Chameleon (39 page)

“But why you, Father? That’s the question I’ve heard most often these past two weeks. Why not a policeman in the cassock?”

“The very question that was uppermost in Lieutenant Tully’s mind,” Koesler said. He sipped his coffee as his thoughts leaped back to the fateful evening.

“Well,” he said finally, “it wasn’t so much a ‘question’ as a very,
very
strong objection. The lieutenant and I argued—yes, that’s the right word—we argued about it for—well, hours, I guess. He was totally opposed to a civilian’s risking his life in a situation that he felt demanded a trained policeman.

“My argument was that we didn’t have any evidence to try him on, or even hold him on. We had no proof of anything and the most they could come up with using a policeman stand-in would be circumstantial evidence. And no matter how strong that might be, it wouldn’t carry as much weight in a court of law or be as strong as a confession. And that once Quent found he was dealing with a policeman, he wouldn’t say anything.I was sure he’d talk to me. And he did.”

“And that argument convinced the lieutenant?”

“Not by a long shot. He absolutely refused to let me go through with it.”

“And?”

“I told him I was going to do it anyway, whether he went along with me or not. He was really angry—just short of furious, I think. But eventually, he said if I was determined to be ‘a damn fool’—those were his exact words—he’d set it up.”

“But it worked.”

“Yes. And I’m pretty sure he’s still angry with me. Even though it did work.”

“It was lucky he agreed to provide protection or you might be dead now.”

“I don’t think so, Mary. I heard the words he murmured. I saw the expression on his face. He had no intention of harming me Once he knew the police were there, he knew if he drew his gun they would kill him. The poor guy had nowhere to go but into another life, where I pray God and Quent’s victims forgave him.” Koesler paused. “There was another reason I insisted on standing in for the Cardinal. I don’t know that it would make sense to anyone but me. See, I promised Archbishop Foley I would jump right in and get actively involved in the case. And I made the same sort of commitment to Cardinal Boyle. The opportunity to stand in for the Cardinal was a gift from heaven. I had to do it. That was the argument that finally convinced the Cardinal to go along with my plan.”

“It makes sense to me.”

“Thanks, Mary. I needed that, Thanks.”

Mary refilled their cups. “Such a weird plot.” She shook her head. “Do you think he really was insane? And if he was, how could he have appeared to be so normal?”

“That puzzled me too. I couldn’t figure it out. It got so bad that I phoned my friend Dr. Rudy Scholl from Florida. I gave him an account of the whole thing. He said it was a classic example of what psychologists call a borderline personality.”

“Borderline? What does that mean?”

“Would you fill my cup one more time? I think that’ll do it. Thanks. Well, if I understand Rudy correctly, it means that such a personality is living right on the edge—the border—between sanity and insanity.”

Mary shuddered. “That’s frightening. I mean it sounds like some sort of science fiction—or a horror movie.”

Koesler sipped the hot coffee. It was excellent. He was convinced there was no special trick to brewing good coffee. “It
is
frightening. But it’s strange: When we were in that room, together, just Quent and I, I got the overwhelming impression that he had been under enormous stress for a long, long time—ever since his wife died. I think he felt he was caged in a box he couldn’t escape from.

“Rudy agreed. And added the word ‘conflict.’ It was, he said, a ‘stressful conflict.’ Quent felt he was intended to live a married life. That had been taken away when his wife died out of due time. He believed that any sexual relationship had to be restricted to marriage. According to Church rules, he could not marry again. And he felt compelled to comply with that law even though he detested it. He was not going to back away from this obligation. You could scarcely find a more clear example of stressful conflict.

“My problem was the same question you raised: How could he function so well in a normal daily life and then deliberately kill people? He would have had to be some sort of chameleon. One moment he would be a well adjusted, even dedicated man, a minister of the Church—and the next moment he would be a madman.

“But Rudy explained that this is the key to the borderline personality. They function at a high level of normalcy and then they decompose and go into a psychotic state.”

“‘Decompose’! That seems an awfully strong word.”

