27

 

Pat Lennon sat at her desk cautiously sipping a steaming cup of coffee. Every so often she ran a hand through her hair. Crossed over her right leg, her left leg from just above the knee to the ankle presented a most attractive extremity. She was studying several clippings she’d found in the Detroit News library.

All of the articles had to do with the world’s population crunch and the events and opinions that were adding to the problem.

One story noted a report from the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London: “If current predictions of population growth prove accurate and patterns of human activity on the planet remain unchanged, science and technology may not be able to prevent either irreversible degradation of the environment or continued poverty for much of the world.”

That column concluded: “The world has quietly entered a new era, one in which satisfying the food needs of 90 million more people each year is possible only by reducing consumption among those already here. The only option may be an all-out effort to slow population growth.”

An editorial in the National Catholic Reporter quoted Worldwatch president Lester Brown noting four major trends in what he termed this age of discontinuity: “ (1) World population is expanding faster than the world’s ability to produce basic foodstuffs. (2) The global economy appears to be chronologically sluggish. (3) The world energy economy is apparently ‘on the edge of basic restructuring.’ (4) The population boom is beginning to undermine world living standards.”

The editorial stated: “We all have a stake in working to turn the many negative trends around, but—given that population growth is a basic part of the problem—the Catholic church has a special responsibility here.

“The world fertility rate is no longer declining. It ranges from an average of 1.3 children per woman in Italy (the Vatican’s backyard, no less) to 6.7 in Pakistan. Worldwatch wisely notes that it is not enough simply to hand out contraceptives. Only ‘fundamental changes that improve women’s lives and increase their access to and control over money, credit and other resources’ will finally lower the fertility rate.

“But contraceptives are a start.”

Finally, in an article published in the Jesuit magazine, America, John C. Schwarz listed many of the world’s problems concerning particularly poverty and overpopulation. He wrote: “A leading moral theologian of our time, Bernard Häring, a Redemptorist priest, who was himself a member of Pope Paul VI’s special commission on the contraception issue, has continued to voice serious dissatisfaction with the Church’s stand—on artificial contraception itself, and on the raising of this issue to a major point of Catholic orthodoxy.”

Then Schwarz quoted Haring: “I hope our beloved Pontiff understands that we are dealing with a conflict of epic proportions, no less than the one at Antioch between Peter and Paul …. We are dealing with a question of maintaining a responsible and deliberate Christian ethic that will allow the Church to be a prophetic, believable voice in the effort toward peace, justice and the safeguarding of creation.”

Then Father Häring added: “My most pressing concerns of these, my last years, are not disputes of sexual morality … but about the survival of the human race and life on our planet.”

Lennon looked up but focused on nothing.

None of the articles Pat researched had been written as a preliminary to the present papal visit. Each of these articles feared that the Catholic Church’s “official stand” on birth control was a definite contributing factor in the world’s overpopulation and that it could lead to such a cataclysm that we might populate ourselves out of existence.

There was no sense of the hysterical in these articles. They were well reasoned. Overpopulation was not the only threatening statistic. Nor was the Church’s persistent policy the only cause of this critical problem.

But the Catholic Church, in its insistence that the rest of the world conform to its teaching on family planning, was at the very least intensifying this coming crisis.

Adding to the weight of all this was the threat of the pope’s next step. Realistically, this had gone well beyond the realm of rumor. As far as Lennon was concerned, the pope was damn well going to make Church policy, as set forth in Paul’s Humanae Vitae, a doctrine protected by infallibility. Once he did that, things were going to get a lot worse. Fast.

As she was reaching these conclusions, she became conscious of someone standing on the other side of her desk. Bob Ankenazy smiled as he read the headlines of the clips she had been reading. “Glad you’re doing some backgrounding,” he said.

“Backgrounding? I’m not on this story.”

“You are now.” He covered her clippings with the Free Press’s morning final.

