Requiem for Moses

Chapter Eighteen

She seemed surprised to see him. But she graciously invited him into the apartment.

Margie Green took Father Koesler’s hat and coat. “I didn’t know whether you did this sort of thing. And I certainly didn’t expect you so soon.”

Koesler tipped his head slightly, “Didn’t do what sort of thing?”

Now she seemed embarrassed. “This is silly. Of course you would. Come to an apartment at the invitation of a woman, I mean. I don’t know what I’m thinking half the time.”

Koesler smiled. “At this stage in my life, I can’t think too many women would be concerned about that.”

She put his hat and coat in the closet and turned to him. “May I get you something to drink? A little wine, maybe?”

“Don’t go to any trouble. But maybe some coffee or tea?”

“I just brewed some coffee.” She disappeared into what he assumed was the kitchen.

Left alone, Koesler walked through the open areas, which turned out to be the living room and the dining room. Both had swinging doors to the kitchen; but in both cases the doors were closed.

Running from the dining room was a corridor. Koesler assumed that led to bedrooms, bathrooms, perhaps dens. He pictured them in plurals since the areas he could see were so spacious. And very bright.

Huge windows covered an immense amount of wall space encompassing an arresting vista. Particularly dramatic was the view of what had given Detroit its name: the river. That this eighteenth-floor apartment was lavishly furnished and clearly expensive did not surprise him. From all the hearsay shared with him at the wake, Koesler would have been surprised only if this setting were not opulent.

Margie reentered the room, bearing a silver tray holding two filled cups, cream and sugar, and a small plate with cookies. She placed the tray on a low table between two couches. She sat at one couch while he took the other facing her.

Koesler tasted the coffee. Very hot with excellent flavor. Whenever he tasted exceptional coffee, he had an urge to share his own brew with whoever served him. Perhaps one day-one never knew-he would have an opportunity to make coffee for Margie Green.

“I don’t know whether I should feel awkward,” she said.

“Now what?”

“Well, I phoned you at St. Joseph’s earlier this morning. Your … secretary, is it? She identified herself as Mrs. O’Connor … she said you were out. She remembered me.”

How could she possibly forget? thought Koesler.

“She said,” Margie continued, “that you were at a news conference at the seminary, and that I could try there. So I phoned and left a message. There was nothing urgent about it. I mean you got here so soon after I phoned. I hope I didn’t take you away from something important.”

Her misgiving was well placed, he reflected. He’d hated having to leave the conference just when things were beginning to pop. And all because he’d assumed there was some sort of emergency. But he would not further embarrass her. “No. No, what was going on there could get along very well without me.”

Koesler picked up a cookie. In the process of breaking it in two, a crumb took flight and buried itself in the shag rug. Why did this seem to happen to him whenever he felt out of his milieu? Sometimes it was an antique chair coming apart under his weight. Sometimes it was an errant crumb. Always it was somewhat humiliating. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t think of it. The cleaning woman will be here later.”

Koesler brightened. “Lucky today was her day to come in.”

“She comes in every day … at least lately. Moe developed an allergy to dust … or, at least, so he said. So we upped her schedule to every day. The place is clean. God, is it clean! And he’s quiet about that anyway.”

Koesler never ceased to wonder at the chemistry that developed between married couples. The relationship began, for him at least, when a man and a woman, usually young, showed up at the rectory to arrange for their wedding. Almost without exception, the chemistry was perfect. They sat close to each other. They held hands. They stole glances at each other. Sometimes they were embarrassingly affectionate.

And so they were married.

Then the chemistry really went to work. Often, at least from what he’d seen, not only did the fires of passion cool, but the two seemed to treat each other with disrespect and scorn. Take Margie’s statement that her husband’s allergy complaint might be imaginary and that only daily cleaning would satisfy him. The opposite reaction-genuine concern for the comfort and well-being of the spouse-happened rarely.

Koesler wanted to ask about her husband. But first on his agenda was to discover why she had called him and had gone to the trouble of tracking him down at the seminary. All right, so it wasn’t an emergency. What then?

“Mrs. Green, your coffee is excellent, as is your company. And we have established that you asked me here for something less than an emergency. Just what is it you want of me?”

“Oh …” She displayed a combination of dismay and self-deprecation. “… of course. How silly of me.” She went to a nearby secretary. She took out a checkbook and began writing. “I told you when you agreed to hold the wake service that I would try to express my gratitude.” She ripped the check free and handed it to him.

It was made out to him personally for three thousand dollars.

He was dumbfounded. “Mrs. Green, this is impossible!”

Her brow furrowed. “Not enough?” she asked, sincerely.

He shook his head. “Way too much. You see, the archdiocese sets an amount-called a stipend-for services such as funerals and weddings. What the stipend means is that this represents the maximum a priest may accept. The local amount of stipends is fifty dollars for a wedding or a funeral.

“But there are a couple of other considerations,” he said, as he laid the check on the table between them. “You made the check out to me. If there were an offering due, it would be made out to the parish, and for no more than the stipend calls for.

