by Edward Izzi
I exited the house and within minutes, my cell phone was ringing. It was an unfamiliar number with a ‘312’ area code.
“Dorian here.”
“Detective Dorian? This is Sergeant Hansen from the Eighteenth. I understand that you’re still investigating that murder in Albany Park from a few weeks ago?”
“Yes,” I replied. I couldn’t understand why the Eighteenth District would be calling me on my cell phone.
“Well, we’re holding someone here you may want to talk to. We just picked him up last night on a DUI.”
“Really? Who?” I inquired. There was a five second pause on the phone before his response.
“He’s a Catholic priest. His name is Joseph Kilbane and says he works for the Archdiocese. The district commander knew you were working on this case and the word was out that you’ve been leaning heavy on this guy. We’ve kept him here because he refused to ‘blow’, and the arresting officer pulled him over with a suitcase full of cash,” the Sergeant continued.
“We’ve impounded his car and we’re getting a warrant to search his vehicle for whatever else we can find.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, as I was having another one of those ‘Las Vegas Jackpot’ moments.
“Where did you pick him up?” I asked.
“On North Halsted, near Webster Street. The arresting officer caught him last night swerving onto oncoming traffic and blowing off a stop sign,” replied Hansen.
“Has he been cooperative?” I asked, already knowing the answer to my question
“Are you kidding? He’s all ‘lawyered up.’ We’re waiting for his attorney to get here now,” he answered. I wasn’t surprised.
“Thanks Sergeant. I’ll be right there.”
I walked over to Tommy Morton and apologized, letting him know that I had an emergency at the Eighteenth District.
“Call me later, Tommy. Let me know what else you find.”
I then jumped into my ‘Crown Vic’ and sped over to the Eighteenth at 1160 North Larrabee, putting my lights and sirens on. I was smiling to myself, praying that this might lead to a break in this case. Maybe the Monsignor’s arrest will get him to finally ‘crack open’ and start telling me what he really knows, and how he might be involved in these two murders.
I said a ‘Hail Mary’ to myself, knowing I would need all the prayers I could get.
Chapter Fourteen
Kilbane Lockup
I was tempted to double park my police car as I pulled up in front of the Eighteenth District, but thought better of it, knowing that I might be there the rest of the evening. I patiently waited for another police patrol car to pull out before grabbing the adjacent parking place.
I was excited and smirking to myself, just waiting to see what the Monsignor looked like in handcuffs. I checked in with the desk sergeant and proceeded upstairs to meet Sergeant Hansen and his associate, Detective Michael Savarino. We shook hands, then continued towards the interrogation room where they had been holding Monsignor Kilbane throughout most of the day.
As we were walking through the hallway, Detective Savarino was debriefing me on some of the new details since arresting the Monsignor.
“You do know who this guy is, right?” I asked the Detective.
“Well….yeah,” he responded. “He works for the Archdiocese.”
“No…do you really know who this guy is?” I asked them again. They were both silent as I continued to educate them.
“You’ve arrested the most powerful Catholic priest in the Chicago Archdiocese, after the Cardinal.”
“That would explain his silence, and his choice of lawyers,” Savarino replied. “Other than asking to use the bathroom and giving him a glass of water, he has been unresponsive. We’re still waiting for his attorney to show up,” said Officer Hansen.
“Who is his attorney?”
“A Jewish guy by the name of David Herzog. He’s part of a big law firm in the Monadnock Building on West Jackson Street, where all the criminal attorneys are,” Savarino responded.
“Is he any good?”
“He bills out at $650 an hour. They call him the ‘Prince of Fucking Darkness’ over at the DA’s office. This guy will cut your balls off and hand them back to you in a styrofoam cup.”
“No kidding?” I chuckled. “And who says the Catholics and the Jews don’t get along.”
“Any word from the Cardinal or the Archdiocese?” I asked.
