The Letter Killeth

by Ralph McInerny

  “And none of them has any importance for me. More likely than not it’s a distortion for sensational effect, or something I couldn’t do anything about if I wanted to. How many remote weather disasters and crimes does one have to know about?”

  “But how can you vote?”

  “Only one or two issues are truly important, and it is easy to discover where a candidate stands on those.”

  His father had taken a look at Via Media. “It reminds me of the Scholastic.”

  “The Scholastic!”

  “Of long ago, when it was the sole campus publication. I like these long accounts of lectures given.”

  In their rivals, lectures, when they were reported at all, were reduced in the search for some controversial remark, with little sense at all being given of what had actually been said.

  “You’ll find no misspellings either. Thanks to Mary Alice.”

  Writing up the wastebasket fire in Decio had been meant as a spoof, so that was a lesson of sorts. Don’t count on a sense of humor being widespread.

  11

  When Crenshaw of campus security showed up at the English department, he was not a welcome visitor. Hector, the secretary, eyed him warily when he asked about the fire in the building.

  “It was in a wastebasket,” he said.

  “Your people know they can’t smoke in this building, don’t they?”

  “No one in this department smokes!” His tone was shocked.

  “I want to see the office where it happened.”

  “For heaven’s sake. It was over before it began.”

  “Then why is it such a big story in this paper?” He produced the issue of Via Media as magicians produce rabbits.

  “That rag!”

  Crenshaw was getting nowhere, and he wasn’t sure he regretted it. Members of the faculty sometimes treated campus security as if it represented the threat of fascism. Of course the main bone of contention was parking. With the expansion of the campus, faculty parking spots were ever more distant from their offices. No wonder that some sought to leave their cars in front of residence halls as if they were visitors. The bicycle patrol handed out tickets randomly, as traffic and parking tickets are always distributed, but Crenshaw wanted them to lean on the repeat offenders. Young Larry Douglas was a conscientious member of the bike patrol. It was too bad the fines didn’t go to campus security.

  A man entered, saw Crenshaw, turned, and went out.

  “Who was that?”

  “Professor Izquierdo.”

  Crenshaw went after him. “Professor, Professor, could I talk to you?”

  The man turned, frowning, and looked up and down the uniformed Crenshaw. “Parking tickets are not a criminal offense.”

  “I’m here about the fire.”

  “I thought you were campus police.”

  “I am. Where can we talk?”

  “Come in, come in.” But Izquierdo entered his office first. Crenshaw looked at the wastebasket. It bore the marks of fire.

  “Tell me about the fire.”

  “It’s been written up.”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  Not quite true. Larry Douglas had come into Crenshaw’s office two days before, so excited he had forgotten to remove the ridiculous helmet he wore while cycling around looking for cars parked in the wrong place so he could ticket them. Larry said he had overheard an old priest talking about bomb threats on the campus. Crenshaw had shagged the kid out of his office. The trouble with Douglas, he was so glad to have the campus job that he was overzealous. But then Crenshaw’s secretary reported that there was murmuring among the staff in the Main Building about strange messages received, threatening bombs and fire. It was the story in the alternative campus paper that decided Crenshaw to look into it.

  Izquierdo tipped back in his chair. “How long have you been in your job?”

  “Since I retired from the police department.”

  “South Bend?”

  “Elkhart.”

  “I suppose they pay you peanuts.”

  “Well, I have my pension, too.”

  “Ah, pension. It’s what drives us all on. We work in order to retire. And, in your case, to work again.”

  Izquierdo was a funny duck. If he had seen him on campus, Crenshaw would have thought he was in maintenance. He wore faded jeans, lumberjack shoes, and a T-shirt bearing a legend that said sexual perversity was okay with him. An old corduroy jacket hung limply from a coat stand, along with a baggy winter coat and a very long and gaudy scarf. A deerstalker hat crowned the coat stand. It might have been a scarecrow.

  “About the fire in my wastebasket. It was set by my colleague Wack while I was in the john.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “What do you know about The Vagina Monologues?”

  “What’s that?”

  Izquierdo seemed surprised. “You really don’t know?”

  “What’s it got to do with the fire in your wastebasket?”

  “Intimidation.”

  “You said a colleague started it.”

  “Oscar Wack. An unbalanced fellow. He is insanely jealous of me. With reason, of course. I kept him off the committee sponsoring the Monologues.”

  “So he set fire to your wastebasket?”

  “You probably find this ridiculous. It is. Life is ridiculous, when you come to think of it.”

  “Why didn’t you call the fire department?”

  “Because Wack staged the whole thing so he could look like a hero putting it out.”

  “Maybe I should talk with him.”

  “It would be wiser just to keep an eye on him.”

  “That isn’t my job.”

  “I thought you wanted to know why I had a fire here.”

  The conversation went on like that. Crenshaw was glad to get out of there. The departmental secretary glared at him when he went by his door.

