Chameleon (9 page)

“Wait a minute, Zoo! I feel like you’re putting a full-court press on me. I admit it’s possible for it to be the way you tell it. The kid reads about the murder, or he sees the report on TV He sees the amount of press the killing gets. He knows the nun still lives in the same convent. He decides to pull a copycat killing. So he sneaks around the corner of the convent. He knows she’s usually out late. In any case she would have been out late last night at the wake service for her sister. She comes home, he pops out of the bushes, and I pop out from behind my cover and the thing is over.

“But here’s where your case breaks down, Zoo. According to your scenario, he wants publicity. He wants to be star of the show. The only way he can get that is to get caught. And he didn’t know I was there. He didn’t know he was gonna get caught. And if all he wanted to do was confess, he could’ve confessed the earlier killing without the second one.” Mangiapane leaned back, more content now.

“We’re dealing with hypothesis, Manj. He didn’t know he was gonna get caught, I’ll give you. Maybe he would have turned himself in if you hadn’t been there. Maybe he would have killed the nun and then come in to confess it this morning.

“All that we’re gonna have to figure out.

“This much is for certain: The next time you go off on your own without consulting with me, I’m gonna have your ass before Walt Koznicki has mine. Is that clear? I mean is that
crystal
clear?”.

“Yeah.” Mangiapane stood and, face impassive, was about to head for the door.

“One more thing, Manj.”

“Yeah?”

“You did a good piece of work.”

Mangiapane left smiling.

Tully began pacing in the small room. It was completely possible that this case had played out just the way Mangiapane figured it. Just the way Mangiapane
wanted
it to be. Guns could be found just about anywhere in this city. Adults had them for protection. Crooks had them for crime. Kids had them for toys.

David Reading could have found or bought a gun and used it to kill Helen Donovan. Having shot her, for a reason yet to be satisfactorily explained, he could have disposed of it. If one killing was all he intended, he more than likely would have gotten rid of it.

Then he finds out he’s killed the wrong person. Maybe goes back to where he ditched the gun, but it’s gone. Someone else has it now. Again, it’s not that hard to find or come by another one. He goes back to finish it off the way he’d originally planned it.

He wouldn’t expect Joan Donovan to have police protection. And in that assumption he was correct. Unless a targeted person agrees voluntarily to stay in an inaccessible and remote place, no police force could come close to guaranteeing safety. An enclosed, controllable space may be protected. A person out in the open is beyond protection.

It was very bad luck for David Reading and a stroke of extraordinarily good luck for Mangiapane—and for Sister Joan—that he happened to be on the scene to foil and apprehend the would-be killer.

As far as Tully was concerned, it was bad news and good news all in one lump.

At the outset, Tully had hoped that Helen’s killer was one of her clients and that the john could be identified. The matter, then, would be a platter case.

As it happened, the initial investigation did not turn up any really good leads. But it was still better than the worst case scenario: mistaken identity. That would have thrown the investigation into a completely new and much broader plane. In which case the police would not be looking for someone who had it in for a hooker. Lots of people fit that category.

No, if it were mistaken identity, they’d have to find someone who was after a nun. Another kettle of fish.

The bad news was that the way it was now working out, it apparently was a case of mistaken identity. The good news—so good Tully could scarcely trust his luck—was that Mangiapane had caught the guy responsible for the attacks on Helen and Joan.

So why was he so reluctant to look on the good side? Why was he looking a gift horse in the mouth? Why couldn’t he shut the file on this one?

It wasn’t the different guns used. It wasn’t the readiness of David Reading to confess to everything. It wasn’t the unlikely luck of having Mangiapane on the scene at the moment Reading is about to repair his mistake. All those disparities could be explained. Indeed, Mangiapane had just gone through a sometimes tortured logic to explain them away.

It was something else. A hunch. Intuition.

Tully shrugged and quietly snorted. Police work was not based substantially on hunches and intuition, but on cold, hard facts, reality that could be argued in a court of law. And the coldest, hardest fact they had presently was one warm body caught in the act of attempted murder and freely confessing to murder in the first degree.

