Stained Glass

by Ralph McInerny

  Pity the poor founder of a magazine or journal. The format and layout of Sacred Art were, by common consent, marvelous. The paper was thick and shiny, the reproductions of art true, the photographs of churches and shrines works of art in themselves. Nevertheless, subscriptions had been inching toward two thousand for years and never reaching it. To publish is to make something known to the public, but first one must have the attention of the public. Who knew how many would eagerly subscribe to Sacred Art if they only knew of its existence? Carl could easily imagine ten thousand, twenty thousand, more, but to make those potential readers aware of the publication cost money—for advertisements, for mailings. Mailings! The postal rate had soared for such publications as his, and he did not dare to raise the annual subscription rate, already at fifty dollars—$49.99 plus postage and handling—making it too much of a luxury even for the few who knew of it. Thank God for those loyal 1,739 subscribers! Thank God, too, for the Deveres, above all Jane, their matriarch. He shuddered to think what his fate would be if left in the hands of the volatile Susan. Without that annual subsidy Sacred Art would have disappeared long ago. With it, the work went on. Of course, it was necessary for Carl to schmooze the Deveres, and he was a frequent presence at their home and a devotee in the upper chamber where Jane Devere dwelt.

  There he could forget his humble origins, the seventh son of a family in Austin, Minnesota, where his father had worked at Hormel’s and many of his siblings were employed at Marigold Dairy. It was only when Carl came home between semesters from Mankato State that he became aware of the heavy aromas that filled the town, from the packing plant and the counter olfactory assault from the ethanol plant on the other side of town. What as a child had been simply the air he breathed now offended his senses. He had majored in art history; vistas had opened before him. After graduation he fled to Chicago with the vague thought of continuing his education, and so in a sense he had. He became a pilgrim of the churches in Chicago; he spent days in many of them, making notes on the architecture, the appointments, the windows. How easily he might have narrowed his interest to stained glass. Stained glass was a passion with Jane Devere.

  “Angelo Menotti,” she had cried when Carl spoke to her of a particular church. It was a cry he heard more than once. In fact, he made it a practice to elicit it at least once during each visit to Jane.

  The beautiful reproductions of several Menotti windows in Sacred Art had been the seed of Jane’s suggestion, “They should all be made available to those who do not have the time to make the rounds of all those churches.”

  Carl had smiled sadly. “That would be a most expensive undertaking.”

  “How much?”

  “I would have to look into it.”

  He looked into it; he drew up a plan; he estimated costs; he generously provided for himself as editor of the proposed book. Jane looked it over, her glasses sliding down her thin nose to its tip. She nodded and looked at him. “Do it.”

  It had been a delicate matter to draw up terms of agreement. For this Jane had enlisted the help of her attorney, Amos Cadbury. The lawyer’s manner made it difficult to tell whether he approved or disapproved of the proposed outlay of Devere Foundation money. Cadbury inserted a clause calling for half-yearly reports that Carl must make to Jane with a copy going to the lawyer. All this took months during which Carl tried not to hope, was too distracted to pray, and fell behind in preparing the next issue of Sacred Art for the printer. Jane Devere had assured him that the Menotti project would not affect her support for Sacred Art. Finally the papers were signed, and Carl celebrated with a solitary bottle of Marsala and found it in him at last to pray, sending up thanksgiving to heaven for his great good fortune.

  The beauty of the agreement was that it was open-ended, no deadline. Jane had dismissed Amos Cadbury’s suggestion. “I want this done right. I do not want it rushed. This must be a work of art in its own right.”

  Over and above his semiannual written report, Carl kept Jane abreast of his progress on the Menotti book.

  “Where did you learn of Angelo Menotti, Mrs. Devere?”

  “When he designed and installed the windows for the parish church.”

  “What was your parish then?”

  She frowned at him. “The same as now. St. Hilary’s.”

  “Here in Fox River!”

  His tone of incredulity had been a mistake. The remark seemed to suggest that nothing worthy of aesthetic attention could possibly be found in Fox River. Carl had been surprised that the Deveres still lived there, despite the triangulation of the area by eight-lane highways and interstates along which vehicles hurtled night and day. For all that, it was a little oasis, a memorial to a better day.

  “The Menotti windows in St. Hilary’s may be the peak of his achievement. I know he thought so.”

  “You knew him!”

  “He was still a young man at the time, not much older than myself.” She paused. “My father-in-law, August, underwrote the expense of the windows and became his champion. My enthusiasm came to rival his. I suppose we must have been a nuisance to Angelo, bothering him in his studio and then showing up every day while the windows were being installed.”

  “How wonderful to have known the man himself.”

  “You must visit him. He should know of your project.”

  “Visit him.”

  “Of course, he is an old man now, but he has remained in Peoria, surrounded by mementos of his long career.”

  Was the old woman confusing the present and the past? During the anxious months when the agreement for the Menotti volume was under way, Carl had sometimes suspected that Amos Cadbury doubted that the old woman was compos mentis enough to dole out the huge sum. Was she simply imagining that Angelo Menotti was still alive? When she told him that the artist was not much older than herself, it had given Carl a point of reference to guess the old man’s age. Angelo Menotti, if he were still alive, would be ninety-two at least.

