The Widow's Mate

by Ralph McInerny

  “Have another,” Mervel advised.

  “I’m still working on this one.” Tuttle’s Guinness was still half full. Or half empty. Or both.

  “There must have been a falling-out,” Mervel said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mrs. Flanagan and the dead guy.”

  “No way.”

  Mervel snickered. “Cherchez the floozy. That’s still the best rule.”

  “You’re drunk,” Tuttle said angrily, getting off his stool.

  “Not yet.”

  Tuttle threw a couple of bills on the counter and turned to go. He was called back. He was short two bucks. How the devil could Mervel afford to drink in this place? But then he was running a tab.

  He was still angry at Mervel for his slur on Melissa Flanagan when he crossed the street. Before he reached the opposite curb, he was nearly run over. He danced out of harm’s way and then saw Peanuts Pianone behind the wheel of the car that had almost hit him. Tuttle opened the passenger door and hopped in. “You missed.”

  “The Great Wall?”

  “Where else.”

  In the restaurant, with their table covered with dishes of Oriental delicacies, Peanuts settled down to feeding himself.

  “Anything new on Gregory Packer, Peanuts?”

  Peanuts shrugged. “Someone bonked him on the head. A messy job.”

  Suddenly Peanuts sat upright. He looked around, then frowned at Tuttle.

  “You got a cell phone, Peanuts?”

  Eureka. A sly smile. He plucked a phone from his pocket and studied it as it went on buzzing. Then he punched a button and put it to his ear. “Yeah.”

  Peanuts glowered as he listened, repeated “yeah” several times, and then returned the phone to his pocket.

  “What is it?”

  “Lucky bitch.”

  “Who?” Of course, he didn’t have to ask. The only woman other than Hazel who stirred Peanuts to contempt was Agnes Lamb, the black officer, many years his junior on the force. Agnes had long since eclipsed Peanuts—not a great feat in itself, but Tuttle had heard both Phil Keegan and Cy Horvath praise the young officer. “Agnes Lamb?”

  Peanuts uttered an uncharacteristic profanity.

  “Lucky how?”

  “She thinks she found the murder weapon.”

  “Who called you?”

  A repetition of the profanity. “She wants me there. With the car.”

  Tuttle, of course, went along to the Flanagan house, expecting to find patrol cars all over the place, but there was no one in evidence. Peanuts bounced in the driveway and slammed on the brakes. When Tuttle got out, a voice called from above. Agnes Lamb was looking out a window in the apartment above the garage.

  Peanuts stayed in the car, but Tuttle went around behind the garage and up the stairs and knocked on the apartment door.

  Agnes opened it. “Where is everybody?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “Keegan, Horvath, anybody. No one is in. I told them to put it on the radio. So I called whatchamacallit.” Meaning Peanuts. Agnes crossed the living room and picked up the phone.

  “How did you get here?”

  “A cab. I had an idea, Yo-yo out there had our car, so I took a cab. And I was right.”

  “About what?”

  “Wait till the lab gets here.”

  Agnes dialed and this time was successful. A crew was on its way. When it arrived, Peanuts continued to sit behind the wheel of the car, brooding like Achilles in his tent. Tuttle followed the crew, who followed Agnes into the backyard, beyond the compost pile, where she pointed. Tuttle pressed forward and got a glimpse of the wrench scarcely visible in the weeds.

  * * *

  Photographs of the scene were being taken when Cy Horvath showed up. He looked down at the wrench and gave orders to have the wrench taken to the lab.

  He put his arm around Agnes. “Good work,” he said.

  11

  “It’s a living,” Regis McDivitt replied whenever he was asked what it was like being an undertaker. His father had always told him that they were engaged in one of the corporal works of mercy—burying the dead—but, of course, McDivitt’s and other funeral parlors made a pretty good thing of it. Regis was the third generation of McDivitts who had prepared the departed for viewing and conducted them to the church for their funeral Mass and then on to the cemetery to their final resting place. The occupation should have induced long thoughts on the contingency of existence and the inevitability of death, but Regis went about his work with a cheerful insouciance, despondent with the sad, even-tempered with the stoics, bubbly with those who seemed to think of death as a swift passage to fun and games elsewhere. The main thing was to be all things to all men.