So what if it didn’t feel right? Time to process David Reading and get on to the next homicide. He knew that in Detroit he wouldn’t have long to wait for the next one.

“May I get you something to drink?” the waitress asked.

“Yes,” the Reverend Mr. Quentin Jeffrey answered, “I’ll have a Beefeater martini, extra dry with a twist.”

“Very good. And … miss?”

“Just some coffee—decaffeinated,” Grace Mars, Jeffrey’s companion, said.

The waitress left to fill their orders.

Eyes accommodating to the dim interior lighting of Clamdiggers Restaurant, Jeffrey looked about the room.

Quentin Jeffrey, now in his late fifties, was a permanent deacon of the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, he was head of the archdiocese’s permanent deacon program. Years previously, he had founded, established, and headed his own public relations firm. In his early fifties he’d sold the firm, becoming enormously wealthy in the process.

He and his wife traveled and, in every way possible, relaxed after the hectic life they had hitherto led. Then, long a faithful Catholic, Jeffrey became interested in becoming a permanent deacon.

The permanent deacon belonged to a diocese or religious order just as did priests. The deacon was ordained to do everything the priest does sacramentally except absolve from sins and offer Mass.

It was no exaggeration to say that Quentin Jeffrey was an invaluable catch for the Church. He had been eminently successful in the secular world. Indeed, on the local scene, as well as in circles beyond, Jeffrey was prominent, a celebrity. That he had chosen the diaconate for his later years added a healthy measure of cachet to a program that had not been widely used in recent centuries.

He had become a deacon in order to work with people on a spiritual level in a parochial setting. He had neither sought nor wanted to head the entire program. But when Cardinal Boyle asked him to take charge of it, he had accepted the responsibility. He considered his commitment to serve in the archdiocese of Detroit to be open-ended. Whatever the archbishop wanted of him, as long as he felt himself competent, he would do.

Then, tragically, his wife contracted pancreatic cancer. Jeffrey took a leave of absence to care for her around the clock. The leave was not of long duration. The cancer advanced quickly and decisively. In a few months, it was over. He returned to his duties in the archdiocese a changed man.

Before he lost her, he’d never quite gauged how much of his life he had shared with her, how much he had depended on her. The loneliness was more profound because where he’d been whole, now he was half.

But life went on. And one of life’s small pleasures was taking his secretary out for a pleasant dinner. It was a reward he gave himself with some regularity. He had no idea how much Grace Mars looked forward to these evenings. He only knew that she was darkly beautiful, an efficient worker, a reliable confidante, and an agreeable companion.

They made an eye-catching couple. He, well-dressed, well-groomed, with leading-man features and sculpted salt-and-pepper hair. She, with dark hair and dark eyes, deep dimples, even teeth, and tight skin. The fact that they obviously enjoyed each other added to the comfortable image they projected.

They were consulting their menus.

“What do you think, Quent?”

He looked up in mock surprise. “In a place like the Clamdiggers, what else? Clams.”

She laughed softly. She knew he didn’t like clams. He disliked all seafood. He was the proverbial meat-and-potatoes eater.

In honor of her reaction, he chuckled. “Okay, we’ll get serious,” he said. “The New York strip has a nice ring to it. And the lady?”

She glanced once again at the menu. “I think I’ll have the Caesar salad.”

“That’s it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“No wonder you’re fading away to nothing.” The exchange gave him an opportunity to appraise her figure openly. Her modest dress hinted subtly at the delights beneath.

The waitress returned with a martini and a coffee. Yes, they were ready.to order, and they did.

“I must say I’m relieved that they caught that guy,” she said, turning to one of the more popular topics in the metropolitan area. They had just begun discussing the arrest of David Reading as Jeffrey was parking the car.

He smiled. “Did you feel threatened?”

“I think every woman feels she is in some jeopardy when some nut is out there killing females for no reason.”

“Actually, I don’t think the police have determined whether or not the man had a reason … at least as far as I’ve been able to follow the story.”

Grace shook her head. “It happens so often in this city. Guns, guns, guns, and killing. Sometimes it is completely senseless. Sometimes it’s revenge or intimidation or even accident. But when a couple of women are murdered by the same person, I think all women, especially those of us who work in the city, feel … well … vulnerable.”

