Bishop as Pawn

by William Kienzle

  Koesler stopped in midthought. He had expected—hoped—he could be a consultant regarding the murder of Bishop Diego. And here he was fooling with bishops’ given names and who would dare, or be permitted, or invited to use them. “Is this of any importance?”

  “It could be. It’s something I don’t completely understand. And I think I should.”

  Koesler tilted his head and smiled. “Okay. Bishops in most instances, at least from the earliest days of the Christian Church, were usually selected from the ranks of the priests.

  “In modern times, priests were given the title of ‘Father.’ It was only a few years ago that the title became virtually expendable. Some contemporary priests discard the title and encourage everyone to use their given name. Others insist on the title’s use. Others will excuse close friends from using it.

  “That’s pretty much the case with bishops. Except that far more bishops than priests will want the title—along with the reverence.

  “An example: Probably no one is a more complete churchman than the Cardinal Archbishop of Detroit. Whenever he comes to mind—no matter how casually—I automatically think of him in terms of His Eminence Mark Cardinal Boyle.

  “Even his priest secretary who lives in the same home, travels with him frequently, and shares his meals, regularly refers to him as Eminence. About as casual as this gets is when the secretary, when speaking to another priest, refers to the Cardinal as ‘the boss.’

  “And yet, I’ve heard Joan Blackford Hayes call him Mark.”

  “Who’s Joan Blackford Hayes?”

  “You don’t … Well, I suppose you might not know her if you’re not Catholic. She’s the founder and head of the Institute for Continuing Education. In effect, she’s part of the local Church administration. It’s as if she’s a member of Cardinal Boyle’s cabinet. Still, I’d never have guessed she was on a first-name basis with the Cardinal if I hadn’t heard her call him Mark.”

  “How about Maria Shell?”

  “Who’s Maria Shell?” Koesler assumed Maria Shell was someone he was expected to know. And he didn’t. It happened with discouraging regularity. Here he was a native Detroiter for all of his sixty-five years and there were so many well-known Detroiters he’d never met, did not know, or recognized only from reading about them.

  “That’s just the point,” Tully said. “Who is Maria Shell? You tell me about a woman who’s been selected by the bishop to be a member of his team. And still you were surprised to hear her call her boss by his first name.

  “See, yesterday afternoon, Father Carleson drove Bishop Diego to a cocktail party thrown by a prominent guy named Carson.…”

  It happened again. Koesler did not know the prominent Carson.

  “Turns out a guy named Michael Shell showed up at the party and had it out—strong words, not blows—with Diego. Then, a couple to a few hours later, the bishop is murdered.”

  “And this Michael Shell is a suspect?”

  “Of course we’re interested in anyone who exhibits violent anger at someone who later is murdered. It gets complicated. But Shell is positive that Diego was a good part of the cause Mrs. Shell is estranged from Mr. Shell. He doesn’t allege that the two had illicit relations … but he does accuse the bishop of alienating his wife’s affections.

  “The point is, I just interviewed Mrs. Shell. Half the time she talked about ‘Bishop Diego.’ The rest of the time, he was ‘Ramon.’ Granted, I don’t know much about institutional religion, but that’s the first time I’ve heard an ordinary person—a woman —call a bishop by his first name. And you say he might have invited her to do that?”

  “Yes, especially in this case.”

  “Why especially here?”

  “I didn’t get to know the bishop personally. But we priests do talk. So from pretty reliable hearsay, I think I have a fair idea of what made Bishop Diego tick.

  “I hate to say this, because it’s practically the opposite of what a bishop should be, but Bishop Diego used people. Bishops—priests for that matter—ought to be serving people in any kind of ideal way. But a sort of consensus would tell you that Bishop Diego manipulated people.

  “Although I don’t know them, from the way you referred to them, I take it that Mr. and Mrs. Shell and this Mr. Carson who gave the cocktail party yesterday are pretty important people. Rich and, I suppose, Catholic.”

  Tully nodded.

