The Prudence of the Flesh

by Ralph McInerny

  “It’s preposterous, of course. Tom, your mother is the only woman I have ever loved, and I mean in the full sense of the term.”

  So the cloud, a far darker cloud, returned. Tom believed his father, of course, but he could not keep himself from wondering if it were possible that he had a half brother. The resolution grew in him that he would find out who the woman was, find her, and get at least a glimpse of her son.

  8

  Amos Cadbury asked Father Dowling to dinner at the University Club and told him the new developments. It was clear that Amos was not amused that Barrett had enlisted Tuttle to find out what he could about the woman. What Tuttle had turned up looked devastating for Gregory Barrett. Father Dowling thought otherwise.

  “Amos, a baby is a pretty definite thing. Whatever the charges have been until now, they are as nebulous as memory itself, but a child is real. I am assuming that he is still alive.”

  “Apparently.”

  “I don’t know much about such things, but aren’t there tests to determine parentage? I should think Gregory Barrett is in a far stronger position to determine his innocence now.”

  “Or guilt.”

  “Or guilt.” Father Dowling sipped some water. It was seldom that he regretted that he no longer drank. Amos was having wine, a Sicilian red called Chaos, and it clearly enhanced his meal. In the club library previously he had had his customary manhattan. Later, again in the library, he would have some grappa. Anyone else could be expected to be in medio jubilationis, in the phrase, but Amos retained sobriety along with the mellowness alcohol confers.

  “I met with Tuttle.”

  “You did?”

  “Barfield sent him to me. In the circumstances I could scarcely refuse. Perhaps Barrett is right. Cases like this are street fights, and a battler like Tuttle is what is needed. I got the impression that Tuttle may be representing both sides in this dispute. Of course, I could not ask him that outright. He is such a scoundrel—but for all that I prefer him to some other legal colleagues. Ah, what the law has become, Father.”

  It was a familiar lamentation, but Father Dowling was more than willing to listen to his old friend’s ruminations on what the legal profession had become during his long career. Change for Amos was what it had been for Aristotle, more the cause of decline than advance. Before they finished, Amos had got round to Cicero, as he usually did. The great Roman advocate was a bit of a scoundrel himself and, in the days before transcriptions of trials, had written up his courtroom orations in deathless literary form after the fact.

  “Who knows what relation they bore to what he actually said in court? In some cases, the written orations were never delivered in any form. Yet he had a certain nobility as well. He was ever conscious of living in a corrupt age.”

  “So he has become your patron.”

  “Oh, Thomas More is that.” Amos sighed. “We Catholic lawyers have adopted him as our own, and what a judgment he is on us.”

  There is a kind of melancholy that is a consolation, and such was Amos’s. He clearly derived strength from discovering parallels between his own situation and that of the two great men he had dwelt on.

  “They were both executed for their principles. Who among us would stake his life on the position he argues? We have been taught that, because everyone deserves representation, the task of the lawyer is to take either side of a case and argue it as strongly as he can. The truth of the matter is supposed to emerge from the contest. Let us hope it does.”

  In the library, sipping his grappa while Father Dowling had another cup of coffee, Amos said, “I wrote a letter of recommendation for Barrett’s son. He wants to go to Notre Dame.”

  “So he has been in touch.”

  “Not since I talked with Tuttle.”

  Although he had mentioned tests that could determine parentage, DNA having become the infallible mark of individuality if not of personality, Father Dowling found himself wishing that he could speak again with the woman. The thought returned the following day when Gregory Barrett came to the rectory of St. Hilary’s.

  Marie announced him with somewhat less unction than she had the first time he visited. It was clear from Barrett’s manner that recent events were weighing on him, so he did not notice any alteration in Marie’s reception. The two men settled in the study.

  “I am afraid I have offended Amos Cadbury, Roger.”

  “By enlisting Tuttle’s support?”

  Barrett nodded. “And he did come through. But now I am accused of having fathered the woman’s child.”

  “I have spoken with Amos.”

  “Tuttle did what Cadbury would never do, at least personally. I suppose there are lesser beings in the firm to whom he could have assigned such detective work. Roger, I did know that woman. I honestly had no memory of her when I came to you before, but what Tuttle has discovered has prodded my memory. And it is no longer simply a question of memory. She came to me in trouble. She had resisted the advice that she abort her child, and I made arrangements for her confinement.”

  “That is not a word one hears much anymore.”

  “It occurs frequently in Jane Austen.” He sounded nostalgic for the eighteenth century. “All that is on record. I am on record as the one who smoothed her way. Of course, the idea was that she would give the child up for adoption, but she decided against that as well. How it all ended, I don’t know, but I am sure now that I did what I am said to have done.”

  “Surely not fathered the child.”

  “Not that! As God is my judge, Roger, I was a virgin when I married Nancy.”

  “Then I would say that your position is far better than it was. There are tests to determine whether a man is the father of a child.”

  Barrett sat back. “Of course there are.”

  “So the whole matter can be resolved objectively. It will no longer be a matter of what you remember or of what she remembers.”

  “But will she agree?”

  “It is the son who will have to agree.”

  “Of course.”

