Wednesday 10:35 A.M.
Turner checked the local news on CLTV before he left the house. The news showed a herd of reporters and cameramen outside a nursing home. He turned up the sound. The reporter was saying, “The Cardinal’s mother is in a sub-standard nursing home. The word we have is he hasn’t visited his mother in years. Added to the Cardinal’s entertaining video from the other day, this news further tarnishes his reputation. His own mother…”
Turner smiled and turned off the television.
At Area Ten headquarters Fenwick greeted him with a grim smile. He’d seen the newscasts. “Do not fuck with Mrs. Talucci. I would not want to be Cardinal Duggan now and for the rest of his life.”
First Turner called Bruno, Keerkins, and Bernard whom they interviewed on Sunday and who had all promised to attempt to find someone that might be willing to talk to the detectives. All three reported failure.
The detectives stood at the vast monitor with all of its well-filled-in boxes. They scrolled and enlarged and rearranged and added.
They got to a column on the town car found at the scene. Turner double checked, “The town car on the street was registered to the Order?”
“Right.”
Turner scrolled to the finances and bills sections. “Yeah, well this says Kappel was paying the bills on a town car. Why is he paying for repairs on a car for the Order?”
“Why shouldn’t he?”
“Nah, that can’t be how it works. In any corporation the corporate cars get paid for from corporate funds.”
“Maybe he paid for it and was reimbursed.”
Turner rechecked the now vast spreadsheet. He looked up the car found abandoned on the street and checked the details. “The VIN number on the town car we found on the street does not match the VIN number of the car he paid for repairs on.”
“They keep VIN numbers on car repairs?”
“Ben does on all the cars he repairs. It’s all on computer. He can look up a car by VIN number, customer name, maybe the phases of the moon for all I know. It all comes up the same, a screen with all the information ever connected to that car. Ben has to with those expensive foreign jobs. He compares them all to stolen car lists. When I take my car into the dealer for servicing, they have everything all on computer.”
“So there’s another town car?”
“Apparently.”
“Where?”
They drove to the dealership where the repairs had taken place. They showed ID, explained what they needed, and gave the manager the VIN number. The records came up a few seconds later. “Problem with the car? It been stolen?”
“No,” Turner said. “The owner died. Thanks for the information.”
They headed for the address. On the way they talked about family and kids, this time mostly about Fenwick’s oldest daughter who was dating a boy he didn’t like, but about whom he was keeping his mouth shut. Fenwick explained, “As Madge put it, her dad hated me and look how well we turned out.”
“Why’d he hate you?”
“He just did. Still does.”
“Did you tell him the wrist joke?”
“No, I swear. Besides, he’s not the wrist joke type.”
“Would that were true of us all.”
It was a fine pleasant early May afternoon. The address was in a distant suburb an hour south and west. They took the Dan Ryan to Interstate 57 and then west on Interstate 80 past Joliet to the Morris exit. Using their GPS they found a town car with the matching license plate sitting in a driveway a mile north of the Interstate. It was a farmhouse in the middle of newly planted fields. A barn and two silos stood beyond the back of the house, which was a one story, brick ranch built probably in the late fifties or early sixties.
A big, burly guy answered their knock. He gasped and burst out crying.
He was half again as big as Fenwick. He wore a tent-sized flannel shirt, and jeans that bagged over sockless feet. Turner reached for the screen door, found it unlocked, and pulled it open. The man turned and slouched into the house. The detectives followed warily. They entered a living room with deep cushy chairs and matching couch. He subsided onto the sofa, put his head in his hands, and sobbed.
Turner looked at a man with red, blotchy skin, brush-cut short hair, and well-chewed fingernails.
When he’d calmed and wiped his face with a large red bandana, Turner asked, “What’s your name?”
He looked at them with deep gray eyes. “Joe Gorman.”
Turner said, “Bishop Kappel paid for the repairs on the town car in your driveway.”
“It’s in my name, but he paid for it, pays for the repairs.”
“Why’s that?” Turner asked.
“We’re lovers.”
Turner avoided looking at Fenwick but his partner blurted the obvious question. “You don’t strike me as his type.”
Gorman said, “I’m not anybody’s type, but we fell in love.”
