Marked for Murder

34

This was Father Koesler’s first visit to the Wayne County Morgue. As familiar as he was with downtown Detroit he had never paid any attention to the squat square building tucked in between Bricktown and Greektown. Nor had he ever adverted to the grisly procedures that were the regular course of business there. Now that officer Mangiapane had ushered him into the vast gray interior of the main floor, consideration of what was going on downstairs was inevitable. And creepy.

Mangiapane introduced Koesler to the receptionist, who gave him a genuine, if surprised, smile. Priests were not frequent visitors at the morgue. Once in a long while, one might come in to identify a corpse. But even with some dispute among Catholic theologians as to when the soul departs the body, all would agree that the morgue was beyond the purview of the Sacrament of the Sick.

“Inspector Koznicki just phoned, Father,” the receptionist said. “I sent the message down to Dr. Moellmann. He should be up here any minute now. He was just about done.”

As she finished speaking, the sound of voices entered the lobby. Two men and a woman appeared. The woman and one of the men wore white coats. Koesler presumed, correctly, that the two were pathologists and that one had to be Dr. Wilhelm Moellmann. The man in plainclothes Koesler already knew to be Lieutenant Tully.

Mangiapane’s introduction of Koesler to Tully was interrupted. “We’ve met,” said Tully. “Sorry to run off, Father, but I’ve got lots of work to do.” With that, he was gone.

Shortly, the woman, too, was gone, leaving Koesler and Moellmann standing alone together.

Moellmann scrutinized Koesler. “So,” he said (it came out “tzo”), “so this is the Father Koesler. I’ve heard about your work with the police.” Emphasizing the article made Koesler sound like an instant celebrity. If the tactic was intended to disconcert and put the priest on the defensive, it worked, at least to some degree. For a moment, Koesler was speechless. Then, “Someone’s pulling your leg, Doctor. I don’t work with the police.”

“One keeps one’s ear to the ground, one hears things.”

To Koesler, Moellmann seemed to be translating from a more familiar German even as he spoke. But Koesler had heard of Moellmann, too. He was, according to popular reputation, one who jokingly pulled legs unmercifully. But, at the core, he was one of the very best pathologists in the business.

Moellmann led the way up the marble steps toward the second floor and his office. “Tell me, Father Koesler . . .” The “oe” of Koesler’s name became an umlaut; somehow it pleased the priest. “. . . what is your interest in this case? What brings a priest, of all people, to get involved in a murder so messy?”

“A priest is accused of these ‘messy’ murders.”

“So?”

“So I don’t think he did them.”

Moellmann’s face expressed more surprise than Koesler’s statement merited. That, thought Koesler, must be part of the performance.

“Lieutenant Tully thinks the priest is guilty,” the M.E. stated.

“I don’t.” It was said a bit more forcefully than was Koesler’s habit. Perhaps he was playing along with Moellmann.

“And you don’t!” Moellmann’s wonderment seemed unfeigned. “Lieutenant Tully is an excellent detective. I have never known him to be this convinced and not be correct.”

“Every rule has its exception. But if I’m going to help my friend, Father Kramer, I’ll need all the help I can get—particularly since, as you say, Lieutenant Tully is so convinced he’s guilty. That’s why Inspector Koznicki sent me to you.” Koesler hoped the implication was obvious. From Moellmann, Koesler needed information, not discouragement.

“Very well.” Moellmann led the way into his inner office. He proceeded to go through his file cabinets, extracting rather full manila folders, to which he added the one he had carried from the basement. He put all of them on the desk between himself and Koesler. “There, that’s it. The current ‘Case of the Mutilated Prostitutes.’” He then proceeded to arrange photos and charts on the desk.

Koesler looked about as if searching for some specific something.

“What is it, Father? What are you looking for?”

“The tapes.”

“The tapes? What tapes?”

“Don’t you tape-record your autopsies?”

“Tape—? Oh, you mean like Quincy and all those medical examiners you see on the television?”

“Well, yes.”

Moellmann grinned. “No. No, I have a body chart at each body and I make all notations on that chart. Then when I come up, I fill in all the details while they are still fresh in my mind. Each person works according to his upbringing. You know? In Goethe’s Faust, it says someplace in there . . . eh . . . ‘The way he coughs, the way he spits’—in German it rhymes—‘he has copied the boss.’ So no one here—all eight doctors here—no one dictates. Everybody does the same as I do.”

Koesler nodded understanding as he tried to absorb the enormity of the violence depicted in these pictures.

Moellmann watched Koesler intently. The priest didn’t realize it, but he was undergoing a test. He could stomach studying these pictures—or he might become physically ill. Moellmann would continue his help only if Koesler was not upset at the horror exhibited.

Koesler was surprising himself in keeping everything down and quiet.

“You see,” Moellmann said, “I have the police make sure that I get a set of the scene pictures because I want the whole file, the whole case all together.”

“These are all pictures the police have taken, then?”

“No, no. I have our photographer take more pictures. You see, I take more interest in these bodies than in all the others—arteriosclerosis and stabbings and shootings. Because these are a ritual and they are more interesting, I spend more time with these. Make very definitive diagrams, drawings, and be very explicit so I don’t lose anything in translation. And I make sure that they are photographed very adequately. Not only for documentation, but also for purposes of teaching. Because you don’t see this often.”

Koesler wondered whether, in this instance, familiarity bred tranquility. He was getting more used to the pictures and, as a consequence, was able to study them more intently. “Did you use the word ‘ritual,’ Doctor?”

“Yah. I’ve not seen people ripped open like this after death.”

“That happened after the women were dead?”

“Yah, after death. That immediately makes it a ritual.”

“You mean the evisceration?”

“No, the whole thing. The strangulation, the cross, the evisceration. This combination—that is what makes it a ritual.”

“And you’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Well, not exactly. I’ve seen people with tic-tac-toe on them.”

Koesler’s mouth dropped open. “Tic-tac-toe? You mean with X’s and O’s? Somebody played tic-tac-toe on a person’s skin?”

“Yah. With a sharp object. A knife, a screwdriver, something like that. People do strange things.”

“I should say.”

“Sometime back, maybe you remember, we had a series of prostitutes who were murdered on Cass Corridor. He used—I don’t recall what it was—but it was something plaited, about this wide. . . .” Moellmann raised his right hand, fingers indicating a span of a couple of inches. “It was black . . .”He tried to recall how it was he knew its color. “. . . because I had it eventually. He left it— I don’t know—or they found it on somebody. Maybe somebody came in and caught him and he just ran and left the victim with this thing. But all the other victims had this plaited imprint on the skin and we would see the body and we would say, ‘Oh, that’s another one of those.’ There were four or five of those.

“But you see, that’s what I would say when they brought in one of these. The first body, I knew it was a ritual. And I knew there would be more.”

“You did?”

“Of course. There was no reason to perform such an elaborate ritual just once. I knew I would see it again. The only question was, how many times. If Lieutenant Tully is correct and if . . . uh . . . Kramer stays in jail, this will be all.”

Koesler prayed the murders were finished. He rejected the hypothesis that they were over because Kramer was locked up. But he had to admit that among all those close to the investigation, he stood virtually alone in believing in Kramer’s innocence.

But believe he did. So he had to get on with it.

“Then, these marks, Doctor . . .” Koesler directed Moellmann’s attention to one of the photos. “. . . around the neck of the victim. These are marks of a plaited object?”

