by Mark Zubro
“So he always really tried to help people?” Fenwick asked.
Sister Eliade gave a grim smile. “Well, no. If he didn’t like you, you were toast. Or if you made him angry he could really put it to you. That actually made his attempts to help easier to keep secret, or look less like help. He had a vicious reputation. And he never made an issue when something just disappeared. And some things just disappeared and you were never sure whom the disappearing helped. It really looked like most often he was an enforcer because a lot of his biggest cases made news. Plus he was on the Cardinal’s side in the wars inside the Sacred Heart of Bleeding Jesus Order. And if you happened to be on the wrong side of a dispute that had any connection with the Order, Kappel would get even.”
“The wrong side being the one Kappel was against,” Fenwick confirmed.
“Yes, my dear,” the placid nun said. “In the Order, you could be in a great deal of trouble. The Abbot won some fights. The Cardinal won some fights. The Cardinal had the ear of the Vatican, obviously, he did get made Cardinal. The Abbot had the power in the Order.”
“For what?” Fenwick asked. The fruits of pointless power was one of Fenwick’s favorite debating points.
As they discussed the finer points of the morality of power, Molton himself re-entered with a tray of coffee. Turner knew they were the best cups and saucers available in the station. He heard the seldom-used elevator creak in the distance. They looked in that direction. Mrs. Talucci, accompanied by Barb Dams, bore down on them. Turner could hear Mrs. Talucci’s cane thumping on the linoleum. Barb bore a tray stacked with Italian cookies. Molton himself poured the coffee and distributed it making sure all had coffee or sugar as needed.
Mrs. Talucci and Sister Eliade hugged. Turner’s neighbor said, “I wanted to make sure I got the kind of cookies Fenwick liked from the bakery.” Turner saw that indeed, the tray was filled with butter cookies dipped in chocolate and pecan bars slathered in the same liquid.
Molton and Dams retreated. Mrs. Talucci, Sister Eliade, Fenwick, and Turner sat in a circle.
Sister Eliade spoke to Mrs. Talucci. “I was explaining the ways of the world to these nice detectives.”
“They are good men,” Mrs. Talucci confirmed.
Turner found himself inordinately pleased by the affirmation from his neighbor. He asked, “Do you know if anybody else ever noticed what Kappel was doing?”
“I never discussed it with anyone outside my Order.”
“So he may or may not have been confronted about actually helping some people?”
“Not by anyone I’m aware of. It could be very subtle. Did you hear that story about the priest who was ordered by his bishop not to give communion to a lesbian couple?”
“A sad case,” Mrs. Talucci said.
Fenwick asked, “How on Earth would the priest or the bishop know they were lesbians or care?”
Sister Eliade said, “Church workers.”
“What does that mean?” Fenwick asked.
Mrs. Talucci said, “Homophobic bigots can have their own Internet network. They talk and connive in secret. Somebody in their home parish didn’t like them and didn’t like the fact that they were raising two children.”
Sister Eliade continued the story, “They tattled to the bishop and he got mad. Ordered the priest to take action that next Sunday. The priest didn’t. There was a big stink. Kappel was appointed the investigator.”
“How’d he get the job?”
“In the Curia in Rome there are various factions. The Order is in with the correct faction for investigating these kinds of things.” She sipped coffee. “But if you followed the story all the way, you would have found that after all the news media went away, the priest kept his parish, and the bishop kept his mouth shut.”
Fenwick said, “That just sounds nuts.”
Mrs. Talucci placed her cup of coffee on Turner’s desk, used her hand to pat Fenwick’s thigh. “Yes, dear. We know.”
Sister Eliade said, “Nuts or not, whatever Kappel was, he was not a monster, or at least not always. He was a complex man.”
Turner asked, “How did Kappel get assigned to the investigation? He’s connected to this diocese, not that.”
Sister Eliade said, “Ah, but you see, Cardinal Duggan is quite a power in the church in America. He is deferred to.”
