which they would of course attest. And, voila! Perfect grounds for the simplest of annulments.
Only one further consideration. The Pietrangelos were having difficult financial times; could they afford the process?
Again Koesler was able to deliver good news. In the matter of annulments, more often than not there was no happy news. So he was particularly pleased that this woman had a case that would require only the simplest and least complicated procedures in the annulment field. And it would not cost her a penny.
He was uncertain how many dioceses footed the bill for Tribunal fees, but he hoped they all followed Detroit’s example. Here, the local Church court simply charged nothing for cases that remained on the local level. About the only matter that had to be sent to Rome was the Privilege of the Faith case, which involved not a declaration of nullity, but a dissolution of a nonsacramental marriage in favor of one between two Catholics. While a Privilege of the Faith case was extremely complex-having to prove that a baptism never happened-and quite expensive, the Detroit Tribunal absorbed the cost. The sole procedure not covered by this policy was an appeal; anyone wishing to appeal a decision was on his or her own financially.
By assuring Mrs. Pietrangelo that she had an excellent chance to have her marriage convalidated and further assuring her that the process would be free of charge, Koesler had made her day. And because she was extremely happy about all this, so was Koesler. Almost.
There was still the matter of having to “help” Lieutenant Tully solve a mystery, the solution to which Koesler already knew. Boxed in as he was by the sacred seal of confession, he was skating on the thinnest of ice. He had never been in a situation precisely like this in his entire life. He would have to be more alert and guarded than he had ever been.
Certainly more astute than he’d been with Marlene Pietrangelo. She was by no means the first person who had fooled him by disguising her actual motive behind a smoke screen. A few pointed questions would have brought out the fact that it was her marital state that troubled her, not some hypothetical disagreement with Catholic morality.
Koesler was in the process of psyching himself up to cope with the unpredictable questions and unintentional pitfalls that Tully would throw at him, when the doorbell rang. With a prayer to the Holy Spirit for guidance, Koesler went to let Tully in.
But Tully remained on the porch. “I wonder if you can go with me to St. Waldo’s. We can talk on the way. And there’s something I’d like you to do for me when we get there. Can you go now?”
“Well, sure … just wait till I get my coat and hat.”
Tully was wearing neither hat nor coat. He considered this to be a fine September day. Cool, yet not cold. But to every man his distinct metabolism.
Once in the car and on their way, Tully asked, “What time do you have to be back?”
“Oh, there’s no hurry. I don’t have an appointment until 7:00 this evening.”
“Then you don’t have any daily service?”
“Mass? Yes, as a matter of fact. At noon. But Father Dunn agreed to take it.”
“You’ve got an assistant?” Tully was given to think priests were an endangered species. But then he’d asked Koesler aboard for the very reason that he knew very little about this subject.
“No, no.” Koesler shook his head, almost dislodging his hat. They didn’t make cars for tall men wearing hats. “I doubt St. Joseph’s will ever have an associate pastor again.”
Tully put that bit of trivia in his computerlike memory. They aren’t called assistants. They’re associate pastors.
“There’s a young priest from Minnesota come to live with me while he studies at U of D. Fortunately, he doesn’t have classes on Tuesdays until late afternoon.” Under no circumstances was Koesler going to volunteer the information that Dunn had selected Old St. Joe’s for his headquarters because he wanted to grow up to be an amateur detective. In that direction lay a can of worms.
“Oh, well, now, there’s an assist-an associate at St. Waldo’s,” Tully said.
Koesler smiled. “St. Waldo’s is in a class by itself. It may be the wealthiest parish in the archdiocese. There are quite a number of Catholic families in the parish boundaries. They are used to prompt service and I guess they get it.” He paused. “But maybe I’m being too simplistic. They’ve got an associate and dependable weekend help not so much because the parishioners are wealthy but because there are so many Catholics there.” Another pause. “Of course they don’t have a school … oh, forget it, Lieutenant: They have an associate because the Cardinal sent them one.”
Tully nodded. Actually, Koesler’s fumbling stream of consciousness revealed more about parish structure and Church politics than the priest was aware of. Tully also noted that Koesler invariably called him Lieutenant. Which reminded him that even though Walt Koznicki and Koesler were good friends, they always addressed each other by their respective titles. If that was the case, thought Tully, it was a cinch that he and Koesler would never be on a first-name basis. He could live with that.
“When I talked to you last night,” Tully said, “I asked if you knew Father Keating. But I didn’t establish how well you know him.”
It was a statement, not a question. But Koesler answered anyway. “Pretty well. Jake Keating was just a few years younger than I-”
“Was? Why past tense?”
Tully was quick. Koesler already knew that, but he wasn’t prepared for the question. “I don’t know, Lieutenant. I guess because I was thinking back to when we were teenagers. And I guess because he’s missing … that plus the fact that the Homicide Department is investigating. But you’re right, and thank God you are. Okay, well, Jake is a few years younger than I. We were in the seminary together for something like nine years. And then, of course, we were together off and on since then. So, all in all, our relationship goes back almost forty years.”
“That long!”
“In total years, yes. But we were never what might be called good friends. We are friendly, but not particularly close. Especially these past few years.”
“East few years?”
Koesler wondered if Tully was consciously using a psychological ploy of the reflective mirror.
“Maybe about ten years,” Koesler said. “Just about from the time he became pastor of St. Waldo’s.”
“Is that usual? That a couple of priests would part company because one of them became a pastor?”
Koesler scratched his chin. “Hard to say. I was a pastor before Jake became one. But we still saw each other socially occasionally. Waldo’s just sort of swallowed Jake. That sometimes happens; the demands on a priest’s time can vary from one assignment to another.”
“Tell me about him, starting from when you knew him in the seminary. I want to get to know this guy, what makes him tick … what might contribute to whatever has happened to him.”
Koesler thought a moment. This seemed a safe area. But he’d still have to be cautious. Tully, as he had just demonstrated, was incredibly perceptive.
“Well, Jake came from a decidedly upper-middle-class family,” Koesler began. “Most of us Catholic kids who crowded into the seminary in those days-the forties-came from lower-middle-to middle-class homes. Jake’s family was definitely on a level well above most, if not just about all of us. His dad was an executive at General Motors, and the family lived in St. Mary’s of Redford parish on the west side-Grand River near Southfield.”
Tully nodded. He knew that neighborhood well. It had changed. There were no GM execs living there anymore.
“It’s hard to explain what the seminary was like. You sort of had to be there,” Koesler continued. “We were all in it together. We were all governed by the same rules and standards. We were all expected to achieve set levels in academics and … well … it sounds pretentious to say it, but holiness.”
He was silent for a moment, remembering.
“Anyway, any differences in our backgrounds quickly disappeared. We were just kids in a special kind of high school, college, and finally, theologate. We were being educated-prepared for a very specific kind of life that called for a facility with Latin as well as English, a strong foundation in the liberal arts, and a proficiency in moral and dogmatic theology, liturgy, Church law, and sacred Scripture.
“What I’m getting at, Lieutenant, is that in a youthful circle where everybody was socially equal, Jake Keating stood out. I don’t think it was anything he consciously did or said or the way he related to the rest of us. The rest of us could imagine what it was like to belong to a posh athletic club, a pricey spa. But Jake’s father did belong to such