Turner said, “We’re sorry for your loss.”
“You know how hard it is to love somebody, and they die, and they get murdered, and you can’t find out anything about what happened, and you can’t show anybody you’ve lost anyone because you’re not supposed to say anything about your relationship? That’s one of the reasons we had this house in the middle of nowhere. We had to hide. Him mostly.” He gulped and a few new tears escaped down his red cheeks.
“It’s difficult, not fair,” Turner said.
Fenwick said, “He was living with Tresca.”
“They were lovers years ago. They hadn’t been in a while. Timothy was waiting for the right time to tell him to move out, that it was over.”
“When was he going to do that?”
“I’m not sure.”
If Tresca’s love nest was going to be gone, that would give him motive for murder.
Gorman was continuing. “I can’t even find out if there’s going to be a service. I’d go. I wouldn’t make a scene. None of those people would know who I was anyway. I could cry in the back and say goodbye. Thank God the last thing I said to him was “I love you”.” More tears. The detectives waited for him to stop sobbing. What else was there to do? They weren’t going to be able to stop him, and Turner, for one, didn’t want to. The man was hurting, and he’d been unable to talk to anyone. Or so he claimed. Didn’t he have family of his own?
When he was calmer, Turner asked, “When did you see him last?”
“We spent Thursday night here together. We made love. And no don’t laugh. I know I’m a huge guy. He loved me. We made each other feel great. He was a great lover. Are you homophobic, prejudiced cops?”
Turner said, “We just want to find out who killed him. You know he hired call boys?”
“Yeah. Tim was human. I understood.” He patted his belly. “I know I’m not the most fit guy. A few times we shared guys, here, but that was all. We made love every time we saw each other, but he had needs.”
Turner asked, “Two guys at The Proletarian Workers Sandwich Works reported problems after Kappel had encounters with them.”
Gorman turned red. “They were mean to him. I got even for him. Tim was a good man. He didn’t deserve to be treated like they did him. I was supposed to protect him, and someone killed him. It’s my fault he’s dead.” He wept anew.
When he was again under control, Turner asked, “If he told Tresca it was over, and he was throwing him out, maybe he got angry and wanted to kill Tim.”
“Tresca doesn’t have the balls.”
“You know him?”
“Tim told me all about him. And all of them. Everything.”
“Is this your house or his?”
“It’s in my name. He’d give me money sometimes, always cash, for bills and things.” He gave them a defiant look. “I wasn’t a whore. He loved me.”
“Who do you think killed him?” Turner asked.
“I’m betting it was all of them. Tim was afraid of Bruchard and Duggan. He had the goods on them. We used to laugh about it in bed. Sometime over the past weekend, he was supposed to meet with Duggan, Bruchard, and Tresca.”
“For what?” Turner asked.
“I think a pretty normal planning session. Normal for them.”
Turner wondered if that meeting had taken place and if so what the hell all these guys were up to.
“You were seen banging on the door of the condo last week.”
“I had a key for the parking garage, but not an up to date one for the condo. Besides, I could never be there when he wasn’t because Tresca might show up. I went that day because I was worried about him.”
“Why?”
“I think he was in danger from these people. The lock is like one of those in hotels. He had it changed periodically. He hadn’t gotten me my updated one by then.”
Fenwick asked, “Did he leave records of his investigations here?”
“Yeah. He was always careful. He didn’t trust those people. I never looked at the stuff, but I can show you.” Gorman reached in his pocket, came out with a zip drive, and handed it to him. “He made a copy for me. He didn’t trust Bruchard or Duggan. He was afraid of them. I warned him that those guys were dangerous. I tried to protect him.” He shook his head, pointed to the zip drive. “I think it’s all on there.”
Along with the new data, they took him back to the station. On the way, Gorman kept repeating, “It’s so good to finally have someone to talk to.”
In a rare interval when Gorman was not dithering and babbling, Turner wondered if Kappel was maybe planning to break up with Gorman, not Tresca, or maybe both of them.
At the station Turner tried the zip drive on his computer. It was password protected. Gorman didn’t know the password. Kappel had always told him, it was better he didn’t know. Not telling him was designed as a protection for Gorman from the wrath of any clerics who thought he might know some of Kappel’s secrets.
