Chameleon fk-13

by William X. Kienzle

  The archbishop, a loyal churchman despite his humanistic leanings, complied with Rome’s wishes. He retired, but stayed on in a private Cincinnati home as bishop-emeritus. However, despite his striving to maintain a very low profile, his popularity remained strong. He was invited to meetings of such fringe groups as former priests, and women who demanded ordination. Often, he attended. The good man had great difficulty refusing invitations, particularly those from people who were hurting.

  Pressure was applied again: this time, to leave Cincinnati and the people with whom he’d built a long-standing, mutual love affair.

  Obediently, he packed. But where to go? He prayed. His prayers were answered almost ideally by an invitation to reside in Detroit.

  Detroit had become known throughout the country and the entire Catholic world as an “open” diocese. The Second Vatican Council had hit Detroit harder than any other U.S. diocese and certainly no less forcefully than any other diocese in the world.

  Rome was not enthused by the Detroit Syndrome. But there were some substantial if subtle differences between Detroit and Cincinnati. Detroit’s archbishop, Mark Boyle, was a Cardinal, a “prince of the Church,” That, plus Boyle’s popularity among his confreres, had earned him the first elected presidency of the newly formed U.S. Bishops’ Conference. Even Rome had to take these facts into consideration.

  There were also differences between Boyle and Foley.

  Larry Foley’s conscience and conviction led him to more or less sympathize with the spirit of the fringe and outlawed groups with whom he dealt. Mark Boyle, on the other hand, seldom if ever swerved from the vera doctrina, the true doctrine as interpreted by Rome.

  Boyle’s great virtue-or flaw, depending on which side of the fence one sat-was his ability to co-exist with those whose opinions he did not share. Without shouting, “Off with their heads!”

  Thus Boyle got along with Foley as well or better than with just about any other bishop in captivity. They had been friends for years; it was only natural that Foley had considered Boyle’s invitation to reside in Detroit as heaven-sent.

  With this background, Koesler understood why Archbishop Foley would receive mixed reviews from the people in this room. Many of them had the “bureaucratic mind” that disapproved of Foley as a maverick, while others appreciated him to the extent of loving him.

  Among the latter was Sister Joan Donovan. While making no effort to conceal the details of her sister’s life and death, she had, with anxiety, let her wish be known that her sister receive a Catholic burial.

  Archbishop Foley had been the first-and, actually, the foremost-to respond to her appeal. He told Joan it would be an honor for him to preside over the Mass of Resurrection and burial. Thus Sister Joan joined the long line of those beholden to him.

  Foley was here to lead the rosary. To that purpose he now made his way toward the front of the room where a kneeler had been placed before the bier.

  The archbishop gave new meaning to fragility. Thin as a pipe cleaner, he was slightly stooped. Although he bore a generally dour face topped by wispy white hair, it was his eyes that distinguished him. They were blue and danced with merriment.

  Even the soft whispering gradually ceased as Foley shuffled to the front of the room. As he reached the casket, Sister Joan stepped forward and joined him. For several moments they stood gazing at the remains of Helen Donovan. Foley had spoken words of consolation at the time he’d agreed to preside at the funeral, so there was no need to go into that again.

  “She was very beautiful,” Foley said finally. He had never met Helen Donovan in life.

  Joan nodded, “She looks quite natural. I was told the bullet entered the rear of her head and didn’t come out. So I guess there was no extensive damage in the front to …” She choked back a heavy pressure in her throat.

  “… repair?” Foley supplied.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Foley joined his hands as if in prayer. “Now that I’ve finally seen her, I am amazed how much she resembles you.”

  “Oh, she was much prettier.”

  “No, not really. She’s lovely, of course. But then, so are you.”

  “Oh, come now!” Joan touched the bishop’s arm. It was as if she were holding naked bone.

  “No, no. You are both lovely ladies. Now, if an old coot like me can’t get away with passing a compliment with no strings attached, who in God’s green world can?”

  Joan smiled briefly. “You know, Bishop, she and I were never close. That surprises me now that I look back on it. We were the only children in our family, both girls. You’d think we would have appreciated each other, shared things. But aside of my hand-me-downs we shared almost nothing. I got excellent marks in school-that sort of challenged her. I did well in academics; she did not. But she did better in almost everything else.”

  They fell silent for a few moments.

  “Your sister is grateful to you now,” Foley said. “Grateful that you’ve gone to all this trouble to have her buried properly.”

  “Oh, do you really think so? I’ve been wondering whether I’m doing all this for her or for myself. For a long, long time she couldn’t have cared less about the church or religion. What difference would this ceremony make to her now?”

  “Well, m’dear, I’ve always thought that when we die, we will be judged by love. I am so very, desperately grateful that when I go, I will not be judged by any fellow human-no matter how understanding and forgiving that person may be. No, your sister’s been judged by the only one who goes on loving us no matter what we do. Keep in mind the words of St. John, ‘God is love and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.’ Forgive the sexist pronouns, m’dear.”

  Strange, thought Joan, he hasn’t said anything I didn’t know. And yet I feel so much better, so very much better.

