Mind Over Murder

by William X. Kienzle

Again, thought Koesler, I enter the scene. He wondered if Thompson knew it was he who had given Mrs. Cicero Cammarata’s name and number. Had he not read these excerpts from the latest volume of Thompson’s diary, Koesler would never have guessed at his involvement in and impact on Thompson’s life.

  The silly broad probably didn’t know what she was doing. She actually set the wheels of Rome in motion. Ordinarily, Rome moves when Rome feels like it. She made Rome feel like it. Now Rome is moving over me. I’ve got to pass up that great weekend on the Costa Smeralda and sit on the phone waiting for Cammarata’s call.

  Of course, I could have accomplished what she did. Far more easily than she did. She would be a fool not to know that. She probably thinks she got the last laugh.

  Well, she’s wrong. Nothing ever happens to me. Tomorrow I will prove to be the most cooperative of ficialis Rome has ever known. When Boyle presents my nomination for bishop, I want as many Romans as possible to be familiar with Monsignor Thomas Thompson and his good work.

  Koesler tapped the Xeroxed sheets into alignment and carefully placed them in the folder the police had provided.

  He downed the last of his elongated scotch and water. A pleasant dullness began to invade his consciousness. Sleep was not far off.

  He decided, en route to his bedroom, to take a shower. Ordinarily, he showered in the morning. But tonight he felt soiled both by the act of reading another person’s diary and by the sordid outpourings of Thompson’s paranoid and defensive mind.

  Koesler could not imagine any possible way he could be of help in this police investigation. But he vowed to remain ready to respond to any call from the police as well as any unlikely entrance of divine inspiration.

  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

  Joe Cox had no trouble writing the second-day story. It almost wrote itself. At this point, the News and the Free Press were approximately neck and neck in their coverage of The Case of the Missing Monsignor.

  The Free Press enjoyed a slight proprietary lead, since Joe Cox had broken the story exclusively in the August 13 Monday-morning edition. The News was able to add the dimension of a homicide investigation as it introduced its readers to the case, on Monday afternoon. Cox’s second story appeared late Monday evening as well as Tuesday morning. Virtually a tie.

  But Cox held the tie breaker in the copy he had made of Monsignor Thompson’s diary. While the police were all but certain he had copied the diary, only Cox and Nelson Kane knew for sure.

  The News was soon to learn that Cox had an advantage. It would be a while before they would be able to discover just what it was.

  Cox, for his part, was eager to get his investigation under full throttle.

  There was only one fly in his investigative ointment. How could he handle a serious interrogation of Pat Lennon? He did not believe it possible that the woman he loved could be capable of murder.

  Nevertheless, this was a possible murder investigation, and Pat Lennon’s name did appear quite prominently in Thompson’s diary.

  Until this investigation was complete and Thompson—or his body—was found, all bets were off.

  4

  The announcement was there in the Detroit News’s August 5 issue. It was there for anyone to see. Monsignor Thomas Thompson would be at a wedding reception at Roma Hall in East Detroit on the evening of August 11. It was unlikely that any of his cronies would be with him. He would be unguarded, unprotected, among strangers, virtually alone, vulnerable.

  Angela Cicero read the announcement perfunctorily. She routinely scanned wedding news for about the same reason she read obituaries: to see if anyone she knew was involved. Fresh from her daughter’s wedding the previous evening, Angela found herself reading the Newlyweds column with slightly more than usual interest. Her attention, of course, was riveted by the mention of Monsignor Thomas Thompson. He had played such a crucial if potentially disastrous role in her daughter’s wedding that he was not far from Angela’s consciousness. Especially since the Monsignor had been the substance of her confession yesterday.

  For all intents and purposes, Angela thought, he’s out of my life now. There will be no more marriages, tribunals, or last-minute-granted privileges from Rome.

  But what of those who would follow? In Angela’s fantasy there appeared an endless parade of young people waiting to be manipulated and maltreated by Monsignor Thompson.

  It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t Christian. Somebody should do something about it! But who? What? Apparently, the institutional Church was unconcerned. From the reactions of Fathers Cavanaugh and Koesler and Deacon Schroeder, all knew what Monsignor Thompson was doing, but no one could or would do anything about it.

  More and more, as she considered the problem, she began to consider the possibility of volunteering her own involvement. It was typical. Part of her creed was, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. It explained what she had been doing in the middle of her daughter’s wedding. Under normal circumstances, Angela Cicero would have been most content to be seen only on the sidelines as the passive, happy, tearful mother of the bride.

  However, there had been a problem. Her daughter Anna Maria wanted a Catholic wedding. Some silly regulation threatened to prevent the Catholic ceremony. It was only natural and normal that, at that point, Angela had gotten involved.

  It was the way she had been reared.