“No. No, that was the weapon in the other cases I just told you about.”

Koesler surmised that patience was not Moellmann’s long suit. He was fleetingly thankful that he’d never had the doctor as a teacher.

“See?” Moellmann continued. “There are the marks of a belt, though not a very ordinary belt. See, the indentations—there, on the skin. I’ll show you. Press your fingers against your wrist. Hard, a lot of pressure. See, it is blanched. If you do it hard enough, it will stay. See what I’m talking about? See how fast it goes away now when you take your fingers away. That’s because the blood goes back in. But if the person is deceased and the belt stays on the neck—he doesn’t remove it; he leaves it on there—then, when I remove the belt, it will be pale all around. I’ll be able to tell you the width of the belt because the upper and lower edges of the belt will scrape the skin. As you can see, the instrument used here—the belt—is rather wider than the ordinary belt.”

Koesler, looking carefully, could detect nothing outstandingly unusual about the mark on the victim’s neck. On the other hand, this was the first time he had ever studied the body of a strangled person. He decided to give the benefit of any doubt to Dr. Moellmann’s expertise.

He looked away from the photo to find Moellmann studying him. “Are these pictures disturbing you, Father?”

“Well, I couldn’t say they qualify as light morning viewing. And I may pay with a few nightmares. But, all in all, no; I’m all right.”

“Good.” Was it Koesler’s imagination, or did Moellmann seem disappointed? “This, here, the branding mark, should be the final thing that interests you.” He began rummaging through the photos, in search of blow-ups of each victim. He found them and set them side-by-side before the priest. “See, these are shots of the left breast of each of the women—magnified, of course. You can see clearly the form of a cross burned into the flesh.”

“This happened after they were dead?”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

Thank God, Koesler breathed.

“Now, you see, these are the first two victims. There is some form of lettering on the horizontal bar of the cross. Here is a closeup of just the lettering. Here is a magnifying glass. Look.”

Koesler looked. The marks meant nothing to him.

“They don’t mean much, do they?”

“No.”

“For a time—well, for the first couple of weeks—we thought the marks might be the top part of some letters. And that the reason the bottom part of the letters was not imprinted was because of the natural curvature of the breast. See, the top of the vertical bar is the strongest, deepest imprint. So, what the guy did was start there at the top and sort of rolled the iron downward. See, the bottom of the vertical bar is the weakest imprint. We reasoned he was not putting as much pressure on the iron as he rolled it down the woman’s breast. Maybe a difficult angle or something.

“But then, with the third victim, we were in luck. This time he was able to exert pretty much equal pressure during the whole process. See, now on the third one, the marks don’t fade out at the bottom. They are etched clearly and definitively. But, sad to say,” Moellmann turned both palms up, “they still seem to mean nothing. Just gibberish.”

Koesler studied most intently the brand on the third victim.

Without doubt, there was a greater clarity. Still he could not glean any meaning from them. The longer Koesler studied the marks, the more certain he was that they were letters—the topmost portion of letters. The hypothesis, after the first two murders, that this was some sort of truncated lettering, certainly seemed accurate. But the branding of the third victim contradicted that theory. There was no gradual fade-out of the letters nor of the bottom of the vertical beam. The marks were crisp and clean. But why would someone go to all that trouble just to leave a mark that was impossible to fathom? Was it some sort of code? There must be some explanation of all this. But what could it be?

As he drifted back to the present, Koesler noticed that Moellmann was gathering the photos, notes, and charts and returning each to its proper folder. The show was over; the time Moellmann had allocated for this exhibition was up.

Koesler rose and gathered his coat and hat. “Thank you very much, Doctor. It was very kind of you to give me so much time.”

“This came to you through the courtesy of Inspector Koznicki. And now, Father, you know about as much as the police. Much of what I showed you is very confidential.” The statement was delivered as a warning.

“I’m good at keeping secrets, Doctor.”

“You know, don’t you, that Father Kramer has a workbench with appropriate tools so that he could easily have fashioned this branding iron?”

“Yes, I know that, Doctor.”

“And still you think he is innocent?”

“Yes.”

Moellmann shook his head. “One last thing: Did those markings mean anything at all to you?”

“Not really. Although the longer I reflect on it, the more they remind me of something. But I can’t think what. It may come to me—probably in the middle of Mass or a shower, or shoveling snow.”

“Well, if it comes, don’t keep that a secret.”

35

Father Koesler’s mind was reeling as he descended the stairs to the morgue’s street floor. If it was possible to learn too much in a brief period, he’d just done so.

On reflection, it was not so much the sheer weight of new knowledge as the fact that he expected himself to utilize it. He was beginning to wonder whom he was kidding. Dr. Moellmann was a highly respected pathologist—among the best, if not the best, of the country’s medical examiners. And he had no argument with Father Kramer’s guilt in these murders.

Inspector Koznicki: one of Koesler’s better friends. The priest knew the inspector to be a cautious man, rich in experience in police work, particularly in homicides.

Originally, Koznicki had been on the side of the angels. Indeed, until this very morning, Koesler had been sure he could count on the inspector’s active support. Now even Walt Koznicki had lost confidence in Kramer’s innocence. Though he would continue to give counsel, it was obvious he held out no hope. Koznicki was going through the motions out of friendship rather than conviction.

And both Dr. Moellmann and Inspector Koznicki, as the foundation for their opinion, cited Lieutenant Tully.

Through Koesler’s several adventures in the realm of homicide, he had never before encountered Tully personally. Although he had been vaguely aware of the lieutenant’s reputation, this was the first time they had figuratively crossed swords. Apparently, Tully was something more than merely good. Reputedly, he possessed some sixth sense when it came to homicide. A sense that his fellow professionals respected.

Koesler could not help thinking that if Tully had been a woman and operated on an intuitive hunch that Kramer was guilty, he would have been derided as an hysterical female. But as a macho man, his sixth sense was revered. Yet, in the final analysis, it was no more than a highly formed, experientially proven intuition.

And to cap the climax, Dick Kramer seemed to be on their side. Why in God’s name had Kramer not spent yesterday in the credible company of someone—anyone? At the very least, he might have taken steps to guard against his inclination toward alcoholism. He knew Sundays were his Achilles’ heel. He had confessed as much to his attorney as well as to Koesler.

Why hadn’t Kramer managed to stay sober one single Sunday? The Sunday for which he would most need an alibi?

Finally, what was there about the mark of the branding iron? The whole thing was so ugly, so perverted. But, at least as far as Father Koesler was concerned, the mark of the cross and its accompanying inscription was a puzzle that needed an insight and then a solution. He could not say the answer was on the tip of his tongue. It was buried far more deeply than that. Knowing himself, he realized that no amount of concentration would bring this solution to the fore. It would come, if it came at all, spontaneously. And there was nothing he could do but wait for that moment and hope it would come.

He was pulling up the collar of his overcoat preparatory to leaving the building, when he heard an insistent voice behind him. “Father! Yoo-hoo! Priest! Wait a minute! Please!”

Koesler turned. It was a woman in the uniform of one of the morgue’s technical assistants. A tall, blonde, not unattractive woman. Koesler searched his memory, but could not recall ever having met her. This was a constantly recurring nightmare. He had been a priest so long and had served in so many parishes and met so many people that he simply could not remember everyone from his past. Yet almost everyone expected to be remembered. His acquaintances had it so much easier than he. All they had to do was call him “Father” and they were home free. Whereas he had to come up with a name. One of the tricks of the trade was to postpone for as long as possible using any name at all. Perhaps it would come to him. Or the individual might volunteer the name.

