Masquerade

by William Kienzle

  Quite simply, Krieg knew all there was to know about Augustine’s drinking problem. From his college days—when no one seemed to sense any problem at all—to the ad agency, to AA, to the weekends away from the monastery, to the book tour—Krieg knew it all. And, quite simply, everyone would know it all unless Augustine signed with P.G. Press.

  Augustine was not stupid. He knew immediately what such a revelation would do to his present and future life. There was the distinct possibility that he might be expelled from his treasured monastic life. But even if not, his freedom to go and come, the weekend respites he so enjoyed, all would come to an end. Perhaps the greatest blow, his dream of becoming the second Merton would disintegrate into a nightmare. The most dissolute sinner could become a saint by, at some point, reforming his life and turning to virtue. As was the case with—among many—the original Saint Augustine. Indeed, Merton had sown his wild oats before becoming the saintly monk. The reverse procedure was not allowed. Father Augustine, outside of drinking, had sown few wild oats. The drinking, however, qualified as vice enough.

  Now he was supposed to be beyond vice and embarked on a life of unmitigated virtue. It just wouldn’t work. Exposure of his past—and especially his present—drinking bouts would send crashing every hope he had.

  A dilemma! But one that was not immediately pressed by Krieg. He left the monastery that day without exacting a commitment from Augustine. The ultimatum was there, without doubt. But it was not dated. Krieg had given Augustine time to stew and fret. Augustine was unsure if it was not kinder to a condemned man to just take him out and shoot him rather than keeping him on death row for an unspecified time.

  Then the invitation came to participate in this writers’ seminar at Marygrove. Immediately he saw Krieg’s name and the description of his role in the workshop, Augustine recognized that this was not an invitation. It was a summons. A summons he could not refuse to an offer he could see no way to refuse.

  In the weeks between the mandatory acceptance of this invitation and the start of the workshop, Augustine thought of little else but his position between a rock and a hard place.

  In Augustine’s mind, this was a desperate problem. Reluctantly, he concluded that any possible solution would require desperate means. For the very first time in his life he was forced to consider the ultimate act of violence. He surprised himself with how naturally, logically, and practically he was able to consider doing great harm to another person. Was it the compelling predicament in which he found himself? Was it his new familiarity with the murder mystery genre? Was it the gross evilness of Klaus Krieg?

  Slowly, Augustine came to believe that the world would be better without this impostor, this gross creature who debased the nature of religion.

  Gradually, Augustine began to form a plan. The methodology was not far different from the way he had formed the plot for his novel: distractions during prayer—in both instances most practical distractions. It was a simple plan, based mainly on a few traits and habits he’d noticed in Krieg during their visit together.

  By the time he arrived in Michigan for the workshop, Augustine’s plan had been refined to the utmost degree. His only question was whether he possessed—what was it: sufficient courage or malevolence?—to pull it off. For reinforcement, he brought with him some liquor. He fully expected that to carry out his plan, he would need a gigantic “attitude adjustment.”

  Then came interference from that foolish David Benbow.

  Just after his arrival at Marygrove, Augustine found a cryptic note slipped beneath his door. It was from Benbow. It contained a subtle suggestion that it would be beneficial to meet. The wording of the note was veiled. If one did not know what Klaus Krieg was up to, it would have been impossible to make any sense of the communication. However—and this was the single touch of brilliance to the note—if one knew what was on Krieg’s mind, the message was clear enough.

  Thus, Augustine, whose signature on a book contract Krieg coveted, was able to recognize that Benbow was in the same fix. And from the wording, that, perhaps, so were the rabbi and the nun. In any case, if Winer and Marie were not among Krieg’s coveted few, the note would be harmless if unintelligible gobbledygook.

  Absently, Augustine wondered whether Winer or Marie would rendezvous with Benbow. It didn’t much matter to Augustine. Benbow, as far as Augustine was concerned, was a fool. Conspiracies were like planned obsolescence. They had moving parts and so were destined to break down. It was better to work alone. But then he thought wryly that if anyone besides himself was out to stop Krieg, so much the better. It didn’t matter who stopped Krieg as long as Krieg was stopped.