Her heart skipped as she quickly scanned page one. There it was: VISITING PRIEST SCHOLAR FOUND DEAD. The bug line: POLICE SUSPECT FOUL PLAY. Her practiced eye noted not only Joe Cox’s byline, but also mat the Free Press had copyrighted the report. That told her all she needed to know about that story.

There were plenty of caution words such as “alleged” and disclaimers such as “a source that wished to remain anonymous,” or, “would not speak for attribution.”

The inescapable conclusion was that one of the priest-experts who was to have spoken as part of the symposium was found dead about midnight at the bottom of a staircase at Sacred Heart Seminary. His neck had been broken. It might have been an accident, but police were investigating the possibility of murder. The priest, Father Daniel Hanson, had been a liberal scholar and was a professor at etc., etc., etc.

Pat looked up. “This is the first I’ve heard.”

“It’s on radio and TV … but they’re all using Cox’s story as their source. Evidently, they’re unable to corroborate it. So, to protect their rears, they’re attributing it to the Freep. If Cox gets burned, they don’t want to go down in flames with him.”

“Are we checking it?”

“Sure. So far we’ve got what Cox already wrote. The cops were called about midnight; the priest’s neck was broken; it could have been an accidental fall or it could be murder. The cops give the impression their investigation is pro forma. It’s a big story and they don’t want to be caught bungling.

“It’s pretty obvious they’re playing this close to the vest. As usual, they want to investigate without us on their back. They wouldn’t be giving us what they have so far without Cox’s having broken the story. I’d have to say that even if what he implies is conjecture and may be false, he’s got the essence. And there’s no doubt he got it first. It puts the Freep way out front. That’s why the boss wants you on this story. Yesterday.”

“Oh, swell! The score’s a hundred to nothing and he wants me to go in and win the game!”

“Just ‘cause Cox got lucky doesn’t mean we can’t get this story back.”

“Lucky! The dead priest was found about midnight, right?”

Ankenazy nodded. Secretly Ankenazy agreed with what he knew she was going to say. He was the messenger. And she was going to kill him.

“That means that he had approximately an hour and a quarter till the Freep’s final deadline. And he beat it. How the hell did he do that? Can you tell me?”

Ankenazy shrugged. “Give it your best shot, Pat.”

“Yeah, I know. This wasn’t your idea. Sorry I took it out on you.”

With a brief smile, Ankenazy walked away.

How the hell did he do it? Cox’s accomplishment almost defied logistics. One way he could’ve pulled this off … but she didn’t want to think of it.

She tried to plan her strategy, or more exactly, come up with any strategy at all. But Cox and his scoop kept interfering with her thought process. Finally, she dialed a number.

“Cox,” he said tersely after only one ring.

“Lennon,” she said, in, to her, an amazingly calm tone.

“Howdja like it?” Unable to keep the gloat from his voice.

“Congratulations, sweetie. How’d you ever beat your deadline?”

“Uh-uh; mustn’t tell all the family secrets.”

“Okay—one thing. Tell me if I’m wrong: You’re guessing on the murder angle.”

“Okay, you win that one.”

“You had to be.” Pause. “I just wanted you to know: Simons put me on the story.”

A longer pause. Then, “You’re on! This really is the way to get back in harness, going against the best. See you at the finish line.”

They hung up simultaneously.

She gave it another minute’s thought before launching her own investigation of the story.

Cox had to have a source who was there at the seminary when the body was found. A source at the morgue couldn’t have helped. By the time they got the body to the morgue it would be too late to call Cox in time for him to, first, clear page-one space with the night city editor and, second, write the story.

No, the leak had to be either with the uniforms that responded to the 911, or with the detectives that handled the scene, or with the EMS crew.

There was only one other possible explanation.

Cox wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t have done that.

But it would explain the scoop.

One room in Cobo Arena had been created and set aside for news conferences. No one had anticipated the room would be so full this early in the papal preliminaries. The media in general had not been impressed with the preclusive symposium. Generally, everyone was primed to glom on to the number one attraction: the pope.

