Irish Coffee

by Ralph McInerny

  Belonging not quite to either school, Roger felt obliged to convey what Naomi had told him when visiting him on what would turn out to be the day she died.

  “If he hates Notre Dame so much what was McTear always doing in town?”

  “The last time? Baseball. He was checking out Maneri on some pro prospects the Cubs are interested in.”

  True enough, as it happened, but that single-purpose explanation did not jibe with Scott’s claim that Tom McTear had been a regular at the Hoosier Residences.

  The chastened desk clerk had been released, having saved himself attorney’s fees. But he was mindful that he had been let go because of the growing suspicion that Tom McTear had done away with his sister’s beau and unwittingly with her.

  “He must have put that package in the trash,” Scott said.

  “Too bad for him you decided to put that bag in your trunk.”

  “In a way I’m sorry about that. I told you what I was looking for. I don’t wish him any harm, you know.”

  But the news of Naomi’s death was of national interest, given her prominence on cable television. There was more than a hint in several stories that Tom had been questioned by the police and that he had been no friend of his sister’s boyfriend. That the dead couple had been engaged now went uncontested. For such a sports celebrity as Tom to be written of in this way was hardly a matter of indifference, and he demanded that Stewart spike these rumors.

  “Just tell the media you’re innocent.”

  He had done that, of course, in an interview with Laura Reith, but the reporter’s crusade had not caught on with her colleagues in the media.

  “No. That would only give credit to these wild guesses.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Find out who did this,” Tom pleaded.

  “I would like a little cooperation from you.”

  “Cooperation! I came down here like a shot, I have been at your disposal ever since arriving, what more do you want?”

  “Less interference from your lawyer. Every time I ask you a question, he puts the kibosh on it.”

  “Ask me anything.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Of course I mean it.”

  “Sure you don’t want your lawyer present?”

  “To hell with him.”

  Maurice Gibbons, a suave and gifted lawyer from Chicago who, among other clients, had the Chicago Cubs, would not have appreciated this summary dismissal. But it was an opportunity not to be disdained, so Jimmy Stewart and Philip Knight were closeted with McTear, but not until a little flare-up about Phil’s presence was settled.

  “He’s not a South Bend detective?”

  Phil said, “I represent the university.”

  “Notre Dame? What do they have to do with this?”

  “You’re kidding, right? You know where Fred worked.”

  “And you objected to my having Gibbons here.”

  “You want to give him a call?”

  “No. Let’s get on with it.”

  They got on with it, starting with the fact that Tom had been staying in the Hoosier Residences network apartment with his sister. He seemed surprised they knew that. And he was clearly unprepared for the news that in the trash bag from that apartment had been found a container of the poison that had killed Fred Neville and Naomi.

  “That seemed to point the finger at her,” said Stewart.

  “Naomi?”

  “Maybe it still does. There seems to have been a falling-out between your sister and Neville.”

  “I told her what I thought of him.”

  “You didn’t like him.”

  McTear hesitated. “I suppose you get used to it in this town, but Notre Dame fans can be a pain in the rear, and nobody works for them who isn’t a fan. How can you be objective if you’re already committed to the view that a team is God’s gift to the world?”

  “Is that how Fred felt?”

  “They all feel that way. I’ve seen it for years.”

  “Do you think it is possible your sister put that poison in Neville’s coffee cannister and then mistakenly made a pot of coffee from it?”

  “That’s an awful question to have to answer.”

  “What is the answer?”

  “I don’t know. You’re asking me if my sister was a murderer.”

  “There is another possibility, McTear. You could have put that poison in Neville’s coffee.”

  “Oh, sure. Just dropped in and loaded up his coffee.”

  “It could have been done.”

  “Tell me, what made you look into the trash from that apartment?”

  “That was courtesy of a fan of yours.”

  McTear lowered his chin and stared at Stewart. “A fan?”

  “Fellow named Scott. He is a desk clerk at the Hoosier Residences.”

  McTear was nodding.

  “Apparently you had him and some of his friends up to the apartment to watch a game. You diagrammed some plays and he hoped to find them in the trash.”

  “Did he?”

  “A guy named Anthony swiped them before Scott got to them, though.”

  “The one from the sports information department?”

  “That’s right.”

  “If he had asked, I would have given them to Scott.”

  “If you had, he wouldn’t have swiped the bag and then been forced to tell us he had put it in the trunk of his car.”

  “Forced.”

  “One of the cleaning maids…”

  A man may well wonder about the tremendous odds against things happening as they actually do. Tom McTear had little inclination to philosophy nor indeed to general theories, outside the realm of sports. But he wore a stricken look as he considered the implications of what Phil had told him.

  “I didn’t do this. I didn’t like Neville, but it was impersonal. He could have been any mad Irish fan. And I don’t mean, if not me then Naomi. Whatever else, she liked the guy. Really. I talked to her like an uncle, but to no effect. I probably strengthened her in her determination to marry him.”

  “The obstacle seems to have been on the other side.”

