Read Dead Wrong Online

Authors: William X. Kienzle

Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Suspense, #Fiction

Dead Wrong (7 page)

BOOK: Dead Wrong
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Maureen hid no dating detail from her sisters’ eager ears. There was nothing much to hide. While her dates included dancing, roller skating, ice skating, swimming parties, and a good deal of necking, she never went “all the way.” So her Catholic conscience did not much trouble her. But for her, unlike her sisters, her social and romantic life was an embarrassment of riches. There were so many boyfriends, some more serious than others, that Maureen never seemed able to settle down and select the one who would be a life’s companion. And so it went until her prospect of marriage thickened and finally congealed. The two little girls became her life.

As time went by, Mary Lou seemed to grow closer to Maureen. She certainly was more dependent. It was likely she never lost the deep fear that she might be returned to the orphanage. That might explain why she virtually became Maureen’s shadow. Occasionally, friends would observe that Mary Lou was becoming a clone of the sisters. As an adult, she flitted from one job—usually clerical—to another. The problem had nothing to do with incompetence. It was more a case of thin self-confidence.

As more time went by, Mary Lou came to alternate employment with learning experiences. The testimonials to her accomplishments piled up. On the walls of her room were certificates of graduation from schools of cosmetology, financial management, floral design, and the like. It was difficult for Mary Lou to grow close to Brenda because …

Brenda was the antithesis of Mary Lou. Brenda was filled with quiet self-confidence. Life was marked with goals and achievement of goals. Thus it surprised many when she took a job with the chancery of the archdiocese of Detroit. A secretarial position, even at the top, in the chancery’s Department of Finance and Administration paid only a fraction of what she could have earned in a secular office. The only logical conclusion was that it had to be a stepping-stone to something else—though what that something else might be certainly was a mystery.

That made up the dramatis personae of Oona’s birthday party.

Father Koesler pulled into a parking space near Eileen’s property. As he approached her gate, somewhere inside a dog was barking furiously.

Three other cars were parked nearby. Given the likelihood that all were here for Oona’s party, they were still one guest shy. Eileen’s car would be in the single garage. That left two sisters, two “nieces,” and him. Five. But there were only four cars in the lot. Since he was just two minutes early, someone was going to be late. As he had not memorized who drove what, he had no clue as to who was tardy.

With some trepidation, he eased open the gate. No dog in view. Thank God. But the barking grew more frantic. It must be Eileen’s latest mastiff. As long as the beast was confined to the basement, Koesler could be unconcerned if not downright fearless.

He tried the doorknob. Locked. How like Eileen. If the gate was unlocked, the door certainly would be locked. Come to think of it, she would be happier with both locked.

He knocked several times, loudly.

Finally, the door opened. Eileen, smiling, stood on tiptoes and delivered a cousinly kiss. She gestured for him to go on in, passing him on the porch as she went to let the beast out into the yard. He renewed his vow that he and the dog would not be in the same space at the same time. He would continue the charade of fearlessness, but he would be sure the dog had been confined once more in the basement before he left.

Appetizing aromas greeted him. Maureen and Mary Lou were doing the cooking. Mary Lou checked her watch. “Good old Uncle Bob,” she said, “right on time.”

Because of the age difference and in spite of the lack of blood relationship, both Brenda and Mary Lou always referred to Oona and Eileen as “Aunt” and to Koesler as either “Father” or “Uncle.” However, both addressed the remaining sister as Maureen. Evidently they did not feel comfortable calling her “Mother.”

Mary Lou greeted Koesler with a cursory hug and a peck on the cheek. Maureen was up to her elbows mashing cooked rutabaga. She looked up and winked at him. He returned the wink.

Eileen entered the kitchen, closing the door quickly behind her. The dog’s roar was restored to the yard. The tenor of its bark had changed. It knew that Koesler had breached the neutral zone—but he would never get out alive.

Koesler volunteered to assist or relieve, even to the mashing of rutabaga. But his offer was declined by all, and he was ordered into the living room; dinner would be ready in a little while.

He removed his jacket and clerical collar and hung them in the hall closet.

In the living room, seated near the picture window, was Oona, complete with a white sling supporting her right arm.

“Happy birthday,” he said. “Hurt your arm?”

