William Kienzle - Deathbed

“I know it’s your goddam uniform! What I want to know is how you happened to lose a whole goddam uniform on duty—including your shoes, socks, and underwear!”

“. . . uh . . . where did you find it?”

“I didn’t. One of the other guys checked out the laundry. Somebody threw the whole goddam mess down the chute.

“I repeat: How’d you lose every stitch you were wearing—while you were on duty?”

“. . . uh . . . I’d rather not say.”

Martin leaned back in his chair. “Rather not say, eh? Well, I’m certain sure you’ll get bugged by the other guys, so, eventually you’ll talk.”

“. . . uh . . . the guy who found it: Does he know it’s mine?”

Martin shook his head. “So far, only me—and you.”

“What’s it gonna cost for you to sit on this?”

“I thought we’d get to that. One: From now on, you show up on time and don’t leave early. Two: You keep a log on where you are when you’re on duty. Three: No more loafing around. Keep movin’ all the time you’re on. And that, of course, means no more nookie.

“I may think of some more later on . . . but that’ll do for the moment. Deal?”

Snell, shifting from one foot to the other, gave it some thought. “Okay, deal.”

“Good. Might just as well start now. Get your ass moving; you’re still on duty. You can pick up your . . . spare . . . uniform after your shift.”

Snell resumed his patrol. He knew—there was no doubt—he’d never be able to live up to that agreement. He’d have to figure out how to explain tonight’s embarrassing episode or how to deal with unemployment. Neither alternative was attractive. But one had to plan for one’s future.

As soon as Snell left the office, Chief Martin began to chuckle. Then he began to laugh. He spent the rest of the night either chuckling or guffawing as he pictured Snell tiptoeing down the corridors, then dashing through the cold and having to drive home, all while virtually naked. Given Snell’s history and reputation, there was little doubt what had occasioned his nakedness. The only missing part of the puzzle was the identity of the broad who had turned the tables on Snell and screwed him. All in good time. All in good time.

* * *

“So what’s got you so preoccupied?” Joe Cox asked.

“What?” Pat Lennon had, indeed, been lost in thought. “Oh, sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about . . . you’ve just been mighty quiet this evening.”

“Oh, a problem I’ve been trying to work out.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Nothing much to talk about . . . it’s a decision I’ve got to make.”

“Okay.”

The television was on, but neither was paying much attention. Cox had been alternating between mild attentiveness to PBS’s offerings and the latest USA Today.

Lennon had been paying even less attention to TV. Mostly, she’d been staring out of the window both meditatively and absently. Reclining on the sectional couch, it was easy to be mesmerized by the view from their apartment high atop Lafayette Towers.

Only the main thoroughfares had been plowed and/or salted. Most of the side streets in Detroit had only one hope of snow removal: spring. From this perch, one certainly had an overview. One fascination was to watch two cars traveling toward each other on the same side street. Each had little opportunity but to follow the ruts carved out of the hardened snow. Eventually, that would lead the cars on a literal collision course. When that inevitably happened, it was interesting to see which driver would back off and how.

While watching the sparse traffic flow, Lennon was trying to reach a decision on how she should treat her St. Vincent’s story.

As far as she could judge, the raison d’etre of the hospital had become quixotic. More than a century ago, St. Vincent’s had been a necessity for the city—the region, for that matter. It had once been the only hospital in the Northwest Territory. But over the decades things had drastically changed.

Where once St. Vincent’s was Detroit’s necessity, now, arguably, the city could get along without the hospital. Particularly in the core city, the municipally owned hospitals were adequate—roughly—for the patient load. The well-to-do to the downright wealthy who inhabited downtown’s swank high-rises and townhouses would, outside of the most pressing emergency, never see the inside of any of the area’s hospitals. Their doctors were affiliated with only the better suburban health-care facilities.

As for the poor who were trapped in the inner city, they made few if any elective visits. Governmental charity addressed only the most crucial medical problems, and then only for the briefest periods.

Her original slant on this had been, she was convinced, an honest feature piece for the magazine. What she had stumbled on was quite another story. A Catholic hospital giving broad birth control counseling, providing contraceptives, even performing sterilizations, was front-page news. No doubt of it. She was too good a journalist not to recognize that.

The problem was the probable consequence following publication.

Could she blow the whistle on this operation? Certainly end the career of Sister Eileen Monahan? Likely cause the closure of this if nothing else historically important hospital?

Many nonjournalists would have little difficulty making the decision not to publish. Possibly only another journalist could understand her inner turmoil. As defense attorneys are expected to defend no matter how they feel about or what they know about their clients, reporters are expected to report. Editors and publishers are expected to be concerned about what to publish. Reporters report and frequently must struggle and scramble in order to do so.

That tendency to report is simply more finely tuned in the case of a staff writer of the caliber of a Pat Lennon.

At this moment, she was trying to reach a less drastic, but possibly contributory, decision: whether to let Joe Cox in on her problem.

Lennon and Cox were an interesting study. Few would argue that the two were among the best, if not actually the best, investigative reporters in the city. At one time both had worked out of the Detroit Free Press. Lennon had moved to the News several years ago. So now, while they competed for stories, they also worked for genuinely competitive publications.

In this, Detroit was among the dwindling number of fortunate major cities whose metropolitan newspapers were in sharp contrast with one another in almost every conceivable facet.

During the time both had been at the Free Press, Lennon and Cox had begun living together without benefit of clergy. Each had a previous marriage; neither had children. Both felt they had chanced upon something rare and fine: a relationship that found them loving each other and growing in that love. It was the epitome of what one might hope to find in an exemplary marriage. Neither wished to chance mucking up what they had by getting the certificate that society expected them to acquire stating they were married.

In addition, their sex was great.

The obvious pitfall, of course, was that their jobs frequently placed them in direct competition. By now, they had worked out some ground rules. Each recognized that if their self-made rules were not scrupulously observed, it could easily mean the end of their personal relationship. So the rules were scrupulously kept.

One of these rules would have to be invoked should Lennon choose to solicit Cox’s help in making her decision on how to treat what she’d uncovered at St. Vincent’s.

The rule was Confidentiality. And it was tricky.

Getting to know each other as well as they had, it was next to impossible to keep secrets. It was only natural that Lennon had mentioned to him that she was taking on St. Vincent’s as a feature piece for Michigan Magazine. And she had. So Cox knew what she was currently working on.