  Outside, he sat behind the wheel of his car and thought of Sarasota. During his long years on the Elkhart police force he had dreamed of heading for Florida as soon as he hit retirement age. But then he heard of the opening at Notre Dame security. Crenshaw’s father had served as an usher in the stadium during home football games—a visored hat, free entrance to all the games, minimal responsibilities. Notre Dame had long represented auxiliary income in the surrounding communities. The opening in security had seemed somehow a continuation of his father’s connection with Notre Dame. Not for the first time, Crenshaw thought he had made a mistake in not heading for Sarasota three years ago. He knew that security was regarded as a version of the Keystone Kops. They had the equipment, a fleet of cars, the bicycle patrol, an expanding staff, the latest in technical wizardry, but they were still figures of fun. Never had he been more aware of the lack of dignity in his job than in talking with Professor Izquierdo. The man had to be stringing him along. What a great joke it would have been if Crenshaw had taken the bait and gone to quesion the colleague, Wack.

  Bah. He started the engine and drove slowly away. A cop should always observe the speed limits he enforced. Except in an emergency, of course.

  12

  Father Tim Conway, new to the provost’s office, had been assigned the task of keeping tabs on Quirk. The alumnus seemed to represent a recurring problem, as Tim gathered from talking with others in the numerous offices that housed associate, assistant, and other adjuncts to the provost. He himself was temporarily housed in an office with Roscoe Pound, a holdover from the previous regime. They had gone off on the afternoon of the day on which Tim had met Father Carmody to Legends, where they sat over beer while Pound gave Tim the benefit of his long experience.

  “Quirk is a type. Check his record here as a student and you will probably find nothing. People like him drift through four years here. For most, football is their umbilical cord to campus after they graduate, but many get religion. They are the troublemakers.”

  “He wants us to buy a villa in Sorrento.”

  Pound chuckled. “I know, I know. But t
he idea behind it is remedial, corrective. It is a criticism of the university as it is now. He wants to bring it back to some fancied golden time. I’ll bet he mentioned the Monologues.”

  “That is a pretty raunchy thing to have put on here.”

  “Of course it is. No decent place would allow it.”

  “So?”

  “We’re no longer a decent place. Quirk is right, but it’s important not to let him know that. Look, there are three Notre Dames, the one whose history you can trace, the one such alumni as Quirk imagine, and the one we are slowly becoming.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Read Burtchaell, read Marsden.”

  Tim didn’t ask him to explain. “I’d rather hear what you think.”

  “You are.”

  They had another beer. The place was noisy and crowded, just the setting to receive Pound’s mordant view of things.

  “You were in Rome?” Pound asked.

  “For four years.”

  “And now you’ve come home.”

  “There’s a chance I’ll be sent on for a doctorate.”

  “Take it. One of our problems is that there are few priests of the Congregation on the faculty. The CSCs have become dorm mothers, campus ministers, supernumeraries.”

  “Who is Father Carmody?”

  “Ah, Carmody. He is part of the history of the place. A second violinist. He goes back to Hesburgh.”

  “I had never heard of him.”

  “That is his genius. He was always in the background, whispering memento mori in the ears of administrators.”

  It seemed odd to Tim that he should be receiving such information about the congregation he had joined immediately after graduation from a layman like Pound. It emerged that Pound was not Catholic.

  “You’re surprised. I was hired by a Calvinist.”

  * * *

  The fact that Quirk had gone off with Father Carmody gave Tim an excuse to drop in on the old priest at Holy Cross House. Here in the last stage of their religious life were the ancient members of the Congregation. Preparing for death? Most looked just bewildered and frail. They watched the young man warily as he came onto the upper floor and said he had come to see Father Carmody.

  “Oh, he wants you to meet him downstairs.”

  The nurse offered to show him where, but Tim told her he could find it. It was while he was going downstairs again that it occurred to him that he himself might end up here someday, but the thought was as remote as old age itself.

  Father Carmody looked the picture of health after the specters Tim had just seen. The old priest sat in a room where visitors could be entertained. He closed his book on his finger, then flourished it at Tim.

  “Dick Sullivan’s book on the university. Have you read it?”

  Tim asked to see it and leafed through it, not knowing what to say.

  “It is a love letter to Notre Dame. Dick signed over all royalties from it to the university. No one found that odd in those days.”

  “You knew him?”

  “In his last years. A wonderful, gentle man. He taught English and writing. He wrote fiction himself.”

  “I’ll have to look him up.”

  Father Carmody proceeded to give Tim suggestions for other reading he might do on the history of Notre Dame.

  “What do they tell you people in the novitiate nowadays?”

  No need to go into that. Tim turned the conversation to Quirk.

  “I wish those threatening letters hadn’t been mentioned in his presence,” Father Carmody said.

  “They’re just a prank, aren’t they?”

  “Let’s hope so. Phil Knight seems to think so. I asked him to look into it. Do you know the Knight brothers?”

  “I’ve heard of the one who teaches.”

  “Roger. A whale of a man, in every sense. As learned as Zahm, and yet he wears it lightly. He only teaches undergraduates. You should get to know him.”

  “Tell me about Quirk.”

