“I don’t know. I just don’t know. That’s the only piece that doesn’t seem to fit with the puzzle. Did he know, did he have any reason to guess, that this might happen? That someone would mistake you for him? I don’t know. It bothers me.”
“Well, anyhow, I feel better. Just going through this with you has lifted a weight off my shoulders, Bob. You know, I know—we both know—I couldn’t have done it.”
“Yes. But realistically, Dick, that may not be enough. I know in our form of law in this country, an accused person is innocent until proven guilty. But in our case, we may have to find the guilty party before—” Koesler stopped in midsentence and looked intently at Kramer. “What did you just say?”
Kramer seemed confused. He could not remember. Few people pay close enough attention to remarks they make to have a verbatim recollection. “I don’t know . . . something about our both knowing that I didn’t do it.”
“No; you didn’t say you didn’t do it; you said you couldn’t have done it.”
“Same thing.” Kramer drew nervously on his cigarette.
“Not exactly. If I were considering you and your being accused of a crime, I’d think of you as a priest—and a good one. And I would find it inconceivable that you could have committed the crime. And I’d say of you that you couldn’t have done it. If I were speaking for myself accused of a crime, I’d say I didn’t do it.”
Kramer stubbed out the cigarette without lighting another. “So?”
“So, what were you doing the two Sunday afternoons before this past one?”
“What I was doing day before yesterday: nothing.”
“No one phoned? No one stopped in for a copy of a record—marriage, baptism, confirmation, death—nothing? Two consecutive Sundays and the phone didn’t ring even once? I know you’re in a quiet parish, Dick. But I’ve been in quiet parishes too. And as restful as you would like Sunday afternoons and evenings to be, it would be something to write home about if nothing at all happened for that length of time.”
“I told the cops I was at the rectory alone and nothing happened.”
“I don’t know whether they believe you. But I’m a priest, and I find it very difficult to believe. Nothing? Nothing at all happened? Come on, Dick: Are you trying to protect someone? If you are, let me assure you: It isn’t worth it.”
Kramer selected another cigarette and tapped it against the table, compressing the tobacco. He remembered he had no more matches and replaced it in the pack. Koesler wished he would hurry along. Their allotted time had almost expired.
“If anything had happened, I wouldn’t have known about it,” Kramer finally said softly.
“You wouldn’t have known about it? You weren’t there?”
“I was there, all right. Unconscious. Dead drunk.”
“Drunk!” The statement had taken Koesler by surprise.
“Every Sunday. Every Sunday for months. More than a year. It’s the only time they let me alone.”
“They? The parishioners?”
“They. Everybody. Everything. The pressures. The drive. The concern. There’s nothing I can do about keeping the school open, paying the bills, teaching classes, giving convert instructions, fighting off the chancery. Sundays—the only day I can find any peace. Two Masses, homilies, liturgies. You know that, Bob. Wiped out.”
Koesler nodded. He knew it well. The laity probably couldn’t guess how much it took out of their priest to offer multiple Masses and really try to deliver an interesting and meaningful homily two, perhaps three times a day. It was draining—emotionally and physically.
“So,” Kramer continued, “by early to midafternoon, I am exhausted and faced with the one and only time in the week when no one is likely to bug me. And I won’t bug myself.”
“So you drink?” Koesler easily perceived how difficult this admission was for Kramer.
“It started well over a year ago. Just something to help unwind. A light scotch, maybe. Then, more . . . into oblivion. After months of this, it took more and more to reach oblivion.”
“You were building a tolerance.”
“I didn’t admit it at first. But then it became inescapable. And then, after a while, I wasn’t getting any real rest in the way of sleep. But it didn’t matter. I needed that escape. And no one was being hurt by it. Except possibly me. And I didn’t touch a drop the rest of the week. Just Sundays.”
Kramer was an alcoholic. Koesler knew enough about the disease to recognize that. But why drop that concept on the poor man? Kramer had enough trouble as it was. Time enough to get treatment for him after extricating him from this mess.
“Well, then, if you were completely out of it on those Sunday afternoons, you couldn’t have committed those murders.”
Kramer shrugged. “Bob, what difference does it make to the police? I have no one to testify that I spent the time inside my rectory, drunk or sober. What they demand—and I need—is someone to say, ‘He couldn’t have done it. He was home. I was with him.’ And there isn’t any such person.
“So you see, as far as this problem is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether I was drunk or sober. I have no witness one way or the other.
“But I guess that’s what I meant when I said I couldn’t have done it. That was rather clever of you to pick up on that.”
“Clever or not, we’re back on square one.” Koesler grimaced. “It would help a lot if we could find the one who did it.”
“Are you good at miracles?”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Koesler smiled. “No, ’fraid not.” His smile grew more reassuring. “But I do feel I’ve accomplished something. Now we know there’s somebody out there who has been watching you pretty carefully and possibly even knows about your Sunday routine. That would make it quite perfect, wouldn’t it? Suppose the guy knew you were virtually unconscious and necessarily alone every late Sunday afternoon and early evening. Then he would know that as he went about framing you, you would have no alibi.
“And how would he know?” Koesler now seemed to be musing out loud. “Simple surveillance would tell him you never leave the rectory on Sundays. But what are you doing? He phones. But you don’t answer. Maybe he tries looking in a window. Or,” triumphantly, “the garbage! Very popular now, I hear. He rummages through the garbage and finds empty booze bottles on Mondays.” He looked at Kramer. “It wouldn’t be that hard.”
Koesler was now ascending the emotional high that accompanied the solving of another puzzle. “I’m beginning to get a sense of the person we’re looking for. I really think this visit has been a help.”
“For me, too,” Kramer said. “By God, I think there may be light at the end of this tunnel.”
The guard opened the door. “Time’s up.”
Kramer rose. “And, Bob: Thanks for the cigarettes.”
The door slammed and clicked locked behind Kramer. Then Koesler was ushered out of the building through the repetitive precaution of the locking of the door behind before the opening of the door in front. When he finally reached the street, Koesler experienced a rush of relief similar to that which he always felt after visiting a hospital. In both instances he was glad to get out and grateful he was neither a patient nor an inmate.
He retrieved his car after paying what he considered an exorbitant parking fee. Once again he fantasized that if he were mayor of Detroit the first thing he would do would be to take control of all the lots and allow free parking everywhere. Short of a good mass transit system, which the city had badly needed for decades, Detroit needed free parking to compete with the free parking amply available throughout the suburbs.