Death Wears a Red Hat

by William X. Kienzle

  “Unfortunately for our purposes, almost everyone ties a square knot just about the same way. However, these cords and the knot may prove valuable if we encounter a similar incident.”

  “What I’d like to know,” said Ross, “is how in the world could anyone wear a thing that big.”

  “Oh,” answered Dolson, “it wasn’t meant to be worn. It was just symbolic. Years ago—centuries, I suppose—most clergymen wore the kind of hat that this one became symbolic of. It was a black hat with a small crown and wide brim—nothing like this brim, though—with ribbons you could tie under your chin to keep the hat in place.

  “Then, the galero—that’s what the hat was called—just grew.” Dolson made an expansive gesture. “And as it grew, it became symbolic of the office. In the late Cardinal Mooney’s case, for instance, during one of the ceremonies in Rome when he became a Cardinal, this hat was placed on his head for just a second. It was then shipped home and not used again until it was placed on his coffin for his funeral and then suspended from the cathedral ceiling. That’s what happened at the death of all Cardinals. Only not anymore. Pope Paul VI discontinued the custom of the ceremonial red hat.”

  “What about the tassels?” Ross asked.

  “Ah, yes, the tassels ...” Dolson had no special mastery of all this trivia. When the head had been discovered in the red hat the previous evening, Dolson had figured questions would be asked. He then spent hours studying so he would be the one providing answers to the police and the news media. “Well,” he continued pedantically “as you can see, there’s a cluster of fifteen tassels on each of the two ribbons that hang from the hat’s brim. The thirty tassels, as well as the brilliant red color, signify that it is the hat of a Cardinal.”

  “That’s all very interesting,” said Harris, who didn’t really find it all that interesting, “but how is that hat raised—and lowered?”

  “That’s the funny thing,” said Dolson, quite seriously, “there’s a very strong wire located in the rear of the sanctuary, behind that pillar there.” He pointed to a huge gray stone pillar that rose to the cathedral ceiling. “The wire ascends the pillar to a pulley and then to the hat. The hat can be raised or lowered by the wire. But that’s what I can’t figure out …”

  “What’s that, Father?” asked Harris.

  “Very, very few people knew about that wire, and it was expertly camouflaged—so no one would fool around with it.”

  Harris looked significantly at his three partners. “That does put a new twist on things.”

  Detroit’s downtown Greyhound terminal was a busy scene, as it usually was during peak hours. Not only was the low rectangular flat-roofed building a bus terminal, it was also a parking garage and boasted a better-than-average cafeteria. A steady flow of buses met and passed by each other, departing and arriving.

  Standing near the wall opposite the arrivals section was an extremely tall, pencil-thin black man, garishly dressed and sporting a black Stetson. Roosevelt Harding, whose street name was Stud, was one of Detroit’s most affluent, prolific, and well-known pimps. A good argument could be made that he was at the very pinnacle of his profession. And the bus terminal was one of his most fruitful shopping centers.

  Bus terminals in major cities throughout the country are notorious as way stations for young women running away from home. Young women who become outstanding prey for pimps. Usually the girls are frightened, unemployed, penniless, and friendless. In such a situation, pimps are usually successful at ensnaring them. Harding was a master at the game.

  The midday bus from Chicago had just arrived, and the passengers were coming through the arrival gate. Harding leaned against the wall, his capped teeth turning a round toothpick through compressed lips, while his eyes, behind smoked glasses, carefully scrutinized each of the arriving passengers.

  Suddenly, there she was: white, blonde, in her late teens. Her nervous eyes darted about, not in expectation of being met, just trying to size up a strange place, looking for an appropriate bearing.

  Harding approached from the rear.

  “Hi, honey doll. Lost?”

  She spun around and found her eyes level with a brown leather midriff. She looked up at the black face smiling down at her.

  “I …I …just got here from Chicago,” she stammered.

  “Know anybody here, honey doll?”

  “No …not really.”

  “Got a job?”

  “N …no.”

  “If you come with me, honey doll, I’ll make sure you get a job and a nice place to stay. I’ll even have you meet some good folks. Come on, honey doll.”

