William Kienzle - Deadline for a Critic

“That’s stretching, Charlie. For all we know, Groendal got AIDS from somebody else, not from Harison. Hell, for all we know, Groendal got it and gave it to Harison . . . if you want a motive for Harison, that makes more sense.

“So,” Ewing concluded, after a moment’s silence, “What’ve we got?”

Papkin glanced at his notes. “What we’ve got is one very sick guy. Jeez! He’s got AIDS, he’s a diabetic, and God knows what else. He has one hell of an evening for himself. He eats all the wrong things, he drinks way too much. He gets mad as hell, he has a stroke or a heart attack or whatever—the M.E. will tell us—and he croaks.”

“Or?” The twinkle in Ewing’s eye made it clear that he didn’t believe a word of it.

“Or,” Papkin continued, “we got a guy who managed to make quite a few dedicated enemies. Any one of those four letter writers could—and probably did—want him dead. Each one knew him well enough to know that his health was in an iffy state. What if each one decides to let it all hang out and see if some pretty definite threats can push him over the edge? It wouldn’t be the first time someone scared somebody to death.”

“Only, in this case, they would have angered him to death.”

“Yeah . . .” Papkin stroked his chin. “. . . nice twist.” He pondered. “But . . . what if the four of ’em get together and decide there’s strength in numbers? And all four agree to send their letters at roughly the same time?”

“Why not at exactly the same time?”

“To throw us off. I don’t know—just a guess for now. But they get together on it to zap him. Now that’s conspiracy!” Papkin sounded downright exhilarated.

“Possible,” Ewing acknowledged.

“Seems all Groendal had was enemies . . . ’cept of course for Harison. But Harison probably gave him AIDS. With friends like that, what would Groendal need with enemies?”

“Harison again! How would Harison have done it?” Ewing turned devil’s advocate. Someone had to.

“I don’t know. We’ve just started . . . wait a minute: Groendal was a diabetic. He needed insulin. Harison lived with him. He could’ve monkeyed with the insulin. He could have seen that Groendal got too much—or too little—of the stuff. Or, he lived with the guy, maybe he added something to the insulin.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Why’d he give him AIDS?”

“Who says he did?”

“Okay, say he didn’t. Say he’s clean. Maybe he was mad as hell because he knew that if Groendal had AIDS that had to mean that Groendal had sex with somebody else. He couldn’t have been happy about that— ”

“Unhappy, okay. But mad enough to kill?”

“Why not?”

“And you claim I’ve got a suspicious mind! But if Harison did it, what about the letters?”

Papkin shrugged. “Just a coincidence . . . or”—he grinned—“maybe not.” He made ready to leave. “Either way, we may need every suspicion in your suspicious mind. Right now, we’ve got a dead man. It could be accidental or it could be death by natural causes. But if I had a last buck—”

“I know: You’d put it on homicide. So would I.”

4

Looks like a full house, thought Father Robert Koesler as he searched for a parking space. Thanks to some thoughtless and inconsiderate parking, there was no room in the mortuary lot. At least it was appropriate, the priest mused. We have just finished with the feast commemorating a night when the Holy Family found no room at the inn. Almost blasphemous, since Koesler was cruising in his small but well-heated car.

There was nothing for it but to park on one of the neighboring streets. The bad news was that it hadn’t snowed quite enough yet to have had the secondary streets plowed. The good news was very much like the bad; it hadn’t snowed enough to render driving and parking next to impossible.

He had to park a couple of blocks from the Morand Funeral Home. As he automatically locked his car, he had to admit he shouldn’t have been surprised by the number of people who had come to pay their respects. Ridley C. Groendal had been a Very Important Person: a onetime columnist for a prestigious New York paper, a critic whose opinion had been known to contribute to the premature closing of plays and an occasional concert. And a writer whose reviews were feared by authors.

Now that Koesler had phrased the career of Ridley Groendal in just those thoughts, the conclusion seemed inevitable that Groendal might not be remembered for anything very positive. Just for creating depression and dread in the hearts of writers and performers.

Because Groendal had been very much a Catholic as well as a Very Important Person, he was, by corollary, a Very Important Catholic. That meant that Koesler could expect a bumper crop of priests at tomorrow’s funeral. Which was no problem; it merely entailed the reservation of a few pews for the visiting clergy. None of whom, undoubtedly, would be attending tonight’s farewell rosary.

Koesler, stamping snow from his rubbers, was greeted by the mortuary owner.

“Hi, Lou. Looks like an SRO crowd.”

“Right, Father.” Morand took Koesler’s coat and hat. “And almost all for the Groendal wake.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He’s in there.” Morand indicated a room out of which spilled an overflow crowd. By opening several sliding panels, Morand had made this the largest slumber room in the home. Still it was not large enough.

“I sort of figured that.”

“Want me to escort you to the bier?”

“No, no, Lou. I can make it okay.”

Morand headed for his office with Koesler’s hat and coat, leaving the priest, by his own choice, to fend for himself.

Koesler, at some inches over six feet, was able to get a better than average perspective of the crowd. It was like old home week. He recognized quite a few parishioners. That was to be expected. Koesler was pastor of St. Anselm’s parish in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights. And Ridley Groendal had been a parishioner for the past year or so.

But there were quite a few others whom Koesler recognized from the old days at Holy Redeemer parish on Detroit’s near west side. Koesler was pleased they had remembered. It had been many long years since he and Groendal, among many others, had grown up in that venerable neighborhood. It was good to see the familiar faces, although many of them remained no more than familiar—at present no names came readily to mind.

He began to make his way through the crowd, something he had done many times before. Two ceremonies that regularly bid for the services of a priest are weddings and funerals. For Koesler, after some thirty years as a priest, all the weddings and funerals at which he had presided seemed to blend into one massive hodgepodge.

Only a few such occasions stood out individually and clearly in his memory. Koesler, like many of his confreres, was forever being greeted, often effusively, by seeming strangers who took it for granted that he remembered their wedding or the funeral of a loved one. There were just too many to keep them all distinct in his mind.

Of course the funeral of Ridley C. Groendal, for many reasons, was one of the few he would remember.

Getting through this crowd was not unlike swimming upstream. Koesler had to struggle against a current that kept everyone cheek by jowl. As he tapped shoulders and excused himself, he was greeted first by hostility that resisted relinquishing hard-won and established space. But as soon as his clerical collar was recognized, he was graciously ushered on. Old friends from Holy Redeemer days or present parishioners would exchange a few words with him as he resolutely made his way toward the bier. He recognized his parishioners, of course, but did not fare so well with the Redeemerites. Most he could not identify until they introduced themselves. Then, usually, he remembered them.