The Rosary Murders Page 16

  The more things change, mused Sister Marie the more they stay the same—sometimes. She was roused from her reverie by the voice of Sister Lilla.

  “If only we could anoint. The people would accept it. And we are here.”

  “Yes, we’re here, but we can’t anoint. People tell us their troubles and their sins, but we can’t absolve. It’s not fair. It doesn’t even make any sense. Well, Lilla—” Sister Marie touched the other nun lightly on the arm, “Do the best you can.”

  Sister Marie made a hurried tour of the emergency area, speaking briefly with those who were able to converse. Some ugly bullet wounds tonight and some horribly vacant-eyed drug addicts. One pregnant white woman in rags, who must certainly be passing her addiction on to her unborn.

  Visiting hours had been over for nearly half an hour. Sister Marie wandered through the corridors of the first two floors, checking to see if all were bedding down, and peripherally keeping an eye out for Sister Bonaventure.

  Marie worried about Bonnie. She could topple over of her own weight anytime, and it might be hours, or even days, depending on where she fell, before she’d be found. There was always the possibility someone would do her some mischief. Bonnie was a sweet old lady. But muggers were disinterested in the endearing charms of their victims.

  A casual search revealed no Sister Bonaventure loose. Besides, there were only a few minutes before she was scheduled to lead night prayers. Hospital routine being a hallowed tradition, it would be disturbing to patients and personnel alike if she were late.

  As she turned down the corridor leading to her office, she glanced at the large, white electric clock on the wall. Thirty seconds before nine. Just enough time, she knew from experience.

  As she neared her office, she was aware of something odd. Her office was dark. She usually left the light on until after night prayers, when she would lock up and go to her room. She was certain she had left the light on earlier. Perhaps someone had left something for her and automatically turned out the light when leaving the room. Still, she felt a bit uneasy.

  Her hand groped against the inside wall for a moment before locating the familiar switch. She turned on the overhead light and cautiously looked about the room before entering. All seemed as she had left it. She checked her wristwatch. Ten seconds to nine. She walked to her desk, pulled the intercom mike close, picked up the prayer card, flicked the switch on, and began.

  “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Blessed be the holy and undivided Trinity, now and forever. Amen.”

  There was no nonsense about St. Camillus Hospital’s prayer. It was a Catholic hospital, and by jingo the prayers were Catholic.

  “I give you thanks, O my God, through Jesus Christ, for all you have given me throughout my life, and particularly for preserving me this day…” Sister Marie read the familiar prayer while her eyes darted about the desk searching for something that might have been left for her and would explain the light’s being turned off. “Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee…” She could find nothing. All looked familiar. “Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  There had been a time when words like “death” were never mentioned in the hospital. But a new attitude toward the acceptance and productive use of the inevitable was encouraged. She thought this a good development, as twice more she repeated the “Hail Mary” response. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” But she continued to wonder who had turned off the office light.

  “I offer up to you, my God, the rest I am going to take…”

  Behind her, a closet door that had been left ajar slowly swung open.

  “…in union with the rest which Jesus Christ took while on earth, and with His death and burial…”

  The man stepped noiselessly from the closet. On his hands were leather gloves. His right hand held a pistol bearing the grotesque addition of a silencer.

  “…and my awakening on the morrow in union with His awakening and with His glorious resurrection.”

  The man steadily approached her, his eyes riveted to the back of her head, wary that she might suddenly turn.

  “May our evening prayer ascend to you, O Lord. And may your mercy descend upon us.”

  There was something in the room. She sensed it. She could not recognize the presence.

  “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  She flicked the mike’s switch off and he fired. The gun was no more than a few inches from her head, which almost exploded from the impact. Her body pitched forward on the desk as if she had been pole-axed.

  In the next few seconds, the stranger detached the silencer, pocketed both it and the revolver, looped a black rosary around the nun’s left wrist, strung the beads between her thumb and index finger, removed his gloves, stepped to the door, glanced down the empty corridor, and hurried out of the hospital unobserved.

