Death Wears a Red Hat

by William X. Kienzle

  1

  Blessed Sacrament Cathedral

  “Shut up! you’re in the cathedral!”

  Mrs. Landry swatted her daughter Lucy’s arm in a distracted gesture. Lucy, nine years old, had been blissfully humming her way through the terminal stages of liturgically induced boredom. The two were attending an adult confirmation ceremony at Blessed Sacrament. Lucy’s father, Mrs. Landry’s husband, was being confirmed as a Roman Catholic, having been received only recently into that faith.

  In the loft, the members of the choir were killing time between hymns with casual conversation, reading or absently gazing down into the body of the church, where long lines of men and women, with their sponsors, each waited for their thirty-second sacramental encounter with the bishop. The lines were moving, but almost imperceptibly.

  Bishop Art Kenny, the confirming prelate, may have held the world’s record for prolonged confirmations. There were no stats for this sort of thing. The interminableness of Bishop Kenny’s confirmations was due entirely to the fact that he refused to confirm an unsmiling candidate. He made no secret of this. In his introductory remarks before each ceremony, he always explained in great detail that confirmation was a joyous occasion and that he would therefore not confirm anyone who was not smiling.

  This approach was offset by the reluctance, particularly on the part of Catholic laity, to smile in church. Thus, with nearly every candidate there was an additional monologue.

  “Now, you know,” His Excellency would say, giving a good example by smiling himself, “that I am not going to confirm you until you smile. So, relax, and give us a big smile for Jesus.”

  Generally, that was enough to elicit at least the kind of smile found on drivers’ licenses. Which was enough for the bishop. Which was just fine with the attendant priests, who wanted, more than anything, to get this over and relax at the end of a demanding Sunday.

  Priestly attendance at cathedral confirmations was not obligatory. But ordinarily, if anyone from any of the other parishes was being confirmed, at least one of that parish’s priests would attend. And attendance usually meant participation.

  Priestly participation in a confirmation ceremony involved either reading, pushing, or wiping. Readers stood at either side of the bishop, took from between the fingers of the confirmandi the card whereon the new name selected for this occasion was typed, and read that name aloud. Which name was then incorporated into the ceremony by the bishop, as, for instance, “John, I sign you with the sign of the cross and confirm you with the chrism of salvation. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

  Pushers stood at the foot of the altar steps on either side of the line of candidates. It was the pusher’s job to guide—not push—the candidate up the steps and into a kneeling position within anointing distance of the bishop.

  There were normally four wipers, operating in pairs. As each freshly confirmed candidate approached, the wiper located and wiped off the small dab of oil the bishop had traced on that person’s forehead. Standing near the wipers were altar boys, each holding two small baskets, one containing clean cotton balls, the other a receptacle for used cotton.

  Of all tasks, that of the wipers allowed the most opportunity for conversation. Usually, they engaged in small talk, mainly to stay awake.

  Fathers Patrick McNiff and Alfred Dalton had managed to position themselves farther from the altar than the other wipers. Thus, bothered with fewer foreheads, they had more time to talk.

  “Did you hear what happened to Archbishop Boyle last week?” McNiff deposited an oily wad of cotton in the used-ball basket.

  “Somebody picketing the Palmer Park mansion again?” Dalton balanced a cotton ball on the tip of his index finger.

  “No, it was at a confirmation at St. Kevin’s. Everything started okay. They had the procession and all. But while the Arch was facing the congregation, praying from the ritual, hands outstretched, this little altar boy gets confused, forgets there are going to be readings, and removes the chair from behind the Arch.”

  “You don’t mean—” Dalton was reluctant to dare hope that the worst had happened.

  “Yes.” McNiff’s eyes betrayed joyful gratitude that this had not happened at St. Mary Magdalen, his benefice. “The Arch sat down—all the way down to the floor.”

  Dalton strangled a guffaw. “If the people in that parish had been smart, at that moment everybody in the church would’ve sat down on the floor.”

  Lucy Landry could scarcely remember ever having been this bored. The choir was nice when it sang, but that was infrequently. Meanwhile, there was just the tedium of shuffling feet and periodic coughs. Lucy had long finished counting the pillars and windows.

