“Give me a moment, please.” Foley turned his back and knelt on the sidewalk next to his dog, who looked at him wonderingly. The archbishop murmured one of the closing prayers of compline. “Vigilemus cum Christo, et requiescamus in pace-”
The quiet air was shattered by the roar of the gun. Foley pitched forward. He lay motionless. His years speeded the process of dying. It was over before he could reflect on another thought.
The dog, who had sprung straight up in the air at the gun’s blast, barked furiously, then tentatively. Then he began to whimper, stopping only to lick the body of his master, who would never again reach out to comfort the small animal.
Later, much later, a night-owl resident of the condominium spotted the dog sitting near what seemed to be a pile of laundry. After a closer look, the resident raced to phone 911.
In order to remove the body they had to almost peel the dog from its master.
By then, the assassin was long gone.
24
The general reaction of the public to archbishop foley’s murder could not have been foreseen. At the very least, it was not anticipated by Detroit’s city government.
In death, the undeclared affection in which Foley was held during life overflowed. Messages of sorrow, disbelief, horror, and anger poured into the chancery. Condolences came from both the powerful and the ordinary of Florida, Cincinnati, Detroit, other parts of this and other countries as well as, of course, the Vatican.
Detroit’s Mayor Cobb was forced to face yet another crisis.
Detroit’s citizens, generally, were titillated by the murder of a hooker mistaken for her nun sister. They were puzzled and drawn into the speculation that accompanied the murder of a Catholic leader. Was there, as the police investigation seemed to indicate, a connection between the two killings?
But in these two murders, there was no consensus of emotional involvement on the part of the public.
That changed with the murder of a warm, kindly, harmless old man who had, in his own quiet way, charmed a frequently jaded city.
Editorials in the press, on radio and television typically excoriated the city that could not protect even the most gentle of its citizens, The movers and shakers demanded a speedy wrap-up to this investigation.
A decree went out from Maynard Cobb: Sew it up-now! Use whatever manpower necessary, but solve it-now!
Cobb’s directive trickled through the chain of command, sometimes increasing, sometimes diminishing, the creative vulgarity of its original form.
Eventually, the order and commission reached Lieutenant Alonzo Tully. It was not the first time he had been picked to lead a special task force. He didn’t like it now any more than he ever had.
It wasn’t the department; it was city government. If you’ve got a pesky problem, throw money at it. If you’ve got a particularly offensive murder case, throw a large bunch of homicide detectives at it.
There was comfort in numbers. But a case like this was not cracked because it got buried under tons of cops. It was a lucky break, dogged police work, mainly the investigative know-how of a seasoned and dedicated detective.
But, no matter; the message was clear: The mayor wanted a show of force to indicate to his constituents that the city was doing all it could. Now the mayor could claim, in effect, It ain’t my fault. Now the spotlight was on the department: You’ve got top priority; go get yourself a lucky break.
Mostly because he could trust them to do precisely what was required of them, Tully chose as his closest assistants on this, Angie Moore and Phil Mangiapane. Also-and of equal importance-they had been in on the case more or less continuously from its inception to date.
Moore, Mangiapane, and Tully were at a table in a Greek-town restaurant near police headquarters. Tully had just gotten the word from Inspector Koznicki about the task force and the lieutenant’s role in it. The special force was being assembled at this moment but Tully wanted-needed-a quiet moment with two of his most trusted associates.
“Are they sure?” Moore asked. “I mean, did it go through ballistics?”
“You got doubts?” Mangiapane was being sarcastic.
Moore slowly shook her head. “Not really, I guess.”
“There wasn’t any doubt,” Tully said. “But, yeah, it did go through. Ballistics is under the same kind of pressure we are, A.38 caliber wad cutter; same marks, same gun.”
“Really rips my theory to hell and gone, don’t it?” Mangiapane said.
“What theory was that?” Moore wanted to know.
Tully explained the discovered connection between the distant cousins-Fred Stapleton and Sister Joan-and their dotty aunt at Lourdes Nursing Home. “We were going to draw you in on this theory this morning, Angie. But, last night …”
“Sounds good to me,” Moore said. “Like the kind of break we wanted. What’s the matter with it?”
“Well,” Tully said, “the orginal theory had it that Fred Stapleton was aware of the small fortune he was about to inherit and so was his cousin Joan Donovan. Only he wanted the whole fortune, not just half of it. He tried to kill the nun, but made a fatal error-literally-and got the hooker instead.”
As Tully sipped his coffee he seemed to drift into his private stream of consciousness.
“The problem,” Mangiapane explained, “was why would Stapleton go and kill the Hoffer guy.”
“To cover his tracks,” Moore replied. “And to throw us off the track. He would get us thinking that there was a plot to knock off officials of the Detroit Catholic Church. Our investigation would go off in that direction, while Stapleton could double back and get Donovan.”
Mangiapane grinned. “Great minds …”
“The problem, of course,” Tully rejoined the conversation, “is why would he go on? He only needed to kill Hoffer and his plan would be well off the ground. He had us doing just what he wanted. We were running all over ourselves in the Catholic administration. He was free to go back after the nun. Why would he go and kill the old man?”
“Yeah, he already achieved his secondary objective,” Mangiapane said.
A brief silence followed as the three either warmed their hands around their cups or actually sipped the strong coffee.
“Wait a minute,” Moore said. “I have an idea.”
“Let’s hearit,” Tullysaid.”
“Supposing Stapleton found out-supposing, one way or another, he discovered that Manj was on to him. Right off the top I’m not sure how he would’ve known that. From the old woman, maybe?”
Mangiapane shook his head, “She’s a full-time looney tune,”
“Your aunt?”
“I don’t think so, but I can check easy enough.”
“Another patient who overheard or knew?” Moore persisted.
Tully rubbed the stubble he hadn’t had the time to shave this morning. “A possibility. A definite possibility. Make that a top priority, Manj. Get enough manpower to quiz everybody at the home. Stapleton might have found out from someone out there that the lady is your aunt, that she talked to you, that you had checked the old lady’s will.
“If he found out-that’s a pretty big‘if,’ but possible-it just might be that he wanted to get us back on the original track by killing the old man.
“Good, Angie, very good. Get on that now, will you-both of you.”
Moore was up and moving. Mangiapane, gulping the remainder of his coffee, was only a step behind.
Tully caught the waitress’s eye and pointed to his mug. She refilled it with regular coffee, He needed to be as wide-awake as possible.
It was always heartening to have something going for you during an investigation. And, in Moore’s hypothesis, the Stapleton connection with his cousin was revived. But it was still on tremendously shaky ground.
The scenario from the beginning had been extremely flimsy, he had to admit. It was based entirely on hearsay
Apparendy the old lady was related to both Donovan and Stapleton. She had a fortune of some as-yet-undetermined amount. She was leaving whatever she had to the two; Mangiapane’s reading of the will indicated that.