Marked for Murder

19

Mangiapane talked too much—much too much. But he was a good cop. And, in time, he would make a first-rate homicide detective.

He had an inquisitive mind. That was good. And he seemed to catch on to homicide work instinctively. The whole thing was in solving the puzzle. And he liked the mysteries as opposed to the platters.

Some guys just wanted the closed folder. Some guys and gals—Alonzo Tully corrected himself. He mustn’t overlook the women in the division. Some of them were damn good. Especially when they advanced in grade. A female sergeant or lieutenant generally was ten times as good as the equivalent man. And, as Mangiapane had pointed out not ten minutes ago, women, even women cops, smelled good.

God, surveillance was dull.

He had no one to blame but himself; it had been his idea. As a matter of fact, quite a few other cops were, at this very moment, blaming him for their being staked out in uncomfortable cars on a dreary Sunday afternoon in late January when they could have been installed in front of a nice TV set, armed with snacks and beer, watching the Pro Bowl. The last of football for this season.

But dammit, Tully didn’t care. This was part of being a cop: 98 percent going up blind alleys, only once in a while guessing right or getting an unexpected break. And that’s what this afternoon was—a guess. Only time would show whether or not it was an inspired guess.

The first of the prostitute mutilation murders had taken place two weeks ago on a late Sunday afternoon. The second, one week ago on a late Sunday afternoon. Both murders had occurred in threadbare sections of the city, sections notorious for a thriving prostitution business. But sections where, due largely to the poverty of the area, there was little likelihood of finding either high-class or high-priced women. Both victims had been, for prostitutes, comparatively elderly. And both were white.

Even with the beefed-up squad Koznicki had given him, this week’s investigation had turned up nothing new or helpful. There had been the usual parade of confessors—people under some weird compulsion to confess to any well-publicized crime. But each had to be checked out, even if only in a cursory manner.

Then, as a result of publicizing that composite likeness of the perp, a whole bunch of people had turned in their friends, relatives, and enemies—anyone who bore the slightest resemblance to the drawing. Those too had to be checked out. Someplace in that pile there could have been a lucky break. But there wasn’t.

Adelle and Ruby had looked through police mug shots of killers, with special emphasis on those connected in any way with prostitutes. Nothing. Then, in a move Tully considered unique in the annals of the Detroit Police Department, the women were given the Archdiocese of Detroit Pictorial Directory to study.

That they identified no one in either collection did not surprise Tully.

Relatively few victims or witnesses correctly identify a perpetrator from mug shots. The photos, posed and dour, are frequently misleading and rarely up-to-date. Often the victim’s memory plays tricks. And there is always the very real possibility that the individual’s photo simply isn’t there. Maybe it was the perpetrator’s first crime. Maybe he had never been caught and booked. Or maybe the victim or witness was inadvertently shown the wrong book.

The priests’ Pictorial Directory was another matter. It was Tully’s first venture into what, in effect, were the clerical mug shots of the Archdiocese of Detroit. He had access to the most recent edition, which, having been issued in 1983, was not all that current. There were, by Tully’s count, 958 priests working in the six-county archdiocese. The directory contained 763 photos. Which left 195 priests unrepresented pictorially.

A quick call to Father Koesler apprised Tully that cooperation with the directory people was not mandatory and some priests declined to have their pictures included. Tully thought this a hell of a way to run either a railroad or a diocese. But there was nothing he could do about it. Whether or not a priest was indeed the murderer, there was a fair chance his picture would not be in the directory. If it were up to criminals whether or not to have their photos in the mug book, obviously they would opt out.

So here it was, the end of the second week of the investigation. The first week had been virtually wasted under Tully’s hypothesis that the first killing had been an act of retaliation against one of his prime snitches. That initial supposition had collapsed when the second victim turned out to have no connection with him.

