Bishop as Pawn

by William Kienzle

  Tully was not privy to Kleimer’s machinations within the prosecutor’s office, but it was obvious how he had cultivated the police connection. There were certain cops who did business with him on an indebtedness basis.

  It was quid pro quo. Certain officers would cue him in when they chanced upon a case that merited a great deal of media coverage. In return, he would do his best to get them whatever they wanted—within reason. These favors ranged from rather modest gifts to preferential consideration for promotions. It depended, largely, on the case’s potential to attract publicity.

  Of all Kleimer’s departmental connections, none was situated better or more willing to cooperate than George Quirt.

  As far as Tully could judge, there was nothing specifically illegal in this maneuver. Ethically …?

  “You’re just in time, Brad.” Quirt shook Kleimer’s hand in greeting. “We’re just gonna get it together. You remember Zoo Tully …”

  “Of course.” Kleimer turned to Tully, who nodded perfunctorily.

  “Come on in here, Brad. We sorta took over the dining room …”

  Father McCauley, finding himself totally and completely ignored, hesitated, then walked away. He had work to do.

  It was just 8:30. The task force members were filing into the large rectangular room. Dark mahogany constituted the decor. The large table, the chairs, and the cabinets were either ancient or appeared to be. The table was filling with notes, diagrams, and bits of what might become evidence.

  The first group of officers into the room seated themselves at the table, with here and there a few chivalrous gestures.

  “Okay.” Quirt took command, much to the resentment of Tully’s people. “What’ve we got? Mangiapane?”

  Mangiapane, jaws tight, looked to Tully, who merely nodded.

  “Okay,” Mangiapane began, “the time of death looks to be between 4:00 and 6:00 last night.” He looked up. “That’s subject to the M.E.’s report. The autopsy’s not completed yet. But, so far, it looks like a good guess.

  “This place is wired for sound,” Mangiapane continued. “They got wires in every door and window. The alarm company’s central office reports the system was operating last night, but there was no single intrusion registered.”

  “Which means the perp either was in here before the system was activated or he was admitted,” Quirt said needlessly. “Was there anybody else besides the deceased in here last night that we know about?”

  Mangiapane shrugged. He didn’t have that information. Quirt looked around the room.

  Sergeant Angie Moore, of Tully’s squad, raised her hand.

  Quirt recognized her. He was not disturbed that, so far, none of his own squad had spoken. But, particularly since Brad Kleimer—an outsider—was present, Quirt was conscious that Tully’s people had taken the lead.

  “There are four—no, five—other priests who live here,” Moore said. “Four of them have been working at this parish for from three to ten years. They belong to a religious organization called Basilians. There’s another priest who’s been here only about three months. He has some sort of special assignment to the victim. I wasn’t able to get that too clearly. He’s not here now—”

  “Who?” Quirt was peremptory. “The guy with the special assignment?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Uh … Carleson. Father Donald Carleson.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He said he had to go to the hospital. Some patients were expecting him this morning.”

  “While an investigation was going on?” Quirt was growing truculent. “Which hospital?”

  “Receiving.” Moore, in spite of herself, felt intimidated.

  “Get him back here.”

  “He answered all our—”

  “I wanna know about this ‘special’ assignment with the bishop. Get him back here! For Chrissakes, this is a homicide investigation!”

  Moore fumbled her papers together and left the room.

  Tully would have intervened except that, fundamentally, Quirt was not only in charge, but correct: The priest shouldn’t have been allowed to leave while the investigation was going on. But after this briefing, Tully would have some strong words with Quirt. He had no business treating Moore like a rookie and publicly embarrassing her. She was a Catholic, and that, added to the normal respect most officers have for the clergy, had led her to make a mistake … a minor, nonirreparable one.

  “Anybody got anything else on the priests here?” Quirt asked.

  Williams, one of Quirt’s people, raised a hand. Quirt eagerly recognized him.

  From Quirt’s change of expression, Tully saw where this was going—and he didn’t like it. Quirt was setting up a contest—his gang against Tully’s. If this task force was going to do its job, it would have to blend into a single investigative unit. Silently, he damned Cobb for meddling where he had no expertise whatever.

  Williams consulted his notes. “I was working with Angie and we questioned all the priests.”

  Williams’s mention of a name from the rival team did not endear him to Quirt.

  “All five of them left to go to a meeting of a bunch of other priests at the Cathedral at 9844 Woodward.”

  “They went together?” Tully asked.

  “Yeah, one car.”

  “What time?”

  “They left about 5:30. The meeting was at 6:00 and they figured it wouldn’t take more than a half hour to get there, what with Sunday traffic and all.”

  “What about the bishop?” Tully continued.

  “He told them earlier in the day that he wasn’t going.” Williams lowered his notes momentarily. “For one thing, bishops aren’t exactly welcome at these meetings. The priests said most of the meetings they have eventually get down to griping sessions. And some if not most of the griping is about the bishops.”

  The group laughed, recognizing that the priests were no different from a bunch of cops getting together for a similar session.

  “What time’d the meeting end?” Quirt was not laughing.