  When the story appeared about the closing of several Chicago parishes, Carl hoped that Jane Devere did not read the Tribune. He decided to visit her and find out.

  She knew. “This is outrageous. They must be stopped.”

  “There are three churches on the list that have Menotti windows.”

  “It must be a conspiracy!”

  “Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat, Mrs. Devere.”

  “I would buy St. Hilary’s rather than let them tear it down.”

  Coming from anyone else, this might have seemed whimsy.

  “In that awful event, you could turn it into a Menotti museum, provide refuge for his windows.”

  She threw up her hands. “Windows are meant to stay in the churches for which they were designed.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “You haven’t been to see Angelo Menotti?”

  “Not yet. I intend to drive to Peoria later this week.” He had formed the intention as they spoke.

  She sighed. “If only I could go with you.”

  “A wonderful idea. Of course you should go.”

  The old eyes sparkled at the suggestion. She began to nod. “Perhaps I will.”

  Part Two

  1

  Agnes Lamb was an experienced detective, but not the veteran Cy Horvath was, so it was understandable that she reacted as she did when they arrived at the scene of the crime, answering the call from the cruiser that had been first on the scene.

  “Homicide?” Cy had asked.

  “At least. It looks like a ritual killing.”

  Cy did not comment but collected Agnes and took off. All cops were influenced now by television, horror films, and maybe comic books—graphic novels, in the phrase—and were prone to importing the categories of fantasy into their work. Ritual killing!

  Agnes was surprised when Cy asked her to drive.

  “I forgot to renew my license.”

  “You’re under arrest.”

  Cy liked Agnes. He hadn’t at first. She had seemed pretty clearly
a beneficiary of affirmative action, and police work was no place for ideologues. For one thing it was dull, a matter of routine—and disappointment. Most investigations ended up in a tie. Agnes had turned out to be a natural cop, though, one of the best.

  It was not the sort of thing you would want to come upon right after having lunch. The body was in a garage, nude, hanging from the cross strut on which the door lift was mounted. There was a cloth laundry sack over the head, cinched tight around the throat. The body had looked as if it were being readied for quartering, or open heart surgery. The car in the other stall was still running when the cruiser answered the 911 call.

  Agnes walked into the garage with Cy, then wheeled and went right outside again. There was a woman cop in uniform out there, probably affected as Agnes was.

  Riley stood with his hands on his hips, studying the body. “When the wind is southerly I can tell a hawk from a handsaw.”

  Cy ignored him, going to examine the body more closely.

  “Hamlet,” Riley said. “You stare at it for a while and you notice it rotates.”

  “You call the coroner?”

  As if in answer a vehicle came into the driveway and squealed to a stop. Dr. Pippen got out. She came toward Cy with her lab coat floating around her, her ponytail floating behind, her eyes on the body. “My God in heaven.”

  Riley said, “It looks like a ritual killing.”

  Pippen was giving orders to her crew. “Cut her down.”

  This was done, and the mutilated body laid in a gurney. Pippen arranged a blanket over it. For the first time, she inhaled.

  “The motor of the car was still running,” Riley said.

  “You turn it off?”

  Riley looked from her to Cy. “It seemed the right thing to do.”

  “Where’s the ignition key?”

  “In the car.” Riley looked as if he wished he were somewhere else.

  Cy said, “Call in as complete a report as you can right now. You can edit it when it’s typed up.”

  Riley hurried out to his cruiser, happy to escape.

  Pippen asked, “What do you make of it, Cy?”

  “A ritual killing?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ask Riley.”

  The garage was attached to a house, entrance to which was gained through a door in the garage. It was closed. Cy eased it open and waited. He put his hand in, groped around, found the light switch, and flicked it. A laundry room. He told Agnes to check downtown to find out who lived at this address. Agnes got out her phone but followed Cy through the rest of the house. Thus began the slow dull process of trying to figure out what had happened in the garage and who the woman was to whom it had happened.

  The house was owned by Amy Gorman, a widow who worked as a legal secretary downtown. The body, it was established after many hours, was that of Madeline Schutz. Clothes and a purse found in the trash can in the garage established her identity tentatively. Cy and Agnes found Amy Gorman about to leave her office for the day. She looked at them quizzically when they asked if they could have a few words with her.

  “You’ve been at the office all day?” Agnes asked.

  “What an odd question.”

  “Is there any coffee here?” Cy asked.

  Agnes said, “Something terrible has happened at your house.”

  “Terrible.”

  Agnes looked at Cy. “A body was found in your garage when a cruiser answered a 911 call.”

  Well, how would anyone react to a remark like that? The laugh seemed appropriate, but then she asked Cy who he was. He told her, showed her his ID. Agnes did the same.

  “A dead body?”

  Cy nodded.

  “Come with me.” Amy Gorman marched down a hall and into an office whose door was open. “Emil, I want you in on this.”

  Emil Sooner looked like one of the contestants in a television fat reduction show, before. He was in shirtsleeves and seemed to spill over the arms of his chair. His tie was loosened, and his shirt pocket was full of pens and pencils.