  “And while we’re at it,” Foley added, “we might remember some other words from Scripture: ‘It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead.’ Will you join me on the kneeler? I promise I won’t get fresh.”

  Joan almost laughed out loud.

  As they knelt, most of those in the room followed suit. Archbishop Foley led the group in the glorious mysteries. To even slightly old-fashioned Catholics, the rosary, particularly in this setting, was a consolation. To others, the whole thing was a mystery-not joyful, not sorrowful, not glorious. Just a mystery.

  The rosary completed, Foley creaked to his feet, said a few more words to Joan, patted her hand, and shuffled toward the exit.

  The others waited, either out of genuine respect or in deference to his rank. Then nearly everyone participated in a mass exit. Koesler, intent on speaking to Joan, felt like a salmon swimming upstream.

  By the time he reached the front of the room only a few people remained. They were clustered around Sister Joan. As he knelt briefly before the casket, he was struck by Helen’s resemblance to Joan. They were not twins, but they very definitely were look-alike sisters.

  As he prayed that Helen be at peace with God, he wondered how two lives so joined in consanguinity could have developed so differently, as Helen and Joan had drifted apart in every conceivable way.

  When he finished his prayer, he stood at the rear of the small group offering condolences to Joan. She noticed him standing there awkwardly and broke away long enough to thank him for attending. It was a perfunctory greeting. Koesler was certain that later Joan would not even remember his presence. But that was understandable. It was not at all uncommon for the bereaved to be distracted, even unaware of what was taking place. The death of a loved one may be the ultimate shock.

  As Koesler turned to leave, none of the original crowd, outside of the few with Joan, remained-except the ladies who did not represent the Rosary Altar Society. They were in the doorway talking to a black man with an engaging smile.

  Koesler knew the man from somewhere. As usual in such situations, he began reflecting on parishes he had served. Frequently, priests’ contacts with laity took place
on the parochial level. This was an easy case to check; he had had relatively few black parishioners during his priestly ministry to date. He hoped to correct that imbalance through old St. Joseph’s parish.

  But, if not a parish, then where? Of course: Lieutenant Tully. What was that nickname some used? Oh, yes: Zoo.

  Koesler was tempted to classify their association as having “worked together” on a couple of cases. But that would be a somewhat grandiose description. Let’s keep things in perspective, he thought: Tully was the cop. And from what Koesler’s close friend Inspector Walter Koznicki had said, Tully was the inspector’s most valued officer in the Homicide Division. From the amateur’s point of view, Koesler would agree at least with the fact that Tully was totally dedicated to his work.

  And Koesler? Over the past decade, Homicide had investigated some cases with decidedly Catholic angles. He had merely clarified some facets of Catholicism that had cleared the way for the police to do their job

  In the periphery of his vision, Tully caught Koesler looking in his direction. He had been waiting for that. Graciously he terminated his conversation with the women and stepped forward into the nearly empty room toward Koesler. For Tully, Koesler represented an oasis of familiarity in a desert of foreign identities.

  They greeted each other cordially but their mutual greeting was more pro forma than personal.

  “For just a second there, Lieutenant”-Koesler’s sole use of nicknames was confined to colleagues who were friends from childhood-“I was surprised to see you here. Then I recalled that this is, after all, a murder investigation. So why wouldn’t you be here?”

  “Uh-huh. Good to see you again, And you? Did you know the deceased?”

  For just an instant, Koesler reacted as if he were being interrogated. “No, not at all.” Then he relaxed. “I do know her sister, Sister Joan. I was afraid there wouldn’t be many showing up for this wake so I was going to add my body to the few. Obviously”-Koesler’s gesture encompassed what had been a packed room-“I was mistaken.”

  “You weren’t the only one surprised. What attracted this crowd?”

  “Oh, I think certainly the fact that Sister Joan is the head of a department in the archdiocese. A few of the people here tonight are also department heads, and a lot of the others work in the various departments.”

  That makes sense, thought Tully. “And you know all these people?”

  Koesler nodded. “Most of them. Certainly all the department heads. Not everyone who works under them.”

  “Interesting. The elderly gentleman, the one who led the prayers, he a department head?”

  “No, he’s a bishop. An archbishop.” Koesler had had this perception many times before. There was no shorthand to explain the trappings of Catholicism-its law, doctrine, morality, liturgy, etc.-easily and simply. “He’s retired.”

  “Retired? Then why’s he leading the prayers?”

  Koesler didn’t immediately grasp the thrust of Tully’s question. “Leading prayers?” Then, “Oh, I see. Well, priests, bishops, even if they’re retired, don’t stop praying or even leading prayers. They can continue doing as much or as little as they wish and as the Church law allows, liturgically if not parochially. Most of them want to be rid of administrative work. But most of them still want to be with people-want to be of some service to people.”

  “Makes sense, I guess.” Once again Tully felt overwhelmed with the amount of detail in Catholicism-in all of organized religion, for all he knew-and how little of it he understood or was aware of. At this point Koesler was his only guide to a vast unknown area that might be important to this case. He fervently hoped there was no connection. Mostly, he hoped this homicide was not a case of mistaken identity. For if the real intended victim was the nun, Tully could be drawn into this maze of Catholicism he so little understood. “You’re not goin’ on vacation anytime soon, are you?”

