

Extreme Unction

J. David Core

Published by J. David Core at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 by J. David Core

ISBN: 9781311532237

Cover illustration by the author

Other titles in this series:

Common Sense

Fair Play

Shared Disbelief

Five Secrets

Download the series NOW!

Info on all of these titles available at my website!

This novel is dedicated to my wonderful family and friends for all of their patience and help. I particularly want to thank my beautiful girlfriend, Cheryl, and all of the people who read my manuscript and gave input.
Contents

Copyright info

Chapter One

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Sample Chapter

Notice

Author Bio

Chapter One

Entering Pittsburgh, PA at night via the Ft. Pitt Tunnel is an awe inspiring sight. The sudden panorama headlined by a three story fountain shooting straight up into the sky below and to the left; the stadiums hunkering in the distance beyond the mist from the fountain's spray seemingly huddled against the cool air blowing off of the rivers winging outward as they fork off to the right; then the city; a twinkling ornamented tannenbaum of glass and steel, a clustered architectural aggregation — simultaneously careful and arbitrary in its complex arrangement; like a peculiar structural bouquet of bau haus, deco and neuveau compositions. There's even a crystal castle. It's amazing.

At least that is what I'm told. I arrived at 10:30 in the morning on a train. The first thing I saw of Pittsburgh was the inside of a refurbished train station, which I'm also told was once quite impressive. I'd come to force a meeting with a man whom I'd come to consider either the rudest person alive or a clever pretender to the title.

Let me give you some background. My married name is Cattleya Hoskin (though I'm now divorced,) but everyone calls me Cat. My father named me after a flower — an orchid actually. My mother didn't object. After all, she had a flower's name herself.

You may have heard of my parents. They are sort of well-known since I re-published my father's memoirs of the days when he used to work in Manhattan with his equally famous employer (who shall — for reasons which will become obvious — remain nameless.) I guess I'm pretty well-known too; at least I am in the publishing circles I frequent. My notes and observations on the exploits of my heralded parents anteceded as foreword each of the various re-releases of my father's accounts of his escapades; and a few critics said they were among the more informative elements of the books. At any rate, they were good enough to land me a plum writing gig on the staff of Gamut Magazine; which is what brought me to Pittsburgh in the first place.

My current assignment was to connect with Lupa Schwartz, the adoptive grandson of my father's famous employer. He had just completed a difficult case involving the city's Port Authority and an incendiary device. His expertise in motors and his reputation for deduction had protected the municipality from a very embarrassing episode, and I'd been assigned to interview him about the similarities between his methods and his grandfather's.

Schwartz had been born in the Balkans, the son of a Jewish-American CIA operative named Solomon G. Schwartz and my father's employer's "adopted" daughter — hence our connection. During his formative years, Lupa had been instrumental in providing covert information to the C.I.A. during the collapse of Soviet Communism. He had also built up a tidy sum of money as a privateer; which he had invested wisely in technology stocks; and, to his credit, he later used his largesse to help retrieve several stranded Soviet Jews when the stuff started hitting the fan. Seriously, if you thought it was tough in the Balkans on the Christians and Muslims during the nineties, imagine how it was for the Hebrews.

So Schwartz was now an American citizen, with a reputation for intelligence, humor, romanticism and charm. He loved women, cars, good food, and bad comedy. This was all known due to his intensive publicity campaign. Among his other attributes, he was a glory hawk. But do you think he'd grant an interview to an old family friend? Sure he'd come to the phone quick enough when I'd mentioned Gamut Magazine to whoever had answered the ring; yet, the minute I'd mentioned the name Hoskin, he made an excuse to be off the line, and I'd never been able to get him to the phone again. So I'd had to concoct this elaborate scheme to get him to talk with me.

***

The cab brought me to Schwartz's large Victorian at 812 Hazelwood Ave. in Pittsburgh's largely Jewish Squirrel Hill section at roughly noon. His house sat at the intersection of Murray Ave. which climbed up a long hill, and ended at his door.

I'd planned my timing this way as his daily schedule was as well known, and was as precisely peculiar as his grandfather's had been before him. I thought it was probably an affected schedule for show when I'd first heard of it, but it had been so regularly repeated without variation that I decided that it was — in fact — his true daily routine. So I chose noon since it would be just about when he was finishing his lunch, but it would still be two hours before he went to the basement garage to tinker with his antique car collection.

Before leaving the cab, I called the Gamut offices on my cell phone and told my friend Jana that I was at the destination. She knew the plan, and was ready for her part. I paid the driver, left the cab, and went up onto the large porch of Schwartz's house. I smoothed my slacks and fluffed my short hair, rang the bell, and listened intently for the phone in Schwartz's lobby, which should be about to ring. The door opened and the pleasantly plain face of an almost middle aged woman with nondescript blonde hair greeted me with a friendly smile. "Yes," she said just as the phone began to sound. "Oh, excuse me," she said, and I heard Schwartz shout from the dining area, "For crying out loud! Two interruptions at once!"

The cook was glancing at the caller id, and she shouted back to Schwartz, "Don't worry about the phone, Lupa. It's just that woman from Gamut Magazine again." She then returned her attention to me. "Yes," she said. "Can I help you?"

"I'm a reporter," I said honestly. "I hope I'm not calling at a bad time. Is Mr. Schwartz leaving for his garage soon?"

"Oh, no," the pleasant cook said. "He has two hours set aside for callers and clients. This is the perfect time to call."

"But the phone-caller...," I said.

"That's different," the cook said. "Mr. Schwartz always has time for the press when it comes to his cars." She escorted me past his study door and an open den and then into the kitchen. It was splendid. There was a walk-in freezer and a walk-in cooler. Cookware was suspended from the ceiling within easy arms' reach of the preparation island with a built in sink and which faced the stove and inverted oven. Beyond the kitchen was the dining room (accessible by any of three doors,) where Schwartz still sat in his black jeans and forest green polo shirt, his thick dark hair brushed back and to one side, enjoying the last of a huge piece of cheese cake. "Mr. Schwartz, this is a reporter to see you about your cars. What did you say your name was, dear?"

I smiled despite myself. "Hoskin," I said. "Cattleya Hoskin, but I'm not here to talk about cars."

I had been hoping for the surprise to register on Schwartz's smug face when he heard who had entered his house, but he just daubed at his corners, rolled his crinkled eyes, and said, "Tsk," to his cook. "She probably gets that arrogance from her father and the impudence from her mother."

"Arrogance and impudence are the same thing," I muttered, and Schwartz smiled at me with a long, unwavering, cock-sure smirk.

"They're subtly different," he said. "Arrogance is a feeling of self-satisfaction that leads to disdain for others. Impudence is the disdain itself and the acting out of those disdainful impulses. You should know all of that if you're going to be a writer." He'd stood to his full six-plus feet height while speaking and had walked past me. The last word or so of his taunt had been spoken from the foyer.

"Mr. Schwartz," I called after him as I turned to follow, "All I wanted was the chance to speak with you about doing a story on our parents. Well my parents and your grandfather. People want to know..."

"Yes," Schwartz interrupted, "...but they don't need to know." He had made his way to the entrance and was opening the door for me, when he noticed another person was making his way onto the porch.

"Are you Lupa Schwartz?" the man (who was dressed in priestly garb) inquired. "I need to speak with Lupa Schwartz."

"I am Lupa Schwartz," the PI admitted. "And don't bother introducing yourself. I saw your picture in the paper this morning. If you're here to ask me to help you in your case, don't bother. I'm not interested."

The priest had stopped on the second step. "But — why?" he'd asked haltingly. "Have you prejudged me?"

"That has nothing to do with it," Schwartz said. "It's just that my services are very expensive. Presumably, you have taken a vow of poverty or some such ridiculous religious lie, and I'm not required to accept pro bono work."

"Lupa!" the cook shouted from the hallway. "He's a priest. Show some respect, please."

"I am showing him respect, Bev" Lupa said coolly. "It is the respect of honesty and unwasted time. Good day, Mr. Coneely, and good day to you, Ms. Hoskin."

At that moment, a squad car could be seen making its way to the top of the facing street. Schwartz sighed heavily as he became resigned to the truth that his day was about to be blown. The car stopped, and a tall, handsome man in a tan coat with a badge on his belt, his sandy hair brushed back in a professional and casual style, stepped out. "Hello, Detective Johns," Schwartz said, "how can I help you?"

Johns had stepped past Fr. Coneely without recognition at first, but he turned as the recognition struck. "Fr. Coneely," the police Detective said. "Hello, sir. I've just been speaking with the bishop. I need to speak with Schwartz, but could you wait here? I need to speak with you also." Without waiting for a reply, he turned his attention to Schwartz. "Excuse me, Mr. Schwartz," he said, "can I please have a few minutes of your time?"

"Surely," Schwartz said. "Step into my study."

The two men disappeared behind the door leaving me with the priest on the porch. "Hello," I said feebly. "I'm Cat Hoskin."

Recognition slowly spread across his eyes. "The writer?" Fr. Coneely asked. "The daughter of that private detective who wrote all those crime stories?"

"Yes," I admitted.

"Oh, this is good," Coneely said. "Suddenly my life is a dime novel."

"So," I said fishing for anything to fill the dead spaces in the conversation. "You were in the paper this morning?"

"You didn't hear about it?" Coneely asked.

"I just got into town," I admitted. Then, as if this would explain everything, I added, "I'm from Ohio. If you don't mind my asking, what do you need to see Schwartz about?"

Coneely collapsed onto a wicker loveseat, his head buried in his hands. "I've got a problem because of my own big mouth. Politics, religion and alcohol; they should never be mixed. So you've never heard of me?" he asked.

"Sorry," I said. "I guess your celebrity hasn't spread as far as Cleveland."

"Well, I'm well-known around here," he said. "I'm sort of the Jack Kevorkian of Pittsburgh."

"Kevorkian?" I said. "The euthanasia guy? But I thought the church was against mercy killing."

"It is," Coneely said, "but I'm not. That's the whole point. I'm kind of vocal about it. I mean — I never preach it from the pulpit, but whenever I have a parishioner who's suffering unnecessarily, I write letters to the press which I cc to the bishop and the legislators and whoever I think can help. So, anyway, I had just such a parishioner who was dying from cancer on whose behalf I wrote letters and even gave an interview. Then yesterday, I administered last rites on the request of his family. Well, before the doctors could get to him, he had an attack of some sort and died. His daughter insisted on an autopsy, even though the doctors wanted to call it a natural-causes death, and it was discovered that he had been poisoned."

"Poisoned?" I said in the most clichéd of tones.

"Yeah," Coneely went on. "It seems that someone had pressed a neurological poison into the skin on his forehead just below the hair line. Which, coincidentally, is just where I had anointed him during his last rites shortly before. He also had poison on his feet, hands, nostrils and lips. Also, coincidentally, places anointed during the sacrament."

"Well," I said in as reassuring a way as I could, "that's hardly conclusive. Besides, wouldn't you have had to touch the poison to press it into his skin? You would have been poisoned too."

Coneely reddened in discomfort. "Actually, that part is kind of embarrassing. The other night, I was with the family, and we were sharing drinks and consoling each other on our problems. I guess I had a little too much and started talking without thinking things through. I sort of came up with a plan where I could help the dying man and nobody would have to be the wiser."

"You conspired to commit murder?" I asked.

"No, no," Coneely insisted. "It was just talk, but basically what I said was that with all of the candles around, I could probably just coat my thumb with wax, dip my finger in a poison-laced oil and anoint him to a better world. Then I could just get rid of the wax, and nobody would suspect anything when he passed on." His voice kept trailing off weakly. His head dropped, and his eyes refused to meet mine. "I guess somebody thought it was a good idea, huh?"

"But you didn't do it?" I said.

"No," he said calmly, "I wouldn't even know where to get the poison."

The door pulled open behind us. Johns and Schwartz stepped out, and Lupa addressed Fr. Coneely. "Good news, Mr. Coneely. I've decided to take your case, but I have some conditions. The first is that you have to fire your Church-appointed lawyer and hire my friend, John Dachnewel."

Fr. Coneely was visibly relieved, but asked, "How — why — how can I pay you? I can't afford both you and an expensive lawyer."

"Not to worry," Schwartz said. "The city has agreed to pay for my services, and Mr. Dachnewel is due for a pro bono job." He began to escort Coneely into the house past me, when he turned my way. He said, "Miss Hoskin, if you'll agree not to inquire about my grandfather, I'll agree to let you cover this case for your magazine."

That was how I came to document the case of Fr. Mike Coneely for Gamut Magazine, though I was yet to understand why.
Chapter 2

Schwartz showed me into his study, which was to the left past the coat-rack once you'd entered the house. The priest and the cop were already seated in the two seats facing Schwartz's desk, so I positioned myself next to the plants on the small couch that braced the wall as we entered. From this vantage, Coneely was visible in profile, and I'd be able to see Schwartz full face behind his desk.

Schwartz worked his way past the two men and the fireplace screen. He sat facing the priest across his desk to his right. "I don't want you to tell me that you didn't do it," Schwartz said taking both Coneely and me by surprise. "Understand," he continued, "that I am not taking a contract to prove that you didn't kill Vincent Hanson. — That was his name, right? — I'm contracting to prove who did. If that's you, it's you. That's why I want Mr. Dachnewel to be your lawyer. He and I have an understanding. Another lawyer would tell you not to talk with me since I'm not working for you." Coneely started to speak, but Schwartz silenced him with a raised hand.

"As I said before, I'm working for the city on this one. Mr. Dachnewel knows the law well enough to protect your rights should you be the one I peg as the murderer, but he knows me well enough to know that I won't name anyone of whom I'm not 100 percent sure. Should I name you, he'll recuse himself on the grounds of our friendship, but since I need to be able to speak freely with you, I need for Mr. Dachnewel to represent you for now. If you are — in fact — innocent, you should have no reason to object to this."

Schwartz abruptly stopped talking. He sat back and waited for Coneely to say something. The wait was brief. "I didn't do it," Coneely said. Schwartz shook his head and said, "As I said, that doesn't matter to me. All I want to know is, given the situation I've outlined, will you allow Mr. Dachnewel to represent you at this time?"

Coneely looked to the detective to his right for guidance, but Johns apparently kept a face of stone. Coneely steeled himself and nodded. "Of course," the priest said. "It's fine..." As he spoke, Schwartz lifted his telephone and punched a number on his speed-dial. "Mr. Dachnewel," Schwartz said, "are you familiar with a priest named Michael Coneely? — And you know what he has been accused of? — I'm calling to ask if you'll take him as a client on a pro bono basis as a personal favor to me? — Very good. He's here speaking with me now. You should know that I have not yet formed an opinion as to his innocence or guilt. I'll send him to speak with you as soon as we've finished. — Yes, John. — Thank you." He hung up the receiver and turned his attention to Coneely. He handed the priest a card from a small stack on his desk. "This is Mr. Dachnewel's business address. You should go to see him as soon as we've finished."

Coneely leaned forward to accept the card and said, "I hope it won't take long. I've got to be available from four to five to hear the confessions of the parent's picking their children up from our parish daycare."

Schwartz waved the comment off and said, "Now you can tell me how you didn't do it and why it is that I should believe you."

Coneely's eyes drew wide. Most men are unaccustomed to being treated with this kind of brashness, and priests especially anticipate reverence from their earthly confederates. Gradually, he came to compose himself, and he began to answer the question. Schwartz did not seem to be in any great hurry. "As, I said," Coneely began, but he stopped himself in mid-thought. "It would be easier to give you helpful information if I knew what you know of the case already. I haven't read the newspaper accounts yet myself," he stammered.

"According to the papers," Schwartz said, "the dead man had been dying of progressive bone cancer, Hodgkins Disease and leukemia for some years. Lately, however, the pain had become such that Hanson had asked his family to put him out of his misery. Several of the family members wanted to help, but they were handicapped by the law. A son, Carl Hanson, contacted you, their parish pastor; having been aware of your vocal stance in support of euthanasia. Several family members requested that the media be brought in to see how badly their father suffered, and you would be their media liaison. One sister — however — Peggy, was strongly opposed to martyring their father to your cause, and at the photo op, she made her position clear in a flurry of feminine tears.

"The papers then report that after the press conference, you remained behind with several of the sons and one of the daughters to console with them about their father. During the course of the night, you suggested that there might be a way to put the elder Hanson down that nobody would suspect. You then laid out a plan whereby you could put poison in some holy oil and anoint the sick man with it while protecting yourself with a layer of candle wax, which you surmised that the poison could not penetrate.

"A few days later, you were called upon to minister last rites, and shortly after, Mr. Hanson died. The daughter, Peggy, who had been so opposed to the idea of martyring their father, insisted on an autopsy, and it was found that the oil with which you had anointed the dead man was laced with a banned insecticide called Chlordane, which is toxic when absorbed through the skin, and that was determined to be the cause of death. That's all that I know. Did the papers miss anything?"

"Not much," Coneely admitted. "It sounds as if they haven't left much doubt to my guilt." He chuckled nervously at his own bad joke, and Schwartz absently said, "Yes."

There was a short silence, which was quickly filled by the police Detective. "Well, there are still holes in any prosecution of this case," he said in a manner uncharacteristic of the police. "For example, according to the time table, there's the lag between the sacrament and the fatal convulsion which was witnessed by two of the man's children, and how could Coneely have gotten Chlordane, and why would he have broadcast a plan like that if he really intended to carry it out?"

The Detective's interruption changed the dynamic of the interrogation, so I (with my reporter's training) jumped in at this point. "How else could the Chlordane have gotten into the oil?"

Coneely fielded this one. "I've been thinking about that." He said. "Isn't it possible that somebody else could have gone over the anointed spots with a heavier concentration of poison to oil after I'd left? I mean, like the Detective says, he did die some time later."

"Chlordane, as I understand from the Detective," Schwartz said, "Does not act instantly."

"Considering the size of the dose and the condition of the victim at the time the poison was administered," Officer Johns said, "The time lapse is considerable. I spoke about it with the coroner. She says death should have been quicker than the time frames involved if Fr. Coneely dosed him during the ceremony."

"Is that definitive?" Schwartz asked. "By that I mean — would a jury be convinced that it would have been impossible for Mr. Hanson to have survived his poisoning for the length of time in question?"

"You'd have to ask the coroner that," Johns said. "I don't know. It's not my field."

Schwartz turned to Coneely and pointedly said, "Very well, we've tentatively established that somebody else could have had opportunity, and that some of his children may have had the motive of wishing to end his suffering. However, that is not enough to vindicate you. If it is true that anybody on the premises might have had opportunity to return to the sick room and discharge the poison, I need to know the circumstances that followed your administering extreme unction."

"I can't help you there very much," Coneely said. "I left almost immediately."

Johns sighed. "That's a good thing," he said. "If you weren't there, you couldn't have gone back to lace the anointed sites with Chlordane."

Schwartz pressed on. "You say 'almost immediately.' How long were you there once the ceremony had concluded?"

"Maybe ten minutes," Coneely guessed. "Maybe fifteen. It's hard to say exactly. The few of us who were in the room for the sacrament left Mr. Hanson's side. He was sleeping most of whole time. You see, it isn't necessary for the supplicant to participate," Coneely added in anticipation of Schwartz's next question. "We often minister last rites to people in coma or who are otherwise unable to participate, and recently, Mr. Hanson had been showing signs of dementia."

"You personally witnessed his dementia?" Schwartz asked. "You consider yourself capable of diagnosing another person's mental state?"

"No," Coneely said defensively. "His son Matthew told me. At any rate, we moved on to the hall where Monsignor Donatelli was waiting. He was the former priest of the parish. He'd heard of Mr. Hanson's condition, and he asked if he might tag along to help console the family. Anyway, we'd all chatted for a few minutes when Peggy started to make a little bit of a scene, so Fr. Donatelli and I went home."

"So at no time were you alone with the victim?" Detective Johns asked.

"No, not completely," Coneely said. "But I am the one who anointed him in the first place."

"When you were gathered with the family in the hall," Schwartz began, "did you at any time shake hands or in any way touch anybody else?"

Coneely thought. "I can't remember. I don't think so. I don't recall touching anyone."

"Did you open the door for yourself" Schwartz asked.

"No, Fr. Donatelli opened the door for me. I did open my door at the car though, but Fr. Donatelli was driving, so I didn't touch the wheel. Do you think that if they check the door handle for Chlordane it will help prove my case when none is found?"

"It's doubtful since you could have opened the door with either hand or you could have since returned to the car and scrubbed the handle clean." Schwartz pinched his lips between his left two first fingers. "Can you list for me the identities of all of the parties present in the house while you were there that evening?"

As I sat listening to Coneely run through the cast of characters, I thought back to the numerous times my own father had sat listening in as the exposition of a plot was laid out, and I remembered what an admirer had once told me at a book signing. She'd said that Miller's Analogies would do well to add this question to their entrance exam for journalism and creative writing students: Watson is to Holmes as my father is to...? To which the answer would, of course, of course been Schwartz's grandfather.

In my naive hubris, I fantasized this analogy on a future exam changed to include my name with Schwartz's. I thought what a hoot that would be. What fun to experience the thrill of the hunt from practically the same vantage of my famous forebear. And I hope that it will be fun for you, the reader. For me, it turned out to be anything but.

Coneely finally concluded his run-through of other possible candidates to take his place as primary suspect, and Schwartz thanked both him and Detective Johns for submitting to his questions. He then turned to me and said, "Ms. Hoskin, if you would be so kind as to wait here while I see these gentlemen out. I'd like to speak with you for a few moments. Could you give me a few minutes?"

I nodded, and the three men left me alone in the investigator's private study. I was on my own for several minutes, and I took the opportunity to make mental comparisons between the offices of Schwartz and his celebrated ascendant. My father had so thoroughly described the interior of his employer's office in his accounts of their exploits, that I had a vivid mental picture to work from. Whereas that office had been heavily appointed with extra chairs of various design to accommodate the large crowds he often gathered at the denouement of his investigations, Schwartz's had only three chairs and a small couch which were designed and positioned for symmetry and to accent the room rather than to proclaim their function.

Not that Schwartz couldn't accommodate a large crowd in his study if the need were to arise. The far wall was the inner side of a turret tower, a five paneled semi-circular set of widows with window seats at the three central panels. There were several potted and hanging plants at the pane next to where I sat, and at the window across from it, there was a fully stocked wet-bar. Next to the bar was a C.D. rack, then the first door to the dining room. In that respect, Schwartz was very like his grandfather in that they both made food a focal point of their lives, but Schwartz ate more carefully and was much better built.

The center of the room was an open space set off with a glorious Asian rug. Each piece of furniture had been chosen or later upholstered to match and further set off that beautiful carpet. The sparse furnishings and bric-a-brac were intentionally placed in such a way that they did not distract from and even complimented some feature of the floor covering. Even the crystal on the wet-bar was etched in a subtle pattern almost mimicking the pattern in the weave of the rug. Gradually, I came to find the pattern everywhere. The curtains, the etching on the borders of the window glass, the computer shell, the wall paper, even the selection of plants seemed dependent on their ability to grow leaves which would not clash with the pattern woven into the central broadloom.

So Schwartz enjoyed decorating, or he allowed someone who did to plot out his office. The latter seemed more likely, and given the care taken to create a living space and not just a functional work space, I was sure that person had been a woman; which was the primary difference between the two men in question. One hated the presence of women, and he only tolerated them when it was truly critical; the other, however, loved women, and he often sought out excuses to keep them around. I wondered if this was why I'd been invited to stay. Now that he'd seen me, had he been attracted by my charms? At the risk of sounding vain, I have had my share of suitors. My mother was a beauty, and my father was quite handsome. Some of it had to rub off on me.

This thought began to make me very nervous. Schwartz had a reputation as a lady's man; though he was by no means considered sexist. With the exception of his lawyer, almost everyone he'd ever brought into his employ was a woman — even his personal mechanic. But some considered the stable that worked under him to be a harem; his own personal Charlie's Angels. I had no intention of joining his posse.

As I considered my situation, I stood to examine the entertainment case. The C.D.s were all in their original cases, so I read through the spines. I had wanted to examine his musical tastes, but the discs were all comedy records; George Carlin, Jack Benny, Bill Cosby, Lenny Bruce, Andy Griffith, Eddie Murphy and Woody Allen. He had Cheech & Chong and Tom Lehrer. There were digital re-masters of old radio sketches by Abbott & Costello and by Burns & Allen. I moved to the book shelf behind his desk. There was a dictionary and a Gray's Anatomy, but the rest of the books were comedy as well. Douglas Adams and Dennis Miller — The Hitch-hikers' series and the Rants were the whole first shelf. Other writers he seemed to admire included John Kennedy Toole, Leonard Wibberley, Art Buchwald and Steve Allen. The bottom shelves were all videos; Monty Python and Woody Allen mostly, but also The Marx Brothers, Mel Brooks, W.C. Fields, Steve Martin, Albert Brooks and It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I was reading the cast list on that last when he re-entered the room.

"Do you enjoy comedy, Ms. Hoskin?" he asked.

"Not exclusively," I answered. "You have a very nice collection though. I'm especially impressed by the Wibberly."

"Yes," he said. "The Mouse That Roared is one of the finest satires of our lifetimes."

"Your lifetime, maybe," I said. "I'm still just a kitten."

"Touché," he said as he sat at one of the conferring chairs before his desk. This was, of course, another difference between the two men. While his grandfather preferred to dominate any consultation, Schwartz was willing (when the mood called for it) to be insinuated into the conversation. I decided to take advantage of my happenstance position behind his desk, and I sat injudiciously in his own seat.
Chapter 3

Schwartz smiled with satisfaction. "I know," he began, "that you are dying to ask me three questions. First, you want to know why I accepted this job with the city of Pittsburgh for a client instead of the diocese; second, you want to know why I changed my mind about letting you do a story on me; and third, you want to know why I don't wish to discuss my grandfather. Am I correct?"

I nodded. "You got the questions right, but not the order exactly. Why don't you want to discuss him?"

He leaned forward. "If I told you, that would be discussing it. However, after having met you, and seeing the clever way you got access to my house, I decided it would be fun to play up the relationship of our forebears in the press. Besides, perhaps I can use you. I assume you have some of your father's gumshoe skills and instincts. After all, reporting is a form of detective work. Also, I'm sure that you have connections and resources at the magazine that you work for which could prove useful. I'm proposing a tit-for-tat relationship. You get dibs on a great story, and I get access to pick through your sources."

"How do I know it's going to be a great story?" I asked.

"With me," he answered, "it's always a great story. Besides, you heard the particulars. It's already shown its promise. Now, what do you say? Do we have a deal?"

Again I nodded, but I did not reach across the desk for a handshake. Schwartz's grandfather never shook hands, so I was a little put-off when Schwartz's hand extended across the desk as he stood to seal the deal. We shook, and the deal now sealed, I sat forward to press the final remaining point. "So why did you accept the job from the city, but refuse the same job from the diocese?"

"Well phrased," Schwartz said unctuously unmindful of the fact that my phrasing was simply a reconstruction of his own. "But," he said "a better question to answer would be why did the city offer me the job at all? You see," he said as he leaned back languorously in his seat, "the police are faced with a predicament. The man they are almost certain to have to charge in this case is not only a priest, but he is the face of the local euthanasia movement. As such, he enjoys the devotion of two large sub-constituencies, one secular and one religion based. Should the authorities be forced to charge him, they want to be doing it with the full faith support of at least one of those sub-sects. If I prove that Coneely is guilty, the church will not defend him, and the pro-euthanasia people will enjoy having him to replace Kevorkian as their favorite martyr. On the other hand, if I prove that someone else did it, then the police will have lifted a huge burden from the shoulders of the church, and they can proceed with a proper prosecution unimpeded from either side."

"So why don't they just investigate on those grounds themselves?" I asked.

"Because both groups will try to stonewall an official investigation — though for two entirely different motives. Also, because if Coneely is the guy, they want the finger pointing to be coming from outside the official channels. Even so, they will continue a by-the-book police investigation regardless of having hired me."

"So why," I asked, "wouldn't you take the case from the diocese? You could have accomplished the same thing for the police and saved the city your fee."

"I don't accept work from churches. Not from the Catholics, not from the Jews, and not from any other of organized faith's thugs. Religion means dogma, and dogmas mean abandonment of reason. Consequently, the patriarchy of these churches become overly confident and powerful. They lose sight of their own purposes and posit to defend their positions at the expense of truth. As a young man on the peninsula, I once did a job for a rabbi. A friend of his was vindicated of certain charges as a result of my diligence, but he sold me out rather than sacrifice some dogma. Consequently, some people dear to me were hurt, killed actually. No, I won't work for a church."

"You're talking about our parents, aren't you?" I said. My own had died in the same attack.

"Yes," he answered, and the weight in that single word told me that I shouldn't ask more on the subject.

"So," I said, "you hate churches? Is that why you called Coneely 'mister' rather than 'father?'"

"I called him 'mister' because he came unannounced, uninvited and on personal rather than church business. As to the first two points, they apply to you as well. Perhaps I'll call you 'mister' also." He smiled at his own joke. Obviously watching, reading and listening to all of that comedy hadn't rubbed off any. "Actually, I never call priests 'father.' Neither do I call nuns 'sister' nor monks 'brother.' I'll call a policeman on duty 'officer' or 'detective,' and a member of the military I'll refer to by rank when he or she prefers it. Also, I'll call a doctor of medicine 'doctor.' Beyond that, I'll use the terms mister, and missus, ms. or miss as the party prefers. I see your eyes roll. I don't consider it a lack of respect. It's simply that I refuse to be manipulated by the haphazard rules of speech-etiquette. Certainly, for example, a person who devotes his or her life to the care of the sick or indigent deserves more nominal courtesy than one who devotes his or her life to the study of gemstones; yet an unregistered private healthcare giver such as one might find in numerous homes for the elderly or mentally challenged in this country is never called doctor, while a second rate college professor at a geological college is."

"Those professors have PhDs," I pointed out, "or a similar degree."

"Yes," Schwartz said, "and many priests hold what is known as a doctorate of divinity. You won't see it, but I believe I've just made my point. At any rate, we're way off topic. Would you like to come with me to interview the coroner?"

I was slow to answer as I was trying to decide if I'd just been insulted. "Sure," I said finally, "but can we stop off at the train station first? I haven't been to my hotel yet, and I couldn't very well show up at your stoop with luggage and still hope to pull off my little scam. I left my bags in a locker."

"Absolutely," Schwartz said. "The train station and the coroner's office are both downtown; but you don't need to get a hotel. I have two spare bedrooms here. You can have your pick."

***

We passed through the dining room and kitchen on our way to the garage to let Beverly, the cook, know that I would be staying for dinner and to warn her that I'd be around for a while. She was less than thrilled. We left the kitchen through a side door which led to an area that — from the outside — I would have thought opened to a large four or five car garage. Instead, it opened to a metal stairwell which led down to a one and a half acre underground parking facility. The innocent looking garage door at street level opened onto a curved ramp which twisted its way down in a half spiral to the mammoth excavation. For a moment, I felt as if I'd entered the Bat Cave.

Lupa led me past cars in various stages of dis-assembly. As we walked, I could hear the sounds of someone tinkering with an engine. We arrived at the source, a Lamborghini Muira, a hot Italian auto circa 1960, and Mia, a hot Italian auto mechanic circa 1970. Schwartz's mechanic was a dark haired lady grease monkey with big brown eyes and an amazing capacity with engines. It was easy to see why Schwartz insisted on his daily two hours in the garage, with or without the cars.

"Mia," he said. "This is Cattleya Hoskin. Ms. Hoskin is a reporter with Gamut Magazine. She'll be staying while she covers me on a case I'm working on." Mia wiped her hands on a rag and nodded. She extended her hand and said, "Miss Hoskin."

"Call me Cat, please," I said as I took the proffered hand. Over her shoulder, I could see the change in Schwartz. He was giddy, though whether from the proximity of the cars, the girl or a combination of the two, I couldn't tell.

"I'm sorry, but I won't be in to tinker with you this afternoon. We have to go into town on business. What's gassed and ready to go, Mia?" he asked. "You are," I thought, but I kept my mouth shut.

Mia led us to a silver 1972 Citroën SM coupé. Schwartz and I climbed in, and soon we were scaling the ramp and then whistling down the steep incline of Murray Ave. I must admit that the ride was thrilling, even cathartic. It was the beginning of an adventure.

The people at the coroner's office all knew Schwartz, and they knew that he'd been hired by the city to investigate Hanson's death, so he had no difficulty gaining access to the coroner herself. At Schwartz's insistence, I had worn my press pass glassine into the office, so nobody bothered to question my presence either. Pittsburgh's coroner's office has garnered quite a national reputation for forensic autopsies. Consequently, they are proud of their team and eagerly showcase them to the media.

Wanda Corwin was the newest recruit to the list of specialists brought into the coroner's corpse corps. She was an expert on poisons that the chief had brought to the burgh from Los Angeles. Instantly, her tan, tone and other things beginning with the letter "T" caught Schwartz's eye. I could tell by the way he seemed to shrink. I'd noticed that around men and women in whom he had no sexual interest, he was swollen in an alpha-male display. Yet, attractive women took the bravado out of him. He deflated as if to offer them the chance to dominate. It wasn't demeaning, and the women to whom it was directed would not have seen the change having nothing to compare against, but I had seen the other Schwartz. Perhaps the fact that he hadn't deflated around me the way he had around Mia and now Corwin should have made me feel undesirable, but he hadn't deflated around Beverly, the cook, either, and she was as cute as they come.

Corwin showed us into a private office and offered to get us coffee. We declined politely, and soon we were discussing Hanson's autopsy results. "How soon after he received the poison would you expect that it began to react?" Schwartz asked.

"Given his weakened state, I'd guess minutes probably," Corwin said. "But it was possibly slowed by the agent in which it was delivered. If the oil was cold when it was placed on his body, it would have been slower to enter his system."

"Wouldn't the victim's body heat have warmed the oil quickly?" I asked.

"Not in the state Mr. Hanson had reached. His body had already begun to shut down. His hands, feet, even his lips would have been cool to the touch. His body was conserving all of his blood flow to his vital organs. That, too, could have slowed the delivery of the poison. It's hard to say." She shook her head. "Chlordane is not always fatal when administered topically. If it were it would have never been approved as an insecticide."

"Why was Chlordane banned as an insecticide?" I asked.

"Sort of for just the kind of thing we're discussing today," Corwin answered. "In 1983, the EPA decided that Chlordane was too dangerous to use on vegetation — I guess because children and some elderly were having reactions to it. It was limited to use by professional exterminators as a termite killer. Unfortunately, people were still having reactions to external contact with the residue in their soil and on their walls and floors. Sometimes, external exposure caused seizures, sometimes these were followed by death? So in 1988 it was banned altogether."

"So who would have access to it today," Schwartz asked.

"Theoretically nobody," Corwin answered. "It doesn't occur naturally, and its manufacture was halted when it was banned."

"You said something about seizures," I remarked. "Are there always seizures with Chlordane poisoning?"

"I believe so, yes," Corwin said. "But you wouldn't necessarily have noticed in Mr. Hanson's case. He was already too weak to have had any major convulsions. The seizure alone was probably enough to kill him even if he could have survived the effects of the poison. Frankly, he was so far gone that he probably wouldn't have survived the week even if he hadn't been poisoned. It's kind of ironic that anybody is going to be punished for killing him. The one who really killed him is God."

"Well, that was a wash," I remarked as we returned to the parking garage to retrieve the Citroën. "I don't think we got a bit of information that either helps prove or disprove Coneely's guilt."

"I'm not trying to prove or disprove his guilt," Schwartz said. "I'm trying to determine who could be the best and hopefully only suspect in the death of J.H. Hanson. To that end we got some very helpful information from Ms. Corwin." He refused to elaborate, and as we tooled through town to the train station, I reran the conversation in my mind. Darned if I could pick out the helpful bits.

When we left the station after having retrieved my luggage, Schwartz drove past St. Bartholomew's Church. This was Coneely's parish, the church attended by the Hanson family. It was your garden variety inner city gothic house of worship. It had been built of good red brick back in a boon time for the R.C.C. There were ornate, hand-carved gargoyles, saints and cherubim and seraphim high up on the facade. Stained glass in toxic leading still adorned the tall tapered windows, and the front entrance was ported by a door made of ancient and thickly heavy wood festooned with a brass turned dark with years of patina. "Are you Catholic, Ms. Hoskin?" Schwartz asked me apropos of nothing.

"Not that it's any business of yours," I said, "but I'm a non-denominational kind of Christian. I'm sort of a generic Protestant."

"Relax," he said. "I'm not asking to see your baptismal record. I just wanted to know if you were familiar with the canons of Catholicism. What do you know about confession?"

"Not much. Why?"

"Do you know the words?"

"The words? Only what I've seen in movies." He was pulling the Citroën into the lot behind St. Bart's. "Do you have a cell-phone?" he asked. I produced my cell, and he called his house. When Beverly answered, he asked her to explain a Roman Catholic confession to him. It turns out that Beverly's last name is Seanesy and she is a graduate of the St. Aloysius School for Girls.

He seemed pleased at first, apparently hearing what he'd expected, but soon his pleasure turned to repugnance. He said his good-byes to Bev, and we pulled out of the lot and away from St. B.'s. When I asked him the problem, he said, "It's too much damned ceremony. It's easy enough at first. You say, 'Bless me, father, for I have sinned.' You tell the confessor how long it's been since you last confessed, and then you enumerate your transgressions — whether real or imagined. After, though, — after he gives you a penance and makes you recite The Act of Contrition, whatever that is. I'm going to have to get Beverly to do this part."

Sure he was.
Chapter 4

For several minutes, Schwartz and I scoped out the layout of the parish. Behind the brick church was a branch of the parking lot and then a rectory house made of the same red masonry. It had obviously been built at the same time as the church; however, next to the rectory was an older hall. It was made of oak and pine and had a cantilevered roof. It apparently was the original church and had been converted when the newer church had been built to accommodate the growing parish. Beyond the hall was more parking and then the school.

The school was built in a horseshoe around a beautiful playground. Children were hanging from elaborate hard-plastic monkey-bars over a pit filled with shaved mulch. Swings with rubber grips on the chains swayed children in bucket shaped seats over a rubbery asphalt that gave way to one's weight when stepped upon. The baskets on the b-ball court had levers that could raise or lower the hoops to accommodate different grade levels. There was a pit filled with plastic balls in a ventilated enclosure, a four inch balance beam that stood only six inches from ground level, permanent hop scotch grids that were painted onto the soft blacktop yards from the boy's areas, and shade trees and areas of lawn which gave the overall atmosphere more of a park's appeal than an inner-city playground's edge. It was everything I would have ever wanted as a seven year old girl — and more.

The "more" came in the form of a male teacher with dreamy blue eyes and a dimpled chin. As Schwartz went off to examine the hall, I went off to examine the — um — playground.

I strolled nonchalantly to the chest high rail fence near where the teacher surveyed his students. I stood quietly watching the children play until the relative silence begged to be filled with an adult voice. I supplied the needed voice. "This is a beautiful playground."

Dimples turned to see where the voice had come from (as if he hadn't noticed me there; how cute.) "Yes," he said. "We're very proud of it." He gestured toward the children. "Which one is yours?" he asked.

"Mine?" I said incredulously. I held out the glassine which I still wore about my neck. "Oh, no. I don't have any children. I'm a reporter. I was just..."

"Well as you can see," he said defensively, "we got rid of the old playground. Actually, you guys did us a favor, I guess. Except, the way you went about it..."

I interrupted. "Wait. I think there's a misunderstanding. I'm not here about the playground equipment. I didn't even know there had been a problem."

Dimple-boy flushed. "Oh, I'm sorry. When you said you were a reporter... Oh, you must be looking for information about Fr. Coneely. Well, that was sneaky, using the playground topic as a cover."

"No, you still don't understand," I said further blowing any chance I might have ever had with this guy. "I'm not here on business."

"So you're not covering Fr. Coneely either?"

"No. Well, yes, but..."

"I knew it. I'm sorry, Miss," he said as he moved away from the fence. "I have no comment."

I placed my elbows on the rail and dropped my head into my palms. As I was raking my hair with my fingers, I heard a teenage boy's laugh. I looked over to see a pencil-thin young man appear from behind a bush. He began to walk toward me when a small girl shouted, "123 on Lester!" The rail of a teen turned to the girl. "Okay, Shawntel," he said. "I'm taking a time out." He walked the rest of the distance to me and said in a conspiratorial tone, "You're not going to get any information on Coneely from any of these guys. To the Catholics, the parish priest is the fourth leaf on the clover."

"What," I asked dubiously.

"You know. St. Patrick," he said as if I should understand implicitly by now. I shook my head to encourage more information. He supplied it. "St. Patrick explained the trinity to the Irish by using the Shamrock as an example. It's three leaves and one leaf at the same time. A four leaf clover is four-and-one. Get it?" I nodded and smiled. "Personally, I'm not Catholic. I'm here student teaching," he volunteered.

"What was that about the playground equipment?" I asked.

"A few years ago, the local papers sent a reporter out posing as an EPA agent. They took soil samples from the playground looking for lead paint chips. I guess they figured a public school would know enough to check their credentials, or that a public school would have enough money to have gotten rid of the lead years ago, or something. Anyway, they didn't find any lead because the equipment was mostly thirty year old wood. Only some of the wood was new because the old stuff was all worm-eaten and rotted. So they didn't find any lead, but what they did find was arsenic."

"Arsenic?" I said, the surprise evident on my face.

"Yeah, it was something to do with the new lumber. Apparently, the way it had been treated, it produced arsenic which was slowly leaching from the wood. Over time, it could have caused retardation in the kids. So this poor parish all banded together to completely redo the playground. That's why we've got this state of the art park you see before you today. So what did you want to ask about Coneely?"

"Nothing," I said. "I was just — well, it doesn't matter. Thanks for the help." I turned to return to the car.

"Help?" Lester called after. "How did I help? Hey, I thought you were looking for information about Coneely."

***

That evening, Schwartz, Beverly, Mia and I gathered in the dining room and enjoyed a delicious rosemary roasted chicken with rice and brown-bread stuffing, boiled potato torpedoes with parsley, cornbread and merlot. As Beverly was removing the spring-form from a banana custard pie, she said, "Well, Lupa, when are you going to ask me?"

Schwartz smiled impishly. "How did you know I had something to ask you?"

"After you called and asked me about confession, I suspected that you were going to need my help, so I changed the menu. Instead of rolls, I made cornbread — which you don't like. If you hadn't needed something from me, you would have mentioned the change by now. Instead, you politely choked down the cornbread."

"Maybe I've just had a change of heart about cornbread."

"What do you want?" Bev folded her arms across her chest and fought back a smile.

"Do you think you could make your confession to Coneely this week?"

Bev tensed. "I suppose," she said, "but it depends on why you're asking."

"I want you to slip some information into your talk. I want you to let it slip to Coneely that I have evidence that links him to the poison."

"I can't do that," Beverly said. "Well, maybe I can, if it's true, but I can't lie in confessional. Is it true?"

"Not specifically," Schwartz said. "It's a theory I'm working on."

"Then I can't say that," Beverly insisted. "How about if I say that you have a theory that links him to the poison? Would that be true?"

"I don't have a theory yet," Schwartz said. "I'm trying to use this to pressure him to move on something else."

"Well, forget it. I won't do it. You know my position on religion. I respect your skepticism, so you respect my faith."

"Well if you Catholics didn't make everything such a mystery, and if you weren't so exclusionist, I'd send Mia or Ms. Hoskin in to do it," Schwartz said huffily.

"What do you mean 'exclusionist' anyway?" Bev asked. "There's no rule that says Cat or Mia can't make a confession. So long as you mean what you are confessing and believe in the forgiveness and truly repent, anybody can confess to a priest."

"Well that lets me out," Mia said. "I quit believing that stuff the first time a nun cracked my knuckles in kindergarten."

"Ms. Hoskin," Schwartz said. "Would you do it?"

I was feeling cornered, as if it had been set up this way from the beginning. "I suppose," I said. Hey, anything for the story, right? "So long as I don't have to lie. I could talk to Coneely in a confessional booth as well as anywhere else."

Schwartz sat back pleased with himself while I was feeling duped.

***

After dinner, Schwartz lit off for his study to watch Nick-at-Nite or whatever he did in there. We ladies retired to the back porch. We were going to make a ladies' night of it, so Bev brought out a piña colada, Mia made herself a rum and Coke, and I had a tall chocolate milk. I wasn't ready to drop my defenses all that much.

"How'd you enjoy your afternoon with the living legend?" Mia asked as soon as we'd all exhaled our first sighs.

"He was okay," I said. "Except..." I allowed my thought to trail cryptically, although it wasn't cryptic enough for Mia.

"Except you kind of feel like you're being roped into joining an elite squad of crime fighting femmes fetale. It's okay. I felt that way for a while myself. He hired me a few years ago to replace another female mechanic who'd quit to have babies. At first, I insisted on maintaining my own apartment, off campus as it were. But he never makes it sexual. He just prefers the company of women. He's not Hugh Hefner. There's no grotto here."

"So you don't feel like he's treating you differently than he would a male mechanic?" I said.

"Oh, sure he is," Mia said. "but I'm a chick who works on cars. I look at it pragmatically. If I was working out in the real world, I wouldn't be getting near the freedom to experiment I get here, and I'd be working with a bunch of real sexists. Men in my profession treat strippers with more respect than a female coworker. Plus, I'd have to deal with a thousand ogling clients a day instead of just the one, and his ogling I can stand. It's innocent."

"What about you, Bev?" I said.

"He doesn't ogle me," Bev said.

"No, I meant, you're not in a traditional man's profession. Do you have the same reasons for working for Schwartz as Mia?"

"No," Bev said. "I'm a cook and a housekeeper. My other options are restaurants, hotels or private residence with some family. How are any of those options better than this?" She raised her piña colada, and the three of us laughed together. Then as things grew quiet, Bev asked, "What about you? Why are you here?"

I looked to Mia for rescue, but she was waiting for my answer as well. "My magazine," I muttered. "They assigned me to do a story on Schwartz and his relation to..."

Bev didn't seem to be buying it. "And whose idea was the story? Who suggested it first? 'Pitched' I think it's called. Who pitched the idea at the story conference?"

"Well," I said, "I guess that was me."

Mia laughed. "I'm glad I didn't take that bet," she said.

