A Rose From The Executioner

by Edward Izzi

  He thought about it for a moment, trying to remember what little he had learned in grade school or in catechism class.

  “Let’s see…there was John, Luke, Matthew and Mark, right?” He was naming them off using his four fingers and seemed puzzled, not sure if he had rendered the correct answer.

  “That’s right Tom. Now, what were the first names of the murder victims?”

  He looked at me for several long seconds as he was trying to get some well needed caffeine into his body. Suddenly, I could see the transformation on his face.

  “Oh my God,” he managed to say. He looked at me, his blue eyes were as big as saucers.

  “So, you’re thinking there will be another ‘Pedophile Priest Murder’ victim, and his first name will be ‘Mark’?”

  “Exactly.”

  Tommy took a long sip of his black, Caffé Americano coffee, which wasn’t any more special or flavorful than the same coffee at McDonald’s, but only three dollars more. He was deep in thought, putting together the ‘SRC’ ring theory and the ‘secret society’ information that I had told him about earlier that week.

  “Phil, you’re assuming there will be another murder victim. I’m not sure that’s going to happen, especially now that Kilbane has checked out and is missing.”

  “Tommy, the Number Four is a significant number in Christianity and in the Bible. If these supposed ‘assassins’ of the Pope are hell bent on eliminating ex-priests, then I think there’s a pattern here. The fact that these guys have first names that correspond to the biblical evangelists is a noteworthy pattern.” I explained.

  “Assuming there is going to be another murder. The Number Three’ is a significant number too,” Tommy said, referring to the Holy Trinity. “If Kilbane really is the murderer, we’re wasting our time.”

  “I think we need to get some decent ‘intel information’ here and find out all the names and whereabouts of any and all ex-priests with the first name of ‘Mark’ or any name like it in the Chicagoland area. Then we put some surveillance on that person or persons, and see if we can prove up this pattern,” I hypothesized. “We also need to put a tag on Russo. I’ve got big money that says he’s somehow connected to all of this, along with DiMatteo’s Consigliere.”

  “Who? Marrocco?” he verified.

  “Yes.”

  “You obviously know very little about the Mafia. You can pass on Marrocco,” Tommy said.

  “Why?”

  “Crime Family Consiglieri’s don’t do murders. They advise. They consult. They don’t kill. We don’t need to waste any time on Marrocco,” he reasoned.

  “But Tommy, Sal Marrocco wears an ‘SRC’ ring,” I said.

  “That doesn’t mean he’s personally killing anyone. Maybe he’s just a part of this ‘secret society’ acting as their consigliere as well,” Morton said, taking another sip of his over-priced coffee.

  “We can’t pick him up for questioning. He will then know that we’re on to him,” Tommy said.

  Several long, quiet minutes ticked by, as Detective Tommy Morton sat there in the middle of Starbucks, wearing his ugly Jimmy Buffett tee shirt, looking as though he were having a ‘divine intervention’.

  “What if Marrocco is the real guy who instigated these murders?” Tommy asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who do you think informed these guys about Kilbane’s plan to hire out a DiMatteo hit man to perform these murders? I’m willing to bet that it was Sal Marrocco who let the ‘cat out of the bag’.”

  At that moment, Tommy Morton, with the help of ‘Jimmy Buffett’ and his undrinkable coffee, put it all together.

  “Little Tony, who probably tells his Consigliere everything, told Marrocco about Kilbane’s idea, and Marrocco in turn, informed the ‘Society of the Rose Crucifix’ about it. It was Marrocco who gave the ‘SRC’ the green light to kill off these pedophile ex-priests. In this way, this ‘secret society’ takes out all of these ‘holy pedophiles’ and puts the blame squarely on the Archdiocese,” Tommy explained.

  “And seeing that the Archdiocese supported and hid these ‘pedophile priests’ from the public for so many years, this ‘secret society’ now has an old axe to grind with the Cardinal. With the Chicago Archdiocese as the beneficiaries of these high dollar life insurance policies, they would now have the perfect motive to execute these old ex-priests,” I reasoned out loud.

