Koesler sipped his drink, caught one of the rapidly melting ice cubes, and held it in his mouth to complete the melting process. “What will happen to her now?”
“That is up to the prosecutor’s office. I assume she will be charged with murder in the first degree. No one could doubt, now, that she killed her son and that it very certainly was premeditated.”
“And do you think she will be convicted?”
Koznicki smiled briefly. “I never speculate about such matters. Our police work is done now, save testifying at her trial.” He looked at his clerical friend with a faint touch of amusement. “But for you, I will make a conjecture. If I were a good defense attorney-and you can depend on it, she will have one-I would love to have a client who can say with utmost sincerity, a sincerity that no prosecutor can break down, that ‘our Lord told me to do it.’ I would guess that Mrs. Hunsinger will eventually spend some time, perhaps the rest of her life, perhaps not, in some institution where she will receive psychiatric help. And with the money her son had already provided for her, the therapy ought to be first class.”
Koesler shrugged. “What a waste; what a tragic waste! Such a good woman!”
“A good woman, yes. . but,” Koznicki touched a finger to his forehead, “somewhat unbalanced.”
“Probably if we knew her complete background, it all might make some sense. I can’t believe a good woman like Grace Hunsinger could just step outside her whole lifestyle and suddenly become a murderess. Or even that she could lead an otherwise normal, even very pious, life and then have this one psychotic episode.”
Koesler deposited his glass on the table. This would be one of the rare occasions when he would not finish a drink. “One final point of information, Inspector. How could Grace Hunsinger know that DMSO would penetrate to the bloodstream and carry the poison with it? She hasn’t any medical or pharmaceutical background. At least not that I’m aware of.”
“Quite true, Father. She learned in the simplest possible way. It came out in her statement earlier this afternoon. We know that Mrs. Hunsinger, the compulsive mother of a compulsive son, regularly cleaned his already clean apartment. She would be aware of everything in it. Things like the intimate feminine apparel neatly tucked away, always changing as new women entered her son’s life. And the X-rated video cassettes. And the ample supply of strychnine. And that strange bottle of DMSO in the medicine cabinet. Always concerned, if fruitlessly, about her son’s use of illegal substances, she asked him about the DMSO.
“He explained its function, even going so far as to demonstrate. He put a drop of iodine on his hand, then, when it dried, he covered it with a drop or two of DMSO. She watched as the iodine disappeared, carried beneath the skin by the DMSO. At the time, she did no more than remind her son of the warning found on the bottle itself that the product might be unsafe, that it was not approved for human use.
“It was not until she received her ‘divine commission’ that she formed the plan of using the strychnine in conjunction with the DMSO. It was, as Dr. Moellmann observed, a very simple plan, yet ingenious in its simplicity.” Koznicki finished his drink. “And that leads to a question that still puzzles me. Grace Hunsinger was a very, perhaps overly, religious woman. How could she take her son’s life when in all probability he would thus have died in mortal sin? In this, she would not only be killing him, but condemning him to hell as well. . would she not? This, Father, is your field of expertise.”
Koesler shook his head slowly. “It’s a good question, Inspector. I ‘m not sure how to approach an answer.” He paused a few moments. “Perhaps you’ll remember a movie that came out about. . oh. . thirty years ago, called
“When you move back into the Old Testament, killings multiply. And, not infrequently, they are in response to God’s will. It starts with Cain killing Abel. Moses kills an Egyptian. God takes the firstborn of each Egyptian family. God wipes out the entire Egyptian army in the Red Sea. Whole cities are destroyed at God’s command. And-in perhaps the most touching instance-to test his faith, Abraham is ordered to sacrifice his only son. Then, there is that rather obscure woman in the Book of Maccabees who encourages her sons to die under torture rather than sin. Grace Hunsinger was familiar with all of them. She, indeed, selected the Maccabees woman’s story as one of the readings at her son’s funeral. So she was no stranger to the phenomenon of God’s occasional use of, in effect, a divine death sentence.
“Once she felt compelled to carry out the divine death sentence that had been passed on her son, he gave her no alternative. If we could compare his state of sin to a state of insanity, we would say he had no lucid moments. And she knew it. As you just stated, Inspector, she knew about the intimate feminine apparel, she knew about the X-rated TV cassettes. She knew about her son’s whole dissolute life. She had no choice but to go forward with her plan and, as far as her son’s soul was concerned, hope for the best.”
“But,” Koznicki said, “was there nothing the poor woman could do? Could she not have urged him to go to confession as the end neared?”
“On the contrary, Inspector, she would not have added sacrilege to her son’s long list of sins. She would have been aware from her many years of parochial training that confession without a determination to change one’s life- she would have known it as a ‘purpose of amendment’-is not only useless but a sacrilege. Of what purpose would it be for her son to go to confession of a Saturday afternoon when he had no intention of going to Mass of a Sunday morning, no intention of ceasing his womanizing, no intention to stop manipulating others, no intention of doing anything at all about changing his life for-what she would consider-the better.”
Upon reflection, Koznicki had to agree. He had had at least as much parochial training as had Mrs. Hunsinger, if not more. “Of course,” he said, “but a moment ago, Father, you said something about Mrs. Hunsinger’s hoping for the best?”
Koesler smiled and spread his hands on the tabletop. “Who knows? After death, who knows the immense power of God’s forgiveness? We believe that after death there is a judgment. And, aided by Scripture and tradition, we think we know the rules under which we will be judged. But we don’t really know how much God can and will forgive, nor how much He will not. All prayers after death, no matter how holy or sinful the deceased’s life, presume nothing. They only ask mercy.
“Mrs. Hunsinger and I spent quite a bit of time consoling each other. I reminded her of God’s infinite mercy as well as the fact that, for whatever reason, her son had freely joined a Bible study group. While she reminded me that at least he was good to her. And I would agree that filial devotion is very definitely a virtue.”
“To know all is to forgive all?”
“Maybe. Or maybe to know all is to understand all.”
Drinks finished, they made ready to leave.
“For the living, life goes on,” Koznicki said, then added, “Oh, by the way, Father, will you be able to come over for dinner on Sunday?”
“Thanks, Inspector, but I’ve got tickets to the Cougars game on Sunday. And parking at the Silverdome makes that an all-day adventure.”
“Well, then, have fun.”
“With Father McNiff along, it’s always fun.”
7
“There’s the two-minute warning, Eddie. The referee is informing both coaches that there’s just two minutes left in the game. I know it’s a cliche, but we’ve got another cliffhanger on our hands. This contest has come down to the final two minutes.”
“It sure has, Lou. And with the score New York 35, the Cougars 30, we’ll be right back after these messages.”
“Whattya think, this is a real squeaker, eh?” Father Koesler almost shouted into his companion’s ear.
“I think the operative word is cliffhanger,” said Father McNiff. “Besides, I can’t think very clearly. I’m trying to keep my nose from bleeding.”
