Bishop as Pawn Page 8

  When they stepped out of the car, the officers could plainly hear children’s voices through the closed windows and doors of the building. “Now,” Williams said, “that surprises me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That they’ve got a school. I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “At best this is a lower-middle-class neighborhood. I assume most of the Latinos are Catholic. But I wouldn’t have thought they’d have enough money to support a school.”

  “This …” Quirt’s gesture encompassed everything they could see. “… this is middle class?”

  Williams shrugged. “There’s an Arbor Drugs right across the street, and I noticed a Farmer Jack market on one of the cross streets. I don’t think you’d find them—or any other quality stores—in a rock-poor neighborhood.”

  Quirt let it stand. But Williams’s observation about the school was well taken and informed. No matter what Williams’s wife thought of his religious observance, Quirt was glad he’d brought him along.

  The two officers reached the rectory’s front door to find a man in a black suit and a clerical collar awaiting them in the open doorway.

  “You Father Ernest Bell?” Quirt asked.

  The priest nodded.

  Quirt showed his badge and identification. “I’m Lieutenant Quirt and this is Sergeant Williams. We’re from the Homicide Division.”

  Again the priest nodded. “Someone—I guess it was your secretary—called and said you were coming over. I’ve been expecting you.”

  As they entered the rectory, the detectives caught the vague odor of Scotch. They sensed the priest’s nervousness and concluded this was a scared man who had tried to bolster his confidence with a belt of liquor. Interesting.

  Father Bell led them through the main floor to a furnished, winterized porch at the rear of the house. Each of the officers selected a chair on either side of the couch. They repositioned the chairs to face the couch, leaving that as the logical place for the priest to sit. He would, in a sense, be surrounded. The maneuver was not lost on Bell.

  “Would anyone like something?” the priest asked. “I’ve got booze or beer. Or I could get you some coffee.”

  “No, nothing for us.” Quirt seated himself. “As you probably know, we’re investigating the death of Bishop Ramon Diego.”

  “Yes, yes, I know that.” Bell clearly was edgy. “What can I do …? I mean, I don’t know what I could …”

  Quirt, without looking at Williams, nodded. The ball had transferred courts.

  “What we have, Father,” Williams said, “are questions—lots of questions. You can help us with some answers.” His tone was calming, reasonable, reassuring. Yet it appeared to have little effect on Bell’s tenseness.

  “First off,” Williams began, “do you know anyone who might have a reason to kill the bishop?”

  Bell did not reply immediately. “No,” he said finally. “He may have had some enemies,” he added, “but then, who doesn’t?”

  “Let’s talk about these enemies.” Williams flipped open a notepad and looked expectantly at Bell.

  “Well, I don’t know, really.” Bell was defensive. “He didn’t travel in our company very much. He preferred the jet set, as it were.”

  “We’re looking into that. But how about your ‘company’? For instance, just to drop a name, Father Carleson. He had some problems with the bishop … at least that’s what we’ve been told.” Williams looked at Bell expectantly.

  The priest was torn. It would be unrealistic for him to deny the feud; the conflict between Diego and Carleson was common knowledge. If he claimed to know nothing, the detectives would be suspicious. On the other hand, an admission that he knew how Diego had treated Carleson might very well lead to the subject of the bishop’s meddling in St. Gabriel’s affairs.

  He would go with the latter. “Yes, Father Carleson had problems with the bishop. Or so I’ve heard. But the whole situation was awkward. In effect, Don became the bishop’s secretary. None of us thought that was how their relationship was supposed to have developed.”

  Williams wrote a few lines. Then he spoke. “Yes. At his age, and with his experience, he would expect to get a parish—be a pastor … wouldn’t he?”

  Bell, convinced and regretting that he’d been correct about the direction this conversation now was taking, nodded.

  Quirt smiled inwardly. Smart move bringing Williams and letting him play the lead. He had to admit that he himself would never have thought to steer the questioning in this direction.