  Tom waved away this objection. “Naomi always got what she wanted.”

  Stewart told Tom he appreciated his sentiments but the fact remained that the container of poison had been found in the trash bag taken from the apartment in Hoosier Residences shared by the two McTears.

  “It looks like it had to be one or the other of you.”

  “What about this guy Scott?”

  “What about it?”

  “If he took the bag he might have dumped the container in it.”

  “That’s possible, of course. But unlike you and your sister, he seems to have no motivation.”

  McTear looked from Phil to Stewart. His mouth became a thin line. “I better call Gibbons.”

  4

  MARY SHUSTER WONDERED what else could happen to make a fool of her. She first heard of the death of Naomi McTear from Roger Knight and he urged her to come to them that night, with her mother. It was a welcome suggestion, but it only underscored that Mary was in need of special comfort now. For all that, before going to the Knights’ apartment, she detoured by the grotto and offered a prayer for her rival. How almost ghoulish it all now seemed. She and Naomi had been contesting for a man who was now dead. And so soon afterward, Naomi had followed him into that bourne from which no traveler returns. I alone have escaped to tell you? But it was Roger Knight who had given her the news.

  “When? Where?”

  “I’ll tell you everything we know when you get here.”

  “But where did it happen?”

  “In South Bend.”

  She did not pursue it, warned by something in his tone. She steeled herself for more bad news. Of course she had realized at the wake and funeral that many regarded her as demented. Dressing all in black had seemed the least she could do when she realized that Fred was gone. Of course she was making a statement, but she had not imag
ined that Naomi would show up. Why couldn’t the woman understand that Fred meant it when he told her their relationship was through?

  The problem was he was too gentle. Mary herself had often sensed his malleability and had to restrain herself from leading him down paths he would not himself have gone. Her great regret was that she had not balked when the question of keeping their engagement secret had arisen. She had reasons of her own, petty reasons, reasons that could easily have been set aside, but his concerned Naomi. She was sure now she could have overpowered him on that matter, insisted that a secret engagement was as good as no engagement at all. A notice in the paper would have sufficed. Naomi would only have embarrassed herself taking exception to that. And now Naomi too was dead.

  From the grotto, Mary walked back across the campus to Notre Dame Village, dreading what would be told her there, yet eager to learn. It was far worse than she could have imagined.

  Before telling her, Roger got her settled and put a glass of red wine in her hand.

  “Are you making pasta?”

  “Of course. Phil is picking up your mother.”

  “Tell me everything before she gets here.”

  “Come help.”

  The kitchen was like a sauna, a huge kettle of water aboil on the stove, sending up clouds of steam. Roger insisted on a volcanic cauldron before putting in the pasta.

  Mary listened with wonder, dread and finally foreboding. Roger told her of Naomi’s stopping by when she was ostensibly headed for the airport.

  “She must have gone from here to Fred’s apartment.”

  “The police let her in?”

  “The police had withdrawn.”

  Silence. “The building manager?”

  The steam did not conceal Roger’s agonized expression as he shook his head.

  “So she let herself in.”

  “I don’t want to put the garlic bread in the oven until your mother and Phil get here.”

  “She had a key.”

  What a racing riot of thoughts the realization brought. Had Fred really been as weak as that, telling her one thing and Naomi another. How had he spoken of her to Naomi?

  “What exactly happened to her?”

  “She brewed some coffee. The poison that killed Fred was mixed with the coffee in the cannister.”

  “Dear God.”

  “I will never forgive myself for not thinking of that. At the time, Naomi’s visit the day before he died drove other possibilities from my mind.”

  “You thought she had done it?”

  “A woman scorned.” He began to feed pasta into the boiling water. Boil, boil, toil and trouble.

  Whoever had poisoned the coffee had not intended to kill Naomi, but what if Fred had served coffee to others, using the contents of that cannister? It had stood there in the kitchen like a time bomb that could go off anytime, but certainly at sometime, and the one who had put it there could then be far away.

  “Who?”

  “Suspicion has turned on her brother Tom.”

  “Oh.”

  “He was more eager than Fred that she should end the relationship.”

  Mary thought about that. Perhaps Fred had not been as forceful as he might have been, but he had tried to clear things up before they announced their engagement.

  “Why did he hate Fred?”

  “He hated Notre Dame. It’s a long story.”

  “So it wouldn’t matter where he was when Fred died?”

  “No. There’s more. A container of the poison was found in the trash taken from the apartment where he had been staying with his sister.”

  “Has he been arrested?”

  “Detained for questioning, in the phrase. He has gotten a lawyer.”

  Was that to be the resolution of these terrible events? Mary could summon no sense of satisfaction that the one who had killed Fred would be brought to justice. Fred would still be dead, and Naomi too. For a fleeting moment she envied her rival and then the painful thoughts came. What would people make of the fact that Naomi had been able to let herself into Fred’s apartment? Despite the fact that Naomi’s death was accidental, it had the look of throwing herself on the pyre of her lost beloved. That would seem to negate Mary’s claim to have been Fred’s fiancée. People would talk, but nothing would be said in her presence, not that she knew what she could say in response. She had become a ridiculous figure indeed. When she said this, Roger gave the boiling pasta a stir with a wooden spoon and then took her in his arms.

