A Rose From The Executioner

by Edward Izzi

He thought about recommending Joey to file a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Chicago, but after talking to an attorney, realized that the statute of limitations had already passed on Campisi’s ability to successfully file. He tried bringing him to a precinct psychiatrist who came highly recommended, specializing in drug and alcohol patients, but to no avail. Joey always refused to get any help, and Paul was sure that his best friend’s child molestations were the root of all his psychological and emotional problems.

  Sergeant Russo put on the white gloves and stood next to the casket, as the pallbearer to his best friend. Joey’s forever loving wife, along with his three children, followed the casket to the front of the church, as the canter sang the “Ave Maria” in a loud, glorious tenor voice. The traditional song seemed to reverberate from the magnificent walls of St. Peregrine Church, with its ornate stained-glass windows, containing its holy sounds for all those who came to witness the ascension of his lifelong friend.

  As the priest presided over the funeral mass, Russo’s mind was elsewhere. At that moment, Russo was having ‘survivor’s remorse’, wondering why his best friend Joey was chosen to suffer the mental anguish and consequences of his childhood sexual abuse and why he was spared. He sat there in total contempt, vehemently blaming the Catholic Church and its hypocritical doctrines for the death of his best friend.

  Why, he asked himself, did it take the Catholic Church so long to publicly recognize the molesting and raping of so many young children for so many, many years? Why were these pedophile priests allowed to teach so many children the gospel for so long, then privately dehumanize them behind closed doors? Why were these monsters relocated from church to church, raping and taking advantage of so many children at such a young, vulnerable age? So many children like Joey Campisi, who grew up alone and isolated, with no one to understand their inner torment. Why did Joey grow up to be a drunk, with DUI’s on his record and a cocaine drug habit? Why did Joey have to suffer an untimely death in front of an on-coming train?

  Those were good questions for all the evil, satanic priests like Fr. Marquardt, Fr. Senopoli, and every other priest who hid behind their holy vestments to practice their sexual deviances.

  At that moment, Sergeant Russo’s rage was beginning to overcome him right there in the middle of his best friend’s funeral mass. Russo wanted revenge. He could taste it in his mouth. Above all the drug dealers, all the rapists, all the murderers and gang bangers he ever pushed through the jails of his precinct, at that moment, he hated all Catholic priests the most.

  He wanted revenge, not just on the priests who destroyed his best friends’ life, but on all the Catholic priests who stood there at the pulpit, preaching the gospel out of one side of their mouths, and then breaking the Lord’s Commandments and preying on God’s children when no one was looking.

  As an experienced police officer and intelligence detective, Sergeant Paul Russo had a reputation that preceded him throughout the Chicago Police Department. At five feet, nine inches tall, he was well built and more than fit for his 61-year-old body. He ran five miles every morning and could still run a seven-minute mile during any 5-K race. He was a widower and kept a good relationship with his 31-year-old daughter, Arianna, who was an accountant at a Chicago Loop CPA firm. Although he had many friends within the City of Chicago, Russo had more than his share of enemies. His volatile temper and hard, suspicious demeanor made him a difficult person to work with, and a very hard person to get close to. Although Paul Russo was well beyond the age of retiring from the police department, he chose to stay on the Intelligence Special Task force for a few more years, until he could figure out what to do with his spare time and his excess anger.

  He intuitively understood the ‘in’s and out’s’ of any crime scene and knew how to stage the ‘perfect murder’ if he had to. He was always the first person to arrive at a crime scene and had an experienced staff of loyal intelligence detectives to assist him in solving many of the heinous crimes and murders that occurred within the city. He also had developed a reputation for taking the ‘law into his own hands’. He had appeared before the supervisory and police disciplinary committee several times, and his district commander was more that aware of his explosive temper and quick trigger finger. There had been several murderous outlaws and drug pushers who haplessly ‘disappeared’ within his precinct, who had skirted the judicial system on a technicality, then becoming victims of “Russo’s Law.”

