Dead Wrong

by William Kienzle

“Of course not. We’ve just had a lovely evening.”

  Leaning on him as little as possible, she let him guide her up the steps and into the building and her apartment. Once inside, she excused herself and went immediately into the bedroom.

  He located the kitchen and began making coffee. He was still at it when she noiselessly came up behind him and encircled him with her arms. He jerked erect from surprise.

  He turned within her arms, which continued to encompass him. She was wearing a nightgown and robe, both flimsy, both diaphanous.

  He pushed her away easily and held her at arm’s length. He could see through her garments quite clearly. A little too round here and there, but all woman. He smiled.

  As she drew herself close to him again, she swayed. He quickly grabbed and supported her, leading her to the living room, where he helped her lower herself to the couch.

  “Just sit there a few minutes, Mary Lou, and I’ll get us some coffee. You’ll feel better with some coffee in you. And then we can go on from there.”

  “As long as we go together, Ned.” She wasn’t slurring her words quite as much as when they’d left the restaurant. Remarkable recuperative powers, he thought.

  By the time he returned to the kitchen, the coffee was ready. He glanced back at the figure on the couch. Mary Lou had shifted to a recumbent position and was stretching luxuriantly.

  His heart beat a bit more rapidly, and he started to perspire. She was a lot of woman. And she was his without even having to ask. Quite beyond his power of control, he was ready for her.

  He shook his head and smiled to himself. Going with emotion was amateurish. He was a pro. “Milk? Sugar?” he called out.

  “Black.”

  Better. The coffee would be at its peak heat. He looked at her again. He frowned and calculated. He took from his pocket a vial of small white pills. He dropped two in a cup, then filled it with coffee. He waited a few moments for the pills to dissolve.

  “Oh, forget the coffee and come on back,” she called.

  “Coming right up.”

  He entered the room, bearing a tray with two cups. He handed one to her. “Here, just try this. It’ll make you feel better.” He took the other cup.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever felt better.” She was smiling, leaning toward him, figuratively giving herself to him.

  “Come on, drink up. Then we’ll go from there.” He sipped his coffee.

  “Oh, all right.” She sipped. It was hot. She blew across its surface, then sipped again. Ned apparently wanted her to have the coffee. It wasn’t a bad idea at that. It might enable her to be a bit more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But she would not take her eyes from him.

  She had nearly drained the cup. “Oh, Ned, I’m getting so tired.” Strange, she thought; the coffee should keep me from feeling sleepy. “Help me stay awake.”

  He moved to support her as her head dropped to his shoulder. “It’s been a long day. Maybe you just need a little nap. Don’t be afraid of it. You’ll feel fresher after a little nap.”

  “Well …” Her voice was trailing off. “… maybe …” She slumped limp. Carefully, he removed himself from her and the couch.

  He checked her breathing and pulse. Normal and steady. He had been twice concerned. His first challenge had been in balancing the drug with all that wine. Too strong a dose could’ve been risky—even fatal. His second worry occurred when she seemed to bounce back from the alcohol. He hadn’t counted on such a tolerance. Until now he had feared the dose in her cup might not be sufficient to affect a relatively sober person her size.

  But it had all worked well.

  He took a compact leather case from his topcoat, opened it, and spread the contents on a pillow that had fallen from the couch. He moistened some cotton with alcohol and vigorously swabbed the crook of her arm. He fingered her arm and applied pressure until a bluish vein stood out. He delicately but firmly inserted a hypodermic needle into the vein and filled the syringe with Mary Lou’s blood.

  He packed his instruments back into the case. He did not anticipate any search for prints, but one could not be too careful: With a handkerchief he wiped clean everything he’d touched in the apartment.

  He scribbled a note: “Mary Lou, I had a wonderful day. I guess it got to be too demanding for both of us. I have your number. I’ll call soon. Ned.” He left the note on the kitchen cabinet near the coffee, which he unplugged.