  We both nodded our heads, realizing that our theoretical hypothesis was not farfetched. It all seemed to make perfect sense. Little Tony must have mentioned his conversation with Kilbane last Christmas to his family Consigliere, who in turn, informed his ‘Mickey Mouse Club’ society of killers. With these life insurance policies lingering around, they now have an excuse to execute these pedophile ex-priests, putting the blame squarely on Kilbane and the Archdiocese.

  I felt like I had just finished a very difficult, 1000-piece puzzle and had finally inserted the very last puzzle piece. Tommy and I just looked at each other, nodding our heads that early Sunday morning in the middle of Starbucks.

  We both then realized that there was one more ‘Pedophile Priest Murder’ just waiting to happen.

  And we had to get there first.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Little Veronica

  The parking lot of Resurrection Hospital in Chicago was nearly packed with cars as Fr. Mark Ryan searched for a parking space for his new 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. His parents had just purchased the car for him after his graduation from the seminary and didn’t want to get the car nicked or scratched in the parking lot. He was looking for a remote parking space away from the other cars.

  His mother and father were very proud of him, as he had just been assigned as the associate pastor for St. Charles Parish in Jefferson Park. He was all too eager to impress his pastor after his recent graduation from Sacred Heart Seminary that previous spring in 1979. Fr. Mark wanted to go above and beyond his normal, pastoral job duties at the Jefferson Park church. He had spent several previous summers doing volunteer work for the Catholic missions in Sudan, Chad and Ethiopia and was very happy to be home again in Chicago. Fr. Mark was all too eager to enjoy the summer in his first obligation as a Catholic priest, doing local pastoral work in his new assignment with the Archdiocese of Chicago.

  He had been asked by his pastor, Fr. Thomas O’Shea, to anoint an eight-year-old little girl who had just had her appendix removed. Her family did a lot of volunteer work at St. Charles Parish, and wanted their daughter to be anointed and given Holy Communion that morning. She was a third grader at the catholic grade school there and had just made her First Communion that previous spring.

  Little Veronica DiCarlo had been in the hospital for four days. She was a cute, rambunctious little girl with dark curly brown hair and big brown eyes the size of saucers. She was slowly recovering from her appendix operation, as her appendix had burst while she was playing at recess last week. The third grader was very fortunate that Sister Marianne was attentive enough to immediately drive her to the Resurrection Hospital emergency room, rather than waste precious minutes waiting for an ambulance. She was up and alert that morning and was coloring in her Disney coloring book when Fr. Mark entered her room in the children’s ward on the fourth floor.

  “Good morning Veronica,” Fr. Mark said as he entered her room. He noticed immediately that the other hospital bed next to hers was vacant.

  “Good morning, Father Mark,” she excitedly said. She was very familiar with the young handsome priest, who would periodically assist the grade school nuns and in teaching religion and gym classes at the St. Charles grade school. Veronica’s heart would skip a beat every time she saw Fr. Mark and had confided to her other girlfriends that she had quite a crush on him.

  “How are they treating you here, Veronica?”

  “Just great, Father. I just had pancakes for breakfast with French toast and syrup. I get ice cream every night with chocolate chip cookies too. I’m never going home,” she excitedly exclaimed, as
she continued to color a Daisy Duck page from her coloring book with her crayons.

  “How are you feeling? You look fine,” the young priest observed.

  “I feel great. The doctors said if I’m better they will send me home tomorrow. But I don’t want to go home. I like it here.”

  Fr. Ryan started to laugh. “I think your mom and dad would rather you come home and be with your brothers and sisters. Besides, you don’t want to get too far behind on your school work.”

  It was late October of that school year in 1979, and the teachers had sent over some homework for her to finish and complete before she returned to class. Veronica was the youngest of six children, and with her mother and father both working full time, depended on her older siblings to watch over her until her parents returned home from work. The eight-year-old was responsible for doing her chores around the house for her five dollar per week allowance, as was happy to be able to skip out on those responsibilities while she recovered in the hospital.