  “If Father Carleson becomes a pastor,” Williams continued, “you’d know how he’d feel, wouldn’t you … you being a pastor, and all?”

  “I suppose.”

  “How is that? I’ve always wondered.”

  “I … don’t know. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Well, there are lots of parishes around. And, if I read the papers right, there’s a shortage of priests. So …” Williams spread his hands, palms upward.” … is one as good as another?”

  “What do you mean? Is one what …?” Bell was by no means inebriated, but he was trying to clear his head of the shot he’d taken before the police arrived. This was no time to be fuzzy.

  “I mean: If someone told you you couldn’t be pastor of St. Gabriel anymore, you’d just move on to some other parish, wouldn’t you? There’d be no great problem, would there be? Or am I wrong?”

  By concentrated effort, Bell tried to figure out the next chess move. These cops gave every indication they had done their homework. Probably they’d talked to one or more of the guys—Dempsey or Dorr or Echlin. They weren’t just blindly groping for answers. It would be futile—maybe even fatal—to take the bait and agree that it would be no great shakes to leave St. Gabriel’s. To stand by as they put his beloved parish in mothballs. For one, it would be the wrong move for the diocese to make. For another, it would be like watching a loved one die.

  And he knew this whole mess was the work of Diego. The question was: Did they know?

  “No,” Bell answered at length. “It’s not like that. When you’re in a parish for any length of time, you get to know the people—some better than others. They—many of them—make you part of their family. You don’t just pull up stakes and move on without caring—very much.”

  Williams turned a page. A change of subject was signified. “This parish, St. Gabriel, tell us something about it. Let’s start with the school.”

  Bell looked at Williams questioningly. “What could that possibly have to do with Bishop Diego?”

  Williams smiled disarmingly. “Like I said, we’ve got questions. Humor us, if you will, Father.”

  Bell looked out the window at the school building. “We don’t have a school.”

  The two detectives looked surprised. “We just walked past it,” Williams said. “We could hear the kids.”

  Bell smiled. “Those are the Head Start kids. That’s a federally run program. They use our school—what used to be our school.”

  “You had a school.”

  “Yes.”

  “I remember the basketball team. Pretty darn good. Used to win league championships, didn’t it?”

  Bell nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. But we—I wasn’t here then—we had to cut back. The cost of running a high school got to be prohibitive. We started running out of nuns. Had to hire lay teachers at lots more than we paid the sisters. The high school was closed in ’71.”

  “And the elementary school?”

  “Same thing. We tried to keep it going. But the expenses kept skyrocketing—salaries, mostly. Even though our teachers made great sacrifices—we couldn’t pay them anything close to what their counterparts in the public schools got. So the tuition had to be raised almost every year. At the same time, the makeup of our parishioners was changing. The Latino community was growing. They weren’t rich by any means. The handwriting was on the wall. We finally shut down the whole school about … oh … six ye
ars ago.”

  “Then the Head Start program came in.”

  “Uh-huh.” Bell was almost offhand.

  “But the Head Start program could be carried on anywhere there was an empty building. You just happened to have one,” Williams said matter-of-factly.

  “What are you getting at?” Bell leaned forward. His manner was combative.

  “There was talk of closing down St. Gabriel’s.”

  Bell said nothing. He had to be most cautious here. How much had these officers been told about his situation in this parish?

  “Earlier, Father,” Williams said, “you mentioned what it was like to be pastor of a parish. You said” —here he consulted his notes—” that the pastor can become part of his parishioners’ families. That if you were assigned some other parish, you couldn’t just pull up stakes and move on without caring very much.”

  Bell gazed at Williams intently. This was clearly The Enemy.

  “Well, I was wondering, Father,” Williams continued, “if it is so difficult to move along to another assignment after being so wrapped up in your former parish, how much more difficult it would be if the parish you loved but had to leave just … ceased to exist.”