Fenwick guessed. “And it was a church heavily influenced by members of the Sacred Heart of Bleeding Jesus Order.”
“Very good, my dear, very good.”
Fenwick beamed like a first grader who’d been praised by his favorite teacher.
“As for the boy and his sign,” Sister Eliade continued, “there was stink and uproar for a few weeks, and then the issue disappeared from the news, and a few weeks later the boy was confirmed, and a few months later the priest was transferred to one of their missions in India.”
Turner smiled. “You’re kidding.”
The nun took a sip of coffee. “Not about Bishop Kappel. No, he would work with people, in secret, negotiate quietly. If people were assholes, he screwed the bejesus out of them. If they cooperated in any way, if they were on the side of what I call truth and light, Timothy would find a way to make things easier for the accused. He didn’t always succeed. But he was working with us from the inside.”
“Us?” Fenwick asked.
“The few liberals left in the church. Most left long ago. And Timothy had to be very, very careful.”
“That all seems so arbitrary and capricious.”
“Yes,” the nun said, “the Church holds dearly to eternal truths and never wavers except when it’s convenient.”
“They stake their brand on eternal truth,” Fenwick said.
“They voted on Papal infallibility,” Sister Eliade said. “Voted on an eternal truth. They’ve done that for centuries. It’s the we–got–the–most–votes, and we’ve–got–eternal–truth–on–our–side theory of theological disputes. That make sense to you?”
“Not really,” Fenwick said.
“And you’re a detective in Chicago, you should know better.”
Fenwick only bristled a little, even he was cowed by this nun’s demeanor and presence. He did ask, “How does being a detective make a difference?”
“You see mankind at their worst, and most people, as you know, are a slip of the conscience away from,” she paused, “making very poor choices.”
They sat in silence. The women sipped coffee. Fenwick wolfed down several cookies.
Turner asked, “Did Tresca know what Kappel was up to?”
“I don’t think so.”
Turner asked, “Could someone have found out, someone on the opposition side, and killed him for it?”
“So few knew. And it could be hard to figure out which side was the opposition in a case, or which side Kappel was on. I only knew because I follow cases carefully. I try to avoid hysteria. I look things up. I do research in depth. Several of the sisters in my Order kept track on the Internet. We noticed the oddity only after a few years. And then when it came time for him to investigate us, why I just waited patiently for the right signs.”
“What were those?” Fenwick asked.
“If it was official corruption from higher ups he didn’t like, you were likely to go down. Especially if he didn’t like you, and whoever he was working for didn’t like you.”
“It was politics not corruption.”
“Politics and corruption.”
“Selective enforcement,” Fenwick said. “Based on personal whim. The best kind.”
Again Turner thought back to Carruthers. He said, “Could they manufacture evidence?”
“If they really didn’t like you or you were really stupid, I would guess so, but I don’t know so.”
“It sounds like a dangerous game he was playing,” Fenwick said.
“How so?”
“Taking sides based on like or dislike instead of evidence could make people very angry.”
“Ha! You still don’t get it. People
dislike you whether you have evidence or not.”
Turner said, “But you said sometimes he went easy on some folks. Did they know he was being easy on them?”
“He was very careful.”
Turner said, “Or maybe what he found in those cases was bogus and that’s what he reported.”
She looked uncertain for the first time. “I suppose that’s possible. Except with us. There was no question we were helping the poor and the sick instead of preaching doctrine and rigidity.”
“Maybe he agreed with what you were doing,” Fenwick suggested.
“As far as I know Bishop Kappel always had an agenda or an angle. It had to benefit him.”
“How did helping you benefit him?”
“I never knew. A final disposition in our case still hadn’t been made.” She sighed. “The man was a contradiction.”
After they left, Fenwick asked, “Was the nun lying to us?”
“How many people do we meet in this line of work who always tell the truth?” Turner asked.
“Not enough.”
“Did whatever she tell us get us closer to the murderer?”
