“They found bottles of water.”
Shanks sputtered into his manhattan. “Find me a golf bag without a plastic bottle of water in it and I will exercise daily for a week.”
“Contaminated water?” Bruno asked.
“Contaminated!”
“Poisoned. And with the same poison that did in their roommate.”
This was news indeed. Bruno sat back and allowed his fellows to worry the bone he had thrown them. The obvious thought was that someone had intended to wipe out all four of the old friends.
“But who?”
“That woman.”
But Bruno did not intend to lose his role as master of the revels.
“Only one of the other bottles had the poison.”
“Whose?”
Bruno pretended to search his memory. The waiter returned and the others began to place their orders, ignoring Bruno. He cried out, “Toolin.”
“Who?”
“Christopher Toolin.”
The others, having already accorded Bruno the reaction he deserved for bringing them this item of news, now acted as if the name of Toolin added nothing to the story. Bruno began to babble desperately, but he had lost his audience. In any case, his information was limited, passed on to him by Dennis Grantley as they walked toward the club from the 11:30 Mass at Sacred Heart. Bruno was a daily communicant. He visited the Grotto once a day. He wandered among the tombs in Cedar Grove, pausing at the markers of fallen colleagues. He longed for the untroubled faith of his youth but all he knew was dryness. He picked up his glass of beer and brought it to his full chapped lips, his pouched eyes sad. The Old Bastards had equivalently killed the messenger.
PART TWO
17
Toolin was informed by Jimmy Stewart of the results of the test performed on the water bottle taken from his bag. He stared at the detective in disbelief.
“In my bag?”
“Any idea who might have done that?”
“But I don’t carry water in my bag. I bought a Coke.” While they had waited in vain for Sadler to arrive, Toolin had bought a Coke and that was what he drank throughout his round.
“The others had water bottles in their bags.”
“They bought those in the clubhouse.”
“No doubt that was why theirs were not poisoned.”
“My bag hasn’t been out of my sight since I checked it at the airport.”
“Where do you usually keep it?”
“At the Minikahda Club. In Minneapolis. Someone must have put it in my bag there.”
“Who?”
“I have no idea.”
He could not imagine anyone wanting him dead. That was more incredible than the poisoning of Mort. Again he thought of the last time he had been with Mort, the argument that Crown had overheard. An awful thought crossed his mind. Mort had decided to kill himself and to take his old roommate with him, using the same means.
“It was the same poison?” he asked Stewart.
“That’s right. Any ideas?”
He could not bring himself to voice the thought he had had. But even as he kept silent, he could imagine Crown or Barley remembering old animosities dating from student days. He and Mort had been forever quarreling about one thing or another. Mort had been a fussy person who objected to Toolin’s habit of leaving clothes strewn around the room. Mort had slept in the loft they constructed in the room and a day usually began with him surveying the messiness below him and bellowing in anger at Toolin. It was an awful way to begin the day: that badgering, righteous voice, the one Mort managed to get into print when he wrote those silly articles for The Observer. Toolin’s only defense had been to cover his ears with his pillow. From time to time there had been a scuffle. Once Mort even threatened to move out and leave the other three to the squalor caused by Toolin. They had begged him to stay, Toolin most of all, promising to be neat as a pin in the future, and for a week he had been reasonably conscientious about hanging up his things.
How childish those memories seemed, yet called up in the present context they seemed so much more. And Crown would certainly tell the police of the quarrel he had overheard when he came back to Mort’s suite for a nightcap.
“I can’t believe it,” he said to Stewart.
“You seem to have a common enemy.”
“We used to tell Mort he was his own worst enemy.” That was as far as he was willing to go.
“In what sense?”
“Who knows? We just said it. That was long ago.”
“I’m counting on you to give me some help.”
“I wish I could.”
“He may strike again.”
“‘He’?”
“Do you think it’s a woman?”
“No!”
“I’ve heard a lot about the war between Sadler and Maureen O’Kelly when they were students.”
“Sure. When they were students.”
“They seemed to renew it, didn’t they? The golf bet?”
“That was stupid. She is twice the golfer he is.” He paused. “Was.”
“He even had a fight with her husband.”
“Who told you that?”
“His nephew, Paul.”
“Sam’s son?”
Stewart hesitated. Perhaps he thought it was a biblical reference.
“Dr. O’Kelly took a swing at Sadler because he said something uncomplimentary about his wife.”
“That was in Minneapolis.”
“Were you there?”
“It happened in the locker room of the club we all belong to. The Minikahda.”
“So you do know Dr. O’Kelly?”
Stewart stood, looking satisfied, as if he had made a point. Toolin sat back and looked across the lobby of the Morris Inn. In a corner there were bookshelves filled with old textbooks and volumes of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. A National Catholic Research University, indeed. Ben Barley came down the stairs to the left of the books and Toolin waved him over.
“Have you heard?”
“Nobody could ever kill you with water,” Barley said.