  “Hello, Horvath. What’s going on?”

  Amy Gorman said, “A body has been found in my garage.”

  Emil might once have been capable of surprise, but years of legal practice had cured him of it. Cy knew him as a formidable defense attorney, more often in white-collar crimes, but from time to time in grislier cases.

  “Does the body have a name?”

  “Madeline Schutz.” Cy looked at Amy Gorman when he said it, but there was no reaction.

  “Why don’t you all sit down,” Emil suggested.

  Emil listened while Cy told him what they knew. It was the car that piqued his curiosity. “Registration?”

  “Amy Gordon,” Agnes said in a flat voice.

  If she could be believed, Amy Gorman had no idea who Madeline Schutz was or why she should have been found hanging in her garage with the motor of Amy’s car still running. Her keys? They were hung on a hook in the laundry room. Amy had been downtown all day. She seldom drove to work.

  After twenty minutes, Emil thanked them for coming here to tell all this to Amy. “I don’t suppose you should stay in your house tonight, Amy.”

  “Good idea,” Agnes said. “Good idea not to.” She added, “Who knows when the lab people will be done.”

  “You could stay in a hotel,” Emil said. “Or call a friend?”

  Amy thought about it. “I’ll call Susan Devere.”

  2

  Menteur summoned Tetzel from the pressroom in the courthouse to give him the assignment.

  “That’s religious news,” he protested. “Give it to the religion editor.”

  “Then you haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Bipple insists that the charges are false. He says it is retaliation.”

  “What charges?”

  Bipple in the past had been an assistant Scout leader, and now many years later some of his troop, since grown old, were remembering odd activities around the campfire and in the tents. No journalist had been more zealous than Bipple in publicizing the misdeeds of some of the Catholic clergy. His series in the Fox River Tribune had been called “Suffer Little Children” and had been reprinted far and wide. Bipple had always been a pain in the ass, but he became insufferable with fame. Tetzel settled in a chair across the desk from Menteur and wanted to hear all about it. He shook his head and tried not to smile.

  “I never put much stock in the rumors myself,” Tetzel said with a virtuous look.

  “About the Boy Scouts?”

  “Menteur, I never made it to Tenderfoot. I couldn’t tie the knots. No, I meant here.” He lifted his brows significantly.

  “Here!”

  Tetzel cleared his throat. “The men’s room. Should I write it up?”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “I’ll keep your name out of it.”

  Despite himself, Menteur laughed. “I almost hope the charges are true. We could use a new religion editor.”

  “Don’t look at me.”

  “I’m thinking of you for obituaries.”

  This was the most congenial conversation Tetzel had had with Menteur in months. He was almost cheerful about being assigned to look into the closing of St. Hilary’s. “What’s going on?”

  Menteur chewed his gum and glared at Tetzel. “If I already knew, why would I send you? Rebecca’s story on the seniors drew a lot of letters.”

  Going down in the elevator, Tetzel was thankful that Menteur, sitting there in his smoke-free office, had gotten over his obsession with the fact that they could still light up in the courthouse pressroom. Or was that the motive behind this freak assignment? Was it a subtle revenge? Then Tetzel thought of Bipple and chuckled, somewhat to the alarm of his fellow passengers in the elevator. Before exiting, he took a cigarette from his pack and put it unlit in his mouth. If chuckling got attention, the sight of a man with a cigarette in his mouth filled observers with shock and horror, some perhaps with envy. Tetzel strolled t
hrough the revolving doors and outside to freedom. He lit up.

  The funny thing about the assignment was that every time Tetzel had heard St. Hilary’s mentioned it was as a booming operation. He might ask Rebecca about it, but he feared she would laugh at the thought of Tetzel being assigned to religious news. Besides, she was trying to find a way to write about what had shocked her when she had been traveling in Europe. Female attendants in men’s rooms! Sitting there at little tables just inside, dispensing towels, a dish for tips before them.

  “How’d you find out about it?” Tetzel asked.

  She glared at him. “It is common knowledge.”

  “Maybe they have boys in the ladies’ rooms.”

  Rebecca turned away in disgust and fumbled in her drawer, perhaps to find her Tetzel doll so she could stick a few pins in it. She huddled over, using her back as a shield against Tetzel, then after some moments settled back, kicking the drawer shut. She lifted a glass and tossed it off. Say what you would about Rebecca, at least she smoked and drank. Nonetheless, Tetzel decided that Tuttle would be a better source about St. Hilary’s.

  Tuttle’s office was located midway between the Tribune building and the courthouse, so Tetzel thought he would just drop in.

  Dropping in did not seem the appropriate way to describe the long climb up four flights of stairs. The temporarily out of use elevator hadn’t moved in years. Only on the third landing did it occur to him that the prudent course would have been to call first. He took out his cell phone and glared at it, then dropped it back into his shirt pocket. There was only one floor to go, and he would continue to gamble.

  The legend on the door read TUTTLE & TUTTLE, a touching tribute to the late Tuttle père, who had been a mail carrier. Tetzel tapped and pushed. The door opened to reveal in profile the formidable woman at her computer.