The Widow's Mate

by Ralph McInerny

  “Please give him my regards.”

  “I will.”

  * * *

  The last time Father Dowling had been in the garage apartment, he had given conditional absolution to Greg Packer. He climbed the stairs and found the apartment door open. Wally was at ease in a very comfortable-looking chair, reading. He looked up, unsurprised, when Father Dowling said hello.

  “Dad said you’d be coming.” He put a marker in his book.

  “What are you reading?”

  Wally held up the book. It was The Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy.

  “A pretty grim story.”

  “Life can be grim.”

  “Your cousin Frank came to see me.”

  “He told me. He was here.” A wry smile. “He actually thought I had come back to replace him at Flanagan Concrete.”

  “And you reassured him.”

  “I don’t know. He talks about getting away. Doing what I did.”

  For the first time, it occurred to Father Dowling that Frank Looney was in as much danger from the Pianones as Sylvia was. Marco must have arranged with Frank for the body to be found in one of the Flanagan mixers.

  “What’s he got to run away from? Dad says he’s been doing a great job managing the business.”

  Father Dowling decided to tell Wally the explanation the police had hit on of Greg Packer’s murder.

  Recalling the grisly deed that had been done there seemed to alter the aspect of the apartment. As he listened, Wally looked around as if seeing the place for the first time. “Frank wouldn’t sit down when he was here. Just paced up and down, looking at everything, checking the cabinets in the kitchen. He acted as if he had never been up here before, but, of course, he must have been thinking of what happened to Greg.”

  “He had been here before?”

  “Oh, sure. When we were young. There was talk of him living here after I was married. Maybe if he had, I wouldn’t have become involved with Sandra in the first place.” He shook his head. “What a thoughtless guy I was. Just a stone’s throw from my father’s house.”

  “Frank might have been involved when Greg decided on the way to fulfill his promise to you.”

  “What promise?”

  “To stage your death.”

  Wally seemed genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know where he got that idea. Believe me, when I heard I was dead it was the surprise of my life.”

  “You mean the way Greg did it?”

  “When I heard, I didn’t know he was involved.”

  “How did you expect him to arrange it?”

  “Father, there wasn’t any arrangement. Why Greg did it, I don’t know, but it was his own idea.”

  “But your wedding ring.”

  “He must have found it in the cabin at Garrison. The place in Minnesota. Of course, I had stopped wearing it.”

  “You didn’t ask him to stage your death?”

  “No.”

  “Then why…”

  Wally thought about it. “Maybe it had something to do with his relationship with Sylvia. She had quite a nest egg. I had seen to that. With me definitely out of the picture, or seemingly so, the coast was clear for him.”

  “But she was mixed up with Marco Pianone.”

  “She was never a good judge of men.” Another wry smile.

  * * *

  One piece of the theory as to how Greg Packer had died had to be rejected, but that left the theory intact. What difference did it make whether or not Greg was fulfilling a promise to Wally? It was what he had told Sylvia, but Wally’s suggestion about Greg’s designs on Sylvia’s money, given his previous track record in California, made sense. In any case, Greg had arranged with Marco Pianone for a dismembered body to be found in a Flanagan mixer with Wally’s wedding ring as basis for identification. Greg had paid the price of his association with the Pianones, and Sylvia remained vulnerable. So did Frank Looney.

  Father Dowling spent a sleepless night, unable to drive from his mind the sequence of events that had led up to the murder of Greg Packer. At two in the morning, he went down to the kitchen and heated some milk. He sat at his desk in the study, sipping it, hoping sleepiness would come. What came instead was the thought that Phil Keegan’s theory was all wrong.

  8

  Agnes Lamb knew that Phil Keegan was humoring her, tolerating her, but as an African-American woman she had a lifetime of experience handling that sort of thing. What she needed was an end run. She sought out Peanuts and found him in the courthouse pressroom, dozing, while Tuttle was needling Mervel for his cowardice in not writing the real story of Greg Packer’s death. Agnes took a chair. Maybe this was the end run she was looking for.

