Chameleon (21 page)

“The one who—?”

“The same. Carson shows up almost any time you’d expect a right-wing reaction. He was part of a protest when Martin Luther King was here. And if there’s any kind of peace march, he’s out there buzzing and opposing it. I mention this just to show that he’s an all-purpose fanatic. But mostly he’s a religious fanatic.”

“How about abortion?” Tully asked.

“You got it. Almost any time there’s either a pro-choice or pro-life rally, or—as happens most often—both at the same time and place, he’s there.”

Tully massaged his right eyebrow. “But no violence,” he mused.

“Outside of that one incident where he shoved the priest. Maybe he’s mellowed out. If he’s been active this long, he must be getting on in years.”

“He’s close to retirement. You’re right about that, Zoo—but he’s hardly mellowing. The night of the wake for that hooker, Helen Donovan, he and a couple of buddies were harassing some of the mourners. It got sticky when some hookers showed up for the service.”

“Wait a minute … I was at that wake.”

“It must have happened before you got there, Zoo. Some uniforms were called and cleared them out. Took Carson to the hospital.”

“A fight?”

“Just some pushing and shoving. Carson ended up with a cut lip. Nothing major. No arrests. No charges.”

“I don’t know,” Tully said. “There’s not much physical going on in what you found. Sounds like he talks a good fight.”

“Wait, Zoo. I phoned the postal branch where he works. He’s not working there anymore.”

Tully looked at her inquiringly.

“He’s been suspended by the post office. He’s appealing the penalty and it’ll probably be a minor punishment that could be reduced.”

“What did he do?”

“Got in a fight—a no-holds-barred fight with a co-worker.”

“Um.” Tully made a relieved sound, as if he’d found the missing piece to a jigsaw puzzle.

“I got this from one of the guys who witnessed the fight, It began when this guy named Hessler started riding Carson about religion. Things like accusing Carson of getting horny over the Blessed Mother.”

“Sounds like a sweet character.”

“He’s the town bully, Zoo. Big guy. Make maybe two of Carson. But he kept at it until Carson blew his cork. Then Carson tore into him. Now I’ll quote this guy I talked to.…” Moore read from her notes. “‘I never saw anything like it,’ he said, ‘Arnie’—that’s Carson—’Arnie didn’t stand a chance.’” She looked up from her notes. “Not only is Hessler twice as big as Arnie, according to my witness, he’s a brutal slob with a real mean disposition. He’s been in lots of fights, usually with smaller guys. He doesn’t just win his fights, he punishes the other guys-beats ’em up. This guy said he was really scared for Carson. Hessler wasn’t just having fun picking on a smaller guy like he usually does; Hessler was mad.” She quoted again from her notes.” ’Cause when he was givin’ it to Arnie—with his mouth, that is—Arnie was givin’ it right back to him. Pretty good, too.’”? She looked up from her notes again. “But when Hessler made that crack about the Blessed Mother, Carson tore right into him.”

As Angie looked down at her notes again, it was hard to tell whether she was quoting verbatim or acting out what she had been told. “‘Well, Hessler starts by givin’ Arnie this rap on the ears. I seen it before: Once Hessler does that, the other guy is in the ozone. I thought old Arn would fold right there. And since Hessler is really sore, I thought we’d be pickin’ Arnie up with a blotter. But would you believe it? Arnie plows right in like Hessler had kissed him instead of paralyzing him. Arnie was … he was …
inspired.

“‘To make a long story short, we had to pull Arnie off Hessler or so help me, he woulda killed him. He really woulda.’“

Moore looked up, pleased with her notes of the account. “Now, does that sound to you like a guy who has mellowed out?”

Tully, pleased also, shook his head.

“Carson’s supervisor called 911 and a couple of uniforms got them out of there and filed a report. Of course it’s not our juristdiction.”

“The report our guys made corroborate the story you got?”

Moore nodded. “But not as colorful.”

“It couldn’t have been. It was a bare-hands fight?”

