The Cosmic Ray Heresy Read online

The Cosmic Ray Heresy

  Frank A. Smith

  Copyright ? 2011-2016 Frank A. Smith

  All rights reserved.

  THE COMIC RAY HERESY is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1533251480

  ISBN- 10: 1533251487

 

  For my wife Helen, our children, and grandchildren

 

  CHAPTER 1-THE LETTER

  "Can we go yet, Daddy?"

  Olivia was sitting on the wooden office chair with one short leg, her pink sneakers planted on the front rung and impatiently rocking back and forth.

  "Finish your juice, sweetheart, and throw the box in the wastebasket. Daddy has one more thing to do"

  The Monday morning mail on my desk contained an invitation to the university's holiday gala, a bunch of ads for scientific equipment and new text books, and a manila envelope bearing some very pretty postage stamps from Vatican City. It was the return address that really got my attention. I slit the envelope and took a deep breath.

  Congregation Per La Dottrina Della Fede

  Piazza del Uffizio 11, 00193

  Roma, Italia

  Reverend Francis X. Donnelly, Ph.D

  Department of Physics

  Pennsylvania Commonwealth University

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19144

  USA

  Dear Father Donnelly:

  In a recent letter published in The Philadelphia Inquirer you advocated the ordination of women. You do not have the option of questioning the tradition of a male priesthood. We strongly urge you to write another letter to that newspaper correcting the original.

  In another matter we believe you are guilty of violating article 277 of canon law. Supporting photographs are included. We have asked His Excellency, Archbishop Robert K. Reilly, to investigate this charge and apply appropriate sanctions.

  We trust that both matters can be resolved satisfactorily.

  Sincerely Yours in Christ,

  Antoni Cardinal Tossi, Prefect

  Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

  Not what I expected. Four hundred years ago, when it tussled with another physicist, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was known as The Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition. Galileo lost that battle. Today the favorite targets of the CDF are theologians, not physicists.

  I could guess as to what article 277 of the Church's legal code was about. To that I could plead guilty. They had enclosed the photos to prove it. I had been seen in the company of two very pretty ladies. I love them both. One is my sister. The other is not and for a Catholic priest that is a big problem.

  Dadeee!"

  I walked and Olivia skipped across the University Quad. The morning was sunny and cool with the smell of autumn in the air; someone in the surrounding neighborhood was defying a city ordinance and burning leaves. Overnight winds had swirled leaves against the low stone walls that crisscrossed campus. I kicked up a nice pile in a corner and held Olivia's hands as she jumped from the wall.

  "One more time, Daddy. Jump with me."

  I jumped. What good is tenure if you can't act a little crazy once in a while?

  Munchkin House is a day care center for faculty and staff children housed in a Victorian mansion on the edge of campus. This is Olivia's second year and I'm running out of space on the refrigerator for her projects. After a wet kiss and a hug I surrendered my little blue-eyed blond to the student volunteer on the porch. Seven-thirty to four-thirty is a long stretch for a four-year-old, even with nap time in the afternoon. I promised to come back for her lunchtime "tea party" but at this time of the morning I needed coffee.

  CHAPTER 2-THE PIG

  Officially it's the Student Center; unofficially it's "The Pig". The students named it for the huge painting of a pig inside the main entrance. We're waiting for a rich alumnus seeking immortality to come up with a few million to name it something more appealing. I sat in one of the lounge chairs in front of windows overlooking the Quad. The building forms one side of a square surrounding a large grassy area. Some students were tossing a Frisbee around. Others were tying red and white balloons to a sign that read, "Say No to a Tuition Hike". A classroom building, the library, and the science building, my digs, complete the square enclosing the open space.

  I sipped the coffee from the Starbucks kiosk and pondered my dual roles: Associate Professor of Physics here at PaCom during the week and on Saturdays and Sundays switching hats or, more accurately, switching collars to become Father Frank Donnelly, weekend assistant at St. Elizabeth's. The letter from the CDF was just the latest manifestation of my problem juggling these roles.