Which brought him to today. And he knew that, realistically, Koznicki could no longer provide the luxury of a supplemented force. This, for all practical purposes, was his last chance for a big push. If he failed today—and he had to admit he well might—he would be pretty much on his own. And the possibility of solving this puzzle would diminish in direct relationship to the number of detectives working on it.

Thus, over Friday and Saturday, he and his task force had meticulously studied Detroit’s many red-light districts, evaluating the neighborhoods as well as the type of prostitute to be found in each. They’d had to neglect some areas that were only marginally qualified in order to locate the sort of prostitute this perp seemed to be looking for.

Eventually, they settled on eight hooker areas, the number they had agreed on at the outset that they would be physically able to police with the number of officers and cars at their disposal.

God, surveillance was dull!

Mangiapane was driving and talking . . . driving slowly and talking fast. Tully tried to recall the beginning of the story Mangiapane was telling. If Tully could remember how it had started, he might conceivably make sense out of what Mangiapane was now saying.

Oh, yes; now he remembered. Mangiapane had gone to lunch in Greektown, where he’d bumped into Wolford and Hughes, two officers assigned to the Thirteenth Precinct. Over lunch, they talked shop, as usual. Mangiapane, with a multitude of his characteristic asides and digressions, was recounting a story the two detectives had told him.

“So,” Mangiapane was saying, “they’re figuring to get off their shift early, when this call comes in from this convent, the Home Visitors of Mary—great bunch of gals, do a lot of real great work—anyway, this nun calls the precinct and gets Hughes. She says there’s a guy over there whose car has been swiped, and would the police send somebody over to help him.

“Well, Hughes figures this will be a great way to end the day a little early: Him and Wolford can run over to Arden Park, get the info and scoot on home.

“So they get there and there’s this little guy—balding, glasses, third-rate moustache, paunchy, and very, very nervous. Somebody, he says, took his car. So the guys talk to him and one question leads to another. They ask how come he parked on this street. There ain’t no businesses, all residential. Of course, there’s always the chance he went into the Cathedral rectory . . . you know, Zoo, Blessed Sacrament Cathedral is just a block away, between Belmont and Boston on Woodward.”

Tully of course knew the area. But he couldn’t have come up with the name of the church. All he knew about churches was that there were a lot of them on Woodward and yes, he guessed some of them might be cathedrals. He would quickly defer to Mangiapane, who, as a very practicing Catholic, would know the name and location of the Catholic cathedral.

“But,” Mangiapane continued, “there is a driveway off Arden Park for the Cathedral rectory. Visitors always park in that driveway. It’s an obvious parking area and it’s lots safer than parking on the street. So it was a logical question: Why did he park on that street?

“Well, he hems and haws for a while. Then he says he’s an architect and he got out of his car so he could study the large, nice-lookin’ buildings in that area . . . sort of on the spur of the moment, you know?”

Tully snorted.

“Right.” Mangiapane agreed with the nonarticulate utterance. “So Hughes asks the guy for his ID. The guy hems and haws some more. Then he tells them he was robbed. And they say, ‘Oh, that’s interesting: You call us over here claiming somebody stole your wheels. Now you tell us that not only did somebody take your car but, oh, yeah, while I think of it, they also robbed me.

“‘Just when did they do that, sir? You were walkin’ up and down the street and—what was it: one or two guys?’

“The guy says, ‘Two ... it was two.’

“Wolford says, ‘So, two guys take your wallet, your ID. And then they say, “Okay, while we’re at it, I guess we’ll take your wheels too”—that about it?’

“And the guy says, ‘Yeah, that’s about it.’”

“Okay.” Tully was slumped in the passenger seat with his shapeless Irish tweed pulled low on his head. “What happened was this: The guy picks up a hooker on Woodward. She asks him what he wants. He says a blow job will be fine. She tells him to pull into a private driveway on Arden Park. He does. She says she’s not gonna service him till she sees some green. He takes out his wallet and right then two of her friends come out of the bushes. They’re armed. They force him out of his car. They take off with the wallet, the car, and the hooker.

