The Rosary Murders Page 3

  Nelson Kane was experiencing one of his rare moments of near-perfect euphoria. He had propped his feet on his desk, a repose in which he seldom indulged, tilted back in his swivel chair, and was savoring the Free Press’ early edition page-one headline: “PRIEST MURDERED IN CATHOLIC HOSPITAL.” He was reminded of the line from Ben Hecht’s “Gaily, Gaily,” where an editor yells across a crowded city room at a fledgling copyboy, “Do you know what a sex maniac does? Sells newspapers!” That, he reflected, is a service also performed by Catholic priests who are murdered in Catholic hospitals.

  Not only was the Free Press story a scoop, but it contained an exclusive interview with Nancy Baldwin, the nurse who had discovered the body. Joe Cox’s hunch had paid off. He’d gotten his interview with her just before she’d gone to the police. Since then, the cops had forbidden her to speak to anyone about the case. And they had frightened her enough so that she literally was talking to no one about it.

  Kane’s reverie lasted only until he sensed that while the cat’s feet were on the desk, the mice were being indolent. He stood abruptly and, with that, the city room sprang into action.

  At the Detroit Catholic, Father Robert Koesler was also staring at the Free Press headline. It was strange, he mused, how the media could almost create news. It was true that Father Lord’s death was technically murder. It was also true it had happened at a Catholic hospital. But the headline still seemed gross.

  The paper’s account of events, particularly as Nancy Baldwin had viewed them, was fair enough. But it was anyone’s guess how many readers took time to plow all the way through the story. Most conversation would be limited to that screaming headline.

  In the recent past, most priests had made news because of their civil rights involvement or antiwar protests. More recently, because they’d decided to leave the priesthood. It was really rare, however, for a priest to be murdered.

  In addition, this was an old, tired priest who had been a step away from natural death. True, his life had been taken prematurely. But probably by someone who thought the deed was a kindness.

  Koesler’s reflection was interrupted by Irene Casey. “May I interrupt you, Father?” Irene always began her interruptions by asking permission. Pulling a chair up to Koesler’s desk, she sat opposite him. She handed him a slightly deformed paperback. “I finished this last night,” she said.

  Accepting the book with a smile, Koesler seemed to weigh it in his hand. It was Thomas Gifford’s The Cavanaugh Quest, only it was half again as large as it had been when Koesler had lent it to Irene. “Been reading in the bathtub again, eh, Irene?” In the Casey household, one of the few relatively guaranteed retreats, apparently, was the bathroom. Every time Koesler loaned Irene a whodunit, it was returned swollen from the tub’s vapors.

  She blushed. “Listen, you’re lucky to get it back this soon. If I didn’t read it in the bathroom, I wouldn’t have time to read it anywhere, except maybe here. And you wouldn’t want me to read it on company time, would you?”

  “Good grief, no. This is a newspaper. You’re supposed to write, not read. Did you like it?”

  “Uh-huh. It would’ve been better if you lived in Minneapolis. But it did move at a good pace. But what do we need with Minneapolis murders? We’ve got our own Catholic murder mystery right here in Detroit.”

  “I’m painfully aware of that.”

  “Say, Father, that Baldwin girl in this morning’s Free Press story. Wasn’t she the one who was in here to see you the other day?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. You’re famous, even though they didn’t mention you in the paper. By the way, have you given any thought to how we’re going to handle the story this week?”

  “Well, it’s still developing, Irene. I wouldn’t be surprised if the police find out who did it before Wednesday. But, in the meantime, you might call Father Leo Clark at St. John’s Seminary. He’s an up-to-date theologian with a special interest in medical-moral ethics. He’ll probably give us some good quotes on euthanasia. And I don’t think any of the other media would think of contacting him. He’ll be our exclusive interview.”

  “Sounds good. Do you want me to ask Jim Pool to get started on that today?”

  “Yeah, sure, why not? The story’s not going to change that much in the next few days.”

  Irene Casey left Koesler’s office, and Koesler returned to his ponderous thoughts on news as it is improvised by the news media.