  I'm not that unusual. Many priests are also scientists. Of course my daughter is unusual. Not many priests have one, at least none they will admit to. This is my fifth year at PaCom. Five years ago, about a year before Connie's accident, when the Dean here interviewed me for the opening in the physics department she had commented on my history as a former Catholic priest. I said I still was a priest and told her my fascinating story. It may have boosted my diversity quotient; made me a member of an underrepresented minority. How many public universities had a Catholic priest in the physics department, let alone one with a pregnant wife? Of course, the degrees from MIT and my publication record helped.

  I capped the half cup of cooling coffee and headed back across the Quad to my office. The sky had darkened and there was a distant rumble of thunder.

  "Yo! A little help?"

  A wayward Frisbee floated over my shoulder from behind. I stepped after it, snagged it with my right hand, pivoted, and tossed it back in one motion. Smooth. My downfield receiver gave me a thumbs-up thank you.

  CHAPTER 3-THE DETECTIVE

  The tall woman at the end of the hall peering into the small window in my office door was tilted slightly to her left to balance a leather bag halfway in size between a purse and a shopping bag. A compact umbrella dangled from her left wrist.

  "Looking for me?" I said walking toward the door.

  She wore black slacks over black boots, a white blouse under a tan sweater, plain gold earrings and necklace. She was dressed too well to be a student. My intuition said textbook sales or scientific equipment.

  "Room two-eleven? Professor Donnelly?"

  "Guilty," I said inserting my key in the lock. "Please, come in. It looks like we're in for some weather out there."

  "I think we just made it," she said dropping the umbrella into her bag. She fished around in there and came out with a leather case holding a badge and ID.

  "Detective Angela Rossi," she said. "Philadelphia Police Department."

  So much for my intuition.

  Frank Donnelly," I said as we shook hands. "That was quick."

  "Quick? I was going to apologize for taking so long to get back to you."

  "The shooting was just yesterday. I'd say that was quick."

  She looked puzzled.

  "What shooting?"

  "At St. Elizabeth's. Somebody took a shot at our statue of the Virgin while I was standing right next to her."

  "Oh my god, the desecration of the statue. I saw it on the news last night. That was you?"

  To answer I held up my bandaged hand.

  "You were hit?"

  "No, I fell. Just a scratch."

  "That must have been awful. No, I'm with the cybercrime unit, credit card theft, computer scams, that sort of thing. Your emails? But tell me about the shooting."

  "Well, after s
aying the nine-thirty Mass I was standing on the church steps near the statue talking to a young man who had just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. I heard a loud bang and the next thing I know I was on the ground-pushed down by the soldier."

  "And the statue was hit?"

  "Our Lady of Boat House Row, right through her plastic heart. Here, why don't you sit down?"

  I moved Olivia's stuffed rabbit from the chair to a bookcase and put my coffee on the windowsill. The detective lowered her bag to the floor, sat in the chair. I sat in the squeaky swivel chair behind my desk. She took out a pen and small notebook, and put on a pair of glasses.

  "Thank you. Plastic?" she asked looking over the glasses.

  "A temporary replacement. The original developed a crack last winter and has been out for repairs. The police recovered the bullet from the rose bed around the statue and will do a ballistics check."

  "How close were you to the statue?"

  "Pretty close, I guess."

  "Not a pleasant experience, I bet."

  "No, it certainly wasn't.

  "Okay, let me get to the reason I'm here. Your emails."

  "Ah, yes, I had just about given up on that."

  "First of all I must apologize for barging in on you like this, Professor. I checked your class schedule on your web site and thought I might catch you early. Do you have some time?"

  "I don't have a class until ten. Fire away."

  "I read the brief bio on your web site, Professor. Very interesting. I don't think I ever met a priest who was also a physicist. Do you prefer 'Father' or 'Doctor'?"