“I know. But that’s the word Rudy used. He also said that Quent was the right age to have been in the Korean War. Isn’t that odd: Quent and Clete Bash would have been in the same war. One emerged physically crippled, the other maybe emotionally. Anyway, Rudy said that if it were true, that Quent could already have been programmed to be violent as a result of that bloody war. As a soldier he would have to follow orders. Then as a successful businessman, he would have the power to make his own rules. So he was used to being in charge of his life.

“Then he becomes a deacon and once again he is subject to rules that he cannot bend. Another stressful situation.

“Rudy said it was completely believable that Quent could begin to see these laws that hemmed him in on every side as a kind of catch-22—a game. In his psychotic state, he would treat the situation like a game. Only it was his deal. And he was going to deal himself the unbeatable power hand—a royal flush: ten, jack, queen, king, ace of the same suit—Catholic leaders.”

They were silent for a few moments.

“I was just thinking,” Mary said, “those married ministers and priests who are becoming Catholic priests—they may have to face the same kind of problem Quentin Jeffrey did.”

Koesler nodded. “Yes, that’s possible—even probable. It will be a problem that the Catholic Church—at least the Latin Rite—hasn’t had to face for about a thousand years. That, and, I suppose, divorced priests … priests who want to remarry after a divorce. I guess that’s why the Pope is paid so well.”

They laughed.

“It certainly is a different Church from the one we grew up in,” Mary said.

“I’ll say. Some think that in the Third Vatican Council, the bishops will bring their wives along. And at Vatican IV the bishops will bring their husbands.”

Mary laughed. “That’s too much for this old head to handle.” She finished her coffee and left the kitchen, to busy herself in the office.

Koesler, alone in the room, cradled his cup and thought. In such a brief time, five, almost six, people dead. Four people he’d known quite well; one, Helen Donovan, he never knew. Four people who had no idea why they had been selected, who had no advance warning whatsoever that the end was at hand. One man the cause of it all. Yet, could a “borderline personality” be fully responsible? Was he himself a victim of a different sort, and was it one rule that was the cause of it all?

Koesler did not know. He tried to visualize the five, the victims and their killer, in heaven. In heaven—and in heaven alone—would it be possible to find the understanding and forgiveness needed to heal these wounds. Like the two soldiers, in Wilfred

Owen’s war poetry who had fought hand to hand, thrusting and parrying until they had slain one another. Now, one invites the other to come away from the field of slaughter, and rest.

He thought of the last letter St. Thomas More wrote to his daughter before he was executed. The last words of that letter, the last words that great man wrote:
“Farewell, my dear child and pray for me, and I shall for you and all your friends that we may merrily meet in heaven.”

Only in heaven …

Acknowledgments

Gratitude for technical advice to:

Margaret Auer, Director of Libraries, University of Detroit

Rudy Bachmann, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist

Ramon Betanzos, Ph.D., Professor of Humanities, Wayne State University

Sergeant James Grace, Detective, Kalamazoo Police Department

Sister Bernadelle Grimm, R.S.M., Samaritan Health Care Center, Detroit

Sergeant Charles Kelley, Firearms Inventory Unit, Detroit Police Department

Father Anthony Kosnik, S.T.D., J.C.B., Professor of Ethics Marygrove College, Detroit

George La Berge, U.S. Postal Service, Retired

Irma Macy, Religious Education Coordinator, Prince of Peace Parish, West Bloomfield, Michigan

Walter D. Pool, M.D., Medical Consultant

Werner U. Spitz, M.D., Professor of Forensic Pathology, Wayne State University

Ann Walaskay, Head of Reference Department, University of Detroit

With special gratitude to Lynn Lloyd.

Any technical error is the author’s.

Chameleon
copyright © 1991, 2012 by Gopits, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC
an Andrews McMeel Universal company,
1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

www.andrewsmcmeel.com

This is a work of fiction and, as such, events described herein are creations of the author’s imagination. Any relation to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental and accidental.

ISBN: 9781449423704

Cover design by Kevin Williamson. Photo by IstockPhoto/Bliznetsov.

