Assault with Intent

by William X. Kienzle

Tonight, three steaks were broiling while frozen vegetables were thawing in boiling water. Koesler attacked head lettuce and spinach in the preparation of one of his few specialties—tossed salad.

  “Still not drinking, Father?” Wanda Koznicki could not get used to a Koesler sans his usual preprandial bourbon manhattan.

  “No, Wanda. Since that doctored gin, I’m still a bit queasy about alcohol.”

  “I don’t blame you. I still get a shiver when I think of someone actually trying to kill you.”

  Koesler chuckled. “I shouldn’t think you’d be disturbed by attempted murder after all the years you’ve spent looking over your husband’s shoulder.”

  “Oh, but it’s not the same. You know that, Bob.” Wanda occasionally used Koesler’s given name. Her husband always used the priest’s title. “It’s as different as night from day when the intended victim is a dear friend.”

  “She’s right, Father,” said Koznicki. “Even with my long experience in Homicide, I was shocked when we discovered the contents of that bottle.”

  “Well, so was I,” Koesler acknowledged. “I guess I just never thought I was important enough to be the target of a murderer. I’ve had a number of extremely conservative adversaries—I wouldn’t go so far as to call them enemies—when I was editor of the Detroit Catholic. But even that opposition never escalated beyond the medium of correspondence. I wrote editorials, and they wrote angry letters to the editor.

  “But, then, I don’t suppose many murder victims expect the attack, do they?”

  “In most instances, I do not think so,” Koznicki replied. “A goodly percentage of premeditated murders in this city are the result of organized crime. You might think that people engaged in such criminal activity might well anticipate a violent end. But most do not. Just as they do not anticipate being apprehended. They expect all that to happen to the other guy.

  “Then there is the family homicide. It is rarely premeditated; generally it is provoked by a violent argument and abetted by the availability of a weapon, usually a gun.

  “But now that you mention those conservative adversaries, have you been following the series on the Tridentine Society in the Free Press and the News?”

  “Oh, Walt,” said Wanda, “we shouldn’t be talking business. This is a dinner party.”

  “It’s a dinner party only if I don’t foul it up.” Koesler scraped the sliced radishes into the salad bowl. “And I don’t mind talking about it. Actually, it helps.

  “Yes, I followed them carefully, Inspector. I thought they were extremely well written, and showed the nicely contrasting styles of Joe Cox and Pat Lennon."

  Koznicki smiled. “I did not intend to ask for a journalistic appraisal of the reporters’ styles, Father. I meant, what do you think of the Tridentine Society and its members?”

  “Well, it’s rather too easy to find them laughable. Their positions and opinions are so extreme. This business of the Tumerango Visions, for instance … ” Koesler checked the steaks; they were ready. He ladled the vegetables onto serving dishes. “…every responsible Church authority has disclaimed them. Yet the Tridentines are buying patches of Tumerango turf. They’re even storing up branches from the tree over which all Church authorities agree the Blessed Mother has not appeared.”

  The Koznickis laughed.

  “But in all this humor, it’s too easy to overlook the fact that some of these people can be dangerous.” Koesler began to transfer the food to the dining room table. “They feel they have been virtually forsaken by their Church. And their Church, or the way they perceive their Church in retrospect, is of prime importance to them. They are humorless, aggrieved, abandoned people. Such people can be very dangerous.”

  Koesler invited the Koznickis to the dining room, led the before-meal grace, and poured three cups of coffee.

  “I could not agree with you more, Father,” said Koznicki. “And the present path of our investigation is in the direction of the very same Tridentine Society. But they are a slippery group.”

  Wanda hoped Koesler would have to return to the kitchen soon. She would take that opportunity, as she had on any number of occasions, to pour her coffee into the potted plant.

  Dear, dear Father Koesler! He was such a sweet, good friend. But the poor man simply could not make a decent cup of coffee.

  “I agree with you,” said Sergeant Morris, “but with me it’s more a matter of intuition.”

