Read Online Dead Wrong by William X. Kienzle - Free Book Online

be dangerous.
    As he continued to tune out Oona and her multiple maladies and lamentations, the word “dangerous” struck a chord.
    Koesler hadn’t adverted to it during his conversation with Charlie Nash, but there was an aura of danger to the man, even in his decrepit condition.
    The priest had assumed that his first and perhaps only encounter with the famous Charles Nash would involve sacraments. That Charlie was both Catholic and nonpracticing was common knowledge.
    So there was Charlie, up there in his aerie, in his midseventies and reportedly so debilitated and ill that it had been many years since he’d been photographed, let alone attended any social function.
    In Koesler’s experience, that spelled sacraments. He’d had the foresight to have his sick-call kit packed in the pocket of his topcoat. So he had been prepared to offer absolution, Communion, and the Sacrament of the Sick. Then he would have left, gratified to have been of service, while Mr. Nash would have been at peace with God.
    To Koesler’s surprise, Nash had wanted nothing to do with any sacraments. In fact, the old man was dead right in contending that one must be sorrowful about sin and repentant before sin could be forgiven. Any priest could recite the words of absolution to his heart’s content, but God, who alone could actually forgive, would not be fooled.
    Koesler had to give the old man credit on that.
    It had been Koesler’s observation that people—a significant percentage of those who had come to him for reconciliation—tended to kid themselves on that score. Additionally, there was a tendency on the part of the confessing sinner, a tendency that all priests constantly fought against, to invest confessions with a measure of superstition and magic. Sort of like putting sins into an Automat slot and receiving forgiveness in return. A phenomenon that the late theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer had termed “cheap grace.”
    Genuine forgiveness was expensive. It might require the forgiveness of an enemy, reparation for harm done, the restoring of stolen property. God did forgive. And Catholics believed that a priest could be an instrument of that forgiveness. But nothing happened unless the sinner was repentant.
    Very, very sadly, Nash was correct in refusing the sacraments. Instead of desiring reconciliation, he wanted Koesler to use family ties to get the priest’s cousin to break off her affair with his son. Which relationship was no more than hearsay.
    Koesler had heard the rumors. As far as he was concerned, they were based on nothing more substantial than the two having engaged in some innocent flirtation at a Marygrove function honoring Ted Nash. Added to that, they had been seen together at a few public events—concerts, exhibitions at the Detroit Institute of Arts, a football or a baseball game. All quite harmless.
    In the face of nothing more substantial than this, Koesler would keep his own counsel. He preferred not to intervene uninvited in others’ lives.
    But something was nagging at him. It was Charlie Nash’s conviction that Ted and Brenda were having an illicit relationship. Under different circumstances, Koesler was convinced, Nash would not have given a damn. Had Ted been considerably more a chip off the old block, Charlie probably would have cheered him on in the sowing of wild oats.
    But Ted tended to be more Catholic than the Catholic Church and had created the reputation of a lavish philanthropist in Catholic causes. The destruction of that image likely would destroy Teddy and, as a corollary, everything that Charlie had created in Nash Enterprises. And Charlie would not stand for that.
    And here was where Koesler sensed danger.
    Nash, though physically weak, was yet a powerful man of considerable influence. Whether or not his perception of an affair between Ted and Brenda was accurate, Nash was capable of harming either or both. In all probability, if he were to strike out at anyone, it would be the outsider,