  He surveyed the apartment. Everything seemed to check out. As he was closing the door behind him, he took one last look at the sleeping Mary Lou. Well, so long, doll. I wish I could’ve taken what you offered. It’ll be interesting finding out the alcohol level of this blood. It’ll be even more interesting establishing the DNA structure.

  FATHER KOESLER was unwinding.

  Inspector Koznicki had returned the priest to his church barely in time for the late Saturday afternoon Mass, which, by ecclesial fiat, satisfied Catholics’ obligation to attend Mass on Sunday.

  Fortunately, he had a long-standing habit of preparing over an entire week—as time allowed—for his weekend homilies. Saturdays, however, were usually reserved for tying up loose ends. There hadn’t been time for that today. The homily was a bit frayed. So, after Mass, and after the dependably few confessions, and after a warmed-over dinner, he had reworked the sermon until he felt more confident about tomorrow.

  After the natural excitement of a police investigation—for him at any rate—and the repairs made on the homily, he was understandably exhausted. He knew that today’s activity would not have so wiped out a younger priest, a younger Koesler. But he also knew he was not what he once was.

  He sat in his room in the spacious but otherwise vacant rectory. A glass of wine perched on the nightstand next to the chair. Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F was on the record player. An open book lay on his lap. He was having no success reading. He found himself going over the same paragraphs again and again without comprehending the printed page. It was not the book’s fault. His mind was restless.

  It was easier listening to the music than trying to comprehend the book.

  The events of the recent past were distracting by nearly anyone’s measure. All that hubbub with his cousins. Then the cataclysmic revelation that Maureen wasn’t just playing mommy, she actually was a mother to Mary Lou.

  And the father of it all was tycoon Charlie Nash!

  That, by itself, was food for thought enough. But somehow, all those things seemed jumbled together in today’s events. And he had no idea why Something today … What would it have been? Everything seemed to revolve around the secret archives of the archdiocese of Detroit. But how? What?

  On a whim, he thumbed through the phone book. There it was: Maher, Harry, on Archdale. He dialed the number. He recognized the voice that answered. “Harry? Father Koesler here. Sorry to bother you so late.”

  “Perfectly okay. It isn’t every day I get sucked into a homicide scene. Matter of fact, I was just telling Peg all about it for maybe the fourth or fifth time. She’s grateful for the break.”

  Koesler chuckled. “I’d probably be doing the same. Except Mother Church protected some lady from becoming Mrs. Koesler. Good grief! It even sounds strange. The only Mrs. Koesler I’ve ever known was my mother. But … what I’m calling about: Remember this morning when someone—I forget who—asked you what was kept in the archives?”

  “Yeah. I remember thinking he was asking the wrong guy. But I listed all the things I could remember being in there.”

  “That’s it. Can you give that list to me now? And go slow; I’ll be writing them down.”

  Maher did precisely that, and after exchanging a couple more pleasantries, they hung up.

  Koesler sat looking at the list of disparate items and listening to the music. He drifted off in the direction of the music.

  He was thinking about The Joy of Music, a book written many years before by the now-deceased Leonard Bernstein. In the book was a chapter entitled, “Why Don’t You Run Upstairs and W
rite a Nice Gershwin Tune?” It was an all-but-rhetorical chapter. The foreordained conclusion had to be: All well and good if your name is George Gershwin; otherwise you’re doomed if you want to write one of his unique tunes.

  Koesler’s mind turned back to the concerto, now in its third and final movement.

  Gershwin moved from those marvelous songs to serious music. Purists might quibble about the classic structure—or lack of structure—of a composition such as the concerto. It seemed evident that the composer had grasped a basic concerto form, the established divers distinct themes in the first two movements, then tied them together in altered configurations in the third.

  And that was just about what Father Koesler was trying to do. There were any number of seemingly unrelated events here. Something—an instinct?—told him there were not only obvious relationships between certain facts but there also were as yet undetected couplings.

  His head felt like the wire used for recordings before tapes came along. Back then when things went wrong, the result was literally haywire. The strands would tangle in a hopeless mess. That pretty much described the condition of his mind.