“The driveway happens to be next to the convent. So he goes in there, tells the nuns somebody just stole his car—without bothering to mention the rest of the scenario—and asks to use their phone. And the rest is history . . . right?”

Mangiapane thumped the steering wheel. “You got it, Zoo, you got it! And while the guy is telling his story to Hughes and Wolford, these nuns start cracking up and leave the room . . . ’cause they know where the guy is heading and what really happened.”

“Keep at least one hand on the wheel, okay, Mangiapane?” It was ethnic, Tully thought, and he didn’t usually sink to ethnic observations. But maybe there was some truth to it: that if you were to cut off an Italian’s hands, he’d be struck dumb.

It certainly seemed true of Mangiapane. The gestures added zest to his storytelling. Tully couldn’t conceive of Mangiapane’s narrating anything about which he felt deeply without directing the movement, much as an orchestra leader would do. And, in fact, Mangiapane didn’t actually need even one hand on the steering wheel. The guy was so big he could guide the car by pressing his thigh against the wheel . . . especially at the snail’s pace at which they were now traveling.

Tully plucked the radio mike from beneath the dashboard and began checking with the other units spread throughout the predetermined red-light districts. Nothing. Not a nibble. And it was beginning to get late. Another hour and they would be out of the time frame in which the perp had operated on the previous Sundays.

“No luck, eh?”

Tully shook his head. Mangiapane, eyes alternately on the road and scanning the neighborhood, didn’t catch Tully’s response. No matter, the question had been rhetorical.

“Think we’ll get home in time to see some of the Pro Bowl?” Mangiapane asked.

“Where they playin’?”

“Hawaii.”

“They’re about six hours behind us, aren’t they?”

“About.”

“And the damn game goes on forever.”

“Pretty much.”

“Yeah, I’d say we’ll either get to see the last quarter or the late movie.”

Mangiapane laughed, somewhat more heartily than was called for. He wasn’t quite conscious of the fact that he was trying to ingratiate himself with Tully.

“Speaking of movies,” Mangiapane was off again on one of his vignettes, “. . . you know that movie they’re filming in town now?”

“Uh-huh.” Everybody was painfully aware of the movie now being filmed in Detroit. The local news media, ordinarily extremely professional, lost measurable cool when it came to those rare instances when Hollywood invaded Detroit.

“Did you know that Lieutenant Horan was in charge of the squad assigned to the film crew?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I got this story from Hughes at lunch. He’s a friend of one of the guys on that squad. And he was talkin’ about the filming the other night. It was about ten o’clock. They got those whatchamacallits—klieg lights?—whatever, and they’re gonna shoot right outside the Book Cadillac on Washington Boulevard.

“Anyway, they get all set up and ready to go when all of a sudden this car comes crashing through the barricades and plows into the set. Damn lucky thing nobody got hurt. Drunk driver.”

“I read about it.”

“Yeah, Zoo, and they had it on TV that night, too. But there was more to it than that. When they were setting up that shot, the director of the movie . . . uh . . . what’s his name?”

“I don’t know, but he’s a major-league jerk.”

“You heard this story before?”

“No, but I heard about that guy.”

“Right. Well, the jerk has five, six marked cars come screechin’ up to the hotel every which way. Some are parked facin’ north, some south, some south-by-southwest, some east. So Lieutenant Horan, tryin’ to be helpful, comes up to the director and tells him, ‘You know, the police never park like that.’

“So, the jerk says, ‘Get off my back, willya? This is Show Biz. This is the way the customers are used to seein’ dungs. I’ll direct the movie and you be a cop, okay?’

“Well, it’s all the lieutenant can do to keep from kickin’ the guy right where the sun never shines. Then this drunk comes plowin’ through everything. And of course nobody can respond because everybody’s radiator is kissin’ everybody else’s radiator.

“So then Horan comes back to the jerk and says, ‘See why the cops never park that way?’“

They chuckled.

“Anyway,” Mangiapane continued, “the Lieutenant got the last laugh. By the time they got everything untangled, it was too late for the shoot. So they wasted all that time and money.”

