Death Wears a Red Hat Page 3

  At that point, Stud would “rescue” her. He would dismiss the rapists and treat her tenderly. The routine seldom failed. The girl would do whatever he demanded, partly because he was her father-lover substitute and partly because she knew she could be returned to the “cowboys” at a moment’s notice.

  Stud turned and climbed one flight to his own personal suite on the third floor. He owned the building, which had once been a respectable hotel. But Stud Harding had turned the Selden Avenue structure into a six-story brothel.

  As he entered his apartment, he reflected on the affluence of his life-style. When he was growing up in poverty in Detroit’s Black Bottom, he had vowed that one day Roosevelt Harding would have nothing but the best. Which is precisely what he now had.

  He stripped and stepped into the shower. As he soaped, he frankly admired his body. It was as smooth as black satin. There was little if any fat, just sinewy muscle that was regularly massaged and stimulated.

  As he stepped out of the shower, about to towel, he thought he heard a sound in the adjoining room. Dropping the towel on the wash basin’s marble counter, he stepped into the bedroom.

  The sound was of moaning. The moaning of many women, only at some distance.

  The room made a one-quarter revolution and the two doors disappeared. Stud became aware of an unpleasant sulphurous odor. He heard the hum of the television set, which had, seemingly, turned itself on. The picture, as it formed on the screen, was of Alice Reardon. No longer did she cower and sob. The picture was a close-up of her face. She was laughing hysterically, demoniacally. As the picture widened, her attackers appeared, backing away in uncertainty. She lunged at them as they fell back to the wall. Then, moving quickly from one to another, she tore their male organs from their bodies. The picture faded, their screams of agony dying away into silence.

  Stud Harding became aware that he was sweating profusely. The sulphurous odor became more pungent.

  Something diaphanous was taking shape in the far corner of the room. As it crystallized, it formed into a woman. A naked woman who somehow seemed familiar. It was Estelle, one of his girls. She’d been killed last week by some crazy john whom Harding had been unable to identify. Now there were bruise marks at her throat and many bloodless wounds on her torso.

  Harding was oddly unafraid. But as she approached, zombielike, he wanted none of her. He swung as if to strike her. But his hand passed through her face, touching nothing. He stepped back. As he did, she swung her right arm in an arc. As her finger passed in front of him, he felt a sharp pain. His chest had been cut, as if by a sharp knife, diagonally from his shoulder to his waist. Blood came from the cut, first seeping, then flowing freely. As he looked in horror, her arm arced once more, and his chest again was cut. It was now bleeding profusely in the form of an X.

  He looked up from his wound, but Estelle had disappeared. His heart was pounding so wildly he was surprised he could not see it throb out from his chest.

  The odor in the room was by now unbearable. A blast of heat swept over him as the far wall began to glow. Slowly, an image formed in the glow. The most disgusting, horrifying sight Stud Harding had ever seen. A huge face, greenish, salivating, grinning, covered with open sores. As its mouth opened, he could see a sea of flaming lava within.

  Harding’s mind reeled as he staggered backward, trying to escape the face. Somehow, he knew he was about to be swallowed, to disappear in that foul mouth. A dizzying swoon fought for possession of his mind. With rapidly diminishing strength, he fought the unconsciousness. If he were to fall into this coma, he knew it would be an eternal drop.

  As he came in contact with the wall, he shuddered. A massive convulsion shook his body. He pitched violently to the floor, his eyes fixed wide in terror, his mouth stretched open seeking another breath of air that would never come.

  “Walt, it was, at one and the same time the funniest and weirdest sight I’ve ever seen.”

  Lieutenant Ned Harris was beginning his third scotch-on-the-rocks at Code 30, a favorite restaurant-bar located in a near eastside building owned by the Detroit Police Department. Among Harris’ virtues was his ability to remain largely unaffected while and after consuming considerably large amounts of alcohol. He never drank on duty. He was now unwinding in the company of his close friend and superior officer, Inspector Walter Koznicki.

