The Widow's Mate

by Ralph McInerny

  The manager, an officious little guy named Ferret with a cookie-duster mustache, had been eager to talk about the former tenant. “My God, she was something. When a Polack is beautiful there is absolutely nothing like it.” He paused. “You Polish?”

  “Hungarian.”

  He seemed relieved. Cy showed him a photograph of Wally. Ferret nodded. “Sure, that’s her fiancé.”

  “What happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, she moved away.”

  “They were going to settle on the West Coast.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Look, she always stopped to talk. Real class.” Ferret looked around. “Most of the residents are a pain in the whatchamacallit. Expect me to tug my forelock when they go by. Not her. And generous? A huge tip every Christmas.”

  “How long did she live here?”

  “Just a couple years. But I knew her better than many who have been here forever.”

  “Where on the West Coast?”

  “California.” He thought. “I think San Diego.”

  Cy decided not to tell Ferret that Wally’s wife in Fox River had reported him missing. He made inquiries, but no Wallace Flanagan was listed in the San Diego directory. One of the problems Cy faced was what Wally could be charged with when he was found. As far as Melissa could tell, he had left all their money behind, so if she was abandoned she certainly wasn’t destitute. Of course, if Wally married Sandra Bochenski he would be committing bigamy, but when was the last time a bigamist had been put away? It was the affront to his personal memories rather than the criminal code that made Cy wish he could haul Wally in.

  Because of the personal connection, he might have stayed on it, but one case gets pushed aside by later ones; he had less and less time to devote to the mysterious disappearance of Wally Flanagan. Frank Looney was no help.

  Frank spent a lot of time in the yard and had a dusty look. He shook his head. “Know what I remember? He said more than once, ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead in this place.’ I love it.”

  “Did you see much of him?”

  Frank shook his head. “It broke my uncle’s heart when Wally told him there was no way he would take over the business. Lucky break for me, of course. I don’t know when I stopped worrying that Wally would change his mind and Uncle Luke would tell me the deal was off.”

  Talking with Melissa was the hardest thing of all.

  “We were altar boys together.” A dumb opening, but why not.

  “I remember.” Her hair was so black she looked more Spanish than Irish, and the olive skin added to the impression. Her eyes were green, so his memory had not played him false.

  “Melissa, I have to ask you. Did you have any intimation that he would leave?”

  “Why would he leave? Cy, it must be amnesia. You read of cases like that.” She shivered. “Imagine not knowing who you are.”

  “No money problems?”

  “Only that we had too much.”

  Of course, he did not tell her of meeting Sandy or the possessive way she had taken Wally’s arm, and why tell her of the number of people who just disappear and are never located? Maybe she was right and it was amnesia. In a way, that made it more likely Wally would be found. He would seek help, trying to find out who he was. Cy wished he hadn’t encouraged Melissa to think that. She reached out and laid a long-fingered hand on his arm.

  “Of course you’re right. I hired a lawyer.”

  “Isn’t Amos Cadbury the family lawyer?”

  “I couldn’t ask him to do this.”

  “Who’d you hire?”

  “A man named Tuttle.”

  Cy had made no comment. Tuttle! Now, years later, he thought of the time line since Wally disappeared. Ten years afterward, his body had been discovered in one of the Flanagan cement mixers. That seemed to put an end to it. The investigation had been intense but brief and was soon pushed aside by other matters. Cy had noticed Greg Packer at the funeral and had decided against talking to him. So once more, the waters of forgetfulness had closed over the mystery. Now, half a dozen years later, Melissa was living in the Flanagan house in St. Hilary’s parish, a frequent presence at the senior center, and Greg Packer, a graduate of Joliet, had reappeared, and the two seemed to have formed a pair.

  5

  If Tuttle had been in the habit of remembering his mistakes, hiring Hazel would be at the top of the list. She had come to his office as a part-time temp because he couldn’t afford a full-time secretary, and she had stayed on. Her motive could not have been security, at least employment security. She had learned Tuttle wasn’t married, and apparently the prospect of running his life twenty-four hours a day appealed. The thought of marriage terrified Tuttle, and the prospect of being tied to Hazel only increased the terror. That pitfall had been avoided. Tuttle was sure that his sainted parents had interceded for him and kept him single. The worst of it was that Hazel had vetoed Peanuts Pianone’s hanging around the office.

  “He’s a professional asset,” Tuttle had complained.

  “What profession?” Hazel always sat erect at the computer, with her shoulders thrown back. She was a lot of woman.

  He explained to her that Peanuts was a cop and kept him informed on what was going on at headquarters. No need to mention that his friendship with Peanuts cut his expenses since they usually drove around in the unmarked car Peanuts had been given to keep him on the move and out from under Captain Keegan’s feet.

  “What’s he done for you lately?”

  If Hazel thought Peanuts destroyed what little class Tuttle’s office had, Peanuts hated her guts. Once the two friends had whiled away hours in Tuttle’s office—Chinese or Italian food sent in, a couple of beers, a little nap afterward. In retrospect, those times could seem like heaven to Tuttle. Peanuts never had much to say, but he listened while Tuttle constructed a narrative of his life that made him seem less of a loser. Hazel had destroyed all that.