  The homicide team was concluding its first day of investigation at St. Mary’s Hospital. They had narrowed the probable suspects to five employees who could not satisfactorily account for their presence in the hospital during the time in question. Two practical nurses, two orderlies, and a foreign intern. All had been advised to remain available for further questioning. All had been interrogated, finally, by Sergeant Fallon.

  Fallon strongly suspected that one of the orderlies and one of the practical nurses had found a vacant hospital room and had enjoyed a quick roll in bed. Once they realized the alternate consequences of not being able to account for their time, he was sure they would confess to a slight case of lust. Fallon’s favorite suspect, at the moment, was the Filipino intern. He had seemed more remote than the others during questioning, and everyone knew that Asians had less respect for life than Americans did.

  However, Fallon promised himself he’d begin bright-eyed and objective first thing tomorrow morning.

  St. Ursula’s convent was clearly a white elephant. It was the most recent in a pile of old buildings that made up the parish facilities. It had been built only twelve years before to accommodate a maximum of fourteen nuns. That was before the supply of nuns had dwindled to a trickle in the wake of Vatican Council II, before the riot of 1967 had driven the white population—and thus most of the Catholics—out of Detroit, and before the U.S. Supreme Court had denied public monies for parochial schools.

  Now, St. Ursula’s school had been leased by the public school system and the convent would have been closed entirely, except that two nuns continued to live there. Sister Marie Van Antwerp was on the Mayor’s Committee for a New Detroit and Sister Ann Vania was religious coordinator at St. Alban’s parish in Dearborn. Both nuns wanted to demonstrate some kind of commitment to the city and so had chosen to live in a core area. Sister Marie was in Washington, D.C. for a five-day seminar on urban planning. That left Sister Ann alone in the rambling building. Her fellow workers in Dearborn had tried to persuade her to stay in the suburb while Sister Marie was gone rather than live alone in the city. But she was unwilling to confirm their prejudices about the city by showing her fear of it. In the deepest recesses of her soul, she did fear the city. But she loved the people who had, in effect, been sentenced to live there. And she refused to abandon them.

  It was about 9 P.M. when she returned to St. Ursula’s. As she parked in the parish garage that separated the rectory from the convent, she noticed that Father Koesler’s car was not there. She was disappointed. She had wanted to talk with him this evening about a lot of things that had been troubling her lately. Chiefly, she was beginning to doubt whether working in the lily-white suburb was what she might do best. She knew the people who lived there could no more help wanting a safe life for their families than most of the white and black people in Detroit could help being trapped by the city. She guessed she just wanted to be assured she was justified, and Father Koesler was good at reassuring. Perhaps she would see him tomorrow.

  She had her key ready long before she reached the front door of the convent. She did not want to fumble and dally in the dark of the doorway. She let herself in and made certain the door was locked behind her. Most of the convent was closed off and unheated. Actually, only the two small suites used by Sister Marie and herself on the second floor were in use.

  Nevertheless, she went first to the old convent chapel and knelt at the rear. It was, of course, no longer used, but the church furnishings were still there, and she liked to end her day where so many nuns before her had
prayed.

  Her mind went skeletally over her day. The plans that had been made for this Sunday’s parish liturgy, the decision to hire a new guitarist for the Folk Mass, and little Andrea, the first communicant, who was too young to fear anyone who might want to hurt or kill her. What a glorious, untested faith.

  Just behind her and to her right, a board squeaked. She spun around, her heart pounding wildly. Nothing. Like all old empty houses, this one had developed its own noises and would speak when it willed. She was a fool, she thought. Of course she would remain in Dearborn when she was alone. There was a fine line between courage and foolishness and, she realized, she had crossed that line with her decision to stay alone at St. Ursula’s convent.

  Crossing herself, she climbed the steps to the second floor, opened the door to her room, and turned on the light. There was heat, but not much. She turned up the radiator slightly, hung up her coat and hat, and sat in the room’s one chair. The Catechist magazine had been delivered earlier in the day, and this was her first opportunity to read it. She paged through it perfunctorily but was too distracted to absorb anything.

