Death Wears a Red Hat

by William X. Kienzle

At that moment, he saw a car turn into the seminary drive. As it turned in, the car’s lights were turned off.

  It could have been many things, not the least a student returning late. But Koesler determined to follow this through. It was the only out-of-the-ordinary occurrence thus far.

  Instead of continuing the path of the circular drive, which would have brought it directly beneath Koesler, the car took the alternate drive leading to the seminary’s north side.

  As it passed out of Koesler’s view to the side, the priest turned and ran down the stairs to the main floor. There he slowed, deciding to walk swiftly with arms outstretched, rather than running. Doors might be closed, and there was no moonlight, so all was thoroughly dark.

  The door to the north cloisters was ajar. It had been closed and locked when he’d checked it before his vigil. A car was parked outside. He could not discern the license number, but it appeared to be an old Plymouth. And that was vaguely familiar.

  As he turned the corner into the transverse cloisters, Koesler thought he saw someone disappear into the entrance that led to both the main church and the crypt chapel. The figure had been carrying something—a bag, or a pouch, or a sack.

  The only illumination came from a few lights still on in the residence halls across the courtyard. Not enough to see clearly.

  Koesler hurried along the cloister but hesitated as he reached the entrance to the chapels. It was pitch-black. He fumbled for the light switch, found it, flipped it. Nothing.

  Damn!

  Cautiously, he felt his way along the wall. Suddenly, he touched something. He didn’t want to touch it again. He forced himself. It was cold, it was slimy and, whatever it was, it was dead. With a shudder, he pulled away from the object. In doing so, he backed into something unyielding. It was not a wall.

  Koesler spun about. His eyes were becoming adjusted to the dark. He was able to perceive a human form easily as tall as himself. But who was it? Was he about to strike? Koesler raised both arms in a protective stance.

  But there was something. A body odor. Not unpleasant, but distinctive. In an intuitive flash, it all came together.

  “Ramon!” Koesler exclaimed in a voice barely above a whisper.

  The figure turned and darted down the staircase toward the crypt chapel.

  Koesler, several steps behind, ran in pursuit. I’m too old to be playing cops and robbers was his only thought.

  At the basement level, Koesler swung through the door to the crypt chapel and turned toward where he remembered the light switch to be.

  With that, he crashed into an ancient, ornate, and rigid kneeling bench. Koesler went up and over it in the same fashion as a running back who suffers a roll block at the knees. Except that professional athletes are better prepared for such bone-jarring collisions.

  The back of Koesler’s head made first contact with the concrete floor. He thought this a great indignity. Then he lost consciousness.

  Everything was very fuzzy. With this head, he thought, I should be enjoying a hangover.

  As things began to come into visual focus, he tried to remember what day it was. Thursday. Yes, definitely Thursday. But if it’s Thursday, what am I doing on the floor?

  This was going to be a day for one thing at a time.

  First, rise.

  That may have been a mistake, he thought. In an upright position, his head throbbed still harder.

  Even though the students seldom pass through the crypt chapel, you’d think someone would occasionally dust the place. His black suit was covered with dirt.

  Crypt chapel!

  It all came back to him. He stopped brushing his suit and tentatively peered around the corner into the central area of the crypt chapel.

  It was there all right. In the center of the large plaque covering Cardinal Edward Mooney’s final resting place was a human head. It had been a black man. Koesler did not recognize him. Outside of the picture that had appeared in the News, the priest had not seen the remains of any of the previous Red Hat victims. He would never forget the look of utter horror on the man’s face.

  The police. The police must be notified.

  But not by me, he thought. Not right now. The police would want to know how I found the head, what I was doing here. I’m not quite ready to tell them everything I know or suspect. Not, at least, till my head clears.

  He would take the elevator to the third floor and use one of the guest rooms to clean and freshen up.

  And then deal with the head.

  He looked back at it and shuddered again.