I saw that Bev was still waiting for me to continue. "I suppose you're expecting me to say that I was hoping to get answers about my parents' deaths. That I somehow blame Schwartz for what happened to them, or that I think he can tell me specifically who pulled the trigger, but I don't. Or maybe you think that I want to explain to him that I don't hold him responsible for his mother's manipulations or something, but that's not it either. I guess what-it-is is that his adopted grandfather — or rather — his mother's adopted father and my father had a specific professional and personal relationship. Now he's here reliving half of that relationship, and if I can somehow live the other half..." I let another thought trail off; although I knew that there was nothing at all cryptic about this thought. It was as transparent as the tears which had begun pooling on my upper lip.
Chapter 5

Mia knocked softly at my bedroom door the morning following our ladies' night. Seeing her, I was glad that I'd chosen to drink only milk. "Come on," she murmured hoarsely, "Bev has breakfast ready for us in the dining room."

Schwartz began all of his mornings with a group breakfast, and he ended each evening with a group supper. Lunch was discretionary for everybody except Beverly who always ate her midday meal at 11:00; just prior to Schwartz so she'd be free to serve him his. We gathered around the table for coffee, bakery fresh pastries, warm toast with an assortment of jams, a large plate of scrambled eggs and crisp bacon. Schwartz announced that at the conclusion of breakfast, he and Mia would retire to the garage for his morning's hour-and-a-half tinkering, then he and I would meet at ten to discuss the case. How I handled my time between half-past-eight and ten was my business.

How I handled my business was that I called my friend Jana at the magazine to discuss the strange twist my story had taken. She was tickled that the ploy to get me in had worked, but she was even more titillated by the degree to which I'd "infiltrated Schwartz's inner sanctum." I told her about the conversation I'd had with Lester, the skinny kid at the playground, though I judiciously omitted the part where I was snubbed by the arrogant dimple bearer. Toward the end of the conversation, I asked if she could check the morgues at the local papers to see if anybody could find the playground/arsenic stories for me to use as background should it become significant.

I had full run of the house since Bev was out in the garden transplanting ivy; so after I got off the phone with Jana, I popped a Video tape into the VCR in Schwartz's study and settled back to watch an old Martin Scorsese movie starring Griffin Dunne called After Hours. The movie turned out to be surprisingly good for a comedy from the guy who'd brought us The Last Temptation of Christ, and before I realized, it was time for Schwartz to return from the garage for our meeting. He must have stood outside the door and listened to me laughing, because he entered with the words, "I knew you had to have a sense of humor."

I had been slouched on the couch, and I bolted to a more dignified upright position. "I never said I didn't," I said. "This was an interesting little picture," I added. "The filmmaker seems to have a firm grasp of the surreal, and I especially like the way he positions the camera to establish mood." Schwartz just stared at me as though waiting for the punch-line. I obliged. "And it's pretty damn funny, too." I said.

"Griffin Dunne is one of the most underrated comedians of our age," Schwartz said. "He made one unfortunate career choice when he made that stinker with Madonna; otherwise, he'd be the modern Buster Keaton."

I nodded my ascent, which seemed prudent since I had no idea who or what he was talking about, and I said, "His father is a journalist. Did you know that?" To which Schwartz dryly responded, "Yes, but he's not funny." I changed the subject.

"Are we going to interview the other suspects today?"

"What other suspects?" He caught me short with that one. It sounded as though he was saying that Coneely was the only suspect, but I decided that it was owing to his Balkan upbringing. Perhaps he didn't understand the subtle differences between certain prepositions. "Don't you mean 'Which other suspects?'" I said.

He had crossed to his home position behind his desk, and as he sat he said, "I learned English at my father's knee at the same time I learned Serbo-Croation. I've been speaking the Queen's tongue fluently and with an American accent for as long as I can remember; which — as you once pointed out — is longer than you've been alive. I knew what I was saying, and I meant it. There are no other suspects. There are, however, other witnesses; one of which may have been the actual killer. However, the police have not named any of them as suspects, so neither shall we. It would not make them amenable to interrogation if they thought that we were looking to accuse one of them of Mr. Hanson's — their father's — murder."

I slumped for a moment while he spoke, but when he'd finished, I rose to defend myself. "When I said 'suspects' it didn't mean that I actually suspected all of them of the murder. It's just a word used to convey the reality that there are others with motive, means and opportunity."

"To your knowledge — have any of them done anything suspicious?" Schwartz asked.

"To my knowledge? No. That's why we need to interview them."

"...To catch them in a suspicious lie? To trick them into revealing their implicitness? To agitate one of them into a confession?"

"No," I said. "Well... maybe. It could happen. But I just meant that we might find out something that could lead to something bigger."

Schwartz was having his morning fun. "So you think that by talking with — say — one of the sisters, she might reveal that one of the brothers keeps a large bottle of Chlordane in the pantry next to his supply of camel hair brushes? Is that it?"

I'd grown weary of playing. "Yes," I said. "Yes, that's exactly it. Are we going to talk with the witnesses today, or aren't we?" I hissed the word "witnesses" like a cat staring down a cat-sized rat.

"Yes," Schwartz said. "We are. We'll have lunch while we're out, but we have to be back by two."

I smiled knowingly. "So you can tinker in the garage with Mia?" I said playfully.

"Yes," he said matter-of-factly. "Also so that you can have time to learn The Act of Contrition before tonight's confessions."

***

We walked out to the awaiting Lamborghini Muira that Mia had been working on the day before. Soon we were on the highway sitting still in traffic in a car that seemed to be speeding even as it idled stationary. My cell phone chirped, and when I answered, Jana told me that one of the two local papers was willing to fax me the copy I wanted in exchange for a mention in the article I would eventually write. Realistically, I could have refused by claiming journalistic ethic. After all, I now knew that the stories were available, and the libraries would have them; but I conceded and asked Schwartz if he'd mind if I had something faxed to me at his house.

"I don't have a fax machine," he said, so I told Jana to have it faxed to my email account and that I'd retrieve it later.

Schwartz drove in silence the remainder of the trip. When we arrived at the Hanson home it was nearly 11:30. Assuming traffic home would be as bad, we would have to leave in an hour and forgo lunch if Schwartz was to keep his schedule. That didn't leave much time for dawdling, so I was surprised when the first thing Schwartz wanted to do was borrow my cell. "May I use your phone, please. I'd like to make a call. I'll repay you for the use."

I feigned disgust. "This is the second time you've asked to use my phone. Why don't you get your own?"

"They say it causes brain tumors," he said in apparent earnest.

"That refers to using them; not owning them. My phone is no less likely to cause a tumor than your own would be. And while we're on the topic of technology — what kind of P.I. doesn't own a fax machine in this day and age?" Even as I cajoled him, I handed over my phone.

"I don't need a fax machine," he said climbing out of the car. "I get my faxes over my email too. It saves paper." I waited at the car while he crossed the street to a convenience store parking lot. As he crossed the street, he dialed. He could have been dialing dial-a-joke, or he could have been charging a 976 number to my account for all I knew. It didn't matter though, because he had promised to pay; and when I got the bill, I'd find out who he'd called.

Then, as he spoke into the phone, he stopped at a fast looking car parked in a "handicapped only" parking space. He reached into his pocket and came out with a small black device. He squatted at the sports car and used the tool to release the air from both tires on the side of the car visible to me. He passed to the other side, and I could see the car slowly level out as the air was released from the tires on that side as well.

Before Schwartz returned to my side of the road, he wrote something on a paper-board panel about the size of a playing card, and he placed it on the windshield of the tire-flattened car. We now had only about three quarters of an hour to meet with the Hansons. He didn't waste one second in explanation of his odd behavior. "Are you as good at memorizing conversations as your father claimed to be?" Schwartz asked.

All I could say was, "Huh?"

"Your father, didn't he claim to be able to remember what had been said around him verbatim and then repeat the conversations to his employer?"

"I thought we weren't discussing them," I said.

"We're not. We're discussing your father and your ability to remember conversations as well as he could. Can you do it?"

"Yes, I think I can. I often do when I have to report an interview that flies faster than my shorthand."

"Good," Schwartz said, "because we're going to conduct separate interviews and compare notes later."

***

As we exited the Hanson home, I noticed the car that Schwartz had tampered with was still parked over in the reserved parking space. The driver was sitting on his hood discussing his court appearance for illegal parking with the cop — who I figured Schwartz had called with my phone. As they spoke, a tow truck was maneuvering to couple with the disabled vehicle. The car's owner did not look any too pleased.

It was roughly forty-five minutes since we'd arrived at the Hansons', and we were on the road back to Schwartz's house for his rendezvous with his cars. As we pulled away from the Hanson residence, Schwartz told me to open the basket at my feet. It turns out that while I was watching a movie; Bev had come in from the garden and packed us a picnic lunch. She had brought in homegrown tomatoes and garden fresh basil and made salad of the chicken from the previous night's dinner. She had also made a paté of the bird's livers and some of the morning's leftover bacon. As we traveled, we enjoyed our sandwiches and crackers as well as individually canned fruit juice for a beverage.

My curiosity was killing me, so I asked Schwartz what the device he'd pulled from his pocket had been. He placed his sandwich on his dash and produced a small, black, rubber and brass tool. "This," he said, "is a valve core remover. It's one of the most common tools in any garage. It's used to remove the core from a tire's valve. I use it to immobilize traffic offenders." He handed me the tool and reached into his pocket to remove a card which he also handed to me. He resumed his lunching and spoke between nibbles. "This is the card that I place on the windshields."

It read:

"The crime of _____ is a crime of arrogance. The police have been called. There's nowhere for you to hide. Perhaps you'll learn something from this."

Schwartz continued, "I fill in the blank space with the particular offense. This last read, 'The crime of usurping a reserved space is a crime of arrogance.' Etceteras."

"So," I said, "you appoint yourself judge and jury and vandalize other people's property?"

"It's a citizen's arrest of sorts. No harm comes to the tires neither to the cars if proper precautions are taken. Usually, I also leave a can of fix-a-flat, or I leave one tire unmolested. If the car's owner puts his spare on the opposite hub, he can be safely towed anywhere. Then it's a simple matter of replacing the valve cores and re-inflating the tires."

"You didn't leave this guy any canned air," I pointed out.

"'This guy,' as you call him, was parked at a convenience store. They sell it there. Besides, parking in a space reserved for the handicapped is particularly heinous."

"Well," I said, "one of these days one of your victims is going to catch you in the act. Then you'll be in for it."

"I've been caught before," he admitted. "I don't do it as if it were a game of catch-me-if-you-can. I do it because they upset my sense of what's right. Once in a department store parking lot, I stumbled on a car with a sleeping child strapped in a car seat. The mother had apparently run into the store assuming the child would be safe while she conducted her business. I considered flattening her tires and leaving the note, but it would mean committing the same crime as she myself. Instead, I stopped a boy and paid him to call the police for me. I then waited for the mother to return. Several minutes later, she warily approached the car and asked just what I thought I was doing. I told her that I had seen somebody trying to harm her child, and that I thought she should know. I told her that I had summoned the police, and offered to wait with her until they arrived."

"Don't tell me," I said. "When the cops showed up you described the mother as the person who had tried to harm the child."

"More or less," Schwartz said. "You see, it's not about punishing them. It's about teaching them that what they are doing cannot be tolerated. It's about showing them that not everybody is willing to simply look the other way. Now, tell me what happened with the Hansons that I gave you to interview."
Chapter 6

I told Schwartz what had occurred from the point where he had left me alone with three of the six Hansons and two of their spouses. For your benefit, I'll now start with what happened between the time Schwartz returned from his vigilantism to the time we left the Hansons' house.

Schwartz rang the bell, and Peg Hanson, a tall blonde with broad shoulders and narrow eyes, greeted us; if you could call it a greeting. "You're Schwartz, right? Yeah, Johns told us you'd be around sometime. Listen can we keep this short? We're all a little tired, and we have to be at the funeral home tonight. They finally released Dad's body today."

From behind her, a small voice chided, "You're the one who wanted the autopsy, Peg." The voice belonged to Marjorie Hanson-Melhorne, the younger of the two sisters. She was even taller than her sister, but it was obvious that she was not the more dominant. She was being supported by the arm of her husband, Melvin Melhorne, an engineer at a local glass making company. He was looking curiously at Schwartz and me over his sister-in-law's broad shoulder.

Peg answered her without even turning her head. She kept a steady bead on Schwartz as she said, "...And it's a good thing I did too, or else that killer priest would have gotten away with murder. Who's the skirt?"

"This," Schwartz said gesturing to me, "is Cattleya Hoskin. She's a reporter for Gamut Magazine, and she is doing a story on me for her publication. Don't worry, however, as she is not here to join in my interrogations. She understands that at this time, my dealings with your family are privileged." He had begun to walk into the entry-way as he spoke. Peg had stepped aside for him, and I could see that the four Hanson brothers and one of the two Hanson wives were all present as well.

Schwartz announced that he wished to speak with Carl, Sam and Marjorie alone at this time. He would return the following day to speak with the remaining brothers and sister. He explained that he had chosen the three he'd named since they were the married ones, and their families would need them to be free the following day. Schwartz followed the three he'd named into the partitioned dining room, and then slid the doors shut behind them. "Well...," I said after an uncomfortable silence.

"Would you care for something to drink?" Matthew, the youngest of the Hanson brothers, an insurance salesman, asked me. "Let's all move into the kitchen," he suggested. "I believe Sara was just about to start preparing lunch."

Sara, Carl's wife, smiled warmly and led us into the kitchen. Peg sat on a barstool and gestured for me to do the same. This left the other two brothers, Matthew and Lewis — a writer for the department of agriculture — and Marjorie's husband Melvin to stand while Sara made sandwiches and poured drinks.

Matthew broke the ice again. "So you're a writer," he said to me. "Lewis is a writer too. He writes news releases and such for the government."

"Yes," I said, "so I hear. That sounds like interesting work, Lewis," I lied.

"It's not," he said. "I spend most of my time talking with scientists who feel they have to extol projects which I don't understand in order to justify them to me. Then I spend the rest of my time just fact checking and making sure the information's readable for people with an eighth grade education."

"Tell her about the plant guy," Matthew said.

"What plant guy?" Lewis demanded.

"The — what do you call it — the Nightshade guy. The Belladonna."

Lewis grew tense and stole a leeward glance at his sister. "I'd just as soon not," he said.

"Oh, come on, man," Matthew said. "It's really interesting. I think she'd enjoy it."

"No," Lewis said.

Matthew ignored his brother's discomfort, and told the story for him. "He was sent to do a story on this scientist who was working on an anesthetic made with a form of Nightshade. What was the drug called again?" he asked turning to his bothered brother to fill in the blank. Giving in to the futility of resistance, Lewis supplied the word Atropine. "Yeah," Matthew continued, "Atropine. Anyway, when Lewis shows up for the interview, the guy can't even talk. It seems he'd been working these long nights, and he'd fallen asleep at his work station. As he was sleeping, some of the chemicals got onto his hands. When he woke up, his hands were tingling like they were sleeping — you know, and he thought he'd probably just cut off the circulation by resting his head on them. So he goes to his sink and runs water on them, then he takes a big drink from his cupped hands, and the next thing you know, he's practically poisoned himself. That's why he can't talk. It affects the vocal chords. It was the Atropine that made his hands feel like that."

The entire time that he was telling the story, Melvin and Lewis were shifting away from Peg. They had almost leaned to the point of tipping, while Sara busied herself concentrating on the drinks so she wouldn't have to make eye contact with anybody. Finally, she had filled the glasses with ice and cold tea. She began distributing them and announcing her contributions. "Here we go," she said. "Iced tea for everybody. Matthew, here you are. Lewis. Melvin, here's yours. Miss Hoskin, I hope you like lemon. And Peg, extra sugar, no lemon, just the way you like it. Well, drink up everyone. Can I get anybody anything else? Okay, then, I'll start on those sandwiches."

"I suppose you're wondering about that odd display," Peg said to me once the activity had calmed. "They're worried that the mention of that poisoning story will set me off. You see, Lewis told that story the night Coneely suggested poisoning our father. They were all chiming in with their little jokes and taunts, and Lewis said he had just the poison to do the trick. Didn't you Lewis?"

"Stop it, Peg, please," Lewis said.

"Why? Are you afraid they'll name you as a suspect? Well why not? You work in a huge government complex in D.C. Surely you have access to Chlordane. They're going to find that out. Then there's me. I could be a suspect I suppose. You see, Miss Hoskin, I work for a lawn care company that used to be an exterminating company owned by one of Carl's old friends, Jerry Clarke. I'm just a secretary, but we do kill insects as part of our stock and trade. I suppose if I really wanted to, I could get hold of some insecticides. Melvin here is an Engineer at a glass company, but he must have some pals in the chemistry labs. Don't you, Melvin? I think we're probably the most likely suspects. After all, they can't blame this on the priest."

"Please stop it, Peggy," Sara said.

"Yeah, Peg," Matthew said in an off-the-cuff sort of tone. "You're bringing the whole group down. We all know you opposed the whole euthanasia idea. Nobody thinks you did it. Unless you think maybe the lady doth protest too much. Could that be it? Wouldn't that be a fine line to walk? Wanting people to think you opposed it so they won't suspect you of doing it? Nah, that's giving you too much credit."

Peggy stood at that point and huffily left the room. Melvin called after her, but from the door she shouted, "If Schwartz doesn't need me until tomorrow, then I don't have to stay here." Sara had put the sandwiches (grilled cheese) onto the hot griddle. She called after Peg and ran from the room after her.

"Smooth move, salesman," Lewis chided his brother. "You know she's sensitive about anybody suggesting she had any involvement in Dad's death."

"She suggested it herself," Matthew said defensively.

"That's different," Melvin offered. "We all know that she's being childish. We don't have to rub it in."

"So," I said, "do you all think the priest did it?"

Melvin threw up his hands and followed out after the ladies. Matthew was grinning impishly at me, and Lewis was shaking his head. "Who do you think we think did it?" Lewis asked me in a tone that bespoke the rhetoric. "Either it was Coneely, or one of us committed the perfect crime for no reason on Earth. To have done this, one of us would have had to convince Coneely to implicate himself before the fact; that person would have had to have had access to a poison that's been banned since 1988; and that person would have had to be willing to kill a dying relative who would probably have died within a day or so anyway."

"You all wanted to see your father's suffering ended, didn't you?" I asked.

"The kind of planning you're talking about isn't about mercy killing. It's about personal motivations, or political ones," Lewis suggested conspiratorially.

"What did any of us stand to gain?" Matthew said. "Money?"

"Money? Matthew can tell you; the insurance was useless and the estate would have been spent out the same whether he died when he did or a year from now," Lewis finished.

"Clout?" Matthew suggested.

"Clout?" said Lewis filling the gap. "If one of us killed Dad, that person is a pariah. We wanted the suffering ended, but we are devout Catholics."

"But didn't you want your father's case to be a test case? Weren't you all — except for Peg — helping Father Coneely change the rules about mercy killing?" I asked.

"Dad wanted to be allowed to die with dignity," Lewis said. "We'd passed that stage. He should have been allowed to go when he wanted to, but none of us has the right to make that call for him. It's complicated. It's — it's complicated. I don't want to talk about this anymore." He stood and went upstairs leaving me alone with an Insurance salesman. I'd have to remember to thank him later.

"They're all so touchy," Matthew said as he sat on the stool that Peg had vacated earlier. "When you work with actuaries every day, death becomes just another part of life, an eventuality like a job layoff or a child's marriage. It's something you prepare for and then face down. Otherwise, it takes you by surprise. They're all in denial. I think the priest did it, sure. But I think he had help. Tell Schwartz that I'll tell him all about my theories tomorrow, would you? Help yourself to the sandwiches." He stood and left by the back exit. It was the shortest meeting I'd ever had with someone in his profession, but I still felt that I'd been taken for more than what I'd gotten in return.

I turned off the griddle, since the cheese was beginning to ooze and burn, and I waited patiently for Schwartz. Eventually he came out of the dining room, and finding me alone, he allowed himself a smile. However, now that I'd told him what had transpired, he smiled again, but for an altogether different reason.
Chapter 7

Beverly Seanesy was not the most enthusiastic teacher I'd ever had. Her approach to teaching me how to bluff my way through a confession was to tell me once how each stage was supposed to work, and then she'd tell me to repeat it from the beginning as each successive stage was described building on what I'd learned to that point so far. However, thanks in part to some summer stock theater I'd done in my college days, I was able to learn my lines in the minimal time I'd been allotted by Schwartz who came up from the garage at the appointed time looking like the proverbial canary swallowing cat.

He wouldn't tell me what he was looking so smug about, so when we walked out to see the 1964 Ford Thunderbird waiting to take us into town, I naturally assumed it to be the cause of his self-satisfaction. I was still shaking my head at how little it took to make a man feel superior, as we pulled away from the house. Then Schwartz said to me (with the same smug attitude,) "There's been a change to the script."

"Pardon me?" I said.

"I've developed a theory about what happened to Mr. Hanson. You'll still be making a confession to Coneely, only the gist has changed." For the rest of the trip to St. Bart's, he explained the changes to me, but he wouldn't tell me what had happened to make him think he had gleaned the secrets of the ages, and he wouldn't tell me what he hoped to learn from the scripted confession.

***

I waded through the thick aroma of incense to locate a vacant pew near the confessionals. I genuflected as Beverly had taught me, and put down the kneeler. I knelt before the ornate statuary and the carved stone image of the crucified lord, and I prayed. This part was also according to Beverly's instructions; but even had it not been procedure, it's what I would have been doing at that moment. I was feeling especially lax in my religious obligations at that instant. I was surrounded by people who had dedicated their very children's lives to God; people who made regular (or at least semi-regular) pilgrimages into their sacred realms; people who valued their salvation and their savior and who followed what they considered to be His creed. While I had gone to work every Sunday for as far back as I could remember just so that I'd have an excuse not to have to sit through a sermon. Not to mention the fact that my very purpose here today was to violate the sanctity of the confessional with half-truths and scripted lies.

In my head and in my maker's ear, I tried to rationalize my actions as serving a societal need for justice if also my professional need for a great story. At the same time as I prayed to God, I was praying to the memory of Edward R. Murrow and all of the other demigods of journalistic integrity. I knew that by following Schwartz's script, I was creating the story more than reporting it. I had become a player in the event more than an observer. Yet, I rationalized it by assigning it to the greater good. Finally, it was my turn in the confessional.

I waited for the sliding door that would signal me to begin. When the grate which separated me from the confessor showed movement on the other side, I began with the script. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," I said. The next line would have been my first lie. I was to say that it had been three weeks since my last confession. Schwartz reasoned that Coneely didn't know my religion, so it would be better if he thought I was a Catholic. Fortunately, I didn't have to make the decision of whether to risk damnation by committing a venal sin while receiving a holy sacrament. The instant Coneely recognized my voice, he interrupted.

"Miss Hoskin," he said, "is that you?"

His deviation from the proscribed form surprised me, but I recovered quickly and said, "Yes. Yes, Father, it's me."

"I didn't know you were Catholic," he said.

"Well," I said, "um... I'm here professionally actually."

"You want me to help with your story?" he asked incredulously.

"No, I want to tell you something. I have ... I need to tell you something. It's um, well, Schwartz has an idea where the Chlordane could have come from, but he has no idea how to prove it. He thinks you can help."

"Me?" the priest asked turning from profile to full face on the other side of the grill.

"The problem is, he doesn't want me telling you this," I said. Technically, I was still telling the truth. What Schwartz wanted was for me to tell the priest that I had gotten evidence by snooping in Schwartz's file; but since I had not gotten it that way, I couldn't say anything so that Coneely could pretend that he had thought of it himself, so I'd be in the clear.

"For goodness sake, why?" Coneely asked.

"Well, he doesn't think you have a strong enough self-protection instinct. He thinks maybe you know more than you're letting on, maybe something you learned in confession but because of the sanctity of confession, you won't say anything." This part was all also the truth, though it wasn't in the script.

"Well," Coneely said, "even if that's true, I can't confirm or deny it. You understand?" I nodded, but I don't know if he could tell. "So what is it you want from me?" he asked.

I explained to him what I'd been instructed to tell him, though for all he knew, the plan had originated with me. At the end of it all I said, "But, please remember, I wasn't supposed to tell you this."

"I have never violated a trust made in the confessional," he said. "Thank you for coming to me."

"Do you want me to make an Act of Contrition now?" I asked.

"What for?" he said. "You're not Catholic."

***

I gave Schwartz a word-for-word run through of what had been said in the confessional. He fell silent for a brief while, and afterward he said the one word that he could have said to make me feel better about having deviated from the script. He said it almost coyly, with a devilish grin that bespoke a lot about how much he understood about my motivations.

The word he used was, "Satisfactory."
Chapter 8

The greatest compliment my father's employer ever gave on a job well done was the single word, "Satisfactory." The fact that Schwartz was using it with me now completely changed the dynamic of our relationship. It meant that he had come to trust me, and that my judgment had proven sound enough to warrant perhaps further trust. It also indicated that he had a better understanding of my motives than I had assumed he did. It was, therefore, a double edged sword.

When we arrived at the Queen Victoria-style residence, Schwartz was confounded by the presence of a car parked in front of his driveway. He parked on the street before the offending vehicle, a black 1986 Pontiac Fiero GT, and he surveyed it looking for a sign that he might know its owner. Having satisfied himself that the car belonged to a stranger, he took out a card and scribbled the name of the offense in the blank space. He then placed the card on the strange vehicle's windshield and proceeded to flatten all four tires with his valve-core remover. He made a brief stop at his own car to retrieve some emergency tire fixer from the glove box, set it on the other car's hood, and we went into the house.

He walked straight to the hall phone, intending (I suppose) to call the police, when he noticed the light blinking on the answering machine. "Beverly!" he called, and she entered the hall from the kitchen.

"Yes, Lupa?" Beverly said sweetly.

"Did that priest happen to call while we were out?" he asked with a confident smile on his smug face.

"Yes, he did. He said he had an important and confidential message for you, so I suggested he call back and leave it on the machine."

"Excel...," Schwartz began. Then he stopped short, reconsidered and said, "Satisfactory." He removed the tape from the machine and gestured for me to follow him into his study thanking Beverly as we walked away.

Once he got behind his desk, he pulled out a small tape recorder and placed the recording from the machine in. "I knew that he would call," Schwartz said, "but I didn't think it would be this soon."

"The tape is confidential," I said. "I probably shouldn't listen."

Schwartz just pulled a face and shook his head abruptly. "I'm bound to no confidence," Schwartz said even as he pressed the play button.

Fr. Coneely's voice began in an unsure manner. "Mr. Schwartz, this is Fr. Michael Coneely. I've um — I've had an idea of sorts that I think could help us. That is... help you to solve the case. Since Chlordane has been banned for nearly a decade and a half, I got to thinking — whoever has access to it must have had it in safe keeping for all of this time, right? So what if at mass this week, I make a sermon about how I'm being persecuted for an unpopular belief I hold, and during the sermon I make an analogy between my persecution and the pall that a toxin leaves in its wake. Then I could mention that poisons like Chlordane leave a toxic vapor where they are stored that lingers long after the poison is taken away. I could put the fear of God into the poisoner so that he would worry that the police could still trace him by the vapors. Then all you would have to do is show up with a warrant to serve on each suspect. The one who resists would be the guilty party, right?

"Oh, and Mr. Schwartz, if anybody asks, let's say that this was your idea. It wouldn't be right for me to take any credit for trapping a killer. Call me back, please, and let me know what you think. Please. Thanks. Bye." The line clicked off.

Coneely had wasted no time in violating the confessional bargain without actually violating privilege. He'd sworn not to tell that I had told him this, but he'd never sworn not to tell this itself. Of course the plan was ridiculous, and Schwartz knew it. That was why I hadn't understood what good it would do for me to suggest it to Coneely. Still, the priest had clutched it to his bosom like a mother cat saving her babies from a house fire. Still though, I had no idea what Schwartz had gained by this ruse.

I wasn't about to learn either. As the tape clicked off, he simply smiled like a gargoyle and said, "Very satisfactory."

***

Dinner that evening was a vegetarian utopia. Fried green tomatoes flavored with fresh basil and dill, green beans and corn succotash, and pita bread and humus, with a crumbly peach pie for desert. I didn't even realize that the meat course was absent until I was almost through my cobbler.

Just about the time that Schwartz was finishing up his second cup of coffee, the doorbell rang. Beverly excused herself to see who it would be, and Mia and I cleared our places; or as Beverly would say, we "wret up" after ourselves. No sooner had we placed our dishes in the sink than a loud argument began in the foyer.

Mia and I scurried around the stairwell to see a smallish but solid woman holding Beverly by the hair as Schwartz's cook reached around to claw at the woman's left eye. We were about to lend our assistance to the fracas, when Schwartz appeared in the foyer from the dining-room's middle exit. He had the bread knife he'd been using at dinner which he brandished in the face of the strange woman who held Beverly's collapsed French twist in her unforgiving grasp. "Miss," he said assuming her marital status having not been properly introduced as yet, "please release Miss Seanesy's head."

The woman violently pushed Bev to the floor and stepped boldly toward the flatware that threatened to skewer or butter her as the case might warrant. "Are you the asshole that flattened my tires?" the angry stranger, who was becoming less of a stranger each minute, demanded.

"I am," Schwartz said, "if you're the delinquent who blocked my drive." Beverly had sat up and was clutching at her scalp as Schwartz lowered his arm from full mast to half.

"The street was full when I got here. I had to park somewhere, pal!" the woman said seemingly owning up to her delinquency.

Schwartz was shaking his head. "It's just laziness; laziness and arrogance. There were spaces when we arrived, and because of your self-centeredness, I was forced to park on the street."

"Well boo-hoo!" the delinquent said. "Why couldn't y'ins just wait till I moved, or park out back? Sounds to me like you're just as lazy. Anyway, you're paying for my new tires."

"You don't need new tires," Schwartz said. "I merely let the air out. Just have your car towed to the nearest filling station, and have the air replaced."

"Yer a real jagoff, you know dat?" the woman said. "I can't have a tow truck pull my car on flat tires. They'll tear on the rims."

Schwartz made a gesture of frustration. "Where did you get your driver's license, from a box of caramel corn?" As he explained the premise of the spare and the tire inflator, Beverly intentionally bumped the woman as she passed on her way to join Mia and me. It scarcely seemed to register.

"I'm not gunking up a perfectly good tire with that liquid rubber crap you left on my hood!" the woman insisted, "And I refuse to get all filthy changing a tire that you deflated."

"You should have considered that before you chose to block my drive," Schwartz retorted.

"What should I have considered?" the woman said. "That the owner of the house might be a hot-headed car-snob with a vendetta complex?"

"Suppose," Schwartz said, "that I had wanted to pull out while you were parked there rather than pull in? What then?"

"How does flattening my tires get you out of your garage any quicker?"

"That's not the point. The point is..."

"The point is," the woman interrupted, "I can't afford a tow truck, so I'm taking a bus home. Tomorrow is Friday, and I'm not working tomorrow. I also don't need the car over the weekend, but I'll come up Sunday with my uncle's truck to have the car towed to a garage where I can re-inflate the tires. Have a nice weekend, jagoff."

The woman turned and skulked from the house with Schwartz close behind berating her and insisting that she move her car immediately. She ignored his shouting, and stood under the bus stop sign on Murray Ave. Eventually, we grew bored of watching the excitement from Schwartz's porch, and the three of us — Mia, Bev and I — returned to the dishes. Finally, Schwartz came into the house. He went directly to the garage entrance and disappeared for several minutes. When he returned he had a second can of fix-a-flat, and he stormed through the house to the front exit.

Mia ran after him. "Mr. Schwartz," she said "what are you doing?"

Schwartz stopped and said, "I'm going to re-inflate two of her tires and have the city come and impound her vehicle."

"You'd better not," Mia said. "It'll give her a case for vandalism. You go to bed. I'll take care of things here."

"What are you going to do?" Schwartz asked sheepishly. Mia, however, refused to answer.

***

For the next hour and a half, Beverly and I drank chocolate milk and piña coladas as Mia got revenge for Beverly's humiliation. First, she brought a diesel powered air compressor up from the garage and re-inflated all four of the flattened tires. Next, she brought out four industrial jacks and hoisted the woman's car several feet off of the street. She put a boat trailer under the car's carriage and lowered it gently aboard, then she stopped a few strong looking men who'd happened past and asked them to help move her "grandmother's car" up the block. We invited them to join us for a drink, and two beers later, we excused ourselves from the company of these incidental muscles so that we could return to the business at hand.

With the woman's car safely out of our jurisdiction, Mia retreated to the garage and returned shortly with a similar looking if better maintained auto to the one we had been dealing with; this one from Schwartz's collection. She quickly made a switch with the license plates, and for all practical purposes, this new car was the one that had been parked here for several hours.

Mia came up to the porch, and gestured for my cell phone. I handed it to her, and she dialed the police. She reported that a car had been left blocking the drive at this address for several hours and requested a tow truck to come and remove it. When she finished with the call, she went into the kitchen to pour herself a rum and Coke. Beverly and I waited for her return, and once she was comfortable, we asked her how having Mr. Schwartz's car towed was going to satisfy our prank.

"Once I know where they've towed the car to, I'll go and switch back the plates. Then I'll bring her car back here before she comes for it on Sunday. I'll meet her and explain that we felt badly, so we refilled her tires with the compressor. She'll drive off, and good citizen that I am, I'll wait a few days, then report that she stole her car from impound."

Beverly laughed out loud, but I still had questions. "What about Schwartz's car?" I said. "It will still be locked in the impound lot."

Mia grinned. "But there'll be no record of Mr. Schwartz's car having been towed there. I'll just take a bus out to the impound lot someday next week and drive home in Mr. Schwartz's car."

"What makes you think they'll let you onto the lot?" I asked.

"What made me think that I could get two guys to help me pull my grandmother's car up the street?" she answered.
Chapter 9

Breakfast the next morning was a contest of will, but the only will being challenged was Schwartz's. He desperately wanted to ask what had become of the car belonging to the irritating female delinquent who had ruined his digestion the evening before, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. We ladies, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less if he knew or not, but we made a show of wishing he would ask.

"Is your coffee hot enough, Lupa?" Beverly asked while she rubbed her scalp as if it were still hurting.

"Yes," Schwartz said. "It's fine, um..." he poised as if to say more, and then gestured it away with a brush of his hand. "Mia," he said at last, "Were you able to get the Lambourghini into the garage last night?"

Mia brought her juice glass to her lips and nodded. "Mmm hmm," she said.

"Do we need to make any repairs?" he asked when it had sunk in that she wouldn't be offering more.

"No," she answered. "Why would we?"

"So everything is in proper order?"

Mia was cutting into her short stack, pretending not to realize that he was addressing her with a question. Schwartz cleared his throat softly, and Mia glanced up. "It's fine," she said in the attitude of one who spoke the obvious.

"Mr. Schwartz," I said, "about last night..." I waited for him to ask for more. He didn't disappoint.

"Yes," he said in eager agitation. "What about it?"

"Well," I said, "you never set today's schedule. I assume you'll be going to the garage after breakfast, but do you have anything you'd like for me to be doing during that time?"

He sat back; a little annoyed that I had changed the subject despite the fact that the subject was transient. "No," he said. Then, "Yes! Yes, I have. I want you to take one of my cars and watch the Hanson's as they arrive at the funeral home. I'll arrive afterward, and we can enter together to continue the interrogations. First though, I want for you to observe unannounced to see if you notice any odd behavior.

"You should take something unspectacular, something that won't draw anybody's attention, something like that car driven by that annoying little woman parked in front of my driveway. Mia, we have a black Fiero like that, don't we?" Either he was showing off that he knew more than we thought, or (in his desperation to get us to tell him what had happened the night before) he had stumbled onto just the right question to ask.

Mia quickly recovered and answered, "I think she should take the Tracer. That's what you bought it for. It's the stakeout car."

He had been flounced, and it galled, but he had to admit that this was fact. "I thought," he said, "that we were having problems with the reverse."

I jumped in. "I won't pull in anywhere that I'll have to back out. That's all."

So that's how I would come to be stuck in downtown Pittsburgh in a funeral home parking lot in a Mercury Tracer with a pair of binoculars, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

***

Getting around Pittsburgh's downtown (or dahntahn if you're a native) is not an easy task to begin with, but when the car you're driving insists on moving in a forward only disposition, it's a frustration of epic extent. Pittsburgh is not built on a regular grid-work of longitudinal and latitudinal cross-streets. The map starts at the confluence of two rivers into a third called "The Point," and the main streets radiate out from this site like spokes from the hub of a wheel. Consequently, the intersecting streets chop the city up into irregular shaped blocks that scream, "You can't get there from here."

At one point, I realized in the proverbial "nick-of-time" that the street I was turning down was extremely narrow and ran straight under the center of a department store. Had I been forced to make way for a passing mini-van, unable to back out as I was, I might have been permanently stuck behind a parked car. At another juncture, I found myself passing the cross street I needed while on a one-way street that had no left turning lane and right turns that seemed to head only to another one-way street oriented in the wrong direction. I could have pulled over to get help, but I'd have had to parallel park, and how do you do that without reverse?

At last, I was able to pull over by parking side-long across three marked spaces at a gas-n-go (an act that would have earned me the valve-core treatment from Schwartz.) Armed with good filling-station-attendant directions I was able to locate the funeral home.

As I turned into the far lot of the establishment, I noticed a Sedan pulling in close to the building. I stopped on the gravel lot and rummaged in my purse for the opera glasses Schwartz had given me for my task. I saw that the Sedan held Carl Hanson in the driver's seat and his mousy little wife Sara beside him. In the back seat sat his mousy tall sister Marjorie and her unimpressive engineer husband Melvin. This alone would have been unremarkable except for the fact that the women seemed to be rebuking Carl. I had no idea what for; whether it was for killing his father or for driving too far to the left on the way there; but that these women (who had been so mealy around Peg) were actually naggish to their men-folk gave me a moment's pause. With my mind thus occupied, I pulled head-on into the nearest parking space.

The instant I'd crossed the point of no return, I realized that there was no way to simply pull through when it came time to exit. At first, I considered waiting for Schwartz, but I couldn't stand to let him see me in this pickle. Besides, I was on stake out. What if I had to beat a hasty retreat?

I put the gear shift on "N" and opened the driver's-side door. I placed my foot as firmly as possible on the gravel (which wasn't very firmly since I was in heels, this being a funeral home visit,) and I shoved my back into the car-seat, my shoulder braced on the frame. I pushed steadily, and the car simply rolled back until the slack in the axle gave out. I thought to rock the car, so I began to rhythmically push and relax and push again. Several times my foot slipped out and scuffed on the dry dusty rock-bed. At one point, I actually had the car rocking to where I thought it might begin to coast, but when I stopped rocking, it rolled forward and left me in an even worse location deeper into the parking space.

I was about to get out of the car altogether and push from the front when I saw a second car parking near the funeral home. This car contained Sam Hanson and his wife Melissa. I hadn't met her yet. She'd been working at her job at the hospital when we'd gone to the Hanson home. When they got out from the car, I saw that she was of medium height and had short brown hair. Her figure was neither stocky nor svelte. Her gate was neither slumped nor majestic. If there was such a thing as perfectly average, she fit the bill with mundane flawlessness.

Before they could make it into the building, a third and final car squealed onto the asphalt lot. Matthew Hanson had chauffeured his siblings, Peg and Lewis, as though he'd wanted to show them how prompt the insurance company he worked for was when he filed his own claim after the car-crash. Lewis disengaged his seat-belt and pushed open the car-door in one fluid and disturbed motion. He was on the parking lot and out of Matthew's version of hyper-space as fast as he could be.

Mellissa walked over to hug Peg, who seemed to be genuinely receptive to condolence for the first time. The brothers gathered in a cluster with their hands each thrust into their pockets. They spoke in short sentences and nodded a lot. Soon, however, Matthew's hands were out of his pockets and on his brothers' shoulders. He spoke conspiratorially and laughed at his own witticism. His brothers chuckled politely and kicked at the ground. Then Peg directed that they should all go into the building. They all entered except for Matthew, who waited under the awning as he smoked a cigarette.

A few moments later, a sporty red car pulled into the parking lot next to Matthew's car. The driver remained in her seat, while Matthew stepped out his cigarette and ambled over to her. He leaned over and kissed the driver and spoke to her for a few minutes, then he indicated the building with a head tilt and kissed her again. He waved as she pulled out of the lot, and then he went inside to join the others.

I passed the glass over the building one last time to satisfy myself that I couldn't get any further information from this vantage. Then I set back to the task of trying to free the Mercury.

I don't know how I'd missed the sound of his footsteps on the gravel, but as my foot fell from the car, it lit on the toe of the police officer who had been watching me watch the Hansons. "What are you doing, ma'am?" he asked.

"Er," I said, "I'm uh — I'm a reporter," I said holding out the spy glass as if it were a standard piece of journalistic gear. "I'm covering the Hanson/Coneely case for Gamut. I have my credentials."

"The funeral home's parking lot is private property, ma'am," the policeman said. "You're going to have to move on."

"I can't," I said. "My reverse is out, see?" I said indicating the scuff marks on my shoe as if that proved it. "I was trying to push it out earlier. I'm kind of stuck."

"License and registration, ma'am," John-law said. To which I said, "What?" He repeated himself, and I said, "The registration isn't in my name, and my license is from out of state."

Next he said the worst possible thing. "Step out of the car please, ma'am."

***

Over the next long minutes, I'd explained everything about why I was in this predicament to the officer. Everything that is, except that the reason I was driving a car that I knew had no reverse was because we didn't want to explain to Schwartz that another of his cars was in the city impound lot with bogus plates. He found the story funny and had decided to let me off the hook. I was about to leave the officer's car to resume rocking Schwartz's defective Tracer out of this predicament, when a Ford Thunderbird identical to the one in American Graffiti pulled onto the lot.

Schwartz's smirk was as unwelcome to me at that moment as an uncle in drag at a christening. Schwartz ambled over to the driver's side of the squad car and greeted the officer. Apparently he knew every cop on the force by name, since he said, "It's okay, Larry. She's with me."

"That's what she tells me," Larry said. "Do you want me to call for a tow?"

Schwartz shook his head. "That won't be necessary. I thought this might happen, so I brought a chain. I'll pull her out."

***

We waited for the officer to leave before pulling the car to the middle of the lot. Schwartz showed some character by not saying anything unkind. He asked me to tell him what — if anything — I'd observed, so I filled him in on everything — up to and including the kissie-face in the red sports car. When I'd finished, we went into the funeral home.

The Hanson's were having coffee in one of the anterooms. Schwartz had gotten permission from the funeral home director to use an office, so he and the unmarried Hanson's excused themselves from our company. The remaining men then excused themselves for a cigarette break, leaving me alone with the wives and Marjorie. I went to the coffee urn to pour myself a cup, and sat deliberately next to Melissa, wife of Sam.

"We haven't been introduced," I said. "My name is Cat Hoskin."

She took my extended hand and said, "Yes, I know."

"So you're a nurse?" I said.

"Nurse's aide," she answered. "One who doesn't have access to Chlordane or any other toxic agents for that matter."

I smiled as realistically as I could. "I didn't suppose you did," I said, then (since this was how the game was being played) I added, "Your husband works at the air-field. Isn't that right?"

"Yes," she confirmed, "he flies a Cessna. He owns his own business teaching students how to fly."

"Was he always a teacher? Is that the only job he's ever had with his skill?"

"What do you mean?" Melissa asked. "He learned to fly in the military, but I don't see..."

"No," I interrupted. "I meant between the military and now. Surely he must have had a few odd jobs before starting his own flight instruction school."

"No," Melissa said. "He started the business as soon as his hitch was up."

"Never mind that, Melissa," Carl said as he re-entered the room. "She's a reporter, she's going to find out."

Marjorie sniffed and said, "Cut it out, Carl."

"Besides," Carl continued, "Sam already told Schwartz. Didn't you, Sam?" Sam Hanson had come into the anteroom a few seconds behind his brother and had been taken unawares. "Told Schwartz what?" he said.

"About the freelance crop dusting." The group fell into a stunned silence. Marjorie stood angrily and walked over to Melissa. She placed her hand on her sister-in-law's shoulder and said, "It's all right. Don't worry. We explained everything." Melissa Hanson seemed about to faint with fright. The coffee cup she held began to tremble and spill over onto her lap. Her husband hurriedly got a napkin to her, and he knelt before her daubing at her dress. Marjorie and Sara were glaring at Carl. Sara approached Melissa and helped her to her feet. "Come on," she said, "Let's get some cold water on that before it stains." The two Hanson spouses then left the room.

"We told you not to upset her," Marjorie scolded.

"It's okay," Sam said. "She'll be okay in a while." Sam turned to me and beckoned me to sit. "You see, Miss Hoskin," he said, "my wife has had several nervous collapses. We were afraid that if she knew that I was a suspect in my father's murder she might ... well, you saw what happened."

"She was as white as a ghost," Marjorie said while staring Carl down.

"It's better she read it in the papers?" Carl asked.

"It wouldn't be in the papers if you weren't blabbing it to the press," Marjorie insisted with a derisive head tilt my way.

"Actually," I began thinking to make the distinction between newspapers and magazines when Sam broke in.

"It's done," he said. "Let's drop it."

Melissa and Sara returned from the ladies room at that point, and Melissa (who had calmed down) asked, "Why did you tell him about the crop dusting?"

"It's public record, honey," Sam said. "He asked Carl what jobs he'd held trying to find out if any of us had ever had access to Chlordane, and when Carl mentioned that he'd been a manager at the air field, Schwartz asked if Carl had ever known anyone who did crop dusting."

"But Sam never used Chlordane in his planes. It was already banned by the time he got out of the military," Carl pointed out. It was of little help though. Melissa broke into a crying jag and Sam had to escort her out of the home. Once they were gone, the room descended into funereal gloom. "I still think it's best that she know," Carl said.

***

When, several minutes later, Schwartz and the unmarried Hansons returned to the anteroom, I stood and prepared to leave. This was not to be, however. Schwartz glanced around the room and asked, "Where are Mr. Hanson — Sam and his wife?" He was given his answer by Sara, and the unmarried Hansons took the news in stride. Schwartz, however was exasperated. "I need Mrs. Hanson. I need both Mrs. Hansons and Mr. Melhorne. Which way did they go?"

"You need us?" Melvin said. "Why?"

