The Green Revolution

by Ralph McInerny

  “A pair of shoes,” Cholis said with a sad smile. Jimmy expected the lawyer to wag a disapproving finger.

  “With George Wintheiser’s name in them.”

  “They’re custom made,” George said.

  Cholis ignored his client. “How did you come into possession of these shoes?” Jimmy had them on his desk, huge, not as shiny as the ones Wintheiser now wore, but obviously well made and expensive. Jimmy reviewed what Larry Douglas had learned.

  “One of your men?”

  “He’s in Notre Dame campus security.”

  “Not one of your men.”

  Cholis would not have had the reputation he did if he couldn’t get half an hour’s diversion out of that. Had Douglas made a report? How was anyone to know whether what he had told Jimmy was true or false?

  “There are the shoes,” Jimmy said patiently. He liked Cholis. Everybody liked Cholis. That was how he got through your defenses.

  “Indeed they are. Shoes with the name of my client in them. But what on earth significance do they have?”

  Jimmy reviewed what had happened last Sunday morning on campus: the cleaning crew, the discovery of the body of Ignatius Willis on the putting green. Cholis nodded through the recital with an approving smile, as if he might prompt Jimmy if needed.

  “Very good. Very good. Now what connection is there between those shoes and the suicide found on the putting green?”

  “There were footprints that match these shoes, on the green and at the first tee, where the towel from the ball washer was missing.”

  “The towel from the ball washer was missing,” Cholis repeated with obvious delight.

  His major point had been slipped in like a stiletto. The suicide on the putting green. If that was how Willis had died, they could find footprints all over the campus, they could find them on the body itself, and it would make no difference.

  Jacuzzi, the prosecutor, was sitting in. He wanted to see Cholis in action. He still didn’t know if they had any kind of crime here.

  “The verdict of suicide is not firm.”

  “Either he committed suicide or he didn’t. If he did, you are wasting my time and my client’s.”

  “You know Feeney,” Jacuzzi said.

  “Ah.”

  “He thinks it might possibly have been suicide.”

  Cholis threw up his hands. “Gentlemen, this has been most interesting. My client and I are now going to leave.” He turned and looked sadly at Jacuzzi. “Did you encourage them in this, Emile?”

  The two lawyers went off down the hall, chattering away. George Wintheiser stopped in the doorway before following them.

  “Can I take my shoes?”

  “Not yet,” Jimmy said.

  He was relieved when Wintheiser left. If he had just walked over, picked up his shoes, and gone, there wouldn’t have been a thing Jimmy could have done about it. It had been a miserable performance. He felt like an idiot—and he blamed Larry Douglas.

  “We should have mentioned how the towel was stuffed in his mouth,” Larry said.

  It was because he suspected the fun Cholis could have with that that Jimmy hadn’t brought it up.

  “I’m going to talk to Feeney,” Larry said, scrambling to his feet.

  “Give him my regards.”

  “I have a contact in his office.” Larry waited but then, getting no reaction, left.

  7

  When Larry stopped at his place to change into civvies, he found a note pinned to his pillow. I love you. L. He took the little pink square of paper and crumpled it in his fist. How in hell had she got in here? Larry wore all his keys dangling from his belt when he was in uniform. It would be like Laura to remove the key to his apartment, have a copy made, and … Naw. She was too dumb for that. Besides, he had other things on his mind than Laura, important things.

  Thinking back over the scene in Jimmy’s office, he didn’t fault the detective for wanting someone to blame. And if there was anyone to blame, Larry supposed it was himself. The thing was, he remained convinced that he had done a helluva lot more than identify a pair of shoes as belonging to George Wintheiser. Cholis had made short work of Jimmy’s question as to how the shoes had ended up in a trash barrel not fifty yards from where the body of Iggie Willis had been found. And Jimmy Stewart had no doubt been right not to provide Cholis more fun by mentioning how the green towel they had found was stuffed in the dead man’s mouth. It didn’t matter. It was Feeney’s indecision that blew any case against Wintheiser out the window.

