He found Phil in the lobby, sitting in on the exchange between Jimmy Stewart and Maureen O’Kelly. Roger summoned his brother, led him past the entrance to the restaurant and outside where he eased himself into a chair. Phil sat and listened as Roger spoke, what he said suddenly casting recent events in a wholly different light.
“It should be easy to check on, Phil.”
“I’ll make a call immediately.”
He went inside and Roger watched abstractly the antics of insects in the freighted air where the aroma from the flower beds seemed the very definition of summer. Climacus had suggested that nearly every plant is harmful to some animal species or other. Potentially. Roger rose with an effort he described as weight lifting and went inside.
Dr. O’Kelly came out of the elevator, a suit bag slung from his shoulder, a briefcase in his hand, and went to the desk. Roger joined him.
“We haven’t met, Doctor. I’m Roger Knight.”
O’Kelly stepped back and his incipient smile became full. He put out his hand. “Francie has told me of you.”
“She is a very intelligent young lady.”
“On her mother’s side.” But the gallant remark dimmed his smile.
“You’re checking out?”
“I’ve stayed too long as it is. I have engaged Alex Cholis, the best lawyer in South Bend, for Maureen.”
“Surely you don’t think she is guilty.”
“It’s not what I think, I’m afraid.”
“Could we talk?”
“Now?”
“Please.”
He hesitated when he saw his wife with Jimmy Stewart. He crossed the lobby to her. “I’ve called a lawyer, Maureen. Alex Cholis.”
“You’re going?”
“Would you like me to stay?”
“What do you think?”
“Then I will. Professor Knight and I were going to have a little chat.”
“Have you checked out?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You can stay with Francie and me.”
“We’ll see.”
Once more outside, Roger lowered himself again into the snug but adequate chair. A large umbrella was open above the table.
“What more can I do?” O’Kelly asked as he sat. “Cholis is said to be a very good lawyer.”
“You’ll need one.”
“I can’t believe they suspect her.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do.”
O’Kelly looked closely at Roger. “I don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think you do.”
The doors of the inn slid open. Phil came out, and his expression told Roger all he needed to know. Once again he indulged in weight lifting. “I’ll leave you to my brother, Doctor. He will explain.”
Phil took the chair that Roger had vacated and Roger went inside. Jimmy Stewart was standing and Maureen wore a stunned expression. Obviously, Phil had already told Jimmy what he had learned. Roger waved to her but continued to the front entrance. He felt no sense of triumph. Maureen and her daughter would be relieved, of course, but then other emotions would come.
46
Alex Cholis, the lawyer Dr. O’Kelly had summoned for his wife, became his own now as the case against him was spelled out. The prescription he had written for belladonna could not be explained away by the imaginative story he concocted. It had been an easy matter for him to put the bottles of poisoned water in the golf bags of Mortimer Sadler and Toolin. They were all members of the Minikahda Club that overlooks Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. The assistant to the pro was prompted by questioning to remember the doctor busy at a number of open lockers before Mort and Toolin had gone off to Notre Dame for their rump reunion.
“Why?” Greg Whelan asked, a word he had no problems with.
“Because his beloved would never marry a divorced man. A widower was another matter.”
“But why kill Sadler and Toolin?”
“Once Maureen became the prime suspect in those crimes, he would stage her suicide. That was meant to seal her guilt.”
Roger and Phil were entertaining Jimmy Stewart and Greg Whelan in the aftermath of Dr. O’Kelly’s arraignment. Roger was swathed in an enormous apron and wore a baseball cap with ND emblazoned on it. He stood over the stove with steam from the kettle of pasta enveloping him.
“But Paul Sadler?” Greg brought out on the second try.
“Self-administered.”
“Why?”
“Everything Paul did was meant to protect his father. He really thought his father was the murderer.”
“Poor Francie.”
Roger waved away the steam. His expression was a tragic mask. “Indeed.”
She had gone back to Minneapolis with her mother—who was accompanied by Chris Toolin, much to Francie’s dismay. She could not understand what her mother saw in Toolin.
“It’s just a rebound,” she had said to Roger. “She can’t live without a man to lean upon.”
“What woman can?”
“I’ll lean on you.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“I hate Paul for what he did.”