  “Get rid of her,” Peanuts muttered.

  “I owe her too much back salary.”

  “Let her sue.”

  “I could act as her lawyer.”

  “You want me to take care of it?”

  Peanuts had droopy lids, but his little agate eyes gleamed. It took a minute before Tuttle understood what Peanuts was suggesting. They never talked of the Pianone family, of course; it was too dangerous to know much about what Peanuts’s relatives were up to. Once early on, Peanuts offered to direct a little family business Tuttle’s way, and a great inner moral drama went on in the lawyer’s soul. He was saved only by the benign expression on his father’s face in the photograph on his desk. Tuttle senior had encouraged his son during the long march through law school, during which Tuttle took every class at least twice. Measured by the clock, he might be the best-educated lawyer in town, not that he remembered much from law school. On graduation, his father had ponied up the money for this office, and on the door was painted TUTTLE & TUTTLE, a tribute to his father. He told Peanuts his strengths might not match the Pianone needs. Peanuts let it go. He probably couldn’t have delivered anyway. Now there was a thought. What if Tuttle had decided to sell his soul and there was no taker?

  “Forget about Hazel, Peanuts. She’s a pain in the neck, but so what?”

  “Why have a pain in the neck?”

  He found himself singing Hazel’s praises. She ran the office like a boot camp, but she had her good points. He tried to think of one.

  This conversation took place when Peanuts was driving him back to the office after a long lunch at the Great Wall of China.

  “She wouldn’t know what hit her.”

  “Peanuts, please. Forget it. I’ll forget we ever had this conversation.”

  What would Hazel think if she knew he had been pleading for her life? The elevator in his building was still on the blink, and Tuttle was huffing and puffing when he got to his floor. Outside the office, he stood a minute, getting his breath, and looked at the legend on the door. TUTTLE &
TUTTLE. It failed to provide the usual sense of satisfaction. Was it for this that his father had sacrificed and he himself had spent all those years in the classroom? Tuttle sent up a little prayer to his father, who had died a week after Tuttle had finally managed to pass the bar exam, his sleeves full of notes, looking over the shoulder of the hotshot in front of him to see if they were answering questions in the same way.

  He pushed open the door, then almost backed into the hallway again when Hazel greeted him with a big smile.

  “I called the Great Wall.” The smile gave way to a more familiar glare. “Is your cell phone on?”

  “What’s up?”

  Hazel tore a page from a pad and thrust it at him. “I told her you’d meet her at this address.”

  “Who is she?”

  “She wants a lawyer, that’s the main thing.” Hazel paused, looking reflective. “I could come along.”

  “And leave the office untended?”

  He said it with feigned disbelief. Even so, she didn’t have to laugh like that.

  6

  Chicago brought back so many things that Sandy Bochenski had shut out of her mind during the years in California. The past sticks to the places where it happened. All you do is add water, and long-ago things are present again. Water as in tears.

  She had arranged for a room in the Whitehall over the Web and went there by cab from O’Hare. After a nap, she got into a sweat suit, laced up her tennies, pulled on a baseball hat, and set out. She told herself it was just her daily run, keeping to the schedule she’d been on for years, but this run had a destination. All she wanted to do was go by the building where she’d had the apartment, where her affair with Wally turned into their common desire to make it permanent. She jogged in place on the sidewalk across the street from the building. It might have been only yesterday that she had lived there. Suddenly she brought her arm over her mouth to stifle a sob. Passersby glanced at her, although joggers were normally invisible to the workaday world. Sandy regained her composure and then returned to the Whitehall, almost sprinting. In her room, she made the call to Tuttle, the lawyer.

  His name had become familiar to her when she scanned Chicago papers for some clue to why Wally had not joined her. After several confusing days, she had called Wally’s office, and a bright mindless voice cried, “Flanagan Investments! Your call is important to us. Please hold.” She hung up. But she called again. On the third try, she held and then asked for Mr. Flanagan.

  “Who should I say is calling?”

  She returned the phone to its cradle. Was he there? The image of him in his office conducting business as usual while she waited like a fool in San Diego, expecting him to leave all he had and join her in California …

  She bought Chicago papers; she did not know why. What did she expect to find, an apology from Wally? It was only weeks later, on a Web site, that she came upon an item telling of the disappearance of Wallace Flanagan. Her heart leapt. He was coming to her after all. For some reason, he had decided that he must cover their tracks decisively. But he was on his way, she was sure of it.

  His wife had hired a lawyer named Tuttle to look into the mystifying disappearance of her husband. Sandy read the stories with a smile. Wally had left his wife wealthy; there was no reason for him to leave; there must have been foul play.

  Whatever comfort she had derived from this development turned into deeper disappointment when days and weeks and then months passed and Wally did not join her, did not call or send any message. Sandy felt as deserted as Wally’s wife. Not as well off, of course, but Wally had contributed to Sandy’s portfolio, which under his direction had doubled in value.