“It was in the beginning. But let me go back to my source.” Angie had really gotten into the spirit of the affair. So much so that Tully could easily envision the scene as she half quoted, half extrapolated from her witnesses’s account of events. “‘It was after we got Arnie off Hessler that the guy came up with the shiv, a big one. Then I was really scared. Not only for Arnie. For the rest of us, too. Hessler was like an animal fightin’ for his life. He woulda cut anybody. Lucky for us that was just the time when the super came in and broke it up.

“‘But you know the funny thing? Even after Hessler pulled the knife, Carson wanted him. I mean there was four of us holdin’ Arnie back and even after Hessler showed us the knife, I had to work as hard to hold Arnie back as when we pulled him off. You know how sometimes there’s a fight and you pull the guys apart and hold ’em? And they’re really not puttin’ up no fight to get back in it; all you gotta do is just keep your hands on the guy so the other guys get the idea the guy really wants to get back in the fight? Well, that ain’t the way it was with Arnie: He really wanted to tear Hessler apart. Even when the SOB was holdin’ a knife. Could you believe that?’”

As she triumphandy wound up her vivid recital, it was impossible to know whether the last question was hers or had been voiced by her witness.

“So the other guy had the weapon,” Tully said.

“Our guy’s report corroborates that,” Moore affirmed.

“Well,” Tully said, “the main thing for our purposes is that Carson seems to have the killer instinct. Your source sounds convinced that Carson would have gone all the way, given the chance.”

“Oh, yeah, Zoo. No doubt diere. Although he did seem to thing it was somewhat out of character—in that Carson had mouthed off lots of times in the past, but this was the first time, in my guy’s experience anyway, that Carson had actually become physical, violent, and even deadly.”

“God, I wish we knew if Carson owned a gun! But … okay for now. Real good work, Angie. How about the Stapleton character?”

She withdrew a much smaller packet of notes and readout sheets from her bag. She held the packet aloft as if performing a show-and-tell.

“Not nearly as much with Stapleton as I found on Carson,” she said. “All I found in the
Free Press
library was a few items. There was a story dated June 1974 noting that quite a few priests were quitting the priesthood at roughly the same time. Stapleton was among them. But the story didn’t highlight him. The lead was given to a priest who was head of the justice and peace department of the Detroit Church. Stapleton was just mentioned as one of the others who was leaving.”

Head.
The word caught Tully’s attention. Another head of another department. Could that have any bearing on the present investigation? “Angie, what was the name of that guy—the head of the Church department?”

She had to page backward to find the item. “Burke … Father Pat Burke.”

“Anything on him?”

“I don’t think so. I knew him back then. Matter of fact when I was a kid in parochial school, he was the assistant pastor in the parish. I had a crush on him.”

“Where is he now? Do you know?”

“Not really. After he quit the priesthood, he moved out of state. Arizona, I think. As far as I know, he’s still there.”

“Check it out, will you?”

“Sure, Zoo.”

“Now, let’s get back to Stapleton.”

“Well, with Fred Stapleton, the only prior notice I could find before that story about all those priests leaving was the one we talked about earlier—when he was shoved down the church steps by Arnold Carson. That, by the way, is a real coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Uh-huh. And I don’t like coincidences, They smack of blind luck and we deal in facts. Whether we find anything or not, we’d better check on whether there’s any connection there.”

“Connection?” Moore asked.

“Where does Stapleton fit in? As far as the Church is concerned.”

“You mean …?” She didn’t finish her thought.

“Well, liberal, conservative? Left wing or right?”

“Oh, Stapleton is a liberal.”

“And Carson is a conservative.”

“Off the globe.”

“Ah,” Tully observed, “that would explain the pushing incident.”

“Yes. Stapleton and Carson were always on opposite sides of just about everything.”

“Just about,” Tully observed.

“What are you getting at, Zoo?”

“They’ve got some common ground now.”

“Common ground?”

They’ve both been listed as being opposed to practices and laws of the Church.”

“Oh, yeah, Zoo. But the things that Carson can’t stand just couldn’t be the same problems Stapleton has.”

“Maybe not. But suppose they agree to bury the hatchet for the duration so they can get the Church’s attention. Suppose that’s the purpose of this crime spree. Suppose they find they have the same goal for different reasons. We can’t overlook the possibility … or any possibility, for that matter. This is growing into one slippery case.” Tully might have added that it was the sort of case that he most appreciated. One that called on every skill he possessed. “But, go on, Angie. What else about Stapleton? Besides the pushing incident and the resignation report?”

