And I don’t know whether he’s still alive. But with all those questions hanging in midair, I gave him absolution.”
“If it worked, I’m godda-uh, sure he needed it,” Rughurst added.
One by one, a series of officers made their way to what amounted to a command center, with a special agent of the FBI, an inspector and a lieutenant, both of the DPD’s Homicide Division.
“This Lamar Burt,” the first officer reported, “he’s got a full house rap sheet. Everything from loitering when he was a kid, to robbery, robbery armed, carjacking, attempted murder. He’s been inside better than half his life. He is-was-twenty-seven.” The report ended, the officer departed, to be shortly replaced by another officer.
“We found a stash in the house … looks to be better than seven or eight G’s. We’re talking to the woman. She’s been with him off and on for about five years. They’re both crackheads. Sometimes it gets a little hairy. Like today, he was bouncing her off the wall. She thought he was going to kill her. That’s when she called 911. She didn’t know he was wanted-not till we showed up and he started shooting.”
“Was he with her this morning?” Koznicki asked.
“No. He left real early this morning. She said he’d been casing some place … he wouldn’t tell her what or where. He got back here midmorning. He was really pissed. Whatever he’d tried to pull off evidently hadn’t worked. He was furious. He snorted some coke and then started on her.”
“She got any idea where the cash came from?” Rughurst asked.
“No, sir. She never knows how much he has in there or where it comes from. It’s really like a bank to him. He withdraws and invests. She tried to get hold of it once, just to see how much he had. He nearly broke her arm. We told her about the nearly eight thousand dollars in the beanbag now. She wasn’t impressed … she’s sure it’s held more, but seldom less.”
“No way of telling whether there was a recent big deposit?” Rughurst asked. “Maybe five grand? Maybe for a hit? Somebody took out a contract? Anything like that?”
The officer thought for a moment. “I don’t think anybody asked her that specifically. I’ll check that out and get right back to you.”
A third officer approached. “No surprise, he’s got an arsenal in there. But one of the guns he was firing when he jumped out of the house just now was a nine millimeter-same caliber used in the bank killing this morning. It’s on its way to ballistics.”
“Great.”
The second officer returned. “I asked her. She thinks he’d of told her if he had a contract. Far as she knows, he’s never had a contract. But she was kinda spacey. I think she’s talkin’ now because she’s scared shitless. She’d tell you anything she thought you wanted to hear whether she knew the answer or not.”
The three officers looked at each other. “Well,” Rughurst said to Koznicki, “what d’ya think?”
The inspector glanced at Zoo. “There are no witnesses to the shooting in the bank this morning. We do have film showing a portion of the perpetrator’s body. We will check that. I would not be surprised if Lamar Burt is still wearing the same clothing he wore this morning.”
“We got solid leads that name Burt as the perp,” Zoo said. “He didn’t open up on us just because his woman called 911.
“I think,” Tully added, “it comes down to the gun. If we can match any of Burt’s weapons with the bullet that killed Ulrich, I think we got our guy.”
“What about the possibility that Burt was hired-that there was a contract on Ulrich?” Rughurst said.
“There is no suggestion of that in any part of our investigation,” Koznicki responded. “There is a considerable amount of money in the house-but no indication where it came from. His woman states that, to her knowledge, Burt has never been offered a contract. She thinks that if he had been, he would have told her.”
“So, then, what d’ya say? Does this wrap it up?” Rughurst didn’t want to hang around.
Koznicki looked at Lieutenant Tully. Tully nodded.
“Subject to all of our hypotheses proving true,” the inspector said, “we are satisfied. This should close the case.”
Rughurst compressed his lips and nodded curtly. “Done!” He headed out.
Lieutenant Tully turned to his brother. “Listen, I’m sorry about dinner tonight. I can’t possibly make it. You can go along with the others. There’re just a lot of loose ends here that have to be tied up.”
Koznicki studied his watch and murmured, “It is getting late. However …”
The ball appeared to be in Father Tully’s court. Obviously the only reason any of them would meet for dinner would be for his benefit.
“You’re right: It
“Listen,” Zoo said brightly, “why don’t we plan to get together tomorrow morning, say about nine for brunch. Anne Marie should, be free. How ’bout you, Walt?”
“That would suit me perfectly, as far as I can tell now. Would you be free then, Father? Would you be done with your liturgical planning?
“I’d better be. Or the ghost of Father Koesler will haunt me. Besides, the Saturday Mass is late afternoon.”
“Then it’s a date,” Zoo said. “… or at least as far as a homicide detective can promise.”
Koznicki turned to Father Tully. “Your brother has much to do here, Father. If it is agreeable with you, I will drive you back to the rectory.”
“I’d be grateful.”
As Koznicki and Father Tully began their drive, the priest was acutely aware of the modulation of his adrenal glands. Headed to the scene of today’s confrontation, Father Tully had been in his own personal fast lane- hyperconscious of his surroundings, the neighborhoods they had whizzed through, the traffic lights they ran.
Now, everything had eased up into normal time passage. His breath came at a much more relaxed rate.
Out of the blue Koznicki chuckled. “These past few days have been a rather intense welcome to Detroit, have they not, Father? This is not the manner in which we welcome all our guests, especially clergymen.”
“I know that, Inspector. This was supposed to be a sort of vacation for me. Somewhat different from the more traditional vacation your friend Father Koesler is enjoying-or enduring, as the case maybe.
“I was sent here by my religious superior to present an award and, also, to meet my family for the first time. That was all I was looking forward to. There was so much catching up to do I thought there’d be no time for anything else. I wasn’t counting on the freeway shooting of a police officer. And I certainly had no thought that I’d witness a barricaded gunman actually get killed.”
Koznicki grew solemn. “No one wanted to see that confrontation end the way it did. Our officers are very carefully trained and selected for the chief virtue they must exhibit in such situations.”
“Patience?”
“Exactly. The temptation when dealing with desperate and frightened people is to run out of that precise virtue. Our patience must Outlast their impatience.
“Today’s experience was a good example of that dynamic in reality. Mr. Burt was the one who broke the line of communication. That young man started down the road to a fatality when he hung up the phone. Tragic!” Koznicki’s tone softened. “But tell me, Father, did you really absolve the young man?”
“Yes. It was almost a reflex response. I recall well the priest who taught us moral theology. He was a Navy chaplain in World War II. He was stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. He told us that once, during the last phase of the war, a kamikaze dove for his ship. And-in my teacher’s own well-chosen words-I gave conditional absolution to the sonuvabitch before he hit the deck.’”
Koznicki laughed aloud.
“I’ve got to say,” the priest continued, “I’ve never heard a more generous act of forgiveness. I mean, when someone is trying to sink your ship and kill you … to pick that time to pray for forgiveness for him … well, I thought that was darn near heroic.
“But I did gain some insight today. That response of forgiveness does become a bit of a reflex action. He wasn’t as focused as a kamikaze pilot, but that young man could have killed someone in his wild shooting. I guess a priest’s training as well as his daily experience places the soul over the body in importance. That’s just the way it goes.”