So Koesler merely remained in a half-turn and watched, as the woman closed the distance between them. “Father?”

“Yes.”

“You are a Catholic priest, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” If she wasn’t sure whether he was a priest, she was not from his past. So she was in his present and perhaps his future.

“One can’t tell these days. But you looked like you were a priest.”

“And you are . . ?”

“Agnes Blondell. Ms. Blondell.”

“How do you do, Ms. Blondell. I was just about to—” He never got the opportunity to explain that he had a very busy schedule. Much to Koesler’s surprise, the woman took his elbow quite firmly and began leading him downstairs toward the autopsy area.

It was the element of surprise that worked for her. Before he knew what hit him, Koesler was down the stairs and into an area that reminded him of a many-celled dungeon. Out of the corner of one eye, he caught sight of the large metal trays on which bodies were undoubtedly placed for dissection and autopsy. Fortunately for him, none of the trays was occupied. The crew was nearing lunch break.

All the while, the woman kept chattering. As best as he could grasp, Ms. Blondell was concerned about the eternal welfare of one of her fellow workers who claimed to be Catholic but she wasn’t so sure about that. His behavior vis-à-vis women—apparently unless they were dead—fell considerably short of white knights of old. The man needed to consult a priest. Maybe go to confession or whatever it is Catholics do when they need a priest.

Koesler was embarrassed and growing more so by the moment. At the outset, he had not actively resisted her highhanded tactics because he had mistakenly assumed there was a medical emergency that required the spiritual ministrations of a priest. Now it seemed nothing more than a marital spat without benefit of marriage.

“This,” Ms. Blondell announced in a righteous tone, “is Arnold Bush. He’s the one I’ve been telling you about.”

The man reminded Koesler of a creature who was dangerous only because he had been forced into an inescapable corner. Bush looked at Koesler. Bush obviously was annoyed. Bush looked at Agnes. Clearly he was furious.

Koesler glanced around the room. The rest of the attendants and technicians seemed amused, although not in any overt way. And they were decidedly keeping their distance. Koesler surmised that the others had some reason to fear Bush. But, at least at this moment, that fear was not shared by Agnes Blondell.

This scene that Koesler found himself a part of was by no means unique. However, it had been a long while since he’d been in a like situation.

Usually it happened on those infrequent occasions when a wife would bring her husband to the rectory so that the priest could impose “the pledge” on the man, who, at that point, was usually close to delirium tremens. Thus coerced, the victim would pledge to abstain from booze forever. In a lifetime, some men took the pledge dozens of times. It is said you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. In Koesler’s experience, you could lead a man to sobriety, but you couldn’t guarantee he’d be sober next week.

Such, obviously, was the case here. Ms. Blondell seemed determined that Father Koesler effect some sort of reformation. Mr. Bush did not appear to share her conviction of the need for reform. Thus, if anything was going to happen here—and Koesler had no clue as to what Agnes intended to happen—it would depend entirely on Bush’s undergoing a massive change in attitude.

Whatever might ensue, this was the antithesis of Koesler’s method of operation. And he deeply resented the woman’s forcing this situation on him. “Ms. . . .” Koesler had forgotten her name.

“Blondell.”

“Ms. Blondell, would you mind very much leaving me alone with Mr. . . .”

“Bush.”

“. . . with Mr. Bush here?”

Her expression said she was not all that eager to leave, but if the priest insisted . . . “Well, all right. I suppose you need privacy to do whatever it is you Catholics do.” She left and joined some of the female onlookers waiting to learn the outcome of this scene. Conspiratorially, they left together to conjecture on Bush’s fate now that he’d been turned over to his priest.

Bush and Koesler regarded each other silently for a few moments. Finally, Bush tossed his head in the direction of the departed Agnes Blondell. “She’s a bitch.”

Koesler could not debate the point.

On reflection, Bush concluded that this priest had nothing to do with the present humiliation. It was entirely Blondell’s fault. No use blaming the priest. “I don’t know your name.”

“Koesler. Father Koesler.”

“Is that K-E-S-S-L-E-R?”

“No; K-O-E-S-L-E-R.”

“German?”

“Yes.” Though he was half Irish, Koesler rarely acknowledged that fact. To a casual acquaintance, the explanation was not worth the time it took.

“I’m sorry you got mixed up in this. It’s none of your affair. But then, it’s none of her business either.”

“Granted.”

Bush looked at his watch. “We got a break now. You want to go to lunch? We could get a salad in one of the Greek places.”

Koesler briefly considered the invitation. “Okay.” He felt too sorry for Bush to refuse him.

As usual around midday in Greektown, auto traffic was perilously close to gridlock and the sidewalks were clogged with pedestrians. Partly because he wanted to get this engagement over with as quickly as possible and partly because it was so cold, Koesler walked rapidly. With his longer stride, the much taller Koesler unconsciously forced Bush to almost run just to keep up. When they reached the Laikon Café, Koesler felt invigorated. Bush was panting.

“Do you always walk this fast?” Bush gasped.

“Only when it’s cold,” Koesler answered as he looked over the early luncheon crowd, found a space, and headed for a table for two not far from a window.

They each ordered salad. The coffee was poured immediately.

Their conversation had barely begun when Koesler sensed lunch would be destroyed if Bush were allowed to explain his work. Without doubt someone had to assist in autopsies, but Koesler knew he would be happier if he never heard a graphic description of the work. So he steered the talk in this and that direction until they chanced on Bush’s avocation of handiwork and his fascination with machines, both human and constructed.

So pleased was Koesler to have stumbled on this neutral subject, it did not occur to him that Arnold Bush and Father Kramer had identical hobbies.

By the time their salads were delivered, the subject of Bush’s pastime was pretty well exhausted. Through the salad course and more coffee, Koesler coaxed Bush into giving an account, albeit abbreviated, of his life. It was a knack Koesler had, springing from his genuine interest in people, that caused others, oftentimes even strangers like Bush, to open up.

Bush, however, was not about to reveal all. He had been wounded too often to bare himself completely. His carefully edited personal narrative skipped over such items as the time he had spent living in a bordello. But, testing the waters, he did throw in a few controversial facts such as his on-again/off-again practice of Catholicism.

When Koesler rejected the bait, neither greeting the news with widened eyes nor berating him for his backsliding, Bush found himself warming to the priest somewhat. He was indeed sorry to have the lunch end. But the priest, though gracious enough, appeared to be in a hurry. So, too soon for Bush, the luncheon was over. And, wonder of wonders, the priest picked up the tab. If Bush needed another reason to trust this priest, the fact that he would pay for lunch was it. For one used to having the flow of money go from the laity to the clergy, this was a unique experience.

Koesler left the restaurant and leaned into the cold damp gale that gusted in from the Detroit River and twisted through the canyons of downtown. Fortunately, his car was parked only a few blocks away. He hurried into the vehicle, shivering, but grateful to be protected from the biting wind-chill.

Before starting the car, he cleaned the mist from his glasses and thought about this unexpectedly busy, if not as productive as he had wished, morning.

He had been disheartened by Inspector Koznicki’s loss of faith in Father Kramer. And yet, it had not been a complete surprise. A police officer such as the inspector had to rely on his vast experience, together with all available evidence. In the end, no one could understand a priest like another priest could. In this case, Koesler was willing to wager his knowledge and experience in the priesthood against even the vastly superior experience in criminal behavior and homicide of his friend, Inspector Koznicki.