  In the case of the final obsequies of Gregory Packer, it was difficult to know what audience one was playing to. Death by violence was rarer than one would think, at least in Regis’s experience, but when it occurred one was prepared for unbridled grief and showy despair from the survivors. But who were Gregory Packer’s survivors? There were no relatives, and any friends he had seemed to be of recent vintage.

  “Mass of the Angels?” Regis asked Father Dowling.

  “No, I think a requiem Mass.”

  “Good for you.” The words just came, and Regis backed away lest Father Dowling take offense. Apparently not. You have to be careful with the clergy, an edgy bunch, usually on their dignity. Dowling was unusual, though. McDivitt’s had secured a monopoly of St. Hilary’s funerals before Dowling’s time at the cost of free calendars with saccharine reproductions of religious art of the worst sort and, of course, the name, address, and telephone number of McDivitt, your friendly undertaker.

  Although it was a preference expressed only in the privacy of his own mind, Regis preferred an old-fashioned funeral, Latin if possible, the Dies Irae, black vestments, a seemly sense of the desolation involved in the death of a human being. Dowling said the rosary at the wake at McDivitt’s, and there was a satisfactory turnout, the folding chairs filled with the old people who hung out at the St. Hilary senior center. Regis, assuming his all-purpose expression, loitered in the back of the viewing room, happy that there was a minimum of chatter and an appropriate gloom over the assembly.

  Cy Horvath came up beside Regis. “Good turnout.”

  “Of course.” The death of Gregory Packer had been a prominent item in the local news during a slack period. Where the body is found, there the eagles will gather—or words to that effect.

  The Flanagans had been ushered to the front row: Luke, Melissa, and a cheery little woman who seemed to be with Luke. Regis had put Sandra Bochenski in the front row across the aisle from the Flanagans.

  Father Dowling had taken up his position on the kneeler in front of the open casket and begun the sorrowful mysteries when Tuttle the lawyer came in, wearing his signature tweed hat. Regis glared at it, and Tuttle removed it. He looked over the assembly and then headed down the aisle, stopping at the front row left, then taking a chair beside Sandra Bochenski.

  * * *

  Cy recognized the woman Tuttle had joined as the onetime love of Wally Flanagan. Then he was immediately distracted by the entrance of another couple. The man was Marco Pianone, but Cy did not recognize the woman. They settled into a back row. Marco Pianone! The last time Cy had seen Marco at a funeral had been a four-star send-off for a man who had likely been a victim of the family omertà.

  Five minutes later, Brenda Kelly came in, standing in the doorway for a moment until she recognized Cy. She came to stand beside him. “I’m late.”

  No later than Gregory Packer.

  “Where’s Mrs. Flanagan?” Brenda asked.

  “Front row, right side.”

  Brenda craned her neck to get a better look. “Beautiful as ever.”

  “Take a pew.”

  “I don’t have a rosary.”

  Regis produced one as if by magic and handed it to her, courtesy of McDivitt’s Funeral Home. Brenda started toward the chair
s but, recognizing Marco and his companion, scooted to the opposite side. Cy wished he had asked Brenda who the woman with Marco was.

  Marco was a distracting presence, inviting thoughts of how the body of Wally Flanagan had been found. Being found piecemeal in a cement mixer suggested the Pianone touch. Why would Marco show up for the wake of Gregory Packer?

  Father Dowling said one mystery kneeling, the next standing, to make it easier on the mourners. Marco had produced a huge rosary, the beads looking like jewels, the crucifix massive. His presence seemed a statement, but Cy could not read its meaning.

