by Mark Zubro
“Did you know him?”
“For nearly thirty, forty years.”
“You knew him before he was investigating the university.”
“Oh, my yes.”
“How did you meet?” Turner asked.
Garch leaned back in the chair and with the hand that didn’t have a cigarette, pulled the lever on the side of the chair. The footrest swung out, and he rested his feet on it. He crushed out the cigarette in a half-filled cut crystal ashtray. Without checking to see if they objected, he took out another cigarette, but he didn’t light it, just held it in his hand.
He said, “Let’s go back a little. I knew Kappel and his good buddy Tresca. We were in the seminary together. Those two were inseparable. I got thrown out. The priests in charge told me I wasn’t a good fit. They were probably right. I had doubts about God and religion then. I don’t believe at all now. Kappel and Tresca? I have no idea if they ever believed. I’ve always assumed their alliance was part of being in a relationship, although Tresca would go on and on about how he wanted ‘a bust in the mouth’ before he took his vows.”
Fenwick said, “Maybe he was trying to be funny.”
“Maybe that’s funny to a third grader.”
Fenwick had the sense to keep silent.
Garch said, “I’ve found that those who insist on trumpeting their heterosexual credentials are often the ones most over-compensating.”
Turner tended to agree with this analysis. He asked, “Did you have a relationship with either of them?”
Garch snorted. Waved the hand with the still unlit cigarette at them. “I shouldn’t tell you this. I very much wanted a relationship with Kappel. He was nice and thin. Below the thorax he was perfect. His face.” He shrugged. “Kappel was more intellectual than handsome. I was attracted to how smart he was although they were both pretty smart. Tresca did have a nice bubble butt. His problem is he has a shit personality. Kappel was no prize as a person, but at least he was human. But I never got what I wanted from them, except the last night, the same evening after the afternoon meeting when the priests in charge of the seminary told me I had to leave. It was quite late. We walked down to that spot on the river where Kappel’s body was.”
“You know that spot?” Fenwick asked.
“All of us did. That spot on the river was a trysting place for young seminarians in any Catholic religious order within fifty miles. It was known the church owned the property. We felt very risqué being there. North Avenue is a mile north of there. Milwaukee Avenue and the Abbey are a mile west, but other seminarians used it as well.”
“Why not find a hidden spot at the Abbey?”
“The original parts of the old mansion/castle had all kinds of hidden trysting places, but at the height of the whole thing when I was there, it was like you practically had to take a number to get a spot. And there were homophobic old priests who, if they found you, would get your ass thrown out. It was safer to go to the river.”
“A four-mile walk?”
“To not get caught, sure, why not? It was safe.”
“How did you get in?”
“You used to be able to follow a path along the river made by trysting couples gay and straight over the years. So we didn’t have to walk along North Avenue or down Sheffield. So it really wasn’t four miles. We walked the hypotenuse of the triangle not the two sides. At that time for a long way we could go along the river. Some of us didn’t even get as far as the trysting place before we were finished. Sometimes we could check out one of the ‘house’ cars and drive. Horny guys will find a way. That’s where I gave them their blow jobs that last night. One watched the other. I’d wanted to do that for a long time.”
“You knew them well,” Fenwick said.
Garch snorted. “Far too well.” He stared out the windows for a few moments. “I don’t know if I sucked them off that night for revenge, pleasure, or desperation. Or all three or none of the above.” He shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter now.” He looked back at them.
“And through the years?” Turner asked.
“We lost touch for a long time. I still haven’t seen or met Tresca in many years. Kappel, unfortunately, I got to know all too well in the past few years.”
Turner said, “We read on the Internet that he led the investigation at the University.”
“Investigation! Ha! Inquisition is what it was. Everything except the torture and the rack.”
“What was it about?”
“Doctrinal control. Political control.”
Fenwick asked, “Was his investigation fair?”
“Fair? You’re asking about fair and the Catholic church? Using those words together in a sentence is a criminal offense. Fair! The Catholic church! Not in this city, not on this continent, not on earth, not in this century, not from since before the Inquisition, if even then. The key to his investigations was prudence, or delay, or obfuscation, or secrecy, not justice. Outside the church, anyone was fair game for his whims.”
Turner suppressed a sigh of satisfaction. You were more likely to get information from malcontents. A lot of nonsensical belly-aching as well, but that came with the territory.
Fenwick asked, “What about the investigation was unfair?”
“Let me tell you about church and university politics.” He stuck the unlit cigarette in his mouth, took it out again. He said, “At a real university what’s key is the spirit of inquiry in an atmosphere of academic freedom. That’s not what the Vatican wants. They want doctrinal purity. They want marionettes to parrot their bullshit on abortion or contraception or gay marriage or a host of other issues. They don’t care who gets in their way or about the notion of a free university.”
“A return to the Inquisition,” Fenwick suggested.
“Oh, yes. So fair is not really an operative word. Fear would be more accurate. The church is frightened and with good reason. But, I stay. I have a very good salary and a great health insurance plan. I run the department, teach a few classes.”
“How was Kappel a threat to that?”