  Lieutenant Walter Koznicki and Detective Sergeant Ned Harris strode briskly down the fifth-floor corridor of the City-County Building. Both were solitarily obsessed with their common problem. If they had not been convinced of it earlier, there was little doubt now in their minds: the Rosary Murders seemed beyond their control. Last Friday, for the first time in his killing spree, the faceless Rob had murdered not one, but two of Detroit’s religious community on the same day. He had become bold almost to the point of recklessness. The crack team Koznicki had assembled had to admit they were little closer to cracking the case than when they had started. Additionally, they were surprised and discouraged that the murderer had altered his method of operation by killing two people in one day. It was a fairly dependable rule of thumb that when a consistent method of operation was present in a series of crimes, odds of apprehending the perpetrator increased.

  So, it was with a mixture of distraction, frustration, concern, and discouraged determination that the two officers traveled toward Koznicki’s office.

  Tall, imposing, broad-shouldered, white and black, easily carrying their considerable authority, they were like the lead blockers of a football team’s suicide squad. The crowd of reporters, photographers, police, the curious, and the legal staff assigned to Koznicki’s team parted before the two advancing detectives as generously as if they had been running against the Little Sisters of the Poor.

  The sole exception to this pattern of deference was the News’s venerable crime reporter, whose star was steadily setting in the east. Warren Reston abruptly stepped into Harris’ path and said, loudly enough to be obstreperously offensive, “What about it, gang, have you had enough? About ready to call in the Feds?”

  It was within the realm of possibility that Harris neither heard nor saw him. The crowd at that particular juncture of the corridor was especially heavy. In any case, Reston got no response. Instead, he was sent reeling back toward the wall as Harris, in effect, walked right through him. In a lame effort to relieve a badly bruised ego, Reston said, to no one in particular, “There go Batman and Robin. Only they’ve lost their mystic power.”

  On entering his office, Koznicki went directly to the chair behind his desk. Harris sat across from him. Neither said anything for several moments. Koznicki broke the silence.

  “Did you run into Reston on purpose?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Damn good shot!”

  Another few minutes passed in silence.

  “How’s the team doing?” Koznicki swung his ample bulk back in his chair, his hands folded in their accustomed spot across his stomach.

  “Plodding and discouraged. So far, they’ve uncovered some eight-hundred variations of ‘Rob’ in Mother Mary’s background. Some of those, by the way, went on to become priests. Have you given any thought to Rob’s being a priest?”

  “I haven’t excluded anyone.”

  “You know, it would explain a lot if the murderer were a priest. He’d be more familiar with the comings and goings of nuns and priests. And, of course, his access to t
hat group would surpass that of anyone else, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Koznicki leaned forward and began toying with his pen. “The thought has crossed my mind. But if it’s not a priest, whoever it is has done his homework very carefully. Everyone is accustomed to think of priests and nuns as being the most accessible people imaginable.”

  “Well, that’s true, isn’t it?” Harris shifted in his chair. “You want a priest, you go to a rectory. You want a nun, you go to a convent.” Harris was quietly proud of what he considered to be his growing “Catholic” vocabulary. Prior to this case, his knowledge of things Catholic had been comparable to his fluency in Chinese.

  “It used to be more true a few years ago than it is today,” Koznicki corrected. “Now, it’s really rare to find just the priest you’re looking for in the rectory you’d expect to find him in. And the same goes for the nuns and their convents.”

  “They’re out being relevant.” Harris smiled contentedly. He may not have been very alert to things religious, but he did read the papers. He’d seen the pictures of priests and nuns in marches and protests for all manner of causes, from peace to Farah workers.

  “Something like that,” Koznicki conceded. “But in this new, at best, chancey availability, when it’s very difficult to bump into just the priest or nun you want, consider how amazingly available Rob’s victims have been.”