  With a sigh, she decided to take a warm bath and go to bed. She flipped on the bathroom’s light switch and turned the water on in the tub. A warming steam filled the room. She returned to the bedroom, laid her nightgown on the bed, turned down the covers, and began to undress. She hung her dress in the closet, and dropped her underthings in the clothes hamper. As she stepped toward the bathroom, a board behind her and to her left squeaked. Again she spun around, heart pounding. Instinctively, she attempted to cover herself. Naked, she felt doubly vulnerable. But, again, nothing. This, she decided, would be her last night alone at St. Ursula’s. With that, she stepped into the tub and lowered herself into the welcome hot water.

  She didn’t see him really. He was a blur she caught in the periphery of her vision. In a single step, he slipped around the side of the bathroom door. Just as suddenly, his hands were on her shoulders. He pushed downward, and her head was under the water. At first, her arms and legs flailed about to gain some leverage but found none. Then her hands went to his wrists, but she could not move his determined grip on her shoulders. Her feet braced against the wall beneath the shower head. She pushed against the wall but succeeded only in raising the lower part of her body out of the water. She could see his face distorted by the water above her as she gasped for air and found only water. The distortion was the last thing she saw. In only a few eternal minutes it was over. Her body slumped in death.

  He stood erect and leaned against the wall, exhausted. She had been stronger than he had expected. In a minute, he began completing his plan. He slowly lifted her lifeless body from the tub until she was nearly upright, then, with both hands under her armpits, he slammed her head against a jagged tile on the wall, then let her body slip back into the water. He took a towel from the shelf and dried the upper portions of the bathroom walls and some of the pools of water on the floor. He was wearing gloves so there were no prints to clean.

  He looked for a moment at the body. She was a tall woman who scarcely fit into the very normal-sized tub. He reached down and pulled her torso toward the foot of the tub until her head sank once more beneath the water. He was finished. But before leaving, he took a small, common black rosary from his pocket and put it carefully into the dead nun’s hand. And then he left through the first-floor window through which he had come in. A very ordinary case of breaking and entering.

  Saturday morning Mass at St. Ursula’s was a simple task. It involved rising about a quarter after seven and arriving at the church about a quarter to eight. Fifteen minutes was usually enough time to try to get rid of distractions and to vest.

  In its neighborhood, St. Ursula’s was both an anachronism and a sore thumb. Externally, it resembled a little rural Italian chiesa and bore no relationship to the squat two-story brick and wood homes that surrounded and occasionally shielded it from nearby commercial Gratiot Avenue. It was as if a small chunk of Italy had been dropped into the middle of industrial Detroit.

  St. Ursula’s interior was an ecclesiastical joke. Nearly every square inch was covered by a religious symbol, painting, or statue. Crudely painted stars covered the ceiling. A saccharine rendition of the Last Supper covered the front wall. And above each of two doors leading from the sacristy to the church were plump pink angels.

  Gossip had it that a couple of Italians had been smuggled into the country some forty years before, at about the same time St. Ursula’s was being redecorated. They were given sanctuary—literally if illegally—in St. Ursula’s basement. In return for pasta and wine, so the story went, they painted the interior. If the story were true, and the wine and pasta were of poor quality, then those two Italian lads had gotten sweet revenge.

  Father Koesler was conducting his usual pre-Mass frustrating search for a long alb. He never could comprehend why parishes insisted on buying the floor-length white garment worn under the other Mass vestments only in small and medium sizes. There were tall priests. Besides, short priests were able to adjust a too-long alb, but if the alb were too short, there was nothing for a tall priest to do but look ridiculous.

  Finally, he found a long alb. One among so many. Looking ridiculous at Saturday morning Mass was not really a serious problem. Only a faithful few could be expected in attendance. If the regular Saturday morning crew were there, he could expect a total of eight, and the service would consume twenty-five minutes, including a three- to five-minute homily. There was no altar boy this morning—only a minor inconvenience. Koesler put the water and wine cruets on the altar and lit two candles. That’s all the practical help he’d have received had there been an altar boy. Servers frequently created more problems than they solved.