  Bell cocked an eye. “Why are you so interested in St. Gabriel’s? We’re not going out of business. The buildings are in full use and they’re in pretty good repair. We’ve got a zillion programs going on. Lots of the good people here depend on this parish for help in everything from food and jobs to counseling to immigration. And we respond! We make a realistic contribution to the CSA. In a word, we’re healthy! So why are you harping on this parish closing down?”

  “The word we got was that Bishop Diego was considering closing it.”

  “He couldn’t do it!” The tone was aggressive.

  “A bishop couldn’t do it?”

  “Are you a Catholic?”

  “Yes.” Williams did not qualify his answer as he had with Quirt. If he were to admit he was no longer a practicing Catholic, Bell would dismiss out of hand his competence in the matter. Besides, Williams had gone to school in his earlier questioning of the other three priests.

  Bell had not expected so absolute a response. Taken aback somewhat, he said, “Bishop Diego was an auxiliary bishop. He was here to help Cardinal Boyle. The Cardinal is the archbishop. He runs this diocese, not an auxiliary bishop.”

  “Still … a bishop …”

  “Why are you leaning on this? Are you trying to come up with some reason why I would hate or resent Bishop Diego? God Almighty, are you trying to accuse me of … of killing the bishop?!”

  “We’re not accusing you of anything, Father.” Williams tried to sound reassuring. “Like I said, we’ve got a lot of questions. We’re looking for answers. As much as anything else, we’re trying to figure out what kind of man this Bishop Diego was.”

  “Then you’d better ask the high-priced lawyers, the judges, the top brass at G.M., Ford, Chrysler. Those were his buddies.”

  “We’re asking them. What we want to know now is, what was he to you?”

  They knew. Or, they thought they knew. Well, better they hear it from his own lips. “He was a pain in the ass to me.”

  The detectives were relieved at the self-revelation. But they showed no emotion. “He wanted to close St. Gabriel’s,” Williams pursued. “If it’s as active and relevant as you say, why would he want to do that?”

  Bell hesitated. Reluctant to give any further explanations, he would hesitate now before each reply. He would try to do no more than confirm some of the more innocuous information they’d already gathered.

  “What you’ve got to understand,” Bell explained, “is what Bishop Diego meant to the Hispanics of this archdiocese. All the people knew of him was that he was one of them. He grew up in a barrio in Texas. To the people, he was almost another Messiah.”

  “And that made you jealous?”

  “Jealous? Hell, no! Sight unseen, I hoped for the same thing. If we in the southwest corner of Detroit need anything, it’s a friend in high places.” He shook his head. “No, we welcomed Diego with open arms.

  “Then some of us came to know what he had in mind. Becoming a bishop—even an auxiliary—was nothing more than a launching pad as far as he was concerned. He was going to be every rich white Catholic’s token Hispanic. He couldn’t have cared less for our people. Only … only they didn’t know. When he came for a visitation or a confirmation or anything like that, he was the hail bishop well met. He had ‘loose change’—rumor has it quite a bundle—to pass out like an out-of-season Santa Claus.

  “Well, I was the one who was willing to blow the whistle on him.”

  Williams and Quirt recalled the pictures on the walls of the late bishop’s office. Diego and Bob Mylod; Diego and Maynard Cobb; Diego and Tom Litka; Diego and J. P. McCarthy; Diego and lots more … but only the rich, famous or well positioned. Neither officer doubted Bell’s theory on Diego’s master plan for himself. But …

  “But …” Williams said, “he was a bishop. And you’re a priest. You were going to blow the whistle on him?”

  Bell nodded. “I think so. Whatever else happens, my people trust me. I’ve been with them in the trenches for … for a long while. It would be a close call, I guess. But I think—I’m sure—they would believe me over him. And that’s beside one major factor …” A pause.” I’ve got the truth on my side.”

  “So,” Williams said, “that’s the way it was up till yesterday. You with your threat to expose him. And he with his threat to close you down.”

