Body Count

8

Father Koesler was used to surprises. They happened to him often enough.

Last night he had been juggling a series of appointments, along with an unusual number of phone calls. So many, indeed, that he’d asked Father Dunn to take the phone and see if the busy pastor couldn’t return the calls later.

One of those calls he returned was from one Marlene Pietrangelo.

He had no idea who this Mrs. Pietrangelo was until she identified herself as the penitent who had visited him last Saturday evening in the confessional. They had discussed in general terms the Church teachings and positions with which she disagreed. Although she hadn’t been to confession in two years, she’d declined confessing at that time. So instead of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, they’d had a chat. It was not definite, but she had mentioned that she might return. Koesler was surprised she’d called so soon.

She had, she said, a problem she hadn’t specifically brought up on Saturday. She wanted to see him now. Accent on the now.

Koesler had an appointment with Lieutenant Tully the next morning. But there was something in her voice, an urgency that couldn’t be ignored. This might well be a fish that wanted to take the bait and might well lose the appetite if not hooked now.

Fortunately, she was able to be at St. Joseph’s at 7:00 Tuesday morning. One more indication of her earnestness: a willingness to travel from a northern suburb to downtown Detroit at that early hour.

She arrived at precisely 7:00. He tried to lead her direcdy to the heart of the matter, which turned out to be that she was in a second marriage without having had the first annulled,

Another surprise.

Koesler mentally reexamined their conversation of Saturday. It had been there, but well concealed. Among the positions of the teaching Church with which she disagreed were birth control, divorce, remarriage, and abortion. As it turned out, the only one of these she had not acted on was abortion. What had appeared at the time as a theoretical difference of opinion was actually a conflict between practice and an apparent law.

Some nonthreatening questions elicited the fact that hers would not be a complicated case. Her first marriage-to another Catholic-had been by civil ceremony and never ratified by a Catholic priest. Both that marriage and the subsequent divorce had taken place without benefit of clergy. Yet she had assumed that when Catholics married-by any legal means-the union was recognized as valid by the Church. And that was why she and Mr. Pietrangelo had therefore also been married by a judge: Their erroneous understanding was that it was impossible for them to be married “in the Church.”

Koesler was happy to explain that this was one of life’s most easily rectified problems.

For an annulment of her first marriage, all that was needed were recent copies of the original couple’s baptismal records, on which there would be no notation of marriage-a clear indication that they had not had an ecclesiastically recognized wedding. For a valid marriage, a Catholic couple needs a priest and two witnesses at their exchange of consent. The marriage license signed by the justice would show that a priest did not perform the marriage. The “clean” baptismal certificate would indicate they never had a priest convalidate their union. A fact to which they would of course attest. And, voila! Perfect grounds for the simplest of annulments.

Only one further consideration. The Pietrangelos were having difficult financial times; could they afford the process?

Again Koesler was able to deliver good news. In the matter of annulments, more often than not there was no happy news. So he was particularly pleased that this woman had a case that would require only the simplest and least complicated procedures in the annulment field. And it would not cost her a penny.

He was uncertain how many dioceses footed the bill for Tribunal fees, but he hoped they all followed Detroit’s example. Here, the local Church court simply charged nothing for cases that remained on the local level. About the only matter that had to be sent to Rome was the Privilege of the Faith case, which involved not a declaration of nullity, but a dissolution of a nonsacramental marriage in favor of one between two Catholics. While a Privilege of the Faith case was extremely complex-having to prove that a baptism never happened-and quite expensive, the Detroit Tribunal absorbed the cost. The sole procedure not covered by this policy was an appeal; anyone wishing to appeal a decision was on his or her own financially.

By assuring Mrs. Pietrangelo that she had an excellent chance to have her marriage convalidated and further assuring her that the process would be free of charge, Koesler had made her day. And because she was extremely happy about all this, so was Koesler. Almost.

There was still the matter of having to “help” Lieutenant Tully solve a mystery, the solution to which Koesler already knew. Boxed in as he was by the sacred seal of confession, he was skating on the thinnest of ice. He had never been in a situation precisely like this in his entire life. He would have to be more alert and guarded than he had ever been.