  Several luxury autos driven by several very agitated people had arrived at Dessalen’s Garage. Just the sort of vehicles and persons Elmer Dessalen so enjoyed taking for all he could. Still, he had not made an appearance.

  Ben Jones’ curiosity became worry. He asked, but none of the mechanics had seen Dessalen.

  Seizing the senior mechanic’s prerogative, Jones climbed the stairs to his employer’s office.

  “Christ!” Jones could clearly be heard by those in the vicinity of the office. A couple of mechanics mounted the stairs to join him.

  First to catch Jones’ eye was the floor nearly covered with blood. Then the body. Though Jones had never before seen a headless body, he knew instantly it was that of Dessalen.

  One of the other mechanics called the police. He had to; Jones was too sick to do so.

  It was time for Lauds. As with all else, attendance was not compulsory. So, very few St. John’s seminarians attended. Delaying the commencement of Lauds was the fact that none of the lights worked in the huge main floor chapel.

  “Listen, Dave,” said Deacon Ed Landregan, “since I was kind enough to take you on a tour of the crypt chapel the other day, you know where the fuse box is. Why don’t you go downstairs and reset it?”

  Deacon Dave Ballas could think of no reason why he should not be the one to set things right, except that since Landregan had thought of it, Landregan might be the more logical choice. But Ballas didn’t care to argue the point. It was too nice a day. One of those September days that makes a Michigan autumn something to brag about.

  Ballas descended the stairs very carefully. With no trouble, he found the fuse box and reset the switch.

  Since his first visit had been just two days ago, he decided another quick look was in order. He wanted to see again that interesting plaque on Cardinal Mooney’s grave.

  Landregan began to wonder what had happened to Ballas. He had been gone several minutes longer than necessary. Had he gotten lost? Hurt himself? Fallen downstairs? Landregan began to worry. He felt responsible. He tested the light switch in the chapel. The lights worked. He went in search of his friend.

  He found Ballas and he found the head. Ballas had not returned because he had become sick. Very sick. Fortunately, Landregan did not follow his example. On this occasion, he did not pass out. After caring for Ballas, he coolly called the police.

  Showered and shaved, his suit sponged off, but still with a splitting headache, Father Koesler descended from his third-floor aerie to discover the head had been found and the police notified.

  This was the first happy discovery he had made this lovely day.

  While making this discovery, his presence in the seminary was noted by many of the faculty and students. His presence at that early hour and on this day would be considered by all to be noteworthy. Koesler guessed that someone would be bound to mention this. But there was something he had to accomplish before he spoke to the police.

  He used the pay phone outside the central office.

  “ ’Ciane, this is Bob Koesler. May I please speak with Ramon?”

  “Of course. Just a moment.”

  “Bob,” Toussaint’s mellifluous voice came over the wire, “how are you?”

  “O.K., I guess. Tired. And I’ve got a headache that won’t quit.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. I checked you over carefully before I left and saw that you were unconscious but not badly hurt.”

  So t
here was to be no dissembling. All the better.

  “Ramon, I must see you.”

  “Of course, Bob. What do you say to meeting at Sacred Heart Seminary? It’s a very nice day. We can walk around the grounds while we talk.”

  “That sounds good, Ramon. I’ll get a bite to eat first. Maybe it’ll help the headache. An hour?”

  “I’ll see you then, Bob.”

  Some toast and coffee with three aspirins couldn’t hurt. With any luck, he’d be gone before the police investigation became too intense.

  As Harris hung up the phone, he thought that seldom had he detected such naked excitement in Koznicki’s voice. He hurried toward the Inspector’s office.

  When he entered the office, Harris remained standing. It was too much trouble struggling into a chair in that small room for any but the most solemn occasions.

  “Ned,” Koznicki opened, eyes dancing, “about half an hour ago, the Plymouth Police called. A severed head was found at St. John’s Seminary.”

  “Whose?” Harris readily contracted the excitement.

  “They have not made identification. But more on that later.”

