clue?”
“Another answer I haven’t got. Of course, the families are notorious for sending messages: the dead fish, the genitals in the mouth, that sort of thing. The car seemed dumb-too dumb not to mean something. Mangiapane came up with the theory they were thumbing their nose at us: Here’s his car. Right at our front door. Let’s see you make a case of it. We’ll hand you the clue on a platter. But you’ll never pin it on us. And you’ll never find the damn body either. Moore thinks it’s possible some other family left the car there. A retaliation. A feud payback. Whatever. But I sort of like Manj’s idea.”
“You do not believe he is alive then?”
Tully shook his head somberly. There was a sense of pessimism. “It could be anything. He might have been depressed, like you said. In which case-maybe suicide. He might have amnesia. In that case, he’s probably wandering around somewhere, and he’ll probably come back some day. But I don’t think so. I think he was iced. The mob-somebody in organized crime. Though OC couldn’t come up with anything. And we went through Costello’s home from A to Z. Nothing.
“One thing for pretty sure though: If the mob hit him, we’ll probably never find the body. We might have his car, but I’ll bet they did something inventive with the body.
“The thing that beats me is-why? If the mob hit him, you can bet it wasn’t an accident. He was into them for something. But what? Racketeering? I doubt it. Narcotics?” Tully shook his head. “No indication whatever. Loan- sharking? Again, no indication. Gambling? Always a possibility. You never know you got the bug till you’re in front of a one-armed bandit with a roll of quarters. But-no gambling slips. No personal checks to any notoriously shady character. Just … nothing.”
“An individual who, for whatever reason, took out a contract on him?” Koznicki suggested.
Tully seemed to be studying the desk. He did not raise his head, “Anything’s possible. But at the moment, that’s no better than a guess. There were people who didn’t care for him-especially people who worked for or with him. But there’s no hard evidence for that or for any kind of conspiracy. If anybody is guilty of any crime against Keating, it’s well hidden.”
“Your conclusion?” Koznicki asked, though he knew the answer.
“It’s over, Walt. We’ve done everything we could, at least for right now. We’ve been everywhere we could go. We’ve checked everything we could. Who knows, something may crop up later-though I can’t think what. But, you never know. Anyway we’re at a dead end for now, unless we get some more clues or tips.”
“Are the suburban police in agreement?”
“Uh-huh. They’re ready to close it as an unsolved missing person. There’s no place to put it but in ‘open homicide’ with all the others. They’re-we’re-ready and willing to open it up if there are any further developments. But for now …” Tully raised both hands, palms up, in a gesture of futility.
“Very well,” Koznicki said. “I will relay this decision to the chief.”
“He’s not gonna like it.”
Koznicki nodded in unhappy agreement. “Nor will the mayor. But I am satisfied we have done all that could be done. We can consider the matter closed-at least for the moment … at least for you.”
Tully gave a sigh of relief. He was convinced he had done his best. But it was beyond doubt a dead end. The police had no alternative at this point but to go back over all the ground they’d just covered. And they could have done that forever. But the prospects of a breakthrough were practically nil.
Koznicki gathered up the documents and reports, put them in a folder, and the folder in his desk drawer. “Another day’s work done,” he announced. The two men left the room together.
On the elevator Tully asked about the two homicide cases that had particularly interested him before he had been drawn into the Keating investigation.
Ordinarily, Tully would have been up on their status. It was his practice to take an interest in everything that was going on in the division. But the search for the missing priest had occupied all of Tully’s attention, mostly because of his efforts to resolve it and get on with more appropriate matters.
Given Tully’s indisputable interest in the total homicide case load, which was common knowledge, Koznicki was a bit surprised that the detective could be unaware of what was going on in other investigations. But it was a gratifying surprise-indicating the total dedication he had given to the Keating case.
“We have someone in custody,” Koznicki explained, “in the case of the lawyer who was killed. Actually, it was odd that it took so long for an identification given that the attack occurred at noon on a crowded downtown street. But the crowd was part of the problem.”
“Yeah,” Tully agreed, “that noontime crowd crossing Jefferson near the Ren Cen can be overwhelming. Like you could pick up your feet and be carried across Jefferson.”
“That was the precise problem,” Koznicki said. “The killer got directly behind the victim and stabbed him with a poisoned-tip umbrella. But there were so many packed together, a lot of them wearing coats and carrying umbrellas. There was a promise of rain, and it was overcast. We had to interview an unlikely number of witnesses before we could filter through to the likely suspect. Many of the prime witnesses were, of course, reluctant to acknowledge that they’d seen anything-“
“Don’t tell me,” Tully interrupted, “they were all going to the john at just the time of the killing.”
Koznicki chuckled. “Something like that. In any case, the identification we did come up with led to the husband, or I should say former husband, of one of the lawyer’s clients, A divorce case. Messy. And expensive.”
Tully chewed his lip. “That was more of a platter case than I expected,” He was now grateful he had not been involved in that case, He had not anticipated that it would be handed to the police on a silver platter, but it evidently had: The most likely suspect apparently was guilty. However, it hadn’t been signed, sealed, and delivered yet. Tully would keep an eye open for developments in the case of the lawyer killed in broad daylight.
“As to the other case,” Koznicki said, “there has been very little progress on the
They left 1300 Beaubien, Police Headquarters, and stood for a moment on the broad sidewalk. Koznicki looked out of the corner of his eye. He could almost see the wheels moving in Tully’s head. “Are you interested, Alonzo?” he asked almost needlessly.
Tully smiled. “Oh, I guess, maybe. I think I’ll just go back upstairs and run through that file.” He turned and hustled back up the stairs. Of course he couldn’t wait to get started. Here was a mystery that, unlike the Keating case, had an obtainable answer. Somebody had killed a
Part Two
14
Earlier in the twentieth century, Detroit’s theater district-such as it was-was located bordering along Woodward not far from the river on streets such as Larned, Congress, Fort, and Lafayette. Many of those legitimate stages later became movie houses. All were now long gone.
Now, later in the twentieth century, the theater district-such as it is-of downtown Detroit lies above Grand Circus Park, about a mile north of where it once was. And the streets surrounding this district can be dangerous.
It was just after 10:00 on a balmy September evening when the show at the Fox Theater let out. A generally satisfied audience spilled out onto Woodward Avenue, which had the distinction of being M-l, the first highway in Michigan.
Most of the patrons had parked in the large adjoining lot. But Father Koesler, in a tribute to frugality, had parked in the underground garage beneath Grand Circus Park, which, even though evening rates had been drastically reduced to attract customers, was nearly empty. The garage was only a block or so south of the Fox, but