  As the funeral mass concluded, Paul Russo carried his best friends’ casket out of St. Peregrine Church on Melvina Street and onto the long, black hearse waiting at the bottom of the church’s steps. He grieved all alone in his car, following the funeral procession, passing Joey’s house in the Portage Park neighborhood, and then onto Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside. When the parade of cars finally arrived at the cemetery, the funeral hearse pulled up in front of the many aisles of neatly arranged marble crypts, each row named after an obscure saint.

  Russo assisted the other pallbearers, carrying the coffin to Joey’s final resting place. There was an open marble crypt at the seventh row on top, whose stone slab had already been removed, awaiting the arrival of his best friend’s body. The priest mumbled a few more prayers, as each of the gatherers placed a red rose on top of the dark brown, silver trimmed casket. All the mourners, including Joey’s family, stood silent as the special fork lift lifted the casket, with two undertakers alongside of it, and slowly pushed Joseph Campisi’s body into the empty marble crypt, high up on the seventh row.

  As Paul Russo watched his best friend become forever entombed, he said the Lord’s Prayer to himself, wishing eternal rest for his soul. As his face was soaked in tears, he silently waited for the rest of the mourners to leave, until he was the very last one facing Joey’s gravesite…alone.

  He solemnly stood there, with one hand in his coat pocket and holding the last red rose with the other. He placed it on the ground beneath Joey’s crypt, then loudly said goodbye to the tomb of his best friend.

  He then swore a thousand deaths to the two priests who put him there.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Senopoli Discovered

  It had been a very busy day at the Sixteenth District. It was the Friday before the long, Memorial Day weekend, and all the detectives were trying to finish and wrap up their pending cases before the holiday. It was about 4:00pm in the afternoon, and I kept looking at the clock, hoping that the end of my shift at six o’clock would come quickly.

  Being divorced, I didn’t have to rush home to anyone except my yellow lab, Ginger. But I was looking forward to having dinner with my daughter, her husband and my little granddaughter at 7:30pm, and I was hoping nothing would come up that would make me cancel that.

  I was sitting at my desk working on some files when my desk phone went off. I decided to let it ring three or four times before answering. Usually when my desk phone goes off after four o’clock, it meant I should cancel my evening plans and be ready to work the extra night shift.

  “Detective Dorian speaking.” I was trying sound pleasant, like I had nothing else better to do before the holiday weekend.

  “Phil? It’s Tommy Morton…from the Seventeenth”

  “Hey Tommy, did you find another dead body hanging around?” I was kidding.

  “Phil, you better come over here,” said a very serious voice on the other line.

  “What’s up?”

  “Another murder, same as the one on Argyle a few weeks ago. We definitely have a problem here.”

  Morton’s voice was so serious he was almost quivering on the phone. I had never heard him so shaken up before, as this one must have really spooked him.

  “Oh shit. Where at?”

  “5027 North Menard. You may want to get here as soon as you can.”

  “I’ll be right there,” I responded.

  As I threw on my suit coat and grabbed my gun, a thousand thoughts were going through my mind. I was almost afraid to run over to the crime scene, as I texted my daught
er and canceled our dinner plans. When I got there, Detective Morton was standing in front of the address, and he had motioned me to enter through the alley, where there was crime scene tape and two Chicago EMT Units already at the crime scene. Two more police cars had followed behind me as I parked on the adjunct street closest to the alley.

  “Hey Tommy, what do we got?” I said as we shook hands.

  He just shook his head and pointed over to the garage. Morton was usually a talkative, friendly guy. For him to be speechless, the sight of this murder had to be bad.

  I walked over toward the garage, which had been taped off and the garage door was closed to block off the crime scene. I opened the gate and entered the garage from the backyard. There were several others, including patrolmen and a few paramedics standing around as I entered the darkened garage. In the middle of the garage, was another body of a naked old man, hanging from his neck by a rope tied up from the rafters above.

