Extreme Unction: A Lupa Schwartz Mystery Read online

  “Those professors have PhDs,” I pointed out, “or a similar degree.”

  “Yes,” Schwartz said, “and many priests hold what is known as a doctorate of divinity. You won’t see it, but I believe I’ve just made my point. At any rate, we’re way off topic. Would you like to come with me to interview the coroner?”

  I was slow to answer as I was trying to decide if I’d just been insulted. “Sure,” I said finally, “but can we stop off at the train station first? I haven’t been to my hotel yet, and I couldn’t very well show up at your stoop with luggage and still hope to pull off my little scam. I left my bags in a locker.”

  “Absolutely,” Schwartz said. “The train station and the coroner’s office are both downtown; but you don’t need to get a hotel. I have two spare bedrooms here. You can have your pick.”

  ***

  We passed through the dining room and kitchen on our way to the garage to let Beverly, the cook, know that I would be staying for dinner and to warn her that I’d be around for a while. She was less than thrilled. We left the kitchen through a side door which led to an area that — from the outside — I would have thought opened to a large four or five car garage. Instead, it opened to a metal stairwell which led down to a one and a half acre underground parking facility. The innocent looking garage door at street level opened onto a curved ramp which twisted its way down in a half spiral to the mammoth excavation. For a moment, I felt as if I’d entered the Bat Cave.

  Lupa led me past cars in various stages of dis-assembly. As we walked, I could hear the sounds of someone tinkering with an engine. We arrived at the source, a Lamborghini Muira, a hot Italian auto circa 1960, and Mia, a hot Italian auto mechanic circa 1970. Schwartz’s mechanic was a dark haired lady grease monkey with big brown eyes and an amazing capacity with engines. It was easy to see why Schwartz insisted on his daily two hours in the garage, with or without the cars.

  “Mia,” he said. “This is Cattleya Hoskin. Ms. Hoskin is a reporter with Gamut Magazine. She’ll be staying while she covers me on a case I’m working on.” Mia wiped her hands on a rag and nodded. She extended her hand and said, “Miss Hoskin.”

  “Call me Cat, please,” I said as I took the proffered hand. Over her shoulder, I could see the change in Schwartz. He was giddy, though whether from the proximity of the cars, the girl or a combination of the two, I couldn’t tell.

  “I’m sorry, but I won’t be in to tinker with you this afternoon. We have to go into town on business. What’s gassed and ready to go, Mia?” he asked. “You are,” I thought, but I kept my mouth shut.

  Mia led us to a silver 1972 Citroën SM coupé. Schwartz and I climbed in, and soon we were scaling the ramp and then whistling down the steep incline of Murray Ave. I must admit that the ride was thrilling, even cathartic. It was the beginning of an adventure.

  The people at the coroner’s office all knew Schwartz, and they knew that he’d been hired by the city to investigate Hanson’s death, so he had no difficulty gaining access to the coroner herself. At Schwartz’s insistence, I had worn my press pass glassine into the office, so nobody bothered to question my presence either. Pittsburgh’s coroner’s office has garnered quite a national reputation for forensic autopsies. Consequently, they are proud of their team and eagerly showcase them to the media.

  Wanda Corwin was the newest recruit to the list of specialists brought into the coroner’s corpse corps. She was an expert on poisons that the chief had brought to the burgh from Los Angeles. Instantly, her tan, tone and other things beginning with the letter “T” caught Schwartz’s eye. I could tell by the way he seemed to shrink. I’d noticed that around men and women in whom he had no sexual interest, he was swollen in an alpha-male display. Yet, attractive women took the bravado out of him. He deflated as if to offer them the chance to dominate. It wasn’t demeaning, and the women to whom it was directed would not have seen the change having nothing to compare against, but I had seen the other Schwartz. Perhaps the fact that he hadn’t deflated around me the way he had around Mia and now Corwin should have made me feel undesirable, but he hadn’t deflated around Beverly, the cook, either, and she was as cute as they come.