  “You know that Fred loved you. Remember his poem.”

  Mary nodded. There was that. She could bear the public humiliation as long as she could cling to the coded poem he had written for her, declaring his love for Mary Shuster. Despite that, perhaps because of it, she wept and Roger, a veritable mountain of security, rocked her in his arms. He stepped back at the sound of the bell.

  “Would you let them in, Mary?”

  5

  ANTHONY FOUND SCOTT A different man from the one he had seen at police headquarters. Then Scott had been chastened, bewildered, no longer the cocky cynic, fearful. Now, released, his old sarcasm had returned along with his smirky smile. And there was a scarcely suppressed air of triumph.

  “You’re a writer,” he informed Anthony.

  “Of press releases.”

  Scott dismissed this. “You can handle the language, that’s all I need. I’ve had the idea of the half century. Ready? What has happened is the stuff of which books are made. You and I are going to tell all. You must know how to go about it.”

  Anthony’s first reaction was that such a book would put him in another league than Fred Neville. He was still competing with Fred, dead though he might be. But second thoughts came swiftly.

  “I don’t think the university would want to keep drawing attention to what happened to Fred.”

  “Fred! He has only a minor role. Think of it. We have a nationally-known TV personality, we have the color man for the Cubs. Fred is the bone of contention between them. I am sure that Tom McTear will cooperate with us.”

  “In jail?”

  “All the better. The condemned man tells all.”

  Laura Reith had been to Hoosier Residences, asking around, and Scott feared the reporter would have the same idea he had.

  It was a great idea, Anthony admitted that, and they began to talk about how it could be done. First, they must find a publisher. Of course the university press was out. It occurred to Anthony again that to go ahead with this would endanger his own position at the Joyce Center. No need to dwell on that now. He would play it by ear. He could discuss it with Thelma; she had the shrewdness necessary to veto the idea if she thought it would be the end of him. Thelma’s interest in him was suddenly an asset. But for the moment he sat and eagerly conspired with Scott on how they would jointly attain fame and fortune.

  “My first thought was to give you hell for stealing those pages Tom scribbled the night we were all in the apartment watching the Blackhawks. Now they can figure in the book. That will be a big chapter, underlining our central role. My finding the container of poison in the trash is of course the turning point.”

  Anthony could see that Scott might be a difficult partner to work with. There was something of condescension in the way he addressed Anthony, as if he were merely a writing machine, an instrument of his idea, a junior partner. For a fleeting moment Anthony understood Thelma’s resentment at being the doormat of the office. But he said nothing. After all, he did have those pages of Tom McTear’s.

  “Why do it with him?” Thelma said, moving her teeth thoughtfully on her lower lip.

  “It’s his idea.”

  “He couldn’t do anything with it. You have the writing skills.” She laid a long-fingered hand on his sleeve, as if to show the absence of ring. Anthony grew cautious.

  “If the university heard I was doing this I would be out on my ear.”

  “Sweetie, if you do this you won’t need the university.”

  Anthony felt alarm. Life ap
art from Notre Dame seemed a species of death.

  “I’ll help you,” Thelma said.

  “And then there’s Mary.”

  Thelma’s hand gripped his arm tightly. “What about her?”

  “Think of what she’s been through.”

  Thelma pushed away from him, rolling back behind her desk. “You really are as bad as Fred Neville.”

  “What do you mean?”

  But immediately she softened. “Nothing.”

  “It would be a ratty thing to go ahead without Scott. It was his idea.”

  “Ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s the execution that counts. I meant it when I said I’d help you.”

  For the second time in an hour Anthony was plotting the book, this time with a different collaborator. He assured Thelma she would get twin billing.

  “Does that mean I pay twice?” She nudged him.

  “Joint authorship.”

  Impulsively she kissed his cheek. “Okay, partner.”

  It turned out that Thelma had taken a course in creative writing at IUSB, the local campus of the state university, and was a font of publishing lore. They would need an agent, that was essential. Getting to a publisher with an idea involved jumping more hurdles than a track meet.

  “We’ll check it out in LMP, they’re all listed there.”

  “What’s LMP?”

  “Not Lady Make Partner. Literary Market Place. A reference book. They have it at the library.” She brightened, pulled the phone toward her with one hand and pulled the directory from a drawer with the other. In a minute, she was on the phone to the library and was put through to a person who could help. She explained what she needed. She listened.

  “Call me back, would you? Thelma Maynooth.” She gave her number.

  While they waited, she had Anthony block it out, the parts, the chapters, photographs they would want. Anthony could feel his creative juices begin to flow. He thought of Scott and suppressed the memory. He did remember that it was Thelma who had indicated that he should take the pages Tom McTear had written on while he explained hockey and baseball to them. Maybe they had become partners that night. A soothing thought. That made Scott seem an interloper.