  “Yeah, I saw the photos. I can just imagine what the real article looked like.” Everything about Koznicki was large. Six-feet-four-and-a-half, approximately 250 pounds, yet he was not fat. If he were ordered to pare off, say twenty pounds, the weight would have to be surgically removed.

  He sat with Harris on the upper level of the dining area near the bar, sipping at his original glass of port, and occasionally smoothing his bushy black mustache.

  “It’s one of those times when we have too many possible suspects,” said Harris, swirling the ice cube with his index finger. “Outside of his ‘family,’ just about anybody in this community—including his wife—would be glad to see him dead.”

  How about his mistress?”

  “Mistresses,” corrected Harris. “No, as far as we know, he kept them if not happy at least wealthy.”

  “Of course,” Harris continued after a slight pause, “we have no cause of death.”

  “True,” Koznicki responded, “but we must admit that even with Moellmann’s eccentricities, we haven’t given him much to go on.”

  “With nothing else to go on,” said Harris, “I wouldn’t mind going on the guess that somehow, somebody scared him to death. Think that’s possible, Walt?”

  Koznicki stared out the picture window across Jefferson Avenue and the unbroken black of the Detroit River at the blinking lights of Windsor. “Yes, I think so. Moellmann himself once told me of a young man who was trying to perform some stunt aboard a small prop plane. He slipped, and hung onto the landing gear for dear life. The pilot couldn’t land for fear of crushing him.”

  “How about water?”

  “There was no water reasonably near. The pilot finally found a large haystack in an open field. He literally scraped the guy off into the haystack. But when they reached him, he was dead.”

  “Of fright?”

  Koznicki nodded. “Moellman himself examined the body. Heart failure. No other apparent cause but fear. And he was a young man.” The Inspector sipped at his wine. “But the unique element here, of course, is the Cardinal’s red hat. Any leads there?”

  “Not a one.” Harris shook his head in bewilderment. “This morning, I got a crash course in red hats from a …” He paused to recall the name. “…a Dolson, Father Fred Dolson. He works at the cathedral—”

  “He’s probably an assistant pastor,” Koznicki interrupted. “You really ought to brush up on your Catholic, Ned.”

  “Whatever. There’s just no obvious reason for it, Walt. But whatever the reason, it had to be a damn good one. It was no easy trick to get that hat down from the ceiling—apparently, not too many even knew how to do it—much less pull it back up with the head in it.”

  “Well, that seems to narrow things a bit, doesn’t it?”

  “Narrows it to what? You think someone on the cathedral staff wasted Ruggiero?”

  “Keep an open mind, Ned,” Koznicki reminded. “Remember, you have a community full of suspects. That includes even the cadthedral staff.”

  “O.K., but before I read some blue-haired housekeeper her rights, I think I’ll check out some of Rudy’s more natural enemies.”

  The two were silent for several minutes. They were nearing the bottom of the glass and the end of the evening.

  “Ned,” said Koznicki, “since this thing looks as if it’s going to have some sort of ‘Catholic connection,’ have you given any thought to conferring with Father Koesler, just on a consultative basis? You know he was a vital help to us in those Rosary Murders a couple of years ago.”

  The friendship between Koesler and Koznicki that had begun with the Rosary Murders had ripened over the years. It
was not unusual to see the two lunching together or visiting each other at Koznicki’s home or Koesler’s rectory.

  “It’s a thought,” said Harris, emptying his glass. “But it’s early. Way too early.”

  “On the contrary, my friend,” said Koznicki, checking his watch, “it’s late and we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

  “Would you like to know how big a Cardinal’s hat is?” Harris asked in mock seriousness.

  “Not big enough for your head.” Koznicki picked up the check.

  “Have you come up with anything in the Ruggiero murder?” Pat Lennon called from the bedroom.

  “No,” retorted Joe Cox from the living room, “we were left empty-hatted.”

  “What?”

  “Forget it.”

  Lennon and Cox had been living together in a Lafayette Towers apartment for the past two years. Each had suffered through a disastrous marriage and messy divorce. Neither had children. Both were determined there would be no strings to their relationship. They were convinced a marriage license would be the death certificate to their life together. So far, all had worked well.