Then there was Dr. Moellmann, a most provocative man. Due to his patient explanation, Koesler now knew exactly what had happened to those poor women. The necessary restraint of the news media couldn’t do justice to the violence of those deaths. The word “mutilation” was inadequate to describe the obscenity of that horrible evisceration, not to mention the branding. And what could those marks mean?

What irritated Koesler most was that those branding marks did mean something to him. But what? There was some clue buried just outside his conscious mind that promised to open a door to this mystery. But he couldn’t find the key. And there was the further discouragement stemming from Dr. Moellmann’s implicit confidence in the certitude of Lieutenant Tully. Koesler had to admit that any disinterested third party would consider it foolhardy for him to continue to stand in opposition to the combined expertise of Koznicki and Tully. But there Koesler stood. With his faith in Father Kramer, he could do no less.

Finally, this morning, there was Arnold Bush.

In retrospect, their meeting had been sheerly ludicrous. Koesler knew that he would forevermore smile at the memory of Agnes Blondell’s leading him around the mortuary. And yet, there was something vaguely unsettling about Arnold Bush and . . . Koesler could not quite put his finger on it. Something Bush had said. What was it? At the time, it had slipped by Koesler and it was still evading him.

Then there was the disquieting thought that somewhere, somehow he and Bush had met previously. There was just something familiar about the man. But Koesler had been assigned to so many parishes over the years, been on so many committees, done business with so many people, that it was not uncommon for him to meet someone for the first time who would remind him of someone else he knew.

Koesler was tempted to dismiss the entire Bush episode. But something prevented him. After this business of clearing the good name of Father Kramer was over and finished, Arnold Bush merited another look.

But, for the moment, Koesler was running late. And two witnesses who had identified Father Kramer as the killer were waiting for an interview that had been set up by Inspector Koznicki.

God bless Inspector Koznicki.

36

Father Koesler was somewhat shocked and slightly surprised at the appearance of Sister Therese Hercher.

She was not disheveled. Her IHM blue suit was as clean and neatly pressed as ever. No, the difference was in her face, especially her eyes. If eyes were indeed the mirror of the soul, then her soul was hurt and in deep pain.

“Are you getting enough sleep Sister?”

“Yes. No. Not really. This thing has been a living nightmare. And it’s getting worse. It seems that everytime I get close to sleep I think of Dick locked up like a common criminal and I can’t make it. I can’t relax enough to sleep, at least not often.”

Koesler had offered her coffee, which she refused. Was it that she did not want to put any block in the way of sleep? Or was it his coffee?

It was a little after ten o’clock Monday night. Earlier in the evening, Sister had phoned Koesler, who, detecting the mental turmoil in her voice, invited her to visit him at St. Anselm’s rectory.

“Maybe you should see a doctor, Sister. Maybe he could give you something to relax you . . . help you get to sleep”

She waved away the suggestion. “I want to experience what he must be going through. That way I won’t let up in trying to get him out of there.”

She looked intently at Koesler. She was squinting. He attributed that to her underlying need for rest. “How did it go with you today? Any progress?”

He bowed his head looking at the floor between them. “Not much. All in all, it was pretty discouraging. According to three rather well informed people, we—you and I—are about the only ones still convinced that Father Kramer is innocent.”

“Oh?” Her tone was combative. “Who?”

“Inspector Koznicki, Lieutenant Tully, and Dr. Moellmann, the medical examiner.”

“We’re not the only ones.” She seemed to take resolution from the one-sided odds. “All his parishioners are praying for him. It’s even greater than that. I get a sense from the whole community, the city, the archdiocese, that the people—the vast majority—don’t believe for an instant that he’s guilty.”

Koesler suspected she was right, though his grounds likely were different from hers. Those who actually knew Dick Kramer knew that he could not have committed these crimes. As for the others in that “vast majority” cited by Sister, Koesler guessed that even without knowing Kramer most people simply found it impossible to believe that a priest could be capable of such depravity.

“Though I’ve got to admit,” she reflected, “that you’re right: The police seem convinced that he is guilty. And they’re working overtime to stack up evidence against him. Do you know what they did today? They searched the rectory, and even the church!”

“You were there?”

“They served the search warrant on me!”

While normally Koesler’s prime sympathies lay with the police and the legal system protected by the Constitution, this, he thought, was going a bit far. Not only had they arrested a priest and charged him with unspeakable crimes, now they were serving search warrants on nuns. What next?

“Do you know what they were looking for?” Koesler was quite sure they were after the branding iron. But since he had been informed of the details of these murders in confidentiality, he was not about to reveal what he knew.

“Specifically? I haven’t the slightest idea. I suppose they were on— what do they call it?—a fishing expedition. Anything that might implicate Dick.”

“Did they appear to find anything? I mean, anything that you noticed?”

“I couldn’t be everywhere. One bunch was searching the rectory, the other went to the church. I went with the ones in the church. They never would have found their way around that place without a guide.”

“And?”

“I don’t know. They paid the most attention to Dick’s workshop. That’s the place they asked specifically to see. They went over it with a fine-toothed comb. I tried to listen to what they were saying. But obviously they didn’t want me to learn anything. At one point I know they were looking for some sort of knife. I don’t know why; they’ve got Dick’s knife. They took it from him last week when they arrested him the first time. And they’re holding it as evidence now, aren’t they?”

“That’s right. But there’s a knife missing. The one that was used yesterday on that poor woman . . . Mae Dixon. Naturally, if they think Dick Kramer committed the crime, then he had to have the knife that cut her open. It’s true they have his knife. But as far as they’re concerned there’s no reason he couldn’t have another one. Or he could have replaced it. Of course we know they’ll never find another knife because he didn’t do it. But it won’t stop them from looking.

“But that was it—the knife? They weren’t looking for anything else?”

“I couldn’t say. They weren’t exactly confiding in me. I did hear mention of some kind of brand. I took it to mean the kind or brand of knife they were looking for.”

“But they didn’t find anything.”

“Not that I could tell. They looked pretty glum when they left.

“But how about you? Didn’t you tell me you were going to have a chance to talk to those women who identified Dick as the killer?”

Koesler nodded. “I talked with both of them.”

“And?”

“They’re nice people. At least they were very open with me. I think that was because Lieutenant Tully asked them to cooperate with me.”

“But you couldn’t shake them—their stories?”

“One of them—the one called Adelle—is not too certain. She’s the one who was standing in a doorway several yards from the car that picked up her friend. She ‘Fathered’ me to death. I think because I’m a priest she was doing her best to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Therese was thoughtful. “Just as she will have to do on the stand . . . when she’s under oath.”

“Exactly. So I would think that a sharp attorney like Mr. Bill Johnson shouldn’t have a difficult time discrediting her testimony.”

“And the other one?”

“Ruby. Not so good. She was only a few feet from the man. Of course she saw him for only a few seconds. He was moving, reentering the apartment building. He looked in her direction and seemed startled to see anybody up that close. Seemingly, he had looked around very carefully before going to his car, and then when he was sure no one was around—that no one could see him—had dashed out to the car.”

“Then why didn’t he see her if she was so close?”

“It was bitter cold. She was moving from one sheltered spot to another . . . sort of going from one doorway to another.”

“So she was moving toward the building just as he returned to it.”

