Sudden Death fk-7

by William X. Kienzle

  “It puts me in mind of my favorite scene in a fine silent movie on the life of Christ, called King of Kings. This scene follows one where the Christ is in a small village curing people right and left, just by an act of His will. Then, He leaves the village and goes out to the countryside. He is exhausted. He leaves the dusty country road and sits in the shade of a large tree.

  “The Apostles form a ring around the tree, keeping the crowd, which has followed him from the village, at a distance. Then, a little girl sneaks underneath the arm of one of the Apostles, who reaches out to grab her before she might bother Jesus. But He waves the Apostle aside and greets the child with a smile. She shows Jesus her ragdoll, which is ripped.

  “You can see the wheels turning in His mind. He has just finished working wondrous miracles. He seems to be weighing what He should do about the little girl’s doll. Should He wave His hand over it and make it miraculously fixed? Finally, He extracts a straw from the doll’s innards and with it, He carefully and slowly mends the doll and returns it to the little girl.

  “Now it’s just an apocryphal story thought up by some clever screenwriter. But I think it captures the spirit of Jesus. That little girl probably wouldn’t even have understood a miraculous cure for her doll. But that a very important man would take the time to mend her doll would be an act of kindness she would never forget.

  “I don’t think I even need explicitly apply the lesson to our daily lives. But somewhere out there today we’re likely to encounter someone who’s got some trouble. Let’s look for that someone and mend the trouble.

  “And, as they used to say on the TV show ‘Hill Street Blues,’ let’s be careful out there.”

  The remainder of the Mass passed uneventfully. Except that something was troubling him. But again, he was unable to put his finger on it. Something to do with this morning’s Gospel. . but what? In his mind’s eye, he could almost see his brain cells exploding and disintegrating.

  After Mass and a few prayers of thanksgiving, he returned to the rectory. St. Anselm’s secretary, Mary O’Connor, had attended his morning Mass and had preceded him to the rectory.

  As usual, she offered to fix him some breakfast. As usual, he declined her offer. As usual, he sliced a banana over a bowl of Granola. As far as Koesler was concerned, there was much to be said for routine.

  Reflecting on routine reminded him of Hank Hunsinger, whose life had been so compulsively riddled with routine. Koesler tried to drive the thought away. He had resolved to get back to parochial duties and let the police do the job for which they were so well trained and capable.

  And he would have succeeded in expelling the thought if it hadn’t been for the puzzles that still nagged him. Last night’s story about the nuns laying out various colored vestments for him, plus this morning’s distraction that had some inscrutable connection with this morning’s Gospel. Were they connected? Were they connected with Hunsinger’s murder? If so, how?

  Breakfast finished, he went to his office, where, predictably, Mary had stacked two days of mail. A couple of significant piles. Armed with his letter opener, he attacked the first pile. A good offense, he thought, is a good defense … or something.

  The first letter was from a convent of contemplative Carmelite nuns. “Reverend and Dear Father:

  “There is nothing more sacred to our faith than the altar breads which, upon the words of consecration, pronounced by priests such as yourself, Reverend Father, become the living presence of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

  “Thus, careful attention must be paid to the preparation of these sacred wafers.

  “Most purveyors of altar breads subject the process entirely to insensitive machines. From the mixing of the dough, to the baking, to the cutting.

  “This is not true of the work of our convent. No, Reverend Father, none but the virginal hands of our Sisters touch the sacred altar breads. .”

  Koesler could not go on. He was laughing too hard. So, it takes virginal hands to replace vulgar machines. He could envision the assembly lines of Detroit’s auto plants. First there were the blue-collar workers on the line, followed by robots, followed by the virginal hands of hitherto contemplative nuns.

  Probably he would order some altar breads from the nuns. They deserved some patronage after having entertained him. Then he would file their letter with his other prized possession: the letter from the company selling altar wine, all of whose Teamster drivers were Catholics.

