William Kienzle - Masquerade

“Ah, here you are!” Koznicki greeted him expansively. “Good of you to come, Father. The case has developed a bit and we wanted you to be informed.”

Koesler was quite certain the Inspector’s “we” was a sort of editorial- maybe Papal-plural, and that the others were not that eager to include this outsider.

The others were Lieutenant Tully and Sergeants Moore and Mangiapane.

It was Tully who spoke. “We think we’ve found the secret that Krieg’s been blackmailing the monk with.”

“Oh?”

“Augustine’s been hitting the bottle hard for a long time.”

Koesler was not particularly shocked. By no means was it a problem of epic proportion, but he’d met his share of problem drinkers in the priesthood. “How bad is it?”

“Didn’t show up, it seems,” Tully replied, “until his later years at an ad agency”-he consulted his notes-“the William J. Doran Agency. Seems he got hung up on boozy lunches, and it went from there. Got so bad he was losing days at a time.”

“Was he fired?”

Tully smiled briefly. “Uh-uh. Seems no one cared as long as he brought in the business. And he brought it in pretty good. Well,” he backtracked, “someone cared: one of the other guys at the agency. We talked to him. Retired now, but remembers it like yesterday. Took pity on Augustine-Harold May then-and got him into AA.

“Then we got lucky. This source, a Robert Begin, volunteered that, funny thing, somebody from P.G. Enterprises had contacted him a while back. Wanted to know all about Harold May. Said they were researching for a tribute to prominent people who had conquered alcohol.”

“This is interesting,” Koesler said. “But what’s wrong with that? I should think somebody with a drinking problem ought to be issued a medal for joining AA. And then becoming a Trappist! Maybe P.G. Enterprises wasn’t kidding when they claimed they were going to honor him.”

“Could be. But it didn’t end there. This is a story that doesn’t have a happy ending.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll let Mangiapane take it from here. He’s the one who dug this up.”

The big officer reddened. “Well, not all by myself, Zoo. I mean, the team was workin’ on it.”

“Tell him.”

“Okay, sure. Well, Father, it seems that Father Augustine is sort of famous-make that notorious-with the Massachusetts State Police. They’ve got citations on him for DWI-that’s Driving While Intoxicated-long as your arm. And those are only the times he was written up. Most of them warned him, read him the riot act. Cops are sometimes reluctant to write up a priest. And the ones who did just saw the tickets squashed someplace up the line.

“Now, as far as we were able to tell, he’s pretty clean while he’s in the monastery. I guess the opportunity isn’t there. But we got a list of parishes from the. . uh. . procurator of the monastery. There are nearby places where he helps out on weekends.” Mangiapane looked at Koesler brightly. “That was my idea-checking into the possibility of weekend help.” He seemed quite pleased with his knowledge that weekend ministry was a phenomenon of Catholic ecclesial life.

“Anyway, some of the priests in these parishes were not at all helpful. I’d say almost hostile. But most of them were cooperative, and admitted that, ‘Father did tend to drink a bit Saturday nights, sometimes Sunday afternoons. But not so’s it would interfere with his ministry.’ See, Father, just like when he was in the agency: blotto, but somehow bringing in the business.”

Koesler shook his head. “And this problem is current?”

“The most recent road citation is within the past month,” Mangiapane replied.

Koesler thought back to Sunday evening, when Augustine had missed all the excitement of Krieg’s little game of whodunit. The monk hadn’t been ill; he’d been dead drunk.

“But Lieutenant,” Koesler addressed Tully, “I believe you said you were pretty sure Augustine’s drinking was the reason Krieg was able to blackmail him. There’s more?”

“We don’t know,” Tully admitted. “There may be more. The point is, this is for sure. The guy has a serious drinking problem. And the other point is, it’s enough. There’s no telling how messed up he’d be if this gets public. For one thing, the cops’d stop letting him off the hook. The courts would have to treat him like any other drunk and, with his history, which would be dragged into it, he could be in the slammer for a long, long time or, at very least, have to submit to court-ordered treatment.”

“And if all this came out,” Koesler reflected, “his history of alcoholism, his drunk driving, the favors he’s gotten from the authorities in Massachusetts”-he shook his head-“he might be able to get published by P.G. Press, but probably any legitimate publisher would hesitate to take a chance on him.”

“That’s about it,” said Tully. “Krieg has him over a barrel, just like Benbow and the late rabbi. See how it’s all coming together? We almost don’t need the nun. We could almost presume the four writers are a matched team. Almost. But we’re investigating her too. I’ll bet there’s somethin’ in her past that’s bad enough that, just like the others, she couldn’t say no to Krieg and make it stick. When we find what the nun’s hiding, we’re gonna start playing hardball with the other three. One or more of them are gonna have a lot of explaining to do.”

As Tully was completing this statement, Koesler grew aware of a disturbance just outside the dining room. The noise was no sharper than the hubbub already produced by the crowd; yet it had a different, more urgent tenor.

Two men-police officers, as it turned out-burst into the room. They belonged to Tully’s squad, so they reported to him rather than to Koznicki. “Zoo,” one of them, nearly out of breath, said, “Come on! It’s Krieg!”

Tully followed the two detectives at a dead run. He was followed in turn by Mangiapane, Moore, Koesler, and Koznicki. The latter two were in no physical condition to move this fast, but the excitement of the moment gave them unexpected impetus.

No thought was given to the slow elevator; the group took the stairs. Three floors up, then down the corridor to the private rooms assigned to the workshop faculty. All, especially Koznicki and Koesler, arrived winded. Other uniformed officers had sealed off the staircase as soon as the first contingent left the main floor. Thus, none but the police and Koesler were now on the third floor. Suddenly, Koesler caught sight of an ashen-faced Krieg sitting on a chair in the hallway. An unlit cigar hung from loose fingers; he seemed close to shock.

Koesler was as puzzled as he had ever been.

From what the detectives had said, and the dispatch with which they’d taken the stairs, he’d thought Krieg must have been found dead. But here he was, looking like death warmed over, but not moribund. Not yet.

“What happened?” Tully’s tone and bearing suggested that one or another of his officers might have blown an assignment and exposed Krieg to danger.

“Nothin’, Zoo,” said one of the uniformed officers. “But plenty might have.”

“Well?” Without doubt, Tully wanted a complete explanation, and quickly.

The same uniformed cop replied. “We’ve been with Reverend Krieg all morning, Zoo. Nothin’ happened until we all came up here to his room after breakfast, just a few minutes ago. When we got to his room we were about to go in and he was about to light up that cigar there. .” He gestured toward the cigar, which Krieg continued to hold loosely. “Freddy here caught it first and knocked the lighter out of his hand, or we all coulda been fried.”

Tully turned to the first officer’s companion, evidently Freddy.