The Rosary Murders

by William X. Kienzle

  “Cigar?” Neighbors shoved a box of Van Dams in the direction of his guests. Both demurred; Koesler lit a cigarette.

  “Well, gentlemen,” Neighbors continued, as he unwrapped and prepared to light a cigar, “what can I do for you?”

  “Father,” said Koznicki, “we have reason to believe you are the next intended victim of the Rosary Murderer.”

  That, thought Koesler, was one way of doing it. Then, noting that Neighbors’ motion had been frozen with the flame of a burning match nearing his fingers, Koesler further reflected, it’s also one way of getting somebody’s attention.

  The match burned Neighbors’ finger. He shook it out. Otherwise he didn’t move. Finally, he lowered the hand holding the match but continued to sit bolt upright, the unlit cigar still in his mouth. The thought occurred to Koesler that Neighbors might suffer a cardiac arrest and not be around tomorrow to be an intended victim.

  “It’s only natural that you find this news shocking, Father.” Koznicki’s tone was solicitous. “But, look at it this way. You would have been next on the killer’s list whether or not you or we knew about it. This way, as you’ll see, is much better.”

  “But… why me? How can you be sure it’s me?”

  Good Lord, thought Koesler. He’s going through a denial phase just like the terminally ill. It must be an element of dying whether you’re dying or not.

  “Our means of knowing this are a little too complicated to explain, Father. Suffice it to say we know.

  “Now, I must ask for your cooperation. There is no way we can keep you here. If you wish to leave the parish, the city, for all of tomorrow, the killer may miss his opportunity.

  “On the other hand, if you stay, and if you cooperate with us, I believe you’ll be perfectly safe, and we stand a very good chance of apprehending the killer.”

  Neighbors felt like running. With every fiber of his being, he felt like running. But he couldn’t, and he knew it. His usual ebullient spirits were dampened.

  He exhaled and looked at Koznicki. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Actually, Father, you need not do anything differently than you would have if we hadn’t come to see you this morning.

  “A police officer visited you yesterday, didn’t he?”

  “Yes… I don’t remember his name.”

  “Paul Mahoney. But that’s unimportant. What is important is that you follow the precautions he advised. Your actions need not change. Ours will. For instance, I’m sure you are unaware that there are three of our men in unmarked cars who have been watching this rectory since last night. Although the shift has changed, there are three on duty right now.”

  Startled, Neighbors stood and peered out the window at Outer Drive. He then turned to look out the side window at Gunston. In each instance, he noted a parked car, each with a man in the driver’s seat. He assumed there would be another such vehicle in back of the rectory on Rosemary.

  Koznicki waited until the priest had satisfied himself that all was as stated.

  “Now, Father, there will be quite a few police officers throughout the rectory and the church today. We want to secure the premises and facilities. In all cases, our people will identify themselves to you. Check their identification, then cooperate with them fully. Our people will also be inside and outside the rectory tonight.

  “Tomorrow, Father, there will be many more police personnel with you through the day. None of them will be in uniform. For instance, when you hear confessions, from twelve to two, isn’t it?” Neighbors nodded, wordlessly. “About every third or fourth penitent will be a police officer. We’ll use both men and women. They will each enter the box, identify themselves, say nothing more, remain in the confessional from one to three minutes, then leave.

  “So, you see, Father, you need do nothing different from what you and Officer Mahoney have already discussed. You will quite literally be surrounded by police. And you will be quite safe.”

  Some of the color had returned to Neighbors’ face. But he was not feeling quite as carefree as he had been before his visitors had arrived.

  “One final thing.” Koznicki turned to Koesler. “You occasionally visit with Father Neighbors, don’t you, Father?”

  “Yes, sure… we’re classmates.”

  “Well, we’d like you to do just that tomorrow after services at St. Ursula’s, and we’d like you to stay through the evening. That is, if we haven’t apprehended the killer by that time. Will that be satisfactory with both of you?”