Fong worked his magic at Turner’s desk for half an hour while Fenwick and Turner filled in Molton, then called for take-out for Gorman, Fong, and themselves.
When Fong broke the password, data flooded out. Some they had. Lots of it came from investigations from years and years before. Gorman could confirm only some of the more recent items. They spent hours with him, going over everything he could remember and all the records Kappel had left with him. They included more names, dates, times, details. On the spreadsheet columns and rows were added and cells expanded. Not only did they now have complete records of his investigations, and with the stuff from Gorman, even more of his personal records as well. At times they had to revise what they had or new information caused connections to be posited between events that hadn’t been connected before.
At one point while Gorman was in the washroom, Fenwick said, “Kappel had over a million in investments and a million more in CDs in banks.”
“Gives a new meaning to the word poverty.”
“And he loved this big, heavy-set guy?”
“Madge loves you.”
“Touché.”
By six Molton brought the State’s Attorney to look at their chart. He offered advice and suggestions.
Turner and Fenwick consulted with Molton before they let Gorman go. “He the killer?” Molton asked.
Turner said, “We’ve got no evidence, nothing to hold him on. He’s been more cooperative than those religious men who were closest to Kappel. He said he was at the farm at the time of the murder.”
Gorman was given a ride back to the farm by a uniformed cop.
The detectives spent two hours on the new information. When they were done with reports, forms, and adding everything to their chart, they gazed at the beautiful, well-ordered spreadsheet and their mound of paperwork.
Molton joined them in front of the large screen. “It’s nigh onto perfect.”
Fenwick groused. “Yeah, well, we ain’t got a killer.”
Turner said, “So Kappel had everything on all of them. All they’d done, all the financial chicanery, personal peccadilloes, and more. They were crooks on a large scale. Nothing says they were killers.”
Fenwick said, “Too many suspects.”
“We’ve got to talk to some of these people again.”
In the next few hours, even with Molton’s help, they were unable to get in touch with any of the principals in the case. A visit to the high rise and to the Abbey and the chancery didn’t get them past any front doors.
Back at Area Ten around ten, they were all gathered at the huge monitor: Turner, Fenwick, Fong, Molton, Wilson, Roosevelt, and Rodriguez.
“This just looks so great,” Fong said.
Fenwick repeated, “Yeah, but it hasn’t gotten us a killer.”
“Can’t have everything,” Fong said.
Wilson said, “But that nun Sister Eliade was right, on some of these Kappel was letting them go.”
Roosevelt said, “Some maybe for kind, gentle reasons.” He used the wireless mouse to point to several squares in the chart. “Some because he wanted to use the information.”
“Complicated man,” Molton said.
“Aren’t we all?” Roosevelt asked.
Wilson said, “Except those of us who are complicated women.”
Fenwick flopped into his chair. “Gazing at that thing doesn’t get us closer to a killer. We already had enough motives for killing before we met Gorman. And we’ve got a lot more details on the lives of these people.”
Everyone except Molton left their desk area. The Commander said, “I’ve been on the phone with the State’s Attorney and various politicians. They may not have friends in high enough places, but the Church still has expensive lawyers and enough clout to put up a huge wall. I’ll keep working on it.”
Turner asked, “How long are they going to take for all these legal people to get these guys?”
Molton said, “I don’t know. They probably don’t know. With the Feds involved, State of Illinois Attorney General’s office, Cook County State’s Attorney, half the damn planet. They may be arguing over who gets to do what for a long time before they get to who is going to arrest what powerful prelate for what insidious crime.”
Turner asked, “I Googled cardinals in the US. I couldn’t find a case of any of them being arrested.”
Fenwick said, “Screw this financial stuff. We don’t have a killer. Are they going to screw up our case?”
Molton said, “I wasn’t aware we had a case against someone.”
Fenwick swallowed a protest. This was the boss after all.
Molton said, “I’ll let you know what the attorneys are up to. You’ve both got the day off tomorrow. Take it. You’ve been working twelve hour days. Do not come in tomorrow. The corpse won’t care, and if one of these guys is the killer, he’s not going to be able to leave town. Exhaustion on one case isn’t going to help do justice to all the other criminals in the city.”
Turner and Fenwick left.