About the only newsperson who took the symposium seriously was the Freep’s Joe Cox. And had that panned out for him!

He alone had perceived the structured dichotomy between liberal and conservative views on the various panels. These striking philosophical differences gave him an insight into Father Hanson’s death.

Why might someone kill Father Hanson? Perhaps because Father Hanson was a crashing liberal. And crashing conservatives have a habit of not liking crashing liberals.

If this proved a false lead, at least it was not bad for starters.

In any case, Joe Cox was about the only first-string newsperson not at this early morning’s news conference. This made some of the other top news gatherers somewhat nervous. So far this was Cox’s story. In one mighty scoop he seemed to have regained the magic touch for which he had been famous before Chicago. The others did not know where Cox was just now. But quite a few of them secretly would have liked to be wherever Cox was.

But time and the news march on.

The sun guns cast a brilliance on the front end of the room. Grouped around those powerful and warming lights were the collected reporters from print, radio, and—the reason for the lights—television.

In the glare of the lights was the dais upon which stood two clerically garbed men: Dietrich Cardinal Schinder and Monsignor Frank Martin.

Schinder appeared refreshed. It was impossible to tell whether he’d had a restful night’s sleep. It was a good bet that he had been awakened with news of Hanson’s death. But he surely did not look it.

Monsignor Martin, on the other hand, looked rumpled, disheveled, and tired. Sleep or no, Hanson’s death had had an obvious effect on the monsignor.

As usual, the TV reporters started things off. Due to the lighting, neither Schinder nor Martin could identify who was asking questions. At best, they were able to ascertain the direction whence they came.

Voice: “Do you know for sure yet whether Father Hanson’s death was accidental or murder?”

Schinder: “The police are still investigating.”

Voice: “Which do you think it was?”

Schinder: “We’re waiting for the police to say.”

Voice: “This morning’s Free Press said that Father Hanson’s neck had been broken and that he had fallen down a flight of stairs. Doesn’t that sound accidental to you?”

Schinder (with a smile that could at once be chilling or charming and a gesture that included Martin): “We are just simple priests. We cannot pretend to tell the police their business. We wait for them to complete their investigation.”

Voice: “Now that Father Hanson is dead, what will happen to the panel on dogmatic theology?”

Schinder waved the question to Martin, who had been rubbing his eyes. He stopped when Schinder deferred to him. His eyes were red-rimmed. “There is no possible way we could go on with that panel. It is simply canceled. We will go forward with the rest of the program.”

“However,” Schinder added, “Father John Selner, the other dogmatic panelist, will offer his prepared paper to the conference. It will be part of the published report of the symposium.”

Martin looked surprised and angry. Obviously this was news to him—something Schinder had neither cleared with him nor informed him of.

The questions and answers droned on. Realistically, there was not much the reporters could ask because there wasn’t much the clergymen knew. As the session continued—the reporters had to take something home with them—the television crews dismantled their gear and departed. The radio and print people continued their questioning. It was always possible that someone would, willy-nilly, come up with something that was newsworthy. Woe unto the reporter who folded his or her tent and left before the elusive question had been asked and answered.

Pat Lennon had arrived at the news conference a bit late. But then she had received this assignment a bit late.

She too wondered where the hell Joe Cox was. She did not wonder about it nearly as long as had the others.

Early on, she noted Lieutenant Tully standing near the door directing a series of his detectives.

Both Lennon and Tully had lived in the Detroit area most of their lives. One reported for the most part on the local crime scene. The other spent most of his time catching criminals, mostly murderers. The lives of Lennon and Tully had touched several times over the years. Occasionally they had walked the fine line between friendship and an affair. The latter possibility had ended with Tully’s marriage to Anne Marie. However the mutual trust that had developed between them was secure.

The parade of detectives receiving marching orders from Tully appeared to end. The news conference continued. Lennon made her way to Tully’s side. Plainly he was pleased to see her.

After their affable greeting, Tully turned professional. “Did you catch Cox’s story this morning?”

