Marked for Murder: The Father Koesler Mysteries: fk-10

by William Kienzle

  “And that’s what’s going to happen to the guy who got El, eh? You’re going to solve the puzzle.”

  “Damn right! Only this one’s not gonna end there. I’m gonna nail him.” He was unnaturally truculent. “Nobody does that to one of my people; nobody does that to me and walks.”

  “Well, Zoo, there’s lots of people out there want you to do just that.”

  Alice got up, walked behind Tully’s chair and began kneading his shoulders. He groaned as she found one taut muscle after another.

  “You’ve had a rough day.” She continued to dig her fingers into his back. “I’ve had a rough day. We’ve had a rough day. What say we go to bed?”

  Tully hesitated. He seemed to be weighing the pros and cons. Finally, he shook his head.

  “No, Hon; you go ahead. I want to go through my files again. Someplace in there is the guy who did this—or had it done. I gotta find him. And I gotta find him quick. There’s a whole day gone and we’re not even close.”

  Alice slowly climbed the stairs—alone. Maybe Zoo’s first wife had a point in leaving. The chase, the game, the puzzle. Maybe it was just impossible for a woman to compete with a real-life whodunit. Maybe it wasn’t even worth the try. She slid between the cold sheets and curled into a ball.

  Tully went into the den. He poured a generous glass of inexpensive Gallo wine and opened the private files of cases he’d worked on. He would stay at it until the early hours of the morning when he could no longer keep his eyes open. Even under the steady pressure of precious elapsing time, there were limits beyond which even he could not push himself.

  5

  Meanwhile, in an area of Detroit much closer to the center city, Arnold Bush was awake and alert. He was busy in his efficiency apartment. By anyone’s standards, it was not much. A cot, two chairs, a small table, a hot plate, and a sink. The bathroom, shared by everyone on the second floor, was down the hall. It was a poor apartment, in a poor complex, in a poor section of the city. It was all Bush could afford.

  With his pay as an autopsy attendant, he could have been a bit more kind to himself. But he needed money for some of his exotic habits and hardware. Such as these pictures he was mounting on one of the apartment’s walls. He had paid an exorbitant amount to the morgue technician for enlargements of the exhaustive series of pictures of the late Louise Bonner.

  The pictures had been shot at every conceivable angle. There were close-ups of the head, showing clearly the marks a belt had made on her neck. Her torso had been photographed over and over, with particular emphasis on the breast that had been branded.

  One by one, Bush affixed them to the wall. After hanging each photo, he would step back to judge the overall effect, the balance of one photo with another. Frequently, he would rearrange them to achieve a more satisfying grouping. He kept returning to the small table where a cigarette smoldered. Taking a deep drag, he would exhale slowly through his nostrils. The table held several ashtrays, all overflowing with the remains of cigarettes that had been smoked as completely as was humanly possible.

  These were by no means the only pictures on the walls. But they were the first pictures of their ilk. On two other walls were pictures taken from pornographic magazines. And, while many of the posed photos were sado-masochistic, none approached the brutality of the photos taken at the morgue.

  Only one of the four walls in this apartment was not covered with pictures of tortured, nude, or nearly naked women. The wall at the head of Arnold’s bed also held pictures. But they were the sort traditional Catholics called “holy” pictures. Mostly individual pictures of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph depicted as blond, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxons in maudlin poses reeking of insincere sincerity. In the midst of these pictures were two crosses and one crucifix.

  Arnold Bush was at least nominally a Catholic. In infancy, he had been baptized as a Catholic, and that religious designation had been permanently attached to his record as he was shifted about as a child. He managed to make his First Holy Communion, but was never confirmed—a conjunction of sacrament and nonsacrament that indicated his religious training had been spotty at best. As an adult, his personal brand of Catholicism was superficial and highly superstitious. Thus he saw no incongruity in decorating his room with a mixture of pornography and pietistic art.