  She nudged her mother. “What’s that?” She pointed to a spot of brilliant red suspended from the high ceiling directly over the main altar.

  Mrs. Landry squinted, her eyes trying to focus on the distant object. “Oh, that’s the Cardinal’s hat.”

  “What’s it doing on the ceiling?”

  “All Cardinals used to be given a hat like that when they became Cardinals.” Mrs. Landry sighed. “That one was given to Cardinal Mooney when Pope Pius made him a Cardinal.”

  “When did he wear it?”

  “Never. It’s too big and heavy to wear. A picture of it goes on the Cardinal’s coat of arms. Then, when the Cardinal dies, they hang his hat from the ceiling of the cathedral.”

  “Why?”

  “Read your prayer book.” Mrs. Landry concluded the dialogue she considered pointless.

  The two priests between Fathers McNiff and Dalton and the altar ran out of cotton. Rather than sending for a new supply, they retired to the large sacristy to rest weary bones and perhaps snatch a smoke.

  And so, business had more than doubled for McNiff and Dalton, who, by this time, were so deeply committed to their conversation that their ministrations had become increasingly perfunctory. Wiping foreheads distractedly, they frequently missed the oil spot entirely.

  “Actually, that’s kind of nice, the way Kenny makes people smile while they’re being confirmed.” Dalton, tall, balding, older than his classmates due to time spent in the Navy during World War II, was pastor of St. Rita’s on Detroit’s east side.

  “He may resemble a TV game show host at confirmations, but you should’ve seen him at my place last month. He raised some kind of hell.” McNiff, short, paunchy, silver-haired and black-browed, was a pastor in Melvindale, a western suburb of Detroit.

  “What happened?”

  “You mean you haven’t heard?” In his eagerness to tell the story, McNiff missed several oil spots. “Well, first, you may have heard that we got this new $75,000 altar from Italy—”

  “Yeah, carved out of one solid block of marble, wasn’t it?”

  “Yup. And that’s the point. Or part of it. It’s got a huge tabletop, must be four-by-ten feet. Then it slopes down, very graceful-like, to a single, small base.”

  “Hey, wait a minute, Haven’t you got a problem without four posts, one at each corner?”

  “That’s it!” McNiff almost yelled, warming to his righteous wrath. “The chancery says if it doesn’t have four legs, one at each corner, it can’t be a permanent altar!”

  “Canonically portable!”

  “Canonically portable, hell! I’d like to see one of those chancery dudes try to move it. Must weigh five, six tons.”

  “Whoever tried to move it would become Chinese.”

  “Chinese?”

  “Yeah, One-Hung-Low.” Dalton laughed alone.

  McNiff overlooked the attempt at humor. “Then you know what they made me do?”

  “What?” Dalton shook his head as he pounded a cotton ball against a forehead. It
was a clear case of overblot.

  “Since it’s not a permanent altar, they made me have a piece cut out of the central tabletop for a twelve-inch square altar stone.”

  “No!”

  “Yes! And then the stupid janitor cuts out an exact twelve-inch square, one-inch deep hole. So when his nibs Kenny comes to bless the new altar, he puts some cement in the hole, then puts the altar stone in the hole, and, of course, since the hole was cut for the stone and no allowance was made for the cement, the stone sticks up above the surface about a quarter of an inch. If you set a chalice down and hit the edge of the stone, the chalice’ll tip over.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. And when Kenny gets done and starts to leave, I pick up the hammer and go to give it a good whack to try to settle it in. And Kenny turns around and sees me and says, ‘Don’t touch that!’”

  “But if the stone won’t fit in the altar because of the cement, what good would it do to whack it?”

  “I could do it!”

  Suddenly, the monotony was shattered by a series of shrieks that would not stop.

  Lucy Landry, her eyes widened in genuine horror, was screaming uncontrollably. Head tilted, she was pointing at the ceiling.

  Mrs. Landry, sensing her daughter’s terror was unfeigned, clutched the child closely as her eyes followed in the direction of the girl’s outstretched finger.

