Tuesday 2:02 P.M.
After finishing up more paperwork and doing collating and arranging more items on the spreadsheet, they decided to start with Fr. Howard Cehak, the parish priest who’d supposedly unearthed financial malfeasance.
At the rectory of St. Couffignals on the near north side, the door was answered by a florid-faced man wearing a Hawaiian flowered shirt and black pants.
He looked at their ID. He said, “I’m the old guy who has the goods on the Cardinal. Today’s headlines aren’t enough? I can add to his misery, if you guys are smart.”
He led them to a kitchen table. Without asking, he filled three coffee cups, placed them on the table in front of the detectives, put artificial cream and diet sugar packets on the table, and sat down. He offered them each a dollop of whiskey for their coffee. They declined. He indulged then began, “I know everything. I have proof of everything. I have copies. They don’t know I have copies. Thank God I knew enough to make copies. These people are ruthless. You’ll never get to the truth. Even if the Cardinal is forced to resign because he was a drag queen.” He chuckled for several moments. “A drag queen! That’s great. Everybody thinks we’re gay, but a drag queen. Ha! That’s rich.” He lost his smile. “But they’re ruthless cheaters.”
They let him rattle on for several more minutes, then Fenwick interrupted. “Exactly who was cheating, when, and on what?”
“Well, that is the question.”
“How did all this start?” Fenwick asked.
“Fifty years ago I was a young assistant at a parish in Hegewisch, down on the southeast side. The church roof needed repair. I found a couple guys in the parish who were willing to do it for free. The pastor found out about it. He went nuts. He said we had to go through channels. Didn’t matter that I could get it done for free. I got suspicious. It took a while, but I found out that it was all connected. That tiny little job! The local alderman and the financial office of the diocese got involved. I kept track of everything I could and kept records about those things that were supposed to be secret. I took note of anything and everything. And my young friends who’d been in the same seminary class as I was, when we’d talk, we’d go over stuff they noticed too. And they’d give me records. None of them was willing to stand up. Nobody in this organization really is. I found that out to my chagrin.” He sipped coffee. The detectives had no intention of interrupting him. The man was on a roll.
“The second thing I found was just as simple. Most of them were, or they started that way. See, I was in charge of setting up the Christmas display in the church. It costs over a hundred thousand dollars.”
Fenwick asked, “You spent a hundred thousand?”
“No, they did the year before. It took hours to set up all the lights on all the bushes, plaster and plastic animals on the roof of the church, just incredible stuff. The young guys from the parish who were helping me set it up blabbed. We were getting a beer afterward at a local pub. I didn’t have my clerical stuff on. One guy blurted it out. It was a working class parish, and they spent this money. I found receipts later, but they were for less than ten thousand, but they’d paid for a hundred thousand.” He pointed at the mass of papers next to him. “It’s all in there. Even ten thousand I thought too much. I priced some of the items. They were way over priced for what they were worth. Somebody was getting a lot of money for Rudolf and his nose glowing on the roof. A hundred thousand all those years ago for Christmas?”
Cehak began detailing all the minutia he’d accumulated over the years. He said, “Finally fifteen years ago, I talked it over with a lawyer in the parish I was in. I was pastor by then. I thought I had some standing. The lawyer was real helpful. He said make copies of everything and hide them. Good thing I did. I went to the chancery office and laid out what I had. What a bombshell! What a failure!”
He paused and sipped more coffee, wiped his forehead, his hands moved restlessly, and his knee bounced continuously. From the man’s red face and these personal tics, Turner suspected he had high blood pressure.
“What failed?” Turner asked.
“All of it. Every fucking thing. Excuse my language. It all came crashing down. They took my documents and then nothing happened. I had the sense not to tell them I had copies. Then the new cardinal came in, and I got a visit from Kappel. He had the sense to ask if I had copies. I had the sense to make another set of copies before I gave him what I had. And lie to him about having more copies.”
“So Kappel knew all about it?”
“Yep. And nothing came of what I gave him.”
Turner thought, Kappel either had another chance to cover up or a huge opportunity to have more leverage to get what he wanted. Turner just couldn’t figure out what it was that he wanted.
“Did the malfeasance continue under the new cardinal?” Turner asked.
“I was out of the loop by then. I presume it did, but I have no proof it did.”
“Can we get copies of what you’ve got?”
“And it will do what good?”
“We’re not sure. We’ll hope it will lead to a murderer.”
“How?”
“We’re not sure how,” Turner said. “In a murder investigation we look into everything. Most things lead to nothing. A few things lead to a killer.”
“A clue. You want a clue. And maybe I could give you a clue to Kappel’s murderer.”
“How did Kappel know to come talk to you?”
“They kept records in the chancery office. Complete records I’m sure. They know where everything is buried.”
“How was he to deal with when you talked to him?”
“He seemed coldly efficient.”
“Did you talk to him after he came here?”
“No. I figured nothing would get done.”
“Why’d you even give him copies?”
He sighed. “Hope? I always start with hope. But he turned out to be like all the rest. Protect Holy Mother Church at all costs.”
“When can we get copies?” Turner asked.
“Now. A few years ago, I took the time to have everything scanned.” He pulled out a zip drive. “You got a zip drive? I can upload it onto any device that you’ve got, or I could email it.”
“You have all this backed up, right?” Fenwick asked.
Cehak gave him a pitying look. “I’ve been dealing with this crap a long time. Of course, I do.” He plugged his zip drive into a laptop computer and emailed everything to Turner. Turner opened his phone and saw that the attachment had arrived. He checked that it opened and he could read the documents. He could.
“Do you know Bishop Pelagius is in town?”
“The Papal Nuncio? No.”
“You know a big, burly guy who drives around in a limousine who may or may not have worked for Kappel or the Sacred Heart of Bleeding Jesus Order?”
“Nope. Sorry. I know little about the Order itself. I’m a diocesan priest.” As he led them to the door, he said, “It’s you guys I’d be worried about.”
“Why’s that?” Fenwick asked.
“The church isn’t going to let you besmirch them.”
Fenwick said, “They can’t stop a murder investigation.”
“I pity you,” Cehak said. “That’s such a naïve, simple belief. I envy you your naiveté.”
In the car Fenwick said, “Another old guy. Are these guys all alcoholics?”
Turner shrugged. “They don’t confide in me much. I’m more interested in their insights on murder not if they belong to AA. Why wouldn’t they kill Cehak instead of Kappel? This guy had damaging information.”
“The murder wasn’t about money?”
“Then what was it about?”
“If I knew that, we’d be home already.”
Turner emailed his new attachment to Molton and to Jeanne D’Amato along with an explanatory note. D’Amato replied that she’d get right to it.
They got back to their desks and started hunting through what Cehak had given them and comparing it to the mass of documents they’d already accumulated. They continued to fill out their paperwork as they went through the information.
Turner added data he thought relevant to the spreadsheet he’d created of people and events, possible motives, and where who was when.