“Very well, I’m sorry to say. Thanks to the newest ‘miracle,’ today’s crowd is even bigger than yesterday’s. And we aren’t taking up a collection!”
Tully smiled. He was getting to know Koesler; from the priest’s tone of voice Tully knew that he was kidding.
“Today,” Koesler said hopefully, “should get the ball out of my court.” He used the tennis metaphor, though aware that he himself had never played the game seriously.
“How’s that?”
“The Cardinal appointed a committee of priests to examine-well, originally, the Green event. Now I guess they’ll have the second miraculous claim to investigate. Anyway, I am now able to refer all questions and requests for statements to the committee. And that gets me off the hook I’ve been on for the past day or so.”
Tully nodded. “So why’d you call me? I was thinking of coming, but your call cinched it.”
“Maybe it was ESP. I know you’re working on the case and I thought you might get something from the conference. But, more than that, I invited the pastor of the parish that Theresa Waleski lives in. He’s a very private person. I think the media are learning that they’re not going to get anything out of him.”
“Will he talk to us?”
“He will to me. And he’ll talk to you because you’re with me. We aren’t real tight, but we are friends in a casual way. He should be here soon. Besides,” he added jokingly, “I told him I’d get him in here for the conference.”
“Get him in here? I flashed a badge. How did you get in?”
“I flashed a roman collar.”
“And this other priest won’t have one?”
“He most certainly will. The guards he has to get past are security people hired by the seminary. They’ll let anyone in priestly garb in. But”-he grinned-” Father Weber doesn’t know that.”
Tully looked skeptical.
“For the most part,” Koesler explained, “people, including priests, see a news conference on TV. Most people haven’t been physically present at such a gathering. It’s something they’d like to see firsthand. I guessed that Dave Weber would be one of those. And I was right: He was a little reluctant to come here without the bait of a news conference.
“Needless to say, he’s in much the same situation as I am-he’s being hounded to answer questions, to make statements. And the demands are coming from parishioners, the curious, and, of course, the news media. So he was eager to get out of his pressure cooker of a parish. And, there was the added boon of attending a real-life news conference.”
The creases around Tully’s eyes crinkled. “Just what are you going to do when this guy-Father Weber-gets here and finds out that his collar is the ticket and he can walk right in?”
“I told him to wait for me at the door to the parlor … that I’d escort him in from there. So if I get up in a hurry, it’s because I’ve spotted Dave.”
Tully nodded and quietly chuckled.
“Has your investigation turned up anything?” Koesler asked.
“Moore and Mangiapane have been doing most of the legwork. I’ve been tied up with a couple of other pressing cases. They’ve got some good interviews. Jake Cameron was pretty tight-lipped. Some of his associates weren’t. Seems Cameron’s been screwed by Green lots of times. The latest threat has Cameron losing control of his girlie bars. And that’s the last thing in the world he wants. It could be a solid motive to get Green.”
“But you don’t know yet that there’s even been any crime committed … do you?”
“No. But if we could ever establish that there was an attempt on his life, we’ll be well ahead of the game in having some suspects.”
As Tully spoke, he studied Koesler’s face. Some of the people Mangiapane and Moore had interrogated had spoken freely to the priest. Tully wondered what Koesler’s reaction might be with regard to what the police had learned.
“The daughter,” Tully said, “was in a tight corner, too. Green was furious that she intended to marry an African-American. That much we got from her. From some friends of Cameron we got the reason why Green could threaten the girl. Something about a film featuring her and Cameron. Apparently, Green was warning her that if she went through with this wedding, he would put the kibosh on the couple’s careers by showing this film to the right people. Another strong motive, if it comes to that.”
So far Koesler had exhibited no untoward reaction.
“The son and the wife are caught up in a monkey-in-the-middle game with Green shifting inheritance money from one to the other. That part needs some more work.
“Then there’s that young couple you spoke with. The young man’s only connection to Green seems to be the young woman. They plan to marry. Seems the woman was once Green’s mistress. He dumped her. She’s still plenty bitter and, like sympathy pains, so’s the young man.”
So, Koesler thought, Claire and her young man had not revealed the abortion and hysterectomy. Well, undoubtedly, they felt that was a very private matter.
Tully caught the momentary flicker: Koesler had reacted to something concerning Claire McNern and/or Stan Lacki. Tully said nothing.
“The people you just mentioned are the five people I spoke with at the wake. Your people didn’t talk to any others?” Koesler asked.
“Sure we did. But, somehow, all roads led to those five-”
“Uh-oh: There’s Father Weber-standing in the doorway over there. I’d better go get him.” Koesler rose and hastily made his way toward the door.
Tully checked out the newcomer.
Father Weber wore a black topcoat over a black suit and that miraculous admission ticket, the roman collar. Tully estimated him to be in his fifties or sixties. His hair was turning from gray to white. He was in bad, almost desperate, need of aid. A wife might have helped-if she was fastidious.
Weber’s topcoat was the real-life clerical equivalent to that of Columbo, the fictional TV detective. It was beyond repair. It would have been a mercy to throw it away or burn it; giving it to some charitable organization would be an insult to the needy.
As Weber shed his coat, Tully could see that the priest’s black suit was hardly in better condition. It was baggy, badly wrinkled, and the nearer Weber came, the more evident its spots became.
Even his collar … Hitherto Tully would not have thought it possible for a mere collar to be in such sad shape. After all, it was only a small white plastic tab that was inserted in a black clerical shirt. Perhaps in an inadvertent moment, Weber had laid the collar on a chair and someone had sat on it.
In all, if Koesler had not identified and escorted Father Weber into this parlor, Tully might have suspected some bum was masquerading as a priest.
Despite Father Weber’s ludicrous appearance, Tully knew that this was an important moment. The fact that the policeman in no way believed in miracles did not mean that miracles couldn’t happen. History provided innumerable instances of this sort of thing.
People as a whole had not believed the world was round. People as a whole had not believed the sun, rather than the earth, was the center of our galaxy. Surgeons as a whole hadn’t thought it necessary to operate with clean hands.
The point being that it did not matter that people as a whole believed or disbelieved these things. They were facts. And nothing could change that.
So, as it happened, Tully did not believe in miracles. That did not mean that miracles couldn’t happen. And Tully knew it.
It also had been made crystal clear that the Catholic Church was only slightly less reluctant than he to accept any phenomenon as a miracle. The bottom line: If the Church were to accept the apparent cure of this crippled woman as a miracle, it would then more likely take the Green event more seriously-maybe even accept as miraculous the doctor’s “resurrection.”
And there is no crime in a miracle. And Tully knew that, too.
Then again, like the people who didn’t believe the world was round, who didn’t believe in heliocentricity, who didn’t believe in antisepsis, Tully, in dismissing miracles out of hand, could be wrong.
