The Sacrifice

by William Kienzle

  Zoo took up the story at that point. “Father told me about his talk with Wheatley. The Bible story gave the good Father”—he inclined his head in Koesler’s direction—”the clue he needed to arrive at the truth. Which, of course, was useless to us as hard evidence. However, Wheatley’s admission that he thought the phone call was made by his son, Ron, did give us enough to go for a warrant.”

  He smiled. “Fortunately it was an ideal time of day to find a judge who would issue it.

  “When we got to Ron Wheatley’s home, we found one wretchedly miserable, really sorry man, and a packing wife. We had to Mirandize the priest … he was that eager to confess. In the basement we found the leftovers of the bomb: powder, pipe, parts of the timepiece—the whole thing. That and the priest’s confession wrapped up the case against him.

  “But the wife was something else. She wouldn’t say a word without her lawyer.

  “We didn’t have a case against her. Even if we believed she was as guilty as her husband, none of the evidence pointed to her.” He shook his head. “Of course one word from her husband and we could’ve slapped the cuffs on her in a minute.

  “We didn’t think she had any part in actually constructing the bomb. But we were convinced she’d put plenty of pressure on her husband to plot murder.” He winked at his wife. “A real Lady Macbeth.

  “Anyway, that’s why she was packing: She couldn’t be sure Wheatley wouldn’t implicate her—so she was outta there.

  “But he refused to say a word against her. No matter how hard we pressed him, he wouldn’t budge. We had a principal but couldn’t nail her.”

  “‘Principal’?” Koesler had never heard that term used in this context.

  “Some places,” Zoo explained, “call it ‘accessory before the fact.’ We call it ‘principal.’”

  “Ron Wheatley’s lawyer informed him,” Tully continued, “that spousal immunity would protect him from having to testify against his wife. And we just couldn’t shake him. So—the beautiful lady skates.”

  “Where is she now?” Wanda asked.

  “Getting a divorce. It’ll be easy. Her husband is cooperating completely … probably part of the self-punishment he’s heaping on himself,” Tully said. “It worked for him once; maybe it’ll work again.”

  Wanda looked puzzled. “What do you mean, ‘It worked for him’?”

  “It worked in the final analysis,” Tully explained. “He started out being booked for Murder One. There wouldn’t have been any question about the sentence. It would’ve been life, without parole. But they plea-bargained it down to Murder Two. That’s a sentence of twelve-to-twenty years.

  “That’s when the self-punishment—repentance—call it any way you want—comes in. He started helping the other guys in the lockup. Praying for them, praying with them, counseling them.

  “Anyway, what with that and one thing and another, the judge said she was convinced that his remorse was, as she put it, ‘genuine, substantial, and compelling.’ So she reduced the sentence to ten-to-fifteen. With the truth-in-sentencing on the books, we know he’ll serve at least ten years.”

  Wanda still looked puzzled. “Didn’t it make any difference that poor Father Farmer was not the intended victim? I mean, Father Wheatley didn’t want to kill Father Farmer …”

  “It makes no difference, love,” Walt said. “It is called ‘transferred intent.’ It is the same as killing the intended victim.”

  Wanda, looking thoughtful, nodded understanding. —“I forgot to ask you, Zoo,” Father Tully said, “what about that vestment that Father Morgan said he left in the sanctuary? That never turned up, did it?”

  Lieutenant Tully shook his head. “Easy to see how it could have been destroyed in the blast—or disappeared in the ruckus afterward. Anyway, whatever your Father Morgan was doing in the sanctuary, he isn’t our bomber. We’ve got our bomber.

  “We’ve got the bomber and the caller,” Zoo continued. “Ron Wheatley admitted planting the bomb. He claims that once he got started on this project, he couldn’t call a halt to it. Personally, I think he just couldn’t stop the wheels from turning because his wife wouldn’t let him. But on that count, he clams up.”