  “You mean you don’t buy Fritz Heinsohn’s educated diagnosis that the killer’s victims are haphazardly selected?” When Harris was being facetious he simply couldn’t hide it.

  Koznicki treated Harris’ question with eloquent silence. And then continued:

  “Take the victims in order: Father Lord, totally vulnerable, yet the killer selects a perfect time when the hospital staff is at its minimum.

  “Sister Ann, alone in a large convent. Even if her companion had been home, the killer’s plan was so careful, it wouldn’t have been disturbed even by that eventuality.

  “Father Dailey had just arranged it so that he could be called to an empty church. He, himself, set himself up as a perfect target.

  “Mother Mary, more mobile than either of her two elderly companions. She always answered the door. Another perfect target.

  “Father Killian always jogged every morning. So precisely paced that people could set their clocks by his passage. The exact time he would be at the empty field would be completely predictable. Nature even cooperated with a heavy fog.

  “Sister Marie always led night prayers from her empty and solitary office at precisely the same time each evening in a minimum-security hospital facility.

  “Outstandingly good planning, wouldn’t you say?”

  “If he’s not a priest, how does he do it?”

  “It’s not that hard, Ned. You’re adding a special mystique to this because the victims are priests and nuns. Good surveillance on the part of anyone who was intelligent and determined would uncover their patterns of behavior and their schedules. So that’s it Rob is intelligent and determined. It doesn’t really matter whether he’s a priest. The questions are: Is he done now, or not? Will he strike again? If so, where? When? And at whom?

  “And the prime question, of course: Who is Rob? I know it’s tempting with all this pressure to try for short-cuts—like following a hunch that the killer is a priest—but it’s most important now to continue solid police work. So, I’m leaving it in your hands that those on our team who are investigating the Rob clue continue professionally and not depend on any special breaks.”

  “Right, Walt.” Harris rose to leave, then hesitated. “One thing, Walt: Brainard and Schommer, the two guys from Tactical Services Division that you just added to our team—”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, they just don’t seem to fit. I mean, those guys have guns where other people carry spare change. What did you ask for them for?”

  “Took a page from your book, Ned, and played a hunch. Rob seems determined to use a .38 for his weapon. It’s pretty clear he’s using a silencer. In the latest two murders, others surely would’ve heard the sound of gunfire if there had been any sound. I’ve just got a hunch that if we’re lucky enough to bump into Rob, he’s going to be armed, dangerous, and with nothing to lose. If that happens, I want a couple on our side who fire first and then think of questions. A lot of us may stay a lot healthier.”

  “Hey, Walt, I got a piece and I know how to use it.” Harris’ hand went under his jacket, half-removing his revolver from its holster.

  “Don’t draw on me, Tonto.” Koznicki rose from his chair. “It’s just a hunch. Humor me.”

  “O.K., Massa.” Harris left for Control. It was clear he was at least slightly offended. Koznicki was convinced of two things: Harris would recover, and the team needed some heavy artillery.

  One goddam thing that hadn’t changed over the years: getting people to turn out for Forty-Hours Devotions was still as hard as pulling hens’ teeth.

  Father Ed Sklarski was letting his stream of consciousness reasoning have its head, as was his wont.

  Sklarski, pastor of St. Robert’s parish, in the Detroit suburb of Inkster, was driving his new silver, four-door Olds 98 up Inkster Road toward the Cherry Hill package liquor store.

  It hasn’t changed one damn bit since I was ordained thirty-six years ago, he thought. People just won’t go to church unless there’s a law on the books. Those imbeciles who want to fool around with the Sunday Mass obligation don’t realize what a can of worms they’re playing with. Take that away and you can kiss the Catholic Church good-bye. You’d think they’d have learned from Confession. Call it the Sacrament of Reconciliation, pooh-pooh the penance and fear—now nobody comes anymore. Nothing wrong with fear. The beginning of wisdom. That was someplace in the Bible.

