Sudden Death fk-7

by William X. Kienzle

  “The strychnine?” Harris pressed.

  “Oh, yeah, I was just, like, comin’ to that. Toward the end of the meal, when Murray was about to slip under the table, along comes this dude-I’ve seen enough of them in Dallas: plenty of hat and plenty of cattle. Well, this guy sits down at the empty chair at our table. He didn’t have any, you know, trouble finding us. The Hun and me were bigger by several times ’n anybody else in the place. Then the guy recognized the Hun.

  “You know how it is, Lieutenant, with some people: they just want to be seen with football players. Basically, they want to go back to work and say, like, ‘I had a few drinks with the Hun Saturday night.’ That’s the way it was with this dude.”

  “And how did this go over with Hunsinger?”

  “It coulda gone either way. The Hun coulda knocked the dude on his ass. But, by then, you know, Hun was feelin’ no pain. So he takes the dude in like a long-lost buddy. Even buys him a drink. God, Lieutenant, you’da thought the dude had died and gone to heaven.

  “Next thing I know, the Hun is tellin’ this guy about his swank apartment in Detroit. The dude is, like, lappin’ it all up. But, Hun says, the only problem with this apartment is it’s got rats. ‘Can you imagine that?’ says Hun. ‘Payin’ all that money and havin’ to put up with rats!’

  “‘Funny thing,’ says this dude. He happens to be, like, I think he said, something like a county agent for the state Department of Agriculture. He handles this poison that is just made for rodents: strychnine. Gets it from someplace in New York. Comes as some sorta chemical compound. They turn it into liquid form, pour it on bait, use it for, like, ground squirrels. Promised he would send the Hun some.

  “Basically, Lieutenant, that’s how he got it: from some dude in Texas who could handle it legally.”

  The interrogation was drawing to a close. No, Hoffer could not say for sure who else knew the strychnine was in the apartment. But he was pretty sure the others in the discussion group knew. As he recalled, Hunsinger had mentioned it once when they met at his apartment.

  “One final thing,” said Ewing, “can you account for your time yesterday? Don’t leave any large unverifiable gaps, if you can help it.”

  Did they imagine it, or did Hoffer seem to blanch? “Well, basically, I’m gonna have to start with a gap. See, I, like, got up about six-thirty. I tried not to wake my wife, and I don’t think I did. Then, after I got ready, I stopped off at church for a while, to, like, pray for good luck in the game.”

  “You went to St. Anselm’s?” Ewing asked. He glanced at Koesler, who seemed surprised.

  Hoffer nodded.

  “What time was that?”

  “It was about seven.”

  “But, Kit,” said Koesler, “we don’t have early Mass until eight o’clock.”

  “I know, Father, but the janitor opens the church just before seven. And I stopped in just to pray for good luck.”

  “Did anyone see you there?”

  “Afraid not. Wasn’t anybody around that early. The janitor just opens up and leaves.”

  “He goes on his rounds checking all the other buildings,” Koesler corroborated.

  “So then what happened?” asked Ewing.

  “Well, after I got done praying, I left for the Pontiac Inn. But I misjudged the timing. I got there about eight-thirty, quarter to nine. I got the hell bawled out of me and, like, I woulda got it worse except Bobby Cobb was late too. He didn’t arrive until a little after nine. And he woulda got it worse than he did ’cept he’s one of the team’s pheenoms.”

  “How about the rest of your day?”

  “Well, there was the meal and taping and trip to the stadium and the game with the rest of the team and all. Then, you know, after the game I went with my wife to dinner with some friends. Then, like, the wife and I went home.”

  “But there’s no one to attest for your time until eight-thirty or eight-forty-five. Which means you got to the hotel up to forty-five minutes after the rest of the team, after Hunsinger.”

  “Excepting for Bobby Cobb.”

  “Except Cobb.”

  “That’s about it, Lieutenant.”

  “One more thing,” Harris added. “Hunsinger’s death, it sort of opens the way for you, doesn’t it?”