  Shortly, many in the cathedral joined in the pointing and the screaming.

  Ushers and priests instinctively tried to restore calm and order. But it was clear to anyone with halfway decent eyesight that tucked firmly inside the crown of Cardinal Mooney’s big red hat hanging from the lofty cathedral ceiling was a human head.

  2

  St. Cecilia

  Lucky Louie Licata stared at the television screen. Monday morning traffic was heavy in the corridors of the Wayne County Morgue on the corner of Brush and Lafayette. Licata, however, was oblivious to everything but the face appearing via closed-circuit transmission from a room on the floor below. And that’s all it was, in black-and-white. No color. Just a face. No body. Just a head lying on a stretcher.

  “Holy Mother of God,” Licata breathed with almost forgotten fervor, “it’s Rudy! It’s really Rudy!”

  “Well, it’s all we could find of Rudy for the moment.” Dr. Wilhelm Moellmann, Chief Medical Examiner for Wayne County, had been studying Licata while Licata had been mesmerized by the scant remains of Rough Rudy Ruggiero. “But you do positively identify the remains as being one Rudolph Ruggiero?” The doctor, never once glancing at the television screen, continued to look intently at Licata.

  “Jesus! Willya look at him!” Licata responded obliquely. “God! His mouth is wide open and his eyes look like they’re gonna bug out. We been through a lot together. We been up against death more’n I could count. But I never seen him look so scared!”

  “But that is at least the head of one Rudolph Ruggiero? You’re certain?” Moellmann persisted.

  “Yeah,” conceded Licata, “that’s Rough Rudy. But whereinhell is the rest of him?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Finding the rest of Rudy is the responsibility of the police. My job is to determine the cause of his death.”

  “Well,” Licata turned toward Moellmann, “what was it?”

  “Gott in Himmel, how am I supposed to know!” The sudden vehemence of Moellmann’s response startled Licata, “They bring me bits and pieces of bodies and expect me to guess— that’s what it comes down to—guess at the cause of death!”

  “Hey, Doc, I didn’t—” Licata found no dialogue entrance.

  “Coroners guess! Quincy on TV guesses. Movie medics guess. A medical examiner, Mr. Licata, is a man of science.” The wiry, sandy-haired, bushy-browed doctor, his intense hazel eyes penetrating and his loose-jointed arms flailing, had backed a bewildered Licata to the wall. “A medical examiner, Mr. Licata, doesn’t guess. Either he knows or he doesn’t know. The human body has many vital organs. If any one of these is attacked, the human can die. How can a man of science determine a cause of death when he is presented with only a toe or an elbow or a head?”

  Suddenly, Moellmann leaned close to Licata, his voice reduced to a conspiratorial tone. “Do you have any ideas?”

  His basic manic personality aside, Wilhelm Moellmann fancied himself an actor. And having seen his share and more of police work in movies and on television, he regularly strove for the Perry Mason effect. Willie, as his associates referred to him, desired not only to determine the cause of death of each cadaver presented him; he also wanted to catch the perpetrator of the crime. He was unusually competent at the former and seldom successful at the latter. But he tried.

  Actually, he might have succeeded with Licata, for he had caught Lucky Louie with his guard down. But when Licata immediately shook his head negatively, he did so with rare sincerity.

  “Then,” continued the undaunted Moellmann, “you wouldn’t happen to know where the rest of Ruggiero is?”

  Again Licata shook his head negatively.

  “Very well.” Moellmann turned from Licata. He seemed to perform an eccentric two-step, as he left Licata standing, hat in hand, in a bemused state. “Before you leave,” he called over his shoulder, “fill out the identification form at the main desk in the lobby.”

  Licata turned back to the television screen. What, he wondered, could possibly have frightened Rough Rudy so horribly? The two men had been through many thoroughly harrowing experiences together. There had been times, he had to admit, when he, Licata, had been unnerved. But never Ruggiero. He had faced violence, even probable death, with a coolness that Licata had never seen ruffled. Whoever or whatever so obviously had robbed Rudy of his self-control must have been incredibly terrifying. And if it were that terrifying; if whatever it was had so reached Rough Rudy, Licata wondered whether Rudy had been literally scared to death.