  “Did they give permission for us to join in the investigation?”

  “Of course. And since Plymouth is in Wayne County, there was no problem in their getting the head to Moellmann.

  “But that’s only half the story. Just a few minutes ago, I got a call that a headless body was found at Dessalen’s Garage on Grand River. The body has been tentatively identified as that of Elmer Dessalen, owner of the garage. That’s been shipped to Moellmann too. Do you think we could get lucky enough to have this head and body belong to each other?”

  “I feel it in my bones,” said Harris. “Are you as eager to get over to Moellmann’s as I am?”

  “I’m too old to race you, but let’s go!”

  “By the way,” Harris asked as the two strode swiftly down the corridor, “what statue was wearing the head?”

  “Odd,” Koznicki responded as he pressed the elevator call button, “there was no statue.”

  “No statue?”

  “No, the head was found on old Cardinal Mooney’s tomb.”

  Harris was silent during the ride to the main floor.

  “That doesn’t seem to make any sense,” he said as they reached the street.

  “I don’t find any pattern in it either. I think I’ll put in a call to Father Koesler and ask him to stop by. This may be a matter for our theological experts.”

  “Not every police department has them.”

  “Damn right!”

  They were too ebullient to bother driving. They walked briskly to the Wayne County Morgue.

  Around and around they walked, following the brick path circling the spacious grounds at the rear of Sacred Heart Seminary. Each in black, with clerical collar. Approximately the same height. The dark man noticeably older and more powerfully built than the white man.

  Koesler had offered his theory on the motive for the killings.

  “That was it, wasn’t it—a statement on the nature of sin?”

  “Exactly correct, Bob.” As always, Toussaint’s pronunciation of ‘Bob’ rhymed with ‘daub.’ “And it was particularly brilliant of you to properly deduce the conclusion.”

  “Well, I thought that depended on two elements. One, that the killer—you—that you were making your statement in two series of threes. First, the more notorious sinners, followed by more inconspicuous sinners.

  “And second was the use of ‘cardinal’ as a pun. ‘Cardinal’ in its etymonic sense of being the hinge on which all else swings. That, along with the further pun that Pat McNiff came up with on the use of the red hat and the heads, a pun on the Latin ‘caput,’ meaning ‘head.’ So it was capital punishment.

  “And St. Expeditus would not wait until tomorrow to enforce capital punishment. He would insist on its being today.”

  Was the gleam in Toussaint’s eyes amusement or admiration? Or both? “You’re right, of course. But tell me, Bob, how did you know to wait for me at St. John’s?”

  “I didn’t, really, or I wouldn’t have been alone. It was just a hunch.”

  Koesler was silent for a minute, his mind a kaleidoscope of images. “But everything seemed to have a sort of symmetry. And so it seemed to me that the third victim of the second week would be the final element of the killers—your—statement.

  “And while each of the four heads was found with an appropriate statue, the first head was found with one of the only two relics we have of the late Cardinal Mooney—his red hat. The only other relic we have is his mortal remains.

  “Add to that my notion that the killer—” Koesler shook his head wryly, “—you—intended the word ‘cardinal’ to be used in its strictest sense, as a hinge on which the entire enterprise swung, and …” he stopped walking and looked earnestly at Toussaint, who had also stopped and was regarding him gravely, “well, it just all led me to believe you would finish where you had begun.”

  “Excellent, Bob, excellent!”

  As they resumed pacing, Koesler tried to stop feeling like a student who was being given extremely good grades.

  Abruptly, he again stopped pacing. Again his companion was forced to stop also.

  “Ramon! What in hell was that I touched hanging from the wall of the cloister, just before I bumped into you? It felt cold and slimy and dead! It wasn’t the head, was it?” At the memory of the head, Koesler felt revulsion at the possibility of having touched it.

  A smile played at the corner of Toussaint’s mouth. “It was a cold and slimy and dead chicken, Bob.”

  “Chicken!”

