Masquerade

by William Kienzle

  At this point Mangiapane hurried back into the room, whispered animatedly with Tully, then left the room again. Mangiapane was perturbed or excited, Koesler couldn’t tell which. In either case, he wanted to conclude his narrative.

  “In any case, when Rabbi Winer was found poisoned from drinking the Frangelico you both favored, the conclusion everyone reached was exactly what you wanted: Someone had attempted to kill you by poisoning your liquor. Whoever that someone was, he or she had to get in line. But, by mistake, Rabbi Winer drank the poison intended for you. That had to be the case since quite a few people had motivation to kill you. And no one wanted to kill the rabbi.

  “No one but yourself.

  “After dinner, everyone left the dining area. Some of us went to a movie, others took a walk or retired to their rooms. The dining room, once it was cleared, would be empty. You invited Rabbi Winer to join you. You probably intimated you’d work everything out with him.

  “Maybe you had several options. But the way it worked out you were left undisturbed. You offered him the Frangelico. He drank it and died almost instantaneously. Then you left. You didn’t even have to worry about fingerprints, since your prints as well as Winer’s were already on the bottle that we all saw both of you use earlier.

  “You didn’t even have to worry about being seen coming out of the dining room; had you been, all you would have had to do was pretend that you had just found the rabbi’s body and were going for help. But that wasn’t necessary. Your luck held; nobody saw you. Your luck held . . .” he repeated, “. . . until now.”

  Krieg summoned his last ounce of bravado. “Father Koesler, you don’t have a shred of proof for all the false accusations you’ve made. You’ve created a pleasant story without any foundation whatsoever. And besides the fact that you have no proof, if it is not my life that has been threatened throughout this workshop, then how do you explain the latest attempt to kill me just a little while ago when someone tried to arrange it that I would blow myself to kingdom come? Are you going to suggest that I did that to myself? How could I when I was being guarded, protected by a detail of Detroit police officers all morning?”

  A triumphant tone crept into Krieg’s voice as he concluded what had to be his ultimate defense.

  “That’s true,” Sergeant Moore attested. “We had some of our people with him all morning. Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have dumped that gasoline in his room.”

  Tully spoke. “I may have the explanation. A few minutes ago I was pretty sure where you were going with your explanation, Father. So I tried to anticipate you. Krieg could have carried the whole thing off with the exception of the gasoline attempt on his life. But if he’d done the whole thing—and I have to agree with you, he did do it—and the explosive gas was another attempt to convince us someone out there was still after him, then he had to have help.”

  “Guido Taliafero,” Koesler almost whispered. He’d forgotten all about Krieg’s “shadow.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tully affirmed. “I sent Mangiapane out to find him and start asking him some hard questions. Mangiapane came back to tell me that Taliafero is one scared hombre. He’s startin’ to sing pretty good. And the subject of his song is you, Krieg.”

  “Reverend Krieg . . .” Koznicki spoke with the solemnity of an Inquisitor General. “I place you under arrest for the murder of Rabbi Irving Winer. Sergeant Moore will now inform you of your rights.”

  24

  The Koznickis’ home had that special lived-in atmosphere that comes from having and raising a family in it over a great number of years. The rooms seemed to echo with childish voices; the floors seemed to creak and groan under pounding young feet. The voices and the feet belonged to the active children who were now grown and gone and raising their own families.

  The den belonged to Walt Koznicki. It was a man’s room. It was a police officer’s room. Citations and trophies vied for space with books and with photos of Koznicki as a beat cop, in various stages of advancement, with notables—Detroiters and visiting firemen. The little remaining space held several heavy chairs and a small desk, leaving barely enough room to navigate.

  The weather on this, the second Sunday in September, was dreary. Rain beat down in body-seeking torrents, and the added forecast of thunderstorms made staying inside seem even cozier.

  Walt and Wanda Koznicki had invited Father Koesler to dinner, which was over now. Wanda would join them in the den as soon as she had put away the leftovers and loaded the dishwasher. Koznicki and Koesler sat quietly, satisfied and comfortable, watching the steady rain beat against the window.