  Ah, but that was as of Sunday.

  Monday evening, last night, saw the tragic death of Rabbi Winer. Now things had changed. It was a good thing, thought Augustine, that he had come prepared with more than one plan. There was more than one way to skin a cat. And more than one way to make sure that, like the third monkey, Krieg spoke no evil.

  20

  “The mass is ended. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

  “Thanks be to God.”

  Koesler concluded Mass. Most of the crowd immediately filed out of the chapel, chattering to each other. A few stayed behind to peacefully meditate for a few minutes while the ruckus dissipated down the corridors.

  Koesler returned the vestments and sacred vessels to their appointed places. Since boyhood he had always found something special in daily Mass. From the first grade in parochial school through the final year in the seminary—twenty years—daily Mass had been compulsory. So it was difficult to know whether he actually appreciated what he was obliged to do. But he had survived all those years with a special treasuring intact. In fact, Mass meant more to him now than ever before. If anything, morning Mass had become the focal point of each day.

  And so it had been this morning. As he recited the so-familiar prayers, his personal prayer turned to the bizarre events of the past couple of days. All these talented people he had met for the first time—just hours ago, it seemed. Now, one of them was dead—a murder victim. A case of the mistaken victim, to boot. The intended victim: a charlatan or a genuine minister of the Gospel?

  It was not clear yet in Koesler’s mind that three people of religion, an Episcopal priest, a Catholic monk, and a nun, were suspects!

  None of his questions had been resolved during this morning’s Mass. But Koesler felt that contented quiet of the soul that he always did as he concluded the liturgy.

  His soul did not remain unrumpled for long. In addition to the ruckus in the corridor, there was a young woman looking for him. Barely able to be heard over the noise, she was calling his name.

  As he emerged from the chapel, she approached him directly. “Father Koesler?”

  He nodded.

  “The police want you,” she said, somewhat breathlessly.

  “Wanted by the police,” he reflected. “I guess it had to happen one day.”

  She missed the attempt at humor altogether. “Oh, no, Father. They just want to talk to you, I think. They’re in the private dining room.”

  “Thank you.” For a moment he enjoyed a sense of self-importance in being needed by the police, as if they couldn’t do their jobs without his expert contributions. It was only momentary. He knew he had been included in this investigation only at the invitation of his friend, Inspector Koznicki. And the only possible contribution he might make would be in clarifying some religious question the police couldn’t be expected to understand fully. So it was with renewed humility that he hastened toward the meeting.

  “Ah, here you are!” Koznicki greeted him expansively. “Good of you to come, Father. The case has developed a bit and we wanted you to be informed.”

  Koesler was quite certain the Inspector’s “we” was a sort of editorial— maybe Papal—plural, and that the others were not that eager to include this outsider.

  The others were Lieutenant Tully and Sergeants Moore and Mangiapane.

  It wa
s Tully who spoke. “We think we’ve found the secret that Krieg’s been blackmailing the monk with.”

  “Oh?”

  “Augustine’s been hitting the bottle hard for a long time.”

  Koesler was not particularly shocked. By no means was it a problem of epic proportion, but he’d met his share of problem drinkers in the priesthood. “How bad is it?”

  “Didn’t show up, it seems,” Tully replied, “until his later years at an ad agency”—he consulted his notes—“the William J. Doran Agency. Seems he got hung up on boozy lunches, and it went from there. Got so bad he was losing days at a time.”

  “Was he fired?”

  Tully smiled briefly. “Uh-uh. Seems no one cared as long as he brought in the business. And he brought it in pretty good. Well,” he backtracked, “someone cared: one of the other guys at the agency. We talked to him. Retired now, but remembers it like yesterday. Took pity on Augustine—Harold May then—and got him into AA.

  “Then we got lucky. This source, a Robert Begin, volunteered that, funny thing, somebody from P.G. Enterprises had contacted him a while back. Wanted to know all about Harold May. Said they were researching for a tribute to prominent people who had conquered alcohol.”