  Alice Reardon, fresh from the Chicago suburb of Cicero, hesitated. She had had her consciousness raised long ago by her peers at St. Mary’s High School. She was sure that a refusal of this offer of help would be a racist reaction. After all, she had no place to stay, no friends, no job. All of these had been offered.

  “Well, all right. And thank you.”

  “All right!” Stud Harding wrapped one huge hand around Alice Reardon’s arm and escorted her from the terminal. Together they entered a purple Fleetwood, known by most Detroit police as THE Pimpmobile.

  A late afternoon autumn sun shone through the many windows of the city room on the third floor of the Detroit Free Press. In the large white rectangular room, reporters were engaged in a variety of activities. Some were making phone calls, some were typing; a few stood in groups of twos and threes holding conversations that would solve most of the world’s problems. A couple sat staring at their typewriters waiting for the drops of blood to appear on their fingers.

  At one side, near the glass panel separating the working area from the elevators, staff writer Joe Cox visited with City Editor Nelson Kane. The two were discussing The Red Hat Murder—the tag that, coincidentally, both the Free Press and the Detroit News had given the death that had been discovered in the cathedral.

  “One thing I think you have to conclude,” said Cox, smoothing his newly grown, sandy-colored beard, “this thing has started at the top.”

  Two years before, Cox, in the first blush of his journalistic career, had earned a Pulitzer Prize for his work in the Free Press’ coverage of the series of murders of priests and nuns generally termed The Rosary Murders. Cox’s work had contributed a great deal to the solution of that case.

  Kane looked up from the expense account vouchers he had been scanning. He studied Cox. “That’s true,” he said, “I don’t think anybody would argue that Ruggiero ranked as Detroit’s Public Enemy Number One. But what do you mean by ‘started’?”

  Kane, a six-footer with thinning hair, constantly fought to keep his weight near 200 pounds. He had been with the Free Press nearly a quarter of a century, and should have been in management by this time. He would have been, if not for Karl Lowell, executive manager, corporate hatchet man and—although theoretically working for the same organization—in the opposite philosophical corner from Kane.

  “I think you’ve got to conclude,” Cox explained, “that Ruggiero was wasted by a rival gang. This should kick off a veritable orgy of revenge and counter-revenge. Right out of The Godfather.”

  “Yeah, you could be right. This has to be the work of a rival who wants to become number one and is willing to pay the price in an all-out gang war. Either that, or some nut has bit off much more than he’ll be able to chew.”

  “But the hat,” Cox mused, “whereinhell does that red hat fit in?”

  “No idea,” Kane offered. “The only thing that comes to mind is that Ruggiero was, like most Italians, Catholic, even if in name only. But where a cathedral and a Cardinal’s red hat make any sense …well, it just beats me.”

  “Maybe the killer means that’s as close as Rough Rudy will get to having a church funeral.”

  “No.” Kane leaned back, his hands clasped behind his head. “I think you’ll find Rudy, or what we have of Rudy, buried from Holy Family. Some claim that place is practically the Mafia burying ground.”

  �
�Well,” said Cox, “the hat means something.”

  “Right!” Kane jerked his chair upright. “And that brings us to the purpose of this conversation: go find out what it means!”

  It had been a relatively uneventful day for Squad Six. Their investigation into the death of Rudolph Ruggiero had uncovered very little. There were no latent fingerprints on the hat, no body, plenty of motives for the murder, and hundreds of probable suspects.

  Lieutenant Ned Harris had inherited the leadership of Squad Six from one of his closest friends, Inspector Walter Koznicki, who had been promoted to the Homicide Department’s top spot. Both Koznicki and Harris had been promoted two years previously when, with some considerable help from Joe Cox and one Father Robert Koesler, they had cracked The Rosary Murders case.

  Harris knew his greatest challenge in this case was to get maximum effort from his squad. The murder of any notorious criminal never prompted the police to wear black armbands. However, Harris was aware that his squad was neither judge nor jury. Their job was to investigate homicides, identify the perpetrators, make the arrests, and bring sound cases to the prosecutors. And this, with strong mutual pride, Squad Six did regularly and well.