  The two priests grinned at each other—Neighbors nervously, Koesler reassuringly—and nodded.

  Koznicki stood, as did the two priests. They exchanged farewells. At the door, Koznicki turned to Neighbors. “Most important, Father: not a word of this to anyone. It’s essential that this be kept secret.” Neighbors nodded numbly.

  Outside the rectory, Koznicki said, “Would you like me to drop you off at the rectory or at the paper?”

  “The rectory will be fine.” After a pause, Koesler added, “But, why me? Why do you want me to be with Ted tomorrow?”

  “Because you have a cool head. And because, after the Good Friday afternoon services, Father Neighbors would, under ordinary circumstances, be alone. In effect, it will be easier guarding two priests than one, since the killer must isolate his victim, and he would not be counting on your presence here.

  “And, finally…” Koznicki smiled as he turned to the priest, “…because this whole thing is your idea. You do want to see it through to the end, don’t you?”

  “Indeed I do,” said Koesler, who was thinking, somebody ought to write a book about this.

  “It’s not that I mind an all-night session like last night, Walt…” Sergeant Harris sank back in the chair, his hands cradling a plastic cup of hot coffee, “…but eventually, that sort of thing is going to affect my social life. I mean, I’m not asking for a vacation, just some sleep.”

  “Saturday.”

  “Saturday, what?”

  “Saturday night you can sleep.”

  “That’ll surprise her.”

  “Who?”

  “My wife.”

  Koznicki stopped writing and looked across his desk at Harris. “What will surprise your wife?”

  “That on a Saturday night, we sleep.”

  Koznicki shrugged and returned to writing. “How’s the latest briefing going?”

  “Washington’s doing it now.” Harris sipped his coffee. “You sure you want to maintain protection for all the priests and nuns? After all, aren’t we pretty sure the target is this Father Neighbors… and, after him, one of the nuns?”

  “Murphy’s Law. Besides, what happens if some other maniac decides to get in on the action? No, with the exception of pulling the majority of our special team into the St. William’s operation, and stationing the remainder with the five nuns, we go with the original plan.”

  “How about the guys from TSD?”

  “Schommer and Brainard?” Koznicki smiled briefly. “You don’t much care for them, do you?”

  “They’re trigger happy.”

  “So is the killer. If he makes his move, he’ll have to do it suddenly. In such a situation, there’s nobody I’d rather have on my side than somebody who’s conditioned to act on split-second impulse.”

  Harris stood and began pacing. Koznicki continued to jot notes to various members of his task force.

  After a few minutes, Koznicki looked up. “What are the names of those five nuns, again?”

  “Three Bonaventures, one Agnes Goodfriend, and one Roberta Goode. But he’s gonna have to get through Neighbors before he can go after any of the nuns… isn’t he?”

  “Unless he changes his mind, or his M.O. Which I don’t anticipate his doing. But it never hurts to be prepared.”

  “Walt… have you considered the possibility that we might scare him off?” Harris crushed the empty plastic cup and banked it off the wall into the wastebasket. “I mean, what if he catches on? What if he figures out that the
church is practically wall-to-wall police? What if he figures there’s no way he can waste Neighbors and still live to get the last nun? Isn’t it possible he might back off from a no-win situation like that?”

  Koznicki let his pen fall across the note he was writing. “That’s a distinct possibility. And we must remember that Father Neighbors and whatever nun our man has selected are no more important to him than tomorrow’s date is. He has no reason to kill Neighbors and the nun except that their names fit his plan. And he has no reason to kill them tomorrow except that tomorrow’s date fits into his plan. Thus, if he cannot kill them tomorrow, he will probably have no reason to kill them at all.

  “Our position is to make it most difficult for him to attempt any action and impossible for him to do so without being apprehended, dead or alive. Actually, since there is one more potential victim to follow Father Neighbors, the longer Neighbors lives tomorrow, the less chance there is that he’ll be attacked.”

  “You know, Walt, it just blows my mind that it was Koesler who figured all this out.”

