Mind Over Murder

by William X. Kienzle

  “The worst of me is known. . . .”

  —J. C. F. Schiller

  Blood Found in Abandoned Car

  FOUL PLAY FEARED IN CASE OF MISSING MONSIGNOR

  By Joe Cox

  Free Press Staff Writer

  A new development has been uncovered by the Detroit police in the day-old case of the missing Monsignor. Msgr. Thomas Thompson’s late-model Eldorado was found early Monday morning parked and abandoned in front of De La Salle High School on Detroit’s near east side.

  Lt. Ned Harris, head of Squad Six of the Homicide Division, stated that blood was found on tissues in the car’s waste receptacle, and a casing from what appeared to be a .32-caliber automatic pistol was found on the car’s front seat.

  “Investigation of this case as a possible homicide has just begun,” stated Homicide Inspector Walter Koznicki. “Until now,” Koznicki added, “the disappearance of Monsignor Thompson has been treated as a missing person’s case. The discovery of his automobile, the bloodstains, the spent cartridge, as well as several other details I am not at liberty to discuss at this time have moved the case into a full-fledged homicide investigation.”

  Msgr. Thompson was last seen Saturday evening at Roma Hall on Gratiot in East Detroit. Thompson was attending a wedding reception when, according to witnesses, he was called to the phone. After a few moments’ conversation, he was heard to say, “You don’t mean it! Where? I’ll be right there!”

  At first, it was thought that See MONSIGNOR Page 13A

  1

  “Six hundred thirty-nine dollars and two cents for liquor? SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINE DOLLARS AND TWO CENTS FOR BOOZE! This is unprecedented! This is unheard-of! This is crazy!”

  On this sleepy first Monday in July, June’s liquor bill was an eye-opener for Father Robert Koesler. Until finding the bill among the papers on his office desk, he had been going through the motions of beginning another somnolent summer week.

  In her office, down the hall from Koesler’s, St. Anselm’s parish secretary Mary O’Connor half-smiled and half-winced. It was so unlike Koesler to become excited over anything, let alone shout, that she was torn between laughter and the natural anxiety that anger usually generates. Since placing the bill on his desk, she had expected some sort of audible reaction. But not at this decibel level.

  She heard his resolute footsteps approaching her office.

  “Mary…” Though he had already offered Mass, including a brief homily, eaten a light breakfast, and read the Detroit Free Press, for the first time this morning Koesler was fully awake. “What is the meaning of this liquor bill? Did you see it? Cases of Chivas Regal, Crown Royal, Stolichnaya, Beefeaters, and Jack Daniel’s! We don’t stock these expensive brands in the rectory. And certainly not by the case! There must be some mistake!”

  “There’s no mistake,” she offered meekly.

  “There’s no mistake.” He wanted to make certain his ears as well as his eyes were functioning. He hoped they weren’t, but feared otherwise.

  “No, Father, there’s no mistake.”

  “Well, then, who? I certainly didn’t order them!” He looked at her quizzically, as if discovering a hitherto undisclosed spendthrift side to her character.

  “Oh, no, Father.” His gaze was transparent; the intent behind it obvious. “Not me!”

  “Not you?”

  “Not me!”

  “Then who?”

  “Deacon Les.”

  “Deacon Les?”

  “Yes.”

  He paused to absorb the impact of this news. Deacon Lester Schroeder was in his final seminary years, and theoretically, in his concluding glide pattern toward becoming a Catholic priest. As a practicum, deacons—not those choosing the office as a permanent state, but those passing through it toward the priesthood—lived and worked in a parish in order to experience what presumably would be their life’s work.

  Deacon Lester Schroeder had selected Father Koesler and St. Anselm’s in Dearborn Heights for his pre-priestly parochial training. Reluctantly, Koesler had accepted him. Reluctantly, because, with weekend Mass help from priest friends, Koesler felt quite self-sufficient at St. Anselm’s. In addition, he was not eager for the company of the emerging young cleric who thought he could foretell the future with clarity while knowing absolutely nothing of the past.