  They were gathered now, at the close of this working day, in their squad room, which was the same size as the other six homicide squad rooms—too small. The rectangular room was decorated in basic clutter. Mismatched desks were surrounded by mismatched chairs. The walls, at least where the plaster was not gouged, were covered with posters, some humorous, some official. When the entire squad was present, as was now the case, all the chairs were occupied, with some of the force standing in the corners, others sitting on desks.

  “Colleen,” Harris asked, “did you check with the medical examiner?”

  “Yeah.” Detective Colleen Farrell, delicate, blonde, and very pretty, was also very tough and in the van of the women’s movement. “I asked him about the head and he almost took mine off.”

  “Well,” Fred Ross commented, “that’s the way Moellmann is.”

  Patricia Karnego smiled. “I don’t suppose you let it go at that?”

  “Hell, no!” Farrell snapped. “I told him what he could do with Ruggiero’s head. And also what I would do to his head if he doesn’t stop always trying to brush imaginary crumbs off my chest. The sexist pig!”

  Harris grinned. “O.K., Colleen.” He knew better than to suggest that he should no longer send her to the medical examiner’s office. She could take care of herself. “How about the Ruggiero home?”

  “Kids are all away at school,” said Dietrich Bernhard, consulting his notes. Bernhard, solidly built, methodical, was the essential Teuton. “Boys at military schools, girls at convent schools, widow distraught.” He looked up from his notes. “I don’t know why; according to the neighbors, Ruggiero was hardly ever home …just her and the servants.”

  “Anything else?” Harris asked.

  “It was like a church,” said Charlie Papkin. Charlie, of medium build, with a salt-and-pepper crew cut, was one of the squad’s jokesters. “There were plaster of paris saints everywhere, syrupy religious pictures all over the walls, and votive candles in front of every damn statue and picture. Very tacky.”

  “Boy, if that isn’t a stereotype,” said Dan Fallon.

  “O.K., gang,” said Harris, “let’s knock it off for today. But bring your walking shoes tomorrow. I’ve arranged for all available personnel in the other homicide squads to work with us. We’re going to start at the top of the list of Detroit’s criminal elite, and find out what they can prove they were doing at— what time again did Moellmann set for the death, Colleen?”

  “Between one and five P.M. Saturday.”

  “Those cats had better have been busy and in company Saturday afternoon, or we’re going to find out what they know about red hats.”

  “Ray,” said Father Robert Koesler, “you’ll be as safe in Irene Casey’s hands as you would be in the hands of that insurance company.”

  “Allstate,” completed the Reverend Mister Ramon Toussaint.

  “Whatever.”

  Koesler, pastor of St. Anselm’s parish, was the former editor of the Detroit Catholic, the archdiocesan newspaper. He was visiting with his friend Toussaint, a deacon, who, with his wife Emerenciana, had come to Detroit in 1961 from Haiti. It had never been clear exactly why the Toussaints had chosen Detroit. One likely reason could have been the outstanding vitality of the Catholic Church in Detroit under the leadership of Archbishop Mark Boyle. For the Toussaints were deeply involved in Catholicism. One of the unique results of their involvement provided the subject matter of the present conversation between Toussaint and Koesler.

  “Your Ministers of Service make a good story, Ray, and it’s about time the Detroit Catholic did a feature on them. I guarantee, you can trust Irene to do a good job with the story.”

  Koesler, tall, blond, slender, fished another round toothpick from his shirt pocket. He had recently given up smoking and now chewed toothpicks as an oral satisfaction substitute.

  Emerenciana joined the two men, who were seated at the kitchen table in the Toussaint home. The couple lived on Stoepel Avenue, only a block from St. Cecilia’s Church, where Toussaint was the resident permanent deacon. “What are you two going on about?”

  “Bob here is trying to convince me I can trust Irene Casey to do a good story on our black deacons.”

  “Of course you can, silly,” said Emerenciana. “It’s not like it was under the former editor.” She winked broadly at Koesler, who smiled in return. “Irene has made sure, since becoming editor, that no one any longer calls the paper ‘The Detroit Communist’.”

