Death Wears a Red Hat Read online

  “That’s all the money we have, Stan,” said Mrs. Krawczak as the red truck disappeared around the corner.

  “I know, Margaret, I know.”

  “That’s all the money they’ve got, you know,” Mulrooney observed as the firm of McCluskey Roofing and Repair rode forward to new conquests.

  “I know, I know, “ McCluskey acknowledged, dropping the brogue. Posing as an appropriate official, McCluskey always checked in advance data such as bank reserves and realty holdings.

  “What made you try for the whole thing?” Mulrooney was barely able to suppress laughter as he rubbed his hands in glee. It was not every day they got $5,000 for hammering a few shingles back in place and daubing a bit of tar around.

  “I don’t know, Johnny. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. They just looked scared enough to fall for it.” McCluskey glanced at his partner and winked broadly. “Just lucky, I guess,” he observed.

  “Ah, yes,” Mulrooney did an impression of the late Barry Fitzgerald, “the luck o’ the Irish!”

  The two roared with laughter.

  In its more than half a century, there had never been more bedlam within the Gothic vaults of Sacred Heart Seminary’s chapel than the present pandemonium.

  Students, still garbed in cassock and surplice, and clergy faculty members, still wearing their Mass vestments, mingled with police, television and radio news staffers, and newspaper reporters.

  “This side chapel, where the head was found,” Detective Fred Ross was gathering facts as usual, “was it currently or recently in use?”

  “No,” Father Burk answered. “These altars off to the side were used years ago for private Masses. But they haven’t been used for anything for years.”

  “They seem to be well kept up,” Ross persisted.

  “The nuns,” said Burk, “they and the janitorial service keep the chapel pretty clean. They even change the linen on these altars, though we no longer use them. I guess they just don’t like to see things go to seed. You know how women are.”

  Ross looked up from his note-taking. “Possibly even better than you do, Father,” he said.

  Burk thought of Father Andrew Greeley’s forgettable treatise on “Sexual Intimacy.” “Yes, Sergeant, you’re probably right. Only not all of us realize it.”

  Ross was not sure he understood all of Burk’s implications but decided the matter was not worth pursuing.

  Brilliant television lights were on in front of the shrine where the head had been found. A blond, chunky, well-groomed man stood before the camera, holding a microphone.

  “We have with us,” he announced, “the person who first saw the severed head of Dr. Robert Schmitt. I’ve been told that, oddly enough, Sister Clotilde had been of the opinion that the series of killings known as The Red Hat Murders was over. How ironic, then, that she should be the one to find the latest Red Hat Murder.”

  “Sister Clotilde,” the camera pulled back to pick up Clotilde, obviously shaken and ashen-faced, “what were the first thoughts that passed through your mind when you saw the severed head of Dr. Schmitt?”

  Sister Clotilde’s eyes slowly rolled back in her head as she gradually crumpled to the floor and out of the picture.

  The camera came in tight to a head-and-shoulders shot of the TV reporter.

  “This,” he said, a look of panic crossing his face, “is Dwayne X. Riley, Channel Four—oh, hell, guys, scrap it. Somebody take care of the nun.”

  “Had you ever seen Dr. Schmitt before, Father?” asked Joe Cox. “I mean had he ever attended services here at the seminary?”

  “No,” said Monsignor Al Martin, in his characteristically thoughtful manner. “I am here for almost everything the seminary does or sponsors. Certainly, I am here for all liturgical events. To the best of my knowledge, I have never seen the doctor before today. And, given the present circumstances, I wish I had never seen him at all.”

  “Thanks, Father.” So distracted was Cox that he had failed to catch the monsignor’s proper title. Damn, he thought, another blind alley.

  Pat Lennon had found a pay phone near the seminary residence wing labeled ‘St. Thomas Hall.’

  She had been put on hold and was waiting for Father Leo Clark. She had declined the suggestion of St. John’s switchboard operator that Clark return her call. She preferred holding the line to preclude anyone else’s reaching him first.

  “Miss Lennon?” The voice was becoming familiar to her. “Father Clark. What can I do for you?”

