Assault with Intent

by William X. Kienzle

  “No prints on the gun?” Kane removed an unlit cigar from his mouth and dropped it in an ashtray in which there were never any ashes.

  “No.”

  “What kinda guy is this Budreau? Carries a gun in his belt all the time?”

  Cox smiled. “No, not really. I got most of my information from secondary sources. The cops got first crack at him, naturally. By the time they finished, he looked as if he was going into shock. Some of his buddies hustled him off to the hospital.”

  “What makes the guy tick?” Kane replaced the cigar in his mouth.

  “He’s a military freak. Saw some action as a chaplain in the ETO during World War II. Changed his life. Some of his students claim his specialty is teaching how to say Mass on the hood of a Jeep.”

  “Students are irreverent by nature,” Kane commented.

  “They say he had a tough time deciding whether to make a career of the army or teaching in the seminary. But the kicker, Nellie, is that once a week, every week, he takes target practice. He’s also a gun freak. I guess that goes along with being enchanted with the Army. He used to practice with rifles, but lately, he’s taken up handguns. Which apparently put him in pretty good stead for today’s Shootout at the O.K. Chapel.”

  “Who was his instructor at that firing range, the Sundance Kid?”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  “The guy came at Budreau from behind. He had to turn to fire, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah. And to top it off, he knocked the gun right out of the guy’s hand. What a goddamn lucky shot! He admitted as much. Said he heard the guy behind him cock the gun; says once you’ve heard it, it’s a sound unlike any other. Then, he kind of slid to his left while he drew the derringer. He twisted and fired. He admits he was just hoping to hit the guy somewhere—anywhere. But he says about all he could see was the barrel of the guy’s gun. Said it looked about the size of a cannon.

  “Maybe that explains why he hit the gun; he was looking at it. You hit what you see.” He grinned. “That’s a little maxim I just made up.”

  “With all this emphasis on the gun, am I to assume he didn’t get a good make on the guy?”

  “That’s right. Says the guy was back in the shadows, dressed in black. His description runs from very vague to nil. Police said they might try to get something from him with hypnosis. But that’ll be later.”

  “How come nobody but Patrick heard the shot?”

  “Got ears for it, I guess. He’s heard enough gunshots in his time. Besides, he was geared for something to go wrong. But it was difficult to hear. A derringer doesn’t make that much noise. Two sets of closed doors separated them from the shooting scene. Then there was that crazy coincidence of the champagne cork popping at almost the instant the shot was fired.”

  “What was with the champagne?”

  “That’s too long a story. I’ve gotta start feeding this in. But the champagne was being used instead of Koesler’s famous poisoned bottle of gin. It was a case of Murphy’s Law. The only thing that could have gone wrong with that bottle was if the cork popped. So, naturally, the cork popped.”

  “I can hardly wait to read your story.”

  “Nellie, I don’t know whether they’re making a dirty movie on that set, but they sure as hell are making a disaster film.”

  The shades had been drawn, making the small room nearly dark.

  The four darkly clad men had been meeting for more than an hour.

  “I simply can’t understand it,” said the First Man. “When I heard that gunshot, I was sure we had finally succeeded.”

  “I locked the doors as soon as I saw you enter the chapel,” said the Second Man.

  “Everything was perfect except for one thing,” said the First Man.

  “He fired first,” said the Third Man.

  “There was no possible way we could have known,” said the Fourth Man. “We watched him so carefully. He always went to the chapel before lunch. He was always alone there. It was the perfect opportunity. There’s no doubt about that, even now.”

  “We knew about his practicing on the shooting range,” said the Third Man. “I even went there and practiced alongside him. He never even recognized me.” He seemed to drift off into pensiveness. “You know, it’s funny: none of them has recognized any of us … and there we’ve been, on the set, right there in the seminary, every day.” He shook his head, as if to bring himself back to the present. “He isn’t even that good a shot. That’s what boils me. He isn’t a marksman. I’ve seen him miss target after target with pistols and rifles!”