“Not a peep. I think the Archdiocese is laying low and playing it cool until they hear from their attorney. They haven’t even tried to contact Kilbane,” replied Hansen.
“Does anyone know where he was drinking at, and where he was coming from?”
“No. We asked him that, and he didn’t respond to the either us or the arresting officer,” Savarino replied.
“I wonder why he was driving drunk with a suitcase full of cash. He had to be coming from somewhere,” I thought out loud.
“He lives close by in Lincoln Park from where he was picked up. And he was driving south on Halsted, correct?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Can we find out how many Italian restaurants are in the immediate area of Webster and Halsted?” I asked Savarino.
I had a hunch, and I was guessing that the Monsignor and whomever he was meeting had a penchant for Italian food.
I went on one of my phone app’s, and found three restaurants in the immediate area, the closest being Trattoria Pagliacci at 2701 North Halsted. I decided to run over there during the dinner rush hour and ask a few questions.
“Before we interview the Monsignor, I’m going to run out and do some homework. I should be back in an hour.”
As I was pulling up the Trattoria Pagliacci, I got a call from Detective Morton.
“Hey Phil, found something in the victims house that you might be interested in. Seems this guy had a five-million-dollar life insurance policy with the Great Lakes Life Insurance Company. From the documentation here, looks like Senopoli was paying the premiums on this policy. Take a guess who the named beneficiaries are?”
“Hmmm…let me guess? The Archdiocese of Chicago?” I answered.
“Bingo!”
I was smiling from ear to ear. “Great job, Tommy. Thanks for the info. Let me know what else you find,” as I hung up the phone.
I parked my car and went inside the restaurant. I interviewed a few of the waiters and the valets, who all recognized a man wearing a cleric’s collar having dinner with a gray-haired man who drove off in a Maserati. The one valet even remembered a guy looking like Kilbane taking the time to put the suitcase in the back seat of his Cadillac. It was over ninety minutes later when I returned to the Eighteenth District.
“Let’s go talk to Kilbane,” I said, as Savarino and Hansen jumped from their desks and led me over to the interrogation room. I looked behind the one-way glass and saw the Monsignor sitting there with his attorney, a bald older man with wire glasses and a couple of diamond rings on his fingers.
Detective Savarino and I walked into the interrogation room, where the two of them were waiting.
“Good evening, Father. It’s so nice to see you again.” I proclaimed with a smile.
“I understand you were out partying last night, Father. What was the occasion?” His little Jewish attorney stood up, shook my hand and gave me his card.
“My name is David Herzog, and I represent Monsignor Kilbane. I have advised him not answer any questions at this time.”
“Not even why he was drunk, swerving down Halsted Street with fifty large in cash?” Savarino asked.
“Give us your best offer, Detectives. Otherwise we will wait for the arraignment and post bail, if necessary.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “Is this the way you want to play it?” I asked.
“Let me give you the ‘4-1-1’ and what we have on your client, Counselor. Right now, we have him on a D.U.I. charge. We all know he can post bail, go to driving school and take the bus for six months. That isn
’t the problem,” I explained.
“The real problem here is that there have been two murders of two old former priests over the last two weeks. We discovered one of them this afternoon. We know that both former priests had high dollar life insurance policies attached to their heads, with the Archdiocese as the beneficiaries to both of those policies. Now we all know we don’t have enough on your boy, here, to call him a murderer,” I pointed out.
“But seeing that he had dinner and drinks with Little Tony DiMatteo at the Trattoria Pagliacci last night, then gets pulled over with a boatload of cash, makes me feel a little uneasy.”
Monsignor Kilbane looked at his attorney, as the beads of sweat started dripping off his forehead.
“How do you know he was at that restaurant?” asked Herzog.
“Even the Chicago P.D. knows how much Little Tony loves his linguini with clam sauce,” I smiled.
“The waiters and the valets ‘I-D’d the both of you last night. One waiter saw you taking a black bag from Little Tony before you both left.” The two of them sat there, silent.