Oona audibly sucked in a breath of air in the Irish way of foretokening some sort of doom. “It’s getting harder every year. And now … sixty-five! God have mercy.”

“Go on now, sixty-five isn’t that old.” He was speaking from the vantage of sixty-four. But he was convinced it was a matter of health. With good health, great old age had a measure of youth to it. Without health, youth could have all the disability ordinarily attributed to old age. For Oona, then, sixty-five might just as well be ninety. But Koesler did not want to play to her hypochondria. He would try to keep the conversation light. “And your arm?”

She shrugged. “Arthritis kicking up again.”

Was it arthritis? He knew that in her medicine chest was every conceivable medication, palliative, and supportive bandage, pad, and compress that could be found in a well-stocked pharmacy.

Koesler recalled years before when a smattering of male relatives had attended family parties. Oona had stated that if there were anything to reincarnation, she was going to come back as a man, have a huge dinner prepared by womenfolk, then settle into a comfy chair, loosen her belt, and, while the ladies cleaned up, belch.

Maybe the sling was her version of reincarnation. It clearly had gotten her out of the meal’s preparation and undoubtedly would do the same for the cleanup later.

Oona began to detail the extent to which arthritis had limited the few remaining potentials of her already circumscribed life. Oona had the standard number of joints in her body. But he would offer odds that she could match and surpass anyone in afflictions to those joints.

As Oona ran on, Koesler’s attention wavered. He looked past Oona out the picture window. Floes were sweeping toward Lake Erie.

Koesler recalled his recent visit to Charlie Nash’s condo apartment, whence could be seen this very same river. There the river was at such a distance that it was challenging to comprehend that the chunks of ice were actually moving. He’d had to focus on a fixed object, such as a building, on the Windsor shore, to detect movement. Now, close up, he could see the ice moving along at a rapid clip. The current was swift and could be dangerous.

As he continued to tune out Oona and her multiple maladies and lamentations, the word “dangerous” struck a chord.

Koesler hadn’t adverted to it during his conversation with Charlie Nash, but there
was
an aura of danger to the man, even in his decrepit condition.

The priest had assumed that his first and perhaps only encounter with the famous Charles Nash would involve sacraments. That Charlie was both Catholic and nonpracticing was common knowledge.

So there was Charlie, up there in his aerie, in his midseventies and reportedly so debilitated and ill that it had been many years since he’d been photographed, let alone attended any social function.

In Koesler’s experience, that spelled sacraments. He’d had the foresight to have his sick-call kit packed in the pocket of his topcoat. So he had been prepared to offer absolution, Communion, and the Sacrament of the Sick. Then he would have left, gratified to have been of service, while Mr. Nash would have been at peace with God.

To Koesler’s surprise, Nash had wanted nothing to do with any sacraments. In fact, the old man was dead right in contending that one must be sorrowful about sin and repentant before sin could be forgiven. Any priest could recite the words of absolution to his heart’s content, but God, who alone could actually forgive, would not be fooled.

Koesler had to give the old man credit on that.

It had been Koesler’s observation that people—a significant percentage of those who had come to him for reconciliation—tended to kid themselves on that score. Additionally, there was a tendency on the part of the confessing sinner, a tendency that all priests constantly fought against, to invest confessions with a measure of superstition and magic. Sort of like putting sins into an Automat slot and receiving forgiveness in return. A phenomenon that the late theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer had termed “cheap grace.”

Genuine forgiveness was expensive. It might require the forgiveness of an enemy, reparation for harm done, the restoring of stolen property. God
did
forgive. And Catholics believed that a priest could be an instrument of that forgiveness. But nothing happened unless the sinner was repentant.

Very, very sadly, Nash was correct in refusing the sacraments. Instead of desiring reconciliation, he wanted Koesler to use family ties to get the priest’s cousin to break off her affair with his son. Which relationship was no more than hearsay.

Koesler had heard the rumors. As far as he was concerned, they were based on nothing more substantial than the two having engaged in some innocent flirtation at a Marygrove function honoring Ted Nash. Added to that, they had been seen together at a few public events—concerts, exhibitions at the Detroit Institute of Arts, a football or a baseball game. All quite harmless.

