Dead Wrong

by William Kienzle

  KOESLER WAS SHOCKED. Nash could not have been more than in his midseventies, a little more than ten years older than Koesler. Yet he easily could have passed for one in his nineties.

  Nash had no picture of Dorian Gray in his attic.

  The two men regarded each other for a few moments. Then, without taking his eyes from Koesler’s, Nash barked, “Get outta here, kid!”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, the servant left, closing the door behind him.

  “Yer better than six feet, aren’tcha?”

  “Six-three,” Koesler replied, “… or at least I used to be.”

  After a second, Nash began to laugh, a near-cackle that segued into a violent coughing fit—the harsh hack common among smokers.

  Koesler, thinking there must be something he could do to help, started forward. But Nash, while continuing to cough, waved him off. “Emphysema …” he managed to gasp. “It’ll pass.”

  He pulled a device from a pouch at the side of his wheelchair, and inserted the instrument into his nostrils. The inhaler helped.

  While Nash struggled with his breathing, Koesler took a more observant look around the room.

  It was a study in white—all four walls and ceiling plus a pristine white carpet. It reminded him of … a hospital room, but larger of course. He noticed that one corner of the room actually seemed to be a duplication of a hospital room, complete with hospital bed. One does not normally expect to find a hospital bed in a private living room.

  Koesler was reminded of a change of pastors in a suburban parish many years previous. The outgoing pastor, a modest-living and pious priest, had required but a small pickup truck and his own car to move all his earthly goods in one trip.

  The incoming pastor, the notorious Ed Sklarski, arrived accompanied by two large moving vans, the combined contents of which threatened to require the building of an additional rectory. Along with a collection of furnishings that included a concert grand piano was a hospital bed, “just in case.”

  Quite obviously, in the case of Charles Nash, the bed served a pragmatic need.

  “Used to be six-three, eh?” The inhaler had done its job. Nash’s words were accompanied with the hint of what might generously be described as a smile.

  “Uh-huh. It’s been a while since I measured. I suppose we all settle in with age,” Koesler said.

  Nash raised his eyebrows and gestured to include the chair, the bed, the medical equipment that spelled out the life-style of a chronic invalid. The effects of age were no stranger to him.

  Except that he lived in a penthouse and had everything money could buy, Nash might have been any abandoned old man in a nursing home. His skin seemed to shrivel into deep wrinkles—creases that threatened to bury his eyes in some sort of cosmetic implosion.

  But those eyes were lively. His gaze never left Koesler’s face. Nash appeared to be carefully studying the priest. Koesler wondered why; as far as he could recall, they had never met before. Of course once Nash had begun to build his empire with the creation of strip malls, he had basked in celebrity status. He went on to the construction of more pricey shopping centers. Then, seemingly, no report of any top society affair was complete without the notation that Mr. and Mrs. Charles V. Nash had been in attendance.

  But as quickly as he had broken the plane of prominence, after many years of notoriety Charles Nash slipped into seclusion. Some surmised he was in the throes of a fatal illness. There was even a rumor that he had “gotten religion,” and was dedicating the remainder of his life to repentance. No one really knew for certain. His wife had joined him in seclusion until her death several years ago. And his son Teddy had, without a backward glance, taken over the business with a vengeance.

  With all this in mind, Koesler was wondering why he had been invited into the inner sanctum. He now broke the lengthy silence: “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Nash?”

  Nash wheezed. “Maybe.”

  Another pause which Nash did not seem inclined to interrupt.

  “You’re not a parishioner of St. Joe’s,” Koesler said finally. “As a matter of fact, this building is not even in my parish.”

  “The value of one immortal soul,” Nash said.

  “What?”

  “I heard you say that once in a sermon.”

  “When did you …?” Koesler stopped himself in midquestion. Of course he would have been able to recognize Nash in that small but growing and faithful congregation at St. Joe’s. But he’d been a priest for almost forty years. There’d been lots of congregations, many of them so large he would be hard put to remember some few individuals, let alone everyone. Besides, the “value of one soul” phrase he used with some frequency.