  Finally! All the Bonner photos were now arranged to his satisfaction. He moved a chair to the opposite wall and sat down to appreciate his handiwork.

  Arnold Bush, of moderate height but powerful build, blond, and unmarried, was fifty-three. He looked much younger. Orphaned early in life, he had resided in a series of foster homes, some of them better than others, but none approximating a secure haven with loving parents.

  By far his most traumatic experience in growing up occurred when he was twelve. The foster couple he was placed with at that time had to leave the state abruptly; a matter of bouncing checks. They left him with the woman’s sister, who happened to be the madam in a house of prostitution.

  He watched, he listened, he absorbed. It left an indelible impression.

  After two years of this, the state bureaucracy found him again and, after entering this latest misfortune in his record, the state shipped him off to an institution for young men.

  Arnold never recovered from his years of residence in the whorehouse. The experience marked him for life. Several times, mostly at the insistence of another man, he tried to strike up a normal relationship with a woman. He was never successful. There were too many memories of the hard, emotionless brief encounters that he’d witnessed. He knew how the women talked about the men they’d been with. He would not let that happen to him.

  So Arnold cut himself off from almost all human contact. He worked very hard. He had to. He had no one to help him with anything. He had isolated himself from everyone. He grew physically strong. From time to time, he amazed even himself at how strong he was.

  Take this morning, for instance, when his fellow worker had tried to take Louise Bonner away from him. Arnold had grabbed the man roughly. When the man pulled away, angry red marks—Arnold’s handprints—appeared on his arms. Arnold had been genuinely surprised. And with surprise came renewed pride. He felt—for at least a little while—that he could do anything.

  This was a time of change for Arnold Bush. No longer would anyone take advantage of him. He would be in control. And these pictures on the wall were but a sign of what was to come.

  6

  “We’re doing better, you know,” Father Dick Kramer said. He balanced the phone receiver between his right shoulder and right ear while he lit a fresh cigarette from one that was down to its last millimeter. As he did so, he observed, but was barely aware of, his hand trembling.

  “I’m sure you are, Father,” replied Mrs. Ginny Quinn, associate director of planning for the parochial school system. “But you must remember, I’m dealing with figures. And figures don’t lie.”

  “But you haven’t got all the facts,” Kramer asserted. “Figures are not all the facts. Spirit goes into this too. You can’t measure the spirit of this parish. And I can tell you without any reservation, Mother of Sorrows wants its school to stay open. Even now our parish is enlisting several fund-raisers to bail the school out. But how can we do that if you insist the school has to close down? How can I motivate my people to work to keep it open if you, in effect, tell them it’s a lost cause?”

  Ginny Quinn sighed. She had been through all this too often with too many pastors and parish councils. It takes tons of money to run a school. More money, in fact, each year. There just was not that kind of money to be had in the poorer sections of Detroit. But all that so many of the pastors could see was the long history of their schools, which, realistically now, had no future.

  “Father,” she said, “I’m not closing your school; the archdiocese is not closing your school. The budget simply states that the parish can no longer afford to keep it open. Do you know what your deficit was in the past fiscal year?”

  “I . . . I don’t have t
he figures right here.” He stubbed out the cigarette, forgetting to light another from the butt. He shook out another unfiltered Camel and lit it.

  “It was $82,104, Father.”

  He was impressed. Not only at the extravagant sum, but that she had it down to the dollar. She undoubtedly had the cents too, but didn’t care to grandstand.

  “Well,” he remarked after a moment, “that’s considerable.”

  “I should say.”

  “But we can cover it. Even now the parish council is making plans—”

  “Father,” Mrs. Quinn interrupted, “that’s just this fiscal year. I don’t doubt that with a maximum effort the parish might be able to cover the debt this year.” Actually, she doubted the hell out of it. “But,” she pressed, “what about next year? And the year after that? The money just isn’t there, Father. Once it was and now it isn’t. It would be a mercy for everyone, Father, to face facts and pull the plug.”