  “He’s an alum, of course. Engineering. He made a modest pile and decided to retire while he could put his mind to other things. Not that he has much of a mind. Of course he is disenchanted with what the university has become.”

  “In what way?”

  The old priest considered for a moment. “There are two schools of thought on that. One holds that we are fashioning a new way to be a Catholic university. The other holds that we are ceasing to be one.”

  “Which school do you belong to?”

  “Both.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Because things are never as simple as any theory demands. The idea of buying that villa in Sorrento isn’t a bad one. We’re throwing money at everything else. And Quirk thinks that his classmate Fenster might come up with the purchase money. Of course there would be maintenance. Always remember maintenance when a new building is proposed. You can pay off the building, but maintenance is forever.”

  “The provost hasn’t rejected the idea.”

  “If he is smart, and he is, he will wait to see if the money is there.”

  “Who is Fenster?”

  “He’s staying in the Morris Inn at the moment if you want to meet him. He’s not at all like Quirk. He has mountains of money and lives like a monk. His son is the editor of Via Media.”

  Tim frowned. “Did you see the story on the fire in the English professor’s office?”

  Carmody nodded. “That wasn’t the fellow who got the threatening letter, was it?”

  “If he were, those threats could be taken as a prank. That was Wack. The fire was in the wastebasket of a professor named Izquierdo. He says Wack set the fire.”

  “No.”

  “Campus security checked it out.”

  “Campus security! Who told them?”

  “I don’t think those letters are a secret anymore.”

  “Ye gods.”

  13

  His mother worked on the campus cleaning crew, each morning tidying up the rooms of male students—the women looked after themselves—part of the contingent of serfs who were all but invisible elements of the infrastructure of Notre Dame. When she had gone to work there, Mrs. Grabowski might have done better just about anywhere else, but the idea was that her employment would smooth the way for Henry’s admission as a student. And he had worked his tail off at St. Joe High, just as he worked his tail off all summer earning his tuition for the year. In high school, he had gone out for freshman football and been all but laughed off the field, but no matter, his sights were ever on the SATs, which together with his mother’s employment at Notre Dame would get him admitted to the student body. Mr. Masterson, his advisor, encouraged him and, when the time came, wrote a recommendation.

  “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, Henry. Apply at Purdue. Apply at IU. Of course, there is always IUSB.” The South Bend campus of the state university. Henry had smiled away the suggestion. It was Notre Dame or nothing. And nothing is what he got.

  He had applied for early admission so he didn’t have to wait for the crushing disappointment. He read the bland letter so often it was etched into his memory like the legend over Dante’s Inferno. He was devastated. His advisor suggested Holy Cross College, just up the road from St. Joe High, it, too, run by the Brothers of Holy Cross.

  “Lots of kids are admitted from there as sophomores, even juniors.”

  Henry said he would think about it. But he was filled with a terrible proletarian wrath. He threw out his video of Rudy. His whole imagined future was ruined. He was filled with hatred for the university that had rejected him and all his youthful dreams. His mother was philosophical about it.

  “You can get a job on campus.” She added, “For now.”

  Maintenance, maybe even campus security. She had talked to a young man on traffic patrol, a South Bend native, Larry Douglas. She actually brought him home to tell Henry of the great opportunities to be had in Notre Dame security. So Henry applied but without hope, sure it would go the way of his ap
plication to be a student. He had been accepted, to his mother’s delight. When he filled out the final forms, Henry felt he was becoming a permanent member of the underclass.

  He and Larry became friends, more or less. What could you think of a guy who thought riding around campus on a bicycle dispensing parking tickets made him an integral part of the Notre Dame community?

  “Think of the benefits, Henry.” Larry meant hospitalization and retirement. Maybe also wearing the stupid uniform.

  Henry’s SATs meant that he had been more than qualified for admission. He just hadn’t been admitted. As he wheeled around the campus, wearing a helmet and dark glasses, he told himself that he was as at least as smart as any of the carefree students he passed. Those years of study at St. Joe, the reading he had done on his own, now seemed a joke, but he couldn’t rid his mind of what he had learned, and he couldn’t drop the habits he acquired. He began to collect syllabi of the courses he might have taken, and read the books assigned. He got to know Izquierdo when the professor came up while Henry was writing a ticket for his misparked Corvette.

  “I’m about to leave,” Izquierdo said, getting behind the wheel.

  “I can’t just tear this up.”

  “Give it to me.” He took the long slip and tore it into pieces, grinning at Henry. “Now you don’t have to.”

  “You’re a professor.” This was clear from the sticker on his windshield.

  “Is that an offense?”

  “What do you teach?”

  “English.”

  “Yeah, but what exactly?”

  “A survey of British literature.”

  “Do you do The Vicar of Wakefield?”

  Izquierdo looked at him. “Have you read it?”

  “Twice.”

  “What are you doing handing out traffic tickets?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “My office is in Decio. Come see me. But not in that uniform.”

  That is how it began. The first time, they talked about Goldsmith’s novel, then went on to other things. Henry asked if he could have Izquierdo’s syllabus. He had read half the books on the list.