  Sergeant Patrick smiled broadly. “Just between the two of us, I’ll go with your intuition every time. But, as we both know, intuition gets a rather unreceptive reaction in a court of law.”

  “Oh, I know. I know.”

  It was early Monday morning, and the two detectives were headed toward the far northeast section of Detroit. They were continuing their investigation into the disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl who, when last seen, had been selling Girl Scout cookies door-to-door.

  “My intuition aside, what makes you think we should return to the Sommers’ home?”

  “Well,” Patrick’s brow furrowed, “first off, the Sommers’ house is the last place we’ve been able to trace her. Sommers admits she called at his house and that he bought a box of cookies. But after that she just vanishes.”

  “Of course she could have been picked up by a motorist.” Morris played devil’s advocate. “Or something could have happened to her at the next house she called at. Wherever that might have been. Even though the Fifteenth Precinct team hasn’t uncovered anything, it doesn’t necessarily prove the girl didn’t continue beyond the Sommers’ home.”

  “I know, Marge. But there were all those cubbyholes that Sommers had recently built into the walls. I got to thinking about them last night. I could hardly sleep; I couldn’t get them out of my mind.”

  “Well, we’ve got our search warrant. We’ll soon see.”

  The two were silent for several minutes. The police radio crackled almost incessantly. But none of the calls related to them.

  “It’s a pity we had to put the seminary investigation on the back burner,” reflected Morris. “It could happen again, you know.”

  “What?”

  “I mean it’s perfectly possible for another priest on the faculty to be attacked, maybe fatally.”

  “I know,” said Patrick, “but the leads just petered out. We’ve looked just about everywhere. Besides, it’s been a few weeks now since the last attempt. Maybe it’s over. If it is, we’re lucky no lives were lost.”

  There was another short period of silence.

  “How about that Roman Kirkus, that head of the Tridentine Society?” Morris said. “Wasn’t he something else!”

  “Yeah.” Patrick chuckled. “I think he might be able to wage a successful, if limited, war with that arsenal in his house.”

  “Yes, but everything’s legal. Everything that needs registration is registered.”

  “Cocky son of a bitch, too.” Patrick turned a corner and slowed the car. They were nearing the Sommers home. “He makes no bones about his hatreds. And all the while, he claims he’s a good Catholic.”

  “More like Super Catholic.”

  “Yeah, with friends like Kirkus, the Catholics don’t need any enemies. The creepy thing is that a guy like Kirkus could be dangerously violent.”

  “Well, anyway, I hope the seminary caper is finished. I’d hate to imagine the event that would revive it.”

  “You mean another attack.”

  Patrick nodded. The car glided to a stop at the curb directly in front of the Sommers house.

  The detectives climbed the front stairs. Morris stood to one side as Patrick rang the doorbell. Paul Sommers came to the door. Patrick presented and explained the warrant to Sommers, who seemed perturbed.

  “Mr. Sommers,” said Patrick, “I would like you to show us again those storage nooks you recently constructed.”

  Sommers began the tour on the first floor. As they made the rounds, Patrick carefully studied the man’s demeanor. When they reached a large boarded-u
p storage space on the second floor, Sommers’ agitation was obvious.

  Wordlessly, Patrick looked around the room, then at Sommers. “Mr. Sommers, would you show us what is in that storage area?” Sommers did not answer, nor meet the policeman’s gaze; his eyes were on a nearby hammer. Patrick picked up the hammer and pried a wall board loose. With some difficulty, he pulled himself through the narrow opening. In the dark interior, he smelled death. He switched on his flashlight. In the gloomy triangle formed by the eaves and the roof, something was wrapped in an old raincoat. Patrick pulled open the coat.

  There lay the nude remains of a twelve-year-old who had wanted only to sell Girl Scout cookies.

  Patrick worked himself out of the fetid hole. He nodded at Morris, looked impassively at Sommers, then removed a card from his wallet and began to read.

  “You have the right to remain silent … ”

  “Are you sure you want to be partners with Rafe?” asked Bill Zimmer.

  “Yes, I really do,” Lennie Marks replied. “That is, if you don’t mind."