  “It was a lucky shot, there’s no doubt about it,” said the Fourth Man. “Even Budreau admitted that he hoped to hit you somewhere, anywhere.”

  “As it turns out,” said the Second Man, “it was a lucky shot in more ways than one. If he hadn’t hit your gun, he would have hit you. You must have been surprised.”

  “Surprised!” the Third Man almost shouted. “How many priests do you know who pack a gun in their cassocks? I had him in my sight. Then he started to move to the left just after I cocked my gun. I moved my gun too, so I was still aiming at the back of his head. I was just beginning to squeeze the trigger when he turned and fired. I thought my hands were going to fall off. The pain went right up my arms. It wasn’t a case of holding onto the gun. The damn thing was knocked right out of my hands.

  “Then, all I could think of was the rest of the plan. I knew I had only a few moments at best to get out of the chapel and into the men’s room. I didn’t have time to pick up the gun. Besides, my hands hurt too much.”

  “Speaking of the plan, doesn’t it seem obvious? The plan is over, finished. We tried to make our statement. We gave it a good try. But we failed. It’s as simple as that.”

  “What do you mean the plan is finished! We have one final victim left. We have not failed unless we fail in this last statement!” The Fourth Man sounded desperate. “What about it, men? We can’t quit now!”

  There was a brief silence.

  “I’m afraid I must agree that we are indeed finished,” said the Third Man. “Now, you all know me well. You know I’m no quitter. None of you wanted to carry out this plan more than I did. Only reluctantly did I agree to the original drawing of lots to determine which of us was going to be the Instrument of Justice. It was torture having to sit by while four successive assaults failed.” He looked accusingly at the Second Man, who looked away.

  “I was overjoyed,” the Third Man continued, “when fate finally dealt me the opportunity of being the Instrument of Justice. But now, I’ve seen the plan fail with my own eyes. I know from having been personally involved with all the planning of this latest effort that our plot was foolproof as far as it is humanly possible to ensure such a thing. And I was there when it fell apart. There is a power higher than we are that is trying to tell us something. And the message is that we should stop now before someone, possibly one of us, gets hurt.”

  “Yes,” said the Second Man, “speaking of a power higher than we are, have any of you been aware of something different about this meeting?”

  “Only that some creatures who are talking about deserting the ship are revealing themselves,” said the Fourth Man, disgustedly.

  “No, no,” the Second Man countered, “I mean something different that didn’t happen.”

  He got no response.

  “Remember how in all our previous meetings, things would go wrong, accidents would happen. In the past, there has been almost no time when something untoward wasn’t happening. But our meeting this evening has been completely without incident.”

  In the silence that followed, there was tacit if reluctant agreement with the observation.

  “I call it a sign from above,” said the Second Man, “an omen.”

  “And I call that poppycock. And I also call for a vote,” said the Fourth Man. “All those in favor of continuing with our plan signify by saying ‘aye.’”

  His was the sole aye.

  “All those against—
” He spat the last word.

  Three resounding nays became part of the record.

  “Very well,” said the Fourth Man in a resigned but determined tone, “I will take the obligation of our pact on my own shoulders. I should have done so from the beginning. We wouldn’t be where we are—which is almost point zero—if I had.”

  “No, you can’t do it!”

  “It’s not right!”

  “We voted! You should abide by the vote!”

  “You abide by the vote!” the Fourth Man snarled. “You three dissolved our pact with your votes. All right, our plan is finished as our plan. It now becomes my plan.”

  “We can’t help you.”

  “I don’t need your help! I don’t want your help. All I ask is that you continue to work on the movie. It would be suspicious if they had to hire three new production assistants now. Besides, I can at least trust you not to betray me.” He hesitated. “Can’t I?”

  “Of course.”

  “You shouldn’t have to ask that question.”

  “What kind of friends do you think we are, anyway?”