  Morton was right. This murder was identical to the Marquardt killing two weeks ago. The victim had several stab wounds across his torso, and his neck had been slit open. His hands were also tied together, and his genitals had been cut off and mutilated. The old man’s eyes, like Marquardt’s, had been gauged out and bleeding. There was also a sharp, long broomstick impaled into his body, and crammed inside of him, like the previous murder. An empty, plastic grocery bag, with strewn vegetables, was scattered across the concrete floor.

  Blood was splattered everywhere, especially on the parked car in the garage. I presumed that the killer used the hood of the car as his “work bench” to do his cutting and slicing. This crime scene looked like it was ‘painted in blood’ and was far more gruesome than the Marquardt murder two weeks ago. And like the Marquardt murder, beneath the victims’ dangling feet, amidst a pool of blood, was a long-stemmed red rose.

  I stared at the body and tried to absorb the bloody crime scene. I just couldn’t believe it. How was this killer able to duplicate the same murder within the garage of his victim on a Friday afternoon before the holiday weekend, without any clues or anyone noticing?

  “Congratulations,” I said to Detective Morton as he followed me into the garage.

  “We officially now have a serial killer,” I announced. Morton just looked at me, clearly shaken.

  “And let me guess…”I added. “This guy was a former priest too?”

  “His name is Lucas Senopoli. He’s 78 years old and lives alone. He’s a retired maintenance worker with the Archdiocese of Chicago. His friend, James Rubino, found him like this about an hour ago. They were supposed to go to some bocce ball tournament together at some club somewhere on Belmont Avenue.” Morton replied.

  “And yes, Phil, we verified it. This guy was a former priest,” he added.

  “Any priors on this guy?”

  “Nope, not even a parking ticket. A model citizen. Only difference from the other murder victim is that this guy pretty much kept to himself,” Morton stated.

  I continued to stare at the hanging dead corpse, trying to process this whole murder scene. I started to think out loud, as I began talking to myself:

  What the hell was going on? What has sparked this recent motivation to start killing former priests in Chicagoland? Especially those former priests who never had any sex-related priors?

  “How long has he been dead?” I asked.

  “A few hours now. We figure the time of death was approximately 2:00 in the afternoon?” Morton replied.

  I looked around the garage, trying to avoid all the splattered blood. I didn’t want to ruin another Brook Brothers suit coat, especially since this one was a larger size. I borrowed one of the patrolman’s flashlights, and took a quick scan of the dark, one car garage. For a second, I was sort of hoping that the killer might have been stupid enough to leave his murder weapon behind.

  “Did anybody see or hear anything? Has anyone talked to any of the neighbors?”

  “We have a few patrolmen on the street talking to a few of them now. Seems most of his neighbors are Latino, so I called the precinct and they are sending over a Spanish-speaking policeman.”

  “Great.” I replied.

  I continued to gaze around the garage. There had to be some clue here somewhere. Some sort of left-over artifact or something that we could possibly lift a DNA sample from. Looking under the car, adjacent to a puddle of blood, I found a cigarette butt. I pulled out some plastic gloves that I kept in my pocket, and reached under the car, putting the potential evidence sample in a crime scene evidence bag.

  “Was the victim a smoker?” I asked. “This cigarette brand is a Marlboro Light.”

  “Not sure,” replied Morton, who was starting to look a little nauseated.

  “When we search through the house, we’ll see if we can find any cigarettes or ash trays.”

  “Have one of your patrolmen scour the neighborhood and around the house. Start looking for more clues” I ordered him, whose face color was starting to turn a melancholy green.

  “Have someone go through the house with a fine-tooth comb. Find out any clues of anyone who might want to hurt him,” I requested.

  “Looks like we have a serial killer on the loose,” said one of the patrolmen. I then noticed a nauseous Detective Morton run out the garage and out into the alley. I asked one of the patrolmen to follow the detective outside and check on him, knowing that he was probably throwing up somewhere.

  I walked outside of the garage and started looking around the house, trying to notice anything obvious. No sooner did I walk around to the front yard, that I saw my buddy, Chaz Rizzo and the Channel 8 News Truck.

