Masquerade fk-12

by William X. Kienzle

“That’s okay, Father. This’ll save time in trying to find you. They’ll want you there for this.” She managed to sweep him along with her.

  “They’ll want me?” Koesler fell in step with her. “Some new information?”

  “Uh-huh.” She said no more, but led the way to the modest dining room that had become a makeshift headquarters for the police.

  Koznicki and Tully were standing near the center of the room. Various other officers were occupied in other parts of the room.

  Tully took one look at Moore’s face. “You found it, didn’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.” Koesler now noticed Moore’s flushed excitement. “Yeah,” she said. “This has got to be what Krieg found and the nun didn’t want to get out.”

  Koesler fought a sudden urge to leave. He felt as if he were eavesdropping. He had developed a liking and respect for Sister Marie. And Sergeant Moore was about to reveal the secret Marie so desperately wanted kept hidden. Hers was, after all, the one remaining confidential matter to be exposed. But he knew that Inspector Koznicki wanted him there. Koesler steeled himself to hear the worst.

  “It was an abortion,” Moore said, rather more forcefully than necessary.

  “An abortion!” Koesler’s involuntary reaction was so unexpected that it startled the others. However, their surprise was momentary.

  “When’d it happen?” Tully asked.

  “She was a senior in high school.”

  “A senior in high school!” Ordinarily Koesler would be listening to the experts and contributing nothing at this point. But he felt that someone should be standing up for this good woman. “High school!” he repeated. “That must be. . some thirty years ago!”

  “That’s about right.” Moore turned slightly to face Koesler. He had entered this matter actively and neither of her superior officers was curbing him in any way. So she felt free to address his concern.

  “How. . how could you uncover such a thing? I mean. . thirty years!” Koesler said.

  “A fluke, mostly,” Moore admitted. “Although we might have uncovered it ourselves, given time. But, I don’t know. .” She seemed to drift off in speculation.

  “How did you uncover it?” Koznicki brought her back to the present.

  “Oh, Stewart found it,” Moore said.

  “Stewart?”

  “Uh, Patrolman Stewart, Judith.” Moore located the officer’ name on the report she was holding. “She’s a rookie. Hasn’t got anything to do with this investigation. She’s stationed in the First Precinct. She was reading about our case and she thought the name sounded familiar. Marie Monahan. So, she thought about it until the bell rang. She thought she’d seen the name in one of the old abortion files.”

  “Isn’t that a bit contrived, Sergeant?” Koesler broke in. He was surprising himself that he was so actively responding to this charge against Sister Marie’s reputation. He couldn’t help himself. It didn’t seem right that a good person’s reputation could be so easily trashed. “Doesn’t the coincidence stretch credibility?”

  Moore didn’t know whether to engage this outsider in a pedantic debate when there was the serious business of a homicide investigation going on. She glanced around and caught the affirmative if slight nod given by Inspector Koznicki.

  “It’s not all that odd, Father,” Moore explained. “Our newer people especially like to visit the basement at headquarters where all these old records are kept.”

  “Why would they do that?” Koesler asked.

  “It’s just fascinating reading,” Moore said. “We don’t write up reports this way anymore. It’s the terminology as much as anything else. Often as not, they use terms like ‘thug’ instead of ‘criminal’ or ‘perpetrator.’ They’re very. . uh. . emotionally written. They’re fun to read. Sort of like an old Batman strip. So, especially the newer people, when they find where these records are kept, well, it’s not uncommon for them to spend a little spare time browsing through them.

  “That’s what Stewart was doing recently, see? She was going through the records-just recreational reading-when she got into the abortion files. And today when she saw the name of the nun mentioned as part of our investigation-well, as I said, it rang a bell. She says she remembered it because it was so Irish. Stewart figured that back then, with a name like that, abortion would have been not only a crime, but a sin.”

  “I still find it hard to understand why you would keep records that old,” Koesler said.