  Lennon was changing into a Von Fürstenberg wrap dress for dinner at Schweizer’s to be followed by a movie at the Renaissance Center. Lennon, like Cox, was a staff writer at the Free Press.

  She entered the living room tying her dress at the side. As usual, lipstick was her only makeup. She needed no more to emphasize her attractive angular face and brunette hair that tumbled in curls.

  Cox looked up from the latest issue of Quest magazine and smiled. The Von Fürstenberg clung to Lennon’s voluptuous body, revealing pleasing curves.

  “Do the cops have any suspects?” she asked.

  “Yup.” He selected a mint from the candy jar. “A veritable Who’s Who of the dregs of Detroit’s criminal society.”

  “Oh? They think it was one of Rudy’s rivals?” Pat ran a comb through her hair.

  “That’s what they think.”

  “Which squad is on it?”

  “Six.”

  “Six …Harris. Your pal Ned Harris.”

  “Yeah. The word I get is that they’re going to drag out the throw net and begin interrogating just about every hood in Detroit. Maybe even Dearborn,” he added, hoping to get a laugh. He got a fleeting smile. “But I have my own theory.”

  “What’s that, Ellery Queen?”

  He overlooked the sarcasm. “I don’t think anybody on the local scene could’ve gotten close enough to Ruggiero to kill him, let alone decapitate him. He’s just too closely guarded. And the goons who guarded him knew everybody locally, down to the corner pusher. It had to be somebody from out of town—maybe even a hit man from another country. Or, it had to be somebody from the inside. One of his own lieutenants.” Cox, getting carried away by his own theory, was becoming excitedly animated.

  Lennon smiled. “That’s not at all bad, sweetie. But how does Cardinal Mooney’s hat fît into your theory?”

  “Beats me,” he admitted. “It just plain flat out beats me. However,” he added, “I am by no means alone in Baffleland. Nobody I know of has a single bankable theory. I suppose it’s got to be somebody’s idea of a joke. But wild! Whoever he is, he should give up murder as an occupation and become a comedy writer. TV needs him badly.”

  A look of seriousness, almost fright, passed over Lennon’s face.

  Cox noticed it. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “That’s not it, Joe, I don’t know how to explain it …a premonition, I guess. Intuition, maybe. I just have a feeling that the answer to this whole thing is with the hat, that red hat, the Cardinal’s hat. It’s not a joke, Joe; it’s the key to the whole thing.”

  Cox had too much respect for Lennon to dismiss, let alone deride, any feeling she might have. She had proven a most professional reporter many times over. He did not agree with her theory. From the center of his marrow, he did not agree. But hers was quite obviously a statement seriously made. And he would take it seriously.

  “O.K., honey,” he said. “But you won’t mind if I follow MY theory and see if I can’t find that out-of-town hit man or the invisible lieutenant from within, will ya? After all, if we were all to follow your theory and try to find the reason for the red hat, this might go down as one of the great unsolved mysteries of all time.” He got her cape from the hall closet. “Now let’s forget Rudy’s red hat and sample the simple pleasures of beautiful downtown Detroit before the muggers get us.”

  “I confess to Almighty God ...” Monsignor Terry McTaggart, pastor of St. Cecilia’s parish, intoned the penitential prayer that begins the vernacular Mass.

  McTaggart stood about five-feet-seven and was built like a rectangular brick house. Almost all McTaggart’s clothing bore red piping shouting out his monsignorial rank. He wore his hair in a close-cropped crew cut—and so did his pet poodle. Though McTaggart was an anachronism, he was almost alone in being unaware of that fact.

  St. Cecilia’s was among the most relevant of inner city parishes. Monsignor McTaggart was among the more irrelevant of clergymen, inner city or suburban. That “Ceciliaville” remained one of the few vital and vibrant sections of the core city was due almost entirely to the work and presence of Ramon Toussaint. But no one had told McTaggart. So, he didn’t know.