  "Don’t be silly; of course I don’t mind. But it’s apt to make the game a bit uneven.”

  “That’s all right with me if it’s O.K. with you.”

  Marks and Zimmer had arrived at St. Joseph’s Seminary early for their scheduled racquetball game with Raphael Doody and Herb Wygoski. While waiting for the others, they were warming up in the indoor court.

  While Marks almost worshiped Zimmer and literally owed what little academic success he had to Zimmers tutoring, Lennie reserved a special admiration for two others: Brother Alphonsus, fellow member of, and frequent visitor to the Tridentine Society, and Raphael Doody, also a member of the Society and a deacon about to become a priest.

  Alphonsus and Doody shared with Marks an innate awkwardness and a propensity to prove the omnipresence of Murphy’s Law. On the positive side, Alphonsus and Doody were successful in fields usually beyond the attainment of the awkward of mind and body. The former was able to address and motivate the Tridentine Society; the latter would become a priest—if Murphy’s Law were temporarily suspended.

  Wygoski and Doody arrived almost simultaneously and climbed down the ladder into the court.

  “Howdy,” said Wygoski.

  “What?” said Doody.

  “Howdy Doody,” said Wygoski, breaking himself, and no one else, up.

  “Don’t pick on him, Herb,” Zimmer admonished.

  “Why should I place myself outside the mainstream of American life?” retorted Wygoski.

  “Leave him alone, Herb,” said Marks. “After all, he’s a deacon.”

  “I beg thy pardon, Reverend Mister Howdy Doody.” Wygoski bowed.

  “C’mon, get warmed up,” Zimmer urged. “It’s going to be you and I against Lennie and Rafe.”

  “You’re kidding!” said Wygoski.

  “No, that’s it.”

  “The slaughter of the innocents.”

  Wygoski and Zimmer pounded the ball against the court’s four walls. Marks and Doody found a corner at the rear of the court where Doody lectured his protege.

  “This is a good idea, Lennie. You and Bill should keep coming out here to St. Joe’s frequently. After all, you’ll be students here next year and you should get used not only to the surroundings, but you should be familiar with the other students and the faculty. That way, when you get here next year—ouch!”

  “Sorry, Rafe,” said Wygoski, “but if you’re going to just stand around in a racquetball court, odds are you’re going to get hit with the ball.”

  “O. K., O. K.,” said Doody, “it wasn’t intentional. Let’s get started.”

  “Don’t you want to warm up?” asked Zimmer.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Doody. “Let’s go.”

  “Have it your way,” said Wygoski. “You can have the starting service.” It may be the last time you serve, he added under his breath.

  Doody dropped the ball against the floor. As it bounded back for the serve, he missed it. He repeated this unusual feat several times. Wygoski fought for self-control. Finally, Doody successfully served. Wygoski played the ball off the rear wall and hit Marks squarely on the derrière.

  “Ouch!” Marks rubbed his cheek.

  “Hindrance!” Wygoski called.

  Doody served again. Zimmer played it off the side wall and nailed it near the base of the front wall. The ball skittered along the floor, unplayable.

  The two teams changed places.

  Wygoski served; Doody missed with his forehand. Again, Marks missed a backhand. Again, Marks missed a forehand. Again, Doody missed a backhand.

  With the score 4-0, Wygoski’s next serve split the middle of the court, where Marks and Doody collided. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

  “Are you hurt?” Zimmer ran solicitously to the heap of bodies.

  “No, no, we’re O.K.,” said Doody as he tried to disentangle himself from Marks.

  Wygoski served again. Marks’s return barely made the front wall. But the ball was in play. Wygoski, surprised at this departure from routine failure, lunged for the weak spot, barely caught the ball after its first bounce and barely returned it to the wall.

  Doody raced at top speed from the rear court. He missed the ball, but slammed into the wall. He staggered back three steps and collapsed.

  “Is he all right? Are you all right?” shouted Marks. “Oh, I never should have returned that serve!”

  “He’s all right,” Zimmer assured all after checking Doody. “He’s just unconscious.”