“Right. As he hurried up the steps, he glanced in her direction. He was surprised to see her and he paused only a second or two and then hurried in.”

“That’s it? That was all there was to it? A couple of seconds?”

“That’s it. But she seems so positive. So very, very positive.”

“She’s wrong!”

“Yes, she’s wrong. But she’s also lucky.”

“Lucky!”

“A detective named Mangiapane told me all about the show-up He said that among the men they had joining Dick was a detective who was almost his clone.” Koesler hesitated. Something was trying to get through to his conscious mind. But it wouldn’t come. “Anyway, both Adelle and Ruby had a lot of trouble sorting out the detective from Dick. Ruby definitively did it—she didn’t have any doubts.”

“So she’s not apt to break on the stand.”

“I don’t think so. Though I’m sure Mr. Johnson will lean heavily on the infinitesimal seconds she had to make such a crucial identification. But, having met Ruby today, I’d say she won’t budge an inch.” Koesler glanced at his ever-present watch. It was nearing eleven o’clock. According to his schedule, he was only a few minutes from the late news, a nightcap and bedtime. While he had every intention of giving Sister Therese all the time she wanted, he held hope that his routine would not be too severely fractured. “Sure you don’t want some coffee? Or maybe a drink?”

“No, nothing. Thanks.”

“Mind if I have something?”

“Of course not.”

Koesler went to the kitchen, put a few ice cubes in a tall glass, poured in a couple of fingers of scotch, and filled the glass with water—the nightcap. Now if Sister did not stay beyond another half-hour, only the late news would be missing from his routine. He could live with that.

He returned to the living room, sat again across from Sister, and gently rattled the ice against the sides of his glass. He liked the sound. “And how about you? Weren’t you going to check some of your contacts?”

“Yes. I went to see a friend, a Sister Helen, who runs a halfway house for women who want to get out of the life—the profession, she calls it. She knows more about prostitution and prostitutes than just about anybody. Over the past couple of weeks she’s been checking things out for me. Today she had four women who regularly work the areas where all three of the victims were picked up. Or, with Mae Dixon, where she lived and worked.”

“And?”

“And nothing, really. None of them was aware—before these murders, that is—of anything like some John dressed as a priest. All of them said that something like that would have been noised about. And none of them had seen anything like that, nor had there been any word on the street about it. All of them said that if Adelle and Ruby say they saw the guy, they probably saw him . . . that they weren’t the kind who would give false information—especially to Lieutenant Tully.”

“So . . .” Another discouraging word.

“But,” Sister added, “that doesn’t mean that Adelle and even Ruby couldn’t be mistaken in their identification of Dick as the man they saw.”

“Of course.”

The phone rang—11:10. Just what I need, thought Koesler: a late-night sick call. He excused himself and took the call in his office. “St. Anselm’s.”

“Father?”

“Yes.”

“Father Koesler?”

“Yes.” It didn’t sound like a sick call.

“This is Arnold Bush.”

Arnold Bush . . . now, there was a familiar name. But after all these years, all the people he’d met, and the lateness of the hour, nothing clicked.

Spurred on by the silence, “Arnold Bush . . . from the examiner’s office. We had lunch today.”

“Of course.”

“I hope this isn’t too late to call.”

“No . . . no.” Depending on why he was calling, this could easily be too late for a call.

“I want to invite you over for dinner.”

It was too late for a call. “That’s very kind of you, Arnold, but I’m pretty busy just now. Maybe in a month or so . . .” Koesler recognized that this was the type of invitation that would eventually have to be accepted. He had the feeling that Arnold Bush was determined.

“But I need you now.”

“What’s the matter, Arnold?”

“I can’t tell you over the phone. I got to see you.”

“And it’s really urgent?”

“Yeah, really.”

Koesler consulted the calendar on the desk before him. “Well, if it’s really an emergency . . .” There was a parish council meeting tomorrow evening. Under the circumstances, he could be late for it and probably not miss a thing of great importance. “How would tomorrow evening be?”

“That would be perfect.”

“Six-thirty be all right?”

“Fine.”

Bush gave Koesler the address and offered directions. Even though the street name was not familiar, Koesler knew the general area and knew he could find it.

When he returned to the living room, Sister Therese was putting on her coat. The remainder of tonight’s schedule, at least, would remain intact.

At the door, they promised to keep in touch in their all-out effort to clear Dick Kramer.

Koesler finished his drink and got into bed. His last conscious thought was about Arnold Bush. What could be so important that it demanded a face-to-face meeting? After all, they had just met today. He couldn’t imagine what it might be. So he put it out of his mind.

Still, there was something—as yet indefinable—about Arnold Bush. Something that nagged at Koesler. But he couldn’t put his finger on it. That troubled him. Maybe at the meeting tomorrow night. Maybe then.

37

The neighborhood was familiar enough. But Koesler could not recall ever having been there socially.

The area was best known for its principal structure, the massive Masonic Temple, which had once housed the annual week-long visit of the Metropolitan Opera. Now the Met no longer played in Detroit and not that many other events were booked in the overly large auditorium. Just down the street, at the opposite end of Cass Park, stood Cass Tech, easily Detroit’s premier public high school.

Father Koesler recalled many memorable occasions at the Masonic Temple. Among them were concerts by outstanding artists; operatic performances, including his first experience, Carmen; a superlative Porgy and Bess; Yul Brynner’s The King and I.

None of that was going on tonight. The neighborhood was shrouded in snow, and bitterly cold. The streets were practically deserted. He searched carefully for a parking space that would be in a well-lit area and at the same time not too far from his destination— an apartment building at the corner of Fourth and Temple.

He found a near ideal spot. Its only drawback, common to much of the city, was the number of drifts that had piled up over many snowstorms and, short of a warm spell, would not be removed. He slid into the tracks of previous cars and offered a silent prayer that he would be able to extricate himself when the time came.

The time of departure was essential to his strategy for the evening. He intended to return to his rectory for at least some of the parish council meeting. On the one hand, he really ought to at least make an appearance at part of that meeting and on the other; he did feel somewhat queasy about this dinner invitation.

One thing, and one thing alone, had brought him to this point: his too often indulged inability to say no. It had been an element of Koesler’s personality so long as to be immemorial. And it was so ingrained that he knew it was foolishly futile to resolve to change.

This invitation had come without warning. And it wasn’t that this evening had actually been free of any other engagement. There was the council meeting. Also, he wanted to devote every possible moment to the cause of freeing Father Kramer. Besides, he would much rather have had his routine meal at the rectory—a little wine and no surprises.

But here he was at the desolate corner of Fourth and Temple on the mostly uninhabitable fringe of downtown Detroit. And here was the apartment building, down-at-the-heels as expected, that housed Arnold Bush, Koesler’s host for the evening.

There was no difficulty in entering the building. It had no security system whatsoever. Koesler had no reason to expect any guard. But if he’d had his druthers, he would have been extremely grateful for at least a semblance of security.

He climbed the rickety stairs to the second floor and easily located Bush’s apartment. In addition to having the number on the door, it alone among the second-floor apartments had a thin line of light shining out from beneath the door. Additionally there was the pungent odor of cabbage cooking.

Koesler braced himself and knocked on the door. It was opened almost immediately. A smiling Arnold Bush greeted him, took hat and coat, and draped them over the single shaft of ancient wood that served as a clothes tree. Koesler had brought no wine or other gift. Priests, as a singular class, generally considered their presence gift enough.

