Julio was critical. The ER staff feverishly bent every effort to save him.
According to Estella, Julio somehow had come into a ton of money sometime Sunday or Monday. Enough to afford more crack cocaine and heroin than the women had ever seen in one user’s possession. The three of them had leisurely proceeded to get higher than she’d ever been. She could only guess that, after she had passed out, Vicki had kept at it. Julio had a long and storied history of use. To damn near kill himself, he must have set a world’s record of drug consumption.
No, she claimed, she, Estella, did not know where Julio had scored. But it was a significant buy.
And that was, sum and substance, all the police had. Three crack heads; one recovering, one likely to recover, and the third-the one the cops needed and wanted-likely to die.
Inspector Walter Koznicki had been called away from his desk. Tully and Mangiapane waited in Koznicki’s office for his return.
Koznicki entered the office behind the two men, who were seated facing the desk. They felt his presence even before they saw him.
“The investigation into the murder of Bishop Diego was concluded yesterday,” Koznicki said. He stepped in front of them and seated himself behind his desk.
“We haven’t let our work go, Inspector,” Mangiapane protested.
“He knows that,” Tully said.
“I know that,” Koznicki said. His statement was for the record. The inspector knew full well that Tully and his squad were working on the Diego case on their own time. But lest anyone surmise that he would relax good order, he stated his official position clearly. Having done so, Koznicki was eager to know what they’d uncovered.
Tully knew this. He began to fill Koznicki in. “First, we discovered why we were getting nowhere on the street. Our guys tapped every snitch we knew about-and then some. We couldn’t get a single lead even though our best people had the gut feeling there was something vital to this case out there someplace.
“The reason we were getting nowhere was because the guy we were looking for was Julio Ramirez.”
Koznicki’s eyes widened. “Pedro Ramirez’s brother!”
Tully nodded. “No one would cross Pedro. Not if they wanted to live long enough for another snootful of coke.”
“How did you break it?”
Tully shifted in the uncomfortable straight-back chair. “Remember way back when the Kingfish wiped out almost all Mad Anthony’s brain trust?”
Koznicki could not suppress a brief smile. That incident had marked the beginning of his near father-and-son relationship with Tully. “I remember it well. You were in the forefront of that investigation. You were as responsible as anyone for getting the conviction of Kingfish and his men.”
Tully’s hand attempted to wave away the accolade. “In any case, right after that Tony Wayne gave me one wish-sort of like a stingy genie. I didn’t take him up on it then. Yesterday, I called in my marker with Mad Anthony. He gave me Julio Ramirez.”
“You have him?”
“He’s in Receiving.”
“Receiving! What is his condition?”
“O.D. He’s critical.”
Koznicki shook his head slowly. “He may die. If he lives, he may be brain dead. Of what-”
“He’s the one,” Tully interrupted. He seldom did that to Koznicki. “It’s Julio. Wayne gave him to me on a platter.”
“That is all very well,” Koznicki said, “but he may be dead on that platter. Do we have any witnesses? Any corroboration?”
“Not yet. We’re still working on it. The important thing is we’ve got the perp. Everything else should fall into place. How about letting us work up this case full time?”
Before Koznicki could reply, there was a knock on the door of the glassed-in office. They could see it was Lieutenant Quirt.
“Come,” Koznicki called.
Quirt had news that he knew would displease Tully. He knew Tully hadn’t bought Carleson as the killer. But now there was no longer any doubt. “Walt, it’s a new ballgame.” He paused to let the drama he was trying to create sink in. The three looked at him expectantly.
“He did it again,” Quirt announced.
Still no reaction.
“Carleson-the priest. Last night. He killed again!”
“What!” All three were as a Greek chorus.
This was the reaction Quirt wanted.
“Explain!” Koznicki demanded. Koznicki disliked such showboating. He considered it unprofessional.
Quirt, oblivious to Koznicki’s reaction, forged on. “Last night, around midnight” — Quirt referred to his notes-” Carleson left Ste. Anne’s rectory and drove to Receiving Hospital. There he went to the room of an elderly man, a patient that he, Carleson, visited regularly. He entered the man’s room and smothered the patient, probably with a pillow.”
His listeners appeared dumbfounded.
“How do you know all this? Do you have proof?” Koznicki asked.
“Okay.” Quirt was on a high. “First: This elderly patient was one Herbert Demers. He was a parishioner at Ste. Anne’s. There are so few people still living in that parish, we were told, that it isn’t uncommon for there to be just one parishioner in the hospital at one time.
“Second: After Carleson got out on bail, we did some backgrounding on him. Part of his routine was visiting this guy almost every day. Along the way, Carleson got chummy with a lot of the hospital personnel.
“Third: This Demers was in a coma pretty much all the time. He couldn’t speak for himself, and the last word of his next of kin was ‘to do everything.’ So they were keeping him alive-and that’s about all.
“Four: One of the nurses stated that Carleson had talked to her about euthanizing the old man. She said Carleson had told her that the old guy some how got a message to him to ‘help me die.’ Anyway, that’s what Carleson said. She also said that just yesterday she heard Carleson shouting to the old man to let loose and die. That didn’t work.
“Five: Two of the Emergency personnel testified that last night, just before midnight, they saw Carleson going into the hospital. The night nurse on duty on Demers’s floor stated she saw Carleson go into the old man’s room.
“This morning they found Demers dead. They were about to release the body when I recognized that the dead guy had been visited all the time by this priest who had already been indicted for one murder. Plus the priest had been a one-man cheering section to put this old guy out of his misery. So I ordered an autopsy.
“Six: I just got word from Doc Moellmann that Herbert Demers was murdered. The doc said there were pinpoint hemorrhages in the old man’s eyelids and cheeks. There were bruises on the gums. The nose was almost broken. The doc said it was …” Quirt paused for effect. “… homicide.”
There was dead silence in the room for several long moments. Not one of the three officers could make sense of what Quirt had just said. It was like going from A to Z without touching any of the intervening letters.
They were convinced Julio Ramirez was the killer of Bishop Diego. The only question was whether he would survive to be tried for the crime. It was as if a puzzle had been solved and all that remained was to put the pieces together. Having solved the puzzle, everyone expected that putting those pieces in their proper places would be simple.
Now, out of the blue, here was Quirt with a story that blew the pieces in every which direction.
“Has Father Carleson confessed to any of this?” Koznicki asked.
“No.” Quirt seemed unconcerned by the priest’s denial.
“His explanation for all this?”
“Well,” Quirt began, “he was smart enough not to deny that he went out last night. See, there was a service for the bishop in Ste. Anne’s church last night. Carleson didn’t attend. But after the service, some of the priests got together in the rectory. Carleson had no way of knowing whether any of the priests would go to his room-see how he was, that sort of thing. Since Carleson was out murdering that patient, he couldn’t claim he was in his room. Someone easily could’ve known that he wasn’t home-”