Mind Over Murder

by William X. Kienzle

  Years before, when Thompson had been Defender of the Bond, he had tried to get the Michigan Attorney General’s office to agree to a plan that would have gotten the attention of ecclesiastical lawbreakers. The state routinely recognizes as civilly valid marriages all weddings witnessed by bona fide ministers, priests, or rabbis, who are, in turn, recognized as such by their own established churches.

  Thompson’s plan was to convince the state not to recognize as valid civil marriages those weddings that the various denominations did not recognize as valid religious marriages. If he had been successful, these canonically invalid marriages would also be declared invalid in civil law.

  In this he rightly surmised that the few priests involved in witnessing canonically invalid marriages would be discouraged from doing so by the potentially disastrous complications ensuing from civil law.

  But Michigan’s attorney general, though Catholic, could spot a red herring when he saw one, and had dismissed Thompson’s attempt with a negative ruling.

  Since then, Thompson had never experienced a better opportunity to get the attention of those violators of canon law than now. And he had capitalized on it. Shanley would become his sacrificial victim. Shanley’s head would be mounted on the castle gate for all to see.

  Thompson was happier than he’d been since he had been appointed to monsignorial rank.

  As Shanley rose to leave the Archbishop’s office, the purpose of Monsignor Thompson’s presence became clear to him. This was all Thompson’s doing. Archbishop Boyle would never have done all this if left alone. He, Shanley, was to become Thompson’s scapegoat in the Monsignor’s war against violators of canon law.

  At Thompson’s door, Shanley could lay all his present and impending woe. He had never before felt such loathing for another human being.

  He was sure he had committed no sin by disregarding canon law. He was not too certain he was free from sin in his animosity toward Monsignor Thomas Thompson.

  It was as if she were back in high school.

  Pat Lennon had informed her news editor, with whom she felt comfortable about being open and aboveboard, of her appointment this Monday afternoon at the Tribunal. She had no intention of skipping out of the News on the pretext of developing some story. Besides not being the type to dissemble, Lennon could sense she was on the right track toward getting a decree of nullity for her previous marriage, and she wanted everything to do with her case, including her absence this afternoon, to be on the up and up.

  This would clear the way for marriage with Joe Cox in a Catholic ceremony. The only way she would have it. All this she shared with her editor, Bob Ankenazy, who was happy for her, told her to take the afternoon off, and wished her luck.

  She returned to her Lafayette Towers apartment, showered and perfumed for the second time that day, and dressed in what was, for her, a severe style. She tried to pretend she was dressing for an audience with the Pope. She wore a high-necked white cotton blouse with a blue neck ribbon and a blue-and-white seersucker suit.

  It didn’t work. Each and every curve insinuated its presence.

  She was early for her 2 P.M. appointment, her second with the Tribunal. Her previous visit had been two weeks before, when she had been interviewed by Father Ed Oleksiak. He had listened to her story, taken copious notes, and been cautiously encouraging. It was his opinion that she had entered her marriage out of spite and not freely. Depending on the evidence that could be gathered, Father Oleksiak thought a strong case could be built. At that point, he had been called from the office.

  Lennon did not know it, but Monsignor Thompson, who had earlier observed her with interest, had quizzed Oleksiak about her case and told him to arrange a follow-up appointment for her with the Monsignor.

  Oleksiak had returned and informed Lennon her next appointment would be with the head of the Tribunal. Lennon had deemed that to be a positive sign: her case was going right to the top.

  His interview with Lennon had redeemed the day for Oleksiak. It had been the day he had been forced to call his friend Father Neiss and inform him of Monsignor Thompson’s Polish policy. That had been as nasty an experience as the Lennon interview had been heartening.

  Monsignor Thompson returned from lunch promptly at 1:30. He was so ebullient from his triumph over Father Shanley that morning that he had not even chafed at the parochial pedestrian conversation of St. Aloysius’s dining room.

  He was well aware that Pat Lennon was sitting, legs demurely crossed, in the Tribunal’s foyer. But he spent half an hour studying Ed Oleksiak’s notes on her case.

  At two, Mary Alberts knocked at his door.

  “There is a Patricia Lennon to see you, Monsignor.”

  “All right, Mary.” He did not look up from the notes. “Show her in.”

  Mary Alberts did not leave immediately.

  “Monsignor,” she said, “I don’t want to alarm you, but someone has been in the files. They are slightly out of order.”

  She needn’t have worried about alarming him. He was convinced she filed her pantyhose each night. Probably one of the notaries being sloppy while rummaging through the files.

  “No need to worry, Mary. Nobody wants our files. I’ll look into it later.”

  “Yes, Monsignor.”

  She directed Lennon to his office.

  From the moment she entered Monsignor Thompson’s office, Pat Lennon felt a growing sense of disappointment verging on anxiety. She had expected the head of the Tribunal to be a skilled expert, a professional, perhaps even a very ascetic saintly man. Someone who would be able to evaluate the merits of her case quickly and facilitate matters toward a speedy and desirable solution.

  However, such was not to be her good fortune. She sensed it almost as she entered the room. It was in the look he gave her. From the top of her head to the tip of her toe, his lingering glance told a pitiful tale she had encountered many times.

  She had been lasciviously inspected and mentally disrobed and imaginarily raped by experts. And this Monsignor ranked with the best, or grossest of them.

  She had hoped for so much. Yet, she felt as if she had been offered so little. She felt that special sense of despair that one experiences in dealing with a corrupt police officer. To whom do you appeal when the one sworn to protect you attacks you? To whom do you turn when the chief officer of the marriage court wants to bed you rather than judge you?

  She had had such high hopes.

  They exchanged perfunctory greetings.

  “Now, Miss Lennon,” he consulted his notes, “according to the testimony you gave Father Oleksiak, you described the consummation of your marriage as a form of rape.”

  “Yes.” She found it difficult to look at him.

  “But you were married in a Catholic church, the ceremony witnessed by a Catholic priest?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Miss Lennon, it’s quite impossible for a husband to rape his wife. She has a debitum, a debt, which she must render whenever her husband reasonably demands it. You went to Catholic school, even college; you must have learned that.”

  “Yes, I learned that in school and then, later, I learned the lessons of reality.”

  “So, he raped you. You resisted?”

  “Of course,” she said firmly; “what do you think happens during a rape?”

  “Not all women resist, Miss Lennon. Studies show that some women bring it on themselves by their suggestive clothing and actions. You can’t tell me these women resist. They enjoy it.”

  A male chauvinist pig to boot, Lennon thought.

  “Well,” Thompson continued, “what did he do? Did he beat you? Rip off your clothes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes to both?”

  “Yes.” From his tone, Lennon guessed Thompson was, in his imagination, doing to her what her husband had done.

  “Did he have to go through this same procedure every time he wanted to have you?”

  “No.”

  “No? Can you explain?”
/>   “It wasn’t worth the fight. We stayed together only three months. I couldn’t stand him.”

  “I see.” Thompson tapped his pen against the desk. “Was your wedding night the first time you had intercourse with your husband?”

  “No.” Lennon found herself blushing.

  “How often? Frequently?”

  “Look,” said Lennon, “I don’t see what this line of questioning has to do with my case.”

  “Miss Lennon, leave the questions to me. This is my field of expertise.”

  I’ll just bet it is, Lennon thought.

  “So,” Thompson repeated, “how often?”

  “Once, twice a week. Toward the end of our brief engagement, maybe three or four times a week.”

  “And where did all this activity go on? The back seat of cars?”

  Lennon guessed Thompson was engaged in a form of mental masturbation.

  “No, not in the back seat of cars,” Lennon said sharply. “Leonard had an apartment.”

  “Was there foreplay or was it just the act of intercourse?”

  “There was foreplay.” Lennon felt her blush deepen.

  “Was there kinky sex or was it always the missionary position?”

  “Monsignor,” Lennon was on the brink of losing her temper, “I don’t think I am going to answer any more of your questions.”

  “Very well, Miss Lennon. But I must tell you that your story does not jibe. Why would you have intercourse regularly and willingly and then suddenly on your wedding night accuse your husband of rape?”

  Lennon sighed and decided to give it one more try. Though she could not understand why her story had made sense to Father Oleksiak, while Thompson seemed to find it incredible.

  “Monsignor, I’m not claiming what I did was honorable, made sense, or was even normal. I’m not at all proud of that period of my life. I didn’t even understand it at the time. It was only years after the fact that I was able to sort it all out and, I think, understand it.

  “When my original plan to marry was broken up by my parents, I hated them for it. But I internalized the hatred. Then I found a man they could never accept. Only, it turned out, neither could I. I seduced Leonard, I guess. But as soon as I married him and had sufficiently punished my parents, I could no longer stand him. Why, I was so torn up over the whole thing, I developed a rash that disappeared as soon as Leonard and I separated.”

  “Ah, yes, the rash.” Thompson again consulted his notes. “Was the rash confined to your face or arms or did it cover your entire body?”

  His eyes covered her entire body.

  “I thought I made it clear earlier, Monsignor, that I did not intend to answer any more of these clinically personal questions.”

  Thompson tapped the notes together, inserted them deliberately in a manila folder, and set the folder to one side.

  “That, of course,” he said, “is up to you. But our hands are tied. It does not seem to me to be a very strong case. You were undoubtedly upset by what happened, particularly when your parents discouraged your first attempt at marriage. But nothing that happened to you could be construed as blocking your free-will decisions.”

  They both rose. She noticed his eyes were on the bulge in the jacket made by her breasts.

  “Your reluctance to answer questions,” he continued, “is not going to do you any good. If you were more cooperative…” Thompson spread his hands at his sides in a gesture intended to convey that it was all up to her.

  Without a word, Lennon left the Tribunal. She felt demeaned, embarrassed, hurt, and angry. What had begun with so much hope now was heavy with an air of despair. And, seemingly, all due to one monsignorial jackass.

  As she reached Washington Boulevard, a thought came. She found a pay phone and dialed the number of Father Leo Clark, whom she considered her primary source in any question having to do with religion. The operator at St. John’s Seminary informed her that Father Clark had returned to his native Idaho for summer vacation.

  Next, she dialed Father Koesler, her secondary source. Fortunately, he was available at St. Anselm’s. Pat explained, dispensing with the more lurid details, what had transpired in her two visits to the Tribunal.

  “What I want to know, Father,” she concluded, “is, can he do it? I mean, Father Oleksiak was so kind, so understanding, and helpful. And then this bastard—pardon my French, Father—comes along and messes everything up. Can’t I go back to Father Oleksiak and forget about this clown?”

  Koesler, standing next to his desk, shook his head. “ ’Fraid not, Pat. I’m sorry, but a case as complicated as yours would never get through without Monsignor Thompson’s knowing about it. Now that he’s taken a personal interest, there’s just no way to get around him.”

  “What if I took it to another city?”

  “No good. The relevant court is Detroit. You live here, and you got married in this archdiocese.

  “I’m sorry, Pat. I know how frustrated you must feel. Why don’t you just live as a Catholic without going through the Tribunal? Nobody’s going to stop you.”

  “It’s not that easy. I’ve got a live-in. If this had gone through, we were going to get married.”

  Koesler felt bad. Also useless. “I am sorry, Pat. But remember, it’s a matter of your conscience. No one can form that for you but you. If your conscience tells you you’re doing the best you can, that’s the best you can do.”

  He was conscious his words were of little practical value, but he could think of nothing more to offer.

  Lennon thanked him and hung up.

  Suddenly, like a light bulb flashing on over her head, a new thought occurred. Thompson’s final words. If she would be more cooperative …the son-of-a-bitch wants to go to bed with me! God bless us, if it isn’t Karl Lowell, it’s a Catholic monsignor. That bastard! I could kill him!