She nodded. “I’ve been wondering how he got it.”

“So have we! Only we’re not just wondering; we’re trying to find the leak.”

“You’re sure it’s a leak?”

“Gotta be!” His expression asked what else it could be. “His deadline had to be close to one A.M., no?”

Again she nodded.

“It just doesn’t figure. The only ones who knew about the priest’s death were the uniforms responding to the 911, our guys, and the EMS people. We’ve cleared the uniforms. We’re looking at our guys now. But that story gave out way too much detail.”

“The broken neck?”

“That’s a big one.”

She bit her lip. “If I’d had it, I would’ve used it.”

Tully looked at her a moment. This is where they parted in adversarial ways. His job, in part, was to reserve information the sole possession of which could aid and expedite an investigation. Her task was to get all the information she could and communicate it—with some certain exceptions—to the public.

“The point is,” Tully said, “that information should have been carefully protected and not released by anyone but a senior officer. The point is, we’ve got a problem and we’ve got to solve it.”

“Is it murder?” she asked point blank.

“Doc Moellmann is not divulging the cause of death pending our investigation. But”—his tone was confidential—”I think it’s safe to say that’s probably where we’re going.”

Lennon recognized Tully’s message. It was a cautious affirmation that he used with precious few, trusted souls. It meant that in his professional opinion, it was murder, but that Lennon should not write murder just yet. However, she would be safe in pursuing the story as if it were a homicide—because, in his expert opinion, that’s what it was.

Lennon was aware that it had been some time since she had paid attention to the news conference. She glanced at the dais. Where there had been two clergymen fielding the questions, now there was one—Monsignor Martin.

“Where’d the other one go?”

“What?” Tully followed her gaze to the dais.

“There were two up there. The Cardinal’s gone.”

“Damn!”

Tully, followed by Lennon, strode to the arena guard standing near the only door to the room. “The Cardinal: Where’d he go?”

“He left.”

“When?”

“Just a few, maybe five, ten minutes ago.”

“What happened? Do you know what happened? Why he left?”

“He got a phone call.” The guard pointed to the temporary hookup at the back of the room.

“Save me from pulling this information out of you,” Tully said through tight teeth. “Give it to me from the top.”

“Okay. This is my station. Me and Harry over there, we’re supposed to check the credentials of everybody who wants to get in here.

“Like I say, about maybe ten minutes ago the phone rang. We’ve got it on low so we can hear the ring but it won’t bother anybody else.”

“And?”

“I pick it up. Somebody wants to talk to the Cardinal. I ask who’s callin’. He says to tell the Cardinal it’s about Father Hanson. So I go up to the dais and tell the Cardinal the message.

“Right away he gets up and I bring him to the phone. He listens for a couple minutes—make that seconds. Then he leaves.”

“What did the caller’s voice sound like?”

“Geez, it was real low. I could hardly make out what he was saying.”

“He.”

“Yeah … I think it was a guy.”

“What’d he sound like? Give me everything you can remember.”

“I think it was a guy. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was a guy. Maybe kind of young. Maybe ‘cause he sounded nervous is why he sounded young.”

“And he said the call was about Father Hanson.”

“Yeah. That’s what I told the Cardinal.”

“What did the Cardinal do then, after he took the call?”

“He left.”

“He just walked out?”

“Well, he got his hat and coat from the rack and he went.”

Tully, still trailed by Lennon, hurried out the door where they found a uniformed officer. “You know who Cardinal Schinder is, right?” Tully said.

“Yeah, right. He left maybe ten, fifteen minutes ago.”

“Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know”

“You’re supposed to be with him everywhere in this building and get the next officer if he leaves the building.”

“I tried. I tried. He refused. Said he had something important he had to do, and he had to do it alone. Honest, Zoo, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. He flat out refused to have anybody go with him.”

Tully turned when he saw the arena guard approaching. “What?”

“I just remember something the Cardinal said … before he hung up, I mean.”

“What?”

“He said, ‘This time, no murder.’”