Mind Over Murder

by William X. Kienzle

  “Where?”

  “I thought the parking lot at De La Salle. It’s close to your residence so you won’t have far to drive after the party.”

  “I’ll be right there!”

  And he was. Kirwan was waiting for him. Thompson seemed to fumble with several things inside his car after parking. But it didn’t matter. At this stage of the game, Kirwan knew he’d won; he was in no hurry.

  Thompson entered the passenger side of Kirwan’s car. As he did, Kirwan called on his training as a Ranger during the Korean War, and with the hard edge of his hand chopped Thompson behind the ear. The Monsignor crumpled like a rag doll. Kirwan covered Thompson’s face with a pillow, and smothered him. It was quick and painless. With the body covered on the floor of the back seat, Kirwan drove to the Dearborn site of Ma Bell’s new edifice.

  As anticipated, Kirwan had no difficulty getting past McNamara. They knew each other well, and Kirwan was going in to gather some additional data for a publicity release that had to be turned out tomorrow for the early Monday editions and broadcasts.

  The building site was dark. But Kirwan could see well enough by the light from distant Michigan Avenue. In the trunk of his car he had a mix of cement, sand, and gravel the equivalent of that being used in the building’s foundation. There was plenty of water. He donned coveralls and mixed a batch of concrete. Dumping the body in a shallow section of the foundation, he poured the concrete over it to a depth of several inches.

  Kirwan tidied up the area and prepared to leave. With comparatively little preparation, this had been completed seemingly without a hitch.

  There must be, Kirwan thought, a lot of bodies in building foundations. And they remain there because the police are not likely to tear down an entire building to find out if a sought-after corpse is there.

  Kirwan returned to his new bride with a special and gratifying sense of accomplishment.

  Friday, August 17, and comparisons had lost their malodor at the Detroit News. At least for the moment.

  Bob, Ankenazy had his third installment locked in the CRT. It featured a nameless and purposely mislocated suburban priest who had been given ample cause by Monsignor Thompson to do him ill. For the first time in this series, Ankenazy’s story presented the lurid and gossipy details that heretofore had been a Joe Cox exclusive.

  Ankenazy and his managing editor, Leon London, were celebrating the breakthrough with coffee while relaxing in the editorial conference room.

  “Who would believe a grown man would keep a diary in this day and age?” asked Ankenazy, not expecting an answer.

  “Johnson and Nixon kept tapes,” London observed. “Any chance you can get a copy of the diary?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Ankenazy. “There’s no way the cops would have let Cox have a copy—at least without letting us have a copy. They don’t need the kind of trouble the News would give them if they tried something like that. No; Cox had to discover the diary first, the lucky bastard—and then give it to the cops. However, I have something else up my sleeve.”

  He told London of the leads given him by Father Neiss and of his theory that if Thompson was indeed murdered, he did not necessarily have to have been killed by someone mentioned in the diary. Although Ankenazy had to admit probability lay with the diary characters.

  “So,” Ankenazy continued, “I’m having lunch with Harry Kirwan today. It never fails; ask for an appointment with anybody in P.R., and you’re having lunch.”

  London smiled, then became serious. “You know, Bob, if you can get not only a story, but permission from any of your sources to reveal his or her identity, we may have a bargaining tool.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m not sure. Just try it. Something may come of it.” It was as if Yoda, the Jedi Master, were speaking. Ankenazy decided to follow instructions if at all possible.

  “Cox, goddammit, he caught you!”

  Nelson Kane was in a state of borderline rage.

  “Now take it easy, Nellie; it isn’t that bad.” Cox said it, but beneath the surface he didn’t really believe it.

  “Like hell it isn’t! Haven’t you read the morning edition of the News? Ankenazy got everything you got out of Neiss and more. You think that isn’t ‘that bad’? Cox, the News climbed up your ass and over your head. For all we know, Ankenazy may be ahead of you this minute!”