  Angela Bonfiglio was the tenth of twelve children. Her father, a hulking construction worker, ate spaghetti and meatballs for dinner every night of his adult life while quaffing a cornucopia of Chianti. After which he would yell at his wife and throw things at his children.

  Her mother, rotund and submissive, was self-conscious of her Sicilian heritage. While she would yell at her children, she never challenged her husband.

  For some inexplicable sibling reason, it was little Angela who became proficient at two things: interceding with her father on behalf of her brothers and sisters, and dodging pots and pans. From her earliest memory, Angela had been the one who took charge and got things done.

  Nor did she lose that quality when she became an adult and married. She made certain her household was the antithesis of the home in which she had been raised.

  Leo, her husband, was kept supported and fulfilled. Her children were encouraged to develop their individual personalities and talents. Far from becoming submissive and rotund, Angela quietly but expertly steered her family through every crisis while maintaining a dazzling figure as she neared middle age.

  Now, seated in the shadowed coolness of her living room, contemplating the announcement that Monsignor Thompson was scheduled
to appear at a wedding reception the coming Saturday evening, Angela once again felt impelled to get involved.

  A plan began to form.

  She had never even dared to think of anything like this before. But desperate circumstances demanded desperate measures. For the good of the nuptially troubled of the Archdiocese of Detroit, someone would have to put a stop to the machinations of Monsignor Thompson. And, in a burst of responsibility rarely found in others, Angela once more substituted herself rather than be satisfied with the amorphous and ineffectual “someone.”

  But this, her most ambitious intervention thus far, would require meticulous and fail-safe planning.

  As she sat very still, she could envision the coming week. She picked up her Edgar Allan Poe anthology, found the selection she sought, and began to read.

  MONDAY, AUGUST 6, DINNER

  Angela Cicero had spent a couple of hours this afternoon preparing coq au vin. It was time well spent. The house was filled with the aroma of browning chicken, simmering wine, and sautéing vegetables.

  Leo Cicero caught the aroma even before opening the door to the kitchen area from the adjoining garage.

  “Hi, hon.” He leaned over to kiss her nape. He didn’t have to ask what was for dinner. He patted her bottom appreciatively.

  She smiled and continued to assemble a tossed salad.

  “Hard day?” she asked.

  “No worse than usual. Hot, though!”

  Shedding jacket and tie, he draped them over a dining room chair and loosened his collar.

  “Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes,” she called from the kitchen.

  He made each of them a martini and marveled at how satisfying certain routines could become. Coming home about the same time each working day. Being greeted by this terrific woman who always had everything, including the kids and the food, under complete control. Sharing a predinner martini. Evenings, nights, weekends, vacations with his wife. Life, he concluded, a blissful smile creasing his face, had been good to him.

  “Well,” she asked as they began the meal, “how does it feel now that the last kid is gone?”

  “Good.” The chicken fell from its bone at the touch of his fork. “And that surprises me. I thought I’d get lonesome with all the youngsters gone. But I’m not. Matter of fact, I’d almost forgotten how good it was to be alone with you.”

  “I’m glad. I feel that way too.” She tasted the chicken and approved.

  “Now that we’re alone,” she continued, “don’t you think it would be good if you picked up some of the sports you’ve let drop over the years?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It was tough enough giving them up to be with the kids more and fix up the house and things. But they’re gone now. I don’t miss them anymore.”

  She reached over and patted a tummy that prominently expanded above and protruded over his belt line. “This,” she said, “misses the sports activity.”

  He felt a rush of sheepish embarrassment. For years, he had been growingly conscious of the marked disparity in their physical conditions. His wife kept her figure by working at it. He knew she did it for him, and he was grateful. The unfairness of having let himself slip physically overwhelmed him.

  “You’re absolutely right, hon,” he admitted. “I owe it to us.” He rested his fork and picked up his half-finished martini, counterproductive to his latest resolution. “Remind me next week to call some of the gang and find out what’s going on.”

  She laughed heartily. “Oh, no. You’re not going to get away with this ‘next week’ business. I called ‘some of the gang’ earlier today. ‘What’s going on’ is that your old bowling team is mired in last place with their summer season just about over. They’ve been one man short for the past few weeks. They want you back for what’s left of the season. They agree that in their present standing, you can’t hurt them.”

  They both laughed.

  “O.K. All right! I’ll get in shape for the harsher demands of sports by bowling. When is bowling night?”

  “Saturday.”

  “This Saturday? Do we have anything on the calendar?”

  “No,” she replied emphatically. “It’s perfect. You get in there and bowl your little heart out. I’ll be waiting by the home fires with the rubbing alcohol.”

  Smiling, he returned to his attack on the coq au vin.

  Somehow it seemed right that he was going to resume what had been for him a rather active athletic avocation. And he was pleased that his bowling team wanted him back and—characteristic of them—that they would couch the invitation in a joke.