Certainly more astute than he’d been with Marlene Pietrangelo. She was by no means the first person who had fooled him by disguising her actual motive behind a smoke screen. A few pointed questions would have brought out the fact that it was her marital state that troubled her, not some hypothetical disagreement with Catholic morality.

Koesler was in the process of psyching himself up to cope with the unpredictable questions and unintentional pitfalls that Tully would throw at him, when the doorbell rang. With a prayer to the Holy Spirit for guidance, Koesler went to let Tully in.

But Tully remained on the porch. “I wonder if you can go with me to St. Waldo’s. We can talk on the way. And there’s something I’d like you to do for me when we get there. Can you go now?”

“Well, sure … just wait till I get my coat and hat.”

Tully was wearing neither hat nor coat. He considered this to be a fine September day. Cool, yet not cold. But to every man his distinct metabolism.

Once in the car and on their way, Tully asked, “What time do you have to be back?”

“Oh, there’s no hurry. I don’t have an appointment until 7:00 this evening.”

“Then you don’t have any daily service?”

“Mass? Yes, as a matter of fact. At noon. But Father Dunn agreed to take it.”

“You’ve got an assistant?” Tully was given to think priests were an endangered species. But then he’d asked Koesler aboard for the very reason that he knew very little about this subject.

“No, no.” Koesler shook his head, almost dislodging his hat. They didn’t make cars for tall men wearing hats. “I doubt St. Joseph’s will ever have an associate pastor again.”

Tully put that bit of trivia in his computerlike memory. They aren’t called assistants. They’re associate pastors.

“There’s a young priest from Minnesota come to live with me while he studies at U of D. Fortunately, he doesn’t have classes on Tuesdays until late afternoon.” Under no circumstances was Koesler going to volunteer the information that Dunn had selected Old St. Joe’s for his headquarters because he wanted to grow up to be an amateur detective. In that direction lay a can of worms.

“Oh, well, now, there’s an assist-an associate at St. Waldo’s,” Tully said.

Koesler smiled. “St. Waldo’s is in a class by itself. It may be the wealthiest parish in the archdiocese. There are quite a number of Catholic families in the parish boundaries. They are used to prompt service and I guess they get it.” He paused. “But maybe I’m being too simplistic. They’ve got an associate and dependable weekend help not so much because the parishioners are wealthy but because there are so many Catholics there.” Another pause. “Of course they don’t have a school … oh, forget it, Lieutenant: They have an associate because the Cardinal sent them one.”

Tully nodded. Actually, Koesler’s fumbling stream of consciousness revealed more about parish structure and Church politics than the priest was aware of. Tully also noted that Koesler invariably called him Lieutenant. Which reminded him that even though Walt Koznicki and Koesler were good friends, they always addressed each other by their respective titles. If that was the case, thought Tully, it was a cinch that he and Koesler would never be on a first-name basis. He could live with that.

“When I talked to you last night,” Tully said, “I asked if you knew Father Keating. But I didn’t establish how well you know him.”

It was a statement, not a question. But Koesler answered anyway. “Pretty well. Jake Keating was just a few years younger than I-”

“Was? Why past tense?”

Tully was quick. Koesler already knew that, but he wasn’t prepared for the question. “I don’t know, Lieutenant. I guess because I was thinking back to when we were teenagers. And I guess because he’s missing … that plus the fact that the Homicide Department is investigating. But you’re right, and thank God you are. Okay, well, Jake is a few years younger than I. We were in the seminary together for something like nine years. And then, of course, we were together off and on since then. So, all in all, our relationship goes back almost forty years.”

“That long!”

“In total years, yes. But we were never what might be called good friends. We are friendly, but not particularly close. Especially these past few years.”

“East few years?”

Koesler wondered if Tully was consciously using a psychological ploy of the reflective mirror.

“Maybe about ten years,” Koesler said. “Just about from the time he became pastor of St. Waldo’s.”

“Is that usual? That a couple of priests would part company because one of them became a pastor?”

Koesler scratched his chin. “Hard to say. I was a pastor before Jake became one. But we still saw each other socially occasionally. Waldo’s just sort of swallowed Jake. That sometimes happens; the demands on a priest’s time can vary from one assignment to another.”

