The Rosary Murders

by William X. Kienzle

  That reminded him of something else. He opened the door of his suite and looked into the hallway. There, out of sight of the staircase but within view of his door was a man seated on a straight-back chair. He pleasantly returned the priest’s stare. The chair was in the same place it had been when Neighbors had retired, but the man was unknown to him.

  “Good morning, Father,” the stranger said. “I’m Sergeant Ross. Nothing to worry about.”

  To his colleagues, Ross would have appeared strange out of uniform.

  The priest nodded and withdrew into his bedroom, not wishing to chance speech until he was certain his head was totally clear.

  He began preparing to shave. As his brain continued its rejuvenation, random thoughts poured in. If he hadn’t been under virtual house arrest, he would’ve driven to the downtown YMCA, where he was a member. He would have enjoyed a game of racquetball, a swim, and the sauna. This series sprang to mind because he had a habit of shaving, latherless, in the sauna, a sight that mystified other Y members.

  But the police had decided that the Y offered too many problems for security, so the trip had been vetoed. A move that was perfectly acceptable to Neighbors, since he had placed himself entirely in their hands—not, however, without the occasional reflection that so, too, had the late Father Steele—a thought that was not conducive to Neighbors’ peace of mind.

  The cops are going to have their hands full guarding this place, he thought, as he stepped into the shower. It’s just too damn big.

  The rectory had been built to house five priests, with separate quarters for the housekeeper. In its salad days, it had housed four priests, with one room left over for weekend help. Now, he was alone and lucky to be able to scrounge up weekend help.

  Downstairs, the housekeeper, Mrs. Bovey, nervously served his breakfast in the dining room. She had, of course, been informed of today’s precautions and the reason for them. She was responding with valor to the threat of violence, but no one could blame her for being edgy.

  Breakfast was a single poached egg on toast, and coffee. In addition to all the other problems, this was a day of fast and abstinence. No meat, no solids between meals, and only one ordinary-sized meal and two small snacks. Once a quite common Church penance, now only Ash Wednesday and Good Friday called for this measure of self-denial.

  Neighbors noted that Sergeant Ross had seated himself in a far corner of the living room. The policeman seemed uninterested in conversation, so the priest had brought the morning Free Press to the table. He wondered why his guardians always seemed to position themselves so they could see him, yet not be immediately seen by others. It was to be their M.O. for the day: in controllable situations, they were to leave enough leeway for an assailant to approach but not enough for him to succeed.

  The paper’s first section was filled with news stories, features, and editorial columns about the significance of this day, and the threat to the local clergy and religious, and the special measures of surveillance being provided by local law enforcement agencies. Not a word concerning the very special precautions being provided one Father Ted Neighbors. Even so, he thought, just from the general protection being given to all the priests and nuns and the broad news coverage, the guy would have to be a fool to try to get through all this.

  All of which, he thought, wryly, came under the heading of whistling in the dark.

  Then, as had happened so often since yesterday morning, his thoughts returned to the single most frustrating and engrossing question: why had he, Ted Neighbors, apparently been singled out as the target for today?

  Why me, Lord?

  Why me, Lord? Sister Roberta Goode thought.

  The slim, small, red-haired, blue-eyed nun had many times thought of and prayed for the eight victims of the Rosary Murderer. Peripherally, she had been conscious of the comparative stature of the four sisters who had been killed. A hard-working religious education coordinator, an elderly nun who had won the admiration of the entire city, a dedicated hospital administrator, and a beloved member of the revered Carmelite order.

  Sister Roberta regarded herself unworthy to be considered a potential member of that ill-fated group. She was merely a teacher of a first-grade class in Blessed Trinity School. No one could possibly consider her important enough to kill.

  Lieutenant Marjorie Washington, in a plain blue pants suit, perched delicately on a small desk in the rear of the first-grade classroom as she watched Sister Roberta tape cutouts of rabbits and eggs on the front wall above and at the sides of the blackboard. At either end of the corridor outside the classroom, two plainclothesmen silently surveyed the quiet hallways.

  “Excuse me, Sister,” Lieutenant Washington said, “but I didn’t know bunnies and eggs were religious symbols. I’m a little surprised to find them in a Catholic school.”

  “Oh, they’re not specifically religious,” the nun replied, in her soft, high-pitched voice. “But they are the symbols the children are most familiar with from the commercial celebration of Easter. So I use them to show the children some of the meanings of life-beginning life and eternal life.”

  Most first-grade teachers, mused the policewoman, seemed to speak in singsong rhythms and had high-pitched voices. It must come from being with small children constantly.

  The thought prompted her to be grateful for her police work. The business world had been an acceptable work field, but police work had always been her preference. She had never once considered teaching, particularly, now that she thought of it, the first grade.

  She sensed that Sister Roberta was good at what she did. She also sensed that the nun was very frightened and was barely succeeding at covering her fear.

  “How do you feel, Sister?”

  The nun did not turn to face the policewoman. “Oh, I’m all right.”

  “I mean about today?” Washington persisted.

  There was a slight hesitation. “I’m scared.”