"Weren't you also there that night?" Schwartz asked. "The night Mr. Hanson senior died?" Melvin nodded as if the explanation was incomplete. "Well then," Schwartz said, "I need to know what you know."

"But you spoke with my wife," Melhorne said.

"Would somebody please tell me where they went?" Schwartz said. I indicated the door, and Schwartz went off to retrieve Melissa and her husband.

Matthew sat beside me in the seat vacated by Melissa. "Well," he said, "that was a waste of time. He didn't even ask me about my theory. Didn't you tell him that I had a theory?" Matthew said to me.

"Hmm? Oh, yes," I said. "Why? What is your theory?"

At that instant, Schwartz returned with the crying Hanson and her fretful mate. He asked for Sara and Melvin to join him in "his" office, and I was left alone with the whole of the Hanson brothers and sisters. And I thought my mother's family reunions were intense.
Chapter 10

I'd thought we'd be leaving, so I had to readjust my attitude. I'd gotten myself all prepped for farewells, and now I was going to have to shift back to mid-conversation mode. I was about to ask Matthew to continue explaining his theory about who had helped Coneely kill his father when Lewis accosted Carl.

"I thought you said that he wanted to know about our former jobs," Lewis said. His arms were folded across his chest, but his posture suggested that he'd have enjoyed grabbing his brother's throat.

Carl backed away as he spoke and he found a chair with his thighs. As he sat he replied, "I said that that's what he asked us about. Why? What did he question you about?"

Peggy fielded this question. "He didn't ask us about anything," she said. She waved her hand dismissively. "He made a speech; a sermon, actually."

Carl's brow tightened up like a Chinese handcuffs. "What do you mean 'a sermon?' What kind of sermon?" He leaned forward on his seat as though Peggy's response were the word of his very God.

"It was like he wanted one of us to confess," Matthew said demanding center stage, but he didn't seem to fully know the answer. "It was something about confession and how as Catholics, we should understand that confessing a sin was less important than the actual repentance. I didn't really understand it all." He turned to me and added, "I thought he was Jewish."

"Don't look at me," I said anxious to become just an observer again. "I was under the impression he was an atheist."

"Well, that makes sense then," Peggy said. All eyes fell upon her as she explained. "He doesn't understand how it works. He said that the law couldn't compel a priest to reveal what he'd heard in confession, but that a priest was also a citizen. He said that if a priest learned something in the confessional, he might be honor bound not to reveal the particulars, but he'd still be obliged to his countrymen to expose what he could. He said that an unrepentant confessor wouldn't be safe from exposure in court if the priest thought the confession was fraudulent. Only he's wrong. Priests never reveal any part of what they learn in the confessional."

How chilling. I was witnessing a textbook example of the complexity of the Catholic mind-set. Here was a woman who thought (or claimed to think) that a priest had killed her father because of a personal belief which he held in direct opposition to church policy. Yet she was simultaneously confident that the same priest would never violate any part of the sanctity of confession. I wondered how she'd react if she could have heard the tape from Schwartz's answering machine where Coneely did exactly what she was defending him as being incapable of.

Sam had moved closer to the closed office door, and he said, "What do you think he wanted with our spouses?" Again, all of the Hansons' eyes found me. I said in rebuff, "I don't know. He doesn't confide in me. I'm just covering him for a magazine article."

Matthew relieved the pressure on me. "He probably wants to see if they can confirm your alibis."

"He didn't ask us for alibis," Sam said. "He asked us about our pasts. The topic of the night Dad died never even came up."

"You're right," Carl said. "I hadn't even noticed that. He never said a word about that night to us."

"Us either," Peggy said. "I don't think he believes that any of us did it. He was probably just trying to get evidence to take suspicion off of Fr. Coneely. After he talked with you boys and learned that he couldn't do that, he tried to intimidate one of us into confessing or implicating each other. He's probably trying to get the in-laws to say that Coneely wasn't ever alone with Dad or something. I think he's desperate. He knows Coneely's guilty."

"Even if he does think Coneely is guilty," Matthew said, "why would he be trying to turn suspicion to one of us? What could he gain from that?"

Peggy moaned in frustration. Her manner suggested that she'd already explained her theory to Matthew, and that he should have come to the same realization by now. "Peggy," Matthew said, "I know you think that the police want to clear Fr. Coneely whether he's guilty or not, but..." Peggy gawked. She seemed about to lash out verbally, but Matthew continued. "...but they're right that he couldn't have done it without having access to Chlordane. Somebody had to supply it to him, and if it wasn't one of us, then who? The only other person in the house that night was Fr. Donatelli, and he never even went into the room. Do you think Fr. Donatelli killed dad?"

"So which one of us do you think did it, Matthew? Hmm?" Peggy demanded. "Which one of your brothers or sisters do you think murdered your father?"

"It doesn't matter," Matthew said. "I'm not accusing anybody."

"Of course you are," Marjorie said. To this point, she'd remained silent, but now she came out intending to fight. "You're not accusing anyone in particular maybe, but sure as hell you're saying one of us gave the poison to the priest. If you think it was me or Melvin, I want you to say so now. I want to hear you say it, and I want to know why you think it. Is it because Melvin is smarter than you? Is it because Peggy and I were the ones who convinced Dad to cancel his insurance?"

"Marj," Lewis said trying to get the arguing to stop. Marjorie looked at him as if she'd forgotten he was there. "Come on, Marj, please."

"I don't think you did it, Marjorie," Matthew said sadly. "I just think the priest had help, but I won't say what makes me think so, not unless it becomes necessary to prevent an injustice." Matthew stood and walked over to his brother Lewis. "I'm leaving," he said handing his key to his brother. "You guys make whatever arrangements you like. I'll pick up the car later."

He left the funeral home, and Peggy started after him, but Carl took her arm and stopped her. "He'll be okay," Carl said. "He needs some time alone's all." Peggy stared reproachfully at Marjorie who tried to accept the full stare but failed.

After a few minutes of silence, Peggy returned to her chair, and Sam said, "What could they be talking about in there?"

"We'll find out soon enough," Lewis said. "No sense fretting about it now."

Marjorie slowly made her way to the seat beside me which Matthew had vacated. She leaned to me and said softly, "Forget what I said to my brother. I didn't mean it. Forget it, okay?"

She was hanging in time and space waiting for me to wave a cross in the air and wish her Dominus vobiscum. I couldn't promise to forget it, so I decided to make it harder for her while I bided my time. "Which part do you want me to forget?" I said.

Giving up, she turned away and muttered, "Never mind."

The office door opened, and Schwartz escorted the wives and Melhorne out to rejoin their awaiting family. Melissa appeared visibly relieved both to see her husband waiting for her and by the meeting she'd just had with Schwartz. Schwartz sought me out and said, "We can go now, Miss Hoskin. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for your cooperation. I may need to speak with you all again, but that possibility seems remote." He turned and exited the building. I followed close behind.

***

When we arrived at the T-bird, Schwartz indicated for me to get in. "What about the Tracer?" I asked. Schwartz waved a hand and said, "I'll have Mia come for it later. I want to hear what was said in the lobby."

I had thought that Schwartz might have brought out a box lunch while I reported the events of the anteroom, but he didn't. He listened intently, and drove as quickly as legally and safely permissible back to Squirrel Hill. When I finished, he nodded and smiled. "I know," he said, "that you're dying to know what it is that I'm working on. I'd tell you, but it would ruin the surprise. Tomorrow, we will attend the viewing, and I'll let the Hansons in on some news. Then, within a few days, I'll be able to expose the name or names of the guilty. For now, your part is finished, and I thank you for a job well done."

I was a little miffed. Something I'd said had given him the final piece to the puzzle, and I didn't even know what it was. "Can I at least ask you," I said, "what it was that you discussed with the wives and Melhorne?"

"I don't see why not," Schwartz said. "After all, you could find out from them if I refused to tell you. I told them that Fr. Coneely had begun making mistakes. I suggested that if and when he was arrested for the murder, they should be prepared to help their spouses accept that their long time priest might try to shift the blame to them."

"Coneely's not their long time priest," I said. "He just took over for Donatelli recently."

"I'm aware of that," Schwartz said. "However, they didn't know that I had that information. At first, they didn't bother to correct me. So I said that, for example, he might try to use against them something he'd learned in confessional from their spouses when they were much younger. That was when Melissa explained to me that Sam hadn't been to confession since Coneely had taken over. I asked if either of the other two had knowledge of their own spouses making confessions to Coneely. They both claimed to be unsure. I then told them it was no matter, and spent the rest of the time reassuring them that I felt certain that they'd be able to put this all behind them soon. Now, if this traffic will just let up, we'll be able to make it home in time for a late lunch before my afternoon garage time."

***

We made it just in time for Beverly to serve up the lunch she'd been holding before it became gummy. She'd breaded some of the green tomato from the garden that we'd enjoyed the night before, and she served it parmesan style with a homemade basil and ripe tomato sauce that she'd also gathered from Schwartz's back yard. Personally, I'd have preferred eggplant or veal, but Schwartz seemed to enjoy the green tomato an inordinate amount. After lunch, I learned why.

Schwartz called Fr. Coneely and asked him to come to the office in two hours, then he excused himself and went to the garage, joining Mia who'd aptly eaten earlier. She knew what was on the menu, and she preferred to enjoy what was left over of the cold chicken salad.

I was helping Beverly wash the skillet, and she asked me how I'd liked lunch. "It was interesting," I said trying hard not to insult her. She'd done so well up to this point with the meal choices and preparation.

"It was awful, wasn't it?" she asked smiling knowingly.

"It wasn't good," I agreed diplomatically. "But Schwartz seemed to like it."

"He pretends to, yes." Beverly said. "He has to. It's his recipe. He invented it to be contrary. You see, according to kosher law, you're not supposed to eat veal parmesan; something about the meat of the calf and the milk of the mother. So he came up with this recipe a few years back when a rabbi was coming to dinner. He said that the hypocrisy was evident in the fact that the young tomatoes were served in the sauce of the mature ones yet this was kosher. He lives for that kind of thing. So now, I make this for lunch every summer when the tomatoes are first ripe, and he pretends to find it delicious. Who knows? Maybe he actually does enjoy it. It wouldn't surprise me a bit."
Chapter 11

We continued to dry the dishes in amused silence. Gradually, as the moment of mirth receded into the recent past, I began feeling-out a shift in the topic. "What is his religious philosophy exactly?" I asked.

"Oh, you'd have to ask him that," Beverly said cautiously.

"Sure, but I mean, what do you think his religious philosophy is? It seems hard to pinpoint." Beverly lifted a short shrug from her shoulders. "Have you ever discussed it with him?" I asked.

"We've talked about it at length," Beverly said. "He's complicated. He claims to be certain that there is no factual truth in the Bible. He may be right. I don't think it matters if the bible is factually correct. Religion is subjective from my way of thinking. There are so many people who rely on it to help them accept 'the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,' as Shakespeare called it. I think it might be the dogma that really gets under his skin, and not the faith itself. Did you know that he used to be very religious?"

I shook my head. "No," I said. "I mean, I knew he was bar mitzvahed, but I thought he did it just to accommodate his parents."

"No," Beverly said. "When he was a boy, he wanted to be a rabbi. He says that he didn't believe that his God was exactly the murderous Old Testament Yahweh, but the connection he felt with His divinity was keen and resolute. But he says that over time, the connection faded as he learned more of the harshness of the reality of life. He says he began to see the murderous side of Yahweh in every face he encountered. He says the divinity turned to simple faith which became hubris and that this finally acceded to something less than denial but more than acceptance; it became realization. He says he realized that the macro-universe didn't need God the same way that the micro-universe did. He says that the true hubris was when he thought he should be a rabbi. To claim to speak of the true meanings of life's impedances was to elevate one's self to demi-god-hood and to lower one's self to demagoguery.

"He has some faith. He believes in the duality of man; his capacity for greatness and his capacity for baseness. He sees the beauty in a well plotted murder. He doesn't approve of the act, but he enjoys the audacity of it. He chooses to champion justice, but he could just as easily have championed anarchy. That is religion, isn't it? That's original sin."

Though she'd begun by saying that I would have to ask Schwartz if I wanted to understand his religious philosophy, I now had the feeling that I'd gotten the treatise.

***

I followed Beverly out into the garden. Her cilantro had begun to flower, but it had also begun to grow too tall for its own stalks to support it. Soon (I was told) it would begin to get heavy round seeds which would harden and be coriander, so we needed to stake the plants. She cut straight sticks off of a willow and stripped the leaves. She pushed these dowels into the ground next to the cilantro and fashioned ties out of the leaves. As she worked, I helped where I could and continued the conversation.

"You're Catholic, right?" I said rhetorically, "so maybe you can answer a question I have."

"I'll try," she said.

"Something strange happened today at the funeral home," I said, and then I told her the incident where Peggy Hanson had defended the righteousness of the priest whom she thought killed her father. "Is that something peculiarly Catholic?" I asked.

"I don't think so," she said. "I'm sure you'll find that kind of misplaced devotion in any orthodox type of religion. In Protestant religions, the pastor usually works at the sufferance of the church elders. At any moment, they can revoke his charter, in a sense denying his divinity. However, when the pastor is put in place by a larger governing body, like a diocese, the people have no power to usurp his authority at all. As a subsistence stratagem, they begin to give him berth. They deny his humanity, his foibles, and his errancy. They substitute papacy, and grace and in-errancy."

"I see," I said, and I quoted Lester, the skinny kid at the playground. "...the fourth leaf on the clover."

"What?" Beverly said. "Oh, right; the shamrock actually."

***

Beverly and I were trussing butterflied pork chops with mushroom stuffing when the phone rang. Beverly went to the hall to take the call, just as Schwartz and Mia emerged from the garage. "Are you preparing dinner tonight?" Schwartz said amicably.

"No," I said. "I'm just helping Beverly. She had to answer the phone." As I spoke, Beverly returned from the call.

"Lupa," she said. "I was just on the phone with Fr. Donatelli. He says to tell you that Fr. Coneely won't be able to come tonight. The bishop has summoned them, and they had to go with him to meet with the archbishop."

"The archbishop is in Pittsburgh?" Lupa asked.

"No," Beverly said. "The arch-diocese is in Philadelphia. They've gone there."

Schwartz gaped, visibly stunned. "He's a murder suspect, and he leaves the area to travel several hundred miles? Of all the arrogance."

"The archbishop wanted to see him," Beverly said.

"Then in that case, the archbishop should have come to Pittsburgh," Schwartz insisted. He waved his hands as if to say, "bah!" and he stormed from the room. He went into his study, and soon we could hear the saxophone riff of The Pink Panther Theme by Henry Mancini. Mia placed a hand on my shoulder and said, "Well, that ends your working day. He's started a movie marathon. How many of those films are there, Bev?" Mia asked.

"Five I think," Bev answered. "Unless you count the Alan Arkin one or the three after Sellers died."

"He only watches the Sellers ones," Mia said; and as the two women spoke, I smiled knowingly, despite the fact that I had always thought the Pink Panther was just a cartoon character who sold fiberglass insulation. Beverly returned to the kitchen and soon reappeared with a frosted glass beer mug and a chilled bottle of dark beer which she took into the study for Schwartz. Mia turned her attention to me again. "Well, you might as well make alternate plans. He'll be taking his dinner on a T.V. tray tonight. What do you say? Feel like going out on the town with me?"

***

After dinner that evening, Mia and I borrowed a cool green Ferrari from Schwartz's mélange, and we headed into town. During the trip, Mia asked me how I enjoyed my afternoon with Bev. "It was nice," I said. "She's very bright."

"Did the topic of Schwartz come up?" Mia asked.

The question made me uncomfortable. I didn't know what she was driving at, but the tone seemed sarcastic. I felt myself pull my shoulders into a defensive posture, and I answered, "Well, I am doing a story on him, after all."

"Did she defend his behavior?"

Mia's questions seemed harsh, but her devilish grin confused the situation for me. "How do you mean?" I asked.

"Did she make him seem deep or thoughtful about whatever you asked concerning him? Did she seem to be lifting him up to an unreasonable standard?"

The questions made no sense, but she was striking all the right chords. "I suppose you could say that, yes," I said.

Mia leaned collusively across the gear shift toward me. "That's because she's in love with him," she said slyly, and now her questions made sense. She wasn't trying to undermine either Beverly or Schwartz. She was gossiping. It was just girl talk.

"Really?" I said in genuine glee. "Does he know? Is he in love with her?"

"No," Mia said. "He doesn't have a clue."

"How do you know she's in love with him?" I asked.

"Oh, come on," Mia said in mock derision. "You're the daughter of the great detective. Didn't you pick up on the clues?" For the first time, I allowed myself to think about it. I'd been so preoccupied with the case and with my story that I hadn't taken time to examine the people around me. Mia was right. Beverly was in love with Schwartz, and he was oblivious to the fact. Either that or he chose to pretend not to be aware of her feelings for other chauvinistic or self-serving reasons. Mia and I spent the rest of the trip bonding as girlfriends in that girl-friendly way.

"What's your situation?" I asked. "Are you seeing someone?"

"Me?" Mia said. "No, well, yes. I'm seeing lots of someones. Every weekend, I see the goons in these nightclubs leering at me like a piece of meat, and then I see my grandma on Sunday. I don't know. I guess I'm just too picky. I want a guy who can keep me in the manner to which I've grown accustomed. Trouble is, that manner involves a garage that's a gear-head's paradise and three squares prepared by somebody other than me."

"You could always settle," I said.

"Bite your tongue!" Mia snapped playfully, then suddenly she seemed remorseful. "Oh, unless — have you settled?"

"Huh?" I said. "Oh, no. Actually, I just divorced from the king of all jerks. I was married to a guy at the magazine where I work. He stole a story I was working on, and it got him a promotion. Classic story line: girl meets boy; girl marries boy; girl gets lead on utilities commission scandal; boy uses marriage to spy into girl's computer files; girl sees story on editors desk under boy's byline, etceteras."

"I hate those etceteras," Mia said.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Me too."

***

If you've never been to Pittsburgh's strip district, it's a true day out. During business hours, they have open air markets of every description all summer long. Then, after, the nightclubs open to invite the riffraff and the hoity-toity of every description to revel near or on a river wharf. All of the clubs are but a few minutes' walk apart down a wide brick street through warehouse lots and bustling walkways. The club that Mia had chosen for us abutted a Chinese specialty foods shop, and had a live thrash metal band playing an indistinguishable cacophony of a new generation's music. We found a seat far from the speakers, but close to the alcohol, and Mia left me with the purses while she went for the drinks. Soon, she and I were set to enjoy our respective drinks, her standard rum and coke, and a bourbon and water with a lime twist for me. I judge the quality of a bar by their understanding of simple bar orders. A twist is a sliver of pith-free rind twisted to release the volatile oils. What I got was an eighth of a lime — rind, pulp, pits and all — squashed over the rim of my martini glass — which was the second mistake.

I asked to be excused, grabbed my purse and went to the bar for myself. Not to chastise the bartender, but to order a different drink. As I made my way to the curved bar, I noticed an open stairwell leading to another section of the club. People were coming up the flight in what seemed a hurry to get away from whatever horror was down there, and I wondered what could be so bad that this place could be anybody's idea of preferable.

When finally I got the barman's attention (which took far longer for me than it had for Mia, but perhaps that had something to do with the fellows inability to make eye contact with anyone whose eyes were above her bust-line) I asked for a Manhattan. I watched him prepare it with some little sense of hope. After all, he did pick the right glass this time; but when I saw him hold the jar of maraschinos over my drink, allowing the syrupy fluid to drain into my glass as he dug for a cherry, I flipped a hand to cancel the order. I was about to return to the table and ask Mia if we could go to some other bar, when I noticed that she'd made a friend. She was sitting with a shaved-headed, toothy, "Buy-you-a-drink?" type, and she was playing with her hair. I knew that body language. It was the universal sign for, "I like this guy. Don't hurry back." So, I couldn't hurry back.

I was about to return to the bar to give the tapster a third opportunity to at least hit a foul tip, when I again passed the stairwell to who-knew-where. It happened that the thrash band was between thrashes, and I caught the undeniable sound of a trumpet coming from the cellar below. I decided to venture down the brick-walled flight, and there I found the source of all the terror. Six men stood playing horns, keyboards, acoustic guitar and bass; what must have been a rancorous mishmash of instruments to the road-house's usual clientele. As they rendered their resonances, a sleepy looking probable heroin addict made shsk shsk sounds with brushes on a snare, and a woman in a party dress sang like Billie Holiday. Behind them on the wall was a vinyl banner announcing them to be "Humpack and the Blue Whailers." It wouldn't be hard to find a seat at the cellar bar. I saw only one other couple and a bored woman in a cocktail waitress uniform.

I sat eagerly, while the band finished God Bless the Child, and when the waitress asked me what I'd have, I decided to give it another shot. "Bourbon and water with a lime twist," I said hopefully, but hope quickly faded when she took her tray and went upstairs to fill the order. As the band drifted into Gloomy Sunday, I thought I recognized something about the shaggy-haired clarinet player. I couldn't tell if it was his stance or his build, but something seemed awfully familiar about him. The feeling lingered all through the overture and the lyrics. I knew I'd met that man. If only he'd speak or smile or do something to lift the veil. Then, as the horns brought the melody home, they allowed the clarinet player a moment of solo virtuosity, after which he tossed his hair back from his eyes lifting the veil. Recognition dawned, but even as though I still needed the help, the singer recognized the soloist.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said to the three of us in the audience, "Mr. Trevor Johns!"

Applauding wildly, I added in a whispered tone, "Of the Pittsburgh Police Homicide Squad."
Chapter 12

Johns squinted past the stage lights, trying to get a look at his lone fan. I continued whooping and applauding as though a frenzy of music appreciation had swept my very soul. Finally, he shrugged, and the band started up with their rendition of Crawlin' Kingsnake. There wasn't a whole lot of call for a clarinet in that number, and I noticed the man called Trevor trying several times to catch a glimpse of me to figure out who I was.

Eventually, there was a break in the set. The woman in the party dress announced that they would be taking ten and that there was more to come. Though by this time, even the couple had moved on, and I was the entire audience.

Johns hopped down from the stage and made a bee-line directly to my position at the bar. The others gathered at a table and gave their orders to the waitress. "Have we met?" Johns asked.

"Are you always this observant?" I asked. I was beginning to actually feel a little hurt. After all, I'd recognized him — eventually.

"We have met, haven't we?" he said nodding. "Hoskin, right? In Schwartz's office? Did he send you to talk with me?"

"No," I answered. "I came on my own. Do you feel like being interviewed?" I was teasing a little, but seeing as how my ego had been bruised it seemed permissible.

"For Gamut? About Schwartz or about the band?" He was becoming eager.

"Why would Gamut care about your band?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said taking a glass of water being proffered by the cocktail waitress. "It's a pretty good band, don't you think?"

"It's the first time I've ever heard Crawlin' Kingsnake sung by a woman," I admitted. "So do you do all cover material, or have you got any original stuff?"

"We just cover the old blues classics, some jazz, some big band. The big band stuff requires a lot of re-working to fit our combo. I wrote our score for Gloomy Sunday myself."

"How do you find the time with your busy schedule?" I asked.

"This is Pittsburgh, lady. Not Newark. We don't have all that many murders." His shaggy mop fell in his eyes, and a trickle of sweat ran down his cheek.

"Are the other musicians all cops too?" I asked.

"So you do want to interview me about the band?" Johns said smiling coyly. He folded his arms on the bar and looked up knowingly at me over his shoulder. He was so cute, it made me want to just cut his hair; but since that wouldn't do in civilized society, I just grinned and leaned back on my elbows.

"I don't want to interview you at all," I said letting him off the hook. "I found you guys here by accident. I had to get away from the crap upstairs."

"That's my son's band," Johns said gruffly. I felt like a fool, and I tried to back-paddle.

"Well, I'm um — I'm sure they're good if you like that sort of music. I just — um — I."

"It's okay," Johns said graciously. "It's not my style either. But, you've got to let kids express themselves in their own way. I figure this is better than drugs."

"Is your son's mother here too?" I asked judiciously avoiding asking him if his wife was here.

"His mother lives in Philly with her new husband," Johns said smiling a smile that told me he'd caught my omission.

"So," I said, "how do you and your son come to be playing in the same venue?"

Johns demurred. "That part is a little embarrassing. They're actually very popular, so when the owner approached them about playing here, they asked if it would be all right if we played the cellar."

"You're kidding," I said smiling my toothiest smile.

"No, yeah, that's how it happened," Johns said. "This is a sympathy gig. Given the turn-out, it will probably be our last gig."

"No," I said. "You can't judge on one gig. You guys are good. You just need more publicity. I'd be glad to help with that. I'm in the press, you know. I know people who know people." I was really feeling like an idiot now.

"No," Johns said. "Well, we'll see. Maybe. I'll talk with the others. By the way, are you here alone?"

"No," I said. "I came with Mia, Schwartz's mechanic. Do you know her?"

"Know her?" Johns said. "I've only been trying to get her to go out with my drummer, Jimmy Yitzosky, for six months. He's in love with her. Don't let him know she's here."

"I won't tell if you won't," I promised. "Do you think maybe she knew your band was playing here tonight? Maybe she came hoping to bump into him."

"I doubt it," Johns said. "But she should know that the band upstairs is my son's band. Their name is FdP. It stands for 'Figli dei Poliziotti.' It means 'policemen's sons' in Italian."

"Who came up with that?" I asked.

"Our singer," he said pointing to the party dress. "She's married to our trumpeter, and she's the mother of FdP's guitar player."

"Who named your band?" I asked all syrupy.

"I did. Why?"

"Are you humpback?" I asked, "or are you one of the Whailers? Should I just call you Ishmael?"

***

When the band retook the stage, I went upstairs to find Mia and alert her to my position. It took a little searching, but I finally located her grinding the alopecia wanna-be out on the dance floor. I tapped her shoulder, and she tossed her head back rather than turn away from her dance partner. "Hi," she said. "Having fun?"

"Loads," I said. "I'm downstairs in the cellar with the other sightless moles. It's more my speed." I remembered that Johns had asked me not to let the drummer know she was here. "When you're ready to go, just send the waitress down after me, okay? Johns' band is playing down there, and he asked me not to let you break his drummer's heart again until after the gig."

"Sure thing," Mia said. "I try to keep my heart breaking down to once a night, and Markie here is already tonight's victim." She rubbed Markie's shorn dome, and he pulled a face as if to say, "Yeah, right; like you could ever wound a stud like me." Mia tilted her chin and stabbed him with a withering come-hither glance that actually made me feel sorry for poor unsuspecting Markie.

When I returned to my seat at the subterranean bar, the band was performing Every Day I Have the Blues for no audience at all. They followed with Try a Little Tenderness, which I watched in thrilled amusement as the horn players shouted back the lyrical instructions to "tell her that you love her" and "treat her real gentle," and as they bopped and blasted out notes in a fully syncopated choreography. The number would have been a real crowd-pleaser, had there been a crowd to please. They brought it down a notch with Tell Mama, after which the singer left the stage during the instrumental Green Onions, Following her brief break, the singer returned to the stage; but rather than sing, she relieved Jimmy, the gaunt drummer, of his sticks, and he took the mike. I understood why Mia was resistant of his charms. He was something deep to the south of desirable; but when the band started up again, and Jimmy began crooning, "What would I give for just a few moments..." as the band softly played Slip Away, he suddenly became peculiarly sexy in an Iggy-Pop-cum-Mick-Jagger kind of way. I was tempted to play fairy Godmother and go drag Mia down to be swept off her feet, but the song would have been over before I could have gotten her downstairs.

After the number, Jimmy thanked me (calling me "ladies and gentlemen.") and he told me that they would be back again for one more set after this break. I stood and met Johns as he came down from the stage. Taking his arm, I pulled him to the side and asked, "Why don't you let Jimmy sing more songs? He's great."

Incredulously, as if I'd asked why they don't just dilute the gas reserves with water to make them last longer, Johns shook his head, scrunched his face and said, "He's the drummer."

"He's a fantastic singer," I said.

"He's a better drummer," Johns insisted. I no longer wanted to cut his hair. Now I wanted to pull it from his fat head. "Besides," Johns continued, "we already have a singer, and it was hard enough convincing her to let Jimmy do the one number." Obviously, logic wasn't going to work here, so I switched stratagem.

"If Mia could see him performing the way I just saw him performing..." I allowed a look of ribald lust to flush my face. "Wow," I said.

Johns seemed slightly confused; as though he didn't know whether to be jealous of my admiration of Jimmy or happy that his friend was finally even being admired. It was all I could do to keep from pinching his cheek, he was so cute. "I'll discuss it with the band," he said. "Anyway, on a different topic — is Schwartz having any luck with the Coneely case?"

"Don't you mean the Hanson case?" I said. "Actually, I think he's a little ticked off at the favoritism your department seems to be showing Coneely."

"Favoritism?" Johns said. "What favoritism?"

"Are you aware that he's skipped town?" I asked being intentionally confrontational now.

"He didn't skip town. We know exactly where he is. He's in Philadelphia at the arch diocese."

"Would you have let any other murder suspect leave town on business?"

"He's not another suspect. He's a priest, a Catholic priest, a Roman Catholic priest. He's not going anywhere to stay. The pope will see to it personally."

"Explain that to Schwartz," I said. "He seemed pretty upset when Donatelli called and told us."

"Donatelli called?" Johns said. "Why didn't Coneely call himself?"

"Does it matter?" I asked.

"Well, it's just that Donatelli was the one who called me too, and he called the D.A. It just seems a little odd. It's probably nothing."

"What do you think it could mean?" I asked.

"Well, if they wanted to make sure Coneely would leave town, I guess they'd make sure it was okay with us before dropping it on him. You know, so that when he objected that he'd have to clear it with the D.A. and me, they could tell him that it was already taken care of."

"Nobody cleared it with Schwartz. They just called and left a message that it was a done deal. Coneely was supposed to meet with Schwartz this afternoon. Maybe this whole thing was to keep Coneely from talking with Schwartz."

"Now you're accusing the archbishop of complicity?" Johns said sarcastically.

"Well," I said. "I was just conjecturing. Anyway, you should probably rejoin your friends." I'd noticed that they were watching us with toying grins on their faces.

"Yeah," Johns said. "I'll do that in a minute. First, though, I was wondering if you'd be free to come hear us tomorrow night?"
Chapter 13

A date with the city's chief homicide investigator – if my dad could only see me now. He'd disown me. Then he'd re-own me again just for the pleasure of disowning me a second time. During the final set, the waitress tapped me on my day-dreaming shoulder to tell me that Mia had sent her after me. I waved to Trevor (my Ishmael,) who sat idle as the trumpet player wailed It Never Entered My Mind to the gentle accompaniment of the keyboard.

As we drove back to Schwartz's house, I asked Mia to describe for me what she was looking for in a man. She grinned, licked her lip, and said, "Money, brains, humor, strength, wisdom, integrity, caring, and a genuine awe of all things real and beautiful. Mostly money though. Why?"

"Seriously," I said avoiding her question. "What about talent, raw sex appeal, an innate charm? Don't those things appeal to you at all?"

"Talent is okay if it pays the bills, sex appeal fades, and charm is a lie. I want a man who will appeal to me as much in twenty years as he does today. Now, tell me why you're asking? Do you want me to double with Jimmy on your date with Johns?"

I hadn't been thinking about a double date; but still, this was one smart cookie. "How'd you know?" I asked.

"I live with a detective," she said coyly. "Come on. I'm not stupid. You spent the whole night down there, and you told me that you were talking with Johns about me and Jimmy. Yeah, okay. I'll do it. When's the big night?"

"Tomorrow," I said, "unless you have other plans."

"Nah," she said. "Tomorrow's fine. Are we going to see them play?"

"Yeah," I said. "They're playing at some club in Oakland called The Century."

"The Century?" Mia said impressed. "How'd they manage that?"

"Is that a prestigious club?" I asked.

"Depends on what you consider prestige? Do you like Stevie Ray Vaughan? Springsteen? Cindy Lauper?"

"You mean they all played there? Wow, FdP must be good," I said. "That's how they got the gig. They're opening for them. Well, there's no accounting for taste."

***

At breakfast the following morning, Schwartz reminded me that we would be attending the pre-noon viewing at the funeral home. That would leave me the early morning to try to arrange for a local music critic to attend the evening's jam session. Once Schwartz and Mia had retired to the garage, I called Jana at the Gamut offices to get the phone number for her contact at the local paper. She gave me the information and told me to say "hello" for her "to that nice Mr. Schwartz."

The man at the number Jana had supplied was named Freling. He was pleasant, but he seemed put-out by the amount of information I wanted for a simple mention in the magazine article I was writing. I explained that this had nothing to do with the article I was writing, but that I was hoping he could simply put me in touch with the paper's local music critic. He gave me the number, but suggested that we owed them special consideration when the case finally broke. I told him that I had no authority to make promises for Schwartz, but said that I would see what I could do.

Clement "Mother" Fuyer answered on the eighth ring. His constricted voice sounded as though he was speaking through a trumpet mute as he said, "Mother Fuyer, what do you want?"

"Mr. Fuyer," I said, "Hello, my name is Cat Hoskin. I'm with Gamut Magazine. How are you this morning?"

"Sleepy," he said. "I was out late working, smoking and drinking last night. Mostly smoking," he chuckled. Then he added, "Leastly working. What can I do for you, Cat? And please, call me 'Mother.'"

"Well, Mother," I said. "Have you ever heard of a group called FdP?"

"Sure," he said. "They're pretty good. Is Gamut doing something on up-and-coming bands or something?"

"No," I said. "Are they up-and-coming?"

"Sure," he said, "if they can stay fresh. They've got a bit of an albatross to shake first though."

"Albatross?" I said, not liking what I was thinking he might be meaning.

"Well," he said, "they're young, you know? And some of them have parents in a blues band, you see. Now, I've never heard them myself, but who wants to hear a blues band anyway? Anyhow, the kids feel a certain loyalty to these geezers; so any gig they get, they invite the oldies to tag along."

"And that's an albatross?" I asked.

"Sure, it cheeses off the club bosses, you know? Even if they play for no money, they expect free drinks. That costs the owners plenty."

"Do any of the owners try to capitalize on the opportunity?"

"What opportunity?" Foyer asked.

"The opportunity to attract a cross over clientele; blues fans, parents. These clubs are always trying to attract the same crowd, the 21 to 35 year olds, right? But FdP is young and cute and Humpback and the Whailers is more mature and really talented. Their shows could be like N'Sync meets The Rolling Stones."

"Well," Foyer said, "it's more like Gwar meets the Alligator Allstars, but I see your point. So you want me to write up a review as though the shows were planned as family get together nights?"

"Well," I said, "not exactly. More like family cross-culture/trans-generational night."

"Interesting," he said. "And exactly what does Gamut magazine have to do with all of this?"

"Like I said — I work for Gamut. I could show your article to my editor. Maybe he'll like it. Maybe he won't. That part depends on how good an article you write."

Foyer was no dummy. He got it, and soon he was promising to be in the audience at The Century Club that evening. Shortly after getting off of the phone with Foyer, I was in my room, dressing for an afternoon at the funeral home. Soon after that, I was zipping down the Blvd. of the Allies with Schwartz in a 1970 Jensen FF.

Schwartz smiled convivially and asked me if we'd had fun the night before. "Pardon?" I asked.

"Mia and you; did you have fun last night?"

"Sure," I said. "I guess."

"I understand you ran into Detective Johns."

"Yes," I said. "Did you know he was in a blues band?"

He nodded. "Would a report be helpful to me?" Schwartz asked.

I was surprised. "What?"

"Did you discuss the case with him at all?"

"Well, yes, a little. We discussed Donatelli's calling you instead of Coneely..."

"From the beginning please," he said, and soon I was telling him the whole story of the evening. Frankly, I thought he might have had an ulterior motivation for wanting to know what Mia and I had done that night, but jealousy is a tricky thing.

***

The line to kneel before the Hanson corpse was long — stretching all of the way out to the parking lot. Some were genuine friends of the family; others were more probably curiosity seekers anxious to steal a peek at the murdered man. Odd that they were more fondly greeted by Peggy when finally they reached her than was Schwartz, who was there only to find the killer of her father. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "I thought you said you understood that Coneely was the killer."

"I never said that at all," Schwartz said.

"Yes, you did," Peggy insisted. "And you said that you wouldn't have to talk with us again."

"What I said was that I thought the possibility seemed remote. However, that was before I acquired certain information. Can you please collect your siblings and their spouses and meet with me in the office off of the anteroom?" Schwartz turned and stalked off to the office where he had interviewed the Hansons the day prior. It was a large room with a sunny window and an oversized mahogany table. Schwartz asked that I stand near the door, and he sat at the head of the table near the phone. Gradually, the room filled with the bereaved family.

He folded his arms tightly across his chest and gestured with a quick head motion for me to close the doors. "What information could you possibly have?" Lewis asked.

"First, I'd like to ask a question," Schwartz said. "Which of you informed the church about the comments I made concerning confession?"

Nobody said a word, but fast glances passed between several of the family members. The Melhornes' eyes met for a fraction of a second. Peggy caught the attention of Lewis as he caught hers. Carl quickly shifted his gaze to Sam who was looking at Melissa who was looking at Sam; all as Sara tried to capture the attention of Carl. Meanwhile, Matthew's head tilted around the room like a pigeon trying to locate some grain. Peggy's eyes found Schwartz fast, and she said, "What makes you think one of us called the church?"

"I was supposed to meet with Coneely last night, but before he could come to my house, he was called out of town by the archbishop — in the middle of a murder investigation no less. I suspect that when he returns he'll have been told not to hear any confessions for a while. Is anybody going to confess to making the call? No? Very well. It doesn't really matter anyway. I believe I know exactly what happened to your father and why, but I can't prove it yet. It was something that Mrs. Melhorne said in front of Miss Hoskin that clued me to the motive, but I'll need to talk more with one of you before that can be considered evidence. You can rejoin your company now. I'll be in touch after the funeral. I believe that's on Monday. The person I need to speak with can expect to hear from me on Tuesday morning. Until then, I suggest that the party be extremely cautious. I believe you know who you are." He stood and headed for the door. Sara Hanson spoke first, saying, "Wait," but before she could say more the others had all chimed in with their own demands of Schwartz. He merely waved a dismissive hand and said, "Try to be a unified family, won't you? Your father's corpse is in the other room with a collection of mourners and a mythic chorus of the morbid and moribund. Tuesday will come soon enough." I pushed open the door as he rushed toward me. Sam Hanson suddenly became irate, and he shouted, "What gives you the right?"

Schwartz turned and walked back into the room. In a level and respectful tone he said, "I'm working at the request of the City of Pittsburgh. I have an investigator's license from the state of Pennsylvania, and the reputation of a potentially innocent man gives me even further moral authority. My methods may prove faulted, but I have my reasons for them, and I am under no compulsion to explain them to any of you."

"You're suggesting," Sara said coolly, "that one of us has information that could point to another one of us as the killer, that he or she knows it, that the killer knows it, and that the person with the information is in danger. That's preposterous. And if it's true, then aren't you taking a chance by announcing it and then leaving for several days?"

"The person who has the information also has access to the phone system and thereby the police. Protection is a phone call away," Schwartz said. "You should all be safe. None of you will be alone for the next several days. Funerals tend to be the kinds of events where everybody congregates for days."

"What if you're wrong?" Melissa asked as tears ran down her face. "What if the person has to be alone with the killer?"

"Melissa!" Peggy said scolding. "There is no killer except Coneely. This is another bluff of his. Dad died the way the priest said he would — at the house that night."

Schwartz gestured again, and I shut the doors. He retook his seat as he said, "Let's discuss that night again. I'd like to know exactly who said what and when." He looked around the room at the whole Hanson brood. None of them was offering any assistance, so he cajoled them. "As I understand it from Coneely, a reporter from the paper was there and another from the radio. Is that right?" The general consensus was that it was correct. "He also tells me that Peggy wasn't told that they were going to be there; that you intentionally called the conference for when you knew she would be at work."

"They knew I'd disapprove," Peggy insisted. "I didn't want Coneely using my father's illness for his own gain."

"It was Dad's wish too," Marjorie said. "He believed in euthanasia. He wanted the church's rule changed."

"Because they brainwashed him into it," Peggy said.

"What's the point here, Mr. Schwartz?" Carl asked agitatedly.

"Can we do this later?" Sam asked.

"Certainly," Schwartz said. "'Til Tuesday then?"
Chapter 14

Schwartz and I left the funeral home and went directly to St. Bart's eating cold pork salad sandwiches (which Beverly had packed in Schwartz's picnic basket) on the way. Once parked, the next thing he did was ask for my cell phone. Since this had become a trend, I had already secreted it from my purse and had it hidden in the folds of my skirt, so that the instant he asked for it I was able to magically produce it before he'd finished the requesting sentence. I'd been hoping to engender a look of surprise, but all I got was a slight eye roll.

He called information. (An especially expensive call from a cell phone, but it was his dime — I hoped.) He asked for and received the number of the Coroner's office. He then called and asked to speak with Wanda Corwin. Remembering the way he'd collapsed into himself like an imploding pumpkin the first time he'd met this woman, I expected his telephone demeanor to be reminiscent of that episode. To my surprise, he was as bloated with her as he had earlier been with the Hansons. After some salutatory remarks void of even a hint of romance, he got to the gist of his call. "Can you tell me exactly how Chlordane was administered in its function as a termite killer just prior to its banishment?" He later filled me in on her side of the conversation. Her reply was, "Well, according to the website for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, it was pumped into the ground around contaminated sites."

He then said, "I see. Does the website also tell you how long the chemical remains in the contaminated ground?"

"Roughly for twenty years or so, I believe."

"So any Chlordane so used just prior to the ban should still be evident in soil samples. Is that correct?"

"Well, it can dissipate through evaporation, so it would have to be a soil sample taken from an area not prone to exposure to any direct sunlight."

"If I provide such a sample, can you have it analyzed for me?"

"I'd be happy to. Of course."

"Thank you very much, Ms. Corwin."

"If you'd like, you can call me Wanda."

"Thank you, Wanda."

"May I call you Lupa?"

"It's my name. I answer to it."

"Oh. Okay, goodbye then — Lupa?"

After he'd hung up, based solely on the half of the conversation I'd heard, I said, "Well, that was a little cold."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, you're attracted to that woman aren't you?"

"I suppose that since I have agreed to submit to your doing a profile of my work on this case, I'm obliged to share some personal information. However, I don't think that this can possibly be argued to be applicable."

"It's not about the article," I said. "This is about helping you to make nice-nice with a pretty girl who just might be your intellectual equal."

He sighed and turned sidewise in his seat. "She is a pretty woman; you're correct there. Also, I made no judgment as to her intelligence so far as whether it equals mine or not. I'm simply not interested in her romantically."

He turned as if all had been said that needed said. I, however, had other feelings on the matter. "You were," I said.

He turned again. "What?"

"You were interested in her the other day when we first met her. What happened?"

"If you must know," he said resigning himself to the idea that I wasn't going to let up, "it was something she said. Something that told me that pursuing a relationship with her would be fruitless."

"Something she said just now?" I asked.

"Something she said the other day — as we were about to leave. You see, I made an assumption and it proved false. I was gruff just now because I don't want to be seen as flirtatious by her due to the fact that her comment of the other day proves to me that we, she and I, would not work romantically."

"She said something to imply that she's not attracted to you?"

"No, in fact, she implied just the opposite during this last conversation. All the more reason, actually, for me to dissuade her from further advances."

"I still don't get it. What did she say the other day?"

"She said, 'The one who really killed him is God.' She was referring to Mr. Hanson."

"And that tells you she isn't compatible with you how?"

"I'm atheist. I need to be with an agnostic at best. Any time I spend actively pursuing a theist is wasted time. Philosophical compatibility is..."

"You actually are atheist?" I asked.

"Yes, of course," he said.

"Beverly said..."

"Beverly is in love with me," Schwartz said. "When we discuss religion, she selectively hears those of my ideas that she can reconcile with her own. I do not wish to be guilty of the same sophistry."

I was still trying to piece together how Schwartz knew that Beverly was in love with him, but I asked, "So you're willing to arbitrarily dismiss a potential relationship on the grounds of one sentence? Besides, why do we have to be discussing relationships? Just ask the lady out on a date."

Schwartz had decided the discussion was through, and he stepped out of the car. He walked to the rectory door, and began pounding. I scurried after him as quickly as I could. I had no desire to further scuff my heel. By the time I'd reached him, a tall, thin, balding man with a dull expression and a roman collar had answered the knock. "My name is Lupa Schwartz. I'm working on the murder case involving Michael Coneely. I need to speak with him. When are you expecting him back?"

The dull man shook his head. "I'm not sure," he said. "Before four I expect. Somebody has to hear the confessions and perform vespers. They had a priest from St. Ann's come by this morning, but nobody's been arranged-for for this evening."

"Can't you do that?" Schwartz asked.

"Me?" the dull man asked in mild bemused shock. "I'm not a priest. I'm Brother Devlin. I'm the Devlin inside," he concluded with a well-rehearsed pun.

"Do you have a key to the hall?" Schwartz asked as though suddenly inspired.

"Sure. Do you need to go inside for something? The K of C keeps some whiskey behind the bar for when they have their to-dos, so I'll have to come in with you, if you do have to go in." It seemed that the good brother had better plans for his idle time than showing a pushy private detective around a vacant social hall.

"Miss Hoskin will be with me. She'll vouch for my honesty," Schwartz said.

"Well, who'll vouch for hers?" Devlin said displaying his own version of a quick wit. "Look," he continued, "I presume that you're okay, seeing as how you're working for the city and all, but remember, if there's any whiskey missing, we'll suspect you first."

"And we," Schwartz said, "will suspect you first." Amazing how little of all those comedies had rubbed off. We got Devlin's key and entered the hall sans monk. Schwartz had learned the layout earlier the day he'd examined the hall's outside. He felt around for light switches and directed himself and me directly to the kitchen where he rooted around in the drawers until he located a large slotted spoon. Then he moved on to the cabinets which produced a water glass, some plastic wrap and a thick rubber band.

I took an eerie chill standing in that lifeless building. It smelled old and dusty. The main hall was immense having been converted from an old church. The windows were heavily leaded, and the hardwood floor had a rudimentary basketball court design, though the nets had long since been removed. There was an added creepiness in that the altar had been converted into a theatrical stage with a heavy curtain and small wings which fed stage-right from the kitchen and stage-left from the outside.

