The phone rang. Cindy went, somewhat unsteadily, to answer it.
Both the detectives knew that at least part of what Mercury was telling them now was the truth.
The media and show business people at Monday’s party had been quite unanimous about the fact that Angie was not working all that much, while, at the same time, he was living well above his means. Strong opinions had been given the investigating officers that Angie was getting a healthy percentage of his income from Frank Hoffman and that neither Frank nor Angie was very happy about the arrangement. But both kept at least a superficial lid on their feelings for Cindy’s sake.
The other verity, which no one questioned, was that Angie and Cindy were about as dedicatedly in love with each other as any two people could be.
Still, Angie had the motive, the means, and the best opportunity of attempting to kill Frank Hoffman of any of the suspects thus far discovered.
“It’s for you, Sergeant Ewing.” Cindy offered the cordless phone to the officer.
“What?” Ewing listened intently. “When? Where is he now? We’ll be right there.” He handed the phone to Angie.
“We’ve got to get right over to the Fisher Building,” Ewing said.
“What’s up?”
“Hoffman just got a note threatening his life.”
“What?” Cindy lost what little color had remained in her cheeks. “Frank?” Her knees seemed about to buckle. Angie helped her to a chair. “Now, look what you’ve done!” Angie, on one knee beside his wife, turned angrily on the officers.
“One way or another she would have heard about it,” said
Papkin. “Sorry she had to hear it this way. But we’ll want to talk to you again, Mercury, and soon. Don’t go anywhere.”
When last they had seen Frank Hoffman, he had been stunned at his wife’s sudden death and angered that they wished to pry into his Last Will and Testament. But the Frank Hoffman Sergeants Ewing and Papkin now encountered was shaken and visibly frightened. He was seated—slumped might be a more accurate description—behind his desk in his office. A few of his associates were with him. The atmosphere was almost funereal.
The document in question was lying open atop a brown envelope, the only papers on the executive-sized desk. Wordlessly, Ewing moved next to Hoffman in order to read the message. It was composed of words cut out of some publication and pasted onto a plain sheet of paper.
Ewing read aloud: “I missed the first time. I will not miss again. You are a dead man.”
Ewing looked around. Besides the officers and Hoffman, there were three men and one woman in the room. “How many of you handled this?”
“As far as I know, just Mr. Hoffman and me.” The man looked inquiringly at the others. All agreed: None of them had handled the paper.
“And you are—?”
“Kirkus. Al Kirkus. I’m Mr. Hoffman’s assistant.”
“I see. And how did the note arrive?”
“In the interoffice mail. In a company envelope.”
Papkin carefully transferred the note and the envelope beneath it into a plastic evidence bag. He motioned Ewing to join him in a far corner of the room. “What do you think—Chase?”
“If it is,” Ewing replied in a low tone, “he’s being pretty obvious . . . and pretty stupid. He’s the only suspect who actually works here. That is, unless we’ve got to add to the list of suspects.”
“Don’t even think that!”
They turned back to the silent group.
“Tell us about the interoffice mail,” Papkin invited.
After a brief pause, during which there was some nonverbal jockeying to determine who would respond, Kirkus finally spoke. “The interoffice mail doesn’t come or go through the post office. It originates in and passes through The Company.”
“I assume,” said Papkin, “that everyone who works here has access to the interoffice mail.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“How about outsiders?”
“Why would anyone outside The Company want to use the interoffice mail?”
“Say someone did.”
“If an outsider, for some reason, wanted to use our mail, and if he knew how to get into the system, I suppose it wouldn’t be difficult.”
“How does one plug into the system?”
“Just drop the envelope in the mailbag in the mailroom.”
“Is the mailroom guarded?”
“Usually there’s an attendant. But he takes the mail around to the various offices four times a day.”
“At the same times each day?”
Kirkus nodded.
Papkin looked at Ewing. “I don’t think we have to add to the list.”
“The rest of you can leave now.” said Ewing. “We’d like to talk to Mr. Hoffman.”
The two detectives sat at the opposite side of the desk from Hoffman.
Hoffman quite obviously had been paying little attention to what had been said. He seemed in a daze.
“Mr. Hoffman,” Ewing said. “Mr. Hoffman . . .” He had to repeat before Hoffman looked at him attentively. “Any ideas? About who sent this threat?”
“No. No, none.”
“Mr. Hoffman, an attempt was made on your life Monday night. This is Wednesday afternoon. Haven’t you been giving this any thought at all?”
“I’ve tried not to think of it. Or if I do, I try to think there was some mistake.”
Ewing looked concerned and sympathetic. “I can understand how difficult this is for you. But we’re trying to help you. And you’ve got to help us. You can best help us by trying to think of whoever it is who wants you dead.”
“There’s no stopping him, is there?”
“Who?”
Hoffman appeared to be self-absorbed. “If someone wants to kill me, really wants to kill me, there’s no stopping him, is there?”
“We like to think we can do something about that.”
“It could be in a drink. It could be in food. It could be when I’m driving the car. It could be while I’m asleep. There’s just no stopping him. No stopping him if he’s really determined.”