“Thank you for coming. Thank you very much.” Bush—for Bush—was effusive.

“Not at all.” Koesler was not sure what he had expected, but it certainly was not this one-room efficiency. A table, two straight-back chairs, a bed—more a cot, actually—and a hot plate that appeared to have four burners, two of which were being used to cook dinner. The unmistakable odor promised cabbage and something. The odor, strong as it was, was unable to mask the pervasive nicotine smell that seemed to have permeated everything in the room. Several strategically placed ashtrays were full to overflowing.

But by far the most outstanding feature was the walls. All four walls were filled with pictures. One, the wall next to the bed, held a series of syrupy religious art. The other three walls were covered with photos that appeared to be the same as or similar to the horrors he had viewed yesterday at the medical examiner’s office.

Bush noticed Koesler’s observance of the photos. “Interesting pictures,” Bush remarked.

Koesler managed to close his mouth. “To say the least.” Outside of Moellmann’s office, he’d never seen anything comparable, and was uncertain how to react. The only safe avenue, he decided, was to focus on the religious art. He stepped close to the wall next to the bed and appeared to study those pictures. There wasn’t one he hadn’t seen previously at one time or another. Nor was there one he didn’t dislike.

“Did you notice, I got one of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and one of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” There was a touch of pride in Bush’s voice.

Koesler quickly scanned the wall and located the cited works near the center of the collection. “So you do.” Jesus was portrayed as a wimp, Mary as a bland woman who’d never had either a thought or a human experience. Each was gesturing toward a heart-shaped organ, such as one might find on a valentine, which was positioned roughly where one would expect to find a human heart, but outside the body.

“You don’t find pictures like that much nowadays,” Bush opined. “Well, certainly not this many.” Koesler guessed that Bush had not been in many traditional, or even nontraditional Catholic homes lately. A multitude of Sacred Heart, Infant of Prague, and the like, were still venerated in many Catholic homes. Taken one at a time, they could at best be tolerated, at worst ignored. In this number, they were overwhelming.

Bush gave Koesler a few more minutes to savor the religious spirit that these pictures could generate. “The other pictures”—Bush indicated the remaining three walls—“are from my work. At the morgue,” he added needlessly.

Without getting too close to them, Koesler looked just long enough to confirm that they were the after-death photos of those three poor women. Short of a more intense study, he couldn’t tell whether these were the same as the pictures Dr. Moellmann had showed him yesterday morning. But they seemed at a glance to be duplicates.

It was commendable, Koesler supposed, to take a certain measure of pride in one’s work. But really! “Where did you get all these pictures, Mr. Bush? Are they the same as the ones in the medical examiner’s office?”

“Arnold,” Bush insisted. “Yeah, they’re mostly the same. The tech is a friend of mine. I got them from him.” Bush neglected to specify that the technician didn’t give the photos. He sold them. Nor did Bush intend to confess that he had removed porno magazine shots from one wall just to put up the photos of Mae Dixon.

While trying to block out the content of the pictures themselves, Koesler did observe that each picture, clinical as well as religious, was framed. And each frame appeared to be formed by a similar or identical mold.

“Interesting frames, Arnold. Where did you manage to get so many different sizes in the same design?”

“Made them myself,” with evident pride.

“Yourself?” Koesler looked around the room, the unspoken question obvious.

“Oh, not here. There’s a bump shop a little north of here. I know the owner. I work there two, three nights a week. Help him some. Do some work on my own. He’s got all the tools, everything.”

Oh, yes; Koesler recalled that Bush had mentioned his hobby at lunch yesterday. It hadn’t occurred to Koesler then, but now it did: Bush and Father Kramer had the same hobby. And both had easy access to a supply of professional tools. Interesting coincidence.

“But, dinner is ready,” said Bush. “Come on; sit down.”

Bush obviously had done his best to prepare what, for him, was an outstanding meal. He served Mogen David wine. Koesler was at the opposite end of the spectrum from a sommelier, but with one sip he knew this was more a garden variety grape juice than a choice wine.

His worst fears were realized when he discovered that the companion to the cabbage that was being cooked over the other burner was corned beef. The latter ranked near the bottom of the few foods not relished by Koesler. This would not stand up as a gastronomically memorable evening, except in a negative way. But he would sip the wine, nibble at the corned beef, and fill up on cabbage.

Koesler, at Bush’s invitation, offered a traditional prayer before meals. As they prepared to eat, Koesler said, “By the way, Arnold, last night on the phone you said that this was an urgent matter. You haven’t mentioned just what this emergency is.”

“I didn’t say urgent. You said urgent. It was your word.”

Koesler tried to recall the conversation in detail, but he couldn’t. However, he’d had the definite impression that this was a matter of urgency, no matter who had used the word. “You seem to remember our conversation better than I, Arnold. What was it that was said?”

“I told you I needed you. Now. You were the one used the word ‘urgent.’”

“You needed me now.” Koesler required only a moment to consider the implications. “Sounds like an urgent matter to me.”

“Maybe. But I didn’t say it.”

This was a strange one . . . possibly the strangest person he’d ever met. The literal-mindedness. And the pictures! “Very well, Arnold; you needed me. For what?”

“It’s hard to say.”

“Try. Think: You said you needed me . . . what made you think you needed me?”

“Because you didn’t get mad at me.”

“Get mad at you?”

“In the restaurant. After what that bitch, Agnes Blondell, said about me. Well, I was kind of testing you when we had lunch afterward. I told you some of the bad things I did during my life. And you didn’t get mad. Like priests do. You want some more corned beef?”

“No, no, thanks. Maybe a little more cabbage . . . that is, if you’ve got any extra.”

“Sure thing, Father.” Arnold heaped more cabbage on Koesler’s plate, quite burying the slice of corned beef that the priest had barely touched.

Maybe, thought Koesler, it was the quality or grade of corned beef to which he’d been exposed; but tonight’s offering certainly ranked with the worst he’d ever tried. It was heavily marbled. And as far as he could recall, that was the sort of corned beef he’d always been served. Perhaps there was a far leaner beef that might make the difference.

In any case, he would have no struggle making do with the cabbage. There was almost no way he knew of spoiling cabbage.

“Have you had all that much trouble, Arnold? I mean with priests who get mad at you?”

Bush nodded. He had a mouthful of food, which he chewed and swallowed before speaking. Koesler was grateful.

“In confession, mostly. But sometimes I’d go in the priests’ house and try to talk to one of them. And sooner or later they’d get mad and start yelling at me.”

Koesler shook his head. “You’ve had spectacularly bad luck, Arnold. Most priests aren’t like that.” Even as he spoke, Koesler could recall a whole string of priests he’d known while growing up who’d been exactly like that. He liked to think the ranks of the hellfire-and-brimstone gang had been thinned by now.

“Well, the ones I’ve met were. You were the first one who seemed sort of understanding. And I didn’t even tell you the worst of it.”

Koesler toyed with a small slice of corned beef. “But you’re going to now, aren’t you Arnold.”

“Well, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s what you had in mind when you said you needed me . . . right?”

“Yeah. Is it okay? I mean, if you get mad, it will be all right. It’ll just mean I made a mistake and you’re like all the rest.”

“Shoot.”

“Okay. I wasn’t confirmed.”

“That’s it?!”

“See, I thought you’d get mad.”

“Arnold, I’m not angry. Just very surprised. What’s so horrible about not having been confirmed? Besides, you can be confirmed any time.”

