Blood Ties

by Ralph McInerny

  “She was nuts about me.”

  “You know, she was. But you liked me.”

  “It was your mind.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What there was of it.” But he kissed her when he said it.

  * * *

  When the kids had gone off to school and Mark to his office, she read the letter. No salutation.

  Forgive me for the other day, but I have to know. For years I have thought about what I did to you, and hated myself, and there isn’t anything I can do about that now, but I can take responsibility for our child …

  She crumpled it, crying out as she did so. She stuffed it back into the pocket of her housecoat. Later, she put it in the book she was reading. Trollope’s Kept in the Dark. But it was insane to keep it. It was like an evil presence in the house. Two days later, she took it into the kitchen, where she burned it and washed the ashes down the disposal, which roared like a clinic’s suction machine.

  What in God’s name was she going to do? Then she remembered Amos Cadbury.

  7

  When Madeline Lorenzo was announced, the name meant nothing to Amos Cadbury, but as soon as she came into his office, the years fell away and he recognized her. The expression on her face told him that there was trouble on the horizon.

  “Do you remember me?”

  “Your name wasn’t Lorenzo then.”

  “Well, it is now. I am a married woman with a husband and children.”

  “That is a blessing.”

  It would have been nice to think that she had come simply to tell him that, after that crushing incident years ago, life had been good to her.

  “Yes, it is. I never told you who the father was.”

  “That wasn’t necessary.”

  “He has looked me up. He wants to know about the baby.”

  “What can you tell him?”

  “Nothing. Even if I knew, I would tell him nothing. He abandoned me, he let me bear the burden all by myself, and now he claims to feel remorse and wants to make it up to the child.”

  “Tell him there is no need of that. The child is now a young woman.”

  She sat back. “To think I have a daughter.”

  She shook her head slowly, a wondering look on her face. She had grown more beautiful with age. “I have four sons.”

  “God is good.”

  “Yes.” Suddenly she was anxious. “What can he do?”

  “How did he find you?”

  She thought about it. “I don’t know.”

  “That couldn’t have been easy.”

  “Can you stop him? His name is Nathaniel Fleck.”

  “That sounds familiar.”

  “Do you read novels?”

  “He is an author?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you read him?”

  Obviously, she would have liked to lie, but she nodded. “The first time I saw one of them on display at the library, I couldn’t believe it. I found several others listed in the catalog. I would never have brought them into my home. I read them in the library.”

  “And?”

  “It’s stupid, but I studied them for clues, some indication that he remembered so I could hate him more.”

  “Your husband doesn’t know?”

  “No! It would kill him. I never even considered telling him.”

  “There was no need.”

  “That’s what I told myself. Now I almost wish I had. There is no one I can talk to about this.”

  “You can talk to me.”

  “Someone should warn her.”

  “That isn’t necessary. At any rate, it is premature.”

  “Mr. Cadbury, he found me. He won’t give up. We talked, he wrote to me.”

  “Do you have his letter?”

  “I burned it.”

  “Good. I am glad you came to me with this. Let me think about it. Meanwhile, don’t do anything.” He paused. “It might be better if your husband knew.”

  A cry escaped her. “No, no, you mustn’t do that.”

  “I was thinking of you.”

  “I couldn’t. If you knew him, you would understand.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He’s a professor at Northwestern. Of philosophy.”

  “Philosophy.”

  “He wouldn’t be philosophical about this. Mr. Cadbury, this could destroy us.”

  “As I said, let me give it some thought.”

  “You mustn’t call me at home. I will call you.”

  “Of course.”

  She began to rise, then sat again. “Do you know her?”

  “Your daughter?”

  “Oh my God.” Tears stood in her eyes and Amos prayed that she would not weep.

  “You do, don’t you?”

  Half a century ago, Amos had taken a course in moral philosophy at Notre Dame in which lying was discussed. Speaking, or not speaking, with the intention to deceive. But did everyone deserve to be told the truth? Take a case. The Nazis arrive at the door and ask if there are any Jews in the house. There is a family of them hidden in the attic. What is one obliged to say? There had been unanimous agreement that answering no to such a question was not a lie, since it would be to collude in a crime. The Gestapo had no right to the truth in those circumstances. None of this was helpful to Amos now. He nodded.

  “What is she like?”

  “You would be proud of her.”

  “What is her name?”

  He thought before saying, “Martha.”

  “Martha. Martha.” As if she could taste the sound.

  “Look, the less you know, the less Nathaniel Fleck can learn from you.”

  “He will learn nothing from me. He isn’t even sure I had the baby.”

  “Good.”

  He talked with her for another half hour. At his usual rates, it would have been a very expensive visit, but of course he was fulfilling an old obligation to the Lynches. He had tried not to think the name, feeling an absurd superstition that she could read his mind. When she left, he was sure of one thing. She was far more curious about the fate of her daughter than the baby’s father could possibly be.

  * * *

  Two days went by, and she did not call. Then Amos read in the paper of the death of Nathaniel Fleck, popular novelist, run down by a car on Dirksen Boulevard in Fox River.

  Part Two

  1

  Cy Horvath checked it out after the first report of the officer who had been called to the scene, and it was clear that it was hit-and-run.

  “He climbed the curb to get him. That’s why he spun into the store window,” the officers reported.

  “He?”

  “The guy who got hit.”

  “You said he climbed the curb.”

  “The driver.”

  “Someone say it was a man?”

  Liberati, the officer, thought about it. “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Nobody said the driver was a man.”

  Horvath talked to the witnesses Liberati had gathered. Two said it was a man, one a woman. Lots of help. Everyone was sure the vehicle was an SUV. A guy with a single luxuriant eyebrow said it was a big one.

  “Not a Hummer,” said the store owner. This was Schwartz, who couldn’t shake off the horror of what he had seen. “He came sailing toward my window, looking right at me, then boom, he was halfway in the store.”

  Schwartz ran a little coffee shop that featured oddball blends. Cy ordered a cup.

  “What kind?”

  “Coffee.”

  “Gotcha.” He yelled something to the girl behind the counter. “All right to clean up?”

  “I’ll help.”

  Tables had been overturned; there was glass all over the place. A frightened couple still huddled at a small table in the back. They had seen it happen.

  “Heard it, I mean.” The boy talked through the bridge of his nose.

  “Did you see the driver?”

  “Is that what it was.”

  The girl sa
id, “I heard the motor roar when he took off.”

  “He?”

  “The driver.”

  So the gender of the driver remained undetermined. