Mind Over Murder

by William X. Kienzle

“Yes, ma’am,” Cox essayed a Jack Webb monotone, but feared he sounded more like Bela Lugosi. Pat critiqued all his attempts at imitation as resembling the late Dracula specialist. “If you’ll just show me where those rooms are, I’ll get on with my work.”

  She indicated the office at the end of the hall, then showed Cox the second-floor suite. He assured her she need not attend him; he would go about his business and show himself out.

  Mrs. Bovey shuffled down the hall to her quarters in the rear of the rectory. Well, she thought, if you can’t trust a police officer, who can you trust?

  Not bad, Cox thought. A modestly sized bedroom and sitting room, separated by shower and toilet facilities. Very stylishly furnished, including a display cabinet filled with the finest Waterford.

  Toothbrush, paste, and shaving equipment were in place in the medicine cabinet. The Monsignor didn’t appear to have packed for even an emergency trip. The closets seemed full. Thompson obviously had decided to buy black. There were several black suits, each silk and, Cox estimated, each in the $300 neighborhood.

  The boys who searched earlier had been neat. Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing, also, seemed to be a clue. Cox felt doubly disappointed that, after his press card ploy had worked so well, he could find nothing in Thompson’s living quarters that might help solve the mystery.

  With little expectation, he approached Thompson’s office on the first floor.

  The shelves were filled with books. Several were theology textbooks, but most were commentaries by various experts on canon law.

  He tried the desk. The main drawer held nothing of interest. Rulers, pens, pencils, stationery. He tried the side drawer. It was locked. But there was a key in the main drawer. He tried it. It worked. He opened the side drawer.

  Bingo.

  A diary. A new one. Going back over only little more than a month. Cox couldn’t think of a single adult who kept a diary. But he thanked all the gods that be that Thompson had kept one. He paged through it quickly. Even a cursory reading revealed matter that Cox would term hot stuff. He wondered how, and indeed if, the cops who had been here earlier had missed the diary.

  He also wondered, for at least eight to ten seconds, whether he should take the diary. After this hasty deliberation, he tucked the diary under his arm and, as he had promised Mrs. Bovey, let himself out.

  Suddenly Nelson Kane’s golf course rage, once the salvation of a sleepy summer afternoon, faded into insignificance.

  At the bottom of page three—the Free Press’s “Second Front Page”—was a story by-lined Joe Cox. It was headlined, “Few Clues in Case of Missing Monsignor,” and ran a scant six inches. At that, Cox had had to argue long and hard with Nelson Kane to get the item in at all. What tipped the scale in favor of running the story was Cox’s possession of Thompson’s diary. That and the possibility that the story might burgeon. And if it did, the Free Press would have gotten on board first. A not inconsiderable advantage in combat journalism.

  Cox had returned to the Free Press just before six the previous evening. He had worked out his story on the VDT. It was simple and unornate, merely narrating Thompson’s unaccounted-for absence from his weekend assignment, the consternation and lack of explanation on the part of those diocesan officials Cox had been able to contact, as well as the neat and complete condition of Thompson’s personal effects, evidencing the absence of even a last-minute emergency trip.

  Cox had then phoned Kane and, after reluctantly agreeing to trim eight inches from his story, eventually won the argument. He was able to complete the story, argument, and trim in plenty of time to make the met. Thus, it would appear at least in the late-night edition, and, more importantly, in the early Monday editions.

  Cox’s story did not mention the diary, because he did not yet know if there was any connection between the diary and the disappearance. He mentioned neither the diary nor the story to Pat, because she represented the competition and, far more pointedly, because she appeared in Thompson’s diary. At this stage, he was not at all sure how he was going to handle that.

  Now, on this bright, warm, Monday morning, Cox sat by Nelson Kane’s desk while the city editor paged through the Thompson diary, pausing to read slowly the passages Cox had underlined. Occasionally, Kane would utter a low whistle, mutter, “bastard!” and make a note on his legal pad.

  “Near as I can figure,” Kane’s lip rolled a gone-out cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, “this Thompson royally screwed at least five people over the past...” he checked his note, “…little more than three weeks.”

  Cox nodded. “Remarkable performance.”

  “Either,” Kane continued, “he hit an especially fertile streak, or he’s been an extraordinary bastard to an awful lot of people for an awful long time.”

  “I’ll bet on the latter.”

  “If he shows up alive and well, you’re going to have to see this gets back in his possession.” Kane rolled the cigar butt back to its former position.

  “If he shows up dead ...”

  “If he shows up dead, or just doesn’t show up, we have our hands on a document that would throw tons of suspicion on a lot of people.”

  Cox sat up straight. “Do you think one of these people might actually have killed him?”

  Kane removed the cigar from his mouth. “If he had treated me the way he treated them, I’d give it some consideration.”

  “Well, what do we do now?”

  “You, my friend, drag ass over to police headquarters and give yourself up.”

  “What?”

  “Xerox the diary, dummy, then give the original to the police. Tell them that in your abiding interest in the good Monsignor’s welfare, you borrowed it. But now you want them to have it just in case they’re going to conduct an investigation into his absence.”

  “You think they’ll buy that?”

  “They won’t go to the mat over a diary. On the other hand, they just might get damned angry if you kept it.”

  “O.K.” Cox started to rise, but halted as Kane continued.

  “Then get back here and find out what happened to those people… that Mrs” Kane again consulted his notes, “…Cicero, for instance. We know Thompson shit on her, and she got some measure of revenge by making him stay home, forcing him to cancel his vacation. But we don’t know from the diary what happened to the Cicero kid. Did she get the permission? Did she have a church wedding? The answers might have something to do with how Mrs. Cicero felt about Thompson. She might have ended up feeling they were even.

  “There are several similar questions raised by that diary. And we ought to have answers just in case we get to pick up this story and run with it.”

  “And that raises another question,” said Cox, hesitantly, “what about Pat Lennon? She’s in the diary.”

  “Is she ever!”

  “Well,” Cox seemed embarrassed, an extremely rare occurrence, “you know how it is with us ... ”

  “How it is with you? The entire city of Detroit knows how it is with you two!”

  “Well?”

  “Look, kid, either you’re playing hardball or you’re not. In case something’s wrong, she’s one of five known possible suspects. You’ve gotta make up your mind: either she’s treated the same as everyone else, or you’re off the story.”

  Cox simply nodded, picked up the diary, and headed first for the Xerox, then for headquarters.

  Hardball, Kane had termed it. Cox thought a confrontation with Pat Lennon over what was in that diary would be more like Russian roulette.

  Things were pretty dull in the Fifteenth Precinct. Which was bad news for the bad guys and good news for the police.

  The blue-and-white Plymouth rolled slowly through familiar streets. Gunston, Barrett, Roseberry, Annsbury, Kilbourne, Glenfield. Atop the car were blue and red lights mercifully at rest. Inside, the car resembled a tank. Exquisite electronic equipment was everywhere; tucked near the floor on the passenger side was a shotgun.

  In the car
were patrol officers Judy Duby, black, on the force one year, and Robert Stopinski, white, and a ten-year veteran. They were laughing over an incident that had occurred the previous Saturday night. They had been just about to go off duty when they had received an accident call for a house on Westphalia.

  It was an elderly couple, neither of whom spoke English. And Stopinski didn’t understand enough Polish to comprehend what the woman was trying to tell them. She was the only one talking, as she had wrapped her husband’s head entirely with gauze, which pretty well precluded his even opening his mouth.

  Duby had begun to unravel the gauze so the man could breathe more easily when the woman began to point frantically at the man’s right ear. So Duby had left the bandage around the top of his head and covering his right ear. In which condition the two officers had delivered him to Saratoga General and, leaving him in Emergency, had gone off duty.

  “But did you hear what they found was actually wrong with him?” asked Duby.

  “No; what?” Stopinski was driving.

  “They had been sitting on their front porch, minding their own business, when a moth flew into the man’s right ear.” Duby began to laugh. “Well, the woman tried to coax the moth out. When it wouldn’t come, she put a mothball in his ear and wrapped up his head!”

  Both laughed. But as they cruised the familiar streets, their eyes were never still. They looked for overt trouble or anything out of the ordinary. Anything that would waken alarm bells buried in their training or experience.

  “Did the doctors get it all out?” Stopinski asked.

  “Yes, finally. The mothball was in good shape. But the moth was somewhat the worse for wear.”

  Again they laughed.

  “Things are seldom what they seem,” Duby quoted from “H.M.S. Pinafore.”

  “Like that, for instance.” Stopinski nodded toward a solitary car on the lot behind De La Salle High School.

  They had just turned from Conner near the entrance to Detroit City Airport. Duby scanned the area several times before discerning the object of Stopinski’s concern. It was, indeed, suspicious. School was out for the summer, and if any of De La Salle’s faculty or staff were going to be in the building—which was highly unlikely—they would probably not be there this early in the day.

  The fact that a single auto was parked on a school lot in the middle of the summer did not necessarily indicate anything wrong. It was out of the ordinary. Duby marveled at Stopinski’s ability to perceive a possible problem so quickly. At the time he had spotted the car, from his angle of vision, he could not even have seen the entire vehicle.

  Stopinski rolled the squad car to a stop to the rear and off to one side of the parked car. Both officers remained inside as they surveyed the scene. The parked vehicle was going nowhere, while they wanted to study every possible detail cautiously and carefully.

  “The locusts have been here,” said Duby.”

  “Yeah.”

  All four tires were gone. The car rested on three cinder blocks.

  “Somehow, I hate to see that happen to a Caddy,” said Duby.

  “Yeah,” Stopinski again agreed. “Vandalism always looks more appropriate when perpetrated against a junk heap. But then again if it hadn’t been a Caddy, maybe they would have left it alone.”

  It was a late-model—practically new—Eldorado, obviously well cared-for. The paint seemed intact, and the abundant chrome was in a highly polished state.

  “I wonder,” said Duby, “why they didn’t strip the chrome?”

  “I’ve got a hunch we’re going to find out that and a few more answers shortly.”

  Stopinski punched out the license plate number on his Mobile Data Terminal. He waited a few moments; data began spelling itself out on the MDT screen.

  “Does that name ring a bell?” Stopinski moved the MDT so Duby could see the impressive amount of information called forth by a mere license number.

  Duby studied the name for only a few seconds, then whistled. “Holy smoke! It’s the missing Monsignor!”

  Stopinski smiled at her oblivious use of “Holy Smoke” with reference to a monsignor.

  Not only had Monsignor Thomas Thompson’s disappearance been included in the morning report, Inspector Mike O’Hara of the Fifteenth had called it to everyone’s special attention. Thompson’s missing person status had been given similar treatment in all Detroit police precincts.

  The two officers put on their hats as they exited their car. Each circled the Cadillac gingerly, from opposite directions.

  “Looks pretty much in one piece,” said Stopinski, standing near the trunk.

  “Uh-oh,” said Duby from in front, “I think they forced the hood.” There was a broken strip of metal where the hood, which was ajar, met the body. She assumed that with an automatic hood lock in the interior of the car the thieves had had to pry the hood open. She tried to lift the hood. Suspicion confirmed.

  Peering into the engine compartment, she called to her partner, “Whatever else they got, they took the battery.”

  “I wouldn’t touch anything else if I were you.” Stopinski was looking through the closed side window and standing several inches farther than necessary from the car. As if trying to avoid even the semblance of adding an extra fingerprint.

  Instantly, Duby released the raised hood, which fell against but did not lock into the chassis. She rapidly came alongside Stopinski and squinted with him through the side front window. After a few seconds, she saw the metallic bullet casing resting against the black leather upholstery of the passenger seat. So riveted was her gaze on the shell that she had not yet noticed the car’s portable waste receptacle. It was overflowing with white tissues… white tissues marred by splotches of red.