  But Forty Hours! How in hell were you supposed to get people out for a devotion that didn’t even propose to ask for anything? You couldn’t. Maybe that was the answer. Make it Forty Hours of Perpetual Help.

  He smiled at the solution’s insanity.

  Every parish has to have Forty Hours once a year, and every parish has the same formula. Start with one of the Sunday Masses, Give it a big kickoff. Then, figure some Band-Aid way of getting at least a couple of people to volunteer keeping the Blessed Sacrament company through the rest of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Then the big closing Tuesday evening.

  The Tuesday closing ceremonies had its own well-tested formula for success. Make sure two or three grammar school classes have to attend. That brings in the parents. Then there are always a few dependables in every parish who’ll be there. And, for the icing on the cake, I invite my classmates and clerical golfing partners and friends and, voilà, good old St. Robert’s is full.

  Sklarski guided his 98 onto Cherry Hill and pulled into the liquor store’s parking lot. Adam Sierminski, proprietor, knew it was Forty Hours time at St. Robert’s, and had been expecting Father Sklarski. In fact, had Sklarski not come in today to load up stores for his clerical friends, Sierminski would have canceled his ad in St. Robert’s parish bulletin.

  “Good afternoon, Father. Forty Hours time again.”

  “Yes, Adam. It’s a good thing Forty Hours is only an annual event; I don’t think St. Robert’s could afford more than one a year.”

  Sierminski chuckled but said nothing. He was always afraid one of his clergymen customers would ask for a special discount. And he was always surprised that none of them did.

  “I did not see you over by church these past few days, Adam.”

  “No, Father.” He lied broadly. “Not been feeling well, and what with the work here in the store… but we do plan on being there for the closing tomorrow.”

  “That is good, Adam. Usually there are so few of the parishioners at the closing, it is easy to tell who will be among the sheep and who among the goats on the last day.”

  “Say, Father, have you been reading about these killings of the poor priests and nuns?” Sierminski was eager to change the subject, since he had no intention
of attending the Forty Hours closing.

  “Who could help it? The work of some damn fool kid, if you ask me.” Juvenile delinquency was Sklarski’s universal goat for all the world’s problems. “But I must hurry along, Adam; I have much to do before tomorrow’s closing.”

  Sierminski stepped back to allow the priest’s girth behind the counter. Sklarski struggled through the narrow aisle, making his selections. Sierminski knew what they’d be. It was always the same. Two gallons each of Cutty Sark, Canadian Club, and Beefeaters Gin, several quarts of sweet and dry Vermouth, and a haphazard potpourri of Tia Maria, B and B, and other after-dinner liqueurs. Then several fifths of Jack Daniels for the priest’s private stock. What was generally lacking in gourmet selection was more than balanced by quantity.

  “Charge this to the parish account, Adam.”

  Easy come, easy go, thought Sierminski.

  “See you at the closing, Adam.”

  “Yes, indeed, Father.” Sierminski breathed a quick prayer that a standing-room-only crowd would show, so Sklarski would be unable to sort out the goats from the sheep.

  It’s a good thing, thought Sklarski, easing his bulk into the supportive padding of his 98, that I sent Mrs. Dearing down to the Broadway Market this morning for the jumbo shrimp. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t send anyone into downtown Detroit. But Mrs. Dearing is a tough old bag. Anyone tries to mug her will know he’s been in a fight. When I get back to the rectory, I’ll have to check with Mrs. Bullingin. I’m sure she’s taken care of the ladies of the Altar Society serving the dinner. But it never hurts to check. God! Another name for Forty Hours is trouble.

  “Goddam it, Frank, there’s an election coming up in a few months!”

  Detroit’s dapper mayor, Maynard Cobb, leaned forward in his oversized executive chair, smoke steaming from his nostrils. He seemed to Police Chief Frank Tany as nothing less than an enraged bull about to charge.