“Secondly, we didn’t have a funeral. We didn’t even have the wake we had agreed upon.

“What it comes down to, Mrs. Green, is that you owe neither me nor the parish anything.”

It seemed he might as well be speaking in a foreign and unintelligible tongue. Margie pushed the check toward him. “Why don’t you just keep it, Father? I really want you to have it. You really went out on a limb for me. I feel I owe you. And I want you to have this as a freewill donation-or whatever. What I want to say is, It’s yours.”

Gently, he eased the check back in her direction. It was, he thought, like playing checkers or chess-or a Ouija board. “I can’t take it … for a great number of reasons. If you feel some compulsion to donate, send whatever you wish to the parish. Or, better yet”-his face broke into a grin-“drop it into the collection at Sunday Mass.”

She shrugged and picked up the check. “You’ve got a point.” She smiled. “I should start going to church again.”

He broke another cookie, carefully. “I came here primarily because you asked for me. I would never have imposed on you. But, now that I’m here, I have been wondering: How is your husband? At the news conference, some of the reporters wondered if he was really alive.”

She made a face. “Oh, he’s alive all right.”

“I don’t hear anyone stirring.”

“The only time he makes any noise-lately, at least-is when he wants something.”

“You’ll have to excuse me, Mrs. Green-”

“Oh, please: Call me Margie.”

“Margie. But I thought you would be much more impressed than you seem to be with what’s happened to your husband.”

“Oh, I was impressed all right. Monday night I was impressed as all hell. And I was pretty overwhelmed Tuesday morning. Then I had to admit that what was holding most of my interest was whether he would be much changed by what had happened. It was sort of like watching a cocoon to see what kind of butterfly will develop and emerge.”

“You don’t seem terribly pleased by what came out.”

She sighed. “He hasn’t completely recovered yet. But the signs are that it’s going to be the same old Moe.”

“How’s his back?”

“He isn’t moving around much yet. It’s hard to tell. So far, he hasn’t made life too hectic. But I guess it’s early.”

“You must be closer to him than anyone else. What do you think happened?”

“You mean miracle or coma? I would put my next-to-last dollar on a coma. The only thing that would make me hesitate is that I found him. And I observed and checked really thoroughly. He sure seemed to be dead. That I could understand and accept. But why would God-or whoever-bring him back?”

“Another priest has an answer for that. It involves footnotes in traditional theology. What it comes down to is that miracles like this are granted to increase the faith of believers and unbelievers alike. Nothing is promised or guaranteed to the individual who receives the miracle.”

“Yeah?”

“So they say. And I think there’s some truth to it. But I’m thinking more of an inexplicable recovery from some illness or injury, not a return from the dead. Maybe I’ve got a gap in my faith.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. Still … I did look. Actually, I feel major league foolish for causing all this from the beginning.”

“You didn’t cause it.”

“I should have insisted that the doctor come over. If not Fox, some doctor-”

“And what if his condition had fooled the doctor? Or, what if he really was dead? We don’t know those answers yet.”

“More coffee, Father?”

It was too good to refuse.

As she poured more for both of them, Koesler said, “The night of the wake … remember, you were going to brief me on some things I might use to speak about your husband?”

“Oh, God, yes. And I didn’t. There was just an unending line of people. They took up all my time. I guess I maybe apologized then, I don’t know. It all got so confusing. If I didn’t apologize then, I do now.”

“I understand-and I understood then. But while you were occupied with visitors, I had some visitors myself.”

“I remember: Jake Cameron, Claire McNern and a Stan Lacki-I didn’t know him at all. But their names have been in the news since all this happened. Then there were Judy and David. But if there’s a common denominator with all five, it’s got to be that they’re all victims of Moe.”

Koesler was somewhat startled that she so readily classified them all as victims. Not all that many children would be matter-of-factly considered victims of a parent. And this was not a trendy case of pedophilia; this was the crassest form of manipulation and exploitation.

Margie’s perception only confirmed what Koesler had concluded concerning Green’s relationship with these five-if not everyone-with whom he’d had contact.

“I think you’re right,” Koesler said. “All five of these people had horrendous tales to tell. I’m not positive why they picked me to unload on. Maybe because I’m a priest … although I don’t see that that would motivate Jake Cameron. The others at least are Catholic.”

“Don’t count on that with my kids. They were brought up Catholic because I was. But with me it’s more superstition than anything else. And how could I expect them to continue when I don’t go to church regularly? And Moe-hell, Moe isn’t even an atheist! One would have to think about the concept of God to deny His existence. I doubt the idea of God ever crossed Moe’s mind.”

Koesler sat back on the couch. It was firm yet comfortable. “Maybe it wasn’t because I was a priest that they confided in me. Maybe they were warning me not to say too many nice-if generic-things about Dr. Green. If so, maybe I should be grateful to them. The tendency at a funeral is to find some good in the deceased. Because of the priest shortage, priests today have far more funerals than in the recent past. Frequently we may know the person only very slightly-or not at all. In this case, without knowing your husband, I would surely have looked the fool if I had said anything particularly laudable about him.”

