Till Death

by William X. Kienzle

  “Strange, isn’t it,” Koesler asked rhetorically, “what the choices we make can do to our lives?”

  “Uh-huh.” Tully nodded, and filled his hand with popcorn.

  “Take Dora Riccardo, for instance. If she had chosen practically any other religious order than the Theresians, this whole thing we’ve lived through this year probably wouldn’t have happened. Any other order that had paid attention to Vatican Two would have utilized her talents to the maximum, instead of going nuts over rules and regulations.

  “Whereas, getting pushed and abused by her religious colleagues, Dora set her cap for Rick. Rick had already chosen Lil and Lil had reciprocated. Jerry had chosen Dora. And Tom Becker chose to be Rick’s best friend. A lot of choices going on. With lots of strange effects.”

  “Uh-hmm,” Tully agreed through a mouthful of Coke.

  “I mean,” Koesler continued, “there’s the maxim, Play the hand you’re dealt. I think most people who cite that expression believe that God is the dealer in this game of life. If they suffer great evil, they may do the best they can and they figure they are shouldering their burden: They are playing the hand they’ve been dealt. But they blame God for dealing that hand.

  “Actually I think most people never consider that in large part they themselves are the dealers. We have no choice about our parents; God may have dealt that. But shortly, the hands are dealt by us. And we have to take responsibility.”

  Koesler was aware that Tully was not paying much attention. It didn’t matter. Koesler wanted to sound himself out on the matter of responsibility.

  “Rick,” Koesler continued, “dealt himself a relationship with Lil. It changed his life. For one, he proved a man could be a superior priest when married—for all intents and purposes—to a strong, beautiful woman. But he had a lot of cards to shuffle. Dora dealt herself a high card when she seduced a drunk.

  “And on and on it goes, Zack. We’ve got to play the cards we’re dealt. But we have to realize that most of the time we are the dealers and we have to take responsibility for the way we play the game, as well as for who dealt them. We did!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  It was one “Uh-huh” too many for Koesler. He nudged Tully. “How much time before this movie starts?”

  Tully glanced at his watch. “Five minutes.”

  “What do you know about this flick—besides the fact that it’s supposed to be a classic?”

  “Harry Morgan tipped me off on this one. I was talking to him the other day and he recommended this movie highly.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Sort of a sequel to All the President’s Men. It’s about Watergate and the downfall of Dick Nixon.”

  Koesler slumped in his seat. “I don’t know, Zack. Haven’t we seen enough of Nixon and his gang?”

  “No. Morgan said this film centers on the guy who gave all those leads and tips to Woodward and Bernstein. The guy whose identity the reporters never revealed. Even in the movie with Redford and Hoffman, all we saw was a shadowy figure. All we could hear was his voice. This picture, according to Harry, is all about the guy who really brought the Nixon administration down.”

  “Hmm …” Koesler wondered. “What’s the name of the movie?”

  “Deep Throat. Remember? That was the alias they used to identify the guy.”

  “Hmm.” Koesler thought again. Deep Throat. The name rang a bell.

  The house lights went down and the movie began. Within two or three minutes it became all too obvious this had nothing to do with Washington or Watergate.

  “Zack!” Koesler exclaimed. “I know what this is. It’s a classic all right! It’s one of the earliest—if not the earliest—hard-core pornographic films ever distributed in America! Zack, this is one of the dirtiest movies ever made! Now I know why everybody in the theater was looking at us in that peculiar way! Let’s get out of here—fast.”

  “But my popcorn …!”

  “Bring the damn tub with you!”

  As they exited the theater, Tully wanted to get a refund. Koesler pulled him away. “All I’ve got to say is that Harry Morgan has a weird idea of revenge.”

  Acknowledgments

  Gratitude for technical advice to:

  Colleen Baird, B.S.N., C.C.R.N., Michigan Heart and Vascular Institute, Ann Arbor, Michigan

  James Bannon, Deputy Chief, Detroit Police Department (retired), Detroit, Michigan

  Sister Bernadelle Grimm, R.S.M., Pastoral Care Department (retired), Mercy Hospital, Detroit, Michigan

  Jerry Hodak, Chief Meteorologist, WXYZ-TV, Detroit, Michigan

  Patricia Kamego, R.N.

  The Reverend Bill King, Lansing Diocese, Lansing, Michigan

  The Reverend Anthony Kosnik, S.T.D., J.C.B., Professor of Ethics, Marygrove College, Detroit, Michigan

  Mickey LeCronier, Senior Writer, Organic, Inc.

  Charles Lucas, M.D., Professor of Surgery, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan

  Irma Macy, Religious Education Coordinator, Prince of Peace Parish, West Bloomfield, Michigan

  Sergeant Mary Marcantonio, Detroit Police Department (retired), Detroit, Michigan

  Grey Papke, Student Meteorologist, St. John Lutheran School, Rochester, Michigan

  Werner U. Spitz, M.D., Professor of Forensic Pathology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan

  Any technical error is the author’s.

  With special thanks to Jordan Pizzuro, whose timely assistance helped Father Koesler immensely.

  In memory of Father Michael O’Hara.

