William Kienzle - Masquerade

“Fat chance!”

“Harold, it’s a gamble. The whole thing is a gamble. The table stakes are just the dollars they offer you as an advance for signing the contract. If you didn’t produce, or if you produced what in their lexicon was an unacceptable manuscript, they’d demand the advance back. It’s well worth their time and money.”

Augustine grimaced. “I think I’ve got the whole picture, Dick. I thank you mightily. Now that you’ve shown me the pitfalls so clearly, I’ll be careful where I step.”

“Okay, buddy. Just watch very carefully where you step. Krieg does not give up easily. He’ll use everything he’s got, everything he can get. So, cover your a-uh, watch out behind you.”

Augustine smiled now, recalling his conversation with Dick Ryan. Funny how when one becomes a monk, erstwhile acquaintances feel they must clean up a language that once you shared.

But his smile quickly faded. Dick Ryan had been more prophetic than he possibly could have suspected. In a little while Augustine would meet Krieg again face to face. They would sup together. Then, in the words of John F. Kennedy, they would see who ate what.

Koesler was running late. Not like him. But his tardiness truly was due to unforeseeable circumstances.

He’d taken care of the Saturday evening and Sunday morning liturgies. After which he had been bone-tired-his usual state of a Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t offering Mass that was so draining. It was preaching. The three Masses he said over the weekend were no particular problem. But trying to deliver a meaty, thoughtful, and thought-provoking homily was quite another thing.

There had been a Detroit Tigers game on TV that afternoon. Surrounding himself with the Sunday newspapers, he’d settled into an easy chair. In no time he’d drifted off to sleep. Nothing wrong with the Tigers; baseball was such a slow game of odds and percentages that, in his exhausted state, it pitched him into dreamland.

He’d awakened with a start. It was 3:30 and he was supposed to be at Marygrove at 5:00. The Jesuit who was to cover for him during the coming week had not arrived. A call to the University of Detroit revealed that the Jesuits had forgotten, but would send a man right over.

Koesler gave brief consideration to calling Mary O’Connor, the parish secretary and general factotum, to greet and brief the pinch-hitting priest. God knew Mary easily could take good care of the parish by herself. But Rome was not into ordaining women just yet. And in addition to the transfer of keys, the substitute would have to be apprised of the minimum obligations that would require his attention during the week.

In the end, he decided to wait for the visiting priest. If nothing else, protocol dictated that the keys of the kingdom be passed from one sacerdotal hand to another.

By the time the Jesuit had arrived, keys were entrusted, and necessary instructions given, it was 4:30. Koesler drove posthaste to Marygrove, and was shown to his room. It was too late to bother unpacking. The few things he’d brought could wait for a more leisurely time to be put away.

It was almost 5:15 as Father Koesler took the stairs toward the main floor.

When would he ever learn, he wondered, as he hurried down the stairs; when would he ever learn to say no to invitations he did not really wish to accept. To begin, he should have refused-politely, of course- the overture to participate in this writers’ workshop. Although he enjoyed reading mystery novels, particularly those with a religious milieu, he was sure he was not qualified to contribute to this conference.

Secondly, having failed to turn down the initial invitation, he surely should have declined the added proposal that he stay at the college during the conference. He easily could have commuted the few miles between his parish and Marygrove. But Sister Janet had been so unrelentingly and respectfully insistent that he had accepted.

At that point the commitment had been made and there was no getting around it. When would he ever learn? Reluctantly, he had to admit that at his age and with his track record, probably never.

There were several dining rooms on the main floor. The end of the corridor resembled a Saint Andrews Cross. At the end of the building was the large kitchen. The wing to the right of the kitchen was a large cafeteria, the wing to the left was the main dining room. As he walked down the hall, his eye caught a note taped to the door of a smaller dining room on the left.

The note read, “Conference Faculty Dining Room.”

This, thought Koesler, had to be it. As he put his hand on the doorknob, the thought crossed his mind that no matter how distasteful this week might prove, at least he would not be dragged into an investigation of a real murder.

He turned the knob and entered the room.

Well, now, this was awkward.

Koesler stuck his head through the partially opened doorway. This, indeed, seemed to be the place where he was supposed to be. But if there had been conversation going on, it very definitely had halted with his appearance.

The small group in the dining room stood looking at him. Expectantly? It appeared they hoped he would do something, anything, to get this show on the road. If that was what they were expecting, they were about to be sadly disappointed.

More rapidly than it takes to tell, he took stock of each person in the group. There was no real need for ‘Hello, I’m. .’ badges. A simple process of elimination disclosed who was who.

He knew the nun in the modified habit. Sister Janet Schultes. The one who’d gotten him into this mess. Standing next to her, also in a modified habit, also wearing the telltale IHM blue. . that must be Sister Marie Monahan. He could see her Irish ancestry in her fair complexion, ruddy cheeks, luxuriant eyebrows, and dancing eyes. She and Janet could be sisters. Not only were they dressed alike, they evidently were of the same vintage-although Marie had obviously had a few extra desserts, something that in the traditional habit wouldn’t have made much difference. Actually, it didn’t make that much difference now, it merely contributed to her matronly appearance. In any case, she exuded friendliness and warmth.

The next one was the easiest. In the traditional full habit of the Order of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance, he had to be Father Augustine May. Of medium height and build, he had inquisitive eyes behind thick glasses, a rather prominent nose-and no need for the carefully cut monastic tonsure: He was almost completely bald. The remaining hair, around his ears and circling at the back of his head, was trimmed close.

Another easy one was the gentleman in the stark clerical collar. Roman Catholic priests occasionally wore such an unadorned collar. But usually their clerical collars were all but completely hidden by a rabbat, an extension of the black vest. This specific collar, plus the fact that one of the participants was an Episcopal priest, made it more than likely that this was the Reverend David Benbow. Koesler reminded himself that Episcopal and Anglican priests were also addressed as “Father.” He didn’t want to offend, particularly over something as inconsequential as a title.

Father Benbow somewhat resembled the actor Michael Caine. The thinning, wavy blond hair, the slightly amused, almost supercilious smile. He was fairly tall, slender, and of a rather ordinary rectangular build. And there was something else: He was holding a half-full martini glass complete with an olive on a toothpick. That was noteworthy only in that the woman standing beside him was holding an identical half-filled-with-olive martini glass. It put Koesler in mind of. . oh, who? Bill Powell and Myrna Loy, Nick and Nora Charles. Except that as far as Koesler could recall, Nick Charles had never posed as a priest-Episcopal or Roman Catholic.