Koesler did not look forward to the drive home. He would be immersed in the ceaseless stop-and-go of rush-hour traffic. It was at times like this he questioned his choice of a stickshift model. Oh, well; at least the long slow drive would give him time to think.
Quite naturally, his thoughts revolved around Father Kramer.
Dick Kramer was a sick man. And the poor soul, in all likelihood, didn’t realize how sick he was.
There was the smoking, of course. That would take its toll as it did with all serious smokers. No one who knew Kramer was a stranger to his chain-smoking and the accompanying racking cough.
The drinking was another dimension. Koesler could readily understand how Kramer could rationalize away the drinking problem. Kramer himself had said it: He did not touch a drop Monday through Saturday. So how could someone who confined his drinking to one day a week be an addict?
The answer of course was in the compulsion and mostly in the inability to quit. Each Sunday as soon as he was alone and, for all practical purposes, abandoned for the remainder of the day, he would begin drinking. At that point, it was a repetition of the old truism: One drink was not enough and two was too many. He could not stop until he passed out. Unconsciousness was nature’s way of cutting off the irresistible urge.
Then the self-deception begins. Koesler had known so many alcoholics. Generally, they had some rules of thumb that convinced them they had no problem. Classic was the person who would abstain from alcohol until noon each day. And each day at noon he would proceed to get loaded. He didn’t have a problem because he could wait until noon. He had things under control. And Dick Kramer could wait until Sunday. He too had things under control.
But he didn’t. He himself described the situation best. It started innocently enough with a mild drink to help unwind after hard work. Then the tolerance grew until he was putting away probably a fifth or more at one sitting.
With any luck, Father Kramer had a sojourn at Guest House in his future. There, as had been the case with hundreds of priests, he could become a recovering alcoholic.
It was the unique approach of Guest House, conceived by its founder Austin Ripley, that a priest is not likely to make it in the standard Alcoholics Anonymous program. The reason had everything to do with the position accorded a priest in the Catholic community. Catholics tend to put their priests on pedestals. When a priest falls from that pedestal into an illness such as, say, alcoholism, he falls farther than the average person.
Guest House—the original located in the Detroit suburb of Lake Orion—he knew, had as its prime goal the restoration of the priest’s sense of dignity. Next it offered the very best of physical, psychological, and religious therapy. And it seemed to work outstandingly well.
If anyone needed the solicitous ministrations of Guest House, it certainly was Dick Kramer. Not only was he suffering from alcoholism, but, even though he had been convicted of nothing, he now was an inmate in a prison system. His sense of self-dignity was undoubtedly at rock bottom.
So, as Father Koesler turned off Ford Road onto West Outer Drive, he had formed two sequential resolutions: He would clear Dick Kramer of the charge of murder. Then he would make sure that Kramer had the benefit of the success-prone Guest House.
Koesler did not often make such ambitious resolutions. By far the more momentous of the two resolves was getting Kramer exonerated. But after this afternoon’s consultations with Kramer, Koesler felt some indefinable link with the real killer . . . the man who had set Kramer up.
Was it a premonition that he and the killer would soon meet and that, somehow, Koesler would recognize the man?
After parking his car, Koesler decided to visit the church before going to the rectory. He had a lot to ponder. And, to date, he had never found a better place to think than in an empty church.
31
Monsignor Meehan had seen the television reports, he’d heard of it on the radio broadcasts, and he’d read about it in the local papers. Indeed, he could have gotten the word almost anywhere in the world.
That a Catholic priest had been accused of murder was news of the first order. That a Catholic priest had been accused of the ritual mutilation-murder of two prostitutes was news almost anywhere. And so almost every news agency carried it.
Meehan of course followed the story anxiously. After all, he and Father Kramer had lived and worked together in the same parish years ago and since then the Monsignor had always considered Kramer a friend. But the coverage, no matter how thorough, could never be as comprehensive as a firsthand report. This is why Meehan was paying such close attention to Father Koesler’s words. Koesler had been there.
Ordinarily, during his visits with Monsignor Meehan, Koesler aimed to keep his side of the conversation brief. Meehan’s attention span was not all that it had been. Some time back, Koesler had noticed that when he was telling a particularly long story or making a lengthy explanation, Meehan’s eyes would begin wandering as his attention waned.
None of that today, however.
Yesterday, as part of a packed courtroom, Koesler, accompanied once again by Inspector Koznicki, had attended the preliminary examination of Father Kramer. Now he was recounting that event to Monsignor Meehan. And he had the monsignor’s attention.
“How’d he look to you?” Clearly Meehan was concerned and worried about Kramer.
“Okay, I guess. But I had visited with him a few days ago. And I saw him at the arraignment a day before that. So maybe I’ve come to expect that sort of bewildered expression he’s wearing. It’s as if Dick suddenly found himself on a different planet where everything is strange and foreign. Fortunately, they don’t allow any cameras in the courtroom. But there are these artists sitting in the area normally reserved for the jury. And they’re sketching away furiously.
“The courtroom was packed. There were sheriff’s deputies and police officers. In the middle of all this hubbub, Dick was just there in a sort of passive way . . . like an inert piece somebody placed on a chessboard.”
Meehan slowly shook his head. “Poor man. The poor man.”
Koesler thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, I guess he is a poor man, in one sense of the word. But in another sense he’s rich. His Church is backing him up. There were quite a few priests in the courtroom. Most of them, even the younger guys, were in clericals. Several nuns, too . . . although not all of them were in even a modified habit. But they were there, and you could tell.”
“Oh, that’s good. That’s good. How about the Cardinal?”
“He’s behind the scenes, as usual. You probably read the statement he released: that Father Kramer enjoys the presumption of innocence, as would each of us in a court of law. And that he’s sure that when all the facts are in, Father will be vindicated. And, finally, that he requests the prayers of all Catholics in the archdiocese to support Father Kramer in his hour of need.”
“Yes, I read it, Bobby. Cardinal Boyle certainly has a knack for taking the hysteria out of an event and replacing it with sheer logic.”
“But I think that’s mostly for popular consumption. I’m sure he feels this whole messy episode very deeply. The word is that he’s the one who got Johnson to defend Dick.”
“Is that so? I wondered how that happened. If I recall correctly, Johnson doesn’t try that many cases anymore. He’s more a corporate lawyer now, isn’t he. Where all the money is?”
Koesler nodded.