  Koznicki had been quietly studying the police record of Marie’s abortion that Moore had handed him. “You see, Father,” he explained, “with the frequency of criminal appeals of cases, the police tend to hold on to all records, just in case. Just in case a civil lawsuit is filed, we will not be caught short. We throw nothing away. It makes for a cluttered basement, but it also ensures that we will not be caught needing a record that has been discarded.

  “This record, for example,” Koznicki continued, “of an abortion performed on one Marie Monahan, gives the name of the doctor who repaired the damage caused by an obvious amateur, who, it seems, almost killed Miss Monahan. So there is a complete medical record. But no name of the person who botched the original abortion. Apparently, Marie Monahan refused to cooperate with the investigating officer-which, I should mention, was not uncommon. That is why there are so many old records of abortion investigations in these files. Very, very infrequently did the victim of an illegal abortion agree to testify. And without the victim’s testimony, there was no case.”

  Koesler said nothing. Seemingly, he had run out of questions and challenges.

  “Well, that ties it,” Tully said. He seemed satisfied that they would be delayed no more by Koesler. “That’s a full house,” Tully continued. “Each of these writers has something in his or her past that they didn’t want revealed. Desperately didn’t want revealed. The rabbi had betrayed his own people. The monk is an alcoholic. The priest was an adulterer. And the nun had an abortion.”

  Somehow, stated so flatly, so abruptly, these sins-if such they were-seemed to Koesler to be best kept buried as they had been prior to this police investigation. Then he recalled that the police were only reacting to what had already been ferreted out by Klaus Krieg.

  “And,” Tully continued, “Krieg discovered every one of their secrets and threatened to publicize them unless they signed contracts with him.”

  “How do you suppose he dug up all these secrets, Zoo?” Moore asked.

  “Right now, I don’t know. But with his money, just about anything is possible. I got the feeling we’re getting down to the bottom line. It feels right.”

  “Just one more question, please,” Father Koesler said. “Doesn’t it seem peculiar to anyone but me that we suddenly know so much about everyone connected with this workshop with the exception of the Reverend Krieg? I mean, all of a sudden we know some of the deepest, darkest secrets of four very dedicated religious-secrets we wouldn’t even have guessed existed except that Krieg found out about them and because of him the police investigated and found them out. But Klaus Krieg-the one who started all this-Klaus Krieg remains in the shadows. Doesn’t this seem odd?”

  In the silence that followed Koesler’s question, it seemed the detectives were quietly passing around the responsibility of answering. Sergeant Moore fumbled through the sheaf of papers she was holding. She extracted three of them from the file and handed them to Koesler.

  “I guess we assumed that you knew Krieg’s background,” she said. “What we’ve got on him is no secret. Nor, with what we’ve got, is there room for many secrets. We weren’t trying to keep anything from you, Father. In fact, you know as much about this case as any of us. That’s the way Inspector Koznicki wanted it. But these,” referring to the background papers she had just handed Koesler, “should bring you completely up to date.”

  Once again Koesler felt embarrassed. In the context of what Moore had just said, his complaint about Krieg sounded to Koesler himself petulant and pushy.

  In mutual awkwardnes
s the group was about to break up when Sergeant Mangiapane hurried into the room. Everyone could tell from the expression on his face and his abrupt manner that he had important new information. “We just got done searching their rooms-the three writers-”

  Moore interrupted. “Did you get their permission again?”

  “We got a warrant,” Mangiapane said.

  “So soon?” Moore pressed.

  “This morning,” Tully replied. “Remember, the mayor wants this one cleaned up in record time.” He turned back to Mangiapane. “What did you find?”

  The beatific look returned to Mangiapane’s face. “In Benbow’s room, a gallon can with some gasoline still in the bottom. In Sister Marie’s room, several gas-soaked cloths.”

  Tully looked thoughtful. “Maybe they got careless. Maybe one of them planted the evidence. Either way we get them together now and lay it on the line-the bottom line.”

  “They’re already together, Zoo,” Mangiapane said. “We got ’em in a classroom on the second floor.”