  Williams scratched his head. “No set time. There’s usually some sort of light dinner, then the gabfest. People leave whenever they want. They just drift out as the evening goes on.”

  “When’d our five leave?”

  “Four,” Williams corrected.

  “Four?”

  “Carleson wanted to stay. So the others left together sometime a little after 9:00. They came right back here.”

  “But they didn’t find the body.” Tully’s statement implied the question.

  “No.” Williams sensed he needed to amplify. “They came in by a side entrance. The alarm system they got here is top of the line. If you know the codes, you can program the thing to cover whatever areas you want. So when they deactivated the alarm for that area, they didn’t know the system that controlled the front door had already been deactivated. After they entered the house here, they reactivated the alarm for the rear area. They just assumed the front alarm system was on. There weren’t any lights on and everything seemed okay.”

  “They didn’t check on the bishop?”

  “Like I said, there weren’t any lights on. The door to his room was shut. He’s got—he had—a suite on the second floor—a bedroom and den. There’s three floors in this building, all occupied.

  “Anyway, they didn’t see any light coming from under the door to his room. So they just figured that he’d gone to bed early.”

  “So, when did Carleson get in?” Quirt asked.

  “Uh …” Williams hesitated. “Angie’s got those details in her notes.”

  Quirt was about to say something when Sergeant Moore appeared at the door of the dining room with a priest in tow.

  “Father Carleson?” Tully asked.

  “Yes,” the priest replied. “Sorry about this. I thought I was finished here, so I started making my rounds at the hospital. When Sergeant Moore told me you wanted me, I came right back.”

&nbs
p; Quirt gestured toward one of the detectives who was seated at the table. “Sit down, Father.”

  The designated officer scrambled to vacate his chair in favor of the priest.

  Acutely aware that he had become the center of attention, Carleson was uneasy.

  “The other priests here say you did not return with them last night,” Tully said.

  “That’s right,” Carleson agreed. “Last night was my first chance to meet the other city priests. I wanted to get to know them and let them get to know me. The meeting was old hat to my colleagues here. It was a first for me. So I turned down their invitation to leave early.”

  “So what time did you leave?” Quirt asked.

  “I guess it would have been about 10:00 or 10:30.”

  “But,” Quirt pressed, “you didn’t notify the police until after midnight. It take you that long to get from Woodward and Boston Boulevard to here?”

  “I got a ride from another priest. We stopped at his rectory and talked for a while.”

  “This other priest,” Quirt said, “he got a name?”

  Carleson bristled. He felt the insult in Quirt’s tone and choice of words. He also felt he was in no position to state anything but simple facts. “Koesler,” he said. “Father Robert Koesler. He’s the pastor of St. Joseph’s—near downtown. He’s the one who drove me home.”

  Koesler! The name struck several chords with Tully. He had worked several cases using this priest as an expert resource. The guy was no detective, but he knew his way around the Catholic Church—as did, undoubtedly, most of the other priests. But there was something about this guy. Maybe it was his willingness to help. Maybe it was his attention to detail. Till now in this case, Tully had felt himself in a morass of religious minutiae, what with religious orders, teachers in parish work, some historical priest Tully had been aware of only vaguely, a bishop in residence. It was a happy accident that Koesler was already involved in this case. Much more of this religious stuff and Tully himself might have called on the priest.

  “So,” Quirt continued, “this Father Koesler dropped you off here shortly after midnight?”

  “That’s right. Then he left immediately.”

  “What did you do then? Give us every detail you can remember.”

  “Okay.” Carleson paused, attempting to recall the events accurately and completely.

  “I opened the front door with my key. The only possible complication there would have been if someone had turned the dead bolt. I still could have opened the door, it just would’ve taken longer. And once you fiddle with the door, you’ve got only thirty seconds to deactivate the alarm.”

  “And did you get to the alarm in time?”

  “That’s what started me wondering really. I got to the alarm in plenty of time, but the code showed that the system for that part of the house wasn’t on. I couldn’t understand that. We’re very careful about the security system. I was sure the other priests had come home earlier. They would have to have deactivated the system when they came in and then activated it again after they closed the outside door. I figured they must not have noticed that one area of the house wasn’t covered.

  “But I wondered more why the front door wasn’t protected. The bishop’s office is right next to the door. I thought maybe he had shut it down because someone had come to the door. He’d have to have deactivated it before opening the door. Then, maybe after the caller left, he’d forgotten to reactivate it. Still, that didn’t sound like something he would forget. That’s when I decided to look around a little. I went into the bishop’s office and turned on the light. And …”

  “And you found him?”

  Carleson nodded. “I found him. And I called 911 right away. Then I woke the other priests and we waited for the police. We were careful not to touch anything. I guess that came from watching movies about murders—”

  “We’ve got just a few more questions,” Quirt said.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  After summoning father David McCauley, the Basilian priest whom Quirt and Tully had already met, Quirt sent the detectives back to work.

  Quirt, Tully, Kleimer, and Fathers McCauley and Carleson then moved to a less spacious room nearby. With the considerable group of detectives no longer hanging onto his every word and gesture, Carleson felt less nervous.

