Assault with Intent

by William X. Kienzle

  “Not the World War I Veteran, Retired!”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Why?”

  “Age!”

  “How old was he?”

  “Seventy-four!”

  “That was not old for Father Schwartz.”

  “He was among the last priests who were still fighting for our faith as it was handed down by the Apostles!”

  At that moment, a TV crew entered the basement. An unkempt, unshaven young man balanced a TV camera on his shoulder. He was followed by the sound man carrying a microphone and looking about for the best place to aim it. They were followed by well-dressed, square-shaped Ven Marshall, Channel 7’s longtime reporter.

  Cox and Lennon feared they were about to witness a repeat of what ensued when the early Christians faced the lions. When this altercation concluded, the two reporters were certain, the score would read: Tridentines-3, TV Crew-0.

  Oddly, just the opposite was happening. For the first time in the two meetings Cox and Lennon had attended, they saw smiles on a few faces. Tridentines self-consciously adjusted their clothing and posture. They were going to be on TV. This was Show Time!

  The chairman began pounding the gavel for order, although with the advent of the TV crew he had more order than at any other time during the session.

  The cameraman set up facing the chairman as Ven Marshall confidently took a seat at the far corner of the front row.

  The chairman recommenced, “Well, members of the T.S.”

  Tough shit? the soundman wondered.

  “The Tridentine Society …”

  No.

  “… was founded to restore to the Church the richness of the sixteenth century—the greatest of centuries. As we can all see from the reports we have heard tonight, our major problem is with today’s priests. Why, many of us still remember the hedonistic pictures brought to our last meeting by Brother Alphonsus …”

  Yeah, where is Brother Alphonsus? Cox wondered. The good brother appeared not to have attended this meeting.

  “…’and that most of us viewed afterward. This is what they are teaching today’s seminarians. About group sex and single sex and the opposite sex. How can we expect to have any more priests like Father Schwartz with indoctrination like that in our seminaries?

  “Probably all of you saw what happened to that priest at the seminary. Someone tried to poison him. I ask you, is that all bad? What can our seminary teachers expect when they lead our seminarians into mortal sin? It is about time someone got the attention of these Judases!”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Chairman.” Marshall’s clipped tones were addressed jointly to the microphone in his hand and the chairman on the podium. “Do I understand you to say that the murder of a priest could be justified—even desirable?”

  “There are worse things than death in this world, sir.” The chairman was caught in the camera’s zoom lens. “Mortal sin is the greatest evil in the world!”

  “And wouldn’t the killing of a priest be a mortal sin?” Marshall was aware that he was getting extraordinary, if outrageous, statements for quotation.

  “There is such a thing as the lesser of two evils, sir!” the chairman shot back.

  Cox and Lennon were exuberant. While TV would, of course, beat them chronologically, they would be able to talk to all these singular characters, write their stories, and be reasonably sure none of these people would read those stories. The Tridentines would be glued to their TV sets, watching themselves on Channel 7’s newscast. But they would not read.

  Cox and Lennon would live to fight another day.

  “St. Anselm’s.” Koesler answered the rectory phone.

  “Father Koesler, this is Inspector Koznicki. Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Certainly, Inspector. We have a parish council meeting this evening. But that doesn’t begin for half an hour.”

  “Fine. Have you read both the Free Press and News accounts of that Tridentine Society meeting?”

  “Yes. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have paid much attention to something like that. Except that I was the priest the chairman happened to be referring to—and I don’t regard myself as being as expendable as he does.”

  “Nor do I. Do you know anything of this group, Father?”

  “Not an awful lot. There can’t be many of them. They’re sort of the lunatic fringe.”

  “You would not term them simply conservatives?”

  “Oh, no. The stereotype of a Catholic conservative is a person who thinks the Church was from its very beginning the same as it was when he was growing up. So he deeply resents the drastic changes that have taken place in the Church since the Second Vatican Council. Most of this type have a peculiar notion of what we call the ordinary magisterium, or the ordinary teaching role of the Church. According to them, if a Catholic denies a noninfallible papal statement, the Catholic is not a heretic, he’s just wrong.

  “But people like the Tridentines have made up their own Church. They think they’re Catholic but they are far too Catholic for the Catholic Church. Or am I telling you more than you ever wanted to know? That’s a propensity of mine.”

  “No, no, Father. Never suppose that a police officer knows that much about religion. And knowledge of the Church will likely be an important element in the solution of this case.

  “But tell me, Father: both Joseph Cox of the Free Press and Patricia Lennon of the News seem to believe that the Tridentines will not even read their stories in the newspapers, and that they will be able to continue covering this society with impunity. What do you think?”

  “I’d have to agree. When I was editor of the Detroit Catholic, these people would often call to complain about something we had run—but they hadn’t read it; others had told them about it. So I guess Joe and Pat are in the clear … unless someone tattles to the Tridentines.

  “I take it you’ve talked to the reporters?”

  “Yes, and to the chairman of the Tridentines—one Roman Kirkus. But it is next to impossible to pinpoint or identify the members. There are no lists or records. Even Mr. Kirkus claims to know not more than five members. It is one of the most secretive groups I have ever encountered.”