  He turned from the screen with its macabre bodyless head, shuddered, and made his way to the lobby.

  “That mother must be three feet wide!” commented Detective Sergeant Daniel Fallon.

  “What was that about a mother?” Father Fred Dolson asked.

  “Nothing, Father,” said Lieutenant Ned Harris, covering Fallon’s hyphenation. “Sergeant Fallon was wondering about the size of the hat.”

  “It’s actually twenty-four and one-half inches in diameter,” Dolson clarified.

  The previous night, after the head of Rough Rudy Ruggiero had been discovered securely fastened within the crown of the enormous red hat, Inspector Walter Koznicki, head of the Detroit Police Department’s Homicide Division, had been notified, as he routinely was in any case of suspicious death. He had phoned Lieutenant Ned Harris and told him to initiate the necessary investigation. One of the specialties of Squad Six was execution-style killings. And Ruggiero’s death did appear to have been an execution.

  Harris and six of his squad—half the roster—had started the investigation immediately, shipping the head off to the medical examiner. Then Harris had called Koznicki with the details.

  Now, early Monday morning, ten members of Squad Six were at the cathedral. Six were scattered in various sections of the building and its adjacent rectory, asking questions, making phone calls, or merely getting acquainted with the locale. Later, in their cluttered squad room, they would share whatever information they had found. Meanwhile, Sergeants Dietrich Bernhard and Charlie Papkin, armed with a search warrant, had gone to Ruggiero’s residence.

  Lieutenant Harris, black, on the tall side of six feet, slim but powerfully built, was immaculately groomed, with close-cropped hair. He and several other members of Squad Six were standing around Cardinal Mooney’s red hat, which now lay empty on the floor of Blessed Sacrament Cathedral’s sanctuary. Sergeant Dan Fallon wore a slightly stained blue suit that looked slept-in; Sergeant Fred Ross’ blue suit looked as if it had just fallen off the retail rack. Sergeant Patricia Karnego, a tall, well-groomed brunette, stood next to Father Fred Dolson, one of the cath
edral’s assistant pastors.

  Father Dolson was wearing, in addition to his black cassock and Roman collar, a long white surplice. This puzzled Fallon and Karnego, both of whom were Catholic and knew that surplices were worn only during the liturgy. However, unknown to them, tucked into Dolson’s sash belt was a small-caliber revolver. Ordinarily, it rested in its small holster on Dolson’s nightstand near the phone in his bedroom. When there was trouble—and this situation definitely qualified as trouble—Dolson always managed somehow to wear his weapon.

  Dolson, if the truth be known, liked guns and felt comfortable with them. A member of the National Guard, he was probably the only chaplain fully armed during Detroit’s ’67 riot. On his way to be chauffeured in a Jeep to the riot scene, Dolson, wearing a sidearm and carrying a rifle, brushed by a parishioner. “But Father,” the startled parishioner observed, pointing at the armament, “you’re a chaplain!”

  Pointing to the small cross insignia on his khaki collar, Dolson shot back, “You think the snipers can see these from the tops of buildings?”

  Fortunately for Dolson now, none of the police suspected he was armed, or he wouldn’t have been.

  The five had been silently staring at the hat for several minutes.

  Dolson broke the silence. “Lieutenant, I’m curious: exactly how was that head attached to the hat?”

  “Oh,” Harris emerged from speculation as to the reason the hat itself had been used, “those braided cords stapled to either side of the crown—they’re red, as you can see, but not the brilliant red of the hat—they were tied beneath the chin and neck of the head, thus holding it firmly within the crown.”

  “By the way, Fred,” Harris addressed Ross, “make sure those cords are held as evidence.”

  “Pity he used a square knot,” Ross commented. “It’s not going to be much help. Too common.”

  “Too common?” Dolson asked.

  “Yes,” said Harris. “Knots can reveal a lot. Whoever tied them might have been a seaman or had other special training that would evidence itself in the loops or intertwinement. Or perhaps a knot may be tied in a singular or unique way.