“We even have a valet recalling the Monsignor carefully unloading a black suitcase out of the back seat of his Cadillac when he arrived last night.” I was trying hard to push the Monsignor into blowing up. So far, he was doing a good job of playing it cool.
“We have two similar murders. Two similar victims with two similar backgrounds. Both victims carrying life insurance policies, with the Archdiocese as the beneficiary to both policies. Both were employees of the Archdiocese, and we can safely say, seeing that we found a trunk full of ‘chicken porn’ at one of the crime scenes, that either one, if not both victims were probably pedophiles,” I was driving my point home.
“Now, either your boy here starts talking, or we are going to do our best to charge him as an accessory to two homicides. And seeing that he was out partying last night with Little Tony, and since these two murders both look like mob hits, we’re going to grab him and bring him down here too, so that we can have a real house party.”
“You don’t have shit, Detective. You know damn well you can’t make any of that stick. The District Attorney will be all over your ass! Monsignor Kilbane is a very important man and an integral part of the Chicago Catholic community. There is no law against driving around with a suitcase full of cash!”
“Maybe you can explain that to the Treasury Department, Counselor. Because that will be my next phone call if your boy doesn’t start talking!”
“Maybe he won it at a card game, Detective? Maybe he won it at the casino? Maybe he just likes to drive around with a lot of money in the back seat of his car? Either way, the Monsignor didn’t break any laws, other than maybe, having too many cocktails last night. And as far as Little Tony is concerned, they were meeting regarding the prospective baptism of Little Tony’s new grandchild. They have been lifelong friends for years, and they both grew up in Bridgeport.”
“And in regard to the DUI charge, my client didn’t blow on a breathalyzer, and your friends here didn’t get a blood sample last night,” Herzog replied, earning every bit of his $650 an hour retainer fee.
“Unless you have some definitive evidence against my client, you don’t have anything. I must insist that you release Monsignor Kilbane immediately, or I will have the district attorney down here so fast it will make your heads spin!”
I looked at Savarino as he shook his head. In all the commotion of trying to get a search warrant on Kilbane’s vehicle, they neglected to get a blood sample to test the content of his alcohol level.
“The arresting officer said the Monsignor’s eyes were dilated, and he couldn’t pass the sobriety test,” Savarino replied.
“You know that isn’t enough to make a DUI charge stick, Detective. And as far as the Treasury Department is concerned, we’re not worried,” Herzog replied with a smirk on his face.
I was pissed. Here I thought I could, at the very least, get some information out of Kilbane regarding these two murders. Yet here he is now, walking out of the Eighteenth District as free as a bird without breathing or mentioning a single syllable regarding any of the murders.
“Would the two of you care to hear my theory?” I made direct eye contact with the Monsignor.
“Well no, not really,” the attorney responded.
“My theory is,” I continued, “that the good Monsignor here, was at the restaurant last night trying to make a payoff to Little Tony for a murder that the DiMatteo Family didn’t commit.”
Monsignor Kilbane started turning three different shades of red, as his black shirt was drenched with perspiration. I could tell, by Kilbane’s reaction, that I hit a nerve. The attorney only sat there smiling, knowing damn well that I didn’t have any evidence or proof to back up my theory.
“Sounds like a stretch, Detective. But let me know how that works out for you,” Herzog replied.
They then both stood up from the table and proceeded to leave the interrogation room.
“Have a good evening, gentlemen,” as the two of them casually walked out of the Eighteenth District.
There was a part of me that wanted to tackle the Monsignor down and beat the shit out of him until he started talking. Judging by his reaction, I had a good hunch that my theory was correct. Kilbane must have thought that Little Tony had put the hit on Marquardt and was at the restaurant last night to give him either all or part of his ‘hit fees’. For whatever reason, seeing that Kilbane had left the restaurant with a black bag full of cash, Little Tony didn’t take the money.
