William Kienzle - Chameleon

Tully looked away as he spoke. “We know a murderer has struck twice in a very definite pattern. He may prove to be-if he is not already qualified as-a serial killer. With the murder of Lawrence Hoffer, it becomes far more likely that his first intended victim was Joan-not Helen-Donovan. The only connection, as far as we are able to tell just now-for want of a stronger connection-is the rank Joan and Hoffer hold in the Church structure. Quite frankly”-he looked at Koesler-“we don’t know where he goes from here.

“He may be done. If he is, what he has accomplished is not at all clear. And I get the impression, from the pains he’s taken to help us recognize the slugs, that he wants to make his purpose clear-very clear.

“So, where does he go from here?”

Tully paused. Koesler deemed the question unanswerable.

“Does he go back to first base?” Tully asked finally.

“You mean Sister Joan Donovan? Is it possible the poor woman’s life is still in danger?” Koesler asked. “After all she’s gone through?”

Tully shrugged. “If it’s a case of mistaken identity, then he killed the wrong woman. The ‘right’ woman is still out there. Alive. Or …”

“Or?”

“Or … something else. What? We don’t know. And this is where you come in.”

“I don’t-”

Tully cut in. “I find myself in a tightly specialized territory: department heads in a Catholic Church structure, the administration of the archdiocese of Detroit. I might as well be in the middle of a maze.”

Koesler could see the difficulty. This structure-“the staff”-with which he was so familiar could easily intimidate one who was a stranger to it. “What can I do?”

“For starters, give me a map so’s I can feel a little more at home in this maze.”

Koesler smiled. So absorbed had he become in the business at hand that he no longer felt the cold. “Okay. For starters, here’s the basic chart.” He opened a desk drawer and drew out an 8? X 11 brochure consisting of just four pages.

“And that …?” Tully asked.

“… is a phone directory of archdiocesan department numbers, along with the business phone numbers of just about everybody who works in the administration.”

Tully looked interested. He slid his chair closer.

Koesler looked up from the brochure to see Tully separated from him only by the width of the desk. He turned the brochure around so it was facing Tully. The priest opened the brochure and began to explain as he ran his finger through the listings. “Now, these are-”

“You can read upside down?”

Koesler grinned. “A leftover of my days as editor of the Detroit Catholic. They were still using Linotypes back then, and when they put the type in the galley it was upside down and backward. If you wanted to find something before they ran a proof of it, you had to get used to reading things upside down. It’s not a skill that comes in handy every day, but now and then …”

“Um,” Tully said, creating the impression that Koesler’s explanation was more than was needed to understand a marginal accomplishment.

“Anyway,” Koesler proceeded, “the important part is right here …” He outlined the area with his finger. “All the archdiocesan departments are listed in alphabetical order, with the exception of the first listing.”

“The Cardinal’s office,” Tully read. “The big boss comes first. Makes sense.”

“Yes, outside of the Pope himself, the Cardinal is the big boss. Now, the abbreviations in the parentheses are simple. Opposite the Cardinal’s office you see (C2), which means the Chancery Building, second floor. The other abbreviations are (G), the Gabriel Richard Building, just on the southwest side of Michigan Avenue and Washington Boulevard-”

“Yeah, I know where it is.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no; don’t leave anything out,” Tully insisted, “Anything you can think of, say.”

“Okay. The only other abbreviation besides the Chancery and Gabriel Richard Buildings is SHS, which stands for Sacred Heart Seminary. Know where that is?”

“Chicago Boulevard?”

“And Linwood. That’s it.”

“Good God,” Tully exclaimed as he ran his finger down the columns, “there must be … seventy-three offices!”

Koesler was smiling. “The bureaus do tend to grow like Topsy. But it’s not as complicated as all that. You’re counting each and every office. There aren’t that many actual departments. Just count the listings that are flush with the left margin.”

Tully did. “Twenty-two. Not much better.”

Koesler shrugged. “There’s no helping it. That’s how many there are. And I must confess, I don’t know a great deal about many of these offices.”

“That’s okay.” Tully studied the listings for several minutes. “I can get my people to call on all the offices listed here and get that straightened out. For now, tell me what you can about the people who head these departments.”

“A big order.”

“But you know them.”

“Pretty well.”

“Well, take the ones who got us started on this: the nun and Hoffer.”

“Sister Joan Donovan? Right. She belongs to a religious order, the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary-or IHMs. They’re a teaching order. And that’s what Sister Joan did, for many years: taught. Then things began to change. Because of a Church council called Vatican II.”

“Okay. I’ve read about that. What happened to her?”

“Like lots of other nuns, she stopped teaching and went into another line of work. In her case, Joan got into parish ministry-working in a parish, doing a lot of things priests used to do back when there were lots of priests.”

“Holding Sunday services?’

“Not Mass. Sometimes when there’s no priest around, nuns or even laypeople conduct prayer services. But Mass is much more than that for Catholics. Only a priest can offer Mass. But Sister Joan did lots of other things, like counseling and visiting the sick and, of course, some office work too.”

“But how did she get to be … what?”

“Delegate for religious?”

“Yeah.”

“Appointed. Kind of elected. But basically appointed. The powers that be recognized that she was popular with many of the nuns. They realized that she’d have to be effective as, in effect, their representative. Then, for formality, the Cardinal appointed her to the position.”

“She could have made some enemies among the nuns?”

“Enemies?”

“It’s not a friend wants to kill her.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s very likely.”

“Okay, how about Hoffer?”

“That’s something else. Assigning a job like his to a layperson is a very recent phenomenon. In the not-too-distant past, positions like that were always handled by priests. Probably not as well as they are now,” he added.

“Not as well?” Tully was surprised. “The priests weren’t trained for specialized jobs?”

Koesler pondered the question before responding. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. When an academic degree was called for, priests were sent away to get the appropriate certificate. Social workers, for instance, got an MSW. Or priests who were assigned to teach in the seminary were sent to graduate school, although sometimes in a field that didn’t interest them.

“Or take my case: I was named editor of the Detroit Catholic. No academic degree was required, so I got none. Matter of fact, after my appointment was published, a priest friend called and asked if the archdiocese had spent a penny getting me ready for the job. I had to admit he was right in his assumption-not a cent. Then he said”-Koesler chuckled-“‘Well, it won’t be your fault when you flop.’”

The faintest trace of a smile crossed Tully’s face.