A Rose From The Executioner

by Edward Izzi

  “I’ve got a stack of Benny’s that says Kilbane didn’t do this. He’s way too smart to just show up at a hospital ward in the middle of the day and start stabbing somebody. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Maybe the Archdiocese is getting hard up for the insurance money…maybe they’re getting desperate,” Tommy suggested.

  “Desperate enough to do this? Why didn’t he just drop off his driver’s license at the front desk before going upstairs and stabbing the shit out of that old priest? Why stab a terminal cancer patient with only days to live?” Rizzo asked.

  “Do you guys really think he’s that stupid? Or that desperate? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “Phil was just saying the same thing.” Tommy just looked at me directly, now realizing that I wasn’t the only one losing my mind.

  “But you’ve been leaning hard on Kilbane since the very beginning, Phil. You should be happy now that we can “collar” him on this murder and maybe, the other two murders as well,” Morton said.

  I only shook my head in silence, watching Chaz Rizzo maneuver his cigarette as though it were a Cuban cigar.

  “Don’t get me wrong guys,” I slowly replied. “I have no love whatsoever for Monsignor Kilbane. If he did this, he belongs in the deepest, darkest halls of Hell, just for the way he cut up and filleted those victims. But I’m not interested in locking up the wrong guy for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  “Hey guys, we’ve got a collar now,” exclaimed Tommy. ”We’ve got a solved murder and maybe, we just took the ‘Pedophile Priest Murderer’ off the streets. Kilbane is obviously a ‘whack-job’ with anger issues against pedophiles. I say let’s go over to O’Callaghan’s on Hubbard Street and celebrate,” he proclaimed.

  I could tell that Tommy Morton had about as much energy as I did. After a hard day’s work of interviewing hospital personnel and investigating these recent homicides, I knew he was full of shit. Tommy probably didn’t have the stamina to hold up a beer bottle, let alone go off drinking and partying at some ‘gin mill’ on a week night.

  “You guys go ahead,” I told Tommy and Rizzo, knowing full well that Detective Morton would never be caught dead sitting at the same bar with Channel Eight’s most famous news reporter.

  “I’m exhausted. I’ll meet you at the Twenty-Fifth in the morning, Tom,” I said, knowing that we would have Monsignor Kilbane all to ourselves tomorrow in lock-up.

  “I’m right behind you, Phil…good night.” Detective Morton jumped in his squad car and beat me to the parking lot exit.

  I casually walked a few feet away towards my Crown Victoria, got in and started the ignition. I waved to Rizzo, who was still standing outside of his news truck, finishing his cigarette. He nodded and locked his eyes again with mine, still displaying that worried look on his face. He seemed to be in a trance.

  We both knew that the “Pedophile Priest Murderer” was still out there on the streets.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Kilbane Interrogation

  The early daybreak traffic was heavy that morning, as I was making a turn on Grand Avenue over to the Twenty-Fifth Police District. I had just acquired my Dunkin’ Donuts large coffee, cream and sugar at the drive thru, with my usual toasted sesame seed bagel, extra cream cheese. I was maneuvering my police squad car with ‘three hands’, using two of them to keep my coffee from spilling onto my lap while negotiating a left-hand turn onto the precinct parking lot. I had switched over lately to Dunkin’ Donuts from Starbucks for my early morning routine, realizing that I couldn’t afford it anymore on my meager detective’s salary. Since numbers weren’t my strong suit, it took me several years to figure out that I could buy a half dozen jelly donuts for the same price as one Starbucks venti, extra wet, low fat cappuccino with a double of shot of caramel macchiato.

  I walked into the Twenty-Fifth District and was greeted by Desk Sergeant Donald Ettinger, who was expecting both myself and Detective Morton that morning to interview and interrogate Monsignor Joseph Kilbane. He was picked up last night at his Lincoln Park luxury townhouse and had spent the night in lockup until his plea hearing later that morning. I was fully expecting him to have his attorney on hand when we arrived.

  “Hey Philly,” I could hear Tommy Morton walking in behind me as I was checking in with the front desk. I put the bagel in my mouth while I was shaking Tommy’s hand, and temporarily maneuvered my breakfast onto the desk sergeant’s front desk.

