William Kienzle - Sudden Death

“Well, yes. Grace sometimes would get the strangest color combinations. I thought it was. . well, not the best of taste. “

“We’ve already been through that one,” Koesler said to Koznicki, alluding to the Galloways.

“Then,” the priest again addressed Grace, “we come to your son’s death. How many times and how many ways you tried to tell us of your responsibility, not directly and plainly with no room for doubt, but trying nonetheless. I have a suspicion you wanted us to guess it.”

Grace barely moved her head in a sign of affirmation.

“First, you told us outright, then hedged enough so that we proceeded to draw the wrong conclusion. Then, to me, the next most evident statement was at your son’s funeral Mass.

“The evening before the Mass, I was talking with Father Forbes. He told me you had gone over the Bible readings for the Mass and had made the selection of which ones would be used. Yet when I heard the readings, I listened to them with my ears, not yours. Or, to return to the metaphor of sight, I saw them through my eyes, not yours.

“That first reading was an odd selection. I’ve never heard a reading from the Book of Maccabees used at a funeral before. The Protestant and Jewish Bibles don’t even contain that Book. And yet, when I heard it, I listened with my understanding and I thought of you as the brave mother withstanding the all but unbearable grief of watching her children die. But that is not the way you saw that reading, is it, Mrs. Hunsinger? You saw it in the literal, obvious sense: Here was a mother willing to witness the death of her sons rather than see them break the law. It was the statement of why you did it.

“Henry had broken just about every law he encountered, and not a few Commandments. And he showed every promise of continuing in this unbridled lifestyle until long after your death. When you died, there would probably be no one who cared enough for him to stop him from hurting others. It was up to you. And so you did it. You were the modern mother of the Book of Maccabees, willing even to allow the death of her son rather than see him go on breaking the law.

“But I think we all tended to dismiss out of hand the possibility that you might be responsible for the death of your own son. And on top of this sort of natural tendency not to take you as a serious suspect was your alibi. You spent the entire day with Mrs. Quinn here. . isn’t that right, Mrs. Quinn?”

“Why, yes. We started off with Mass in the morning-”

“Yes, I remember,” Koesler interrupted. “Now please don’t take this amiss, Mrs. Quinn, but practically every time I’ve seen you, you were taking. . uh. . a little nap. You do take little naps, don’t you, Mrs. Quinn?”

“Well, that happens when you get older. You need it.”

“Last Sunday, for example, if I remember correctly what Inspector Koznicki told me about your interview with the police, it was a very leisurely day.”

“Older people need to rest and recoup what little strength they have.”

“Yes, and-please don’t take offense-I know you need your rest. But Sunday you got home from Mass, read the paper, watched the game on television, listened to some records, then had dinner. . correct?”

“Just what we do every Sunday, except for the game. Sometimes Henry’s team doesn’t play on Sunday. And sometimes it isn’t televised because, I think, not enough fans would come out to see it.”

“Yes, that’s right. And probably during that long morning and afternoon you took some naps.”

“Oh, yes, of course. I need them.”

“And some of those little naps could go on for an hour or more?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“Mrs. Quinn, every time I’ve seen you napping, you’ve never awakened spontaneously. Someone has always wakened you. Don’t you think you might be able to nap for an hour or more?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.”

“And if, indeed, you had taken a nap and had awakened to find that Grace was not in her chair, where would you have assumed she might be?”

“Oh, probably out to the kitchen to prepare dinner, or something like that.”

“So, with all this in mind, do you think you could testify that Mrs. Hunsinger was actually here with you all day Sunday?”

“Well, I suppose not really. I mean, I didn’t keep my eyes on her all day like some kind of watchdog.”

“So much then for the alibi. Mrs. Hunsinger, you could have gone out almost any time Sunday for an hour or so, confident that your friend would either be asleep or suppose that you were somewhere in the house.”

Grace did not react. Relaxed, smiling slightly, she continued to gaze steadfastly at the priest.

“And finally,” Koesler said, “one more time when I foolishly viewed an event through my eyes and not yours-during the funeral Mass, at communion time, you broke down in tears. I projected my own feelings and figured that it was this highly emotional moment of sacramental union with our Lord that caused your emotional reaction. Whereas it more likely was the fact that you hadn’t had a chance to go to confession. And you were receiving communion in the state of mortal sin. That’s what caused the outburst!”

There was silence for several moments.

“Little Bobby Koesler,” Grace murmured at length, “how proud your mother must have been of you. You were always so faithful. And on your ordination day, how proud she must have been of you-a priest of God, forever!”

“Mrs. Hunsinger,” Koznicki said, “before you reply to all the things Father Koesler has said, I am required to inform you of your rights.” He then removed a well-worn card from his wallet and read the Miranda warning to her. When he had completed the warning, after a slight pause, Grace spoke.

“Oh. . it’s true.” She smiled tiredly. “All except the part about confession. Father should have remembered that confessions are heard very frequently at Holy Redeemer, even during morning Masses. I had been to confession Monday morning. But, mortal sin? How could that be? The plan came to me during prayer. Our dear Lord told me Henry must be stopped. How could a command given to me by our Lord Himself be a sin, much less a mortal sin? Henry had hurt enough people and more. And he would go on-just as Father Koesler said. No one would stop him.

“I prayed before I opened my Bible that our Lord would show me the way. And I opened the Bible to that very passage in the Book of Maccabees. That brave woman witnessed her sons’ torture and death. She encouraged them to die rather than sin! That was what had to be: Henry had to die and it had to be at my hand.

“Father was right about everything but my tears at the funeral. I thought I had shed all the tears I possessed. When our Lord told me I must kill my very own son, I wept until I was sure I had no more tears. But I was wrong. At the moment of sacramental union with our Lord, I found there still were more tears to come. That was the reason.”

Inspector Koznicki shook his head slowly, sadly. “This is one of the times, one of the very rare times, when it is not good to be a police officer,” he said, almost to himself. And then, more loudly, “Mrs. Hunsinger, I am going to have to take you downtown with me. But take your time and gather all you need for a stay away from home. Perhaps Mrs. Quinn would help you.”

“So, Father, it all happened the way you envisioned it.” Koznicki took a small sip from his glass of cream sherry.

“I guess it did,” said Koesler, “but with the wrong cast of characters.”

The priest and the inspector had met at a small restaurant near St. Anselm’s late the same afternoon on which Grace Hunsinger had been arraigned on the charge of murdering her son, Henry. Neither felt like eating. In fact, neither felt like drinking. What each needed was the other’s company.