“Nice when the good guys win one.” Tully again reached for the mike.

If Mangiapane had been alert, he would have noticed a slight tremor in Tully’s hand. It was getting late and Tully was getting anxious.

He checked with the other units. All present and accounted for. No one had sighted anything out of the ordinary.

“Gettin’ late, ain’t it?” Mangiapane noted.

“Uh-huh.”

“There was one more.”

“One more what?”

“Story. It happened to Wolford.”

“That must’ve been some lunch you guys had.”

“It was.”

“Did you eat anything?”

“Sure, Zoo.”

“Sounds like all you did was talk.”

“No, no . . . we had, let’s see . . .”

“Never mind. What was Wolford’s story?”

“Yeah, well, he was in Wink’s Chevy body shop. Had to get a headlight for his car. The manager’s a friend of his. So while he’s waiting, this lady comes in to pick up her car after repairs. But she tells the manager her radio won’t work. Which is news to the manager ’cause there was nothin’ wrong with her radio in the first place. But he gets one of the guys to go out to her car with her. They’re all tryin’ to figure out what went wrong with the radio. Then, as she and the mechanic are goin’ out the door, she says, ‘. . . at least I think there’s something wrong with my radio: I can’t turn it on . . . maybe that’s because I never turned it off.’

“Can you imagine that, Zoo? She never turned her radio off! The damn thing was on when she bought it and she never turned the goddam thing off!”

Even though he did not feel like it, Tully smiled, picturing the scene. “What that lady needed was three minutes of silence.” He massaged his brow. A headache was building. “And that’s what we need too, Mangiapane. I got some thinkin’ to do.”

“Sure thing, Zoo.”

And so, in silence, they continued to drive the familiar streets: Montcalm, St. Antoine, Adams, Brush, Columbia, Beaubien, Elizabeth—over and over, changing only the order.

The area was only a few blocks from headquarters. Not much was going on in that neighborhood. They passed a warehouse, storage tanks, some boarded-up structures, a few buildings still occupied—although one wondered by whom—and a couple of residences that were being used almost exclusively by prostitutes.

It might not have been much of an area but, unless Tully was badly mistaken, it contained just what the perp would be stalking.

Not many women worked these streets, nor was there much of a selection. But one thing you were quite certain to find in an area like this was that rarity—an older prostitute. And here the prostitutes came in both black and white. Low-profile, elderly white prostitutes. Little chance of any intervention from either a pimp or a hooker’s buddy. Just the right kind of place.

Tully’s stomach growled. Maybe it was nerves. Maybe he needed a good meal. He thought of Alice, a nice blaze in the fireplace, the football game on TV, the aroma of good food on the stove. Who needed this shit, anyway?

“Bingo.”

It was the way Mangiapane said it. Unlike the way he said almost everything, this held almost a tone of reverence. The sort of tone a dedicated angler might use after waiting hours and finally getting a bite from the very fish he’d been after.

Instantly, the queasy feeling left Tully’s stomach. His every sense tingled.

He glanced at Mangiapane, who was studying the rearview mirror. Tully would not turn and look. He did not need to. In his mind’s eye he could see the black Ford Escort to the rear of their unmarked Pontiac.

Almost as if he could be heard by their quarry, Tully spoke just above a whisper. “Can you make the guy?”

Mangiapane hesitated. “Not quite. He ought to get his windows cleaned once in a while. From here, looks like a white guy and looks like he’s wearing black. Seems like it, anyway.”

Tully almost prayed, he wanted this guy so badly. He yearned to take the wheel so there wouldn’t be any mistakes. But he would place his trust in Mangiapane. He had decided that at the outset when he’d told him to drive.

“He looks like he’s lookin’ for someplace, Zoo. He’s drivin’ real slow, practically stops at every street sign.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what we’re doin’ too. Right now, we’re lookin’ for some way to get on the Fisher Freeway from here. So cut east when we get to the Fisher and go parallel with it for a few blocks, then cut back in.”