  “What good is the freedom of the press if you don’t use it?” Tuttle asked the reporter.

  “I don’t want to end up in a cement mixer.”

  “Mervel, you’d end up in bronze. Public opinion is the only real weapon in a democracy.”

  “They wouldn’t publish it.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I don’t know Singapore either, but I know it’s there.”

  “Tuttle’s right,” Agnes said.

  Tuttle turned, delighted with this support.

  Peanuts came awake with a snarl. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re talking about your family,” Agnes said.

  Peanuts struggled to his feet, glared at Agnes, and shuffled out of the room.

  “He’ll report this,” Mervel said, his voice tremulous.

  “He was sleeping.”

  “You told him we were talking about his family.”

  “With his IQ, why worry? Let me tell you what we’re going to do.”

  Tuttle pulled his chair next to hers as she outlined the plan she could almost believe she had thought of before coming to the pressroom.

  “I’ve been out to Flanagan’s, I’ve talked to Looney, but we never really looked into what happened there.”

  “That was years ago.”

  “Looney was involved. And there’s a woman, a receptionist named Myrtle. She has to know something, or at least have some idea of how it was done.”

  “Whose body was it?”

  “The best guess is some vagrant.”

  “Who donated his body to crime.” Tuttle was pleased with his remark.

  “I doubt that he was a conscious participant.”

  “What a way to go,” Mervel said.

  “Exactly. It adds to the horror. My God, what a story.”

  Mervel’s eyes filled with visions of grandeur, the intrepid reporter who defies the local crime family to satisfy the public’s right to know. Agnes noticed his change of attitude. What he needed was stiffening up.

  They adjourned to the bar across the street, where Mervel ordered a martini. “I hate martinis.”

  “Order something you like.”

  “This way I won’t overdo.”

  Agnes would not have wanted to know what Mervel considered underdoing. He was on his sixth drink before he had the courage needed to put the plan into action.

  She signed out a car, and the three of them were on their way to Flanagan Concrete.

  It was the end of the lunch hour when they arrived, pulling into the yard behind Myrtle.

  Agnes parked next to her. “Myrtle, I want to talk to you.”

  Tuttle helped Mervel out of the car. He steadied himself by putting a hand on the roof of Myrtle’s car.

  Agnes opened the passenger door and slipped in beside Myrtle. “I’d rather talk to you here than downtown.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll ask the questions. I want you to make an effort to remember what happened before that mangled body was found in a Flanagan mixer.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “You do remember that?”

  “How could I forget? But what’s the point of dredging all that up? It’s water over the dam.” And yards and yards of cement had been poured since.

  “That truck still here?”

&n
bsp; “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Of course you don’t. It must be a horrible memory.”

  “Did I say I remember anything?”

  “Myrtle, how could you possibly forget?”

  Agnes had lowered the window beside her, and Tuttle, tweed hat pushed back, stuck his head halfway inside. “I think that’s Father Dowling’s car.” He nodded his head at an old Toyota.

  “Why?

  “For one thing, there’s a prayer book on the front seat.”

  Myrtle pushed open the driver’s door, and Agnes didn’t stop her. Maybe it would be better to continue the conversation in the office. Agnes glanced into the car next to hers. Sure enough, a fat prayer book with ribbons trailing from it. As they crossed to the office building, Mervel zigzagged like a ship dodging mines. Tuttle helped him up the steps to the entrance.

  Inside, Myrtle stopped and nodded toward the closed door of the inner office. “I didn’t think he was here,” she whispered.

  “How do you know he is?” Agnes said, not whispering.

  Myrtle sat at her desk, picked up the phone, and pressed a button. Her head cocked as she waited. And waited. Finally she put down the phone.

  “He’s not there?”

  “He doesn’t answer.”