  “And you feel they could really be violent?”

  “Oh, yes, Father. Trust me. This type can easily pass over the line between talk and action.”

  A chill passed down Koesler’s spine.

  He shook it off. “By the way, Inspector, I’ve been thinking… ”

  “That’s what we want you to do.”

  “Has it occurred to anyone that these attacks have taken place while all of the—us —were doing routine things?” It seemed strange to Koesler to include himself in the category of intended victim.

  “Yes, it has, Father. You had finished your Friday dinner, the only dinner you regularly eat at the seminary. Father Merrit always travels to say Mass at the same time of the morning. And Father Ward each year takes the skull to his classroom just prior to the Yorick episode in Hamlet. Someone has done an excellent job of surveillance.”

  Silence. Koesler felt abashed; of course the police would notice such an obvious clue.

  “But one final request, Father.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Keep thinking.”

  Each Friday afternoon at 3:30 during the school year, Father Sklarski took his week’s dry cleaning to Robinson’s Cleaners and picked up the previous week’s supply. He found he had to establish a routine or he would forget for weeks at a time. Then he would find himself with a party to attend and no clean black suit in his closet.

  Robinson’s was only three blocks from the seminary, so Sklarski always walked.

  At precisely 3:30 p.m. on a Friday in late January, Father Sklarski stepped gingerly out the seminary’s front door.

  It had snowed heavily earlier in the week. But two days of temperatures in the upper 40s had reduced the snow to slush. Long ago, Sklarski had grumpily concluded that Detroit’s snow removal plan was called spring.

&
nbsp; Walking in this neighborhood always made the priest a bit uneasy. Say what you will, Sklarski would declaim, it’s not a matter of racial prejudice: this was a damn dangerous neighborhood. And now, since the attacks on three faculty members, none of the remaining faculty could feel entirely safe ever. Walking the streets in this vicinity only heightened his apprehension.

  He pretended to keep his gaze on the ground as he walked. But his eyes restlessly moved from side to side, catching as much as possible in peripheral view.

  He breathed a sigh of relief as he reached the cleaners. Half the circuit completed without incident.

  “Right on time, Father,” said a cheerful Mr. Robinson.

  “Yup. You can set your clock by me. It’s nice to know there are some things in life that are dependable.”

  Robinson wrote up the current items Sklarski had brought in, then took his ticket and went to find last week’s batch.

  Fine, hard-working man, thought Sklarski. More blacks work that hard and the welfare rolls would be halved.

  Sklarski paid his bill, hooked a pudgy finger under hangers holding a suit and an overcoat, and exited.

  No sooner had the door closed behind him than the priest’s heart skipped a beat. There was an unmistakable sound of violence.

  “Help! Help! Help me!”

  Sklarski dropped the suit and coat in the slush as his hands went up instinctively to protect himself. But the outcry came from across the wide street.

  Four or five young blacks were mugging a white man. They had thrown him to the ground and were pummeling him.

  “What’s going on over there?” Sklarski shouted.

  “What white mother wants to know?” one of the muggers shouted back, holding up an insolent finger.

  Insult Sklarski, would they! He immediately reentered the cleaners and, using Robinson’s personal phone, dialed 911. He then continued to watch the scuffle from the comparative safety of the cleaning establishment.

  Finally, the muggee escaped from the muggers, who seemed to have acquired what they were after. Probably his wallet, thought Sklarski.

  Just after the victim had broken away and run shrieking down a side street, the police arrived. The hoodlums scattered, but the police managed to nab two.

  The excitement was over.

  Sklarski glanced at his clothing, soiled by the slush. Robinson would have to begin anew with it.

  Funny thing, now that he had the interval to think about it: the victim across the street had been wearing black too.

  “My worst experience was with an Austrian,” said Monsignor Martin. “Although I must confess. I made a major contribution to the mess.”

  It was Friday dinner at the seminary. Fathers Martin, Koesler, and Burk were seated at the same table. They, indeed, were the only faculty members dining at the seminary this evening. The topic of conversation had segued from the difficulty of teaching today’s students a foreign language to problems they had experienced with foreign priests.

  “Actually,” Martin continued, “it was a bizarre combination of the initial blunder I made, coupled with the priest’s unfamiliarity with English, and his Bavarian bullheadedness. It happened years ago, but I’ll never forget it.

  “It was a very busy Saturday morning. We had several weddings scheduled. Every hour on the hour from nine to noon. Which explains what this Austrian priest was doing among us: we needed help—anywhere we could get it.

  “It began when I inadvertently gave him the wrong marriage license. He, of course, had never met the couple, so he had no way of knowing he had the wrong license.”

  Burk and Koesler began to grin, anticipating the chaos that was sure to follow.

  “Well,” Martin continued, “after the wedding party reached the altar, the priest consulted both the lectionary and the license and began with, ‘Do you, John Smith’ — whatever the names were; I’ve forgotten — ‘take Mary Brown, here present, to be your lawful wedded wife?’