“Okay, Zoo. I think he turned in. Yeah, goin’ east on either Elizabeth or Columbia ... I can’t tell from here.”

“If I’m right, he’s only gonna go a block or two. Make it four blocks east, then go south. We oughta be able to spot his car from there.”

Tully had to admit he couldn’t have done it better himself. Mangiapane paced the maneuver perfectly.

Now they were headed south. On any one of these streets, any moment now, they should see—“There it is, Mangiapane, the black Escort. Let’s go!”

No one was in the car. And there was only one building he could have entered—an old rundown apartment house converted from a stately ancient residence.

Mangiapane crossed to the wrong side of the street and pulled up directly in front of and facing the Escort. As the two officers sprang from their car, each drew his .38 service revolver. Mangiapane, exiting from the driver’s side, was closer to the building. He paused a moment so Tully could precede him.

Just inside the door, Tully hesitated. He cocked an ear to pick up some sound that would give him a key to the next direction.

He heard it. It was muffled, but he heard it. He nodded toward the stairs, then, followed by Mangiapane, raced up them. Now it was clearer. From inside the apartment at the head of the stairs— second floor, apartment 2A—came the sound of shouting. A male and a female.

“Open up! Police!” Tully yelled. He didn’t wait for a response. A well-placed kick more shattered than simply opened the door. Tully bolted in, followed, after the proper precautionary interval, by Mangiapane.

Standing at the far side of the room was a woman—white, of indeterminate age, but well worn and badly used. She was holding a knife, a large kitchen knife. She appeared to be terrified.

Just inside the door stood a white man dressed in black. Black shoes, trousers, hat, winter coat with collar turned up. He too held a knife. It appeared to be a switchblade.

“Police!” barked Tully. “Drop the knife! Both of you! Now! NOW!”

The woman dropped her knife. The man hesitated.

Tully pointed his gun directly at the man. “You got just about one more second to drop that knife.”

It clattered to the floor.

“That’s better.”

“What the hell’s goin’ on here?” the woman shouted. If she seemed frightened by the first man with a knife, she was clearly terrified by the addition of two more strangers with guns.

Not taking his eyes off the man in black, Tully displayed his badge. “I’m Lieutenant Tully. This is Police Officer Mangiapane. What’s going on here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” the woman said. “I was here, mindin’ my own business, when this guy walks in on me, wavin’ a knife around. Well, he don’t know who he’s takin’ on. I grabbed my knife too. Next thing I know, you two come in, wavin’ guns. So that brings me back to where we started: What the hell’s goin’ on here?”

“Okay.” Tully had not looked away from the man. “Turn around,” he ordered. “Face the wall, feet apart. Then lean against the wall.” The man started to speak. “Now!” Tully insisted.

The man shrugged and obeyed. Tully nodded to Mangiapane, who holstered his weapon and patted the man down. “He’s clean.”

“Okay,” Tully said. “Turn around. Now: Who are you?”

The man reached for his wallet. He had some difficulty since his hands were shaking markedly. As he opened his coat, his roman collar was revealed.

Mangiapane gasped. “Holy shit, he’s a priest!”

“That’s right; I’m a priest.” He sounded as if his throat and mouth were dry.

Mangiapane read from the man’s driver’s license. “Richard Kramer—Father Richard Kramer.” He looked at the man. “You actually a Catholic priest?”

“Yes.”

“What parish?”

“Mother of Sorrows.”

“Out Grand River.”

“Yes.”

“Holy God!”

Tully holstered his gun and approached the priest. “Mind telling us what you’re doing here?”

“Sure.” Kramer licked his lips. Try as he might, he couldn’t seem to restore normal moistness to his mouth. “I . . . I was called here.”

“Who called you?”

“I don’t know. A man. He didn’t identify himself. He said it was an emergency. That a woman was here. That she was in trouble. That she had to see a priest. That it was an emergency—oh, I said that.”