From here, we moved back outside to a location near the main water inlet. Lupa instructed me to watch for any activity while he stooped and began to shovel away large scoops of soil. He'd dug down about six inches when his hand came up from the hole carrying a rusted St. Christopher medal. "Perfect," he said. "This will do perfectly." He wrapped the medal in some of the plastic and filled the glass with dirt from the hole's bottom. He covered the glass with the remainder of the plastic and sealed it with the rubber band. We refilled the hole, then locked the hall, and returned to the rectory to refund Bro. Devlin's key.

"Did you get what you needed?" Brother Devlin asked.

"Yes," Schwartz said, "but could you answer some questions for me?"

"I'll try," the monastic said impatiently.

"How long ago did the church declare St. Christopher no longer to be a saint?"

"He's still a saint," Devlin said. "That's a common misconception. It's just that his importance has been re-evaluated since Vatican II. That was in — I believe 1969 or 70."

"Did people stop wearing St. Christopher medals immediately?"

"Some did. Mostly, he became significant only for people traveling. Some people still have St. Christopher medals and statuettes in their cars."

"But do many people still wear the medals on a daily basis?" Schwartz asked.

"Not very many," Devlin answered. "I probably haven't seen one in at least fifteen years. Maybe more."

"That's what I wanted to know," Schwartz said. "Thank you very much for your assistance. Please tell Michael that I'll call him this evening to set up a new meeting."

***

We drove to the coroner's office to drop off the soil sample and the corroded medal. Schwartz didn't even ask to speak with Miss Corwin. He simply deposited his booty, and off we went.

On the trip home, I tried to make sense of what was all the hullabaloo over the medal? After finding out what he'd learned in his earlier conversation with Corwin, I began a minor interrogation. "You want to see if there's any Chlordane in the soil around the church hall. Is that right?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"Okay, I can understand that. So what's the significance of the medal you found?"

"It might help to date the soil sample. I think you'll agree that it's a reasonable assumption that the medal has been sitting in that same soil for several decades. The corrosion proves that it's not sterling. It's slightly porous, so it too should have probably absorbed some of the chemical if it's been exposed since before 1988 as the evidence would suggest. Frankly, if I'd found just a coin or a piece of porcelain, it might have been compelling evidence. However, the medal has a specific mythology that makes it ideal. I purposely chose to excavate where I did because children often play on pipes, and they're constantly losing things. Also the pipes carry moisture which would help to prevent evaporation of the Chlordane."

"So if you find Chlordane there, what will that prove?" I asked.

"If I find evidence of Chlordane it will prove nothing at all." Schwartz said, and then he changed the subject. "I don't believe there will be any more progress in the case today. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I doubt that Coneely will be available to talk tomorrow. Would it be all right with you if I showed up at the Century Club tonight? I'll ask Beverly to be my guest so that I won't seem a third wheel. I've been wanting to hear Detective Johns' band."

"Are you a fan of the blues?" I asked.

"Not especially, no. However," he said, "I am a fan of the police department."
Chapter 15

Our return to the Victorian found Schwartz and me alone in the home for the first time since my arrival in Pittsburgh. Mia had been sent to retrieve the Tracer, and Bev had apparently decided to accompany her. The note on the hall table suggested that they would be stopping by the market for a ham for that evening's dinner, and it suddenly dawned on me that for the past couple of days Schwartz had been eating non-kosher in an almost belligerent manner.

Moments after our arrival, the Tracer pulled into the garage entry. Schwartz started down the steps to inquire about the car, and Beverly met him with her canvas shopping bag. She asked him to help her carry the bag as Schwartz protested that he had to check on the car. "The car will be there later. Do you expect a woman to carry all of this weight up all of those stairs while there's a big strong man available to carry it for her?" Beverly insisted.

Schwartz conceded, and the pair left for the kitchen. "Did you get it?" I asked Mia.

She smiled and tapped a paper bag she held. The tinny hollow sound of a license plate tinked that she had. "Tell, Schwartz that I'll be up shortly. I've got to get this plate to that Fiero before the police notice that it hasn't got one. Keep him out of the garage. If he comes looking for me before I get back, he'll want to know where I went."

Mia had called it right. Schwartz had entered the stair well before I could even get to the top of the first flight. Fortunately, however, I'd already had the foresight to think of a tactic to turn him around. "Did you ask Beverly yet?"

"Ask her what?" Schwartz asked.

I didn't know if he was being coy, facetious, or cruel. "Did you ask her to be your guest to the Century Club tonight?"

The look on Beverly's face when Schwartz asked her to be his guest that night erased almost all doubt that she was, in fact, infatuated by if not in love with him. All through dinner that night (roast ham with cloves, three-cheese potato casserole and a pear sauce side dish) she grinned, and her foot was inconsolable in its need to wiggle.

After dinner, while Beverly, Mia and I washed dishes, Schwartz began mixing bread flour, yeast, spices and raisins. It was the first time I'd seen him in the kitchen to do household chores since I'd arrived. He moved quickly and purposefully, glancing from time to time at the recipe card he'd placed on his work surface. In short order he had assembled a dough which he wrapped in plastic and placed in the cooler. He then excused himself and retired to his bedroom to dress for the evening.

"What was that all about?" I asked. "Was he just suddenly overcome with the desire to make raisin bread?"

"No," Beverly answered, "he always does all of the cooking on Sunday. It's his way of giving me a day off. But I don't think it's raisin bread though. I think we'll be having hot-cross-buns for breakfast. I hope you like lemon. He's a little heavy handed with the zester for the icing."

The dishes done, the three of us ladies set off to gussy up for the night. I took a quick shower and moussed my short hair, put on my minimal makeup and set about selecting a dress from my meager bag. I'd really only brought one "night out" type of outfit, and I'd worn that the night before, so I was going to have to improvise. I selected a pair of snug, dressy looking jeans and a cream colored blouse. I left the blouse unbuttoned respectfully yet seductively and accessorized with a brown belt and slim gold rolo necklace. I looked good, but not great.

I stepped out onto the porch where we had all agreed to meet. Mia was the only one there, and when I saw her, I was glad that Trevor had made a point to ask me to invite her along for his friend. It helped diminish the overwhelming envy I was feeling for her. She was dressed all in black; black pumps, black stockings with a back-seam, a low-cut and clingy black dress and a thin black choker with a single and tiny pearl cameo. Her black hair cascaded to one side, and her makeup was subtlety applied but so vibrant that her facial hues shone against her neutral base colors in such a way that her beautiful face seemed all that she was — the sum of her parts.

"Wow!" I said. "You look great. I thought you didn't have any feelings for Jimmy."

"Excuse me?" Mia said.

"That outfit," I said. "You're wearing that for somebody."

"So you're saying that a person's choice of evening attire is decided by who she may or may not want to impress?"

"That is what I'm saying. Yes."

"Then may I ask—who are you trying to insult?"

"Excuse me?"

"I thought you were kind of warm for Johns is all."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, if I'm dressed to impress Jimmy, you can't be dressed to impress Trevor. Not in that outfit." She was lucky she had that coy smile on her face, or I might have been tempted to show her what a real insult was, and I might even have added in a little injury for good measure. Instead I got defensive.

"I only had so much room in my suitcase, and I wore my party dress last night."

"Would you like to borrow something of mine?" I thought back to the evening before and remembered the shimmering top that seemed to have been designed to contour a playmate, and I saw the dress she was wearing as she stood before me now; the crepe burrito wrapper of a dress that somehow seemed a shade less descent than nakedness. These were the kinds of clothes she wore, and here she was asking me if I wanted to borrow something of hers.

"Absolutely," I said. "Yes, absolutely. What have you got?"

***

Schwartz and Beverly were waiting for us when we came down to the porch for the second time. Beverly was in a dark floral print with her hair fastened back both neatly and loosely, while Schwartz wore a teal silk shirt and a pair of dapper black cuffed pants. I wore an unusual smile on my face, in addition to my unusual outfit. I looked good (different but good,) and I knew it. I hadn't worn a skirt this size since third grade. It was plaid, mostly dark green with red accents, pleated and light. I had stockings on, white with a thick band at the top that slightly added contour to my thigh in a way that would have looked like it was choking off cellulite if the band hadn't been so broad. As it was, it gave my leg definition and length. Short boots with tall heels gave my legs even more shape. I also wore a white turtleneck top, and over this I wore a solid green vest that matched the skirt. Mia felt that my short hair needed some splash, so she ran over my do with a volumizer and sprayed a little red into my hair from a can of spray-on color. I'd removed my chain when Mia had said that she felt jewelry was ornamentation best reserved for those who rely on distractions from their faces.

It almost felt dishonest to approach dating this way, but as my best friend from high school used to say — almost ain't is.

Schwartz's eyebrows made a slight twitch, and Beverly smiled cheerfully when she first saw us. "Well," she said, "look at the two of you, would ya? Lupa, did you see these girls?"

"You two are riding in the back," Schwartz said.

***

We selected a table near the stage. Then, while the others waited for a waitress, I approached the bar. "Hi," I said to the bartender in my friendliest tone. "I hear you make the best bourbon and water rocks in the tri-states. Can you make one for me, please? And you know what would really make that drink just right? A twist of lime. No fruit pulp; just the peel. Could you do that for me?"

"Lady," he said, "I know what a twist is. Would you like me to rub it on the glass rim too?"

I collapsed onto the bar top, exhausted from all of the charm I'd been trying to manifest. "Yes, please," I said. "Thank goodness. I was beginning to think there wasn't going to be a bartender in all of Pittsburgh who knew how to make a proper drink. How much?"

"Eight dollars." he said, but I was sure he meant Canadian dollars.

"How much?" I asked in disbelief.

"Eight dollars," he said. "Plus gratuity if you're so inclined."

"It's a shot of bourbon and some water," I said. "How does that come to eight dollars? Unless you grew the lime from a seed."

"There's two bands tonight," the bartender explained.

"Never mind," I said. "Can you just tell me, do you know Mother Foyer to see him?"

"That's him over there," he said pointing to the bars end. "Are you the press lady he said he was here to impress?"

"Yeah, probably; unless he called for the consumer protection reporter that polices price gouging on the TV news."

"You're a funny lady," he said. "Do you want something to drink or not?"

"How much for a glass of water?"

"That would be free," he said which gave me inspiration.

"How much for a shot of bourbon?"

"A shot is four-fifty," he said, and he shrugged. "Don't ask me why, I just work here. We charge eight dollars for mixed drinks on band nights."

"I don't get it," I said. "It's more expensive if I only dirty one glass. Whatever. I'll take a glass of water with a lime twist, and I'll take a shot of bourbon."

After getting my drinks (plural not by choice,) I moved to Foyer's end of the bar. "Mr. Foyer," I said, "Hello, I'm Cat Hoskin." That was when I realized that I didn't have a free hand to extend to him. He, however, hadn't realized this yet, and his hand was waiting. I looked blankly at his palm for a moment then took a deep draught from the water glass and poured the bourbon into the vacated space. After setting down the empty shot glass, I shook Mother's hand.

"Wow," he said, "Do all magazine people drink like that? If they do, I'm definitely the man for this job."

After laughing politely, I said, "Thanks for coming. Um, I'm sure the article won't make tomorrow's paper since it's Sunday's, so when will the piece run?"

"It'll be in Monday's paper. When will your editor get to see the article?"

"I'll ship it to him on Tuesday."

"Great, can I ask you a question?"

"I'll send it no matter whether the piece is favorable or not. I have no intention of trying to dictate your copy. Is that what you were wondering?"

"Actually, yes. Also, what's your interest in this band?"

"I'm sort of a friend of the clarinet player. But I really do think they're very good."

"Well, let's hope so. Of course, it's not just a matter of how good they are. How the crowd takes to them is important too. Have you seen the audience?"

"I haven't been in to the stage area yet, no, but how bad can it be? Stevie Ray Vaughn and Bruce Springstein are featured on the marquee outside."

"That's because the owner is proud of the fact that they played here, and he's at least sixty. Well, it was nice meeting you. I'm going in to stake out my area."

We shook hands again, and he gathered his steno pad and tape recorder and strolled off for the show while I took a sip from my four dollar bourbon and set off to rejoin my own group. They'd found a table where they seemed huddled uncomfortably like a self-preserving island of normalcy in a sea of Goths, pierced thugs, and other freaks. At least that's how it seemed to my mid-western mind. Once I'd had a chance to assess the situation, I realized that our group was comprised of a middle aged Irish-Catholic woman in love with a Jewish atheist, a genius who had a compulsion to flatten the tires of minor traffic offenders, a female auto mechanic who oozed both sex and chastity, and myself, a reporter for a national magazine dressed up like a parochial school principal's fantasy hooker to impress a clarinet playing homicide detective. Freak, it seemed to me, was a relative term.
Chapter 16

It was still early, and the crowd was still sparse when Humpback and the Blues Whailers took the stage. Schwartz, Mia and Beverly had staked out a table far back enough that the stage lights didn't illuminate it. We could see the band, but (while the lights were up) the band couldn't see us. Apparently, the boys in FdP had given some guidance as to what numbers to open with, since their first two tunes (the instrumental Can't Turn You Loose and Hey, Bartender) seemed to meet with some favor. The audience was at least politely civil if not overly enthusiastic. The pieces were delivered fast, loud and almost seemed contemporary. Then came the third song, and the mood shift was palpable in the by-now growing crowd as the band began Europa.

Smooth, rhythmic, ethereal guitar tones rode a cresting wave of unearthly beauty. The hush that fell over the crowd was partly the result of the harmonious strains and partly the result of the invisible guitarist. The musician was absent from the stage. The Whailers had no electric guitarist. So where was the music coming from? Softly, gradually, one by one, the instruments joined in; first the drums, then the bass, next the horns and keyboard almost imperceptibly until finally the singer joined in wordless vocalization. So where was the guitar music coming from? Soon, Jimmy stood from behind the drums. He came forward and stood center stage. A spot fell on him, and he began to sing. He'd written lyrics — well — he or somebody had. Lyrics to an until-now instrumental melody.

He sang with eyes closed and heart open; his energy building as the constituents of the band were deconstructed. One by one the instruments fell off in the same sequence they had first joined in. Then, when finally the only instruments remaining were the unseen guitar and Jimmy's voice, the spot left Jimmy and found the guitarist standing in the wings. It was a kid in baggy pants with a metal stud in his lower lip, the guitarist for FdP.

All heads turned to watch and cheer the Young Turk. All heads save one, that is. Mia was apparently unphased by the absent spotlight. She continued to watch Jimmy as though he emitted his own glow. Gradually, as my eyes acclimated to the darkness, I could see that he was watching her too. I doubted that he could see her, but he was watching her.

As the song ended, the crowd cheered. The band began again. The keyboard kicked up, and the horns joined in as the song Crossroads abruptly overtook the moment. Jimmy had returned to the drums before the cheers had died and before the spotlight had returned to the stage. When the light did return, it found a young man standing center stage. He was handsome, tall and lean. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt and carpenter shorts, and he held the microphone close to his mouth as he sang, transfixing the crowd in their seats. But as good as he was, as good as he sounded, as good as he looked, the song was mostly built on the music.

Progressively, the audience forgot about the handsome young man, the lead singer from FdP, as the horns and bass and keyboard championed the song. After the bridge, when the lyrics began anew, the young man was gone from the stage. In his place stood the woman who belonged there, the singer for Humpback and the Blues Whailers. The band was playing Roll With Me, Henry for a crowd that had mostly never even heard of Etta James, and they were playing it well. The anti-climax was distinct, though well timed. As the song was completed, the singer thanked the crowd, and announced that they were taking a break.

Then, as if a saboteur had been planted in the sound booth, the house DJ put on a rap record. All of the hard work, the scheming, the teamwork between the Whailers and FdP was being undone by an injudicious segue. If this was allowed to continue, by the time the band retook the stage, their well-meant collusion of blues and swing would be once again as foreign to this audience as a meatloaf in India.

I noticed Jimmy and Trevor headed toward us from the stage, but I couldn't stay for chit-chat. I wanted to get to the tin-eared DJ before he could do any further damage. "Mr. Schwartz," I said, "Did I tell you that Detective Johns feels that Fr. Coneely may have been coerced into going to Philadelphia?"

"Not in so many words, no," Schwartz said. "Do you think I should discuss it with him?"

"Here he comes now. What better time than the present?" Schwartz stood and met Trevor about two feet before he made it to the table. As he brow-beat my date, I excused myself and went in search of the DJ. Soon, I spotted a twenty-ish man with ridiculous sideburns in an oversized headset biting his lower lip and shifting his shoulders rhythmically to a different tune than the one playing over the speakers. I tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped. As the headset came off, a look of confusion came on. "Hello, beautiful," he said. "Do you have a request?"

"Yes," I said. "I was wondering, since the band is so blues influenced, can't you play something a little more key-of-C?"

"KFC, like the chicken?"

"No," I said, "key of C." This time I put more emphasis on the word of.

"Like the Knights of Columbus?"

"I'm not saying K. Never mind. Can you play Foghat or Stevie Ray Vaughan?"

"Oh, no, I don't think so. Not for this crowd. They wouldn't appreciate it?"

"Didn't you see them during that last set? They were loving it."

"Sorry, I have to play what the boss says."

"Do you know Mother Foyer?" I asked.

"I've seen him around, why?"

"Did you know he's here tonight to write a review of this show?"

"I heard a rumor. Why?"

"You're part of the show," I said. "An important part."

"I'm just here to spin CDs between sets. He's not paying attention to me." I'd pulled my press pass from my purse while he spoke. I showed it to him.

"Foyer's review is going to go to my editor. He may want to put it in the next issue of Gamut. Here's a preview of how I see it reading:

"The bands performed admirably to an appreciative audience who might have appreciated the show even more if not for an inept house DJ who seemed more concerned with collecting his payola than in maintaining a cohesive program.

"How do you think your boss would like reading that in a national magazine?"

"So," he said smiling through gritted teeth, "what is it you wanted to hear?"

***

Lynyrd Skynyrd's Curtis Blow may seem like a strange follow up to a rap song, but it's a much better lead-in to the music of the Delta than anything by Eminem. I stopped off at the bar for another free water and four-and-a-half dollar bourbon before crossing back to the table. Schwartz and Johns were deep in conversation. Jimmy, Mia and Beverly had formed their own fellowship. As I took my seat, Schwartz called me over to relay some information to Trevor.

"What are you men discussing?" I said playing the coquette.

"Schwartz tells me that you two were at the church hall digging little holes this morning," Trevor said.

"He tells you true," I said. "Did he tell you what he found?"

"No," Trevor said. "All he'll say is that I should ask you to fill in the holes."

"So to speak," Schwartz said with a foolish grin. For a smart guy, this fellow was one poor student to his comedy mentors.

I told Trevor about the St. Christopher's medal and the conversation we'd had with Brother Devlin. He had the same questions I'd had. Finally he understood. "So," he said, "if there's no Chlordane in the soil, it means what? Do you have evidence that the church bought Chlordane to use on the hall?" Schwartz put his finger to his lips indicating that he had nothing to offer, so Trevor tried to work it out verbally. "Coneely — or whoever killed Hanson — got the Chlordane somewhere. There's no reason to test the soil for evidence of Chlordane unless you want to prove that the toxin is either there or not there. If you prove that it's there, it doesn't prove that the murder-poison came from that source. It only proves that they had termites once prior to the ban. If you prove that it isn't there, it serves no purpose unless you have evidence that it was bought at one time specifically for use on the hall. Absence of poison would mean that somebody saved the poison for some other purpose. But even that doesn't make sense, since Coneely wasn't the priest back then. Unless you're suggesting that he found the poison and took advantage of his find to kill Hanson. Is that it? You know for a fact that somebody got Chlordane to use on termites in the hall, but you suspect that they never used it until Coneely found it and used it to kill Hanson. If that's it, then it's a damn lucky thing you found that medal, and it's a damn lucky thing you had a witness. Otherwise the evidence would have never held up in court."

"I'm not concerned with my evidence holding up in court," Schwartz said. "You could easily get more soil gathered with proper forensic technique. In this instance, my concern is the court of public opinion alone."

"What are you saying?" Trevor asked.

"I wish to spur someone to action. Could you let it slip to a certain party what you've just worked out here tonight?"

"You want me to let it slip that you took a soil sample from the church hall, and that you found a St. Christopher's medal that dates the sample to at least ten years ago, and that you think it might implicate Coneely in the murder," Trevor said.

"Could you do that?" Schwartz asked.

"Well, that kind of depends on who you want me to let it slip to."

"Matthew Hanson, the victim's youngest son."

"The insurance guy?"

"That's correct."

"Well, yeah, I guess I could let it slip to him," Trevor said. "So you don't think Coneely did it then?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, why else would I be letting it slip to Matthew? Oh, you think he did it, don't you?"

"I didn't say that either."

"You're a cagey bastard, you know that?" Trevor said with an appreciative smirk. "Well, okay, I'll work it in. I'm supposed to meet with some of them tomorrow afternoon. I'll slip it in then."

"Which ones are you meeting with?" Schwartz asked.

"All of them except for Peggy and the ag writer."

Schwartz turned with a cocky smirk to me. "Satisfactory," he said.
Chapter 17

As the evening proceeded, The Whailers played one more set, during which Jimmy stayed put behind his drums. However, after the set ended, as the band left the stage, before anybody had said "goodnight" on behalf of the band, Jimmy came forward and without benefit of musical accompaniment sang Bird On a Wire. As he sang, Mia smiled, listened and sighed. At the end of his number, he thanked us all and left the stage. There was a brief moment of silence, and then Schwartz began to clap. Soon cheers, hoots and whistles joined in the ovation for both the Whailers and for Jimmy's a capela moment. The house D. J. played the Ramones Hey Ho, Let's Go, which was as good a transition piece as any; and soon the crowd was ready for the next band to assume the stage.

Trevor came over to our table and asked to join us again, as Jimmy went to the bar and sat alone. Mia smiled knowingly and decided that sure — the game was worth playing, and she excused herself to join Jimmy at the bar.

"That was amazing," I said to Trevor. "Who thought up that plan to incorporate members of FdP?"

"Well," he began in explanation, "we didn't want to ask Penelope, the singer, to let Jimmy sing without some leverage, so her son came up with the idea of her singing the vocals over his guitar solo. Her son wrote the lyric, and it was out of her key, so she had to agree to give that part to Jimmy."

"So that was her son playing the guitar?"

"Yeah, he's pretty good, don't you think?"

"Really," I said. "And that singer of theirs is really good too. By any chance...?" I began.

"Yep, that's my boy," Trevor said. "That's Jason. He gets his voice from his mother. Which makes sense, I guess. She's Jimmy's sister."

We stayed to listen to one set of the FdP boys' concert, but the show was nowhere near as charming as what had proceeded, though you'd never know that from the behavior of the young audience. They cheered and danced (well, maybe danced is too strong a word) and had a simply wonderful time. Of course they were mostly newly-legal drinkers with unlimited access to alcohol — albeit over-priced alcohol.

At the conclusion of the set, we gathered our things and settled our bill as the members of The Whailers bade the boys of FdP goodnight. When The Whailers had gathered their equipment and gone out the back exit, Schwartz, Bev, Mia and I headed for the car we'd come in. There sat Schwartz's Impala, blocked in by a second row of cars; trapped by selfish double-parkers. I felt an air letting coming on.

Schwartz walked slowly up to his car. "Lupa," Bev said, "are you all right?"

"Miss Hoskin," Schwartz said, "could you go find Detective Johns, please, and tell him that we need a ride home? Please, ask him if we can have a lift."

Mia broke into a grin and chuckled. "We can't all fit in Johns' car. I'll see if Jimmy can take me to my grandmother's. You guys have a fun night." She walked with me to the van that the members of the Whailers were loading with their gear. We explained to Trevor and Jimmy about our situation, and they agreed to be our chauffeurs. We stayed with them as they and the other band members finished loading their van. Then as Mia and Jimmy departed for his car, Trevor and I went to pick up Schwartz and Beverly.

There they stood next to the car that had pinned him in, it's four tires as flat as flounders and holding as much air. He was jotting down the license number when he saw us approach. "Can you believe this?" Schwartz asked. "Vandals." That's when I noticed that Schwartz's tires had been flattened as well. "I've taken down the license of this other afflicted car," Schwartz said. "Look here," he said pointing to his tail light. "The vandal wasn't satisfied simply to flatten tires. He broke my tail light as well."

"Vandalism?" Trevor said to me. "I thought you said you were pinned in."

"We are pinned in," Schwartz said handing Trevor the page with the license number. "I'll need this person's address. Can you get it for me?"

"What do you need this for?" Trevor asked.

"There are several reasons I might want the address," Schwartz said. "For a witness in a lawsuit against the nightclub, or against the vandal perhaps should you catch them. To inquire if he knew anybody who might have wanted to do harm to his car. To offer my assistance with any repairs he might need."

To cuss him out for blocking you in — I thought.

"Okay, give it to me," Trevor said taking the slip. "Stay here. I'll go make a phone call, and I'll be right back with the address." Trevor walked back into the Century Club, and Beverly walked in with him to tell the management that we'd have to leave the Impala in the lot until Monday, since we were leaving and couldn't move our car until the blocking car was towed out.

"When did the vandals attack your car?" I asked.

Schwartz smirked. "If I had let the air out of their tires but left mine alone, the owner of this car would have easily surmised that I was the culprit, therefore I had to do it this way. Making the damage to my own car more severe, makes it even less likely that the owner of this car will blame me. Now you may consider that cowardice. However, there's no knowing what animus the owner of this car might express toward my property, and I am the innocent. Why should I leave my vehicle to the whims of this scofflaw?"

"So are you going to leave the card?" I asked.

"I'll mail one. That's why I need the address."

***

The following day was uneventful from both the standpoint of the investigation, and from a personal standpoint. The house stayed silent until nearly ten o'clock. Schwartz was the first up, followed shortly by myself and finally Beverly. Mia was absent; since Sunday was the day she spent with her grandmother.

Actually, Schwartz had been up twice already to proof his dough and to divide it into balls. Now that a crust had formed, he slit Xs into the skins and placed them in the oven. I watched as he made the icing, and Bev was right, he was heavy-handed with the lemon zest.

"May I ask you," I said before Beverly had joined us, "why are you making hot-cross-buns? Easter was months ago."

"That's another problem with religions," Schwartz said. "They find symbolism to apply to the most delicious foods so that we associate it only with their holidays. What is there about pumpkin pie and turkey that make these delicacies only appropriate for Thanksgiving Day? Which trait of eggnog makes it impotable for any season other than Christmas? Why should it be impossible to find a tavern serving corn beef and cabbage before or after March seventeenth?

"Another thing, why are so many of these holiday-specific symbolic-foods breads or cakes? Bannocks on May Day, Pink buns for Cheng Chau, Pan de Muerto for the Day of the Dead, and katayif only after the Ramadan fast. Why should this be? I love challah, and I really don't care if it's Rosh Hashanah or not."

He continued to rant, and was babbling something about the rules of ahimsa, halal and kosher law when Beverly joined us. She interrupted him mid-thought saying, "Don't mind him. He'll only eat hotdogs on the Fourth of July."

"That's different," Schwartz said. "I don't like hot-dogs. I've seen how they're made. I eat them on Independence Day only out of camaraderie and patriotism."

Beverly's presence brought a more relaxed atmosphere. Soon we were laughing and joking over buns and coffee. After breakfast, Schwartz gathered up the dishes while Bev and I settled on the front porch with the Sunday paper; Schwartz joining us only once he'd caught up with his chores.

The paper was savored, devoured slowly like a python with a freshly killed caiman so that it was a full hour before we got on with our day. In the Schwartz household, Sunday was for doing as much nothing as could be squeezed into twenty-four hours.

We took Beverly to church, and Schwartz and I took a ride in his old Packard until it was time to pick her up; we sat in the garden drinking iced tea and telling jokes; we watched Weekend At Bernie's on video; around five o'clock we divided ourselves and explored separate interests — I surfed the net, Beverly read through some magazines, and Schwartz prepared dinner.

Dinner was the first meal since breakfast, and it was a strange aggregate of savory and sweet. He made succotash of garden fresh lima beans and sweet corn, rolls with sweet butter, garlic toast, tart macaroni salad with sweet pickle juice, and fruit salad with sour cream. The entrees were made on his brick grill, and they warrant special description.

The grill was actually two grills. The left was propane; the right grill was charcoal. He used both to make a chicken entrée and a pork entree. Thick pork chops were smeared with crushed garlic and olive oil, then coated with a rub of ground black pepper and coriander which Beverly had harvested the previous year, then grilled on the propane side. Par boiled chicken breasts and legs were stripped of most of their skin and drizzled with honey, then they were grilled under cover over hot coals onto which brown sugar was continually thrown.

We feasted from six-thirty until eight o'clock. Then while Schwartz cleared the mess, Beverly and I retired to the porch to await Mia's return. Tired and a little bloated, I nursed a decaf coffee while Beverly sipped a piña colada; each of which had been prepared by Schwartz. At nine, Mia arrived by bus. She joined us on the porch, and Schwartz mixed her a rum-and-coke and poured himself a stout. By ten Schwartz was ready to retire, but we ladies stayed out on the porch. We had work to do after all.

Thursday night, we had been lucky enough to find those young men to help us move the trailer by brute strength. This night, we would have to do it mechanically.

Mia went into the garage and soon pulled out in a le Baron Station Wagon with a ball hitch on the rear bumper. We hitched the trailer and backed the Fiero into position just before the driveway to Schwartz's garage. Before raising the car with the jacks, removing the trailer and lowering the car to the ground, we had to physically push the trailer into position once we'd unhitched and taken the le Baron back inside. Now, with the Fiero blocking the drive, the trailer was trapped outside the garage, so we pulled it up the road and left it.

The temptation to re-flatten the tires was strong, but we fought it and left the tires alone. Half an hour later, we were back in the house, in our beds, ready for the next day.

***

Monday was the day of the funeral. We awoke that day at our usual times to a breakfast of corned beef hash and fried eggs with wheat toast. As we were finishing our coffee, while Schwartz and Bev were planning the week's menu, we could hear a truck pulling up in front of the house. We had a fair guess who it was, so we gathered at the front door. It turns out, our fair guess was correct.

A tow truck had pulled up, and the Fiero's driver (or Fiero's parker) who had blocked Schwartz's driveway on Thursday night, stepped down to the street. She saw that we were watching, and when she noticed that her tires held air, she shouted at us. "Hey! Who put that gunk in my tires?" Though in her heavily accented mouth, it sounded like, "Who put dat gunk in my tahrs?"

Mia shouted back, "There's nothing in your tires but air," as she approached the woman on the street. The rest of us followed as she continued explaining, "We have a compressor. I filled your tires with it. They were never damaged; the air was simply let out."

"Oh, is that all?" the woman said with snot coloring her voice. She unlocked her door and stopped fast. "Is the car safe to drive?" she asked.

"Of course it's safe," Schwartz said. Then shifting tactics he asked, "That's a five speed, isn't it?"

The woman sat behind her wheel, but did not shut the door. She spoke from the safety of her car. "That's right," she said.

"How much has Mr. Moreck offered you for it?" Schwartz asked.

"Six-five," she answered.

"I'll give you seven," Schwartz said. The woman began to protest that she'd already practically promised to sell the car to Moreck for six-five, when Schwartz interrupted, "Tell him I offered you seven. He'll offer you seven-five. It's worth eight."

Once she and her tow truck escort had gone, I asked how Schwartz had known about the transmission being five-speed. He explained that most of the GTs in 1986 had been four speed. His own was one of these. However, late in the run, a few of the '86s had been built with five-speed transmissions. In fact, at a recent classic car show, he and his neighbor, Zvi Moreck (a professor of engineering at Pitt University who disliked Schwartz because Schwartz refused to call Zvi — a member if IEEE — "doctor") had gotten into an argument in which Moreck belittled Schwartz for only having a four-speed '86 GT. Schwartz had realized the car had been placed as a taunt from Moreck as soon as he'd seen it.

Beverly sardonically huffed that Schwartz had shown some loyalty telling that woman how much more she could make if she'd barter. Mia giggled and said, "That car's not worth eight thousand dollars. She'll go to Moreck and say Schwartz offered her seven thousand. Maybe he'll call her a liar, maybe he'll offer her seven himself or even seven-two, but he'll never go seven-five. Either she'll call him a chiseler or she'll sell it and think she was gypped. Either way; neither one of them gets satisfaction from the sale."

"Oh," Beverly said with a satisfied grin. "But what happens if she comes back expecting her seven thousand dollars?"

"If she has any pride at all, she won't come back here," Schwartz said. "And if she does come back, I'll offer her an even trade of my six thousand dollar GT plus two thousand dollars. I'll still come out ahead. I only paid three thousand for mine, and I prefer a five-speed anyway."
Chapter 18

The only business we were to conduct that Monday was to speak with Fr. Coneely later that evening. With time to kill, I spent much of the day making and reviewing notes on the case as I knew it so far. I was trying to find the clues that Schwartz claimed to have gleaned already. In my reexamination, there were a few intimations that might have been cues as to where the poison had come from and who had dosed the victim, but I only found out about them later, so I'd be lying if I said I could point them out at the time.

Before I could settle down to try to solve this case, however, I had another chore to complete. This was the day that Foyer's article was supposed to appear in the paper. After breakfast I settled in the back yard swing with the paper. Schwartz read the news before breakfast, and I didn't interrupt. After all, it was his; he deserved to read it first.

The whole purpose for my reading the paper was to examine Foyer's review. For some reason, though, I couldn't bring myself to turn to that page. I told myself that I'd read the review after I'd read the headlines. Then the headlines led to the stories they heralded. Then the stories led to the editorial page. The editorials led to the op-ed page, which led to the editorial cartoons, which led to the funnies, which led to the horoscopes. By the time I'd finished the ads and the obituaries, I was out of welcome distractions.

Finally, my resolve set in, and I began reading Foyer's review. It began respectfully enough.

Saturday night in Oakland is never dull, and this past Saturday was not the exception to prove the rule. I attended a unique show at the Century Club at the invitation of a fellow journalist.

"Okay," I thought, "this was readable." So I continued.

She assured me that any misgivings I might have had about the theme of the show, sort of a father/son night at the frat house, would be thrown off the minute the first of the two bands began to play. She wasn't far from wrong.

The band that opened the show is called Humpback and the Blues Whailers, and they're made up of some of Pittsburgh's finest, and yes, they are a blues band. I have to tell you that for a bunch of old boys-in-blue playing a bunch of good-ol'-boy blues, they're pretty darned good. Now I know what you're thinking. Foyer — you're thinking — you're making this review extra lenient in lieu of making a contribution to the Policeman's Benevolent Fund this year. To this I say read on.

The band began their program by mocking the very kinds of bands they claim to admire with a Blues Brothers' opening complete with synchronized horn section choreography and synthesized organ chords. As nostalgia, there's nothing wrong with that in itself, but an audience has to be able to hearken back farther than last month in order to appreciate what they're being asked to hearken to.

About this time, I was wondering if I'd maybe missed something in the business section that I could turn to rather than continue. But, never let it be said that a Hoskin couldn't take the heat. I forged on.

The audience of gen-X metal fans — who had really come to hear the main attraction, FdP — sat in stunned silence as Humpback drove their father's Oldsmobiles through a number of ol'-timey saws that might as well have included "King of The Road" and "Sweet Adeline" for all of the recognition it sparked. Then the magic happened. Inspiration had come to some one of the show's architects in the form of a cross-over number, with FdP's excellent guitarist, Mack "Daddy" Dinini sitting in on one of the blues tunes.

For two paragraphs, Foyer told the saga of the dim lights and the searching spotlight that had finally revealed Dinini standing in the wings. Two more paragraphs were expended relaying the tale of the following number, and singing the praises of Jason's voice. Little mention was made of Jimmy's virtuoso performance, and absolutely no mention was made of Penelope's capably crafted vocalizations. I felt terrible.

The remainder of the review was glowing in its portrayal of FdP and their "mercurial" and "potent carnival of a concert." There was absolutely no more mention of the Blues Whailers or the cheers they'd gotten from the supposedly un-hearkening gen-Xers. Maybe if I'd been reading objectively, I could have appreciated his use of language, but I didn't want to be objective. I wanted to cry.

***

You may be wondering what the rest of the household was doing while I was reading reviews and running clue inventory. Schwartz had decided to treat the day like a day off. After breakfast he went to the garage to re-carpet something with fins, and he took Mia with him. Beverly spent the early morning in the yard up to her elbows in morning-glory vines. Then she spent the hour just before lunch de-veining shrimp and cleaning lentils for our meal.

After finishing our fish and pilaf, we settled in for our afternoons. I wrote an introductory letter to my editor for Foyer and nearly bit through my tongue while writing it, sealed it and the column in an envelope to go out in Tuesday's mail, then continued inventory; Beverly alternated between the laundry room and the yard where she labored to decide which basil plants she'd prune, and which she'd allow to flower to seed; Schwartz made himself comfortable on his front porch with a Helen Fielding novel; and Mia went to retrieve the Packard from the Century Club and (although Schwartz wasn't told this part) to call from a pay-phone to report a car stolen from the city impound lot.

By lunch I'd come to the conclusion that I could have spent the whole day auditing the week's events with a magnifying glass and discover nothing more relevant than the fact that my lower case Es and Is look remarkably similar. I gave up on the re-check, and spent the afternoon helping Beverly prepare dinner.

One roast pork later Schwartz and I were holed up in the office awaiting Coneely's report on the funeral and his re-hash of the night of Hanson's death.

***

The doorbell chime came just a little late at ten past the hour. Beverly answered and chaperoned the priests into the office. A light summer drizzle had begun to fall shortly after six, so the men in black glistened in the late evening sunlight which filtered into the office from the arch of five window panels. Their appearance was at once foreboding and soothing. "Mr. Schwartz," Fr. Coneely said indicating a powerful looking priest of retirement age, "this is Msgr. ur — I mean Fr. Donatelli. He was with me at the Hanson house that night, so I thought..."

"It doesn't matter what you thought, Mr. Coneely. You might have called to see if I would object to his presence." Donatelli had slunk to a position half a pace in front of Coneely. He was a barrel-chested former colonel who still felt that he had been unfairly passed over for general. It was written all over his demeanor, and it was further telegraphed by Coneely's attitude toward him. Donatelli stepped forward with his right hand extended.

"Sorry if we presumed, Mr. Schwartz. We just felt that two heads were better than one."

Schwartz looked blankly at the extended hand. "There's a saying that developed along with the annoying habit of high-fiving. When one party goes to all of the trouble to raise his hand for a celebratory slap, and the second party ignores that hand, the first party might say, 'Don't leave me hanging.' In the past, I've been presumed upon to clap hands with some buffoon who felt we'd shared a moment of comradeship. I felt foolish after, though I'd only obliged to keep the other party from feeling foolish himself. Now, not only do I often leave the other party hanging, I revel in it."

"If you don't want to shake my hand," Donatelli said, "that's fine, but you don't have to make a production out of it."

"A proffered hand for shaking is not so attention grabbing as one raised high for slapping. Refusing to shake is not so satisfying as leaving one hanging unless a production is made. You weren't invited, sir. You presumed on me. However, I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the rules of hospitality. I have a very charming cook and mechanic who live in my house. Perhaps you can spend the next hour or so in their company on the back porch watching the rainfall."

"Mr. Schwartz," Fr. Coneely began.

"You aren't my client, Mr. Coneely. You don't have to stay to speak with me, but if you do, remember that I do not work for you. I'm working for the city in this case. While it's true that my interests would benefit from talking with you, and that they might further benefit from speaking with Mr. Donatelli, I do not choose to conduct a tandem interview at this time. Just because Mr. Donatelli was able to convince the bishop to call you away from the city during a murder investigation does not mean that I can be convinced to..."

"That wasn't Fr. Donatelli's idea," Coneely insisted.

"Didn't the bishop instruct you not to hear confessions until the investigation was completed?" Schwartz asked.

"Well, that wasn't because of anything that Father..."

"What makes you think the bishop told him not to..." Donatelli began.

"Once a cat has escaped a bag," Schwartz said interrupting the cleric, "Putting her back in is likely to get you a nasty scratch. Never mind how I know. I know, and I know that you urged it. Oh, probably you had some very convincing argument. Perhaps you suggested that it was dangerous for Fr. Coneely to be hearing the confessions of the Hansons since one or more of them might be killers. Perhaps you suggested that if the killer just wanted to unburden himself, he might be remiss to do it to the man accused of his crime. Or that if he did confess, it might cause a conflict between Coneely's vow of secrecy with his instinct for self-preservation. Whatever reasons you gave the bishop, it's clear that the idea was yours if only because of the fact that you personally informed the officials in charge of the investigation (who you know are sympathetic to the church,) but you informed me with a message when you were certain I'd be out. Then you told Coneely that it was agreeable to all of those investigating the murder."

"You're not a government sanctioned official," Donatelli said.

"I am, sir; certainly more so than you are. I'm licensed and trained to perform my duties, and I'm acting as a deputized employee of the city."

"Well still, my not telling you directly doesn't prove that I suggested it."

"There's also the timing of the meeting in Philadelphia as well as the fact of the meeting itself. Why wouldn't the bishop simply issue an order unless he'd been convinced that it was important that the significance of the order be stressed? He'd have no reason to assume such a thing on his own. However, this is all idle. Why don't I just put it to you? Did you suggest that the bishop call Mr. Coneely to Philadelphia?"

Donatelli pulled a sincere face. "No," he said, "I did not."

"Mr. Coneely," Schwartz said, "I suggest that you ask Mr. Donatelli that question yourself the next time you hear his confession. I suspect that you already know the answer. It would be interesting to know how he would answer in the sanctified confessional."

"How did you know that I hear Msgr. Donatelli's confessions?" Coneely asked.

"Now, sir," Schwartz said in answer, "I'm afraid I'll have to leave you hanging."

***

Eventually, Donatelli agreed to wait with the house's women while Schwartz spoke with Coneely. Beverly knew Donatelli already, since he was the new associate pastor at the parish which she regularly attended, but he didn't seem to recognize her at first. Gradually, he claimed to remember having met her, but his protestations were not convincing.

After Coneely and Donatelli had gone, I asked Schwartz when it was that he had been deputized. "I wasn't ever deputized. You know that it doesn't work that way. I'm working as a freelance independent contractor."

"Then why did you tell Donatelli that you were acting as a deputy?" I asked.

"Why not tell him that? If I could have come up with something grander, I would have flaunted that. It's perhaps too bad that we don't allow knighthoods in the United States. It would have been fun to tell him that I had been knighted."

"But," I began, "impersonating the police is a crime."

"The police don't have deputies in Pennsylvania. I impersonated a non-existent office. It's like I told him that I was acting as Grand Poobah to the governor or Vizier to the under-secretary of carbonated beverages. If an un-incorporated community like Bloomfield can have an un-official mayor, I submit that I can call myself a deputy, since in most respects that is the function that I am filling."

I conceded that he had a point, and he sat back content with himself. "Another thing," I said, "when did you learn that Fr. Coneely hears Fr. Donatelli's confessions?"

Schwartz smiled and said, "Coneely told me himself when he asked how I knew. It was also how I learned with certainty that the bishop had instructed him not to hear confessions for the time being."

"The cat's out of the bag?" I said, and Schwartz nodded. I excused myself and went to bed to consider the strange story that Coneely had just told us about his evening with the Hansons the night that he first suggested a plan to poison his anointing oil.
Chapter 19

Coneely told the story as well as his memory would allow. He had arrived at the Hanson house just before six, which was when the representatives of the press were supposed to arrive. He was greeted at the door by Mrs. Melhorne, who seemed a little uncomfortable. "Hello, Father," she said. "The people from the news aren't here yet. Would you like something to drink? There's coffee."

"No, thank you, Marjorie," Coneely said. "I don't want to seem jittery when the cameras are shooting me."

"Do you think there'll be cameras?" Marjorie had asked. "I thought it was going to be a radio guy and a newspaper reporter. I didn't know the TV was coming."

"Not the TV," Coneely said as he sat in the living room on the couch. "Sometimes the newspaper reporters carry cameras. Other times, they travel with a photographer. That's what I meant by cameras."

"You've done this a lot, huh?" Marjorie asked.

"Me? No, not this exactly. But I have been involved in press conferences before. At my last parish..." He was interrupted by a knock at the door, and Marjorie excused herself to answer. As she was greeting the recent arrival, Matthew came into the living room from the open entrance to the dining room.

"Evening, Father," he said. "Feeling nervous about the big treasonous press conference?"

"Matthew," Coneely said in greeting. "Yes, I imagine there will be repercussions from the church fathers."

"Repercussions?" Matthew said. "They're going to sh... — uh — crap bricks. You're coming out in direct opposition to their official stance."

"I realize that, Matthew," Coneely said. "But I happen to feel strongly that they are wrong about this one. Don't you?"

Matthew sat down defeated. "I don't know," he said. "I know I never used to. There's a line that you just don't cross, you know? Murder is definitely wrong, but when the person being killed wants it — begs for it to end the pain — well, it's still wrong isn't it? Suicide is wrong, so how is mercy killing right? But what right does the government or the church or even a person's family have to insist that they go on living when all they want to do is die and end the pain? I know if it was me, I'd want to live no matter what. At least I think that's what I know."

"Pain is a terrible thing," Coneely said. "Usually, for most of us anyway, it's a fleeting thing. It comes in waves, and we know that it will pass, and that makes it bearable. But when you know that it won't pass, that your life is all over except for the pain, well, it changes the rules."

"Father Coneely," Carl said as he and Sam entered from the hall with Marjorie, "are you ready? I think the guy from the paper is here. I saw somebody putting a lens on a camera in a car that pulled up just before us."

"Are the others here? Your husband, Marjorie? Your wives and your other brother?"

"My husband is in the kitchen," Marjorie said. "I'll get him."

"The others are in the car following us. That's probably the reporter now," Carl said as a knock at the door was heard in the hall.

"I'll let him in," Coneely said, and he stood and went to the door. As he crossed the room, he noticed a tense look pass between Sam and Matthew, but Matthew lightened the mood by asking Sam about his wife. "Is Melissa doing OK? I called you earlier and she seemed..."