  “Shall we continue?”

  9

  The morning after his sleepless night, Father Dowling wondered how to proceed with the thought that had occurred to him in the pellucid hours before dawn. Once he questioned the basis for Phil Keegan’s theory, events took on an entirely different look. He considered talking with Amos Cadbury but rejected the idea. Putting it into words robbed it of much of the force it had in the realm of thought. All he had to do was imagine himself putting his thoughts before Phil Keegan to be dissuaded from that course. He could have spoken to Cy Horvath, but even that he hesitated to do. Meanwhile, the morning passed uneasily, and the time came for his noon Mass. Somewhere between the porch and the altar, his mind was made up. When he had finished saying Mass, he did not return to the rectory for lunch but went immediately to his car. Once he was under way, his conviction that he was on to something strengthened.

  When he turned into Flanagan Concrete, the dusty air seemed a memento mori. He pulled into a guest spot in the parking lot, got out of the car, and stood looking at the mounds of sand and rock, the ingredients of the Flanagan product. If art imitates nature, cement retains the look of the natural materials of which it is fashioned. Not much activity in evidence, but then this would still be the lunch hour.

  He mounted the steps and pushed inside to find a deserted reception desk. Beyond was an open door to an inner office. He stood for a moment, wondering if he had made this trip in vain, but calling to announce his coming would have deprived him of the element of surprise that might be essential. He went around the reception counter to the open door.

  “Hello, hello.”

  The silence seemed to deepen. He looked into the inner office.

  From a chair behind his desk, Frank Looney stared at him. “Father Dowling!”

  He looked around. “I wanted to visit the scene of the crime.” He laughed as he said it.

  “Bit of a lull right now.”

  “Lunch hour.”

  Frank pointed at the Styrofoam container on the desk. “As you can see. What can I do for you, Father?”

  “I think you can help me, Frank.”

  “Just say the word. Have a seat, have a seat.”

  Father Dowling sat. Again he looked around. “The police investigation into Greg Packer’s death has run into an impasse.”

  “How so?”

  “The Pianones.”

  Frank winced. “Please. Not when I’ve just eaten. So how can I help you?”

  “It occurred to me that the impasse can be removed.”

  “Oh?”

  “The explanation made sense. Then it occurred to me that it makes sense even if the Pianones are left out of it. We still have that body found in one of your trucks.”

  Frank frowned in thought. “I’m not following you.”

  “Surely you must realize that suspecting the Pianones gives you protection in the matter? The assumption has been that you and Marco arranged for the identification of that body as Wally’s.”

  “Now, wait a minute.”

  Father Dowling lifted a hand. “Say that you and Greg acted alone.”

  “Are you accusing me of…”

  “Desecrating a body.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Why would I do a thing like that?”

  “Oh, any number of reasons, but the main one would be to seal your claim on your position here. With Wally definitively out of the way…”

  “Wally’s back.”

  “I don’t imagine you counted on that. In any case, before his return, Greg represented a danger to you. It must have been uncomfortable realizing that your fate was in his hands.”

  Frank looked at him in silence, his expression now unreadable.

  “Having gotten rid of Greg must have seemed pointless once Wally returned.”

  Frank laughed. “What a fantasy.”

  “It’s the only explanation that makes sense. You knew of that entrance to the apartment from the garage below. Marco Pianone would not have known of that. You took the wrench from the tools over the workbench, lowered the ladder, and crept up to the apartment.”

  “I hope you haven’t told this story to anyone else.”

  “I wanted to speak with you first.”

  Frank rose and stood for a moment behind the desk, picked up a roll of heavy tape as if he intended to wrap a package, and strolled toward the window. Father Dowling watched him. Any doubt he had had that Frank had killed Greg Packer was gone. The calmness of his reaction to the accusation was eloquent of guilt. Frank crossed the room and shut the door of his office. Father Dowling had to turn in his chair to look at him.

