Chapter Five

 

Counting House

            Being a broke, recovering gambler is not easy. Such a state is especially difficult when living in a shelter, a shelter that is time-limited. Casey Gilliam had but days to find other living accommodations. Those circumstances produced much anxiety.

            Finding a job as a CPA, even as an accountant, is not too big a deal when you already have a job and want to move up. Being unemployed and wearing a hand-me-down suit with a dingy shirt and a nondescript tie while job hunting adds up to a definite turn-off to would-be employers. Kenneth Clarence Gilliam was not too far down the social scale to be most aware of his negatives. Being a Catholic --- well, one in not too good standing – and a graduate of Notre Dame ought to be worth something. It wasn’t hard to find the nearest Catholic church.

 

            Father Christopher Utermollen answered the door himself. He is never astonished by whom he finds on his doorstep. Part of the priesthood; some of the clergy handle it well, others find disreputable people repulsive. Casey Gilliam’s appearance fell somewhere between well-turned-out and someone to be tuned-out. Luckily, Chris Utermollen was not the kind to turn away anyone, regardless of appearance.

            Casey explained that he was not asking for a handout but for a job. He briefly explained his qualifications, noting that he had fallen from grace, both in his occupation and in his relations with the Almighty. He skipped the details but hung enough on the skeleton of his story to get across to the priest that he wantedto right his life and start by earning enough money to at least rent a room at a sleazy motel on Route 1.

            As luck might have it (who says the Irish are not lucky) Father Utermollen did have need to straighten out the parish’s books. A dip in Bingo revenues only complicated the bookkeeping. Fortunately the church was tax exempt. Yet money had to be found for roof repairs, upkeep of the school building that included air-conditioning upgrades, and perhaps new pews for the church. Better bookkeeping alone would not solve those problems, but knowing how to better manage the parish income streams would be a start.

            Casey strained to restrain his glee when the priest offered him a chance to return to his profession, if only in a rather minor way with minor compensation. He who had been used to overseeing audits of multibillion dollar corporations could use a hundred dollars a week for part-time work. It was afternoon, but Casey was shown the books so that he might get an idea of how they were organized. Father excused himself and behind his office door quickly checked the references Casey mentioned: company names, university grad school, for starters.

            The next morning Casey showed up at the rectory office, wearing the same clothes, but with a shiny face. (It would have matched his pants had blue serge not gone the way of polyester decades before.) Somehow gambling had not dimmed his accounting wits, maybe even enhanced them. Also, he had not become a victim of alcohol, though he was far from being a teetotaler. He was able to get into meaningful work quite quickly. He saw the need for some reorganization along lines dictated by accounting rules for non-profits that would help the situation at St. Matthias. A few changes in the computer programs and some instructions would fix the pastor’s financial tools in a few weeks. A good job, Casey thought, would bring him a useful reference as he tried to improve his future.

           

            While he was assessing the situation and recommending changes, the CPA and the priest had a few chats, shared a beer or two, and began to learn more about each other.

Chris grew up in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Maplewood, the only son of Robert and Melinda Utermollen. Robert drove a tanker truck for an oil company; his wife clerked at a department store in the District. Their son went to parochial school, caddied at a country club, and went to Catholic high school on a scholarship, worked for a shipping company to save enough money for college. While at the local state university branch campus he became involved in the Newman Club, serving Mass and joining in religious seminars. Before long he decided he had a vocation and applied to the diocesan bishop for a spot in the seminary. He was told to finish his degree and spend time in retreat after that to discern his calling. He graduated with a B.A. in English, still interested in serving the Church. After his retreat, the bishop consented to his entering an established seminary in Maryland.

Casey wondered whether Chris had ever been interested in girls. Well, yes, but only enough for a few dates with fellow students. He found that those girls were of two types: ones that pursued him, which he found uncomfortable to be with, and those who seemed to be on the rebound. Who knows what would have happened had he found a woman whose friendship would have led to mutual attraction. All that struck Casey as logical.

As for himself, Casey thought back to his days pursuing girls from St. Mary’s, a rather short walk from the campus, next to the lakes and across the highway. Many a graduation was capped with matrimony, and so it was with Casey and Margaret (Molly) Gallagher, one of six children of a mortgage banker from Joliet, Illinois. Molly’s life with her siblings undoubtedly prepared her for her trials with Casey’s behavior and ultimate failure as husband and father.

