William Kienzle - Chameleon

“Oh, come now!” Joan touched the bishop’s arm. It was as if she were holding naked bone.

“No, no. You are both lovely ladies. Now, if an old coot like me can’t get away with passing a compliment with no strings attached, who in God’s green world can?”

Joan smiled briefly. “You know, Bishop, she and I were never close. That surprises me now that I look back on it. We were the only children in our family, both girls. You’d think we would have appreciated each other, shared things. But aside of my hand-me-downs we shared almost nothing. I got excellent marks in school-that sort of challenged her. I did well in academics; she did not. But she did better in almost everything else.”

They fell silent for a few moments.

“Your sister is grateful to you now,” Foley said. “Grateful that you’ve gone to all this trouble to have her buried properly.”

“Oh, do you really think so? I’ve been wondering whether I’m doing all this for her or for myself. For a long, long time she couldn’t have cared less about the church or religion. What difference would this ceremony make to her now?”

“Well, m’dear, I’ve always thought that when we die, we will be judged by love. I am so very, desperately grateful that when I go, I will not be judged by any fellow human-no matter how understanding and forgiving that person may be. No, your sister’s been judged by the only one who goes on loving us no matter what we do. Keep in mind the words of St. John, ‘God is love and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.’ Forgive the sexist pronouns, m’dear.”

Strange , thought Joan, he hasn’t said anything I didn’t know. And yet I feel so much better, so very much better.

“And while we’re at it,” Foley added, “we might remember some other words from Scripture: ‘It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead.’ Will you join me on the kneeler? I promise I won’t get fresh.”

Joan almost laughed out loud.

As they knelt, most of those in the room followed suit. Archbishop Foley led the group in the glorious mysteries. To even slightly old-fashioned Catholics, the rosary, particularly in this setting, was a consolation. To others, the whole thing was a mystery-not joyful, not sorrowful, not glorious. Just a mystery.

The rosary completed, Foley creaked to his feet, said a few more words to Joan, patted her hand, and shuffled toward the exit.

The others waited, either out of genuine respect or in deference to his rank. Then nearly everyone participated in a mass exit. Koesler, intent on speaking to Joan, felt like a salmon swimming upstream.

By the time he reached the front of the room only a few people remained. They were clustered around Sister Joan. As he knelt briefly before the casket, he was struck by Helen’s resemblance to Joan. They were not twins, but they very definitely were look-alike sisters.

As he prayed that Helen be at peace with God, he wondered how two lives so joined in consanguinity could have developed so differently, as Helen and Joan had drifted apart in every conceivable way.

When he finished his prayer, he stood at the rear of the small group offering condolences to Joan. She noticed him standing there awkwardly and broke away long enough to thank him for attending. It was a perfunctory greeting. Koesler was certain that later Joan would not even remember his presence. But that was understandable. It was not at all uncommon for the bereaved to be distracted, even unaware of what was taking place. The death of a loved one may be the ultimate shock.

As Koesler turned to leave, none of the original crowd, outside of the few with Joan, remained-except the ladies who did not represent the Rosary Altar Society. They were in the doorway talking to a black man with an engaging smile.

Koesler knew the man from somewhere. As usual in such situations, he began reflecting on parishes he had served. Frequently, priests’ contacts with laity took place on the parochial level. This was an easy case to check; he had had relatively few black parishioners during his priestly ministry to date. He hoped to correct that imbalance through old St. Joseph’s parish.

But, if not a parish, then where? Of course: Lieutenant Tully. What was that nickname some used? Oh, yes: Zoo.

Koesler was tempted to classify their association as having “worked together” on a couple of cases. But that would be a somewhat grandiose description. Let’s keep things in perspective, he thought: Tully was the cop. And from what Koesler’s close friend Inspector Walter Koznicki had said, Tully was the inspector’s most valued officer in the Homicide Division. From the amateur’s point of view, Koesler would agree at least with the fact that Tully was totally dedicated to his work.

And Koesler? Over the past decade, Homicide had investigated some cases with decidedly Catholic angles. He had merely clarified some facets of Catholicism that had cleared the way for the police to do their job

In the periphery of his vision, Tully caught Koesler looking in his direction. He had been waiting for that. Graciously he terminated his conversation with the women and stepped forward into the nearly empty room toward Koesler. For Tully, Koesler represented an oasis of familiarity in a desert of foreign identities.

They greeted each other cordially but their mutual greeting was more pro forma than personal.

“For just a second there, Lieutenant”-Koesler’s sole use of nicknames was confined to colleagues who were friends from childhood-“I was surprised to see you here. Then I recalled that this is, after all, a murder investigation. So why wouldn’t you be here?”

“Uh-huh. Good to see you again, And you? Did you know the deceased?”

For just an instant, Koesler reacted as if he were being interrogated. “No, not at all.” Then he relaxed. “I do know her sister, Sister Joan. I was afraid there wouldn’t be many showing up for this wake so I was going to add my body to the few. Obviously”-Koesler’s gesture encompassed what had been a packed room-“I was mistaken.”

“You weren’t the only one surprised. What attracted this crowd?”

“Oh, I think certainly the fact that Sister Joan is the head of a department in the archdiocese. A few of the people here tonight are also department heads, and a lot of the others work in the various departments.”

That makes sense, thought Tully. “And you know all these people?”

Koesler nodded. “Most of them. Certainly all the department heads. Not everyone who works under them.”

“Interesting. The elderly gentleman, the one who led the prayers, he a department head?”

“No, he’s a bishop. An archbishop.” Koesler had had this perception many times before. There was no shorthand to explain the trappings of Catholicism-its law, doctrine, morality, liturgy, etc.-easily and simply. “He’s retired.”

“Retired? Then why’s he leading the prayers?”

Koesler didn’t immediately grasp the thrust of Tully’s question. “Leading prayers?” Then, “Oh, I see. Well, priests, bishops, even if they’re retired, don’t stop praying or even leading prayers. They can continue doing as much or as little as they wish and as the Church law allows, liturgically if not parochially. Most of them want to be rid of administrative work. But most of them still want to be with people-want to be of some service to people.”

“Makes sense, I guess.” Once again Tully felt overwhelmed with the amount of detail in Catholicism-in all of organized religion, for all he knew-and how little of it he understood or was aware of. At this point Koesler was his only guide to a vast unknown area that might be important to this case. He fervently hoped there was no connection. Mostly, he hoped this homicide was not a case of mistaken identity. For if the real intended victim was the nun, Tully could be drawn into this maze of Catholicism he so little understood. “You’re not goin’ on vacation anytime soon, are you?”