  “Oh, and by the way,” she said, “I know you’re a creature of habit. So it’s best that you know I plan for us to finish the basement Friday evening.”

  “Friday evening? Why so late?”

  “Because of our schedules: I have to go to a shower Wednesday evening, and you have a K of C meeting tomorrow and a St. Francis Home meeting Thursday evening.”

  “But what if we don’t finish Friday night? There’s quite a bit left to do. I don’t want to get into bricklaying on the weekend if I can help it.”

  “Stop worrying,” she reproved. “If we don’t finish it Friday, I’ll work on it Saturday night while you’re out smashing pins.”

  “I don’t want you working while I’m out bowling.”

  “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “It’ll be a pleasure.”

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, EVENING

  “Don’t get me wrong,” said Leo Cicero, “I like a brew as well or better than the next guy, but aren’t you going in the wrong direction?”

  “What do you mean?” Angela Cicero replaced an emptied Budweiser bottle with a freshly opened one.

  “This.” Leo indicated the full bottle. “I thought the idea was for me to lose some weight and get back in shape. I don’t think I’m going to get there very fast on an unending series of beers.”

  Angela squatted on the floor of the basement and alternately applied mortar and bricks to the facade they were constructing.

  “Listen, sweetie,” she said, “anytime you want the series to end, all you have to do is either drink the beer slowly or quit drinking.”

  “You don’t understand the Italian mind even though you’re Italian.”

  Angela looked up at him quizzically.

  “You can lead an Italian to booze, but you can’t stop him from drinking,” he explained.

  Leo carefully inserted the brick that linked the current section to the ceiling.

  Angela laughed. “Oh, it’s not going to hurt you that much. You’ve been perspiring all evening. And besides, tomorrow we’ll go to the club, and you can take a sauna and swim a bit. Then, tomorrow night there’s bowling.”

  “Just the same,” he said, “I think I’ll just call it quits on the beer for this evening. I’m getting a little bleary-eyed.”

  “I wasn’t going to mention that your bricks have not been going in all that straight for the past half-hour.”

  Leo stepped back and appraised his handiwork.

  “You’re right,” he declared. “It’ll hold together, but it is definitely not a professional job.”

  “Why don’t we quit for the night?”

  “But we’ve got only a few rows to go, and it’ll be finished.”

  “Leave them. I’ll finish them tomorrow night while you’re bowling.”

  “I don’t want to stick you with that job.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be a snap. It’ll give me something to do while you’re gone. Besides, maybe we’ll think of something we’ll want to stick in there behind the false wall. Something like a cornerstone laying.”

  “Yeah,” Leo reflected, straightening up and putting things away. “What do you suppose we’d want to put in there, anyway?”

  Angela cleaned a trowel in the sink. “Oh, I don’t know. Something no one would miss for the next hundred years, I expect.”

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, EVENING

  The Ciceros had returned from the
country club rather late in the afternoon. It had been a glorious hot day with low humidity and a gentle breeze. Perfect for lounging poolside and occasionally diving into the cool water. Leo, true to his resolve, had undergone a lengthy sauna and had swum for a total of nearly an hour broken into fifteen- to twenty-minute segments.

  Angela had served a hearty spaghetti and meatball dinner at approximately 7:30. At this point the most important consideration was timing. She planned to get her husband to his 9 P.M. bowling date just about on schedule. She knew from years of experience as a bowling widow that the nine o’clock league would not begin on time. Nine on the dot, then, would be a good time for Leo to arrive. He would have time to renew acquaintances, but not enough time to exhaust talk of the good old days. That way, with a few beers and more talk after league play, it would easily be one or two in the morning before Leo would return.

  The next bit of timing would be more delicate. But, fresh from her triumph in timing her call to the Vatican the previous week, her self-confidence was high.

  Her call to Roma Hall must be placed at just the right moment.

  The wedding was scheduled for 8 P.M. Figure an hour-and-a-half for the wedding Mass, photographs afterward, and the trip to the hall—9:30. Another half-hour for greeting guests, getting settled at the tables, a blessing, and toasts to the newlyweds—10 P.M.

  Ten P.M. is the moment to call.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 10 P.M.

  “Roma Hall.”

  “I’d like to speak with Monsignor Thomas Thompson.”

  “I’m sorry. He’s with a wedding party, and they have just begun eating.”

  Perfect.

  “I need to speak with him only briefly, and it is very important. I’m sure, as a priest, he would be willing to accept this call.”

  A few moments of hesitation.

  “Oh, very well. Hold on, please.”

  Several minutes passed, during which Angela could hear the muffled sound of a large gathering of diners talking, laughing and, by tinkling their glasses, encouraging freshly connubial kissing.