Coneely opened the door and greeted the reporter who asked if it would be all right with the family if he just kept shooting random pictures along with the staged ones. Coneely said that he would ask, but he couldn't imagine that there would be any problem with it. As he spoke with the reporter, the second car full of Hansons emptied out and crossed the threshold. Coneely waited as the siblings exchanged hugs and greetings, and when that was all over, the whole clan, save the patron and the oldest sister, was clustered in the living room. "This is Vic Jenkins with the Star-Herald. Would it be all right with everybody if he shot some candid pictures, several actually, during the press visit?"

"That's what we're here for, isn't it?" Carl asked. At that the door rap sounded again.

"Excuse me," Coneely said. "That's probably the radio reporter." He stepped back to get the door again, and as he moved, he saw a flash behind him as Jenkins began photographing the candid pictures.

***

Once the reporter from the radio had been introduced, Winston Hancock with WPAN talk radio, Coneely suggested that they proceed to the sick room, and Hancock turned on his recorder. From this point until the reporters left, the record is certain as to what was said as it was all on tape. "What you gentlemen are about to see is disturbing," Coneely said as he stopped at the French doors to the room that had once been the Hanson family dining room, but which had become a makeshift hospice bedroom for the senior Hanson. Through the gauzy sheer drapes one could already see the silhouetted apparatus of the dying; the hanging i.v., the pumping bellows of the mechanical aid to breathing, the blipping green line on the monitoring EKG. Sara, Carl's wife, walked past Coneely as he spoke and placed her hand on the door knob. "Mr. Hanson may not be able to respond to your questions verbally, but he can answer with blinks; one for yes, two for no," Coneely said. Sara opened the door and pushed it wide on both sides so that everybody could see inside. Jenkins flashed his digital camera, and the sound of his whirring motor and charging flash were clearly audible in the otherwise silence of Hancock's tape.

Coneely escorted the reporters to the bedside, while the family stood in the entrance to watch. "This is Vincent Hanson," Coneely said. "Mr. Hanson, these men are from the local media. They're here about your request to be allowed to end your suffering. Do you understand?" Hanson's eyes pressed closed once. "Mr. Hanson is dying from a variety of ailments. He has progressive bone cancer; Hodgkin's Disease and leukemia. He is in constant pain, and he has been for some years. He fought for his life for several years, even after he lost his wife three years ago. But now, now he can no longer walk, he can no longer speak, he cannot feed himself, nor can he breathe without the aid of a tank of oxygen. Before his illness progressed — if progressing isn't too ironic a term to use — to this point, he told his sons that he wanted to be allowed to die when it got to the point that his life had no value to him. He wasn't ready at that time, but he has recently indicated that he now is ready. Unfortunately, it is both illegal and against his religion to die by his own hand or to be assisted to the next world.

"God has declared that thou shalt not kill, which is in fitting with the golden rule; but Mr. Hanson is not opposed to dying. In fact, to a large extent he has embraced the idea. And since God's prohibition against killing wasn't intended, I'm sure, to add to suffering, but rather to prevent it, euthanasia doesn't violate the golden rule. After all, it's a mercy that we routinely extend to older dogs and wounded deer. Why should we allow a strict adherence to the letter of God's law violate the spirit of that same law? If I was suffering as terribly as I know Mr. Hanson to be suffering, I know with certainty that I would hope for somebody to assist me in ending my pain. However, the law and the church have deigned not to allow me to do for Mr. Hanson as I would have others do unto me." Suddenly Melissa burst into tears and ran for the kitchen with her husband Sam, close behind.

"Grief," Coneely continued once the fracas had subsided, "is a result of empathy, and empathy has a harsh effect on some. It is especially hard when it is drawn out unnecessarily. Mr. Hanson wishes to die not only to end his own suffering, but to allow the grief process that he knows his passing will elicit to advance to a healthy conclusion in a timely manner for those he will leave behind. In fact, the grieving has already begun; but it is stagnated. It cannot proceed to the next stage. Perhaps medical science can keep Mr. Hanson in this world a while longer, but it cannot save him, and it cannot make him want to live. In this case, the law and the church are wrong. We want them to acknowledge it. Thank you, gentlemen of the press. Now if you have any questions for me or for Mr. Hanson."

Jenkins raised a finger to indicate that he had a question. When Coneely indicated that he had been recognized, Jenkins asked, "Isn't it unusual for a Catholic priest to support the idea of mercy killing? I mean, isn't it against church doctrine? Specifically, in an interpretation of the Pastoral Constitution a Declaration on Euthanasia was issued which says, 'Everyone has the duty to lead his or her life in accordance...'"

"...'with God's plan,'" Coneely interrupted and he finished the quote himself from memory. "'That life is entrusted to the individual as a good that must bear fruit already here on earth, but that finds its full perfection only in eternal life.' Yes, but that is not scriptural, and it is not infallible. It is a committee-written document which reads almost like a legal document. It is peppered with vague references to the Bible, including Romans and Philippians, but consider that it was brought about specifically because there was question among the bishops about how to approach the subject of euthanasia. There was dissension in the church ranks at the time. I myself was too young to be involved, but I personally know ... well, let's just say there were dissenters. Are there any other questions?"

For a moment there was silence except for the sound of Jenkins scribbling in his notebook; then Hancock could be heard whispering a question to Jenkins which he answered in a loud whisper with the word, "1980."

"Questions, gentlemen?" Coneely asked again. "Did Mr. Hanson feel this way before he became sick?" Hancock asked.

"Why don't we ask him that?" Coneely suggested. He turned to Vincent Hanson, and all eyes were on the dying man as Coneely asked him, "Do you feel that you are violating your Catholic beliefs by supporting the idea of euthanasia, Mr. Hanson?" Hanson's eyes clasped twice. "Did you agree with the church edict against assisted suicides at the time they became doctrine?" Hanson paused, seeming to think. Finally he clasped his eyes once then once again for no. "Do you believe that God has reason to want you to continue to live in pain?" Two times more Hanson shut his eyes with perceivable conviction.

"What the hell is going on here?" The shrill voice of Peggy Hanson had burst onto the scene. "Why are you people bothering my father? Are you press? You are, aren't you? Oh, my God! Get the hell out of here. Fr. Coneely, what the hell are you doing? Get away from my father. Dad, are you all right? Get out of here, now! Put that camera down, and get out of this house."

Carl had reached her by this point. "It's okay, Peg. Dad invited them here. He wants to do this, don't you, Dad?"

"He's too sick for this. He can't invite people over now. Get these people out of here!"

"Peg, it's okay," Coneely was saying.

"Fr. Coneely, get these pariahs out of my father's house now! Get them out now! You're all a bunch of ghouls! Get out or I'll sue your papers! Get out!" She had begun pushing on the reporters and covering the camera lens with her hand.

"Come on, gentlemen, we're done here. Let's leave the lady alone with her father." Coneely escorted the reporters to the kitchen, where Sam had already opened his first beer. Carl asked the reporters not to leave yet, and he excused himself to go and talk with Peggy. Matthew went to the freezer for a bottle of vodka which he kept on ice.

"This could take a while," Matthew said. "She's pretty stubborn, and she hates this whole euthanasia thing."

Sam shushed him, and Matthew shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sure we'll be able to continue shortly," Sam said. "Would anybody like a drink in the meantime? We have soft-drinks and coffee." There was more silence on the tape, and then a sudden intake of air by Melissa could be heard as Jenkins' flash popped surprising her as he fired off a picture.

"Can I have that coffee with a shot of whiskey?" Coneely asked.

"Sara," Sam said, "an Irish coffee for the priest. How about you press boys? Care for a wee nip?" Both reporters declined in mumbled tones.

"You see," Lewis began, "it's a hard subject. Even within our family, we don't all see exactly eye-to-eye, but we all understand that it's Dad's will. Even Peg understands that, but she's sort of in denial. That was our sister Peg, who came in all upset. We didn't want her to know about this press conference until afterward."

Jenkins asked a new question, changing the focus. "I understood that there were only two sisters. "Wasn't that your sister that left the room in tears earlier?"

"No," Sam said, "that was Melissa, my wife. She's not strong that way. These things upset her. She's in one of the bedrooms now, lying down. I should go check on her. The shouting probably has her upset."

There was another silence on the tape during which two more pictures were shot. Finally, Sara spoke. "Would anybody like some cake? I made a cake."

Nobody answered, but Jenkins took another picture as heads shook in negative response. Finally, Lewis said, "Too bad you didn't have rat poison in the pantry. We could just put some of that in the cake and give it to dad."

Sara and Marjorie could be heard gasping. Lewis said only, "What? Like you never thought of it?"
Chapter 20

One would expect to have heard protestations following such a statement; especially from the women present, but none were forthcoming. Apparently, they had in fact all thought it at one time or another, or at least, something to the same effect. "Lewis," Marjorie said after a protracted and uncomfortable silence, "don't talk like that. It's not right. People will get the wrong idea."

"What wrong idea is that, Marjorie?" Matthew asked. "That we might be relieved when Dad finally dies? That he's such a burden that we have actually embraced the idea of assisting him in his suicide wish? That we're entertaining fantasies of his passing? Isn't that the whole point of the press having been invited here? So that we can do our part to get those very ideas accepted in the mainstream?"

"If you have problems with the idea of euthanasia, Matthew, you shouldn't have come," Marjorie said. "There's not a person here who doesn't love dad. We all miss him, and wish he could live forever, but not the way he is. He doesn't want to be like this. He shouldn't have to be like this. It's not fair. I know that life isn't fair, but at least death could be."

Coneely had an ugly situation on his hands. The family members were turning on each other right in front of the press, and it wasn't good for his cause. "It's perfectly normal to grieve the dying," he said, "but it doesn't have to cause rifts in the family. Lewis makes a good point. When a loved one suffers, we all suffer. Who wouldn't want to help to end that suffering? Matthew, of course you wouldn't ever dream of using rat poison on your father even to help him over his suffering. Lewis wouldn't either. Would you Lewis?"

Lewis slowly shook his head. "No," Matthew said trying to put a light-if-macabre face on things. "The authorities would suspect that."

"Right," Lewis said with a chortle. "I'd have to find something they wouldn't look for, like Atropine."

"Atropine?" Marjorie said.

"What have you been doing, Lewis?" Matthew asked. "Research in poisons?"

"Hmm?" Lewis said. "No, not me. This guy that I had to write an article on; a scientist. He was doing a study on Nightshade, and he found that it had a numbing affect." He told the story that Matthew had told me that day when I'd first met them. Soon, they were relaxed and laughing about the scientist who had cloyed his own vocal chords. They were so relaxed, in fact, that they hadn't noticed that Peg and Carl had entered the room.

"So how do you figure Atropine would do the job on Dad?" Matthew asked.

"He's weak," Lewis said. "And if it was administered properly, it would seize his lungs, and since he was dying anyway..."

Peggy huffed and stormed from the room. "Smooth," Carl said. "I just had her calmed down and thinking that we might just be reasonable people."

"Would you like me to go and talk with her?" Coneely asked.

"No," Carl said. "She thinks you're the ring leader."

"That's not fair," Marjorie said. "Dad didn't get this idea from Fr. Coneely. He's been discussing this since before Fr. Coneely even came to the parish."

"What about nicotine?" Melvin asked.

"What are you talking about?" Matthew said.

"I think nicotine is hard to trace, isn't it? Why couldn't a person use nicotine instead of Atropine. It's easier to get. I'm just talking hypothetically, you understand."

"Wouldn't nicotine leave a stain?" Carl said. "Besides, how would you administer it without arousing suspicion?"

"You could just put it in his food," Jenkins said joining in on the conversation between picture flashing.

"I know a way to do it without arousing suspicion," Coneely said, "but we couldn't use nicotine because of the stain."

"What are you saying?" Marjorie asked. "You've actually thought this out?"

"No," Coneely said. "I just know of a way to do it."

"How?" Matthew asked.

"Yes, Father," Lewis said, "please elaborate." Thus was laid the fatal trap that would doom Coneely to the suspicions of the enforcers of the law, the media and the public at large.

"What kind of poison would you use?" Matthew asked after hearing Coneely's poisoned-anointing-oils plan laid out.

"I'm sure I don't know," Coneely said. "I was just making conversation. It would have to be a topical poison that reacts quickly; so probably an insecticide of some sort or a natural toxin like those frogs produce in the Amazon."

"Where would you get that?" Lewis asked.

"I don't know," Coneely said.

"Maybe at a rare pet store," Marjorie suggested.

"No," Carl said. "Somebody would remember selling you that. It would have to be something that you already have access to; like mercury from a thermometer or furniture polish or something. Where did you say you got this idea from, Father?"

"It's just an idea I had, is all. We were talking about it, and I had the idea. Forget about it. It's just hypothetical."

"I still think you could use nicotine," Melvin said. "It kills topically. And it's an insecticide, and everybody has access to it. And it would be mixed in oil so that nobody would see the stain."

"Who has access to nicotine?" Marjorie challenged her husband.

"Smokers do," he said. "If you save up a lot of butts, then soak them in water and then reduce the water, you end up with a heavy concentration of nicotine."

"Nicotine burns the skin," Carl said.

"What about a houseplant?" Sara said joining in the game for the first time. "Like oleander or monkshood? Could you extract a topical poison from them? Nobody would think twice about somebody buying a houseplant." She noticed that everybody was staring at her. Until now, it had all seemed like harmless speculation, but there was something more sinister seeming when the housefrau had interjected. "I'm just saying..."

"They're just trying to relieve some stress," Sam said to the radio reporter. "We'd never plan to actually kill our own father."

"I understand," Hancock said.

"Maybe we should call an end to this," Coneely said.

"Maybe we should have done that ten minutes ago," Carl said.

Hancock switched off his recorder, and Coneely escorted the reporters to the front door. Sara held the door for them as they left; and once outside, Coneely thanked the men for coming and apologized that it hadn't gone as planned. The reporters assured him that they had ample material to work with, and Coneely joked that he was sure they had. That was the problem. Then, as the men were about to get in their cars, Peggy pulled into the driveway. She had gone out in her huff earlier, and now she returned to confront her family with her anger. Seeing that the reporters were leaving, she rushed from her car to the street-side and confronted Coneely.

"You," she said as Hancock switched on his recorder. "You may think that you have some holy mission to murder my father, but so long as I have anything to say about it, you'll never get the chance."

"Peggy," Coneely said, "your father is a sick man. He'll never survive long enough to see euthanasia legalized. This isn't about our trying to euthanize your father. It's about getting the laws changed for the next suffering man or woman. If it makes you feel better, your father is going to die a long, slow agonizing death." He regretted the words as soon as he'd spoken them, but having spoken them, it was too late to try to undo the damage.

"My father," Peggy answered, "will die when God takes him. When it happens, I'll be there to comfort him. Now, I'm going inside to tell my family that I love them even though I hate what they are doing, and I don't want to see you here again until we call you to offer the last rites."

***

Schwartz had been listening to this tale with his eyes closed, but he suddenly started when Coneely had gotten to this point. "She invited you to administer the last rites?" he asked.

"Yes," Coneely said. "Well, she'd gone before I'd said that one could poison the anointing oil, so she wasn't aware of the idea at that point."

"Do you know who told her that you had made that suggestion?"

"No. I assume it was one of her siblings. Does it matter?"

"It may," Schwartz said. "Now," Schwartz said closing his eyes again, "tell me about the events of the day that you arrived to actually administer the last rites. Begin with the phone call summoning you to their home."

***

Coneely had been watching the news when his phone rang. It was Fr. Donatelli, his predecessor as pastor at St. Bart's. "Michael," Donatelli had said, "I just got a call from Carl Hanson. His father is extremely weak, and he is asking for last rites. Would you mind if I came with you? I was pastor for a long time, and it might help if Peggy sees that I am with you."

"Is that what the family requested," Coneely asked.

"They did," Donatelli said, "and I think they're right."

"I'll pick you up in fifteen minutes," Coneely said.

"Would you mind if I drive? I can pick you up in ten minutes. I'm already halfway there. I called you on my cell phone."

When the two men arrived at the Hanson house, it took several minutes for anybody to answer the door. The entire family had congregated in the death room, and they were slow to answer the knock. Finally Lewis had greeted them. Once he'd shown them into the house, others came out to see the holy relics the men had brought into their home. Coneely opened a bag and handed several of the relatives white candles. He asked that these be lit and that all but one of the family members return to the sickroom. He instructed that they not speak to him when he entered the room, as he would be carrying the Eucharist, but one of the family members should greet him with a candle. They agreed that it should be Carl since he was eldest. Coneely said they should kneel when he entered, and that he would say some prayers. He told them that he would sprinkle their father with holy water and give him communion, but that then the family would have to leave him alone with their father to hear his confession.

Schwartz interrupted to ask how he could hear the confession of a man who was too weak to speak and was sleeping most of the time. Coneely explained that it was ceremonial, and that he merely asked Mr. Hanson if he was sorry for his sins and he gave a single prayer as penance which Mr. Hanson presumably said in his head. Schwartz asked if he was correct to assume that nobody had witnessed this, and Coneely confirmed that this was not technically correct because the family was watching from the opposite side of the French doors which were mostly clear glass and covered only with a translucent linen curtain. After hearing the confession, he had anointed the dying man, and he gave the last blessing, "Through this holy anointing, and by His most tender mercy, may the Lord pardon you what sins you have committed by sight, hearing, speech..." and so on as he rubbed oil on each of the touch spots.

"Where was Donatelli during this part of the ceremony?" Schwartz asked.

"He was in the hall with the family. Anyway, after I'd finished administering the rite, I said a brief prayer and left Mr. Hanson alone in the room. I was carrying the oil, so Sara Hanson held the door for me, and I rejoined the family in the hall, and we walked down toward the front door where the hall opened out into a foyer where there was more room."

"And none of the family members shook hands with you to thank you for your service to their father?"

"I don't believe so. Anyway, once we reached the hall, Sara asked if we'd like to go into the kitchen for something to drink or for some cake. We said we should be going, but that if the family needed anything else to be sure to call us. I think that that was when Melissa Hanson began to cry, so Sam excused the two of them, and they went into the kitchen. Sara went with them, and Fr. Donatelli stepped closer to the door. Lewis then asked me what to do if his father survived the night after all. He wanted to know if we should minister the last rite a second time. I began to explain that it wasn't necessary unless a substantial time passed. That's when Peggy started up. She wanted to know what I would consider a substantial length of time. She said something like, 'You mean if the poison doesn't take this time, you'll come back and try again?' I guess she had heard about the instance in the kitchen in the meantime.

"Well, I told her that I could assure her that nobody had poisoned her father, and she said that nobody better have because she could find out if they had. Fr. Donatelli touched my shoulder and suggested that it would be best if we left, so I said my good-byes as Fr. Donatelli held open the door for me and guided me out the door.

"And that's it. We got in the car, and he drove me home. The next thing I knew, I got a call from Matthew Hanson that his father had passed shortly after I'd gone, and that Peggy was insisting on an autopsy. I didn't worry much about it at that time, because I knew that I hadn't poisoned the anointing oil."

"Well," Schwartz said, "It's a good thing you do know that, because aside from the person who actually did do it, you're the only person who can know that for sure." Personally, I found Schwartz's remark a little over the top. — True, but over the top.
Chapter 21

A hard rain was falling on that Tuesday morning as we finished our breakfasts of eggs Benedict. Schwartz was laying out a plan of action for the day, and Mia was helping Bev clear the table when the doorbell announced an early morning arrival. Beverly went to see to the visitor as Schwartz continued to sketch out his plan for the day. "While I tend to my morning garage time, Miss Hoskin, would you be so kind as to arrange for Matthew Hanson to meet us at a neutral location this morning before lunch?"

"That won't be possible," Trevor said as he entered the dining room from the central entry. Water was dripping from his hair and shoes, so he stopped in the entry rather than track into the dining room.

"Detective Johns," Schwartz said in a pleasant tone. "What brings you here in the rain? Has there been a break in the case?"

"The case is solved, and I think it had something to do with that message you asked me to deliver to Matthew Hanson. I'd like you to tell me what your objective was when you asked me to relay it?" He seemed agitated. He had not said that the case was solved in a way that suggested that he was pleased with the outcome, and Schwartz could see this in Trevor's demeanor as well as I could.

"Solved?" Schwartz said. "What do you mean? A confession?"

"A confession, yes," Trevor said with a hostile undertone.

"May I ask who confessed?" Schwartz said nonplused. "Do you have someone in custody?"

"You know damned well who confessed," Trevor said sounding more defeated than angry. "Matthew Hanson confessed in his suicide note."

"Suicide?" I said though the question was echoed by Schwartz.

"Late last night Matthew Hanson poisoned himself at home. He swallowed a large dose of Chlordane mixed into a glass of scotch," Trevor explained. "He was found by his paper boy four hours ago at about five this morning."

"How did the paper boy know he was dead?" Schwartz asked.

"The door to his apartment was ajar. The boy could see him lying on the floor with a small empty medicine bottle in his hand, and his coloring and position made it obvious that he wasn't sleeping."

"And he left a suicide note?" Schwartz asked.

"Yes," Trevor said.

"In which he confessed?" Schwartz asked incredulously.

"Yes," Trevor said.

"Was the note in his handwriting?" Schwartz asked.

"It wasn't written by hand," Trevor said. "It was in his lap-top. But nobody else could have written the note, if that's what you're thinking. It was password protected. It took one of our technicians the better part of an hour to crack it, and he was using special software."

"What made you think to look in the lap-top for his note?" Schwartz asked, and then he added, "And please come in and sit down."

"First you tell me why you wanted Matthew to know about the medal you found in the dirt? It was to put pressure on him to do something like this, wasn't it?" Trevor sat at the large oval table, his long bangs trailing rivulets down into his eyes. "I don't think you figured he'd kill himself, but if you thought it would make him desperate..."

Schwartz interrupted. "He's not the one that I thought was guilty. I believed that he was shielding somebody else. I thought that if he felt Coneely was going to actually be convicted, he'd come forward with what he was concealing." Schwartz was squeezing his lower lip with intermittent pressure — almost as if he were trying to milk it for an idea. Beverly brought in a cup of hot tea and placed it on the table before Trevor. Trevor made a gesture of thanks and took a sip. Finally Schwartz was ready to speak again. "Why did you look in the lap-top for the note?"

"It was plugged in and resting on the coffee table near the body. It seemed to have been one of the last things he'd handled," Johns explained.

"Have you a copy of the suicide note on your person?"

"It's right here in my notebook in my jacket. I just got it over the radio as I pulled in here." Trevor removed his notebook from his inside pocket, opened it, and read;

Knowing as I do that Fr. Coneely did not kill my father, it would be unthinkable for me to allow him to be convicted as the guilty party. There are motives which nobody is considering for which I am responsible. My father had to die when he did. I can't tell you where the poison came from. Fr. Coneely had no access. Coneely was not in on the plan. I'm sorry.

After he read the note, he passed his notebook over to Schwartz who handed it to me when he'd finished. Schwartz asked, "I understand that the lap-top was password protected, but was it dusted for fingerprints?"

"Yes," Trevor said, "we dusted every inch of it before we let the tech handle it. His were the only prints on it. We even dusted the keys, and each one is a match for his prints alone, except for a few that were too smudged to take a clean print from."

"Can you find out for me which ones were smudged?"

"Why?" Trevor asked. "They weren't any of the keys used to type the note. They were the odd keys, you know, the function keys and the arrows, but those are keys that people use with special attention, so they hit them harder and smear more easily. No, we're convinced that he typed the note."

Schwartz began milking his lip again. "He doesn't specifically say that he killed his father," Schwartz said as much to himself as to us. "All he says conclusively is that Coneely didn't do it."

"He also says that he was responsible," Trevor said.

"For the motive," Schwartz pointed out, "not for the commission of the murder."

"You're splitting hairs," Trevor said. "And if you're bothered by the fact that he doesn't spell out the motive, we're already onto that one."

"Yes," Schwartz said, "I know. He's talking about the lapsing insurance plan."

"What?" I said.

Trevor explained. "The old man had a life insurance policy which he'd stopped paying months earlier. The grace period was set to lapse the day after he died. As it stands, the family is due to receive a three-million-dollar payoff which they'll split six — well — five ways now. Actually, they may have to slug it out with the insurance company since the old man was murdered by a beneficiary."

"And Matthew knew about this?" I asked.

"We think they all knew about it, but we believe that they didn't all know that they all knew. We also were keeping it from them that we knew about it. We thought it might be useful. I told Mr. Schwartz about it when I brought him into the case, but I swore him to secrecy."

Schwartz insisted, "He talks about a plan. He says that Coneely knew nothing of the plan. That suggests more people."

"Not necessarily," Trevor said, "but we're not ruling it out altogether. Thing is, this ties it all up in a nice neat little package that the diocese will be happy with, the euthanasia people can live with, that Hanson's insurance company's lawyers like, and which the D.A. is thrilled with, so the case is closed. You'll be paid for your services and be given the city's official thanks. And on a personal note, I'm happy to hear that you didn't plan this result."

"He didn't do it," Schwartz said.

"Didn't do what?" Trevor asked, "Kill his father or himself?"

"Either one," Schwartz said.

"Can you prove it?" Trevor asked.

"Not at the moment," Schwartz admitted.

"Then the case is still closed," Trevor said. "But when you can prove otherwise, there's no statute of limitations on murder."

***

Schwartz excused himself and locked himself into his study for another comedy film festival. Apparently, he did some of his best thinking while applying pressure to his bottom lip with Martin and Lewis on the boob tube for background noise. Mia retired to the garage, and Beverly went to select Schwartz the best beer to go with My Friend Irma. This left me to see Trevor off, and we had yet to broach the ugly topic of Foyer's review. Trevor hadn't mentioned it, so I decided to pull off the Band-Aid quickly, and I mentioned it for him. "Did you see that review of your show in the paper yesterday?"

"Yeah, I meant to mention that." I thought he might. I know if I'd been stabbed-in-the-back like he must have thought I'd backstabbed him, I'd have wanted to have a little discussion about it my own self. "Are you the fellow journalist mentioned as having set the article up?"

I was feeling sick with guilt. It wouldn't matter how noble my intentions were. It had gone badly for the Blues Whailers. "Yes," I admitted, "I invited the reviewer to come to the show."

"You said you might be able to pull some strings, but I didn't think you'd actually do it."

"I told him that I'd see to it that my boss at the magazine would see his work." What the hell? The cat was out now; I might as well spill some beans to feed him.

"That's great. The kids are tickled. Thanks." I reran the words trying to decipher the sarcasm. Problem was I couldn't detect any to decipher. He was actually pleased.

"You're happy with the review?" I asked.

"Sure, it'll look great on the kids' web page. Foyer loved them."

"But he hated you," I said.

"He did?" Trevor asked.

"He practically called you competent at best."

"There are worse things to be called than competent; incompetent for example."

"You guys are better than he gave you credit for. He was unnecessarily harsh. You'll never get anywhere with reviews like that following you around."

"Get anywhere?" Trevor said. "Who said we want to get anywhere? We just do it for fun. We're all cops and a cop's wife. Music is a hobby. Now the kids' band, that's a different story. We want to see them succeed. That review was just what the doctor ordered."

"Okay," I said, "but I think you're passing up a gold-mine. You guys could be the next big thing,"

"The next big thing in what?" Trevor started. "Amateur-blues cop-bands? That's like being the next big thing in misspelled words or rotary dial phones. What good is a fad that nobody wants? You can't even really call it a fad. We enjoy what we do. If a few others enjoy it too, that's great. If nobody else gives a damn, it doesn't matter, because we do."

"That's sweet," I said, "but don't you want to be appreciated for what you do?"

"I am appreciated for what I do," he said, "by the people who count: my son, my bosses, and apparently you." My face felt warm as it flushed. "Thanks for trying to help."

"My pleasure, Ishmael," I said. "In a way, it's kind of a relief to know that you aren't the obsessive type."

"You've got your Moby Dick references mixed up," he said. "That was Ahab. If I'm Ishmael, then I'm just happy to survive when the boat goes down."
Chapter 22

I had prepared to go up to my room to pack when Schwartz came out of his study about half way through The Caddy, which is about three eighths more of The Caddy than I could have taken. He announced that it would be necessary to find the girl that I had seen speaking with Matthew in the red sports car at the funeral home, so I could not yet leave. He needed me. He suggested that a good starting place would be the insurance agency where Matthew worked. Within a few minutes, we were in an olive green 1973 Maserati Bora headed for the Pittsburgh offices of Lighthouse Life and Casualty's claims adjusters' division.

The rain had stopped, and the hot July sun had dried the collected pools of precip to inconsequential puddles. We spent forty-five minutes cruising the parking garage looking for the car I'd seen that afternoon, but (though some were quite flashy) none of the cars exactly fit the bill. Schwartz kept asking me for particulars on the car, but he may as well have been asking me for particulars on a specific breed of beetle. When I see one, I recognize it as a beetle; beyond that, an Amazonian Cockroach is pretty much the same to me as a Japanese Ladybug.

Eventually we decided to head into the offices to make some inquiries. Schwartz was fairly well known to the local insurance big-wigs; having saved more than a few of them from having to make some payoffs. Yet, that notwithstanding, he felt it prudent that we not go in asking directly about the girl in the red car. With no notion of why the young woman was meeting surreptitiously with Matthew, it might be wiser to go in with a more circumspect approach.

At the front desk, Schwartz introduced himself using his own name, and then he introduced me as Miss Joan Watson, a client of his. He explained that we had some particular questions about insurance regulations concerning my case, and that we would like to speak with the chief claims adjuster about possibly working for me as a professional witness should my case come to trial. We were asked to be seated, and soon we were greeted by one Mr. Carlton Fitzhugh, a balding, crimped little man with cold palms and the nervous habit of chewing on his lower lip.

"Fitzhugh?" Schwartz said. "Fitzhugh? It seems to me that I've heard that name before."

"You've probably heard it in connection with that terrible joke about the gay Irish couple. Patrick Fitzhugh and Hugh Fitzpatrick."

Schwartz blurted out an unsympathetic chortle, and quickly said, "No. No, I don't think so. Besides, when I heard that one, there was no mention of Fitzhugh. It was Patrick Fitzgerald and Gerald Fitzpatrick. No, I distinctly remember it as a name in connection with this office. I think perhaps Matthew Hanson mentioned you."

"That's entirely possible," Fitzhugh said directing us to his desk in the large partitioned office. "He worked directly under me. Well not under me literally. Hmm, it seems we've got a theme going here." He grinned and snorted. "So you knew Matthew Hanson?"

"Professionally, yes," Schwartz said. "I was investigating his father's murder."

"Did you suspect him?" Fitzhugh asked. "When the police phoned this morning, I was shocked. He just didn't seem the type. But you wanted to ask about another case, isn't that right?"

"Yes," Schwartz said. "My client here, Miss Watson. She'd like to engage your services as a professional witness. It may not ever be necessary, but should her case come to trial; the services of a professional insurance claims adjuster may be required."

"What is the case?" Fitzhugh asked.

"Well, in the event that the case can be resolved without the courts, we would need to keep as much of the particulars to ourselves as possible, so I can only draw you a broad picture."

"That would be fine," Fitzhugh said. "What can you tell me? Of course, you understand that I may be hampered in what I can do at this time given the limited specifics."

"Certainly," Schwartz said. "Suppose there's this family that has taken a large insurance policy on their mother with an insurance company other than yours, and all of the children are named as equal beneficiaries. Are you with me so far?"

"It's standard so far, though from what I've heard I don't think you want an expert in claims adjusting, but continue."

"All right, now suppose that this family has been unable to keep up payments on the policy, and it is about to lapse completely. Even the grace period is about to expire. If one of these children was to murder the mother, and be caught and found guilty; would the other children be able to collect on the policy without difficulty, or would the insurance company contest the payout of the policy?"

"You've definitely got the wrong department," Fitzhugh said. "You need the legal department."

"Oh," Schwartz said sounding disheartened. "That's too bad. I was hoping to work with you. Mr. Hanson spoke so highly of you. Well, if we have to speak with legal, perhaps we can speak with that young woman Mr. Hanson was so keen on. What was her name? I'm terrible with names. Names and faces. I can never remember anything about them. But give me a car, and I can tell you anything. Oh, wait. That's right; he did tell me something about her car. He said she drove a sporty red car. He said she was young and pretty and blonde, and that she drove a red sports car. Is there anyone in your legal department that fits that description?"

Fitzhugh thought for a long moment, continually shaking his head. "Nnno, no, not in our legal department. Not that I can think of. Mary!" he called across the office to a woman at a computer monitor displaying a spreadsheet. "Mary, do we have anybody working in legal that drives a red sports car? A girl that was friends with Matt Hanson?"

Mary shook her head and shouted back, "No, not in legal. But do you remember Penny Prince that used to work here. She and Matt were pretty friendly, and she drove a red sports car."

"No, that's not what I'm asking. Thanks anyway." He turned to Schwartz and said, "I'll send you up to talk with Milt Hiram. He's done a lot of legal consultancy work on behalf of the company in cases like yours."

"Do you have his card?" Schwartz asked. "I'll have to call him later."

We were given the card at the front desk, and Schwartz asked the young woman behind the escritoire for a job application. "It's for my sister," Schwartz said. "She's a whiz on a computer, and from what I saw in that office, she'd love the people who work here. Besides, a friend of hers from business school told her this was a great place to work. She doesn't work here anymore herself though. Maybe you remember her. Her name is Penny Prince. Pretty girl, drives a red..."

"I remember her all right," the woman said. "But if your sister really wants this job, she'd do better not to drop that particular name in her job interview."

"Why?" Schwartz said leaning forward in his best conspiratorial gossipy posture. "What happened?"

"Let's just say that employees who leave for warmer climes while taking a big corporate client with them don't make the best references. If your sister really wants to use Miss Prince as a reference, she might want to apply at New World Life instead."

***

We ate our boxed lunch/dinner of ground pork salad sandwiches as we drove to the New World Life offices in McKees Rocks. I took the opportunity to have Schwartz fill in some gaps for me. It seems that Mr. Hanson senior's life insurance rate had become an unconscionable burden for him. His medical bills had become all that, in fact, more than he could afford; and since all of his children were gainfully employed and didn't technically need that insurance money, and since his funeral expenses had been pre-paid, he saw no reason to continue paying the almost $7000 quarterly premiums. He had stopped paying the invoices several months before, and the policy was set to expire completely at midnight on the day after he died. Had he died of natural causes, or had he been killed by a party not associated with the policy, the insurer, New World Life, would have been obligated to pay the full benefit. However, should one of the beneficiaries cause Mr. Hanson's death, there would be a necessary inquiry to determine if the other beneficiaries might also be involved. If there existed evidence that they had it might have been sufficient cause to withhold the death benefit altogether.

As things now stood, it was nearly certain that the five surviving Hanson offspring would split the entire pay-out equally, since the police had all but officially declared the case closed with Matthew Hanson's supposed deathbed confession synching it that he alone had been responsible for his father's death. However, for reasons that he was presently unwilling to share with me, Schwartz was not at all satisfied that Matthew had killed either his father or himself. "Is it because of that speech that he made to Coneely where he claimed not to believe there could ever be a reason for a person to give up on their own life?" I asked. "Because all we have is Coneely's word that he ever said that; and even if he did, it might have been a smoke-screen."

"True," Schwartz said. "But no, that's not all that I base my contentions upon. Partly, it has to do with the note itself and how it was worded. Also, I base it on the fact that there is no explanation of where Matthew Hanson got the Chlordane. I believe I know where the Chlordane came from, and if my supposition is correct, then Matthew Hanson is all but eliminated as a possible actor."

"Where do you think it came from?" I asked.

"No," Schwartz said. "I'm not willing to divulge that at this time. I need more."

"...And you think this Miss Prince can supply the more?"

"Possibly," he said. "Some of it."

We arrived at our destination about an hour before closing time, and we began to look for the red sports car. We'd driven around the by-now-dry New World Life parking lot for about three minutes when I'd spotted the car. "There," I said, "parked under that big birch. That's the car I saw."

Schwartz looked unbelievingly at the car. "That car?" he said. "The red one by the tree?"

"Yes," I said. "That's the one."

"That car?" Schwartz said.

"Yeah," I said. "It's what I described. It's a red sports car."

"It's more than that," Schwartz said. "It's a 1955 550 RS Porsche Spyder."

"Okay." I said. "What of it."

"Have you ever heard of an actor named James Dean?"

"Yeah," I said. "Lived fast, died young, three movies, that James Dean?"

"Yes," Schwartz said. "He was driving a car exactly like this one when he crashed and died near Salinas California. Except his was silver."

"All righty," I said. "So what of it?"

"And you didn't recognize this at all?"

"I told you, I don't know very much about cars."

"Didn't you even recognize the logo on the grill?"

"No," I said.

"Or spot the fact that it has California plates?"

"Look," I said, "we found the car, okay. That's what I know. Now are we going in to find the girl who owns it, or aren't we."

"No," Schwartz said. "We're going to wait for her here, and then we're going to follow her home. I don't want the people who employ her to know that there may be a situation. Not until I know what her role in all of this is, if she even has a role in it. It could all be a coincidence her working for the insurance company that covered Mr. Hanson."

As we waited for the mystery blonde, Schwartz told me more than I'd ever want to know about James Dean's car, the Little Bastard. "There were only ever ninety cars like it made. After Dean crashed and died, his car was bought by a collector. Some of the cars parts were put in other cars, and each of those cars was eventually involved in a fatal or near fatal accident. Most of the times that Dean's car was moved somebody was seriously injured in the move. At one point, a garage housing the car burned to the ground, and all of the cars therein were destroyed except for Dean's Little Bastard. Finally, in 1960, the car — at least the body and frame — was loaned out for a safety exhibition and was stolen. It hasn't been seen since."

"And you think that this is that car?" I asked.

"Of course not," Schwartz said. "As I said, that car was silver. It would be sacrilege to paint it red."

"So you think it might be one of the other ninety."

"Possibly, but those are all worth nearly half a million dollars apiece. Why should somebody who could afford a $500,000 car work as a paper pusher for an insurance company? No, most likely, it's a kit car, but if it is then it's a very good one."

He sat staring at the car, either intent on spotting the woman who owned it, or fantasizing himself driving it at break-neck speeds along the winding Salinas Valley highways along the California coast. I couldn't tell you which.
Chapter 23

At a few minutes to five, Schwartz asked me if I had remembered to bring along my cell phone. I rolled my eyes, told him that I had and asked him what he wanted it for this time.

"Call directory assistance and ask for the address for Penny or Penelope Prince. If we lose her, I'll need to know where to find her."

I placed the call and got an address in Crafton. When I'd hung up, I asked Schwartz a question that had been bothering me for a while. "Why won't you just buy your own cell phone?" I asked.

"I have my reasons," he said. I pressed and he said, "Because I don't want to be a party to exacerbating the phone number depletion." He sighed in agitated accession, and continued. "I made my fortune in the communications industry. As a young man in the Balkans, I managed to funnel some money into AT&T, and through underground channels I judiciously parlayed that into quite a nice sum in American dollars. After I finally got here in the early nineties, I moved most of my money into Microsoft, but I kept a nice chunk in other electronic media. Then the big boon came in pagers and fax machines and even cell phones. I had money in all of them, and I became rich beyond my wildest hopes. However, I foresaw a problem. I knew that under the existing system, several large metropolitan areas would soon run out of available exchanges and phone numbers. The communications commissions were set to discuss the situation, so I sent along my recommendation. They ignored it, and went with the system of adding new area codes to the markets as they become glutted or saturated. I felt this was unfair to the consumers, and I immediately sold all of my communications stock and have refused to own any of the apparatus ever since — except for a regular telephone, which I see as indispensable. I've never even had a separate line for my Internet connection. I have dsl now, but for a few years, my modem connection was simply my regular phone line. Oh, there she is."

He was right. The woman getting into the Spyder was the same one I'd seen kissing Matthew Hanson in front of the funeral parlor. We followed her at a safe distance as she made her way to U.S. route 22; and as we followed her, I continued with my questioning into Schwartz's odd attitude of injustice with the phone company. "What was the suggestion you made? I thought they had no choice but to increase the number of available phone numbers."

"That's correct," Schwartz said as he watched the Porsche weave in and out of traffic. "In some areas, the existing numbers were about to be all used up due to the increase of new accounts. Remember though, it wasn't the population that had increased causing the problem. It was simply that the same people were asking for multiple numbers to operate their new toys."

"What's wrong with that?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said. "That's what consumerism and capitalism are all about. I had no problem with that. The thing was that the distribution of the numbers was handled by a government agency which is supposed to work for the people, not the businesses.

"When the numbers began to become scarce, the government had an obligation to come up with a solution. They chose a solution that caused far more confusion and expense for the consumer than it did for the private phone companies, even though those private companies had been legally classified as utilities for years. Even the breakup of AT&T had been predicated on the argument that they were a utility. That decision probably cost me money, but I agreed with it in principle. Possibly because I was raised in the Soviet bloc, but..."

I interrupted, because I still wasn't sure about an earlier point. "Wait. What decision do you think they should have made?"

"They should have followed the plan which I outlined in my letter to them. I felt that the commission should act to require that all telephone companies upgrade their equipment over a ten year period so that all existing phone numbers could be increased by one digit. The areas in the most urgent need would have to act immediately, but since they were the ones with the most rapidly growing business, they were also best equipped to absorb the cost."

"I don't understand," I said. "What do you mean by increasing the numbers by one digit?"

"As it stands, all phone numbers in the US are ten digits; an area code, a regional exchange and a four digit personal code. For example 234-555-6789 might be a number, though 555 is always a bogus exchange. My proposal was to immediately add the digit zero to all personal codes nationwide. The machinery could have been programmed to add the digit automatically whether it was dialed or not, and most people would have had ten years to acclimate to the change before they even had to actually begin pressing the extra digit. Then when an exchange ran out of the ten-thousand possible five digit phone numbers ending in zero, they'd have another ten-thousand they could start with that ended in one.

"No businesses would have had to print new stationary or change the fleet markings on their vans. Businesses that were using phone numbers that spelled things but went beyond seven letters — like 1-800-parsnips — could ask for the number corresponding to their eighth letter to be substituted for the zero. Nobody would have to dial more than one extra digit to call next door, and nobody would have to try to figure out which area code to use when they were calling the upstairs phone versus the downstairs line. And best of all, my system would have increased the possible total numbers for each area code by a factor of ten. Overlaying an area code merely doubles the potential."

"So why didn't they take your advice?" I asked.

"My suggestion represented a small expense for the phone companies," Schwartz said. "The solution they actually chose represents a huge financial boon to those same companies. That is why I refuse to be a party to it. It stinks like bad parsnips."

***

We'd followed the Spyder almost into Crafton, but rather than take the turn off of the parkway, she continued on towards the Ft. Pitt Tunnel. Had it been November, I might have finally gotten to see the startling and beautiful lights that Beverly had told me about; but since it was July, the sun still had another two and a half hours-worth of air-time. She turned east on 376, and we were headed away from downtown again. "Where did Matthew Hanson live?" Schwartz asked as we crept along in the rush hour traffic. I told him I'd find out, and I called directory assistance again. Once I had the information, I gave Schwartz the address in Oakland; and no sooner had I told him, than we saw the Spyder's blinker flash for a left turn at the Oakland exit.

"She probably hasn't heard that he's dead," I said, and Schwartz agreed with a grunt. We followed her into the parking area of Hanson's apartment complex. There were several police cars still milling about, which seemed to give her pause, but she found a place to park and walked into the building. Schwartz turned to me, and told me to see where she was going. I got out of the car and followed her into the building. She pushed the button for the elevator, and I had no choice but to stand beside her and wait with her. When the elevator arrived, we got on together. I made sure to lag back so that she would have to press for her floor first, and then I pressed for the same floor.

If it was Hanson's floor, there would be police, and she wouldn't get off; but I would have to so that I might avoid suspicion. I got my press pass out of my pocketbook along with my house key to my apartment in Cleveland and palmed them. When the car stopped, I dropped the key and stooped to get it, so that I'd have a reason not to be the first one out of the elevator. The doors opened, and revealed a uniformed cop talking with a superior. Penny froze momentarily and then pushed a button for the next floor up. I couldn't let the doors close without exiting, since it would be too suspicious, so I said, "Hold the door. This is my stop."

I'd planned to get off, then race for the stairs, since Penny would have to ride up a flight before she could redirect the car to take her down, but the best laid plans...

The plain-clothesman turned at the sound of my voice, and as he brushed the hair from his eye, he said, "Well, look who's here; Gamut Magazine. Still investigating the Hanson thing? I told you already, murder/suicide, the kid Matthew did it. What else do you need to know?"

As the elevator door closed behind me, I looked up at Trevor with what must have been visible disappointment registering in my eyes. I put the lanyard over my head and asked to see the scene. I didn't know what else to do.

***

Ten minutes later, I left the building and went to find Schwartz. I found him standing with Penny Prince at the side of her famous red sporty car. As I approached, I could hear parts of their conversation.

"And he never drove it?" Schwartz was asking.

"No, he kept it in our garage for years." Penny was talking with Schwartz, but she seemed distracted and worried. "I kept it there for a while after he died, but a few years ago, I had to sell my other car, and I needed something to drive."

"Well, if you've been driving it for a few years, why does it still have California plates?"

"You ask a lot of nosy questions," she told him.

"That's what I do," Schwartz said as I reached them. "I'm a private investigator. Miss Hoskin, what did you learn?"

"Nothing," I said, not knowing what role I was playing. "It's all pretty much as we thought."

"So Miss Prince wasn't waylaid by the police?"

"Hey," Penny said, "how do you know my name?"

"We know a lot about you," Schwartz said, "but we'd like to know more."

"I got nothing to say to the cops," she insisted. "Or to the press," she added indicating my press pass with a tilt of her head.

"I'm not the cops," Schwartz said. "As I said already, I'm a private detective." She was getting into her car, but Schwartz went on. "The police are convinced that Matthew Hanson murdered his father and then committed suicide. I disagree, on both points."

"Oh yeah?" she said starting her engine. "Well, I'd have to agree with that. What makes you so sure?"

"Because I know who did kill them," Schwartz said.

"Don't look at me," Penny said defensively.

"If I'm looking at you," Schwartz said, "it's not as a suspect. Can we discuss it? I don't live far. My house and office is in Squirrel Hill."

"You're Lupa Schwartz," she said in sudden realization. "Matt told me you were investigating for Father Coneely."

"No," Schwartz said. "I was investigating for the police. Now I'm acting as an independent agent."

