Assault with Intent

by William X. Kienzle

  “I’ll take out an ad in the New York Times.”

  “Speaking of the Times, isn’t that …?”

  “… their local stringer.”

  “They’re back on this story, eh?”

  “Everybody’s back on it after Budreau’s fastest-gun-in-a-cassock act.”

  “That reminds me”—for the first time Lennon faced Cox full on—“what was it you called it in your article—‘Shootout at the O.K. Chapel’? I know they let you get away with that stuff at the Freep, but don’t you think that’s a bit flip? Someone could have gotten killed. As a matter of fact, that was the idea—to kill Budreau.”

  “That may have been the idea, but it was not the fact.” Cox enjoyed her perfume. Indeed, he enjoyed everything about her, even her arguing with him. “The fact is, the guy blew another one. He must be setting a world’s record for bad luck. Besides, I thought the line was kind of clever.”

  “I won’t argue clever with you. But I think you’ll regret the phrase if there’s another shooting here.”

  “You think there’ll be another one?”

  “What do you think all these media people from all over the country are doing here? They didn’t come to see a movie made. Especially this one!”

  “You think the idea is to keep trying until he actually kills somebody?”

  “Why are you interviewing me? And worse than that, why are you taking up my time when I could be interviewing someone worthwhile?” Lennon began working her way toward Sergeant Patrick. He saw her coming and began moving toward her. He did not mind one bit talking to her.

  Father Koesler moved nearer to the camera. He studied the actor who would portray Father Gennardo. The actor, whom Koesler did not recognize, was listening intently to Sol Gould, who was pointing to various spots in the courtyard.

  Although he did not recall seeing this actor in any previous movie, Koesler had to admit that the man bore a striking resemblance to the real Father Gennardo. They were about the same height and build, with dark hair heavily salted with white, and a swarthy complexion. Koesler wondered if anyone had taught the man to snort as Gennardo did from force of habit.

  If this actor so resembled the real priest, Koesler wondered if, for a change, the script would more nearly reflect what really had happened when Gennardo was shot.

  Technicians seemed to be burying things in the floor, the wall, even in the fish pond. Koesler edged closer to Mary Murphy.

  “Excuse me, Mary, but what are those men doing?”

  Mary looked up from her clipboard. “Oh, hello, Father. Those men? They’re positioning explosive devices.”

  He looked at her for further explanation.

  “You see, nobody actually fires real bullets. The assassin will be firing blanks and those devices will be set off by that machine over there. All they’ve got to remember is the order in which they’re supposed to explode. Otherwise, we’d have the actor in one part of the courtyard and it would look as if the gunman is shooting at something in some other part of the courtyard.”

  “Quiet! Quiet on the set!” Sol Gould called through his megaphone. Quiet set in. “Places!”

  Mary Murphy assured Koesler he could remain at her side.

  The lights were turned up. The black-cassocked “Father Gennardo” began pacing the courtyard. Koesler could see a shadowy figure on the balcony overlooking the courtyard. So far, so accurate.

  The assailant aimed his gun, elongated by the silencer, and fired.

  The device near “Gennardo’s” left foot exploded.

  Very realistic, thought Koesler.

  The actor dove behind a bench. The device embedded in the back of the bench exploded.

  Hey, wait a minute! thought Koesler.

  The actor raced from behind the bench to behind a column. The device embedded in the column exploded.

  “This isn’t the way it happened,” Koesler urgently whispered to Mary. “Father Gennardo wasn’t really aware of what was going on. He didn’t take any evasive action!”

  “I know,” Mary whispered back. “Bruce and Herm didn’t think the viewing public would believe a gunman could miss at this range unless the target was a moving one.”

  Koesler thought about that for some time.

  The actor moved from behind the column and began to move quickly toward the door. Suddenly, he seemed to have been slammed to the ground. He lay very still. Red began to seep from beneath his shoulder and spread across the bricks.

  “Cut! Cut! That’s a keeper!” The satisfaction in Gould’s voice was rare, particularly on this project.

  Herman Deutsch woke momentarily. On hearing Gould’s exuberant tone, Deutsch, contented, snuggled down again.

  Koesler wondered about a sound somewhere in the distance. It couldn’t be an echo. It was far too belated to be an echo.

  Morris and Patrick knew.

  “Gunshot!” snapped Morris. “Where’s Kirkus?”

  “Right there!” Patrick nodded in the direction of the sound equipment where all the production assistants were gathered. “I haven’t taken my eyes off him. Let’s go!”

  The two ran full-tilt down the hallway.

  “Back! Stand back! Make way! Police!” Patrick, service revolver in hand, lowered his shoulder and charged through the crowd with Morris in his wake. As the two headed in the direction of the sound, they were followed pied-piper style by nearly everyone who had been at or on the set.

  They reached a turn in the corridor.

  Patrick inclined his head to the right.

  “The racquetball courts!”

  The parade turned right and stampeded toward the courts.

  Patrick threw open the door leading to the first court. He and Morris darted through, bringing their guns to firing position.

  Then, as the crowd jostled at the door trying to peer into the court, the mouths of both detectives dropped open.

  The court had been converted into a firing range.

