Celt and Pepper

by Ralph McInerny

  Disappointedly,

  Donald Weber

  P.S. When I was in Navy boot camp we had a chief who displayed the same phony omniscience that characterizes your comments. Several of us took him aside one night and administered the appropriate punishment. Perhaps something similar is coming to you at last.

  “Well, well,” Roger said when he had read the letter.

  “Notice the date.”

  Donald Weber had sent his disappointed, and threatening, letter to Malachy O’Neill the day before the legendary professor’s final class, a class it had long been Weber’s boast that he had attended.

  8

  Padraig Maloney had been refused access to Martin Kilmartin’s office by Lieutenant Stewart, who was unimpressed by Maloney’s reminder that he was the acting director of the program in which Kilmartin had been a visitor, and his claim to be as close as kin to the dead poet.

  “There’s nothing in there anyway. It’s as empty an office as I have ever seen. A desk, a file cabinet, a few books.” Stewart worked his lips. “No telephone. That’s been taken as evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?”

  “I’m just a cop, professor. You’ll have to ask the prosecutor.”

  “Lieutenant, you can be with me when I go in. I want to get the student papers for last semester.”

  “Hadn’t he turned in his grades?”

  Martin Kilmartin had turned in his grades, a copy of which came to Maloney as acting director. The poet had been a severe grader, doubtless not yet acclimated to the grade inflation that was now epidemic coast to coast. His highest grade had been an A—, there had been two B’s, and the rest, save for one D, C’s. Once that would have been an unsurprising spread. Nowadays few students received less than a B, at least half received A’s. A semblance of discrimination was retained by using + and −, giving effectively six grades without any need to employ C or D. Melissa had received a B from Kilmartin, Arne Jensen the D. He had come to Maloney asking to get back the work he had submitted to Kilmartin, hence Maloney’s request for access to the office.

  “You mean he’s got some poems you turned in?”

  Arne blushed marvelously, his rounded cheeks looking white against the upsurge of self-conscious blood. “He was going to make some comments.”

  “I see you got a D.” Maloney had found the carbon of Kilmartin’s grades.

  “Did anyone get an A?”

  Maloney shook his head. “One A minus.”

  “I’ll bet that was Melissa.”

  “You don’t expect me to answer that question, do you?”

  “I know she did.”

  “Well, you’re wrong. She got a B.” Maloney formed the plosive silently before saying it aloud.

  “The sonofabitch.”

  “De mortuis non nisi bonum.”

  “I’m not Catholic,” Arne said, annoyed.

  Maloney roared. “Do you think everything in Latin is Catholic? How about e pluribus unum? How about Habeas corpus?”

  “I submitted one of her poems. He gave Melissa a D.”

  Meaning that this no longer blushing, seething Scandinavian had been awarded a B by the late Kilmartin. What did it prove? He told Arne he would check and see if it was okay with the police to take things from the office of the dead man and, after being refused by Stewart, he decided to use the copy of Kilmartin’s key that was kept in the director’s office.

  “Come on,” he said to Arne Jensen, heading down the hall to the corner office that still had yellow tape across it. Maloney unpeeled one end of two banners and put the key in the lock. “You realize we’re breaking the law?”

  “What law?”

  “Good question.” He turned the key and pushed inside. Over his shoulder he said, “No need to turn on the light. Shut the door behind you.”

  Martin seemed more present in his absence than he had the day his body had been found here. Wintry light illumined the room, the late December sun was low in the sky but its rays found the earth too distant to warm or brighten. In shadow the office did not look so functional. The horseshoe metal desk, the gimmicky chair, the sideways file cabinets—Kilmartin had done nothing to put his imprint on this space, except for a few books scattered on the shelves attached to the wall. Maloney noticed that one of the books was a paperback of one of Kilmartin’s collections. Parents left children when they died but poets left verse, a questionable immortality in either case. One could walk among the stacks on the eighth floor of the library, through centuries of British and American literature, the vast majority of the books untouched and unread as they aged. In some sense their authors lived on, but is an unread book a book in the full sense of the term? For a while at least, Martin would continue to be read. Maloney took the paperback and it opened at Dies Irae.

  “I don’t see any papers.” Arne had slid open the file cabinet drawers, one after another, as if he were checking bodies at the morgue.

  Maloney sat in Martin’s chair with a sense of usurpation, almost sacrilege, and opened a deep drawer full of papers. “Voilà.” He had to stop Arne, who reached into the drawer. “I’ll do that. We have to respect the privacy of the other students.”

  Maloney went through the stack of papers like a teller counting bills. “Here you are.” As he handed the paper to Arne, he saw the neatly lasered lines of a sonnet.

  “That is Melissa’s,” Arne said. “Find the one with her name on it.”

  “Go around to the other side of the desk.”

  Melissa’s paper was on the bottom of the stack. There were four lines under a capitalized LOVE SONG. Maloney looked at Arne, who was leaning across the desk. Again a blush suffused the nordic face.

  “I’ll read it.” He cleared his throat and read.