  There was a camera man filming while he was interviewing one of the neighbors. I decided to walk over and unload on him.

  “Rizzo? What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. This reporter bastard didn’t miss a trick. He abruptly ended the street interview with the neighbor and walked over towards me with his microphone, the camera man still filming and pointing his camera at my direction.

  “Shut that damn camera off!” I yelled. Chaz motioned to his camera crew to cut out the filming and to wait by the news truck, while he walked over towards me, smiling as usual.

  “Hey Philly, looks like we’ve got a serial killer on our hands, huh? “ Rizzo proclaimed.

  “What’s the definition again? A person who kills more than one victim in more than one location in a very short period?”

  “Knock it off, Chaz! We don’t know what we have here, and I certainly don’t need you broadcasting that right now.”

  “Come on Philly! Same kind of victim, same kind of murder scene, same red rose? Cut the bullshit!”

  “No, Rizzo! You cut the bullshit! We don’t need the press out here stirring things up while we’re trying to figure out what the hell is going on. We don’t know what we have right now, and I certainly don’t need you making any assumptions and stirring up the public,” I sternly replied.

  I was feeling frustrated, and I was starting to unload my temper on my favorite news reporter. I was so tempted to hit this son of a bitch, until I realized that I might need this jerk to give me a hand in solving these murders.

  “I didn’t mention anything yet about a serial killer, Phil. We’re still trying to report the facts of this homicide.”

  “Well, I would really appreciate it if you would hold off a bit until we know what is going on,” I replied in a calmer voice.

  “I understand the victim is also a former priest,” he interjected.

  “We haven’t confirmed that yet,” I lied, not wanting to volunteer any information.

  “We have,” he said. “This guy was the Dean of Students at St. Peter Chanel High School back in the ‘60’s. He was also the principal at Notre Dame High School until he left the priesthood in 1979.” I glared at him, and for almost ten seconds I was speechless.

  “Where did you get your information from?” I immediately knew that I had just asked him a very dumb question. This damn news reporter always had a
reliable resource for everything.

  “One of the guys at the news station remembered him when he was in high school. Says he was one of those old school disciplinarians.”

  “Old school?”

  “Yeah, you know. Back in the days when the priests and nuns used to crack around their students like fucking baseballs,” Chaz replied.

  I took out my notepad and I started scribbling down some notes, while Chaz was being motioned by his camera crew. Seemed the Channel Eight newsroom was blowing up his cell phone.

  “Look Phil, I gotta take this call. It’s the newsroom. Help me out here, please? We gotta make a living here too. Let me interview a few of these ‘cops’ so that we can get the exclusive on this story. I will call you later and let you know what else we find out. Deal?”

  Chaz Rizzo extended his hand as a peace offering, which I firmly grabbed.

  “Do not mention the words ‘serial killer’ until we know what the hell we have here,” I sternly warned.

  He looked at me and smiled, nodding his head. He then rushed off to his news truck while I returned to the crime scene, trying to figure out what other evidence we could find.

  I accompanied one of the patrolmen inside of the house and walked upstairs to the bedroom. Usually, if there is any relevant information to investigate at a residential crime scene, it’s usually starts in the bedroom. I scoured through his dresser drawers and whatever documents were on his roll top desk. I didn’t find anything significant, other than the verification that he used to be a Catholic priest and that he retired working for the Archdiocese.

  I looked around, noticing a large, wooden trunk with two padlocks, one was a keyed lock, and the other was a standard combination lock. I asked one of the policemen to bring up some bolt cutters to cut the locks. When the locks were cut, and the trunk opened, its contents made me sick to my stomach.

  Neatly stacked, were over one hundred child pornography magazines. They were all from foreign countries, including German, Swedish, Japanese, and some other foreign languages that I didn’t recognize. The victim obviously acquired them on the black market somewhere. I called up a few of the patrolmen to secure the trunk, dusted it for prints, and then brought it down to the station. I also found an Apple computer in one of the bedrooms and seized that as well. I now realized that our former priest and current victim, like Marquardt, was also a pedophile.