The boy finally gave in to the prodding and, rising out of his seat, headed toward the pulpit. Uh-oh, Cordie thought, this was not planned. She suddenly felt uneasy. There was no telling what he had in mind. As he stepped up to face the congregation, his hands firmly planted in his pockets, he looked at his feet and shuffled back and forth as though he was searching for something to say, and then he began.
“My name is Jayden Martin, and I’ve been at St. Matthew’s High School since last November when I was . . . you know . . . asked to leave my old school because of a misunderstanding. My favorite class is auto shop, and my favorite teacher is Mr. Kane. I mean he was my favorite teacher until . . . you know . . . he died.”
Several students nodded, and Cordie had to force herself not to smile.
Jayden paused for several seconds, and she thought he was finished, but he continued to stand there looking unsure of himself. He suddenly straightened as though he’d just made a very important decision and said, “Mr. Kane told me a story about this kid who wanted a car . . . you know . . . for transportation. He was sixteen, and he had a driver’s license, but he didn’t have any money to buy a car, so he did something really stupid and stole one.” He paused to look around the church to gauge his audience’s reaction, and seeing that everyone was intently listening, he continued. “It was a sweet ride, a five-year-old Camry in mint condition, like it just came off the showroom floor. Anyway, this kid took the car from the front of this old guy’s house—he had to be almost as old as Mr. Kane—and he drove it around for a couple of miles, but then something happened . . . I don’t know . . . maybe his conscience kicked in, and he realized he shouldn’t have taken it. I mean, I . . . he could go to prison for stealing a car, right?” Several students nodded in agreement. Because his classmates were hanging on his every word, Jayden relaxed. Draping one arm over the pulpit, he leaned forward as he continued. “So what he did was drive the car over to Mr. Kane’s house, and he told him what he had done. Mr. Kane was real angry, and he yelled at the kid for doing something so stupid, but once he calmed down he said he’d help fix it. He had him wipe his fingerprints off the car handle and everywhere else he touched, and he followed him back to the old guy’s house.” Jayden couldn’t keep from grinning a little. “The funny thing was, another car had parked in front of the house, so Mr. Kane had the kid park the Camry across the street. If he hadn’t been so scared, he might have waited until the old guy came out to get in his car just to see the look on his face. Would the guy think he had parked it across the street and just forgot? Mr. Kane said he would probably just scratch his head and go on about his business, and I guess he was right because there wasn’t anything in the local news. Mr. Kane saved that kid from going to prison. At least, that’s what I think.” He stopped and looked down at his feet again. When he finally could speak, his voice cracked. “Mr. Kane was okay.” With his hands back in his pockets and his head down, he hurried back to the pew.
The church was completely silent. When Cordie took a quick look at the people behind her, all she saw were stunned faces. She took a deep breath and hoped Jayden’s flimsily veiled confession would be passed over, but before she could turn around to the altar again, another student was heading to the pulpit. Like Jayden, he recounted another story, allegedly told to him by Mr. Kane, of an anonymous student who, in a fit of anger, broke into the school and vandalized it with a couple of cans of black spray paint. According to his account, after the boy had made the mess and written some pretty foul words on the walls outside the principal’s office, he started to think that maybe what he was doing might be a bad idea and he could be in some real trouble. He had heard Mr. Kane had helped another student get out of a bind with the police, so he called him. “Mr. Kane was steaming mad, all right . . . at least that’s what he told me,” the boy said, “but he got some paint and brushes and helped the student clean it all up.” He added, “It took all night.”
And on it went. Seven students in all told stories of how they had heard of incidents where Mr. Kane had helped some kid in trouble. When the parade of narrators finally ended, Cordie sat motionless, almost afraid to look around.
“How many felonies are we up to now? Four?” Jack whispered the question.
“Five,” Alec corrected.
Cordie knew there were several detectives and policemen in the congregation because her father had been a big financial supporter of the department. They would most likely call some of her father’s acts of kindness aiding and abetting, tampering with evidence, obstructing justice, and God only knew what else. If she didn’t do something quickly, there was a strong possibility that at least two students would be arrested when the Mass was over.
Father Anthony had just started back to the altar when Cordie sprang to her feet. The priest saw her and went back to his chair. Her mind was racing as she slowly walked up the three steps to the altar and then crossed over to the pulpit. She didn’t have the faintest idea what she was going to say until she started speaking.
“My father was proud of the fact that he was Irish, and he used to tell me that the Irish are great storytellers. He certainly was,” she began. So far, so good. The crowd seemed to be buying it. She went on. “He loved to tell stories about students from the past, and the boys here today . . . like me . . . have all heard his stories so many times now, they’ve almost made them their own. Of course, you can assume that all those kids my father talked about and some of the things he said they did were greatly exaggerated. He meant his stories to be lessons so that the students would learn from mistakes others had made in the past . . . cautionary tales.”
Cordie wasn’t quite sure what she said after that. When she went back to her seat, she noticed that Alec and Jack weren’t smiling, but there was a definite sparkle in their eyes. They knew exactly what she had just done and why. Like her father, she was protecting the boys.
Somehow Cordie got through the rest of the day, though she couldn’t remember most of it. After the funeral and the burial, a large number of well-intentioned and caring people followed her to her home and stayed most of the afternoon. Gradually the guests began to thin out, and by evening most of them had said their good-byes, leaving only her close friends. With her house finally quiet again, she curled up in the corner of her sofa, her bare feet tucked under her. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep.
Spencer and Aiden were still there. They were in a deep conversation with Alec and Jack. The topic was a congressman named Mitchell Ray Chambers, and from the look on Aiden’s face, he wasn’t a fan. Up until now she had avoided looking at Aiden whenever possible. He was like a magnet, though, drawing her to him. She had had a crush on him for so many years—she refused to call it love—and she knew it would take time to break old habits. She’d been completely infatuated with him, but infatuation wasn’t love. She imagined most women who met him quickly became captivated. It wasn’t just his looks that drew women to him. Yes, he was one gorgeous man, the epitome of tall, dark, and devastatingly handsome, but it was the power that radiated from him that kept women begging for his attention. And until a couple of days ago, Cordie had been just like all those silly women under Aiden’s spell.