“Tell me about him, starting from when you knew him in the seminary. I want to get to know this guy, what makes him tick … what might contribute to whatever has happened to him.”

Koesler thought a moment. This seemed a safe area. But he’d still have to be cautious. Tully, as he had just demonstrated, was incredibly perceptive.

“Well, Jake came from a decidedly upper-middle-class family,” Koesler began. “Most of us Catholic kids who crowded into the seminary in those days-the forties-came from lower-middle-to middle-class homes. Jake’s family was definitely on a level well above most, if not just about all of us. His dad was an executive at General Motors, and the family lived in St. Mary’s of Redford parish on the west side-Grand River near Southfield.”

Tully nodded. He knew that neighborhood well. It had changed. There were no GM execs living there anymore.

“It’s hard to explain what the seminary was like. You sort of had to be there,” Koesler continued. “We were all in it together. We were all governed by the same rules and standards. We were all expected to achieve set levels in academics and … well … it sounds pretentious to say it, but holiness.”

He was silent for a moment, remembering.

“Anyway, any differences in our backgrounds quickly disappeared. We were just kids in a special kind of high school, college, and finally, theologate. We were being educated-prepared for a very specific kind of life that called for a facility with Latin as well as English, a strong foundation in the liberal arts, and a proficiency in moral and dogmatic theology, liturgy, Church law, and sacred Scripture.

“What I’m getting at, Lieutenant, is that in a youthful circle where everybody was socially equal, Jake Keating stood out. I don’t think it was anything he consciously did or said or the way he related to the rest of us. The rest of us could imagine what it was like to belong to a posh athletic club, a pricey spa. But Jake’s father did belong to such clubs. And Jake would take a few of us along from time to time.”

Koesler’s narration led him further down memory lane. He silently recalled a time when Jake Keating took Bob Koesler along for a family dinner at the then exclusive Detroit Boat Club on Belle Isle. There were Mr. and Mrs. Keating, Jake-an only child-and a wide-eyed Bob Koesler. They were seated in the elegant and fully occupied dining room. Koesler briefly took in the ambience, the likes of which he’d experienced before only in the movies. Then his interest fell upon the other diners. They all seemed to be talking to one another. But they weren’t making much noise. Nothing at all like what went on in the seminary refectory with a noise level that challenged even the students’ youthful hearing.

Next, Koesler had noticed the bread plate, containing the sole item of food on the table. Nurtured in the prime maxim of seminary dining-he that doth not grab doth not eat-he ripped the heel from the loaf of bread and began eating it rapidly. He slowed to a dead stop when he caught the expressions of the others at table. Mr. and Mrs, Keating were looking at him as if he were Oliver Twist. Jake was smiling broadly. It wasn’t a malicious smile, just amused. Then Jake mouthed words so precisely no lip-reader was needed: Do what I do. That direction was a godsend as Jake led Bobby through the courses using the proper silverware and exercising appropriate restraint.

“So,” Tully interrupted Koesler’s daydream, “Keating seemed a lead-pipe cinch to end up in a place like St. Waldo’s?”

“Hmm?” Koesler came back to the present. “Oh, no that’s not what I was getting at. I’m just trying to do what you asked: give you an idea of what made John Keating a special person. The one thing-just one, but maybe a very important one-that set him off from the rest of us, is that he came from considerably more wealth than the rest of us.

“For instance, one of the other seminarians who lived in St. Mary’s of Redford told me something that fits in here. He was talking about his confirmation-that’s a religious ceremony for Catholics, usually when they’re quite young. Anyway, even though he hardly knew the man, he chose Jake’s father as his sponsor at confirmation-because he thought he would get an expensive gift.”

Tully smiled. “Did he?”

“Uh-huh. A hundred dollars-which, in those days, was an awful lot of money.

“Keep in mind, Lieutenant,” Koesler added, “that outside of just a few incidents like that, Jake was no different from the rest of us. He was one of the guys. We played together, prayed together, studied together, pulled pranks on each other. So, on a day-to-day basis, there was no special awareness that …”

“… that John Keating could buy and sell the rest of you guys?”

Koesler could not improve the phrasing. “There’s maybe one more incident that may kind of shed a bit more light on this. When we were ordained priests, there were two items we were expected to provide for ourselves: a chalice and a car.”