  The next envelope bore the extremely familiar address, 1234 Washington Boulevard. It was a Chancery missive, containing the parochial help-wanted listing. This too was a fairly recent wrinkle.

  In the good old days, notice of a changed assignment had come in much the same fashion as a draft notice. Except that instead of “Greetings,” the assignment letter would invariably begin, “For the care of souls, I have it in mind to assign you to. .” There would follow the name of the parish that would be the priest’s residence for the next approximately five years.

  Now that priests were becoming an endangered species, it had become a seller’s market. The Chancery now regularly listed openings in parochial assignments for pastors or associate pastors accompanied by thumbnail descriptions of the type of ministry expected. One applied, or did not, depending on one’s interest. Seldom was pressure brought to bear. It may have been a better system than the previous practice. Koesler thought it was.

  Suddenly, for no explicable reason, but, indeed, the way it usually happened with Koesler, everything fell into place. It was as if a curtain had suddenly lifted, revealing the stage. Suddenly the connection between the multicolored vestments, the blind man beginning to see, and the Hunsinger murder was clear.

  It was a thrilling moment and Koesler savored it.

  He needed to make only one phone call. If he received an affirmative response, it would be at least possible that he had found the solution to a murder.

  Driving out to Dr. Glowacki’s office with Sergeant Ewing, Lieutenant Harris was trying to figure out why he so resented this trip.

  The bottom line, he finally concluded, was that he disliked having amateurs mess in his profession. There were just far too many people who considered themselves competent, without benefit of any training or preparation, to do police work. His intolerance of that sort of intruder doubled when the amateur meddled in homicide cases.

  Especially when the homicide got a lot of publicity, the homemade experts seemed to come out of the woodwork-psychologists, psychiatrists, soothsayers, fortunetellers, mystics.

  Of course, Father Koesler did not fit any of the stereotyped categories. And, Harris had to admit, the priest had been of help in the past. But it was not, he thought, a good precedent to invite amateurs in on a case. He wished his old friend, Walt Koznicki, who was coming to Glowacki’s office in a separate vehicle, would not do it. It was about the only bone Harris had to pick with Koznicki.

  They had discussed it a few times but had never reached a mutually agreeable solution. Koznicki would protest that Koesler was the sole exception to the rule banning nonprofessionals from cases. And Koznicki would explain that there were times when Koesler’s expertise in things Catholic was helpful in certain cases. Harris would argue that, religious expertise or not, the police were well able to solve homicides without outside help.

  They never reached an agreement. So the argument occurred less and less frequently. But Harris continued to believe that Koznicki’s better judgment was clouded when it came to Father Koesler.

  Besides, Harris had just developed a theory concerning the Hunsinger case and had anticipated testing it today. That had been before receiving the call this morning from Koznicki, who had been called earlier by Koesler. Harris had objected. But Koznicki made it clear that while he wasn’t outright ordering Harris to Glowacki’s office, neither was it merely an invitation.

  Harris turned off Ford Road into the parking lot adjacent to Dr. Glowacki’s office building. Koesler was already there. They exchanged greetings w
ith the priest, Ewing more warmly than Harris. In a brief time they were joined by Koznicki. The four entered the building and were immediately admitted into Glowacki’s consultation office.

  It was Koesler’s show. “I’ll explain my idea as thoroughly but as quickly as possible,” he began. “At the beginning of this investigation, when I was allowed to sit in on a series of interviews with possible suspects in the case, it soon became obvious that six of the suspects had the opportunity-and a sufficient motive-to kill Hunsinger. But none of those six possessed the final bit of information known to everyone in this room-that Hunsinger was colorblind and thus could not have detected that the liquid he thought was shampoo was white, not pink. I think that bit of information has been referred to as ‘the smoking gun.’ Am I right so far?”

  “Well,” Ewing said, “it’s not necessarily that none of those suspects ‘possessed’ the knowledge that Hunsinger was colorblind; the fact is that, at least so far, we haven’t been able to prove that one or any of them knew-or to get one or any of them to admit it.”

