Bishop as Pawn

very well have been proven groundless. For Kleimer, time was running out. The perfect ploy was to frame Father Carleson for a murder. No victim would be more tailormade than Herbert Demers. Demers was dying anyway. But his lifetime was growing very short. If Kleimer had not acted when he did, there might well have been no other opportunity to implicate Father in a murder.”

“I agree,” Tully said. “But once we got onto his trail, it was pretty easy to tie up the loose ends. Mary, the clerk at Fuchs religious goods store, picked Kleimer out of a bunch of photos as the guy who bought a clerical shirt the day of Demers’s murder.

“Then there was Michigan Bell. They found that a call had been placed from a neighborhood pay phone to Carleson’s number at 11:15 on the eighth of February. Which proved that Carleson really got the call he said he did. The healthy presumption is that Kleimer made that call. He called from a nearby pay phone so he could check and make certain that Carleson took the bait. If Kleimer had called from a private phone, Ma Bell would not have had the record. Chalk up a couple for the good guys.”

They chuckled.

“But Father” — Koznicki grew serious-” this all began with your suspicion that Brad Kleimer had killed Herbert Demers. I can understand why you were reluctant to believe Father Carleson was guilty of either murder. But what made you suspect Kleimer?”

Father Koesler, in turn, was serious. “I didn’t, at first. Of course I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Don had murdered the bishop. And nothing in the evidence that was found shook my belief. But I must admit that when Don was charged with the Demers killing I had my first serious doubts. It seemed so logical that if he had killed Demers-and that likelihood I had to admit was strong-why could he not have killed the bishop?

“Then, something that Lieutenant Tully said pricked my curiosity. You said, Lieutenant, something to the effect of, ‘If only he hadn’t done it.’ If only he hadn’t murdered Demers, there wouldn’t have been such renewed belief that he had committed the prior murder.

“So the only remaining supposition had to be: What if he, indeed, hadn’t? What if he hadn’t killed Demers? How could someone else do it while implicating Don?

“And, who would, or could, do such a thing?”

“Well, impersonating a priest was not all that difficult. No one in the hospital got a really good look at the ‘priest’ who was seen-from afar-entering the hospital, and then seen almost out of the corner of her eye by the floor nurse.

“Everybody-with good reason, I’m sure-assumed it was Father Carleson.

“Who might have done it? Several people came to mind. Father Bell-to remove himself from any suspicion in the bishop’s murder. He would have the added advantage of being a priest and not having to impersonate one. Honestly-and I’m a bit ashamed to admit it-he was my prime candidate.

“Then there was Michael Shell, another suspect and possible killer.”

“He had an alibi,” Koznicki interjected.

“See? I didn’t even know that,” Koesler said. “Then there was-almost for lack of any other suspects- Lieutenant Quirt. Or, perhaps, one of those crazy movie people trying to steer the story their way.

“Or, it could’ve been almost anybody. One of the hospital personnel intent on a mercy killing. A relative of Mr. Demers trying to hurry nature along. But none of those candidates seemed a logical choice.

“Then came Brad Kleimer. As I said a while ago, he fit the bill physically. Of course, a lot of people could qualify in that category-especially with the brief glimpse he gave the hospital personnel.

“The ultimate reason why I zeroed in on Brad Kleimer was his motive-or what I suspected his motive to be.

“You see, granting that Father Carleson did not do it, whoever killed Demers did it to reinforce the charge that Father Carleson killed Bishop Diego. So I thought, in this scenario, whoever killed Demers didn’t really care one way or the other about Demers’s death. Demers’s death only served to help convict Don of the bishop’s death.

“Something I heard in Ste. Anne’s rectory last Wednesday evening sort of came to mind. One of the priests was complaining about an opponent’s high-handed way of playing chess: He used his more precious pieces-knights, castles, and bishops-as pawns.

“That seemed to be it in a nutshell. Bishop Diego, Lord rest him, used others as pawns in a game for his own advancement. And now somebody was using the death of Bishop Diego as a pawn in a game for that somebody’s advancement.

“And that someone was Brad Kleimer.

“Kleimer saw the trial over the bishop’s murder as a grandstand opportunity. It was drawing national and international coverage. For the trial to work to Kleimer’s benefit, the killer should be a priest and Kleimer should convict the priest.

“For the bishop to be murdered by some drugged kid would be news. But not the sensation that would come from a priest who murders his bishop with premeditation and in cold blood. If he could make this charge against Father Carleson stick, Kleimer would become a household word.

“Still and all, I didn’t think that even this fantastic reward would be enough motivation to cause an otherwise sane prosecuting attorney to actually murder an old man whose life hung by a thread. I could understand how fame-celebrity stardom, if you will-could make Kleimer at least consider murder as a means to this goal. But I couldn’t envision his actually doing it.

“But you see, what impressed me most about Brad Kleimer in the brief time I’ve known him, is the degree of vengeance he has toward his former wife.

“I wish we had the time … and-” Koesler chuckled. “-I wish you were interested enough for me to explain how very complex and intricate are the marriage laws of the Catholic Church. Not to mention their number.

“Before being engaged to a Catholic girl, Brad Kleimer had been vaguely aware that the Roman Catholic Church had an enormous number of laws governing entering matrimony and another pile of laws regulating getting out of a marriage once entered.

“He actually made a painstaking study of these laws. I’ve never before experienced a similar case. Why, there are priests who aren’t as conversant with these laws as Kleimer was!

“And he did all that with one thought in mind: to hold his wife in-as far as the Church was concerned-an inescapable bond. He contrived to make sure that should their marriage fail, his wife could never get an annulment.

“I’ve known people, especially those in failed marriages, to be unhappy in direct proportion to their ex- partner’s current happiness. But Brad Kleimer took the cake. The whole purpose of all that study and those precautions was to lock his wife in marriage in the eyes of the Catholic Church- her Church.

“This would be of no concern to him personally. He didn’t care about Church laws as they affected him, because as far as he was concerned they didn’t affect him.

“But they did affect his Catholic wife. And, sure enough, after their civil divorce, his wife discovered that as far as the Church was concerned, she would be considered married to him until one of them died.

“Now his wife did eventually marry. But she had to marry without a Catholic ceremony. And, just as Kleimer had planned, at her core she was miserable.

“Then Father Carleson came on the scene. To make a long story shorter, he passed over every single one of those many, many Church laws and witnessed the marriage vows of Kleimer’s former wife and her present husband.

“Kleimer didn’t discover this until after Father Carleson was indicted for murder. Kleimer was already determined to convict Father. Imagine how he felt when he learned that his former wife was happy and there wasn’t much of anything he could do about it? Even if he tried to get some ecclesiastical action against Father, he’d likely not be successful in this diocese. And even if he were successful, it wouldn’t take away his wife’s bliss. She had her marriage in the Church; she had returned to her sacramental life.

“And that was it!” Koesler concluded on a triumphant note. “That’s what tipped the scales in my mind toward Brad Kleimer as the murderer of Herbert Demers. It wasn’t only the fame he saw slipping from his grasp; it was that Father Carleson had utterly destroyed Kleimer’s carefully planned revenge against his ex-wife.

“I think it was almost a miracle that he killed Demers and not Father Carleson. But he had better plans for