“He could destroy it all.”
“How?”
“He could get me fired. He could get any professor fired who dared to express independent thought.”
Fenwick asked, “But isn’t that the nature of a university, to express independent thought?”
“But they don’t care about the nature of the university. And really, they don’t care about doctrinal purity. They care about obedience to them.”
“How’d the investigation come about?”
“In May 2012 the Pope reiterated the mandate that professors at Catholic universities had to be faithful to the teaching of the Church. Canon 218.” He got up and dug a book out of the top shelf of the bookcase near a door that led to a kitchen. He leafed through the book for several pages then read, ‘Those who are engaged in the sacred disciplines enjoy a lawful freedom of inquiry and of prudently expressing their opinion on matters in which they have expertise, while observing due respect for the magisterium of the Church.’” He closed the book. “Which means do as we say or lose your job.”
Fenwick asked, “They can do that to a modern university?”
“They can try. They can get the bishops to try and enforce it. This didn’t start just in 2012. They’ve been cracking down for years. One of my best professors, a good, smart, spiritual, holy man got pushed out.”
“When was this?”
“Fifteen years ago, before this most recent investigation. It was my first year as chairman of the department.”
“But you stayed.”
“I’m a coward. That priest, William Alba, who wrote extensively about recognizing the authority of the church, but still saying he dissented from particular teachings. They got rid of him. A tenured professor! William even took them to court. He lost. No, the church wants strict adherence to their rules. Kappel was the current enforcer. If he decided you were not doctrinally pure enough, you got turned in, and the vast, hidden and not so hidden Ca
tholic church bureaucracy, began to grind you down.”
“There’s a hidden and an open bureaucracy?” Fenwick asked.
“You bet. And the hidden is far more dangerous.”
“But how would anyone know about it if it’s secret?” Fenwick asked.
“It’s there. Good luck finding it. If it has something to do with the murder, you will never find it, and you will bring danger to you and yours.”
Turner asked, “So what did Kappel find out in the university investigation?”
“He called in every single one of the members of the department. He called in over half the students. He asked about what was being said and taught in classes. He and his minions took voluminous notes, tape recorded poor college freshmen. The son of a bitch didn’t actually have to find proof. All you need to do is twist a phrase, add innuendo, claim a fact is in dispute or controversial.”
Fenwick asked, “But isn’t all theology basically someone’s opinion about poetry written hundreds or thousands of years ago?”
“That, my dear detective, is blasphemy.”
“Well, I suppose, but doesn’t it come down to I think or I believe God said this? Then somebody else stands up and says God said that. There’s no way to prove it. God doesn’t do a network broadcast.”
Garch said, “So we get Holy Wars and Jihad, and millennium upon millennium with bloodshed beyond all reason.”
Fenwick said, “But bloodshed within the realm of faith is okay?”
Garch frowned. “You’ve just described the written history of the planet.”
“But what could they threaten a non-church member with? Deny them communion? Who cares?”
Turner had had enough of Fenwick’s theological and philosophical banterings with Garch. He got them back to the topic by saying, “Kappel was going to get you fired.”
Garch sighed. He flipped the still unlit cigarette across and around the fingers of his left hand in a sort of modified, extended coin walk/nickel roll. One second the cigarette was between his thumb and forefinger, and the next it was between his pinky and index finger. Turner admired the dexterity and nimbleness. He also wished Garch would light the damn thing and stop playing with it.
The professor said, “Probably.”
“With him dead, will that stop the process?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what stage his investigation was at. I don’t know what his reports said, or if he’d even made them yet. That’s one of their weapons, uncertainty, the ability to make you anxious.”
“But killing him would be likely to put a stop to persecution of you?” Fenwick suggested.
Garch gave him a bitter smile. “Probably not. The Catholic church might not be as openly vicious as during the Inquisition, but trust me, they are still as sneakily vicious.” He took out a pack of matches and held them in the opposite hand from the cigarette. “You know Kappel and Tresca were lovers?”
“How’d they get away with having a place for themselves?”
“The intricacies of how they got away with what are unknown to me. I know very little about the actual dynamics of their relationship.”
“Were they in love?” Turner asked.
Garch paused and looked thoughtful, put the cigarette in his mouth, and took it out again. He said, “I don’t know.”
“You heard anything about Kappel hiring escorts?” Fenwick asked.
“I wouldn’t know. Nor would I care. He never struck me as the kind who needed any human contact or warmth. I only know about his investigation here.”
“What can you tell us about Cardinal Duggan?” Turner asked.
“When the Cardinal was appointed from the Sacred Heart of Bleeding Jesus Order, he brought Kappel and Tresca along with him into his administration from the Order. They have his complete trust.”
“Do you know anything about financial scandals in the archdiocese?”
“The diocesan priests are still quaking in their boots and the Cardinal has been in office eight years. Those two were his enforcers. They showed up in your parish, and you never knew what shit was going to hit the fan.”
Fenwick asked, “Were there financial irregularities?”