18
Phil Knight drove over to Holy Cross House to report to Father Carmody. The discovery of the bottle of poisoned water in Christopher Toolin’s golf bag had complicated matters. Jimmy Stewart felt under no obligation to pass on what had been found to the press but some chatterbox downtown had decided that the public had a right to know. It would be all over the local paper in the morning and Father Carmody had to be forewarned. When Phil left the Morris Inn, a van from a local television station was pulling in. The fat was in the fire. He thought of Roger and considered phoning him and telling him of this development, but there was no rush. Phil had a prior obligation to Father Carmody.
There are rest homes and there are rest homes, and on any scale Holy Cross House would rank high, but that only made it the lesser of evils. Or the least of evils. Like most men in the full vigor of health, Phil felt ambiguous whenever he entered the place. Old priests drooped in wheelchairs. In the television room, a therapist was leading a half dozen of them through a series of exercises. Raise your right hand, raise your left hand, put your arms straight out before you. One or two simply ignored these commands, perhaps unable to comply. Others obeyed and seemed to take a pathetic pride in their ability to do so. Would the day come when he considered lifting his arms an Olympic event? He hurried past the nurses’ station and down the corridor where Carmody had his room.
The door of the room was open and Father Carmody was snoozing in his chair. For a moment he looked as old as anyone else in the house, but his eyes snapped open when Phil knocked on the doorjamb.
“I was just thinking of you,” the priest roared, stirring in his chair. He got up and looked as if he might touch his toes and do a few push-ups. “Come in, come in.”
The room was redolent of tobacco smoke, a sweet and pleasant smell. Father Carmody still smoked a pipe, but only in his room, largely because the practice was frowned on by the nurses and he
needed to distinguish himself from residents who were ill and cowed into doing what they were told.
“They are wonderful women,” he had explained to Phil. “Kind, considerate, all that, but bossy.”
“It’s a smoke-free campus,” Phil reminded him.
“Bah!”
Phil told him of the poisoned water that had been found in Christopher Toolin’s golf bag.
“The plot thickens. How do you explain it?”
“Jimmy Stewart is working on it.”
“You must stick close to him, Phil. You know my concern.”
“I’m afraid the media have already got hold of this.”
Carmody said something Phil did not understand. Roger had explained that the priest always swore in Latin lest he give scandal.
“I want to talk with young Toolin.”
“Young Toolin?”
“Chris. Everyone seems young to me. I had a little chat with him at the golf course yesterday morning, but that was just trivia. What has his reaction been?”
“Well, he canceled an appointment that would have taken him back to Chicago.”
“Of course. Has it been decided where Sadler will be buried? From Sacred Heart, I suppose. Chris will have to stay for that.”
“But Sadler lived in Minneapolis.”
“Oh, they can bury him anywhere. But we must give him a Notre Dame send-off.”
Just when Phil thought he was getting used to Catholics, a remark like that would remind him what an outsider he was. Roger’s conversion to Catholicism had seemed at first only one more eccentricity, but Phil had come to see how profound the change in his brother had been. In some ways it was a barrier between them, but coming to Notre Dame had in large part removed it, because of the constant availability of sports. Phil supposed that he had come to think of Catholicism as athletic prowess. And then would come a remark such as Father Carmody’s about giving Mortimer Sadler a five-star funeral from the campus church.
“Of course, they may want him buried here. I hope not. There are still plots in Cedar Grove but there is no way we can bury all our alumni on the grounds.”
Phil mumbled something. He might have been speaking Latin.
“Well, that’s up to the family. You say Mrs. Sadler is on her way?”
“That’s what I’m told. The daughters will drive.”
“Good. Good.”
“I don’t suppose we could have kept the threat to Toolin quiet for long.”
Father Carmody made a dismissing gesture. He was less interested in what might have been than in what must be done. He picked up the phone and called the Morris Inn and asked for Chris Toolin. When he reached him he more or less ordered him to report to Holy Cross House.
“It’s just across the lake. You can walk. It’ll do you good after the scare you’ve had.”
He listened for a moment, then hung up.
“No need for you to waste more time here, Phil.”
Going out to his car, Phil felt that he had been dismissed.
19
Father Carmody’s call came just after Maureen’s to let Chris Toolin know that her daughter Francie had gone off for the evening.
“One of her professors invited her, isn’t that nice?” There was a naughty lilt in her voice.
“Good for him.”
“Well?”
“What would you like to do?”
“Do you have a car?”
“A rental.”
“Good.”
In the circumstances, it was hard to share her insouciance. When they had spoken of having time together if both came to Mortimer Sadler’s rump reunion—her phrase—his conscience had easily been overcome, but now with Mort dead and the discovery of a bottle of poisoned water in his golf bag, Chris Toolin found it difficult to recapture the excitement he had felt when they had made their plans. But even with these unexpected events, he found the prospect of an evening with Maureen irresistible. For more than a month, ever since he had called her after Mort triumphantly gave him the news that Jack O’Kelly had moved out, they had been inching toward a renewal of a relationship that had marked their senior year. A platonic relationship, of course, although there had been walks around the lake and warm kisses in the twilight. He felt an almost boyish excitement now in remembering those long-ago trysts. How innocent they seemed. But innocence had not characterized their planning to meet at the reunion. Nor had the fact that Francie would come with her mother altered matters.
