THE CHAIN OF LACODERE is a trophy necklace presented by Louisiana Lacodere Parish to an outstanding athlete. This intriguing mystery story is about those who have worn this prestigious gold necklace with its dark foreboding consequences.

THE CHAIN OF LACODERE

AuthorHouse

Chapter One

His eyes focused themselves in the direction of the Novitiate building beyond the main Abbey, and he thought to himself how wonderful it was to be able to sleep with a deep restfulness like the thirteen novices who made up the nearly closing Novitiate year. He thought of his own Novitiate made in that very same building nineteen years previous. His hand released the curtain as it closed the scene, and slowly he walked to his desk. His heart was heavy and sad. Nothing seemed to matter to him now. His priestly duties failed to have the appeal and zeal of former years. His mind was obsessed with the past. A past that knew very little joy and contentment. There was a void within his breast that yearned to be filled ... filled with the happiness that should be in the breast of a priest so learned and highly regarded in the Benedictine Order.

Father Kevin's desk was a literary mess. Papers of recent examinations given, but not corrected, books on various problems of psychology, notes taken in his own studies made so many years ago. He picked up several sheets of examination papers only to toss them back on the desk with utter disinterestedness. He walked over to his combination radio-phonograph and turned the switch. Within a few moments, the strains that yielded the immortal Debussy love song usurped his mind. He returned to his desk and sat down. How many times he listened to Clair de Lune that night he wasn't able to determine. Each time, though, he thought his heart would burst, and it was with manly restraint he pushed back the tears that would surely flow unless checked. This time, the music was too much for him to bear. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed like a child. A certain release of this inward sorrow often managed to clear the mind and enable one to regain lost ideals, but to Father Kevin, no such release rewarded him.

His mind wandered back to his boyhood days; days filled with much happiness and all the bliss that comes to youth; days that admitted little of responsibility, less of moral burdens. He was only recalled back to the realities of his cell and its monastic surroundings when he would lift his head from the nest-like rest of his hands and look about him and fasten his eyes on the many papers to be corrected.

There wasn't too grave a difference between May 29th, 1946 and the same month and day twenty years past. The locality was now Georgia, while in 1926, it was Lacodere, Louisiana. He was now a priest in the Abbey of Cassino under the Rule of Saint Benedict. Then, too, a great World's War was fought and won by the United Nations that wasn't even heard of in 1926. He, in those days, wondered if Al Capone would be caught and apprehended along with his many cohorts of those wild Twenties. He was busy then, with the same thoughts that many seventeen year olds in 1946 entertained. In 1926, he was the pride of Lacodere Prep and the apple of the Hesuitical eyes of the institution. In 1946, he was the professor of Psychology and newly appointed Dean of Men at Cassino College in the heart of the peach country of Georgia.

Yes, Father Kevin had much to be thankful for in 1946, and in that very same year had a great deal more to divorce from his mind if he was to be the success all the Abbey's faculty thought he should be. Even tonight, the twentieth anniversary of his high school graduation, he must start to forget all that preceded and look in the direction of the future for that ray of hope and consolation that comes through the veins of activity and the avenues of diligent labor. He must forget Madeline Turrell forever. He must break the recording of Debussy's classic. The strains of sadness that usurp one's soul while listening to "de Lune" must be forever purged from within by new thoughts, clean and healthy thoughts, thoughts that make one awaken in the early morn with situations to conquer, mountains made into little hills for those tired limbs to climb with ease, studies made simple only through clear lectures, love to find its way into the heart where hate finds contentment only for the belligerent. All this Father Kevin must do for his own betterment and for the many young men who will look upon him as their guide and Father-Director. Therefore, he must put aside his own grief and past misgivings to supplant in his own Irish heart the happiness that must be always apparent on the glowing countenance of one who is free, yes, free from the shackles of those days in 1926 and the more horrible nightmare of 1944.

The present is the best time in the world for reconversion. After a rest throughout the summer to follow, he will find the fall filled with important appointments—new faces in his psychology classes—new students to enroll in the preparatory department of the College, and the usual run of freshmen with their "know-it-all" expressions in speech classes.

Why not dry up those tears and prepare for the great advent of tomorrow, wherein lies new hopes, new loves, greater zeal, and look with determination into the prospectus of tomorrow with the ointment of salvation for the many students who will look to him for the encouragement so vital in an age of uncertain scopes?

Why not close the pages of yesterday forever, place the thoughts of Madeline in the void of oblivion—the grotesque horrors of that siege on the beach of Peleliu in the history of that September 15th? But, no, he wanted to recall the smiles and joys and laughter of his own Novitiate. He wanted very much to relive these decades, if only for tonight. He wanted to remember September of 1941. Yes, there were sad days intermingled with the joyous ones. Tonight he would take a trip back and recount the time spent. Tomorrow it would be over—his passion, scourge, crown and death, with his resurrection, a new and different Father Kevin would emerge forth to tackle tomorrow's problems tomorrow. But, for tonight, he must sit back and think.

Father Kevin got up from his seat and turned the switch that silenced Clair de Lune. He returned to his easy chair in the corner of his cell and sat down to prepare for a nocturnal reminiscence. One last gesture—he slipped his hand between his tunic and shirt, unfastened the clip, and released the Chain of Lacodere from around his neck. It fell gently into the palm of his hand. He closed his hand tightly around the gold chain and medal, leaned back in his chair, adjusted his head on the uppermost leather cushion-back, and closed his eyes—to think!

Chapter Two

The birth of little Timothy, (he was baptized just two weeks after the eighteenth and given his father's name) left Margaret O'Shea in poor health. Doctors advised Big Tim to move to the South—perhaps Florida or California as the damp climate of Seattle, Washington was anything but healthy for Mrs. O'Shea.

It was a...