  “So,” Koesler replied, after the reflective manner of Charlie Chan, “it was Deacon Les.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Where might I find God’s gift to the grape and grain at this very moment?”

  “I believe he’s in the living room.”

  “Thank you, Mary.”

  Koesler turned and strode toward the rectory’s living room with its Chaucerian characters marching along seemingly endless Canterbury trails on the wallpaper. The design had been selected by Koesler’s predecessor. Koesler disliked it but, characteristically, did nothing about replacing it.

  There was Lester Schroeder, suave, debonair, with just the proper measure of aftershave lotion to proclaim his presence before one entered it. He was sunk into the overstuffed white couch, feet on the coffee table, assiduously writing on a notepad.

  “Oh, Les…” Koesler forced his voice into a conversational tone. It was not easy. He thought he might hurt himself.

  “Oh,” Les looked up with a winning smile, “ ‘morning, Bob.”

  “I’ll come right to the point, Les: to understate, I’m upset about this liquor bill for last month.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.” Koesler consulted the bill. “Six hundred and thirty-nine dollars and two cents!”

  “Oh.”

  “Les, that is approximately what I have budgeted for the parish for at least half a year, if not much longer.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you realize how we are going to have to stretch the booze you ordered?”

  “I guess not. It’s gone.”

  “Gone!”

  “Well, yes.”

  “What did you do? Pour it out upon the ground in some exotic ritual?”

  “No, they drank it.”

  “They? Who?”

  “My visitors.”

  “You mean those hirsute, jeans-clad young people I find wall-to-wall on the floor most evenings?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Les”—it was as if scales were falling from Koesler’s eyes—"until now, I thought you were the Pied Piper. But now I see you are the Prodigal Son.”

  “Oh?” Schroeder was uncertain as to whether Koesler was reprimanding or complimenting him.

  “From now on, Les, the booze pump is turned off. Your friends can have anything from iced tea to Pepsi. But no hard stuff.”

  “Not even beer or wine?”

  “Not even beer or wine.”

  “Well, then,” Schroeder shrugged elaborately, “that will spell the end to the youth ministry in this parish.”

  “C’mon, Les. You can do it without leaning on alcohol as bait.” In his inner heart, Koesler knew Schroeder couldn’t do it.

  “I guess I can try,” Schroeder affirmed, fanning the embers of his self-confidence.

  “Oh, by the way, Bob,” Schroeder perked up, “you may get some feedback from something I said in my homily at yesterday’s Mass.”

  Koesler sighed and braced himself. “What might that have been, Les?”

  “I told them that as a result of my kerygmatic catechesis, they must respond as the people of God, experience an existential metanoia and become a transcendent faith community.” He looked expectantly at Koesler.

  There was a pause. “I don’t think I’m going to get any feedback from what you said to our ‘people of God,’ Les,” Koesler said, at length. “I don’t think anyone understood your trenchant stat
ement.”

  “Well, if you think not, Bob…"

  “I think not, Les.”

  They were interrupted by a hesitant, apologetic knock at the living room door.

  “The mail is here, Father.” Mary O’Connor spoke just loudly enough to be heard.

  “Saved by the mail call, Les,” said Koesler as he began the return to his office.

  “Whatever you say, Bob.”

  Koesler fingered through the mail. Almost all of it was junk mail. A company that sold sacramental wine, assuring the purchaser that all company trucks had Catholic drivers. An offer of communion wafers made by contemplative nuns, assuring the customer that the wafers had been touched solely by consecrated virginal hands. Koesler thought it must have been simpler at the Last Supper.

  “Damn!” The expletive escaped involuntarily. The envelope’s return address was that of the Tribunal, the archdiocesan matrimonial court. Over the years, Koesler had come to associate the word Tribunal with bad news. And at the mention of Monsignor Tommy Thompson—director of the Tribunal—Koesler always heard in his mind the menacing chords that accompany Scarpia’s entrance in “Tosca.”