“She will be dying to get away from me, and I will make her feel guilty about it but let her go.”
He asked if they should meet in the lobby in an hour.
“Better in the parking lot.”
“Right.” Discretion is the better part of hanky-pank. But he could not regard his renewed love for Maureen as something naughty. It was as if the promise of a quarter century ago was being fulfilled.
But then had come Father Carmody’s call. With great reluctance he rang Maureen’s room and told her he had to go over to Holy Cross House.
“Now?”
“Come with me. I’ll drive and we can just go on from there.”
“What on earth does he want?”
“He has heard of the discovery of the water bottle in my bag.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake.” She had dismissed the news when he told her of it earlier.
“You’ll enjoy it, Maureen. Father Carmody is a great old character.”
“Isn’t Holy Cross House the retirement home?”
“Yes, but he’s not ill.”
Her reluctance was evident, but she agreed. An advantage of the visit was that there was no need to avoid meeting in the lobby. Should anyone ask, their destination could only seem appropriate.
“I’ll need fifteen minutes, Chris.”
“That’s all right. He thinks I’m walking over.”
Twenty minutes later she came down the stairs into the lobby, a vision of impossible beauty. He went to meet her and whispered, “I’ve waited a quarter century for this.”
“To visit Father Carmody?” But she squeezed his hand when she said it.
He drove south to the new campus entrance and there had to persuade the guard to let them through. Father Carmody’s name was the open sesame. As they circled the area where the new dorms stood, among them the Sadler Residence, neither spoke. It was as if they were waiting for the familiar campus to reveal itself. And so it did when they passed the Rockne Memorial and then continued along the lake road. The Grotto was ablaze with votive lights, and Chris found himself wanting to ignore its reminder that the two of them were up to no good. He turned left, passed Dujarie House and then went on until they were able to get onto Douglas Road and reach the entrance to Holy Cross House.
“Chris, I’ll wait in the car.” She looked at him with a pained expression. “I just can’t stand the sight of a houseful of old men.”
He nodded. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“Oh, it’s peaceful here. I don’t mind waiting.”
He leaned toward her and she gave him a cheek to kiss. He hopped out and went to the house and entered through the sliding doors. At the nurses’ station, he was given directions to Father Carmody’s room.
“You made good time,” the old priest said, shaking Chris’s hand and peering in his face. “Who wants to kill you?”
“Good Lord, I don’t know.”
“Sit down, sit down. Can I get you anything?”
“Father, before you called I made a dinner engagement…”
“Of course, of course. Anyone I know?”
“An old classmate.”
The priest nodded approvingly. “That’s the thing. Don’t let this get you down.”
Chris had been shaken by the news of the bottle found in his golf bag, but even so he was not prepared for Father Carmody’s assumption that his life was in danger.
“Think of it, man. Sadler is found poisoned and the same kind of poison is found in your water bottle.”
“But
it wasn’t my bottle.”
Father Carmody ignored this. “Your other roommates were not targeted. Of course that raises an interesting question. Do you by any chance remember Dennis Grantley?”
“The golf coach?”
“Exactly. Now, he said something to me when we were talking of what happened to Sadler. His candidate was Ben Barley.”
“Barley!”
“Why do you suppose he would think a thing like that?”
“Didn’t you ask him?”
“At the time, I was trying to get rid of him. Now with this new development, and given the fact that Barley seems immune to threat, the remark returned. What do you think?”
“I think Grantley must be nuts.”
Father Carmody chuckled. “You could make a case for that. Frankly I was surprised that he even remembered Barley.”
Chris was very conscious of Maureen waiting in the car. Had he been dragged over here only to hear the speculations of an aged golf coach?
“Father, it’s a preposterous idea. Of the three of us I would say that Barley was the closest to Mort Sadler. The two of them got together regularly. I know of absolutely no basis for the suggestion that Ben would harm Mort.”
“Or you?”
“Father, I see Ben maybe once a year. We’re old friends…”
He tried to imagine Ben Barley poisoning Mort and trying to poison him. It would have been far less preposterous if it had been Crown. He had been creeping around last night, eavesdropping on the exchange between Chris and Mort. He immediately rejected the thought. He shook his head, violently.
“None of us would dream of harming the other.”
Father Carmody beamed. “Of course not. So it had to be someone else.”
“That’s right.”
“Who?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Very well. But I want you to give the matter some thought. The sooner this is cleared up, the better for Notre Dame.”
He felt that he was escaping when he left the old priest’s room and when he got into the car, Maureen noticed he was upset.
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