Chameleon (32 page)

Read Chameleon Online

Authors: William X. Kienzle

Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Suspense, #Fiction

BOOK: Chameleon
9.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

“If he found out—that’s a pretty big‘if,’ but possible—it just might be that he wanted to get us back on the original track by killing the old man.

“Good, Angie, very good. Get on that now, will you—both of you.”

Moore was up and moving. Mangiapane, gulping the remainder of his coffee, was only a step behind.

Tully caught the waitress’s eye and pointed to his mug. She refilled it with regular coffee, He needed to be as wide-awake as possible.

It was always heartening to have something going for you during an investigation. And, in Moore’s hypothesis, the Stapleton connection with his cousin was revived. But it was still on tremendously shaky ground.

The scenario from the beginning had been extremely flimsy, he had to admit. It was based entirely on hearsay

Apparendy the old lady was related to both Donovan and Stapleton. She had a fortune of some as-yet-undetermined amount. She was leaving whatever she had to the two; Mangiapane’s reading of the will indicated that.

After diat, what?

Did Stapleton need money that badly? Did he murder the wrong cousin? Did he kill Hoffer? If he did, was that part of the original plan, or was he winging it?

There wasn’t a shred of proof. Deep down, Tully suspected that should this case work out just the way they were figuring it now, he might begin to believe in miracles.

He knew what he must do. And he didn’t want to do it. He had to take one more dive into the murky administrative waters of the archdiocese of Detroit.

 

Father Koesler had never seen his archbishop in such a state.

As a result of heart surgery a few years before, Mark Boyle had slimmed down. He now took regular and extensive walks for exercise. Lately, he’d looked fine. Trim in his inevitable clerical suit, vest, and collar, with gold pectoral chain; thinning white hair smoothed over a noble head; his handsome Irish features topped a better-than-six-foot frame.

But today, though none of his physical characteristics had changed, he seemed somehow deflated, almost as if air had been let out of his body and it had shriveled somewhat.

He had phoned and asked Koesler to stop by. Yet now as the archbishop greeted him, Koesler got the impression that Boyle was distracted and unsure why the priest was there. But he soon recovered, at least to the point of getting down to business.

“Good of you to come, Father, at such short notice.” Boyle’s formality remained unchanged.

“Certainly, Eminence. I’m sorry about Archbishop Foley. I admired him, and I know he was your good friend.”

Boyle’s eyes welled up. Koesler thought the Cardinal might actually weep. But he pinched his eyelids and quickly regained his composure.

“It was just yesterday that Archbishop Foley was sitting in this chair that you are using,” Boyle said. “He was so alive. Though he was retired, he was still very active and alert. A great loss. And so tragic. But … that is not why I asked you here.”

Koesler waited, saying nothing.

Boyle continued. “While we visited yesterday, I got a message that you had arrived for your appointment with him. He hadn’t mentioned the appointment, so I knew nothing about it. However, I now wonder whether it might not cast some light on last night’s tragic occurrence.” His eyebrows arched as he looked to Koesler for any relevant information.

Koesler proceeded to recount most of his conversation with Foley, including the names of the two suspects high in the order of importance to the police investigation. The Cardinal listened attentively, fingers forming a pyramid that touched his lips, eyes never leaving Koesler’s face, seemingly not even blinking.

After Koesler finished his narration, neither man moved or spoke for a few moments.

“What interests—troubles—me,” Boyle said finally, “is why he was so concerned about this matter.”

“The very same question I had, Eminence. I mean, we are all concerned about these murders, of course. But it wasn’t at all clear to me why he was so anxious to the point of calling me in to talk about it. So, eventually, I asked him. The reason for his special concern was yourself, Eminence.”

“Me?” Boyle was startled.

“He was afraid that you were slated to be the next victim. No, it was more than apprehension; it was a premonition. That’s what he called it: a premonition.”

“He actually thought …”

“It came to him in prayer. The passage about striking the shepherd and scattering the sheep. Of course he’d seen that Scripture countless times in prayer and preaching. But the other day he read it again and, as he expressed it, it was as if he experienced some sort of revelation. Suddenly, the shepherd was yourself and the purpose behind these killings was—well, it wasn’t clear to him. But it had to do with further confusing the faithful.

“In that hypothesis, it wouldn’t so much matter whether the killings were being committed by someone like Arnold Carson or Fred Stapleton. The target was the atmosphere created by Vatican II. There was anger—in this case insane anger—about too much or not enough change engendered by the council.

