made late this afternoon. And, in the most astonishing development of all, the man alleged to be the murderer is, indeed, a clergyman.
“We’ll go live to Police Headquarters and Channel 4 reporter Gerald Harrington right after these messages.”
21
“Feel good, Zoo?”
Alice and Tully were seated on the living room couch before the glow of the well-used fireplace.
“You betcha.” Tully was not paying a great deal of attention to the TV news. For him it was a rerun. He had been there for the original drama.
Tully and Alice each held a mug filled with a mixture of hot tea and rum. It would be a pleasant nightcap. At the moment, since Alice had just put the concoction together, it was too hot to drink. They warmed their hands on the mugs.
“Were you surprised?” Alice asked.
“At what?”
“That he was a real priest.”
“Not much.” Tully thought about the question. He was answering the woman he loved, not the news media or the guys in the squad. No need to be a smartass. “Yeah ... I was.”
“So was I. I’ve never been able to figure out why the guy wore a clergyman’s outfit. At first, I figured he couldn’t possibly be for real . . . that he must have been wearing it as some kind of disguise.”
“It’s been a good question all through this business. That’s why I gave it little thought. I figured the same as you: It had to be somebody pretending to be a clergyman; I figured it must have been to gain the hooker’s immediate trust. The two who went with him to their death probably didn’t have the slightest doubt that they would be safe.”
“But what would they think about a priest being a John? I mean, that has to be different.”
“Listen, if hookers stay in the business long enough, they get to service just about every possible kind of guy. When they’re young and fresh with tight skin, they may be screwing the chairman of the board, the corporation president, the movers and shakers. As they get used up, they move down the ladder. Then it’s blue-collar, kids, old men. So if they hang in long enough, they’ll probably get everybody, including priests, ministers, and rabbis.
“But the worst thing that can happen to them is when they get a weirdo. And it can happen at any level. Guy says he wants a special trick. She puts her head down and he puts a knife at her neck. Or he sticks a gun in her ear. Maybe plays Russian roulette.”
“No!” Alice shuddered.
“And worse. It’s the most consistent risk the hooker has to face. And she does it practically every time she turns a trick. After a while, if they learn anything—and if they survive—they get to sense who’s safe and who isn’t.”
“But they could still get taken in by a guy who is actually dressed like a priest?”
“That’s what I figured. Those two gals had been around. They’d probably seen it all. But I’d be willing to bet they didn’t get many clergymen who went so far as to dress the part. If he figured he threw them off with the outfit, made them lower their guard, I guess he was right.”
“So you think it didn’t actually matter whether the guy was or wasn’t a real clergyman? Whatever he was, he was using the uniform to quiet their apprehensions and get them to go with him without a second thought.”
“I think so. So it didn’t matter. I got to admit, I never actually was sure it would be a real priest. But it doesn’t matter; priest or not, we got the guy.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure?”
“That this priest did it.”
“Huh?”
“That radio guy on WJR . . . he sort of left everything up in the air.”
“What? When was that?”
“The nine o’clock news, I think it was. He gave the impression that the priest had an alibi.”
“Not an alibi, but an explanation. Claims he was on a sick call or something. Person unknown calls, tells him somebody needs him. So he just ‘happens’ to arrive driving the car we’re looking for, wearing the clothing we’re expecting, going to the prime area we have under surveillance, looking just exactly the ways he’s supposed to look, carrying a king-sized knife, with the right size belt holding up his pants. It’s like the wolf telling Little Red Riding Hood it’s just a coincidence he’s waiting for her in grandmother’s bed. It won’t wash. It just won’t wash.”
Alice looked relieved. The soundness of Tully’s case had been troubling her ever since the earlier radio newscast. There was only one more doubt bothering her. “But isn’t your case—what do they call it— circumstantial?”
“We’ve been through that before, Al, in other cases. There ain’t a thing wrong with a case based on circumstantial evidence. Like the rope . . . remember?”
“Uh . . . oh, yes. Now I do.”
“Right. Each piece of circumstantial evidence is like a strand of rope. All by itself, each strand isn’t strong enough to support the case. But if you get enough of these strands braided, you got a damn strong rope. Strong enough to hang somebody. It’s not a platter case, but it is a damn strong case. We got him.”
“Then you’re done with it. It’s all wrapped up.” Alice knew well that if this case was, indeed, history as far as Tully was concerned, it meant only that he would be turning full attention to the next presented puzzle. But this case had been very special. She had never known Tully to be so absorbed in a murder case, even multiple murder. It had affected him deeply when he—as it turned out, mistakenly—assumed he was involved through the Bonner woman. But having become so intimately involved, there was no turning back from that early extraordinary commitment.
She was glad it was over.
Tully rose from the couch and began pacing before the fireplace.
“What is it, Zoo? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Nothing, really. Only that it’s not completely finished. We’ve still got the show-up to go through. The case doesn’t rise or fall on my two hookers making the priest, but it will be a bit weaker if they don’t, and one hell of a lot stronger if they do.”
“They will, Zoo,” Alice said, conscious that she had no strong basis to have an opinion on the subject.
“Yeah, they will. Sure they will.” But there was that small nagging doubt. He continued pacing.
“There’s more, isn’t there, Zoo?”
“The branding iron. That goddam branding iron.”
“You didn’t find it, eh?”
As far as Tully was concerned, Alice was the only one—outside of the authorities—who knew about the branding or exactly how the bodies had been mutilated.
“No,” Tully said. “We went over the car. Nothing. We went over the path he had to take to get into the apartment. Nothing.” He sipped the drink, which had barely cooled enough. “And that’s the smoking gun. If we could find that, Clarence Darrow himself wouldn’t be able to get him off
“Well, the car’s impounded. Our technicians are going to take it apart bolt by bolt if necessary. The damn thing could be hidden anywhere. It’s just two real thin pieces of metal and maybe a small wooden handle. It could easily be in three separate pieces. They could be attached—magnetically, maybe—to the engine, the wheels, the carburetor, the tank, anywhere. I only wish to hell he’d had the goddam thing sitting on the front seat.” He shook his head. “Life isn’t like that.” He snorted. “Not my life, anyway.”
“They’ll find it.”
“Yeah, they’ll find it.” He didn’t sound all that sure.
“Zoo, the news is back on. Come sit down. There’s Gerald Harrington. Isn’t that the lobby of Headquarters?”
“Yeah, that’s what it is, all right. Sunday evenings it’s the quietest place in the building.”
22
A very serious Gerald Harrington stood before the camera and sungun. Tall, very black, with a short Afro, handsome features and a deep resonant voice, he was one of the TV reporters Detroiters tended to give credence