  “But—”

  “I’m sorry, Father; this is my considered opinion. Of course, if you want to take it up with my superiors in the school office . . . or with the archbishop . . .”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Kramer said hastily. “Maybe I could talk it over with you again . . . I mean, after we’ve both had a chance to think it over.”

  “Certainly, Father. I’ll always be happy to talk to you.” Another small lie. She devoutly wished he would dry up and blow away.

  He hung up, leaving his hand on the receiver as if about to make another call. He took a double drag of the Camel, then crushed it in the ashtray. Even to his seasoned mouth, the smoke was excessively hot.

  “No luck, eh?” Sister Mary Therese asked. Although, since she had been party to at least his end of the conversation, she knew.

  He smiled grimly. “She said I could appeal to the archbishop”

  “Are you going to?”

  “Are you kidding? I think that’s why Boyle insulated himself behind all these layers of bureaucracy: Underneath it all, he’s too much a priest. Oh, I think I could reach him . . . but he’d only tell me he had to follow the informed suggestions of the experts.”

  “Like Mrs. Quinn.”

  “Exactly.” Kramer lit another Camel.

  Both hands were trembling, but only slightly. One would have to be extremely observant to notice. Sister Mary Therese noticed.

  Mary Therese Hercher’s position was relatively new and, so far, quite rare in the structure of the Catholic Church. For many years she had been a teaching nun. Then, in the wake of renewal and change that swept the Church in the sixties and seventies, she and so many other nuns reevaluated their vocational direction.

  After much prayer and consultation, she had felt called to an inner city parochial apostolate. With Father Kramer’s affirmation, she assumed the title of pastoral assistant at Mother of Sorrows parish, which was on Grand River Avenue near the boundary of the corporate limits of the city of Detroit. In effect, she became a quasi copastor with Kramer.

  While his was the ultimate responsibility, and while he was very definitely the canonical pastor, she was given the care of many parish ministries. She could not offer Mass, absolve or, in fact, administer sacraments. But she could—and did—administer many programs for youth, for families, for the unemployed, for the elderly. And, in her own quiet way, she infiltrated some sacramental spheres. She listened patiently to the woes and sins of troubled souls. Then she forgave their sins. And the people felt forgiven.

  Asked how she managed to give absolution without any ecclesial power to do so, she would answer, “I give them a little hug.”

  Her trim little figure, lively sparkling eyes, and ready smile brightened the homes of Mother of Sorrows parishioners and, in no small measure, made the rectory a much more livable place, even though she spent only some of her working hours there.

  Of all the parishes that would have welcomed her, Mary Therese had chosen Mother of Sorrows for the sole reason that Father Richard Kramer was pastor. For several years she had been aware of his work around and for the people of this parish. Indeed, by almost any measure, Kramer was one of the hardest working pastors in the archdiocese. However, some would claim his work was largely unproductive, particularly in relation to the time and effort he invested. He seemed driven and in a constant manic state.

  Mary Therese’s feelings toward Kramer were mixed. She admired and respected his total dedication. Yet she feared—was almost certain—he was pushing himself too hard.

  Then there was his smoking! She had no way of counting—and he would not admit to any definite number—but she was sure he was going through three to four packs a day. And unfiltered to boot! The rectory, his car, even his typewriter, reeked of nicotine. But she had long since ceased badgering him about a habit that had been condemned by just about everyone save the tobacco industry.

  “Dick,” she said, after waiting in vain for the slight tremor to leave his hands, “don’t you think it’s time to circle the wagons a little closer?”

  “What? What are you getting at?”

  “Maybe it’s time to let things take their course. Maybe it’s time to let the school close.”

  “What? Do you know how many years Mother of Sorrows School has been operating?”

  “Sure I do. But what lasts forever? Most of the city’s other parochial schools have closed.”