  “They’ve found another Red Hat victim, Father.”

  “Where?”

  “In the chapel at Sacred Heart Seminary.”

  “Oh my God, no! Who was it?”

  “A Dr. Schmitt. I doubt you knew him. A very bad abortionist. Another one who deserved to die.” She heard herself say the last few words and, on reflection, couldn’t believe the words had been hers. She who all her adult life had been in ethical opposition to capital punishment. She vowed she would return to reexamine this apparent gut reaction later.

  “I take it the head was found in conjunction with some saint’s statue,” Clark surmised.

  “Yes, Father. St. Bridget.”

  “St. Bridget.” He paused. “Irish. But I can’t tell you too much more off the top of my head. This will only take a moment. Do you want me to call you back?”

  “No, no, Father!” Her tone was simultaneously imperative and pleading. “I’ll hold the line.”

  “All right.”

  She could almost hear him chuckle at her peculiar vehemence.

  “I have it, “he said after a few moments’ research. St. Bridget of Kildare. Do you want the details of her life?”

  “No, I don’t think so, Father. Just tell me: is she patroness of something or other?”

  “Let’s see. She died in 625 A.D. She is usually depicted holding a light, lamp, or candle.”

  “That’s what the now headless statue in the chapel is like: it’s a woman holding a lighted candle.”

  “Let’s see now: Bridget is the patroness of cattle, dairymaids, fugitives, Irish nuns—wouldn’t you just know it—and midwives and newborn babies.”

  Lennon tensed. “What were those last two, Father?”

  “Midwives and newborn babies. Of course,” he exclaimed, “that’s it, isn’t it? He was an abortionist, so his head would be found on a saint who was patroness of midwives and newborns!”

  “That’s it,” Lennon affirmed. “How do you like playing detective, Father?”

  “It’s as good as chess ever was. Father Brown, one side: watch my smoke!”

  The front doorbell rang. That in itself was an event at this rectory.

  Old St. Joseph’s parish, just off Gratiot, not far from downtown Detroit, was a shadow of its former self. Once it had been a German national parish. Which meant it had no territorial boundaries. Any and all Germans of Detroit could be members if they wished. And most did.

  St. Joe’s had gone through both urban decay and renewal. All the original old houses were gone. In their place were new high-rises, townhouses, and condominiums.

  With all these new and fairly affluent people around, St. Joe’s could have been a much more active parish. But Father Donald Curley, the pastor, preferred a passive apostolate. Rather than going about ringing doorbells and bringing in new sheaves, he opted for waiting for the sheaves to find him and St. Joe’s.

  Casting his vote in favor of this passive apostolate was Father Edmund Sklarski, retired and living at St. Joe’s. Sklarski had been professor of speech at Sacred Heart Seminary and, briefly, pastor of St. Norbert’s in Inkster.

  When asked by the speech professor at St. John’s Major Seminary whether they had ever had a course in speech, not one of Sklarski’s erstwhile students admitted to ever having had such a course. The denial stood as a monument to his nonteaching ability.

  Actually, the doorbell rang several times. Father Curley, tall, paunchy, bald and myopic, was also very hard of hearing. So it was only gradually t
hat he became aware of the active doorbell. And when he did, he scarcely believed his own poor hearing.

  Curley, wearing brown trousers and a sport shirt, since he was headed for a few holes at the St. John’s Seminary links, made his way to the door.

  “Good afternoon,” said the well-dressed gentleman at the door. “I wonder if I could see a priest.”

  Curley said nothing. It wasn’t registering. He was a priest. He had forgotten that in his mufti, a stranger would not recognize him as such.

  “I’m attending a convention here,” the man, uncomfortable at having to give particulars, explained. “I’m staying at the Plaza. I won’t take more than a few minutes of Father’s time. I just want to go to confession.”

  The picture became clear to Curley.

  “Certainly, sir,” he said, “I’ll get a priest for you. Only one thing,” he added, building a scenario for no reason except the hell of it, “the priest is very hard of hearing. You’ll have to speak up.”

  “Oh, that’s quite all right,” said the man. “I’m just grateful I caught Father in.”