  Bell half smiled. “It’s almost a pun, but we had each other in a Mexican standoff.”

  “And that,” Quirt broke his long silence, “as Sergeant Williams just said, was the way it was till yesterday. But today’s another day. And the Mexican standoff is over. I take it nobody else is trying or threatening to close your church.”

  “I … I haven’t thought of it in exactly those terms,” Bell said. “I was sorry that a man was murdered. Especially one I know pretty well. And I was shocked that it was a bishop. But … I suppose you’re right. That threat is just about over.”

  “Convenient.” It was almost sotto voce. Then in a normal tone, Quirt said: “Tell us about your yesterday. What did you do?”

  “What did I do?” Apprehensive, defensive. “What I ordinarily do on Sundays: said Mass.”

  “That was the morning. And then?”

  “I had several meetings yesterday afternoon. Briefly with some of the parish council members. A longer meeting with the worship commission. They’re pushing for more Masses in Spanish. It’s a ticklish situation. We’ve got—”

  “About when did you get done with those meetings?” Quirt asked.

  “I don’t know … about 4:00 in the afternoon, I guess.”

  “And then?”

  “I was tired. But I wanted to go to that meeting at the Cathedral. So I had a drink or two, just to unwind.”

  “And when did you leave to go to the meeting?”

  “I don’t know. The meeting—well, the dinner began at 6:00. So I must’ve left at about 5:30.” It was not particularly warm on the porch, yet Bell was beginning to perspire.

  “Not necessarily,” Quirt said.

  “Not …?”

  “You were late. Late for the dinner.”

  Bell seemed to be searching his memory. “Are you sure I was late? I don’t remember being late. How can you be sure?”

  “That’s what all the other priests we talked to say. They say you arrived twenty minutes to half an hour late. You were the last one to arrive.”

  Bell’s brow furrowed. He appeared to be trying to connect two remembered incidents separated by a vacant space. There were the meetings yesterday afternoon. He remembered them in some detail. Then there was that super tired feeling that had been recurring more frequently of late. He could remember pouring himself a drink—a martini. Was there another one? Three? That component had gone hazy.

  Then there was the dinner wit
h all the priests gathered. The food gradually sopping up the alcohol. Things got clearer then. Toward the end of the evening everything was crystal clear. Except … he had talked too much. Expressed his contempt for, fear of, and anger with Diego far more openly than he ought.

  But the middle part. It was gone. And that was scary. Especially now with two detectives who demanded chapter and verse for everything he had done yesterday.

  And slowly emerging from this daze was the importance of remembering what seemed utterly lost to memory.

  He was in trouble. That he knew.

  “So, Father Bell,” Quirt said, “there’s some time missing from what you told us you did yesterday. How about it?”

  “I … I can’t recall right now. But … I … I think I should call a lawyer.”

  “You can if you want, Father,” Quirt said, “but, by the time he gets here, we will be long gone.”

  “Wait: There’s one thing I want to get straight: Are you accusing me of murder? Are you accusing me, a priest, of actually killing a bishop?”

  Quirt and Williams stood and slipped into their coats. “No, we’re not doing that,” Quirt said. “We’re just gathering information. But it is interesting, isn’t it? Bishop Diego allegedly is upset—maybe threatened—by your intention to, as you say, blow the whistle on him. In retaliation, he threatens not only to have you moved from your parish, but to close the whole place down.

  “Then, the bishop is murdered sometime between 4:00 and 6:00 yesterday afternoon … a time when you are unable—you say—to remember where you were or what you did.

  “However, the upshot of all this is that your problem is solved: The bishop can’t do anything to you now.”

  The two detectives, fully garbed now for the outdoors, made no move to leave.

  “If I was you, Father Bell,” Quirt said, “I’d try real, real hard to remember what went on during that time of your mental lapse. And I would hope—maybe pray—that somebody was with you and can testify that you didn’t even see Bishop Diego yesterday. Yes, sir, I certainly would do that.”