“I don’t?”
“This isn’t the first time we got fooled by some kind of scam.”
They had reached the exit. Tully was eager to leave and start the process that would, the sooner the better, free him to go home, get some tender loving care, and sleep-in that order.
Unfortunately, Mangiapane had begun a tale told out of school. Tully knew the story but he decided to endure it once again. He knew Mangiapane was telling the story for Koesler’s benefit. And, well, what the hell, the priest had been through an ordeal himself this evening. Maybe learning that he was not alone in failing for a fictional mystery scam would make Koesler feel better. The priest might get some sleep tonight but it would not be preceded by any tender loving care. Too bad, Tully thought, but that’s the way the collar buttons.
“This is a true story, Father,” Mangiapane continued. “It started when a guy got a piece of mail, no return address, just a plain piece of paper with threatening words all over it-like ‘murder,’ ‘kill,’ ‘an unsolved crime,’ ‘sudden death.’ The words looked like they came from newspapers, magazines, other publications. Just these words cut out.
“The guy couldn’t figure out why he got this threatening letter, but he was plenty scared. And he stayed scared, getting dead-bolt locks on his doors, double-checking the back seat of his car before getting in, parking near street lights at night, the whole thing.
“Then about ten days later, he gets another letter. Just like the first one, this has no return address. Just a plain envelope containing another plain piece of paper with threatening words cut out of various types of publications.
“By this time, the guy is scared enough to come to us. We took it pretty serious too. In fact we started an investigation. Sure enough, in another week, the guy gets another anonymous threatening letter. Now, none of these letters specifically threatens him personally; they’re just filled with life-threatening words. And we keep adding to the file.”
Koesler interrupted. “Did you put him under-what’s it called? — protective custody?”
Mangiapane chuckled. “You mean like they do in the movies, where almost an entire police department stops everything they’re doing and guards some potential victim for twenty-four-hour periods? So nobody can get close?”
The way Mangiapane rephrased the question, Koesler knew the answer was no.
“That just doesn’t happen in real life, Father,” Mangiapane said. “There’s no possible way we can protect anybody who decides he’s gonna do what he ordinarily does. If he’s gonna go to work, walk outside, go out to eat, his regular routine-he’s fair game.
“The only way we can protect somebody is if he agrees to retreat to a safe place. Say a hotel room or a jail cell. We’ve got to control the environment before we can offer secure protection.
“Anyway, this file we were keeping was filling out pretty good when, finally, he gets a piece of mail identical to the others, except this one promises the murder is gonna take place on Mackinac Island-at the Grand Hotel. And this time there’s a return address-a travel agency in Royal Oak.
“Needless to say, the guys working this case hopped right over to the agency and really rattled their cage.
“The thing turned out to be a brand new enterprise for the agency. They were sponsoring a ‘Mystery Weekend’ at the Grand Hotel. . not an awful lot different from your little psychodrama here. The agency was sending out fliers to likely customers. It turns out that this guy and we were the only ones who were taking it serious.
“When our guys were pinning this travel agent to the wall, all the poor guy could say was, ‘But it was just promotion.’ I can tell you one thing, Father: It’ll be a long time before that guy tries another tricky promotion like that.”
“And,” Tully added, “it’ll be a long time before we fall for another stunt like that. By the way, Father, that story was meant for your consolation-not for publication.”
“I can keep a secret,” Koesler assured.
“Yeah, you can, can’t you,” Tully replied.
“And,” Koesler added, as the two detectives were leaving the building, “thanks.”
Koesler returned to the dining area. Finding no one there, he assumed-correctly-that the others had retired for the night. He decided to do the same.
Before entering the room, he noticed a sign on the bulletin board advising that Mass would be at 8:00 a.m. in the chapel. On entering his room, he found a note from Sister Janet, asking him to say the morning Mass. The note had a postscript regarding the condition of Father Augustine: A doctor had pronounced him indisposed but very much alive.
It was only then that Koesler realized he had completely forgotten Father Augustine. He had moved from reported death to a healthy snore to a normal prognosis. Koesler had been so distracted by other developments that, for all practical purposes, Augustine’s condition had been blocked out. How soon they forget!
9
The mass, a reenactment of the Last Supper, is the core liturgical event of many Christian sects. In no religious expression is it more at the heart of everything than in Catholicism.
Catholics old enough to remember a time during and before the Second Vatican Council, will recall the expected routine of daily Mass. Virtually all priests offered Mass every day. Most parishes were staffed by more than one priest. Thus, most parishes had more than one scheduled Mass daily.
Nowadays it can be difficult to find parishes where Mass is offered daily. This reduction in the dependable frequency of Mass happened after-but not as a direct consequence of-Vatican II. The drastic and escalating shortage of priests, in no way foreseen by the Council, takes its toll on Daily Mass.
As challenging as it may be to find parishes with daily Mass, it is even more difficult locating parishes having more than one full-time parish priest. Parishes that traditionally had three, even four, assigned priests are now fortunate to have one.
People continue to get married and people continue to die. So weddings and funerals that used to be handled by a relative abundance of priests, now are the burden of the lonely pastor. Thus, to avoid being Massed to death, many pastors have cut back daily Mass to only a sprinkling of days in the typical week.
But there are a few holdouts still. Among these was Father Robert Koesler, who, no matter how many weddings and funerals accumulated, gleaned something special out of the sparsely attended early morning Mass. For him it was an appropriate time and an ideal way to commune with God.
It didn’t matter that Sister Janet had asked him to offer the 8:00 a.m. Mass. He would have been there anyway if only to concelebrate with whichever priest happened to have the Mass. As it happened, Marygrove’s chaplain had not yet returned from vacation; thus the invitation to Koesler.
At 7:30 he was kneeling in the ornate, vaulted chapel, gathering thoughts and prayers, taking stock of what yesterday had brought and what today might offer.
Last night he had been so relieved and grateful that the detectives were not angry at his blunder in calling them, and so exhausted from the Krieg-inspired psychodrama that he had drifted off to sleep earlier and slept even more soundly than was his custom at the rectory. So he felt extraordinarily refreshed as he prepared for Mass this morning.
Though distractions invaded his consciousness, he no longer fought them as he once had. By this time, they had become something with which one lived. Not infrequently they were welcomed in to become part of his prayer.
By any measurement, yesterday’s high point had been the nonmurder of Klaus Krieg. In his memory, Koesler could see clearly that clump of flesh lying on the floor, blood all over its clothing. I wonder, he thought, what they used for blood. Clever having those rivulets of red from the mouth and nostrils.
A question kept recurring and as often as it surfaced he rejected it. The question was, “Why?” Why had Krieg insisted on a psychodrama whose central theme was his own murder? Koesler kept dismissing the question because he had no acceptable answer for it.