  “Then,” Koesler continued, “they’re the type of people that the bishop wanted—needed.

  “See, shortly after he got here from Texas, our priests, who sort of have a sixth sense for this sort of thing, agreed that Diego was just passing through Detroit on the way to his own diocese. And, if he had any way of influencing it, the diocese he would be given would be big and important.”

  “Getting his own diocese, that would be a promotion?”

  “Very, very much so. And, as you can easily see, getting a place like New York or Chicago or Boston is a great deal different than, say, Saginaw. So, everything he did here had a lot to do with where he would be going. That’s why it was so necessary for him to get to be part of the socially and financially important circle of the archdiocese.”

  “Have you seen the late bishop’s office at Ste. Anne’s?” Tully asked.

  “No.”

  “Never mind. It just sort of illustrates what you’ve been saying. His formula for success seemed to be working quite well. But it doesn’t explain Michael Shell or Maria Shell.”

  “I don’t know Mr. Shell. And I’d never heard of Maria and her relationship with the bishop. But I think I could guess what was going on.”

  “By all means,” Tully invited.

  “Let me call it the ‘forbidden fruit.’ You’re familiar with the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden?”

  “Adam and Eve?” Tully smiled. “Yeah, even I know about them.”

  “Well, this law we have of celibacy sort of makes priests and, I suppose even more, bishops a kind of forbidden fruit, I don’t want to seem to be bragging about this. We priests certainly are no better catches than the average man. But the fact that we are—how shall I say it?—out of bounds sometimes seems to add a certain attraction.

  “It’s something like the company that gets a new computer system. And the president announces to the employees that this new system is foolproof: No one can break into it and solve its secrets—”

  “Don’t tell me,” Tully interrupted. “It’s a challenge. Somebody’s going to take on the challenge and try to beat the system.”

  “Exactly. The owner is, in effect, hurling down a gauntlet He’s implying that none of his employees is smart enough—talented enough—to break into the computer system. In the face of that, someone is almost certain to try—maybe even succeed.

  “The author of Genesis used this sort of example to begin the explanation of how evil came into the world. Adam and Eve could use this garden of paradise in any way they wished. There was only a single command. Inevitably the fruit of the one forbidden tree became the most desirable of all.

  “Now, nothing in this story that suggests that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was any better or more nourishing or tastier than that of any other tree. Only that it was forbidden.

  “Well, that’s what I’m suggesting here. Priests aren’t guaranteed in any qualitative way to be more attractive than any other man. But the requirement of celibacy makes them a forbidden fruit. Some women can be attracted for that reason alone. But it can work the other way too. The forbidden fruit and the tempter can become one and the same agent.

  “Take Bishop Diego, for instance. If we grant that he was an almost shamefully ambitious person, his game was working quite perfectly. In a situation like that, he could become quite bored.”

  Koesler was becoming animated as the flow of his argument carried him along. “There’s a scene in My Fair Lady where Henry Higgins takes his new creation, an elegant Eliza Doolittle, to a fancy ball. Everyone in on the experiment is very tense until Eliz
a seems to be carrying off her innocent deception perfectly. Higgins is bored to tears … so much so that he welcomes the acid test provided by another speech teacher and grammarian—Zoltan Kaparthy.

  “This, I think, is what may have happened with Bishop Diego. His plan was working so well that he was willing to introduce another element—just to liven up the game. And so he could welcome his own Eliza Doolittle. He wouldn’t become so carried away that he would compromise the limitations his celibacy called for. But he would dally – just to add a little spice to his now humdrum program. What’s her name … Maria Shell? He would lead her on to a sort of chaste love affair.

  “Now maybe he made a mistake there. Maybe he didn’t count on treading on the already fragile relationship between Maria and Michael Shell.”

  “And maybe,” Tully continued the speculation, “that was a serious—maybe even a fatal mistake.”

  Koesler leaned back in his chair. “Maybe.”

