Green Thumb

by Ralph McInerny

  “That bad?”

  On the way to Niles, he told her about the conversation and she listened in silence.

  “Do you know what I think?”

  “What?”

  She hesitated. “I think it was Mortimer Sadler.”

  That made more sense than thinking it was Ben Barley.

  20

  When Patricia Sadler got off the plane from Minneapolis with her daughter Vivian, Paul was there to meet them. Patricia took her nephew in her arms.

  “I can’t believe this has happened.”

  Paul patted her back, then held her close, saying nothing. Vivian looked on, silent and solemn. While they waited for the baggage to appear, they stood side by side, aunt and nephew.

  “Your father will come tomorrow, Paul.”

  “Good.”

  It was as if they were both acknowledging that Samuel Sadler was not only the oldest son but now the undisputed head of the family, a role he had hitherto relinquished to his brother. Mort was the practical one; he had taken over the family insurance agency and brought it to new heights of prosperity; he was the director of the Sadler Foundation and had proposed the gift to Notre Dame that resulted in a residence hall that bore the equivocal name The Mortimer Sadler Residence, named ostensibly after their father.

  “Why not just Sadler Residence Hall?” Paul had asked his father.

  “Your grandfather’s name was Mortimer.”

  “But that’s my uncle’s name as well.”

  “There has always been a Mortimer in the family.”

  Aunt Patricia now said, “The other girls are going to drive down in the van. Of course they had to arrange for babysitters.”

  Three of Paul’s older cousins were married and had children. Vivian was the youngest and, being his age, the one he knew best. His aunt told him that the husbands would, of course, come for the funeral.

  “It doesn’t have to be here.”

  “Paul, it’s what he would have wanted.”

  A light began to flash and then the carousel started to move. When his aunt pointed out their bags, Paul retrieved them, and then they were on the way to his car. When they were under way, his aunt beside him, the still-silent Vivian in the back, she said in a controlled voice, “Now tell me all about it.”

  As he talked, Paul managed to adopt his aunt’s attitude toward her husband. This was a trick he had learned whenever her father came up when he and Vivian talked. Mortimer Sadler immediate family clearly had no idea what a shit he was, but then it was his treatment of his brother Sam that enraged Paul, and it was received opinion in the family that good old Sam enjoyed playing second fiddle to his younger brother. The sad thing was that this was true. By all rights, it should have been his father who annoyed Paul, not his Uncle Mort.

  “When I got the call I had the distinct feeling that they thought Mort had killed himself.”

  “That’s no longer the theory.” And he told her of the bottle of poisoned water that had been found in Chris Toolin’s golf bag.

  “Oh, thank God he didn’t drink from it.”

  At the Morris Inn, she and Vivian registered and his aunt thanked Paul for meeting her plane. He turned and Vivian came into his arms.

  “Francie’s here.”

  “I know.”

  “That will make it easier.”

  “Yes. Mom and I will have things to do now, you know,” she said in a low voice.

  “If I can be of any help…”

  “Paul, you’ve been wonderful.” And his Aunt Patricia once more took him in her arms and began to cry. She was still crying when the elevator doors closed on her and Vivian.

  Outside, Paul stood under the canopy and looked beyond the university club to the ugly silhouette of DeBartolo, a classroom building. He lit a cigarette and strolled to one of the benches across from the entrance to the Morris Inn, where he sat and tried to feel the peacefulness of the campus. There was a lull between sports camps now, and it was a relief not to have to face a hall full of squealing kids. He had taken the summer job at Notre Dame in order to be away from Minneapolis, but the arrival of his uncle had reminded him of all his grievances against him. He had skipped the last meeting of the family foundation, e-mailing his judgment of the applications, giving a thumbs-down to those he thought his uncle might favor. Sitting there on the bench outside the Morris Inn, finishing his cigarette, he wished he hadn’t said to Francie what he had about his uncle. She had enough family troubles of her own.

  His memories of his mother were achingly tender, and he loved his father for settling into the life of a widower. Francie’s parents sounded like a couple of kids, always squabbling. Maureen O’Kelly was just too attractive for her own good, and she couldn’t resist coming on to men. Some feminist. Did she lead men on in order to act indignant when they responded? Paul had felt her power himself the day she showed him around her flower garden. She seemed to want to be her daughter’s rival. Now she was separated from Francie’s father and despite Francie’s confidence that the breach would be healed, Paul sensed her dread that her mother was going to try to be a girl again. Not that Dr. O’Kelly was much better. It was Maureen’s suspicion about him and Laura Kennedy that had precipitated the breakup. Good God, the man must be sixty years old.

  “Laura is the same age, Paul,” Francie had said.

  Old people talked about the foolishness of the young but what of their own acting up? Paul, of course, thought the force that through the green fuse drives the flower must abate with age, to be followed by serenity and rectitude. He had begun to wonder if perhaps temptation continued to the grave.