  “Yes, of course, the infinite value of one immortal soul. You’ll have to forgive me, Mr. Nash. We parish priests do tend to become a little provincial … only we call it parochial. So, back to the beginning. Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Maybe.” Nash’s breathing was less labored. The inhaler apparently continued to help.

  “Did you want to go to confession?” It was a natural question in these circumstances.

  “Maybe I want a spiritual guide.” Nash’s eyes danced as if he were enjoying some private whimsy.

  “Confession is for the past. Spiritual direction is for the future.”

  “Cute.” Nash cleared his throat, accompanied by that mucus gurgle in his chest. “So, you think the past’s gotta be cleared up before you go on to the future?”

  “Seems to make sense. At least to me.”

  “I got a problem with that.”

  Koesler waited for an explanation.

  “You gotta be sorry … don’tcha? You gotta stop sinning … promise never to do it again?” Nash wiped his lips with a napkin that he carried on his lap.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Well, I’m not sure I am.”

  Koesler smiled. “Our old moral prof told us a story you may find helpful. Seems an old sailor was dying in a rundown room in some remote port. A priest came to give him the last sacrament.

  “In trying to remember the sins of a long life without confession, the sailor could recall lots of fights, most of which he’d lost. He was sorry about that—especially the losing part. His language had been … well, salty. But that was the only way he could be understood aboard ship. He’d missed Sunday Mass just about all the time. But most of that time, he’d been out to sea.

  “Then there were all those women. At least one per port. When he got to that part he paused. No excuses, no explanations.

  “‘Are you sorry for all those affairs?’ the priest asked. The sailor thought for a moment. ‘No, can’t say I am.’

  “The priest thought about that a while. ‘Well, are you sorry you’re not sorry?’ ‘Yes,’ said the sailor, ‘I guess so.’

  “‘Well,’ said the priest, ‘I guess that’s good enough.’” Koesler laughed at his own anecdote. “Of course the old salt was at the end of the line. He didn’t have to worry about sin in the future.” Koesler’s unspoken thought was,…and probably neither do you.

  Nash looked at the priest. The old man’s eyes may have been laughing, but nothing else was.

  After a moment’s silence, Koesler said, “Well?”

  “Well?” Nash responded.

  “Well, can you go at least that far in repentance? That you’re sorry you can’t be more completely sorry?”

  Nash shrugged, glanced out the window, then turned back to Koesler and said, “You really want to save me, don’tcha?”

  “You sent for me,” Koesler said. “What other reason could there have been? I can’t help you in any other way but spiritually.”

  The priest was baffled. Perhaps Nash wanted to test the waters, as it were. Maybe to make sure this confessor would not be judgmental. Koesler had had many such penitents in the past—people who wanted, sometimes desperately, to get something off their chest, some shameful failure in their past perhaps. But they were afraid they would be mis
understood, that they would be embarrassed by the harsh reaction of a confessor. So they would waltz around the principal problem until they were fairly sure of an understanding and receptive ear.

  Could that be Charlie Nash’s problem?

  “How long you been a priest?”

  “Uh … thirty-nine years—and counting.”

  “Uh-huh. You always been a Detroiter?”

  “Yep. Born in old St. Joseph Hospital on the Boulevard.”

  “Where the GM Cadillac plant is now.”

  “Exactly.” Maybe this was Nash’s way of establishing his confidence in a confessor, but Koesler felt as if he were interviewing for a job.

  “So, all that time in Detroit.”

  “Well, in Detroit and environs. Before I was ordained, yes, I lived in the city exclusively. Since I’ve been a priest, I’ve been assigned to a bunch of different parishes, some in the city, some suburban—but always in the archdiocese of Detroit.”

  “Uh. Family? You got family?”

  “Not much anymore. Parents are gone. No brothers or sisters.”

  “No cousins? No close cousins?”