William X. Kienzle
died in December 2001. He was a Detroit parish priest for twenty years before leaving the priesthood. He began writing his popular mystery series after serving as an editor and director at the Center for Contemplative Studies at the University of Dallas.

1. The Rosary Murders

2. Death Wears a Red Hat

3. Mind Over Murder

4. Assault with Intent

5. Shadow of Death

6. Kill and Tell

7. Sudden Death

8. Deathbed

9. Deadline for a Critic

10. Marked for Murder

11. Eminence

12. Masquerade

13. Chameleon

14. Body Count

15. Dead Wrong

16. Bishop as Pawn

17. Call No Man Father

18. Requiem for Moses

19. The Man Who Loved God

20. The Greatest Evil

21. No Greater Love

22. Till Death

23. The Sacrifice

24. The Gathering

B
LESS ME
, Father, for I have sinned.”

She settled into the chair opposite Father Robert Koesler as he recited, “May the Lord be in your heart and on your lips so that you may rightly confess your sins.”

“It’s been … oh … may be a couple of years since my last confession—good Lord, what the hell is that?”

The priest, startled, followed her gaze and found himself staring at a green growth on the table between them. “It’s a plant,” he explained vaguely.

“You mean it’s alive?”

He smiled. “It won’t bite you.”

“I’m not so sure. It’s about the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. What is it, do you know?”

“It’s a
Gynura.
It’s also called a purple passion vine.”

“Then how come it’s not purple?”

“Well …” He was beginning to feel uncomfortable. It was the first time he’d been challenged to defend a plant. “… it needs a lot of light to keep its purple. And, as you can see …” His explanation drifted off. He gestured toward the tiny stained glass window. A lighted candle and a low-wattage electric bulb were the only other illumination in the small cubicle. He felt the woman was looking at him as if he were mentally deficient.

“It’s a wonder it’s alive at all … it is alive, isn’t it?” she pursued.

“Uh-huh.”

“If you’ll excuse me, Father, why put any kind of plant in a room like this?”

“The new liturgy for the Sacrament of Reconciliation suggests a table, a Bible, a candle, and some sort of plant in the place set aside for face-to-face confession Speaking of confession; That is why you came, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes … sure. I was shopping across Gratiot at the Eastern Market and I saw your steeple and it was Saturday afternoon. So I thought, why not? And here I am.”

So much for his reputation as a sensitive, kindly confessor to rival St. John Vianney, the holy Curé d’Ars. She just happened to be in the neighborhood. “So, here you are. Two years is kind of a long while, don’t you think?”

“I suppose.” She reflected. “Yeah, it is. Good grief, I can remember the good old days. Once a week. At least once a month.”

Koesler could remember the good old days even more vividly than his penitent.

“The good old days!” she continued: “I used to come to confession and say the same old things over and over: ‘I quarreled with my husband. Lost patience with the kids. Gossiped.’”

Koesler smiled. “Is that what it’s going to be today: Anger? Arguments? Gossip?”

“I wish it were. I got bigger problems than that. Matter of fact, I don’t exactly know why I’m here. It was just on the spur of the moment. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.” She moved as if to leave.

“No; wait.” She did. “There must be a reason why you came today, ” the priest said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Do you live around here?”

“No. Out in the ’burbs. Like I said, I was shopping at the market and–”

“What’s the problem?”

“Uh … theChurch.”

“The whole thing?”

“I just can’t believe everything the Church teaches. Maybe I’ve slost my faith. Maybe I’m not a Catholic anymore.”

“Like what don’t you believe? In God? In Jesus Christ?”

“Oh, no, for Pete’s sake, no! Sure I believe in God, in Jesus!”

“Then … ?”

“Things like birth control, divorce, remarriage, even abortion. To be perfectly frank, Father, I don’t think the Church has the slightest clue as to what’s going on in the real world.”

“Have you prayed over this?”

“Oh, yeah, I read about that in the papers: Some Cardinal in Rome said that if you don’t believe what the Church teaches, you should go pray until you do. That seems kind of silly to me.”