Requiem for Moses (36 page)

“I am certain that without Sophie’s intervention, and if your husband had not yet recovered, you would have injected the Narcan probably after the wake service when everyone was getting ready to leave.

“And that takes care of the so-called ‘miracle.’”

“And”—Margie had not changed posture—“the purpose of the miracle?”

Koesler shrugged. “Seems to me the purpose was to buy time and suggest a reason for a dramatic change. Moses would be, and indeed to a great number of people he became, a living legend. His victims, if they did have murder in mind, would want to at least wait and see what this ‘new’ Moses Green would become and do. Having visited the ‘next world,’ maybe he could have changed. He could withdraw his demand that Cameron be ousted from the Virago organization he’d created. Moses could have at least called off his threat to ruin Bill Gray’s incipient law career. He could have released his son from involuntary servitude.

“It might have taken a long time to convince them he had really changed—partly, because in reality he hadn’t changed at all. It was just that in trapping them he had trapped himself. And he was frightened.

“And that,” Koesler concluded this part of his admitted hypothesis, “takes care of everybody except Claire McNern and Stan Lacki.”

“I don’t know them,” Margie stated. “Oh, I knew the McNern woman. I made it a point to keep pretty close tabs on Moe’s lady loves. After all, the diseases they were putting themselves at risk for were communicable.”

“I would be willing to believe you didn’t know Stan Lacki up to maybe a week ago,” Koesler said. “But then two things happened. One was the media coverage given this story. If you had done nothing more than read Pat Lennon’s reports, you would have been very much aware of Claire and Stan and what your husband had done that affected both of them so cruelly. Of course the accounts only hinted at the extent of the doctor’s actions; it was ‘alleged,’ ‘claimed,’ ‘inferred,’ and the like. But knowing your husband as you did, you could read past the disclaimers and come to your own stronger conclusions.

“Then you found the check made out to GOB Company and signed by your husband. You realized then that your husband was responsible for murder—not only the murder of his own child, but the murder of his ex-mistress and her fiancé.”

Her expression changed for only a moment. One would have to have been looking for the flicker to catch it. Koesler was looking. “You were Jake Cameron’s cashier. You were the brains of his and your husband’s business. You guided your husband’s finances and business. Surely you would have access to his financial records, including his checkbook. Especially since he must have been recovering slowly from his coma.

“I can only imagine your shock when you discovered the payment to GOB Company.

“My guess is that you confronted him and accused him. At which time, Moses would have had to admit what he had done. He had read the stories in the paper. He knew that he had taken motherhood from Claire. He had never expected Claire to learn what he had done to her—the abortion and the unnecessary hysterectomy. Nor had he considered how that knowledge would affect anyone who married her. Now he knew that Stan and Claire knew he was to blame for it all. What he had done to Cameron and David and Judith was reparable; all he had to do was stop threatening and manipulating them. The concomitant hope was that they would no longer threaten him. That was the point of the whole charade. Moses had pushed them too far. Now he was trying to retreat.

“But there was no retreat when it came to Claire and Stan. It was not just a case of dumping a mistress—though that would be provocation enough. Moses had aborted
their
child and destroyed her otherwise healthy reproductive organ. There was no going back. Claire and Stan would always be his enemies; he would always have something to fear from that quarter. His reputation was already lost; there was nothing he could do about that. But now he faced probable lawsuits—both civil and criminal. He could lose all his money and—if he lived that long—be sent to prison, where he would undoubtedly die without benefit of decent medical treatment and without drugs to ease his agony.

“So—what did he have to lose by trying to rid himself of Claire and Stan, who were now the only real threat to his life and his lifestyle.

“Under normal circumstances, he would have stonewalled when you confronted him with the telltale check stub—but now he was in no condition—physical or mental—to do that. Also, circumstances being what they were, he was in no condition to stand up to you. He had to tell you what he’d done—the extent of his abominable acts.

