William Kienzle - Masquerade

“Gas, Zoo. . couldn’t be anything else,” Freddy said. “Somebody must have saturated Krieg’s room. If he had lit that lighter, the fumes would have caught it and we woulda had one hell of an explosion.” Freddy spoke casually enough but there was a slight tremor in his voice. Clearly, he knew just how close he and the others in that entourage had come to a sudden, fiery death.

“Okay,” Tully said. “You done good, Fred. Cordon off this area and get the ‘techs up here for prints, pics, and whatever. By the way, did you check: Are Augustine, Benbow, or Sister Marie in their rooms?”

The first officer answered. “We checked, Zoo. Nobody else is up here. Not the monk, the nun, Benbow, or his wife. We would have been the only ones to get it and none of us would be talkin’ to you now.”

The hint of a smile crossed Tully’s lips. “Nobody here. Isn’t that interesting. It would have told us one thing if only one of them wasn’t here. But none of them! That tells us a different story completely. Okay,” he said to the officers, “get crackin’.”

Tully and Koznicki went directly to Krieg. They spoke to him, not loudly, but audibly enough for Koesler to overhear.

“Reverend,” Koznicki said, “this is the second attempt on your life in two days. Is it not time you cooperated with us?”

Nothing about Krieg changed. He remained in a stupor state. It appeared that he hadn’t heard the Inspector.

“How many times,” Tully rephrased, “do you have to come close to getting killed before you get worried about it?”

“What?” Krieg seemed to be coming out of his trance.

But the detectives were sure Krieg had heard at least Tully’s question, so they did not ask a third time. They merely waited.

Finally, Krieg spoke. “Tragic, tragic, but. . accidental, I’m sure.”

“The only accident,” Koznicki said, “happened when Rabbi Winer drank a poison intended for you.”

“And,” Tully added, “nobody tripped and spilled gasoline inside your room. Somebody who knew that you smoked a lot-and that would include everybody who shares this corner of the building with you, the cigar smell was that strong-planned to let you blow yourself to kingdom come.”

Krieg opened and closed his eyes several times as if trying to regain focus. “I find that very hard to believe.”

“Believe!” Tully said forcefully.

“We know what is going on, Reverend,” Koznicki said.

“What’s going on?”

“Yes. We know that you very badly wanted these four authors to sign contracts with your publishing company,” Koznicki said. “You tried every legitimate way you knew to get them. They all refused. Somehow you were able to discover embarrassing secrets in their lives. Then you began in effect to blackmail them with these secret events-threatening to reveal them if the writers would not sign. Now it seems obvious that one or more of these writers is trying to silence you. On consecutive days there have been two attempts to kill you. Does this not frighten you? Anger you?”

“You know these so-called secrets?” Krieg challenged.

“Uh-huh,”Tully said.

“All four?”

“Three. But we’ll know the fourth before long,” Tully said.

“It seems to me, then,” Krieg said, “that you know as much or more than you claim I know. With all that alleged information, you should be able to solve this case. If someone is trying to kill me-a hypothesis I deny-then you have all you need to catch the person. That is your job, isn’t it?”

If he had tried to anger two detectives he was succeeding.

“You refuse to cooperate, then?” Koznicki asked.

“Cooperate? In what? Your fantasy?”

“Are you so avaricious-or so stupid-that you would risk your life?” Koznicki said incredulously.

Krieg merely shrugged.

At that moment, Sister Marie appeared in the corridor. She seemed appropriately startled at all the commotion. By now, the area inside and outside Reverend Krieg’s room was awash with police personnel taking pictures, measuring, taking notes. She moved directly to Krieg and the two detectives.

“What’s going on here?” she demanded almost as if she were addressing an unruly second grader.

“Maybe you could tell us,” said Tully. The response drew a sharp glance from Koznicki, whose parochial school background made it difficult to relate to nuns with anything but deference.

Marie ignored the insinuation. “What is that?” She sniffed. “It smells like gasoline.”

“It is,” Tully said. He fished a paper from an inside pocket and studied it for a moment. “What are you doing up here, sister? You’re scheduled for a class now.”

“I. . I forgot and left my notes in my room. I was just coming up to get them.”

Or, thought Tully, you came up here to see if your plan worked and Krieg was out of your way. At the same time, he knew he was getting ahead of himself. As far as the record was concerned, they had not as yet found anything in Marie’s past, the revelation of which could motivate her toward homicide. However, a well-honed instinct told him at least all three remaining writers were solid suspects.

“Well,” Tully said, “luckily you’ll find your papers intact. If we hadn’t stopped the Reverend from lighting his cigar, this gasoline could have become a lethal bomb.”

Marie shuddered. “Again? This was another attempt on his life?”

Tully nodded. “Uh-huh. By the way, Sister, did you know Krieg smoked?”

“Did I?” She crinkled her nose as if catching a foul odor. “Of course. How could anyone live in these quarters and not smell the cigar smoke? It was not here yesterday morning-but then neither was the Reverend Krieg. He was staying at a hotel. But he stayed with us last night and this morning the odor permeated everything. Of course I knew he smoked. So did everyone else who stayed in this section of the building.” She paused in thought a moment. “Lieutenant, what sort of question was that? Are you accusing me of something? Of trying to murder Reverend Krieg?”

Tully regarded her coolly. “Sister, you will know without a doubt if I accuse you of anything. This is a homicide investigation and we’re going to pursue it. Along the way, we’re gonna ask questions. Some of them may sound offensive. If you take offense, that’s your problem.” His voice softened only slightly. “If it helps any, you are definitely not the only one who is going to be questioned before this is over.”

Tully and Koznicki moved to one side. They consulted with each other, checked on the progress of the investigation of Krieg’s room, and agreed on a statement that would be released to the press.

Meanwhile, Sister Marie remained where she had been standing. She felt shaken. She also felt guilty. The guilt began tugging at her memory, calling her back to another era.

Then she noticed that Father Koesler had been standing nearby all this time. She approached him. “I wonder,” she said, “if you would be kind enough to take the class I’m supposed to have now?”

“Really,” he began to protest, “I’m not. .”

“I think you can handle it quite nicely, Father. It just has to do with the use of real police in researching a mystery novel. I know this is your forte. You’ve done a lot of that, or so I’ve heard. I mean, you’ve had lots of contact with the police. Even now. .” She didn’t complete the thought.

“You’re upset, Sister. That’s understandable. But I guess I can wing it with some hints about getting the cooperation of the police-even if it’s for a novel. They really are very helpful to writers by and large.”

“Thank you very much. I appreciate it.” Marie pinched her forehead.

The headache was pronounced. She slowly descended the stairs to the main floor, and worked her way through the crowded corridor. She entered the now empty chapel and knelt in the rear pew.