“We’ll have you home in no time,” said Sergeant Ewing, as their car rapidly moved south on Telegraph Road.
“Will you be off duty then?”
Ewing chuckled. “No way. We’ve got lots more to do before we call it quits today.”
“Where to next, if I may ask?”
“For starters, we’re going to talk to Mrs. Hunsinger.”
“I didn’t know he was married.”
“He wasn’t. Well, he was. Then, divorced. Long time ago. Remained single ever since. No, I meant his mother.”
“Oh, that’s right; you mentioned her. But isn’t that a bit farfetched? His own mother?”
“She did have a key, remember?”
“Oh.”
“Have to touch all the bases.”
Koesler fell silent. He tried to picture Hunsinger’s mother, not knowing what she looked like. Not aware that he had known her in the distant past.
Whoever she might be, his heart went out to her. Especially since she must be quite elderly now, it would be particularly painful to lose her son. Koesler was sadly familiar with the situation. He had assisted many an elderly parishioner on the occasion of the death of a mature son or daughter. In old age particularly, one tends to accept the inevitabilities of nature, the natural progression of life and death. But one hopes for the continued love and solicitude of one’s children. One expects to be buried by one’s children. Usually, in Koesler’s experience, there is a particular poignancy when the expectations of nature are upset.
Exacerbating this, these officers would soon be asking her some of the same questions they had asked earlier of those who might be considered suspects in Hunsinger’s murder. The detectives were only doing their job from which there was no escape. But Koesler grieved that Hunsinger’s mother would have to be subjected to this sort of questioning.
He could not decide whether a police interrogation such as this was better or worse than the questioning by the reporter who feels compelled to thrust a microphone into a grieving parent’s face to ask, “How did you feel when you saw the truck run over your child?”
All he could hope was that Harris and Ewing would be gentle when they met with Mrs. Hunsinger. He had every reason to expect they would.
The car came to a stop. It was not the sort of stop made for a traffic light. An air of expectancy pervaded the car.
They were in front of St. Anselm’s rectory.
“Oh,” Koesler said, “we’re here. Thank you very much.”
“Not at all,” Ewing responded. “Thank you. You’ve been a help, Father, If anything else comes to mind, give us a call.”
They pulled away, leaving the priest suspended midway between the rectory and the church. After a moment’s consideration, Koesler headed for the church. An investigation into a deliberate murder might be the daily fare of homicide detectives, but it was a rare and deeply disturbing episode for a suburban parish priest. He felt he needed time to reflect on all he had heard this day. And after many years of searching he had never found a better place for silent, prayerful reflection than a quiet church when there were no services going on. There was something about the building’s memory of being packed with worshipers, the faint odor of incense that clung to the pews and furnishings, the present emptiness that urged Koesler to sit back and look at God and let God look at him.
She had planned on becoming a nun. It seemed logical.
She was raised in a large, pious German Catholic family. And she was rather plain. At least that’s how she thought of herself. Mostly because others treated her as if she were. She was the middle child of seven children. None of her siblings appeared to hold out any hope that someone someday would offer Grace Koenig a proposal of marriage. So Grace did not consider marriage as her vocational vehicle in life.
In that state it was only natural that Grace Koenig would prepare herself for life in a convent.
She grew very close to the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, more simply known as the IHMs, who taught in her parish school, Holy Redeemer. And they grew very close to her.
She was not a gifted pupil, but she applied herself without stint. She earned consistently good grades. That gave everyone hope that she would be successful in the IHMs, for the nuns in that religious order were all teachers.
Grades alone did not a teaching sister make. Grace knew that. Both priests and sisters taught Grace that a religious vocation had to be worked at. She, along with all other parochial students of the time, learned that the real heroes of life were the young boys who went away to the seminary to become priests. Next in line for heroism were the little girls who went to the convent to become nuns. Nuns, of course, were second class to priests, but then, as nearly everyone of that time knew, girls were second class to boys.
Then there were the Great Unwashed who got married. Marriage, as anyone who studied the catechism knew, was for “the procreation and education of children.” Sex was around to propagate the human race and to relieve concupiscence. And that, pretty much, was that.
If Grace Koenig was not to be found at home, more than likely she was in the convent, helping the nuns clean or cook, or repair their religious garb. Some of her more spiteful classmates took to calling her Sister Grace. Some who were familiar with the Latin litany in honor of the Blessed Mother aimed at Grace such high-class barbs as “mater purissima” (“mother most pure”), “mater castissima” (“mother most chaste”), or “virgo fidelis” (“faithful virgin”). None of this much troubled Grace. To paraphrase Irving Berlin-which Grace would never do-she had the Mass in the morning and prayers in the evening. And with the Mass in the morning and the prayers in the evening, she was all right.
In due course, Grace graduated from high school. The brand new St. Mary’s Convent, the IHM motherhouse in Monroe, Michigan, awaited the assumed entry of Grace Koenig into religious life. Mother General was surprised when Grace did not arrive.
After graduation, Grace’s parents took her aside for a serious talk. There was no problem with her going to the convent. There was no way they could forbid her to go, though she was an obedient girl. The commitment to religious life for most of her scholastic years had been a given. But didn’t she think she owed the family something? Her father had supported her all of her life. Even paid for her parochial school education when he might have sent her to a public school. In return, she had made no financial contribution to date. And she surely would make none after she took the Sisters’ vow of poverty.
Would she, then, consider entering the work force for a year or two, maybe three, so she could make some fiscal contribution before entering the convent? After all, she was a very young woman, still in her late teens. She would have plenty of years as a nun. Most of them died in their eighties and nineties. You could read it for yourself in the obituaries.
She consented, reluctantly. And that is when a small segment of history was altered.
She got a job in Hudson’s in downtown Detroit. Since she would be a saleslady, she thought she owed it to her customers and employers to fix herself up a bit. With what her parents allowed her to keep of her first paychecks, she got a permanent, some new, if inexpensive, clothing, and some cosmetics.
Then, a funny thing happened: Grace Koenig became pretty.
Her thin, Germanic face hadn’t benefited by wearing her straight blond hair in a boyish bob. The permanent was a strong aid, as were lipstick, rouge, and eyeshadow. Her very attractive figure, hitherto concealed in modest, baggy dresses, was now evident.
Her immediate superior complimented her. That was a first. She noticed other salespeople and an occasional floorwalker taking a second look at her. That was a first. Then came that memorable moment when a customer very politely asked her for a date. That, very definitely, was a first.
She absorbed a lot of kidding at home about her dating. She blushed when her siblings poured it on. But she was determined to continue dating Conrad Hunsinger as long as he was willing. He always treated her like a lady and never tried to get fresh. About the only problem of which she was conscious was that Conrad was not a Catholic. If push came to shove, he would admit to being Lutheran. But he never went to church.
They became engaged. They were married, at Holy Redeemer, at a side altar in the basement of the church.