  “It remains a delicate matter, Greg. Whatever her motives, she has gotten herself into a difficult situation. To this point, she has willingly adopted the role of a woman who had a child out of wedlock. You and I and Jane Austen would take that as a negative mark, and yet she has publicly insisted on it. Accusing you has made her a bit of a heroine to others, perhaps to herself. But if it is established that her child is not yours, she will become an outcast woman even in these permissive times. I would like to speak to her again.”

  “Again?”

  “She came to me.”

  Greg looked around him as if the study had become another place. “How could you possibly manage it?”

  Would she want to see him again? “I have no idea, but I intend to try, and I think it well that you should know. No doubt the thought of confronting her has occurred to you as well. That would be threatening, far more so than if a poor fumbling pastor asked to have a few words with her.”

  Gregory Barrett left with a light step, and Father Dowling sat alone for half an hour, smoking his pipe meditatively. Of course Barrett would think only of his own exoneration, but where would that leave the poor woman?

  “Is he gone?” Marie asked, peeking around the door.

  “You sound like one of the Bennet girls, asking about Mr. Collins.”

  Marie stared at him.

  “Jane Austen.”

  “You’re alone too much.”

  9

  Hazel was somewhat mollified when Tuttle told her to send a bill to Gregory Barrett, for services rendered. “He’ll understand.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Hazel, yours is not to wonder why—”

  He got into his office and out of range of the ballpoint she threw at him. Who was that saint whose body was filled with darts? Hazel should know that any object, however seemingly harmless, can become a weapon.

  His heart was not in it. He sat behind his desk and settled his tweed hat over his e
yes, intent on reviewing recent events. He had reason to feel a sense of accomplishment, but the feeling would not come. His phone rang; he tipped back his hat. Hazel on the intercom.

  “Yes?”

  “How about the son?”

  “What about him?”

  “Real lawyers charge for office visits.”

  “Let’s wait on that.”

  Thomas Barrett had come to see him. He had found the lad chatting with Hazel in the outer office some days ago when he returned from lunch with Peanuts. Hazel was at her oily worst, all over the kid, half flirting, half maiden aunt. They were talking about Notre Dame. Thomas Barrett turned when Hazel cried out like the announcer of the Mr. America pageant, “Here he is!” Her eyes danced with significance. “This is Thomas Barrett, Mr. Tuttle.”

  Tuttle shook the lad’s hand and looked him over. “Your father’s my client.”

  “That’s why I’ve come.”

  Hazel actually got up and opened Tuttle’s door. The kid went in; Hazel gave him a locker-room slap on the bottom and then closed the door on lawyer and possible client.

  “I wanted to tell you personally how grateful I am for what you have done for my father.”

  Here was a welcome note. Tuttle would cede to no man in the devotion he felt to his late father. Through thick and thin, the elder Tuttle had supported and encouraged the younger. The long years in law school, the many efforts to pass the bar, the opening of this office—how differently things might have gone with him but for that paternal support.

  “Anyone could have found out what I did.”

  “But no one did. If you hadn’t found those records, my father would never even have remembered that woman. Now the matter can be settled, once and for all.”

  Tuttle liked Thomas Barrett more by the minute. Here was filial piety of a kind now all too rare.

  “I mean DNA.”

  Tuttle nodded. A Greek of the fourth century B.C. knew more science than did Tuttle in the third millennium.

  “I’ve brought you a sample.” He carefully took an envelope from his pocket. It contained several items. One was a cotton puff, slightly discolored. “Blood,” the boy explained. “And here is his toothbrush.” He put these treasures on Tuttle’s desk. Then he took out another envelope. “I hope this will be enough.” Another toothbrush. Tuttle looked at it, then at the boy. “Marvin’s. Her son. I thought about going to some lab myself and having the tests run, but then thought it ought to be a third party. A professional person.”

  He meant Tuttle. The little lawyer looked at the items on his desk as a member of a cargo cult might have studied unintelligible artifacts washed ashore on his obscure island. Then the realization came. DNA. O. J. Of course. With these items, Tuttle could settle Madeline Murphy’s accusations once and for all. And the boy was doing this for his father.

  “You’ve done exactly the right thing. I’ve been wondering how I could get hold of such materials,” Tuttle said.

  “How soon can you do it?”

  “How does now sound to you?” He rose, scooped up the items, and put them in his pocket. “What’s this about Notre Dame?” he asked as they emerged into Hazel’s office.

  “I’ve been accepted for the fall.”

  “Some of my best friends have gone there.” He avoided Hazel’s eye. “Amos Cadbury, for one.”

  “Have you got your cell phone with you, Mr. Tuttle?” Hazel asked.

  He patted his pocket. He would have liked to prolong the scene, if only to have Hazel address him as Mr. Tuttle a few more times, but delay was out of the question.

  “I prefer walking,” Tuttle said, as they passed the useless elevator and headed for the stairway.

  “I walked up. I got tired of waiting for the elevator.”

  “A busy place,” Tuttle said. “A busy place.”

  They parted outside the building, but not before Tuttle thought to ask Thomas Barrett if he had told Hazel the purpose of his visit.

  “Oh, no.”