  Koesler wondered what this bit of bad news could be. Probably, he mused spiritlessly, another notary job wherein the Tribunal would order him to visit some innocent parishioner to ask largely irrelevant, sometimes embarrassingly personal questions regarding a broken marriage involving some relation or friend. The damned inquisitive Tribunal. Forever poking its bureaucratic nose in other people’s lives.

  With symbolic vehemence, Koesler ripped the envelope from seam to seam.

  Slowly shaking his head, he read the contents. The case referred to in this communication was nearly a year old. It had begun when a Catholic woman visited Koesler with the announcement that her husband had deserted her. She wanted an ecclesiastical separation. Koesler had assured her it was perfectly all right for her to continue her sacramental life without permission from the Tribunal. After all, her single state was not of her doing. But, as a member in good standing of the conservative Catholics United for the Faith, she demanded ecclesial permission. Well, to Caesar she had appealed; to Caesar she would go.

  Except that, along the red-tape way, her husband had effectively disappeared. Koesler had made several fruitless attempts to locate the husband.

  This was the third Tribunal request for information on the status of the case. In response to the two previous requests, Koesler had explained the husband’s disappearance and promised that if the reluctant spouse were ever found, Koesler would make sure the Tribunal would be among the first to know. Now, he would have to waste time making yet another written statement to that effect.

  At the bottom of the official document, Koesler noted the stamped signature, “Msgr. Thomas Thompson.”

  The three menacing chords resounded in Koesler’s ears.

  Father Patrick McNiff pulled his modest silver-colored Fairmont reverentially through the huge stone gates of Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

  McNiff had recently been assigned as pastor of Holy Name parish on Van Dyke on Detroit’s east side. The parish was almost adjacent to Mt. Olivet. Thus, it was common for many other parishes, especially those on the west side or in the suburbs, to ask the priests of Holy Name to conduct on their behalf the final obsequy—the burial.

  Holy Name’s cooperation saved these priests enormous amounts of time which, depending on the priest, would be either well-used or wasted. The priests at Holy Name—there were three—put the five-dollar stipend for the burial rite in a common fund that was evenly divided at vacation times.

  Prior to his arrival at Holy Name, McNiff’s friends and classmates had hosted him at a dinner celebrating his appointment. One classmate, Robert Koesler, had publicly depicted McNiff as sitting forlornly at the stone gates, biretta in hand, chanting, “Bury your dead! Five dollah! Bury your dead.”

  McNiff took the kidding good-naturedly. His task was most serious, dealing with families frequently at the moment of their greatest grief. In fact, he often remarked he wished society would do away with at least this final funeral rite. The graveside ceremony often demanded too much of the bereaved.

  As he cruised the circular drive to await the arrival of the cortege he was to service, McNiff noticed a familiar car parked at the side of the cemetery’s central office. A big black Eldorado with silver and red trim and plenty of chrome. Behind the wheel, he noted a man’s square-shaped head sporting a trim haircut and red neck. McNiff could almost sense smoke seeping from the ears.

  Gliding to a halt behind the Eldorado, he approached from the rear.

  “As I live and breathe,” McNiff opened, “it’s Monsignor Tommy Thompson.”

  “Eh? What?” Thompson obviously had been startled.

  Thompson did not enjoy being startled. In any case, he clearly was not amused.

  “Waiting for a funeral, Monsignor?”

  “Oh… oh, McNiff… no, of course not, McNiff. Don’t be silly. I couldn’t think of anything better to do on a sleepy Monday in July but come out here and direct traffic. Of course I’m waiting for a funeral, McNiff! It’s just that nothing ever happens in my life.”

  “How are things at the Tribunal, Monsignor?” McNiff wished he had never begun this conversation.

  “Busy. Too busy!” Thompson had not looked at McNiff beyond that moment necessary to recognize him. He looked steadfastly at the gate, watching for the first sight of his cortege. “Everybody wants out of a lifetime commitment. They promise till death do them part; then, at the first sign of trouble, they run. Then they want me to come running and bail them out. Annulment! Annulment! They all want an annulment from me. They think annulments grow on trees. Well, they soon find we grant annulments few and far between.”