  It occurred to Larry that they had never gotten around to asking what motive Wintheiser would have for killing Iggie Willis. He went back to campus and the network’s command central in the huge moving-van-like truck nestled against the stadium. As he approached it, a little fellow came out the door, danced down the steps, and headed south. It was the fellow they had seen on screen before, talking from the field, Piero something.

  “Hey,” Larry said, running after the man. He had to yell again before the guy turned around. He waited for Larry to catch up with him.

  “Do I know you?”

  Larry got out his wallet and flashed it the way Jimmy had. “Police. How well do you know George Wintheiser?”

  “How well? I work with the sonofabitch.”

  “We found his shoes, the ones that made the prints at the scene of the crime.”

  “No kidding.”

  Piero moved around on his dancer’s feet, looking at Larry, waiting for more.

  “The question comes up, what did Wintheiser have against Willis?”

  The little guy made a face.“Talk to his wife, Pearl.”

  “Of course we’ll do that.” Jimmy had told Larry that Pearl Wintheiser had called to tell the police that her husband wore Strombergs. “Was there some kind of falling-out between them?”

  Piero lit a filtered cigarette and took a deep drag, his eyes thoughtful. “I suppose there isn’t anything I could tell you that you won’t find out sooner or later anyway.”

  They went to a bench that had Moose Krause in bronze on one end and sat. More in sorrow than in anger, Piero told Larry the whole sad story. Pearl had worked for Iggie in his dental office; one thing led to another; Pearl and George broke up. “So she ends up with neither of them,” Piero said. “Unless George goes back to her.”

  “Having taken care of the competition.”

  Peiro sat back, in shock. “Hey, you said that, not me.”

  * * *

  On the way to talk to Feeney, looking ahead to seeing Kimberley there, Larry thought: Well, we have a suspect, we have a motive. The big question is, do we have a crime? Is there a statute against stuffing a towel in a dead man’s mouth?

  * * *

  Feeney was out, having a drink with his father, but Kimberley was there. “There’s no point in waiting,” she said. “It could be an hour. More.”

  Larry found her lovelier than ever. Once he had turned her head by whispering poetry in her ear, but Henry Grabowski had aced him out by filling that same ear with French and Latin verse. Well, he had learned a lesson from that. Larry sighed. “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?”

  Her eyes widened. “I thought you didn’t know French.”

  “Not as much as I’d like to.” Actually, he had only one more line and then the well was empty.

  “Who wrote it?”

  “Villon.” His correct pronunciation was as good as another verse. Larry did not want to remember that it was Laura who had corrected him when he made the poet sound like a villain.

  “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t suppose any translation can do justice to poetry. It really lives only in the language in which it was written.”

  “That’s interesting.” Her eyes were looking at him in the same admiring way they had before the advent of Henry.

  He was about to give the line from Jules Laforgue, but he checked himself. If there was something of her former receptivity in Kimberley’s manner, he didn’t want to alter it by a frontal
assault.

  “We’re still looking into the death of Ignatius Willis. Is the body still here?”

  “His wife is taking her time about claiming it. It took a while to locate her. It’s a darn good thing he wasn’t taken away.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Dr. Feeney is such a fussbudget. You know how careful he is not to give a verdict he can’t back up.”

  “Like suicide?”

  “Oh, he knows now that it couldn’t have been suicide.”

  “He does! How?”

  “He’ll have to explain it to you.”

  * * *

  By the time Feeney returned, Larry had used Jules Laforgue and a line of Latin he had found cited in an old novel. Sed sic sic sine fine feriati.

  “Latin!” Kimberley cried. “What does it mean?”

  “It’s a kissing poem. ‘And thus endlessly do we make holiday.’”

  “Say it again. In Latin.”

  He did.

  “What’s Feeney’s name doing in it?”

  It might have been the coroner’s cue. He came in, looked at the two young people, and kept going to his office. “I won’t interrupt,” he said.

  But Larry followed him right into his office.

  “What have you found out about the way Willis died?”

  Alarm shone in Feeney’s eyes. He looked accusingly at Kimberley, who had followed Larry in.

