William Kienzle - Sudden Death

There was a prolonged silence as the seven men stared at Marj.

“A nice guess, Dave,” she said. “But that’s all it is: a guess. I’ve been listening to you all very carefully, and that’s all you’ve been doing all evening: guessing. The only ones who’ve escaped the guessing game have been Niall and the Father here. And that’s only because neither of them had the opportunity or a motive. As for the rest of us, each of us knew the Hun well enough to know his peculiar habits. Each of us theoretically had the opportunity. And, I suppose as a kind of tribute to how really rotten the Hun was, each of us seems to have had a reason to dislike him, at the least, and, at most, hate him enough perhaps to kill him.

“But what we lack here, gentlemen, is what I think they call in the crime trade the smoking gun.

“You can talk all night long, Dave, about how much I hated the Hun and how good an opportunity I had to kill him, and all I have to do is sit here and deny it. And that is all any of us has to do: simply deny it. No one, including the police, can put any one of us at the scene. All they can say is that one of us could have been there. So, what you’ve done tonight is to complete an exercise in futility. And I would suggest that since everybody who could have been accused of the crime has been, maybe this party ought to break up.”

Koesler considered that the evening had been somewhat more than an exercise in futility. Some real animosity had built up around all these accusations. He wondered how or if some of these people could ever work together again.

But evidently, Marj Galloway’s invitation to call it a night had been taken seriously. The men had closed their Bibles and were preparing to leave. Unlike the conclusion of previous meetings of the God Squad, there was no light repartee tonight. Only awkward, stony silence.

Koesler, like the others, prepared to leave. As he walked through the living room, he recalled that something about that room had disturbed him both when he had visited here for the first time yesterday with the police and again tonight. What was it? He looked around the room.

The color scheme … it was the color scheme. The walls of the living area were papered in a sort of pale apricot, but the upholstered furniture was done in a purplish red. Even to Koesler’s uncultivated and untutored eye, the hues seemed to clash. He found it curious that both Jay and Marj had such poor taste and that no one had ever rectified things. It seemed strange, but, in the light of the murder they had just been discussing, of comparatively little moment.

In a very few minutes, all of the men, with the exception of Jay Galloway, had left. Instead of being the last out the front door, he closed it and doubled back to the kitchen where Marj stood at the sink disposing of the uneaten hors d’oeuvres.

Silently, Galloway approached his wife. As he moved directly behind her, she stiffened as she became aware of his presence.

He put his arms around her waist, his hands resting against her flat abdomen. She stood stock-still.

“You were magnificent tonight, honey.” His voice was almost a whisper. “Any other woman would have folded at Dave’s accusation. But you stood right up to him. I was proud of you.”

“What’s this all about, Jay? Why didn’t you leave with the others?”

“I told you, I’m proud of you. When you take over a situation like that and are in command of the whole thing. . damn, but I find that a turn-on.” His hands slid up her body until they found her breasts. He cupped them and squeezed. It was one of his many habits that disgusted her.

He never had been able to understand why anything he did would disgust her. He had tried everything he did to her on other women before doing them to her. Of course, the other women either were prostitutes or were looking for a favor from him and were willing to overlook a lot to get it.

She tried to pull his hands away, but couldn’t. She turned quickly. The element of surprise worked; she was free of him. Something in her face made him take a step backward.

“Hey! What is it with you? We’re still married, you know. We might be living apart, but we’re still husband and wife. And we’re not apart right now. We’re together in our house. You’re still legally my wife and I want you.” He stepped forward and again grabbed at her breasts. “They may not be large, but they’re perfect. I remember every contour of them-”

This time she was successful in slapping away his hands with unexpected force.

“That’s all you’re ever going to have of me: a memory!”

“W-what do you mean?” Not having his way was one of the stresses that always affected his articulation.

“You never listen, do you? Dave said it all tonight when he told you that the thing he regretted most was ever going to work for you.”

“Th-that’s crazy! He’s had a good life. Made a lot of money.”

“And along the way lost much of his self-respect, just like everyone else who gets involved with you. It isn’t so much that everything you touch turns to dross; it’s more that you don’t really like yourself, and you can’t believe that anyone who would work for you-or marry you, for that matter-can be any good. How could they be worthwhile and still agree to work for you, or marry you?”

“Wh-when did you get a psychology degree?” All this talk was dampening his arousal.

“I don’t need a degree. I had to go through the school of hard knocks to learn about you. It dawned on me after the Hunsinger affair. All the way down that trip through hell I could never figure out what I was doing with that maniac. But after we broke up, the whole thing became clear. I guess I needed somebody as rotten as Hunsinger to shake the cobwebs out of my brain.

“It started right after we got married. Before, our sex was great. But you were still trying to win me then. You couldn’t be sure I was ‘worthless enough’ to actually marry you. So you treated me with respect. But once you married me-or, rather, once I married you, that proved to your satisfaction that I was without value; otherwise why else would I consent to be your wife?

“From then on, you treated me like-no, worse than-a prostitute. I was a thing. A thing you could take to bed and use at your whim. Or a pretty thing you could take out on important occasions and show off. But always you used me. Until I began to see myself the way you saw me: worthless. So I became available to almost anyone who wanted to use me in much the same way as you did.

“But Hunsinger brought me to my senses. You, at your worst-and that was something to behold-were never as low as the Hun.

“Now I’ve got a life to put together. And that life definitely does not include you. I know you’re going to find this difficult to understand, but we’re through, finished, over, closed, and shut.

“Now, you may leave. And close the door after you!”

Galloway backed away from her. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“If I change my mind, I hope somebody has me committed.”

Galloway left the house. He wanted her now more than he had in years. He would not realize that his desire was the direct result of her rejecting him. Now that he no longer possessed her, he respected her once more. But, as he had proved time and again, he was a very good salesman who would not take no for an answer. Like everything else in life, this would require some planning.

As soon as Father Koesler returned to St. Anselm’s rectory, he phoned Inspector Koznicki at home.

Koesler recounted the evening’s events as carefully as he could recall them. What had begun as a rather routine Bible discussion-albeit with an electric atmosphere-had quickly deteriorated into a maelstrom of anger, hostility, and recrimination.