Death Wears a Red Hat

by William X. Kienzle

  It was Terri Scanlon’s turn to be impressed.

  Cox had his story. It could practically write itself.

  Half a dozen cars arrived at old St. Joseph’s almost simultaneously. One belonged to Pat Lennon, another to News photographer Don Carlson; the rest were police vehicles.

  Several uniformed officers discovered, by trying every door, that the church was securely locked.

  “If the damn head is in there,” said Harris in a tone of near frustration, “how in hell does he get in and out of these churches so easily?”

  Officers were ringing the front, side, and rear doorbells of the rectory.

  A bewildered and disheveled Father Donald Curley appeared at the front door. His bewilderment increased when he saw the assembled cars. Their number would be representative at a Sunday Mass.

  “Father,” said Detective Patrick, “—you are a Father, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” Several smart-alec replies to that question passed through Curley’s fertile brain, but, in present circumstances, he discarded them all.

  “Father,” Patrick pressed on, “your church is locked.”

  “That’s right. The first Mass isn’t scheduled until ten minutes after noon.”

  “Well, Father, we’d like it opened now, if you don’t mind.”

  “Now?”

  “Right now!”

  “What the hell is going on down there?” Father Sklarski bellowed from a front window of the second floor. “Can’t a poor priest get a little rest even in retirement?” Sklarski was wearing an old-fashioned nightshirt and nightcap.

  Everyone but Curley all but broke up.

  “It’s O.K., Ed.,” Curley called up to his confrere. “Go back to bed. I’ll handle it.” He turned to Patrick. “Just let me get the keys.”

  Curley unlocked the church’s front door and the flood quickly passed through the portals.

  “Where is your statue of St. Joseph, Father?” asked Lennon.

  “Up front, on the left.”

  Lennon grabbed Carlson’s arm and made a beeline for the shrine dedicated to this church’s patron.

  There, resting securely on the shoulders of the statue of St. Joseph, was the head of Tod McCluskey, its horrified and horrifying death mask intact.

  Lennon involuntarily winced, then shuddered.

  Outside of the police photographers, Carlson was the only one to get a shot of the head on its resting place. Many photographers and cameramen from the Free Press, wire services, and television stations would visit this scene later. Only the News would have the grisliest of all photos.

  “How did you know?” Harris asked.

  “McCluskey! When you told me he would be considered a carpenter, it had to be St. Joseph. That’s the way he made his living. I didn’t go through parochial school and a Catholic college for nothing. I didn’t even need Fathers Clark or Koesler for this one.”

  “You saved us a lot of time. And time is of the essence now,” said Harris.

  “We got our story and our pictures,” said Lennon.

  “So we start again, even.” Harris enjoyed Lennon for no more complicated reason than that she was a beautiful woman.

  “By the way,” low-keyed Lennon, “what is it made McCluskey a victim of the Red Hat murderer? I’ve never even heard of him before.”

  “Neither have we,” said Harris. “He has no record in Homicide. I’m afraid I’ll have to refer you to our General Assignment Unit.”

  “Is this déjà vu? Somewhere, someplace I’ve heard that before.”

  “It’s the same answer to the same question I gave your pal Cox half an hour ago.”

  Lennon experienced a momentary pang and then remembered she worked for the News now. Poor Joe. He got that story first but he wouldn’t be able to get it published until the one-ball, which wouldn’t reach the presses until 8:15 that evening. With any luck, Lennon’s story would hit the streets that afternoon. She almost felt sorry for Cox as she departed for her interview with Sergeant Terri Scanlon—who would have the answers to Lennon’s questions fresh at her fingertips.

  Father Donald Curley suffered in solitary woe. He could foresee the sensational treatment his parish would receive from the news media. He could anticipate the negative reaction to all this sensationalism from his staid parishioners. He could not bear to think of the abuse that would be heaped upon him by all those he had verbally abused in the past—and their number was legion. He tried to block out entirely what he would suffer from Father Ted Neighbors, who, unlike all the king’s men, had already started to put his St. Frances Cabrini together again.