  Cox felt as if he were backpedaling to defense a full court press. “Now, wait a minute, Nellie. I checked with Father Neiss this morning. Ankenazy’s wife happens to be a friend of his. Neiss volunteered information none of these other people have or will. For these most recent suspects, Ankenazy has got to go back to Go and try to catch me.”

  “Does he know about the diary? Did Neiss tell him about the diary?”

  “Yes,” Cox admitted.

  “Goddammit then, Cox, he’s going to try to get it!”

  “How? I’m not going to give him the time of day. And the cops have no reason to give him a copy. If they were going to, they’d have given him one the first time he asked for a break. They gave him nothing then; they’ll give him nothing now. He’s dead in the water.”

  Apparently, Kane was beginning to see the theoretical logic of it all. The thumping vein had settled back into his neck, and his blood pressure seemed to be cruising close to normal.

  “Now I’ve got to get over to interview Father Shanley,” Cox continued, “1300 Lafayette East. Not bad. Should be quite a story. The only problem will be to mask his identity after all the publicity of the Brand wedding. But,” the cockiness had returned, “I can do it.” Cox turned on his heel and was gone.

  Kane hitched up his pants. I don’t care, he thought; that son-of-a-bitch is getting too complacent. This story isn’t in our back pocket yet. Kane’s teeth unclenched. But damn, it’s a good story. It had readers all over Michigan playing amateur detective.

  What does a missing monsignor do? Sell newspapers.

  “It’s just strange, is all I’m trying to say,” said Sergeant Lynch.

  “What’s strange about it?” asked Father Koesler.

  “That Father Neiss should claim to have received a sick call to a nonexistent address last Saturday night.”

  “And that he spent almost two hours trying to find the place,” added Sergeant Patrick.

  “I don’t find it all that strange,” said Koesler, who, with each hour of this day, was becoming more and more actively involved in the investigation.

  “You don’t?” Lynch persisted. The three were en route to 1300 Lafayette East for an appointment with Father Shanley. They would arrive only minutes after Joe Cox had left Shanley.

  “No,” said Koesler. “Things like that are always happening to priests. People trying to get a handout give hard-luck stories to priests. If the priest asks for some identification, frequently he is given a fictitious name and address. There are always sick people—I mean emotionally—who will send a priest out on a false alarm. Finally, there are those who are in a genuine emergency and in their confusion they give an incorrect address or wrong directions.

  “There is always the possibility that the sick call Father Neiss took fell into the third category. If there actually was someone suffering or perhaps dying and he had been given a wrong address and directions, I think it only natural for him to spend some time looking for the right house.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Father,” said Patrick, “but it has an artificial ring to me. And, as far as this investigation is concerned, it has no value, since no one can corroborate it.”

  “Yes,” added Lynch, “as far as we’re concerned, Father Neiss remains on a front burner.”

  As they drove on in silence, Koesler wondered just how many front burners this investigation could hold.

  Sergeant Terri Scanlon of the GAU was conscious of the fact that her old friend Bob Ankenazy had not been in yet today to discover, through her, who it was Lynch and Patrick were investigating. She missed him. She’d grown accustomed to his questions.
<
br />   8

  Pat Lennon had always read the Detroit News, even when she was employed by the Free Press. Now that she was an employee of the News, she read it more carefully.

  It was due solely to her more complete reading that she happened to notice Monsignor Thompson’s name in the Newlyweds column of the August 5 issue. The announcement stated that Thompson not only would witness the wedding but that he would attend the reception at Roma Hall on the evening of August 11. It was unlikely that any of his cronies would be there, Lennon thought. He would be unguarded, unprotected, among strangers, virtually alone, vulnerable.

  At this point, Lennon could not fight off the distraction, so she ceased reading and leaned back, gazing out the apartment window at Detroit’s east side. She allowed her thoughts to pile themselves one atop another. Joe was still sleeping, so she could afford the luxury of uninterrupted thought. And her thoughts revolved around Monsignor Thomas Thompson.

