“Actively?”
“Eminence, I may in the past have been a resource for the police when there was a strong element of Catholicism or religion involved in an investigation. But the archbishop was entirely correct in assuming that I did not dive right in and volunteer my services. He wanted me to do so in this case, He said he would pray for me.”
“And did you?”
“Did I …?”
“Dive right in as he asked you to?”
“Eminence, that was just yesterday. I have been thinking about it. But to be perfectly frank, I haven’t the slightest notion where to begin. I truly believe Archbishop Foley is in a much better position in heaven to have his prayers answered, but no manner of inspiration is getting through to me.”
Cardinal Boyle swiveled his chair so that he was looking out the window at a once-posh Washington Boulevard. He was deep in thought. Koesler did not intrude.
At length, Boyle spoke. “Father, it is beyond my dominion to commission you or assign you the task of ‘diving right in’ as you put it. But I would like you to.”
“You would?” During their association, Cardinal Boyle had assigned Koesler to a number of diverse jobs, Strangest of all, given his lack of journalistic training, had been the assignment as editor-in-chief of the
“Does this surprise you?” Boyle asked.
“I’m flabbergasted.”
“I had given some consideration to asking this of you. However, I don’t think in the end I would have asked you if you had not told me of Archbishop Foley’s request. I feel we owe this to him … to his memory,”
“Well, I’m … impressed. I’d like to tell you that with a double episcopal commission, I am indeed about to dive right in. But I still haven’t the foggiest idea of where to begin,”
“We must trust in Divine Providence.”
“Yes, Eminence, but-”
The phone rang. Boyle pushed the intercom speaker button.
“Excuse the interruption, your Eminence,” came the unmistakable voice of the Cardinal’s secretary, “but there is a call for Father Koesler. It’s from a Lieutenant Tully of the Police Department. I wouldn’t have disturbed you, but the lieutenant said it was urgent.”
For the first time this morning, Boyle smiled. “An answer to prayer?”
Koesler picked up the phone. “Your place or mine?”
25
“The tendency now is to panic,” Tully said.
He and Koesler were seated on opposite sides of the desk in the priest’s office in St. Joseph’s rectory. Tully had requested they meet here to avoid the intense traffic, noise, and confusion of police headquarters.
“Everybody wants this case closed yesterday,” Tully continued. “So far, the news media have been having fun with the story. Now that the old bishop got killed they’re acting like for the first time we got to get serious about this thing. A gentle old man gets killed for no apparent reason and right away they want a body on the gallows. The media reached the mayor, who makes a grandstand play of seeming to assign every cop in the city to the case. That’s when everything hits the fan and there’s a tendency to panic. But that’s a blunder. So I want to have a very cool-headed conversation with you and figure a few more things out.”
“I’ll help any way I can,” Koesler said. He had no intention of mentioning to Tully anything about his recent conversations with Archbishops Foley and Boyle.
“If you’re going to be a help on this case, you’ve got to know most of what we know. And then I want to know everything you know,” Tully added.
“First off, we had what I thought was an excellent lead that doesn’t seem to be working out. Unless that lead gets hot again, mere’s no reason we have to go over it now. It’s enough to say that that lead has nothing to do with the Church.
“Something you should know,” Tully continued, “is how Foley was killed.”
“It was different from the others? I didn’t hear anything about that in the news.”
“We didn’t release that information. It was an execution-style killing.”
“Execution-style? I-”
“The bullet entered from the top of the skull, The old man was forced to kneel and then he was shot from behind, like some poor sucker who crossed the mob. I don’t know why the killer had to do that; as far as I can tell, the poor guy didn’t do anything to anybody.”
“Kneeling …” Koesler said, barely audibly. “Imaybedead wrong, but I don’t think the bishop was forced to kneel.”
“Not forced-? Then what? Praying?”
“I think it’s that exacdy. I think the bishop asked to say a last prayer when he knew he was going to die. And it sort of fits the profile of your suspects.”
Tully reacted as if he’d been stung. “Suspects? What suspects?”
“Uh-oh …”
“What suspects? What have you heard?”
“Only that two men are under suspicion.” Koesler yielded before Tully’s hard gaze. “Arnold Carson and Fred Stapleton.”
“Where did you hear that?”
Koesler hesitated. “A priest.”
“Damn leaks! We don’t have the time to find them-now. Later. Okay, if Carson and Stapleton are suspects, why would that fit in with the way Foley was killed?”
“Only that diey both are-it sounds kind of illogical when we’re talking about a murderer-but they both are rather deeply religious, even at opposite extremes of the spectrum. I mean-as you said, Lieutenant-there was no reason anyone Would want to turn this murder into an execution. Particularly since Helen Donovan and Larry Hoffer were not dealt with in that manner. That, plus the bishop’s deep spirituality, makes it likely that he wasn’t forced to kneel. He probably asked to do so-if he didn’t do so instinctively.
“The thing is,” Koesler added, “if what we’re supposing actually happened, the request was granted. It’s safe to assume that an ordinary killer, far from being inclined to grant such a request, would probably be anxious to get it over with and get away as quickly as he could
Tully nodded.
“So,” Koesler said, “only someone with a rather strong confidence in prayer-a strong faith, as it were-would be moved to let the bishop have the time to pray. The killer would be risking detection the longer he held the bishop at gunpoint. It was, after all, right out in the open. Anybody could have happened along. As a matter of fact, if this morning’s newscast was accurate, that’s how the bishop’s body was discovered, wasn’t it? A passerby coming home late last night noticed the body on the sidewalk … no?”
Tully nodded again.
“Well,” Koesler said, “to tell the truth, I can’t imagine either Carson or Fred actually killing anybody-let alone a bishop. But if either were going to do it and the bishop asked for time to pray, I could easily imagine that either one would let him do it-no matter what complications that might cause.”
“Okay,” Tully said. “I guess that makes sense.” More sense than the previously held theory that the murder had been a ritualistic execution, he thought.
This was working out rather well. Koesler had begun by making sense of nonsense. He might be of more help than Tully had anticipated. In any case, at this stage of the investigation, and given the pressure to close the case, Koesler was Tully’s sole guide.
“Now,” Tully proceeded, “let me spell out the basic problem we’ve got here. What we’ve got is a serial killer.