  Curley left him standing in the hallway.

  He went upstairs to Sklarski’s suite and leaned into the sitting room. “There’s a guy downstairs who wants to see you, Ed. Only one thing: he’s very hard of hearing. You’ll have to speak up if he’s going to hear you. But that should be no trick for an old speech prof.”

  “No, no, none at all.” Ordinarily, Sklarski would have reacted negatively at having his Sunday afternoon rest interrupted. But the challenge of projecting enough so that the deaf might hear was too tempting to grouse about the bother of it all.

  “Peoples, moneys, panorama,” Sklarski commented meaninglessly as he descended the stairs.

  Grinning, Curley gathered his golf clubs and quietly went out the kitchen door.

  “How do you do, Father,” the man shouted. “I am attending a convention in town and I would like to go to confession.”

  “I’m Father Sklarski,” Sklarski shouted. “Let’s go in this parlor and you can make your confession.”

  Both his visitor and Sklarski marveled at the tendency of those who were hard of hearing to shout as if everyone were similarly afflicted.

  There were no passers-by outside St. Joe’s rectory this Sunday afternoon. If there had been, they would have discovered that a conventioneer had committed adultery with the chairwoman of his subcommittee. And that he had received a penance of ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys.

  Whereas the scene inside Sacred Heart Seminary’s chapel was bedlam, the interior of Services, Inc. was pastoral by comparison.

  This was the second time in two days the Detroit Police had visited Services, Inc. Both visits were by the Homicide Division; first Squad one, now Squad Six. It was, in part, due to the thoroughness of Squad One’s search that Squad Six’s investigation was going so smoothly. Squad One had gathered all available evidence, and there was no sign that any additional evidence had sprung up since the previous day’s search.

  Most of the local news people had come and gone.

  Once Joe Cox learned there had been a warrant out for the arrest of Schmitt, he quickly called Lieutenant Bourque and got some priceless quotes on the charges against Schmitt, as well as a sketchy account of the evidence.

  Cox made this the lead to his story. What, Cox reminded himself, do lurid pathological maniacs do? They sell newspapers.

  Pat Lennon did not file her story as quickly. She had missed Bourque, since the Lieutenant, immediately after talking with Cox, had headed out for some sailboating on the Detroit River.

  Lennon was able to contact Detective Donna Osborn of Squad One. From her, Lennon got much of the same information as Cox had from Bourque, though not all the explicit details.

  Lennon stayed on the trail a while longer. She was able to turn up and contact one of Schmitt’s old German cronies. She learned of Schmitt’s wartime activities and—the old man was willing to talk now that Schmitt was dead—his tenuous but definite connection with the Nazi death camps.

  An even better backgrounding! What do mass murderers do? They sell even more newspapers.

  Lennon was now making a final tour of Services, Inc. in the company of Detective Colleen Farrell.

  Having been briefed by Osborn and now Farrell, Lennon still experienced an involuntary shudder as she walked through the offices of Services, Inc. and thought of the brutality that Schmitt had perpetrated here.

  The rooms had been stripped. Instruments, tools, records, and file cabinets had been taken as evidence. Only a few furnishings remained.

  One object, a statuette, on a windowsill near a potted fern, attracted Lennon’s attention.

  It appeared to be a man in the armor of the old Roman Empire. One of his feet was crushing a bird, from whose beak issued, in the fashion of comic strips, a balloon-enclosed word: Cras. The soldier’s right hand held a sword, with which he was pointing to a cross, which bore the inscription, Hodie!

  Lennon began to laugh. The combination of the deadly serious business of this day along with this ludicrous statuette tickled her funny bone.

  “May I pick this up?” Lennon asked Farrell.

  “Yes, it’s been dusted. Go ahead.”

  Lennon lifted the statuette. It was lightweight plaster of paris. The sort of thing that could be bought inexpensively, once you found a shop that sold it.

  She turned the statuette upside down. On the bottom was etched the letters, “Exped.”

  Lennon, even with her extensive Catholic background, could not make heads or tails out of the statuette.