  Both were lost in thoughts, which were interrupted when Wanda entered the room carrying a tray.

  “Ah,” Koznicki said, “you will join us now?”

  “As soon as everything’s done in the kitchen,” Wanda said. “I just brought you some fresh coffee.” She placed a full cup on a small stand next to Koesler’s chair. “You take yours black, don’t you, Father?”

  Koesler smiled. “Every single time,” he said.

  Wanda glanced at him. It was an odd response. She thought he might elaborate. But since the priest said no more, she put the other cup near her husband and left the room.

  Koznicki was smiling broadly. He had caught the allusion of Koesler’s words. “That was the beginning, was it not?”

  “I guess it was.” Koesler savored the aroma of Wanda’s coffee. For a woman who liked coffee as much as she, he wondered why she never seemed to want any when he made it. “Krieg was right. I was not at all surprised when he was familiar with a Yiddish word. Myron Cohen could have told that joke; maybe he did. When he got to the punch line, the very context would have defined ‘Gevalt!’ And once you heard it you’d remember it.

  “But I did wonder about Krieg’s diet. It wasn’t too surprising when he preferred an omelet to the Stroganoff. It was a little odd, though, that he didn’t eat what was served. Most people do at sit-down dinners. It’s the rare bird who insists on an entirely different main dish. It was just out of the ordinary enough to attract my attention so that I took note of what else he ate at that first dinner we shared.”

  “I am surprised,” Koznicki said, “that Sister Janet, or whoever planned the menu, didn’t take into account the Jewish dietary laws—in honor of Rabbi Winer’s presence.”

  Koesler smiled. “It’s just as well she didn’t—or I never would’ve latched on to the discrepancy . . . there wouldn’t have been anything for me to pick up on.” He shook his head. “That’s the interesting thing about the Gentiles’ perception of Jews. We tend to think of the Jews as abstaining from pork. So we make sure not to insult our Jewish guests by including pork on the menu. We don’t stop to consider the rest of the Old Testament injunction, ‘Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.’

  “In any case, I didn’t really pay that much attention to the dinner Monday evening until we were served coffee. Sister Janet took cream. I guess it was subconscious, but I was waiting for Krieg to ask that the cream be passed to him. When he took his coffee black, it dawned on me why I was waiting for him to ask for the cream. It was because he had taken cream the night before.

  “Of course there was no reason to draw any sort of inference at all. It was just odd and it stuck in my mind. Actually, to be honest, I bought the whole thing about some sort of plot to kill Krieg. First, there was that seemingly unreasonable animosity the writers had for Krieg. Then, after what appeared to be the botched effort to murder Krieg that ended in the death of Winer, I was sure that one of the remaining three was guilty—or that possibly there was a conspiracy. It just made me sad. I didn’t want to suspect any of these people. But it seemed unavoidable.”

  Koznicki sipped gingerly at the still hot coffee. “And so it might have been. Sister Marie admitted that she and David Benbow did discuss a plan to do away with Krieg. But it came to no more than that: a meeting that concluded with their admitting to each other that they simply were incapable of murder.

  �
��Then David Benbow was forced by Sister Marie’s confession to admit that he had surreptitiously extended a similar invitation to Augustine and Winer. Of course we know now that the rabbi was the only one of the four writers who knew exactly what he was doing. He held the key to the one chink in Krieg’s armor. And Augustine had his own plan for Krieg, which, likewise, he had to abandon because he was incapable of killing anyone.

  “Unlike Krieg,” Koznicki added.

  “Unlike Krieg,” Koesler concurred. “It wasn’t until I stood looking at that press release and the fact sheets your people worked up that everything began falling into place. To borrow the words of Father Augustine, it was the whole damn thing. That there was no Catholic vestige at all visible in Krieg made him seem to be not quite what he was supposed to be. Then the dominos began to fall. I remembered quite vividly how Rabbi Winer alone seemed able to stand up to him. And there were the dietary peculiarities. Then even ‘Gevalt!’ fell into place.

  “And then,” he said, “Lieutenant Tully and I talked about how odd it was that Krieg wasn’t scared, didn’t seem concerned or fearful for his safety. Well, of course he wouldn’t be, since his life was not actually at stake.”

