Marked for Murder: The Father Koesler Mysteries:

“Anyway, Mr. Steward thinks he has a great future.”

“Another Tommy Hearns?”

“Who’s Tommy Hearns?”

“You may be right, Al. Maybe M’Zulu’s getting tied up with Kronk was a bit of an accident.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Uh-huh. What weight’s he gonna fight at?”

“What what?”

“It was an accident. Is he gonna be a flyweight, middleweight, welterweight? What?”

“Oh, that. Mr. Steward says with some decent food and dedicated conditioning he can become a very good heavyweight.”

Tully whistled. “Another Joe Louis!” Pause. “You do know who Joe Louis was?”

“Of course, silly. He’s the guy they built the monument to—the fist—on Jefferson.”

“That’s it—the Brown Bomber. Well, Al, if Steward is right—and he usually is—in a few years M’Zulu will be able to buy and sell us.”

“Really! There’s that much money in it?”

“If a guy really makes it, more than basketball.”

“Wow.”

“Indeed! It’s times like this I kind of envy you, Al.”

“How so?”

“You really work at rehabilitating people. We can joke about it but M’Zulu was on a direct approach toward my department. He’s already got an impressive record: assault, battery, B&E, car theft. He was one step from getting in over his head in drugs. And after that it was almost sure that he would either kill or be killed.

“But you reached him, got him into Kronk. Now if Steward stays on his case, the kid’ll stay clean. That’s not bad for a day’s work, Al.”

“That’s nice, Zoo . . . good words. But you shouldn’t put yourself down. Take M’Zulu, for instance. Supposing he hadn’t gotten into Kronk. Supposing his life had gone the way you just outlined it. Once he got a gun and maybe killed somebody, where would he stop? He’d be a killer and one more threat to innocent lives in this city. You’d be the one to stop him. You’d solve one of your ‘puzzles,’ as you like to call them, and get him off the streets.”

“Yeah, get ’im off the streets.” They passed the University of Detroit campus—almost home. “Get ’im off the streets. Like I got Kramer off the streets.”

“That was different, Zoo. You haven’t closed that case yet ... I mean, in your own mind you haven’t closed it.”

“Sure I have. He’s locked up. We got our man. That’s all she wrote.”

Alice hesitated. “You mentioned him in your sleep the other night.”

“Huh?”

“You said his name while you were sleeping.”

Tully grinned. “Alice, do you realize I wouldn’t know that I talk in my sleep if it weren’t for you.”

“You don’t.”

“But you just said—”

“That’s why it was so out of the ordinary: You don’t talk in your sleep. At least I’ve never heard you. Until the other night when you said his name.”

“What else did I say?”

“Nothing . . . just his name.”

“I’ll be damned!”

“You told me that once the puzzle was solved you didn’t think about the case anymore. It made sense to me. The thing about how the courts can screw everything up so you don’t put any faith in that system . . . that your interest stops when you solve the puzzle.”

Tully seemed lost in thought. “You’re right on both counts, Al. Ordinarily, I leave the case on the prosecutor’s doorstep and never think about it again. If I testify in court, so be it. But I don’t give a damn.” He frowned. “For some reason, this one’s different.”

“Is it because the first woman was your snitch and you thought there was a link? That that might be the reason she was killed?”

“Partly, I guess. That’s definitely what got me into this thing on a personal basis. Yeah, I guess that’s part of it.

“But then the fact that this guy was either a preacher or pretending to be one really reached me. It’s like when you find a bad cop. Who you gonna turn to when it’s a cop who’s muggin’ or rapin’ you? A preacher or a priest is the same thing. Your instinct is to trust a preacher man. The ladies who went with Kramer were confident—in a line of work where there can be little confidence, where there is plenty of danger. He tricked them. He lulled them. Then he killed them. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, he gutted them and branded them like cows.

“He really reached me. I’m gonna follow him right through circuit court, right up to the goddam Supreme Court, if it goes that far. I want to nail that guy.”

Alice sensed the cold chill of Tully’s anger.

“Will it hurt . . . I mean, will it weaken the case that the branding iron hasn’t been found?”

“Who knows? No telling what a judge or jury will do. We got enough evidence without the damn iron. But once it gets to court . . . who knows?”

“Still looking for it?”

“Promise you won’t tell?

“What?”

“If Walt knew how many people I got lookin’ for that iron, he’d piss kielbasa. Fortunately, in the past few days we’ve had a bunch of platter cases . . . just paperwork, no puzzles. So we’ve been able to fudge a bit and keep lookin’ for the iron. Took the car to pieces and put it back together again. And the hell of it is, it might still be in there. There are so many places to hide a couple of real thin metallic rods in a car. The guys combed it, but— nothin’.”

“Maybe it just isn’t in there.”

“Always a possibility. That’s why I got every spare on the squad goin’ through the rectory and the church. But you know, in the church basement Kramer’s got a workroom with everything you’d need to make an iron like that. Oh, it’s somewhere, all right. But where? I’d sure as hell like to turn it up before the trial. Like I said, we don’t need it. But it sure would help to have it. The final nail in the coffin.”

“Do you have to put it just that way?”

“Tender? Don’t tell me you can’t believe a priest would do this.”

“Well, I’d prefer to think a priest didn’t do it. But if it’s believing in Father Kramer or you, you know whose team I’m on.”

“That’s better.”

Tully backed the Pontiac into the side drive so, should the necessity arise, he could get out in a hurry.

Before leaving the house, he had turned the thermostat down. The first thing he did on reentering was to readjust it upward to sixty-eight degrees. “God, this has been a cold day! First the ice rink, now the house.”

Alice came up from behind and threw her arms about his waist. “I’ll warm things up for you, lover. Besides, for being such a good sport today, you deserve a good long back rub.”

“I’d hate to tell you what part of my back needs the rub.”

“I know. I watched you fall on it this afternoon.”

The phone rang.

As Tully reached for the receiver, he said, “If this call’s for me, I got a hunch I’m gonna need a rain check on the back rub . . . dammit.” He had made it crystal-clear to his squad that when he was off duty he was to be contacted only for puzzles, not for platters.

“Zoo? Mangiapane.”

“Uh-huh.” Tully had recognized his voice.

“Zoo, all hell broke loose this afternoon.”