“I tended to agree with him about the motive for the killings. But as for your being a target—or becoming a victim of this murderer … well … it was Archbishop Foley’s premonition, not mine. However, I must confess, he was very persuasive.”

“Worried about me … isn’t that like him.”

The archbishop should have used the past tense, thought Koesler. Foley was no longer among the living. He wondered if the reality of Foley’s death had not yet reached the Cardinal’s consciousness.

“There remains one final question, Father: Why would the archbishop call on you specifically?”

The question was a mild surprise to Koesler. While they had never discussed it, he knew the Cardinal was aware of his involvement in past homicide investigations. He thought Foley’s reason for calling on him might have been obvious to Boyle. But then, on quick reflection, Koesler remembered that only yesterday he himself had not divined the reason Foley had called him in until the archbishop had explained.

So, with greater understanding, Koesler explained to Boyle. “Archbishop Foley had heard that I’d had some experience, at least some contact with the police in certain instances in the past.”

“That’s right, you have. And,” he reflected, “I am the very one who told him about you.”

“Archbishop Foley, to put it bluntly, wanted me to get rather actively involved in this case,”

“Actively?”

“Eminence, I may in the past have been a resource for the police when there was a strong element of Catholicism or religion involved in an investigation. But the archbishop was entirely correct in assuming that I did not dive right in and volunteer my services. He wanted me to do so in this case, He said he would pray for me.”

“And did you?”

“Did I …?”

“Dive right in as he asked you to?”

“Eminence, that was just yesterday. I have been thinking about it. But to be perfectly frank, I haven’t the slightest notion where to begin. I truly believe Archbishop Foley is in a much better position in heaven to have his prayers answered, but no manner of inspiration is getting through to me.”

Cardinal Boyle swiveled his chair so that he was looking out the window at a once-posh Washington Boulevard. He was deep in thought. Koesler did not intrude.

At length, Boyle spoke. “Father, it is beyond my dominion to commission you or assign you the task of ‘diving right in’ as you put it. But I would like you to.”

“You would?” During their association, Cardinal Boyle had assigned Koesler to a number of diverse jobs, Strangest of all, given his lack of journalistic training, had been the assignment as editor-in-chief of the
Detroit Catholic.
But nothing could compare with asking him to, in effect, solve some murders.

“Does this surprise you?” Boyle asked.

“I’m flabbergasted.”

“I had given some consideration to asking this of you. However, I don’t think in the end I would have asked you if you had not told me of Archbishop Foley’s request. I feel we owe this to him … to his memory,”

“Well, I’m … impressed. I’d like to tell you that with a double episcopal commission, I am indeed about to dive right in. But I still haven’t the foggiest idea of where to begin,”

“We must trust in Divine Providence.”

“Yes, Eminence, but—”

The phone rang. Boyle pushed the intercom speaker button.

“Excuse the interruption, your Eminence,” came the unmistakable voice of the Cardinal’s secretary, “but there is a call for Father Koesler. It’s from a Lieutenant Tully of the Police Department. I wouldn’t have disturbed you, but the lieutenant said it was urgent.”

For the first time this morning, Boyle smiled. “An answer to prayer?”

Koesler picked up the phone. “Your place or mine?”

25

“The tendency now is to panic,” Tully said.

He and Koesler were seated on opposite sides of the desk in the priest’s office in St. Joseph’s rectory. Tully had requested they meet here to avoid the intense traffic, noise, and confusion of police headquarters.

“Everybody wants this case closed yesterday,” Tully continued. “So far, the news media have been having fun with the story. Now that the old bishop got killed they’re acting like for the first time we got to get serious about this thing. A gentle old man gets killed for no apparent reason and right away they want a body on the gallows. The media reached the mayor, who makes a grandstand play of seeming to assign every cop in the city to the case. That’s when everything hits the fan and there’s a tendency to panic. But that’s a blunder. So I want to have a very cool-headed conversation with you and figure a few more things out.”

“I’ll help any way I can,” Koesler said. He had no intention of mentioning to Tully anything about his recent conversations with Archbishops Foley and Boyle.

“If you’re going to be a help on this case, you’ve got to know most of what we know. And then I want to know everything you know,” Tully added.

“First off, we had what I thought was an excellent lead that doesn’t seem to be working out. Unless that lead gets hot again, mere’s no reason we have to go over it now. It’s enough to say that that lead has nothing to do with the Church.