  “Very well. I hereby declare this meeting closed. And with the closing of this meeting, the Instrument of Justice Society is—reluctantly—dissolved.”

  As the four men walked out of the small room for the final time, there were tears in the eyes of at least two of them.

  Nothing had to be constructed. The Gennardo shooting was going to be filmed in the seminary’s inner courtyard, where it had actually occurred. Still, technicians were swarming all over what had become a movie set. Lights, reflectors, microphones were being set up and tested. Tracks were being laid for the camera. The first assistant director and the actors were plotting the action. Herman Deutsch, who had been awake all night rewriting the new scene wherein Father Budreau becomes William Tell, was quietly asleep in his chair, undisturbed by the commotion. Bruce Lauther stood in the center of the set, absorbing all the activity and mentally calculating the cost of it all.

  Off to one side, Inspector Koznicki, Sergeants Patrick and Morris, and Father Koesler were conversing. They were forced to speak rather loudly to be heard over the cacophonous babel.

  “Father Budreau was not able to recall any more details of his assailant’s appearance even under hypnosis?” Father Koesler asked.

  “No, it was a complete washout,” said Patrick.

  “Unfortunate,” Inspector Koznicki commented. “If Father Budreau had been able to remember, it might have resolved the mystery of the masks.”

  “The masks?” Koesler repeated.

  “Yes,” Koznicki said. “Consider the six times the assailant has acted thus far. Father Ward reported that his attacker wore some disguise, probably a sheer stocking, on his face.

  “Father Merrit also said the man wore some sort of mask. Father Sklarski recalled no mask on his assumed assailant, but the man was under attack himself and so Father did not get a look at his face.

  “You, of course,” Koznicki said to Koesler, “did not see whoever placed the bottle in your mailbox. And Father Gennardo did not see the person who shot him. Now, Father Budreau cannot recall any details at all regarding the man at whom he fired.

  “We are left, in a manner of speaking, with a headless assailant.” Koznicki spread his hands in a gesture of futility.

  “The presumed attack on Sklarski was the only one of the six that occurred away from the seminary grounds,” said Patrick. “Perhaps that was why he wore no mask that time.”

  “Well, it was certainly cold enough back then to wear a ski mask,” said Morris. “He could have worn a mask without question just because of the weather.”

  “Strange,” said Patrick, “as far as we know, the man has disguised himself each time he has attacked someone on seminary property. Yet the one time he tries something away from the seminary, he is without a mask.”

  “Perhaps,” observed Koesler, “he does not feel the need to disguise himself when he is off seminary grounds.”

  The other three looked at Koesler attentively.

  “If,” Koesler continued, “we look at these assaults through the eyes of the assailant, what modus operandi do we find? He quite obviously intends to kill his prey, so there is no necessity to hide his identity from the victim. Now, we know, as things turned out, he was fortunate to have been disguised, because none of his targets was killed. But obviously, he did not intend things to end that way.

  “That being so, why the disguise in the seminary but not out? Why would he fear being identified on seminary grounds but have no such fear when off campus? Could it be that he was afraid of being recognized by people in the seminary other than his victims?”

  “Makes sense,” Patrick acknowledged.

  “But who would be recognized by someone in the seminary?” asked Morris.

  “A priest,” Koesler replied, “a student, an employee. Or the other side of each of those coins: a former priest, a former student, or a former employee.”

  His listeners seemed so grave, Koesler felt impelled to lighten the atmosphere. “I realize that, if my hypothesis is correct, I have narrowed the list of possible suspects to a respectable few thousand.”

  “Not at all, Father,” said Koznicki, “your observation is well taken. After all, I asked for your help in this investigation because I thought you could add some singular insights.”

  “Thank you, Inspector. It’s just that I feel so absolutely unqualified to dabble in police work. And yet, at the same time, I feel very close to this investigation. Not only am I personally involved as one of the intended victims, I know the others in this case so well. And I have an inkling that there is only one more block that has to fall in place and everything will be clear. I can’t help feeling that this case is so very close to being solved. Have any of you ever felt this way?”