  Washington wanted to hug her. She seemed so like a small frightened bird. But the officer maintained the prescribed distance. “You have nothing to be frightened of, Sister.” Washington glanced at the gleaming .38 revolver barely visible in her half-opened purse. “We’re not going to let anyone hurt you.”

  “Yes. I know,” Sister Roberta Goode whispered meekly, “but why me?”

  His face was a mask of pain. He wrapped the Ace bandage around his thigh as tightly as he dared while still allowing for circulation. It was the only way he could minimize the limp.

  Outside of retrieving the daily paper and one excursion for food and additional medication, he had not left his house all week. With generous applications of iodine, he had managed to avoid an infection from the bullet wound.

  He stood. The pain was nearly unbearable. His regular practice of trying to walk without a limp had caused a constant backache. Nothing propelled him but will power. He managed to walk with only a hint of hesitation to the small desk in the living room. He carefully checked a schedule and made several notations on it after rereading the lead story in the morning paper.

  He then spent several minutes writing in a diary.

  He returned to the bedroom. This time, he surrendered momentarily to the pain, stumbled, and almost fell. He stood, holding on to the dresser, sweating profusely, and shaking his head in disgust. From a dresser drawer, he took a .38 caliber revolver, a silencer, and a box of hollow-nosed bullets. He sat on the bed and began checking both gun and silencer, making certain they would not fail him.

  With characteristic meticulousness, Archbishop Mark Boyle was vesting in the cathedral’s rectory. He spoke to no one, and no one spoke to him. It was ten minutes before noon, the hour at which the cathedral services would begin.

  As in all else, he asked no more of his clergy and religious than he himself was willing to give. And so, ever since last evening, he had had a plainclothes police bodyguard. Two guards, in fact. Koznicki had reasoned that should the killer be turned aside from his prime target due to the enormous protection given
Father Neighbors, in frustration the man just might strike out at the archbishop as chief shepherd of the archdiocese.

  Boyle, already clad in red cassock and zucchetto, kissed the optional and unpopular amice, rested it momentarily on the back of his head, then let it fall about his shoulders, and tied it around his waist.

  He glanced to his right, where his two guards were vesting as his acolytes. Each had a revolver strapped to his belt. Each would wear a long white alb with side slits, giving ready access to a pocket, a handkerchief or, in this instance, to a pistol.

  Boyle shook his head sadly. What was the world coming to? He was about to commemorate the death of Christ, the redemptive death that freed mankind from sin, while the police were trying to prevent the assassination of clergy and religious who were specially dedicated to that act of salvation.

  The procession of altar boys, choir, a smattering of clergy, and the archbishop unevenly wound its way from the rectory down some thirty yards of Woodward Avenue and into the cathedral. The acolytes on either side of the archbishop had restless eyes that scanned the crowd, searching for telltale signs that would reveal a killer. In a few instances, their eyes met those of others that reflected measures of hatred or contempt, either because they perceived the archbishop as too liberal or too conservative. But most of the spectators that lined the procession’s path or filled the cathedral were friendly enough. Many just wanted to see an archbishop. Archbishops, while not exactly in the category of an endangered species, were generally less accessible than politicians or even movie stars.

  Inside the cathedral, several deputies from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department had been stationed at positions where, during the liturgy, the archbishop would come into close contact with members of the congregation.

  The procession dispersed as it reached the cathedral’s sanctuary. Boyle knelt on the readied gigantic prie-dieu. He prayed silently for the safety of his priests and nuns, and even for the safety, if apprehended, of the killer.

  Father Ted Neighbors had been all but overwhelmed by the number of people waiting for confessions when he entered St. William’s church at noon. He knew there were police officers scattered among the genuine penitents, but he didn’t believe the police could swell the usual numbers this significantly. Still, confessions had been unusually heavy this Lent. He didn’t know why. If there were a connection between the series of murders and the increase in penitents, Father Ted Neighbors’ ivory-tower mentality had kept him from seeing it.

  After a brief prayer, and a reminder to himself of the routine the police had instructed him to observe, he had entered the confessional and begun a task which, if not for the threat of danger, was generally repetitive and tedious, elements that made the role of confessor a tiring one. Only one of the church’s six confessionals had been converted into the new style of open room that held no dividing wall between confessor and penitent. At police insistence, Neighbors was using one of the traditional confessionals.

  The church had been opened at eleven. As parishioners had begun to assemble in the pews that would form two lines of waiting penitents, the police mingled with them. Thus, every four or five persons in the line of penitents was a police officer. The parishioners, confessing and pausing to recite their penance and then leaving, made up an everchanging congregation. So, the police were able to reenter the waiting line endlessly. And endlessly, their eyes scanned the crowd.

  One of the first of the officers in the waiting line was Detective Sergeant Dan Fallon. Raised a Catholic, it had been many years since he had been to a church service, and even longer since he had been to confession. It seemed to him that he was reliving a dream as he waited in the confessional line. He remembered the years the sisters at his parochial school would march whole classes over to the church for the confession routine.

  It was vastly different now. This was no more than police duty.