  * * *

  Tuttle had thought he would have to crawl over Sandra Bochenski to the empty seat to her left, but she moved in, and that gave him the advantage, in case he wanted to bolt. He stole a glance at her and saw that her eyes were full of tears. After what she had told him of Packer’s treatment of her, the tears should have been of the crocodile sort, but they seemed genuine. That diminished his anger at the way she had seemed to have given him the slip.

  Father Dowling finished the rosary, stood, and turned, and then people began to come forward to kneel on the prie-dieu and get a good look at the embalmed deceased.

  “You checked out of the Whitehall,” Tuttle said out of the side of his mouth.

  “I left a message with your assistant.”

  “I didn’t get it.”

  “When can we get together?”

  This was disarming. Maybe she hadn’t meant to dodge her responsibility to her professional advisor.

  “Where did you go from the Whitehall?

  For answer, she took a card from her purse and gave it to him. Tuttle had his tweed hat on his lap. He deposited the card in it.

  “Will you be at the funeral tomorrow?” She asked him.

  “Of course.”

  “We’ll talk afterward. There are things you should know.”

  * * *

  Regis McDivitt had slipped off to his office and the consolations of a mild bourbon and water. He toasted the photograph of his grandfather, the founder, and sipped complacently. You could count on Father Dowling to make things run smoothly. Not even the presence of Marco Pianone in his viewing room could upset Regis tonight. A pretty good turnout for a rolling stone; of course, it was the contingent from the St. Hilary senior center that filled the room. They knew how to say the rosary. In his line of work, Regis could not help but notice the fall-off of such pious practices. He kept a large supply of inexpensive rosaries on hand, since by and large people didn’t carry one with them nowadays. They kept them, by and large, maybe even got back into the habit of using them. Regis felt a little bit like a missionary, bringing Catholicism to Catholics. Not that he would say such a thing out loud. An undertaker was by definition a background figure, seen but not heard, the reassurance that since these grim occasions were for him almost daily fare, this one would go well.

  12

  Cy’s wife, Fran, wanted a blow-by-blow account of the wake for Gregory Packer—who was there, who said what to whom, was Regis still sucking mints.

  “It was a wake. There’s a body, you say some prayers and get out of there.”

  “Come on. Were the Flanagans there?”

  “The Flanagans were there. You’re this curious, why didn’t you come along?”

  “I hate wakes.”

  She hated funerals, too, so Cy went alone the following morning for the ten o’clock funeral Mass. Of course, he was on duty. They had six of the old guys from the center acting as pallbearers, and even then Regis had to give them a hand.

  It was pretty much the same bunch as the night before, except that Marco wasn’t there. Fran had a cat that liked hanging around the picture window of the house next door, driving the dog in the house crazy. To have the enemy so near and yet so far. Any Pianone but Peanuts was like that cat so far as Cy was concerned. The enemy you couldn’t get at. It was still a puzzle why Marco had come to the wake.

  “That was Sylvia with him,” Brenda said when he asked her.

  “That explains his coming?”

  “He came with her.”

  “Okay, why did she come?”

  “Ask me why I did.”

  Cy asked, and she told him. She and Sylvia had worked for Wally Flanagan; the dead man had been living in the garage apartment at the Flanagan home.

  “That’s it?”

  “Don’t you see?”

  “Where did you flunk logic?”

  “I wish she’d answer my e-mails.” Another convoluted explanation followed this.

  “So give her a call, write her a letter.”

  Brenda drew closer. “She’s not in the book. I don’t know where she lives.”

  “I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  “Ask her.”

  By then Sylvia had left.

  After the Mass, most of the seniors went back to the center, and there was only a small group at the cemetery, which made the three women, Brenda, Sylvia, and Sandra, all the more conspicuous. Sandra had widow status, in a way, but the other two must just like funerals. Tuttle was sticking to Sandra Bochenski like a bill collector. The casket had been placed on rollers and positioned over the open grave, effectively concealing it unless you were standing close. Rugs of artificial grass had been laid over the dirt that had come from the hole. Father Dowling, in street clothes, read from a book and sprinkled holy water on the casket, and that was it. The casket would be lowered into the grave and covered over after they left.