  The hint of a smile played around Tully’s lips. “Now, about that Adam and Eve story: Does it say what Eve thought of the snake?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The snake caused all the trouble, I mean by tempting Eve. Did she get sore about that?”

  “Hmmm. That’s not part of the story. Life just goes steadily downhill for Adam and Eve after their disobedience.”

  “But she should get angry, shouldn’t she?”

  Koesler pondered a moment. “I suppose so. Of course the original disobedience was her responsibility. She could have rejected the offer. She should have. But, on the other hand, she probably would have stayed on the straight and narrow if she hadn’t been tempted. So, yes, I suppose that would be one conclusion you could draw from the story. But … wait a minute … you’re saying …”

  “I’m saying, What if Maria Shell wised up to Diego? What if she realized that no matter how bad her marriage was, it got a whole lot worse after Diego came on the scene? What if she thought or assumed that her relationship with Diego was going to get serious, get physical?

  “At one point when I was talking to her today she as much as said that if he had called, she would have answered. She was ready to pack up and leave with him. Suppose she tumbled to what you just said: that Diego was using her, just the way he was using everybody else. After all, why should he change his m.o. for her alone? She’s a smart lady, she could have come to that conclusion eventually. Why not now?

  “Then we’ve got two people instead of one, whose lives would be significantly brightened with Diego out of the picture.” Tully looked thoughtful. “That could be interesting.

  “Okay,” he said after a moment, “that clears up my perspective on the Shells. Now, one more thing: What about those two priests—Carleson and Bell—and the bishop?”

  “Don Carleson and Ernie Bell? They’re not suspects!?”

  “It’s part of the investigation. We’ve been tracing movements of just about everybody who crossed Diego’s path yesterday, and as far back before then and as completely as we can. Mostly from that meeting last night, Carleson and Bell surfaced. You were at that meeting. I’m surprised they didn’t question you.”

  “‘They’? Aren’t you conducting this investigation?”

  Tully explained the makeup of the temporary task force and the fact that Lieutenant Quirt was heading it. “You know both these priests, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I know them … Ernie Bell far better than Don Carleson. Ernie’s entire career as a priest has been in this archdiocese. We were together in the seminary. Father Carleson is in the process of joining us from the foreign missions. But he and I had a long talk just last night. So I have some little knowledge of him. What would be helpful for you to know?”

  “Let’s start with Bell. The problem between him and Diego seems to be about some threat to close his parish.”

  “Yes, that’s my understanding.”

  “Tell me a little about that from your experience. I mean, it’s not like the guy is going to lose his job, is it? He’d just go to another parish, wouldn’t he?”

  Koesler smiled. “Sure you wouldn’t like some coffee? It’d just take me—”

  “No! No, that’s all right. I’ll be just a few minutes more.”

  “Hmmm. Well, you’re right, of course, Ernie surely wouldn’t lose his job if St. Gabriel’s were closed. There are lots of parishes that need someone, particularly someone like him.

  “But that’s not the complete picture. It may very well be that Ernie is so close to what he’s doing there that he doesn’t realize how that parish has become an extension of himself.”

  “An extension …?”

  “Yes. So many parishes like St. Gabriel in the inner city of Detroit have changed drastically, radically Mine, for example, used to serve a German community. You’d never guess that from the fairly cosmopolitan congregation we’ve got now.

  “St. Gabriel’s was a working-class parish. Blue collar. Now it’s predominantly Latino. Ernie Bell has helped—no, he made that parish over to provide essential services to the Latino community. He is so involved in all that goes on in that parish, that the parish has become, in a very real way, that extension of himself.”

  “So, if they closed it …?”

  “They would, in effect, be taking a part of him away.”

  “And what would happen to the people he took care of?”

  Koesler shrugged. “In all likelihood, they’d be encouraged to attend and get their help from Holy Redeemer parish. It’s about a mile east of Gabriel’s and it’s mammoth.”

  “So, why should Bell be so torn up? It’s not like his folks wouldn’t be helped.”