“Not really.”
“But it does give us a very different perspective on Kappel. But it doesn’t get us closer to a killer.”
TWENTY-ONE
Sunday 8:32 P.M.
An hour and a half later, they stopped in Molton’s office. “You guys see the evening news?” Molton asked.
They shook their heads.
Molton explained. “Our newest best friends, Pelagius and Drake, managed to get on three newscasts trashing the Chicago police department, sanctifying the dead guy along with the Cardinal, and the Sacred Heart of Bleeding Jesus Order.”
They decided to grab a late dinner. While driving over to grab sandwiches at Milly’s Diner on Division Street, Fenwick was in full grumble. “Who of these people we’ve interviewed so far has the money to hire burly strangers with expensive town cars? Or maybe they just have friends who are burly and rich. Or maybe a burly guy who is now rich was molested as a kid, owns an expensive town car, and now has the wherewithal to get revenge. Maybe they all got together and pooled their money. How much does it cost to hire a burly guy with an expensive car? People who try to hire killers aren’t usually sophisticated about it. They screw up more often than not.”
“The church would be sophisticated enough or maybe they’d have enough contacts they wouldn’t need to hire somebody. Or maybe the burly guy has nothing to do with the murder.”
“You’re the kind of cop who insists on a video of the murder with the killer smiling, waving, and confessing to us on the tape.”
“Just the kind of guy I am.”
“We’re being fucked over.”
“Can you say fucked over in a case about a dead bishop?”
“I don’t see any lightning bolts shooting down from heaven.”
“Lightning bolts in heavenly retribution aren’t what they used to be, and yes, we’re being fucked over.”
Turner’s cell phone rang. It was Ben. “Both the boys are fine. Nothing’s happened to them. You need to get to Sisters of Mercy Hospital.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Brian’s really upset. You know his friend, Shane, from the baseball team?”
“The one from Inauguration day? I remember him.” Ben and Paul had been watching President Obama’s inaugural address. As it was the Martin Luther King holiday, the boys had been home with knots of friends visiting both boys. Jeff’s buddies had been in his room, Brian and his crowd in the basement. When the President mentioned Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall as historical Civil Rights moments, the two men had reached out and held each other’s hands. The moment had affected them deeply.
They’d looked up in time to see their older son’s friend Shane in the doorway. While looking at them with their hands clasped, he’d whispered, “I want to have what you have some day, be like you.” And then he’d disappeared. Neither man ever mentioned the moment to Brian. Paul had assumed the kid was gay, but that it wasn’t his business. And if he and Ben were some kind of a role model for the kid, that was okay. Certainly Shane had never said anything to them or asked to talk with them, and if the kid wanted to bring it up, fine, but Paul wasn’t going to.
“Yeah. He tried to commit suicide a couple of hours ago.”
“No.”
“Tried to hang himself in his backyard.”
“How awful.”
“Brian’s the one who found him and saved him.”
Paul gulped. “He’s a hero.”
“Not from the way he’s acting. I’ve never seen him so down.”
“How’d he happen to be there?”
“He was supposed to meet him to study. They still have a few finals this week.”
“Did the kid plan it so Brian would save him?”
“Brian didn’t say. He probably didn’t know. I’m here with Brian at the hospital. Jeff is at Mrs. Talucci’s.”
“I’m on my way.” He hung up.
“What’s happened?” Fenwick asked.
“Sisters of Mercy Hospital. Brian saved a kid from committing suicide.”
Fenwick turned the car around. Turner knew there were detectives who sacrificed their whole lives, family, kids, wives, to the pursuit of the killer, to bring the corpse closure and justice. Turner figured the corpse didn’t care anymore. It was dead.
Paul Turner cared even less about bishops of the church, living or dead, than he did about his sons. It didn’t take an instant to make the decision. He was going to be there for Brian at a moment like this. As a father with a child with spina bifida, this was not his first rush to a hospital. A few years back, Jeff’s shunt had clogged requiring an emergency hospital visit. Paul knew well parental fears. In this case it wasn’t directly his own child, but he was going to be on hand.