  He finished the wine and determined to try to empty his brain and get some sleep. All the while he knew he wasn’t going to be successful. Not thinking was a feat he had never come close to mastering.

  And these thoughts were going to distract him with no resolution in sight all through the day tomorrow.

  C H A P T E R

  30

  FROM WHERE he was seated, in a corner of the ample kitchen of St. Joseph’s rectory, Father Koesler could see little of the traffic. But he could hear the whooshing of the procession of vehicles on their way down Gratiot to the call of Monday-morning business.

  He felt somewhat out of the mainstream of American life. Here half or more of humanity was picking up the thread of commerce left behind when they’d murmured, “Thank God it’s Friday.” And here was he, immobile and beginning a day not unlike any other.

  He hadn’t yet begun to page through the Free Press. He was working through a bowl of cold cereal and banana in milk. Experience had taught that it was counterproductive trying to read and spoon dripping cereal simultaneously.

  As was his morning habit, he had turned on the kitchen radio eternally dialed to 760—WJR-AM and Detroit’s perennial radio king, J.P. McCarthy. So far, Koesler had learned that the Pistons had won, the Red Wings had lost, and so had the Tigers. That took care of basketball, hockey, and the grapefruit league. There had been twelve shootings over the weekend, eight of them fatal. Given a gun, Detroiters did not fool around. Traffic was backed up on the Lodge, Ford, and Chrysler freeways and on 1-696—the Reuther—as well. Given little or no mass transit, Detroit drivers managed to torture each other through rush hour.

  He finished the cereal and poured a cup of last night’s coffee that he had just now reheated. There were those who would have found it bitter. To Koesler, it was dark and hot. And that, to him, was coffee.

  J.P. (Joseph Priestly) McCarthy was about to do one of his patented phone interviews.

  “On the other end of my line is Theodore ‘Ted’ Nash,” the familiar, confident voice said. “Good morning, Ted. According to an item in Bob Talbert’s column in this morning’s Free Press, your father is willing to submit to a DNA test to settle a paternity matter. News to you?”

  “Not at all,” the voice of Ted Nash replied. “J.P., I’ve been in touch with my dad over the past couple of days. This thing goes back some thirty years, if you can believe that!” His tone made it clear no one could believe that.

  “That’s a piece of time, all right. Any idea why now?”

  “Well”—a playful tone—“it’s probably not child support.”

  “The lady mentioned in Bob’s column”—all business, but still a light touch—“a Maureen Monahan. Know the lady?”

  “Never met her.” Jaunty tone.

  “More important, obviously: Does your dad know her?”

  “In the Biblical senser, J.P. no. But”—more seriously—”he did know her years ago. He hasn’t seen her since then. He does remember her. They dated a few times, then they broke up. Like what happens to lots of relationships. They were both very young at the time.”

  “But, we keep coming back to the question, why now? After all these years?”

  “Well, J.P., the best we can come up with is that when they went together briefly back in the sixties, Dad was just a struggling young executive. Now, of course, he has built Nash Enterprises. What shall I say? The pot is richer? The stakes are higher? If her daughter were—and she’s certainly not—my father’s child, she would make some ridiculous claim now. Now that we’re talking empire!”

  “I’ll say. Just the two of you? How about half the whole enchilada?”

  “It’ll never happen, J.P.”

  “We tried to reach your dad, but no luck.”

  “He isn’t in the best of health, J.P. That’s the only reason he’s not talking to you this morning.”

  “But you can speak for him?”

  “I sure can, J.P.”

  “Then one last question: How come Charlie Nash doesn’t wait until a suit is filed against him? Why does a man like him—prominent in the community as a philanthropist of the first order—why would a man like that volunteer to take a DNA test before a complaint has been filed against him? Doesn’t he sort of lend some sort of credence to, let’s face it, an allegation that no one even knew was going to be made, by volunteering for the test?”