  “The ironic thing,” Koesler mused, “is that even though Rabbi Winer discovered Krieg’s secret, I’m sure it wasn’t necessary for Krieg to kill him. Let’s face it: It was truly a stand-off. Sure, Winer knew about Krieg. But Krieg knew about Winer. And that reciprocal knowledge was the best defense for each of the two. But Krieg panicked. All he could think of was getting rid of the one person who had the power to destroy him and his empire. And, when it came right down to it, having panicked he did fairly well at thinking on his feet. He took advantage of the coincidence that he and Winer shared the same drink preference. He took advantage of his own psychodrama “murder”—it fell right into his spur of the moment plot. Unless . . .” Koesler hesitated. “Unless, of course, the alternate hypothesis was true: that Krieg had this whole plot formed well in advance.

  “In either case,” he concluded, “it was Krieg who killed Winer.”

  “How sad,” said Koznicki. “It was all so unnecessary. Most assuredly, the rabbi would have kept Krieg’s secret, using the knowledge only to make Krieg back off and desist hounding him and the other three writers. And”—he spoke increasingly slowly and thoughtfully—“we will never know, of course, but one wonders whether another factor, no matter how slight, was that, having betrayed fellow Jews almost a half-century before and having suffered the intense long-term guilt over it, one wonders whether Rabbi Winer would have held back due to the thought of again informing on a fellow Jew—even though undoubtedly neither Krieg nor the rabbi would have considered Krieg truly Jewish.

  “Or is it,” he looked at Koesler, “something like, ‘Once a Catholic always a Catholic’ . . . or, ‘Once a priest always a priest’?”

  Koesler smiled and shrugged. He seemed lost in thought. “Strange . . .” he said, finally.

  Koznicki waited, but when nothing more was said, he asked, “Strange? What is strange?”

  “Oh . . .” Koesler stirred himself from reflection. “I was just thinking about Krieg and Rabbi Winer—how similar their situations were.”

  “Similar?”

  “Yes. Each had a secret—and a deep-seated fear that he would be ruined if that closet skeleton were to be revealed. That fear haunted both Krieg and Winer, and, sadly, motivated Krieg in his fatal decision to murder the rabbi.”

  “Hmmm . . .” Koznicki murmured, “. . . and yet we learned that a few of the rabbi’s fellow Jews did find out what had happened in the concentration camp and they had been understanding—forgiving even.” He looked at Koesler questioningly. “Could that not have been the case with Reverend Krieg? Might his followers have been unconcerned about his Jewish heritage?”

  Koesler shook his head. “I don’t know, Inspector. I don’t think anyone can tell for sure. The rabbi’s forced collaboration with the Nazis was certainly not common knowledge. A rare few discovered it and those few loved and admired him enough to understand the impossible pressure he’d had to endure at Dachau. Would his entire congregation have been as understanding? Would his literary fans have found it easy to overlook, or to forgive and forget?

  “The same thing with Krieg. We don’t know that anyone knew his secret. I guess we’d just have to assume that he concealed his mother’s ethnicity and religion.

  “But what would have been the effect on his congregation, his millions of TV viewers, had they known? Would they have continued to support him and his ministry in the lavish manner to which he’d become accustomed?

  “It would be nice to think,” Koesler warmed to his speculation, “that the rabbi’s congregation as well as his readers would have put themselves in his shoes. My Lord, he was only a kid! But, congregations do fire their rabbis—as well as their ministers.” He smiled. “Fortunately, it doesn’t work that way with Catholic parish priests.

  “But”—he grew serious again—“people can be fickle. By and large, they want their men of the cloth to be without blemish. If they find a chink in the armor, they can become disenchanted quickly—and cruelly. Besides, Rabbi Winer guarded that secret so carefully he didn’t even confide in his wife. He must have been deeply ashamed. So, quite independent of any practical consequence to his ministry or his career as a writer, he feared his secret being revealed for more personal reasons.

  “And the threat may have been more intense for Krieg.”

  “Oh?” Koznicki invited further comment.