“Why you? This can’t be your parish area.”

“I asked him. He said he’d tried other parishes, that I was the only one he’d been able to reach.”

“That made sense to you? I mean, there are hundreds of parishes in this city. You the only priest home?”

“It . . . it’s possible. Sunday afternoon, most priests are out of the rectory. Besides, he . . . he didn’t have to call every parish in the city before he got me. We’re not that far from downtown.”

“So, all the other priests go out Sunday afternoon—except you?”

“I didn’t . . . I didn’t say that. I said m-most priests.” Kramer had never in his life stammered. Then again, he’d never been in such a situation before.

“So, you were home this afternoon ...at the rectory?” Tully kept up the interrogation as if no one else were in the room.

“Yes.”

“Anyone with you?”

“No.”

“Were you also home the past two Sunday afternoons?”

Kramer pondered for several moments. “Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Convenient.”

“What . . . what’s that supposed to mean?”

Tully picked up the knife the priest had dropped. “Tell me, Father . . .” there was a mocking tone when he pronounced the priest’s title, “is it your usual practice to enter a room where there’s somebody sick or somebody who wants to see a priest with a drawn knife?”

“I ain’t sick and I didn’ wanna see no goddam priest,” the woman said.

The other three seemed to have forgotten her. They continued to do so.

“The knife was in my pocket when I came in here.”

“That’s not what the lady says.”

“She . . . she’s lying.”

“Like hell I am!”

“Guess it’s her word against yours.”

“But I’m a priest!”

Tully shrugged.

Kramer found it hard to believe the officer would not honor a priest’s word. Nothing more was said for a moment. Kramer fumbled for a cigarette and lit it. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked after the fact.

“Mind if I see the lighter?” Tully reached toward Kramer, who surrendered the lighter.

“Nice,” Tully said. “Big.”

“I smoke a lot.”

“Big enough to heat, say, a small branding iron if there wasn’t a hot plate handy.”

“Huh? What? What’s that supposed to mean?” Father Kramer’s attitude became assertive. “I think it’s just about time for some explanations from you. I mean, I was called out of my rectory this afternoon and asked to visit someone who needed a priest. I went way out of my way to make a sick call. I didn’t break into this place. I knocked on the door. This woman invited me in. Then, for no reason, she pulled that huge knife out of the drawer. So, naturally, I drew my knife—in self-defense.”

“Pretty big knife.” Tully hefted the weapon. “Now why would a priest be carrying such a big, sharp knife?”

“I’m a carpenter as well as a pretty good mechanic. I always carry it with me. Frequently I’ll whittle on some wood.”

“Okay, go on: You say she pulled a knife, so you did too. Then . . .?”

“That’s it. I asked her to put her knife away. And she started screaming at me. That’s when the two of you broke down the door.”

Tully turned to the woman. “What’s your name?”

“Mae Dixon.”

“Okay, Mae, the next time you tell your story, you’re gonna be under oath. If you lie then, it’s perjury. And if you change your story too many times, nobody’s gonna believe you. You see Officer Mangiapane over there, taking notes, writing all this down? Well, it’s part of the record. It’s admissible in court.

“Now, if you change your story in court, the judge is gonna have two different accounts from you about this. What’s he gonna believe? You might be tellin’ the truth in court. But if they don’t believe you then, that’ll be perjury. And that’s jail for a long, long time.

“So, how about it, Mae? You want to tell us the story the way you’d tell it in court?”

She thought this over. “Okay. I don’t know how the hell he happened to come here. I wasn’t expecting anyone. Just takin’ the day off, like.”

“You weren’t ‘expecting anyone’? You are then . . .”

“A hooker. God, you’re gonna find that out anyway. Yeah, I’m a hooker. But I wasn’t gonna screw today. Then all of a sudden, there’s this knock on the door. I thought maybe it was one of my regulars.”

“No appointments? You get Johns just any old time?”