  All three officers smiled acknowledgment.

  “It’s got to be one of the most common experiences that police officers share, especially in Homicide,” said Morris. “You work on a case until your eyes cross. You think everything out a hundred times from a dozen different angles. Then there’s just one more corner to turn, but it looks as if you’ll never get there.”

  “I’m glad I’m not alone.”

  “Believe me, Father, you’re not alone,” said Morris. “But let me ask you about something in your field of expertise. I’m curious; why is the chapel still open?”

  “That’s right,” said Patrick. “An act of violence took place in there … almost a crime.”

  “Some people would maintain that some of the sermons given in some churches are almost a crime,” said Koesler. “But it’s a good question. As a matter of fact, I looked it up last night in the Code of Canon Law. Canon 1172 covers the matter.”

  “Eleven seventy-two? You’ve got more than eleven hundred laws?” Morris seemed surprised.

  “Two thousand, four hundred and fourteen, to be exact,” said Koesler. “Eleven seventy-two is the one that deals with the desecration of a church.”

  “That’s the word I was looking for,” said Morris, “desecration.”

  “We came within a hairsbreadth of having a desecrated church. It seems there are four categories in which a church can be desecrated. The first is a homicide. Thank God that didn’t happen, although it almost did.

  “The second is an injury caused from which there is an appreciable amount of blood spilled. If Budreau had not been so accidentally accurate, I’m afraid we would have had a lot of blood spilled.

  “The third way would be to put the church to a sordid or grossly irreverent use. Like making it a gambling den or hosting an orgy. You will recall Christ’s driving the moneychangers from the temple.

  “Finally, a church can be desecrated by burying an infidel or a notoriously excommunicated person therein.

  “Now, have I told you more than you ever wanted to know about desecrated churches?”

  “Not at all,” said Morris. “It’s fascinating. Even if it does sound sort of me
dieval. But what would have to be done if, say, Father Budreau had missed the gun and there were a lot of blood?”

  Koesler laughed. “Well, to answer your question seriously, there is a rite in the Roman Ritual that would be used to reconsecrate the church. The reason I’m laughing is that it reminds me of a story that is rather famous in seminary circles. Have you got another minute?”

  All three figuratively settled back to hear Koesler’s story.

  “Do you know what a sacrarium is?”

  Koznicki nodded; Morris and Patrick shook their heads.

  “Well, all Catholic sacristies are equipped with an object called a sacrarium, which resembles an ordinary sink. Except that the drainpipe of the sacrarium leads, not into a sewer, but into the ground. When the cloths used in Mass or at, say, baptism, are washed, the water is poured into the sacrarium. It’s just a reverent way of disposing of water that’s been used to wash sacred linens.”

  His audience appeared to comprehend this explanation.

  “Some years back, a seminarian who was about to be ordained a priest was being given his final exams.

  “One of his professors posed this problem: ‘You are saying Mass. Just after you have consecrated the wafer and the wine, a mouse runs across the altar, takes the host in its mouth and runs off with it. What would you do?’

  “The young man thinks this over and finally says, ‘I’d burn the church down and throw the ashes in the sacrarium.’”

  Laughter.

  “Is that true?”

  “I can’t say that it is, and I can’t say that it isn’t.”

  Most of those who came in hopes of seeing today’s filming wouldn’t. The inner courtyard was confined, especially after the filming equipment, technicians, actors, crews, and advisers crammed in.

  Standing in the corridor just outside the courtyard were, among many others, Pat Lennon and Joe Cox.

  “Haven’t I seen you before?” said Cox to Lennon. “In fact,” he slipped into his very poor Groucho Marx imitation, “earlier today, didn’t I see an awful lot of you?”

  Lennon blushed. “Why don’t you broadcast it?”