  The basement was a mess. At least its southwest corner was in shambles.

  The Ciceros were in the midst of redecorating and remodeling their basement. Ladders, tools, buckets of paint and mortar, piles of bricks were everywhere. Anna Maria, her fiancé, and several of their friends were busily and noisily painting the stuccoed walls, while Leo and Angela were working with the bricks and mortar. They were closing off the basement’s southwest corner to be rid of an eyesore and add to the room’s symmetry, since a previous owner had bricked off the northwest corner.

  “Thank God for central air,” said Leo.

  “Even with air conditioning, this is pretty hot work,” said Angela dabbing at her forehead.

  The two worked smoothly together, she spreading and smoothing layers of mortar, he placing the bricks and tamping them.

  “One thing for sure, though,” said Leo, “we’ll never be done in time for the wedding.”

  “It doesn’t matter. That’s why we hired a hall for the reception.”

  “The hall.” He fumbled a brick. “For a moment I forgot the hall. And the deposit. When’s the latest we can cancel the hall and get our deposit back?”

  “We’ve already passed the fail-safe time. The deposit is not ours anymore.”

  Leo put down the brick and sat on the small stool inside the enclosure they were creating.

  “Are you sure you shouldn’t be calling Rome now? I mean, supposing everyone’s on vacation. The Pope spends lots of time during the summer at that place—what’s its name—Castelgandolfo—doesn’t he? What if he’s out of town? It is the Pope that has to give permission, isn’t it? Or does one of his flunkies rubber-stamp it? Shouldn’t you be moving on this?”

  “Calm down, will you.” Angela smiled. “If you don’t take it easier, you won’t be around for the wedding.”

  “How can you be so calm about it? This is Monday evening and the wedding is scheduled for next Saturday afternoon. We’ve got to get permission from Rome, and we don’t know when or if it’s coming. Between us and disaster are four days of mail delivery and a phone number. And we haven’t even got a backup plan!” Leo’s concluding sentence was deliv
ered so loudly the others paused briefly in their painting and glanced at him.

  “I check every day with that nice Father Oleksiak to see if they’ve gotten the document. Thank God for him. He never gets impatient. He even encourages me to call. If it weren’t for him, I’d have to deal with that Monsignor Thompson. And that would be impossible.”

  “But what if it doesn’t come?”

  “Then I’ve got the phone number.” She handed him a brick. She was getting too far ahead of him. “And Father Koesler said to trust my instincts to know exactly the right time to make the call.”

  “But you’ve never called Rome before!”

  “So, what’s that? You dial the number, you get the party, you explain the problem, you get the answer.”

  Leo shook his head. I wish I were as sure of this as you are.”

  “So do I.”

  Angela could not let her husband know, but she was not at all that self-confident. For the past several days, she had spent nearly every waking moment worrying about the wedding and doubtful about the timing of the phone call.

  Monsignor Thompson could have been a substantial help in this, but he was not.

  She would not forget.

  “You mean all those weddings were invalid?” Father James Porter seemed to be pleading for a negative response.

  Since his confrontation with Archbishop Boyle and Monsignor Thompson the day before, Father Shanley had been dreading this moment when he would have to tell all to his pastor.

  “No, no,” Shanley reassured, “by no means were all the weddings I performed here invalid. Just a few of them.”

  “A few of them!” The old man rubbed his head. “One would have been too many.”

  It was no use. Shanley had explained his opposition to canon law and the ratiocination that had led him into a sacramental approach that now had been condemned. He also had told his pastor about the meeting of the day before and the dilemma he now faced.

  But, as Shanley had feared, Porter found none of it credible. Worse, the old man appeared to be personally offended, something Shanley had never intended.

  “I just don’t know how you could do this in my parish, in my church.” The old priest pounded his fist against the arm of his wheelchair with as much force as he could muster.