Fenwick yanked the rotating red light from under the seat, reached out the car window, jammed it on the roof, flipped the switch on their seldom-used siren. They rushed to the near west side hospital. They found Brian and Ben with a cluster of people on the fourth floor.
Brian stood up when he saw his dad. The boy looked crushed and worried. Besides Brian and Ben there were two other adults. Paul knew them as Shane’s parents, Dave and Betty Swearingen.
Paul asked, “How’s Shane?”
Betty Swearingen said, “He’s going to live.”
Dave Swearingen held out his hand to Paul and said, “Your son saved my boy’s life. We can never thank him or you enough.”
Paul looked at Brian, who didn’t look up.
The parents praised and fussed for a few moments. The doctor came to speak to them. The parents gushed a few more words of thanks their way and then hurried into a nearby room with the doctor.
Paul walked over to Brian. “You okay?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It must have been scary.”
Brian looked up at him for the first time. There was little trace of the teenager in the anguished look his son gave him. “I’m still scared.”
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Paul asked.
Fenwick idled in the background out of hearing. Ben stood with his husband and son.
Brian said, “It might help.” He pulled in great lungfuls of air, let them out. “We were supposed to have a study session at seven. I was late. His mom was supposed to be home from work, but she was late, too. I got there. He’s got this basketball hoop set up in the backyard.”
The doctor came out of Shane’s room without the parents. He came over to Ben, Paul, and Brian. “Another couple of minutes and that teenager would have been dead. Your son’s a hero.”
They thanked him. He left.
Brian’s phone buzzed. “Everybody wants to talk to me.” He glanced at the readout, turned the phone off, then continued his story. “I always go around to the back door. So I went around. While I was walking along on the side of the house, I heard the basketball net kind of clink
. He’s got one of those outdoor, metal nets. I turned the corner of the house and saw him.”
Brian breathed deeply for several moments, looked at his dads. “I don’t remember thinking anything. I rushed up and grabbed his knees and sort of lifted him up. I held him like that and didn’t know what to do. I could tell he was breathing. The rope was tied around his neck and connected to the backboard. I couldn’t let go to try to find a knife to cut him down. I sort of leaned him against the basketball pole and held him up at the same time with my shoulders and arms. I yelled fire, like you always told us to do if you wanted people to come running. But I didn’t hear anybody coming. I was desperate. So I kind of held him up with one hand, shoulder, and arm and braced him against the pole. I didn’t know if I could hold him up with just one arm like that, but I managed. I had to be so careful. I was afraid if I moved wrong, he might slip and…” He gulped and drew several breaths. “Somehow, I managed to get my cell phone out and called 9-1-1.” He was very pale. “I think I need to sit down.”
They moved to a set of plastic chairs. Each dad held one of his hands. Brian had moved beyond the early teenage phase of having difficulty touching his dads.
“The paramedics showed up a few minutes later and got him down.”
Brian trembled and pulled in more deep breaths. The men kept hold of his hands and put their other arms around him. They huddled close until Brian stopped trembling and his breathing eased.
Paul said, “You thought quickly. You did right. You were very brave.”
“I was scared shitless. I still am a little bit.” He pulled in deep breaths.
The Swearingens came out of Shane’s room and walked up to Brian and his dads. Mrs. Swearingen had tears in her eyes. “Thank you, thank you, thank you for my boy.” She hugged Brian. Mr. Swearingen shook his hand. Mrs. Swearingen unclinched and said to Brian, “He’d like to see you.”
“Uh, sure.”
“You want us to go with you?” Paul asked.
“Sure, it’s okay.”
Brian and the assembled parental units crowded into the hospital room. Shane saw Brian and got tears in his eyes. Brian stood by the bed. Shane clutched his hand. “Thanks, dude, you saved me.”