  Hoffer lowered his head. “Lieutenant, it’s a cryin’ shame that the Hun is, you know, dead. And I’m sorry it happened. But I guess you’d have to say that I, like, got lucky for a change.”

  They advised Hoffer there would probably be more questions, then left to locate Cobb. If nothing else on the surface made Hunsinger’s death of interest to Cobb, there was that hour’s tardiness that might prove interesting.

  As they walked down the tunnel toward the Cougars’ locker room, Koesler said, “That’s odd, Kit stopping in church the morning of the game.”

  “What’s odd about it, Father?” Ewing asked.

  “Just that Kit and his wife were at the four-thirty afternoon Mass on Saturday. That satisfied his obligation to attend church on Sunday. Catholics, generally can be depended on to attend Mass once on the weekend. And that generally is about how often they are involved in formal prayer of petition. I would expect Kit to pray for victory and survival when he attended Mass on Saturday. I wouldn’t expect him to repeat the process the next day, just because it was Sunday.”

  “Are you sure he was there Saturday afternoon?” Harris asked.

  Koesler chuckled. “I’d have to be blind to miss that hulk in church.”

  That Koznicki and his hunches, Harris thought approvingly; having Koesler along is cutting neat corners on this investigation.

  On June 11, 1963, Governor George Wallace stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama, attempting to bar two black students from registering. Governor Wallace proved himself no prophet by promising, “Segregation Forever! Integration Never!”

  Years later, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, urging blacks to make optimal use of educational opportunities, and in allusion to Mr. Wallace’s symbolic blockade, observed, “Nobody is standing in the schoolhouse door now.”

  Quite independently of the Reverend Mr. Jackson’s observation, Robert Leland Cobb spontaneously reached the same conclusion.

  Born in 1956 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Cobb grew up in that city. His father taught English in Kalamazoo High. His mother was a homemaker. He was an only child.

  From the beginning of his conscious life, he was essentially an introvert. As early as possible, his parents introduced him to the joys of reading. He took to literature quite naturally and readily. His love of reading, together with a contemplative bent, prompted him to measure his world with precocious maturity.

  It did not take him long to experience and learn what it meant to be black in an essentially white town. For a small city, Kalamazoo was heavy with institutions of higher learning: Nazareth College, Kalamazoo College, Western Michigan University. There were an unusual number of hospitals and schools of nursing. It was almost literally worth one’s life to find a mere general practitioner; most medical doctors were specialists. The Upjohn Company was so objectively large and significant it was practically the only game in town.

  When little Bobby Cobb first understood the significance of being black-skinned, he was uncertain what to do about it. This deferral of judgment set a pattern in his life. Seldom would he act precipitately.

  Although neither of his parents was particularly large, Bobby gave every promise of becoming a giant of a man. His father could trace this promising physical development to his paternal grandfather, a onetime slave whose feats of strength were storied.

  In keeping with his father’s respected position in the community, Bobby’s family lived in the comfortable northwest section of Kalamazoo. They were about the only blacks living in that area.

  Bobby observed that as time passed and he grew to be so much larger and stronger than his friends and schoolmates, he became more accepted. Even those with racist tendencies treated him with a certain civility, even deference.
It did not much matter to Bobby that their attitude might spring from fear. In any case, Bobby’s polite articulateness won him acceptance in the homes of his white friends.

  Jackie Robinson’s years as major league baseball’s first black player were gone long before Bobby’s time. But, unlike so many of his contemporaries who knew nothing of what had preceded them, Bobby learned everything he could about Robinson, and also about Paul Robeson, the black athlete who had earned letters and a law degree at Rutgers and had gone on to electrify the world as singer, actor, and activist.

  Cobb was good at sports, very good. And he would get better. If he applied himself assiduously, he could become a professional athlete, probably in the football arena. At that point, he could do as many of his brothers had: carve out an athletic career and have nothing to turn to when age put him on the shelf. But no, that would not be for Bobby; he lived, and would live, in a white man’s world. And no amount of blackspeak or adopting of African names would change that fact.