  “Well, the groom says, ‘My name is not John Smith.’ The priest says, ‘Yes, it is. It must be. It says so right on the license.’ ‘Well, it’s not John Smith,’ the groom insists. So they argue awhile until the priest is convinced the groom must know his own name. ‘So what is your name?’ ‘Joseph Doe,’—or something like that—the groom says. So the priest begins again, ‘Do you, Joseph Doe, take Mary Brown, here present, for your lawful wedded wife?’ ‘My name is not Mary Brown,’ says the bride.

  “Well, they went through the same process all over again, arguing whether the bride knew her own name in contrast to what the license said.”

  The three laughed heartily.

  “That’s pretty good, Al,” said Burk, “but I think I can top that one. Or bottom it, depending on how you look at it.

  “Our situation was similar to yours in that we ran short of priests. Only this was for Sunday Mass in the summer when one of our priests was on vacation and another fell ill.

  “The only extra priest we could find was staying at a nearby monastery. Not only was he French, he had come to this country only a few months before. There was no problem with Mass, of course. It was in Latin then, and Latin with a French accent sounds better than Latin with an American accent.

  “The problem was with the sermon. The French priest’s fluency in English ran from poor to nonexistent. We tried to assure him that one of us could handle the sermon and all he’d have to do was say Mass. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted upon preaching.

  “Well, the Gospel text for that Sunday was the episode where Christ cures the ten lepers and only one of them returns to give thanks.

  “To begin, the priest pronounced it ‘leapers.’ And in paraphrasing the Gospel’s conclusion, he said, ‘Christ cured ze ten leapers. And all of zem returned to give thanks except nine.’”

  They laughed again.

  While Burk had been telling his story, Father Sklarski had entered the dining room, helped himself from the serving table, and seated himself with the other three. He hadn’t heard all of Burk’s story but enjoyed the punch line regardless.

  “Well, Ed, anything happen to you today?” asked Martin.

  Whether or not anything had happened that day to Sklarski, the question was certain to launch his stream of consciousness.

  “Did anything happen? Did anything happen!” Sklarski exclaimed. “Well, I should say. This day was like all other days except that I became part of the crime-fighting scene in our fair city.”

  He had their attention.

  Sklarski told of his brief journey to the cleaners. He embellished the menace of the neighborhood needlessly. Each of them had walked the selfsame streets any number of times. They knew that while there was some danger, the neighborhood was not nearly as perilous, particularly in broad daylight, as Sklarski made out.

  “Then,” Sklarski continued, “as I was leaving Robinson’s, I heard this piteous cry for help. I looked up keenly. Every nerve and sinew in my body was on the alert. The adrenalin coursed through my blood stream.

  “It was across the street—across Linwood. Five or six big black men had attacked one lonely white man. They had him on the ground and were killing him.

  “What could I do? What could any one man do against such odds? I quickly crossed the street”—he would, he assured himself, have crossed the street if he had it to do over—“and confronted those hoodlums.

  “Well, one of them turned on me and knocked my freshly cleaned suit and coat from my hands. I knew then I could not prevail alone. So I retreated to Robinson’s and called the police.”

  “Did they come in time?” asked Burk.

  “Promptly. Although not before the victim managed to struggle free of those vandals and run away. But the police caught a couple of them. One was the ringleader. The police were familiar with him. Then they took my statement and took the criminals into custody.”

  “Say, Ed,” Martin observed, “that was pretty brave of you. I don’t think I would have had the courage to charge into a melee like th
at.”

  “Nor I,” Burk agreed.

  “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” Sklarski felt not a twinge of compunction.

  “Funny thing, though,” Sklarski continued, “as I told the police, the victim was dressed all in black. Black hat, coat, trousers, shoes … white socks though. You don’t see that much anymore. Why, hell, you hardly see priests dressed that way anymore.”

  “Wait.” Koesler had been listening intently. “The victim was dressed in black?”

  “Why, yes.”

  “How big a man would you say he was?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Not big. Maybe five-five, not an athletic figure at all. Oh, and he had a rather high-pitched voice. Maybe that was because he was frightened. And I don’t blame him.”

  “And,” Koesler continued his questioning, “this is something you do routinely, Ed? You go to the same cleaners at the same time each Friday?”

  “Well, if I don’t, I tend to forget about it and there you are, invited out to Grosse Pointe Farms with nothing to wear.” Sklarski chuckled, joined by Martin and Burk.

  “Part of your routine,” Koesler mused as if he were alone, “the man is about five-five, pudgy, high voice, and dressed in black … hmmm.

  “If you’ll excuse me … ” Koesler rose and quickly left the dining room.

  He made his way to the room assigned for his use on the second floor. He found and dialed the number of Precinct Ten and spoke briefly with the inspector in charge.

  Then he phoned Inspector Koznicki and told him what had happened, omitting the part about Sklarski’s crossing the street and confronting the muggers. His call to the Tenth Precinct had revealed that part of Sklarski’s tale to be a Walter Mittyism.

  “I think, Inspector,” Koesler concluded, “that the fact that the muggers robbed the victim of a loaded revolver makes it much more likely that he is our man. Same height, size, high voice, dressed in black. Add to this, Father Sklarski was doing what he routinely does each Friday.

  “What do you think?”

  “The coincidence is remarkable,” Koznicki admitted at length.