  "Usually it's Doctor here at the university and Father at St. Elizabeth's where I'm the weekend assistant. To my boyhood friends I'm still, 'Reds'."

  She smiled. "I promise I won't call you Reds. Now your emails. Actually, another email problem dropped on my desk last week prompted my visit. It might be related to yours. Did you happen to know the elderly priest who was killed last week in a fall?"

  "At St. Gabriel's?"

  "That's right. Father Soroka. There was a notice of his death in yesterday's Inquirer. Did you see it?"

  "No, I didn't get a chance to read the paper yesterday."

  She took a folded piece of paper from her bag. "The obit was on page eleven of the Local News section. Here are a couple lines. 'Father Albert Soroka died of injuries sustained in a fall at St. Gabriel's Catholic Church in Southwest Philadelphia.' Then it goes on for two paragraphs with his bio, a list of the parishes he served in, and finishes with this line, 'Father Soroka was in retirement at St. Gabriel's since he was cited in the 2005 Philadelphia Grand Jury Report on the clerical sexual abuse of minors'. "

  "Isn't that a nice way to be remembered?" I said. "But what has this to do with my emails?"

  "We found a similar email on the priest's laptop."

  I got more interested. She crossed her legs, adjusted her glasses, and leaned forward. The chair rocked on its uneven legs.

  "We're taking a closer look at the accident."

  "You think maybe it wasn't? An accident, I mean."

  "We don't know."

  She flipped through a few pages in her notebook and said, "Let me read you his email. 'Priests should be truly priests. When they are not, corrections can be made.' Very similar to yours which read-she paused and flipped again-'You are reminded again that sins should not remain unpunished. Priests should be truly priests.' Do I have it right?"

  "Yes that's it. I first received similar emails when I was ordained. Then they stopped-until recently. The 'you-are-reminded-again' part is new."

  "Any idea what they mean?"

  "My guess is that somebody doesn't like the fact that I was married when I was ordained."

  That made her sit up straight.

  "Married? I thought you were Catholic. You're an Episcopal priest?"

  "You're almost right-'am' and 'was' is more accurate."

  "Now I'm really confused."

  "I am a Catholic priest and I was an Episcopal priest. When I converted to Catholicism I was ordained as a Catholic priest and when that happens, if the priest is married, he is allowed to remain married."

  "I saw on TV that the new pope was going to allow this but I wasn't aware they could already do it-and I was raised Catholic."

  "It's still pretty rare but it's been Church policy since 1980. The Church doesn't widely publicize it. It's an admission that mandatory celibacy is not strictly necessary for the Catholic priesthood."

  "But it is for a regular priest isn't it, a priest who was Catholic all along?"

  "Absolutely. And, If a priest falls in love after he is ordained and wants to marry he must leave the priesthood."

  "It doesn't seem fair," she said. "There shouldn't be a penalty for love."

  "I'm sure a lot of priests feel that way; certainly ones that were forced to leave the clergy in order to marry. Then I come along, and others like me, 'Johnnies-come-lately' to the Church, and we are permitted to have something they are denied."

  "And one of them could be mad enough to send you nasty emails-or even take a shot at you."

  "I would hope a fellow priest would not stoop to that but, yes, I suppose it's possible."

  CHAPTER 4-THE INTERROGATION

  The detective took a laptop from her bag, and put it on the edge of my desk and said, "Let me get to the photo that was attached to one of your emails."

  As she reached over to open it and turn it on her chair rocked again. I took a coaster out of my desk drawer and got up.

  "If you'll stand for a minute I have a high tech solution for that problem."

  I pushed the coaster under the short leg.

  "A lot of the furniture in the state universities is made in the prisons and many of the inmates are not exactly craftsmen."

  "Thanks. I was getting sea sick."

  She remained standing and bent over her computer as she worked the touch pad. The picture came up on the screen.