  Father Budreau, whose mouth also hung open, was teaching a student to fire a gun.

  “Just what we needed,” said Patrick.

  “Son of a Billy the Kid,” Morris commented.

  Father Koesler was distracted. He found it most difficult to pay attention to the parish council proceedings.

  It was not unusual for his mind to wander during council meetings. But this evening, the distractions were notably more intense.

  Sometimes it was like this when he was reading the paper. He would have to read the same paragraph several times before he would grasp what he was reading. When that happened, there was no remedy but to put down the paper and go settle whatever it was that was distracting him.

  He could not apply that remedy now. One does not simply get up and leave in the middle of a parish council meeting. Especially if one is pastor of the parish. He was trapped.

  Something was disturbing Bob Bullock. Koesler always thought of him as Sweet Old Bob. Bullock, who resembled a slightly more handsome Sam Jaffe, had taught school and been in politics. He now sold insurance. Bullock combined a strongly conservative viewpoint with a highly irascible temperament and managed to keep everyone near him on edge. Koesler had long ago come to the conclusion that Judy, Bullock’s long-suffering wife, was destined to go directly to heaven with no stop at purgatory just for having put up with Sweet Old Bob all these years.

  “Bob; we have no choice in the matter.” Council president Ty Obermyer, a most civilized man, was trying to be patient. He had not much hope he would succeed. “The superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese issues salary regulations and we have no alternative but to accept them.”

  “I don’t see how, Mr. President, they can send out directives from downtown that they expect us to follow blindly. How do they know what we can afford?” Bullock declared in that ingratiating way he had.

  “The idea is, Bob, if we can’t afford to pay a decent wage to our teachers and help, we should close the school.”

  That was a mistake. Long experience wi
th Sweet Old Bob had taught Koesler that Bullock would lay down two or three smokescreens before getting down to what was really disturbing him. The trick was to resist the urge to argue with him, as well as the urge to throttle him, until he reached the bottom line.

  But then the distractions took over. For once, displacing the objections of Bob Bullock, they were welcome.

  He recalled what Inspector Koznicki had once told him: that in a series of murders—or, in this case, attempted murders—the assailant usually is making some sort of statement. He is saying something using actions rather than words. The better able you are to understand the statement, the more likely you are to discover who the assailant is.

  But what could the statement here possibly be?

  Could Dr. Heinsohn’s hypothesis be correct: that the assailant is striking out at a father figure? Koesler considered the victims thus far. With the exception of himself, they all were rather elderly. And even he was easily old enough in the normal scheme of things to be a grandfather. Could the man be striking out against a grandfatherly figure?

  “You’ve got to remember, Bob, that these are different times,” said council president Obermyer. “You can’t expect the kids today to be using the Baltimore Catechism, or, for that matter, the textbooks we used.”

  “I don’t care,” Bullock droned, “I took the trouble to look through the religion textbooks of both our first and second graders. Do you know I couldn’t find a listing of the Ten Commandments in either one!”

  No, that wasn’t it. Sweet Old Bob would know that no kid was going to get out of a parochial elementary school without learning the Ten Commandments. Besides, his voice had not yet reached the strident tone Bullock reserved for the ultimate gripe.

  Something was missing from the puzzle of who was attacking these priests. If only Koesler could put his finger on the missing piece. It seemed so close, so tantalizing. As if his brain would recognize it if only the logical progression of thought would build to one more level.

  How could all these priests have one common enemy? They did not all teach at the same seminary. And although he himself did teach at both seminaries, he had only recently joined the faculty of St. Joe’s. Of course, all the priests knew each other. But that was not unusual; older priests tended to be a homogeneous group.

  “And I say it’s a disgrace!” Bullock brought his fist down on the table. “Conducting a parody of the suffering and death of our Savior in a Catholic church, mind you. And during the sacred season of Lent! What kind of religious instruction are we foisting on our youngsters? I ask you!”

  Bingo! Koesler had stepped into the church en route to the council meeting. The teachers of the public high school catechism classes had put together a Lenten penitential rite. They were using three slide projectors to show rather traditional pictures of Jesus, depicting some of the final events in his life. Mostly, the pictures were reproductions of paintings of the Masters. Bullock could have no objection to that.

  However, along with the pictures, they had been playing at peak volume a tape of “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”

  That was it! Koesler had conceded that while the rock version of the life of Christ was not his cup of tea, it seemed most relevant for the teenagers. But for Bob Bullock, “Superstar” was hemlock.

  If only he had known Bullock intended to stop in at the church during the penitential service, Koesler would have somehow found a way to divert him. As it was, and judging by Bob’s current level of dudgeon, Koesler estimated that, for all practical purposes, the council would have little time for further business this evening.

  He dove willingly back into his distractions.

  A decidedly festive atmosphere was discernible on the set. This was the final scheduled filming date. With any luck at all, after today, the movie crowd would move out, bag and baggage.

  This pleased the movie crowd, at least those from Los Angeles, who had had more than enough of the early part of Michigan’s spring, which was late winter. It delighted the seminary crowd, at least the older faculty members, who longed for the return of peace and order. And it relieved those police who had to pursue a criminal investigation through the chaos created by the film crowd.