“You had to be furious. You might not have known the full extent of your husband’s relationship with Claire when it was going on. But you had to discover it from the media and when you learned of his payment to GOB Company, an organization that the media has described as ‘the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.’

“One wonders,” he went on,” how a man of your husband’s savvy—a man with his cunning, amoral mind—came up with such an incompetent mob. This part is pure speculation, but this was fresh territory for him: I’ll bet GOB was referred by a colleague Moses thought he could trust, someone who was eager to lead him astray—to settle a score maybe?

“In any case, you now knew that your husband had gone way too far. It was as if my seminary priest’s glasses had spun off the desk and were lying broken on the floor. Moses had gone off the deep edge. He had operated without your control and in a debilitated state. But there was no going back; he had left a trail that could be followed by a Cub Scout. He might have done a much more effective job had he planned it before his induced coma. On the other hand, his mind might have been clouded by pain—or drugs—even then.

“But now your husband was headed for prison. And your life was on the brink of being shattered to smithereens. Much, if not all, the money you could have inherited would be spent on lawyers, trials, and appeals. Everything you controlled would be out of control. Your social standing would be a matter for ridicule. Your plans would have been frustrated.

“There was only one avenue open to you, as far as you could see. You carried through on what had been begun that Monday morning. You gave your husband a massive overdose of morphine. To further confuse the issue, you got your children and Bill Gray over and offered them the empty bottle so their fingerprints would be there along with yours and your husband’s.

“It is ironic to think that the only way you and your husband could have hatched this plan in the beginning was that he was Jewish. That way he would escape embalming. As long as the coma operated as it was programmed, you were home free. So you used your knowledge of the secret in a negative way. Even though you knew he was really Catholic, you let him go through the funeral process as a Jew.”

Koesler waited, but nothing broke the silence.

Finally, he spoke again. “I know your public reaction to this would be that it is all an imaginative fable, and that I have no evidence to support it. As long as your husband had, in effect, that suicide note in his statement to Dr. Fox that he didn’t want to live with such pain, and as long as no one can deny that he was capable of giving himself the overdose, this case will remain closed.

“What he did to Claire McNern cannot be proven by hard evidence. That he destroyed in the hospital. Nothing he did to the others was an actual crime. Cruel and inhuman—along with a number of other moral pejoratives it might be … but technically not a crime.” Koesler didn’t mention Green’s pandering for his underage daughter as well as blackmailing Jake, both definitely crimes, but events which the victims themselves would have preferred not be made public. “The only remaining crime in this whole tragedy—aside of his conspiracy to kill that poor young couple—is his own murder. But the official and final statement on that is that he died of undetermined causes.

“The rest is between you and your conscience.”

Margie smoothed her skirt, inhaled deeply, and sighed. “That’s right. He died of undetermined causes. If he had been killed, his executioner should have been given a medal. He was a homicidal maniac.”

As she spoke, she took from her purse a piece of paper, a pen, and a cigarette lighter. She held the lighter in her left hand as she wrote a few words on the paper, then held it over to him so that he could read it. It read,
“Outside of a couple of minor details, you’re absolutely correct.
” Before he could comment, she flicked the lighter and set the note on fire, then dropped the burning paper into a wastebasket. As the note became ashes, he stared at her in wonderment.

“Just in case you’re wearing a recording device.” She stood and, her bearing regal, walked out of the room.

Father Koesler remained seated.

After a few moments, a staff member came in to open the panels that separated this viewing room from the next. Apparently they had been waiting for the priest to finish consoling the widow. Now they must ready the parlor to host a larger group of mourners.

Koesler looked into the adjoining room that had been closed off during the Green obsequies. On the wall was a crucifix. There had been no sign of any religious artifact in the Green parlor. If anything, the funeral home would have hung a Star of David … but no one had requested it.

No one seemed about to ask the priest to leave. So Koesler sat and thought and prayed and wondered.

Margie Green.
Seldom had Koesler met a person, let alone a woman, so in control of her life. Early on, she’d recognized the ambitions of Jake Cameron. So, she became “his woman.”