  The little girl excitedly told the young priest of her hospital experiences, with all the doctors and nurses fussing over her since her operation. As the youngest child of a large family, little Veronica always felt ignored. She didn’t receive the same kind of attention that her older siblings received in her devoutly Catholic family and was always excited when Fr. Mark was ‘nice to her.’

  After he exchanged more pleasantries with the little girl, he put on his white stole and closed the curtains around her hospital bed. He withdrew a bottle of holy water, a black beaded rosary and a small bible from his small black brief case and began praying over the eight-year-old. He said several prayers from his small bible and gave the little girl communion, helping her say her prayers of thanks.

  As Fr. Mark Ryan prayed, his mind would frequently go elsewhere. Fr. Mark was aware of the dark, obscure demons that were hidden deep within his soul. As a newly ordained priest, he often struggled with the ‘celibacy vow’ that he had taken as a young seminarian. He had regularly taken advantage of the young Sudanese and Ethiopian girls while he was a missionary, never having to answer to anyone regarding his deviant sexual behavior. He often prayed for strength, as he intensely struggled to control his aberrant, pedophile urges.

  Fr. Mark gave the eight-year-old little girl the black rosary as a gift, showing her how to pray and recite the different prayers associated with each bead. He explained the sacred mysteries that were associated with the rosary, and how to recite them.

  He then suddenly, asked little Veronica to show him her operation scars, as he withdrew the bed sheets off her. The little girl was all too eager to do so, as he placed his hands over her operation bandages, anointing them with holy water.

  As the little girl was looking on, he withdrew a small flask of baby oil from his black bag and began rubbing the little girl’s body. He explained to her that it was ‘holy oil’ and began rubbing the oil up and down her young body, putting his hand on her genitals and placing extra oil on her ‘private parts.’ The little girl didn’t know what was going on and was startled by the priest’s continued fondling beneath her hospital gown.

  “You know, Veronica, you must never speak to anyone about this holy oil that I am rubbing on you. This is a special oil from Jesus and will heal you much faster than the medicines and the special bandages the doctors put on you.”

  “Yes, Father,” replied the little girl, as she was all too eager to comply with the young priest.

  “Do you remember what I told you in religion class? They do nail little girls to the cross too when they break special secrets with the priests. You do remember, right?”

  “Oh yes, Father Mark. I don’t want to be nailed on the cross like Jesus did.”

  Fr. Mark continued to rub oil and fondle the young girl, until he heard one of the nurses enter her hospital room. He quickly withdrew his hands and covered her with the bed sheet, as the nurse opened the curtains.

  “Is everything okay here,” the older nurse asked, looking suspiciously at the young priest.

  “Oh yes. Father Mark was just blessing my operation,” Veronica said.

  The nurse looked at the little girl and removed the bed sheet that was covering her. She immediately noticed the excessive amount of baby oil covering the young girl’s body.

  “What is going on here?” the nurse demanded.

  “I was just anointing her, and Veronica here has just received Holy Communion, right?” as the little girl nodded with agreement.

  The older nurse glared at the young priest, as he was removing his holy stole and depositing his small bible back into his black bag. She became immediately suspicious, as Fr. Mark Ryan bade his ‘farewells’ and hastily left the hospital children’s ward. ‘Nurse Linda’, which the little girl called her and oversaw the children’s ward, began asking questions to Veronica as to what had just happened after the priest exited her room.

  “Nothing,” she continued to say, afraid of being ‘nailed to the cross like Jesus’ if she mentioned anything to anyone about what had just happened. Convinced that something inappropriate had occurred, she placed a call to St. Charles Parish and mentioned something to Veronica’s parents when they came to visit their daughter later that evening.

  Pastor O’Shea immediately dismissed the report from the hospital, as he knew that his newly ordained young priest ‘was very well liked’ within St. Charles’s Parish and that the incident would be quickly forgotten. The third-grader’s parents, knowing that their youngest child had a propensity to ‘exaggerate’ the truth, figured that the ‘holy oil’ used by Fr. Mark was all a part of his anointing ritual in spiritually healing their littlest girl. They figured that the nurse was obviously overreacting.