  The detectives left for the classroom without another thought about or word from Koesler. The priest was left in the dining room, holding, if not the bag, several papers outlining the life and career of the Reverend Klaus Krieg.

  Koesler lacked the stomach to watch what was undoubtedly going to be an intense grilling of Augustine, Marie, and Benbow, perhaps Mrs. Benbow as well. He sat at a table and spread the papers out before him. The first page was a publicity release; the other two, the summary of what the police had discovered.

  Born in 1950, Krieg was now forty years old. That surprised Koesler. He would have guessed Krieg to be somewhat older. Not that he looked or acted particularly ancient, but that he had accomplished so much, built so much, raised so much funding in a relatively brief time.

  Koesler’s second major surprise was the fact-the boast, as Krieg put it-that the preacher had at one time been a Catholic. It was from the chains of authoritarian Catholicism that the minister had freed himself by being born again in the Spirit. A freedom from the bonds of sectarianism and sin that he offered to all who would join him in the baptism of the Spirit. However, make no mistake, the freedom P.G. Enterprises offered did not come cheap. The “initiation fee” was closely followed by special projects fundings, followed by good old-fashioned obligatory tithing.

  Another surprise: He was born in Imlay City, Michigan. This from the police report.

  Koesler had simply assumed that Krieg was a native Californian. Or, that if his origin were elsewhere, then certainly New York or Chicago. The assumption was based on the size of Krieg’s empire. How could such volume spring from little Imlay City?

  Then, Koesler was reminded of Jesus Christ’s extremely modest home town. So modest, indeed, that the more sarcastic of Jesus’ contemporaries remarked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” So, why not? Koesler wondered whether inhabitants of Imlay City realized that the famous Klaus Krieg, multimillionaire and television personality, had once walked their streets.

  Koesler was familiar with Imlay City. It was, roughly, at the knuckle of the thumb. Since the state, at least the lower peninsula, was in the shape of a hand geographically, Michiganders tended to pinpoint areas in the state according to their position in the “hand.” Nowhere was that habit more prevalent than when the locale was in the “thumb” area, as was Imlay city, about halfway between Flint and Port Huron.

  In addition, it was within the boundaries of the Archdiocese of Detroit, and the pastor of Imlay City’s one and only Catholic church, Sacred Heart, had been one of Koesler’s classmates. Which more than likely explained how Koesler happened to know its exact location.

  Interesting, Koesler mused as he succumbed to a daydream. Klaus Krieg born a Catholic in the Archdiocese of Detroit. He found religion so vitally important in his life that he apostatized from Catholicism and formed his own sect. What if he hadn’t done that? What if whatever had moved him to discard the Catholic Church hadn’t happened? Would that appreciation of religion have led him into the Catholic clergy? What would he be like as a priest today?

  A preacher of no little note, undoubtedly. Whatever else anyone might want to say about him, he could be a spellbinding orator. Another Charlie Coughlin?

  Or Billy Sunday?

  Or Elmer Gantry?

  Koesler found himself reviewing what little he knew about the Reverend Krieg from firsthand knowledge. While he was familiar with Krieg’s reputation as a televangelist, Koesler had never seen him on television, nor, for that matter, in any other way. So his first impression was formed when, just days earlier, Krieg had burst onto the Marygrove scene with the expected fanfare and his own private chauffeur and general factotum.

  Koesler allowed his reliable memory to wander through recollections of the past few days. To be frank, he was looking for telltale remnants of a former Catholic faith. Former Catholics regularly betray habits-most of them not consciously-of Catholic customs, practices, traditions, even superstitions.

  In their liturgies, Catholics make the sign of the cross so habitually the habit often carries over to completely unrelated events. At the conclusion of anything-a movie, a stage play, a concert, a lecture, whatever-it is not unknown that a practicing Catholic, or a one-time Catholic, might make the sign of the cross. The same could be said of genuflecting before entering an auditorium or theater row, or-in a situation where spontaneous prayer is called for-coming up with a distinctly Catholic prayer.

