was a damned clever maze.
As he left the Millender, Tully glanced at the directory. Whatever business Metro Development was in, Tully knew of one product. It would be whoever the street delivered to the police tomorrow through the good offices of Metro Development.
Tully felt satisfied with his transaction. But deep down he wondered if he might have squandered a most valuable marker, as Wayne had implied.
Whatever. The die was cast. More than likely he would soon slap cuffs on the killer of Bishop Diego.
CHAPTER TWENTY — TWO
Tuesday was drawing to a close. A fatigued Father Koesler drove over to Ste. Anne’s for the vigil service for Bishop Diego. The funeral, or Mass of Resurrection, would be held tomorrow morning. The vigil, as well as the Mass, essentially was a prayerful expression of faith in a life after death in the heaven promised by Jesus Christ.
The church was fully lighted. It had been a long time since the old structure had held so large a congregation. Special police detachments were handling crowd control. Officers were stationed throughout the church for security purposes.
Also in the church, making a nuisance of itself, was the camera crew from Los Angeles. In an unguarded moment, Father McCauley had signed a document giving permission for the filming on parish property.
Near the sanctuary, before the altar, Bishop Diego’s coffin lay on a bier. The corpse was dressed in Mass vestments. The vestments were white, as was the miter on the bishop’s head.
Ste. Anne’s might have passed for a ski lodge housing an extremely affable group. The crowd, largely Hispanic, moved about the church in serpentine fashion, people greeting long-lost friends and friends they’d shopped with this morning. There was even a mariachi band playing in what used to be known as the organ loft.
The only activity that might be termed “orderly” was the double line that stretched from the sanctuary to the front doors. The lines were for people who wanted to “pay their respects” at the bier.
A generous supply of clergymen was in attendance. Most of them joined the viewing lines and, after a moment at the casket, gathered in the gospel side of the sanctuary. It was not a section reserved for priests; the first two or three had probably wandered over there and the precedent was set.
Two more priests arrived at the casket. They peered in, vacuuming every detail from the supershined black shoes to the bejeweled miter.
“Looks pretty good, doesn’t he?” said Father Henry Dorr.
“For a dead guy, yeah,” Father Frank Dempsey replied.
“Don’t be funny.” Dorr bent from the waist and studied the right side of the corpse, particularly about the neck. “Look here. They said he got whacked on the back of the head. It must’ve been some blow to kill the guy. But I can’t see anything.”
Dempsey, following Dorr’s observations, also bent down to see if he could find the indent. “No. I guess they must’ve patched it up somehow. I don’t know how they do that. Like Ronald Reagan used to say, ‘Progress is our most important product.’”
“That was about General Electric, not mortuary science.”
“That reminds me …” Dempsey straightened up and leaned over the body, studying Diego’s bishop’s ring. “… did you hear about the couple who got a marriage license and went to a judge to get married?” He didn’t wait for a response. “The judge looks at the license and says to the groom, ‘Are you John A. Brown?’ And the groom says, ‘No. My name’s John B. Brown.’
“The judge says, ‘Take this back to the clerk and have him correct it.’
“So the couple comes back, and the judge looks at the license again, and says to the bride, ‘Are you Mary B. Smith?’ And she says, ‘No. I’m Mary C. Smith.’
“So the judge sends them back again for a correction. Then, they appear again before the judge. The license is correct now. But, for the first time, the judge notices a small boy standing between the bride and the groom.
“‘Who is this young lad?’ the judge asks. The groom says, ‘That’s our son, judge.’ And the judge says, ‘I hate to tell you this, but he’s a technical bastard.’
“And the groom says, ‘That’s a funny thing, judge. That’s what the clerk just said about you.’”
“Very funny,” Dorr said, “but what’s the point?”
“Your remark about Reagan and the product he used to peddle. You’re being a technical bastard.”
“This is a church!”
“Perfectly good Anglo-Saxon word.”
What with the hubbub in the church, no one else could make out what the two were saying. But, hey, they were priests. And they were paying special attention to the dead bishop’s neck and to his ring. There must be something going on.
The interest was passed from person to person so that from that time on each of the faithful who reached the casket bent double to see-God knew what-at the back of Diego’s head. The procedure slowed the line considerably.
Dorr and Dempsey moved on to join the other priests.
“Hi, Bob,” Dorr greeted Father Koesler, who had already been through the viewing line. “Good crowd.”
“Numerically, I’ll give you,” Dempsey said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dorr asked.
“Well, look at who’s here.” Dempsey’s gesture encompassed everyone in the church. “You see any of Diego’s fancy friends? Any of the money people?” The question became rhetorical. The church was filled with blue-collar Hispanics.
“So? All the better for the bishop. The common people are represented,” Dorr said.
“Not all the common people,” Dempsey corrected. “See any of the Hispanic leaders? These people here are the ones who didn’t have a clue to what Diego was doing. These are the people who were just happy one of their own became a bishop to take special care of them. They rejoiced when he came here. They never saw him except may be at a confirmation or a parish festival. They heard he gave money to the deserving poor. They didn’t know he didn’t give a damn about them.”
“That’s a generalization,” Dorr protested.
“He’s got a point, Henry,” Koesler said. “Go ahead and take a careful look. None of the local leaders are here. I guess Diego didn’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
“And,” Dempsey added, “the priests are here just to make sure he’s dead.”
“Speaking of priests,” Koesler said, “I wonder why there aren’t any Dallas priests here for the funeral? Maybe they’ll get here for the Mass tomorrow.”
“The Dallas contingent?” Dempsey snorted. “They’re having a fiesta down there.”
“Come on,” Dorr protested.
“It’s true,” Dempsey insisted. “They knew he was a three-dollar bill before we got to know but not love him.”
“Really? I thought his social climbing started when he became an auxiliary here,” Koesler said.
“Down there,” Dempsey explained, “he traded on his good looks. That’s how he made a name for himself. He also had a talent, even down there, for raising money. His archbishop got nothing but glowing reports about him. Well, why not? He was popular. And with his movie-picture looks, there wasn’t a hint of any hanky-panky. And the SOB poured money into diocesan collections. That’s how come, when Boyle went looking for an Hispanic auxiliary, the Dallas power structure pointed their collective finger at Diego.”
Ted Walberg and Armand Turner had worked out a deal whereby they each had been named coproducer of the made-for-TV movie, “Death Wears a Red Hat.” As the filming progressed, they were beginning to work out a marginally acceptable relationship.