However, when Moses Green came along, she saw greater potential. So she married him. But, to set the tone for their life together, she insisted on his going to the considerable trouble of obtaining a nullity decree for his previous marriage, as well as the promise to raise their children Catholic.

Judging by the rest of her life, Margie could not have been terribly concerned about either provision. But it got the marriage off on the right foot, as far as Margie was concerned.

Within the framework of bargaining—which formed the M.O. of the marriage—everything ran as Margie wished. Until, that is, Moses slipped her control and went too far in controlling others’ lives. The final and fatal move was the stupid contract on the lives of Stan and Claire.

Even with her Catholic background, Koesler believed Margie really thought she had done the right thing in killing her husband. To have everything back in her control was worth much more to her than the medal she’d mentioned as an award to whoever killed him—which award was not going to be bestowed in any case.

As for the future, Koesler was sure Margie would get all pertinent affairs back on track. On top of all that, she was now a very wealthy widow.

Then there was Moses Green.

Koesler contemplated the urn containing the ashes of the late doctor. The urn was in the direct line of the crucifix mounted on the wall in the next room.

Jesus the Jew. Jewish to the marrow of His bone. Founder of Christianity.

Moses Green. Gentile son of Gentiles. A Jew to nearly everyone. And now, all those people, many of them Catholic, who blamed Green’s sins on his Jewishness would never know that not only was he not Jewish, but he was one of their very own.

There was a lesson there somewhere. But the media would not be interested. A confusion of races would not appeal. We have given the media its daily miracle. Almost literally.

Koesler held dearly the aphorism, When you die, you will be judged by Love.

Which also might mean that no prosecuting attorney would let God sit on a jury.

Koesler wondered if even God—even Love—could forgive Moses Green all the evil he had done, all the manipulation, the backstabbing, the misuse of medicine, the conspiracy to murder—all of it.

One thing was clear: Moses stood a better chance before God than before anyone else.

Koesler was brought back to the present by the mortician’s discreet clearing of his throat. “Excuse me, Father. The next viewing is about to begin. You’re perfectly free to stay. But I didn’t think you’d want to.”

“You’re right. Thanks for breaking up my reverie.” Koesler rose and stretched; he had been sitting too long. “By the way: What’s going to happen with Dr. Green’s ashes?”

“The cremains will be buried in the family plot.”

“Now?”

“Oh, yes. It was the wish of the widow.”

“Will no one be there for the interment?”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

Koesler paused. “Then I think I’ll go.”

“Fine. You can ride with me if you’d like.”

“Thank you. But I’d rather go alone. I’ve got some praying and thinking to do.”

The mortician almost clicked his heels. “It’ll be at Holy Sepulchre.” He left carrying the urn.

Holy Sepulchre. A Catholic cemetery. That sterling Catholic, Margie Green, had arranged this, too.

Well, if things had gone the way they pointed at his birth, Moses Green would undoubtedly have been buried in a Catholic ceremony. A requiem Mass.
Requiem for Moses.
It even sounded strange.

Requiem … rest. The word may have described just what Moses needed now. Rest.
“Requiem aeternam
,” Koesler chanted in his mind,
“dona ei, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat ei.
” Eternal rest give to him, Lord. And may perpetual light shine upon him.

Amen.

Acknowledgments

Gratitude for technical advice to:

Commander Judy Dowling, Detroit Police Department

Inspector James Grace, Director of Professional Standards, Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety

Sister Bernadelle Grimm, R.S.M., pastoral care (retired) Samaritan Health Care Center, Detroit

Cass Hershey, automotive technician

Christine Kaminski-Schmuckal,
Detroit Free Press
library

George Lubienski, attorney at law

Charles Lucas, M.D., Professor of Surgery, Wayne State University

Thomas J. Petinga Jr., D.O. FACEP, Chief of Emergency Services, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Pontiac

Walter D. Pool, M.D., Moross Clinic, Harper Woods