“Well, it’s a kind of recruitment … I guess I could postpone it for just this afternoon if you think I can be of some help, but I don’t-
“Sure. Okay. I know you’re practically next door. But could you delay just a few minutes? I’m with somebody now and …
“Okay. I’ll see you in a little while.” He hung up.
“You’re having company? Now?” Irene asked.
“Lieutenant Tully. He’s with the Homicide Department. He wanted to see me. But don’t feel you have to rush off. He won’t be here for a few minutes.”
“No, no, we’re done. It’s okay. You’ve been a big help,” Irene responded. “Actually, just being able to talk to someone, express my fears, did the trick, I think.”
Thanks a heap, thought Koesler. Nothing I said helped. It was the talking cure again. Koesler had seen it work any number of times, especially in confession-or the sacrament of reconciliation as it was now called. “Well,” he said, “if you’re sure … really, there’s no hurry.”
Irene rose, left the table, and went directly to the cupboard.
Koesler smiled. “What in the world are you up to, Irene?”
“Just going to make a pot of coffee before I go.”
“No need for that, Irene. I can do it. No trouble.”
“No, you’re going to have an important visitor and you’ll want to serve him some coffee. Or at least offer it to him. I can get it done in a jiffy.”
“Well, if you insist. Thanks.”
Some day, thought Irene, the right moment will come to tell him about his coffee. Maybe even teach him how to make it. For now, she was reluctant to expose her friend’s culinary failing to a stranger.
She made the coffee and left, confident that she had saved Father Koesler from embarrassment. And the policeman from a taste worse than gall.
14
“Good coffee,” Tully observed.
“Thanks.” Koesler saw no reason to explain that someone else had made the coffee. The fact that Irene Casey had brewed it was irrelevant and immaterial, as the movies had them say in court.
Mary O’Connor had admitted Tully just a few minutes ago. She’d led him to the kitchen, whose comparative coziness Koesler preferred on a cold and windy day such as this.
A few initial questions from Tully elicited the fact that the kitchen, cozy as it was, was not what he would term secure. The secretary, the janitor, or any number of others might drift in at any time. So, at the officer’s insistence, the two had repaired to Koesler’s office, where the wind whistled through the closed but drafty windows.
Tully simply acclimated himself, a skill he had cultivated so assiduously he had become adept at it. As for Koesler, he hovered over his coffee for warmth.
“Father,” Tully began, “I’m going to tell you Something that hasn’t been made public just yet: The gun that killed Helen Donovan was also used to kill Lawrence Hoffer;”
“What?” Few things surprised Koesler anymore, but this certainly did. “I thought you arrested the man who killed Helen.”
“So did we. That’s what we thought. But there was a hole in that case. Not big enough to drive a truck through, but a hole anyway. The same gun was not used in the murder of Helen Donovan and in the attempt on her sister. Of course it was always possible, for lots of reasons, that he might have used different guns. But it isn’t likely he actually did.”
“But I thought the man confessed!”
Tully shrugged, “It happens. There are people out there who confess to things they didn’t do.”
“I don’t understand.” Koesler looked pained. “I thought it was all over.”
“That would have been nice. But it didn’t work that way. Now, Father, what I’ve told you so far is being released to the news media. But I’m going to tell you more of the details, facts that won’t be given to the media. I’ll have to ask you not to reveal them.”
Koesler did not reply.
“Father?” Tully pressed.
“Oh, oh, certainly.” All he could think of was that he had just assured Irene Casey that this madness was over. What would she think now? Then another thought occurred. “But why are you telling me, Lieutenant?”
“Because we could use your help on this case, and for you to help us you’ve got to know what we’re working with.”
“But why not tell the media everything? Wouldn’t that help in apprehending the man?”
Tully noted that Koesler had used the masculine noun in referring to the perpetrator. Did Koesler know something? Through the confessional? Likely it was no more than the natural tendency to link men rather than women to murder. Nonetheless it was noted. But to Koesler’s question. “The problem with that is that it encourages copycat murderers, like what probably happened with David Reading, the guy who almost got the nun.”
“Oh, very well then. Certainly. I’ll keep what you tell me in confidence.”
“Good. By the way, I checked out using you and letting you know what we’ve got with your friend Inspector Koznicki. He gave me the green light. So it’s official.”
“Certainly.”
Koesler had given up all thought of drinking his coffee. He was now clutching it for survival. If this conversation was going to go on much longer, he was going to need a coat. Maybe a hat.
Tully leaned forward. “About the only hard information we’ve got so far has to do with the weapon. We know the gun used to kill Helen Donovan was a.38 caliber. We know because we retrieved the slug. More on that in a bit. The gun we took from Reading was a nine caliber. The theory was that after Reading killed Helen, thinking she was Joan, he had no further use for the.38 so he got rid of it. Then, when he found out he’d missed his target, killed the wrong woman, he couldn’t recover the.38, for whatever reason. Unfortunately, that explanation was suggested to Reading during interrogation, and he agreed to it as part of his ‘confession.’ That’s when we thought we had everything wrapped up.
“Then came the murder of Lawrence Hoffer. I suspected there might be a connection because both Joan Donovan and Hoffer were part of the administration of the local Catholic Church. And that proved to be correct. We compared the slugs that killed the Donovan woman and Hoffer and-they matched.”
“And,” Koesler said, “at the time Larry was killed Mr. Reading was already locked up.”
“Correct. Now, let me tell you something about the ammo used ’cause it tells us quite a bit about the killer,” Tully said.
“The bullets were 158 grain, half-jacketed, flat-nosed, downloaded.38 caliber. Does that have any significance for you, or mean anything special?”
Koesler shook his head.
“Not familiar with guns?.”
Koesler shook his head again.
“Okay,” Tully said. “This kind of bullet is ordinarily used for target practice. Particularly because of its flat nose, it makes a nice, neat round hole in the paper target. That way it’s easy to see where all the bullets hit the target even if more than one bullet hits almost the same spot. Okay?”
Koesler nodded.
“Okay. Now, when this kind of bullet-one with all the specifications I mentioned-is fired point-blank into, say, a person’s head-the way Donovan and Hoffer were hit-something very specific happens.
“Because it’s down-loaded, it’s not likely to exit the body, the head. Because it’s half-jacketed, it holds together; it doesn’t expand when it hits its target. Because it’s flat-nosed and doesn’t exit the body, it causes one hell of a lot of damage.” Tully looked expectantly at Koesler. “See?”
Koesler pondered for a moment. “Not really.”
“Okay.” There was no good reason why a priest inexperienced in ballistics should grasp the significance of what the perpetrator intended. But he had hoped Koesler’s deductive powers would be sharper. Still, Tully reminded himself, he had sought Koesler’s input because of his familiarity with things Churchy, not because he might be able to interpret a murderer’s mind.