  Cy loped across the incline to his car. He got the news from downtown before he was halfway out of the cemetery.

  “The only fingerprints on the wrench are Luke Flanagan’s,” Agnes told him, excitement in her voice.

  “So what?”

  “So what? Did you hear me? His fingerprints are on what Dr. Pippen and others are sure was the murder weapon.”

  “Agnes, it was his house, his garage, no doubt his wrench.”

  “Cy, these are fresh prints. Very fresh.”

  If he had shared Agnes’s excitement, he would have turned around and gone back to ask Luke about it.

  “How fresh?”

  “Talk to the lab,” Agnes said, disgusted. She hung up before he could say anything else.

  Phil Keegan thought the fingerprints significant, too. “We’ve got nothing else, Cy.”

  “You want me to talk to Luke?”

  “Not yet. Agnes is going to see if she can find out where Luke was when Packer was killed.”

  “We could find that out by talking to Luke.”

  Phil shook his head. “Of course, it’s a long shot. If he was in the Loop at the time, the fingerprints don’t mean a thing.”

  By the Loop, Phil meant the place where Luke lived, just off the Magnificent Mile. Cy got Agnes on the radio and told her he would meet her there.

  * * *

  Agnes was in the lobby talking to the woman who had sat next to Luke at the wake. Her name was Maud. She looked Cy over appraisingly. “You’re a big son of a gun.”

  “I saw you at the wake.”

  She laughed. “Where else are you going to see a woman my age?”

  “But you didn’t go to the funeral.”

  “The next burial I go to will be my own. I’ve seen too much of it.”

  Agnes was getting impatient with all this banter. “Mrs. Lynn,” she broke in.

  “Maud.”

  “Maud, we’re here because we’re following routine. Could I ask you a few questions?”

  “Shoot. And I don’t mean with that.” She pointed at Agnes’s weapon. Agnes was in uniform.

  Cy let Agnes ask the questions, a little too bluntly maybe, but all of them to the point. She told Maud the approximate time of Packer’s death and explained that the routine was meant to establish where everybody was at that time.

  “I was right here.”

  “Okay. Good. And Luke Flanagan?”

  “He lives here, too.”

  “I know that. Were you together?”

>   “Sweetie, we’ve become inseparable.”

  “Right here?”

  “Right here. Well, in his room.” She dipped her head and looked at Agnes over her glasses.

  “Okay, okay.” She thanked Maud and asked her how she liked living there.

  “You call this living?”

  “You should see my place.”

  Maud was lying, Cy would have bet his badge on it, but why? She wasn’t protecting herself, so it must be Luke she was lying for. Cy watched Maud continue to wrap Agnes around her finger.

  The elevator door slid open, and a man in a wheelchair pushed himself into the lobby. His face lit up when he saw Maud, and he rolled up beside her. “Can we go for a beer?”

  “Not right now, Boleslaw.” Cy had moved toward the wheelchair, and Maud looked up at him. “This is Boleslaw Bochenski.”

  “Bochenski?”

  The old man glared at Cy.

  “Where do you go for a beer?”

  Maud told him of the bar up the street.

  “I’ll take you,” Cy said.”I could use a beer myself.”

  So he got Bochenski through the revolving doors, a bit of a trick, and rolled him up the street to the bar Maud had mentioned.

  Inside it was about thirty degrees cooler than outside, but it seemed a nice place. Cy got them settled at a table, and a waitress came over.

  “A boilermaker,” the old man said.

  “Make it two.”

  While they waited, the old man peered at Cy. “Do I know you?”

  “My name is Horvath. I’m a cop in Fox River. I know your daughter.”

  “Daughter? Do I have a daughter?”

  “Sandra.”

  “She called yesterday. I haven’t seen her for years.”

  “She’s been in California.”

  “So she said.”

  Their drinks came, and Cy dropped the subject. The old man was more interested in the ball game than in his daughter anyway. Between innings, though, he leaned toward Cy. “She moved me into that place. She pays for it. She’s not all bad.”