 

Finding a bookkeeper Casey thought would do a good job was not as easy as the priest and the disgraced CPA had thought. So Casey stayed on the job. Soon Casey detected some discrepancies between collection revenues of ten years before and the current collections, which seemed too low. The parish’s congregation had grown and so had the weekly envelop contributions, but not enough. There was some sort of discrepancy between former and current cash numbers. Perhaps someone was pocketing currency or coins or both. Volunteers counted returns from the collection baskets each Monday morning and then kept running totals of each contributor in accounting books. The results were reported to those individual contributors every January for tax-filing purposes. Perhaps one of those volunteers was enriching himself. That seemed unlikely, for all the volunteers doing the weekly chore worked together in the same room. How to prove, or disprove, that possibility? Or perhaps, there was another explanation. Casey believed he should find out to be true to his profession. CPAs are not detectives; they read between the figures on a spreadsheet. Do clever thieves leave clues? Casey hoped so.

 

Casey spent long periods poring over the books. Two quirks of St. Matthias’s books were the key: they were not computerized, and many entries were made by the individual volunteers who did the counting. Envelop contents were attributed to their various donors; those were pretty much immune from manipulation because the donors had to be notified of totals each year, totals they could check against their check stubs or computer-based budgeting programs. Cash put in collection baskets could not be traced. At least in theory.

Examination of cash totals entered by volunteers could be identified by differences on the handwritten figures. After an inquiry, Casey learned the volunteers randomly emptied the bags containing collections from each weekend Mass. How much in contributions from each Mass could be tracked over time. Theoretically, and in practice, each Mass produced every week a similar amount, except for Christmas and Easter --- the traditional days on which lukewarm Catholics showed up for services. Even though the handwritten figures varied in style, over the course of time, the totals for the cash donations displayed patterns. Careful examination showed a slight variation from averages for one hand. Each time a total in one handwritten figure was compared with totals for a Mass written in different hands there was a minor drop from the average cash contribution for that Mass time. Over time, such a difference – a matter of less than ten dollars – could add up. Going back as far as he could in examination of the books, he concluded with as much certainty as he could defend a discrepancy of nearly 45 thousand dollars. Because the pilfered amounts apparently were small such a large sum over time meant either the thief was an old-timer or that several counters were involved. How to connect the handwriting with a particular person? To ask for handwriting samples would raise suspicion. To appoint someone to stand around and look over shoulders wouldn’t seem to work either. The priest might be able to do so without his motivations being questioned, yet that would be a real ethical burden for him. Casey concluded that he would have to find a plausible explanation for observing the counting of collection proceeds.

 

Casey introduced himself that Monday morning he appeared in the rectory office. He noted that he was the new bookkeeper and that he wished to see how the counting was done as a way of acquainting himself with the parish’s operations. As luck would have it, all the regular counters were present. Irene and Al Rhodes, Sylvia and Oscar Reyes, Joanne Scanlon and Jim Schlosser gave their names as Casey went around the room. All seemed pleasant enough. It was common for married couples to work together. Joanne was what used to be called a spinster and Jim was a widower. After a little conversation, Casey learned that Jim had volunteered the longest, some 27 years. All the others had been doing the task for ten to fifteen years. Doing a little arithmetic in his head, Casey calculated that if Jim took ten dollars a week for 50 weeks a year over a 27 year period he could only get away with $13,500. That was a about a third --- actually, a calculator would make it an exact third. In reality, Casey could only estimate the missing amount. Yet, he knew his estimate was close. Did that mean there was a conspiracy? Realistically, Casey had to face the facts that he had not gone back a quarter century in examining the books, and he really was unable to get a good look at the various handwriting samples. He decided to ask the pastor to have the counters do something that they should have been doing all along --- sign their names to their tallies.

