Waking The Dead : What Happened and Why in
Blind Beggar

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The Blind Beggar gave the team a number of mysteries to solve. Who killed Father Stuart? Who was the skeleton in the crypt? How did it get there? How did the person die? What happened to Mrs. Morrison who walked into the chuch one afternoon never to be seen again? All of these questions crop up one by one to thwart the team just as they feel they are making some headway. What is most interesting is that in the end, it is unclear if they got it right.

Construction workers renovating St. Joseph's church discover a skeleton encased in concrete that is no more than 20 years old. There was never a good explanation why the cold case squad was called as a matter of first recourse. The implication is that there was some mystery that others had tried and failed to solve.

Solving Father Stuart's murder consumed very little time or effort. Grace discovered the likely murder weapon and the place of the attack, after that once they knew an approximate time of death there really weren't many choices of killers.

For whatever reason the Cold Case Squad is called in to find out how the bones came to be buried in the crypt. The first lead comes from Colm Hare who tells Boyd the story of Elaine Morrison who walked into the church one morning never to be seen again. However, after Frankie examines the remains she learns that the victim was male, eliminating Elaine Morrison. Boyd learns of the next likely victim from James Bowen. James was the contractor when the original work at St. Joseph's was performed. James is evasive and uncooperative from the outset. The only rationale for his behavior is that he is consumed with sadness that the bones are the remains of his son. It's not guilt because he keeps pestering Boyd to tell him whether the victim was male or female.

Several items are found with the bones. A bowl, some beads, two small pieces of wood and a vial of water. Frankie notices that there are small holes or impressions in the concrete and concludes these were formed when the concrete settled on top of braille pages. I will have to take her word for it that this would happen. It seems unlikely, it seems less likely that she would be able to make a copy of the writing but she does.

Father Ryan tells them that the bowl, wood and water were placed with the body in an attempt to get Saint Joseph of Arimathea to intervene on behalf of the deceased so that his soul could go to heaven. (see the reference section for more on St. Joseph) He believes the victim must have committed a mortal sin. He says that the legend is that St. Joseph came to England as a blind beggar bearing a piece of the true cross. There is more discussion of St. Joseph under the reference section but suffice to say that he was not known as a blind beggar. The braille pages turn out to be part of the text of St. Paul of Corinthians. There have been many interpretations of the text but the Boyd and company believe it has something to do with blindness. At one point Boyd said, "this blindness thing is driving me mad." I do not blame him. I am in the dark when it comes to understanding what they were trying to get across with the blindness.

Irascible Father Stuart is murdered. Colm Hare is dangled in front of us as a possible suspect but he does not make a very palatable selection. We know Colm does not like Father Stuart but there did not seem to be any reason for him to kill him now. It is possible that this was his first opportunity and there was that whole bit about confronting him before he had his day of triumph, but his shock upon discovering the body and his subsequent nausea suggest that he was in the clear.

On the other hand, Father Ryan should not have been above suspicion. For some reason, Father Ryan did not seem to care that Father Stuart never returned from his walk the previous night. The only reason for Father Stuart to stay at the presbytery was because of Moira and James' ceremony but Father Ryan said they should just go ahead with rehearsal even though Father Stuart was nowhere to be seen. He had no qualms about casting suspicion upon Colm. Mostly, Father Ryan just never seemed very concerned that Father Stuart was murdered in the church.

The story is most interesting in the waning minutes when we learn conclusively the identity of the victim and are given an explanation of how he died. Frankie has already told us that the person in the crypt was suffering from Hodgkin's Disease, the very same ailment which had afflicted Father Stuart. The likely answer is that Father Stuart fathered the man in the crypt. There are not many candidates for the mother and narrowing the list down from one, they focus on Moira Bowen. As soon as Boyd suggests a DNA test, Moira confesses that the body in the crypt is her son, Nick and that Father Stuart is the father. Which leads to the question of whether Father Stuart might still be alive had Boyd not spent so much time pondering why the sky is blue.

According to Moira, Nick returned from his travels despondent because he found out that he had Huntington's Disease. He had broken up with his girlfriend, had no work history, no skills, no future and now no father. Are these things that would make Nick depressed? They sound more like things that would depress Moira. Moira says that she found Nick had committed suicide by slitting his wrists. James was out of town at the time, so she then sought out Gabriel Hare to help her. She was concerned that Father Stuart would not give Nick a proper burial due to the fact that he took his own life amd so she and Gabriel decided to place Nick in the crypt at St. Joseph's. She said she added the braille pages because his girlfriend was blind and the beads because it was something that Nick liked. However, she included nothing of herself or James or even Father Stuart. The squad concluded that the bones were never meant to be found so why not include something personal? By the way, where did she get a braille copy of the Corinthians quote on such short notice?