  “Well, yes. My mother’s only sister had three daughters. We kind of grew up together. They still live here. They’re about the only cousins that still live here. But where is this leading? I mean …”

  “I’m interested in your background. The reason will get clear later on. I’m interested in your cousins. What about them?”

  Koesler was beginning to feel a lurking touch of claustrophobia. It was not uncommon for him to become defensive whenever anyone impinged on his private life. Such a mechanism might have been anachronistic in the nineties—indeed, any time after the sixties and the Second Vatican Council.

  By the seventies, a great deal of the mystic cultic character of the priesthood had vanished. Priests were now frequently on a first-name basis with their flock. “Father Jack” was one of the boys who happened to be ordained and had a supernatural aura only when vested and supervising worship.

  Koesler, however, could not be or become “Bob” or even “Father Bob.” His clerical roots were deep in the pre-conciliar Church. From his seminary days on, he saw the priesthood in an extraterrestrial dimension. Priesthood for Koesler—and for many of his contemporaries—shared in the mission of Jesus Christ and was a sublime vehicle for helping others. Emphasis was on the role and not on the individual. So he was uncomfortable when anyone attempted to burrow into his personal life. Not that there was anything in it of which he was ashamed. But the intrusion seemed to him counterproductive. The familiar level was completely open to his family, and fellow priests and personal friends. But when he was operating professionally, as he was now with Charles Nash, he was more comfortable with recognition of his professional character.

  However, in the hope that Nash’s promise or relevancy would finally emerge, Koesler was now willing to humor the man and follow his lead. “What was it again you wanted to know?”

  “Your cousins … tell me about them.”

  “Uh … okay. There are three of them—about my age, in their fifties and sixties.”

  “Old maids.”

  “Maiden ladies. They never married.”

  “Names?”

  “Oona, Eileen, and Maureen Monahan.”

  “Irish.”

  “My mother’s family was Irish.”

  “Children?”

  “They’re unmarried.”

  “Doesn’t mean they couldn’t have children.”

  Koesler suppressed irritation. “Not these women!”

  “How about the last one? Maureen?”

  Koesler tipped his head sideways, as if taking a fresh look at Nash. “This is where you’ve been going all the while, isn’t it? You already know about Maureen—and her two girls. Maureen took them in to live with her. If you knew of their existence, you have to know they were adopted—maybe not technically, but for all intents and purposes.”

  “I want to know more about them. Then you’ll know why I sent for you.”

  Koesler knew he’d reached the end of his tether. “I think we’ve delved into my life far enough, Mr. Nash,” he said firmly. “I don’t know what there is about me or my relatives that piqued your curiosity, but I see no point in continuing this conversation.” He stood up. “If ever I can really help you sometime, feel free to call. Or,” he added, “you might consider calling the parish that serves this area. Which, incidentally, is St. Charles—”

  “Wait!” Nash said, with more animation than he’d shown previously. “Wait, don’t go.” He turned his head and looked out the window for a moment. Then he turned back to Koesler. “All right, all right: I know your background. I know about your cousins. And I know about the young ones—Maureen’s children.”

  Koesler sat back down, but he still was far from satisfied with continuing this conversation. “They’re not Maureen’s children—not her natural children; they’re adopted.”

  Nash hesitated. “I know about that. But they’re as good as hers. She raised them.”

  “Not from their earliest years. They were foundlings. No actual parent can be completely responsible for every decision children make, especially as they become adults. Still less if the child is not in the care of the adopting parent during the child’s early, most formative years.”

  Nash almost smiled. “You know where I’m heading, don’t you?”

  “You’re going toward a rumor, nothing more.” Koesler had been maneuvered into a defensive position, and he did not like it at all.

  Nash spread his hands, palms up, as if he were speaking an irrefutable if unpleasant truth. “It is no rumor, Father Koesler. Your cousin Brenda is the paramour of my son Teddy. You know that’s true, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t know it’s true. I have heard the gossip. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all it is—gossip. It isn’t even reliable enough for this hearsay to appear in print. We have our share of gossip columnists locally as well as nationally. From time to time, one or another of them will climb out on a limb and publish or broadcast a thoroughly scurrilous story. But nothing—nothing!—about Ted Nash and Brenda Monahan!”