  “This is interesting,” Koesler said. “But what’s wrong with that? I should think somebody with a drinking problem ought to be issued a medal for joining AA. And then becoming a Trappist! Maybe P.G. Enterprises wasn’t kidding when they claimed they were going to honor him.”

  “Could be. But it didn’t end there. This is a story that doesn’t have a happy ending.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll let Mangiapane take it from here. He’s the one who dug this up.”

  The big officer reddened. “Well, not all by myself, Zoo. I mean, the team was workin’ on it.”

  “Tell him.”

  “Okay, sure. Well, Father, it seems that Father Augustine is sort of famous—make that notorious—with the Massachusetts State Police. They’ve got citations on him for DWI—that’s Driving While Intoxicated—long as your arm. And those are only the times he was written up. Most of them warned him, read him the riot act. Cops are sometimes reluctant to write up a priest. And the ones who did just saw the tickets squashed someplace up the line.

  “Now, as far as we were able to tell, he’s pretty clean while he’s in the monastery. I guess the opportunity isn’t there. But we got a list of parishes from the . . . uh . . . procurator of the monastery. There are nearby places where he helps out on weekends.” Mangiapane looked at Koesler brightly. “That was my idea—checking into the possibility of weekend help.” He seemed quite pleased with his knowledge that weekend ministry was a phenomenon of Catholic ecclesial life.

  “Anyway, some of the priests in these parishes were not at all helpful. I’d say almost hostile. But most of them were cooperative, and admitted that, ‘Father did tend to drink a bit Saturday nights, sometimes Sunday afternoons. But not so’s it would interfere with his ministry.’ See, Father, just like when he was in the agency: blotto, but somehow bringing in the business.”

  Koesler shook his head. “And this problem is current?”

  “The most recent road citation is within the past month,” Mangiapane replied.

  Koesler thought back to Sunday evening, when Augustine had missed all the excitement of Krieg’s little game of whodunit. The monk hadn’t been ill; he’d been dead drunk.

  “But Lieutenant,” Koesler addressed Tully, “I believe you said you were pretty sure Augustine’s drinking was the reason Krieg was able to blackmail him. There’s more?”

  “We don’t know,” Tully admitted. “There may be more. The point is, this is for sure. The guy has a serious drinking problem. And the other point is, it’s enough. There’s no telling how messed up he’d be if this gets public. For one thing, the cops’d stop letting him off the hook. The courts would have to treat him like any other drunk and, with his history, which would be dragged into it, he could be in the slammer for a long, long time or, at very least, have to submit to court-ordered treatment.”

  “And if all this came out,” Koesler reflected, “his history of alcoholism, his drunk driving, the favors he’s gotten from the authorities in Massachusetts”—he shook his head—“he might be able to get published by P.G. Press, but probably any legitimate publisher would hesitate to take a chance on him.”

  “That’s about it,” said Tully. “Krieg has him over a barrel, just like Benbow and the late rabbi. See how it’s all coming together? We almost don’t need the nun. We could almost presume the four writers are a matched team. Almost. But we’re investigating her too. I’ll bet there’s somethin’ in her past that’s bad enough that, just like the others, she couldn’t say no to Krieg and make it stick. When we find what the nun’s hiding, we’re gonna start playing hardball with the other three. One or more of them are gonna have a lot of explaining to do.”

  As Tully was completing this statement, Koesler grew aware of a disturbance just outside the dining room. The noise was no sharper than the hubbub already produced by the crowd; yet it had a different, more urgent tenor.

  Two men—police officers, as it turned out—burst into the room. They belonged to Tully’s squad, so they reported to him rather than to Koznicki. “Zoo,” one of them, nearly out of breath, said, “Come on! It’s Krieg!”

  Tully followed the two detectives at a dead run. He was followed in turn by Mangiapane, Moore, Koesler, and Koznicki. The latter two were in no physical condition to move this fast, but the excitement of the moment gave them unexpected impetus.

