Chameleon (31 page)

“That’s it,’ Higgins said; “Hunted all over for it. Looked at us as if he’d just worked a miracle.”

They chuckled over that for several minutes. And that story led to another and another until they had used up an additional forty-five minutes.

Ralph Higgins glanced again at his watch. “Holy mackerel, wouldja look at the time! I’ve really got to move it.”

“What time’s your flight, Ralph?”

“I’m on the12:30 nightcoach.”

“You’ll be okay.” Foley glanced at his watch. “Just 10:30 now. Do you need a taxi? Or can I drive you?”

“No, no, Larry. Rented a car when I got in this morning. It’s right outside.”

“Then you’ll be fine. It hasn’t snowed today so the freeways will be clear. And you don’t have to worry about parking. They have shuttle buses at the rental places.”

Higgins struggled into his coat. “A few hours from now I’ll put this mackintosh back in mothballs. You know, Larry, if you guys are worried about some nutty killer up here, you shouldn’t be so free and easy about opening your door. There’s no peep glass in your front door, and you didn’t have the chain on when you opened the door for me. I could have been anybody.”

Foley chuckled. “I’m worried for Mark, not me. Who’d ever want to kill an old fuddy-duddy like me?”

“Anyway, take care, old friend.”

“You too, Ralph. Safe home.”

And he was gone.

Foley looked down at his dog contentedly wagging its tail and looking up at its master. “I’ve got to hand it to you, John Paul. You are a very well-behaved pooch. Now, you come in here with me. I’ve got my office to finish for the day. Fortunately, just compline, night prayers, to say. I’ll just have time to finish before our eleven o’clock last run.”

Foley shuffled back into the living room, John Paul at his heels, tail going a mile a minute.

The old man sat down in his favorite chair, picked up and opened the breviary, and tilted his head back so he could see through the lower part of his bifocals. Before he could begin compline, a compact ball of dog landed in his lap, nearly taking his breadi away.

“Ungh!” he grunted. Dog and master looked deeply into each other’s eyes. A long history of Irish humor crinkled the corners of Foley’s eyes. Clearly, John Paul was singularly eager for the next anticipated event of the evening.

“You be patient now,” Foley admonished. “It’s not eleven o’clock yet—no matter what your usually accurate inner clock tells you. We’ve got a few minutes till I finish my prayers. Then we’ll go for our walk, and then—and only then—your cookie.”

At the word “cookie,” the busy tail began beating a furious rhythm between the arm of the chair and Foley’s thigh. The archbishop patted the dog until he quieted.

Foley opened the tattered old breviary and began.
“Noctem quietam, et finem perfection concedat nobis Dominus omnipotent.”
May the almighty Lord grant us a peaceful night and a perfect ending.

Yes, John Paul, thought Foley, a perfect conclusion for you comes down to a cookie.

Distractions! The bane of my prayer life from the beginning, he thought, and plowed on.

“Fratres: Sobrii estote, et vigilate: quia adversarius vester diabolus tamquam leo rugiens circuit, quaerens quem devoret: cui resistite fortes in fide.”
Brothers, be alert and vigilant, for your adversary, the devil, goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour: you must resist him strong in the faith.

He launched into the three psalms and further distractions. Distrations from his distractions.

While Foley’s lips formed the words of the psalms, his mind recalled an old anecdote told by, among many others, Fulton Sheen. It had to do with a monastery in the Middle Ages. A serf was talking to the abbot about the contrast in their conditions. The serf complained about his life of endless hard work while all the monks had to do was pray.

“Praying is not all that easy,” the monk said, “It is almost impossible to pray without distraction. I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” the abbot added. “If you can pray the Lord’s Prayer without a single distraction, I’ll give you that beautiful horse over there,”

The abbot had made an offer the serf could not possibly turn down. After all, all he had to do was recite the prayer aloud. He planned to play by the rules and have no distraction. But then who would know whether or not he was successful? And after ward, the horse would be his.

So the serf bowed his head, closed his eyes and began. “Our Father … who art in heaven … hallowed be thy name … thy kingdom come … thy will—by the way, do I get the saddle too?”

Foley chuckled, which disquieted the dog, who began to bark.

The archbishop glanced at the mantel. Eleven exactly. He shook his head. What a body clock!

“All right, John Paul: It’s time. Let’s go.”

The dog bounded from his lap and beelined for the door. Foley went to the closet, struggled into his boots and coat, put on his hat, buckled the collar with its license tag around John Paul’s neck, and out into the winter they went.

As was their custom, they commenced to walk completely around the small compact block. John Paul, as usual, sniffed at everything, paying special attention to trees, streetlights, and the fire hydrant. Foley, watching the dog’s breath emerge as vapor, wondered why they were all still up here in the Winter Wonderland, as the Chamber of Commerce would have it. The dog at least had a coat that seemed to insulate it from the cold. But what of humans? Particularly those with skin that was thin and bones thai were brittle?

He walked slowly, far too deliberately for the little dog, who covered twice the distance by running ahead and then returning, diving into snowbanks and finding his stubby legs too short for reaching the ground as he scrambled out of the drifts.

Foley smiled as he contemplated his dog and lost concern over nearly everything else. Maybe there was something to say for having all the seasons, as Michigan very definitely did.

He was feeling fairly carefree as they turned the final corner heading back to the condo. That was when the dog stopped and began to growl.

“Come now, you vicious puppy,” Foley said in a gentle tone. “It’s too late to go chasing cats.”

That was when he noticed movement behind the large blue spruce. Whatever was back there was far too large to be a cat, or a dog for that matter. The motion continued as a man stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing dark clothes, and his hat was pulled low on his head. As he advanced toward Foley the streetlight picked up his features. John Paul, now barking furiously, appeared about to snap at the man’s shins.

“Stop it!” Foley commanded. “Keep quiet! Come here! Sit! Stay!”

The little dog, obediently hushed, came and sat on the sidewalk next to Foley. The archbishop peered into the shadows, “Why … what are you doing here?”

There was no answer. The man continued to gaze at Foley.

Without explanation it became clear to Foley. “You … you’re the one, aren’t you?”

Silence.

“But, why me? Whatever can this mean? What would I—?”

Still, silence. But as the man raised his arm slightly, the glimmer of the streetlight reflected sharply on the gun’s metal surface.

“May I … at least let the dog inside? He’s done nothing.”

The hand continued its steady motion upward.

“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.

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.