“I guess we assumed that you knew Krieg’s background,” she said. “What we’ve got on him is no secret. Nor, with what we’ve got, is there room for many secrets. We weren’t trying to keep anything from you, Father. In fact, you know as much about this case as any of us. That’s the way Inspector Koznicki wanted it. But these,” referring to the background papers she had just handed Koesler, “should bring you completely up to date.”
Once again Koesler felt embarrassed. In the context of what Moore had just said, his complaint about Krieg sounded to Koesler himself petulant and pushy.
In mutual awkwardness the group was about to break up when Sergeant Mangiapane hurried into the room. Everyone could tell from the expression on his face and his abrupt manner that he had important new information. “We just got done searching their rooms-the three writers-”
Moore interrupted. “Did you get their permission again?”
“We got a warrant,” Mangiapane said.
“So soon?” Moore pressed.
“This morning,” Tully replied. “Remember, the mayor wants this one cleaned up in record time.” He turned back to Mangiapane. “What did you find?”
The beatific look returned to Mangiapane’s face. “In Benbow’s room, a gallon can with some gasoline still in the bottom. In Sister Marie’s room, several gas-soaked cloths.”
Tully looked thoughtful. “Maybe they got careless. Maybe one of them planted the evidence. Either way we get them together now and lay it on the line-the bottom line.”
“They’re already together, Zoo,” Mangiapane said. “We got ’em in a classroom on the second floor.”
The detectives left for the classroom without another thought about or word from Koesler. The priest was left in the dining room, holding, if not the bag, several papers outlining the life and career of the Reverend Klaus Krieg.
Koesler lacked the stomach to watch what was undoubtedly going to be an intense grilling of Augustine, Marie, and Benbow, perhaps Mrs. Benbow as well. He sat at a table and spread the papers out before him. The first page was a publicity release; the other two, the summary of what the police had discovered.
Born in 1950, Krieg was now forty years old. That surprised Koesler. He would have guessed Krieg to be somewhat older. Not that he looked or acted particularly ancient, but that he had accomplished so much, built so much, raised so much funding in a relatively brief time.
Koesler’s second major surprise was the fact-the boast, as Krieg put it-that the preacher had at one time been a Catholic. It was from the chains of authoritarian Catholicism that the minister had freed himself by being born again in the Spirit. A freedom from the bonds of sectarianism and sin that he offered to all who would join him in the baptism of the Spirit. However, make no mistake, the freedom P.G. Enterprises offered did not come cheap. The “initiation fee” was closely followed by special projects fundings, followed by good old-fashioned obligatory tithing.
Another surprise: He was born in Imlay City, Michigan. This from the police report.
Koesler had simply assumed that Krieg was a native Californian. Or, that if his origin were elsewhere, then certainly New York or Chicago. The assumption was based on the size of Krieg’s empire. How could such volume spring from little Imlay City?
Then, Koesler was reminded of Jesus Christ’s extremely modest home town. So modest, indeed, that the more sarcastic of Jesus’ contemporaries remarked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” So, why not? Koesler wondered whether inhabitants of Imlay City realized that the famous Klaus Krieg, multimillionaire and television personality, had once walked their streets.
Koesler was familiar with Imlay City. It was, roughly, at the knuckle of the thumb. Since the state, at least the lower peninsula, was in the shape of a hand geographically, Michiganders tended to pinpoint areas in the state according to their position in the “hand.” Nowhere was that habit more prevalent than when the locale was in the “thumb” area, as was Imlay city, about halfway between Flint and Port Huron.
In addition, it was within the boundaries of the Archdiocese of Detroit, and the pastor of Imlay City’s one and only Catholic church, Sacred Heart, had been one of Koesler’s classmates. Which more than likely explained how Koesler happened to know its exact location.
Interesting, Koesler mused as he succumbed to a daydream. Klaus Krieg born a Catholic in the Archdiocese of Detroit. He found religion so vitally important in his life that he apostatized from Catholicism and formed his own sect. What if he hadn’t done that? What if whatever had moved him to discard the Catholic Church hadn’t happened? Would that appreciation of religion have led him into the Catholic clergy? What would he be like as a priest today?
A preacher of no little note, undoubtedly. Whatever else anyone might want to say about him, he could be a spellbinding orator. Another Charlie Coughlin?
Or Billy Sunday?
Or Elmer Gantry?
Koesler found himself reviewing what little he knew about the Reverend Krieg from firsthand knowledge. While he was familiar with Krieg’s reputation as a televangelist, Koesler had never seen him on television, nor, for that matter, in any other way. So his first impression was formed when, just days earlier, Krieg had burst onto the Marygrove scene with the expected fanfare and his own private chauffeur and general factotum.
Koesler allowed his reliable memory to wander through recollections of the past few days. To be frank, he was looking for telltale remnants of a former Catholic faith. Former Catholics regularly betray habits-most of them not consciously-of Catholic customs, practices, traditions, even superstitions.
In their liturgies, Catholics make the sign of the cross so habitually the habit often carries over to completely unrelated events. At the conclusion of anything-a movie, a stage play, a concert, a lecture, whatever-it is not unknown that a practicing Catholic, or a one-time Catholic, might make the sign of the cross. The same could be said of genuflecting before entering an auditorium or theater row, or-in a situation where spontaneous prayer is called for-coming up with a distinctly Catholic prayer.
Thanks to television, millions have seen a singular gesture usually made by an athlete with a Catholic background. The gesture consists of an abbreviated and hurried sign of the cross that does not quite reach forehead, navel, and the extremity of either shoulder. It is, if only because it could be nothing else, a sign of the cross, but it ends with the boxer, ballplayer, athlete, kissing his right thumb.
As far as Koesler knew, no one had done a definitive study of that peculiar sign; indeed he was convinced that even those who make the gesture probably don’t advert to the reason they kiss their thumb. The closest Koesler could come to a rationale rested on a practice popular among those who frequently and piously recite the rosary. It is common for those who pray the rosary to begin by holding the crucifix in their right hand-with which they make the sign of the cross-and, on completing the sign of the cross, kissing the crucifix. It was Koesler’s hypothesis that those athletes who indulge in what has become for them a superstition don’t consciously think of what they’re doing. Why, after all, would anyone kiss his own thumb?
What has happened is that they grew up watching mother pray the rosary. They’ve seen her over and over again make the sign of the cross, and end by kissing the crucifix. But to the youthful observer it might not have been clear just what was being kissed.
So, today’s boxer, football, basketball, baseball player makes the sign of the cross-for luck, most probably-kisses the finger that would be holding a crucifix if one were present, and then goes out to beat hell out of the other guy or die trying.
Koesler almost smiled at the memory of uncounted hockey players going over the boards, making the sign of the cross, kissing the thumb, then whacking an opponent with the hockey stick. He almost smiled. But he did not. Instead he grew serious.