  No thought was given to the slow elevator; the group took the stairs. Three floors up, then down the corridor to the private rooms assigned to the workshop faculty. All, especially Koznicki and Koesler, arrived winded. Other uniformed officers had sealed off the staircase as soon as the first contingent left the main floor. Thus, none but the police and Koesler were now on the third floor. Suddenly, Koesler caught sight of an ashen-faced Krieg sitting on a chair in the hallway. An unlit cigar hung from loose fingers; he seemed close to shock.

  Koesler was as puzzled as he had ever been.

  From what the detectives had said, and the dispatch with which they’d taken the stairs, he’d thought Krieg must have been found dead. But here he was, looking like death warmed over, but not moribund. Not yet.

  “What happened?” Tully’s tone and bearing suggested that one or another of his officers might have blown an assignment and exposed Krieg to danger.

  “Nothin’, Zoo,” said one of the uniformed officers. “But plenty might have.”

  “Well?” Without doubt, Tully wanted a complete explanation, and quickly.

  The same uniformed cop replied. “We’ve been with Reverend Krieg all morning, Zoo. Nothin’ happened until we all came up here to his room after breakfast, just a few minutes ago. When we got to his room we were about to go in and he was about to light up that cigar there . . .” He gestured toward the cigar, which Krieg continued to hold loosely. “Freddy here caught it first and knocked the lighter out of his hand, or we all coulda been fried.”

  Tully turned to the first officer’s companion, evidently Freddy.

  “Gas, Zoo . . . couldn’t be anything else,” Freddy said. “Somebody must have saturated Krieg’s room. If he had lit that lighter, the fumes would have caught it and we woulda had one hell of an explosion.” Freddy spoke casually enough but there was a slight tremor in his voice. Clearly, he knew just how close he and the others in that entourage had come to a sudden, fiery death.

  “Okay,” Tully said. “You done good, Fred. Cordon off this area and get the ‘techs up here for prints, pics, and whatever. By the way, did you check: Are Augustine, Benbow, or Sister Marie in their rooms?”

  The first officer answered. “We checked, Zoo. Nobody else is up here. Not the monk, the nun, Benbow, or his wife. We would have been the only ones to get it and none of us would be talkin’ to you now.”

  The hint of a smile crossed T
ully’s lips. “Nobody here. Isn’t that interesting. It would have told us one thing if only one of them wasn’t here. But none of them! That tells us a different story completely. Okay,” he said to the officers, “get crackin’.”

  Tully and Koznicki went directly to Krieg. They spoke to him, not loudly, but audibly enough for Koesler to overhear.

  “Reverend,” Koznicki said, “this is the second attempt on your life in two days. Is it not time you cooperated with us?”

  Nothing about Krieg changed. He remained in a stupor state. It appeared that he hadn’t heard the Inspector.

  “How many times,” Tully rephrased, “do you have to come close to getting killed before you get worried about it?”

  “What?” Krieg seemed to be coming out of his trance.

  But the detectives were sure Krieg had heard at least Tully’s question, so they did not ask a third time. They merely waited.

  Finally, Krieg spoke. “Tragic, tragic, but . . . accidental, I’m sure.”

  “The only accident,” Koznicki said, “happened when Rabbi Winer drank a poison intended for you.”

  “And,” Tully added, “nobody tripped and spilled gasoline inside your room. Somebody who knew that you smoked a lot—and that would include everybody who shares this corner of the building with you, the cigar smell was that strong—planned to let you blow yourself to kingdom come.”

  Krieg opened and closed his eyes several times as if trying to regain focus. “I find that very hard to believe.”

  “Believe!” Tully said forcefully.

  “We know what is going on, Reverend,” Koznicki said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Yes. We know that you very badly wanted these four authors to sign contracts with your publishing company,” Koznicki said. “You tried every legitimate way you knew to get them. They all refused. Somehow you were able to discover embarrassing secrets in their lives. Then you began in effect to blackmail them with these secret events—threatening to reveal them if the writers would not sign. Now it seems obvious that one or more of these writers is trying to silence you. On consecutive days there have been two attempts to kill you. Does this not frighten you? Anger you?”