  She asked to see Linda Ryder, one of the nurses at Services, Inc., who had cooperated with the police and was now in the clinic for questioning.

  “Linda,” Lennon asked the still-frightened girl, “do you recognize this?” She offered Linda the statuette.

  “Yes.” Linda responded without taking the object in her hands.

  “Where did it come from? What’s it doing here?”

  “It came in yesterday morning’s mail. It was odd, but then Dr. Schmitt used to get some odd things in the mail. I was going to ask him about it, but he was unusually gruff and rushed yesterday …”

  Linda Ryder broke down in tears. Even Schmitt, she thought, had not deserved the death that had been described to her.

  Lennon waited a few moments.

  “Linda,” she again addressed the nurse as the tearful girl regained her composure, “can you tell me how it was delivered?”

  “It came in a plain brown wrapper. I put it on the shelf there. I meant to ask Dr. Schmitt about it on Monday morning …”

  She broke down again as she realized there would be no Monday morning for Dr. Schmitt.

  Lennon took the statuette over to where News photographer Don Carlson was happily snapping shots of the clinic’s various rooms.

  “Don,” Lennon presented him with the statuette, “would you take shots of this from every angle, including the bottom of the base?”

  “Sure.” Carlson took the statuette and began laughing. “Is this somebody’s idea of a joke?”

  “Maybe,” Lennon conceded. “Then again, it may prove to be the missing link.”

  “The what?”

  “Never mind. After you’re done with that, I’d appreciate it if you’d come back to the paper with me. I’d like to go through our library.”

  “Looking for a particular photo?”

  “Yeah. I seem to remember it. But first I’ve got to find it.”

  Lennon was positive she had seen a statuette similar to or identical with this one. She was nearly certain she had seen it in connection with The Red Hat Murders. But she had paid no attention to it before.

  There must be a reason for all this.

  Beulah Blackstone, elderly, black, and widowed, shuffled toward the front door of her modest old home on Doremus Street in the shadow of the Chrysler Assembly Plant.

  Why, she wondered, can’t people stay home on Sundays. No peace. No peace even
for an old lady who lives alone.

  As she neared her front door, she looked past the formidable figure in the doorway to the shiny red truck parked outside. She didn’t like the look of it. Not at all.

  “Good afternoon to ya, Miz Blackstone,” the blond man in coveralls and Tigers cap greeted her.

  A little too familiar and friendly for her taste.

  “Miz Blackstone, me name would be McCluskey, Tod McCluskey of McCluskey Roofing and Repair Company, as me nice shiny new truck out there by the curb will attest.”

  McCluskey could barely see through the closed and locked screen door. Two white eyes peered out at him suspiciously.

  “Ah, Miz Blackstone, would ya be after wantin’ ta come out here on the porch? We surely mean ya no harm. No harm at all.”

  There was no movement from inside the house. If anything, the peering eyes grew more suspicious.

  “We’ve been empowered by the county to make sure the roofs in this neighborhood come up to code, Miz Blackstone.” McCluskey decided to go directly to a power play with this reluctant customer. “So, then, if ya have no objection, Miz Blackstone, I’ll just ask me assistant down by the truck, Mr. Mulrooney, a fine man, to take a quick look at yer roof. Ya don’t want fer yer fine home to descend to the level of the white trash in the neighborhood.”

  Mulrooney was on the roof. There still had been no sound from the old lady whose sad eyes continued to stare at McCluskey from behind the locked screen door.

  “‘Tis really a fine, fine day out, Miz Blackstone. Ya really ought ta come out and enjoy it!”

  Still no movement.

  “Ah, well …”

  Mulrooney was down from the roof. He and McCluskey converged at the truck. There was much mumbled argumentation and debate. In the end, McCluskey returned to the door.

  “Well, now, Miz Blackstone, as ya must have suspected, a roof as old as is the one of this very house has been up there so long it’s in desperate need of repair. And I remind ya, Miz Blackstone, we’re not talkin’ of a matter of choice. Yer house just must meet the demands of the code. However, ya can bless this day, Miz Blackstone, that it was McCluskey Boofing and Bepair and none other that called upon ya.