“That’s just the beginning.”

“Oh.” Koesler poured more Mogen David into his glass. Maybe he could get to like the stuff.

“See, I didn’t get confirmed because I didn’t have any real home. See, I was an orphan. At least that’s what they told me. But I did a little checking on my own. I got no idea at all who my father was. He was gone right after he got my mother pregnant. She was a Catholic. That’s why she had me baptized. But then she dumped me.”

“She abandoned you?”

“She put me in an orphan asylum. A Catholic place, because she was a Catholic. Then I went into a series of foster homes. Mostly Catholic because the agency who had charge of me was Catholic . . . or at least knew I was a Catholic. That’s why I got to make my First Holy Communion. But when it came time to get confirmed I was in another foster home and they didn’t let me get confirmed because you had to have a new suit. And there wasn’t no way they was going to buy me a new suit.”

“They wouldn’t enroll you in a confirmation class because—well, that’s outrageous. I don’t know whether it was worse for them to keep you out of the class or worse for the parish to require new clothing. What did they dress you in, for God’s sake?”

“Well, every once in a while we’d go down to the St. Vincent de Paul clothing store and get second- or third-hand clothes for just some change. Sometimes for free. But—now, this is the bad part— this couple I was living with then, they had to hit the road. The law was after them for bad checks.

“So they took the kids—I mean the ones who were their real kids— and left the state. But there was no way they was gonna take me with them. They had enough to handle with their three.”

“So she turned you over to the agency again?”

“No. And it’s okay if you get mad now. The woman turned me over to her sister who ran a cathouse.”

“A cathouse? A house of prostitution. What happened to the agency?”

“I sort of slipped between the cracks.”

“How old were you then?”

“Twelve.”

“You poor kid.”

“Are you mad?”

“At you? No. Maybe at the system. Maybe at your foster mother. But certainly not at you.”

“See, I was right: You don’t get mad. But now that bad stuff starts.”

Bush launched into a monologue, an autobiographical sketch of life in a brothel as seen through the eyes of a growing boy going through an extremely painful and unusual adolescence.

Koesler listened. He listened so intently his mouth became dry from hanging open. As he listened he found himself comparing his boyhood to the aberration that was forced upon a hitherto innocent youth.

Bush had begun bordello life as a curiosity. Chances are there might have been in that house the traditional hooker with a heart of gold—some kind woman who might have protected and mothered him. But Bush bucked odds all his life. Instead of being sheltered and protected, he was treated as a joke. Upon arrival at the house, he was introduced to each and every fact of life by a series of the inhabitants. He was encouraged to—or at least no one seemed to mind if he did—surreptitiously watch from hiding places as the girls plied their trade. He knew what a condom was before he was able to spell the word.

While the parents of other children his age were insisting on the completion of homework, Arnold was running errands for the women as well as for their customers. As a final obscenity, Arnold was taught how to satisfy clients who preferred boys as sexual partners. He was allowed to keep a small percentage of what he earned.

At a comparable age and at almost the same time, Koesler was a seventh grader in a parochial school. He had loving parents who lavished attention on him. He had older sisters who included him in their lives. He lived in a protective cocoon.

At about the time Bush was learning how to turn a trick with a John, Koesler was in a seminary, further insulated from the world, the flesh, and the devil.

As his narration continued, Bush congratulated himself on his judgment of character. This priest was exactly what Bush had hoped him to be. No yelling, no table-pounding, no widened eyes, no fingerwagging. He just sat and listened. Perfect. Maybe, you never know—and at this point it could go either way—but, maybe he could tell this priest the whole thing. Get it all off his mind.

Koesler, for his part, was all but spellbound by the tale. He’d read of lives like this. But he had never actually known anyone who had spent his tenderest formative years in a milieu where immorality was so pervasive it became merely amoral. As the priest listened, he tried to imagine what effect such an upbringing might have on a person. What sort of adult would develop from so bizarre a background? What moral values could possibly endure the immoral soil in which this grew? What sort of attitude would such a person harbor toward women in general, when the women among whom he grew up used and abused him so shamefully?

As Bush continued his story about a life that had taken every possible wrong turn, Koesler, not pressed to respond, started to see something develop in Bush. It was not sharply at first. But then it began to take shape. A likeness. To whom? If one were to put . . . a collar . . . a roman collar . . . a clerical vest, on Bush, he would look very much like—no, he would look exactly like—Dick Kramer.

Odd that it had not occurred to him before. Both men were blond. Both were of stocky build. But most of all, facially they were so alike.

Then his mind took another turn. Something had been bothering him. A question. How . . . how something—oh, yes—how was it possible for two eyewitnesses . . . Who were they again? Adelle and Ruby . . . His train of thought leapfrogged. Adelle had seen the killer from a distance of several yards. Ruby had seen him from only a few feet away. Both women had identified Father Kramer in the show-up. Ruby, who’d had the best vantage, had been the more certain of the two. They both had identified Kramer. And they were both wrong. But—and this had been his problem—how could they have been so mistaken? That policeman, Mangiapane, had told Koesler about the police officer lookalike in the show-up. The women had had some difficulty making the identification because of him.

How well would they have done, Koesler wondered, if Arnold Bush had been in that show-up? Could they have told the difference between a similarly dressed Bush and Kramer? And would they have been so sure of themselves? Koesler thought not. He wondered if there were any possibility of repeating the show-up with Arnold entered in the sweepstakes. It might be worth inquiring into.

Now, nearing the end of his account, Bush decided to include the episode in this very room with Agnes Blondell.

Mention of the Blondell woman wrenched Koesler from his distraction.

Bush confided how confused he had been when Agnes had taken the initiative and arranged the date. How he’d tried to be a perfect gentleman. Even when she had come up to his apartment, he’d had no intention of taking advantage of her. Then, out of the blue, she had come on to him. And when he responded, she had gotten on her high horse and left. Only to spread cruel and vicious rumors about him. And it had been her fault entirely. He’d had nothing to do with it. Merely responded.

And that, Bush concluded, is how he had come to meet Koesler. Which, as far as Bush was concerned, proved that good could come out of bad.

As he spoke, Koesler could well imagine how, with his history, Bush might have reacted to a woman who was foolish enough to toy with his emotions. It might well have been, thought Koesler, very lucky for Agnes Blondell that she had escaped from that encounter. And that thought led to another. But again, Koesler was not quite able to bring the new concept into focus. Possibly he might have, had Bush not interrupted his thinking process by addressing him with a direct question: “You haven’t eaten all your corned beef. Didn’t you like it?”

Koesler started. “Oh, too much cabbage, I guess. That happens. Especially when you like cabbage as much as I do.”

“Well, then, all done?”

“Yes. Yes, indeed.” Koesler glanced at his watch. It was almost time to leave if he was going to catch at least part of the parish council meeting.

“Just some dessert then.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. I really must go.” Koesler was convinced he had paid his dues this evening. Bush had said he needed Koesler—“now.” And he’d had him. Koesler was sure all Bush had wanted or needed was to talk this out—tell someone. Now, thought Koesler, it was over.

“Just some Jell-O,” Bush fairly pleaded. “I made it myself”

How else, Koesler wondered, would one get Jell-O without making it oneself “Well, okay. They say there’s always room for Jell-O. I guess there must always be time for it, too.”

With a satisfied look, Bush cleared the few dishes from the small table. Then he went to his small, portable fridge to get the Jell-O. Things were such, and space so limited, that it appeared that Bush was going to require a few minutes to get the Jell-O on the table.

