Bishop as Pawn

ton of circumstantial evidence.… And the priest claims he’s innocent, while Julio claims he’s guilty. What happens then?”

Tully seemed to be considering these contradictions for the first time. As he returned his attention to the file he’d been studying, he said, “Angie, we live in interesting times.”

Father Koesler was getting through this day in a more or less mechanical manner.

The high point of Father Koesler’s day always was his celebration of Mass. Each day he tried to prepare well for this sacred ritual-the essence of his life. But this morning Mass had been filled with distractions.As was the rest of this day.

Mary O’Connor, the parish secretary, had sorted the mail, pointing out that the separate pile needed his immediate attention.

He tried to give it undivided concentration but found himself rereading paragraph after paragraph. Somehow he got through it all. But it took up to three times what it normally would have.

It was the same with his appointments. He conscientiously tried to focus on what his visitors said, the problems they brought to him. But if their presentation was at all on the dull side, they would lose him. He could not count the number of times he had punctuated the conversation with, “Sorry, could you repeat that?” or “I beg your pardon …” or “What was that you were saying?” As he saw each of these visitors to the door, he felt the need to apologize.

Mary O’Connor left for home about 4:00 P.M. She was worried about him. There had been distractions before, but not a whole day full. She had tried to make things as easy as possible for him, but nothing seemed to help. She could only hope that a good night’s sleep might set things straight for him.

After Mary left, Koesler donned his sweats and went into the basement for the series of exercises that had been suggested by a physical therapist. Requiring attention was a shoulder that had lost its rotator cuff to a stray bullet, as well as a creeping arthritic condition.

Mercifully, the exercises helped clear his mind. He returned to his second-floor suite perspiring, but much more organized and put together.

It was in the shower that the puzzle began to unravel. Why, he wondered, did this sort of thing so frequently occur while he showered? Possibly because during showers he almost always was thinking of nothing. And in that vacuum that nature despised, fresh ideas were born.

He’d been trying to recall a simple statement Lieutenant Tully had made when last they’d talked. About Father Carleson’s apparent involvement in the death of Herbert Demers. Tully had said something to the effect that it was too bad that he-Father Carleson-had done it.

The gist of the remark was that it was the second murder that gave crediblity to the first.

The immediate and growing reaction to Father Carleson’s arrest for the murder of Bishop Diego had been disbelief. The media accurately reported what they discovered. Which was that everyone who knew Father Carleson knew him to be dedicated, generous, peaceful, kind, thoughtful, gentle-and very long-suffering-the very antithesis of a murderer.

What circumstantial evidence the prosecution was gathering had begun to pale in the face of the spotless reputation that continued to emerge.

Then came the death of Demers. Carleson’s image took a sharp downturn. It wasn’t so much that people and the media suddenly pictured him as a ruthless criminal and murderer. The figure that now emerged was of a priest gone mad.

Here was a priest who-with or without the best of intentions-could snuff an elderly person’s life simply because nature wasn’t doing its job fast enough.

If Carleson could deliberately kill a helpless old man-and he most assuredly had-then it was safe to believe he could and did kill a bothersome bishop. Demers’s reality gave credibility to Diego’s murder. Too bad Carleson had killed Demers. It proved he was capable of killing, and probably had killed Diego.

Not a bad argument, Koesler had to admit.

But …

But some of the things Koesler had experienced last night as he’d retraced Carleson’s steps had planted some doubts.

To reverse the current supposition: If Carleson indeed did not kill Demers, he probably hadn’t killed Diego either.

Who, then, did kill Diego? Lieutenant Tully seemed to have a likely prospect in a young man from the Ste. Anne neighborhood.

But if Carleson did not murder Demers, who did?

Somebody who looked like a priest and who resembled Carleson would have to be the murderer if Carleson were not.

What had Koesler learned last night?

The night before last, somebody-a man, presumably-was seen by a couple of attendants outside the Emergency entrance. The man was standing approximately thirty yards away from the attendants. He was standing still. Was he trying to decide whether to enter through Emergency or the main door? Or was he waiting to be seen by somebody-anybody-in Emergency?

What did the attendants see? They saw a man-a person-dressed in black. A black hat covered the man’s hair, except for the small tuft of white at his ears. They saw-or thought they saw-the narrow white tab that marked a clerical collar.

If anyone had happened to glance out the door last night, they would have seen a man standing in about the same spot where the man had been standing the night before. They would have seen Koesler all in black. Discernible at the sides of his black hat beneath the brim they would have seen gray instead of white hair.

But they would not have seen the white tab of his clerical collar because he had turned up the collar of his overcoat. It was bitter cold both nights. The most natural defense against the cold was to bundle up as much as possible.

The earlier figure was standing half facing the Emergency door making his clerical collar evident. Everybody had been talking about Father Carleson. Carleson had frequented the Emergency Room. They expected to see Father Carleson. They did see Father Carleson … or so they thought.

After visiting Emergency, Koesler had continued tracing Carleson’s path of the previous night. When Koesler arrived at the late Mr. Demers’s floor, the priest walked, just as he imagined Carleson had, to the room Tully said Demers had occupied. Just as he turned to enter the room, the floor nurse, Alice Cherny, looked up from her paperwork. As they talked, Alice admitted that for a moment she’d thought it was Carleson going into the room.

She admitted that it was difficult to see distinctly down the corridor due to the lighting. Then, too, she and Ann Bradley, who was going off duty, had been talking about Father Carleson.

And that’s exactly what had happened the night before. The light was uneven-quite bright in the nurses’ station, dim in the corridor. She and Ann had been talking earlier about Father Carleson. So he was on her mind.

Last night Alice Cherny thought she saw Father Carleson approaching Demers’s room. She was mistaken; it had been Father Koesler. The night before, she thought she had seen Father Carleson enter Demers’s room. Was she mistaken that night too?

All of this Father Koesler thought interesting. But that’s all: just interesting. It merely suggested that it was possible-just possible-that it had not been Father Carleson who, dressed as a priest, entered Herbert Demers’s room and suffocated him.

And Koesler was positive that’s what the police would say if he were to present this theory to them: “Very interesting.” But all it indicated was that someone else might be the killer. And the murderer still could be Father Carleson. And he was the one under arrest. He was the one who had been closest to Demers. Carleson was the one who claimed Demers had begged his help to die. Carleson had tried to give Demers permission to die. In all the world, neither the police nor the hospital personnel knew anyone more wishful for Demers’s death, more ready to help him die, than Father Donald Carleson.

If Carleson did not murder Demers, then who?

Koesler almost felt like taking another shower.