There didn’t seem much point in continuing what had become a soliloquy. The two officers once again urged Hoffman’s cooperation, then they excused themselves.
Hoffman continued to sit at his desk looking absently at the opposite wall. “There’s no stopping him. If he’s really determined.”
18.
Maybe the Trappists had the right idea. Father Koesler, as was his habit when driving, had his mind in neutral.
Of course one could never tell, what with post-conciliar change affecting just about everything in the Catholic Church, even the eremitical orders. But in the old days, when Trappists were into neither conversation nor Zen meditation, they used to bury their dead the next day. A monk might die today and tomorrow morning there’d be a funeral Mass. The body would be placed in the simplest of pine coffins. After the Mass, a procession of all the surviving monks would form and the coffin would be carried to the open grave. There the body was removed from the coffin and placed directly in the earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, earth to earth. Maybe so. Koesler decided he would not mind if his remains were thus disposed of. As long as he was embalmed. His final desire, if he were to be buried, was that he be dead.
And that was all the time he had for daydreaming. It was a very brief distance from St. Anselm’s rectory to Morand’s Funeral Home on Ford Road. It was Wednesday, the evening before the obsequies of Emma Hoffman. Time, as far as traditional Catholics were concerned, for the traditional recitation of the rosary. For more updated Catholics, there were alternatives to the rosary for the vigil of burial services such as an appropriate scripture service.
Koesler smiled as he parked his car in the nearly filled lot. He recalled his own father’s vigil service. All during the day of the vigil, his mother kept asking him when the rosary would be said. And all day, he kept explaining to her that some of his priest friends were going to gath
er that evening and have a scripture service. He kept assuring his mother that she would like the scripture service. That evening, about an hour before the scripture service was scheduled, his mother urged him to go out and get a quick dinner. While he was out, his mother secured another priest who led the rosary.
The following year, when his mother died, Koesler did not schedule a scripture service for her. He scheduled a rosary. And he led it.
But tonight he would be dealing with mostly traditional Catholics. He would lead the rosary as he had done hundreds of times before. While Bishop Ratigan would be the main concelebrant at tomorrow morning’s funeral, the bishop would not attend the rosary service. Koesler sometimes wondered if, along with a general inability to remember the formula for absolution, bishops had forgotten how to say the rosary.
As he entered the majestic foyer of the Morand Funeral Home, Koesler was impressed at the bumper crowd. Mourners filled the room where Mrs. Hoffman’s remains were displayed and the crowd spilled well into the foyer.
A small group surrounded Frank Hoffman, who did not seem to be paying much attention to them. He seemed to be searching for someone. As it happened, he was looking for Father Koesler. As soon as he caught sight of the priest, Hoffman excused himself and made his way past those offering condolences and over to Koesler.
“Father,” Hoffman placed his hand on the priest’s arm, “it isn’t all that long since I’ve been to confession, but I want to go again—now. I really want to go to confession.”
Koesler was surprised at the change that had come over Hoffman. His face was ashen, his pupils seemed a bit dilated, his lips appeared parched, and every hair was by no means in place. Koesler had seen similar changes in people who were deeply bereaved. But particularly over the recent past, he had not gotten the impression that Frank and Emma’s mutual affection was such that either would have been terribly affected by the death of the other.
“Frank, don’t you suppose you might be able to wait a little while? Maybe tomorrow morning we could get together before the funeral Mass.” He looked at his watch. “It’s a quarter to eight—fifteen minutes before the rosary is supposed to start. And if you go to confession, others may get the idea of going, too.”
“Father, please: Now!” Uncharacteristically, Hoffman was not angry at Koesler’s reluctance to acquiesce to his wishes and hear a confession. He was simply pleading, an attitude Koesler could not refuse.
“All right, Frank. Just a minute while I get set up.”
Hearing confessions at a funeral vigil, in Koesler’s long experience, was neither common nor unheard-of. It was at best helpful and at worst awkward. Sometimes, at a solemn occasion such as this, people were inspired to make rather profound, soul-searching confessions. At the same time, the numbers who might avail themselves of this convenient opportunity to confess could delay the scheduled time for the recitation of the rosary; no cataclysmic occurrence on the face of it, except that Koesler’s life was run by the sweep-second hand of his watch. If he had a compulsion, it was punctuality. About the only time he was without his watch was when he showered. And, if asked, he would readily admit he missed it then.
In any case, he could not refuse Hoffman’s plea.
Koesler left Hoffman and approached the funeral home’s owner. They knew each other well. Koesler knew many mortuary proprietors. Death brought morticians and priests together regularly.
“Lou, the deceased’s husband wants to go to confession. You know what that can start—a whole line of people who will follow suit. Can you set something up?”
“Certainly, Father.”
The solicitous smile never left the mortician’s face. Koesler was sure that turning his mortuary into a confessional didn’t appeal to Morand any more than it did to him. Undoubtedly, the Hoffman vigil service would be delayed, thus upsetting the timing of services scheduled for the home’s other two current corpses. But Morand would smile through it all. In his many dealings with morticians, Koesler had never experienced any who seemed upset by anything. If the image was the reality, then surely morticians were born, not made.