  21

  Dennis Grantley’s room on the second floor of the firehouse was as austere as a Carthusian’s cell. Over the years, he had progressively discarded his possessions until now a few hangers in the closet were sufficient for his clothes, a single bookshelf held a small selection of golf instructional manuals and as-told-to lives of a dozen professional golfers. His television had gone on the blink, and he got rid of it and did not replace it. The pharmacopeia that had been his father’s was the one reminder of his parents, a kind of family bible. His radio was tuned to WSND, the local FM channel that featured classical music and, on weekends, Brother Pedro playing golden oldies and commenting on them in his cracked confiding voice. An easy chair, collapsed and comfortable under a lamp, and a single bed over which hung a color photo of the Golden Dome, a dresser for shirts and shorts and socks. He looked around his room with a judicious eye. Could he pare his life even closer to the bone?

  No miser ever derived more pleasure from the acquisitive impulse than Grantley did from liberating himself from the tyranny of possessions. His golf cart belonged to the university; his car was twenty-five years old. Members of the Congregation of Holy Cross took the vow of poverty, but Grantley warmed himself with the thought that he was poorer than any of them. The one thing he had not acquired was poverty of spirit. He was proud of the bareness of his room. Even as he drank Father Carmody’s Irish whiskey he silently condemned the priest for having it.

  His room was, he realized, the counterpart of his life, of his soul. In the Gospel story, when the devil was driven out and the heart swept clean of his presence, a new danger loomed. The expelled devil returned with others worse than himself. Now, whenever he said the Lord’s Prayer, Grantley felt under judgment.

  He attended daily Mass, he said his rosary at the Grotto, he wandered from campus eatery to campus eatery, living well within his monthly social security check. He had never touched his retirement fund, his intention being to bequeath it to the university. It was his dream to endow a chair and live on as the donor of the Dennis Grantley professorship—in what? That was his problem. Maybe, as Father Carmody had suggested, he would consult Roger Knight. His choice must be carefully made because his generosity was motivated by spite: He would leave a significant sum of money to Notre Dame as a rebuke for the treatment he had received. Was he any better than Mortimer Sadler?

  When he h
ad told Bruno of the discovery of the water bottle in Chris Toolin’s golf bag, he had been confident that Bruno would spread it far and wide.

  “Come have lunch at the club, Grantley,” Bruno had said as they walked across the campus.

  “I’m not a member.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t afford it.”

  Bruno had fallen silent and when they parted, Grantley had watched Bruno shuffle off to the entrance of the club, preening himself on the thought that he was not like the rest of men. He was content to taken his meals in the LaFortune Student Center, in one of the dining halls, or in one of the many eateries now scattered across the campus. His one indulgence was drink and he preferred the bar in the Morris Inn. Of late it had given him a vantage point on the investigation into the death of Mortimer Sadler.

  Sadler had been a lousy golfer, whereas Toolin could have been good if he had put his mind to it. At Warren yesterday, Toolin had glanced at Grantley sipping his coffee but had not recognized him. Ben Barley had looked over twice and then come to his table.

  “Weren’t you a coach?”

  Grantley nodded. He had given Barley instructions in golf years and years ago.

  “Simpson?” Barley asked, then rejected the guess. “Moran!”

  Grantley had merely smiled.

  “I never forget a name,” Barley said.

  Grantley watched him with a malevolent eye as the man rejoined the others. Barley did not call their attention to the man he had misidentified as Moran and Grantley took mordant pleasure in being ignored.

  The three men were standing impatiently on the first tee when Grantley came out, their bags all in a row. They would be waiting for Sadler. So word had not reached them that they must play as a threesome in the tournament. Eventually, Grantley got behind the wheel of his golf cart and drove silently away toward Douglas Road.

  That was yesterday. Now, as darkness gathered in his scarcely furnished room, he did not turn on the lamp beside his chair. From the radio came Bach’s “Air for the G String.” He had his small revenge on Barley when he told Father Carmody that of the old roommates it was Barley who was most likely to have done Mortimer Sadler harm.

  22

  Francie met Vivian in the Lobby, taking her hands in hers and silently conveying what she could not find words to say.

  “Let’s go for a walk.”

  They headed for the Main Building, the Golden Dome already lighted and shining in the gloaming, down to the Grotto, where Vivian knelt. She is praying for her father, Francie thought. Her father is dead and she is praying for the repose of his soul. Suddenly, the horror of what had happened came home to her. She knelt beside Vivian and for the first time prayed for Mortimer Sadler.

  Afterward, they walked along the lake path and Francie told Vivian what she had been doing.

  “Roger Knight is here and he has been so good. We must go see him.” Francie felt magnanimous in suggesting this. Sometimes she thought that she and Vivian were rivals for the role of Roger Knight’s pet.

  Vivian nodded. “I’d like that.” She turned to Francie. “I can’t believe that someone killed my father.”

  “The police will find who did it.”

  “But what difference will that make?”

  Francie was uneasy with the thought that the police seemed to think her mother could have had something to do with Mortimer Sadler’s death. That was ridiculous. She would have preferred to think that Vivian’s father had committed suicide, if the thought weren’t so awful.

  “Now I wish we had called Roger Knight.”

  “I have my cell phone.”

  “Should we call him? His brother is taking part in the investigation.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to talk about that. I’ve been trying not to think about it. Isn’t that terrible?”

  “Give me your phone.”