  “Dunkin’ Donuts and bagels, I see, huh’ Philly,” I was totally expecting him to make one of his ‘when are you gonna join Weight Watchers’ comments as he was walking through the front precinct door.

  “You otta’ switch to coffee and cigarettes… breakfast of champions, you know,” he said, flicking his cigarette butt out the front door.

  “Yeah, right Tommy.”

  “Where’s our boy?” he eagerly asked.

  “Still in lock up, I’m sure. We won’t be able to talk to him until his ‘Prince of Darkness’ attorney shows up, and I’ll bet he’s still not here.”

  We had an eight o’clock appointment with the desk sergeant and Kilbane’s attorney along with his client, and I fully expected the upscale, Monadnock Building, criminal attorney to be late for our early morning interview.

  “Kilbane and his attorney are in the interview room, waiting for you two,” Sergeant Ettinger announced to my surprise.

  “His attorney is here already? I’m shocked,” as I smiled, still trying to finish my sesame seed bagel.

  “At $650 dollars an hour, I’m sure the Archdiocese expects him to be here on time, especially if their Chief of Staff is doing a ‘sleep over’ here in lock-up” the Sergeant replied.

  We both followed the desk sergeant over to the interrogation room, which I immediately noticed, was fully monitored with several cameras mounted on each corner of the interview area.

  “What? Are we making movies now?” I immediately asked the Sergeant.

  “The Ivory Tower just had us install these cameras. Apparently, there have been too many prisoner ‘rough ups’ that have been getting the P.D. into too many lawsuits and a lot of bad media publicity lately,” he replied.

  “That’s too bad,” Morton replied.

  “We’ve got a ‘luxury hotel suit’ downstairs, if you guys ever need to use it,” the Sergeant suggested, referring to the basement ‘cage’ that was used to ‘interrogate’ high risk prisoners, without any cameras or witnesses.

  “Thanks, Sarg,” I replied. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

  The desk sergeant unlocked the door and opened the interview room, where the Monsignor and his well-dressed attorney were waiting. Kilbane was wearing an orange jump suit and had been stripped of his clothing and gold crucifix, which he had always blatantly displayed as if it were some sort of holstered weapon. He looked pretty beat up, and was unshaven, dirty and tired. The Monsignor looked, as though he hadn’t slept. It was probably on account of his trying to sleep on those hard, uncomfortable cots, and having to share his extravagant new digs with ‘Bubba’ and a few of his other new roommates.

  His appearance contrasted with his overpriced attorney, David Herzog, wearing a black, pin-striped Ermenegildo Zegna suit with several gold rings and an oversized, diamond studded Rolex watch. His expensive Creed cologne was overbearing, as his morning scent took over the interrogation room. The strong smell reminded me of being in some sort of sleazy, sordid French whorehouse.

  “Well, well, look who’s back for a visit?” I managed to say, knowing that I was going to thoroughly enjoy the next fun-filled hour with our newest, high profile prisoner.

  “Good morning Detectives,” David managed to say, as he stood up to shake our hands. The Monsignor was silent, and sat there motionless, letting his attorney do all the talking.

  “As you both are aware, my client did not commit this murder,” he began his volley.

  “We’ve got your boy on video cameras entering the hospital and the cancer ward, and several of th
e hospital staff have I-D’d him in the surveillance tapes and witnessed him going into the patient’s hospital room. He also left us a present at the crime scene,” Detective Morton began.

  “Sorry, Counselor. This time, your boy ‘ain’t walkin’,” I said, still holding my soon-to-be cold Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

  The high-end Monadnock attorney started throwing around that cocky smile of his, probably thinking his client was going to ‘dance out of here’ the same way he did after his prior DUI arrest. Even though I had a feeling in my gut that Kilbane wasn’t the killer, I was not about to let him walk out of here again the same way he did two weeks ago.

  “We’ve asked to see the security videos photographs from Rush Hospital, detectives. It’s going to be difficult to keep him here under arrest, with his being elsewhere other than at the hospital yesterday afternoon.”

  “Humor us, Counselor. Where was your client yesterday, between 3:00 and 3:30pm?”

