But those questions—and some that occurred to Koesler even though they had not been asked by Tully—continued to nag.
That point that Tully had raised about troubled youth—institutionalized, adopted, illegitimate. How deep was Dick Kramer’s resentment over his ecclesial illegitimacy? Did he blame his mother for marrying out of the Church? The knowledge of his awkward status had not come to Kramer until he was about to enter the ninth grade. A little late, wasn’t it, for the early sort of self-conflict to which Tully referred? Yet it had radically changed Kramer’s attitude, making him compete with a mirage of legitimate peers. He had forced himself to do as well or better, in every field, than those who had had the good fortune to be born legitimate.
Then there was the fact that the prostitute-victims were older women. Did that have anything to do with a “mother figure”? Or was it more a commentary on Bush’s predilection? After all, there was little question of Bush’s resentment of his mother. She had given him away, deserted him, thus initiating his hurt-filled youth. Whereas Kramer’s relationship with his mother was a matter of pure conjecture.
A good case could be made for Kramer to blame either or both of his parents for their canonically invalid marriage. After all, it was his father’s prior marriage that prevented their wedding in the Church. On the other hand, it was Kramer’s mother who held the key. The invalid marriage hinged on her assent or refusal. And even if somewhat archaic, still it was customary for men to blame women for whatever went wrong.
At the bottom of all this rationalization and questioning was what bothered Koesler most of all. While it was true that Lieutenant Tully had scarcely considered that anyone but Dick Kramer might be the guilty party, it was equally true that Koesler had dismissed the possibility of Kramer’s culpability from the outset.
Now, despairing of sleep this night, Koesler decided that to be totally objective, he ought to at least consider the possibility that Kramer might be the killer. He would play devil’s advocate; if nothing else it would satisfy his sense of fair play.
Koesler was already aware of a plausible, if remote, motivation for the murders: Kramer’s illegitimacy, at least in the eyes of the Church. What else might conceivably fit?
Well, Kramer had no idea of what was going on when the crimes were committed. He was drunk. On the other hand, according to Inspector Koznicki, people could—have been known to—do things while in a drunken state. There were, of course, drunk drivers. But could an alcoholic go through such an elaborate performance as ritual murder while in a stupor? Especially when such an action would be entirely incompatible with one’s normal nature?
Then, there was the gibberish of that branding iron. On the first two victims, it looked for all the world as if there was some sort of coherent message there. As if it was the curvature of the breast that prevented the entire message from being impressed on the victims skin.
However, as Dr. Moellmann had pointed out, with the third victim the brand clearly broke off sharply at the furthest point of the previous two markings. Meaning that there was no coherent message. Meaning that it didn’t mean anything.
Or did it?
Bush claimed he had nothing to do with the first two murders. If that were true, he would know no more about the brand marks than the police or the morgue would. So if he were to make a branding iron—for the copycat theory that Tully favored—he could go no further than the “incomplete” marks on the previous two victims. And that also would explain why the marks on the first two seemed to fade out and why the marks on the third were definitive.
Kramer, Kramer, Kramer. He could have constructed the branding iron in his workshop. No doubt about that. But why?
At birth, he was branded a bastard—uh, there’s that word again. But it’s true. He was branded illegitimate from conception actually. Not by society at large, but by the church alone. Yet nothing would happen as a result of that ecclesial designation. There was little chance he would even know about it. It would matter only if he were to try to enter a seminary toward a vocation to the priesthood. And once he did, at least as far as his psyche was concerned, all hell broke loose.
Like so many things in life, it had been an accident of timing as much as anything else.
There was a cartoon—old now—about Catholics eating meat on Friday. For centuries Church law had prohibited Catholics from eating meat on Friday. The object was the fostering of a penitential spirit, as well as the commemoration of Christ’s death on Good Friday. The obligation bound Catholics under pain of serious sin. Theoretically, then, Catholics could be—and maybe were—condemned to hell for eating a succulent slice of prime rib, or even a hot dog, on Friday.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, in 1966, the ban on Friday meat-eating was lifted. Overnight, it was no longer a sin. The cartoon depicted a typical scene in hell, wherein one devil says to another devil, “What are we going to do with all the people who are here for eating meat on Friday?”
To some extent, that was the situation in which people like Dick Kramer found themselves.
If, between 1917 and 1983—the lifetime of the first Code of Canon Law—a child was born to parents at least one of whom was Catholic but whose marriage was considered, for whatever canonical reason, invalid, that child was illegitimate in the eyes of the Church. The only practical sanction was in being barred from the priesthood. After 1983, on promulgation of the new Code, such an illegitimate child was home free.
A man such as Dick Kramer could conceivably build up quite an anger over that sort of seemingly cavalier treatment.
He would be angry . . . an idea was coming; it was knocking on Koesler’s mind . . . he would be angry . . . of course! He would be as angry with his parents—with his mother—as he would be with the Church. But not as long as Church law remained unchanged.
However, what if the Church were to simply change the law? What if, after all those years of feeling inadequate, soiled, unclean; what if, after all those years, the Church simply said, “Oh, it doesn’t matter anymore”?
The first time Dr. Moellmann showed Koesler the mark of the branding iron, something, some glimmering from the past tried to enter his consciousness. He knew the memory would get there eventually. He just didn’t know when.
Now.
Father Koesler needed to do some checking. And it could not begin until the workday began. But already he felt that deep sense of relief that comes from breaking through to the ultimate clue.
It was the middle of the night. There was nothing to do but wait. Koesler decided to read again. But so relaxed was he now that after a few paragraphs, he drifted into a sound if not untroubled sleep.
40
Shortly after the doors were unlocked at the chancery, Father Koesler arrived.
He’d been in this building many times in the past. At least to the clergy of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, 1234 Washington Boulevard was a familiar address. The ancient building housed St. Aloysius Church, a three-tiered structure that was unique, at least to Detroit.
In the same building above the church were residence rooms for priests assigned to downtown functions, as well as for visiting clergy. In addition, there were offices for the archbishop, the tribunal, and the chancery, among other departments. Hidden away here—appropriately, some might say—were the archives of the archdiocese.