  Corwin showed us into a private office and offered to get us coffee. We declined politely, and soon we were discussing Hanson’s autopsy results. “How soon after he received the poison would you expect that it began to react?” Schwartz asked.

  “Given his weakened state, I’d guess minutes probably,” Corwin said. “But it was possibly slowed by the agent in which it was delivered. If the oil was cold when it was placed on his body, it would have been slower to enter his system.”

  “Wouldn’t the victim’s body heat have warmed the oil quickly?” I asked.

  “Not in the state Mr. Hanson had reached. His body had already begun to shut down. His hands, feet, even his lips would have been cool to the touch. His body was conserving all of his blood flow to his vital organs. That, too, could have slowed the delivery of the poison. It’s hard to say.” She shook her head. “Chlordane is not always fatal when administered topically. If it were it would have never been approved as an insecticide.”

  “Why was Chlordane banned as an insecticide?” I asked.

  “Sort of for just the kind of thing we’re discussing today,” Corwin answered. “In 1983, the EPA decided that Chlordane was too dangerous to use on vegetation — I guess because children and some elderly were having reactions to it. It was limited to use by professional exterminators as a termite killer. Unfortunately, people were still having reactions to external contact with the residue in their soil and on their walls and floors. Sometimes, external exposure caused seizures, sometimes these were followed by death? So in 1988 it was banned altogether.”

  “So who would have access to it today,” Schwartz asked.

  “Theoretically nobody,” Corwin answered. “It doesn’t occur naturally, and its manufacture was halted when it was banned.”

  “You said something about seizures,” I remarked. “Are there always seizures with Chlordane poisoning?”

  “I believe so, yes,” Corwin said. “But you wouldn’t necessarily have noticed in Mr. Hanson’s case. He was already too weak to have had any major convulsions. The seizure alone was probably enough to kill him even if he could have survived the effects of the poison. Frankly, he was so far gone that he probably wouldn’t have survived the week even if he hadn’t been poisoned. It’s kind of ironic that anybody is going to be punished for killing him. The one who really killed him is God.”

  “Well, that was a wash,” I remarked as we returned to the parking garage to retrieve the Citroën. “I don’t think we got a bit of information that either helps prove or disprove Coneely’s guilt.”

  “I’m not trying to prove or disprove his guilt,” Schwartz said. “I’m trying to determine who could be the best and hopefully only suspect in the death of J.H. Hanson. To that end we got some very helpful information from Ms. Corwin.” He refused to elaborate, and as we tooled through town to the train station, I reran the conversation in my mind. Darned if I could pick out the helpful bits.

  When we left the station after having retrieved my luggage, Schwartz drove past St. Bartholomew’s Church. This was Coneely’s parish, the church attended by the Hanson family. It was your garden variety inner city gothic house of worship. It had been built of good red brick back in a boon time for the R.C.C. There were ornate, hand-carved gargoyles, saints and cherubim and seraphim high up on the facade. Stained glass in toxic leading still adorned the tall tapered windows, and the front entrance was ported by a door made of ancient and thickly heavy wood festooned with a brass turned dark with years of patina. “Are you Catholic, Ms. Hoskin?” Schwartz asked me apropos of nothing.

  “Not that it’s any business of yours,” I said, “but I’m a non-denominational kind of Christian. I’m sort of a generic Protestant.”

  “Relax,” he said. “I’m not asking to see your baptismal record. I just wanted to know if you were f
amiliar with the canons of Catholicism. What do you know about confession?”

  “Not much. Why?”

  “Do you know the words?”

  “The words? Only what I’ve seen in movies.” He was pulling the Citroën into the lot behind St. Bart’s. “Do you have a cell-phone?” he asked. I produced my cell, and he called his house. When Beverly answered, he asked her to explain a Roman Catholic confession to him. It turns out that Beverly’s last name is Seanesy and she is a graduate of the St. Aloysius School for Girls.