  Zoo fell silent for a moment, going over these events in his mind. “Ron Wheatley was taking a chance on getting away with planting the bomb,” he said at length. “He wore denims, carried a large floral piece, and walked out as soon as he’d deposited it—and the bomb—at the altar. He figured that the one or two people who might know him—Fathers Koesler and Tully, who had met him only once or twice—wouldn’t recognize or even notice him in that guise. And if by some fluke he was recognized, at that point he could easily abort the plan.

  “He figured his father wouldn’t be in the church proper that early before the ceremony.

  “Then he changed from his denims to his clericals in a public rest room at the Milander Center—just a few blocks from St. Joe’s.

  “And another precaution: He called his father from a pay phone.”

  Silence followed, as all present went over these events in their own minds. Most of their questions had been answered, the events explained.

  “Remember,” Lieutenant Tully added, inclining his head toward Walt and Wanda, “at the party at your house? Young Richard Wheatley was talking about how neither of his parents could fix anything; they both were total klutzes when it came to working with their hands. And then he said that he and his two siblings—all of them—could fix anything. Each and every one of them could put anything together.

  “Well, I should’ve put it together: That was a clue that could have pointed us in the right direction immediately.” He grimaced as he shook his head. “I blew it.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Anne Marie said. “It just opened things up for Father Koesler to come up with a really imaginative solution. “She turned to Koesler. “I think that’s really clever, Father: how you turned that Bible story around and backward to discover who made that phone call.”

  Koesler almost blushed. “Well, Ron was playing God—literally and figuratively.” He smiled. “Beware the one who plays God—or is the custodian of God’s will. That’s the one to keep an eye on.”

  Anne Marie wouldn’t let Koesler off the hook. “And, Father, I think you gave a great eulogy at Father Wheatley’s funeral.”

  “That was at the Episcopal cathedral, was it not?” Walt observed. “Why there?”

  “Nan arranged that,” Koesler replied. “She would have it no other way. And I agreed with her. I got the clear impression that she never quite believed in what George was doing in the Roman Church. But she saw her place as standing with George. However, inside she was aching. Her heart never left the Anglican Church. How George would be buried was her call. The Roman Church excursion was over when George died in her arms. She had no place to go but Home.

  “Nan was the one who invited me to deliver the eulogy. I was honored.”

  “Tell me, Father,” said Anne Marie, “where did you get that description of Anglicanism—the one that you used in the eulogy? I notice it was also printed on the prayer card.”

  “George shared it with me,” Koesler replied.

  “We had not heard of this,” Walt said. “What is it?”

  “I’ve got the card,” Father Tully offered.

  Koesler nodded.

  Zack took the small prayer card from his coat pocket and read aloud:

  “Anglicanism was and is at its best Catholic, for it holds the Catholic essentials. It is Protestant because it rejects the papal innovations in faith and order. It is traditional, for it looks back to the past for the body of its creed, for the great facts of the Christian revelation on which it is based, and to the great march of the Church’s history, from which it draws its precedents. At the same time, it is modern, for it seeks ever to make this creed and these facts tell with force in the minds of this modern age”

  The room was silent as Father Tully stopped speaking. He looked around at his fam
ily, both his related family and his family of friends. “That’s from a biography of Joost de Blank, an Anglican archbishop who was a leading fighter against apartheid.” After a moment, he added, “It is a pretty magnificent statement.”

  “Yeah,” said Father Koesler to himself. Aloud, he said only, “Amen.”