  “So far,” Harris emphasized.

  “Of course,” Koesler admitted, “that was sloppy of me. All right. None of those suspects would admit they knew of Hunsinger’s condition.

  “But what if. . what if we’re looking for the wrong type of person?”

  Harris did not care for Koesler’s use of the first person plural. But he said nothing.

  “What, exactly, are you driving at?” Koznicki asked.

  “A couple of unrelated things got me started thinking of another way of approaching this case. This morning I was reading a passage from a Gospel. It was about Christ curing a blind man. Only it wasn’t one of those instantaneous cures. This one happened in stages. At first the man could see, but indistinctly. He could see people but they looked to him as if they were walking trees. In other words, he was no longer totally blind, but his sight definitely was impaired.

  “The other thing that happened was that I was telling a friend about an incident involving a couple of mischievous nuns who deliberately set out a color-mixed set of vestments because they were certain I would have the first Mass the next day. They wanted to play a joke on me. But they blundered. The pastor traded with me and took the early Mass.

  “Now, if I had seen that mixed bag of vestments, I would have understood the joke. But the pastor didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. When he told me about it, all straight-faced, he didn’t know what to make of it. And he suggested, in jest, I think, that maybe they were not in complete possession of their sanity.

  “Don’t you see?” Koesler, who had thought this theory through to its conclusion, mistakenly assumed the others would understand completely even without a complete explanation. It was a bad habit of his. Earnestly he continued. “Instead of accusing the nuns of being crazy, the pastor, if he didn’t understand the joke, should have assumed the nuns were colorblind. Or”-he glanced at the ophthalmologist-“I should more correctly say color-deficient.”

  Koesler paused a moment, in vain, for some sign of comprehension or support from the others.

  “Would you care to amplify whatever point it is you are trying to make, Father?” Inspector Koznicki was attempting, more than anything else, to rescue Koesler from the embarrassing silence.

  “Certainly, Inspector. My point is just this: the man midway through his cure is not totally blind, but partially blind. Just as the nuns, if they hadn’t been clowning around, presumably might not be totally colorblind, but merely color-deficient. I checked this all out with Dr. Glowacki earlier, before I phoned you.”

  “So,” Harris was growing impatient, “you have a couple of nuns who are either joking, crazy, or color-deficient. So what?”

  “So,” Koesler continued, “that got me thinking about the murder of Hank Hunsinger. Well, to be honest, though I’ve tried not to, I have thought of little else these past few days.

  “And, to try to sum this up, I thought of the police trying to find a suspect who knew that Hunsinger was colorblind and would be unable to distinguish one color from the next. But what if. . what if it were not a case of knowing about Hunsinger’s colorblindness? What if the murderer were color deficient and not able to tell the difference between the clear color of the DMSO and the pink color of the shampoo?”

  There was another silence.

  “That’s so, isn’t it?” Ewing turned to Glowacki. “That such a person would not be able to tell the difference between the colors?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” the doctor responded. “That was another thing the Father and I discussed this morning. We call the impairment a red-green deficiency.”

  “It’s cute, Padre,” said Harris, “but I’m afraid you’ve come up with a hypothesis without a foundation. We know that Hunsinger was colorblind. Someone else who knew it would know that he or she didn’t have to be concerned about the color of the liquid containing the poison. There’s no reason to think that it could have been the other way ’round-that the perpetrator couldn’t tell the difference between the bottles.”

  “Well, I beg to differ with you, Lieutenant. But I think it does make better sense my way.” Although the priest spoke firmly, he genuinely dreaded this argument. He wished that all of them, especially Lieutenant Harris, whose mild animosity toward himself Koesler had perceived, had bought his theory.

  “Let me suggest this, please,” he continued. “Suppose the killer were normal-sighted. Just to avoid fooling with pronouns let me assume the killer was a man.