“Do you? Wouldn’t you have done as much for your mother?”
He left her with that thought. After the horror of her father’s trial, she would look on what Paul had done in a different light. He and Climacus had gone off to Purdue, where Paul was to be acquainted with the work done there on plants inimical to animals.
“Animals, vegetables, minerals,” Greg said smoothly. He was with Roger in the kitchen. Phil and Jimmy Stewart were settling down to watch the Cubs.
Father Carmody had not been philosophical when he stopped by earlier, brought by Dennis Grantley.
“His degree should be revoked,” the old priest growled.
“I thought you told me that not even God can undo the past.”
“God didn’t give him a degree.”
A more surprising visitor had been Cal Swithins. He brought a copy of the The Shopper that had carried his story of how Maureen O’Kelly had murdered Mortimer Sadler. The story was the basis of the libel suit Maureen O’Kelly had Cholis file against the reporter. He was sheepishly proud of the commotion he had caused.
“Do you know Agnes, the waitress at the Morris Inn?”
“What about her?” Grantley snapped.
“A lovely woman. It turns out she is a fan. She has clipped all my columns from The Shopper.”
Like Kierkegaard, Swithins had found his single reader, but Dennis Grantley did not rejoice with him. He abandoned Father Carmody and left, doubtless on his way to the Morris Inn. Swithins was happy to stay for pasta and salad.
While they ate, Roger went on and on about belladonna. “Women used it on their eyes, to dilate them, a condition thought to enhance their beauty.”
“Bah,” said Father Carmody.
“I could write a column on that,” Swithins said.
“Better not,” Roger advised.
* * *
When the fall semester opened, Francie and Paul were reconciled. Alex Cholis was indeed a good lawyer, as goodness is measured in the law. The charge against Dr. O’Kelly was reduced from murder to homicide, and the lawyer tried to depict his client as motivated by medical concerns. It was irrational enough an explanation to sway the jury, which urged clemency when they found O’Kelly guilty. Cholis, of course, intended to appeal the verdict. In November, Samuel Sadler announced his engagement to Laura Kennedy, providing Francie and Paul an occasion to lament the folly of adults.
* * *
It was Greg Whelan who remembered that Maureen O’Kelly had been seen on the first tee doing something at Mortimer Sadler’s golf cart while he finished on the practicing putting green. Francie had provided Roger with the explanation.
“It was a practical joke. She put a dozen whiffle balls in his bag. She had seen him slip out of the inn when she was about to set out jogging. Guessing what he was up to, she got the whiffle balls out of her car and put them in his bag.”
Swannie’s crew thus had an explanation for the dozen whiffle balls someone had thrown angrily into the rough along the third fairway of the Burke golf course.
ALSO BY RALPH MCINERNY
MYSTERIES SET AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
On This Rockne
Lack of the Irish
Irish Tenure
Book of Kills
Emerald Aisle
Celt and Pepper
Irish Coffee
FATHER DOWLING MYSTERY SERIES
Her Death of Cold
The Seventh Station
Bishop As Pawn
Lying Three
Second Vespers
Thicker Than Water
A Loss of Patients
The Grass Widow
Getting a Way with Murder
Rest in Pieces
The Basket Case
Abracadaver
Four on the Floor
Judas Priest
Desert Sinner
Seed of Doubt
A Cardinal Offense
The Tears of Things
Grave Undertakings
Triple Pursuit
Prodigal Father
Last Things
Requiem for a Realtor
GREEN THUMB. Copyright © 2004 by Ralph McInerny. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McInerny, Ralph M.
Green thumb / Ralph McInerny.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-32419-7
EAN 978-0312-32419-3
1. Knight, Roger (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Indiana—South Bend—Fiction. 3. Knight, Philip (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 4. College graduates—Crimes against—Fiction. 5. Philanthropists—Crimes against—Fiction. 6. University of Notre Dame—Fiction. 7. South Bend (Ind.)—Fiction. 8. College teachers—Fiction. 9. Brothers—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.A31166G74 2004
813'.54—dc22
2004046779
First Edition: November 2004
eISBN 9781466842809
First eBook edition: March 2013
Green Thumb Page 16