  “I think so. No television preacher can forget what happened a couple of years ago. Oral Roberts said God would call him if he didn’t meet fund-raising goals. And he became a laughing stock. Jimmy Swaggart bought some private voyeurism and lost more than half his flock. Jim Bakker’s sexual episode with a church secretary stung him badly and opened the door to a financial investigation that ruined him. Ever since those disasters, preachers have had to be extremely careful not to muddy the waters.

  “Of course, Krieg broke no law. But, then, neither did Oral Roberts. He just made himself play the fool. Krieg had to weigh the possibility that vast numbers of contributing Christians would be uncomfortable, to say the least, at being led by someone who—technically but indeed in fact—was a Jew.

  “Now, I know you’re going to say, ‘But Jesus was a Jew.’ Of course he was—but few Christians think of Him in that light. Obviously, it is rare, if not unique, that a Jew would become a Christian evangelist as popular and influential as Klaus Krieg. And obviously, Krieg thought it a serious problem or he wouldn’t have guarded the secret as he did. Could his ministry have survived the revelation that he was Jewish?

  “Remembering the thin ice Roberts, Swaggart, and Bakker found themselves skating on, I think it a good bet to speculate that Krieg might well have not survived. In any event, the possibility that he would have been ruined was strong enough to make him plot and carry out a murder.

  “So, there we are.” Koesler looked at Koznicki thoughtfully. “Would Krieg and Winer—or Sister Marie, David Benbow, and Augustine, for that matter—have lost their reputations, their vocations, their careers, had their secrets been disclosed? We don’t know for sure. What we do know is that that’s the way they perceived it. They believed in the worst-case scenario. And, in the end, that’s what counted: Each and every one believed that he or she would be ruined. Each and every one was so embarrassed over the events of their past that they reacted in fear and dread.

  “In the end, that’s what counted,” Koesler repeated. “They believed they would be ruined. Whether or not that actually would have happened doesn’t matter as much as the fact that they believed it would.”

  “And now,” Koznicki said, “the Reverend Krieg has been arrested and charged with murder in the first degree. Although I think it would be much more difficult to prove had Lieutenant Tully not thought of the chauffeur. And if Mr. Taliafero had been more intelligent, we might have had to work on him longer tha
n we did. When we noted that his gloves reeked of gasoline, his excuse was that those were his work gloves and that they always smelled of gas and/or oil. But when we found the vial of cyanide in the limousine’s glove compartment,” he shook his head, “the end was not far off.”

  The Inspector grew more thoughtful. “The biggest complication the Reverend Krieg faced was time. Time to plan his strategy and time to carry it off. Actually, given those limitations, in very truth, he did quite well. It is not all that easy to find and purchase cyanide. I think Taliafero would never have found it, left to his own devices. It was Krieg who steered him toward a jewelry repair shop. That direction, plus all the money necessary to make an illegal purchase, was all he needed.” Koznicki chuckled. “For their sake, it is a pity Krieg took it for granted that Taliafero would dispose of the remainder of the cyanide after poisoning the Frangelico.” He looked a bit more thoughtful. “I wonder if he planned to use it on the Reverend himself eventually . . .”

  “And, refresh me, Inspector; he was promised . . .?”

  “In exchange for agreeing to testify against Krieg—who had planned and plotted the entire affair—the chauffeur will be allowed to plead to second-degree murder. He will face a sentence of from ten to fifteen years. Otherwise, he would face the same sentence as Krieg: life in prison with no parole.”

  Koesler felt a slight shiver. He didn’t know whether it was the chill weather or the prospect of a man like Krieg being behind bars without hope for the rest of his life. “There is no hope for Krieg? None at all?”

  “In his sentence? Michigan is firm in life without parole for murder one. His only hope would be a pardon either from the governor or the president.”

  “Now that you mention that,” Koesler said, “I wonder whether he might pull it off. Did you see him on the local and national newscasts the other night? His tears would make Jeremiah envious. If anyone is looking for a contrite sinner, he need look no further. What difference does it make that it’s all an act? There are few politicians who do not highly value and carefully practice the art of acting.