  “It might seem that way, J.P. But anybody who knows Dad real well knows that that’s just the way he is. He didn’t get to where he is by sitting back waiting for people to do things to him. He’s an aggressive kind of guy. When he got word this allegation was going to be made, he decided to settle the matter once and for all. The ordinary guy would do everything in his power to stall and pull legal maneuvers to sidestep a test as credible as a DNA. But Dad knows there’s nothing to this claim. So, to nip this thing in the bud, he’s offering to take the test and get the thing over with.”

  “Well, okay. You can be sure that everybody’s going to be following this story. Thanks for talking to us.

  “Ted Nash, commenting on a decision made by his dad, Charlie Nash, a name familiar to every Detroit-area adult. Aware, he says, of a pending legal action against him, a paternity suit, Mr. Nash has decided to throw down the gauntlet, as it were, and challenge the claim by agreeing to take a test that will settle the matter one way or the other. Good story. And, as it develops, you’ll hear about it here on WJR, radio 760, in the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building.”

  Father Koesler, who had gone rigid at J.P.’s first words, turned off the radio and flipped through the morning paper to the feature page. There, in its usual place across the top six columns, was Bob Talbert’s “Out of My Mind on Monday Moanin’.” And there was the item, with an added disclaimer that Talbert had been unable to reach Maureen Monahan but had corroborated the story as it had been released by the Nash people.

  Had Koesler left his radio on, he would have heard a similar disclaimer by J.P. McCarthy, including the statement that WJR had been unable to get through to Ms. Monahan.

  Koesler was stupefied, his brain numb. All his previous reasoning was in shambles. Everything about this matter was topsy-turvy. Nothing made sense.

  But it had to make sense. He just wasn’t seeing it clearly.

  In the light of all that had happened, including this morning’s bombshell, how could this event square with a reasonable conclusion?

  Koesler’s brain was a near maelstrom. But gradually, as he began to fit things—people, events—into place, one possibility loomed ever larger. Now, he needed just one more bit of information to have everything come out right. There was one person he simply had to talk to.

  He dialed her number ten separate times, by actual count, before he gave up. He would have to make an unannounced and uninvited visit. Something he scarcely ever did.

  But f
irst, he left a desperation-filled note for Mary O’Connor, parish secretary, general factotum, and his right arm. He apologized profusely and stressed what an emergency he faced today. He had no idea where he would be nor how long he would be gone. He asked her to try to find a spare Jesuit to offer the noon Mass. Short of that, she might contact one of the parish’s extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist to conduct a prayer service with the distribution of Communion.

  All of this Mary would have thought of on her own, once she knew he’d been called away. He was going into detail only to indicate how sorry he was to dump these emergency burdens on her.

  Next, he asked her to reschedule today’s appointments for later in the week.

  For all of this, all he could promise her was that he would not make coffee for her tomorrow. For some reason, she never cared for any of his brew.

  He had only to remove his cassock and don the black jacket and clerical collar. And he was gone.

  AS HE NEARED Maureen’s modest home in the suburb of Warren, Father Koesler was met by an array of departing vehicles. Several vans with prominent TV logos were headed out of the neighborhood. The rest of the motorcade he took to be radio and print people.

  His initial surprise gave way to an acknowledgment that it was only natural that Maureen and the girls would be among the hottest news items in town following Nash’s announcement.

  As he parked in front of Maureen’s house, he thanked God he had not arrived earlier when the reporters must have been swarming all over the place. There was only one man left, who was about to enter his car as Koesler pulled up. A radio personality, he would have gone unrecognized except that Koesler had been interviewed by him in the past. WJR reporter Rod Hansen smiled as the priest approached. “If they didn’t call for you, I don’t think you’re going to get in here, Father.”

  Koesler nodded toward the house. “Anybody home?”

  “Oh, somebody’s home all right. They just don’t want to talk to anybody. Not anybody from the media anyway.” His innate curiosity and reportorial skills were piqued by this priest who had arrived conveniently after the mass of newspeople had departed. “It’s Father … Koesler, isn’t it?”