A Rose From The Executioner

by Edward Izzi

  “I’m sure the contents of this will persuade you to hire a private investigator and conclude that there is a lack of evidence in these murders. I trust this envelope will assist you in formulating the correct decision, Ms. Laurent. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must get back on the road. There is a heavy rain storm coming in tonight, and I need to drive back to Chicago. Have a good day, Ms. Laurent.”

  Attorney James Gleason then rose from his chair and quickly exited Olivia’s office, leaving the envelope on her desk. After he left, Olivia opened the large tightly sealed envelope. It contained five bundles of tightly banned, one hundred-dollar bills, with $10,000 bans around each bundle. The old attorney had left $50,000 on her desk in new, crisp, unmarked bills.

  She was obviously being bribed, to close out and approve these life insurance policy claims made by the Archdiocese of Chicago. The Chicago attorney obviously intended to make sure that there was enough money available to the Archdiocese as a result of these murders so that there could be civil claims made against these funds in a future liability lawsuit. Gleason wanted to make certain that her insurance company approved and closed out these multi-million-dollar life insurance claims, without going through the Chicago Police Department or their investigations. She sat there at her desk, speechless, not knowing what she should do.

  Olivia was now in a quandary: Should she disclose this ‘visit’ and this ‘envelope’ to Detective Dorian and the Chicago P.D. and assist him in these murder investigations? Or should she take matters into her own hands, and hire a private investigator and conduct her own investigations? Should she keep the money? Or should she turn it over to the police? After several long, nervous moments, she hurriedly took the large envelope and placed it inside of her bottom desk drawer.

  “Cindy,” she called her assistant over the telephone.

  “Yes, boss,” she replied.

  “Could you get me some information on the nearest Comerica Bank branch please?”

  “Ok, sure,” Cindy replied, not understanding her boss’s request.

  “Thank you,” replied Olivia, knowing that keeping that kind of excessive cash was not safe in her office.

  ‘Gleason’ exited out of the elevator and walked quickly outside to the adjacent parking lot of the Renaissance Center. After he got into his car, he quickly unbuckled his pants and deflated the ‘stomach cushion’ which he was wearing underneath his suit. He then removed his skull cap costume, rubbed off his facial props and his fake ‘Irish nose’ which he used as part of his disguise. He then quickly wiped off his makeup with the wet towelettes he had kept hidden underneath the seat of his rented Ford Escape. The imposter then began driving onto Jefferson Avenue and entered the Ford Expressway, speeding west towards Chicago. The actor gazed at his review mirror and smiled.

  ‘Brother Ezekiel’ had successfully accomplished his assigned task.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CYO Camp

  All the families were gathered in the parking lot of Holy Family Church, as the yellow school bus pulled up to the long line of school age boys, ready to board for summer camp. It was a beautiful, hot July morning in 1969, as the boys were loading up their duffle bags for their two-week camping experience at the CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) camp. It was a three-hour bus ride to the shores of Green Bay, Wisconsin, where the children endeavored in camping, fishing, archery, orienteering, hiking, swimming and other summer activities. Johnny Fortuna and his best friend, Bobby O’Donnell were meeting up that summer morning, and the fourth-grade boys couldn’t be more excited.

  “Hey Johnny, did you pack your model rockets?” Bobby eagerly asked as he saw his best friend lined up to board the long, yellow school bus.

  “Of course!” he excitedly answered. Bobby then closely approached Johnny as he stood in line, making him feel his back pockets for the pocket knife and some new fishing tackle he decided to bring along.

  The boys boarded the school bus and sat next to each other towards the back, while the other boys filled up the rest of the empty seats. Johnny’s mother was anxiously standing beneath the school bus windows, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief as she sadly said good bye to her son.

  “Okay gentlemen, lets’ settle down,” Father Matt exclaimed as he was the last to board the bus, along with some other teenage camp counselors. Father Matthew McDougall was a popular young priest in his late twenties, and the young boys at Holy Family School were quite fond of him. The children at Holy Family referred to him as being one of the “cooler” priests in school. After taking attendance of all the boys who signed up for summer camp that muggy, July morning, Fr. Matt motioned the bus driver to begin their journey.

  “What’s up, Father?” Johnny asked in his normal cocky voice.

  “Glad to see you made it aboard, young man!” Fr. Matt excitedly said, as he individually greeted each of the prospective campers on the bus.

  “Hopefully the two of you will be on your best behavior and we won’t be shipping either one of you back to Chicago.”

  “Not a chance, Padre,” Bobby responded in his usual snarky tone of voice.

  As the boys settled down in their seats, Fr. Matt started some activities to keep the boys occupied throughout the bus ride, playing such travel riding games like “Name that Capital”, “Spot the License Plate” and other games. They began singing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer” and various other school bus songs. Fr. Matt was always very engaging with the children and was well respected within the Holy Family community. He had just been ordained a couple of years ago from Mundelein Seminary, and was teaching the fourth-grade class at Holy Family Grade School. He was happy to serve at a Catholic Church within the Chicagoland area, being a native of the Logan Square neighborhood.