  Sorrow gave way to anger, even rage, and then subsided. Wally had made a fool of her, and there was nothing to be gained from brooding on it forever. Her self-esteem returned. She remembered that she was an attractive young woman and had the wherewithal to lead a carefree life. Vegetate in the California sun? After a few months of it, she longed for some purpose in her life, so she enrolled in a business course, suppressing the thought that knowledge of financial matters would be a link to Wally. There was a practical purpose; she intended to nurture her own investments, using an online broker. Another thought to be suppressed: She would make her money into a golden mountain, and somehow that would show Wally. Then she met Greg Packer.

  He had been studying a bulletin board in the hallway when she came out of class, and he turned from it and stopped her. “Are you a student here?”

  She might have ignored him, but his smile was disarming, and he was good-looking.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I was thinking of taking a course. Look, where can we have coffee?”

  Just like that. But why not? He was a potential fellow student. It felt good to be consulted about the courses. They went to the Starbucks up the street and sat at an outside table. She noticed that he did not have the mandatory California tan. She commented on it.

  “I’ve only been here a few days.”

  “Where are you from?”

  He brought out cigarettes and then paused.“Do you mind?”

  “I’ll join you.”

  “I’m from the Chicago area.”

  He was lighting her cigarette. “You came to stay?” She exhaled the question with the smoke.

  “That depends.” He sat back and looked around with contentment. “You natives have no idea how wonderful all this seems.”

  She did not correct him. He had taken a brochure from the rack by the bulletin board, and they began to talk about the courses.

  “What are you taking?”

  She told him.

  “I wonder if I could sit in to see if I could handle it.”

  “Well, I can’t give you permission, but I don’t see why not.”

  “When is the next class?”

  “Wednesday.” It was a Monday. “It starts at three.”

  “Can we get anything to eat here?”

  “Not a meal.”

  “Where do you suggest?”

  She couldn’t believe it. Half an hour later, they were sitting across from one another in a Mrs. Paul’s, and she was telling him all about life in California. She had felt like a recruiter for the school; now she felt like someone from the tourist bureau. He seemed to get better-looking all the time, and he clearly found her attractive—and, after all, this was California. He appeared to think it was perfectly natural for two attractive strangers to be having dinner together an hour after they had first met.

  She said, “Tell me about Chicago.”

  “You wouldn’t like it.”

  Again she failed to mention that she, too, came from Chicago. What would he say if he knew she was almost as much of a newcomer as he was? A week later, when she told him, she approached the subject indirectly, asking if he knew The Great Gatsby.

  “Tell me.”

  So she told him how Nick Carraway had felt when, new in West Egg, he had been asked directions, the questioner conferring on him the freedom of the neighborhood.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I’m almost as new here as you are.”

  “Come on. I don’t believe it.”

  What a lovely smile he had. Once she fessed up, the fact that they were both from Chicago was a bond. They went on a picnic on the shore below San Juan Capistrano. Sandy had bought a car, a convertible. As they lounged on their blanket, he watched an elderly couple go down to the water hand in hand, in swimsuits.

  “Nobody grows old here,” he said wonderingly.

  He turned toward her, his face inches from hers, his eyes full of his dreamy thought. She leaned toward him and kissed him on the forehead.

  She would never forget afterward that she was the one who had turned their casual friendship into something else. She seemed to be punishing Wally, but that was not the whole of it. Greg accepted her kiss without comment, then put his hand behind her head and pressed his lips to her forehead.

  “You said the Chicago area,” she said.
r />   “Did you ever hear of Fox River?”

  Her breath caught, but she managed to say, “I think so.”

  “Beyond the western suburbs.”

  “Oh, sure.” She got out her cigarettes. She was smoking again now. “My broker came from there. His office was in the Loop, but he was a native of Fox River.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Tell me about Fox River.”

  “It would take about a minute. What was his name?”

  The first time she said it, her voice was a whisper, and that was all wrong. “Flanagan.”

  “Wally Flanagan?”

  “Don’t tell me you know him!”

  “We grew up together!”

  “Do you see him often?”

  He shook his head. “How many kids you went to school with do you still know?”

  “But you remembered his name.”

  “We were altar boys together.”

  She laughed. He watched her as she did. She stopped. “I’m sorry. I just can’t imagine the two of you as altar boys.”

  “I can still say the Latin prayers.”

  He proved it.

  “I’m Catholic, too.”

  “With a name like Bochenksi, of course.”

  Another link, another bond. What if the affair with Wally and colluding with him to betray his wife had been a providential plan to get her to California where she could meet Greg? It was a nice thought that God was looking out for her. The next Sunday, they went to Mass together. Neither of them went to communion, and several days later Sandy went to confession and poured out her story. When she received absolution, she felt that she was finally rid of the self that had been in love with Wally Flanagan. The next time they went to Mass together, they both went forward with the communicants. Kneeling beside him afterward, her face in her hands, she thanked God for bringing her Greg Packer.

  He had sat in on the class, and then he registered, so they studied together, and he marveled at how easily she picked up information on investments. She was about to tell him of her portfolio, of her motive for taking the course, but she didn’t. The way she felt about Greg now, it would have seemed like a bribe. How chaste they were. It was perfect. It was how it should be. She had no hesitation in inviting him to dinner at her apartment.