  “He was at the Archdiocese, working as usual. His ‘admin’ can attest to it.”

  “Unless he has video security cameras proving he was there, that’s going to be a tough sell, Counselor. I’ve met his administrative assistant there at the Archdiocese, and her word or anyone else’s at the diocese office isn’t going to be enough to convince us or the plea hearing judge to believe he was anywhere else,” I sternly replied.

  “He’s not going to ‘alibi out’ this time,” Tommy said, as he had already convinced himself that Kilbane was the one and only “Pedophile Murderer”.

  “We’ve also got his blue Chevy Malibu along with the license plates, registered to the Archdiocese,” I casually mentioned.

  “Those license plates were stolen off of a similar vehicle, parked at the Cardinal’s mansion,” Herzog replied.

  I looked over at Tommy. He had ‘poured over’ the surveillance tapes at the hospital yesterday and had ran those “V46-1038” Illinois license plates several times, registering to the Chicago Archdiocese.

  “Did anyone report those plates stolen?” Detective Morton asked.

  “No, Detectives. It wasn’t discovered until last night after Monsignor Kilbane was arrested. The car had been sitting in the parking lot and hadn’t been driven by anyone at the mansion for a few days. No one noticed the missing plates until after my client was picked up,” David argued.

  “Besides, my client regularly drives a black, Cadillac CTS, not a blue Chevy Malibu.”

  “Really? And your client would never switch cars before driving over to the hospital and stabbing the shit out of some terminal cancer patient? Do you think that argument is really going to work?” Tommy replied.

  “We’ve already talked to the State’s Attorney’s office. They’re going to ask the judge to hold your boy here, without bail,” I stated, looking directly at Kilbane.

  “Why?” the Monsignor angrily responded, “I didn’t kill anybody!” His attorney was grasping his client’s hand, trying to silently tell him not to talk. I looked at Kilbane and his short, over-priced attorney and decided to throw them both a curve ball.

  “Okay, Father Joe. I want to show you that I’m a reasonable, God-fearing Catholic. How about if you tell us why you were at that restaurant two weeks ago having that meeting with Little Tony with a suit case full of cash?” I said as the Monsignor glared at me in his orange jump suit.

  “Seriously, Monsignor. Tell us what the hell you were doing with fifty large in cash, having dinner with Tony DiMatteo at the Trattoria Pagliacci two weeks ago, and I’ll go back to the DA’s office and convince him to talk to the judge about getting you released on bail,” I repeated my offer again to the prisoner. He just sat there, speechless. David only looked at me, wondering if I was serious.

  “I will have to talk to my client about your offer.”

  “There is nothing to talk about,” I angrily replied. “We’ve got you boy on Candid Camera at the hospital before and after the murder yesterday. If he wants to go home and sleep in his own bed tonight, he’s gotta’ give us Little Tony.”

  Monsignor Kilbane only sat there silently, and his face was expressionless.

  “You see, Counselor, I know why your client was having dinner with Little Tony that night. He was trying to pay him off for a ‘murder for hire’ proposition that he figured the DiMatteo Family had already executed. When he realized that Tony wasn’t interested, or for whatever reason, decided not to commit the murder or accept his money, your client decided to take out these pedophile ex-priests himself,” I exclaimed.

  “It’s pretty well known around the Chicago Archdiocese that the Monsignor, here, isn’t very fond of these retired pedophile ex-priests who were forced to resign and now, have these high-priced insurance policies on their heads,” I stated even though, I knew deep down in my gut, that Kilbane probably wasn’t the murderer.

  “We know your client isn’t going to ‘rat-out” his grade school buddy. The ‘Rules of Bridgeport’ just don’t work that way, Counselor.”

  The two of them only sat there, silent. I knew that, even if we had him on a ‘YouTube’ video as ‘Jack the Ripper’, Kilbane was not about to turn in his Mafia ‘pallie’, whom he was trying to use to solicit a murder. We all knew that Kilbane just didn’t “roll” that way.

  “There’s a lot of holes in your story and this investigation, Detective. Monsignor Kilbane isn’t the ‘Pedophile Priest Murderer’” he loudly protested, knowing that he couldn’t offer up any more excuses for his client.