  As the children arrived at the Green Bay campground, the campers lined up according to their different cabins that they were assigned to. There were ten white, rustic cabins, with bunk beds that could accommodate ten to twelve children per cabin. Nearby was a large latrine, with bathrooms and showers located in the middle of campground and was within proximity of the ten sleeping cabins. There was also a cafeteria, or “mess hall”, where everyone met for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Several other buildings which hosted arts and crafts, music, a gym and other activities were also located nearby. Towards the very end of the campground was an archery range, where the boys would be taking archery classes.

  Johnny and Bobby were assigned to Cabin Seven, and they both grabbed their duffle bags and selected the bunk beds located at the far end of the cabin. Bobby took the top bunk, and Johnny grabbed the bottom. They both excitedly unpacked their gear and clothing and settled themselves in to their new home away from home for the next two weeks.

  Each cabin was assigned two camp counselors. Cabin Seven was assigned a college aged camp counselor named “Dean” and Father Matt. Dean was a long-haired college student in his early twenties and was excited to plan the various daily activities for the boys. There were many college students during that time who took summer jobs as camp counselors for the CYO organization that summer.

  The summer of 1969 was an exciting summer indeed, with the astronauts walking on the moon, the Woodstock music festival going on, Chicago Cubs baseball and the Beatles were still popular. The young fourth graders at that time were beginning to put down their baseball cards and comic books, and starting to discover girls, fast cars, rock and roll, and of course, Playboy magazines. Their first night in cabin seven was uneventful, as the boys stayed up for some scary ghost stories, told by Father Matt, with accompanying sound effects by Dean and the others.

  Everyone knew the drill. If they had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, quietly got up and walked over to the latrine without slamming the front door and waking everyone up in the cabin. The bathroom located outside of the cabin was approximately 200 yards away, and had several toilets, sinks, and open hot showers where the boys were required to shower in the morning.

  That first morning, Father Matt wo
ke up the boys at 7:00am, and made sure all of them had their toiletries before walking single file to the latrine. Some of the boys made comments that they thought it was unusual that Father Matt felt it necessary to supervise them while they all are taking showers. He would stand by the shower stalls and watch each one of the boys lather up. Perhaps, many thought, he was making sure none of them were ‘horsing around’, as some of them would throw bars of soap and snap towels at one another while Fr. Matt wasn’t looking.

  Each morning, Father Matt played a game with the boys. He had them finish their showers and wrap themselves tightly with their towels around their waists. He would then have them line up, and sprint back to the cabin with their hands on their heads, wearing only their towels. If their towels fell off during the foot race, they had to finish the race without wearing them. In order keep the boys from getting homesick, there weren’t any telephones available for the young boys to call their parents at the camp. The telephones were in the clinic and the offices next to the mess hall, and unless it was an emergency, the boys weren’t allowed to call home. Everyone took naps after lunch for an hour in the afternoon, and that was when the boys could write letters home.

  After the third day at camp, young Johnny was starting to feel homesick. He wrote his mother everyday while he was at camp and told Mrs. Fortuna about all their fun camping activities. On one occasion, he wrote her about their daily towel sprinting activities every morning. Johnny’s mother failed to find the humor in these naked foot races and tried to contact the CYO camp office to communicate her displeasure. She was assured by the CYO supervisor that these races were a camp tradition and were supervised by all the camp counselors in “good fun.”

  One evening, in the middle of the night, Bobby was awakened by one of the boys sleeping on the top bunk adjacent to his. His name was Stephan, and he was crying, while burying his face against his pillow.

  “What’s wrong Stephan? Did you have a bad dream?” Bobby innocently asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you okay?” he insisted.

  “No,” he answered.

  Just then, Father Matt quietly walked into the cabin, and ordered both boys to fall back asleep without making any more noise. He then walked up to Stephan’s top bunk and tried to comfort him, letting him know that everything was going to “be okay”.

  The next several nights, Bobby noticed that there were several other boys who had ventured out to use the latrine in the middle of the night, and a few of them would come back fairly upset when they arrived back in their bunk beds.

  The following day, Johnny approached Bobby while they were at the archery range.

  “Bobby, do you still have your knife?” he asked his friend.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Someone has been hiding in the stalls and making the kids play ‘Doctors’ with him in the middle of the night when they get up to go to the bathroom. Joey just told me,” Johnny said.

  “Maybe it’s a Boogey Man,” Bobby laughed out loud.

  “No! Seriously Bobby! Someone is out there! Every night!”

  “Okay, so you want to go out and stab them?” Bobby asked.

  “No. But maybe we should check it out tonight,” Johnny suggested.

  The boys both agreed that they would venture out in the middle of the night that evening and keep watch at the latrine. Around 2:00am, the two boys grabbed their pocket knife snuck out of Cabin Seven to the outside latrine. The latrine was dark and there were no lights on. They waited behind the bushes, as they watched one of the boys from another cabin, get up to go to the bathroom.

  Several minutes passed, until they both heard some crying and some screaming coming from inside of the latrine. The two boys rushed into the latrine and turned the lights on. A man with a mask, wearing only a tee shirt and boxer shorts, ran out of the back entrance. A young boy, standing over the bathroom stall with his pants down, was crying profusely.