She cackled. “These days I’m lucky to get any tricks at all, Sonny. But it wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, a long time ago, they were waitin’ for me to have time for them. But, God, that was a long time ago.”

“Go on.”

“Where was I?”

“You heard a knock on the door. You thought it might be one of your regulars.”

“Yeah. That’s right. So I just said, ‘Come on in.’ Hell, no use lockin’ that door; all you have to do is push it . . . locked or unlocked. God! Look what you did to the goddam thing! It’s in splinters.”

“Okay, then what?”

“Where was I?”

Tully sighed. “Someone knocked on the door. You invited him in even though you didn’t know who it was.”

“You don’t understand. Regulars do that. They just come on up. If I’m busy, they wait.”

Tully couldn’t decide whether the idea of people waiting in line for Mae was funny or was going to make him sick. “Then what happened?”

“Well, this guy, this priest, I guess, came in. He surprised me. I mean, he wasn’t no regular. I never seen him before. And he’s all dressed in black. Then I saw his collar. That’s when I went for my knife.”

“So,” Tully said, “he didn’t have a knife in his hand when he came in.”

She worked her mouth as if chewing on her next word. “Well, no . . . not ’zactly . . . not really.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah . . . but what else could it be? I saw them stories in the papers and on TV—about how this guy dressed like a clergyman was killin’ us. When it happened the second time, why, hell, wasn’t a hooker in town wasn’t on her guard. And by damn, I wasn’t goin’ down without a fight. So I got my knife. Then, quick as a wink, don’t he pull out that shiv and shake the blade out real professional. And that’s when I started yellin’. I guess I didn’t expect any help . . . not around here. But I thought if I started yellin’ I might scare him off. Then you guys come stormin’ in like gangbusters.

“I didn’t know what the hell to think. I’ll tell you, I never thought I’d be glad to see a cop!”

“Is that what this is all about?” Kramer said. “It’s just a case of mistaken identity. Whoever phoned me was either a practical joker or he was confused about the address. When I came in, this lady simply confused me with someone else.”

Kramer looked from one officer to the other, not sure whether it would be possible for him to just walk out.

“That’s the way you see it, Kramer,” Tully said, “but that’s not the way I see it.

“On two consecutive Sundays, a man in black, with a clerical collar, driving a black Ford Escort, has been selecting over-the-hill white prostitutes to kill and mutilate. I had a hunch he’d do it again on the third consecutive Sunday afternoon—today. Then you drive into this red-light district in a black Ford Escort, dressed in clerical clothing and collar. You head for the apartment of a woman who fits the general description of the previous two victims. You’re carrying a knife that could gut a deer. Guess who I think you are?”

“You can’t . . .” Kramer was perspiring freely. The apartment was warm, but that had little to do with the sweat that soaked his underclothing.

“Remember last week, Kramer,” Tully continued, “when you went back to your car after you killed Nancy Freel? You were going back to mutilate her. Remember just before you reentered the building, you looked to one side and maybe you saw the woman who was watching you? Well, she’s our eyewitness. And she’s going to identify you.” Tully was almost nose to nose with Kramer.

Kramer shook his head as if denying all this was happening.

“Open your jacket, Father Kramer,” Tully ordered.

Near petrified with nameless apprehension, Kramer fumbled with the single button that held the front of his jacket together. As he undid the button, the jacket fell open.

Tully smiled. “That’s one of the widest belts I’ve seen. That belt might just hang you . . . Father.”

“W . . . what . . .?”

“Officer Mangiapane is going to read you your rights. Listen to them carefully. Then we’re gonna take a very short ride down the block to Police Headquarters.”

There was the sound of footsteps running up the stairs.

For an instant, Tully wondered who it might be. Then he remembered: He had called for back-up from the other detectives on his squad who were on surveillance in other districts.

They certainly had taken their sweet time getting here. He could have been dead by now!

When he got a chance, he would read them the riot act. But for now, he felt too satisfied and fulfilled to stay angry at anybody.