William Kienzle - Man Who Loved God

“Sorry, Zoo. I know there’s a common sense side to all this.”

“It’s just that it didn’t take long for us to fall in love with you. We don’t want to see you leave. If it means putting you up at our place, fine. We want to do everything we can to keep you here as long as possible”

“The feeling is the same, Zoo. But I don’t know what to tell you-except don’t have Anne Marie fix up the guest room. I’ll probably stay at St. Joe’s until I leave-whenever that is.

“As far as that goes, I could stay at almost any parish in the diocese: the resident pastors would think they went to heaven without having to die. The rectories have plenty of room for priests; they just haven’t got enough priests to fill the rooms.

“Take St. Joe’s, for instance. There’s plenty of room for three resident priests. Bob Koesler and I make only two.

“So, no difficulty staying over. I even made sure before leaving Texas that my substitute’s availability was open-ended. There’s no immediate hurry. But for the long run … well, I’ve got some more thinking and praying to do.”

As, Father Tully was speaking, the bulk of Sergeant Phil Mangiapane loomed. Zoo noticed him but waited till his brother had finished, then beckoned.

“’Scuse, Father. Zoo, a precinct cop just called this in.”

“Yes?”

“Apparent suicide.”

“Okay. You and” — Tully scanned the roster-” Angie take it.”

“Uh … Zoo: you might want to take a look at this one …”

“Oh?” Zoo read the message, then whistled softly. He turned to his brother. “Father, you may want to come with us.”

The priest’s unspoken reaction was, Yes, of course. He wanted to stay in contact with his brother and sister-in-law. His eyes widened as he read the message his brother handed him.

“That’s right: Barbara Ulrich’s dead. An apparent suicide.”

“Let’s go,” Father Tully said. En route, to the Ulrich apartment, the priest did little more than shake his head and murmur over and over, “I don’t think so.”

By the time Zoo and his party arrived, the police technicians with their plastic gloves were busy at their professional duties.

Barbara’s body lay next to her desk. The phone, receiver off its cradle, was on the floor, where it apparently had fallen after being knocked off the desk as she fell.

Barbara was wearing a frilly nightgown. She seemed so fragile. Not unlike the doll her daddy had broken when he was doing bad things to her … or the “broken doll” the doctors had wrenched from her body. Of course those who were investigating her death would have no knowledge of those incidents.

Father Tully found an out-of-the-way spot that held no interest for either technicians or detectives. The priest scrunched into the empty corner and quietly observed, his attention focused mainly on his brother, who was in charge.

Without touching it, Zoo squatted near the weapon. “Thirty-eight caliber.” The dead woman’s hand cradled the revolver, handle in her palm, index finger against the trigger.

Tully stood. “Who found the body?”

“The manager.” The patrolman who had responded to the original call opened his notepad. “A Mrs. Marilyn Fradet tried to call the deceased this morning. She was concerned about the deceased-” He looked down at his notes. “A Barbara Ulrich-”

“I know.”

“Well, Mrs. Fradet was worried because Mrs. Ulrich is a recent widow. She” — he inclined his head toward the body-” just buried her husband a couple of days ago.” Zoo nodded, almost impatiently.” Anyway, she called several times and didn’t get any answer. So she asked the manager to check on the Ulrich woman. Which he did. This” — he gestured to include the living room and its contents-” is the way he found it. No one touched anything until the techs got here.”

“Thanks.”

Zoo slowly walked around the room scrutinizing the area and the furnishings. He stopped at the desk where a photographer was snapping pictures with near reckless abandon. “Was there a note?”

“None that we’ve found so far,” one of the technicians said. “We’ve been over the top layer of the desk and the floor. No note. I don’t think we’re gonna find one. It’d be a first in my experience that somebody writes a note explaining everything or saying good-bye and then hides the note before committing suicide. If there’s a note, the writer wants it found and read.”

“Uh-huh.” Zoo returned to the body, looked at it searchingly, then squatted again. From that position, he beckoned his brother.

Father Tully joined him near the dead woman’s head.

Not for the first time the priest found it difficult to associate the finality of death with someone so young, so vital, and with so much of her life before her.

“You know that mantra you’ve been whispering over and over-the one that’s been driving me nuts?”

“You mean about I didn’t think this was a suicide? Sorry, I didn’t mean to bug you.”

“You didn’t. Not all that much anyway-not really. But why, sight unseen, did you think this wasn’t a suicide? I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time a widow threw herself on the funeral pyre.”

“Not this widow. Not from what I’ve heard and seen. Not unless the pyre wasn’t going to be lit … not unless this widow could walk away anytime she wanted.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not saying that she wanted her husband dead, or even that she was glad he was killed. But … I do think that both parties to that marriage would have felt better apart. As it was, they managed to live apart as much as possible without actually breaking their union publicly. I don’t know why-and I doubt that anyone else knows either-they didn’t just get a divorce.

“That’s why I don’t think it was suicide. Her life and her future must’ve looked pretty rosy once Al Ulrich was out of the picture permanently.”

“Well, brother, I tend to agree with you.”

“You do?” The priest was surprised that his brother would agree with any conclusion respecting police business.

“Not for the same reason you gave-though that is supportive. But look at that wound.”

The priest looked, although he didn’t know what he was supposed to be looking for.

“Notice anything strange or odd?”

Father Tully studied the wound more carefully, trying to remain objectively detached. It was difficult. He was a priest; caring for and about people was in his marrow, even if most of the time that care was for their souls rather than their bodies. It was hard for him to try to look at the bloody head of the lifeless Barbara Ulrich as a mere technical puzzle to be solved, when all he could think of was the living, breathing woman-a woman with hopes, joys, and fears. “I don’t notice anything,” he said finally. “What am I supposed to be looking for-or at?”

“No powder burns around the hole.”

“No powder burns! I remember now,” the priest reflected. “I think it was on one of the episodes of ‘Hill Street Blues.’ A corpse was supposed to have powder burns and didn’t. What’s that all about, anyway?

Zoo sighed softly. “The closer the gun is to the victim when the bullet is fired, the more likely it will leave a gunpowder residue. Look carefully. See anything like a powder burn?”

Father Tully tipped his head back to get a better view through his bifocals. “Just a few specks, I think.”

“Exactly. Of course we’ll have to wait till Doc Moellmann rules on it. But I’m tentatively classifying this as a homicide.”

“Homicide!”

“Why so surprised? You said from the beginning you didn’t think it was a suicide …”

“Yes, but …”

“She didn’t die of old age.”