It was late Monday afternoon and Lieutenant Alonzo Tully had not gotten his wish.
Periodically during the day he had imagined the elusive Father Keating simply showing up at St. Waldo’s. Those occupying the parish buildings-housekeeper, secretary, janitor, religious education coordinator, teachers and the like-had been forcefully instructed to call either the Bloomfield Hills or Detroit police should anyone spot the priest.
At no point in this so-far brief search had Tully given a damn where Keating had been or what he’d done. As long as the priest stepped forth or somebody located him, all would be well that ended.
Those members of Tully’s squad whom he’d called in yesterday afternoon had greeted their new assignment with a variety of reactions. As for Tully’s two closest collaborators, Sergeants Angie Moore and Phil Mangiapane, they were poles apart.
Moore greeted the task in much the same spirit as her leader. To both her and Tully, this was a necessary evil brought on by arich bastard who would settle for nothing less than what he demanded-and by the mayor, a political animal who would exchange his consent for future favors.
Mangiapane, a very practicing Catholic, never could get enough of his religion and its mysteries. And one of those great mysteries, stemming from the sergeant’s youth, involved priests-priests and nuns. As a boy, young Philip had wondered: Are they human? Do nuns have legs? Hair? Do any of them ever go to the bathroom?
Fortunately, these sorts of questions seldom concerned him any longer. Still, mysteries did abound. The power that priests had to absolve, to consecrate, to bury, to marry, all these had to be taken on faith-another mystery. Mangiapane did not at all mind taking time from Homicide-even though it was his first love-to search for a lost priest and, along the way, to learn more about these still-mysterious creatures.
Partly to free himself to supervise the investigation as well as to follow his own instincts and leads, pardy because they were closest to him on the squad, and pardy because they differed in their attitude toward this case, Tully had appointed Moore and Mangiapane coordinators. They now had brought him the results of all efforts to date. To simplify, they had consolidated and summarized the various reports.
“Both our guys and the Bloomfield people have been checking with all the relatives and friends we can find,” Moore reported.
“And?” Tully prompted.
“For one thing, there aren’t many relatives. Parents, dead. No brothers or sisters. Some distant cousins, and that’s about it. And with a couple of them, we had to explain who John Keating was, and then they remembered he was a relative. Those were mostly out-of-towners. The few living in this area at least knew they had a priest relative, but we couldn’t find any who saw him on anywhere near a regular basis. We haven’t uncovered a relative who would be a reasonable lead. Deadendsville.”
“Zoo” — nearly everyone used the nickname from the abbreviated Alonzo-“the thing of it is that priests don’t usually end up having many relatives,” Mangiapane said. “Especially if they don’t have brothers or sisters. They don’t get married, so they got no in-laws. So it’s not strange that we come up dry.”
“Okay, Manj.” Tully may not have known much about any of the organized religions, but he was aware that priests had no in-laws unless they had married brothers or sisters, and so they’d have fewer relatives than most. But experience taught that it did not pay to come down too hard on Mangiapane. Criticism tended to inhibit him. And that was not productive.
“There are lots of friends, though, or at least acquaintances,” Mangiapane continued. “Funny thing, they’re mostly among the elite-the silk stocking crowd.”
“Why would that be funny, Manj? That’s the neighborhood he operates in, isn’t it-Bloomfield Hills? Not too many panhandlers out there.”
“Yeah,” Mangiapane responded, “but Keating wasn’t always out there.”
“Oh?”
“We went over his assignments with the secretary. He’s been all over the place in a little more than twenty years. Downtown, the core city-before it was ‘the core city’-all around the town, some of the suburbs. But he’s been in Bloomfield Hills for the past almost ten years.
“The thing is, we can’t come up with anyone who could be described as a friend, especially a close friend, anywhere but in Bloomfield Hills.”?
“That’s right, Zoo,” Moore added. “We went over the stuff in his office and suite. A few phone and address books but hardly any listing for anyone outside of Bloomfield Hills. Oh, a few in Birmingham, you know, the same neighborhood. But hardly anyone with an address down-to-earth people might live at. Not even the Pointes,” she added, and then, with a touch of amusement, “The difference between old and new money.”
Moore and Mangiapane glanced at each other. Mangiapane nodded, offering Moore the floor. Moore riffled through several pages of notes. “The single item about which no one seems to have any doubt is that there could be no reason for what’s happened. Some-most of his friends were surprised to see us. They didn’t know he was missing.”
Tully seemed slightly surprised. “These people from the parish?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Their pastor misses a whole weekend of services and his parishioners don’t know he’s not there?”
Mangiapane spoke as one in the know. “All the people who go to Mass on Sunday know is there’s a priest there to say the Mass. See, at St. Waldo’s, there’s an assistant priest and two other priests who come in just to help on weekends. There’s a rotation in most places-and that’s the way it works at St. Waldo’s too.”
“Rotation?”
“Yeah, Zoo. Like one week a priest will have a Saturday evening Mass, then next week he’ll take early Sunday, then the middle Sunday Mass, then the late Sunday Mass, and then back to a Saturday Mass. But not that many parishioners pay much attention to who’s takin’ what. All they want’s a priest to give the Mass. They just want to take care of their obligation to hear Mass.”
“That’s it, Zoo,” Moore attested. “Even the ones who are aware of what’s going on wouldn’t think it was alarming if the priest they expected didn’t have their particular service. He could be ill. Or for some reason, the priests could have traded schedules.”
“What it comes down to, Zoo,” Mangiapane said, “is that that’s why none of his friends-who are also mainly parishioners-knew anything out of the ordinary might have happened. So they were surprised when we came calling with questions. The only ones who thought something might be wrong were-whatchamajigger-the inner circle: the housekeeper, the secretary-and the assistant priest and the other weekend help of course, because they had to cover for Father Keating.”
“So then,” Tully concluded, “they were the ones who brought Dunstable in on it.”
“Yeah, Zoo. He’s the parish council president,” Mangiapane added. “The council president, Zoo, is the one who-“
“I know what he does. The inspector filled me in on that yesterday,” Tully said. “So, okay, none of the friends or parishioners were on to what was going on. What was their reaction?”
Moore looked up from her notes. “Unanimous, as far as I can see, Zoo. No one could think of any reason why Keating should be among the missing-although some thought he might be taking a vacation. But that had to be a stab in the dark: When you ask them, they immediately admit that’s never happened before. Not that he doesn’t take a regular vacation. But it’s always announced well in advance. And here there’s been no such announcement.”
“Any grudges, hard feelings?” Tully asked.
Mangiapane smiled. “Not once they found out he was missing.”
“That’s understandable,” Moore said. “If a cop comes to your door, tells you somebody you know is missing, you’re not likely to volunteer that you hate the bastard and hope he’s dead. But this was different: The general reaction was surprise, surprise that he was missing and surprise that the police were looking for him. If anybody had any hard feelings, they weren’t intense enough to pop out spontaneously.”
“How about the people he worked with?”
“Guarded,” Moore said. “It got to be like pulling teeth. Monosyllabic answers. Little or no information volunteered. We concentrated on the housekeeper, the secretary, and the other priest-the assistant. But we didn’t get anywhere.”
“The funny thing is,” Mangiapane noted, “nobody seems to work for him very long.”
“Hmmm?” Tully found that of interest.
“I didn’t pay much attention when I found out the assistant priest had been in the parish only six months. That happens. Priests get moved around. Some more than others. But then the secretary said she’d been hired a little less than a year ago. That made me wonder. Then the housekeeper said she’d worked for him just a little more than a year-just before the secretary was hired.”
“So the housekeeper overlapped the secretary. She give any reason why the former secretary was let go?”
“I asked her about that,” Mangiapane said, “and she said she didn’t really know. The housekeeper got along good with the secretary. They’d eat lunch together in the rectory kitchen. Then, all of a sudden-as far as she knew-out of the blue the secretary is given notice and she’s gone and a new secretary is hired. And then I asked about her predecessor. She said she didn’t get to know her more than just saying good-bye. The two of them passed like ships in the night. But she did find out from a parishioner that the former housekeeper had been there a little more than a year.”
Tully scratched the stubble on his chin. “A pattern? Might be worth looking into. Manj, get some of the guys on the former employees. Maybe one or another of them has got some mean words for the boss. How about the priest-the assistant? He’s been there the shortest time. Anything there? Do the priests go through that revolving door too?”
“I gotta check that out, Zoo.”
“Okay. Did we bump into any pattern-any routines? Keating have any habits that can lead us anywhere?”
Moore shrugged. “I suppose there’s mornings.” She looked at Mangiapane. “Don’t they have services-Mass-every morning? I guess that would tie him up first off.”
“It’s not like the old days …” Mangiapane shook his head. “That’s the way it used to be when I was growing up. Waldo’s got two priests-which, in the old days, meant there’d be at least two Masses every day. But I wouldn’t have bet on that now, so I checked their schedule. They only got one Mass a day. Turns out Father Keating says Mass Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The other priest has Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”
“And Saturday?” Tully asked.
“That’s the start of the weekend schedule,” Mangiapane said. “There’s Mass later in the day on Saturdays, so they don’t have one in the morning.”
Tully wondered what evil fate dragged him into these cases involving organized religions. He knew little about them and cared even less.
“Well, that clears things up for me, anyway,” Moore said. “The housekeeper there told me Keating was away from the rectory a lot, but on a pretty regular basis.”
“Regular?” Tully was alert once more.
“Yeah,” Moore said. “After Mass on Sunday, Keating would take care of the collection. By that time he’d be pretty beat. He usually left late afternoon and didn’t return till Tuesday morning’s Mass. Until Manj said Keating didn’t take the Monday services, I wondered how he could manage staying away till Tuesday.”
“Okay, so he was away from the parish Sunday evening and all of Monday. Anybody know where he went?”
Moore shook her head. “No, but that’s not all. Wednesday was his ‘day off.’”
“Wednesday!” Tully exhibited surprise. “What happened to Monday?”
Moore laughed. “Apparently, he was away a lot.”
“And nobody knew where he went or why? What if there was an emergency?”
“Oh, he always had somebody covering for him,” Moore said. “There’s the younger priest-the assistant. Or, if he wasn’t available, there were the other priests who helped out on weekends. They have other jobs-one teaches at Catholic Central High School, the other is a hospital chaplain-so they’re pretty busy. But in a pinch they can take care of the few emergencies that might pop up. And there’s also an answering service.”
“Sounds like an absentee pastor,” Tully said. “Is he ever around? I mean, why did Dunstable stir up all the troops?”
“That’s the thing, Zoo,” Moore said. “He’s around when he’s supposed to be. There’s the weekend services and Tuesday and Thursday. If there’s a meeting-parish council or one of the council’s commissions or anything like that-he’s pretty reliable. That’s the reason the crew got shook up when he wasn’t there when he was supposed to be.”
It didn’t make much sense. Tully could not imagine living in that manner. For him, his job as a police officer consumed almost his every thought. And while he well knew that not everyone by any means matched his dedication to work, he had had the impression that priests, ministers, and rabbis came close to matching him. Especially priests; wasn’t that why they didn’t get married and have a family-to be totally dedicated to their work?
“Well,” Tully said, “in Keating’s laid-back schedule, was there anything on the docket for Friday evenings? Saturday mornings? Someplace he should be? Someplace we could look for him?”
“The secretary said that Fridays he spent nearly the whole day working on his sermon for the weekend Masses,” Mangiapane said. “So it was a little odd that he took off Friday afternoon. He usually spent Friday nights at the rectory. And he was always around Saturday all day to make sure everything was all set. The housekeeper would have expected him for Friday dinner even if he hadn’t told her he’d be back. So everybody got more and more worried as the weekend went by and no Father Keating.”
Tully glanced at both officers. “What kind of car did he drive?”
“Lincoln Town Car, ’91, black, in tip-top shape,” Moore read from her notes.
“The make and plates,” Tully said, “we got that on LEIN?”
“Sure thing, Zoo,” Mangiapane said. “We got ’em on first thing.”
There was silence for afew moments. Tully seemed deep in thought. Finally he spoke.
“Something’s missing.” He looked at them both again. “A dimension. Like this priest seems to be no more than two dimensions. He’s like a shadow. There are all kinds of people who know him-some pretty good. But there’s nothing clear-cut about their descriptions.”
“I got the same impression, Zoo,” Moore said.
“Me too,” Mangiapane admitted.
There was another prolonged silence.
“Here’s an idea, Zoo,” Mangiapane said brightly. “What we seem stuck on is this guy’s personality and his lifestyle, but most of all his personality. And we’re not getting much help from the people we’ve questioned.”
“What’s your point, Manj?”
“Well,” the big sergeant spoke hesitantly, “sometimes … in the past … we, uh … we’ve called in help.”
“‘Help’?”
“Experts … for advice … you know, in areas where we’re not familiar. Like … the personality of a particular priest. And his lifestyle.”
Tully thought he knew where Mangiapane was leading. “Like … who?”
“Well, I was thinking … Father Koesler. He’s been a good resource in the past.”
Tully considered for a few moments. Mangiapane remained impassive. Moore looked interested. Finally Tully spoke. “Call in some outside help? I don’t plan on this case lasting that long. It’d cost us time to talk him into it, time to get him up to speed, time to brief him.”
“We’re not exactly breaking any speed records right now, Zoo,” Mangiapane said. “Father Koesler could maybe get us a shortcut or two. Finish this thing up and” — Mangiapane knew this would be the clincher-“we could get back to our regular cases.”
Tully reflected. “It might work,” he said. “It just might work.”
It was just a few minutes before 6:00 and dinnertime at St. Joseph’s rectory. The aroma of the cooking roast and vegetables drifted through the rectory. Fathers Koesler and Dunn were sipping, Dunn a Beefeater martini, Koesler a bourbon Manhattan. The aroma of the food promised satisfaction, the drinks were relaxing, the weather was ideal. All seemed well.
The two priests were discussing Dunn’s first day at the University of Detroit Mercy.
“I’ve always found,” Koesler was saying, “that the worst place to try to find a parking spot was on a college campus until you get a permit to park on the college campus. But of course you’ve got to park on the college campus in order to apply for the permit. Sort of a catch-22.”
Dunn smiled. “I guess you’re right. I haven’t been on all that many campuses. But U of D seems to have licked that problem-at least temporarily. They give you a day pass that at least gets you to a visitors’ lot. After that, I got my sticker and did some registering.”
“Really. What are you signed up for?”
Dunn took an index card out of the inside pocket of his jacket, “Let’s see; there’s Introductory Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Psychology of Religion, and Death and Dying.”
“Isn’t that a pretty big bite?”
“No, I don’t think so. After all, I’m just auditing, not going for credit. I won’t do all the required readings. I’m really interested in the Abnormal, Religion of course, and Death and Dying. Intro to Psych is a prerequisite for all of them. Besides, I’m a holy priest of God and it’s a Jesuit school; I’m counting on their being kind.
“By the way, I’m officially a ‘special student.’ I hope they mean that in a positive way.”
“I’m sure they do. Good luck.” Koesler raised his glass in salute, then drained the last of the Manhattan. That’s the way it used to be, he thought. Then it was no more. The perks accorded men of the cloth seemed to melt away during the sixties and seventies. Now, who knows, maybe it’s coming back …
The phone rang. Mary O’Connor was gone for the day. And the housekeeper had made it abundantly clear that she was not to be disturbed, especially during the home stretch of meal preparation. Koesler answered the phone. “St. Joseph’s.”
“Father Koesler?”
He knew the voice. Something inside Koesler quivered. “Yes, this is he.”
“This is Lieutenant Tully, Homicide.”
Suspicion confirmed. “Yes, Lieutenant.”
Dunn looked up, suddenly interested. Of course he could hear only Koesler’s end of the conversation.
“We’re in the middle of an investigation. Actually, it’s a missing persons case at the moment. But there are reasons Homicide has been brought into it. To be brief, do you know a Father John Keating?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.” But he was thinking, Yes, I did.
“I don’t know whether you knew it, but he’s been missing since Friday. By now, several police departments are searching for him. But we’re coming up short on what makes the man tick. We need to fill in some missing spaces. Would you be willing to help?”
“Really, Lieutenant, I don’t know how I could be of help.”
Dunn was rapt. Hot damn! I’ll bet that’s Keating they’re calling about. They’re following my scenario; they’re asking Koesler to help.
“You’ve helped us in the past, Father. We think you might be able to help us now. How about it?” When Koesler did not reply immediately, Tully added, almost offhandedly, “If you have any doubts, I could ask Walt Koznicki to call.”
Oh, God! That’s the last thing in the world I want. It would take tremendous concentration and carefulness not to let anything from that confession escape his safekeeping even with just Lieutenant Tully looking over his shoulder. How much more difficult it would be with an old friend like the inspector. “I don’t know, Lieutenant …” Koesler’s tone was apologetic. “I’m awfully busy and pressed just now.”
Tully’s sigh was deep. “I can’t force you to help us. But the longer this priest is missing, the greater the probability that we’re not going to find him.”
Silence.
“He is a priest,” Tully emphasized.
Briefly, Koesler considered the number of times he had responded to a request for assistance from the police. At no time had there been a greater ostensible reason for him to cooperate than in this instance. Outside of an intolerable secret such as he was now guarding, there was no adequate reason for his not providing all the help and direction possible. But there was no way he could tell the police, or anyone, why he was reluctant about getting involved. There was no way out of this. He had to get involved. Maybe he’d find a way to help without touching on the secret. It would be an extremely narrow line to walk. He breathed a quick prayer for guidance. “All right, Lieutenant, I’ll do what I can.”
“Fine. I’ll be right over-“
“Wait!” Koesler’s tone was forceful. “Not now. Not tonight. I have several extremely important appointments. I simply cannot break into that schedule. I simply can’t.”
Though disappointed, Tully would not be choosy-and he knew it. “First thing tomorrow then?”
“Yes.”
“Fight all right?”
“Fine.”
“I’ll see you then.” Tully hung up.
The housekeeper’s voice came from the dining room. “Dinner, Fathers.”
Koesler left his now empty glass on an end table. Dunn carried his unfinished martini with him. “It happened, didn’t it?” Dunn was elated. “You got called into the Keating case. He’s officially … what-not dead?”
“Missing.”
“And they want you to help find him. Delicious.”
“Look, could we forget this for now? I do have some important appointments this evening, and I’d like to try to enjoy supper without courting indigestion. Who knows, maybe they’ll find Father Keating before tomorrow morning.”
“Let us pray.”
“Okay. Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ, Our Lord.”
“Amen.”
“Amen indeed.”