  “You can’t keep it a secret, Feeney.”

  What Feeney had found out was that someone had whacked Willis on the back of the head. This simple piece of information was woven into a fabric of excuses. He had been concentrating on the contents of the stomach, of the blood. He had found what he had found and thus had not really dwelled on the scan of the head. “He had a funny head, Larry. All kinds of unusual ridges and bumps. He was lucky he wasn’t bald.” When Feeney did a first cursory examination of Willis’s head, he thought the welt on the back of the head was just one more oddity. “And there was no discoloration. He must have died before a bruise could form.” But the blow had caused a concussion.

  “Thank God,” Larry cried. “Have you told Jimmy Stewart this?”

  “What does it change?”

  “Everything.”

  “So there was a concussion. Who’s to say he died of that? At most it was a contributing factor.”

  “For God’s sake, Feeney. Someone struck him down.”

  “His death was most likely due to alcohol poisoning.”

  “Would you swear to that?”

  While the coroner was trying to figure out how to answer that, Larry picked up Feeney’s phone and called Jimmy Stewart. Feeney looked on in alarm as Larry said, “Stewart, Feeney has just told me that Willis was struck on the back of the head. Causing a concussion. That means he was attacked!”

  Larry noticed that Kimberley was admiring his decisive manner.

  “I’ll be right over,” Jimmy said.

  “I’ll be here.”

  8

  When Roger had brought the unraveled Lipschutz to Holy Cross House, his usually condescending colleague had been reduced to a whimpering whining parody of his usual imperious self. He had been publicly humiliated, he had been physically threatened. Was it possible that a full professor could be treated in this way? Roger made soothing remarks as they whisked along the lake path and then climbed slowly up a steep incline to the level of Holy Cross House. The entrance on the lake side of the retirement home was close to Father Carmody’s room. Lights were on in the old priest’s apartment. Leaving the cowering Lipschutz in the golf cart, Roger went and tapped on Father Carmody’s window. He could see the old priest respond to the noise, but he seemed not to know where it was coming from. The next time, Roger tapped on his window with his keys. In response, the window went dark. Roger stepped back and waved his arms. Only with the light out could Father Carmody see him.

  The window cranked open. “Roger?”

  “Could you let us in, Father?”

  “I’ll come to the door on this side of the house. Do you know where it is?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Roger went back to his golf cart and parked it closer to the entrance, which was soon opened.

  “Come,” Roger said, getting a hand under Lipschutz’s elbow. Lipschutz was docile still, and Roger guided him to the door and inside. At the sight of Father Carmody, Lipschutz let out an anguished cry.

  “You!” Face-to-face with the agent of his public humiliation, Lipschutz began to tremble. He turned as if to go. Father Carmody got hold of Lipschutz’s other arm, and they steered him into the old priest’s room.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s had several unnerving experiences.”

  “You tore up my petition,” Lipschutz said accusingly.

  “Kindest thing I could have done for you.”

  “I can’t stay here. This is impossible.”

  They got him into a chair, and Father Carmody called for a nurse. She came and listened and probed. “I don’t see anything wrong with him. I’ll call the doctor.”

  “No need for that, my dear. What this man needs is rest. A sedative.”

  In that house, this was equivalent to little more than an aspirin. The nurse went off on her squeaky shoes and was soon back with some tablets in a little paper cup.

  “What is that?” Lipschutz’s eyes rolled from the nurse to Roger and then fleetingly to his nemesis, Father Carmody.

  “Just something to relax you,” Roger promised.

  Relax him it did. Before he went completely under, the nurse led him off to an empty room, in which Lipschutz would enjoy some fifteen hours of uninterrupted sleep. Meanwhile, Roger dined with Father Carmody in the refectory, the inhabitants who could get about settled at tables all around them. In this company, Father Carmody looked almost young. Afterward, back in Father Carmody’s room, they reviewed the events of the past week. Roger had talked to Phil some hours before and was able to describe the finding of the Stromberg shoes and the questioning of George Wintheiser.