***

Twenty minutes later, we were gathered in Schwartz's office while Beverly prepared us a late snack of crab stuffed mushrooms in drawn garlic butter. Penny had followed us in her car, and as we drove, I told Schwartz what had happened in the elevator, and he filled me in on what had happened on his end.

After I had gone into the building, he had driven over and parked in a manner to block Penny's car in the parking lot. He then got out of his car and began inspecting the outside of the Porsche. He wasn't worried about Penny finding him examining her car since people who owned exotic cars were used to people asking about them. When after a few minutes he'd seen Penny return without her tail (me,) he decided he'd ask her about the Spyder to delay her. She spotted him and approached cautiously.

"Beautiful car. It doesn't look like a kit," he'd said.

"It's not," she'd confirmed. "It's an original chassis and part of the body is original, but the rest is replacement parts, but they're all over forty years old too."

"Who'd you buy it from?"

"It was my dad's. Look can you move your car? I have to go."

"Oh, sure," Schwartz said climbing into his own car and starting the engine. "That's some beautiful machine. If it really is real, it's worth a lot of money."

"I can't sell it," Penny said. "I wish I could, but I can't."

"I know people who would give you a lot of money for it. Is it in good condition?"

"I can't sell it, I tell ya. If I could, I would."

Schwartz still hadn't moved his car, and he continued asking questions. "I thought you said it was your father's car?"

"It was."

"Did he give it to you?"

"He left me everything he owned when he died, so that would include the car."

"Oh," Schwartz said, "I'm sorry. Did he die recently? Is that what's bothering you? You seem sort of distraught." He turned off his engine and got out of his car.

"My father died a few years ago," Penny said.

"Not in an accident in the car I hope."

"No, nobody ever drove the car before I started using it as far as I remember, and I wouldn't have driven it if I didn't absolutely have to."

"But you say your father owned the car?"

"Yes," Penny said.

"And he never drove it?" Schwartz asked, and that's where I'd come in.
Chapter 24

Schwartz sat across from Miss Prince, and I sat to her right as the master contemplated his questions. Since his eyes were closed, he couldn't see what I saw only in periphery. She was struggling with her chin to keep her lip from quivering. Tears were welled up in her eyes, and she had her long sweater sleeve pulled up over her wrist, so she might blot the water away as she pretended only to rest her cheek in her palm. When finally Schwartz was ready to begin his interrogation, she sniffled once loudly, and composed herself with admirable decisiveness.

"Miss Prince," Schwartz said. "I'm sure that you would like for me to tell you how I know that Matthew Hanson did not kill himself or his father. Unfortunately, I'm not prepared to do that at this time. Perhaps, if you will give me some necessary information, I can be tempted to change my mind."

"I understand," Penny began with only a hint of strain in her voice, "that you must be curious about my relationship with Matthew. I also understand that you don't want to commit yourself to naming a killer until you feel that you can prove it. That's fine. And if I can be of any help in getting you to that point so that Matthew's name can be cleared, I'll gladly help in any way that I can."

"Very well then," Schwartz said. "What was your relationship with Matthew Hanson?"

"We were lovers," Penny said with a break in her voice. She regained her composure and began again. "We met at work when I came to Lighthouse Life. At first we were just friends, and it stayed that way for a while after I left for New World. But none of this is important. Can I just tell you the relevant facts without the questions and answers? You can ask whatever you want if I leave anything out."

Schwartz's brow formed a tight ball at the center. She had interrupted the flow of his questions, but she seemed willing to offer up all that she held. Actually, I suspect that he was mostly flustered that all of the manipulative questions he'd dreamed up were going to go unused, but what else could he do? He nodded, and Penny began her story.

***

She had worked for an insurance company in Las Vegas until about two years prior; having moved to Nevada from California when her father had died. Unfortunately, Las Vegas proved to be a bad relocation for her, since she soon developed a gambling addiction. She had gotten into hock on her credit card with the casinos, and she'd had to sell everything she owned except for her clothes and the Porsche she had inherited from her father. She'd decided to leave Vegas, but she wanted to win one last score to help set her up in her new life. She thought she had a sure thing with a system she'd heard of for winning craps, but she had no money to gamble with.

So she found somebody to bankroll her scheme. She showed her Porsche to a loan shark she knew, and he fronted her $4,000 in exchange for the title. He gave her twenty-four hours to return the money plus fifteen percent interest, and he would return the title. The problem was that the sure-thing system fizzled, and the title she'd given the loan shark was a phony. She didn't actually have the title to the Porsche; her father had lost that years before.

So she couldn't repay the loan shark, and she couldn't give him the car since he'd learn that the title was a fake. The only thing she could do was run, so she hightailed it to Pittsburgh where she had a friend from college. She changed her name, and she got a job working as an insurance adjuster at Lighthouse Life and Casualty.

When she'd been working for only a month or two at Lighthouse, one of her co-workers, Matthew Hanson, confided in her that he had some concerns about his father. The father had confided in Matthew that he was considering becoming a vocal advocate of assisted suicide at the urging of his new parish priest, and he was worried about how it might affect Matthew's career since his life insurance policy was with the company Matthew worked for.

Matthew had tried at first to dissuade his father from the suicide idea, but had finally reconciled to follow his father's wishes when he'd realized that since it was illegal, his father could never actually go through with it. It was imperative that his father move his policy to another firm, but that the other firm should still be willing to accept a man who was already dying of cancer. The reason that the father wanted to maintain the policy was that his daughter Marjorie had married a fool, and he wanted to be sure that she would get her inheritance so that she could divorce him. Also one of his sons had married a sweet but weak woman, and the son wanted to be able to retire early enough to stay home and care for her.

To this end, Matthew had come up with a plan. He had met secretly with a representative of one of his firm's competitors, and had worked out a deal. If they would take on his father as a client, he would deliver to them a huge corporate account, the International Airport's passenger life insurance program. Lighthouse was the insurer for the airport's passenger kiosks, but the contract was due to expire; and for an extra two percent he knew that the airport would accept another bid. He hadn't given the competitor the specifics, because it would mean losing his leverage, so he needed an accomplice to play the part of mole and accept a job at the competitors.

Penny had asked Matthew why he'd picked her. What had made him think that she would be willing to do any of this? He'd told her that he'd noticed that she was driving a pretty fancy car for a girl on an insurance adjuster's salary, but that she was indiscriminate about where she parked, choosing a different parking place each day in different parts of the lot regardless of weather conditions. He'd thought about it and had decided that it had to mean that she needed money, but that she was hiding from her creditor or she'd simply sell the car and be done with it. If she would agree to help him out, he would give her half of his share of the life insurance policy when his father passed, which shouldn't be more than several months.

Penny had agreed, seeing this as an opportunity to free herself and start fresh. She went to work for New World, and she submitted the sealed bid for the Airport contract that Matthew had drawn up. Meanwhile, Matthew and his father staged a disagreement for the benefit of his siblings. He'd decided that it would be best if his brothers and sisters thought his father had moved his policy to New World because he was angry with Matthew. He was especially worried about his sister Peggy, who was scrupulously honest and might ruin the whole thing if she suspected.

So that was how things stood for a little less than a year. Matthew and Penny were the only ones who knew the whole scheme, and it brought them into each other's arms. His father began talking with the press about assisted suicide, and Penny's new employers never balked. Everything was fine. But then Peggy became concerned about the father's dwindling bank account. She began to harass him about canceling his life insurance program. She wanted him to live forever, and his medicines cost a lot of money, and he couldn't afford to continue wasting so much on his life insurance premiums. Finally, when it seemed that he was about to die anyway, Mr. Hanson Sr. decided that he could stop paying the premiums since he'd be gone before the policy lapsed completely.

The problem was that he was using the Lighthouse contract as his guide. Since the New World policy was so new, it had a much shorter grace period. Penny told Matthew about the situation, and Matthew realized that he would have to confide the situation to one of his siblings since he couldn't bring it up to Peggy himself after the masquerade he'd acted out when he needed her to believe that he and his father were in disagreement over the policies. Penny didn't know which sibling Matthew had confided in, but she was sure that whichever it was, that was who Matthew had suspected in his father's murder.

***

Schwartz was shaking his head. "That's not necessarily correct. The sibling he'd confided in might have shared the information without informing Matthew. However, assuming that the confidence brought about the murder, it would indicate complicity on behalf of the party Matthew had given the confidence. Now I have some questions for you."

Penny stiffened her back and squared her shoulders and nodded. Schwartz continued. "You say you can't sell the car because you don't have the title, yet you claim to have legally inherited the car from your father's estate. Why not just have a duplicate title made?"

"My father," she said, and she stopped to consider the most tactful way of saying it. "My father may not have gained possession of the car in a way that would make a title search prudent. All of the VINs have been filed down and washed over with acid. I don't say that I think he stole the car. In fact I'm sure that he didn't. I think he won it in a card game just as he claimed. However, I think that he knew or that he believed that it had been stolen at one time."

"I see," Schwartz said. "I suppose there was a provision in your contract with the loan shark stipulating compounding of interest?"

"Yes," Penny said. "He's been compounding the interest monthly for twenty-three months."

"Have you been keeping track of what you owe, or would you prefer that I do the math?"

"That won't be necessary. I owe him nearly a hundred thousand dollars. The money I would have gotten from Matthew's share of the policy would have been more than enough to cover what I owe the shark plus that much left over for myself."

"You know," Schwartz said, "there are people who would pay you that much for the car even without the title."

"I know," Penny said, "but I don't know anyone with that kind of money who I could trust well enough to make the deal. I'd be beholden to them or worried that they'd blackmail me or turn me in. It wouldn't change my situation, it would only redirect it. I'd still be living in constant fear of exposure. It would just be a different kind of exposure. I wish I'd never seen that car. It's a curse."

"Curse?" Schwartz said. "There's no such thing as a curse. Or if there are curses, there are an equal number of blessings, but that's another matter. Why not simply sell the car to somebody who you have something on?"

"You mean blackmail?" Penny asked. "Are you suggesting...?"

Schwartz imposed, "I'm not suggesting; I'm inquiring. It seems possible to me that you know more than you are saying, and that you plan to use what you know to force the killer or killers to share their insurance windfall. Maybe you even intend to force them to purchase your car. Or perhaps you might compel your employer to purchase the car. You have leverage to use on him. You've just described a conspiracy in which you and he are both participants."

"How could I possibly compel anyone to do such a thing? I don't have legal title? They aren't car collectors or anything. The sale would draw attention."

"We'll forgo this for now. It's off track at any rate. Can you get me a meeting with the same company representative who made the deal with Matthew Hanson that secured for you your position with New World Life?"

"I suppose so, yes," Penny said. "When do you want the meeting?"

"Tomorrow afternoon. Tell him or her that I may be able to save New World Life a large portion of the Hanson death benefit."

"It's a him," Penny said. "Thornton Felix. Now can I ask you some questions?"

"You may ask," Schwartz said, "but I reserve the right to withhold my answers."

"How did Matthew die?"

"I'm glad you asked. It shows that you are concerned about him; that he wasn't just a method to clear your debt. He was poisoned with the same chemical that killed his father. Somebody mixed it in his scotch."

"Scotch?" Penny said. "Matthew didn't drink scotch. He drank ice cold vodka."

"That's part of why I believe it was murder. Vodka is clear, but Chlordane has a golden color that would have made it visible in vodka, whereas it would blend in with the color of scotch. Do you know if any of Matthew's siblings were scotch drinkers?"

"I couldn't tell you. I don't know any of them. We were forced to keep our relationship a secret, so I never met his family. What else makes you think it was murder?"

"The supposed suicide note. They found a message in his laptop computer. Ostensibly it looks like a confession and suicide note, but the style is terse and disorderly. Would you say that Matthew was disorganized?"

"No," Penny insisted, "just the opposite. He was a list maker."

"I thought as much," Schwartz said. "Do you have any other questions?"

"Are you going to be able to prove that Matthew is innocent?"

"I believe so, yes."

"Why are you doing this? If the police have settled the case, then you have earned your fee. What's in this for you?"

"I was wondering why you were being so patient with my blunt, accusatory questions. Now, I see that you and I are of a similar mind on this. Nobody's motives are inviolate, are they? Well, the fact that a murderer is walking around loose is reason enough, but I have other reasons. My meeting with Mr. Felix may make it lucrative for me. I don't meet with insurance companies for my health." He found this remark comical and began giggling at his own joke. Penny looked at me puzzled, and I shrugged. "Insurance," Schwartz said. "Health. Don't you get it?" Penny and I both shrugged, but we smiled. What else could we do?
Chapter 25

That evening must have been the answer to a life-long dream for Schwartz. Penny spent the night in the third floor bedroom which meant that every extra bedroom in Schwartz's house had a woman in it. The following morning she joined us for breakfast, and then left for work to set up the meeting between Felix and Schwartz for that afternoon. Schwartz decided that he would spend the morning in the garage with Mia while I ran some interviews. He was desperate to get to his cars; having missed the whole day before.

He'd decided that my whole day would be spent interviewing the surviving Hanson siblings and their spouses. He wanted to let them continue to believe that the case was closed, and that I was merely tying up the loose ends for my article. The angle I was to take was that I was interested in hearing where they thought Matthew might have gotten the Chlordane and why he had wanted to kill his father. If it was possible, I was to steer the conversation to find out how each described the sequence of events after Coneely and Donatelli had gone the day they'd come to administer the last rights to the Hanson father. Schwartz handed me the key to his Fiero, and I decided to start with the most difficult subject, so I went to the familial Hanson residence to speak with Peggy.

Peggy came to the door looking exhausted. I'd been expecting a fight from her, but she was uncharacteristically subdued. She showed me into the kitchen and offered me a coffee. I started by telling her how sorry I was for the loss of her baby brother. She accepted my condolences cordially and blew her nose into a tissue. "I just can't believe that he could have killed Daddy like that."

"Do you have any idea where he might have gotten the Chlordane?" I asked.

"None. I tell ya, I really thought it must have been that priest. I'd really convinced myself of it; partly because I couldn't think how any of us could have gotten Chlordane. I mean, except for me. I probably could have gotten it. I know all kinds of poison suppliers from work. But none of the others had any real access; especially Matthew. But apparently he must have gotten some somewhere."

"Well," I said, "when do you think he managed to slip the poison to your father?"

"I don't know. I hadn't thought of that."

"Can we maybe retrace the events of that night a little? Kind of try to piece the story together?"

"Oh, I don't know. That seems kind of creepy."

"Please. It would really help me to draw a sympathetic picture of your brother if I can demonstrate that he was considerate in his approach to euthanizing your father." I was on dangerous ground here. I'd chosen the most delicate wording I could, but even the word euthanasia was inflammatory with Peggy. She sighed and shrugged and told me her version of the events from the time the priests had gone.

She had been fuming as the door closed on the holy men, so she started up the steps toward her bedroom, but decided to stay with her family instead. As she had started for the stairs, the others who had been at the door went into the living room except for Carl who joined his wife with Sam and Melissa in the kitchen. She joined her unmarried brothers and her sister with her husband in the living room.

At this point, I should give a more thorough description of the layout of the Hanson residence. When you came into the front entrance which was on the south wall you were faced right away with the stairwell to the upstairs part of the house. This stairwell was about eight paces in front of you. The area to your left opened to a nicely sized foyer and against the wall to your left was an upright piano. The front door opened to the right as you entered, and behind the door was the main entrance to the living room. If you kept the living room to your right and passed to the right of the stairwell, you found yourself in a short narrow hall. To your left, it opened into the kitchen. To your right, it opened into another narrow hall. Halfway down this hall to your left were the French double-doors to the family dining room which had recently been serving as the senior Hanson's hospital room. At the end of the hall on the right was a second entry to the living room. The only other exit from the house was a kitchen exit on the west wall. There was one other door on the main floor which was also in the kitchen and which took you to the basement pantry. It was on the south wall of the kitchen directly under the stairwell to the upstairs.

Peggy sat on the couch next to Lewis who was talking with Matthew in the single chair. Marjorie and Melvin were across the room in the love seat, but they became uncomfortable and went into the hall to play the piano. Peggy admitted that what had probably made them uncomfortable was her staring at them. After a while, she had gotten up and moved to the love seat where the television remote was sitting. She turned on the television and switched around the channels, but there was nothing playing that she wanted to watch. She got up and went to the hall to go up to her room once more, but halfway up decided to come down again, and she went into the kitchen. Sam was there trying to calm Melissa, so Peggy went to the pot to make another batch of coffee.

When she got there, she discovered that they'd run out of filters, so she went to the basement pantry to get more, but Sara was already there. Peggy said to her, "We're out of coffee filters," and Sara said she knew and showed her that she had gotten out a fresh box. At that moment she heard Matthew come into the kitchen and begin talking to Sam. Matthew was standing in the archway to the kitchen; and she walked past him, down the hall and into the living room where she found Carl talking with Melvin. Lewis was now in the hall with Marjorie at the piano. Peggy had finally begun to calm down, so she went back to the love seat and tried to read the evening paper. Matthew returned to the living room through the main entrance, and handed Peggy a cup of fresh coffee and sat beside her. She put her head on his shoulder, and he suggested that they go and check on their father. "My God," Peggy said. "He must have just come from poisoning Dad. He already knew that we were going to find him dying or dead."

I felt I'd gotten about all that I was going to get out of Peggy, so I commiserated with her for a few minutes, made some excuses and left for my next stop. I didn't want to deal with any more grieving women at the moment, so I chose the other single brother for my next visit. Lewis was living in a hotel near the airport, so I had a long drive. I decided to use some of the drive time to touch base with the magazine. I hadn't spoken with Jana for several days, so I had to fill her in on some of my progress so she could update the editors at the next editorial meeting. I told her about how Matthew had died and the police assumed suicide over the guilt of having killed his father, but that Schwartz was investigating another track. She wanted to know what Schwartz thought had happened, and I had to confess that I had no idea. Jana found that amusing.

When I got to Lewis' hotel, I called him on the house phone and asked him if he'd meet me in the coffee shop. This would be my third cup of coffee for the day, and it was barely noon. I ran through the same song and dance, and he told me roughly the same story as Peggy had, though from a slightly different vantage. The door had closed on Coneely and Donatelli, and Peggy had started up the stairs but had decided to follow them into the living room instead. He'd gone into the living room and sat on the couch to talk with Matthew about the Pirate's winning streak. Peggy had glared at Marjorie and Melvin until they'd gone together into the hall to the piano. Peggy had moved to the love seat and switched through the channels. Lewis and Matthew had pretended to continue discussing baseball, but they had really been commenting under their breath about how peculiarly Peggy was behaving. Eventually, Peggy had gotten up and started for the stairs, but she changed her mind and went into the kitchen. He and Matthew went into the hall to check on her, and when they saw that she had gone into the kitchen, Lewis had joined Marjorie and Melvin at the piano, but Matthew had kept watching the kitchen door. Eventually, Matthew had gone into the kitchen and Melvin had gone into the living room, but Lewis stayed with Marjorie to play the second part of Clair de Lune with her. Soon he saw Matthew return from the kitchen and go into the living room with a cup of coffee. A few minutes later, Matthew and Peggy (who must have entered the living room from the other entrance since he hadn't seen her come in) went to check on their father. That was when they'd found him dead.

I asked him when he thought Matthew had administered the poison. He answered, "He must have done it while I was on the piano with Marjorie. That must have been what he was doing watching the kitchen entrance, he must have been waiting for the opportunity to slip into my father's room."

I thanked Lewis for his help with my article, and he said he was glad to help a fellow journalist, but that he hoped I would be kind toward his brother's memory. I bought a sandwich to go, left him and went to my next stop promising myself that I'd drink no more coffee that day.

I guess I was lucky, because I found both the Carl Hanson family and the Marjorie Hanson-Melhorne family together at the Melhorne home, and they told me that the Sam Hansons would be joining them shortly. Peggy had called them and told them I was making the rounds, and they decided to make my life a little easier. I think they really just wanted for it all to be over. Marjorie offered me coffee which I declined, but I did ask for a glass of milk to wash down the tuna salad I'd eaten on the way over. I started with my stock question. "So where do you all think Matthew got the poison?"

"I don't think we'll ever know that," Melvin said. "It was probably just a circumstantial thing. He needed a poison and he stumbled across the Chlordane somewhere."

"Melvin's probably right," his wife agreed. "Matthew had a strange way about him. He was secretive and outgoing all at the same time. He always had some kind of scheme working."

"He was a good kid," Carl said. "But he wasn't really like the rest of us. Him and Peggy had a bond though."

"Yeah," Sara agreed. "They were close. This has really hit her hard."

"So do you think Peggy knows more than she's willing to say?" I asked.

"Oh, no," Sara said. "She couldn't possibly be involved."

"But if she knew something, do you think she'd keep it quiet to protect Matthew's memory?" I asked. Sara and Marjorie had begun to shake their heads, but Carl said, "That's not something we can really talk to, you know. I mean, who can really know what's going on in somebody else's head?"

"Are you talking about me?" Melissa said as she and Sam walked into the room.

"No," Sara said. "We're talking about Peggy."

"Oh," Melissa said. "I thought you might be discussing my, you know, my breakdowns."

"Now, Melissa," Sam said. "That's not at all pertinent."

"Well," I said. "It might be. Didn't you have a little spell the night Mr. Hanson died? Would that keep you from remembering the sequence of events?"

"Why do you need to know the sequence of events anyway?" Melvin asked. And I thought Penny had said they considered him a fool.

"I'm writing an article about this investigation," I said. "The more facts I have, the more clearly I can tell it. I don't want to say anything that will make Matthew look plotting and cold if that's not how it was. Lewis says that Matthew seemed to be — well — I guess hovering would be the word; waiting for an opportunity to poison his father. I don't want to describe it that way if that's not how it was."

"We're not going to be able to help you much," Sam said. "We were in the kitchen the whole time while the others came and went. We were there from before the priest left to the moment Peggy and Matthew found Dad dead."

"Did any of you see Matthew hovering in the hall?" I asked.

"I was in the kitchen the whole time too," Sara said. "Except for when I went to the pantry for the coffee filters."

"I'm afraid I was at the piano from the time the priests left until the death was discovered," Marjorie said.

"I saw him sort of hovering for a moment," Carl said. "After the priests left, I went into the kitchen, but then I left and went into the living room, and I saw him standing in the hall as I passed. But he didn't seem to be doing anything ghoulish to me."

"To me either," Melvin said. "When I got up from the piano, he was standing in the hall watching the kitchen door, but I just thought he was worried about Peggy. I even mentioned that to Carl when he joined me in the living room."

"What exactly did you say to Carl?" I asked.

"Well, I was about to turn on the television when he came into the room and plopped down on the couch near me, and I said, 'Is Matthew still in the hallway waiting for Peggy?' or words to that effect."

"Yeah, but then Peggy came into the room without him," Carl said. "He didn't come in for several minutes after Peggy."

"That's because he was in the kitchen with us waiting for the coffee to brew." Melissa said. "You see, I'm not a total basket case."

***

I drove the whole route back to Schwartz's house with a satisfied smirk playing on my lips. Everything that the Hanson's had been telling me about that night seemed to indicate that the only one with opportunity was, in fact, Matthew. Up until the very end, I had yet to see the light of day. But then that final statement by Melissa had lifted the shroud, and I was now sure that I knew who had poisoned Mr. Hanson Sr. and when, though I still didn't know how or where the killer had gotten the Chlordane nor how he had killed Matthew. But I was willing to take my little victories as they came.

I walked into Schwartz's office and found him on the cordless phone finalizing some sort of arrangements. I told him that I had figured out who had killed the Hanson father, and he congratulated me on my insight, but he still wouldn't fill in the gaps for me. He still had a few steps to take before that could be accomplished. He asked me to tell him in detail what I'd gotten from the Hanson brood, which I did, and then he told me of the progress he'd made that day.
Chapter 26

Before going to the garage, Schwartz had called a friend of his who ran a local not-for-profit group. He asked him to call and rent the stage area in St. Bart's hall for that weekend. He was to use the ruse that the group was putting on a play at one of the local high schools, but due to a scheduling conflict, they were unable to use the stage for their dress rehearsal that weekend. They only needed the hall to fine tune the performance, not for the actual production itself. When I'd found him on the phone, he was checking back with his friend to make sure that the hall had been properly arranged for.

After he'd completed that call, he'd contacted Penny Prince to make sure that his meeting had been scheduled with Thornton Felix. When he'd been satisfied on this part of the program, he'd typed up a short document and retired for his garage time. He'd then come up, had lunch, and took his 1993 TVR Griffith to meet with Thornton Felix at the New World Life office complex.

Felix had wanted to take him into a conference room, but Schwartz had said that conference rooms were for conferences. He said he doubted that Felix would want anybody else to hear their conversation. He suggested that they leave the building and take a ride. So he and Felix had gone back to his Griffith and hit the open highways.

"I recently had an interesting talk with Penny Prince," Schwartz said. "She told me some things that might be very interesting to airport officials."

"Are you trying to blackmail me?" Thornton Felix had asked.

"I wouldn't want to betray the confidence Miss Prince placed in me when she told me how she got her job. I simply want to show you that you would not be wise to attempt in any way to renege on me."

"Renege on you how?" Felix asked. "We don't have any kind of contract."

"Not yet," Schwartz said. "But I suspect that we soon will."

"So you are trying to blackmail me."

"Not at all," Schwartz said. "The contract to which I've referred is completely above board. I simply want to establish that it will be in your best interest to be as above board with me as I plan to be with you." He then began to lay out the issue he had called on Felix to discuss.

"You may know that I was until recently investigating the murder of Vincent Hanson. In the course of that investigation, I learned that you accepted him as a client for your company's life insurance coverage despite the pre-existence of advanced cancer in his system. I was curious about what might compel you to issue a policy to such a client until my recent discussion with Miss Prince. However, for the moment we can put that to the side.

"Recently, the case was closed by the police when Matthew Hanson was found dead, presumably by his own hand and with a suicide note confession which seemed to indicate that he had single-handedly been responsible for his father's death. This is what brings me to you. I don't think that he alone is responsible, and I believe that I can prove it. The thing is, I am officially off the case, I'll soon be paid for my efforts, and I have no reason to continue my labors.

"Therefore, I've come to you with a proposal. I will accept a contract from you to find the killer or killers, and if it should prove that more of the policy's beneficiaries are involved, you will agree to pay me one-third of each portion of the policy that your company is saved since it is illegal for a party to benefit financially from a murder. This not including the portion the police have already saved you by naming Matthew Hanson. Should I find that there are responsible parties who are not a beneficiary to your policy, you shall owe me nothing for said parties. You have nothing to lose, and one-sixth of a million dollars to save for each Hanson that I can implicate."

"So you've come to me ambulance chasing?" Felix asked.

"Do you accept my proposal or don't you?"

"Do I have a choice? If I don't, you'll go to the police with the airport thing."

"No," Schwartz said. "As I told you, I have no desire to implicate Miss Prince in a crime, and I can see no way to implicate you without revealing my source. Can you?"

"I can't, no," Felix admitted. "But then I'm not a brilliant private investigator."

"Well, you'll have to take my word for it that I have no intention in implicating you in your indiscretion unless you try to cheat me in the deal I'm proposing now. And as I've demonstrated, you have nothing to lose by engaging me."

"Do you want a written contract?" Felix asked.

"I only want a contract stipulating the bargain I've outlined. There need be no mention of the airport scheme either directly or implicitly." Schwartz reached into his breast pocket and produced a document which he had prepared and signed in duplicate earlier that morning.

***

After securing Felix's signature, Schwartz again had legal jurisdiction to investigate the murders. He dropped Felix off at his offices and drove directly to Trevor Johns' office at police H.Q. Johns was out, so Schwartz left a message for him to phone later that evening. He then drove to the radio station, WPAN, and asked for a copy of the tape that their reporter Winston Hancock had made during the press event more than a week before. He'd then come home to await my return.

"Tomorrow," he said to me after bringing me up to speed, "we'll go to the Star-Herald and request electronic files of the pictures that their reporter took that night." I rolled my eyes. The last time I'd asked that paper for a little help they'd pooh-poohed. "Are you expecting resistance?" Schwartz asked; having noticed my reaction.

"The editor seems to think we're asking quite a bit of them," I answered.

"Then don't ask the editor. Ask the reporter directly. I had no difficulty securing the tape. I simply promised the reporter an exclusive. He already has a personal stake in the story; having been the one in the Hanson house when the first fracas began."

"I've already promised the paper a mention in the article I'm writing about the case. How can we give them exclusivity when the radio station has exclusivity, and I need to reserve something for the article?"

"The radio is a separate medium from the printed word. We'll give tit-for-tat. When I reveal who poisoned the Hanson's, we'll record it on both audio and still images. The paper can have exclusive pictures, the radio can have the exclusive sound bite, and your magazine will have the exclusive on how you and I worked the whole thing out."

I think I must have flushed like an embarrassed schoolgirl.

***

He went to the garage for an abbreviated afternoon session with the cars, then came up for a late dinner. We were finishing up our lemon and raspberry sorbets when Trevor came to pay us a visit. Schwartz offered Trevor a beer, which he accepted since he was off duty. The case was closed, so he could count this as a social call.

In the middle of their brews, Schwartz made a strange announcement. "I have pieced together all of the facts pertaining to the deaths of both Matthew Hanson and his father. The prior is to be buried tomorrow, so I will take no direct action for two days, but Thursday afternoon I will be naming names. If you wish, you may be there, but I would prefer that you not be the officer of record." Trevor stopped in mid-swallow and stared wide eyed at Schwartz.

"My request has nothing to do with you personally," Schwartz said. "What I plan is something that could not benefit you, but could result in a situation which will benefit a friend of yours greatly."

"Who are you talking about?" Trevor asked.

"Your friend from the undercover narcotics squad; the singer, I think they call him Yitzie."

"Jimmy Yitzosky? You want him to get credit for the collar? Why?"

"I have a few reasons. One is that since you have closed the case, it might be harder for you to explain to a judge why we need a particular warrant. Another is that it might get him transferred out of narcotics, which he hates, and would put him in the same department as you, where you and he could work more closely together. He is part of your family, is he not?"

"He's my ex-wife's brother, yeah, so he's my son's uncle. Why the sudden interest in Yitzie?"

"Actually, I never even considered him, but Mia asked me to see if I could help to get him out of narcotics, and there is the situation with the warrant."

"I put in a lot of time on this case," Trevor said.

"Trevor should get the chance to close the case," I said.

"If he can work it all out before Thursday evening, he has my full support," Schwartz said. "You can even give him all of the information we've come up with. I doubt that he can get the solution I've got though," Schwartz stood and started for the stairs. "In fact, I'll even make a suggestion for a place to start that gave me the solution. Ask your friend Jana what I asked her to find out for me."

"When did you talk with Jana?" I asked.

"The first day we went to the Hansons'. I borrowed your phone, went across the street and hit the re-dial. She was very helpful to me."

***

Trevor and I went to the back porch while I called Jana at home. She told us that Schwartz had called her soon after she'd called to tell me I could get the story the Star-Herald had written about the arsenic-laced lumber in the St. Bart's playground. He wanted her to get for him as many obituaries as she could for people who had attended St. Bart's since 1988. There had been nearly four-hundred, but he'd only wanted those that mentioned that the party had suffered a lingering illness. There had been only seventeen of those. Now I understood why the editor was feeling so put upon. I asked Jana to email me the same obits in the morning, thanked her, and hung up.

"What do you think he expected to learn from that?" I asked Trevor after I'd gotten off the call.

"Well," Trevor said, "Mr. Hanson might have known most of those people. Could that have anything to do with it?"

"Maybe," I said. "I don't see how, though."

"No, neither do I. Maybe we should examine this from a different angle. What would it take to prove who the guilty party is?"

"Well," I said, "there are a few things. First, it would have to be someone with access to Chlordane, but I don't see how the obituaries of people who died lingering deaths are any help there. Another point is the suicide note that your tech people found in Matthew's laptop. You'd need to prove that was faked. But again, what do these obituaries have to do with that? You'd also need motive. Maybe this somehow shows motive."

"The only motive it shows is mercy killing, and we've already explored that angle and come up with Matthew Hanson."

"Yeah," I said, "that's right."

"What else has he got that you know of besides those obituaries?"

"Well," I said, "he wants to get the pictures the newspaper reporter took the day Coneely had his press conference."

"What will they show?" Trevor asked.

"Just the Hanson's discussing euthanasia in their house. Oh, and Peggy Hanson throwing a hissy fit when she found them there."

"That could be something, I guess," Trevor said. "What else has he got?"

"He has the St. Christopher's medal, but I really don't see the relevance of that any longer."

"No, I think that was just supposed to get Matthew Hanson worked up to tell us what he knew, but I don't understand how."

"Neither do I. Um, there is one other thing," I said.

"What is it?"

"We found Matthew Hanson's girlfriend."

"Matthew Hanson had a girlfriend? What was she able to tell you?"

So I shared Penny's story about the policy and how Matthew knew that it was about to lapse and had told one of his siblings, but that she didn't know which. I reserved the parts about the loan shark and the stolen Spyder. I was certain that they were not relevant to the case, and I saw no reason to bring Trevor into that part of it.
Chapter 27

After Trevor had gone, I went up to take a long hot bath before bed. As I soaked, I thought some more about the obituaries that Schwartz had had Jana find for him. Having the obituaries was one thing, but what could he do with them, and what was the significance of 1988? I remembered that was a year that had been mentioned in connection with this case before. It was the year that Chlordane had finally been completely banned by the EPA. Maybe that was somehow significant, though I couldn't see how. Unless he'd been considering the possibility that the seventeen had also been poisoned by Chlordane to put them out of their misery. And since they might have all known Vincent Hanson, perhaps Schwartz had thought that Hanson had had something to do with their poisoning; which might mean that he was considering the possibility that Hanson had poisoned himself or that he had at least arranged the poison for himself.

This was beginning to show some potential. If Hanson had been the one to get the poison for any or all seventeen of the people who had died those lingering deaths, then Schwartz would have a starting place to determine where the poison had come from. What he must have done is contacted the survivors of those seventeen dead men and women. And if I wanted to know what he knew, I would have to make those same calls.

***

The next morning we had our breakfast of egg and mushroom crepes as Schwartz set up the day's schedule. He would put in his morning garage time, and then we'd have an early lunch. He hated that he'd been forced to rearrange his schedule so much lately, but a witness had been murdered under his watch, and he wanted to end this case as quickly as possible. After lunch, he and I would go to the coroner's office to retrieve the St. Christopher's medal. After that, we would go to the Star-Herald building to speak with Vic Jenkins about his pictures. Once Schwartz went to the garage, I retrieved my email, and began making my calls.

I wasted the first several minutes of my calling time by starting in chronological order. After looking up the name of the wife of the first decedent and finding no current listing, I realized that she had probably passed away herself several years before. So I began again with the most recent obituary. Hazel Langely had died almost seven months before. I found the listing for her husband Derrick and called him at home. He answered on the fourth ring. "Hello," I said, "Derrick Langely? My name is Cattleya Hoskin with Gamut Magazine. I hope I'm not calling at a bad time. I'm calling to inquire about your wife Hazel."

"Hazel passed away several months ago," he said.

"Yes, I know. My condolences. The reason I was calling was to inquire if anybody had called you recently to ask any questions about her passing?"

"What kind of questions?" he wanted to know.

"Well, I was hoping you might be able to tell me. Have you gotten any such calls?"

"No," he said, "nobody's called me to ask me anything about Hazel. Why should they?"

"Did your wife know Vincent Hanson?"

"Is this about Fr. Coneely? I thought he was cleared of those charges."

"He has been," I began, but Langely charged on.

"Look, Fr. Coneely administered last rites to my Hazel with no incident at all. She lived almost a whole extra week after he done the sacrament. It all went just like it's supposed to, and he never even mentioned the idea of euthanasia. He didn't even start that silliness for another month or so. Course he was still pretty new at the parish at the time, but he done a fine job by us, and I don't appreciate you media types trying to imply otherwise. Can't you leave the poor man alone?" He hung up, and I was left feeling the sting of another champion of the fourth clover leaf.

I was hesitant to call the next party, but I was sure that I had something somewhere in this idea. I tried calling the next spouse, but found that the number had been disconnected. However, I noticed the name of a surviving daughter and tried that number. When the young woman answered I said, "Hello, Mrs. Pete?"

"Yes."

"My name is Cattleya Hoskin with Gamut Magazine. I hope I'm not disturbing you. I'm calling to ask about your father, Charles Dutton."

"Funny," she said, "the old son-of-a-bitch was never so popular when he was alive."

"I beg your pardon," I said.

"Some woman from the diocese called the other day to ask about him. She spoke with my mother."

"Your mother lives with you?" I said. This made sense. Schwartz had had Beverly make his calls for him, and when she had called she'd spoken with this woman's mother.

"Yes, she's lived here for a year now almost," the woman said.

"What kind of questions did the woman ask Mrs. Dutton?"

"She wanted to know if dad had needed last rites more than once. Something about a record keeping problem in the diocese office."

"And did he?" I asked.

"Well, Mom couldn't remember; which is understandable. She was under a lot of stress at the time. It's not easy being a care giver for a loved one, as I am finding out. Actually, it's not surprising that mom couldn't remember. She had early onset Alzheimer's at the time. It's even worse now."

"Do you remember?" I asked.

"Sure I do. He only needed it one time. In fact, he died the same night about an hour later. Hey, listen, I can understand why the diocese would need that information, but why would Gamut Magazine want to know that?"

"Actually, I was just making small talk," I said. "I was calling to find out if your father knew Vincent Hanson."

"Oh, this is about the Fr. Coneely case. You've made a mistake; Coneely wasn't even the parish priest when my father died."

"Actually," I said, "I just wanted to know about whether there was a connection between your father and Mr. Hanson."

"Oh, well, they knew one another, yes. They were in the Knights of Columbus together."

"Did Mr. Hanson visit your father at all during his illness?"

"Well, you'd have to ask my mother that. But she wouldn't remember something like that, I'm sure."

I continued working back through the list contacting either spouses or other surviving family members. Many said that they had received similar calls from the woman from the diocese inquiring about how long their loved one had survived after receiving the last rites. Most had said that they simply couldn't remember that far back. Oddly though, not all were sure if their loved ones had had any contact with Mr. Hanson. Several were certain that they hadn't known the man well at all, and those that had known him couldn't recall if he'd come to visit their dying relative.

After I'd finished my calls, I considered what I'd learned. It became clear to me that Schwartz had wanted for me to make these calls all along, though I couldn't begin to determine why. Schwartz's car time was nearly at an end, so I decided to meet him down in the garage.

"Very good work," I said. "You tricked me into retracing Beverly's work, but I don't think it accomplished anything. I wasn't able to learn anything that she hadn't already told you."

"I beg your pardon," Schwartz said with a befuddled look on his smug face.

"I called every one of the survivors that I could find, but not a one of them could link Mr. Hanson to their dead relative. That's what you wanted isn't it? For me to believe you had found a clue that you actually hadn't been able to find, so that I'd make the same calls and find it for you."

Schwartz raised his shoulders in surrender. "Yes," he said, "all right, that's what I was hoping for. I may as well admit it. But since you say you got nothing new, I suppose it was all for nothing. I'm sorry I had to use you that way. Have you told Mr. Johns about my little deceit?"

"No," I said. "I'm going to call him before lunch."

"I'd prefer that you wait until after we've eaten. You can phone him from your cell phone as we drive to the coroner's office. I have something more to tell you over lunch."

***

Beverly had prepared a light lunch of tomato and spinach bruschetta since we'd only recently eaten breakfast, and this way she could make an extra hearty dinner for us. As we ate, Schwartz informed me that he had decided that he actually did want for Jimmy to be the officer who was credited with the killer that Thursday night. Trevor had benefited from Schwartz's crime solving prowess many times over the years, and it may very well have made his career. It was time to share the wealth. Besides, Trevor had already benefited from the case by establishing that Coneely had not been guilty. The church was placated, and that was politically significant for Trevor's career. It was possible that naming the actual killer could be a political step backward for Trevor, but this was not the case where Jimmy Yitzosky was concerned. Schwartz wouldn't elaborate on how this could be true, but he gave me his assurances that he would not steer me wrong on this point.

We finished our meals and were soon on the road in Schwartz's 1992 Bugatti EB110GT. I'd been there a week by this time, and we'd not taken the same car twice. In fact, I probably could have made that claim had the case taken a month. "Now," Schwartz said, "if you want to call Officer Johns, be my guest. However, I would appreciate it if you didn't tell him that I am trying to protect him by keeping him out of the case. It would be better for my relationship with him if he continues to believe that I think he made a bungle of the case. I don't expect you to understand my reasoning. Women are a different relational archetype."

He was right, I didn't understand his logic, but I played along anyway. I called Trevor and told him that I had decided to call the survivors mentioned in the obituaries. He agreed that it was a good idea, and he asked me for a complete report. I protested that it had been all-for-nothing since the survivors had all had memory lapses, but he insisted on a complete conversation-for-conversation report anyway. He probably wouldn't have been so insistent if Schwartz would have just let me tell him that his ability was not in doubt, but I'd been sworn to keep that under my proverbial hat, so I had to accommodate the stubborn jerk while Schwartz drove on with yet another satisfied smirk on his grotesquely conceited mug.
Chapter 28

A few blocks from the coroner's office, we pulled up at a red light, and Schwartz was distracted by an all-too-common sight. Two young men standing on a corner cautiously approached a car that had pulled up at a nearby corner. One of the young men ducked into the open driver's side window as the other watched his back. The one in the window, brought his hand up from his pants' pocket, brought the hand into the window, and a moment later returned the hand to his pocket. The young man came out of the window, and the car drove off leaving the two young men to await the next car.

"If I could find a way to let the air out of those tires," Schwartz said, "I'd really be doing the driver a favor. Some people find such stupid ways to fill the voids of fallen faith." That last was a comment that I had never expected to hear from Schwartz. I was about to ask him to elaborate when another car pulled up, and this one seemed even more fascinating to Schwartz. "That car," he said. "That's the Fiero that was parked in front of my drive the other day."

I looked closely, and he was right. I recognized the license plate number. "Well, well," I said. "Isn't that interesting?" I watched trying to witness the exchange, but the young man's hand never came up from his pocket. Instead, he indicated an alley across the street.

The Fiero pulled out and drove to the alley that the dealer had indicated. The light had changed, and the car behind was beeping at us to move, so Schwartz pulled into the intersection and made a right. He made the next three possible rights and brought us back to the same intersection. I became nervous, since — after all — we weren't exactly driving the most inconspicuous car on the block. The light was red again, and we were two cars back from the lead-car at the light this time. When the light changed, we moved up close enough to see the alley that the Fiero had pulled into. There stood the woman who had assaulted Beverly in Schwartz's doorway that evening of infamy. She was watching as a third young man put a large bundle under the front bonnet of her car. As we passed, I could barely see in my peripheral vision as she appeared to hand the young man a package in exchange. Schwartz drove on for half a block and pulled to the side of the road. Soon we were able to see the Fiero pull out of the alley and drive back the way we'd come. The light was red, and she had to wait, so Schwartz pulled into traffic and made the first right. He quickly drove to the next intersection where the light was just turning green. He passed several cars weaving through traffic until two blocks later I saw that the Fiero was just about even with us one block over. At the next corner, I saw that she'd slowed to turn left which brought her in our direction.

Schwartz pulled over again after crossing the intersection, and she passed behind us. After the traffic broke, he backed into the intersection and made the left turn to follow the Fiero. We tailed her for several blocks, and she pulled into the parking lot of an apartment complex. We passed, parked, and got out to reverse ourselves on foot to scrutinize her. We maintained a safe distance, but we could still see what she was up to. She'd opened her bonnet and removed a package wrapped in a large black plastic trash liner. She put it in a dumpster and then went into the building.

"Either that's just garbage, which makes no sense," I said, "or she's making a drop."

"There's only one way to find out," Schwartz said. "Watch my back."

I watched with clenched everything as he ran over to the dumpster and pulled out the bag. My stomach felt sick as he tucked his find under his shirt and walked it over to his own car. Trembling foolishly, I got in beside him. He started the engine, and we drove off. "Open the bag," he said, "but don't touch anything inside." Breathing in tense staccato bursts, I pulled the opening back over the contents, and we found ourselves looking at several taped-up baggies of white powder. "We need a new trash bag and some gloves," Schwartz said.

We found a grocery store and bought duplicate trash bags and some rubber gloves, then we returned to the apartment building where we'd gotten the contraband. Schwartz took a fresh bag from the new box with his fingerprints shielded in the latex sheathes. I felt that my blood might burst my eardrums, my heartbeat was so loud. He bundled the package and carried it back to the Fiero. He lay on his back and shimmied under the car, where he shoved the package into the under-carriage; and I swore off salt forever. I was certain my blood pressure needed the break. "Since we're helping Mia's friend from narcotics get a homicide bust, we may as well duplicate the favor by helping your friend from homicide make a narcotics arrest. After we've closed the Hanson case tomorrow, you can call detective Johns and tip him about this case."

"Oh, sure," I said. "And exactly how do I explain to him that we know there are drugs in her car?"

"You'll think of something," Schwartz said. "You're a very bright young woman."

***

Wanda Corwin had been expecting Lupa Schwartz that morning, but our escapade in the drug trade had delayed us. When we arrived in the afternoon, she seemed surprised but pleased. Her makeup had begun to fizzle, but you could still tell that she had gone to extra lengths to fix her hair that a.m. Schwartz had wanted simply to retrieve the medal, but Wanda had playfully insisted that since it was evidence, she had been keeping it in a safe place, her desk drawer under lock-and-key.

"It's not evidence," Schwartz said. "The police have closed the case. They've pinned everything on a dead man, so there won't be a trial, which means there won't be any need for evidence."

"I see," Wanda had said walking toward her office. I dropped back so that Schwartz could be alone with her, but he noticed, stopped short and indicated that I should keep up. "Well," Corwin said, "if it's not going to be used as evidence, then why do you even want it back? Is it possible that you have an ulterior motive for coming to see me?"

"Souvenir," Schwartz explained weakly. "May I have it please?" We'd arrived in Corwin's office, and she opened her drawer and held the evidence bag out for Schwartz to accept. He grabbed the corroded medallion and placing it in his jacket pocket, thanked his benefactor and beat a hasty retreat. I called after him that I'd meet him in a moment, and I reached out to shake Wanda Corwin's hand.

