"Contact Lieutenant Molina, tell him what you told me, and write up a supplemental report. Have it ready for me before I leave."
Herrera shrugged again.
"Okay."
Sergeant Tony Catanach was in the dining room where he had assembled the brothers, who sat clustered together silently at two tables. Kerney scanned the group: all the men were middle aged or older; but some were dressed in casual civilian attire, while others wore clerical garb.
Several had their heads bowed in prayer.
Catanach gave an approving glance at Kerney's uniform and stepped into the hallway. A young man in his early thirties and a five-year veteran of the force, he was a newly minted sergeant who took his job seriously.
"I was just about to start taking statements, Chief," he said.
"Bring me up to speed."
"The victim is Father Joseph Mitchell, a Maryknoll priest. His throat was slashed. Entry may have been gained either through an unlocked window or a door."
Along the corridor of the nicely remodeled barracks a series of doors gave access to the dining room, a library, a large lounge, an entertainment room, and a chapel.
"Where's the body?" Kerney asked.
Catanach inclined his head toward the row of hallway windows that looked out on the courtyard and an adjacent two-story barracks, connected to the common area by a passageway.
"The brothers' bedrooms are across the way. Father Mitchell had a first-floor room right inside a door that leads directly to the courtyard. The screen was off his unlatched window, but all the others are still in place. Nobody can remember if the entrance closest to Mitchell's room was locked or not. The brothers aren't real concerned about security. There isn't any sign of forced entry, and if you walk around you'll see four more doors that also could have been used by the killer to gain entry."
"Have you got everyone here?"
"No," Catanach said.
"There are twelve residents, if you count Father Mitchell.
Seven are in the dining room and four of the brothers are in their offices canceling their classes. They'll be back in twenty minutes.
I've asked them not to discuss Father Mitchell's death."
Catanach consulted a pocket notebook.
"Robbery may have been the motive, Chief.
A laptop and desktop computer were taken, along with a tape recorder, a camera, and a VCR. Detective Sloan is in the room waiting for the body to be removed."
"What do you know about the victim?"
"Not much, yet. He was a visiting scholar-in-residence working on a research project. Brother Jerome Brodsky, chair of the social science department, supposedly knows the most about Father Mitchell. He'll be back in twenty."
"What else?" Kerney asked.
"Check out the knife wound, Chief. One deep cut at the jugular. No hesitation marks, nothing sloppy, and no cuts on the victim's hands to indicate any struggle with his attacker. I'd say the priest was probably asleep at the time."
"I'll take a look and be back to help take statements," Kerney said.
Bobby Sloan, a thirty-year veteran of the department, pulled back the sheet covering Father Mitchell's body.
"A clean kill," he said to Kerney.
"This wasn't done by your typical addict looking to steal something so he could fence it and score. The incision is deepest right at the jugular. The killer knows his anatomy."
Kerney agreed, the angled wound was clean, sharp, and long, slicing through the jugular, an axillary vein, and the larynx. The cut had been made where a trained assassin would strike with a knife, and the edges of the wound were close together. Blood had flowed freely.
Kerney scrutinized the dead man's face. His gray hair was cropped short and receded at the temples. Age lines around the mouth and eyes and a fullness to the cheeks suggested the priest had seen the passage of five decades, maybe more.
"Seen enough?" Sloan asked.
Kerney nodded.
Sloan nipped the cover over Mitchell's face and gestured to the two paramedics who waited in the hall with a collapsible gurney. The men stepped inside and removed the body while Kerney and Sloan stood to one side.
The sleeping room was small, no more than a hundred square feet, with a tiny adjacent bathroom. The furniture consisted of a twin bed, a bedside table, a student-size writing desk, and an almost empty bookcase-all obviously postwar items bought at surplus. In one corner a built-in shelf and rod served as a clothes closet.
"We've searched the room, photographed, and vacuumed," Sloan said.
"The techs are dusting every door to the building for prints," Sloan said.
"There are no tool marks on the doors or windows suggesting forced entry. The ground froze last night, but we've found no footprints outside the window."
"What was on the bookcase?" Kerney asked.
"Before he left for his office, Brother Jerome said it was mostly empty.
But you know, Chief, with two computers you'd think there would be a box or two of floppy disks around. There weren't any in the room."
"Any personal items?" Kerney asked.
"Nothing in his clothes. But we did find some letters from his mother in Houston. He had a Louisiana driver's license with a New Orleans address that checked out to be a Catholic seminary. New Orleans PD is making contact."
Only a few investigators from Kerney's earlier tenure as chief of detectives still remained with the department, and Sloan was one of them. From past experience Kerney knew him to be reliable, hardworking, and a straight talker.
Somewhat older than Kerney, Sloan had a missing tooth near the front of his mouth and an unconscious habit of probing it with his tongue.
Through the window Kerney saw Officer Herrera lounging against the fender of his squad car, smoking a cigarette, watching the ambulance drive away.
"Tell me about Herrera, Bobby," Kerney said.
Sloan snorted.
"As a cop he's worthless, Chief, and as a person he's piss-poor company.
The last chief didn't have the balls to can him. His uncle is on the city council. Serves on the finance committee."
"I see."
"You need anything else from me?" Sloan asked.
"Continue with the crime-scene work-up," Kerney replied.
"I'll help Catanach take the witness statements."
"That's a big help," Sloan said.
"How do you like being back with the department, Chief?"
"I'm glad to be back, Bobby."
Sloan grinned.
"Just don't sweat the small stuff, Chief. Most of us know what we're doing."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Along with the clerics in residence two women employees worked as housekeepers and cooks. Sergeant Catanach had rounded them up with the brothers and was in the dining room conducting interviews. Kerney took over the lounge, a large room with a stone fireplace, comfortable easy chairs, and an overflowing wall of hook shelves, and began taking statements.
Kerney learned very little about Father Mitchell from the people he interviewed.
An historian working on a compendium of late twentieth-century military aid to South American countries, Father Mitchell had been in residence slightly less than a year. He rarely discussed his work and when engaged in conversation about it responded very vaguely. The brothers knew Mitchell had served as an army chaplain, had taught for a spell at a Midwest Catholic college, and held an advanced degree from an Ivy League university. He'd been murdered a week short of his fifty-ninth birthday.
Brother Jerome, chair of the social science department, was the last faculty member to return from his office. A tall, reserved, intelligent-looking man in his early sixties, dressed in a clerical robe, he sat across from Kerney with his hands folded in his lap. Only the rapid blinking of his eyes gave a hint of his dismay and shock about Father Mitchell's murder.
"You found Father Joseph," Kerney said.