  His athletic ability easily would win him a scholarship to most any university of his choice. Under normal circumstances, that would be Western Michigan. He studied that option. Only one athlete from WMU had made it big: Charlie Maxwell, nicknamed Ol’ Paw Paw after the western Michigan town that was Maxwell’s point of origin. Maxwell had played baseball for a number of years for the Detroit Tigers. His career was marked by penchants for hitting home runs on Sundays and hustling back to the dugout after strikeouts. No, not WMU. Scouts would have to dig to find him there. And nothing must be left to chance.

  He settled on Michigan State University. It had a big-time football program. But not so big that one could not be serious about one’s academic life. And Bobby did intend to be serious. He would be an attorney. And he would be one in the white man’s enclave. The white man’s world would be his field of combat. He would be articulate, well-educated, cultured, poised, cool, and armed with a well-publicized sports portfolio.

  He was already handsome in a white context, with caucasoid features and chocolate-colored skin-evocative of a king-sized Harry Belafonte.

  And that caused a problem which demanded the careful planning that was becoming his general modus operandi.

  During Bobby’s teens and young adult years, in both college towns of Kalamazoo and East Lansing, consciousness-raising became very popular. Racist as well as sexist attitudes were roundly condemned, especially by high school and university students. But not infrequently an opposite swing of the pendulum would occur. Not only were racial disparities downplayed, but there was a mindset group of white females whose objective it was to merge with black men.

  This, Bobby promised himself, would not happen to him. The quantity and at times superior quality of young white women students who plainly made themselves available to him were tempting, most tempting. But giving in to that temptation was not a part of his plan. The stratum of white society he would be a part of was not altogether prepared to accept miscegenation. So, neither was he.

  Things went pretty much as planned. There were few surprises in Bobby Cobb’s life. And when an occurrence extraneous to his plan threatened to upset his modus vivendi, he always managed to bring things to order expeditiously.

  He was an All-Everything in high school football. Most of the major colleges had heard about him, even though he came from little Kalamazoo. Feelers came in from as far away as Florida and California. He chose Michigan State, as he had planned long before MSU recruited him. He continued to develop both mind and body. He was cordial to, but stayed clear of, white coeds. He first dated, then courted, a gorgeous girl whose complexion was soft chocolate like his. They made a fine-looking couple. He knew the white world he would enter would accept the two of them unreservedly.

  From his sophomore through his senior year he quarterbacked a football team whose success depended, in large part, on his excellence. He graduated cum laude and was drafted by the Cougars in the first round. He married his college fiancee. He was counseled to take no more than one semester a year in his postgrad march toward a legal degree. That way neither the demands of law school nor those of professional football would be too taxing.

  Now he was in his seventh season with the Cougars and only a few short months away from taking the bar examination. His marriage was a success. He had two rather perfect children, a boy and a girl.

  His program was right on schedule. There was but one fly in the ointment. Hunsinger.

  It was part of Bobby Cobb’s plan that he be Numero Uno with the Cougars-the star attraction. It would not do to court the most illustrious law firm in Detroit unless one were indisputably the most prestigious candidate in applying for entry into the partnership. And that prestige must be across the board, in studies as well as professional accomplishment.

  As it turned out, he was Numero Dos. Hunsinger always managed to get a tad more publicity. He was good copy, mainly because he was flamboyant. He could afford to be; he was not seeking the button-down life of a corporation lawyer. He wasn’t searching for anything but pleasure, security, and fame, in that order.

  Worst of all, Hunsinger didn’t deserve the publicity he received. He was beginning to go over the hill. He wouldn’t even be getting in all that playing time were it not for those jackasses in management who assumed the capacity crowds were coming primarily to see Hunsinger in action.

  Another part of Cobb’s plan was that the team he represented be of championship caliber. Nothing but the best for the area’s top law firm.