  Nash sank back into his chair. “My son is a powerful man—even though he has little more power than what came from me. But above all, Teddy is cautious, I’ll give him that. Anyone who published a word of his affair would be hard-pressed to prove anything. And any publisher who okayed the story would be flirting with a serious lawsuit. But it’s real, Father Koesler; put your bottom dollar on it: It’s true.”

  Nash fished through the pouch on the side of his wheelchair until he came up with a pack of cigarettes. Koesler could hardly believe his eyes. Most probably, Nash owed his emphysema—the disease that likely would kill him—to smoking. He needed an inhaler just to breathe normally … or what passed for normally.

  Koesler had been a smoker. In his youth, he, like many smokers of his era, had lit up one or another of the unfiltered cigarette brands. There were no filter tips in those days. Nor, he noticed, was Nash’s cigarette filtered. In later years before he quit, Koesler could not bring himself to smoke any but the most thoroughly filtered of brands. And now here was Charles Nash delivering an almost self-inflicted coup, de grâce.

  The priest leaned back in a futile attempt to get as far away as possible from secondary smoke inhalation. “Suppose … just suppose, I grant for a moment that my foster cousin and your son are— and I really don’t admit this—having … an affair. So what? It may or may not be of concern to you. But … me? If I wanted to intrude unasked into someone else’s life—which I seldom if ever do … but, say I did: What could I do about it?”

  “We’re talking adultery here!” Nash’s raised voice was forceful. “Your cousin may not be married. But my son, by God, is very much married. He’s got a family, for God’s sake!”

  Two thoughts occurred to Koesler almost simultaneously. If anyone should be an expert in adultery, surely Charles Nash would be that person. At leas
t so spoke his universally accepted reputation. Plus, why should his son’s adulterous affair bother this old master of infidelity? By Nashian standards, merely one woman on the side was hardly even getting into the game. Neither of these unspoken considerations, thought Koesler, deserved airing.

  Instead, Koesler said, “Mr. Nash, Ted’s wife must have at least heard the rumors. As far as I know, she hasn’t done anything about it.” Koesler could not imagine a woman of Mrs. Nash’s standing putting up with such a situation. Divorce was not uncommon even among Catholics now. And any financial settlement in such a case would leave her with a very comfortable future.

  “Also,” Koesler added, “Ted is a businessman—a builder, a developer. His position in the business community could scarcely be changed, let alone damaged at all, merely by an extramarital affair.

  “Don’t misunderstand me: I’m certainly not condoning adultery. I’m saying I don’t know this accusation to be true. How could I broach a matter like adultery to Brenda when it’s no more than a rumor? And even if it were true, Brenda knows I’m available if she wants to talk.”

  “You don’t understand! You don’t understand, dammit!” Nash pounded feebly on the arm of his wheelchair. “Teddy has created the impression that he is more Catholic than the Pope—courtesy of the training his mother gave him. If the Vatican needs a new electronics system, they’ve got it, courtesy of Teddy. If this city gets into deficit spending over a visit from the Pope, Teddy picks up the tab. Christ, he’s even got his own goddam chapel and his own goddam priest! On top of all that crap, little Brenda works in the chancery for the archdiocese of Detroit.”

  Koesler had to admit privately that all Nash said was true: Ted had indeed made himself the most “official” Catholic layman in Michigan—perhaps in the country—maybe even the world.

  “The thing that’s gonna happen when Teddy’s affair becomes public …”—Koesler noted that Nash eschewed the conditional “if” for the more definite “when”—“the thing that’s gonna happen when Teddy’s affair becomes public,” Nash repeated, “is that this whole Catholic fable gets exposed and destroyed. And that means that Teddy’s whole world is gonna crumble and so is Teddy. If he can’t be Pope Teddy, he ain’t gonna be nobody. See?”