  Koesler chuckled. “It seems as if I just got to my new parish,” he said. “No, I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere soon.”

  “New parish?”

  “St. Joseph’s-old St. Joseph’s downtown.”

  “Near police headquarters?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Nice.”

  5

  “The cut on your lip looks okay now, but I don’t know about that bruise on your cheek. You could end up with a mean shiner.”

  “How many stitches, you figure?” Arnold Carson asked.

  Dwight Morgan, right index finger about an inch from Garson’s face, began counting. “Three … four … five. I figure five or six. Hard to tell, Arnie. There might be some more inside your lip.”

  Carson tenderly touched his lower lip. “It hurts.” He ran his finger inside the lip. “At least all the teeth are still there.”

  “You gonna sue?” Angelo Luca wanted to know.

  “The cops?” Carson said. “I been down that road. No future in it,”

  “Geez, I feel like it’s my fault,” Luca said.

  “Forget it,” Carson replied. “It ain’t your fault. You just saw the write-up in the paper. I’m glad you told us about it.”

  “But, geez,” Luca insisted, “if I’d just kept my mouth shut, you wouldna got roughed up.”

  “Forget it,” Carson insisted. “It’s just the price we have to pay every once in a while.” He spoke with all the pride a martyr might express.

  In this instance, as in so many others, he did consider himself a martyr-a martyr for the good cause of truth, justice, right, and the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

  Arnold Carson, a U.S. mail clerk in his early fifties, was, much of the time, an angry man. It had been Carson’s good or bad fate to convert to Catholicism just before the time when, in his opinion, Catholicism was converting to Protestantism.

  Carson had been born into a committed Episcopal family. In his youth, he had been an eager participant in all manner of church functions, youth programs, etc. He had even considered the priesthood, But he was not an achieving student. He received and accepted excellent advice from teachers and counselors to lower his academic sights.

  When he graduated from high school, Carson became a member of the postal service, first as a part-time flexible employee (PTF), then as a regular employee. Almost by accident he had found his niche in life.

  He felt at home, compatible, with things that had specific answers, bottom lines, absolutes. He didn’t admit it to anyone, but he liked addresses. When he worked as a carrier, all he had to do was line up envelopes in numerical order, find the house with the matching number, and the job was done. Stamps were comforting too. One had either sufficient or insufficient postage. And the good old scale would provide that answer. Sufficient and one put it on its way to delivery; insufficient and one returned it.

  It was that philosophical attitude which disenchanted Carson with regard to the Episcopal Church-all of Protestantism, for that matter, revealed by his investigation: Too many questions did not have absolute answers.

  For instance: Could one be married more than once, more than twice, in the Episcopal Church? It depended.

  Then, in I960, at age twenty, he had stumbled onto Catholicism. Catholicism was crammed with absolutes and comfortable numbers. One God, two natures, three persons, four purposes of prayer, five processions in the Trinity, seven sacraments, nine first Fridays, ten Commandments, twelve promises, fourteen Stations of the Cross, and so forth.

  Could one marry more than once in the Catholic Church? Of course not. Not unless the petitioner could prove to scrupulous curiosity that a previous marriage was so null and void that it had never happened-or unless one’s spouse died.

  Carson searched and studied and investigated and questioned until he thought he had found heaven without benefit of death.

  Home! Home was the compulsive, home from insecurity.

  Then what to his wondering soul should occur but Vatican II. He couldn’t believe it: They had a perfect system and they fixed it.

  Carson didn’t
take it lying down. He studied the new monster to the best of his limited ability.

  Maybe Martin Luther was right! Maybe “Father Martin,” as he was respectfully treated by the hated new breed, was a saint! What happened to the ordinary magisterium? What happened to actions and thoughts that were evil to their very core? What the hell was situation ethics? What in hell was liberation theology? What happened to the enveloping, mesmerizing Latin? When did nuns start wearing miniskirts? Where did the priest’s lifetime commitment go? What happened to all the goddam absolutes?

  Carson had found heaven on earth, and as a result of a four-or five-year meeting in Rome it had been demolished.

  Arnold Carson was not amused.

  Indeed, he was fighting angry.

  He could have taken several tacks. He could quit Catholicism by a simple act of will. Or he could join one of the organizations spawned by and because of Vatican II, organizations for conservatives upset by the council and determined to, in effect, save the Church from itself.

  There was Catholics United for the Faith (CUF). Most of the members of this organization were reasonable people, though vigilant and active. They actually pretty much played by the rules set up by the hierarchy.

  One program the Catholic Church has wrestled with for the past slightly more than one hundred years is what to do with an infallible Pope when he’s not being infallible. Which is most of the time. Infallibility was defined and adopted (some would say rigged) by the First Vatican Council in 1870. Since then, arguably, there has been only one infallible pronouncement, and that was Pius XII’s regarding Mary’s Assumption into heaven.