  He seemed pleased at first, apparently hearing what he’d expected, but soon his pleasure turned to repugnance. He said his good-byes to Bev, and we pulled out of the lot and away from St. B.’s. When I asked him the problem, he said, “It’s too much damned ceremony. It’s easy enough at first. You say, ‘Bless me, father, for I have sinned.’ You tell the confessor how long it’s been since you last confessed, and then you enumerate your transgressions — whether real or imagined. After, though, — after he gives you a penance and makes you recite The Act of Contrition, whatever that is. I’m going to have to get Beverly to do this part.”

  Sure he was.

  Chapter 4

  For several minutes, Schwartz and I scoped out the layout of the parish. Behind the brick church was a branch of the parking lot and then a rectory house made of the same red masonry. It had obviously been built at the same time as the church; however, next to the rectory was an older hall. It was made of oak and pine and had a cantilevered roof. It apparently was the original church and had been converted when the newer church had been built to accommodate the growing parish. Beyond the hall was more parking and then the school.

  The school was built in a horseshoe around a beautiful playground. Children were hanging from elaborate hard-plastic monkey-bars over a pit filled with shaved mulch. Swings with rubber grips on the chains swayed children in bucket shaped seats over a rubbery asphalt that gave way to one’s weight when stepped upon. The baskets on the b-ball court had levers that could raise or lower the hoops to accommodate different grade levels. There was a pit filled with plastic balls in a ventilated enclosure, a four inch balance beam that stood only six inches from ground level, permanent hop scotch grids that were painted onto the soft blacktop yards from the boy’s areas, and shade trees and areas of lawn which gave the overall atmosphere more of a park’s appeal than an inner-city playground’s edge. It was everything I would have ever wanted as a seven year old girl — and more.

  The “more” came in the form of a male teacher with dreamy blue eyes and a dimpled chin. As Schwartz went off to examine the hall, I went off to examine the — um — playground.

  I strolled nonchalantly to the chest high rail fence near where the teacher surveyed his students. I stood quietly watching the children play until the relative silence begged to be filled with an adult voice. I supplied the needed voice. “This is a beautiful playground.”

  Dimples turned to see where the voice had come from (as if he hadn’t noticed me there; how cute.) “Yes,” he said. “We’re very proud of it.” He gestured toward the children. “Which one is yours?” he asked.

  “Mine?” I said incredulously. I held out the glassine which I still wore about my neck. “Oh, no. I don’t have any children. I’m a reporter. I was just…”

  “Well as you can see,” he said defensively, “we got rid of the old playground. Actually, you guys did us a favor, I guess. Except, the way you went about it…”

  I interrupted. “Wait. I think there’s a misunderstanding. I’m not here about the playground equipment. I didn’t even know there had been a problem.”

  Dimple-boy flushed. “Oh, I’m sorry. When you said you were a reporter… Oh, you must be looking for information about Fr. Coneely. Well, that was sneaky, using the playground topic as a cover.”

  “No, you still don’t understand,” I said further blowing any chance I might have ever had with this guy. “I’m not here on business.”

  “So you’re not covering Fr. Coneely either?”

  “No. Well, yes, but…”

  “I knew it. I’m sorry, Miss,” he said as he moved away from the fence. “I have no comment.”

  I placed my elbows on the rail and dropped my head into my palms. As I was raking my hair with my fingers, I heard a teenage boy’s laugh. I looked over to see a pencil-thin young man appear from behind a bush. He began to walk toward me when a small girl shouted, “123 on Lester!” The rail of a teen turned to the girl. “Okay, Shawntel,” he said. “I’m taking a time out.” He walked the rest of the distance to me and said in a conspiratorial tone, “You’re not going to get any information on Coneely from any of these guys. To the Catholics, the parish priest is the fourth leaf on the clover.”

  “What,” I asked dubiously.

  “You know. St. Patrick,” he said as if I should understand implicitly by now. I shook my head to encourage more information. He supplied it. “St. Patrick explained the trinity to the Irish by using the Shamrock as an example. It’s three leaves and one leaf at the same time. A four leaf clover is four-and-one. Get it?” I nodded and smiled. “Personally, I’m not Catholic. I’m here student teaching,” he volunteered.