  McTaggart had considered moving away with his friends. That he hadn’t was due largely to that strongest force known to mankind: inertia. Now, he considered his presence at St. Cecilia’s to be providential.

  “Let us pray …” McTaggart adjusted his bifocals.

  The usual daily congregation was present. Ramon Toussaint, wearing the long white alb and the stole that identified him as a deacon, stood near McTaggart and assisted him through the liturgy. Emerenciana Toussaint occupied her usual pew, front row center. Mr. and Mrs. Al Sapp were behind Mrs. Toussaint. Millie Mclver, across the aisle, wore a babushka against the early morning chill of this Tuesday in September. Irene McNeeley was several pews back from Mrs. Mclver. McTaggart was the only white person there.

  “…and he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath …’” Toussaint delivered the Gospel reading for that day. It was from the second chapter of Mark. He finished the reading and returned to his seat near where McTaggart remained standing. McTaggart regularly homilized following the weekday Scripture readings and, of course, at one or two of the Sunday Masses. Toussaint preached only at extremely well-attended Sunday liturgies. McTaggart never understood why Toussaint warranted such crowds.

  “One of the greatest of the Ten Commandments is the one that tells us we’ve got to go to Mass on the Sabbath,” began McTaggart, missing the point and erring simultaneously. “But that is not the only time Catholics must go to Mass. There are, as you all know, holy days of obligation when Catholics must go to Mass. But I’ll bet that no matter if you attended parochial school or went to catechism classes regularly, I’ll bet that not many of you can name all the holy days of obligation.” He did not wait for a show of hands. “Well, I am going to give you some easy-to-remember letters that will make it possible for you to always remember the holy days of obligation.

  “Just remember the three A’s and the three C’s.” He seemed particularly pleased with himself. “The three A’s and the three C’s. All Saints, the Assumption and ...” He drifted off. He had forgotten what the third ‘A’ stood for. “All Saints, the Assumption ...”

  Perhaps if he went at it from the other side. “The Immaculate Conception, Christmas, the Circumcision, All Saints, the Assumption ... It will come to me ... it will come to me later.”

  Irene McNeeley snickered audibly. Emerenciana Toussaint choked back laughter into her handkerchief.

  Monsignor McTaggart rushed at it one more time. “All Saints, the Assumption and ...”

  “The Ascension,” Ramon Toussaint stage-whispered.

  “The Ascension!” cried McTaggart triumphantly.

  McTaggart quickly terminated the homily. The remainder of the Mass
proceeded almost without further incident. The only exceptions were when one of the congregation would fight to suppress a giggle that always proved infectious.

  After Mass, the congregation left the church for the world. McTaggart knelt on a priedieu in the sanctuary, praying from his prayerbook. Toussaint cleared the altar of chalice, book, cruets, and dish.

  He crossed to the side altar at the left of the main altar and sanctuary. He checked the votive lights and removed the remains of those that had burned out. He looked up, looked again, and stood transfixed. He moved quickly back to the main sanctuary. “Monsignor,” he said, tapping McTaggart on the shoulder, “there’s something you ought to see.”

  The two crossed to the Chapel of St. Cecilia.

  Toussaint pointed.

  There, atop the graceful statue of the parish’s patroness, in place of the head of St. Cecilia, was the head of Stud Harding, the face contorted in its ultimate terror.

  “Oh, my God!” cried McTaggart, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

  With the utterance of those three G’s it was left to Toussaint to call the police—and the chancery.

  3

  St. Aloysius

  Lieutenant Harris had decided to spare the members of Squad Six any further encounters of an odd kind with the manic, explosive Chief Medical Examiner of Wayne County. Thus, it was Harris himself who arrived at the unimposing gray building on the corner of Brush and Lafayette, prompt for his eleven A.M. appointment.

  He was greeted by the receptionist, who always appeared to be in a state of semi-bewilderment. Harris surmised her condition was the result of her daily, even if remote, contact with Willie Moellmann.

  Her extensive and painstaking search through her appointment calendar failed to turn up Harris’ name. But since he had police credentials, she advised him to go directly to the Chief's second-floor office.