  In Cobb’s eyes, for some reason, Hunsinger seemed to try his best to ruin the careers of his teammates-introducing the younger members to booze, breaking curfews, entertaining playmates, and flirting with drugs, including cocaine, and stopping just short of heroin.

  For six full seasons Cobb had tried to neutralize Hunsinger. For six seasons Cobb had made little headway. In fact, it appeared to Bobby Cobb that Hunsinger’s popularity and his influence upon the Cougars were stronger than ever.

  Hunsinger stood directly in the path of Bobby Cobb’s carefully laid plans.

  Something would have to be done.

  “Where did everybody go?” Ewing asked of the assistant trainer, the only person in the locker room.

  “Oh, they’re probably in the projection room.”

  “Bobby Cobb in there?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Get him for us, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  “The assistant trainer did not need to ask who the two plainclothes detectives were, nor who the priest was, nor why they were at the Silverdome. Word had gotten around.

  Moments later, Cobb entered the locker room. He wore cutoff jeans and a T-shirt. Koesler marveled, as he had many times this day while viewing partially clad pro football players, at the muscle tone. It was as if a Renaissance sculptor had chiseled out an entire team. None of them seemed to have a neck. Massive shoulders sloped gracefully into a head. It made him wonder about the cartoon Father McNiff had described wherein the lady explained to her companion that the football players were wearing falsies. Up close and in person it was obvious that, except for protection, the players needed no padding.

  Ewing greeted Cobb. “Sorry to have to disturb you.”

  “No sweat. You just saved me from suffering through yesterday’s game again. Watching us fumble it away. They were just getting to Hunsinger’s fight. Come to think of it, that’s the last film of the Hun inaction.”

  Koesler was unable to tell whether there was a touch of relief, remorse, or just thoughtfulness in Cobb’s tone.

  “How can I help you?” Cobb asked.

  “Just a few questions. We’re trying to get to know a bit more about Hunsinger and some of the people around him. What kind of man was he?” Ewing asked.

  Cobb smiled. “That’s a big order.”

  “I mean, did he have any eccentricities?”

  “Eccentricities? What pops to mind immediately were those weird routines-compulsions, I guess you’d call them. Used to drive me n
uts watching them.”

  “Many of them?”

  “Oh, yeah, let me count the ways. Shoelaces had to lie flat against his shoes. Going on or off the field he would run by the right side of the goalpost only. First step up the stairs had to be with the left foot. Before going into a game the first time he’d have somebody slap his shoulder pads exactly three times. The long white sleeve of the sweatshirt we wear under our jerseys always had to be visible. He always sat in the last row of the plane-claimed it was safer. . shall I go on?”

  Ewing smiled. “You watched him pretty closely.”

  “Couldn’t help it. Fascinating. Besides, it wasn’t boring. Every so often he’d come up with something new to add to the list.”

  “How about showers?”

  “Showers? You mean the way he showered? Never noticed. I’m usually last in the shower and last out of the stadium.”

  “Not the quality, the quantity.”

  “Quantity? Oh, you must mean the double showers.” Cobb grinned. “The Hun led an … uh … an active social life. He wanted to. . uh. . smell nice for the ladies. So, particularly after a game and the crowd in here and the TV lights, he figured he needed more help than he got here in the locker room.”

  “Was this common knowledge? I mean, it sounds kind of personal.”

  “Yeah, well, you see, a team gets closer, maybe, than any other group. We get to depend on each other. So we get to know a bit more about each other than you might expect. Besides, there are those who prefer to keep some personal secrets and those who like to brag. The Hun was a talker.”

  “Were you aware,” Harris took over, “that Hunsinger had a vision problem?”

  Both officers studied Cobb’s reaction to the question. They detected nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Shit, yes-sorry, Father-I mean, I used to spend enough time on my hands and knees down on the turf looking for his damn contacts. That was before he got the soft lenses. The hard lenses used to pop out a lot.”