Bishop as Pawn

“Wait a minute. You can’t be-”

“Father …” Quirt was unctuous. “… all I’m doing is putting together what was just said by Father McCauley and yourself. Nothing more than that. Now, let’s just see where everybody was last night. Father McCauley, where were you between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 P.M. yesterday?”

“Really!” As intimidated as McCauley was, he certainly had not expected to be treated as a murder suspect.

Quirt let his very authentic nasty side show through. “This is a homicide investigation. I don’t give a damn whether this Bishop Diego was a living saint or a son of a bitch. He’s dead. And I’m gonna find out who did it. With a guy who made as many enemies as this guy seems to have made, the line of possible suspects can get kinda long. But no possible suspect is excused just because he happens to be clergy.

“Now, Father McCauley, Father Carleson, you can answer our questions here and now, or … we can go down to the station. It’s just a short drive. But it ain’t as pleasant there as here.

“What’ll it be?”

McCauley lowered his head and nodded.

“Okay.” Quirt resumed. “Between 4:00 and 6:00, Father McCauley?”

“I was tired. We always are after the weekend schedule of Masses. And I was looking forward to the evening meeting of the priests. But I wasn’t looking forward to it very eagerly. And since we were committed to going, I decided to rest up and maybe take a nap-”

“Wait a minute,” Quirt interrupted. “How come you were ‘committed’? I thought it was voluntary. How come you had to go?”

McCauley hesitated. “Well, we had promised Don. He had never been to one of these meetings-uh, they’re actually parties. So we agreed to go for his sake.”

Quirt looked at Carleson. “Funny how you keep popping up at the center of things, isn’t it, Father?” He turned back to McCauley. “So you took a nap? Conveniently from 4:00 to 6:00.”

“No. I went up to my room about 3:00 in the afternoon. I read for a while. Watched a little basketball on the TV. And then napped a bit. Until about 5:00, I guess. Then I got ready to go. We left about 5:30. The dinner was at 6:00.”

“Anyone who can corroborate your whereabouts during this time?”

McCauley smiled lopsidedly. “No. We each have our own separate rooms. As far as I know, the others did just about what I did.”

“But you can’t know for sure. Maybe we should get the other three priests in here. One of you could have been with the bishop, couldn’t that be true? Maybe, since no one can testify that you spent all that time in your room, maybe you spent some time with the bishop. Eh?”

“Not hardly,” McCauley said.

“No? Not hardly? Why’s that?”

McCauley looked almost helplessly at Carleson.

“He couldn’t have spent time with the bishop,” Carleson said.

“Why not?” Quirt’s question was expectant.

“Because,” Carleson explained, “because the bishop was with me.”

“Between 4:00 and 6:00?”

“There wasn’t anything odd or out of the ordinary about it.” Carleson chose to ignore the implication in Quirt’s question. “Given my druthers I’m sure I’d have spent the afternoon the way Dave did. It’s sort of natural, especially for guys our age. That weekend liturgy can sap you. So, I was going to relax a while before leaving for the Cathedral. But the bishop wanted to go out.”

“Out?”

“An afternoon cocktail party in Grosse Pointe.”

“The bishop doesn’t own a car?”

“The bishop doesn’t … didn’t … even own a driver’s license.”

“You were his chauffeur?” Quirt sounded incredulous.

Carleson simply nodded.

“Did the bishop go out much? Travel?”

“A bit.”

“And with Detroit’s mass transit being what it is, and, I suppose, the bishop being a bishop, he wouldn’t want to depend on that. All in all, I guess you had to haul him around quite a bit.”

Again Carleson nodded.

“So, yesterday,” Quirt said, “just what did you and the bishop do and when did you do it?”

Carleson sighed. “He waited until about 1:00 in the afternoon to tell me. To be honest, I tried to beg off. But he insisted that it was important-‘essential’ was the word he used-for him to be at this gathering. He said there would be important people there-people who could do lots for the Latino community-”

“From your tone of voice,” Quirt interrupted, “I gather you didn’t believe him.”

“That depends. That there were many wealthy people there was probably true. That any of them would lift a finger for the community was … well, doubtful.

“Anyway, I don’t think the bishop would ask anybody to show some genuine commitment.”

“You didn’t want to do it,” Quirt said. “You didn’t think there was any point to it. But you did it anyway? Sounds kinda heroic!” The tone was laced with sarcasm.

“Look, Lieutenant, I’m no hero, or martyr, or saint. The way this arrangement began, it was supposed to be a short introduction to this urban ministry, sort of a brief probationary period.”

“What happened? You keep signing up?”

Carleson snorted. “The deck was stacked. Diego loved the arrangement. Out of nowhere he got a slave. Each time I was due for an independent assignment, Diego would pull rank with the head of the Curia-the one who proposed assignments.”

“Couldn’t you go over this … this guy’s head?”

“I’m not a crybaby … at least I try not to be.”

“Back to yesterday,” Quirt ordered.

“Yes, well, there was no getting out of it. So we left here about 2:00. The party started at 1:00, but Diego always likes to make an ‘entrance.’ The party was at Harry Carson’s home. He’s an executive with Co-merica Bank. There must have been about fifty people there … at least while we were there.”

“You attended the party?”

Carleson smiled briefly. “I am a priest. I would never have been left alone to wait in the car. Actually, I would have preferred that; I just hang around on the fringes on these occasions. Anyhow, Diego had promised me we would leave by 5:00 so I could join the others here and go with them to the Cathedral.

“But as the afternoon wore on, he showed no inclination to leave. That is, until this guy showed up at the party. It was about four o’clock, maybe a little later. He acted surprised to see Diego there. But the minute he spotted him, he headed for him like a guided missile. They had a few hot words before Carson steered them into another room.

“After a while, Diego came out looking somewhat the worse for wear. He was obviously embarrassed. He came right over to me and said we were leaving right then and there. He didn’t even say good-bye to anybody. That was about 4:30. We got back here about 5:00. I went upstairs immediately to freshen up for the party. I don’t know where Diego went … I suppose to his office.”

Tully was alert for almost the first time during this interrogation. “Who was the guy who created the scene with Diego?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him before. But that doesn’t mean much: Lots of people at these affairs Diego dragged me to I would meet for the first, and often the last, time.”

“Then,” Quirt said, “you were the last one to see Bishop Diego alive.”

“Not quite, Lieutenant. I was at least second last. Whoever killed him would have been last.”

“Now, see here, Lieutenant, this is becoming patently unfair!” McCauley said forcefully.

Quirt was about to reply in kind, when experience and instinct told him to swallow it and see what happened next. So, rather than trump McCauley’s ace, Quirt put on an attentive and agreeable face, encouraging McCauley to