  Your honeyed appellation is sweet upon my ear,

  It sounds my depths and penetrates to where

  The sweetest treasure waits, stolen

  From your flower’s dusty pollen.

  “He gave it a B.”

  “That’s my poem.”

  Maloney chuckled. “No wonder you got a D.”

  “But I didn’t. I mean, he gave her work with my name on it a D and my work with her name on it a B.”

  “So you fooled him.”

  “But he should have known that poem was mine.”

  “Then he gave you a B.”

  Maloney regretted letting the young man into Kilmartin’s office now that it seemed clear he only wanted to know about some game he had been playing. He took the papers from Arne and put them back in the drawer.

  “You’ll get this back eventually.”

  But the blond giant seemed to have lost interest. He left, not closing the door, and after a moment, Maloney scrambled from behind the desk. He didn’t want anyone looking in and seeing him there, as if he were trying to make contact with the dead.

  He closed the office door and looked slowly around the all but empty room, trying to conjure the presence of Martin Kilmartin. He believed in life after death, didn’t he? He had been raised to see his life as a prelude to eternity. That meant billions of souls were still in existence after their earthly trial and now Martin’s was among them. He realized that he had never prayed for the repose of Martin’s soul. Well, the wake and funeral were scheduled now and there would be many prayers offered for dear departed Martin Kilmartin.

  9

  Father Carmody had a ‘What did I tell you?’ look when he came into the viewing room at Paterson’s where half a dozen sheepish mourners clustered at a distance from the open coffin.

  “What did I tell you?” Father Carmody said to Roger.

  “Don’t die in December.”

  The students were gone, many of the faculty were gone, the deceased himself was supposed to have been in Dublin when he was found dead in his Flanner office. Padraig Maloney, uncomfortable in a suit, had been cast more or less in the role of host of the affair.

  “Are any family coming?” Roger asked him.

  “They haven’t answered the teleg
ram.”

  “To whom was it sent?”

  “He has a brother in Perth.”

  “Australia?”

  “Is that where it is?”

  Everything bore out Father Carmody’s theory. The whole affair seemed ad hoc, unplanned, insufficient. Father Carmody volunteered to lead the rosary and took his place at the prie dieu before the coffin. The waxen visage of Martin Kilmartin was pointed toward the softly lit ceiling. There were floral arrangements, one of green carnations in the form of a shamrock, and what might have been an Easter candle burning at the head of the casket. Sauer slipped out before the prayers began and nearly bumped into a woman coming in. He actually cried out in surprise. It was Deirdre Lacey. Sauer changed his mind about leaving and followed her back in. From the prie dieu, Father Carmody began the rosary with the Apostle’s Creed. Throughout the rosary, a lengthy prayer, an Our Father followed by ten Hail Marys, repeated five times, the priest’s authoritative voice contrasted with the reedy diffidence of the few mourners whose task it was to take up the second half of each of the prayers.

  The human mind is naturally incapable of concentrating on one thing and distraction in prayer requires careful definition. The “booming, buzzing confusion” in our heads is at best brought under imperfect control by attempts to concentrate. So, in a species of distraction, Roger Knight thought during the recitation of the rosary, thoughts of the surprising presence of Deirdre Lacey competing with the insistent tone of Father Carmody’s praying voice. When the prayer was nearing its close, someone took the chair beside Roger.

  “I have to talk to you,” Deirdre whispered. She looked at him with widened, frightened eyes.

  “My brother will come pick us up.”

  She squeezed his hand and then left her hand on his. How chill and dry hers felt. Where had she spent the past five days? She tightened her grip on Roger’s hand when she rose to go up to the casket. He accompanied her. Several times, she stopped but then she continued, collapsing onto the prie dieu when she got there. A great sob burst from her when she looked at Martin lying there all beautified in death, the man who had asked her to marry him, the man whom more than ever before she realized she truly loved. She wept there beside Martin’s body for ten minutes. Father Carmody whispered in Roger’s ear that his ride back to Holy Cross House had come.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said in a stage whisper. He showed no curiosity in the weeping woman.

  * * *

  When Phil returned, Jimmie Stewart was in the van with him. The South Bend lieutenant did not react until Roger introduced him to Deirdre. Then he swung around in the passenger seat and stared at her.

  “You’re alive.”

  “Of course I’m alive.”

  But the tremor in her voice indicated that she did not find this as much a matter of course as her words suggested.

  “Where to?” Phil asked.

  “Chez nous.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Deirdre said, “Definitely not chez moi.”

  “I’ll just go home, okay?”

  “Good idea, Phil.”

  At the apartment, Roger made a huge batch of cocoa and bowls of popcorn, first having determined that Deirdre was not in need of a real meal.

  “I have been living on junk food for days.”

  “Tell us about it.”

  Martin had made reservations for their flight to Dublin under the names of Jim and Norah Barnacle on Aer Lingus. The plan was to drive the car he had rented to O’Hare rather than leave her car in the long-term parking lot there for weeks. Deirdre was eager to get away from South Bend because Fritz was there, but she could not explain her anxiety to Martin.