  7

  St. John’s Seminary

  Eleanor Breitman drove her five-year-old Mercury Comet into Dessalen’s Garage, one of the largest and busiest auto repair shops on Detroit’s west side. She got out of her car and looked nervously about. She ran her hands restlessly over her purse.

  Elmer Dessalen himself came over to greet her. He tried to attend all customers who appeared to know nothing about what was wrong with their cars and would be easy targets for a small game of fraud. This lady appeared ideal.

  “Good morning,” he said, “something wrong with the old Comet?”

  He startled her. She hadn’t seen the small black man approach.

  “Why, yes,” she said, “can you help me?”

  “If I can’t, nobody can. I own this place. Name’s Elmer Dessalen. What seems to be the problem?”

  He had an odd accent. She couldn’t place it. Spanish or Portuguese, something like that.

  “Well, for the last several days, I’ve had an off-and-on problem starting my car.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Sometimes when I turn the ignition on, all I get is a click. Nothing turns over.”

  “Well, let’s see.”

  Dessalen opened the hood and peered around the interior, poking this and pressing that. Straightening up, he continued to look meditatively at the engine.

  “You’ll have to leave it overnight. We’ll have to work on it all day. Sounds like your ignition system is shot or just about worn out. We may have to replace the whole system.”

  “Oh, my! How much would that cost?”

  “I don’t want to give you a firm price before we know all were dealing with. But I’d say somewhere between fifty and a hundred dollars.”

  “Oh, my!”

  She was clearly in a dilemma. Her eyes darted back and forth.

  “It could die on you any minute,” he added.

  “Do you have any courtesy cars?”

  “No, ma’am, they’re all out. But the Grand River bus runs right past the front door.”

  “Oh, very well.”

  Dessalen got all the necessary information. Mrs. Breitman joined the line of commuters, mostly black, awaiting the arrival of the overdue Grand River bus.

  Dessalen gave the keys to the Comet to one of his mechanics.

  “Whatcha got there, Chief?” asked Ben Jones.

  “Bad starter, Jonesie,” said Dessalen. “Unless I miss my guess, if you look above the right front wheel, you’ll find a connection in the ignition system that’s rusted out. Sand it down and that mother will start like a fine horse.”

  “Want me to rustproof it?”

  Waving his cloth cap, Dessalen whacked Jones on the side of the head. “Dummy! Don’t you ever want to see that lady again? Planned obsolescence, that’s the name of the auto game.”

  They laughed uproariously.

  Jones pulled the Comet into a stall. In fifteen minutes he would have the car repaired. The actual cost to Dessalen’s Garage: perhaps a mill for wear on a piece of sandpaper.

  Nelson Kane sat at his desk studying the copy editor’s suggested headline for Joe Cox’s latest piece on The Red Hat Murders. It read, ‘Red Hat Murderer Threatens American Way of Business.’ It was marked to be set in two lines, three columns wide. Kane did not object to the headline size; he merely wondered whether it overstated the facts.

  Cox stood waiting to ga
in Kane’s attention. Kane was in an odd mood and Cox didn’t know why. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know why.

  At last Kane looked up. “Well?”

  “I can’t figure it, Nellie. I don’t know where Pat went after the briefing at Moellmann’s office, but she was bound to touch base with Scanlon at the General Assignment Unit. And she’s got time on her side. She’ll be able to get her story in this afternoon. I beat her but she’ll likely beat me. It ain’t fair.”

  “So you don’t know where Lennon went after the briefing?” Kane pushed his chair back from the desk with deliberation. Cox was getting more certain by the minute that he would not want to know the reason for Kane’s odd mood. He was equally certain he was going to know.

  “Well, let me fill you in: she took the cops and a News photographer over to old St. Joseph’s church, where they found McCluskey’s head!”

  Cox’s mouth dropped open and hung open.

