Dan Kane, the business manager at St. Stanislaus, sees the light on his answering machine blinking furiously. He assumes someone has died, maybe even his dad.
Instead, most of the messages are from his father, a retired cop who has lived his life in the same house blocks from St. Stan's, refusing to move even as the neighborhood slipped, becoming the kind of place with a dead bolt on every door. He tells Kane a fire is raging at the rectory.
Kane rushes to the scene. A teary friend delivers the news: The beloved pastor, the Rev. William Gulas, is dead. They found his body in a first-floor office.
But the century-old church wasn't damaged. And Daniel Montgomery, the friar from Philadelphia they call Brother Dan, escaped unharmed. He's the one who called 911.
Kane scans the crowd and finds Montgomery. He hugs the 37-year-old friar, glad he's safe. Montgomery's response is stiff, stilted. As usual.
That's Brother Dan, Kane thinks. Pious, but strange.
In the five months since Montgomery moved into the rectory, Kane, 44, has stopped trying to befriend him. He knows little about him, other than that he has been a Franciscan for several years and splits his time volunteering at the city social-services agency and the parish school.
And that he's quirky.
On countless mornings, Kane has looked up from his desk to see Montgomery, in his brown robe and sandals, trudging from the rectory to the school with a little metal lunch box.
Once, Montgomery came into his office and showed the business manager a bunch of crude, homemade rap songs he planned to share with the students. Inside, Kane cringed. He's trying too hard.
Neither man had discussed what both knew: Montgomery was leaving the parish. The Franciscans had concluded he was a bad fit at St. Stan's and were transferring him.
Kane doesn't mention it now, as the two men stand outside the smoldering rectory.
After removing Gulas' body, arson investigators escort Kane into the pastor's office and ask if anything looks amiss. The ornate, wood-paneled walls are charred; debris litters the floor.
Two things catch Kane's eye. The large wall safe is flung open. On the floor is a gold toolbox where Kane keeps the start-up cash for the weekly bingo game. Last he knew, the box was padlocked in the safe with about $1,500.
Now it's open - and empty.