Morand set up a modest divider just inside the door of an empty “slumber room.” A curtained screen was inserted in it. Long ago, Morand had converted the room-divider into a portable confessional for just such occasions.
Before taking his seat on the other side of the screen, Koesler motioned to Hoffman that his confessional was ready.
It was a peculiar arrangement. The room was large, well-lit, and empty but for this pseudo-confessional, a chair for the priest, and a kneeler for the penitent. Morand had set it up far enough within the room so that its existence would not be evident to the casual passerby. One would need to be very observant to realize there was a confessional here. Morand did not want a long line of penitents any more than Koesler did.
The priest took from his coat pocket the narrow, short silk band, violet on one side, white on the other, that constituted a stole in emergencies. He kissed the cross on the violet side and draped the abbreviated vestment over his shoulders, violet side out. He waited. In a few moments, he heard movement on the prie-dieu on the other side of the screen.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been just a couple of weeks since my previous confession.” Pause. “Father, I’m doomed. I’m a dead man.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m as good as dead. It could happen any minute. You know who I am. You were standing right beside me when my wife took the poison intended for me. Whoever did that hasn’t given up. I got a note today from the killer. He promised he’d get me.”
Koesler hadn’t known about the note, although mention of it had been made on the evening’s local radio and TV newscasts.
Another leak at The Company.
“All of a sudden, it came to me . . . it dawned on me, Father: This is it. This is where life ends for me. I’m a healthy, relatively young man. I never think about death, about dying. Not until now. Now I’ve got to face death. I’m convinced that whoever it is that’s trying to kill me is going to succeed. Maybe God’s giving me a warning. I’ve got very little time left and I’ve got a lot of things to sort out, to make good before I face God in judgment. Help me, Father.”
“OK, Frank, let’s say you’re right. Maybe God has given you an opportunity to straighten out your affairs. But we’re all going to die. And none of us knows exactly when. You could be wrong—I hope you are—but it never hurts to come to a moment of self-reformation. Whatever gives you this grace, greet it sincerely. Now, why don’t you tell God through me what troubles you—what you intend to reform.”
Hoffman licked his lips. They were so dry they were cracked.
“I hardly know where to start. Em and I practiced birth control for years. It wasn’t her fault. It was my idea. I never confessed it. I suppose there were bad confessions when I didn’t confess it—and bad communions.
“For years now, I’ve had a mistress—well, actually, a series of them. I have one now. We have sex regularly, several times a week on the average. She’s a nice kid. Could have made something of her life if I hadn’t dead-ended her. Maybe she still could do something with her life,” he added thoughtfully.
Koesler well recalled the strikingly attractive blonde who had appeared unannounced at the Monday night party.
“I’m afraid I’ve plotted and schemed to undermine one of the executives at The Company. It was wrong. I took unfair advantage of him. It’s possible—probable—I ruined his career. Hell!—excuse me, Father—but that’s what I intended to do: ruin his career so I could climb into his place in The Company and then keep right on climbing.”
So, thought Koesler, finally come the corporate sins. He didn’t think Catholics could lead blameless lives from nine to five; he just couldn’t recall many who ever confessed any such sins. Strange that it required the specter of death to bring business sins out of the closet.
“And I’ve treated my brother-in-law like dirt. I suppose I’ve alway
s resented his marrying my sister. She could have done so much better. I’ve never given a damn about him—sorry, Father, but it’s the truth. Without my sister, I wouldn’t have given Angie a quarter if I met him on the street.
“But there was no way I was going to let Cindy suffer just because she happened to be married to a stage bum. So, I’ve subsidized them over the years. Only I’ve made Angie crawl. I’ve made him feel like what I considered him to be—dirt. It wasn’t a good way to treat him. He never hurt me. I’m sorry for that now.
“Finally, I guess you know that Mike Ratigan and I are friends. But I’ve used and manipulated him too.”
That did it, Koesler mused. He didn’t know whether Hoffman was doing this consciously, but he had gone right down the list of suspects in this case. Somewhere in this confusion, Hoffman was confessing the sins he had committed against the very person who was trying to kill him. Sins that undoubtedly had motivated the would-be murderer.
“I don’t think Mike knew it was happening. But the favors, the vacations, even a general bequest in my will—all of it was just a way of keeping him indebted to me so that when I needed anything from the Church I could get it from Mike. If the truth be known—and that’s the whole idea of this confession—I’ve never respected Mike. There were any number of times when, if he had put his faith where his actions were, he would have stood up to me. But he never did. Or so rarely it didn’t make any difference. Anyway, I’m sorry I manipulated him.
“That’s about it, Father. If I did anything else wrong, I’m sorry for it. I don’t want to die, but I’m convinced there’s no way out of it. But I don’t want to go to hell. I’m afraid. I’m afraid to die. And I’m afraid to go to hell.” It was only with the greatest effort that Hoffman managed to keep from breaking down in tears.
Koesler could almost feel the nearly tangible relief Hoffman experienced with his confession. It happened every so often: a confession so torturous to make that the recounting of the sins became a catharsis.
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