In the face of nothing more substantial than this, Koesler would keep his own counsel. He preferred not to intervene uninvited in others’ lives.

But something was nagging at him. It was Charlie Nash’s conviction that Ted and Brenda were having an illicit relationship. Under different circumstances, Koesler was convinced, Nash would not have given a damn. Had Ted been considerably more a chip off the old block, Charlie probably would have cheered him on in the sowing of wild oats.

But Ted tended to be more Catholic than the Catholic Church and had created the reputation of a lavish philanthropist in Catholic causes. The destruction of that image likely would destroy Teddy and, as a corollary, everything that Charlie had created in Nash Enterprises. And Charlie would not stand for that.

And here was where Koesler sensed danger.

Nash, though physically weak, was yet a powerful man of considerable influence. Whether or not his perception of an affair between Ted and Brenda was accurate, Nash was capable of harming either or both. In all probability, if he were to strike out at anyone, it would be the outsider, Brenda.

That is what troubled Koesler. And it troubled him deeply.

“Well, here she is now.” It was the change in Oona’s tone that brought Koesler back from his musings. Sure enough, Brenda was standing in the living room with Eileen at her side.

Koesler smiled at Brenda, but in some confusion. “How did you get in? I mean … I didn’t hear the dog …”

“You mean Rusty?” Eileen said. “Oh dear!”

“Rusty and I are friends,” Brenda said in an amused tone.

“But when I got here …”

“You see, dear,” Eileen said, “You’re the only one. Rusty hardly ever barks at anyone else. He’s the least effective watchdog I’ve ever had. Couldn’t really call him a watchdog at all. But he’s very lovable.”

“Face it, Uncle Bob,” Brenda said, “you and dogs just don’t hit it off.”

“But that’s not true. I usually get along fine with dogs. It’s just Eileen’s dogs …”

“It’s the odor,” Oona said definitively. “Read about it just the other day. They can smell fear. Carries over in the perspiration.”

“That’s probably it.” Maureen entered the room, wiping her hands on her apron. “You’ve been spooked by so many of Eileen’s dogs that you just take it for granted that they’re all killers. You start out scared of them and they know it. That’s why you never got along with any of Eileen’s dogs. Oh, I’ve got to admit, some of the earlier ones were pretty vicious. But this one, Rusty, he’s a pussycat. He didn’t bark at any of us.”

“Well, maybe … maybe,” Koesler admitted. “Before I come next time, I’ll bathe in antiperspirant
and
deodorant. And I’ll try my very best not to sweat when I get here.”

“Animals sweat. Men perspire. Women glow.” It might have been a humorous remark, but not coming from Oona.

“Anyway,” Maureen said, “dinner’s about ready. Want to eat first or give the presents?”

“Let’s do the presents,” Brenda said enthusiastically. “I want to see what Aunt Oona got.”

“Some of us are hungry,” Mary Lou said. “We’ve been working on the dinner most of the afternoon and we want to eat it.” She made it obvious whom she was singling out.

“Lou, gimmee a break,” Brenda said. “I’ve been working too. A little overtime as a matter of fact. For Pete’s sake, it’s no big deal. You want to eat first, that’s fine.”

“Well, then, come on everyone,” Eileen invited cheerily.

As they all moved to their places in the kitchen, Koesler stopped at the half bath to wash up. He could not disregard the two girls. Many’s the occasion that had been ruined by their bickering. It was as if the world might be big enough for the both of them, but not anything as confining as a house or,
a fortiori
, a room, no matter how spacious.

For a pair who had spent so much time growing up together, the two certainly differed sharply from one another and were usually at odds.

They were in sharp contrast in appearance. Brenda was tall, with straight dark hair, attractive bangs, and a willowy but sensuous figure. Mary Lou, a strawberry blonde with thick curly hair, tended to hold on to baby fat. Not large but a bit lumpy. Mary Lou seemed to spend a lot of time on the verge of pouting, if not actually in tears. Brenda tended to look on the bright side as often as possible.

Neither woman had had an easy time of it growing up. Their most formative years had been spent in the uncertainty of a series of foster homes. Neither had been abused in any of these homes. But they had lacked any sense of security or stability. The experience had to have traumatized them to some degree.

BOOK: Dead Wrong
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