  “I hope the battery isn’t dead.”

  The phone rang and rang, and Francie was about to give up when Roger answered.

  “Knights.”

  “This is Francie! Vivian has arrived. We’re walking around the lake and suddenly had the idea to call you.”

  “A splendid idea. Let me talk to her.”

  “We were hoping to come over there.”

  “Even better.”

  And so they reversed direction and headed for graduate student housing, where the Knight brothers had their apartment. Roger stood in the front door as if he had been waiting for them. He reached out for Vivian’s hand and soon she was enveloped in his arms, sobbing her heart out. Francie looked on, feeling almost jealous. Roger had never hugged her.

  Once they were inside, Vivian brightened as Roger steered the conversation away from her father, instinctively knowing that was the thing to do.

  “Has either of you read Trollope?”

  Vivian immediately perked up. “The Palliser novels.”

  “Of course, of course. They are wonderful, although of the series I prefer the Barsetshire novels. But it is the so-called minor ones that have a special delight. I have been reading Kept in the Dark. Not for the first time, but I can’t remember enjoying it so much before.”

  He went on and on and it was wonderful. He made popcorn and insisted that Vivian have a beer, so Francie took one, too, and they settled down for more discussion of Trollope. They had been there an hour and a half before Roger turned to what had happened to Mortimer Sadler.

  “Who might have done such a thing, Vivian?”

  “My mother’s first thought was my uncle Sam, but that is silly. He’s in Minneapolis.”

  “Paul’s father?” Francie asked.

  “He is the elder brother, but he never acted like it. Now he will have to.”

  “Why would your mother have had such a thought?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Roger settled back. “Well?”

  And so Vivian told them about the Sadler family. Her grandfather had established an enormously successful insurance agency as well as the Sadler Foundation, and it was her father, Mortimer, who had been his successor, despite being the younger son.

  “My uncle taught philosophy.”

  “I look forward to meeting him.”

  “He should be in tomorrow.”

  “Your mother must have imagined he resented playing second fiddle to your father.”

  “Oh, but he didn’t. It is Paul who resents it. And I understand. I would feel the same way if I were him. But my uncle is one of the most contented men I know. He took early retirement and, being widowed, lives like a recluse on Lake Minnetonka. I think he reads as much as you do.”

  “A philosopher,” Roger said wonderingly. “I have always envied philosophers.”

  “Isn’t your degree in philosophy?” Francie asked.

  “That does not make one a philosopher.”

  “My uncle is a Thomist,” Vivian said.

  “Oh, I really do want to make his acquaintance.”

  “Now he may have to take a more active role, at least in the foundation. At least until Paul graduates. Paul is everything his father isn’t.”

  Roger insisted on taking them back to the Morris Inn in his golf cart. Francie let Vivian sit beside him and took the seat behind that faced backward. She listened to Roger talk and watched the campus slip away behind them, the little puddles of light under the lamps succeeding one another at intervals. Thank God they had called Roger Knight. Vivian was almost her own self again.

  23

  When Jimmy Stewart heard that the widow of Mortimer Sadler had checked into the Morris Inn, he and Phil came to talk to her. Vivian joined her mother and Roger and Francie took chairs in the lobby. Two glasses of wine had made Francie voluble and she spoke to Roger about Paul Sadler.

  “Why is he on campus?”

  “He’s working here this summer, in the sports camps. And taking a course in botany.”

  “Is that his major?”

  “No. He just likes it. I tried to interest him in your course last spring
, but he was afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “I shouldn’t have told him so much about you.”

  “That would frighten anyone.”

  Because she could tell Roger Knight anything, Francie told him the sad story of her parents’ separation.

  “So there is a real Laura?”

  “Laura Kennedy.”

  “Your father’s undergraduate sonnets were dedicated to Laura. I had thought he was taking over Petrarch’s beloved as well as his sonnet form.”

  She said, “Greg Whelan found them for me in the ar-chives.”

  “So you’ve read them.”

  “I can’t. I began but I couldn’t go on.”

  “I understand.”

  And Francie was sure he did, although she was not so sure she herself did. The poems had been written before her parents had even met, but it was impossible for her not to read them in the light of later events.

  “Sleep tight,” he said when he rose to go.

  She wanted to lean toward him and kiss him on the cheek, but she didn’t. Such displays of affection had become so commonplace as to be meaningless. That was why she kept Paul at arm’s length. She dreaded to enter into a more decisive phase with him. The two of them seemed carriers of all the troubles of their respective families, as if they bore some virus that would affect them with the folly of their parents.

  Francie was still awake when her mother came in, but she feigned sleep, reluctant to enter into a midnight conversation. The sound of her mother’s humming as she moved around their darkened room, the only illumination coming from the windows, was not cheering. She found herself praying that the death of Mortimer Sadler would not further fragment both her family and Paul’s. The story of her father striking Mortimer Sadler had at the beginning the note of gallantry, but it had proved to be the catalyst for the separation of her parents. Francie drifted into sleep, her lips moving in prayer for herself, her parents, for Paul, and for poor Mortimer Sadler, dead on the golf course of the university he had so crazily loved.

  24