  “Yes. It is used in the death conjure. It is hung while the rite is completed.”

  If he had to touch something slimy while not knowing what it was, Koesler thought, he’d prefer a chicken to a cadaver.

  But there was something missing in this picture. Toussaint had not just come over on the boat. He was cultured—easily one of the most cultured, civilized, self-disciplined people Koesler knew. Even though Toussaint, by his own admission, was the Red Hat murderer, Koesler still could not make all the pieces fall in place, especially the magical pieces. It was as if the James Bond character were to rely on prayer rather than technology.

  “But why voodoo? Where did that come from?”

  “Emerenciana. She is a Mambo.”

  “A voodoo priestess? ’Ciane!”

  “One of the best!”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Oh, no, Bob; she really is one of the best.”

  “No, not that. That she’s a Mambo.”

  “Well, believe me, she is.”

  Koesler had little success envisioning the elegant and stately Emerenciana as a voodoo priestess. The priest had pictured ’Ciane as a most cultured woman, certainly above the practice of voodoo. But as he continued this consideration, he wondered why he would place voodoo “below” anything. To the Africans and at least some of their descendants, it was as meaningful a religion as Christianity was to Western civilization.

  As he thought of voodoo, another impression emerged. An odor.

  “The incense!” Koesler exclaimed. “It wasn’t because of fumigating. It was part of a voodoo ritual. You conducted them in your own house.”

  Toussaint nodded.

  Koesler had the irrelevant notion that if Madison Avenue ever got hold of this, eventually they would advertise a “new and improved home voodoo kit.” He dismissed the distraction as an additional question occurred to him. Had Toussaint had a belt-and-suspenders approach to his mission?

  “But if you had voodoo ceremonies, where did the snake venom come in? I read they found a trace of venom in that fellow—what’s his name, McCluskey.”

  Toussaint lowered his head, shook it slowly and smiled. “ ’Ciane and I decided together to make this statement. After that I could not let her take full responsibility for the killings because of her death conjure. She does not know, but I was going to tell her
later, if it seemed appropriate.

  “It is something like the execution by firing squad. One marksman is given a blank instead of a live bullet. No one knows who has the blank. So theoretically none of them knows whether he killed the condemned. In this instance, neither ’Ciane nor I would know by whose hand the condemned was executed.”

  “But you can’t believe in the power of voodoo.” Koesler looked sharply at Toussaint. “The very fact you used venom indicates you don’t.”

  “You misunderstand, Bob. I’ve explained why I injected the venom. Besides, you may very shortly learn that voodoo is effective.”

  Koesler wondered what possibly could convince him that voodoo had any practical effect. He was reminded of a young man he had counseled years before. The youth had been reluctant to tell him of what he thought was the bliss and beauty to be found in drugs for fear that, even though it might be against his religion, he, Koesler, might sample them!

  Just as there was no possibility Koesler would drop into the drug culture, so he saw no way he could believe in voodoo.

  “Bob,” Toussaint continued, “there are so many things we know little of. I think all those men died of fear. But I am not certain what caused that fear. Perhaps the death conjure. Perhaps the venom. Perhaps an hallucination brought on by one of the two, or both. Or perhaps guilt helped them toward a vision of their life in eternity.”

  “That’s right,” said Koesler thoughtfully. “In all these studies of people who have returned from a death experience, thanatologists say that in addition to those who have a heavenly experience, there are many who experience some kind of hell. Most of the time, it literally scares the hell out of them.”

  “And those are merely the ones who admit their terrifying experiences,” agreed Toussaint. “Not everyone is willing to admit he is so evil he nearly went to hell.”

  “Amazing!” Koesler automatically inserted a toothpick between his teeth.

  As they continued their peregrination, several fire trucks sped by, sirens wailing. Koesler pressed both hands against his temples.

  “Oh,” Toussaint said solicitously, “your head! I am so sorry about that, Bob. I was only trying to lose you. I did not intend you to meet so violently with that priedieu.”