  “They tell me,” Kane continued, “that the News photographer got a shot of McCluskey’s head on the statue. If what I hear is correct, it’s the only media still of any of the victims where the Red Hat killer left them.”

  Cox closed his mouth. It was getting dry.

  “I sent McNaught over,” Kane added, “to cover that scene.”

  Cox blinked several times as if he were not sure this was real.

  Kane looked at him with a mixture of pity and disappointment. “Didn’t you say earlier that Moellmann was going to state his findings on the McCluskey autopsy around noon? Cox, if I were you, I’d get the hell over to the M.E.’s office. If you can’t beat Lennon, you’d damn well better not fall far behind. “

  Cox raised his hand as if to say something.

  “Damn good story, Joe,” Kane patted the fifteen-page double-spaced text. “Let’s see if Lennon can write one that good.” He looked again at the headline. “If I saw this headline,” he asked himself aloud, “would I buy this paper?” After a moment’s thought, “Damn right!” he answered, and yelled for a copyboy.

  Father Robert Koesler took a toothpick from his shirt pocket and inserted it in his mouth where he would worry it to death.

  He was seated in the Toussaint living room, telling his hosts of his experience two nights before.

  “… and after it was all over,” he concluded, “I must’ve gone on hearing those drums for hours. Until I finally fell asleep.”

  “It is an exciting experience, isn’t it?” Emerenciana enthused.

  “That sort of brings up what I wanted to ask you.” Koesler looked from Toussaint to his wife. “Has either of you ever attended a voodoo ceremony?”

  Emerenciana smiled engagingly. “Of course we have, Bob. We used to go often in the old country. And we’ve been to a few in this country.”

  “I knew, though only from reading about it,” said Koesler, “that there is a heavy blending of Catholicism in the voodoo rites. But I was surprised to actually hear the old Latin liturgy, especially in that context.”

  “You see, Bob,” said Toussaint, “when the slaves were brought from Africa, the British looked on them merely as property. The French, however, considered the slaves to be people. Albeit with no rights.” He smiled. “So the French had their slaves baptized.

  “Baptism meant little to the slaves already bewildered by confinement in a foreign land. So they simply continued with their native religion. For example, voodoo has many loa who vaguely correspond to our Catholic saints. So the slaves simply blended the loa with the Catholic muster of saints.

  “Dambala, for instance, is none other than your old friend St. Patrick.” Toussaint smiled as he said this. He knew that although his friend bore a German surname, his mother’s people had come from Ireland.

  Koesler smiled back. “Fascinating,” he said, as he deposited a mangled toothpick in the ashtray. “And even more fascinating is the theory that the Red Hat murderer is a practitioner of voodoo.”

  “Yes,” said Emerenciana, “we read about it in the papers.”

  “This gentleman I told you about,” said Koesler, “gave us a sort of play-by-play account of the ceremony, and talked to us afterward. He told of ceremonies in which a curse is placed on someone. Is there any way you know of that I could get into one of those ceremonies? If I could get into one, I’m sure I could get into others. I might even stumble across the Red Hat murderer.”

  “And if you did, Bob,” Emerenciana asked, “do you think you’d stumble away alive?”

  “Yes, I do,” Koesler stated firmly. “I’m convinced that whoever the Red Hat murderer is, he’s making a powerful statement on sin. And while I’m no saint, I don’t believe I quite rank with the sinners he’s disposing of. I don’t think he would kill any of us under any circumstances.”

  “And what would you do with him even if you did come across him—turn him in or give him a medal?” Toussaint went on before Koesler could reply. “Besides, there is not a chance of your getting in for one of those death conjures. Nor any chance of our getting in, for that matter. Such ceremonies are by invitation only. Otherwise you could end up being the object of the death conjure.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Koesler reluctantly agreed. He stood and prepared to leave. “I’ve got to get out to St. John’s. I’ve got a luncheon date with Father Clark, then we’re going to play a round of golf.”

  “Give our best to Leo,” said Emerenciana.

  As he reached the door, Koesler sniffed the air. There seemed to be a trace of incense.