More important than the items included in the crypt is the unpersuasive explanation of how Nick died. Frankie said that there was some blood found on the cuffs but not enough to say that someone had bled to death from cutting his wrists. Moira says that she dressed Nick and so it is fair to say that she cleaned his body before redressing him.

The squad was dependent upon Moira's explanation of what happened the night Nick died because there was no physical evidence to explain what happened. The pathologist was not able to determine a cause of death.

Here is an alternate explanation of what happened to Nick Bowen - Moira killed him. It makes so much more sense than Nick committing suicide. Nick had begun to show signs of Huntington's Disease. Huntington's is a hereditary ailment. Moira did not have it. James did not have it. Father Stuart did have it and must have been showing at least some signs of it by that time. What was Moira to do. It could be that she did not want Nick to suffer. It could be that she did not want anyone to know her secret. It could be that she was protecting Father Stuart. The act of including items to seek the intervention of St. Joseph would be appropriate if the sin were taking one's own life or pre-marital sex. Moira did lie about not knowing who Nick's girlfriend was, even as she was confessing to murder. It is not likely that she was trying to protect Linsey or Vincent. Perhaps Moira thought Linsey might reveal something to the police that would implicate her.

Did Gabriel Hare commit suicide or did Moira assist in some way? According to her own statement, he was the only other person who knew where Nick was buried and perhaps he thought that he could get back into Father Stuart's good graces by telling him what had happened to his son. This would not sit well with Moira. She could have convinced Gabriel that he had nothing to live for or she could have visited him that afternoon and given him a not so helping hand. Would Gabriel have committed suicide and left his 12 year old son to bear his shame? Would Gabriel commit suicide knowing that Father Stuart would not allow him a proper burial? Father Ryan asks James why Gabriel killed himself but we do not get to hear James' answer. James must know the truth at this point but he cannot tell Father Ryan without telling everything that happened the night before.

It is not hard to imagine Moira as a heartless killer. She had been lying to her husband about some very substantial issues for their entire marriage. First, she had an affair when they were newlyweds. To add insult to injury, she broke her vows with James with their parish priest. The very man who administered their wedding vows. She bore Father Stuart's son and passed him off as her husband's child. She cannot claim that she was trying to protect her husband because it is clear that James was in agony. After Nick died she kept that information from James who tormented himself everyday for twenty years fretting over his failed relationship with his son. How often did she hear James lament what had become of Nick, how often must she have heard him wish for another chance with him? How often did James tell her of his dream of seeing Nick? Who could listen to that for twenty years and not try to put the man out of his anguish? A loving wife and mother - no. A heartless killer - yes.

On top of this is the surreal rush to the altar. The Bowen's marriage has been a sham from as far back as the words, "I do," why then were they so anxious to reaffirm that sham? From Moira's perspective it was another way to control James. For James, it was his way of being a loyal husband. As James told Linsey, people of his generation did not break up. I agree that it is commendable to remain married for 40 years but should their celebration take place at any cost. Neither James nor Moira seemed to be in the least bit perturbed by the fact that they were renewing their vows in the very spot where they ended Father Stuart's life a day earlier. It is not as if Father Stuart simply died, they killed him.

Why did the Bowens kill Father Stuart? The accepted explanation was because James became enraged after Father Stuart called Moira a whore. Given all that we know about Moira, I am not so sure that this justifies striking anyone. What prompted this outburst by Father Stuart in the first place? We know Father Stuart went to the church to meet with Colm, that in itself seems unlikely, unless Colm threatened him I can't see Father Stuart crossing the room to help someone much less leave his house, but anyway. We also know that about that same time Linsey's dad, Tom came to the church to confront James. Was there more to the encounter between Tom and James than to set up a potential suspect for Father Stuart's killer? Could Tom have said something about Vincent having Huntington's Disease? Moira said that James had not known about her affair or about Nick's parentage but that he knew now, so it is very possible that James learned the information from Tom. So James is hit with the shocking news that the person he believed to be his son for forty years is not really his son but the son of the parish priest. His son was not living happily somewhere but had died 20 years earlier and had been buried in the church basement. His wife had been lying to him everyday about his son's whereabouts. James' response to this is to grab an oversized candlestick and bludgeon a man in a wheelchair. Father Stuart was not a particularly sympathetic individual but he nothing to deserve this treatment. The Bowens' lack of remorse is stunning. My hope is that they spend their next anniversary and every anniversary thereafter exchanging notes from their respective prison cells.

Standing on the church steps watching James go off with the police and Moira go with Father Ryan, Boyd asks Grace: "So is this closure?" My answer is a definitive no.

Ella R. copyright 2002