  Acknowledgments

  Gratitude for technical advice to:

  James Bannon, Deputy Chief, Detroit Police Department (Retired), Detroit, Michigan

  The Reverend Dr. Barton De Merchant, Benedictine Oblate and Episcopal Priest

  Inspector James Grace, Director of Professional Standards, Department of Public Safety, Kalamazoo, Michigan (Retired)

  Sister Bernadelle Grimm, R.S.M., Hospital Pastoral Care (Retired)

  Jerry’s Gun Shop, Rochester, Michigan

  The Honorable Timothy Kenny, Third Judicial Circuit Court of Michigan

  James Macy, Director, Oakland County Food Bank (Retired)

  Thomas Petinga, Jr., D.O., Chief of Staff, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Pontiac, Michigan

  Andrea Solak, Chief of Special Operations, Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (Retired)

  Robbie Timmons, Anchorperson, WXYZ-ABC-TV

  Inspector Barbara Weide, Detroit Police Department (Retired)

  Any error is the author’s.

  IN MEMORY OF

  THE REVEREND GEORGE WIDDIFIELD

  The Sacrifice copyright © 2001, 2013 by Gopits, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

  Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC

  an Andrews McMeel Universal company,

  1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

  www.andrewsmcmeel.com

  This is a work of fiction and, as such, events described herein are creations of the author’s imagination. Any relation to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental and accidental.

  ISBN: 9781449423803

  Cover design by Kevin Williamson. Photo by IstockPhoto/timmy and StockXchange/Cieleke.

  William X. Kienzle died in December 2001. He was a Detroit parish priest for twenty years before leaving the priesthood. He began writing his popular mystery series after serving as an editor and director at the Center for Contemplative Studies at the University of Dallas.

  The Father Koesler Mysteries

  1. The Rosary Murders

  2. Death Wears a Red Hat

  3. Mind Over Murder

  4. Assault with Intent

  5. Shadow of Death

  6. Kill and Tell

  7. Sudden Death

  8. Deathbed

  9. Deadline for a Critic

  10. Marked for Murder

  11. Eminence

  12. Masquerade

  13. Chameleon

  14. Body Count

  15. Dead Wrong

  16. Bishop as Pawn

  17. Call No Man Father

  18. Requiem for Moses

  19. The Man Who Loved God

  20. The Greatest Evil

  21. No Greater Love

  22. Till Death

  23. The Sacrifice

  24. The Gathering

  Here is a special preview of

  The Gathering

  The Father Koesler Mysteries: Book 24

  When stuck with an elephant it’s best to paint it white, Father Robert Koesler concluded.

  “Well,” said his guide, “what do you think? Recognize the old place?”

  Something about the term “old.” It was hard to think of himself as old. Just as it was hard to consider this building old. Yet he was seventy-three. And St. John’s Center—once St. John’s Provincial Seminary—was fifty-four.

  He himself was in relatively good health. For which he was grateful. But while his participation in enterprises such as baseball, football, and basketball had been fun … no more; he was now merely a spectator. Yet grateful to be able to still care for himself, thanks to a robust immune system.

  As for St. John’s, upon reflection, his assessment seemed accurate: a veritable white elephant—a rare, expensive possession that had become a financial burden.

  Prior to 1949, most Michigan seminarians who graduated from Sacred Heart Seminary college and still aspired to the priesthood headed for their final four years of theology at Mount St. Mary’s in Cincinnati. A fate just this side of death.

  Events would have continued in that dour manner had it not been for the dynamic, if princely, leadership of Edward Cardinal Mooney.

  Mooney was named bishop of Detroit in 1937. Because he was already an archbishop, Detroit, for the first time and forevermore, became ipso facto an archdiocese. Unexpectedly— since membership in the College of Cardinals was at that time strictly limited—in 1946 Mooney was named a Cardinal.

  He was gifted with enough foresight to anticipate the coming flood of candidates for the priesthood. So he dragged the other Michigan bishops—some kicking and screaming mightily—into building Michigan’s own theologate seminary: St. John’s Provincial, serving the Province of Michigan.

  Mooney pinched no penny in construction and landscaping, even adding a picturesque nine-hole golf course, which the Cardinal played as much as or more than anyone else, including the students.

