William Kienzle - Body Count

“I don’t think that’s necessary-or even the quickest way to do this. I can ask the authorities there for verification. We may not be able to get Keating out of there, but at least we can locate him. And I’ll run a LEIN on Lacy DeVere. We may just be able to sew this thing up. Maybe not to everybody’s satisfaction … but not all endings are happy.”

Tully got busy on the phone. Koesler, reminded again that his stamina wasn’t what it had been before the shooting, dropped wearily to the couch. The cook and the secretary, having been admonished to keep mum on everything they’d heard, returned to their work with newfound confidence: Not only would they not be fired, but without Father Keating around they might just enjoy extended employment.

Dunstable and Father Mitchell, suddenly on a more congenial basis, huddled to arrange a speedy audit for St. Waldo of the Hills. Pringle McPhee and Pat Lennon quickly mapped their battle plan for last minute interviews prior to filing this story under their joint byline.

If all this speculation became fact, Lacy DeVere would deservedly suffer an ultimate discreditation. That item linking Tully and Lennon would go down the tube along with the rest of DeVere’s irresponsible gossip.

Lennon understood this outcome in the split second before she got busy pulling her side of the story together. And she realized that if they had not patched things up before, Tully and his Alice would be back together now.

As Tully himself had just remarked, not all endings are happy.

The British Airways jetliner touched down flawlessly at Bahrain International Airport. It was 1:30 P.M. in Detroit where the meeting at St. Waldo’s had just broken up. It was 8:30 P.M. in Bahrain.

In the first-class cabin, Lacy DeVere gathered up her carry-on luggage. No baggage claim delays for her. She had packed hurriedly, little more than the necessities. It didn’t much matter. They had more money than they’d ever be able to spend.

Lacy was certain that fate had conspired against her back in Detroit. She’d held the fort above and beyond the agreement she’d made with Jack Keating. But yesterday when she tried to get into Hal Salden’s basket, she began to see the handwriting on the wall. After Lennon in effect threw her out, she’d lingered outside the News. When she spotted Tully and Koesler entering, she knew it was time to leave.

That goddam priest! It had been Jack’s idea to keep him out of the picture. She hadn’t agreed at all. But Jack insisted. He had been certain that the police would call on Koesler to look into the disappearance. Koesler had built up an excellent track record in assisting the cops. And besides, Jack pointed out, in view of the fact that he and Koesler had been buddies once upon a time, Koesler might even be motivated to volunteer his expertise.

She still thought she’d been right. Koesler never would have caught on. The plan was too good. Keep it simple, she had argued. The more people involved, the more likely that excellent scheme would unravel.

But Jack had won out. After all, it was his money. Or rather, the money he’d embezzled.

In just a short while now, she’d remind Jack that he was the one who’d selected Guido Vespa. Even though she was the one who had negotiated the contract.

Vespa very definitely was the weak link. It might have worked had Vespa stuck to the contract and simply gone to Koesler and confessed murder. Though she still believed it had been unnecessary to “neutralize” the meddlesome priest, it would have worked if Vespa had just done what he contracted to do. Easiest money he ever earned. Nothing to do but tell a fable to a priest.

But no! He had to invent that cockamamy story of Jack’s burial with another priest. It would have been ludicrous had it not led to the collapse of her house of cards.

As long as she lived she would never forget that phone call. When Vespa told her what he had “added” to the confession, she was speechless. When he told her he was going to meet Koesler and make a clean breast of the whole thing, she had the presence of mind to ascertain that the meeting would take place that evening.

It hadn’t been difficult to park unobtrusively near Koesler’s rectory to await Vespa’s arrival. She assumed he would be armed; it was vital to take him by surprise. But instead of Vespa’s arriving, Koesler had departed. It really hadn’t been that challenging to follow him by car up Gratiot and then on foot into the Eastern Market. And it was no problem to stay in the shadows as she approached the two men.

Lacy wasn’t sure whether love was better the second time around, but she discovered that killing was easier the second time around. Vespa hadn’t had time to tell the priest the whole story before she fired. Still, she was relieved to see Koesler go down from one of the slugs she pumped into Vespa. If Koesler had not been knocked to the ground he might have been able to see and identify her and she would have had to kill him. No use multiplying murders needlessly.

It had been much harder to psych herself up to kill Hal Salden. But after a few of Salden’s inquiring phone calls to St. Waldo’s, Jack was certain the astute and perspicacious reporter was beginning to suspect the “imaginative bookkeeping” that was going on.

That’s when Lacy learned that Jack was no good in an emergency. Oh, he was cool-headed enough when it came to setting up a scam, operating in the abstract. But present him with a crisis and he crumbled. So as usual, it was up to the little woman.

Still, it was difficult to kill for the first time. She’d had to tell herself over and over that it had to happen or she wouldn’t get what she wanted.

Necessity being the mother of invention, she learned from research and investigation that the way to do this, she being no markswoman, was to get close, be part of the crowd-or, at Eastern Market, part of the shadows. If she set the machine pistol to fire in bursts, two simple trigger squeezes would be more than enough firepower. That’s what the crackhead who sold her the pistol advised her to do. And his advice had been free as well as accurate.

But … that was the past.

Now she and Jack could reap the wealth, the comfort, the soft life they’d earned from all that planning, patience, and risk.

She would take a cab to that little piece of paradise they’d christened The Wheels after St. Waldo’s-the mother of it all. No sense in renting a car; at last count there were three luxury autos stabled at The Wheels. And by the time she called Jack and he got here she could already be there.

Once the cab pulled away from the curb, she really started to unwind. She was headed toward retirement, many enjoyable years of all that a considerable fortune could guarantee.

Jack’s brilliant inspiration to skim millions from the fat cats of St, Waldo’s was equally matched by his selection of Bahrain as their golden hideaway. The little island had long ago abandoned oil as its most important product. Now the streets were lined with banks-banks and hotels. And a private patch of turf known to an intimate few as The Wheels.

Try as anyone might, there was nobody who could force them from their sanctuary. It was time to kick off her shoes. Lacy DeVere had arrived in The Promised Land.

She paid the cabbie, picked up her luggage, and paused before going up the steps. It was gorgeous to the point of being breathtaking. This-dusk settling in-was her favorite time of day, and this-The Wheels-was her dream come true.

Actually, it was well beyond her dreams. If, years ago, someone had told her she’d have a love affair with a Catholic priest, she’d have denied it out of hand. If anyone had told her that she and her lover would live out their lives in a never-never land where money was no object, she’d have laughed herself silly.