The rosary completed, Foley creaked to his feet, said a few more words to Joan, patted her hand, and shuffled toward the exit.
The others waited, either out of genuine respect or in deference to his rank. Then nearly everyone participated in a mass exit. Koesler, intent on speaking to Joan, felt like a salmon swimming upstream.
By the time he reached the front of the room only a few people remained. They were clustered around Sister Joan. As he knelt briefly before the casket, he was struck by Helen’s resemblance to Joan. They were not twins, but they very definitely were look-alike sisters.
As he prayed that Helen be at peace with God, he wondered how two lives so joined in consanguinity could have developed so differently, as Helen and Joan had drifted apart in every conceivable way.
When he finished his prayer, he stood at the rear of the small group offering condolences to Joan. She noticed him standing there awkwardly and broke away long enough to thank him for attending. It was a perfunctory greeting. Koesler was certain that later Joan would not even remember his presence. But that was understandable. It was not at all uncommon for the bereaved to be distracted, even unaware of what was taking place. The death of a loved one may be the ultimate shock.
As Koesler turned to leave, none of the original crowd, outside of the few with Joan, remained-except the ladies who did not represent the Rosary Altar Society. They were in the doorway talking to a black man with an engaging smile.
Koesler knew the man from somewhere. As usual in such situations, he began reflecting on parishes he had served. Frequently, priests’ contacts with laity took place on the parochial level. This was an easy case to check; he had had relatively few black parishioners during his priestly ministry to date. He hoped to correct that imbalance through old St. Joseph’s parish.
But, if not a parish, then where? Of course: Lieutenant Tully. What was that nickname some used? Oh, yes: Zoo.
Koesler was tempted to classify their association as having “worked together” on a couple of cases. But that would be a somewhat grandiose description. Let’s keep things in perspective, he thought: Tully was the cop. And from what Koesler’s close friend Inspector Walter Koznicki had said, Tully was the inspector’s most valued officer in the Homicide Division. From the amateur’s point of view, Koesler would agree at least with the fact that Tully was totally dedicated to his work.
And Koesler? Over the past decade, Homicide had investigated some cases with decidedly Catholic angles. He had merely clarified some facets of Catholicism that had cleared the way for the police to do their job
In the periphery of his vision, Tully caught Koesler looking in his direction. He had been waiting for that. Graciously he terminated his conversation with the women and stepped forward into the nearly empty room toward Koesler. For Tully, Koesler represented an oasis of familiarity in a desert of foreign identities.
They greeted each other cordially but their mutual greeting was more pro forma than personal.
“For just a second there, Lieutenant”-Koesler’s sole use of nicknames was confined to colleagues who were friends from childhood-“I was surprised to see you here. Then I recalled that this is, after all, a murder investigation. So why wouldn’t you be here?”
“Uh-huh. Good to see you again, And you? Did you know the deceased?”
For just an instant, Koesler reacted as if he were being interrogated. “No, not at all.” Then he relaxed. “I do know her sister, Sister Joan. I was afraid there wouldn’t be many showing up for this wake so I was going to add my body to the few. Obviously”-Koesler’s gesture encompassed what had been a packed room-“I was mistaken.”
“You weren’t the only one surprised. What attracted this crowd?”
“Oh, I think certainly the fact that Sister Joan is the head of a department in the archdiocese. A few of the people here tonight are also department heads, and a lot of the others work in the various departments.”
That makes sense, thought Tully. “And you know all these people?”
Koesler nodded. “Most of them. Certainly all the department heads. Not everyone who works under them.”
“Interesting. The elderly gentleman, the one who led the prayers, he a department head?”
“No, he’s a bishop. An archbishop.” Koesler had had this perception many times before. There was no shorthand to explain the trappings of Catholicism-its law, doctrine, morality, liturgy, etc.-easily and simply. “He’s retired.”
“Retired? Then why’s he leading the prayers?”
Koesler didn’t immediately grasp the thrust of Tully’s question. “Leading prayers?” Then, “Oh, I see. Well, priests, bishops, even if they’re retired, don’t stop praying or even leading prayers. They can continue doing as much or as little as they wish and as the Church law allows, liturgically if not parochially. Most of them want to be rid of administrative work. But most of them still want to be with people-want to be of some service to people.”
“Makes sense, I guess.” Once again Tully felt overwhelmed with the amount of detail in Catholicism-in all of organized religion, for all he knew-and how little of it he understood or was aware of. At this point Koesler was his only guide to a vast unknown area that might be important to this case. He fervently hoped there was no connection. Mostly, he hoped this homicide was not a case of mistaken identity. For if the real intended victim was the nun, Tully could be drawn into this maze of Catholicism he so little understood. “You’re not goin’ on vacation anytime soon, are you?”
Koesler chuckled. “It seems as if I just got to my new parish,” he said. “No, I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere soon.”
“New parish?”
“St. Joseph’s-old St. Joseph’s downtown.”
“Near police headquarters?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Nice.”
5
“The cut on your lip looks okay now, but I don’t know about that bruise on your cheek. You could end up with a mean shiner.”
“How many stitches, you figure?” Arnold Carson asked.
Dwight Morgan, right index finger about an inch from Garson’s face, began counting. “Three … four … five. I figure five or six. Hard to tell, Arnie. There might be some more inside your lip.”
Carson tenderly touched his lower lip. “It hurts.” He ran his finger inside the lip. “At least all the teeth are still there.”
“You gonna sue?” Angelo Luca wanted to know.
“The cops?” Carson said. “I been down that road. No future in it,”
“Geez, I feel like it’s my fault,” Luca said.
“Forget it,” Carson replied. “It ain’t your fault. You just saw the write-up in the paper. I’m glad you told us about it.”
“But, geez,” Luca insisted, “if I’d just kept my mouth shut, you wouldna got roughed up.”
“Forget it,” Carson insisted. “It’s just the price we have to pay every once in a while.” He spoke with all the pride a martyr might express.
In this instance, as in so many others, he did consider himself a martyr-a martyr for the good cause of truth, justice, right, and the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Arnold Carson, a U.S. mail clerk in his early fifties, was, much of the time, an angry man. It had been Carson’s good or bad fate to convert to Catholicism just before the time when, in his opinion, Catholicism was converting to Protestantism.
Carson had been born into a committed Episcopal family. In his youth, he had been an eager participant in all manner of church functions, youth programs, etc. He had even considered the priesthood, But he was not an achieving student. He received and accepted excellent advice from teachers and counselors to lower his academic sights.
When he graduated from high school, Carson became a member of the postal service, first as a part-time flexible employee (PTF), then as a regular employee. Almost by accident he had found his niche in life.