The only reason I could think of was that, Little Tony didn’t commit the murder, and didn’t want to take the credit for it. If the DiMatteo Family was looking to collect their fees on a ‘hit’, they would not be passing a black bag full of cash back and forth in a public restaurant. So, if Kilbane was trying to solicit or buy a ‘hit’ from Little Tony, the mobster wanted no part of it. So maybe, Monsignor Kilbane is responsible for soliciting a homicide? Good luck trying to prove up that theory, as Little Tony would never ‘rat out’ his childhood friend.
All of this only puts me back to square one.
Chapter Fifteen
A Visit From Russo
It was a bright, hot Saturday morning, and none of the detectives were in the Sixteenth District as I was getting settled at my desk. I had picked up an extra wet cappuccino from the Starbucks down the street and was debating about whether I should attack that stale, sesame seed bagel left over from yesterday in the precinct kitchen. My thought was to throw it into the toaster, drench it with some cream cheese, and pretend it was from a fresh batch at Dunkin’ Donuts.
It was the Memorial Day holiday weekend, and I figured I had better put in the overtime into trying to solve these ‘Pedophile Priest Murders’, as I wasn’t making any progress on this case. Commander Callahan barged into my office, just as I was just starting to enjoy my bagel and cream cheese breakfast.
“How’s it going with the ‘Pedophile Priest Murders’?” he asked. He had heard how frustrated I was in the lack of progress with this case.
“Not well, Chief. Monsignor Kilbane got picked up on a DUI charge Thursday night over at the Eighteenth, and I was hoping we could get him to talk and get some information out of him. I was hoping he would help us crack open this case, but we ended up empty handed, “I said, and I was sure he could sense the frustration in my voice.
“Well, I’m getting some heat from Police Superintendent Ryan on this case, especially since your buddy from Channel Eight News broadcasted this as their feature story last night. Did you see it?”
“No.” I kind of figured Chaz Rizzo was going to splash this all over the news last night.
“Said something to the effect of ‘the police are refusing to call the murderer in these crimes a ‘Serial Killer’. Did you tell him that?” he asked, with a half-hearted smile on his face.
“What an idiot! No. I told him not to use those words at all. I told him that I didn’t want to start a city-wide panic.”
>
I knew I couldn’t trust that son-of-a-bitch Rizzo. This wasn’t the first time he’s thrown me under the bus. I had just realized that I had broken my own cardinal rule in doing investigative police work: Never trust a news reporter.
I regretted not hauling Rizzo’s ass in when I had the chance. Now I knew I was going to catch some heat from Callahan and the Superintendent, and I was going to start feeling the pressure to solve these murders.
“Well,” Callahan said. “The Superintendent is worried that we can’t handle this case by ourselves, and he wants to reassign this over to the Intelligence Unit at the Twenty-First.”
Great. A reassignment of this case would look ‘just wonderful’ to my superiors. Two double murders in three weeks and the ‘Ivory Tower’ wants to pull me off this case and send it over to the ‘hot shots’ at the Intelligence Unit.
“Maybe you’re in over your head, Dorian. We’re obviously dealing with a ‘professional murderer’ here, and maybe we should send this case over to the guys at the Twenty-First. They’re more experienced at ‘collaring’ these kinds of murders,” the Commander said.
“Honestly Chief, I think I can make some progress here. We picked up a cigarette butt at the crime scene and sent that over to the lab for DNA testing. We also bagged the two red roses that were left by the killer.” I pleaded. I didn’t tell him that the DNA results turned up negative.
Callahan looked at me a little perturbed. “Two sliced up old priests in three weeks and the only clue you have is a goddamned cigarette butt and some old wilted flowers?” he replied.
“I’ve been working day and night on this case, Chief. We know these victims were both pedophiles and both had high end life insurance policies benefitting the Chicago Archdiocese. If we keep leaning on the…”