“You all right, Father?” one of the bystanders asked.
“Yeah, sure. I’m okay. I’ve just got to get out of here. TV makes me nervous.”
Kramer made his way out of the room and the house as speedily as he could.
“Can you imagine that?” observed the bystander. “TV makes the Father nervous.”
“Poor man,” said another bystander.
9
“Police are continuing their investigation into the murder of Ms. Bonner.” TV reporter Ken Ford spoke in hushed tones into his handheld microphone as, in the background, the simple casket was carried into St. Anselm’s. “With me is homicide detective Lieutenant Tully. . . .” The picture widened to include Tully’s impassive face. “Lieutenant,” Ford asked, “is there any progress to report in this case?”
“We’re following leads. There’s been some progress. But there’s nothing really new to report.” Tully looked away from the camera, creating the true impression that he was uncomfortable being interviewed.
“Look at that,” said Sam. “That guy ain’t wearin’ no hat.” He was referring to reporter Ford.
Sam owned a small bump and paint shop on Second Avenue near Warren. Most of the other buildings in that block were either boarded up or gutted by long-ago fires.
“It was goddam cold this morning,” Sam persisted. “Why wouldn’t he wear a goddam hat? That’s what I wanna know.”
“I don’t know,” Arnold Bush said. “Maybe he’s trying to prove something.”
“What—that he can catch the goddam flu?” Sam laughed at his own humor. The laugh disintegrated into a hacking cough. When he finally got the cough under control, he retrieved the stub of a stale cigar from an overflowing ashtray, relit the cigar, and coughed some more.
Sam and Arnold had been friends for almost two years. They shared a natural mechanical ability, a love of working with their hands, a respect for tools, and an overpowering addiction to smoking. Sam smoked cigars, Arnold cigarettes.
Although Bush had recently been hired at the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s department, he still spent much of his free time with Sam, helping with an occasional auto repair or just doing some fix-up work for someone or for himself. At this moment, he was painstakingly constructing frames for his most recent photos.
“Oh, the hell with the news,” Sam said. “Maybe there’s a game show on . . . or maybe a basketball game.” He moved toward the television set, which was mounted high on the wall.
“No! Leave it!” Arnold almost shouted. “I want to see this.”
“Okay, okay.” Sam retreated from the TV and delicately balanced the cigar stub atop the pile of butts in the ashtray. “You don’t have to bite my ass off.”
Bush put down the aluminum strip he had been working on and gave full attention to the report of Louise Bonner’s funeral.
The TV camera zoomed in to a close-up of the coffin. It was a simple metal box. Louise Bonner would have been buried in the simplest coffin of all—a wooden box—except that her sister prostitutes had taken up a collection among themselves, raising, by almost anyone’s standards, a fairly generous amount. They ensured that she would be buried with dignity.
A smile appeared on Arnold Bush’s face as he contemplated the casket. It was as if he had X-ray vision. He pictured Louise’s body beneath the lid, under the silken lining. He could see in his mind’s eye those photos of her mutilated torso—the very same photos for which he was now making frames. He recalled the procedures that had followed the picture-taking and the autopsy. He remembered in great detail personally tucking Louise’s organs back inside her body and sewing her up. Painstakingly sewing her up preliminary to the mortician’s work.
In his as yet brief time with the medical examiner’s office, this was the first body that had been all “his.” He had reserved her to himself. He had almost come to blows over possession of her. He would have fought, too, had the other man pushed him further.
Yes, this was “his” first body. It was not likely to be the last.
Meanwhile, he was enjoying the pictures of the funeral.
10
“Inside, the church was filled to near capacity.” On the six o’clock news, TV reporter Ken Ford continued his muted commentary. “Many in this morning’s congregation were the merely curious who came to attend the last rites of a woman almost completely unnoted in life. A woman who might have remained unknown in death had it not been for the bizarre manner of that death.”
Father Koesler grimaced as he watched the TV account of the funeral he had celebrated that morning. He had been having second, third, and fourth thoughts all day about what he had done. All that he had told Monsignor Meehan earlier about the funeral had come true. The afternoon Detroit News carried two photos with an accompanying story in its first section. Undoubtedly the Free Press would feature coverage in its early editions.
Koesler could watch only one TV channel at a time. This happened to be channel 7. Later he would try channels 2 and 4.
He was standing in the doorway between the rectory kitchen and the dining area. He was trying to cook supper, a never-ending adventure in his life. After this morning’s funeral, it had been easy for him to convince himself that he deserved a treat. So, on the way back from visiting Monsignor Meehan, Koesler stopped to purchase a succulent porterhouse steak.
Ordinarily, he would flip something like that into a pan and fry it. But not this beauty. It deserved something better. Thus, he had solicited directions from one of his parishioners on the method of broiling. The parishioner had assured him that the process wouldn’t take long and that he should check the steak’s condition every few minutes, first to turn it, then to finish it.
Several minutes ago he had set the stove’s control on “broil” and tenderly placed the steak in the oven. He had just now checked for progress. Nothing. The oven wasn’t even hot. But Koesler was a man of faith. The kind lady had told him how to broil a steak and by God he was going to follow directions to the bitter end.
While waiting for some action from the oven, he had made himself a cup of instant coffee, which he was now sipping. He could not understand why his coffee was so universally disliked. He found it quite good. But it was difficult for him to recall anyone who had tasted his coffee ever accepting another cup. Ever.
“In the congregation,” reporter Ford continued, “were many of the slain woman’s friends and former associates. . . .” Ford put a peculiar emphasis on the words “friends” and “associates.” The picture made his implication quite obvious, especially if one kept in mind that Louise Bonner had been a prostitute. Koesler winced as the camera panned that section of the church where the working women had clustered.
In hindsight, Koesler wished he had not turned on the heat in the church. For the ladies had removed their coats, revealing clinging dresses that hugged curves and accentuated bosoms. That, plus their extravagant makeup, made it less than necessary for the reporter to get explicit about their line of business.
Koesler was just beginning to wonder how much longer it would take for . . . when the phone rang.
“Father?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you realize that the founding pastor of this parish is spinning in his grave tonight. In one morning you have violated all that holy man stood for. It wasn’t bad enough that you staged a funeral for a known prostitute; you had to invite all the other fallen women in the city to this travesty of a sacred rite.”
“Now, wait a minute: I didn’t invite anyone to this funeral. I merely agreed to bury from our church a Catholic woman who didn’t have a regular parish.”