  Frank shook his head, looking sad. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Oh, I suppose you could kill me, too. I wouldn’t recommend that, however. You’ve already spoken of wanting to get away, just disappear as Wally did. I wouldn’t recommend that either. His coming back proves that you can’t run away from yourself. Of course, I understand why the thought would occur to you.”

  There was a long silence in the office.

  “I’ve come here as a priest, Frank.”

  “You want to hear my confession?” He said it disdainfully, but then his expression changed. “That would silence you, wouldn’t it?”

  Father Dowling nodded. “It’s your conscience you can’t silence, Frank.”

  There were sounds in the outer office, and Frank looked wildly at the closed door and then sprang at Father Dowling, unreeling the tape as he came. He tipped over the chair in which Father Dowling sat, sprawling him on the floor. Before Father Dowling could get up, Frank was on him, wrapping the tape around his head and over his mouth. Father Dowling felt like a mummy as Frank pulled him to his feet and propelled him across the office and into an open closet, where he bound his hands and feet. As soon as the door shut, Father Dowling heard the voice of Agnes Lamb.

  10

  A slight noise from the inner office brought Myrtle to her feet. “What was that?”

  Tuttle headed for the door of the inner office, but before he got to it the door opened and Frank Looney came out.

  “What’s going on, Myrtle?” He tried to smile.

  Tuttle started again for the open door into the inner office, and Mervel went weaving after him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” But Frank was not quick enough. Soon they were all assembled in the inner office.

  Tuttle said, “Where is he?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Father Dowling. His car is in the lot.”

  “Who’s Father Dowling?”

  “Isn’t he the priest you went to see?” Myrtle asked.

  Frank glared at her as if he would like to strike her. Tuttle had pick
ed up a roll of tape from the desk. He looked at Frank. Frank looked at him. Frank’s gaze wavered, and Tuttle followed it. He turned, strode toward a closet door, and pulled it open. Father Dowling emerged like Lazarus. Tape clung to his head, wrists, and ankles.

  Agnes put out a foot when Frank Looney tried to bolt from the office, sending him sprawling across the floor. Tuttle helped Father Dowling remove the tape, trying to take it easy where it was stuck to the priest’s hair.

  Meanwhile, Agnes had manacled Frank Looney. “What’s the charge?” she asked Father Dowling. “Attacking a priest?”

  “I’m afraid it’s worse than that, Agnes.”

  “Greg Packer!” Tuttle cried.

  Father Dowling nodded and went to Frank Looney and spoke softly to him. Frank swung his handcuffed arms at the priest, missing, losing his balance, and careening into Mervel. The startled reporter, in self-defense, grabbed hold of Looney’s arms.

  “Good work,” Agnes said.

  She called downtown before taking Frank Looney out and was advised to hold him there until help arrived.

  “I’ve got help.”

  “Who?”

  “Tuttle, Mervel, Father Dowling.”

  “Wait there,” Cy Horvath said.

  Epilogue

  Jacuzzi, the prosecutor, swiftly obtained an indictment of Frank Looney for the murder of Greg Packer, aided by the interrogations conducted by Agnes and Cy Horvath, but even more by Frank’s remorse of conscience. His confession could be admitted as evidence, of course, but it had hardly been needed. When a man who pleaded not guilty sat day after day in sight of the jury, haggard with guilt, taking little interest in the proceedings, while Tuttle strutted and fretted his hour upon the stage, his every intervention assuring Frank Looney’s eventual conviction, even Jacuzzi could make short shrift of the matter. The guilty verdict, despite the relief it seemed to bring Frank Looney, caused no elation in the detective division. There had been no reference to the Pianones throughout the trial, and Mervel’s pretrial bid for a Pulitzer was swiftly followed by an editorial correction and apology to the prominent Fox River family. A trembling and incompletely sober Mervel was dispatched to Marco Pianone to add his personal apology, after which he went on a three-day binge.