  Koznicki smiled. “Shows you what your friendly parish priest can do—if he has an inquisitive mind and reads murder mysteries.”

  The two became lost in thought. After several minutes, Harris stopped pacing and faced Koznicki.

  “Walt, have you given any thought to what happens if we do scare this guy off?”

  “Of course. The Polish mind never rests.

  “We go back to the drawing board and continue our routine investigation at the point at which it was interrupted. We have to solve the murders of eight people. But we could feel fortunate not to be investigating the deaths of ten.”

  If this task force’s investigation were to be picked up at the point at which it had now been interrupted, the first name on one fist was that of Robert Jamison.

  Nelson Kane had not been as involved in or excited by a story since the ’67 riots. Regularly, throughout the course of the Rosary Murders, the Free Press had been in the lead not only in the print media, but frequently had even beaten radio and TV. Lately, the Free Press was being quoted in Time, Newsweek, and other national journals. The copyrighting of many of the exclusive stories had forced even the News to attribute some of the information it carried to the Free Press. Kane sensed another Pulitzer in the offing.

  Tomorrow would be D-Day and the ’67 riots rolled into one. It had come down to one determined killer, whose luck had begun to run low, against just about every law enforcement agency in the Detroit area.

  But what it really boiled down to was the killer against Koznicki’s special task force.

  For the past week, the Free Press, in almost every story on the murders, had been emphasizing the facet of the story that linked the murders with the Lenten days of special penance. That outstanding breakthrough was the Free Press’ personal baby. It had been since the moment Joe Cox had come up with the theory.

  The story had one more day to run. And nobody would’ve known that tomorrow was the final day, if it weren’t for the Free Press and Joe Cox. Both the paper and the reporter had become internationally famous. The publicity did more for the paper even than being occasionally mentioned by Mary Tyler Moore’s Lou Grant.

  One more day to go. Kane was determined that his paper was going to wrap up this story the way it had begun—well ahead of the competition.

  Kane had just finished handing out assignments to his staff, most of whom would be hitting the bricks tomorrow in predetermined areas of the city. Cox, the one reporter who was certain to be included in this final day’s operation, had received no specific assignment. Cox, himself, thought that odd. But Kane had come to respect Cox’s instincts. Some reporters had the ability to be in the right place at the right time; to sense which, of a number of leads, was the most promising. Cox had that faculty, and Kane recognized that fact.

  Kane noticed that Cox had just completed a phone conversation. “Cox—” he called out just loudly enough to be heard over the city room’s hum.

  The reporter crossed to Kane’s desk and seated himself in the adjacent chair.

  “Joe, you got any ideas about tomorrow?”

  “You mean I get to call this shot for myself?”

  “Within reason.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I do,” Cox said, pulling his chair closer. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to play free safety.”

  “Now what the hell does that mean?”

  “I mean I’d like to play follow the leader.”

  “Goddammit, you know I hate it when people get cute! Now, what?”

  “Well, I figure Koznicki is not going to ride a desk tomorrow while everything is going down. He’ll be out, and he’ll be where he feels the action is going to be. I don’t think a weathervane could give me better directions than the head of the special task force.”

  “Swell idea, kid, but I’m afraid it’s not unique. Don’t you think somebody else might have the same game plan?”

  “Probably. But how are they going to find the good Lieutenant?”

  “How are you gonna find him if he’s so elusive?”

  “Thereby hangs a tale, Nellie. Ever since we cooperated with the police by giving them the penance lead before we printed it, thus saving them plenty of face, there’s been a subtle air of cooperation shown by at least the task force’s upper echelons to this reporter, as some of my older colleagues prefer to express the first person.”

  Sensing Kane’s skepticism, Cox persisted. “No, I mean it, Nellie. You know how the cops like to hold back more info than they need to. I got that treatment before we gave them the break. But since then, they’ve had a better attitude—at least as far as I personally am concerned. Now when I ask a question, as long as it’s reasonable I get an answer.