  “He goes to Hunsinger’s apartment. His objective is to get the strychnine into the DMSO. He wants the DMSO to carry the poison into Hunsinger’s bloodstream, quickly killing him. In order to get Hunsinger to use the tainted DMSO, the killer decides to mask the DMSO as shampoo because he knows that the Hun routinely showers at his apartment after the game.

  “Now I’ll grant you that the quickest and easiest way of doing this, since the containers of the shampoo and the DMSO are identical-I remember that correctly, don’t I?”

  Koznicki nodded slowly, encouragingly.

  “Since the containers are identical, the killer simply exchanges the two bottles, relying on Hunsinger’s compulsive routines to cause him to use the DMSO because it’s in the spot reserved for the shampoo. Hunsinger uses the poisonous DMSO because he can’t tell any difference in the bottle shapes, he can’t read the label because of poor eyesight, and he can’t tell the difference in the colors because he’s colorblind.”

  “That’s about the way it stacks up,” Harris noted.

  “All right,” said Koesler, “but the killer has no plans to revisit the scene of the crime after the murder. In fact, he knows he can’t. Because, again routinely, Hunsinger is showering to prepare for a. . uh. . date.

  “So the killer knows that he will necessarily leave behind a scene that looks like this: There will be an open bottle of DMSO on the spot reserved for shampoo. And the police will quickly discover what is in the bottle and the cause of death. In effect, the killer is leaving a clue telling the police that he knows about Hunsinger’s colorblindness-a condition that Hunsinger has gone out of his way to conceal.

  “On the other hand, in the theory I propose, the scenario is the same, except for the reason for not exchanging bottles. Now the killer is not leaving a clue for the police. Now the killer is leaving a clear bottle instead of one with a pink liquid, for the very simple and reasonable reason that the killer himself cannot tell the difference.”

  Another silence.

  “Two things wrong with that, Padre,” said Harris, finally.

  “One, you’re thinking-or trying to think-like an investigator. Whereas criminals, in real life, rarely think that ingeniously. That’s why we catch so many of them. You’d be surprised how many homicides are committed in the manner they are simply because that was the simplest way of doing it. It is very possible-probable-the killer didn’t even advert to the different colors. . or, if he did, didn’t care.

  “And two, your c
ase is built on the supposition that one of our suspects is. . uh. . color-deficient. When there’s no indication that that is so.”

  “Well, again, Lieutenant,” said Koesler, “with all due respect, there may be one or another of the suspects with just that disorder.”

  Harris looked at him with disbelief. It was so strong the detective did not have to verbalize his doubts.

  “It happened when I visited the Galloway home. The first time, when Mrs. Galloway was questioned, I was vaguely aware that something was wrong, but I couldn’t say what. Then, the other night when our Bible discussion group met there, I became a bit more aware of what it was that was troubling me. It was the color scheme.

  “Now God knows I am the last person in the world who might make a living at interior design. But the living room of the Galloway home is somewhat outlandish. I don’t know what the rest of the house is like, but in the living room, they have the walls done in a sort of pale apricot and the upholstered sectional couch and chair are a purplish red. . I believe they call it magenta.”

  Both Ewing and Harris had to admit to themselves that they had noticed what they considered the atrocious color scheme. Actually, they had been aware of it long before Koesler, but had simply ascribed it to bad taste and dismissed it from their consideration.

  “That,” said Koesler, “is the final detail I checked with Dr. Glowacki.”

  “Oh, yes. And I assured the good Father that such colors as he described-an apricot and a magenta-would be a classic kind of blunder of a red-green personality. You see, green plays an important part in this-”

  “Is there any way of testing for this?” Harris interrupted. “Is there any way to prove if a person is. . uh. . color-deficient?”

  “Oh, my, yes,” said Glowacki. “It’s right here in this little pamphlet, the ‘Ishihara Test for Colour Blindness.’”

  “May I?” Harris extended his hand and the doctor gave him the pamphlet. Harris began to page through it.