“I want you to do it because I fear for Cardinal Boyle. I don’t know how you feel about the man ….”
“That’s easy. I admire him and I’m proud as punch that he’s my bishop. I have no qualms whatsoever in representing him.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that. He is a good man. But hardly one who would go into hiding or even take any sort of precaution to protect himself He’ll go on with his duties, appearing regularly in public.
“I hope and pray I’m wrong. But if he is the next target, somebody has to do something to protect him. And since we can’t depend on his being any help to himself, the best thing that can happen is that this case gets solved before anything does happen to him.”
“Bishop, I want to put your mind at ease. I’d like to tell you I’ll get actively involved. God save us, I’d even like to assure you that I will get in there and solve this case. But to be brutally honest, I don’t have a clue as to what’s going on here. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Foley rose from his chair, walked around the desk, and stood immediately in front of Koesler.
“God bless you, Father. I don’t expect you to sweep the police aside and become a one-man force to single-handedly solve this case. Heaven forbid, I know that’s impossible. All I’m asking is for your positive involvement. Now, I know you wouldn’t know where to start. But you’ve got a talent for this sort of thing and it’s extremely important-a Case of life and death, I believe, quite literally-that you try. I’m asking you to open yourself to the Holy Spirit. Because I am going to pray for you. I’m going to pray as intensely as I ever have. What you and I cannot do with our meager strength, God can accomplish through us. Will you, Father? Will you?”
Koesler sighed as his shoulders sagged in an I-can’t-fight-this-any-further slump. “All right, Bishop. I’ll do what I cam But you had better be awfully darn good at praying.”
22
Sergeant Angie Moore was describing the case she had handled earlier in the day. “According to just about everybody I talked to, this guy was the life of the party. I mean, all the time. He was never ‘off.’ Helped around the neighborhood too. A regular Good Neighbor Sam. But before he’d go home, almost every time …”
“He’d booze it up?” Lieutenant Tully interrupted.
“How’d you guess?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been over this territory too many times. When he’s out, he’s Dr. Jekyll. But when he goes home, he’s Mr. Hyde. There has to be some potion he takes to speed up the change. My guess is it’s not drugs or the neighbors would know about it and he’d lose his image real quick. So: booze.”
Moore and Tully were seated in the otherwise empty squad room. Tully was struggling to pay attention.. But what Moore was describing was a platter case, and besides, he was preoccupied with the Catholic affair-which was proving the opposite of a platter.
“Well,” Moore admitted, “you’re right. It was booze.”
“And he had to get more and more ’cause he was building up an immunity,”
Moore laughed. “Say, whose case is this anyway?”
“Sorry Go ahead. I’ll shut up.”
“You seem to have guessed what happened when he got home.”
Tully simply looked interested. He’d promised he wouldn’t interrupt any more.
“Okay,” Moore continued. “He would beat his wife to a pulp.”
“Witnesses?”
“Two teenagers. Their son and daughter. Sometimes they’d try to intervene, but then they’d get it too. He was a big son-of-a-bitch. After a while, they just quit trying. Sometimes she’d try to fight back but she’d only get hit harder.”
“I take it things got reversed this morning. I mean, after all, the guy’s dead.”
“Yeah. But not the way you’d expect.”
Tully showed some interest.
“Last night,” Moore said, “he came home stone sober. Then, after a while, he got tanked and started throwing her around. The boy stepped between them, pleading for his mother. The guy almost killed his son. That did it: She told us she could have taken the abuse, even if it killed her. But not her baby. She decided to get out.”
“Mother love.”
“So this morning the guy gets up, goes out to start the car-to warm it up before he went to work. He turned the ignition on and blew himself into jelly”
Tully was surprised. “The wife wired the car?”
“That’s the funny part. Right now, it looks like he did it to get rid of her.”
“How-?”
“They got two cars. Last night when he got home sober he worked on the car his wife drove. Neighbors saw him. His foreman checked and found that he’d taken some explosives from work. That’s it, Zoo: This morning he was so hung over, he started the wrong can.”
He had to agree there was a different twist here. But it was still a “platter” case.
Sergeant Mangiapane cleared his throat. At some point he had entered the room and had been standing just inside the door. Neither Tully nor Moore had been aware of his presence.
“Yes, indeedy,” Moore took the hint, “I got some work to do.” She gathered up her tote bag and left the squad room.
Once again Tully was alone with one of his detectives. This time there was a genuine interest. Mangiapane was among the officers still investigating Larry Hoffer’s murder as well as that of Helen Donovan.
“Got something?” From the manner of Mangiapane’s entrance, Tully was fairly sure the sergeant did have some fresh development.
“Maybe.” Mangiapane sat down directly opposite Tully.
Tully merely looked at him, waiting.
“You know that nursing home up in Pontiac? On Watkins Lake Road?”
“No, can’t say that I do.” Tully had no reason, by his lights, to be aware of the facility. It had never been involved in any case he had investigated. Until now, at least.
“Well, okay,” Mangiapane said. He wondered from time to time about the comparative narrowness of Tully’s interest. “There is one. It’s been there almost thirty years. The reason I’m bringing this up is that my aunt works there. She’s an RN.”
Tully would not have been surprised should Mangiapane volunteer his aunt’s medical education and achievements. Excessive detail was one of the boy’s failings. Fortunately, ne had more than enough virtues to offset the drawbacks. He had all the makings of a fine detective. One day he would be one of the best. As long as he paid attention.
Tully was about to redirect Mangiapane’s attention to the case at hand when the sergeant returned to it of his own volition.
“I don’t see Aunt Marie very often-Christmas, Easter, family get-togethers, that sort of thing. That’s why I was surprised when she called me.”
“When was that?”
“Yesterday. Well, last night, actually. She said she’d been keeping up on this murder case in the papers and she knew I was working on it. She sort of brags to the patients and the staff when I’m on a big case.” He smiled modestly “She always wonders how come my picture ain’t in the paper when I’m on a major case.”
There he goes again.“Manj,” Tully said, “tell me why I should be interested in what your aunt thinks of our investigation of this, particular case.”
“Sure, Zoo. Sorry.” Mangiapane had been made aware of his tendency to digress. He tried to reform, but it wasn’t easy. “What it was, Zoo, is that Aunt Marie has this patient at the nursing home. The old lady’s not quite with it most of the time. But once in a while, she’s … whaddyacallit?”
“Lucid?”
“Yeah, I think. Anyway, Aunt Marie heard her talkin’ about her nephew and niece, who were religious. I mean the nephew is a priest and the niece is a nun. Catholics usually are proud of a thing like that, Zoo. So it wasn’t unusual that she would brag about it. At least she did it a few times when she was … lucid.”
“I think we’ve gotten through the introduction, Manj. Has this story got a middle or an end?”
“Sure, Zoo. The thing is, her niece’s name is Sister Joan Donovan.”
Tully leaned forward.