  It was a crime, maybe one of those crimes that cried to heaven for vengeance, the kind the Sisters in school used to tell her about, for someone like Thompson to represent the Church. The treatment he had given her he had intended to be shaming and degrading. Thompson had succeeded only in making Lennon very, very angry.

  It would have been one thing for her simply to learn that according to the rules and regulations of the Catholic Church, she could never marry again. But to have placed between herself and a declaration of nullity nothing but a clerical casting couch routine was nothing less than sacrilegious. She wasn’t kidding herself. She’d been around too long to miss the bald-faced, albeit adolescent innuendos and all-but-open invitation to bed that Thompson had thrown at her.

  If this was his conduct toward her, what self-indulgent evils might Thompson inflict on others? Lennon was aware that she was wise to the ways of the world. If she could handle the high-pressure blandishments of Karl Lowell and his Free Press bedchamber he kept in constant usage, she certainly could deal with a clumsy if insulting amateur such as Thompson.

  But what of other women? What about women who might be lured into a relationship that gratified Thompson only in hopes of getting what passed for justice at his hands? What about young women with no experience in such matters? They could be scarred for life by someone like Thompson.

  And who was doing anything about it? Where were the signs that anyone was heading Thompson off at the pass? Even Father Koesler, whom Lennon greatly respected, gave no indication that anyone could invade this unassailable fiefdom Thompson had created.

  Well, what, indeed, could anyone do about Thompson? He was protected by the Church whose reputation he defiled.

  Suddenly, another image began to form in Lennon’s mind. Maybe it would be possible for her to do something definitive about the problem. Several possibilities came to mind. Considering each carefully, she shook each off in turn. Then one scheme presented itself that seemed, at first blush, foolproof. The longer she scrutinized it, the more it held up. She really thought she could pull it off. And easily do so within this week.

  As she sat back absently watching the freighter traffic on the Detroit River, she envisioned her activities during the coming week. The details grew increasingly clear.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 1:30 P.M.

  Lennon had managed to wangle an assignment to check on some of Michigan’s summer resorts and see how business was doing now that half the season was over. The assignment was part of her plan. Today she would check on some of the resorts in the Port Huron area. Ostensibly, that was why she had requisitioned a Volare from the news desk, gotten the keys from the watchman, and also reserved the car for the coming weekend. She was to check out the resorts on a weekday afternoon and again on a theoretically busy weekend evening.

  Having completed the first part of this assignment, she drove some twenty-five miles north of Port Huron. The site was just as she’d remembered it. A long disused driveway led from U.S. 25 through the trees to a cliff overlooking a barren beach against which beat the relentless waves of Lake Huron.

  She descended the rickety steps built clinging to the cliff. She looked around fondly. This was probably the most sheltered beach on Lake Huron. At one time, in their younger moments of madness, she and Joe had converted this into their own private nude beach.

  She removed her shoes and stockings and stepped into the waves. The water too was just as she had remembered, outrageously cold. Lake Huron became what jokingly might be described as warm for about two weeks in the average summer. And those usually were the last two weeks of August. It was not quite time for the old lake to warm up. Good. She checked her watch; it had taken just an elapsed hour and a half to drive here from Detroit. Good. As far as she could see, all was in readiness for Saturday night.

  Saturday night, she thought, live or dead.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 10 P.M.

  She had had alternate plans to get Cox out of the apartment but hadn’t had to use them. It was Cox’s turn on night desk at the Free Press. Bitching all the way, he’d gone off to work it.

  Lennon had no idea at what stage the reception would be now. But she was sure that by this time the wedding party had at least made it to Roma Hall. She didn’t care what stage the reception had reached; she was about to make Thompson an offer he could not refuse.

  “Monsignor Thompson.”

  She suppressed the impulse to hang up. “Monsignor, this is Pat Lennon. You may remember meeting me at the Tribunal a week or so ago.”

  “Uh… “Indeed he remembered. He took this opportunity to let a combination of recollection and imagination take off.