  Kramer ran a hand through his blond hair. Though in his mid-fifties, he was wrinkle-free, thus he looked much younger. “Have you seen them, Therese? They’re ugly! They’re shells! The windows are broken. They look like they’re haunted. And they are! By their own past. Kids—thousands of kids—grew up in those schools. Now the buildings just stand there idle, mocking the church, the rectory, the whole damn neighborhood. No, I won’t have it!”

  “Not all of them are idle, Dick. Some of them—most of them—have been converted into other kinds of service. And God knows that—”

  “But they’re not schools. And they’re only partially used. And they’re not schools!” Kramer was growing somewhat incoherent. “Mary Therese, you just don’t know. You’ve never been attached to a parish that doesn’t have a school. You were a teaching nun. So naturally, any parish you were associated with had to have a functioning school—or you wouldn’t have been there. So all you know is the kind of spirit you find in a parish with a school.

  “Let me tell you, I was an assistant at St. Norbert’s when they built their school. It was like night and day. Before the school, it just didn’t seem like anything held the place together. But once the school was there, it was as if somebody poured glue. The parish hung together like never before!”

  Mary Therese knew the school was going to close. The handwriting was on the wall. Everyone saw it—everyone except Father Kramer. She wanted to soften the blow for him if at all possible.

  “As you say, Dick, I was a teaching nun. So I know better than most that we are an endangered species. And it’s not so much that I and many others have opted out of teaching. It’s that so very few young women are entering the convent now. There are almost no teaching nuns coming along. And you know as well as I, Dick, that this country could never have begun or built or sustained our vast parochial school system without the nuns to staff them. If the Church had had to pay a realistic wage to these teachers, there would never have been a parochial school system; the Church could never have afforded it.

  “And that’s where we are now. Oh, maybe the barrel isn’t entirely empty . . . but almost. There just aren’t enough teaching sisters to come even close to staffing the schools. Some of the suburban Catholic schools are hanging on because they are just barely managing to pay a competitive wage to lay teachers. But that’s not going to go on forever. Meanwhile, here we are: How can we possibly afford to pay lay teachers? And lay teachers are what we’ve got. There are no nuns.”

  “This parish can rise to the challenge.”

  “This parish is great, Dick. And its greatness is a direct tribute to you.”

&nbs
p; “No . . .”

  “It is. But it’s as Mrs. Quinn said: The school is like a bottomless pit. We’re putting almost every penny from every other service we have into the school. And still it isn’t enough.”

  “So that’s it! You’re jealous ’cause your programs are not getting everything they were budgeted for.”

  “Dick! That’s not worthy of you!”

  He reddened. “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

  “It’s all right. It’s just that if you could put the school behind you, we could do so many other things. This parish is not going to fall apart just because we can’t keep the school open.”

  He tapped a cigarette on the desktop, tamping the tobacco tightly together. “But I gave my word. I gave the people my word it would stay open.”

  “For God’s sake, Dick, if anybody understands how hard you work for this place, it’s the people. They’ll know you did everything humanly possible to keep it going. The last thing you ought to be concerned with is how the people will react.”

  “Maybe. . . . Maybe . . . maybe . . .” Absently, he placed the cigarette between his lips and struck a match.

  He resembled a small boy who had just been told there would be no visit from Santa this year. Mary Therese felt an impulse to cradle his head, put her hand on his slumping shoulder, touch him in some way. That she did not was not so much her decision as it was a matter of his character. His entire demeanor seemed to forbid any physical expression of emotion, let alone affection.

  There was nothing more for her to do. Silently, she rose and left the room.

  He seemed unaware of her departure.

  7

  Father Koesler pulled into the parking lot of the Burtha M. Fisher Home, better known as the Little Sisters of the Poor, Home for the Aged.

  The Little Sisters took excellent care of the elderly and the aging ill. So exceptional was their care, according to the nuns themselves, that there was seldom a vacancy. The residents just lived on and on. The Little Sisters exulted in the fact that while their waiting list was long enough to discourage all but the most determined, there was almost always room for another priest.