  He began Mass promptly at eight. He was surprised that there was a congregation of only six. Where were the missing sheep, he wondered. As Mass progressed routinely, he made mental notes to determine for his own satisfaction who the guilty parties might be. There was Mrs. Kraemer, second row right center; Mrs. Sommer, third row right center; Mr. and Mrs. Angelo Trupiano (he was St. Ursula’s caretaker, janitor, and Mr. Fixit), mid-church left side; and the two black ladies, Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Hastings, holding down the rear. Funny, he thought, how people always occupied their privately established positions even in a nearly empty church.

  Missing, of course, were the two nuns. Sister Marie, he remembered, was off in Washington. But where was Sister Ann? He hadn’t heard that she was out of town. He’d always considered her a fairly good friend. She seemed to enjoy talking with him, and he admired her obvious sense of dedication. Perhaps she simply had slept in. Though that was unlike her. Perhaps she was ill. She’d be alone in the convent. He decided he’d check after Mass.

  As he was finishing Mass, he recalled Gene Flaherty’s spoonerism just after English had been introduced to the Mass. “Go,” Flaherty had intoned, “the ass is mended.” Reportedly, people at that Mass had later confessed they had never before laughed so hard in church. Koesler had to suppress a grin just in the memory.

  He blew out the candles and returned the cruets to their place in the sacristy.

  He asked Sophie to hold his breakfast for a few minutes while he checked to see how Sister Ann was.

  There was no answer. He let the phone ring a full ten times. He began to be worried. If Sister Ann were ill, there was no one to help her. There was no alternative but to go to the convent. But he had no key. He called Angelo and explained the problem. Angelo would meet him at the convent’s front door in five minutes.

  Koesler had to wait for Angelo no more than a minute or two, but in that short time he grew more gravely concerned. He tried to contrive reasons for the nun’s lack of response to the phone and now the doorbell. Maybe she’d stayed in Dearborn last night Maybe she’s a deep sleeper. But his anxiety was mounting in an uncontrolled way.

  Angelo greeted him briefly, sensed his concern and, unlocking the door, said no more. Once inside the convent, the t
wo men began calling. “Sister Ann! Sister Ann!” Angelo began to move through the first floor. Koesler climbed to the second. As he approached her suite, he noticed the door was ajar. Standing to one side, he called her name again. No answer. He pushed the door fully open. He noticed her nightgown lying across the bed. His breathing slowed irregularly. Then he saw it. Knees. He would never forget the sight. Knees sticking up out of the tub. She had to be dead.

  Still in the hallway, he called to Angelo. The evident panic in the priest’s voice brought Angelo up the stairs two at a time. “The bathroom,” said Koesler, pointing.

  Angelo preceded Koesler into the small bathroom. It was scarcely large enough to contain the two large men. “Should we…” Koesler was part way through the question when, without comment, Angelo grasped the woman’s knees. Instinctively, Koesler took her beneath her armpits and together they lifted the heavy, dripping body from the tub and placed it on the bathroom floor. It was as they lifted her that Koesler noticed the small rosary in her hand. As the body hit the floor—a little more firmly than the men had intended, since it was wet and slippery—the rosary fell out of the nun’s hand. Though Koesler was nearly numb with shock, the thought occurred to him, “What a crazy place to say the rosary!”

  As he straightened up, he noticed the dark indented stain on the wall above the tub. His eyes went to the water in the tub. It, too, had a faint brownish discoloration. He stooped and placed his hand beneath Sister Ann’s head. He felt the congealed substance matted in her hair.

  “She dead, Father. Better call the cops,” said Angelo, with no particular intonation.

  “Yes. Of course,” replied Koesler, as he stumbled out of the bathroom. “Better not touch anything,” he called over his shoulder as he hurried from the bedroom. Now why did I say that? he thought as he hastened to the rectory. We’ve already mucked about with a lot of evidence.