 

Joanne seemed agitated when she met Jim for dinner that Monday evening at Mike’s Ristorante. Why, she wondered, did that bookkeeper from the rectory show up at the weekly collection counting. Jim told her that he had heard from the pastor’s secretary that the rectory staff had learned that Mr. Gilliam had told Father Utermollen that cash was missing from the Sunday collections, and that the problem had been going on for a long time, which was news to the priest. They dallied over the antipasto. They could not finish their ravioli and fettuccini. They hesitated to talk about the missing cash. They backed away for sharing what they both knew about the situation, for neither knew that the other was aware that Irene and Al had been skimming for years.

“Someone is going to start asking questions pretty soon,” Jim finally said, “and I won’t know how to defend myself. I know who is doing it, but I just didn’t want to get involved. I’m not the kind to raise a fuss.”

“Oh no,” Joanne said. “I feel the same way. Who do you suspect?”

“What do you know?”

A few minutes later they admitted their mutual suspicion.

Their shared belief placed them in a quandary. Now they knew something had to be done --- they, together or each alone – had to tell someone in authority that they had more than suspicions. More alarming, they realized they shared some guilt with the guilty because they had known collection money was being filched and they, as individuals, had done nothing to stop it. They were in a lose/lose situation. True, their guilt was less than that of those who actually misappropriated funds, yet there was guilt before God if not under the law.

 

Jim Schlosser rang the door of the rectory the next morning. He had spent a restless night. Sleep came fitfully near dawn after much conscience inflicted restlessness. As he started to make coffee he stopped, hurried and dressed, and went off to Mass. On the way he phoned and left a message that he would be late for work. His attention at Mass was diverted by his problem, the parish’s problem, the problem of Alfred and Irene Rhodes, the puzzle that must be facing Gilliam. Father Utermollen gathered almost immediately why Jim was there, just as Jim said, “I don’t know how to tell you what I must.”

After an encouraging word, without hint of his supposition, Father urged his guest to tell him. Jim started with a description of how the counters handled the envelopes and cash each Monday and then added that he had long believed something was wrong. Then about a year ago he overheard Al say something to Irene as he, Jim, entered the room that just seemed strange. He couldn’t remember the exact words, but they were something like “where did you hide it this week?” After that, Jim told the priest that he was vigilant. He told his pastor that he had shared his suspicions with another counter, but did not mention a name. That other person, after watching the Rhodes couple, came to share his feelings. The priest did not ask Jim to identify his corroborator.  As Jim left, the pastor urged him to keep going on Mondays as though nothing had happened and wait for an appropriatetime to help in any solution or prosecution.

 

Casey Gilliam now had a tool to pry open the accounting mystery. He went back and re-examined the evidence he had gathered. Much of it now fell into place with his new-found knowledge that Al and Irene Rhodes had been fingered, if only tentatively. After a few days further work he was able to build a case that would stand up to scrutiny. He had not forgotten what he learned in making partner at a prestigious accounting firm. He took his case to the pastor.

 

Chris Utermollen went to the chapel behind the main altar of St. Matthias to pray over his problem. He was in that chapel daily for an hour or so. On this occasion the time wore on. His mind danced between talking to God and wondering how the Rhodes would react, what their family and friends would think, whether to bring in the police, just what to do. At last he decided that in charity he should confront the couple.

 

The priest phoned and asked whether he might drop in. Al said of course. Irene was there, as requested, when Chris used the knocker on the door of a rather lovely Tudor house. After some niceties, he came to the point.

“It has come to my attention that cash has been missing from the Sunday collections for quite some time. Coincidentally, a person has made an accusation and the parish’s accountant has confirmed that those responsible are you.”

That was a rather cold and businesslike statement and could not be ignored.

Irene and Al looked at each other. They seemed truly unsurprised. Their attitude was as if they had wondered when they would be found out.

“Certainly that’s an insult . . .” Al started to say, but then his voice trailed off. Irene began to appear stunned.

Al’s eyes were lowered, his head titled. Guilt spread over his visage. He didn’t turn to his wife. He stood there in a slump. He ran his fingers through his hair. He rubbed his eyes, which had begun to glisten with tears. After long moments as the priest stood there contemplating what he might say, Al spoke slowly, haltingly, almost inaudibly.

“We’ll      pay it       back.     We’ll pay all of it      back. Can you       forgive us?”

 

                              TO BE CONTINUED