  “He was such a slowpoke!” But there was tenderness in the complaint. “He just would not get a move on. We were still at his place when the phone rang. While he answered it, I completed his packing. He came in to say we had to drop by his Flanner office.”

  “What for?”

  “He said it had been Paddy Maloney who’d called to say that there was a gift for us on Martin’s desk. I said we could pick it up when we came back, but he thought it might be something that wouldn’t keep. I figured that even with this delay we would get to O’Hare in time to leave as originally planned.”

  When she finally got Martin out of his apartment and into the rented car, she drove to the campus. There was a fuss with the gate guard because the rented car did not have a university sticker, but he let them through and Deirdre pulled up behind Flanner. The doors of the building were locked because of the midsemester break and for a moment it seemed that Martin did not have the ID card that would get them in. But then he found it and soon they were rising through the silent floors to seven.

  “I thought Professor Maloney would be there to meet us, since he had called, but the floor was deserted. There was nothing on Martin’s desk. He found that funny but I was angry. If it hadn’t been for that phone call we would have been on our way and out of this city.” She did not have to say that what she meant was out of the reach of Fritz Davis. But thoughts of Fritz were very much with her.

  Martin was looking through the drawers of his desk, saying they must have hidden it somewhere, when his telephone rang.

  “It was so loud in the empty office on that empty floor that we both jumped. I stood frozen and then when he reached out for the phone I screamed at him to leave it alone and not answer it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I had a premonition. And I was right. As soon as he began talking into the phone, his expression changed and he took several short breaths. And then he sneezed!”

  The sneeze lifted him from his chair, his eyes met hers and then even as he stared at her the light seemed to go out inside him. He fell forward onto the desk.

  “That’s when I realized what I had been smelling since we got there. Pepper! And when I leaned over Martin to take his pulse I knew that the phone had been sprayed with pepper. There was no pulse. Suddenly I was terrified. I don’t remember how long I stayed there, just turning from one wall to another, staring at Martin, knowing he was dead. And then I felt in danger myself.”

  She ran from the office, closing the door behind her and took the stairway to the ground floor.

  “I almost continued to the basement, but then I heard voices down there and realized I was on the ground floor.”

  Before going out through the delivery entrance, she stood looking out the little window in the door to see if there were any signs of Fritz. Seeing none, she finally made a dash for the car.

  “Where did you go?”

  “To Niles. To a crummy little motel in Niles. Close enough to pick up South Bend stations and the Tribune.”

  Phil and Stewart had dozens of questions to ask her, and Deirdre answered as best she could, but Roger himself had to ask the only question that truly interested him.

  “When Martin answered the phone, did he say anything?”

  “He said hello.”

  “But was there any conversation?”

  She thought about it. “He was listening as the sneeze came on.”

  “And someone was on the line?”

  “Yes! I heard the phone hung up when I was feeling his pulse.”

  “Any idea who called?”

  “I’ve been thinking about little else for days. We were only there because of Maloney’s call.”

  Arrangements were made for Deirdre to spend the night in Melissa’s apartment, which was close by.

  “Your car was towed away by the police,” Phil explained.

  “Why?”

  “The car of a missing person. We opened the trunk.”

  She turned to face Phil directly. “And it was empty?”

  “Yes.”

  She turned away. “So he got it, after all.”

  “Fritz?”

  She nodded.

  10

  Phil sat in while Stewart questioned Professor Padraig Maloney. It began as a summary of what had happened and what was known.

 
“You’ve got a visiting Irish poet, fragile as an egg, who announces his engagement to what, a graduate student?”

  “Deirdre Lacey. A special student.”

  “Special.”

  “She is allowed to take courses but she isn’t working for a degree.”

  “Is that rare?”

  “Very rare.”

  “Who admitted her?”

  “I did. As acting director of the program. With consultation, of course.”

  “When did she begin?”

  “In August. The fall semester. She was a great admirer of Martin’s from the beginning.”

  “Were you surprised at the engagement?”

  “Surprised?”

  “I gather Kilmartin was in very poor health.”

  “So he told us. But people like that often live forever.”

  Phil said, “Were you skeptical about his poor health?”

  “How would I know? I took his word for it.”

  “Didn’t his health come up when he was invited to come to Notre Dame?”

  The professorial eyebrows lifted about the rims of his cloudy glasses. “Let’s find out.” He spun around in his chair and still seated walked his way to a file cabinet. He made a humming noise as he searched the drawer he opened. “Here it is!” He turned and walked his chair back to the desk. “Kilmartin’s folder.”

  Stewart held out his hand. Maloney sat back, bringing his bearded chin to his chest. “Oh, this is confidential.”

  Stewart took a folded document from his pocket and handed it to Maloney. “I’ll trade.”

  “What’s this!”

  “A search warrant. It covers the whole seventh floor.”

  “But you can’t just come in here and, and…”

  “We are investigating what may be a murder. I think that was your suggestion.”

  “I don’t remember saying any such thing.”

  “Do you remember calling Kilmartin just before he was to leave for Ireland and telling him he must stop by his office to get a present from his colleagues?”

  Silence fell over the room. Maloney looked from Stewart to Phil and back again. “You’re accusing me?”