Deadline for a Critic

by William Kienzle

  For the past couple of days there had been considerable speculation in the media over Groendal’s death. All that was certain was that there was an ongoing investigation. The police had been extremely secretive. Left with little detail, the press had been constrained to come up with some fairly wild conjecture.

  The case had been solved last night, although the media were just now being briefed, so it would be surprising if anyone here but the principals would know that. It was almost miraculous what could be accomplished between the 7:30 P.M. recitation of a rosary for the deceased and bedtime.

  Father Koesler would be the last to claim that he had solved the mystery. And, in strict truth, he probably had not. But he certainly had brought the puzzle to such a point that the solution needed only a finishing touch by the authorities.

  This was by no means the first time Koesler had been involved in a Detroit homicide investigation. It had happened several times. But generally he had been dragged into these situations quite beyond his will. Sometimes he had simply happened to be on the scene when the murder was perpetrated or when the investigation had begun. Almost always there was something “religious,” or specifically “Catholic” involved.

  In any case, the police had been able to utilize his expertise in the solution.

  However, in the matter of Ridley C. Groendal, Koesler for the first time had come aboard neither reluctantly nor out of the blue. He had, indeed, volunteered his assistance. He did so because he was in the singular position of having known not only the deceased but also each and every one of those suspected of involvement in his death. Koesler not only knew them all; he was privy to the personal conflicts that marked and scarred their lives.

  It would not cross Koesler’s mind that he had come on like a white knight or a fictional detective and singlehandedly solved this case. Far from it. He was no more than a simple parish priest. And happy and fulfilled in being that. The homicide department had done its usual thorough and painstaking job of building the case. In all probability, they would have closed the matter unaided by any outside agency. But Koesler had been able to contribute some information that proved helpful. Well, perhaps something more than that. Koesler’s information, when presented, proved to be the crowning touch of the brief investigation. Koesler had been able to provide the elusive ingredient needed to tie up all the loose ends.

  But the presence of all the suspects at the victim’s funeral struck Koesler as peculiar, to say the least. He wondered if it might be unique. So few things were.

  Well, time enough after the funeral for the law to exact punishment. For now, there was a liturgy to celebrate.

  What an odd word to describe this function, thought Koesler. Nevertheless, he resolved to do his best with the celebration of a Mass of Resurrection. The main block—Koesler knew himself well—would be that ever-present stream of consciousness that was sure to provide him with one distraction after another.

  All had entered and been shown to their places. The church was almost filled. The undertaker placed the lighted Paschal candle at the head of the casket. The congregation was attentive. All was ready.

  Koesler intoned: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

  “Amen.” Most of the congregation responded.

  “The grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

  “And also with you,” was the response.

  Koesler continued. “My friends, to prepare ourselves to celebrate these sacred mysteries, let us call to mind our sins.”

  In the silence that followed, Koesler’s gaze fell on David Palmer. David Palmer, the musician. Unbidden, memories flooded back.

  The vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors of Holy Redeemer grade school.

  Boards creaking as children walked, rapidly perhaps but never running lest one of the nuns was sure to whack you. Silence, as simultaneously throughout the building, classes began. Then the only sound, Sister raising her voice at a slow, lazy, or disobedient student. Or, as nuns glided down a hallway, the rattle of the fifteen-decade rosary wound through their belts.

  These were the 1930s and all was as it had been for a century or more. Catholic children attended Catholic schools or the breadwinner heard about it after he confessed his sin of omission to the priest of a Saturday evening.

  Nuns, without whom a parochial school system never could have been attempted, were swathed from head to toe in distinctive religious habit. The garb of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the teachers at Holy Redeemer, was a color that became identified as IHM Blue. They also wore a black scapular that slipped over their shoulders and draped to the floor fore and aft. This was capped by a stiff bonnet that pinched the cheeks and eventually wore an almost permanent ridge in the forehead.

  They began each day with Mass in the convent at an ungodly early hour. Breakfast was followed by another Mass with the children in attendance. They taught school all day. Prayed, dined, prepared lesson plans, and retired. Only to do the selfsame thing the next day. And the next and the next. During summers they usually returned to college to pile up more hours toward another academic degree.

  In an office just large enough for a small desk and chair and a spinet piano, Sister Mary George, IHM, is conducting a music lesson.

  Seated at the piano is Robert Koesler, undergoing his weekly humiliation.

  “No, no, Robert . . .” Sister vigorously taps a baton against the piano. “. . . you have a left hand. It’s not just for waving at the keys. It’s supposed to play the correct notes.”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “It’s not that you don’t have talent, Robert. It’s that you don’t practice, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “How many hours did you practice this week?”

  “Uh . . . I don’t know, Sister.”

  “Not many, I’ll wager. Robert, you don’t like Czerny, do you?”

  “Uh . . . no. Sister.” Actually, Koesler had nothing against the composer personally. He just did not enjoy scales and arpeggios that had no tunes worth mentioning. But whether or not Koesler liked Czerny, his answer would have been the same. To small obedient Catholic children of that day, nuns’ questions, like that just posed by Sister Mary George, were rhetorical.