Jeffrey was thoughtful. “Yes, I suppose that’s so. Well, at any rate, he didn’t murder two women; they got him before he could shoot the second one. Good piece of police work.”

“You didn’t go to the funeral.” It was a statement rather than a question; both she and Jeffrey had arrived at work on time this morning and she knew the funeral had started only an hour later.

“No, I went to the wake last night. Crowded—but good company for Sister Joan.”

The waitress brought Jeffrey’s salad. Grace’s Caesar salad would be served along with Jeffrey’s entree.

“Speaking of the wake and funeral”—Grace seemed appalled—”did you see that memo from Father Bash? I put it on your desk. About how all major stories must be channeled through the information department? Wasn’t that incredible?”

Jeffrey slowly chewed and swallowed some salad, taking his time about responding. “I beg your pardon in advance, Grace, but Clete Bash is an asshole,”

Grace blushed, though she knew he was. “He
is
a priest!” She smiled.

“Excuse me, a
reverend
asshole. Even
he
must know there’s no way of dictating a story like this. He’s just got a burr under his saddle because Joan’s picture was on TV and Clete Bash was nowhere to be seen.”

“You make it sound as if … as if he wants the spotlight all the time.”

“That’s it exactly, Grace: Bash wants to be
important.
I don’t think he has the slightest inkling of what an information office ought to be. For Clete it’s merely a springboard for his ego. Sometimes I wonder how far he’d go to inflate his vanity. Without that collar, he’d probably be in a breadline.”

“Quent!”

“Okay, check that: His war record might get him through the door somewhere. But, mind you, he’d be out on his ear in no time once they found out what kind of card player he is.”

The waitress brought their entrees.

“I don’t want to seem presumptuous, Quent,” said Grace, after the waitress left, “but shouldn’t that job have been yours? I mean, with your success in public relations, you seem a natural for the Office of Information.”

“Bash was already in place when I came on the scene.”

“Even so—”

“Our Cardinal Archbishop is not known for firing his employees, or haven’t you noticed? Except for more than adequate cause. And extreme ego needs doesn’t seem to be on his list.”

“Do you think the Cardinal knows?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, for instance,” Grace explained, “I’ll bet the Cardinal didn’t get one of today’s memos from Father Bash.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, you’re right there: Clete knows who’s dealing. Of course, he plays the sycophant to His Eminence. But my impression is that Cardinal Boyle does not get to work early every morning just to set a good example. He knows what’s going on. He knows what sort Bash is. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the Cardinal is able to live with a man like that in his administration.”

“I guess that is unfortunate.”

“The way to survive someone like Bash, Grace, is to have as little to do with him as possible.”

“Even me? After all, I’m only a secretary.”

“Grace, you have my complete and flat-out permission to act as if Father Bash has suffered a sudden and barely-provided-for death.”

They both laughed, and finished their dinner with small talk on more pleasant topics.

Ordinarily, Grace took the bus home from work each evening. Making allowances for the—at best—erratic dependability of Detroit’s public transportation, it was a simple, direct ride from downtown to the far west side of the city.

But on those evenings when she dined with Quentin Jeffrey, he invariably insisted on driving her to her apartment house. Sometimes he would accompany her to her door; other times he would remain in his car but wait until she had entered the building.

Grace tried to read some sort of message into these variables. When he stayed outside the building, did that mean that he was tired of her company? That this would be their final evening together?

When he entered the building, did he want to come into her apartment? He always declined her invitation. Was entering her building a metaphor for entering her body? She had to admit that, remote as it seemed, she enjoyed the fantasy.

Things were far less involved, at least on a conscious level, in Jeffrey’s mind. He was aware of no special reason for either procedure. It was merely that he was invariably concerned for her safety. He would never leave until she was at least within the protective walls of her building. Sometimes, for no perceptible reason, he felt particularly ill at ease about the neighborhood—an unfamiliar car, the front door left slightly ajar, something, anything. At such times, he would walk her to her door. She would invite him in. He would politely decline the invitation. Sometimes he felt quite strongly that he should accept. But he felt even more strongly that he didn’t want to complicate things.