  “What happened?” Bobby asked the boy.

  “That man tried to shove something inside of me while I was peeing,” the boy said while crying between breathes. Neither of the boys got a good look at the man when he quickly ran out of the latrine.

  Johnny and Bobby walked the distraught little boy back to Cabin Five where he was staying, then snuck back to their beds and their cabin. The next morning, Johnny and Bobby mentioned something to Father Matt about seeing a ‘boogey man’ attacking a boy in the latrine the night before. Father Matt dismissed the incident, saying that it was probably one of the camp counselors playing a ‘scary ghost game’ with the boys from another cabin.

  There were several more instances that occurred after that evening with different boys in their cabins, but Johnny and Bobby just dismissed it as part of their “ghost story” camp games. On the final evening of camp, Bobby had to get up to go to the bathroom. He got down from his bunk, and grabbed his pocket knife, just in case. It was about 2:00am. Bobby walked alone to the latrine, where the lights had been shut off and it was dark.

  As he removed his pajamas and stood over the urinal, someone covered his mouth from behind. Before he could turn around, he felt someone pushing his head up against the tiled wall. Bobby, still grasping his pocket knife, thrust it into the leg of the attacker. There was a loud scream, and Bobby quickly pulled up his pajamas and ran back to his cabin. As he tried to wake up Dean to tell him of the incident, he noticed that Father Matt was not there in his bed. Grabbing a flash-light, Dean and Bobby ventured out back to the latrine to investigate. There wasn’t any sign of anyone or anything, anywhere around the outdoor bathrooms or showers.

  “Where is Father Matt?” Bobby demanded to know.

  “Matt has trouble sleeping and is probably reading his book over at the mess hall,” Dean replied.

  They walked around the camp looking for the intruder but found no sign of him anywhere.

  Bobby returned to his bunk by 4:00am but was too wound up and upset to fall back asleep.

  That final morning, all the boys lined up to board the school bus, which was taking them back to Chicago. Father Matt was supervising the trip back home and was walking with a slight limp.

  When one of the boys asked him about it, he mentioned that he had pulled a thigh muscle from all the camp activities the day before. All the campers filled the empty seats of the bus, and they began their journey back to the parking lot of Holy Family School, where all their parents were waiting.

  As Father Matt was standing in the middle of the aisle of the school bus, playing different games with the other campers, Johnny noticed something on Father Matt’s right pant leg, as he was wearing his long pants on an unusually hot, scorching summer day. He told Bobby about it, and they both looked at each other in horror.

  Father Matt’s right thigh was bleeding.

  That following September of 1969, when the boys returned to Holy Family School to start the school year, everyone was surprised to learn that Father Matt had not returned to teach at their school. The only explanation given to the parents and children was that Father Matt had been transferred to teach at another Catholic grade school on the far south side of Chicago, where he was badly needed. It wasn’t until over thirty years later, when all the rumors were confirmed that several boys at the CYO camp were attacked and sexually molested during that summer of 1969. A hand full of parents had complained to the Archdiocese of Chicago at the time about the inappropriate camp episodes, and after an internal investigation were told by the Archdiocese that the perpetrator of these “incidents” had been punished.

  But no one at Holy Family School ever made mention of Father Matthew McDougall again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rush Medical Hospital

  A white, silver haired man in a newly acquired rental car sat in the parking lot of Rush Medical Hospital on West Harrison Street. It was a warm, wet Tuesday afternoon, and the severe morning thunderstorms had left large puddles of water scattered across the hospital parking lot. The man, wearing a black shirt and whit
e collar, had been sitting in his Avis, blue Chevy Impala with stolen license plates for almost an hour, situating himself in his new, clergy uniform before entering the medical facility. He was carefully applying his makeup, putting on a ‘skull cap’ to cover his grey hair and to accompany his ornate disguise.

  The imposter gazed at his rear-view mirror and complimented himself at how distinguished and authentic he looked on that day. He had purchased his new priest ensemble from the internet last week and was busy fine-tuning his white clergy collar and dusting off his black, short sleeve shirt. He put on his dark Ray-Ban sunglasses and hoped that his wearing them on a cloudy day wouldn’t seem too obvious. Grabbing his dark raincoat from the back seat, he exited his car. The stranger was careful to make sure that the contents in his raincoat didn’t fall out of his coat pocket, as he casually walked through the revolving front doors and towards the hospital information desk.

  “I’m Monsignor Joseph Kilbane, and I’m here to visit Matthew McDougall. Could you give me his room number please?” he asked the nice old lady at the reception desk.

  The volunteer senior receptionist was all too eager to assist the priest, who had approached her at the front desk. She immediately noticed how distinguished the older cleric looked, even though he was wearing his dark sunglasses on a cloudy, rainy Chicago day.

  As he was signing the guest register, she immediately noticed a shiny, gold ring with a red cross that he was wearing on his right hand, and in her mind, automatically confirmed that he was a Man of God.

  “Did the sun finally come out this afternoon, Father?” she asked the friendly looking pastor.

  “Eh… yes, it will,” he nervously said. “These are prescription sunglasses.”