  “Aren’t you being a bit all-inclusive, Monsignor?”

  “No, I’m not!” Thompson said firmly and finally in his resonant baritone.

  A hearse entered the gateway. Thompson’s unspectacled eyes peered at the small sign in the driver’s side window. Howe-Peterson. Wrong funeral home.

  “I suppose,” Thompson growled at McNiff, “that’s your goddamned corpse!”

  “Yes,” said McNiff with a bit more verve than necessary, “and you can’t have it.”

  Thompson continued to growl and grouse.

  As McNiff took leave to join the cortege, he noted that under his black monsignorial cassock with red piping in all the appropriate places, Thompson was wearing bright green slacks.

  So that was it. On top of everything else, Thompson was late for a golf match. I hope, McNiff thought vindictively, that you hit every trap and lake.

  Depositing that inoffensive curse, McNiff went forth to bury his dead.

  Although St. Anselm’s was located in Dearborn Heights and Divine Child was in Dearborn, they were neighbors. Divine Child, founded in 1950, was four years older than Anselm’s and offered a complete Catholic education through high school. This was in contrast to Anselm’s, which offered only elementary school.

  Divine Child was not a populous high school by anyone’s standards. Generally, the student body numbered in the vicinity of 350—and always more girls than boys.

  A casual glance at the student body was revelatory. The girls of Divine Child looked like—well, high school girls. However, a sizable number of the boys resembled the Incredible Hulk, with massive shoulders, chests, and thighs, and no necks. Most of the other boys were more lithe, but definitely of the split-end, defensive backfield, quarterback variety.

  Recruitment was carried on, largely and successfully, by coach Walter Blaszczyk, ably assisted by alumni and several assistant coaches.

  It was a breakdown in his recruitment plot that had triggered the conversation now going on between Coach Blaszczyk and Father David Neiss. Father Neiss was the young assistant pastor at Divine Child. And as such, among other duties discarded by priests as they gained seniority, he was athletic director.

  “I am telling you, Father, I could not believe it
using my own ears and eyes.” Blaszczyk removed his tattered baseball cap and scratched his ample head of hair with the same hand.

  “Keep it down,” cautioned Father Neiss. “School’s out, but the maintenance people are around. Someone’s bound to hear you.”

  “I cannot help it, Father. Can you believe it? Two students from over beyond the parish boundaries apply for admission to next year’s tenth grade. One of them is Adam Sierminski. A boy whom I have recruited since he played fifth-grade football over by Holy Redeemer.”

  “How big is he?”

  “How big is he? He could fill your doorway with some left over!”

  “That big!”

  “He is maybe six feet-five and weighs maybe 280-290 pounds. And he is ready and able to join our summer workouts.”

  “Well,” Neiss’s attention began to wander to other duties, “what happened?”

  “What happened? What happened? You will not believe what happened! But at the same time Sierminski enrolled, so did a goddamn girl. Just your ordinary, everyday goddamn girl!”

  “You don’t mean—”

  “That is my meaning. Sister Mary Patrick took the goddamn girl!”

  “But why?”

  “Better marks.”

  “Better marks?”

  Blaszczyk simply nodded, confident the enormity of this injustice had registered with Father Neiss.

  It had.

  “O.K., Walt; relax. I’ll get Sierminski in if we have to create an extra place in the sophomore class.”

  “That, in point of fact, is precisely what you will have to do. There was only one place left in the tenth grade when Sister picked that goddamn girl.”

  “Well, Walt,” Neiss laughed somewhat nervously, “one more desk in a classroom is not going to bother anyone, is it?”

  Neiss reached up and slapped Blaszczyk on one broad shoulder and walked away. Inwardly, Neiss was not nearly as confident he could convince Sister Mary Patrick to add just one more place. As principal, she guarded her teachers against the slightest over-enrollment like a protective hydra.

  Well, he thought, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. For now, he was due at the rectory in fifteen minutes for an appointment. He hurried across the parking lot, on three sides of which were the school, the church, and the rectory.