  Till Death copyright © 2000, 2013 by Gopits, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

  Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC

  an Andrews McMeel Universal company,

  1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

  www.andrewsmcmeel.com

  This is a work of fiction and, as such, events described herein are creations of the author’s imagination. Any relation to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental and accidental.

  ISBN: 9781449425371

  Cover design by Kevin Williamson. Photos by IstockPhoto/nikidavison, StockXchange/tome213.

  William X. Kienzle died in December 2001. He was a Detroit parish priest for twenty years before leaving the priesthood. He began writing his popular mystery series after serving as an editor and director at the Center for Contemplative Studies at the University of Dallas.

  The Father Koesler Mysteries

  1. The Rosary Murders

  2. Death Wears a Red Hat

  3. Mind Over Murder

  4. Assault with Intent

  5. Shadow of Death

  6. Kill and Tell

  7. Sudden Death

  8. Deathbed

  9. Deadline for a Critic

  10. Marked for Murder

  11. Eminence

  12. Masquerade

  13. Chameleon

  14. Body Count

  15. Dead Wrong

  16. Bishop as Pawn

  17. Call No Man Father

  18. Requiem for Moses

  19. The Man Who Loved God

  20. The Greatest Evil

  21. No Greater Love

  22. Till Death

  23. The Sacrifice

  24. The Gathering

  Here is a special preview of

  The Sacrifice

  The Father Koesler Mysteries: Book 23

  “The Catholic Church is dead. It just doesn’t know enough to lie down and roll over.”

  Father Daniel Reichert recoiled as if he’d been struck. “How can you say such a thing! You, of all people!”

  “Just look around you,” Father Harry Morgan responded, with an all-encompassing gesture. “Everyone running about like chickens who’ve been relieved of their heads.” He turned back to Reichert. “And what for?”

  What for indeed, thought Reichert. The ceremony that was about to b
egin was meaningless at best and heretical at worst. But that it threatened the very existence of the Church—the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church? Certainly his boon companion, Morgan, had to be hyperbolizing. Harry knew as well as he that the Catholic Church was indefectible. Jesus had said so. “Behold I am with you all days. Even to the end of time.”

  No, the one, true Church could not be dying, let alone dead. “You ought to have a more open mind,” Reichert rebuked.

  Morgan’s lip curled. “You should talk!”

  In effect, each priest had just accused the other of being narrow-minded. If truth be known, it was simply a matter of degree.

  Reichert and Morgan shared an epoch. Born in the twenties; parents staunch Catholics; the priesthood looked upon as an exalted calling. The two had entered the seminary a couple of years apart; Morgan was the elder by two years.

  They advanced through the seminary—high school, college, and theologate—in what would later be known as the pre-Vatican II era. The transformation that rumbled through the Church when the beloved Pope John XXIII opened some windows and let the present in affected Catholics variously. Where once Liturgy, law, and theology had been marked by a universal rigid sameness, after the Second Vatican Council indisputability was replaced by uncertainty. Gradually, two camps formed.

  One was the conservative wing: fundamentalist, dedicated to a counterreformation, committed to a return to the pre-Vatican II Church. The other held to a liberalism that would not be static no matter how uncompromising the Vatican remained.

  Fathers Morgan and Reichert were devoted to a fairly firm conservatism. Even so, they could and sometimes did differ between themselves.

  This was such an occasion.

  The Archdiocese of Detroit was about to receive into its presbyterate a former Episcopal priest. His wife and a younger son would follow the priest into the Roman Church. The other son and a daughter (middle child) were quite another matter.

  The decision as to whether to accept such ministers or priests into the Roman Catholic priesthood was left up to each individual diocese. If such a judgment was affirmative, there were still many bases to touch, steps to be taken. But in any case, the matter clearly was controversial.

  On the one hand was the incontrovertible fact that Catholic priests were in critically short supply. And that shortfall was pretty much worldwide.

  In Detroit, for instance, parishes that had once been assigned as many as three or even four priests in the fifties and sixties now commonly were staffed by only one. And many parishes that had held one or two priests were now closed for simple want of a pastor.

  Recruitment was one obvious avenue toward a solution. Detroit, as well as other dioceses, gave that possibility a professional shot—to little avail.

  Priests who had become inactive, in many cases choosing married life rather than celibacy, had a snowball’s chance in hell of being called back to priestly duty.

  Offering ordination to married men and/or to women was a proposition that the Vatican had shot down repeatedly.

  In fact, Rome considered the latter two potential solutions dead issues. Proponents kept insisting that there was life in the concepts yet. But those who wanted to reactivate priests and/or invest women and those living in matrimony were not in charge of making the rules.

  Then, seemingly out of the blue, came an unforeseen phenomenon. A trickle of Episcopal priests left their Church to seek refuge in the Roman Church. By no means was such defection of gangbuster proportions. But it was interesting, if not noteworthy.

  Ordination to the priesthood, which some Roman Catholic feminists desired, was accorded to women in the Episcopal Church and then to women in the Church of England—mother church of all who call themselves Anglican.

