William Kienzle - Chameleon

“Wait a minute … I was at that wake.”

“It must have happened before you got there, Zoo. Some uniforms were called and cleared them out. Took Carson to the hospital.”

“A fight?”

“Just some pushing and shoving. Carson ended up with a cut lip. Nothing major. No arrests. No charges.”

“I don’t know,” Tully said. “There’s not much physical going on in what you found. Sounds like he talks a good fight.”

“Wait, Zoo. I phoned the postal branch where he works. He’s not working there anymore.”

Tully looked at her inquiringly.

“He’s been suspended by the post office. He’s appealing the penalty and it’ll probably be a minor punishment that could be reduced.”

“What did he do?”

“Got in a fight-a no-holds-barred fight with a co-worker.”

“Um.” Tully made a relieved sound, as if he’d found the missing piece to a jigsaw puzzle.

“I got this from one of the guys who witnessed the fight, It began when this guy named Hessler started riding Carson about religion. Things like accusing Carson of getting horny over the Blessed Mother.”

“Sounds like a sweet character.”

“He’s the town bully, Zoo. Big guy. Make maybe two of Carson. But he kept at it until Carson blew his cork. Then Carson tore into him. Now I’ll quote this guy I talked to.…” Moore read from her notes. “‘I never saw anything like it,’ he said, ‘Arnie’-that’s Carson-’Arnie didn’t stand a chance.’” She looked up from her notes. “Not only is Hessler twice as big as Arnie, according to my witness, he’s a brutal slob with a real mean disposition. He’s been in lots of fights, usually with smaller guys. He doesn’t just win his fights, he punishes the other guys-beats ’em up. This guy said he was really scared for Carson. Hessler wasn’t just having fun picking on a smaller guy like he usually does; Hessler was mad.” She quoted again from her notes.” ’Cause when he was givin’ it to Arnie-with his mouth, that is-Arnie was givin’ it right back to him. Pretty good, too.’”? She looked up from her notes again. “But when Hessler made that crack about the Blessed Mother, Carson tore right into him.”

As Angie looked down at her notes again, it was hard to tell whether she was quoting verbatim or acting out what she had been told. “‘Well, Hessler starts by givin’ Arnie this rap on the ears. I seen it before: Once Hessler does that, the other guy is in the ozone. I thought old Arn would fold right there. And since Hessler is really sore, I thought we’d be pickin’ Arnie up with a blotter. But would you believe it? Arnie plows right in like Hessler had kissed him instead of paralyzing him. Arnie was … he was … inspired.

“‘To make a long story short, we had to pull Arnie off Hessler or so help me, he woulda killed him. He really woulda.’“

Moore looked up, pleased with her notes of the account. “Now, does that sound to you like a guy who has mellowed out?”

Tully, pleased also, shook his head.

“Carson’s supervisor called 911 and a couple of uniforms got them out of there and filed a report. Of course it’s not our juristdiction.”

“The report our guys made corroborate the story you got?”

Moore nodded. “But not as colorful.”

“It couldn’t have been. It was a bare-hands fight?”

“It was in the beginning. But let me go back to my source.” Angie had really gotten into the spirit of the affair. So much so that Tully could easily envision the scene as she half quoted, half extrapolated from her witnesses’s account of events. “‘It was after we got Arnie off Hessler that the guy came up with the shiv, a big one. Then I was really scared. Not only for Arnie. For the rest of us, too. Hessler was like an animal fightin’ for his life. He woulda cut anybody. Lucky for us that was just the time when the super came in and broke it up.

“‘But you know the funny thing? Even after Hessler pulled the knife, Carson wanted him. I mean there was four of us holdin’ Arnie back and even after Hessler showed us the knife, I had to work as hard to hold Arnie back as when we pulled him off. You know how sometimes there’s a fight and you pull the guys apart and hold ’em? And they’re really not puttin’ up no fight to get back in it; all you gotta do is just keep your hands on the guy so the other guys get the idea the guy really wants to get back in the fight? Well, that ain’t the way it was with Arnie: He really wanted to tear Hessler apart. Even when the SOB was holdin’ a knife. Could you believe that?’”

As she triumphandy wound up her vivid recital, it was impossible to know whether the last question was hers or had been voiced by her witness.

“So the other guy had the weapon,” Tully said.

“Our guy’s report corroborates that,” Moore affirmed.

“Well,” Tully said, “the main thing for our purposes is that Carson seems to have the killer instinct. Your source sounds convinced that Carson would have gone all the way, given the chance.”

“Oh, yeah, Zoo. No doubt diere. Although he did seem to thing it was somewhat out of character-in that Carson had mouthed off lots of times in the past, but this was the first time, in my guy’s experience anyway, that Carson had actually become physical, violent, and even deadly.”

“God, I wish we knew if Carson owned a gun! But … okay for now. Real good work, Angie. How about the Stapleton character?”

She withdrew a much smaller packet of notes and readout sheets from her bag. She held the packet aloft as if performing a show-and-tell.

“Not nearly as much with Stapleton as I found on Carson,” she said. “All I found in the Free Press library was a few items. There was a story dated June 1974 noting that quite a few priests were quitting the priesthood at roughly the same time. Stapleton was among them. But the story didn’t highlight him. The lead was given to a priest who was head of the justice and peace department of the Detroit Church. Stapleton was just mentioned as one of the others who was leaving.”

Head. The word caught Tully’s attention. Another head of another department. Could that have any bearing on the present investigation? “Angie, what was the name of that guy-the head of the Church department?”

She had to page backward to find the item. “Burke … Father Pat Burke.”

“Anything on him?”

“I don’t think so. I knew him back then. Matter of fact when I was a kid in parochial school, he was the assistant pastor in the parish. I had a crush on him.”

“Where is he now? Do you know?”

“Not really. After he quit the priesthood, he moved out of state. Arizona, I think. As far as I know, he’s still there.”

“Check it out, will you?”

“Sure, Zoo.”

“Now, let’s get back to Stapleton.”

“Well, with Fred Stapleton, the only prior notice I could find before that story about all those priests leaving was the one we talked about earlier-when he was shoved down the church steps by Arnold Carson. That, by the way, is a real coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Uh-huh. And I don’t like coincidences, They smack of blind luck and we deal in facts. Whether we find anything or not, we’d better check on whether there’s any connection there.”

“Connection?” Moore asked.

“Where does Stapleton fit in? As far as the Church is concerned.”

“You mean …?” She didn’t finish her thought.

“Well, liberal, conservative? Left wing or right?”

“Oh, Stapleton is a liberal.”

“And Carson is a conservative.”

“Off the globe.”

“Ah,” Tully observed, “that would explain the pushing incident.”

“Yes. Stapleton and Carson were always on opposite sides of just about everything.”