  "I want to identify everyone in this photo," she said flipping a page in her notebook and sitting down in the now stable chair. I went back around my desk and tried to sit without squeaking and failed.

  She turned the laptop toward me. The picture was the one of me, Vicki, Olivia, and Joey at a picnic table at the Philadelphia Zoo. We went there for Joey's fifth birthday in late August. I had no idea who took the picture. The sender had done a cut and paste job on it and replaced a plate of cupcakes with a round bomb, the cartoon kind that Wylie E. Coyote gets from Acme mail order

  "That's certainly the one that scared me," I said.

  "No doubt. Is the photo-shopped bomb covering something else?"

  "Cup cakes," I said. "It was the boy's birthday."

  "Sick. Now, names. The boy?"

  "Joey."

  "And the little girl?"

  "That's Olivia."

  "Oh, she's a doll," she said writing in her notebook.

  "And your wife's name?"

  "She's not my wife. My wife was killed in an auto accident almost four years ago."

  "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I?"

  "A natural assumption. She's Joey's mother, Victoria Meyers, a teacher in the parish school at St. Elizabeth's. Olivia is my daughter."

  She paused and looked up for just a moment.

  "Thank you. My next question is for the record. Do you consider the emails you received and this picture to be threatening and not just someone's idea of a prank?"

  "A threat, a warning, yes. That's why I sent it to you, to the police."

  "I ask because your perception of it as a threat is important in establishing it as a crime. We can investigate a crime but not a prank. I assume you talked to one of our officers yesterday?"

  "A Lieutenant O'Brien."

  I took out my wallet and removed O'Brien's card.

  "Here."

  Detective Rossi looked at the card.

  "Jim O'Brien."

  "Do you know him?"

  "Not well. I've run into him
a few times. He works out of the station on Gypsy Lane. You told him about your emails?"

  "I mentioned it, yes."

  "What did he think?"

  "He's pretty sure it was vandalism."

  "What about you?"

  "I doubt the shooting was related to the emails. I think O'Brien is right about vandalism."

  "Would it be more accurate to say you hope he's right?"

  "Sure."

  "So you're an optimist," she said smiling.

  "Am I being na?ve?"

  "You're being normal. It's we who are abnormal. Cops are pessimists. We always assume the worst. It's safer that way."

  She flipped back a page in her notebook. "Victoria Meyers. She feels threatened by the bomb picture too?"

  "I don't want to scare her. I haven't shown it to her yet."

  "Don't you think you should?"

  I promised to do so soon.

  "Doctor Donnelly, is there any possibility that someone objects to your-er-friendship with Ms. Myers; an ex-boyfriend, disgruntled ex-husband, someone who might be behind this?"

  "Her husband was killed in Iraq."

  "I see. How about from your end? A professional rival, anyone with a grudge?"

  Professional rivals thrash out their differences in scientific journals and in meetings, not with anonymous emails. A grudge? Rachel? She had been mad at me but she was hardly a psycho.

  "I can't think of anyone who stands out."

  "Anyone who would have known you would be at the Philadelphia Zoo that day?"

  "I don't think I told anyone. It was a nice day in August. Cool. One of those days that promises autumn. It was a spur of the moment thing. I was in my office preparing notes for the start of the fall semester and Vicki, Mrs. Meyers, emailed me."

  "Does anyone besides you have access to your computer?"

  "No one."

  "Do you log off when you leave your office?"

  "Usually. I might not if I'm only going to be out of my office for a short time."

  "Is it possible that a student or someone else could be in your office at a time when you step out?"

  "I never leave a student alone in my office. The only people I can think of would be Martha Greenberg and Joe Amanti. Doctor Greenberg is on the Faculty Senate with me and we frequently meet in my office to work on Senate business. Doctor Amanti is an engineer and we have been collaborating on the writing of a general physics textbook. We're in and out of each other's office all the time. They both are good friends."