

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Catalogue Information

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