  There followed unparalleled upheaval in the seminary, the Catholic Church, and the world. These transformations took place in the sixties, a decade of turmoil. The Vietnam War fractured the nation. The Second Vatican Council gave birth to changes that seemed to contradict hitherto changeless verities. Seminaries exploded with hordes of applicants, only to nearly empty when Vatican II either promised too much or delivered too little.

  Thought was given to expanding Sacred Heart Seminary. And, indeed, another high school building was erected. Pressure grew to complete St. John’s building program.

  Then, seemingly overnight, seminarians became an endangered species.

  The Province of Michigan—principally the Archdiocese of Detroit—was now running two seminaries, each of which required expensive maintaining. In actuality, either one of them was far more than adequate to house, feed, and educate the ever-shrinking number of priestly candidates.

  The eventual decision was to continue Sacred Heart Seminary, eliminating the high school, keeping the college, and adding the theologate. It became Sacred Heart Major Seminary.

  And St. John’s? It became a white elephant.

  Why was Sacred Heart kept operational, with expanded courses, while St. John’s was shut down?

  The obvious response was the Neighborhood.

  Once, early on, Sacred Heart had stood almost alone on the then-outskirts of the city of Detroit. Along the way, the wilderness was replaced by a Jewish community. Its synagogue grew up kitty-corner from the seminary. Eventually, African-Americans replaced the Jewish inhabitants. By 1988, the consensus was that there would be no buyers for all those antiquated buildings.

  St. John’s, on the other hand, had practically no neighborhood at all.

  St. John’s went on the block. Sacred Heart circled its wagons ever more closely.

  So, back to his guide’s question: Did Father Koesler recognize the old place?

  “Yes and no,” he hedged.

  It was an unexpected reply. “It hasn’t changed that much,” she said, “… has it?”

  “The shell is here,” he said slowly. “The buildings … the rooms …” He looked about. “But it’s so much more beautiful—and larger as well.”

  “Are you really that surprised? I mean, I know you haven’t been back here since it became St. John’s Center. But you must’ve seen pictures …”

  “Oh yes … yes, I have. But the pictures don’t do justice to the in-person reality.”

  “Is there anything else you’d like to see? We’ve been pretty much through the whole place. But if you want another look …”

  “No … no, thank you. You’ve been very gracious.” He hesitated. “I think I’l
l just wander around a bit.” His smile was flitting. “I don’t think I’ll get lost. The buildings—at least most of them—are the same. Only the names have been changed. The library reading room still stands … though in my day it was the chapel. And so on …” he finished somewhat lamely.

  Her smile was meant to be encouraging. “Just keep in mind, Father, St. John’s is no longer a seminary. Though it is still owned by the Archdiocese of Detroit, it has absolutely nothing to do with educating priests. Now, we hold weddings here … even cater the receptions. We provide counseling for troubled parents and children. We have facilities for handling meetings of almost any kind or size, as well as overnight accommodations.

  “And there are recreational facilities. There’s basketball and handball. And of course, there’s golf—”

  Koesler nodded, then grinned, recalling countless hours spent by him and his seminary classmates in clearing the fairways of stones. “Up from what it was. Nine holes and lots of space in our day. I haven’t been back since the course was modernized and expanded to eighteen holes.”

  “Now,” she said, “it’s a pleasuresome twenty-seven.”

  “But the buildings—at least the ones that were here when we were students … they hold memories that will never fade from my life.” Half lost in recollection, he looked about, then turned back to her. “Again: Thanks for the tour.”

  She nodded, turned to leave, then did an about-face. “One thing you ought to be clear on, Father: You are scheduled to meet with your guests at six o’clock in the cafeteria. You do know how to get there?”

  “Uh-huh. Another building that wasn’t here in the beginning. But you showed it to me in our tour and I remember: It’s at the end of the tunnel beneath St. Edward’s Hall and just inside the Power House reception area. Don’t worry: If any of us get lost, we’ll yell for help.”

  Her eyes crinkled in amusement. “Okay.”