  “I think Koznicki is just a fair guy. I helped them. Koznicki, I think, sees to it they help me. They know I’m going to write what I feel needs writing. I know they’re not going to let me in on anything that hinders their investigation. I trusted them not to break the penance angle before we could publish it, even to make themselves look better. I think they feel they can trust me, at least within limits.

  “I think I can find Koznicki tomorrow. And I don’t think anybody else can. And—one more thing, Nellie. To pull this off, I gotta go it alone.”

  “O.K. But keep in touch. In case something breaks, I wanta be able to move a photographer in.”

  As Cox headed back to his desk, Kane began a mental rundown of all the details of his preparation for tomorrow’s coverage. He wanted to make certain there would be no loose ends. And, he thought, as an aid to Cox’s concentration, I’ll just ship Lennon off to the Soo—to do a piece on the Upper Peninsula’s preparation for the tourist season.

  Stan Mathis paced within the narrow confines of his paneled office in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak. Clearly, he was very perturbed.

  He sat down at his desk and, as he had many times during the week, took a newspaper clipping from his drawer and studied it.

  It was the artist’s composite of the Rosary Murderer.

  Why did the likeness remind him so much of Bob Jamison? Could it be because Jamison was so often on his mind these days?

  Mathis had carried Jamison about as far as he dared. After all, Mathis was only a district sales manager. There were plenty of superiors he had to answer to. If it had been anyone but Jamison, Mathis would have dismissed him long ago. But there was understanding, and there was pity. Before Jamison’s daughter committed suicide and his wife left him, he had consistently been one of the top salespeople in the entire company.

  But since those tragic events, Jamison’s sales had gone slowly but steadily downhill. He hadn’t been into the office at all in the past week. Called in with the flu.

  Mathis looked again at the creased clipping. It was by no means identical. Some of the features certainly suggested Jamison. And the letters “R-O-B” left in the dead nun’s bloody writing could have stood for “Robert.”

  He wondered again i
f he should call the police, as the caption beneath the picture asked citizens to do if they thought they could identify the man.

  But, hell. He reflected on the type of crime this man was accused of. No, it was too preposterous… whatever else he might be capable of, Bob Jamison wasn’t capable of murder—especially the premeditated murders of unsuspecting and helpless priests and nuns. Why, Jamison was a Catholic—and a damn good one. He’d even been in the seminary for a while in high school.

  No. It was ridiculous even to consider Bob Jamison capable of crimes like these. But, Mathis decided, as he wadded the clipping into a small ball, he would have to have it out with Jamison the first of next week.

  Father Ted Neighbors opened one eye and quickly closed it. His head felt filled with cobwebs. Understandably, he’d had an unusually difficult time getting to sleep last night. So he had turned to bourbon and water to induce slumber. He regretted that now, but there was nothing he could do about the hangover.

  He opened his eye once more and tried to focus on the clock on the nightstand. Nine-thirty. Any other day and this would be a disgrace. He would have missed offering the morning Mass.

  But this was Good Friday; nowhere in the world would Mass be offered today. There would be communion liturgies, and most of them would be held somewhere between the hours of noon and three—the time that traditionally commemorated Christ’s crucifixion. At St. William’s, the communion service was scheduled for two, preceded by two hours for confessions.

  Under the best of conditions, Neighbors was not a “morning person.” And conditions this morning were among the worst. For many reasons, not the least of which that he might be murdered today, he did not want to get out of bed.

  Eventually, a combination of habit, discipline, and boredom with bed led him to throw back the covers and swing his feet determinedly to the floor.

  The hangover was not as bad as he had feared. His head was beginning to clear.

  He stood and crossed the room to close the window. As he shut it, he glanced down at Gunston. A black car was pulling away from the curb. He waited. In a moment, another car, this one blue, took the black car’s place at the curb. No one emerged. He had just witnessed the police surveillance team’s change of shift. Security, he reflected, is having a cop around every corner.