“Well, there were quite a few items either featuring him or mentioning him.”

“Oh?”

“He’s a psychologist. Kind of prominent, at least locally. Every so often you see him on one or another local TV news program. You know how the news anchors get into pop psychology and they get local authorities for ‘expert’ commentary. Well, Dr. Stapleton is there pretty regularly giving his opinion. He’s also quoted on radio and in newspapers along the same line, His picture’s been on TV and in the papers pretty often.”

“Ever give expert testimony in court?”

“Well, yeah, a few times.”

“In homicide cases?”

“Once in a while. Although, evidently, not in any of your cases. I think most people in the metropolitan area would be fairly familiar with Stapleton. In fact, from the number of times their pictures have been in the media, I’d guess that Carson and Stapleton are equally recognizable to a lot of people.” She stopped, almost embarrassed. She did not want to make her point too plainly. But it was evident that while Carson and Stapleton would qualify as local celebrities—at least in the sense of being easily identifiable—Tully had paid no attention to them.

It was one more indication of the measure of dedication Tully gave to his work. To a significant extent, as far as he was concerned if a news item had no relevance to his work it was not news. Some might call such an attitude tunnel vision. Others, dedication. Whatever one called it, Tully was near totally absorbed in his work. His former wife had discovered this truth early in their marriage and thought she could fight this intangible enemy. She spent a few years of her life in this doomed struggle. Tully’s present-day companion recognized and understood his priorities early on and was able to handle being a very strong but definite second in his life.

Anyone who had eavesdropped on this present conversation would have come to the same inevitable conclusion Angie Moore had reached: Alonzo Tully did not pay much attention to the passing parade. It was almost as if he did not want extraneous information crowding out the things he needed to know to do his job as well as or better than any comparable officer.

Tully’s unexpected grasp of the effects of Vatican II on current Church affairs was a case in point. From some source, presently unknown to Sergeant Moore, he had been briefed on the council and its impact on Catholicism. Still, there was no indication that Tully had mastered more than he needed to know to further the investigation of this case.

At any rate, Tully clearly did not seem embarrassed, defensive, or even concerned that a couple of otherwise famous faces were foreign to him. “Stapleton: rich?” he asked.

“Comfortable. I talked to a few people who knew him well—therapists, priests, ex-priests. Stapleton does a lot of charity work, mostly at old Trinity parish in Corktown. He’s married, got one daughter who’s going to school at that music academy up north—Interlochen. That must cost a bundle.

“Oh, and one more thing: He belongs to CORPUS.”

“What the hell is that?” Tully was growing irritated at the continuing confusions he found in Catholicism.

“It’s an organization for ex-priests who want to be able to function clerically again. They meet, put out a publication, lobby bishops, even the Pope.”

“Mostly talk?”

“I guess so. But Stapleton’s been very active in the group.”

“So? It seems .harmless enough. If all they want to do is get their preacher’s license back, what’s the problem? I don’t see why he’s on Bash’s shit list.” He seemed puzzled. “He was even mentioned by some of the other department heads.”

Moore didn’t reply immediately. Finally, she said, “Well, I can’t speak for the others ’cause I didn’t interview them—but I’d be willing to bet they agree. My man, Father Bash, doesn’t consider either Carson or Stapleton as physical threats. Of course he undoubtedly didn’t know about Carson’s all-out fight yesterday at the post office. So I think he could be mistaken about Carson.

“Anyway, I think Bash sees Carson and Stapleton as … well … just troublemakers. And if you saw things through … what?—institutional eyes—that’s all they’d be. As you know”—although she didn’t know
how
he knew—“that Vatican council stirred up lots of controversy. I get the impression the institutional Church desperately wants everything to calm down. And people like Carson and Stapleton won’t let that happen.

“That’s my impression. People like Bash would like to see Carson and Stapleton just go away—or at least shut up. But neither one of them seems to want to do that. So they are seen as people opposed to Church rules and regulations. And from that point of view, they are.

“Of course Bash sees them as personal enemies. But I don’t think it would take anybody long to become a personal enemy of Father Bash.”