  Tully could not gauge how deeply Carleson was affected by all this. He seemed to be holding up rather well. But Father McCauley was definitely nervous.

  Quirt began by telling the priests that while it was not a crime to lie to the police, it could be a really disastrous mistake. If they were to lie or not tell everything they knew, it would all come home to roost eventually.

  McCauley was deeply impressed, Carleson had been bullied by more threatening characters.

  It was obvious that Quirt intended to get down to the nitty-gritty immediately. Tully would have preferred to explore some background first. But, what the hell, the ball was in Quirt’s court.

  “What we got here,” Quirt proceeded, “is we got a dead man. So he happens to be a bishop. Still, he’s dead. So we go through this thing by the book.” He paused and glanced at Tully. “Near as I can see.” Tully remained impassive.

  “First thing,” Quirt continued, “who would want him dead?”

  No response.

  “Did he have any enemies?”

  Carleson and McCauley looked at each other. Each seemed to expect the other to speak.

  Their reaction did not escape Quirt. “Father McCauley?”

  McCauley cleared his throat. “This is hard to say … but to be as truthful as I can: With some exceptions, the only people who liked him were the ones who didn’t know him very well.”

  Quirt was surprised. “What … what do you mean, ‘didn’t know him’?”

  “Well, like when he would visit a parish for confirmation …”

  “Wait a minute,” Quirt protested. “What is this ‘visit for confirmation’?”

  More than ever, Tully wanted Koesler around. That, he promised himself, would come later.

  “Bishops,” McCauley said, “especially auxiliary bishops, travel around to parishes in this archdiocese—there are more than three hundred of them—and give the sacrament of confirmation to the children and adults who have been prepared for this sacrament.

  “The bishop—in this case Bishop Diego—comes in just for that occasion. Maybe he has dinner with the priests of the parish and probably some priest-guests. Then there’s the ceremony over which he presides. Then he leaves.

  “Those are the people who like him—the ones he meets very briefly in church. Bishop Diego could be charming. But not over the long haul. But … well, if anybody could speak to that it would be Don here …” He indicated Carleson.

  At mention of his name, Carleson froze. McCauley immediately regretted having putting Carleson on the spot, so to speak.

  “Oh, yeah,” Quirt said, “I was gonna get to that. Something about a ‘special assignment’? What’s that all about?”

  Carleson took a deep breath, then exhaled as if he were about to embark on a dreaded journey.

  “To put it as simply as I can, I’ve been a priest for some thirty years. Nearly all that time I’ve been a missionary priest in different countries. Now—well, as of the past several months—I’ve been in the process of joining the archdiocese of Detroit.

  “I’ve got considerable background working among Latinos. So it was only natural that I serve in this community here in Detroit. But … I haven’t had much experience ministering in a large, urban, American setting. So … so it was determined that the ‘perfect’ assignment” —the sarcasm was unmistakable—” would be for me to work with Bishop Diego. The bishop is … uh, was … Hispanic. He’d been in a Latino community in Texas.”

  “And just what did this assignment involve?” Quirt sensed a possible suspect. It was his favorite scent.

  Carleson bit his lip. “To be pretty much at his beck and call.”

  “W
ell, let’s see if I got this straight …” Quirt was warming to the possibilities. “According to Father McCauley here, to know Bishop Diego was not necessarily to love him. In fact, the less you had to do with the guy, the more likely you were to get along okay. Whereas the better acquainted you got, the more you disliked him.

  “Seems to me, you gotta be pretty high on the list of people who might even like to see him dead.”

  “Wait a minute. You can’t be—”

  “Father …” Quirt was unctuous. “… all I’m doing is putting together what was just said by Father McCauley and yourself. Nothing more than that. Now, let’s just see where everybody was last night. Father McCauley, where were you between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 P.M. yesterday?”

  “Really!” As intimidated as McCauley was, he certainly had not expected to be treated as a murder suspect.

  Quirt let his very authentic nasty side show through. “This is a homicide investigation. I don’t give a damn whether this Bishop Diego was a living saint or a son of a bitch. He’s dead. And I’m gonna find out who did it. With a guy who made as many enemies as this guy seems to have made, the line of possible suspects can get kinda long. But no possible suspect is excused just because he happens to be clergy.

  “Now, Father McCauley, Father Carleson, you can answer our questions here and now, or … we can go down to the station. It’s just a short drive. But it ain’t as pleasant there as here.

  “What’ll it be?”

  McCauley lowered his head and nodded.

  “Okay.” Quirt resumed. “Between 4:00 and 6:00, Father McCauley?”

  “I was tired. We always are after the weekend schedule of Masses. And I was looking forward to the evening meeting of the priests. But I wasn’t looking forward to it very eagerly. And since we were committed to going, I decided to rest up and maybe take a nap—”

  “Wait a minute,” Quirt interrupted. “How come you were ‘committed’? I thought it was voluntary. How come you had to go?”

  McCauley hesitated. “Well, we had promised Don. He had never been to one of these meetings—uh, they’re actually parties. So we agreed to go for his sake.”