  The setting for this final day was the seminary chapel where Father Budreau had fired the shot heard ‘round the nation, thanks to network news and wire services. Earlier, the same Father Budreau had removed the consecrated hosts usually reserved in the chapel.

  Present on the seminary scene for the first time was petite brunette Shelley Eden, the Free Press’s ebullient syndicated show biz columnist. The only woman known to have deliberately postponed a dalliance with Cary Grant, Shelley was interviewing Father Budreau. Until now, no personality connected with “Assault with Intent” had been deemed important enough to attract Shelley’s interest. But almost overnight, Budreau had become known as the fastest clerical derringer in the Midwest. Now, although he had been discouraged by both civil and Church authorities from continuing his firing-range class, he would become the leading light of one of the most popular columns in Detroit if not the nation.

  Herman Deutsch had spent the entire night rewriting the script. He had developed such alcoholic adeptness that during such sessions he was able to drink just enough at appropriate intervals to remain awake just long enough to finish the last of the dialogue before falling into a drunken slumber. So, once again, he was unable to direct what he had written.

  Bruce Lauther stood near the camera, a satisfied expression playing about his face. It appeared that, in spite of everything, they were going to bring this movie in slightly under budget. In a few weeks, after additional scenes had been shot in Hollywood and the editing completed, he would be able to show the finished film to the network brass. Not bad for somebody whose career was supposed to have gone down the tube.

  Father Koesler was talking with Mary Murphy, his usual reliable source.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, “how they can be sure this is the final day of shooting.”

  “We have it on the word of no less than Dr. Heinsohn.”

  “Oh?”

  “He says that when the priest shot at the assailant, it was all over.”

  “But Father Budreau didn’t hit him.”

  “No, but Dr. Heinsohn says it was the father figure striking back. You see,”—Mary didn’t know why she was explaining this hypothesis; she scarcely understood it herself,—“the assailant had been striking out at you priests as if you were his father figure. According to Dr. Heinsohn—and Bruce tells me the doctor cited lots of similar cases—one of two things had to happen: either he would kill one of you—excuse me, Father, nothing personal—or one of you would have to at least acknowledge his presence by striking back at him.”

  “I see.” In fact, he did not.

  “So, when Father Budreau fired at him, the assailant was satisfied. But Dr. Heinsohn still intends to make periodic pleas through the media for the man to turn himself in so the doctor can return him to mental health.”

  “I see.” He didn’t.

  In one corner of the chapel, Sergeants Patrick and Morris huddled with a dozen uniformed Detroit police who had been assigned to this case just for the day. Evidently, the police department did not put much faith in Dr. Heinsohn’s diagnosis.

  “This is supposed to be the final day of filming,” Morris addressed the group, “so it is more than likely that if our man is somehow connected with this movie, or has been using the filming as a cover for his activities, he probably will make his move today.”

  “Yes,” Patrick amplified, “and it doesn’t much matter whether this actually is the final day. The point is, the assailant expects it to be, just as we expect it to be. If he’s with this crew, today’s his last chance for unrestricted entree to the seminary. In any event, he should be convinced this is his last opportunity for inconspicuous movement.”

  “Now,” Morris picked up, “you’ve all familiarized yourselves with the premises?” All nodded. “All right.
Then spread out around the rear of this chapel.”

  “And keep an eye on Marge and me,” added Patrick. “If we spot anything suspicious, we’re going to move fast. And we want all of you with us.”

  “All right, clear the set!” Sol Gould’s megaphone blared.

  Deutsch cringed at the sound and seemed to shrivel into his canvas chair.

  “Places everyone!”

  Father Koesler moved to the rear and to one side of the chapel. Most of those who had come to gawk were, again, relegated to the corridor outside the chapel. For most, merely being in proximity to a movie being filmed was enough, even if all one saw were blank walls and all one heard were shuffling feet and throats being discreetly cleared.

  The real Father Budreau watched the film Father Budreau enter the chapel, followed by camera and lights. The actor genuflected, more reverently, the real Budreau had to admit, than he himself, and entered a pew. As the actor knelt, Budreau could see his right hand slip inside the top of his sash.

  How narrow it can be, Budreau reflected, that distance between life and death. He relived the original event. An instant’s hesitation and he would have been a dead man. An inch in any direction and his assailant could have been the dead man.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dean Patrick thought he saw something move at the right rear corner of the chapel. He spun in that direction in time to see a door silently close. He nudged Morris. The two broke for the door. They were closely followed by the uniformed officers. There was no attempt on anyone’s part to muffle the racket they were making.

  “Cut! Oh, cut! Damn! Now what the hell’s going on?”

  The officers piled up at the door. It was locked. Patrick, who had obtained master keys for all the seminary doors, but didn’t want to waste a minute, motioned a burly officer forward. The latch fixture splintered at his kick, and the door slammed open, almost coming off its hinges.

  Led by Patrick and Morris, the officers raced down the stairway. The rearmost uniformed officer remained at the door blocking entry—or exit—to anyone else.

  “The crypt chapels!” Patrick knew where these stairs led.