  His reverie was interrupted by the sharp sound of a metallic object falling to the church’s tile floor. It had been dropped by a person two removed from him in line. Instantly, his eyes went to the object. It was a small black rosary. As quickly as he recognized the object, his hand went inside his jacket. Just as quickly, he saw that the person who had dropped the rosary was an elderly woman.

  Since he was already almost on one knee, he retrieved the rosary and returned it to the woman.

  They use them to pray, too, he thought.

  Alone in the choir loft, Lieutenant Koznicki sat. Only his head appeared above the railing… like a massive “Kilroy was here” poster. He watched for anything out of the ordinary. He waited for something to happen.

  Why me? Damn Nelson Kane!

  So went Pat Lennon’s thoughts as she sped along I-75 toward Sault Sainte Marie. Since receiving today’s assignment, Pat had grown increasingly angry. Her first rhetorical question had been, why the Soo? After all, someplace like Bay City was lots closer to Detroit. However, it hadn’t taken long for her to admit the problem was not the site but her reluctance to make this long drive. The Soo had two distinct and attractive seasons—one for the snow and ice fanatics and one for water, golf, and tennis nuts. It would be easy to get interviews on the changeover of tourist seasons. Probably make a good feature story.

  Her second rhetorical question—why me?—had been resolved in much the same way as the first. Her objection was based on personal inconvenience. She was a good feature writer and a logical choice for this assignment. But it was impossible to complete it in one day. This would be at least a two-day assignment. She had left Detroit this morning when the city was enjoying its first near-perfect spring weather. The farther north she traveled—and she would end this trip at the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula—the more she would revisit the winter wonderland… one of Michigan’s many mottos.

  Finally, she had to admit, she did not enjoy spending a night away from Joe Cox.

  Even clear-channel WJR radio began to fade as she reached the Gaylord area. Rather than suffer through the C-W music featured on stations in Michigan’s boondocks, she switched off the radio and gave free rein to her mind.

  She smiled ruefully as she thought of her relationship with Cox. It seemed typical of her life—going nowhere. The lyrics, “When I’m not near the girl I love, I love the girl I’m near,” could have been written for Joe. Alone tonight, he probably would make sure he wasn’t. That didn’t much bother her; she had understood the relationship as she had entered it: no commitments.

  She could have had a relationship that had “career enrichment” written all over it. Karl Lowell, the paper’s executive manager, had invited her to his bed shortly after he hired her. She knew the type. Her corporate advancement would be directly correlated to her erotic availability. When she had refused him, she knew she would be offered the short end of many a stick. One of these days, she’d probably leave the Free Press—before she wound up on the night desk with cobwebs linking her to a chair.

  This line of thought was becoming most depressing. She switched mental gears and thought of Joe. Joe with his mad scheme of following in the footsteps of Lieutenant Koznicki all this day.

  This day was to be the pièce de resistance on his path to the Pulitzer. Poor guy. She envisioned him wandering all over the city of Detroit, crying plaintively, “Lieutenant Koznicki, oh, Lieutenant Koznicki…”

  She laughed aloud.

  Joe Cox’s head was in constant motion. It was difficult to see much of anything with everyone standing. The crowd in St. William of Thierry’s church was large, and Cox was not tall enough to see easily over those standing near him. Occasionally, he would step up on the kneeler to get a better view. This jumping-jack mannerism was extremely annoying to many of those who had come to pray, not gawk. Several of them would have told him so except that they were old-fashioned enough to consider talking in church a sin.

  Cox credited his charm with having located Lieutenant Koznicki.

  He had called Koznicki’s office first thing in the morning, and sweet-talke
d Koznicki’s secretary just long enough to be charming without being a nuisance. At just the right moment, he had popped the offhand question. Where might he find the lieutenant this day should the need arise? He’d caught her off-guard. She’d blurted the name of the parish. Casually, he had thanked her, hung up, and roundly congratulated himself.

  What Cox didn’t know was that Koznicki had given his secretary a short list of those whom she was permitted to tell of his whereabouts. Included was the name of Joe Cox, the only media person listed.

  It was Koznicki’s final gesture of gratitude. From here on, the reporter would receive no more favors. Koznicki had debated briefly with himself before listing Cox, but he had decided to do so because of the reporter’s cooperation, because he could be trusted, and because his desire for a scoop would ensure his keeping the information to himself.

  Cox’s roving eyes had found Koznicki almost immediately, standing with the choir in the loft at the rear of the church. Hiding the lieutenant in the choir was like concealing an elephant in a herd of sheep.

  Cox was also able to identify many other police officers sprinkled among parishioners. Each and every officer he was able to recognize was a member of the special task force. There was no doubting it. Whatever his reason, it was clear that Koznicki expected some action here.

  However, all that was happening at the moment was a dramatic reading of the account of the suffering and death of Christ, from the Gospel according to St. John. Cox had to admit it was being done rather effectively.

  Father Ted Neighbors had an abiding interest in the theater. Annually, he had season tickets to the Fisher. And, as the everchanging liturgy allowed, even encouraged, more drama, Neighbors had delighted in staging events such as this reading, wherein several talented parishioners had been selected and trained to deliver the various character parts in the last hours of Christ’s mortal life.