"That was so embarrassing," Wanda said. "I was sure that he'd been attracted to me the last time he was here. I was certain of it."

"I think he was — er — is," I said. "He's just got a strange attitude where religion is concerned."

"I suppose that could be it, but why should he let my atheism bother him."

"Your atheism?" I said in amused surprise.

"Well, I am a scientist. A lot of us have a problem reconciling what we know of nature with the biblical..."

I interrupted. "You're an atheist?"

"It's not that terrible a thing," Corwin said defensively.

"But when we were here last, you said something along the lines that the one who killed Hanson was God."

"Did I?" she said. "Well, if I did, I must have been speaking figuratively. But if Lupa thought that I was religious, why is he bothered by that. After all, he's the one with the superstitious attachment to that St. Christopher's medal."

"Yes," I agreed, "that doesn't make any sense, does it?" I stood and took hold of the sleeve of her overcoat. "Would you come with me please?" We walked out to the parking lot and found Schwartz sitting behind the wheel of his car. I tapped on the window, and he lowered it uncomfortably to speak with us. "Dr. Corwin was wondering if you'd explain to her why a Jewish atheist like yourself is so attached to a discontinued Roman-Catholic emblem. Can you explain that to us?"

Schwartz lowered his head until he was looking at me through a filter of eyebrow hair. "Can we go now?" he said.

"You're an atheist?" Corwin asked.

"Yes," Schwartz said. "I'm sorry. That's why I stopped our flirtations. I didn't want to lead you..."

Corwin jumped in, "I'm an atheist too. Well, humanist actually. We really do need to develop some kind of mixers or something, don't you think?"

"You're an atheist?" Schwartz asked, but that was the last I heard of their conversation. I'd begun giving them some distance way back when Corwin had first asked Schwartz to confirm his dis-believer status. Ahh, heretic love.

***

A county morgue is not the easiest place to find a bright and comfortable place to slink away to. There are bright places, but they aren't all that comfortable, and the comfortable places (the ones that aren't occupied) aren't all that bright, if you know what I'm saying. So I circumnavigated the building a full rotation, and when I came back to the place where I'd started from, I found Schwartz's car, but no Schwartz. I looked on the windshield for a note, but I didn't find one. So I sat on the front bumper and waited. After a few minutes, my cell phone chirped, and when I answered, I was greeted by Schwartz's pompous baritone. "Ms. Hoskin," he said, "Dr. Corwin and I are having coffee inside. Would you like to join us?"

The employee lounge was one of those antiseptic rooms with uncomfortable chairs that you would expect to find bolted down because the owners feared for their safety, there being such a high underground demand for particle-board slope-backed torture seats. But Schwartz and Corwin may as well have been seated in plush, ergonomically-designed sedan chairs for all of the reaction the pain-eliciting function of the chairs-from-hell were managing to get. The two of them were oblivious to the malodorous disinfectants, the over-cooked coffee, and the energy-draining lighting. Enraptured as they were by their mutual nerdishness, Corwin was actually laughing at Schwartz's bad jokes, and he was actually unaffected by the faded lipstick and the sweat ring in the base makeup on her throat.

"Ms. Hoskin," Schwartz said, "I want to thank you for discovering my error concerning Dr. Corwin here. She's a perfect delight. Are you aware that she has read both the Koran and the I-Ching, and that she is working on a translation of the Bhagavad Gita which substitutes common American names to make the text easier to follow?"

"No," I said finding it surprisingly easy to mask my shock, "I wasn't aware of that."

"Not only that, but she's actually attended a pagan Samhain celebration."

Corwin blushed and said, "It makes it easier to argue religion with arrogant fundamentalists if you know the facts better than they do."

"That's a little harsh, isn't it?" I asked. "People have the right to hold different opinions."

"To hold different opinions, yes," Corwin agreed, "but not to preach them when they don't understand the other philosophies."

"Exactly," Schwartz agreed. "Religious fervor without even a general understanding of parallel philosophies is dogmatic ostrich-ism. It derives from a reluctance to challenge one's own beliefs because of a fear that some super-natural being will be offended by the lack of pure faith."

"It's worse than dogma," Corwin interjected. "It's superstition."

"Absolutely!" Schwartz insisted.

"So what do you call your need to take that medal back as a souvenir?" I asked. "Doesn't that suggest that you have a romantic attachment to relics and icons?"

"To tell you the truth," Schwartz said, "I didn't want this back for myself. It's for Beverly."

"Beverly is his housekeeper," I told Corwin. "But why would Beverly want somebody else's old St. Christopher's medal?"

Schwartz hemmed and hawed a moment, and then he said, "It isn't somebody else's. It belongs to Beverly. I didn't actually find it in the hole. I palmed it, and I put it in there when you were distracted." I folded my arms across my chest, and he went on. "I needed for Detective Johns to believe that I had found fairly conclusive evidence that there had never been a Chlordane treatment done at the hall at St. Bartholomew's Church. I didn't want to lie to him, so I convinced you to believe that it was true, so that you could actually believe it when you told him. If you'll think back, you'll realize that I never told you that I'd dug up the medal. I never told anybody that I had dug up the medal.

"I knew that Beverly had lost one when we'd first come to Pittsburgh, and she found it a few months ago in a trap when we were fixing the kitchen sink. It was terribly corroded, but she insisted on keeping it in her jewelry box. I asked if I could borrow it, and she gave it to me, but I had to promise to get it back for her when I'd finished with it."

"Well then you lied to me when you told me it was evidence," Corwin said.

"I never told you that. I simply asked you to examine it for traces of Chlordane. If it's any consolation, I also asked you to check the soil sample, which for all I knew would show signs of Chlordane. It didn't, but it may well have, so it is — or was — evidence in that sense."

"I don't like being played for a fool, Mr. Schwartz," Corwin said.

"I don't think you're a fool," Schwartz said.

"But you did at the time," Corwin said. "You played on the fact that I had feelings for you to dupe me into using my office for you to play a trick on the police."

"I think you're taking this the wrong way," Schwartz said.

"I think you should leave," Corwin said, a thin tear causing yet another flaw in her makeup.
Chapter 29

I'd been responsible for putting the kibosh on burgeoning love affairs before, but they were usually my own relationships that I was sabotaging. I knew I should probably have felt guilty about throwing the cold water on those two cats, but the truth is I was torn between feelings of satisfaction and relief. I'm sure the universe was thanking me. Can you imagine the offspring of two people with such hyper-active egos? The head size alone would have been enough to give a geneticist nervous fits.

Still, I did feel a kind of sadness over having burst such a lovely bubble. It had been the happiest I'd seen Schwartz since having met him. "Come on," I said interrupting a sustained irritated silence as we drove to the Star-Herald. "It's not that big a deal. She was a pious fop."

"Nobody uses the word 'fop' anymore," Schwartz said.

"No," I agreed, "but the kinds of words that people do use to describe people like her today aren't printable in a family magazine, and I want to be able to use our dialogue verbatim."

"She is a very intellectually stimulating young woman," Schwartz insisted.

"Oh, come on," I retorted, "she's a fake. So she's writing an English translation of the Bhagavad Gita with Americanized names. All she has to do is transcribe somebody else's translation and insert names like Fred for the Hindu names. I'll bet she doesn't even speak Hindi herself."

"Urdu," Schwartz corrected me, "but that's not the point."

"Listen," I said, "forget this nonsense about finding a woman with the same anti-theology as you. Love isn't about ideology. It's about — well — I have no idea what it's about, but I know it's not about that."

"That's exactly the point," Schwartz said. "You have no idea what love is about. You've decided that you are infatuated with Trevor Johns over little more than the fact that you find his clarinet playing seductive."

"'Sall you know," I said feigning childish indignation. "I like him 'cause he's cool and he drives his own car."

Schwartz tried not to smile, but he's a perfect sucker for a well-played gag. He grinned broadly, and then said, "She was a little snooty, wasn't she?"

"A little," I said. "You can do better. What you need is a woman who appreciates your intellect and your sensitive side."

"Would you like for me to tell you why I offered to let you cover this story?" Schwartz said coming more out of the blue than a newborn robin. I told him I would, and he explained. "From the time that I first learned that you were a working writer, I wanted for you to chronicle my cases. I followed your career hoping that eventually you'd contact me about covering a case with me. However, I also knew that it was more likely that you'd want to just write a profile of me. If we started off that way, it would define our dynamic differently from what I wanted. So when the chance came, I forced you to trick me into a meeting. That way, I could affect indignation and make whatever demands I wished for allowing you to report on a case. My intention was to call you later at your hotel, and make just such an offer when a case should present itself. However, at that moment, fate imposed a solution, and Detective Johns arrived with his offer to give me the Coneely case."

"Wait," I said, "so you're saying that you wanted me to be the Watson to your Holmes all along? Then why did you turn Fr. Coneely down when he first presented with the case?"

"I wasn't lying when I said I had no desire to take him on as a client. At the time, I had no way to know that he was, in fact, innocent. I strongly dislike representing killers. It's difficult to collect a fee from someone you've just proved guilty. I was willing to wait for a more suitable case, even if it meant that I would have to call you after you'd returned to Cleveland."

"So why are you telling me this now?" I asked.

"It was the best opportunity. You were so concerned over having spoiled my chances with Dr. Corwin that you had forgotten to be upset over my having used you to mislead Detective Johns. I told you this, because it will probably further insulate me against your womanly wrath when you again come back to considering how you were duped." I was considering what I'd just heard, when Schwartz pulled the car over and said, "However, that will have to wait, because we have arrived at our destination."

***

We asked for and were given directions to the newsroom, and once there asked to speak with Vic Jenkins. We were told that he was on assignment, but if we'd care to wait, he should be returning shortly. We sat at the desk in his cubicle, and I was about to begin needling Schwartz about how he'd suckered me into misleading the police when I heard a familiar voice from behind. "Hey," Mother Foyer said, "I know you. What brings you to these slums?"

"Hello, Mr. Foyer," I said. "Have you met Mr. Schwartz?"

Schwartz wasn't in the music or publishing business, so he held little fascination for Foyer. The music critic simply waved and returned his attentions to me. "Have you sent that article off to your publisher yet?"

"Yes," I answered. "It went in the mail on Tuesday."

"That's swell," he said in what I suppose he believed to be his impish manner. "Did you talk with FdP after the article ran?"

"Who is FdP?" Schwartz asked.

"The band we saw at the club the other night; the kids. It stands for something in Italian that means Sons of the Police."

"No it doesn't," Foyer said. "It's Italian all right, but Putanna isn't the word for police."

"Putanna?" Schwartz said as he started to laugh.

"What's Putanna?" I asked naively, though I was already beginning to realize that I didn't want to know. Schwartz then informed me, "You don't want to know."

After he and Schwartz shared a lengthy laugh at my expense, Foyer left us, and Schwartz was still cackling when a young reporter with a quarter-inch of thick mud on his shoes greeted us at the desk. "Hi," he said, "I'm Victor Jenkins. You wanted to speak with me?"

"Yes," Schwartz said, "about the Hanson case, specifically about the photos you took during the press conference a few weeks ago."

The grinning reporter had taken a pair of clean shoes from his bottom drawer and was changing into them as he said, "Oh, sure. Yeah, I took a bunch of stuff. The paper can burn anything that ran onto a disk for you."

"Well," Schwartz said, "I was hoping that I could get all of the pictures."

"Oh," the reporter said, his smile falling off for a look of earnest contemplation. "I'm not supposed to do that. Our editorial policy is that... or is it our legal policy... anyway, if it's run in the paper, that's one thing, but some pictures are withheld from the paper for complicated ethical or legal reasons, so pictures that haven't run are not available to the public."

"I understand that," Schwartz said. "But I'm investigating a murder."

"Then you should come back with a warrant," the reporter said as he pounded his dirt crusted shoes together over a waste basket. "We'll give them to you happily once we're legally absolved."

"I don't have access to the courts," Schwartz admitted.

"Then I'm afraid I can't help you," Jenkins lamented.

"Can I ask you a question?" Schwartz said. "Why did you have all of that mud on your shoes?"

"I had to make a tour of the new mall out near the airport for a story on the progress of the construction. The ground is still a sloppy mess from the rain the other night because of runoff."

"I see," Schwartz said, and then he turned to me. "Ms. Hoskin, did you ever have to do those kinds of stories when you were first starting out as a reporter? Ms. Hoskin here works for Gamut Magazine," he told Jenkins.

"Well," I said, "no."

"You're the one who's getting Foyer's article looked at by the magazine muckety-mucks, aren't you?" Jenkins asked demonstrating that my reputation preceded me. I nodded.

"Is this mall construction story a fair example of the kinds of stories you are assigned?" Schwartz asked. "I mean, it seems kind of boring compared to a murder story. Even the news conference at the Hanson's started out as trivial. The TV didn't even consider it worth covering."

"It was a good story," Jenkins insisted.

"No, it became a good story, but it was a bland assignment. They didn't even assign a photographer to accompany you. Do all of the reporters have to take their own pictures?"

"Well, no, not all," Jenkins said.

"Did you have to take your own pictures on this mall story?" Schwartz asked, and — though Jenkins didn't answer — that was in itself an answer. "I can help you. We were going to offer you pictures of the... well, never mind. You said you can't help."

"I'm listening," Jenkins said, and by the time we left the cub reporter had made a deal to email Schwartz the whole file of pix he'd shot that night in exchange for the right to be there in a choice location covering the event Schwartz had planned for Thursday night.

***

"You have an odd email address," I said to Schwartz as we drove back to his house.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"The address you gave to Jenkins, it seemed like a strange address for you. I mean, I could see something like privatedick-at or car-man-at or jokester-at, but how do you get an email address that begins Hanson-house-at?" I asked.

"The address was created specifically to receive those pictures." Schwartz explained. "I created the address, but I'm not the only one who can access the photos. A friend of mine who does stage design also has the password, and he will be examining the photos as well from his own remote location. Tomorrow you will understand why."

I folded my arms across my chest as it dawned on me that I was supposed to be piqued with him. "If I'm even there, that is," I said.

"Of course you'll be there. It's the culmination of your article. Why wouldn't you be there?"

"Well, for one thing, you just gave Jenkins some of my exclusivity," I said.

"Posh!" Schwartz said. "He'll be outside with a specific task. You'll be inside for the entire revelation. Some facts will only be available to him after you have published your article."

"Also," I said with strong emphasis, "I'm still a little perturbed with you."

"The one with whom you ought to be perturbed is yourself," Schwartz insisted.

"Myself?" I said a little too loudly. "Why would I be perturbed with myself?"

"Can we use the word 'upset' from this point on?" Schwartz asked. "I hate the word 'perturb.' It sounds foolish."

"Why would I be perturbed with myself?" I asked again jutting my head forward and rocking it for emphasis as I used the offending word again.

"Because of the fact that you missed such an obvious spoof. It should have been manifestly clear that I had planted that medal from the moment you met the monk Devlin."

I didn't get him. "What?" I asked.

"Devlin was an acquaintance of mine. I met him through a quarterly conversation group of which I am a member. He realized that I was trying to persuade you that we had never met, when I introduced myself to him as though I didn't know him. That's the only reason that I was able to gain access to the hall without being watched by a member of the clergy."

"Well, how could I have known that?" I asked.

"If that wasn't enough clue, you might have realized it when I asked Devlin to furnish the history of the St. Christopher's medal. You might have known that I was fully aware of everything he was telling me, and that I had staged his revelations for your benefit."

"How would I know you'd already know that stuff?"

"Because you know my character, my reputation, and my family history. But there was also the fact that I found such a perfect piece of evidence in exactly the place that I chose to look for it, which should have seemed a little serendipitous."

"You explained it all so logically," I began, and there I fumbled.

"Thank you. That's very gracious considering how I played you."

"Well," I said, "I still don't understand why you wanted Trevor to believe that you had established that there'd been no Chlordane in the soil around the church hall for the past twenty-some odd years."

"For that, you will have to wait until tomorrow night," Schwartz said with a maniacal grin. Shortly we would arrive back at his house, and already I had forgotten once again to be angry with him.

As we entered the garage, Mia approached the car. "Hey, boss," she said casually, "that chick with the Fiero was here a little bit ago. She said she'd be back again tomorrow morning. She says she wants to take you up on your offer to buy. Beverly's been chewing her lip all afternoon."

Schwartz had shrunk an inch in stature as he relaxed his posture when Mia approached. "Thank you, Mia," he said, and I swear I heard him giggle out an embarrassed-schoolboy sigh. When she'd walked away (or rather, after he'd finished watching her walk away,) he said to me, "Ms. Hoskin, would you call and arrange for Detective Johns to be here tomorrow morning? Perhaps you can think of a way to convince him to examine under the Fiero's carriage. Who knows what he might find there."

He went upstairs to prepare for dinner after I'd said I'd agree to call Trevor. First, however, I wanted to talk with Mia about the three of us ladies having one last girls' night before I had to go back to Cleveland.
Chapter 30

One of my favorite summertime meals has always been garden-fresh green-beans with ham, but I'd never tasted it prepared the way that Beverly did. She served it up in a large soup crock in which the meat and beans swam with poached potatoes in a buttery wine-colored vinegar sauce. Schwartz rambled on during the meal about how mankind seemed to innately understand the value of serving beans with grains, since so many separate civilizations had independently come up with traditional dishes that combined the two food forms; succotash, red-beans-and-rice, humus with pita, pasta fazoule. Of course, my pointing out the fact that potatoes aren't really a grain didn't seem to deter him from his ramble. He merely tipped his beer glass at me.

After eating, we prepared for the back porch for that one last time, expecting Schwartz to excuse himself to his room; but instead, he took a set of keys from the peg board and headed out for a night on the town.

When we'd gotten our drinks (this time, I was enjoying a bourbon and water rocks with a twist that I myself had mixed to my specifications rather than a milk-based chocolate drink,) we made our way out to the yard. I sat on the glider, and Beverly and Mia sat across from me on the swing. We synchronized our lazy undulations so that I was in my forward momentum as they pulsed away, and Beverly spoke the first pensive words. "I'm glad he's gotten to this point with the investigation. It will be sad to see you leave, Cat, but I just hate it when he gets so frustrated with a case."

"He was frustrated by this case?" I asked. "He didn't seem to lose any sleep over it."

"Oh, yes he did," Mia said.

"You mean even in the garage?" Beverly asked, and Mia nodded.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "He's been going to bed every night by ten p.m. like clockwork."

"He's been going to his room," Beverly said, "but he hasn't been sleeping. He's been reading. He has a large library in his room. He spends hours reading every night. He reads books, magazines, newspapers, everything. Sometimes he does research on the Internet. He never sleeps at night more than a few hours."

"That's why he insists on the garage time," Mia said. "He takes cat-naps in the cars twice a day."

"Also," Beverly picked up, "he usually goes out to at least two movies a week, a comedy and something else. This is the first time he's been out since almost two weeks ago."

"You mean he's at the movies alone?" I asked.

Beverly nodded again and said, "So you didn't know that he had a library in the house? How else did you think he got his knowledge?"

"I never thought about it," I admitted. "All I saw were comedy movies and books and records in his study."

Beverly lifted her shoulders and said, "He's private about the library he keeps. He wants people to think of him as a clown, but he's very thoughtful and introspective."

"Yeah," I said, "he's a regular Pagliacci. Hey, by the way, what's this he tells me about some conversation group that meets every three months?"

"Oh," Mia said, "you must mean the Five Freakers."

"The what?" I asked as Beverly looked reproachfully at Mia.

"She means the Five Seekers. Lupa is one of the members. They meet at one or the others' homes every three months to discuss philosophy, metaphysics, theology, spirituality or ethics depending on at which house they meet," Beverly explained.

"How do they choose their topics?" I asked.

"That is up to the host," Beverly said.

"It's a big yawn," Mia said.

"The members don't find it boring," Beverly said.

"Are you a member?" I asked.

"Me?" Beverly said with a widening grin. "No, there is a rabbi who covers the spiritual topics, an Episcopal priest who covers the theological, a neo-pagan priestess who handles metaphysics, a lawyer — Lupa's friend John Dachnewel — handles ethics and Lupa provides the philosophy topics when it's his turn to host. The members take turns hosting once every three months. Lupa's last turn was last winter, so his next turn won't be until next spring. The host also invites a guest with relevant expertise to keep the conversation on track." That, I realized, was how Schwartz had met Brother Devlin. He'd been somebody's expert.

"Do they do anything?" I asked. "I mean, you know, do they play cards or chess or have entertainment?"

"They may read from relevant literature, if that's what you mean. The conversation is the entertainment," Beverly said. "Anything else would be a distraction. There's food, of course. There'd have to be food. The meetings go on for hours."

"How did they get together in the first place?" I asked.

"I think Lupa knew Rabbi Ulric back when he was growing up in the Balkans. John Dachnewel knew the priest, Fr. Dwayne Lovell; and Lupa has known John since John helped Ulric and him escape into America after his parents were killed. I'm not sure how they met Melanie, the priestess. Oh, wait, yes I do. She came to John Dachnewel with a legal problem when she was publishing her book. He hired Lupa to check into something, and they were able to solve her difficulty. That's right. Shortly after that, they decided to form the Five Seekers."

We continued to drink and to talk, and eventually I brought up the topic of men. "I'm kind of sorry it's all coming to a close tomorrow," I said. "I was kind of getting to like seeing Trevor every couple of days."

"Cleveland is only two hours away," Mia said. "Maybe the two of you could get a side thing going somewhere in the middle. On second thought; who wants to have sex in Youngstown?"

That comment got me, and I started to giggle. "Nobody," I said. "Not even the people who live there."

"Why does it always have to degenerate into sex talk?" Beverly asked.

"Sorry," I said. "Mia started it. But for your information, I wasn't speaking about that anyway. I think with the case and all, Trevor is taking his time making his move. You didn't though, did you, Mia?" I asked steering the conversation to where I'd wanted it all along.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked defensively.

"You've got Schwartz jumping through hoops for your man Jimmy."

"Oh, that?" she said. "I don't like the idea of Jimmy being in the narcotics division. Too many of those guys get the taste, you know. If I'm going to date a cop, I want to date a homicide cop. That my grandmother could be proud of."

"But it's Trevor's case," I said.

"Trevor closed the case," Mia said. "Besides, he's already on the squad. This could be the break Jimmy needs."

"It could make Trevor look bad, and he's the one who brought the case to Schwartz. He owes him some loyalty," I said.

"You're arguing that point with the wrong bird," Mia said. "Sell that to Schwartz, not me. I'm not his conscience. Schwartz has his loyalties, and I have mine."

"Well," I said, "I think you're taking advantage of the fact that Schwartz has known you longer. I'm calling Trevor and asking him to come here in the morning before we go to close out the case. We'll see where Schwartz's loyalties are."

"Then I'll just call Jimmy and have him come here too," Mia said.

"You do what you have to do," I said feeling just the tiniest bit guilty for how I'd manipulated that one.

***

The rest of the night was pleasant enough. We drank and swung and talked until about eleven, and then Schwartz came home. He came out to the verandah to wish us goodnight, and I accosted him as he went back inside. "Wait! Can I ask you something?" Mia stood assuming that I was going to bring up the loyalty issue, but I waved her down. "Relax," I said pushing the air down with my open palm. "I just want to see his library." I turned to the man of the house. "The ladies tell me that you have an extensive library. Do you have anything about poisons? I'm just a little curious about Chlordane."

Schwartz escorted me up the stairs, and I made small talk as we walked. "How was your movie?" I asked

"It was good," he said. "The Wayans Brothers have a very good understanding of the connection between slapstick and cerebral humor. I'd say this sequel was every bit as good as the first." Apparently tonight hadn't been a tax on his thoughtful and introspective nature.

However, as Schwartz opened the door to his room, I understood what kept him occupied at night. The first part of the room was a standard bedroom with double bed, bureau, dresser and closets; but when you had gone past that toward the far wall beyond the fireplace, you saw that the curved far wall was a sort of rotunda of a library. This room was situated above his study, so the far wall was the same curved wall with windows that below had only window seats to adorn it. Here, the wall was two stories high. The ceiling above had been cut away, and lining the wall, between the narrow windows were rows and rows of book shelves. At various intervals, there were tracks that held a library's rolling ladder in place, so that any book on either of the two floors was easily accessible.

Behind me as I stood admiring the book-lined turret-wall was a circular staircase that passed up through to the level above. I ascended, and at the next level was another room dedicated to the Schwartz library. The walls were completely covered in shelves of books. There were also free standing two-sided bookshelves in a row along the longest wall. In the center of this room was a computer desk. Next to that on the right sat a large globe. To the left, there was a podium made of metal rods that supported an open atlas. On subsequent shelves of the podium were an unabridged dictionary of the English language, an encyclopedia of mythology, and various other reference books such as almanacs and thesauruses.

Another feature of the library was a television stand with a VCR and DVD as well as a stereo. Beside these were cabinets full of cassettes and discs. There was no card catalog, so I imagined that Schwartz must have computerized his inventory. I asked him if I could use his computer to locate the book I wanted. He told me there was no catalog in the computer. "Everything is shelved categorically, so there is no need to keep an inventory. The books are mine, so I don't have to look up what is here. If I have it already, I know where it is."

I looked around taking in random titles; Michael Jackson's Beer Companion, The Works of T.E. Lawrence, Robert's Rules of Order, The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll, The Origin of Species, Misery, The Name of the Rose, Emma, The Demon Haunted World, The Green Table, To Kill a Mockingbird, Invisible Man. These were all placed with other books of their ilk, but then I noticed an odd case. The case started with a shelf dedicated to an eclectic collection of books about religion; Gospel Fictions, The Koran, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; below these were several books about Jihad, Kabballah, the Rosicrucians, and the Crusades. These led to books on the Masons, the Ku Klux Klan, Nazism, the Mafia, the Trilateral Commission and U.F.Ology. Below this was a shelf with books about Swiss banking, government cover-ups, urban legends and stage magic. On the next shelf were books by Art Bell, Brad Steiger, Devon Jackson, David Icke and others.

If there was a system to that bookcase, I couldn't envision it. I shrugged it off as probably his books-on-deck case and asked where I'd find his book on poisons? He went into the row of shelves, and came out carrying the ninth edition of The Handbook of Poisoning.

"Thank you," I said. "This is a very impressive library. Have you read everything in here?"

"No," he said. "Some of the books were gifts that I would never have bought for myself. Others I bought for specific reference, like the book you are holding. I haven't read that one, though I have used it. I have several car manuals down in the garage about which I could say the same. Other books I bought and began to read, but became disinterested. Those books wind up on a special shelf."

"Those shelves?" I asked indicating the eclectic collection.

"No," Schwartz said uncomfortably. "Those I've read. That case is an ongoing project. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Why don't you want people to know about your library?"

He tightened and breathed the tension away. "People know that I'm intelligent," he said. "Some people are impressed by that, but most are intimidated. For women it's different, in some ways it may be worse, but I can only speak from a male perspective. Men posture and pose. For men of great physical strength, the posturing becomes so much a part of who they are, that others respond instinctually to them. For small, intelligent men, they manage to apply the same rule to their intelligence once they outgrow their adolescence. However, for physically average men like me, our intelligence is seen as an unfair advantage; especially when we are also burdened with an alpha male personality. In my experience, people will respond to my leadership and my intelligence only so long as the intelligence is brought in circuitously through the back door. It's all right for me to be intelligent; it's even all right for me to flaunt my intelligence to somebody else's advantage so long as it is tempered with feigned humility; however, the unforgivable sin would be for me to display my intelligence like a trophy buck."

I nodded, thanked him for the book and left him to check the jpegs in his email. As I descended the spiral staircase, I continued looking around at his books. That was when I noticed that about halfway down the concave wall was a shelf that prominently displayed the books the introductions to which had made my career, the re-issues of the books my father had written chronicling the cases of the grandfather of the man in whose library/bedroom I now stood. I stopped short on the stairwell. I filled with pride. This was what I had actually come to find, not some overly technical book about poisons and their treatments.

I resumed my stride, and left his room for mine. When I got to my destination, I casually tossed the volume to the night stand and started to prepare myself for bed. Suddenly I realized that it wouldn't be uncharacteristic for Schwartz to quiz me on the book I had borrowed. I didn't want to have to admit that I was actually looking to see if he'd read my father's and my work, so I sat in the wing-back chair near the bureau light and found the listing for Chlordane in the index. I turned to page 103 and forced myself to read how Chlordane is a polycyclic derivative with a toxicity far greater than that of the chlorobenzene derivatives. Also how in 1977 when this particular tome was published (Schwartz had bought it for a quarter at a flea market,) allowable residual tolerances of this and similar indane chemicals in food ranged from 0-0.1 parts per million even though just one gram of Chlordane was known to cause severe symptoms in an average adult including convulsions apparently originating in the cerebral cortex. I was also shown a lovely chemical map for the molecular composition, should I ever want to build my own molecule model. I slept easily that night.
Chapter 31

I had a specific plan for dealing with the Jimmy/Trevor situation, but it was ephemera. Any of a number of contingencies could have forced me to abandon it for a spur-of-the-moment revision. That reality gave me a greater combination of both respect and curiosity concerning Schwartz's ability to show such confidence in the plan he'd formed to expose the Hanson killer.

I dressed in the outfit that I had originally intended to wear to the Century Club that Saturday evening before Mia had talked me into changing, and I came down for my final breakfast as a guest in the house of Lupa Schwartz. Beverly had prepared another delicious breakfast, blueberry pancakes and fried sliced-ham, which I nervously nibbled on as the others devoured their own servings.

Beverly — who had been in the kitchen since I'd come down for breakfast — came back into the dining room as I was finishing my coffee. "My," she said, "you look very fetching. Do you often dress for breakfast?"

"She's making a play for Johns today," Mia said. "I don't know who she's trying to impress more though, him or Schwartz."

I smiled cordially. "I only have one suitcase full of clothes. I had to wear this outfit sometime or other."

"You can't play it both ways," Mia said. "We know you were calling Trevor to come here this morning."

"Of course I did," I said. "Schwartz asked me to."

A look of stupefaction sprouted on her face. "He did? But you said that you were calling him to come try to talk Schwartz into give him the collar."

"No," I said. "All I said was that I was calling him and asking him to come. Why? Did you do something silly?"

"Mia," Schwartz said, "what did you do?"

Mia didn't answer. Instead she demanded, "Why did you tell her to call Johns?"

"Not for the reason you think. What did you do?"

Mia glared at me with an admiring kind of loathing. "I called Jimmy and told him to be here early because Trevor was going to try to undermine him in the case."

"Oh," Schwartz said, "is that all?"

"Is that all?" Mia mimicked. "If Jimmy confronts Johns with the story I told him, I'm going to look like a fool."

"True," Schwartz said suppressing a smile, "but I can't see a down side for me." He couldn't see the down side, because he wasn't looking hard enough. It was my turn to smile.

***

I had just hurdled the first possible snag in my plan. I'd exposed the fact that I had a plan, but — so far — nobody suspected that it might go deeper than just potentially embarrassing Mia. The second potential snag was completely beyond my control. It involved the three people we were expecting to visit that early morning and the order that they chose to arrive. The doorbell sounded, and I was about to find out if I was tripped-up or still in the running.

As Beverly opened the door, I knew that I'd cleared another sawhorse. Jimmy could be heard demanding, "Well then, why are you here?"

"I told you — I don't know," Trevor insisted. "Cattleya called me early this morning and told me that Schwartz wanted me to come."

"Then why did he have me get the search warrant?" Jimmy insisted.

"I don't know that either," Trevor said. "I've never known that. It's my case after all."

The men had entered the dining room by this time; Trevor with his hair dangling in his eyes, Jimmy showing angry veins in his thin neck. Schwartz stood and interrupting them said, "Gentlemen, please, if you'll be seated, you'll understand everything soon enough." The men took the two seats nearest the entrance and waited for Schwartz to speak. He did. "Officer Yitzosky, I wasn't expecting you this early, but I understand why you are here." Mia flushed as Schwartz continued. "No, Detective Johns, I haven't changed my mind about giving you the evidence to make this arrest. Before you begin to suspect me of animus, however, please hear me out."

Trevor looked at everybody present, pushed back his hair, and then said, "I'm listening."

Beverly set two cups of hot coffee before the officers and refreshed our cups for Mia, Schwartz and myself; then Schwartz said, "When you brought me this case, you informed me that the department would be disturbed with you if the church was to be embarrassed, did you not?"

"Sure," Trevor said. "There are a lot of Catholics in this town. It would have been political egg in our face if the department had to arrest a popular priest before we could make it solid."

"You even expressed concern that my own non-religious attitude could make bringing me into the case either a boon or a handicap depending on the outcome."

"Yeah," Trevor agreed. "It was my idea to consult you. Which is why you should have..."

Schwartz interrupted again. "No," he said. "I told you that I had reason to suspect that Matthew Hanson had not committed suicide, and you suggested that I come back to you when I had proof. I haven't any proof yet, but I will have this afternoon. Unfortunately, I needed police assistance prior to establishing my proof. I needed a warrant. To that end, I contacted officer Yitzosky, and I could hardly ask for his assistance without offering him the opportunity to make the arrest."

"About that warrant," Trevor said.

"Not yet," Schwartz said. "I'll explain about that when the time comes. I hope that what I've said will satisfy your curiosity concerning why I had Ms. Hoskin invite you here this morning."

"I guess it does," Trevor said. "Only it doesn't explain why she told me to bring along a uniform."

Schwartz looked questioningly at me for a moment before he decided to himself that I'd done that because we were expecting to make a drug bust before we left for church. "That was... precautionary," Schwartz said inventing an explanation that even he found wanting. "Is he outside in your car?"

"Yes," Trevor said suspiciously. At that instant, the doorbell rang again. Our third visitor of the morning had come to sell her car.

Schwartz turned his gaze to me. "Ah," he said softly so that only I might hear, "the sacrificial lamb has arrived. Thus was Isaac spared." The problem was that Schwartz hadn't yet realized that Trevor wasn't Isaac. He was my Ishmael, and I had a different passional to enact.

***

I headed Beverly off in the hall. "I'll get it, Bev," I said. "I don't think you want to see the person I think it is."

Beverly faltered, then registered, then paled. "Oh," she said. "No, you're right. Thank you." She turned and went into the kitchen.

I opened the door to greet most of the face that we had all come to hate. I say "most of the face" because she was wearing over-sized sun glasses. When she turned her head a little, I was able to make out some discoloration in her cheek. She was wearing the glasses to disguise a shiner. Someone had hit her but good; probably the person who suspected her of filching his drugs. She pursed her lips in a show of feminine machismo and demanded, "I want to see what's-his-name... Schwartz."

"He's in a meeting," I said. "Come on out to the porch with me for a few minutes. He'll be out shortly. Smoke if you got 'em."

"Ain't that what they always say in war movies just before something goes down?" she asked.

"Fine," I said, "just sit then. I'll be right back; I think I see somebody I know." I left her on the porch and walked out to the unmarked car parked on the street. The police officer Trevor had brought with him was leerily sipping coffee from a paper cup as he watched me approach. I leaned on the door-frame and spoke in a hushed tone to the uniformed man. "Officer," I said, "I just thought I'd give you a tip. Do you see that Fiero parked on the street? Well, if you run the plate, you may find something interesting. It's okay, don't get up. Just trust me, you won't regret it. That woman in the sunglasses on the wicker chair there is the owner."

I walked back to the porch, and said, "If you'll excuse me, I'll go tell what's-his-name Schwartz that you're waiting."

"Hey," she said, "was that a cop you were talking to?"

"Yes," I said, "but don't worry. You're legally parked this time."

I went back into the dining room and interrupted. "Excuse me," I said. "That woman is here to see you about selling you her car. Should I show her in?"

"Momentarily," Schwartz said. "Detective Johns, would you excuse us please? I have to speak with Officer Yitzosky privately. Perhaps Ms. Hoskin will be so kind as to introduce you to our visitor."

Trevor stood, his hair dropping in his face as he leaned forward; and he followed me into the hall. As we passed the study, I asked Trevor if he would wait inside. "Aren't you going to introduce me to that visitor?" he asked.

"No," I said. "It's a woman, and I want to keep you all to myself."

"You know," he said, "if Schwartz is really planning to wrap this up today, you'll have no reason to stick around, but I'd like it if you could stay maybe just one extra night. Me and the other Blues Whailers have a gig tomorrow night. Maybe you'd like to come as my guest?"

I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "We can discuss it later," I said. He shrugged and walked into Schwartz's den as I walked back out onto the verandah. The timing was good, because it was at that moment that the uniform was walking onto the porch. "Excuse me, miss," the officer was saying to the thug who owned the Fiero that he believed had been stolen from the city impound, "could I speak with you for a moment?"

"Officer," I said, "I think you should talk with the one that brought you before you start making another date."

"What?" he asked. "Oh, right. Can I speak with detective Johns?"

"He was in the dining room," I said. "That's just down the hall to the left." The uniform had started to enter when I cleared my throat. He turned to see what I wanted, and I tipped my head at his subject.

"Oh, right," he said. Then speaking to thug-girl, he said, "I'm sorry, miss. Would you come with me please?"

Even behind the dark glasses, I could see her brow develop ridges, but what else could she do? She went with him. As they passed the study door with Johns behind, I held my breath in hope that my Ish wouldn't pull a groundhog. He didn't. He stayed put, so I stayed fast on the heels of my charges.

We entered the dining room, and the uniform surveyed the room looking for his Detective. "Sergeant Yitzosky," he said informing me for the first time as to Jimmy's rank, "excuse me, but have you seen Detective Johns?"

"He should be on the porch," Jimmy said.

I whispered into the officer's ear, "There's a back porch. You'd better hurry. We'll watch her." He turned and left us all behind turning left toward the back of the house. "Well," I said to the woman in the dark glasses, "you know, we don't even know your name."

"It's Brenda," she said huffily.

"Well, Brenda," I said, "this is Sergeant James Yitzosky of the city narcotics division. Schwartz thought it would be a good idea for him to be here this morning."

"Narcotics division?" Brenda said. Her face turned pale as she began putting things together in what passed for her brain. Suddenly she pushed me to the ground and ran for the door. That was the first snag I hadn't hurdled. I had not expected for her to actually flee. As I tumbled, I shouted, "Officer! She's running!" Jimmy, who had moved to the far side of the table to be closer to Schwartz as they planned the day's events, stood instinctively and pushing chairs aside, ran after the perp. The uniform heard my call and darted back into the hall. Not expecting the uniform to come from his left, Jimmy collided with the cop, giving Brenda just enough time to make it to her car.

Hearing the commotion, Trevor came out of the study further delaying the pursuit, but Jimmy pushed past him and got to the car just as Brenda started her engine. I felt sick as I watched my plan begin to dissolve as the car lurched into traffic. She turned down the steep grade of Murray Avenue, and a grinding sound issued from her low carriage. She was driving on four flat tires. As the bottom of her car dragged on the pavement, the bag that Schwartz had shoved under her carriage ripped open. A small cloud of white powder puffed out from under her vehicle along with a fine shower of sparks, and as she continued her erratic escape attempt, a thin trail of cocaine marked her path.

She lost control of her car and found herself trapped on the sidewalk. The three pursuing policemen caught up with her as she tried to abandon her ride. First on the scene was Jimmy with the stop. The uniform arrived second for the assist. Bringing up the rear was poor Trevor. Together, the three of them cuffed Brenda and guided her back uphill toward the house.

I couldn't understand how the tires had gotten flat. This had not been a part of my contingencies. I scoped the area, and found Beverly standing at a corner of the house. She held something in her hand; something small made of black rubber and brass.
Chapter 32

The three force-members ritualistically ignored us civilians as they placed Brenda in the cruiser and called H.Q. on the radio. Procedure dictated their actions, and there was no room for variety. Jimmy was the primary since it was his jurisdiction and because he had made the catch. Trevor couldn't take the bust now even if he wanted to. Schwartz realized this, and shook his head at me accordingly.

Eventually, Trevor made his way from the triumvirate of jeans d'arme and approached Schwartz who was watching from the porch. "I don't know how all of this fits into your plan, but the warrant is still valid, and I guess I'm free to enforce it. Anyway, that's how it's going to go down now, whether you like it or not. Unless you'd prefer to wait and do this another day."

Mia's jaw dropped, and she looked to Schwartz with her hands planted firmly on her hips and expectation rooted even more firmly in her expression. Schwartz turned his palms up. "It's not exactly satisfactory," he said, "but it will have to do." Mia's hands went up (a heck of a lot higher and faster than Schwartz's had,) and she turned and stormed back into the house.

As the car with the uniform, Brenda and Jimmy drove off, Schwartz, Trevor and I went into the study. "Very well played, Ms. Hoskin," Schwartz said after he'd sat behind his desk. "But it may prove folly. I hope not. Detective Johns, now that you are going to be in charge of presenting the warrant, I should explain what purpose it serves." This he was about to do, when Beverly knocked at the door. She peeked in and announced that there were more visitors. "Ms. Hoskin," Schwartz said, "would you see to them please?" I nearly stammered a vain protest, but I realized that I had no argument to make. While it was true that I had already figured out who had killed the old man, I still hadn't worked out how the killer had gotten to Matthew, and I was anxious for any little clue that might give me the answer before Schwartz could reveal it; if only for the satisfaction.

As I left the office, I was greeted by Penny Prince and her boss, Thornton Felix. I understood why Felix was present. He wanted to see Schwartz earn his fee, but I did not understand what purpose Penny's presence served. "Was Mr. Schwartz expecting you?" I asked.

"Yes," Felix said.

"Both?" I asked.

"Yes," Penny confirmed.

"Well," I said, "he's in a meeting with the police at the moment. It concerns the case. He'll be out shortly. Would you care to join me in the dining room for some coffee?"

***

Beverly gave us each boxed lunches, which Schwartz insisted we all take along. We were briefed on the lawn, and we took a number of cars to St. Bart's. I drove Schwartz and myself in the Fiero four-speed, Felix and Penny each took their own cars, and Trevor drove the squad car that Jimmy had arrived in.

On the way, we made several planned stops. The first was at the lawn-care and exterminating company where Peggy Hanson was employed. There was a police contingent waiting there for us when we arrived. Most of us had to wait outside, but the gist of the call was that Trevor entered, displayed the warrant to search the premises for the original Chlordane container, which had not been in Matthew's possession when he died. This created a panic. The net of this display was that Trevor agreed to hold off the search for the time being, if Peggy would accompany him and Schwartz to another location. She wasn't under arrest, but her cooperation could render the warrant baseless.

She agreed, and she rode to the other locations with Felix rather than suffer the embarrassment of riding in the cruiser. Those other locations included her sister's house, where her brother-in-law was called at work and asked to join his wife and the rest of us at St. Bart's so that the provision in the warrant granting Trevor permission to search their house might be rendered moot. The same scene was enacted at the residences of Carl and Sam Hanson as well as the hotel room of Lewis Hanson who deferred rather than suffer having his luggage ransacked.

Finally, we arrived at St. Bart's. I spotted the reporter from the Star-Herald, Jenkins, sitting in his parked car near the rectory. Thornton Felix and all of the Hanson women decamped from Felix's Cadillac. Schwartz was approaching the front door of the rectory, when the door swung open and Fr. Donatelli met him on the steps. "Can we help you?" Donatelli asked.

Schwartz backed away in surprise. When he composed himself, he asked, "What are you doing here, Mr. Donatelli."

"Really," Donatelli said, "you're on church property. The least you could do is show the appropriate respect here. If you can't call me Father, then at least refer to me as Pastor or Reverend."

"Very well," Schwartz said. "What are you doing here, Pastor?"

"I might ask you the same, but I already know the answer. One of the Hansons — I won't say which — called Fr. Coneely after receiving a call that the entire Hanson family was being brought here under intimidation of a warrant. Fr. Coneely called me for my advice, and I volunteered to be his spokesman. As I understand it, there is nothing in that warrant granting you access to the church or any other building on these grounds, so I must ask you all to leave."

"You're correct, of course," Schwartz said. "The warrant does not grant us permission to enter any of the buildings on this property, and I doubt that I could arrange for such a warrant. However, I have this," he said reaching into his hip pocket to display a folded piece of paper. "It's a rental contract for the hall. Brother Devlin signed it the other day. I've rented the staging area. I just came to get the key and to invite Fr. Coneely to join us as we examine the stage."

Donatelli reached for the form, but Schwartz snapped it back. "Devlin," the aging priest called. A few moments later, the lanky form of the monk filled the door-frame along with Donatelli. He conceded that he had signed the contract with the Five Seekers, a group of which it was well known that Schwartz was a founding member. However, he pointed out, there was no need for us to wait for the key, since John Dachnewel had arrived earlier that morning to bring in some set materials. He'd helped John unload the flats and supports himself just after sunrise.

"Please tell Pastor Coneely that he is invited to join us if he chooses," Schwartz said. "Though, since his lawyer is already present, he may be exempted."

***

Soon our entire group was walking into the staging area of St. Bart's hall. The staging had been rigged with tall canvas theater flats turned on their sides to form a sort of maze. The front of the maze was open in the middle and the rest formed a familiar floor-plan complete with French double-doors on one of the inside walls. Another wall had a partial stair-well running up its side, and yet another couple of walls had working doors standing in the middle of them.

"Allow me to explain," Schwartz began. "Mr. Dachnewel here," he indicated a plumpish lawyer-type in paint splattered denim work clothes sitting on the stage-right steps, "has been working from a combination of my description and the photograph's taken by a reporter from the paper during Mr. Coneely's press conference in your father's house to recreate the floor-plan on this stage. It is roughly one-third scale, though it may be off some here and there. For my purposes, that won't matter."

"What is this all about?" Donatelli demanded. "Why is Coneely's lawyer helping you with this investigation?"

Schwartz said, "I intend to establish that Mr. — er — Pastor Coneely is innocent, so there is no conflict."

"But he's already been proven innocent," Donatelli insisted.

"He was only considered innocent based on the premise that Matthew Hanson confessed and killed himself. I intend to prove that that didn't happen, at which point Coneely would then be considered a suspect again."

"Then he should be here," Donatelli began, but Schwartz cut him off.

"However," Schwartz said, "Before I establish that Matthew didn't kill his father, I have to establish that somebody else did. I have somebody in mind, and it isn't Coneely. Consequently, he'll never be back on the hook." Schwartz moved over to Thornton Felix's side. The ladies had all coupled up with their mates, except for Peggy who was mateless. She was standing between Felix and Donatelli, so Schwartz addressed her. "Miss Hanson, you've been introduced to Mr. Felix?"