“What you say makes sense, Father. But my guess is they just wanted to get a load off their chest. That would be my guess about my kids, anyway.”

“Whatever the reason, each and every one of them was positive your husband was dead. I got the feeling that they would never have chanced expressing their feelings about him had he been alive.”

“You’re right about that. But of course they all thought he was dead. All of us, then and there, knew he was dead.”

“What I’m getting to is that after each person told me of Dr. Green’s treatment-or, rather, mistreatment-of them, each time I had the same feeling: that it was lucky your husband had died of natural causes. If he had been murdered, every one of those people would have been excellent suspects.”

Margie opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. “But he wasn’t murdered. He’s alive,” she said after a moment.

“Supposing someone tried to murder your husband-one of the five we’ve been talking about, or someone else. Supposing someone gave your husband an overdose of some drug that could cause death. And, suppose there was a mistake and the dose brought on a coma instead of death. In that case it would be attempted murder.”

Margie thought about that. “That must be,” she said finally, “why that cop was here earlier today. He asked a lot of questions. Until now, I thought he was just trying to cover the department’s ass-if you’ll excuse my French.”

“Do you recall his name?”

“Uh … it was … Italian, I think. He was a sergeant, I think … a big guy.”

“Mangiapane?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Did he speak with your husband?”

Margie raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Moe is not receiving.”

“He wouldn’t see the officer?”

“Nobody! No, check that: He did see the doctor-Dr. Fox.”

“Did the doctor say what transpired? Was there any kind of diagnosis?”

Margie shook her head. “Nothing happened. There wasn’t any diagnosis. Moe wouldn’t let Fox examine him.”

Why? Why? Why? The question stuck in Koesler’s mind. “Do you have any security or burglar-proof system?” he asked, in a seeming non-sequitur.

“The cop, uh … Sergeant Mangiapane, asked that too. In a word, no. We decided long ago that we wouldn’t be like prisoners in our own home. So, no, nothing like that at all.”

“Surely you have dead bolts on the door!”

“No.”

Koesler looked incredulous.

“The cop was surprised too. But, no, no extra security.”

“Then anybody could come in here anytime.”

“Well, hardly. We do keep the door locked.”

“Mrs. Green, if I can believe anything I’ve seen in the movies, on TV or read in the papers, it doesn’t take much to enter a place that has standard locks.”

“Moe was kind of fatalistic when it came to this ….” Margie leaned forward as if imparting a solemn observation. “He agreed with John Kennedy’s outlook: If someone wanted badly enough to get him, they’d probably do it. And that was the president of the United States talking. A president who got about as much protection as anyone could imagine. And, of course, they got Kennedy. He did say that the assassin would probably pay with his own life. And that happened too … that is, if Oswald really was the assassin.

“Anyway, that’s Moe’s opinion. He was very firm about it. No use leaving the door open or unlocked. But no use putting floor-to-ceiling locks on it.”

“But what about you?” Koesler demanded. “You live here too.”

She thought for a moment. “I’d feel better with a chain and dead bolt. But the lack of them doesn’t bother me that much. Over the years I’ve come to know when to fight Moe and when to let him have his way. If I fought him over every disagreement, we’d be at each other’s throats all the time. That wouldn’t bother him. But it would bother me. So, on the security of our home, it’s just not that important to me. If somebody wants to get in here badly enough, a lock ain’t gonna stop him.”

Almost imperceptibly, Koesler shook his head.

Margie smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Father. This is a pretty secure building. It’s fully occupied. There are people, even on this floor, who are coming and going all the time. We get to know each other, at least by sight. If something was not on the up and up, we’d know. And we’d do something about it.”

“Still …” Koesler looked at his watch. “Good grief, it’s almost time for Mass. I’ve got to be going.”

As she assisted him into his coat, she laughed. “I suppose I ought to take you up on your invitation to come to church, but …”

As if on cue, they heard the tinkle of a bell.

Margie’s eyes met Koesler’s. “The master wants me to dance attendance on him. It may be a little time before I’m free to do what I want-let alone go to church.”

As Koesler left the building, he could see the truth of what Margie had said. The muffled sounds of activity could be heard from nearly every apartment. Two people were waiting for the elevator. In the lobby, two couples were conversing. And a uniformed doorman stood at what passed for attention. Maybe the place was more secure than it seemed at first glance.

He would walk the few blocks to St. Joe’s. He needed the exercise, and he had time before the noon Mass. As he walked, hands buried in his pockets, leaning slightly into the strong gusts of wind off the river, he had much to think about. Not just what he’d learned this morning, but something that had been bouncing around on the back burner of his mind.

In this affair of the “resurrection” of Dr. Green, something was being skipped over. It was in the form of a hypothesis. Something was being overlooked. What was it? Several times during his brisk walk, it almost surfaced, only to sink again.

Never mind, he thought. It’ll come. It always does.