  Thanks to television, millions have seen a singular gesture usually made by an athlete with a Catholic background. The gesture consists of an abbreviated and hurried sign of the cross that does not quite reach forehead, navel, and the extremity of either shoulder. It is, if only because it could be nothing else, a sign of the cross, but it ends with the boxer, ballplayer, athlete, kissing his right thumb.

  As far as Koesler knew, no one had done a definitive study of that peculiar sign; indeed he was convinced that even those who make the gesture probably don’t advert to the reason they kiss their thumb. The closest Koesler could come to a rationale rested on a practice popular among those who frequently and piously recite the rosary. It is common for those who pray the rosary to begin by holding the crucifix in their right hand-with which they make the sign of the cross-and, on completing the sign of the cross, kissing the crucifix. It was Koesler’s hypothesis that those athletes who indulge in what has become for them a superstition don’t consciously think of what they’re doing. Why, after all, would anyone kiss his own thumb?

  What has happened is that they grew up watching mother pray the rosary. They’ve seen her over and over again make the sign of the cross, and end by kissing the crucifix. But to the youthful observer it might not have been clear just what was being kissed.

  So, today’s boxer, football, basketball, baseball player makes the sign of the cross-for luck, most probably-kisses the finger that would be holding a crucifix if one were present, and then goes out to beat hell out of the other guy or die trying.

  Koesler almost smiled at the memory of uncounted hockey players going over the boards, making the sign of the cross, kissing the thumb, then whacking an opponent with the hockey stick. He almost smiled. But he did not. Instead he grew serious.

  What was it? Something he had just been thinking of. They grew up watching mother pray the rosary. They grew up watching mother pray the rosary.

  Thoughts tumbled into his mind. Unbidden, the thoughts came in no particular order. It was as if he had dropped the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in the center of his brain with the accompanying urge to put them together so that the puzzle would make sense.

  Klaus Krieg grew up watching his mother say the rosary? No, that wasn’t it. But something like that. What had the little boy watched his mother do?

  Before Koesler could answer that, other pieces needed placement.

  Instead of trying to find vestiges of Catholicism in what he’d seen of Krieg, Koesler tried to simply take an objective view of what he’d actually se
en and heard Krieg do and say.

  Gradually the jigsaw picture began to take shape. It revealed quite a different image than anyone had been looking at up to this time.

  The question facing Koesler now: Would this picture hold up in the face of strong arguments against it? And he was not kidding himself: He was sure that even if he could join these fragments together so that they constituted a brand new theory of what had been going on here, he would face determined opposition. Indeed, opposition from the police who had been investigating the case. Opposition from the experts.

  Koesler quite nearly quit at this point. Who was he kidding? He was no expert at solving crimes. The experts were upstairs now, questioning, challenging, solving the crime. And they were not even considering the scenario he’d seen with his mind’s eye as he put his own peculiar jigsaw puzzle together.

  The trouble he faced now was that he was hesitant to test his theory. It seemed to him almost as if the theory were his baby, and he was afraid the baby was about to be declared ugly. But he could envision only two alternatives. One: swallow it; forget it. The police knew-or thought they knew-they were in the home stretch: They were homing in on the guilty party. They had hard evidence now that they’d found the remnants of the gasoline that, on the surface of it, was meant to blow Klaus Krieg sky-high. The temptation was strong to sit back and do nothing. It would be interesting to watch the remainder of this drama much like attending a movie. It seemed that the police were mere minutes away from a solution. But was it the solution?

  Interesting question: Could it be possible for the police to solve this case incorrectly? What possible reason could there be for the police to be mistaken?

  Two: The second alternative was to play out his hand as far as it would reach. The reason: It was probable the police lacked the insight he had as a Catholic priest and one who was interested in all aspects of religion. He owed it to his friend Walt Koznicki to test his hypothesis. He owed it to justice for the innocent as well as the guilty.

  With any luck, it would require no more than a few phone calls. With a lot of luck, one call would do it.