“A what and a car?”

Koesler chuckled. “The chalice is the cup that’s used for Mass. It came with a circular plate-a paten-and the inner surface of both was supposed to be gold-plated. It was an expensive item but not nearly as expensive as the car, of course. A few-only a very few-of the fellas were able to do summer work and save enough to buy these things themselves. But for the vast majority of us, our folks stretched their budgets to the breaking point to get these things for us.”

“Everybody had to come up with those?” Tully recalled the financial pinch felt by both himself and his parents when he was in his early twenties. No chance in hell that he and/or his family could have come up with a used, let alone a new car-let alone a gold cup.

“No, no; those things weren’t a prerequisite for ordination. Especially the chalice. There wasn’t a parish that didn’t have chalices that could be used by anyone who didn’t have his own. But, traditionally, each new priest was supposed to have his own.

“You could get along without a car too. But that would be tricky. We had to be mobile-sick calls, Communion calls, meetings, a thousand things that required transportation. You could borrow someone else’s car, but that was awkward at best. Of course this didn’t come as a surprise, either. We and our families saw this coming years before we needed these things, so there was a lot of dedicated saving going on for a lot of years.

“And that’s how it was. Now you’d suppose that the young Father John Keating would have a state-of-the-art chalice and car. Chalices began at a couple hundred bucks. After that, the sky was the limit. The cup could be entirely gold-plated, maybe set with precious gems. I suppose I remember this so clearly because all of us took special interest in what Jake would get from his parents.

“Anyway, his chalice was very nice-ornamental, but not vastly different from the rest of ours. The diamond from his mother’s engagement ring was embedded in the base of his chalice. Not an uncommon thing. And his car-that was very interesting. His dad-a G.M. executive, remember-got him a new Olds. The rest of us were deliriously happy with the lowest-priced Fords, Chevys, or Plymouths. But Jake got an Olds.

“The important thing about this story-in case you’re wondering, Lieutenant-is that Jake’s dad could easily have come up with a top-of-the-line Caddie. But Mr. Keating had some very firm opinions about how a priest ought to live: not in poverty, but not lavishly either.

“There were those of us who felt that Jake didn’t agree with this philosophy at all. And if we were correct, if that was true, then Jake must have been extremely disappointed when his father died and his mother followed her husband a year later.”

“They didn’t leave him anything?”

“Oh, nothing that drastic. But not all that far from drastic by Jake’s lights. Rumor had it that they left him about twenty percent of their estate-enough for him to live comfortably. But not by any means luxuriously. They did it not because they didn’t love him, but because they did.”

“Okay, I think I got it.” They were nearing St. Waldo’s and Tully had plans for Koesler once they reached the parish. “Just one more thing: How would you describe his lifestyle all these years he’s been a priest?”

Koesler whistled softly. “That’s a big order. Let’s see … I don’t see much difference from when he was a seminarian. He was a good companion. I was with him-and, of course, a bunch of other priests-on three or four summer vacations in Florida,”

“Summer in Florida?”

“Summer in Florida,” Koesler insisted. “In those days, at least, the associate pastors took their golfing vacations in the summer. It was the pastors who generally went down there in season. Anyway, I was also with him on a few minivacations to see some Broadway shows in New York.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It was.” Koesler saw no need to apologize for an occasional vacation. “At all times, Jake Keating was one of the boys. With one plus: Vacation with Jake meant a complimentary G.M. car-a courtesy car, courtesy of all the contacts Jake had made through his father’s job,”

“He must have been a desirable companion.”

“He was. Oh, not just because he could get free transportation. He was … as I said, one of the guys. He would have been welcome with or without the car. He just was no stranger to money.” Koesler leaned forward slightly. “I think you turn left at the next street.”

“I know. I’ve been here before. The investigation didn’t start today, Father.”

“Oh, of course.” After a moment, Koesler added, “One last anecdote to kind of spell out his attitude. It was one of Jake’s favorite stories. His first assignment was at St. Robert Bellarmine. The pastor there was scrupulous about accounting for parish money. Jake, the pastor, and a few trusted women would spend much of Sundays and Mondays counting the collection. If they were a penny off they had to start the whole thing over. Almost everyone I know would have gone crazy there. But not Jake. He was right at home with that procedure.