"The other girls and I drove here with him," Peggy confirmed.

"I imagine he told you his connection to this case?" Schwartz said questioningly.

"He said that he represented my father's life insurance policy."

"What?" Lewis said. He'd been leaning in the door jamb, but now he walked to the center of the floor.

"You didn't know that your father had a large life insurance policy?" Schwartz asked.

"They told me that Dad had let the policy lapse," Lewis insisted.

"You expect us to believe that?" Johns asked from his position near the door.

"It's true," Carl Hanson said. "We didn't tell him or Peggy that Dad's new policy hadn't lapsed."

Sam shouldered some of the responsibility. "It was Dad's idea. Lewis and Peggy were opposed to Dad spending his money on life insurance. They had naïve ideas about Dad beating the cancers or something."

"No we didn't," Lewis insisted. "I mean, we knew he was going to die, but we thought if he went broke, he'd die before his time if he couldn't afford his medicines."

"At any rate," Schwartz said, "the policy had a grace period, and you all learned of it from Matthew. Didn't you, Miss Hanson?"

Peggy nodded her head slowly. "Matthew said that Dad knew the policy had a grace period, but we all thought it stopped when Dad canceled the policy."

"He didn't cancel" Felix said. "He just stopped paying the premium. The policy was about to lapse the day after he died."

"The day after he died?" Lewis said. "You mean it was still in force when he passed?"

Schwartz said, "And except for the fact that a murderer is not entitled to his or her share of the benefit, you each stand to inherit half a million dollars apiece."

Marjorie reached out to Lewis' arm. "We were going to tell you after the settlement came in."

"You knew about it too?" Lewis shouted.

"As it stands," Schwartz said, "Matthew's share has already been forfeited. I've been engaged by Mr. Felix on behalf of his firm to establish if there are any other portions of the policy that might be forfeit. Before I continue, I'd like to ask you all to sign a waiver of your portions of the death benefit if I should be able to establish that you are implicit in the death of your father."

"No," Melvin Melhorne insisted stepping out from behind his wife. "Why should any of them sign such a thing?"

"Why should they not?" Schwartz replied. "The courts would not allow them to benefit from the unlawful act regardless, and since they are all certain to protest their innocence at this time..."

"So why do you want the signatures then?" Melhorne asked.

"Because I don't want to be burdened with the wait for my payment," Schwartz said. "I am under no other obligation to settle this case, and I'm just as content to leave it as it is; only I know for a fact that Matthew Hanson was murdered and framed, and I should think that your family would like to know by whom."

"I'd like to know by whom," Lewis said sarcastically. "I'll sign your paper."

"I'll sign it too," Peggy said. "I have nothing to hide." Eventually, the paper made its rounds, and all five of the surviving Hansons signed away their claims on their inheritance should it be proven that they had killed their father. When the paper had come full-circle back into Schwartz's hands, he showed the paper to Felix. "I'll have Mr. Dachnewel notarize it and Detective Johns witness it. Is this satisfactory?"

"It's fine," Felix said with a puzzled look on his face. Schwartz completed his legal rituals and returned to the role of director.

***

"As I was saying," Schwartz said regaining his audience, "this is a life-size scale diagram of your father's house. While the pictures on which it is based were shot on the day of the press conference, that is not the day that I am interested in. I'm interested in the day your father died. Specifically, I'm interested in the time from between when Coneely and Donatelli left until the time that Peggy and Matthew discovered your father's body. To that end, I would like you all to go through the movements you made on that night. I have a brief list of those movements," he said taking another couple of sheets from his other hip pocket, "a sort of time-frame-sketch, based on the information you supplied to both Ms. Hoskin and the police. I want to test this sketch against a live demonstration to prove their veracity. Will you all comply?"

The Hanson scions looked to each other's faces for signs of acceptance, and gradually submitted to the test premise. "Very good," Schwartz said. "Since one of the parties is now deceased, we'll need to have a stand-in. Will it be all right with everybody if Ms. Hoskin stands in for Matthew? You can direct her on where to stand. If there is any lack of consensus, we'll act it out using both or all contingencies if necessary."

The plan was acceptable to everybody present, so we mounted the steps and assumed our position at the entrance to the faux-casa-de-Hanson. That was when Schwartz went completely off his nut and said, "Pastor Donatelli, since you were present just prior to the opening of our little scene, perhaps we could have the benefit of your recollection of events just prior to this point. Just so that we might have independent verification, could you tell us who was where in the Hanson house when Coneely and you left for the evening?"
Chapter 33

Donatelli smiled the smile of the dis-believing. "You're kidding?" he said.

"No," Schwartz submitted. "I'm very serious. I know what the Hanson's say happened, but I'd like independent verification."

"I don't think I'm comfortable playing along with this," Donatelli said. "I used to be their priest, their confessor."

"I'm not asking you to reveal anything you may have heard in the confessional," Schwartz said.

"You're asking me to potentially contradict something that one or more of them told you," Donatelli said. "I don't think that that would be proper, given my position as their chaplain."

"Their former chaplain," Schwartz offered.

"That notwithstanding," Donatelli said.

"Very well," Schwartz said, "but I really would like that verification. Michael Coneely was there also. Mr. Dachnewel, will you be so kind as to go and bring your client?'

Dachnewel hoisted his shoulders indifferently and stood to make for the door. As he was passed, Donatelli said, "Just a minute, Mr. Dachnewel. Do you do all of Mr. Schwartz's lackey work?"

Dachnewel stopped and smiled smugly. "Whenever possible lawyers will hire detectives to find evidence that their clients are innocent. Mr. Schwartz, whom I have known for many years, claims that he is about to do just that; and it is not costing my firm a single penny. If to do that he needs my client to tell something as trivial as where other people were located within a certain residence at a certain moment, I have no problem with producing said client." Dachnewel left the hall, and Schwartz took a folded chair from a rack near the wall. He opened the chair and sat saying, "This may take a few minutes. We may as well be comfortable."

The two insurance company reps followed Schwartz's lead. I sat on the stage-skirt with my feet dangling. Lewis sat with his back to the stage-left frame. Most of the others remained standing for a while, but eventually began to sit following the lead of Peggy who'd plopped where she stood after a several-minutes-long silence. Finally, Donatelli took a chair from the same rack where Schwartz had gotten his. Eventually, the only person left standing was Trevor who showed no signs of weakening.

At long last, Dachnewel returned with his client. "Here he is," he announced. "Go ahead and ask him."

Donatelli began to speak, but Schwartz raised a finger and said, "Eh eh, I'd like to see if he makes the same argument as you. Do you mind if I call you Michael?"

Coneely uncomfortably shifted his gaze between the law, his lawyer, Schwartz and Donatelli. "I'd prefer that you call me Father," he said.

"That's not going to happen," Schwartz said. "Your associate has agreed to allow me to call him Pastor. Will that do?"

"Okay," Coneely said visibly relieved, apparently thinking he'd passed the test by not agreeing to be called by his first name.

"Pastor Coneely," Schwartz said, "If I was to tell you that I'd been told that Peggy had gone up to her room just before you left the Hansons' house after performing the last rites on Vincent, would you say that was true?"

Coneely thought about it for a moment, and then said, "Who is making that claim?"

"This is...," Donatelli began.

"Sir," Schwartz said to Donatelli, "you don't have the answer to Pastor Coneely's question, do you?" Donatelli crossed his arms and turned his head, and Schwartz resumed his questions to Coneely. "Regardless of who is making the claim, would you say that it is true?"

"No," Coneely said, "it's not true, but who is making the claim?"

"So far as I know, nobody is," Schwartz said. "The point is that you are not invoking the issue of privilege when asked to confirm it or deny it. Now, would you please tell us where everybody was located as you left the Hanson residence that night?"

"I, well, um, didn't I already do that? When I came to your house to be questioned the other day? When was that? Monday?"

"What?" Donatelli shouted. "If he already told you, what was the point of all of this?"

"Would you care to confirm what he told us?" Schwartz asked. "I'd like to hear it from everybody present. I've already got it from the Hansons through the sources previously described, as well as from Pastor Coneely on Monday's visit. The only account lacking is yours."

"Fine!" Donatelli shouted. "Fine. I'll tell you what I remember, but it's kind of fuzzy. Let's see, oh, Melissa had had some difficulties, so she and her husband had gone into the kitchen for water or aspirin or something. Oh, and Carl's wife Sara, she'd gone in a little after to check on them; so the three of them were in the kitchen. Let's see, anybody else? No, I think, I'm pretty sure it was just those three. The others were in the hall seeing us out I think. I remember one of them asked a question about the sacrament, and it started an argument. I think they were all there. Um, definitely Matthew, Peggy and Carl were. I think, yes, Lewis was there, and Marjorie and her husband, I'm not so sure, but I think they were there too. Okay, there," he said defensively, "did I contradict anybody?"

"No," Schwartz said insolently shaking his head. "That's where we begin." He turned his attention to the stage. "Places, everybody."

***

After a few moments looking over the layout and satisfying ourselves that we knew which wall was represented by each flat, we began to assemble ourselves. Sam and Melissa followed Sara to the kitchen, which was opposite to how events had actually transpired, but that wasn't significant at this point in the reenactment. The couple sat on a pair of short stools representing the taller bar stools that they had used on the night in question. Sara went to the far corner which in the real house would have been where the stove and sink were located.

The remainder of us stood in the partitioned section representing the hall. Melvin and Marjorie hung back the furthest from the door. Peggy was closest to the door with Carl at her right shoulder. Apparently he'd been trying to calm her. Between these two and the Melhornes were Lewis and myself in the role of Matthew.

"All right," Schwartz shouted from his perch in the audience as he pressed the "record" button on a small tape recorder he'd brought along and had just taken from his breast pocket, "the priests have just left, the door is closed, what happens next?"

"Matthew and I went into the living room," Lewis said.

"Is the arrangement of furniture similar to how it was in your house that night?" Schwartz called. Lewis looked into the make-shift room and saw that there was one folding chair on the far wall representing the easy chair where Matthew had sat, three more chairs were on the wall to the right of the single representing the couch and two opposite the three representing the love seat. Between those three and the one on the same wall as the three was an opening representing the access to the long hall. There were also lamps, tables with magazines and a box representing the television.

"I'd say so, yes," Lewis concluded.

"What did you do?" Schwartz asked. "Where did you sit?"

"I sat on the couch there," Lewis said indicating the furthest chair in the group of three, "and Matt sat on the chair near me." Schwartz made a gesture, and Lewis and I went to our places.

"The rest of you?" Schwartz said. "Carl, what did Peggy do?"

"Why don't you ask her?" Carl said.

"Because I want to hear it from you."

"Well, I think she started up the stairs, and I went into..."

"Peggy," Schwartz said, "what did you do?"

"I started up the stairs. Carl's right, but I changed my mind. I came down and went into the living room and sat beside Lewis."

"Could you go to the steps please," Schwartz asked. "Wait there for now." Peggy had climbed the partial set of stairs, and she stood awaiting her next instructions. "Marjorie," Schwartz said, "where were you by the time Peggy got back down from the stairs?"

"I was in the living room with my husband sitting on the love seat. We went in just behind Lewis and Matty."

"From that vantage, could you see if Peggy went all the way upstairs?" Schwartz asked.

"She didn't have time," Marjorie said. "She came into the living room almost immediately."

Schwartz turned his attention to Carl after the Melhorne's assumed their seats. "You were about to tell me where you were during this flux time."

Carl nodded. "As soon as the priests were gone I went into the kitchen to join my wife and the others." Schwartz made a hand gesture, and Carl moved into the kitchen stand-in.

"Who was next to move?" Schwartz asked. Marjorie was looking uncomfortable. Peggy must have realized that it was because she was going to have to reveal her motivation for moving to the piano, so Peggy took the onus on herself.

"I was making Marj and Mel uncomfortable, so they moved to the piano," Peggy said.

"Yes," Melvin agreed. "That's right." He stood and took his wife to the bench in the far corner of the hall area past the front door gap.

"Did you play the piano after moving to it?" Schwartz asked, and Marjorie answered that she had. "Did anybody else move?" Schwartz asked.

"I did," Peggy said. "I took their place on the love seat and got the remote to surf the channels. Should I move now?"

"Yes," Schwartz said, and as she moved he said, "Did anybody else do anything unique during this exchange?"

"How could we know?" Sam asked. "I mean, Carl and Sara moved around the kitchen some, but how could we know if it was during this exchange as you call it? In our real house, the walls go all the way up."

"Do you remember hearing the piano or the television?" Schwartz asked.

"Oh," Melissa said, "the piano. That's right. Carl was in the pantry with Sara when the piano playing started. I remember because he came out humming."

"She's right," Carl said. "I remember that."

"Why were you in the pantry?" Schwartz asked.

"I was getting the artificial creamer out," Carl answered. "Sara was making coffee, but she realized that we were out of filters, so she'd gone into the pantry. After she was already in, I noticed that we needed creamer too. Should we move to the pantry now?"

Schwartz gestured them in and asked, "After Peggy's move to the love-seat?"

"Could we speed this up at all?" Lewis asked. "I mean, can't we just tell you our movements without all of the questions and tension?"

"That's a great idea," Carl said stepping forward toward the skirt. "This is taking forever."

"I'll be glad to speed up the process for you," Schwartz said. "Correct me when I get a point wrong and just move about as I direct. Will that be to everyone's satisfaction?" There was a general consensus, and we became a human chess game as Schwartz moved his pawns about the board.

"Very well," Schwartz said, "according to the various statements, Peggy stood after switching through the channels and started up the stairs a second time, but she stopped and went into the kitchen instead. Miss Hanson, if you will." Peggy walked up a few of the steps, turned and walked past Carl into the kitchen. "At this time Lewis and Matthew moved to the hall to see what she was doing. Mr. Hanson, Ms. Hoskin, please? Satisfied that she was fine, Lewis went to the piano, and Melvin returned to the living room, while Matthew remained for a short while in the hall between the kitchen and the living room near the stairs and the entrance to the kitchen and the long hall. Gentlemen? Meanwhile, Carl rejoined Melvin in the living room as Peggy went to the coffee pot, and discovering that there were no filters she went to the pantry where she ran into Sara. Ladies? Gentlemen? Once she knew the coffee would be started, Peggy left the kitchen where she had to get past Matthew who was blocking the door. She walked down the long hall and into the living room through the far entrance where she joined Melvin and Carl. Miss Hanson? At this point, Matthew goes into the kitchen where he waits for the coffee to finish. Ms. Hoskin? With the coffee in hand, Matthew returns to the living room via the short route, and he escorts his sister Peggy to the dining room-cum-hospice where they find the decedent. Ladies?"

We finished the script, and Peggy let out an audible sigh. "What have you proven?" Donatelli demanded. "It looks like none of them had opportunity. Are you sure you're trying to prove that Fr. Coneely is innocent?"

"Miss Hanson," Schwartz said, "Peggy, when you came out of the kitchen and had to squeeze past Matthew was he facing into the kitchen or out?"

Peggy thought for a minute. "Out," she said.

"As if he was watching for something?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Melhorne, I noticed during the reenactment at one point a curious expression came over your face. I'll get back to that in a minute. First I want to ask Peggy another question. Miss Hanson, when you went into the kitchen for the coffee, who did you see there?"

"Sam and his wife," she slowly answered.

"Nobody else?"

"Well, Sara was in the pantry, but I couldn't see her."

"Of course not. Did you pass anybody in the hall on your way into the kitchen?"

"No."

"Now, Mr. Melhorne, about that curious look on your face. It was a moment ago when you were met in the living room by Carl. Was it because he came in through the wrong entrance?"

"Well," Melhorne began, but Carl interrupted. "Oh, for crying out loud. I was just trying to hurry things along."

"Well," Schwartz began, "that would explain why Peggy doesn't remember passing you or seeing you in the kitchen. If you had left the kitchen already before she had gotten there and gone down the long hall and entered the living room from the far entrance."

"Exactly," Carl said.

"But it doesn't explain why you didn't get to the living room ahead of Melvin since he didn't go into that room until after Peggy had gone to the kitchen." Nobody said anything for several minutes. Then Schwartz suggested, "Shall we take it from the top?"
Chapter 34

"Wait a minute," Peggy said. "Are you suggesting that Carl killed Daddy while I was in the kitchen?"

"Either that," Schwartz said, "or he was walking very slowly down the long hall past the French doors. It does give him opportunity."

"But Matthew had opportunity also," Lewis said. "When I left him standing in the hall."

"Yes," Schwartz said. "He could have gone down the hall and administered the poison then, but he'd have had to have had it with him the whole time. He'd have then had to hurry back to the kitchen doorway — backward no less since he was facing out when Miss Hanson had to pass him — and then reenter the kitchen to calmly await the coffee."

"That could be what happened," Sara said.

"Very well," Schwartz said. "Let's act it out that way. We'll take it from where Carl leaves the kitchen. This time, Mr. Hanson, remember to enter the living room via the long hall, and make sure that you don't enter the living room ahead of Mr. Melhorne. Sara should be back in the pantry, Lewis and Ms. Hoskin are still in the living room, the Melhornes are at the piano, and Peggy is about to stop switching channels. Okay, Carl leaves the kitchen."

Carl walked out of the kitchen on a straight trajectory down the long hall. Schwartz continued shouting direction. "Peggy heads for the stairs, walks up a few, stops, turns, comes down again, turns for the kitchen but doesn't notice Carl walking in the hall as she passes, and she enters the kitchen. Next, Lewis and Matthew come into the hall behind Peggy in time to see her enter the kitchen. Lewis moves to the piano, leaving Matthew who moves closer to the kitchen where he stops. We don't know yet why he stops, but we do know that he does stop. Ms. Hoskin, you are in the role of Matthew. Do you suppose you can venture a guess about why he stopped?"

I looked around at my position. My back was to Schwartz and to my left was the kitchen entry. To my right was the long hall. I turned to face Schwartz, and I answered, "Maybe I was waiting for Peggy to come out of the kitchen so that I could speak with her. Or maybe I saw or heard something that made me curious. Or maybe I was waiting for the opportunity to sneak into the dining room."

"Let's work with that premise," Schwartz said. "You are waiting for the chance to sneak into the dining room. What is stopping you?"

I looked to the kitchen now on my right. "Peggy can see me from the kitchen," I said. "And Carl is lurking in the hall."

"I didn't lurk," Carl protested.

"Well," Schwartz said, "it is taking you a long time to get down that hall. At any rate, let's continue. Melvin leaves his wife at the piano and moves to the single chair in the living room. Almost immediately, Carl enters from the long hall and sits on the couch near Melvin. This would be Matthew's only opportunity to sneak into the dining room. Ms. Hoskin, would you do that now?" I walked down the hall and passed through the French doors. "Miss Hanson, Peggy, would you please tell us exactly what transpired from the moment you entered the kitchen to the moment you left?"

Peggy sighed again and said, "I went to where Sam and Melissa were sitting, at the bar to get the coffee pot, but realized that there were no filters"

"How many minutes did that take?" Schwartz asked.

"Less than one," Peggy said. "Then I went to the basement door and opened it. The pantry is just off the top landing to the basement stairs. As I opened the door, Sara stepped out and startled me. We startled each other. I asked her what she was doing there, and she told me that she was getting filters."

"Are the filters difficult to retrieve?" Schwartz asked.

"No," Peggy said. "Sometimes they're behind things though."

"Would it be common for somebody retrieving filters to be in the pantry long enough for somebody else to realize that the house was out of creamer, come into the pantry, retrieve the creamer, leave the pantry without offering to help retrieve the filters, place the creamer on the bar and then leave the kitchen which was then entered by somebody else who had time to discover the missing filters and come to the pantry looking for them?"

"If you're suggesting that I was in the pantry for a long time," Sara said, "I was rearranging things. That's not so uncommon, you know."

"Fine," Schwartz said. "This is the first time that you are mentioning it, but it's reasonable. Miss Hanson, after you spoke with Mrs. Hanson about the filters, what did you do?"

"Well, she was making coffee, so I went to the living room to wait for it."

"Passing Matthew as you left."

"Yes, but he'd been there talking with Sam while I was in the pantry. I heard them talking."

"Mr. Hanson," Schwartz said, "Sam, what were you and Matthew discussing?"

"Nothing," Sam said, "He just asked me if Melissa was all right."

"He was in the doorway, but he kept looking over his shoulder," Melissa said. "He seemed distracted."

"After Peggy left," Schwartz said, "What did Matthew do?"

"He came into the kitchen and waited for Sara to brew the coffee," Melissa said.

"Ms Hoskin," Schwartz said, "Why are you still in the dining room?"

"I don't know when I was supposed to come out to the kitchen," I answered defensively.

"Then we should try to determine that," Schwartz said. "Let's see, Matthew would have been in the hall with Lewis when Peggy first went into the kitchen. He'd have had to stay there until Mr. Melhorne went to the living room. Lewis, about how long was that from the time Peggy entered the kitchen to the time Melvin went into the living room?"

"I don't know," Lewis said, "about two minutes, maybe a little less."

"Well, let's say a minute and a half then," Schwartz conceded. "Though according to Miss Hanson, she was already speaking with Sara in the pantry by that time, and Matthew was asking Sam about Melissa, and then Matthew came into the kitchen to await the coffee. No, I don't see where he had opportunity to go into the dining room and apply Chlordane to all of the anointed parts of his father's body."

"But you do see where I had the opportunity?" Carl Hanson demanded sarcastically.

"It doesn't matter," Schwartz said, "if you had opportunity, unless I can establish that you had access to the poison. I certainly haven't done that yet."

Trevor stepped away from the door jamb for the first time. "Are you going to?" he asked.

"Everybody come down and take a seat," Schwartz said. "I've got a little story to tell."

***

We had gathered in a semi-circle with Schwartz in the center facing toward us. He had insisted on a very specific seating arrangement. His back was to the entrance, and Trevor was still guarding that. The seats before him were arranged in two rows. The first row consisted of the Hansons. Carl had the seat furthest left, then his wife, then Sam and his wife, then Peggy and so on in order of birth. The second row began with Felix, the insurance company rep, then Penny Prince, then me, then Dachnewel, then Coneely and finally Fr. Donatelli in the seat nearest the stage.

Once he was satisfied with the arrangement, Schwartz began to lay out his theory. "Chlordane," he said, "has been banned in this country for over twenty years. For a few years prior to its banishment, it was allowed to be used only as a means of controlling termites. According to your interviews with the police, only a few of you could have been considered as potentially having any access, and those possibilities seemed remote. Lewis works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But the police looked into that, and found nothing suspicious. The same applies to Mr. Melhorne who works with various chemicals in his profession, though not insecticides. Peggy works for an exterminator. Certainly the police examined that route, and again came up empty. Am I correct, Detective?"

"You are," Trevor said. "They haven't used Chlordane since before the ban, and she didn't come to work for them until about ten years later."

"However," Schwartz said, "Sam here flew a crop duster before the ban."

"But I never sprayed Chlordane," Sam insisted. "It was already illegal for anything but termites."

"Correct. In addition to which you were a freelancer, and you had no license to purchase your own toxins," Schwartz aided. "So none of the obvious routes suggested anything suspicious to the police. So it seemed a dead end."

"Isn't it a dead end?" Trevor asked.

"Well," Schwartz said, "unless you consider that both Peggy and Sam came under suspicion because they knew a person, specifically Jerry Clarke of Clarke's Exterminating, who had access to Chlordane during the time that it was still legal for use in exterminating termites. Sam was flying freelance for him, and Peggy knew him and would years later call on that familiarity to acquire her job. And if you further consider that the person who brokered those jobs for Sam and Peggy was Carl, that brings him back into the picture."

"So what are you saying?" Carl asked. "That I asked my friend Jerry for Chlordane twenty years ago and kept it in the pantry all this time so that I could euthanize my father before his insurance ran out? How very intuitive of me."

"No good," Trevor said. "We asked Clarke if any of the Hansons had ever bought Chlordane from him. He had good records. They were clean."

"Let's come back to this," Schwartz said. "For now, we'll skip ahead to the night that Coneely let slip that he knew a way to poison a person receiving last rites. Carl was in the room when that conversation occurred. We've already established that he knew that his father's life insurance policy was due to expire. If he also knew where he could get a supply of Chlordane, he could have come up with the plan right there on the spot."

"But we don't know that he did know where there was any Chlordane," Trevor insisted.

"Very well," Schwartz said. "Let's speculate for a while. Suppose that somebody had come to Carl while he was working for the airport and had told him that he was having a problem with termites. Suppose that Carl had recommended his friend Jerry Clarke as a source of good insecticides. Now suppose that years later, Carl was to hear that the person who had bought the Chlordane had had to replace the very lumber he'd bought the Chlordane to protect because of a termite infestation."

"We looked into that possibility when you found the St. Christopher's medal," Trevor said. "Clarke says he never sold the church any Chlordane to use on this building."

"Let's say the poison was for a playground," Schwartz said, "and the fact that it had been eaten away by termites was common knowledge because it was accidentally uncovered as a result of a television news report. Now let's suppose that while Carl thought it odd, he filed it away in the back of his mind and forgot all about it until that day when Coneely suggested that he knew of a way to poison a person during last rites. Suppose that at that moment, several things clicked. Suppose Carl then went to the person who had bought that Chlordane some twenty-plus years earlier, we'll call him X, and told X that he knew that X still had the Chlordane, that X had been using it to euthanize people, and that X had confessed the fact to Michael Coneely who had let it slip as a hypothetical. Suppose Carl had then carried out the plan, and mercy-killed his father, only Matthew saw him sneaking either out of or into the room. Suppose Matthew had realized what Carl had done, but didn't understand what Coneely's part in it had been. Suppose Matthew contacted X for advice when he thought that the police were going to arrest Coneely, but not arrest Carl. Suppose that X had asked Matthew to arrange his thoughts which Matthew did on his laptop. Suppose that X then poisoned Matthew, erased everything from the lap top that didn't sound like an admission using only the back and delete keys which he wiped clean before washing his own glass, placing the poison vial in Matthew's hand and leaving the scene." Schwartz stopped speaking. All attention had been riveted to him. Gradually, we noticed that he had stopped talking. Slowly we turned our heads to see Fr. Donatelli's reaction. The only one who didn't turn his head was Fr. Coneely, who had covered his face in his hands to weep.

Donatelli stood in abject hostility. "This is outrageous!" he shouted. "It's nothing but conjecture plain and simple. You can't prove any of it!"

"Suppose," Schwartz said, "I could. If my theory is correct, you have been poisoning parishioners for more than twenty years. Ms. Hoskin was good enough to find one for me who remembers you performing last rites just minutes before her father died. Let's suppose that I've spoken with her, and she is willing to consent to an exhumation and autopsy. You know, Chlordane leaves traces that last for years."

Donatelli had walked toward the kitchen entrance. "This is crazy," he said. "I'm a Roman Catholic priest. I can't believe you are talking to me this way. I'm going for a drink of water, and when I return I want this man off of church property."

"I'm afraid I can't let you leave my sight just now," Trevor said leaving the door jamb and moving to approach the elderly priest. An officer in uniform, who had been waiting for Trevor's signal entered behind him. Then, for the second time that day, Trevor found himself in hot pursuit. Donatelli bolted for the exit behind the stage. Trevor was slowed by the collection of folding chairs and Hanson family members who had jumped up when Donatelli had fled. By the time he got out the door, Donatelli had gotten to his car and was lurching out of his parking space.

Something else happened for the second time that day. Donatelli's car dragged on the pavement, and his rims set off a shower of sparks as he drove on four flattened tires. Vic Jenkins jumped from his own car and began firing a quick succession of photographs of the priest's thwarted escape attempt. Once the police had made the stop, Jenkins reached into his pocket and produced a small white card. He flipped it through the window onto Donatelli's lap and smiled across the parking lot to Schwartz. He was waving the valve-core remover Schwartz had lent him.

"What was that card?" I asked Schwartz.

Schwartz smiled a cocky grin and said, "It was one of mine. I asked Vic to deliver it. It says:

The crime of disdain is a crime of arrogance. The police have been called. There's nowhere for you to hide. Perhaps you'll learn something from this."
Chapter 35

Schwartz returned to the hall to discuss terms with Thornton Felix, so I crossed the lot to hob-nob with Jenkins. He'd staked out an area near the split-rail fence at the playground where he could shoot pictures of the police as they read Donatelli's rights. The windows of the school were filled with students and teachers watching Fr. Donatelli being arrested. By the expressions on their faces, it was as though they were witnessing the very persecution of Christ.

I reclined on the fence and said, "So much for objectivity, huh?"

"What do you mean by that?" Jenkins asked as he fired off a shot of Trevor shielding Donatelli's head as he was placed in the squad car.

"Well," I said, "we're not supposed to become a part of the stories we cover. We practically helped script this one."

"The way I see it," he said, "we're people too. Life happens all around us."

"So you're not concerned about the ethics?" I asked.

"That's not my department," he said. "The paper's editors decide what's ethical. Not me. I just do what I'm told."

"What do you think they'll tell you about this one?"

"I think they'll tell me to give an interview to one of the other more experienced reporters to write up."

"Yeah," I said, "I think my editors might just do the same thing. What are you going to do about it?"

"What can I do?" he said shrugging as Trevor started up his engine.

"Well," I said, "you can do what I always do. Tell them you'll write it yourself, or you'll take your pictures and your eyewitness account to the competitor's down the street."

***

I was crossing back across the lot when Trevor came up behind me and squawked his siren. I took in enough air to float a dirigible as my heart enjoyed an adrenaline rush. "Are you trying to scare me to death?" I asked.

"I just want to ask you," he said through his open window, "how much of Schwartz's plan did you know when you asked me to come to his house this morning?"

"I beg your pardon," I said as a second squad car passed with Carl Hanson in the rear.

"Do you think he planned this embarrassment for me, or was that all you?" Trevor asked pointedly.

"What embarrassment?" I asked. "You got the killers."

"Oh, yes," Trevor said, "and it's so clean, isn't it? Now all we have to do is convince a judge to give us a warrant to exhume a body to get the evidence to convict the priest who invented the phrase 'fourth leaf on the clover.'"

I looked at Donatelli in his handcuffs in the back-seat and said, "That was yours? I got the impression that that was a Church-wide thing."

"So you didn't realize who Fr. Donatelli is?" Trevor asked.

"Who is he?"

Donatelli was looking out the window. He also looked at his hands, at the floor, at anything but my eyes.

"He was the right hand man of the previous bishop. He hand-picked his own successor for St. Bart's so he could keep this parish in his pocket. He'd be a Monsignor today if he hadn't picked the wrong pony as a successor to the last bishop," Trevor explained. "This is going to be a political nightmare. Now I understand why Schwartz wanted Jimmy to take this collar. Monsignor Peter Yitzosky at the diocese offices is Jimmy's uncle. Jimmy was an altar boy. I'm some divorced, horn-playing, career-cop who incorrectly declared the case closed at one point."

"Maybe I can help to make sure you're treated fairly in the press," I said.

"Oh, sure," Trevor said. "Like you did with Mother Foyer?"

"You said that didn't matter to you," I said.

Then as he started to pull away, Trevor said one more thing to me. "I lied."

***

In the hall, I found the remaining Hansons gathered in a circle with John Dachnewel in the center. Schwartz was conferring with Felix over in a corner, and Penny Prince was seated casually listening nearby. I walked over and sat with her. Schwartz was saying, "I don't think you read the contract correctly. It says that I receive one-third of every portion of the death benefit that my investigation saves your company."

"But you didn't save us anything," Felix insisted. "When you came to us, the police had named Matthew Hanson as the killer, so we were already saved his portion. You proved that he was innocent but that another of his siblings was guilty, so it simply shifts the blame. It doesn't save us anything."

"It doesn't matter," Schwartz insisted. "The contract stipulates that I receive my share of any portion I can save your company besides the share that Matthew would have gotten." Felix began to speak, but Schwartz stopped him. "Besides Matthew's share. Not including it. In addition to that, a roomful of witnesses heard you okay a waiver that the Hanson's all signed. They each agreed to forgo their individual one-sixth share of the death benefit should they be proven guilty, but not Matthew's share. His portion was excluded from the bargain that you ratified." Again Felix began to speak, and again Schwartz interrupted, "In addition to that, had they not signed the waiver, you know as well as I do that a court might still have ordered for you to pay out the entire death benefit even if I'd shown that all but one of them was involved in Mr. Hanson's death. So long as one sibling remained uninvolved, he or she might have had a perfectly legal claim to the entire death benefit. The only thing that is keeping Mr. Dachnewel from informing them of that probity at this very minute is that document that Carl Hanson and his brothers and sisters all signed. A document that Mr. Dachnewel knows to be airtight since he helped me to draft it himself."

"Well," Felix said, "it is still contingent on a jury finding Carl Hanson guilty of a crime. He may get off. Juries can be very sympathetic in euthanasia cases."

"Carl Hanson's case will never see a jury," Schwartz said. "I know Mr. Dachnewel very well. He is telling the Hanson's that if Carl confesses to his part and offers to testify against the priest, the district attorney will probably not recommend any jail time at all. Carl Hanson will be a free man by Saturday, and his siblings will give him and his wife Matthew's share of the death benefit."

Felix looked as though he wanted to speak, but he had no thoughts to express. Finally he said, "You planned it this way," and he walked out of the church hall. Penny Prince stood and sighed. She started out the door behind her employer. Schwartz called after her and she turned.

"Yes, Mr. Schwartz?"

"You and I both know that I coerced him into signing that contract to hire me by using the information you supplied me. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No, sir," she said slowly shaking her head. "No problem at all."

"Could you come to my house tomorrow afternoon? I've something important to discuss with you." She nodded and left.
Chapter 36

Schwartz had promised to take me to the train station after dinner. I'd decided not to stay to see Trevor's band perform again, and had reserved a seat on a train to Cleveland leaving that night. My bags were packed and loaded into his 1937 Cord 812, and we were enjoying the last of our cod broiled in dill and drawn lemon-butter. Beverly had gone to the kitchen for our vanilla mousse deserts, and Mia had gone to her room to get ready for a date with Yitzie when Schwartz said. "You did a very good job. Your father would have been proud."

I looked up and swallowed the lump, and I don't mean the fish. "Would you say it was satisfactory?" I asked.

"It was better than satisfactory," he said. "It was excellent."

"There are still some things I don't understand," I said. "Like how did you first realize that Lewis was out of the loop on the insurance thing?"

"He had told you that his father had no insurance at all with Matthew in the room, and Matthew had gone along with it," Schwartz said, "which by itself proved nothing. But when Marjorie had let it slip in front of Lewis that she and Peggy had only been able to convince Vincent to switch policies several months ago she worried about how Lewis would react. The two points together suggested that Lewis wasn't being told everything. Which stands to reason since he wasn't living in the area. The others all were."

"Okay," I said, "another thing; Matthew kept hinting that he had information. I told you that, but you never just asked him about it."

"All Matthew knew was that he'd seen Carl go into the dining room just before his father died. He suspected that Coneely had given Carl the poison; probably he assumed it had happened when they'd greeted each other at the French doors during the sacrament. If he'd wanted to tell me that, he could have done so at any time. He had no intention of telling me anything. He was just making the announcement that he knew something hoping that it would get Carl to turn himself in. However, if he'd thought that Coneely was going to take the fall, he'd have come forward when Carl didn't. The only problem was that Donatelli got to him first."

"That's another thing. Why didn't you see that coming?"

"That's a fair question. I should have," Schwartz admitted. "All I can say is that I'd worked out the situation to where there were two mercy killers, Carl and Donatelli. I didn't realize that one of them might be also a common murderer."

"Okay, so why did you arrange the seats in such a way that Donatelli could try to escape when you revealed your theory? Didn't you know that he would run?"

"I hoped he would," Schwartz said. "I was lying when I said that I had gotten permission to exhume that woman's father. I've never even spoken with her. Donatelli's attempted flight is the only thing that gives the police probable cause."

"One last thing; you seemed to be implying at one point during the charade that perhaps Sara had some part in the scheme..."

"So I did," Schwartz said. "She may have. In fact any combination of them may have been informed of the plan to poison the senior Hanson. There's no way of proving either of it."

"Then what was the point of showing how long Sara stayed in the pantry?"

"For my purposes, I need Carl Hanson to confess his part and bring evidence against Donatelli," Schwartz admitted. "Carl is the one who applied the poison, after all. If, to accomplish that, I have to plant the idea in his mind that his wife might otherwise be exposed if the investigation were to continue, so be it."

Beverly brought in a tray with our three desert dishes, and we were enjoying them when the doorbell rang. Beverly excused herself, and soon we could hear her explaining to Jimmy that Mia would be a few minutes if he'd like to join us for coffee and mousse. He'd accepted the coffee, and he joined us at the table.

"I want to thank you again for offering me the opportunity to help out on that case," he said, "but I really want to thank you for getting me that cocaine bust. That woman sang like a little bird. Thanks to that bust, we're probably going to get a lot of dust off of the streets. If there's anything the department can do to show our appreciation."

Schwartz smiled and took his lower lip between his fingers. "As a matter of fact," he said, "there is. I assume you've confiscated her car?"

"Absolutely," Jimmy said. "It was found transporting several pounds of an illegal narcotic. What about it?"

"Well," Schwartz said, "I've just finished a contract for the city. They are indebted to me for a little over two-thousand dollars. I imagine that the department will be auctioning the Fiero to the highest bidder. It probably wouldn't bring more than two-thousand dollars considering the kinds of people those auctions attract. How about a trade; my paycheck for the Fiero."

"I'll see what I can do," Jimmy said nodding, "but I don't see a problem."

"Excellent," Schwartz said. "Professor Moreck will enjoy seeing me drive it."

***

After Mia and Jimmy had gone, Beverly and I said our good-byes. Then Schwartz and I climbed into the Cord and drove to the train depot. On the way, we spoke together about our forebears for the first time. We found a lot of common ground, but I'll reserve that for just him and me. After all, a bargain is a bargain.

As we pulled up to the passenger entrance, we said our good-byes, and as Schwartz was taking my bags from the trunk, I hugged him from behind. He patted my hand, and to lighten the mood, I said, "That was pretty slick the way you pulled that off. You're getting a free car from the city and — what — a third of a half-a-million dollars from an insurance company. How much is that exactly?"

"It's about $167,000," Schwartz said, and I whistled as long as that trail of zeroes.

"What do you plan to do with the money?" I asked.

He smiled. He got into his car and put it in gear. Then just before he pulled away, he said, "I plan to use it to buy a red Porsche Spyder and paint it back to its original silver."

At least his timing was improving.

THE END
Common Sense (The Lupa Schwartz Mysteries, Book II)

Sample Excerpt:

Chapter One

Why don't I remember more about that moment? Was it the cop, the one who had escorted me into that room and pulled back the sheet, was it his fault I don't remember? Had he pre-conditioned me to expect more? Is that why I don't remember more details? Or had I done it to myself? Had I presumed too much? Were my expectations out of line with reality because of all the horrific images I'd been trained to expect from television and the movies?

I've spent my life training my memory. My high level of recall is what makes me a good reporter. It's what Schwartz valued so much when we'd worked that last case. It's what I consider my defining characteristic. So why don't I remember more about that day?

I don't know what I expected to find, really. Did I think he'd be paler? Bluer? Bloated? Wetter? He'd probably only been in the water for an hour or so, tops, and he'd been fished out more than 24 hours before. Of course he wasn't bloated or still wet... or pallid. So when the sheet came back and even his lips looked like him... like the lips I'd kissed when I took his name... like the lips I'd fallen in love with all those years before... like the lips I'd foolishly grown to trust.

It's no good. All I remember are his lips. I vaguely remember saying, "Yes, that's him," and being escorted out of the room, but that's it. I don't even remember going back to my car; but I did go back to my car. I got in and began driving, and I remember thinking back to the night before, when I'd gotten the call.

***

It had been five months since I'd last seen Beverly, the live-in housekeeper and cook at the home of the renowned Private Investigator, Lupa Schwartz; but the telephone correspondence we had maintained made it seem like a lot less time. "Has Mia gotten over hating me yet?" I asked, and Beverly laughed gaily.

"I suppose she has," Beverly answered. "Did I tell you that she and Yitzie aren't dating anymore?" Yitzie was Jimmy Yitzosky, and he was the reason that Mia Geovani had been holding a grudge against me these past few months. He was a narcotics cop, a Sergeant in the Pittsburgh Police Department, and she'd wanted him to move on to homicide; but I had foiled her plan in favor of my own then-favorite homicide dick, Detective Trevor Johns. Unfortunately, the scheme I'd hatched blew up in my face, and it had cost me the affection of both Mia and my own Ishmael (as I called Trevor.)

"No," I said in honest surprise. "What happened?"

"Long story," Beverly told me.

"I've got time," I said, and I meant it. I'd had no life for more than a month. My job at the Cleveland office of Gamut Magazine had become the only thing I did. When I'd returned from Pittsburgh that past July with the story of the brilliant detective work Schwartz had used to solve the case of a Catholic priest framed for the last-rites-poisoning of one of his parishioners, I'd thought it would be the kick-in-the-butt my career had been in need of. Ever since my ex-husband had hijacked a utilities story that had been rightfully mine, I'd been somewhat stagnated. It probably would have been a sufficient boost too, except that I'd allowed that charmer-of-an-ex-of-mine to worm his way back into my life and had started dating him again while I was still riding the high of my own literary success. Then – as if I'd never had our young marriage annulled – I'd moved in with him. He'd started screening my email, and had snaked another story that had been rightfully mine. He was over a hundred miles away living in a quaint B&B with a company expense account working another utilities story, while I waited to edit his copy and keep house patiently awaiting his return. Of course, what he didn't know was that the only reason I was actually awaiting his return was so that I could see his face when he saw what I'd done with a little benzene to his prized CD collection right before I dumped his sorry ass again.

So I listened to Beverly's story, running up the tab on Dave's (my ex-husband's) phone bill – since the one concession I'd gotten him to agree to when I'd moved back in was keeping all of the utilities (including a house phone) in his name. Although even winning that compromise had cost me some concessions; like no frills such as caller ID, call-waiting, voice-mail, or any other extras.

So Beverly told her tale. It seemed that Mia, who was Schwartz's mechanic (he had an extensive antique and classic car collection in a huge underground garage on his property,) had been pestering Schwartz to allow Jimmy to take credit for collaring one of Schwartz's murder cases as he'd solved it so that Jimmy could possibly get out of the Narcotics division. Apparently Schwartz, a sucker for a pretty face – which Mia definitely had one – had agreed twice in the past month, but Jimmy had found a reason both times to make a drug bust instead. Mia had finally had enough. She'd stopped accepting Jimmy's invitations to dinner, and she was back to playing the field. "So," Beverly said, "Mia has no more reason to be angry with you. It was all Jimmy's deal the whole time."

At that moment, my handbag had begun to chirp. "Hold the line a minute, would you, Bev? My cell phone is ringing. It might be Dave."

"Then let it ring," Beverly said. "You're dumping the jerk next week anyway, aren't you?"

"Yes," I said, "If it's important, he can call back, right?"

"Exactly," she said. "So are you going to just let it ring?"

"Yes, I am," I said proudly. "So how are things with you and Lupa?"

"Cattleya," Beverly said, "you know that our relationship is strictly professional."

"Did I say anything to suggest that it wasn't?"

"You implied it," she said, "by the timing of your asking about it." I laughed, but the distraction of that incessant ringing was driving me off my nut.

"Hold on, Bev," I said. "Whoever this is, they're being really persistent. It must be important." I set the handset down and pulled the ringing phone from my purse. "Hello?"

"Cat, it's Jana," the voice said announcing herself to be a co-worker from the magazine office.

"Hi, Jana," I said. "Can I call you back? I'm on long distance to Pitts..."

"Cat, listen," Jana said interrupting. "I think maybe you'd better hang up that other call. We just got a call at the office from the Mississauga, Ohio Police. I think something has happened to Dave. They've been trying to get a hold of you, but..."

"What did they say about Dave?"

"They wouldn't say anything specific. They just wanted to know if you had another phone number they could call since they kept getting a busy signal. I didn't want to give them your cell number because I know you had it changed since you're planning to – you know – to dump Dave again. I thought it might be a trick or something. Anyway, they're going to call you back in a few minutes."

"Thanks, Jana," I said. "I'll let you know what I find out. Goodbye." I hung up and got back on the line with Beverly. "Bev, hi. Listen, I've got to clear this line. Apparently the Mississauga, Ohio police are calling to talk with me about Dave. He's down there covering the story he stole ... on a story, so he might be in jail or something. I'll talk to you later, okay? Bye."

I hung up and turned on the television while I waited for the phone to ring. Less than a minute had passed when the sudden sound startled me. "Hello," I said.

"Cattleya Hoskin?" the voice asked. I responded in the affirmative, and the voice continued, "This is Captain Hank Street of the Mississauga Police department down here in Mississauga, Ohio. Is David Hoskin your husband?"

"Yes," I said, "my ex-husband is David Hoskin. He's down there working on an assignment for Gamut Magazine. He's a writer."

"Yes, ma'am, we know," Captain Street said. "Um, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, ma'am, but there's been a ... well, there's been a sort of a ... a sort of an incident."

"Is Dave under arrest?" I asked.

"No, ma'am," Street said. "I'm afraid he's dead."

It may have been a whole minute or barely a moment or any other length of time between Street's stating the word and my repeating it as a question. I can't say, because for me time stopped. "Dead?" I said, though whether immediately or finally — I can't be sure.

"Yes, ma'am. Drowned," Street said, "in the river. He was night-fishing on a pier, a sort of public dock. We'd like for you to come down and identify the body. It's procedure. We're sure it's him. Could you come down in the morning?"
Notice

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Author Bio

With a profound interest in religion, liberal politics and humor, Dave began writing in High School and has not given up on it since. His first professional writing jobs came while attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh when he was hired to create political cartoons for the Pitt News & to write humor pieces for Smile Magazine. Dave has worked in the newspaper industry as a photographer, in the online publishing industry as a weekly contributor to Streetmail.com, and was a contributing writer to the Buzz On series of informational books and to the Western online anthology, Elbow Creek.

Dave's science fiction novel, Synthetic Blood and Mixed Emotions, is available from writewordsinc.com.

Dave currently resides in his childhood home in Toronto, OH with his beautiful girlfriend and his teenage daughter. He enjoys participating in local community events & visiting with his two adult children and his grandson.

