Irish Gilt

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by Ralph McInerny


  When he was finished, Kimberley lifted her face for his kiss.

  “I told Feeney I’m coming back to work in the morgue.”

  “I thought you were just an intern.”

  “With a raise. I have to save money for medical school.”

  “Medical school.”

  “He’ll groom me as his successor. He intends to oppose Jankowski in the primary.”

  “But that would take years.”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  He tightened his grip on her shoulders. “What Matthew Arnold wrote.”

  “You’ll have to be more explicit.”

  So he was, and she accepted. Thus was a potential pathologist lost to the St. Joseph County morgue.

  * * *

  Marjorie Waters refused to believe that a woman could have the strength to kill a man that way.

  Jim Casper disagreed. “Listen, I have known women—”

  “I am not interested in the women you have known.”

  “Neither am I. Not anymore.”

  “Besides, interest is a two-way street.”

  “You want to give me driving lessons?”

  Bernice exchanged a look with Ricardo, an old married couple watching the antics of the young.

  “It’s getting late,” Bernice said.

  “You’re right,” Jim Casper said. “I have to work tomorrow.”

  “And I have to work on my novel.”

  That brought Marjorie to her feet. For a moment she seemed to notice the difference in physical attractiveness between Jim and Ricardo, but then, as if accepting her fate, she put her arm through Jim’s. They headed for the door.

  “I don’t know what he sees in her,” Ricardo said when their guests were gone.

  “Or vice versa.”

  * * *

  A week later, Roger was in the archives with Greg Walsh examining the diary of Father Zahm.

  “So the archives gets it after all,” Roger said.

  “Until and unless the university decides to go ahead with the Zahm Center.”

  “Perhaps the expense is in your favor.”

  Greg frowned. “Father Carmody thinks he has already secured a major donor. David Nobile!”

  “Perhaps Mrs. Nobile will veto it.”

  “Who could persuade her to do that?”

  Roger smiled. He had had a talk with Rebecca after class.

  “I like him,” she had said, meaning Greg Walsh.

  “It would break his heart if the Zahm holdings, particularly the diary, were removed from the archives.”

  “My mother was livid when she heard how much Daddy spent for that Lope de Vega volume.”

  “The Zahm Center would involve a good deal more money.”

  “Well, I don’t think they will get it from my father.”

  “What a relief that would be to Greg Walsh.”

  Roger could not believe that he was dishonoring the memory of Father Zahm in this matter. Would the great scholar and writer wish to be commemorated on the campus he had left so ignominiously after his term as provincial? Perhaps not. It was more difficult to imagine the priest liking the solution of the murder of Xavier Kittock. The fact that Foster was now exploring the possibility of a plea of temporary insanity for his client suggested that the lawyer knew what the outcome of a trial would be. It was an odd notion that a declaration of mental illness could make the freedom it secured desirable, but Roger’s fundamental misgiving stemmed from the book in which Zahm had written movingly of the great women who had stood behind the great men of history. Of course, he must have guessed that a negative influence could be equally effective. Roger tried to develop this thought for Phil.

  “Forgive me, Roger, but if I never hear the name Zahm again it will be too soon.”

  “You’re certainly right to think that several have taken his name in vain.”

  “Where did he stand on football?”

  “Philip, what an interesting question. I’ll look into it.”

  ALSO BY RALPH MCINERNY

  MYSTERIES SET AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

  On This Rockne

  Lack of the Irish

  Irish Tenure

  Book of Kills

  Emerald Aisle

  Celt and Pepper

  Irish Coffee

  Green Thumb

  FATHER DOWLING MYSTERY SERIES

  Her Death of Cold

  The Seventh Station

  Bishop as Pawn

  Lying Three

  Second Vespers

  Thicker Than Water

  A Loss of Patients

  The Grass Widow

  Getting a Way with Murder

  Rest in Pieces

  The Basket Case

  Abracadaver

  Four on the Floor

  Judas Priest

  Desert Sinner

  Seed of Doubt

  A Cardinal Offense

  The Tears of Things

  Grave Undertakings

  Triple Pursuit

  Prodigal Father

  Last Things

  Requiem for a Realtor

  ANDREW BROOM MYSTERY SERIES

  Cause and Effect

  Body and Soul

  Savings and Loam

  Mom and Dead

  Law and Ardor

  Heirs and Parents

  IRISH GILT. Copyright © 2005 by Ralph McInerny. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  McInerny, Ralph M.

  Irish gilt / Ralph McInerny.—1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-312-33688-2

  ISBN-10: 0-312-33688-8

  1. Knight, Roger (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Knight, Philip (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Private investigators—Indiana—South Bend—Fiction. 4. Zahm, John Augustine, 1851–1921—Influence—Fiction. 5. University of Notre Dame—Fiction. 6. Gold mines and mining—Fiction. 7. South Bend (Ind.)—Fiction. 8. College teachers—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3563.A31166I644 2005

  813'.54—dc22

  2005047015

  First Edition: October 2005

  eISBN 9781466841956

  First eBook edition: March 2013

 

 

 


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