  Stopinski, who had seen both shell and red-tinged tissues, returned to the squad car. He called the precinct station and received some terse commands that translated into, stand there and don’t do anything, and don’t let anybody else do anything.

  The precinct inspector then called Homicide.

  It was a familiar feeling.

  Father Robert Koesler, at the invitation of Inspector Walter Koznicki, stood in a large office in the Homicide Division on the fifth floor of Detroit Police Headquarters. He wasn’t so much standing as shifting. A continuous procession of men, most of them large, all of them wearing guns, moved about the room. In almost every instance, their destination seemed to be where he happened to be. If he was standing in front of a filing cabinet, an officer would need to open it. If he stood near a desk, a detective would have to squeeze by. He was ill at ease. But it was a familiar feeling.

  As he moved about the office, unerringly selecting a spot that soon would be desired by another body, Koesler reflected on the great number of occasions when a priest was a fifth wheel. It was always awkward when going to, say, the theater with a couple. The priest with no date was something like a period in the middle of a sentence. At more formal parties when the hostess attempted a boy-girl-boy-girl seating, the priest would derange her math.

  As a result, people at times felt sorry for the priest and his constant companion, celibacy.

  What these people could not understand is that the unmarried state can be habit-forming. There were times when even Koesler felt a bit sorry for the younger priests. Their seminary training had not prepared them—as well as his had him—for a womanless life, especially in those early years when one is in his twenties and thirties. This, perhaps, helped to account for the fact that young priests were an endangered species.

  But, as far as he was concerned, like Henry Higgins, he was a confirmed bachelor. And this even in his early fifties. If there were to be an Eliza Doolittle in Koesler’s domestic future, he did not believe he had yet met her.

  Walter Koznicki, in his office, which was adjacent to the room in which Koesler waited, was occupied with one of his lieutenants. Koznicki had invited Koesler for at least two reasons. After their conversation the previous day, it had occurred to the Inspector that sinc
e they were dealing with a monsignor, Koesler might be helpful, as he had been in two previous homicide investigations that had had religious implications. Also, Koesler had never participated in a missing person investigation, and Koznicki thought the experience would be educational for the priest, if he was going to continue to dabble in crime investigations.

  Koznicki, as soon as he was done with his lieutenant, intended to escort Koesler to the Missing Persons Division so he could familiarize himself with the branch’s procedures.

  It was not to be.

  The first diversion was perpetrated by Joe Cox.

  It was not Cox’s fault, actually. He had attempted to rid himself of Thompson’s diary in the office of Chief of Police Frank Tany. However, never one to accept a buck if it could be shifted elsewhere, Tany had his secretary ascertain who had instigated the Thompson investigation. Missing Persons, taking a page from the Chief, identified Inspector Koznicki as the officer at whose initiative all this had begun. So, off Cox was sent to see the Wizard.

  Even then, Cox tried one more time to avoid Koznicki. Walking through the corridors of the Homicide Division, Cox stopped at Squad Six’s door. He glanced in and spotted Lieutenant Ned Harris talking to several detectives. Cox, counting on Harris’ being somewhat distracted, attempted to dump the diary on him.

  It was not to be.

  “What have we here?” Harris interrupted Cox’s mumbled explanation, “a new Pulitzer Prize novel?”

  Cox sighed and, while the other detectives looked on in obvious amusement at his embarrassment, tediously explained the history of his possession of the diary.

  On hearing Cox’s explanation, Harris, a muscular, six-foot, stylishly dressed black with short, straight hair, knew that the diary belonged with Missing Persons. He also knew he didn’t have clout enough to force that division to deal with and accept the diary.

  “Come along, my main man.” Harris led Cox toward the one who had the clout. “We’ll just check this out with Inspector Koznicki.”

  Great Caesar’s ghost! thought Cox; I’m going to have to tell this goddamn story again.