  The three laughed.

  “But,” said Emerenciana, as she got up to go to the sink, “I’ve never understood why they need deacons or Ministers of Service. Why don’t they just use priests as they always did?”

  “We’re an endangered species, ’Ciane,” Koesler replied. “After the second Vatican Council, vocations to the priesthood fell off all over the world. Vatican II hit Detroit hard.”

  “Yes, ’Ciane,” said Toussaint, “it’s difficult to remember that in the early ‘60s, the Archbishop built a new high school at Sacred Heart Seminary and was considering a new gym. Now they’ve given away the high school and closed most of the rest of the buildings.”

  “ ’Ciane,” said Koesler, “once upon a time, the liturgy demanded that none but consecrated hands could touch a consecrated host. Now there are lots of communicants and comparatively few consecrated hands. So, as the laity is encouraged to exercise the priesthood of their baptism, we have extraordinary ministers. Just so, the diaconate once was a full-time position in the Church. When clergy candidates began to want the entire enchilada, as it were, the diaconate became merely a step to the priesthood. Now that so few want to be priests, the diaconate has become a permanent position once again.”

  “And then,” said Toussaint, “when the members of an entire ethnic minority refuse to give two years of each of their lives to deacon training, we have Ministers of Service developed in two months.”

  As Koesler crossed to the sink to deposit an ashtrayfull of chewed toothpicks in the trash can, he was again aware that at six-foot-three he was still only two or three inches taller than Emerenciana. “And to top it all off, the creator of the Ministers of Service is ordained a deacon without having to go through the length of the white man’s training time.”

  A smile briefly crossed Toussaint’s usually impassive face. “The Archbishop owed me that,” he said. “After all, I saved black Catholic Detroit for him.”

  “What there is of it,” commented ’Ciane.

  “It is,” said Koesler, “perhaps a variation of Parkinson’s Law. That, as the number of priests diminishes, hitherto strictly sacerdotal tasks tend to become part of the natural province of the laity.”

  “Or,” added Toussaint, “if you stand in one place long enough, everything will return to what it once was.”

  Koesler
laughed and moved toward the back door. “I must be leaving now.”

  “Oh,” said ’Ciane, “can’t you stay for dinner?”

  “Sorry; got to get back for a finance committee meeting. Then there’s catechism for the high schoolers.”

  “All right,” said ’Ciane, “but as you leave Detroit, know that you are leaving all the action behind you. We’re the ones who have a gangster’s head in the red hat at the cathedral.”

  “Funny,” commented Toussaint, “murder and the Catholic Church somehow connected. Reminds me of those Rosary Murders you were involved in a couple of years ago.”

  “Well, there’s at least one big difference,” said Koesler, as he opened the door to leave. “I can’t think that I’ll be tripping over any clues this time around.”

  Alice Reardon had long since ceased screaming and pleading.

  She lay nude, curled in the fetal position, her body convulsing with muted sobs. The bed with its filthy mattress, a few straight-back chairs, and an old refrigerator were the room’s only furnishings.

  Five naked men sat in one corner of the room, drinking beer, conversing softly, and laughing. For the better part of the day they had been sexually assaulting, degrading, and humiliating the girl. They were pausing now only to wait for a recurrence of vigor to continue their attack.

  For several minutes, Stud Harding had been standing in the hall gazing into the room through a one-way mirror. His angular body was ramrod straight as he absorbed the spectacle. It was one he had seen and participated in dozens of times. The scenario was always so similar that he had nearly lost interest in it.

  Stud had a few high-priced hookers in his stable. But little Alice from Cicero fit into the least common denominator group. A runaway, not particularly beautiful. Youth and a firm body were what he would sell. But first, just as with a wild horse, she must be broken. In the case of a girl, that meant she must be violated, assaulted, abused, degraded, exposed to every imaginable carnal experience. The “cowboys” were easy to find. The exercise was their reward. After one or two more gang rapes, Alice would be sufficiently broken, if not on the verge of a complete emotional or physical breakdown.