Koesler, filled with cabbage at lease, felt the urge to stand and stretch a bit. There wasn’t much space in which to walk nor was there much to capture one’s attention. Except the pictures.

Koesler, perhaps instinctively, went to the “religious” art. Arguably, in this assemblage there wasn’t much from which to choose. If only because he’d seen these saccharine monstrosities too often, he turned to the photos taken by Bush’s technician friend.

He went rather rapidly from one to the next. He recognized some of the prints from the medical examiner’s files, though he had to admit he had not spent that much time looking at them yesterday morning in Dr. Moellmann’s office.

Once again, Koesler puzzled over the sheer brutality of these attacks, the violence done to the bodies of the victims.

“Dessert’s ready.”

Just as well. He’d had quite enough of Bush’s version of Pictures at an Exhibition. Koesler could not help but think of Spiro Agnew’s aristocratic comment when scheduled to tour a slum: “If you’ve seen one slum you’ve seen them all.” Overwhelmed by these pictures, Koesler was about to paraphrase Agnew: When you’ve seen one mutilated prostitute, you’ve seen them all.

Of course this was not true, unless one were dealing with this specific case where each victim had been brutalized in identical ways. The bruised neck, the evisceration, the branding.

He returned to the series of framed pictures and stood staring at them.

Bush looked up from his chair at the table. “Is something wrong?”

There was no response. Bush tried again. “Is something the matter?”

“Something is wrong,” Koesler said slowly. “Something is very, very, very wrong.”

Bush joined Koesler. “What is it?”

“These pictures here.” Koesler pointed to a series of prints, the latest additions to the gallery. “These are photos of the latest victim, Mae Dixon, aren’t they?”

Bush did not need to study the pictures. He knew them well. “Yes, Mae Dixon. So?”

“There’s a progression to these photos. The first ones—these, up higher here—were taken in the apartment. Of her in the bathtub, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“And the later ones, down here, one row lower: These were taken at the mortuary.”

“So?”

“There are two photos that were not taken by the technician.”

Bush began to perspire.

“Those two photos were taken by the killer.”

Koesler waited, but Bush said nothing.

Koesler continued. “I had to look very closely because the angle is different from the other photos. But if you check carefully, there’s something missing. In these two pictures, Mae Dixon has not yet been branded. The picture seems to be taken from a higher angle, almost overhead. But it does show enough of the poor woman’s breast so you can see that the brand mark should be there. Right here.” Koesler touched the photo. “But it isn’t. Mae Dixon, at this time, at the time this photo was taken, was dead. She’d been strangled. And she’d been cut open. But she had not been branded. The other photos show that she was, indeed, branded. But not now, not when this picture was taken. There’s only one explanation: The murderer took this picture between the time he strangled and cut her and the time that he branded her.”

Koesler looked long at Bush, who remained silent. “You did this, Arnold. You strangled her. You cut her open. You took this picture. And then you branded her.”

Bush took his seat again at the table. He took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He removed a cigarette and dropped the pack on the table. He tapped the cigarette several times on the tabletop. He placed the cigarette at the edge of his lips and lit it. He inhaled deeply, then let the smoke escape slowly through his nostrils. It was a most reflexive routine. Every action indicated that he was carefully considering his response to Koesler’s charge.

“What if I didn’t take those two pictures?” he said finally.

“Then who took them? Who did you get them from, Arnold? Whoever took them murdered Mae Dixon.”

Bush pinched off another deep drag on his cigarette. Who? Who could he have gotten them from? No matter who he named they would, of course, check. And they would find that the accusation was false. There was no one to blame—no one but himself.

“Stupid,” Bush murmured. “Stupid. I wanted my own pictures. Everything else was mine. The plan. It was a good plan. It was maybe a perfect plan. Everything else. The tools. Everything was mine. I wanted my own picture. Stupid!” He spat out the final word.

Koesler waited, but Bush added nothing more. “Not only that,” Koesler picked up, “but you involved an innocent man and a priest besides. You set him up, didn’t you, Arnold? Poor Father Kramer has been publicly humiliated and imprisoned because of you. He could have been convicted. He would have spent a great number of years—maybe the rest of his life—in prison. Arnold, how could you have done this?”

But Bush was no longer listening. He was retracing in his memory the painstaking preparations he’d made. How carefully he had plotted the whole thing. And for what? For what?

Father Koesler was numb. He would not have expected to be. He would have expected to be delighted, triumphant. There was never a doubt in his mind that Dick Kramer was innocent of these crimes. But, from time to time, Koesler had doubted that he or anyone else would be able to set the record straight and clear the priest. Never had this depression been more deep than just yesterday when he had learned that not only did Lieutenant Tully believe Kramer guilty, but that this opinion was shared by Dr. Moellmann and even Inspector Koznicki. Now this was all changed. It was nothing less than Divine Providence that had come to his aid. A miracle of sorts.

Meeting Arnold Bush. What a spectacular accident! Agnes Blondell, out of nowhere, leading him almost by the nose to the basement of the morgue, where he had been introduced to Arnold Bush. Lunch in Greektown. All Arnold had been looking for was a non-judgmental priest. Not that impossible to find, especially in this day and age.

So he’d listened to Bush. Then the call late last night. His strong inclination to postpone the dinner invitation into infinity. But Bush had been insistent—and there was Koesler’s reluctance to refuse anyone. Then, dinner tonight. One last look at the photo study of the mutilated prostitutes. The very last second glance at those pictures and spotting the fatal flaw.

Especially that he, Father Koesler, should spot the final clue. He who had always been so poor at paying attention to detail.

Yes, if it was not a miracle in the technical sense, surely in a more popular sense it was miraculous.

At any point, this easily might not have happened. Had he been in the lobby of the morgue seconds earlier or later, Agnes Blondell would have missed him. Had he firmly refused Arnold’s dinner invitation, he never would have suspected, let alone stumbled upon, the telltale pictures.

And if none of this had happened, like as not the doomsday predictions of almost everyone else would have come to pass. Father Kramer probably would have been convicted.

So why didn’t he feel better? Why was there no ebullience?

Koesler was not sure. Maybe because he was forced to trade one soul for another. What had Bush become that had not been programmed beyond his power to control? What a painfully shameful way to treat a child! Shuffled from home to home, ending in a brothel. How much genuine responsibility did Arnold Bush have to shoulder for his crimes? How guilty was he in the eyes of God, the most understanding judge of all?

It was, any way it could be considered, a tragedy.

Perhaps that was why there was neither relief nor joy in Koesler’s heart. He had simply traded one tragedy for another.

Meanwhile three innocent women had become homicide victims. The time had come to pay the price.

Bush lit another cigarette. All evening, at great personal discomfort, he had abstained from smoking for the sake of his party for the priest. It no longer mattered. In a short while his life of freedom, such as it was, would be at an end. The police would be here. Called by the priest.

Called by the priest?

Bush had killed before. Could he not do it again? With this priest out of the way he would be free.

It was a consideration.

But, in the end, no more than a consideration. It was one thing to snuff out a whore. Whores had snuffed out his youth often enough. It was quite another thing to kill a priest. No, he was deeply enough into this without descending further.

Whether he had picked up the vibration of Bush’s thoughts or not, Koesler hastily moved to the phone. He thought briefly of dialing 911, the emergency number. He dialed the home of Inspector Koznicki.