  Koesler smiled sadly. “That’s the way the Chancery would look at it. The people in charge downtown would claim that nobody was being abandoned. That the priest shortage is forcing a consolidation. But past practice says that it wouldn’t be that neat.

  “Lots of Gabriel’s parishioners are elderly, and many of them speak only Spanish. Many of them would be lost. They wouldn’t understand. They would feel themselves truly abandoned. They couldn’t grasp that they were expected to affiliate with a different parish—even if some transportation were provided. They would almost barricade themselves in their homes. Many would go hungry, get sick. It’s not unlikely some would die.

  “And the ones who made a successful transfer to Redeemer? Well, there’s no doubt that Redeemer is a monster parish. But it’s up to its ears taking care of its own. I doubt even Redeemer could take the influx without cutting back its service to its own, let alone everyone who came from Gabriel’s.

  “That, you see, is how Ernie Bell looks at it. He’s seen it happen to others and he knows what to expect.”

  Tully toyed with an ashtray that was going unused. “And you: Do you agree with Bell’s evaluation?”

  “Yes,” Koesler said without hesitation.

  “This threat to close the parish came from the late bishop,” Tully said. “The way I got it, the bishop was responding to a threat from Bell to show him up for what he was—a greedy, ambitious manipulator. To me, it sounds like an idle threat. What could Bell do to Diego?”

  Koesler leaned back, seeming to envision what Father Bell might cause to happen. “Innuendo comes to mind. Innuendo and the news media. Find some enterprising journalist—maybe the National Catholic Reporter or the News or the Free Press, and intimate what, on the one hand, is expected of Bishop Diego and, on the other, what he was doing, who his constant companions were. How much his people needed him and how little he gave.

  “It wouldn’t be that difficult to drop names of some of the wealthiest Catholics around and how tight they were with the bishop. Offer interpretation of what was happening and what the bishop’s goals were. That should get the ball nicely rolling.”

  “And what would that accomplish?” Tully asked. “What trouble could that cause?”

  “It could—and it very likely would—cement Bishop Diego right here as an auxiliary bishop for the rest of his life. And th
at could be like purgatory—if you understood purgatory as just like hell only limited to a certain period of time.”

  “Why? Why would that force him to stay here?”

  “Rome makes the final judgment when it comes to bishops—who becomes a bishop and where they all go. And one of the last things Rome wants is a bishop tainted by controversy.

  “It’s sort of like the first two nominations President Clinton made for attorney general. The first had broken a law in hiring illegal aliens. The second had done the same thing before the practice had been a law.

  “The idea was, there should be not even a hint of a scandal or any impropriety. Which would have been the case with Bishop Diego if it had become common knowledge that he sought power by any means necessary—making friends of powerful and wealthy people while neglecting the ones who were obviously in desperate need of him.

  “Most Catholics in other dioceses would not want such a bishop. And, with this in mind, Rome would not want to send him. He’d be mired here in Detroit with few responsibilities and practically no power.

  “So you see, both threats could have been very real.”

  Tully nodded his understanding. “Okay. Then what about Carleson? Seems no secret that he didn’t like Diego. And Garleson was closer to Diego than maybe anyone else. Something about being a chauffeur—a servant?”

  “That situation would come as no surprise to most of the priests here.” Koesler took a deep breath, held it for a few moments, then exhaled. How much should he tell Tully?

  “Lieutenant,” he said at length, “when I say that something is common knowledge among priests, I don’t mean everybody knows about it. But we do get together almost as often as we can—and we talk. I don’t suppose it’s much different than with the police: You talk about your work and you talk about each other and you talk about your superiors.

  “So, many, if not most of us, were aware, at least in a general way, of what was going on.

  “The sort of treatment Bishop Diego dealt out to Father Carleson was not all that rare years ago. There were certain pastors—and, for the most part, we knew who they were—who treated priests assigned to them shamefully. And they got away with it. For one thing, it was a seller’s market and there was little recourse.