  “I guess our meeting didn’t end all that well. But I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe I was hasty. I’ve always kind of liked men who were forceful, who had the courage of their convictions. To get to the point, I must admit you really turn me on.”

  Thompson smiled. His suspicions regarding the effect he had on her were confirmed.

  “I can’t think of anything more boring than a wedding reception, especially when you’ve been to as many as you have. I’ll lay it on the line,” she had let her voice drop an octave; it was seductive. “How would you like to make it with me tonight?”

  “You don’t mean it!” Several waiters glanced at him.

  “Oh, yes I do. But we can’t make it at your place or mine for that matter. The rectory is dangerous, and I have a madman reporter living with me. So I thought we could go out to a cottage I have on Lake Huron. How about it? Do you want to meet me?”

  “Where?”

  “How about the parking lot at De La Salle? It’s close to your place and not all that far from mine.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  And he was. Fussing with something for a few moments after parking his car, Thompson got in the passenger side of Lennon’s company car. He wore a silly grin as he removed the vest with his Roman collar and tossed it into the back seat.

  She drove toward the I-94 Freeway that headed north.

  The breeze from the air vent lifted her soft summer skirt, revealing an attractive thigh. Clumsily, Thompson pawed her.

  “Time enough for that when we get there, lover; we don’t want to cause an accident, do we ... ”

  If that was the way she wanted to play it, that was fine with him. He could wait. Waiting would just make it better.

  They exchanged small talk while she drove, though the conversation remained strained. As they neared Port Huron, Lennon produced a 1.5-liter bottle of Paul Masson Golden Cream Sherry with an alcoholic content of 16 percent. It should be enough, she thought, to get him tipsy without being drunk. They passed the bottle back and forth. Beyond the first sip, she faked drinking the wine. He continued to swallow it in great gulps.

  It was difficult to see the obscure driveway, but Lennon found it on her first try.

  “This it, honey?” Thompson seemed ideally tipsy.

  “Follow me, lover.” Lennon exited the car and started down the rickety steps.

  “Hey wait! I don’t s
ee any cottage. This is just a goddamn bare beach.”

  But Lennon was better than halfway down the steps. Thompson, tripping and stumbling all the way, followed. When he got to the beach, he found that Lennon had reached the water. The usually restless Lake Huron was smooth and reflective. Lennon was busy doing something. Thompson focused more carefully. By God, she was taking off her clothes. By God, she was… yes, she was naked! Thompson could see moonlight reflecting off her curves. He lurched toward her. She eluded him and went splashing into the surf.

  “Hey, what the hell—?”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Haven’t you seen ‘From Here to Eternity’? Before we wrestle on the beach, we’ve got to get wet.”

  It was the damndest thing he could think of. But there was that gorgeous Lennon body undulating under the surface of Lake Huron. He could think of no reason to remain on shore.

  He stripped to his boxer shorts and undershirt. Embarrassment about his flabby body kept him from removing all his clothing.

  My God, this is cold! he thought as he stumbled into the water. My God, this is really frigid! he thought as he arrived at chest-deep water. My God, he thought, this is breathtaking! For the first and last time in his life he suffered a stomach cramp. And, as Red Cross instructors will attest, when you get a stomach cramp in the water, you are very likely to drown. Which is what Monsignor Thompson did.

  “Where are you, lover?” Pat Lennon was in deep water, treading, prepared to drown Thompson. But if he didn’t reach her soon, she would become an ice float.

  She looked in vain. The surface was unruffled. But she had seen him enter. There was only one conclusion. He had drowned. An eventuality she could only have hoped for.

  She swam back to shore. His body might or might not be found. He might be devoured by the fish. It didn’t matter. There was no way he could be linked with her. Besides, he had drowned all on his own. She could pass a polygraph on that.

  She reached shore and collected his clothing, including the vest and collar from the back seat of the car. She set it all afire, warming herself slightly at the blaze.