  “That’s another one of your problems, Robert: You don’t build foundations. All you want to do is put in windows.”

  “Sister?”

  “I know you want to play beautiful music, lyric music, Robert. But you can’t do that unless you practice these fundamentals. First you build the foundations, then you can put in the beautiful ornaments. Do you see, Robert?”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “Uh . . .” There was one question Koesler had been wrestling with for a very long time: Why did all nuns smell exactly the same? Something like Fels Naphtha or Ivory soap. But he would never have the boldness to ask it. Or rather, by the time he would have the courage to ask, it no longer mattered. “No, Sister.”

  “Very well, then, Robert. Next week do the same Czerny exercises. And this time pay attention to your left hand. Then, only after you master that, you can go on to that little Mozart prelude. Now, don’t forget orchestra practice this afternoon.”

  “No, Sister.” Koesler would have much preferred a quick game of baseball after school. But he would be there for orchestra practice. For starters, he would be killed if he didn’t show up. First blood would go to Sister. The coup de grace would be delivered by his parents.

  Music lessons cost one dollar an hour, a laughably low price even then. But Koesler’s hard-pressed parents found it difficult to produce that extra dollar. And they had emphatically impressed upon their son that they expected some results for their investment. He might not practice what he considered “the dull stuff” assiduously, but neither would he skip a lesson nor miss orchestra practice.

  Another family
in Koesler’s neighborhood could afford money for lessons even less than the Koeslers. But the other family had even more reason to invest whatever they could in their son’s musical career. They were the Palmers and their son, David, was a prodigy.

  Both Fred and Agnes Palmer were musicians. Both played in chamber ensembles regularly. Agnes gave lessons. But her instrument was not the violin, and David’s was. Besides, there was that peculiar impediment that makes it problematical for a parent to undertake the formal education of one’s own child.

  The first inkling the Palmers had of their son’s gift was when he was three years old. Agnes Palmer had just completed playing Debussy’s “Clair de lune.” As she walked away from the piano, she heard a small high sound. It was her son, humming perfectly what she had just performed. Soon thereafter, David began repeating on the piano the melodic lines of works his parents played. At the age of five, he found a violin and the violin found him. In no time, he convinced his parents that it would be through the violin that he would most perfectly express his God-given talent.

  With one thing and another, the Palmers concluded it would be a crime not to do everything in their power to advance the boy’s musical education. So, for a hard-earned dollar a week, they sent him to Sister Mary George.

  Sister, for her part, was painfully aware that David’s talent far surpassed her ability to challenge it. But she knew the Palmers could not afford anything beyond her. So she began to make plans with regard to David and a relatively new musical camp in northern Michigan called Interlochen Arts Academy.

  There was one other boy in that neighborhood, and in the same class with Koesler and Palmer, who showed some considerable musical talent. Ridley Groendal.

  Koesler could be mentioned in this threesome only because he was a classmate and took lessons from the same teacher as the other two. Outside of that superficial connection, he was simply not in their class and he and everyone else knew it.

  Actually, Groendal was not in Palmer’s class either. Groendal was an adequate pianist for a young student. But he was not especially gifted. Palmer was the one and only wonder child of the group.

  Unfortunately, while almost everyone was in awe of David Palmer’s musical gift, no one was paying enough attention to the rest of Palmer’s personality. As a result, few people realized that all this special attention had gone straight to Palmer’s head. He was becoming a first-class brat. Those adults who were aware of David’s bumptiousness tended to overlook it as the natural eccentricity of a budding genius.

  The memory fades as Father Koesler becomes aware of an altar girl standing before him, holding an open ritual.

  Koesler read aloud: “Lord, hear our prayers. By raising your son from the dead, you have given us faith. Strengthen our hope that Ridley, our brother, will share in His resurrection. Who lives and reigns together with the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.”

  As he looked up from the book, Koesler once again noticed Palmer, as isolated as if in a telescope. This time their eyes locked. David Palmer, musician extraordinaire. At least an extraordinary musician for a parochial setting such as Holy Redeemer.

  The memory gains strength.

  It is orchestra practice.

  Robert Koesler has had a difficult day. He had been poorly prepared not only for the piano lesson but for most of the rest of his classes as well. And, worse luck, he had been called on for recitation frequently and fruitlessly.

  But now this practice is important. It is a rehearsal for the annual recital wherein Sister Mary George is able to showcase the progress her music students have made. The recital is mostly for the benefit of proud and hopeful parents.

  Over the past several years, there has been no doubt which of her pupils Sister has wanted to star. In a parochial setting, a David Palmer comes along once in a lifetime, if then.

  As far as the orchestra is concerned, Robert Koesler plays the drums. That thinking is as follows: Koesler could have been the orchestra’s pianist, except that Ridley Groendal is a better pianist—much better. But Koesler did play the piano on special occasions, such as the annual recital. Thus, to keep him around, he was given the drums—bass and snare—to play. (This under the amateur assumption that anyone—at least anyone with a sense of rhythm—can play the drums, an assumption that would definitely not be shared by a professional.)