  Wygoski shook his head. “All things considered, I guess that was about as long a game as we could have expected.”

  “This is one Fallopian tube,” said Father Gennardo, as he drew two parallel lines on the chalkboard, “and this is the other Fallopian tube.”

  “They look like two-inch sewer pipe,” whispered one student to his neighbor.

  “I thought this was a course on the theology of human sexuality,” whispered another, “and here the professor is drawing dirty pictures.”

  “If these are the dirtiest pictures you ever see,” whispered the first, “you’ll have to go through life in blinders.”

  “This is one ovary, and this is the other.” Gennardo continued his diagraming.

  “They look like eggs,” quietly observed Lennie Marks, who was auditing the class.

  “That’s what they produce,” replied Bill Zimmer, also auditing.

  “Oh.”

  “This is the uterus, the cervix, and the vagina.” Gennardo snorted. “Now, monthly, the ovary releases an egg, which is picked up by the Fallopian tube—”

  “Excuse me, Father … ” Raphael Doody raised his hand.

  “Yes?”

  “It doesn’t look as if the ovary and the Fallopian tube are connected.”

  “They aren’t.”

  “Then why doesn’t the egg just fall in the woman’s stomach?”

  Laughter from the class.

  “It just doesn’t.” Was Gennardo blushing? With his swarthy complexion, it was difficult to tell. “Now, if the egg is penetrated by sperm while passing through the Fallopian tube, fertilization takes place. The fertilized egg implants itself in the lining—called the endometrium — of the womb, and the fetus begins to develop.”

  “Excuse me, Father.”

  Gennardo sighed. “What is it, Doody?”

  “How does it get in there?”

  “What?”

  “The sperm.”

  Laughter from the class.

  “Kulinski,” Gennardo snorted and pointed simultaneously, “you seem to be laughing the hardest; why don’t you explain for Doody?”

  “The man screws his wife,” Kulinski explained.

  More laughter. The situation was getting away from Gennardo.

  “Huh?” asked a bewildered Doody.

  “Could you be less graphic and more technical?” asked Gennardo.

  “He inserts his penis into her vagina and ha
s an——”

  “Oh, now I remember,” Doody interrupted, “an organism.”

  “An orgasm!” Gennardo roared.

  More laughter.

  “Doody!” Gennardo called out over the laughter, “no more questions, or out on your ear you go.

  “Now settle down!” He snorted.

  “Now, then, fellas,” he proceeded, “the important thing, theologically, is that nothing may interrupt or interfere with the integrity of this action. No mechanical or artificial means may be used to block the sperm from the tube, or to kill the sperm, nor may the sperm be ejaculated anywhere but in the vagina—yes, Kulinski?”

  “Nobody believes that anymore.”

  “The Pope does, so you’d better too, Buster.”

  “It’s not infallible.”

  “It’s the ordinary magisterium.”

  “So if I don’t believe it, I’m not a heretic.”

  “No; you’re just wrong.”

  Kulinski shook his head.

  “Doody?” It was more a threat than an invitation.

  “I was wondering, Father: I have this problem at night occasionally. And when I wake up in the morning—”

  “Doody!”

  “I find that my pajamas—”

  “Out, Doody!”

  “— are wet, and—”

  “OUT, Doody!”

  Laughter.

  The bell sounded. Gennardo fixed Doody with a furious gaze, lit a cigarette, snorted smoke through his nostrils, and angrily stamped out. A small group of students gathered in front of the room.

  “I’m surprised,” said Zimmer. “I didn’t think anybody still took artificial birth control seriously.”

  “Gennardo is antediluvian,” Kulinski explained.

  “You mean Father is wrong?” Marks shook his head. “This is very confusing.”

  “It’s just that Vatican II hit some of these older geezers pretty hard. A few were pretty crotchety to start with. The theology explosion just sent them off the deep end.”

  Kulinski led the foursome out of the room and into the inner courtyard, where they sat on a bench. The water in the pool in the center of the courtyard rippled occasionally as one or another of the large goldfish surfaced in search of food.