But this night-for he would stay over till morning-he would spend with his old friend Mark Boyle.
Boyle, at sixty-nine, was slightly more than five years Foley’s junior. They had met some forty years before in Rome when both were students. Both had been ordained-Foley for the diocese of Miami and Boyle for the diocese of Cleveland. As brilliant seminarians, both had been selected by their respective bishops to attend graduate studies in Rome. Foley majored in canon law, Boyle in theology.
Even as young men, they had enough in common to become friends. They were English-speaking United States citizens, at the peak of their youth; roommates, expected to achieve much by their appointment to graduate study-and they were strangers together in a foreign land.
Building on that, they formed an abiding friendship that had grown stronger and deepened over the years. Each was of Irish descent, as were so many American bishops. They both had become auxiliary bishops, Foley in his native Miami, Boyle in his native Cleveland. Foley had risen to the rank of archbishop when he was named ordinary of Cincinnati. Boyle was named archbishop of Pittsburgh, then archbishop of Detroit, then named a Cardinal by Pope Paul VI.
The two vacationed regularly together, usually in Florida, where Foley had so many friends and contacts. They golfed together, neither well, both mostly for exercise. They could spend evenings together chatting knowledgeably about many things or in companionable silence.
The piece de resistance having been finished, Mrs. Provenzano, Boyle’s housekeeper, removed the dishes and served coffee and sherbet.
“Delicious lamb,” Foley said to Mrs. Provenzano, who smiled and, thank God, was still able to blush at a compliment.
“She was a genuine find,” Boyle said after the housekeeper had left them. “She has only two rules by which to live: no beef and no chicken.”
Foley chuckled. “The martyrdom of today’s bishop, stuffed to death with rubbery chicken and leathery beef cooked by the ladies of the Rosary Altar Society on the occasion of parish confirmations.”
Boyle smiled. “Of course they are well-meaning people, but they surely need an injection of imagination. The beef is usually sliced thin enough that one can get by without having to consume very much. But whichever doctor it was who pronounced chicken a healthy food never tried the parochial mass-produced variety.”
Foley began toying with a spoon.
“Still miss cigarettes?” Boyle asked.
Foley studied the Cardinal, “Now what would make you say a thing like that?”
“Something to do with your hands. Toying with a utensil instead of handling a cigarette.”
“Doesn’t happen much anymore. But after a good dinner and with coffee …” Foley shrugged.
“Still?”
“There was a time, Mark, me lad, that I could not envision being on the telephone, getting through the daily mail, a hundred other daily tasks such as getting up in the morning or going to bed at night, without a cigarette. It’s down to this, after a good dinner. That’s not so bad, is it now? Nice bit of deduction though.”
“It just occurred to me. You used to say that you thought much of your reason for smoking was to have something to occupy restless hands.”
“True as far as it goes, but a bit of a simplification. There’s the nicotine, an addictive drug. But speaking of deduction, has anything new come up in the police investigation?”
“Into the death of Larry Hoffer? Not that I’m aware of.”
“What do you think? Isolated instances? Coincidence? Or is there a connection between the murders of that poor woman and Hoffer?”
Boyle finished the sherbet and carefully wiped his lips. “I feel very strongly that they are related. And that’s why I’m concerned about Sister Joan’s welfare. I believe that whoever killed Larry also killed Helen Donovan thinking she was her sister. And the guilty party is still at large, probably looking for an opportunity to attack Sister Joan.”
“It’s hard to hide, particularly in this day and age.”
“I’ve talked to her about going away. A vacation, study, virtually anything to get her away from here, somewhere where she could be safer.”
“She won’t go?”
Boyle shook his head. “She’s politely refused every offer. I get the impression she feels some sort of debt to her sister. She is certain the killer was looking for her and that her sister was in the wrong, place at the wrong time. With Sister it is the whole thing. That her sister was dressed in Joan’s habit. There’s a sense of desecration in a religious being attacked. In many ways, Joan feels that in death if not in life she is her sister’s keeper.”
Foley was tempted to fiddle with something, anything: spoon, knife, whatever. But having had his subconscious raised, he deliberately interlaced his fingers and rested his hands on the tabletop. “But, why?” he asked. “What possibly could be the connection between Larry Hoffer and Sister Joan-given the assumption that she was the real intended victim?”
“I’ve thought about that a great deal. Almost obsessively.” Boyle sipped his coffee. It was excellent; Mrs. Provenzano had experimented with the blend until she was satisfied. “I keep returning to the recent staff meeting-the last time they were together. Sister Joan as one who had escaped the grave, and Larry Hoffer at his final meeting-though none of us knew it at the time. I’ve even seen it in a dream. I can hear the angry voices, most of them directed at Larry. And I wonder: Could anyone at the meeting … a staff member … could any one of them …? But then I dismiss the questions as impossible speculation. Besides, such questions are better asked-and answered-by the police.”
“They need help!” Foley’s tone was forceful, urgent.
“Help? The police? From whom?”
“Us!”
Boyle looked startled. “You’re not serious.”
Foley was very serious. “These are officials of the archdiocese of Detroit. If there were only one victim-Larry Hoffer-we might suppose his enemy could have been … anyone. It’s not hard to suppose that he’s made enemies during his long career. He was, after all, a financier, and money is a common enough motivation for enmity, hatred, violence … murder.
“But that is true only if Hoffer were the only victim. It does not in any way address the selection of Sister Joan as a designated victim by the same killer. Whoever is doing this is doing it for some religious reason. Oh, I know to the police that might sound like a contradiction in terms. But we could list hundreds of examples through history when people were murdered for reasons connected to religion.”
“Well, I can assure you, Lawrence, that I am not going to volunteer my services, such as they are, to the Detroit Police Department.” A smile threatened to break through, but Boyle held it well in check. “Of course, if you …”
“Come, come, Mark,” Foley interrupted, “you know I wasn’t referring to a couple of old fogies like us! I meant one of your priests. You must have someone who could guide the police through the morass of Church bureaucracy.”
Boyle’s smile did break through. “There is someone. I don’t think you’ve met him yet. Father Robert Koesler.”
“He has some special training?” Foley was surprised that any priest would spring immediately to mind as a liaison with a homicide department of a major city such as Detroit. If anyone had challenged him to come up with such a priest in Cincinnati, he would have been hard-pressed to do so.
“Not training, Larry; experience.”
“This … this Koesler: He’s done this sort of thing before?”
Boyle nodded. “It’s uncanny, but it certainly has happened before. I’ve had occasion to speak with him about it, of course. I’m convinced a good deal of his involvement is not by design. He certainly is not in any way trained in criminology. But he has been called upon by the police to do just what you suggested: help them find their way through Church avenues and paths that seem to be an added mystery to the police.”