the possible values of priests.” Koesler found this conversation increasingly awkward.
“Interesting.”
“Now, if you don’t mind …”
“Oh, you wanted to see Father Carleson, didn’t you? Sure. Go ahead.” He stepped aside.
Tully, meanwhile, was trying to find out what news there was from the street.
Odd; there wasn’t much. That was ominous.
“Ordinarily the Latinos are tight,” Sergeant Moore explained, “but this is different No leads or breaks at all. Vice cooperated with us. We called in our markers, talked to our snitches-all we could find quickly. But … nothing.”
“What’s the water temperature?”
“Warm,” Mangiapane said. “Maybe under the surface it’s boiling. Something’s going on out there, Zoo. Like, overnight there was new bread on the street. But we can’t find anybody who’ll say how much or who’s dealing.”
Tully ran his tongue between his lips and teeth almost as if trying to taste the object of all this secrecy and silence. “The guys turned all the screws?”
“Tight as a drum,” Mangiapane replied.
“Nothing?”
“That’s it. Nada. Zilch.”
“Now,” Tully said, “we ask ourselves what does all this mean?”
“All that new money on the street,” Moore speculated, “and close to five grand may have been taken from Bishop Diego just last night. A connection?”
“Could be,” Tully acknowledged. “But then, why this solid brick wall? Given all the pressure we put on, how come we’ve got no names? If some punk hit the bishop for as much as five grand, and if this punk starts stockpiling dope, you’d think there’d be a leak someplace down the line.”
“Maybe it’s not a punk,” Mangiapane said. “Maybe it’s a big hitter.”
“Maybe,” Moore offered, “it’s a punk-but maybe areal dangerous punk. Maybe it’s fear that’s keeping everybody quiet.”
“Two very good maybes,” Tully said. “If either of them eventually points to the killer, we’ll have to program our investigation to find a really big hitter or a very dangerous punk. We gotta get back on the street and start looking for somebody who fits one or the other of those profiles.”
“But Zoo,” Mangiapane said, “what about Father Carleson?”
“The fat lady hasn’t sung yet.”
Father Koesler had finally made his way across the crowded room. As he neared Father Carleson, the priest’s face lit in recognition. “Boy,” Carleson exclaimed, “are you a sight for sore eyes! Welcome …” He hesitated. “… friend?”
Koesler smiled warmly. “Of course, ‘friend’; what did you think?”
“Right now, I can’t be too sure. But if anybody ever needed one, I sure do.”
“I think you’ll find you have lots of them. Maybe not in this room, but certainly among the priests and people who know you.”
Carleson smiled wryly. “What? They think I killed Public Enemy Number One?”
Koesler was instantly quite serious. “Of course not. Because they know you didn’t do it.”
“That ‘they’ definitely excludes most of the people in this room.”
Koesler looked about. His gaze met the deadly serious expressions of the detectives around them-some covertly glancing at the two priests who seemed to have sealed themselves off from the larger group. Reluctantly, he had to agree with Carleson’s dark observation.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Koesler asked. “You haven’t been arrested.”
“You know that?”
“I’ve been with Lieutenant Tully for the past few hours. So I pretty well know what’s going on.”
“Tully. The nice-looking black guy? He sure didn’t have much to say when I was being questioned at Ste. Anne’s.”
“This is a task force. I gather it’s kind of rare for them to put together one of these things. But Lieutenant Tully isn’t in charge … which is, I think, a mistake. Lieutenant Quirt’s the one in charge.”
“That’s not good news to me.”
“But you haven’t answered. What are you doing here?”
“I kept saying yes. Yes to looking through my car. Yes to coming down to headquarters while they were processing What they found in my car.”
Noting Koesler’s expression, Carleson concluded the question was not yet satisfactorily answered. “It just seemed to be delaying the inevitable,” he said. “They assured me they could get a warrant to search my car. They didn’t look like they were kidding. So I agreed to let them look. Even signed a paper giving permission. Don’t know why I had to do that: I’d already agreed.
“Anyway, they scraped something off the dashboard. That’s what they’re examining at, I think, the crime lab.
“As to why I’m here: They asked if I would accompany them and wait for the results of the test. Well, they took my car down here. So it seemed sensible to go along. I wasn’t going to go far without a car, and I didn’t want to impose on anybody by borrowing a car.
“So, here I am.”
From an offhand manner, Carleson grew quite somber. “Bob, I’ve got a hunch I’m not going to leave here anytime soon.”
Koesler was shocked. “Why? Why do you say that? Hey, we’ll probably leave here together. Let’s go to Carl’s Chop House. On me.”
Carleson shook his head. “I’m pretty sure what they’re going to find.”
“You … you are?” Koesler was almost afraid to ask.
“I’m pretty sure it’s blood. I wouldn’t be that sure except they seem to be that sure. They haven’t said it in so many words, but that’s what they believe. I know that.”
“Blood!” Tully had said “substance,” and Koesler hadn’t given it any further thought. “But how …? Whose …?”
“It didn’t make any impression on me at all at the time. It happened a couple, three days ago. I was shipping the bishop somewhere-I forget where. It doesn’t make a great deal of difference. But he sneezed. Diego sneezed. And the sneeze was the beginning of a nose-bleed. I didn’t pay much attention. I was driving and looking out for traffic. I didn’t know he had a problem until he complained. Then I glanced over at him. He was holding a handkerchief to his nose, and the handkerchief was bloody.
“I told him to lean his head back, put some pressure on the bridge of his nose, and breathe out through his mouth and in through his nose. Pretty soon the bleeding stopped.
“That was about the extent of it.
“But when he sneezed, some of the blood must’ve hit the dashboard. I didn’t pay any attention, and I didn’t notice anything. That’s got to be what they found.”
The explanation sounded unconvincing. But Koesler had believed Carleson to this point. He Would stay the course even if he had to suspend disbelief to a degree. “If you’re so sure, did you give your explanation to the police?”
“Yeah, but they weren’t buying any of it.” He shook his head. “For the most part, they weren’t even listening.”
Koesler surmised that the officers preferred not to arrest Carleson before they had identified the substance and, at the same time they didn’t want to cloud the Miranda warning. “Are you sure … I mean are you certain that what they got from your dashboard was Bishop Diego’s blood?”
Carleson nodded, then hesitated. “No. I can’t be absolutely sure. What do I know? Like I said, I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t even know there was anything on the dashboard except dust.” He shrugged. “But what else could it be?”
His brow knitted. “Maybe I’m just preparing myself for the worst. I don’t know. All I know is I’m pretty darn miserable. I wish I’d never heard of Detroit. I wish Ramon Diego had stayed in Texas until he rotted.”