  “Good. Not that the information would not be safe with her. A lawyer needs a secretary he can trust.”

  They shook hands again, and again Tuttle thought, What a splendid boy, what a good son. He drove off to police headquarters, parked in a place reserved for reporters, and went up to Cy Horvath’s office.

  “What do you know about DNA, Cy?”

  “They are three letters of the alphabet.”

  “Exactly. Let me tell you what I have. Can I close that door?”

  “Are you leaving?”

  Tuttle shut the door, returned to Cy’s desk, and brought out the envelopes. He let Cy peek in. “This one has things of Gregory Barrett’s. This one has the toothbrush of his alleged son. Can we talk to Pippen?”

  Dr. Pippen, the assistant coroner, did all the actual work, Lubins being an ass, in office for purely political reasons. She was a woman in her midthirties, tall and willowy, with a head of golden blond hair gathered into a saucy ponytail. She plunged her hands into the pockets of her lab coat when Cy told Tuttle to tell the doctor what he had. “I suppose those things would be sufficient. It’s not my bailiwick, you know.”

  “But you know someone who would know?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  Tuttle listened with satisfaction to the instructions Cy gave Pippen. It would be handled as an official police matter. No need to identify A and B, whose effects were in the envelopes.

  “Who are they, by the way?”

  “Supposedly father and son,” Tuttle said.

  Pippen’s green eyes sparkled. “I think I can guess.”

  “Don’t,” Cy said. “We want hard science, no guesses.”

  Now, seated at his own desk, Tuttle awaited the results of that test. He found that he was of two minds on the matter. Would every dispute eventually be settled by such impersonal testing as this? Where would that put the legal profession, with its traditional reliance on bad arguments, worse inferences, and resounding rhetoric? (Tuttle was remembering a sentence in a law journal that favored such testing and sought to make its case by denigrating lawyers.)

  Hazel had asked if he should bill the son as well as the father, but Tuttle would settle for what he was sure would be the undying gratitude of the splendid young man.

  * * *

  Tuttle had fallen asleep under his tweed thinking hat, so deeply that he did not hear Hazel’s buzz. She came in and shook him awake. Tuttle did not come gently into this kind day. He looked wildly at Hazel and pushed back from his desk, sending his chair spinning against the wall. When it struck, it dumped him unceremoniously onto the floor.

  “You awake now?”

  “Help me up.”

  She nearly jerked his arm from his socket when she pulled on it. The motion brought him into a standing position, pressed against her enormous breasts. He could both hear and feel her breathing. Terror gripped him, and he broke free.

  “Lieutenant Horvath called,” she said.

  “Ah. And what’s the verdict?”

  “Verdict?”

  So Tuttle told Hazel what Thomas Barrett had brought him.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Hazel blessed herself.

  “Are you Catholic?”

  “No, but I saw the movie.”

  Part Three

  1

  Cy reviewed the investigation into the death of Ned Bunting. A patrol car checked out the report and verified that it was authentic. Soon the parking area was filled with official vehicles: a fire truck, the paramedic ambulance, half a dozen patrol cars. Officers were keeping back the citizens who had followed the sirens to their destination. Cy got there about the same time Pippen did. People stepped back to let them through. The body had been taken from the water but left close to where it had been found when it was clear the man was dead.

  “A tall drink of water,” Pippen said.

  “It looks like that’s what he had.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Cy loved to watch Pippen in her professional role. She had slipped on l
atex gloves and knelt by the body, doing this and that. She stood. “Let’s take him in.”

  So the tall drink of water was poured into a rubber bag and carted up to the paramedics’ vehicle, to be taken off to Pippen’s morgue. Meanwhile, Cy was examining the cordoned-off area, maybe fifty square feet at the edge of the water. It looked to him as if the body had been dragged into the water. Along that path? The condition of the bushes and weeds suggested the way he had come to his watery grave. Cy pointed this out to the lab men and then got out of their way. In the woods, some ten yards from the area where the body was examined, he found an old sheet of plastic, four or five feet long, and a baseball bat. He instructed the crew to take those along as well.

  Pippen was standing with folded arms in the parking area, watching the vehicle carrying the body being directed through the gathering crowd. “And I was just telling Lubins how slow things have been.”

  “That sounds like a motive.”

  “I better get back.”

  “Wanna race?”

  “I’ll see you there.”

  The identification of the body presented no problems. There was a wallet in his trousers with multiple ID: a driver’s license, a card saying he was a lifetime subscriber to Writer’s World, and some holy cards, apparently memorials of his parents.

  “Edward Bunting,” Pippen said into the microphone that dangled from the ceiling over her workplace. Cy was at the observation window. She began carefully to undress the body, failing to find anything of significance in the clothes. “He didn’t drown.”

  Cy was preparing to go back to his office, not having the stomach for what he thought Pippen would do next. But she lifted the cadaver several times, her arms under the shoulders. “Broken neck,” she said. Then one of her ghoulish instruments began to whirr, and Cy got out of there.

  * * *

  “Bunting?” Phil Keegan said.

  “Edward Bunting.”

  Phil shook his head. “That must be the Ned Bunting who wrote the puff piece on Roger Dowling.”