“Thank you ever so much for meeting me here, Inspector.”
“Not at all, Father. . although I must admit your call surprised me.
“I don’t blame you. After embarrassing you with the Galloways, I don’t suppose you ever expected to hear from me again. . at least regarding any investigation.”
“Father, if only you knew how frequently we are wrong in our theories. Even in an investigation that eventually proves successful, we often encounter many dead-end roads. You have nothing to be embarrassed about or to apologize for.”
“Nevertheless, I feel a bit awkward. I just couldn’t subject Lieutenant Harris or Sergeant Ewing to another round of my own serial, Father May Not Know Best. That’s why I’m especially grateful you agreed to meet me here. Sorry, too, about the traffic. We had to park so far down the street.”
“Walking is good exercise. We should do more of it.” Koznicki tipped his hat as they passed in front of Holy Redeemer church. Koesler had almost forgotten the gesture. But Koznicki’s tip of the hat put the priest in mind of his own father’s teaching him the custom. It was a sign of reverence for the presence of the Blessed Sacrament in the church. Koesler resolved to renew the custom in his own life. He never ceased to be amazed at how much he had to learn from others.
Koesler rang the doorbell and waited patiently. One could not expect old people to run to answer the door.
The familiar face of Mary Frances Quinn appeared. She greeted Father Koesler reverently but appeared a bit tentative toward his extra-large companion until Koesler performed the introductions. Mary Frances ushered them into the unilluminated living room. Again introductions were made.
Koznicki, after being seated, carefully studied Grace Hunsinger. Why did she remind him of a small animal about to be cornered? Her eyes darted about as if seeking some avenue of escape. Her breathing was rapid and shallow.
“Mrs. Hunsinger,” Koesler began, “we won’t take much of your time. I just want to talk to you a little bit about your son. But first, I wonder if you would mind looking at the numbers in this book and telling us what you see. Just take your time and read the numbers, if you will, as I turn the pages.”
Koesler opened the book to the first page.
Grace adjusted her bifocals. “Twelve.”
Everyone could read that, thought Koesler, as he turned to the next page with its number eight.
“Three.”
Koesler turned to five.
“Two,” Grace read.
Koesler turned to twenty-nine.
“Seventy.”
Koesler turned to seventy-four.
“Twenty-one.”
Koesler turned to seven.
“I don’t see any number there at all.”
“I think we need go no further,” said Koznicki.
Grace removed her glasses. “What was the meaning of that?”
Her hands were trembling slightly.
“That was a test of your color sight, Mrs. Hunsinger,” Koesler said. “It indicated you have what’s called a red-green deficiency.”
“I. . I don’t understand. “ Her hand fluttered at her hair.
“I think it means you couldn’t know that when you mixed the strychnine with the DMSO and switched that bottle with the shampoo that there was a difference in the colors. The DMSO is clear. The shampoo is pink.”
A remarkable transformation affected Grace. Her entire body seemed involved in the deep sigh she uttered. Her hands relaxed in her lap. “You know,” she said so softly as to be barely audible.
“You tried to tell us often enough, didn’t you, Grace?”
She nodded, giving every indication of being relieved.
“Grace!” Mrs. Quinn exclaimed. “What does he mean?”
“According to Inspector Koznicki here,” Koesler proceeded, “and in what you said to me, you held yourself responsible both for your son’s sight disability and for his death. But after making the statements, you backed away from them slightly, stating your responsibility in remote terms: that if you had done this or that differently, your son would not have turned out as he did. The confession was there, but it was sort of up for grabs.
“We chose to look at the statements through our viewpoint. Taking on blame for a child is common with many parents. Taking a greater responsibility for their children’s behavior than they ought or need to. If we had been looking at those statements through your eyes, we might have taken them more literally. But that was not likely.
“But if we had been seeing things from your point of view, we would have asked ourselves why you felt responsible for your son’s colorblindness. Because you just happened to be his mother and, as such, gave him his disability? I don’t think so. If you had normal vision, and there were any hereditary cause involved, it could just as easily have come from his father. Why should you think you were responsible unless there was something wrong with your vision and you thought you had passed that defect on to your son? I checked with Dr. Glowacki, an ophthalmologist, and he said there is no evidence that colorblindness, total colorblindness, is hereditary. But that would not have prevented you from thinking it was so.
“But if you have a color deficiency-and you do-why does it not show up in your home decor? I think the answer lies with Mrs. Quinn. The first time I met you, Mrs. Quinn, I believe you told me that you and Mrs. Hunsinger take care of each other as best you can. That the two of you seem to combine your skills and abilities. You get along, I think you used the phrase, like yin and yang?”
“That’s true,” Mrs. Quinn said.
“Mrs. Hunsinger took care of the house, didn’t she, Mrs. Quinn, doing much of the cleaning and cooking? You took care of the door and, among your other responsibilities, you probably took charge of the decorating?”
“Well, yes. Grace sometimes would get the strangest color combinations. I thought it was. . well, not the best of taste. “
“We’ve already been through that one,” Koesler said to Koznicki, alluding to the Galloways.
“Then,” the priest again addressed Grace, “we come to your son’s death. How many times and how many ways you tried to tell us of your responsibility, not directly and plainly with no room for doubt, but trying nonetheless. I have a suspicion you wanted us to guess it.”
Grace barely moved her head in a sign of affirmation.
“First, you told us outright, then hedged enough so that we proceeded to draw the wrong conclusion. Then, to me, the next most evident statement was at your son’s funeral Mass.
“The evening before the Mass, I was talking with Father Forbes. He told me you had gone over the Bible readings for the Mass and had made the selection of which ones would be used. Yet when I heard the readings, I listened to them with my ears, not yours. Or, to return to the metaphor of sight, I saw them through my eyes, not yours.
“That first reading was an odd selection. I’ve never heard a reading from the Book of Maccabees used at a funeral before. The Protestant and Jewish Bibles don’t even contain that Book. And yet, when I heard it, I listened with my understanding and I thought of you as the brave mother withstanding the all but unbearable grief of watching her children die. But that is not the way you saw that reading, is it, Mrs. Hunsinger? You saw it in the literal, obvious sense: Here was a mother willing to witness the death of her sons rather than see them break the law. It was the statement of why you did it.
“Henry had broken just about every law he encountered, and not a few Commandments. And he showed every promise of continuing in this unbridled lifestyle until long after your death. When you died, there would probably be no one who cared enough for him to stop him from hurting others. It was up to you. And so you did it. You were the modern mother of the Book of Maccabees, willing even to allow the death of her son rather than see him go on breaking the law.
“But I think we all tended to dismiss out of hand the possibility that you might be responsible for the death of your own son. And on top of this sort of natural tendency not to take you as a serious suspect was your alibi. You