“Then, after five years at Bellarmine, he was sent to St. Martin’s, on the east side. His first Sunday there, there was a double collection. The ushers took up the regular collection at the regular time. Then after Communion there was a second collection for the Pope. It’s called Peter’s Pence. Well, Jake had the last Mass that Sunday morning. When he got down to the rectory basement, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The pastor and the women who helped him had opened all the envelopes, and all the money-from the regular collection as well as Peter’s Pence-was all together in one pile in the middle of the table. Then the pastor sliced into one small corner of the pile and pushed a small part of the collection to one side and said, ‘I think the Pope should get this much.’ It took Jake several days to get over the shock.”

Tully didn’t quite see the point of the story, but he chuckled anyway.

The point was blunted because that anecdote was only roughly half of what Koesler had originally intended to tell Tully. Which was how Jake and the much older pastor had become friends and the results of that friendship. While the pastor took a somewhat casual approach to a double collection, he was far more meticulous about his own assets. He had, over the years, amassed an enviable portfolio of blue-ribbon stocks. And he had encouraged Jake to follow his example.

And Jake had, indeed, begun to invest. But he was too stubborn to listen to what turned out to be the pastor’s excellent advice. And Jake had lost a bundle.

Halfway through his relation of the collection incident, Koesler had decided not to tell the remainder of the story: The conclusion would have implied that Keating was a gambler-and a not very successful one at that.

Too close-much too close to that unexposable secret. Koesler couldn’t chance connecting the two. The story was innocent enough. But if the police had followed Koesler’s lead, they could have walked right into the information Keating’s killer had revealed. The killer would have concluded that Koesler had violated the seal of confession. And that simply would not do. It would not do at all.

As Tully pulled up in front of the rectory, Koesler beheld one of the busier scenes he had ever seen at a Catholic church on a weekday.

There were people all over the place, on the sidewalks, in the driveways, talking on car radios, walking across lawns clearly posted “Keep Off the Grass.” Many wore police uniforms. But the uniforms definitely were not uniform. Koesler could not read the sleeve patches from this distance but they appeared to identify different municipalities. He was impressed with the scope of this investigation.

Tully turned the ignition off but made no move to leave the car, so neither did Koesler.

Without turning to Koesler, Tully said, “You did a good job filling me in on our missing priest. Now I’d like you to help in another way.”

“If I can.”

“So far, the interrogation of the parish personnel has left a lot to be desired. These people are plenty uptight-at least with the police. I think they may open up a bit with a priest-you. Are you aware, for instance, that people don’t seem to stay employed here for very long stretches?”

“Now that you mention it,” Koesler paused a moment in thought, “now that you mention it, I was vaguely aware that the associate pastors moved in and out of here with some frequency. I wouldn’t have any occasion to know about people like the housekeeper, secretary, or janitor. The priest assignments are usually listed in our Catholic paper. So I’d read about the associates’ moves. What those frequent moves mean is something else again. What with the drastic shortage of priests, there’s a bit more movement of priests than there used to be. So it could be quite naturally understandable. Or it could mean some friction with the pastor. I suppose that would more likely be the case if the other personnel move in and out a lot.”

Tully nodded. “I think it’s a problem with the pastor. I think they expect him back any minute and they’re afraid if they bad-mouth him to us-even if it’s the truth-it might get back to him and they’d be looking for another job. There’s a good chance they’ll be more willing to talk freely to a priest than to a cop.”

Koesler agreed. “I think that might be especially true of the associate pastor. One priest to another. But I must confess I don’t know who’s here.”

Tully took a notepad from the inside pocket of his jacket and began looking for the associate’s name. While he did not find it odd that Koesler could not have known where all of Detroit’s priests were living, Tully would have been somewhat surprised had he realized how little the older priests knew about younger priests. “Father Mitchell-Father Fred Mitchell.”

Koesler smiled. “Now that’s a lucky break. I do happen to know Fred. That will make this a bit easier.”

“Then,” Tully said, “let’s have at ’im.”

“Lead on,” said Koesler as he unfolded from the car.