  “Fumigating again, Ramon?”

  “Why not?” answered Toussaint with a shrug. “Cockroaches been on earth lots longer than humans. They get angry when we take land from them and build on it.”

  Koesler began his journey to the seminary laden with that feeling of guilt that core city people could lay on suburbanites any time they wanted.

  Tom McCoy drove his three-year-old Chevrolet into Dessalen’s Garage. That is, he almost drove it in. As he turned into the service drive from Grand River, his car stalled. He started it, gunned the engine, and brought it to a rocking stop in front of the entrance. He got out of the car and circled it, kicking each tire soundly.

  It was Elmer Dessalen’s opinion that anyone who treated his car in such fashion did not understand automobiles and probably would have no idea what was wrong with it. Thus, the owner personally attended this customer.

  “Problems?” Dessalen asked needlessly.

  “Damn car!” McCoy fumed. Every time I turn a corner the damn things stalls.

  “That’s a problem!”

  “I’ve stopped in at I don’t know how many gas stations—nothing!”

  “How long’s it been doin’ this?”

  “Last few days.”

  Dessalen opened the hood and began to explore. His finger inside the carburetor picked up a gritty substance. He rubbed it between his fingers. Sand.

  “Looks pretty bad,” Dessalen shook his head sadly. “I’d say it was your fuel pump. Probably needs to be replaced.”

  “How long will it take you to do it?”

  That, thought Dessalen, was good. Time was more important to this car-owner than money.

  “Get it done for you this afternoon. Have it ready on your way home from work.”

  “Great! I’ll leave it with you and take a cab downtown.”

  Dessalen wrote out the work order.

  “Now, Mr. McCoy,” Dessalen called as McCoy was about to leave, “if we find any more problems, I’ll phone you to see if you want ’em fixed.”

  “Fine! Great!”

  Ben Jones watched the departure.

  “Whatcha got there?” asked Jones.

  “Jonesie,” said Dessalen, “I think if you take this gas tank off, you’ll find a ton of sand. After you dump the sand, give the nice man a new fuel pump. And if you see anything else that looks replaceable, let me know.”

  “Why,” said Jones, “we could build the man a brand new car.”

  “Not too much now, Jonesie. Moderation,�
� Dessalen cautioned.

  They laughed.

  Dessalen counted heavily on Barnum’s having been right when he observed that there was a sucker born every minute.

  The buildings were the same as he remembered them a quarter of a century earlier, but everything else had changed.

  As a student at St. John’s Seminary, Robert Koesler had been one of a full house. In his day, St. John’s had housed from 200 to 250 students. The faculty was composed entirely of Sulpicians, diocesan priests whose sole task was the training of seminarians. The school rules were considered to be the will of God. The training tended to produce macho but disciplined and obedient, if slightly adolescent, men.

  Now the Roman Catholic province of Michigan felt fortunate to have fifty to seventy-five seminarians. The faculty comprised everyone from priests, nuns, and Protestant ministers to the laity. There were no rules in the strict sense. There were a few ‘suggestions,’ such as silence, for the sake of the small community, after 10 P.M. A suggestion that was never observed.

  St. John’s was a huge complex of buildings searching for a purpose.

  Three deacons had joined Fathers Koesler and Clark at lunch. Another departure. In Koesler’s day, students had dined at their tables and faculty at theirs.

  A duplication of this group would be rare. All five were men. Koesler was old enough to be a father to the three deacons. Clark was old enough to be their grandfather.

  “What I’d like to know,” Deacon Ed Landregan asked, “is what did priests used to do before there were all these meetings?”

  “Yeah,” Deacon Mike Shanahan agreed, “it’s end-to-end meetings out there. Staff meetings with the pastor, parish council meetings, council committee meetings, vicariate meetings, archdiocesan meetings—”

  “And that,” Deacon Dave Ballas interjected, “does not count the experts who are brought in for speeches in the parish, the region, the vicariate, the diocese—”

  “And the beat goes on,” Landregan concluded.