  Rehearsal began with the orchestra performing Kettelby’s “In a Persian Market.” Even Koesler could tell that this performance would, if Kettelby were not already dead, kill him. Only two exceptions mitigated this: the piano and what in a professional orchestra would be the concertmaster—Ridley Groendal and David Palmer. Groendal was correct and accurate. Palmer’s tone soared.

  Sister finally dismissed the orchestra with the hope that “we can get away with that.” It was not to be. But in the inner recesses of her heart, she was allowed to hope.

  Instruments, chairs, and music stands were removed noisily to prepare for the special numbers in the recital.

  Robert Koesler waited in the wings while a series of extremely nervous younger children blundered through solos, duets, and trios. Most of them left—some in tears—immediately after their respective performances.

  Koesler was scheduled to play a duet with David Palmer near the end of the program. When their turn came, the two took to the stage, bowed to an imaginary audience, and began. Their number was Bach’s simple but tender “Air for the G-String.” Palmer’s interpretation was so virtuosic that Koesler found himself playing beyond his ordinary ability.

  As the last note died away, the hush was almost reverential. Then a burst of applause from the few remaining students as well as from Sister Mary George herself.

  Koesler had to admit that this was pretty heady stuff. He might like doing this more often . . . as long as he could accompany David Palmer.

  So inspired was Koesler that he resolved to stay for the final few compositions, rather than to seek out that inevitable baseball game.

  After the remainder of the more talented students performed—Sister always kept the best wine till last—the final duo was ready. The finale was to feature Palmer and his violin, accompanied by Groendal on the piano. They were to perform Rimski-Korsakov’s “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” a demanding piece that could spell frustration or be a tour de force for violin, trumpet, piano—whichever chose to carry the theme.

  The two young musicians appeared on stage. They, as had each previous performer, bowed to a nearly empty house. It would be filled on the following day for the actual performance.

  Something was going on. Koesler could feel the vibes. They were not good. Groendal struck an “A”; Palmer checked his instrument for tuning. There was a pause as the two collected themselves. Palmer’s right foot tapped out the third and fourth beat of a measure, setting the tempo.

  They began. Or, rather, Groendal began. He was playing “Bumble Boogie,” a popular parody of the famed “Flight.” Palmer, taken completely by surprise, had clearly been tricked. He stood as if he were a still photo mounted on stage.

  Sister Mary George leaped from her seat as if catapulted. “No! No! Now, stop!” she shrieked.

  With a smirk, Groendal lifted his hands from the keyboard.

  “Ridley! Whatever possessed you, boy?” Sister was both bewildered and quite angry. “Is this all you think of our concert? That you should fool around like this? Honestly! You could have Job chewing carpets! What is the matter with you, young man?”

  “I’m sorry, Sister.” It was not even a good pretense.

  “Now you settle down! This is the finale of the whole concert. Perhaps you don’t think you could be replaced. Well, think again, young man! It’s true that this is short notice. But nobody is irreplaceable! Nobody! I could have Robert Koesler, here, take your place. It would require all-night practice, practically. But you could do it, Robert.” She was now looking at Koesler, who slouched even further down in his seat. Please God, not me!

  “Now, you start again fro
m the beginning. David? Are you all right?”

  Palmer, still frozen in the same position, nodded.

  “Then,” Sister ordered, “set the tempo and begin.”

  “The Flight of the Bumblebee” began in the tempo in which Rimski-Korsakov had written it. But the tension was deep. Groendal punched out the staccato chords too loudly. Palmer’s rendition of the melody was not unlike that of an angry bee.

  They finished at last to cautious applause. Not that the performance was not good. Indeed, it could have been described as inspired. But there was concern for Sister Mary George and her temperament. However, she seemed somewhat mollified by the reading Groendal and Palmer had finally given the work. So, with a few additional warnings, she dismissed the remaining students.

  Koesler sensed that this was not the end of the matter. He lingered until everything had been packed away, then followed Groendal and Palmer as they left the auditorium. Palmer left first, but waited just outside the side door. Once Ridley was down the steps, Palmer was on him.

  Shortly they were three as Koesler joined the scuffle. There was a lot of rolling around, threats, mild curses, even a tear or two. Since all three were roughly of the same slight build, not much damage was being done. No one was getting mauled by the others. Nevertheless, Koesler’s participation—intended to bring peace—was not altogether successful.

  “Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Koesler shouted. “Come on! Break it up!”

  They rolled around a bit more. Eventually, all three were standing, with Koesler somehow between the other two.

  “That’s better,” Koesler pronounced. Though it wasn’t much better.

  “What was the idea, anyway, you jerk?” Palmer said.

  “There wasn’t any idea, smart guy,” Groendal replied. “It was a joke, just a joke. Can’t you take a joke? Or is the great genius too high and mighty for a joke!”