“This all happened internally. There was never a public scandal although there were occasional rumors, but under the previous Cardinal, who was never directly accused of anything, there were allegations of graft, nepotism, cronyism connected to awarding contracts at inflated prices, irregular purchasing procedures. All kinds of shit.”
“Any of it true?” Fenwick asked.
He shrugged. “The old Cardinal died. They brought this new guy in, Duggan, and he brought Kappel and Tresca along. The old guard fought back, but the new regime was the master of smear, innuendo, and infighting. People got transferred. People got silenced. The actual truth of who may or may not have done what got lost completely.”
Turner asked, “But wouldn’t the old guard be just as good at smear, innuendo, and infighting?”
“No one was as good as Kappel and Tresca.”
Fenwick asked, “Why wouldn’t a silenced priest go to the media, call the police, get a lawyer?”
Garch gave him a condescending smile. “If you’ve been skimming money and have amassed a fortune, do you want to draw attention to yourself by lavishly spending it on expensive lawyers? And why call a press conference accusing others of what you yourself were doing? Sure, you could accuse, but you’d be accused back, and the diocese has money, tons of it to spend on attorneys. And more than money, influence behind the scenes to start and stop investigations. Probably including yours.”
“What if you had documentation?”
“Church documentation? Who’s going to be able to prove it? These people are responsible to the Vatican, not to the local Justice of the Peace.”
“What if you were an accuser and honest?” Fenwick asked.
Garch let out a bark of a laugh. “Honest? Then you can’t afford an attorney. The police? How are they going to get church documents? How hard was it to get documents about priestly sex abuse? Like prying a tooth from an unanaesthetized tiger. And if you’re a poor priest, as most of them are, and you go to the media, you’ve got no standing, no one will back you up. The Church has media experts who will destroy you completely and utterly.”
He switched the cigarette and matches from one hand to the other then continued. “And if you’re a priest in a position of power, you’re older. If you’re older, do you have a pension, prospects for a job outside the clergy? No. Do you have health insurance if you get pitched out? No. You don’t get Social Security because you’ve never contributed. You’ve got nothing. The church protects itself, and very much will hurt, if it can, those who cross it.”
“Cheating in the diocese continues?” Fenwick asked.
“I’ve heard yes and no. The old guard that was replaced certainly has made accusations.”
“Do you know any specific enemies?”
“The most public and fiercest was Father Alfred Bernard.” Bernard had made headlines at his parish on the west side for decades and was a flamboyant and effective advocate for his parishioners and the community. Numerous cardinals had tried to silence him to little effect.
“Were Kappel and Tresca instrumental in getting Father Bernard thrown out of his parish?”
“He wasn’t actually thrown out. Sort of demoted. He still lives there as adjutant, semi-retired assistant. Of course, all of this was done behind the scenes, and sneakily and dishonestly, but it was them.” He cleared his throat. “Let me correct myself. I have no proof, but it had to be them. The Cardinal trusts them implicitly.”
“And you know this how?” Fenwick asked.
“I work at the largest Catholic university in the diocese. I have friends. Not as powerful or as connected as Kappel and Tresca, of course, but you hear things. You should talk to Bernard. Now there was one pissed off priest.”
Turner asked, “Have you seen a large burly man hanging around in a limousine?”
&nb
sp; “No, who’s he?”
“We don’t know.”
Fenwick asked, “You ever dealt with Bishop Pelagius the Papal Nuncio or Vern Drake, the Cook County Commissioner?”
“I’ve only vaguely heard of either one.”
“Where were you on Friday around midnight?” Fenwick asked.
“Home. In bed. By myself.”
The detectives left.
In the car Fenwick said, “I wish he was a snarling gangbanger who just murdered some sweet innocent waif.”
“Why?”
“Then I could cheerfully shove the damn cigarette down his throat.”
“Lit or unlit?”
“Both. What the hell was that act?”
“The cigarette? Beats the shit out of me. If it’s longer than it is wide, the old saying is it’s gotta be a phallic symbol.” Turner put his elbow out the window into the warm May air and settled himself. “The most important thing was that Kappel knew about that place. It wasn’t a surprise he was there. It could very well have been that he was meeting someone he knew.”
“Lots of possibilities.”
“So he walked to his assignation willingly?”
“Maybe he knew what was going to happen and wanted to die.”
“Tired of his life and the way he was living it? But we have no proof of that.”
Fenwick sighed. “That’s you again. Proof.”
SEVENTEEN
Sunday 3:30 P.M.
They drove to their next stop, St. Gratian’s parish on the far north side, to talk to the priest who’d written the book about the Sacred Heart of Bleeding Jesus Order. He was a member of the Order, but he lived in one of their parishes in the city not at the Abbey.
Fr. Theodore Keerkins, who was most accommodating upon them introducing themselves, used a cane to help himself shuffle to a seat in a living room with lace doilies on the over-stuffed horsehair furniture. He lifted a bottle of Glenfiddich from a table next to him. His hand shook as he poured twelve-year-old Scotch into a glass near at hand. He pointed the bottle at the detectives in turn, but they declined his offer. He settled himself more deeply in his chair, sipped his Scotch, and returned his glass to the center of the small table.