  Such a drastic turn of events had its own reverberations. Many male Anglican priests took extreme umbrage at what they saw as a betrayal of tradition. As a result, many of these men now wanted out. They felt there was no place for them in a priesthood that included women—let alone female bishops, a development that followed inevitably on the heels of the breakthrough.

  But these men had given their lives to the Anglican Church. What were they to do? The toothpaste was out of the tube. A female clergy was now part of the Anglican Communion. That would not revert to a former discipline. Some of these aggrieved men felt impelled to abandon their denomination. But where could they go?

  For some, the obvious path led back to the Roman Catholic Church, pre-Henry VIII version. But would they be welcomed by Rome?

  The answer was—what else?—the creation of a commission … to address this specific matter. In 1980, the Vatican, responding to petitions from both Episcopal priests and Episcopal laity, created a Pastoral Provision to give the question special pastoral attention.

  These Episcopalians desired full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. In this Provision, former Episcopal priests accepted as candidates for ordination in the Roman Catholic Church would undertake theological, spiritual, and pastoral preparation for such ordination.

  Thus, ordination of married Episcopal priests as priests of the Roman Catholic Church was made possible. The Provision also authorized the establishment of “personal parishes” in Roman Catholic dioceses of the United States.

  This was the response to the request of the former faithful of the Episcopal Church that they might be permitted to retain certain liturgical practices proper to the Anglican tradition.

  Since 1983, close to one hundred former Anglican priests had been ordained for Roman Catholic priestly ministry. Just under ten personal parishes had been established wherein the Book of Common Prayer was authorized.

  However, news of the Episcopalian migration—not to mention the Pastoral Provision—qualified as trivial in scope. The parade of a handful of Anglican priests toward Rome might be reported in religious publications at most. The secular media generally overlooked the story.

  But now this event was a first for the Detroit archdiocese as well as the metropolitan area. As was the case with most premier events, this ordination attracted some attention.

  In addition to this being a first, there was the fact that the priest involved was a local celebrity. A string of accomplishments fattened Father George Wheatley’s curriculum vitae. His relevant activities included a weekly column on the op-ed page of the combined Sunday edition of the two metropolitan papers, as well as an hour-long weekly radio program on CKWW, a Canadian station serving Windsor and Detroit. He was sought after as a lecturer and after-dinner speaker. His every church function, whether it be the Eucharist or an informal prayer service, was well attended. Before committing to a specific service, people phoned to ascertain which Liturgies he would be celebrating so they could be sure of having him in the pulpit. Far from objecting to the admission of women into the diaconate or the priesthood—not to mention the hierarchy—Father Wheatley had supported this feminist cause long before it became a reality. Indeed, his only daughter was now in the seminary studying for Holy Orders.

  As was typical within the Anglican community, he was able to inject a good many of his personal beliefs into his sermons, columns, speeches, and teachings.

  In short, from those who knew him well, to more casual congregations, he had his world on a string in the Episcopal Church. Why would he want to switch from a religious organization that allowed him to put a bit of bully into his pulpit to one that was top-heavy with autocratic authority figures?

  There seemed no apparent reason for the step he was about to take. Nor had he volunteered any rationale to fascinated news media.

  All that seemed apparent was that he was a big fish and, for whatever reason, the Roman Catholic Church appeared to have caught him.

  The movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner featured actor Sidney Poitier as an affluent, handsome, well-spoken African-American engaged to marry into a white family that preached all the proper liberal doctrines of the age. Now, white parents were to have their professed values tested. Would they
accept a black man as their son-in-law?

  It helped that the color question rested on the indisputable fact that Sidney Poitier would be a catch in anybody’s game.

  Until this moment, the Archdiocese of Detroit had shown utterly no interest in having an Episcopal priest join their local presbyterate. Not until the many-talented Father George Wheatley appeared on their doorstep. Then it was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner at the altar table.

  Now, in Old St. Joseph’s Church, Fathers Reichert and Morgan, while contemplating the consequences of admitting Anglican priests into the Roman presbyterate, were exchanging their barely divergent views on the subject.

  Neither could see much point to it. But Reichert was open to considering an option, whereas Morgan’s mind was inexorably closed.

  Some years back, a Jewish man with no personal connection to the Catholic Church had been waked in the very church building in which the two priests were now standing.

  Father Reichert had bitterly opposed this liturgical favor and loudly condemned the move. But when the possibility of a miracle occurred during the event, he had spun 180 degrees and championed the cause. Even after the Church dismissed the miracle claim.

  Had it been Father Morgan at that scene, he would never have changed his mind, nor believed for an instant the claim of a miracle.

  So it was by no means peculiar that Reichert left the door of his present conviction slightly ajar, while Morgan saw the matter as an unalloyed tragedy.

  “Uh-oh,” Reichert, leaning toward Morgan, stage-whispered against the crowd’s noise, “here comes Bob Koesler … and he’s heading straight for us.”

  “No need to be concerned,” Morgan replied. “He’s the Enemy. We know that. We just keep our guard up.”

  It did not occur to either Morgan or Reichert that it might be considered odd for any priest to look on another priest as “the Enemy.” Ostensibly, all were united in their goals. Their attitude was, rather, a testimonial to the intensity of feeling left in the wake of Vatican II.