“Something you should know,” Tully continued, “is how Foley was killed.”

“It was different from the others? I didn’t hear anything about that in the news.”

“We didn’t release that information. It was an execution-style killing.”

“Execution-style? I—”

“The bullet entered from the top of the skull, The old man was forced to kneel and then he was shot from behind, like some poor sucker who crossed the mob. I don’t know why the killer had to do that; as far as I can tell, the poor guy didn’t do anything to anybody.”

“Kneeling …” Koesler said, barely audibly. “Imaybedead wrong, but I don’t think the bishop was forced to kneel.”

“Not forced—? Then what? Praying?”

“I think it’s that exacdy. I think the bishop asked to say a last prayer when he knew he was going to die. And it sort of fits the profile of your suspects.”

Tully reacted as if he’d been stung. “Suspects? What suspects?”

“Uh-oh …”

“What suspects? What have you heard?”

“Only that two men are under suspicion.” Koesler yielded before Tully’s hard gaze. “Arnold Carson and Fred Stapleton.”

“Where did you hear that?”

Koesler hesitated. “A priest.”

“Damn leaks! We don’t have the time to find them—now. Later. Okay, if Carson and Stapleton are suspects, why would that fit in with the way Foley was killed?”

“Only that diey both are—it sounds kind of illogical when we’re talking about a murderer—but they both are rather deeply religious, even at opposite extremes of the spectrum. I mean—as you said, Lieutenant—there was no reason anyone Would want to turn this murder into an execution. Particularly since Helen Donovan and Larry Hoffer were not dealt with in that manner. That, plus the bishop’s deep spirituality, makes it likely that he wasn’t forced to kneel. He probably asked to do so—if he didn’t do so instinctively.

“The thing is,” Koesler added, “if what we’re supposing actually happened, the request was granted. It’s safe to assume that an ordinary killer, far from being inclined to grant such a request, would probably be anxious to get it over with and get away as quickly as he could

isn’t that right?”

Tully nodded.

“So,” Koesler said, “only someone with a rather strong confidence in prayer—a strong faith, as it were—would be moved to let the bishop have the time to pray. The killer would be risking detection the longer he held the bishop at gunpoint. It was, after all, right out in the open. Anybody could have happened along. As a matter of fact, if this morning’s newscast was accurate, that’s how the bishop’s body was discovered, wasn’t it? A passerby coming home late last night noticed the body on the sidewalk … no?”

Tully nodded again.

“Well,” Koesler said, “to tell the truth, I can’t imagine either Carson or Fred actually killing anybody—let alone a bishop. But if either were going to do it and the bishop asked for time to pray, I could easily imagine that either one would let him do it—no matter what complications that might cause.”

“Okay,” Tully said. “I guess that makes sense.” More sense than the previously held theory that the murder had been a ritualistic execution, he thought.

This was working out rather well. Koesler had begun by making sense of nonsense. He might be of more help than Tully had anticipated. In any case, at this stage of the investigation, and given the pressure to close the case, Koesler was Tully’s sole guide.

“Now,” Tully proceeded, “let me spell out the basic problem we’ve got here. What we’ve got is a serial killer. He has committed three premeditated murders. Well, make that two-and-a-half, assuming that he aimed for the nun but got her sister instead.

“We know it’s the same person in each instance because ballistics tells us the same weapon was used in each instance.…” Tully’s voice trailed off as a new thought entered the process of analysis. What was it Koesler had said—“…
they both are rather deeply religious, even at opposite extremes of the spectrum.”
Was it possible …? Granted, ballistics said the same gun was used in each killing; but there was no way of knowing whether or not the same hand had held that gun in each killing. What if … what if two different people—? Tully’s blood turned cold: What
if more
than one or two people were involved? What if this was some sort of insane conspiracy, with a number of people involved? What good was it to check possible alibis when the one who had committed one murder could easily have ah alibi for the next killing, which oneofhis conspirators had carried out?

Other books

Phantoms by Dean Koontz
Lay Down My Sword and Shield by Burke, James Lee
Zadayi Red by Caleb Fox
The Perfect Kill by Robert B. Baer
The Golden Prince by Rebecca Dean
Heart of the City by Ariel Sabar
Luna by Rick Chesler
Chameleon
You must be logged in to Read or Download
CONTINUE
SECURE VERIFIED
Close X