  “Counselor, if he isn’t the ‘Pedophile Priest Murderer’, he is definitely the ‘Pedophile Priest Insurance Collector’. Your client here, hasn’t wasted any time submitting the insurance claims on these murdered ex-priests. So, we can all agree that there is a motive, especially with all of these child molestation lawsuits being filed against the Archdiocese.”

  “There is no law against filing an insurance claim, Detective.”

  “Yeah, but…come on, Counselor. These damn priests were still warm in their graves when the Monsignor here, submitted the paperwork to collect the insurance money. You’re not going to be able to dispute that. There is definitely a motive here, Mr. Herzog.”

  The attorney and his client sat there, totally speechless.

  “We’re looking forward to having fun at the plea hearing and criminal arraignment this morning, boys,” Detective Morton gloated, as we both stood up from the interview table.

  “We’ll see you both in court, Gentlemen,” I said, drinking what was left inside of my styrofoam Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup and leaving the interrogation room.

  Kilbane’s plea hearing and criminal arraignment was scheduled for ten o’clock that morning, but I knew there wasn’t going to be any surprises. The Cook County Prosecutors’ Office was under a lot of pressure, along with the Chicago P.D., to make an arrest, any arrest, on these Pedophile Priest Murders. The way I figured it, it was in the best interest of everyone in Chicago to keep Kilbane locked up at Cook County Jail on South California, until we all figured out who the real Pedophile Priest Murderer was.

  Tommy Morton agreed to hang out at the courthouse over at Twenty Sixth and California for Kilbane’s plea hearing, in case he needed to testify. I knew it was going to be a total ‘media zoo’ over there, and I wasn’t interested in being a part of that. Regardless of what the hospital witnesses and video tapes disclosed regarding this homicide case, my investigative intuition was telling me otherwise. As I returned to my squad car, my inner voice was screaming at me, deep down inside.

  The ‘Pedophile Priest Murderer’ was still out there, making plans for his next victim.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A Prisoner’s Suicide

  It was probably around 11:30 that morning when my stomach started making noises, and I began thinking about lunch. I had made a huge pork roast in the ‘crock pot’ the night before and had enough leftovers to tie me over for the next few days. I had brown-bagged my lunch that day, so I had walked into the precinct cafeteria and grabbed my food out o
f the refrigerator, along with a Diet Coke. My mind was so embossed in these pedophile priest murders that I could hardly wrap my head around anything else.

  The arraignment in court that morning went as expected. Monsignor Kilbane was being held without bail, as the DA’s office easily linked the video and security cameras at Rush Medical Hospital to Kilbane, casually walking into the hospital and committing the gruesome murder.

  But something was said at Kilbane’s interrogation that I just couldn’t get out of my head. It was on my mind all morning. Those stolen Illinois license plates, the “V46-1038” plates that were registered to the Archdiocese of Chicago, matched the same plates with the same car description on the parking lot security cameras. I sent a squad car over to the Cardinal’s mansion to pick up the blue Chevy Impala which had been sitting in their lot, and indeed, the parked Impala was without a license plate. We impounded the car, and CSI was going through the vehicle for prints and other evidence.

  What if the blue Chevy Impala wasn’t the same car in the surveillance tapes? What if another, similar car with those stolen plates was used? A rental car perhaps?

  I started calling all the car rental agencies in the Chicagoland area and the airports, asking for any records involving the rental of a ‘late model blue Chevy Impala’ during the last seventy-two hours. After some hard digging and spending most of the afternoon on the phone, three hits came back. One rental was from Avis Rental Car, the other two rentals were from Enterprise Car Rental. Of those three car rentals, one was a female in her late fifties, a psychiatrist from Rochester, New York, who had returned the car yesterday morning. The other car rental was to an older retired couple from Sarasota, Florida, who still had the rented car until tomorrow.

  That left a 59-year-old male, by the name of Lawrence Bartell, who resided at 5208 North Narragansett in Chicago. He returned a blue Chevy Impala late last night to the Avis rental office at O’Hare Airport. I had the young lady at Avis scan and email the contract directly to my computer. The first question in my mind, was why would a local resident need a rental car?