William Kienzle - Masquerade

“Jack told me he was surprised and delighted that Krieg accepted. But his acceptance was conditioned on two provisions. The first was that the other panelists be Sister Marie, Fathers Augustine and Benbow, and Rabbi Winer. He also insisted that Father Koesler attend as an expert resource person.

“It was a most unusual stipulation, but Jack wanted Reverend Krieg enough to agree to at least try to meet his demands.

“The second condition Reverend Krieg insisted upon is what has caused this trouble. He proposed we stage what he termed a psychodrama.”

“A psychodrama,” Tully interrupted. Though a statement, it was a question.

“Yes, sort of an ad libitum play, a cinema verite. . a staged murder mystery. The idea was that this psychodrama was supposed to engage the creative processes of the faculty. Reverend Krieg thought it would help set the stage for tomorrow’s sessions if we were to stage a fake murder and then encourage the amateur sleuths to try to solve the case.”

“And that’s what happened?” Tully asked.

“Pretty much, yes. The writers”-her gesture included the four- “gathered here by late afternoon today. They had not met previously, and things were a bit stiff. The faculty did not much. . uh. . care for the Reverend’s TV ministry or his publishing house. It seems that all of them had, at one time or another, been offered a contract with P.G. Press. But none had signed the contract.

“Then when Reverend Krieg arrived during dinner, everything seemed to galvanize around him. After dinner, when the others had spread out through the building, we staged the fake murder. But,” and again she seemed on the verge of breaking down, “things got out of hand, as I feared they might. Angry words were exchanged and, worst of all, we never anticipated that the police would be called. I thought I could keep everyone together in here until the setup was consummated. If I had known anyone was about to call the police, I would have called a halt to the whole thing.”

Suddenly Koesler felt guilty on two scores: He had called the police without informing the others. As it turned out, if he had mentioned it, Janet would have aborted the whole thing. And secondly, his call to the police turned out to be a false alarm.

“Janet!” Marie spoke with incredulous anger. “You staged this whole thing! You let us accuse each other! You staged this entire sorry scenario without telling us it was all a piece of fiction. How could you!

“And when, for God’s sake, were you going to tell us?”

That was all Janet needed. She burst into tears.

Martha hurried to her side and tried to console her.

“Oh, Janet,” Marie said, “I’m sorry. You couldn’t help it, I suppose. You had to live up to the agreement.” She said it, but she wasn’t sure she meant it.

Tully felt as if he had about one grain of adrenaline left and he wanted to expend it on the one who was responsible for this farce. And that surely was not the lady now dissolved in tears. “Just where is this Mr. Regan now?”

Janet mumbled something unintelligible into her handkerchief.

“What was that?” Tully asked.

“The University of California,” Marie said. She had moved to join Martha in comforting Janet.

“Ahhh. .” Tully said. It was as if the air were being let out of him and he were being slowly deflated. There, in far distant California, was the only one at whom Tully felt justified in venting his anger and frustration. The other lady was right: It wasn’t this Janet’s fault. She’d inherited the crazy scheme. This Krieg character wasn’t really fair game either. It may have been his nutty idea, but all the Regan guy had to do was reject it and that would have been the end. The weariness returned with a vengeance.

“Zoo,” Mangiapane said, “not only don’t we have a body, we ain’t got a murder either.”

“Astute,” Tully murmured under his breath. Then he said, “Let’s go, Mang.”

“Let me go to the door with you,” Koesler said. Whatever else he might accomplish in the near future, he was intent on apologizing to the officers. Any number of times in his past Koesler had felt like a complete idiot, but never more than now.

The three men left the dining room, as did the kitchen and serving staff.

Remaining in the room were the unwitting and unwilling actors in the unfortunate psychodrama.

Janet sat at the table now cleared of dishes and accoutered with a fresh tablecloth and napkins. Marie and Martha flanked her. Winer and Benbow remained standing.

“It seems such a long time since we had dinner,” Benbow said slowly.

Winer glanced at his watch. “Yes, it does. But it’s only a couple of hours.” No one else spoke. The silence was punctuated only by the soft sounds Janet made; her tears flowed less abundantly now.

“I must apologize, Sister,” Benbow addressed Marie finally. “I’m afraid I said some pretty horrid things to you.”

Marie tried to smile but did not quite succeed. “I guess I returned the favor. Our introduction to each other did not get off to an auspicious beginning.”

Silence again.

“To be perfectly honest,” Benbow said, “I don’t know that we can return to point zero.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean,” Benbow continued, “just a few hours ago we were complete strangers to one another. And then in no time we were all but accusing one another of murder. After the bitterness of the things that were said, I don’t know whether we can go back and patch up our relationship.”

Silence.

“I’d like to think we could,” Marie said thoughtfully, “but you may very well be right. Maybe it is too late to return to a neutral position and build our relationship on friendlier ground. Maybe we ought to call off this conference.”

Janet looked at Marie in horror.

“No,” Winer said with authority. “There are reasons-compelling reasons-why we must hold this workshop just as planned. For one thing, we have an obligation to those who signed up for it. They’ll be coming in tomorrow. It’s not their fault that things have gotten off to such a bad beginning.”

Janet looked relieved.

“And. .?”Benbow prodded.

“And. . what?” Winer said.

“Look, I agree with you completely,” Benbow said. “We are honor bound to give the students their money’s worth. No doubt about that. But you spoke in the plural. You said there were reasons why we had to go on.”

Winer smiled briefly. “I, for one, want to find out what comes next.”

“Next?” Marie said.

“Yes. Until Sister Janet spoke up a few minutes ago, I had no idea whatsoever why this particular group had been selected as the ‘faculty’ for this conference. And I assume the same could be said for the rest of you?” He looked around for a reaction.

“Well,” Marie said, “we’re all authors of mystery novels with a religious motif.”

“Yes,” Winer agreed, “But we aren’t the only ones doing that. Just as a matter of conjecture, I had been wondering why each individual here had been selected. I thought the core of the secret was revealed when, before dinner, we learned that each of us had been offered a contract by P.G. Press. And that each of us had turned said contract down.

“But now a new element has been added. Our would-be publisher insisted that we-specifically each one of us-be invited. He made this a condition of his acceptance. I find that both odd and intriguing.”

“So do I,” Benbow said.

“And I,” Marie agreed. “Not only did he, in effect, invite us, he wanted to play a game with us.”

“Like marionettes on a string,” Benbow added.

“And that’s why,” Winer said, “I especially want to stay for the next act. I can’t think he had us invited just to play a trick on us. If we’re going to discover the reason, we’re going to have to play this out. Only now, I feel certain, we know something else is coming.”