Man Who Loved God

Then he calmed down. Regardless, I think I got close to a major problem for the bank and for you.

I feel better now that I’ve told you; I know you’ll be able to handle it-

“Of course …” Adams interrupted the priest’s reading. “I couldn’t understand why we were showing such a profit. But he wasn’t building a golden parachute. No, more than likely he was creating a false sense of security: he was paving the way for a takeover.”

Father Tully nodded, and returned to the letter.

Any other secret I may have is mine alone. Just please trust that there is no other problem that will interfere with the happiness of our marriage-that is, if you still want me.

None of you four knew about the others. There is always the possibility that they will learn. That’s why I wanted you to hear it from me.

I await your response.

With love,

Barbara

Oh, my! Father Tully had suspected something was going on between Barbara and the executives, but-oh, my!

He puzzled over her statement, Any other secret I may have is mine alone. One would think that after the first momentous secret, there couldn’t be too many more. Evidently, the final secret seemingly was not of a nature liable to disrupt an otherwise happy marriage.

Father Tully could not know what only Joyce Hunter’s husband and daughter knew-that Barbara was a lesbian.

“Would you?” the priest asked. “Would you have married Barbara knowing what is in this letter?”

Adams blinked several times as if returning from profound abstraction. “Would I have married her? Of course. She was carrying my child. I am not without sin. Who is?”

Silence.

“I am grateful to you, Father,” Adams said finally, wearily. “You and you alone stopped me from doing something foolish and wrong. How did you know …? How did you know what I was about to do? How did you know where I was?”

Tully pondered the questions. All that was on his mind, all that had come to him in an extended blinding flash was not yet coordinated to the point where he could explain it logically.

But he would try to address Adams’s questions. “The police were working on the theory that if they found the father of Barbara’s child, they would also have her killer-the idea being that the father didn’t want the baby, so he killed both mother and child.

“But when you claimed that you were the father and also claimed that you hadn’t killed Barbara, I believed you were telling the truth. That destroyed the hypothesis that the father of the child had killed its mother. As good a theory as that was in providing a motive for the killing, since you are the father and you did not kill Barbara, there had to be another motive for her murder.

“Then you told me you had just received a letter from her. You said you’d call me right back. When you didn’t, I called you. Your secretary said you’d left your office.

“Why would you have done that? Why hadn’t you returned the call? It had to have something to do with that letter. Barbara had to have written something that greatly disturbed you-enough to force you to some sort of action. Maybe she guessed who her killer would be? Whatever, it was something cataclysmic, I was sure of that.

“I called Sergeant Mangiapane and then I got here as fast as I could.”

The priest had Adams’s attention. “But how did you know where to find me? If you had been a minute or two later, I would have done the most foolhardy thing in my entire life.”

“That was more luck than anything. I was looking on your desk for Barbara’s letter when I spotted the word you had written on a scrap of paper.”

“‘Judas’?”

“Yes-Judas. An odd word to scribble. But it told me you were after someone you felt had betrayed you. I recalled what you had told me at your banquet: how your bank was not one of the conglomerates, but that the big banks were always out looking for smaller banks to devour.

“You were dedicated to keeping the bank financially alive and well. Yours is a family bank and you are dedicated to keeping it that way. You even belong to the Independent Bankers Association to join with other independents who want to avoid forced mergers.

“I knew from talking to Jack Fradet and others at your dinner that his job as comptroller of this bank is, among other things, to gather information and to assess the financial status of the bank. If he gave you the wrong information, misinformed you, the bank could be weakened-a ready victim for a takeover.

“He’s the one who could best play the traitor. You went looking for him. I went looking for you.”

Adams nodded slowly. “When I read in Barbara’s letter about Fradet’s reaction to her bluff, everything fell into place. I had thought the bank was having some extraordinary good fortune. That misinformation led us into one mode of business while we should actually have been going in the opposite direction. He deliberately set us up for disaster.

“After I read her letter I immediately checked the books. Now that I was looking for it and knew what to look for, I saw what Jack had done. I could have killed him!” He shook his head sadly. “I almost did.”

“And this gives the police a different motive for Barbara’s murder,” said Father Tully. “She died not because she was carrying the killer’s child, but because the murderer believed-falsely-that Barbara Ulrich was onto his game.”

“Now … if only they can prove it,” Adams said.

“What’s going on here?” A demanding Zoo Tully stood in the doorway.

His brother looked up brightly. “Have we got some stories to tell you!

Twenty-Six

More than he could express, Father Tully deeply appreciated this farewell dinner.

This was by no means his first send-off celebration. In his twenty years as, in effect, a missionary priest, he had periodically been transferred from parish to parish.

Such priestly passages could prove financially rewarding, as soon-to-be-former parishioners sponsored a party at which gifts were given. But congregations in parishes serviced by a Josephite priest usually could afford only gifts of prayer and affection-actually sufficient for just about any truly dedicated priest.

This evening’s leave-taking was especially significant because the participants were those with whom Father Tully had bonded to varying degrees in his brief stay in Detroit.

There was Father Koesler, back from vacation and eager to get back to the helm of his parish. Inspector Koznicki and his wife, Wanda, were the hosts. Rounding out the company was Lieutenant Tully-the brother who had become a brother-and Anne Marie, who was all a real sister should be.

The dinner bore Wanda’s hallmark: good plain food prepared and served with love. As the clambakers in Carousel sang, “The vittles we et were good, you bet/The company was the same.” Throughout, all joined in the conversation, which was, by turns, warm, witty, thoughtful, and stimulating.

When eventually the plates were empty, still no one made a move to leave the table, which was being cleared by Wanda and Anne Marie, assisted by the lumbering Walt Koznicki. Dessert and coffee were coming up.

Father Koesler had been surprised, indeed amazed, that his standin had been involved in a murder investigation. Was such clerical assistance in police work, he wondered, endemic to St. Joe’s? Or was it just to a Koesler pastorate?

It must, he decided, be the latter. For in succeeding parishes, Father Koesler had been involved in this sort of thing almost as an annual adventure. And here was Father Zachary Tully at a Koesler parish for only a few days and, voila! in a mystery up to his collar.

So much had been going on with Tom Adams and Jack Fradet and the Adams Bank people, as well as with the police and the prosecutor’s office, that Koesler had a lot of lingering questions. With the table clearing causing a