removed the opportunity of killing the priest himself.
It wasn’t the five thousand dollars. Hell, five grand to him was twenty dollars to the ordinary stiff. No, it wasn’t the money. It was that somebody-no, make that a nobody-had taken advantage of him. The shoe very definitely was on the wrong foot. Taking advantage of people was his game.
It was as if a youthful, inexperienced card player had dealt from the bottom of the deck to a riverboat gambler and gotten away with it.
The fire in his viscera burned when he recalled how touched he’d been when Keating had been so solicitous, had appeared to put himself out so that the petitioner had to do little more than sign his name to documents-and, of course, to that check.
Purgatory was too good for the bastard!
Sure, sure, sure, all the documents had to be translated, the Italian canonical lawyers had to eat, a little gratuity here and there with a well-positioned monsignor could help. Dunstable resolved he would have someone look into this and discover just how far his petition had had to travel before it was granted. Probably never even left the archdiocese of Detroit!
Somewhere in this there had to be an expense. Nothing that complicated could be complimentary. There was no such thing as a free undertaking in the Catholic Church. If the expense was swallowed by the Detroit archdiocese it had to be absorbed by the annual archdiocesan collection. Dunstable traditionally contributed most generously to that drive. In effect, then, he’d paid for his dispensation twice. Once in the annual drive, which, among other things, covered the costs incurred by the matrimonial court. And again to line the pockets of Keating’s top-of-the-line black silk suit.
But five grand? Why five grand? Risking a comfortable career and total security for a measly five thousand dollars? Why? Unless Koesler’s hunch gelled and there was something phony about those companies that were being checked out even as he paced.
Come to think of it, hell was too good for the bastard.
Dunstable, waiting for his answers, sat in Keating’s oversize chair, opened the top ledger, and began feeding figures into the computer, while giving free rein to imaginative next-world punishments for his deceased former friend.
Mitchell pondered possible parishes to which he might flee.
Tully crossed to the couch and sat alongside a brooding Father Koesler. The two sat in silence for several minutes.
Without looking at him, Koesler said, finally, “You know, Lieutenant, I’ve been thinking …”
Tully waited.
“What if,” Koesler spoke loudly enough for only Tully to hear, “what if it turns out that Father Keating was somehow profiting from one or more of these companies? I’ve been sitting here wondering, ‘what if.’ I’ve been trying to figure out why he’d do such a thing. But then, why would he have charged Dunstable five thousand dollars when he knew the whole thing was covered by the archdiocese? To help cover his gambling debts?
“It doesn’t make much sense unless … unless I’ve been missing the point all along. Unless I’ve been just plain wrong.”
Tully still said nothing. It was Koesler’s ball game. If he’d been wrong before, perhaps now he’d be on target. Whatever was happening was happening in the priest’s analytical mind. Tully wasn’t as interested in the process as in the product.
“When I was telling you about John Keating’s history, as well and as completely as I could,” Koesler said, “I didn’t tell you about how Jake once invested deeply in the stock market and lost a bundle. But it happened.”
Tully nodded without comment. He would go along with Koesler’s premises.
“From that I drew the conclusion that he was a poor gambler and that his tendency to gamble and lose eventually led to the gambling debts he built up recently. It was those debts, after all, that led to his murder at the hands of an assassin who had a contract to kill him.
“Well, maybe. But maybe not …
“I’m thinking now about that single instance when Jake in effect stole-dear God, I hate to even use that word-but, yes, stole five thousand dollars from Eric Dunstable. That was not a gamble. That was a sure thing. Well, what if Jake somehow profited from the use of these companies? Now we don’t know that he did; all we have to go on at the moment is that they’re unfamiliar to me.
“But what if he did profit from them? It wouldn’t have been gambling. It would have been a sure thing.”
Koesler fell silent again. He seemed to be weighing the conclusion he’d just reached.
“So,” Tully said finally, “where are you going with this?”
“Oh …” It was as if he’d wakened Koesler.”… just this: If what I just suggested turns out to be true, then I drew exactly the wrong conclusion about his stock market experience. The loss he suffered there wasn’t a symptom of an untreated disease he should have taken to Gamblers Anonymous. Rather it was a lesson he’d learned: Don’t gamble. You’re not good at it. Go for the sure thing.”
Tully’s brow was well knit. “But Vespa told you …”
“Yes, Vespa told me, in that pivotal confession … the confession that started all this. The confession that Vespa was paid to make.”
“Yes, but-”
Koesler continued as if Tully had not spoken. “This new line of thought seems to be opening my memory. I mean my memory of what happened at Eastern Market the night Guido Vespa and I were shot.”
“We’ve been over that.” Indeed they had, and Tully felt they had milked it for all it was worth.
“I think,” Koesler persisted, “I was so shocked that his confession had been faked that I lost the other things he said that night. The simulated confession seemed all that was important. Now, in the light of what I’m thinking, I can recall quite clearly what else he said. It wasn’t much. He had just begun to tell me what he
“Okay,” Tully said, “this is important. Try to get it all.”
“The first thing I told him was that I’d been at the church when they opened Clem Kern’s coffin that day. And Guido wanted to know how Father Kern had looked.”
Tully shook his head.
“I know it’s inconsequential. I just mention that to show that my memory of what happened and what he said is quite clear now.
“After his question as to Clem’s appearance, he told me about the confession having been a fake. That’s the point at which my memory has pulled up short until now. But there was more.
“When he told me the confession was a fraud, I got angry and questioned whether he even had any sort of contract. He swore he did.”
“Don’t you sort of wonder now,” Tully asked, “when Vespa was lying and when he was telling the truth?”
“No. Not then and not now. He seemed to know he was on borrowed time. He’d told whoever gave him this contract that he was going to make a clean breast of it to me. Lieutenant, what he said to me that night was as good as a deathbed confession.”
“Okay, good enough.”
“He charged himself with what his grandfather later complained of-getting too cute-in this case, by adding the fiction that he’d buried Keating’s body with Clem Kern.
“But the most important thing he said, as it turns out now, was the last thing-the last words he spoke in this life.” Koesler paused, either for effect or in an effort to get Vespa’s last words exactly.
Tully said nothing.
“Vespa’s last words to me were, ‘And that ain’t all-’ And then the shots rang out and he was dead.”
“‘And that ain’t all …’ So what’s it mean?” Tully asked.
“What was left?” Koesler answered with a question. “He had dissected everything he had originally told me in that bogus confession except one thing, the essence of the whole thing: the fact that he had actually killed Father Keating.”
“What?”
