Free Dead Wrong by William X. Kienzle Page A

hope for you after all. If Mary Magdalene could change her life, so can you. Adulteresses can get into heaven, can’t they, Uncle Bob?”
    “Mary Lou!” Eileen was on the verge of tears.
    Koesler, in extreme discomfort, looked around the table. Everyone seemed as uncomfortable as he—with the possible exception of Oona, who, oddly, seemed to be enjoying the contentious atmosphere Mary Lou was creating. Brenda seemed on the verge of being ill. Her face was ashen.
    “Dear Brenda, sweet Brenda!” Mary Lou continued, undaunted by the reaction she was getting. “There seem to be so few ways you could become a saint. You’d have to give up Teddy, your sugar daddy. Or … or … maybe somebody would do you the favor of making you a martyr!”
    “Mary Lou!” Maureen leaped to her feet and pounded on the table. “That’s enough!”

C H A P T E R

    6
    F ATHER K OESLER was slow to claim that anything was the worst, the best, the first, the last, the earliest, the most, etc. Long experience had taught that no sooner did someone proclaim anything the ultimate than someone else was sure to top it.
    However, if this evening’s birthday party for Oona was not the worst celebration he had ever suffered through, it certainly ranked.
    He parked his car in the garage adjoining St. Joseph’s and entered the rectory. He checked the messages on the answering machine. No emergencies. Nothing that could not wait till tomorrow.
    He dropped some ice into a tall glass and concocted a gin and tonic. As he did so, he found himself casually whistling a tune, the words to which wore a witless path in his mind. “The sun’ll come up tomorrow; put your bottom dollar on tomorrow, come what may.” A nice melody. The dumbest lyric he’d ever heard.
    He had a little time on his hands. He hadn’t planned on the evening’s ending as early as it did. Parties with his cousins seldom lasted long, but this evening’s had set a new record both for brevity and discomfort.
    After Mary Lou had drawn the odious comparison between Mary Magdalene in her most disreputable days and Brenda, things pretty well fell apart. Mary Lou kept up a steady offensive, and Brenda, without offering a word in her own defense or any denial of the charges, burst into tears, fled the house, and sped away. Very heated words were exchanged between Mary Lou and Maureen. Eileen pursued peace, but it eluded her. Oona, almost unnoticed, slipped away from the table, retreated to the living room, and opened her presents. No one would ever know whether she oohed or aahed. No one paid any attention to her. She seemed content.
    Koesler had breathed deeply, made a fervent if futile effort to shut down his sweat glands, and somehow made it to the gate, hounded by Rusty. While the endeavor was extremely brave on Koesler’s part, it should be noted that the dog was thrown off balance and befuddled by all the clamor and commotion.
    Brenda was gone, with every indication she would not return this night, perhaps ever. Mary Lou had withdrawn to the guest room, slamming the door behind her. Eileen was attempting to console Maureen, who was teetering between anger and misery. Oona was trying on a new bathrobe. It seemed to fit.
    What a family!
    Koesler eased himself into a comfortable chair to think it through.
    Whatever else was awry between Brenda and Mary Lou—and he thought there must be more to it—Brenda’s alleged affair with Ted Nash clearly was the present problem.
    Coincidence, that old Charlie Nash should have called him in just a few days ago—the purpose being to get Koesler to intervene in what Charlie was convinced was an adulterous affair between his son and Koesler’s “cousin”?
    Rumors of such a relationship were so flimsily founded that Koesler rarely if ever adverted to the possibility there might be anything to them. Then, suddenly, Charlie Nash revives such rumors—forcefully; and with no evident connection between them, Mary Lou voices her own suspicion—no,