  “George Wintheiser! The football player? Impossible.”

  * * *

  The necessary is what cannot not be, the possible what can be, and what better sign that something can be than that it actually is? In other moods, on other topics, Father Carmody might have appreciated Roger’s metaphysical reminders, but in the case of George Wintheiser he was in the classical position of the confidante, or in this case confessor, who knows more than he can say. He had meant it when he declared it impossible that George Wintheiser should be involved in the death of Iggie Willis. On the other hand, he knew of the reckless liaison between Iggie and George’s wife, the irrepressible Pearl. This had led to her alienation from George, separation, talk of annulment and divorce, and the separation of Iggie and his wife. Two impossible women. No possible. After all, as Roger had reminded him, what is actual is possible. Ab esse ad posse valet illatio.

  Father Carmody was not a misogynist. He knew many admirable women. His devotion to the Blessed Virgin, the patron of the university, was deep and heartfelt. Years ago, though, when George had introduced him to Pearl, Father Carmody had felt forebodings. He remembered an old song, too old for George to know: “You can bring Pearl, she’s a darn nice girl, but don’t bring Lulu.… I’ll bring her myself.” Pearl was a lovely young girl, a St. Mary’s girl, talking, laughing, clinging to George’s arm; why hadn’t he been able to see them as just another happy young couple? To say that Pearl had the eyes of a cat would only reveal that Father Carmody had never liked cats. Possessive as Pearl was of George, she seemed always to be flirting, looking around …

  All of this was pure speculation, of course, and Father Carmody would not for the life of him have said any of it aloud. Still, such thoughts had lessened the delight he felt when he presided over the wedding of Pearl and George, transforming them into Mr. and Mrs. George Wintheiser. If Pearl seemed too flighty and immature to be a bride, George seemed miscast as a football player. He was a great
football player, at Notre Dame and later with Green Bay, but professor after professor had told Father Carmody that the huge young man was one of the best students they had ever had. Of course, there is no contradiction between brain and brawn, no matter what Aristotle said. How many could acquire a doctorate almost in their spare time, let alone a doctorate in Hittite? George had no desire to become an academic, however, and dismissed Father Carmody’s suggestion that he become Notre Dame’s designated Hittite.

  “Study’s for fun, Father. Sports is my work.”

  But of course sports turns one into a nomad, first as a player, later, in George’s case, as a commentator, flying around the country from game to game. Not an ideal background for a marriage. Not when one had a wife like Pearl and there were such chuckleheads in the world as Iggie Willis. Father Carmody had not been surprised when George came to tell him it was all over between him and Pearl.

  “What do you think of annulments, Father?”

  “Don’t get me started.”

  “You don’t approve of them?”

  Careful, careful. Father Carmody did not aspire to be more Catholic than the Church. It wasn’t annulments, per se, as he once would have said, but the way they were being dished out that caused dismay. Catholic divorce, as cynics said. Not even God can make what has been not to have been. An annulment was the judgment that a marriage had not taken place, that there was nothing to dissolve. Having presided at the Wintheiser wedding, Father Carmody was not inclined to think it hadn’t happened. Flawed acts, acts that are later regretted, remain acts that did happen.

  Enough. Roger Knight was a bad influence on him. The next thing he knew he would be discoursing on the real distinction between essence and existence. Meanwhile, he went downtown to be with George in this difficult hour.

  9

  The second interrogation of George Wintheiser led to his arraignment and incarceration. “Incarceration” was the word that Cholis, his wily lawyer, used each time he referred to his client’s confinement in the county jail, under suspicion of wrongful contribution to the death of another. His pronunciation of the word involved a series of exaggerated facial expressions, each of which he held for perhaps a beat longer than necessary. So said, the word conjured up the prisoner of Zenda, the poor little shoemaker from A Tale of Two Cities, and other victims of injustice. Cholis explicitly alluded to St. Paul and the Roman prison. “In that case, as in this, the angel of truth will lead an innocent man forth from captivity.” Indeed, it was not long before Cholis had Wintheiser out on bail.