  “What was that about the playground equipment?” I asked.

  “A few years ago, the local papers sent a reporter out posing as an EPA agent. They took soil samples from the playground looking for lead paint chips. I guess they figured a public school would know enough to check their credentials, or that a public school would have enough money to have gotten rid of the lead years ago, or something. Anyway, they didn’t find any lead because the equipment was mostly thirty year old wood. Only some of the wood was new because the old stuff was all worm-eaten and rotted. So they didn’t find any lead, but what they did find was arsenic.”

  “Arsenic?” I said, the surprise evident on my face.

  “Yeah, it was something to do with the new lumber. Apparently, the way it had been treated, it produced arsenic which was slowly leaching from the wood. Over time, it could have caused retardation in the kids. So this poor parish all banded together to completely redo the playground. That’s why we’ve got this state of the art park you see before you today. So what did you want to ask about Coneely?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I was just — well, it doesn’t matter. Thanks for the help.” I turned to return to the car.

  “Help?” Lester called after. “How did I help? Hey, I thought you were looking for information about Coneely.”

  ***

  That evening, Schwartz, Beverly, Mia and I gathered in the dining room and enjoyed a delicious rosemary roasted chicken with rice and brown-bread stuffing, boiled potato torpedoes with parsley, cornbread and merlot. As Beverly was removing the spring-form from a banana custard pie, she said, “Well, Lupa, when are you going to ask me?”

  Schwartz smiled impishly. “How did you know I had something to ask you?”

  “After you called and asked me about confession, I suspected that you were going to need my help, so I changed the menu. Instead of rolls, I made cornbread — which you don’t like. If you hadn’t needed something from me, you would have mentioned the change by now. Instead, you politely choked down the cornbread.”

  “Maybe I’ve just had a change of heart about cornbread.”

  “What do you want?” Bev folded her arms across her chest and fought back a smile.

  “Do you think you could make your confession to Coneely this week?”

  Bev tensed. “I suppose,” she said, “but it depends on why you’re asking.”

  “I want you to slip some information into your talk. I want you to let it slip to Coneely that I have evidence that links him to the poison.”

  “I can’t do that,” Beverly said. “Well, maybe I can, if it’s true, but I can’t lie in confessional. Is it true?”

  “Not specifically,” Schwartz said. “It’s a theory I’m working on.”

  “Then I can’t say that,” Beverly insisted. “How abou
t if I say that you have a theory that links him to the poison? Would that be true?”

  “I don’t have a theory yet,” Schwartz said. “I’m trying to use this to pressure him to move on something else.”

  “Well, forget it. I won’t do it. You know my position on religion. I respect your skepticism, so you respect my faith.”

  “Well if you Catholics didn’t make everything such a mystery, and if you weren’t so exclusionist, I’d send Mia or Ms. Hoskin in to do it,” Schwartz said huffily.

  “What do you mean ‘exclusionist’ anyway?” Bev asked. “There’s no rule that says Cat or Mia can’t make a confession. So long as you mean what you are confessing and believe in the forgiveness and truly repent, anybody can confess to a priest.”

  “Well that lets me out,” Mia said. “I quit believing that stuff the first time a nun cracked my knuckles in kindergarten.”

  “Ms. Hoskin,” Schwartz said. “Would you do it?”

  I was feeling cornered, as if it had been set up this way from the beginning. “I suppose,” I said. Hey, anything for the story, right? “So long as I don’t have to lie. I could talk to Coneely in a confessional booth as well as anywhere else.”

  Schwartz sat back pleased with himself while I was feeling duped.

  ***

  After dinner, Schwartz lit off for his study to watch Nick-at-Nite or whatever he did in there. We ladies retired to the back porch. We were going to make a ladies’ night of it, so Bev brought out a piña colada, Mia made herself a rum and Coke, and I had a tall chocolate milk. I wasn’t ready to drop my defenses all that much.