  Veronica DiCarlo continued to attend St. Charles’s School, along with her siblings, and graduated from the eighth grade in 1985. Throughout her grade school years, she was asked periodically to visit Father Ryan at St. Charles’s rectory after school. He told her that her appendix scar needed to be ‘blessed’ so that the intense pain would never come back, and the young priest continued to cover the girl with ‘holy oil’. He would fondle her and then eventually, began repeatedly raping her. She was continuously reminded not to say anything to anyone, as she did not want to be ‘nailed to the cross like Jesus’, the same cross as the one on her black rosary.

  Veronica cherished that black beaded rosary Fr. Mark had given her at the hospital as a little girl, and often carried it with her. Because Veronica was neglected so often at home, she appreciated the attention she received from Father Mark, and didn’t suspect there was anything wrong with the priest’s behavior until she started attending Mother Guerin High School in River Grove. She described her experiences to her counselor, Sister Magdalena, who eventually, reported the incidents to the Archdiocese of Chicago.

  One of the Archdiocesan priests came to the high school to interview the sixteen-year-old Veronica. By then, she was barely passing her classes and her erratic school behavior was becoming quite dubious. By the time she was a senior in high school, she was a full-blown drug addict. She had spent several weeks in alcohol rehabilitation and had been suspended several times for her problematic conduct and excessive absences. The counselor had many sessions and meetings with the troubled young girl during and after school, and Sister ‘Lena’ would always remember the black rosary that Veronica always carried with her and would often wear around her neck. It took all the nun’s power, intense praying and influence to convince the other Sisters of St. Mary to graduate Veronica from Mother Guerin High School in 1989.

  Fr. Mark Ryan was often reprimanded by the Archdiocese of Chicago and was placed in ‘intense therapy’ several times, until he was forced to resign from his pastoral duties in 1992. He continued to teach at several parochial high schools in the Chicagoland area until his recent retirement. He never took responsibility for his many young rape victims, or for the psychological and emotional damage that he had inflicted on them. Little girls like Veronica DiCarlo, whom he had bee
n sexually molested and abused at a very early age, forever damaging and mutilating their young, impressable souls.

  That is, until one day a several months ago, when he received an anonymous phone call. It was from an irate, angry man with a deep, low voice. He threatened and cursed the pedophile ex-priest over the phone, explaining that the ‘deepest depths of Hell would be too good for him’, promising revenge and inflicting a ‘slow, bloody, miserable death’ very soon.

  Veronica DiCarlo, at age 45, became an alcoholic and a drug addict. She had been married, divorced and discarded several times. Veronica had several abortions and had been in and out of drug and alcohol rehab continuously throughout her life. She was literally disowned by her close knit, Italian-Catholic family. As a means of survival, she had become a prostitute and had an extensive rap sheet with the Chicago Police. Veronica often traded her body and sexual favors for food, for heroin, for alcohol and cocaine. She often slept in cardboard boxes and in flop houses, hanging out in seedy neighborhoods far away from her childhood home in Jefferson Park.

  One day, she was found dead behind an abandoned warehouse in an open field on South Stoney Island and 93rd Streets. Veronica had apparently died of a drug overdose and had been dead for several days. When the Chicago P.D. found her infested, partially decomposed body, she was gripping something tightly in her right hand:

  It was a black rosary.

  Chapter Forty

  Suspicions

  “If you didn’t want to go to church, all you had to do was say it.”

  “I’m sorry, Olivia. I just had a thought regarding these murder investigations come to my head and I had to talk to my partner about it. I become overwhelmed,” I replied, as I knew I had it coming.

  “I don’t appreciate being abandoned in the middle of mass, Phil. Whatever you got into your head could have waited until after church.”

  Olivia was right. I didn’t need to run out of that church in the middle of mass that morning. I was totally apologetic that Sunday morning as I arrived back at the loft, knowing that she would be irate and waiting for me. But these “Pedophile Priest Murders” had been overruling my life, and the thought of these serial killers still out there was completely consuming me. I knew I couldn’t trust anyone with any additional information on this case, and I had to be careful who I trusted and given any information to. At that point, I knew I could only trust Tommy Morton in my department.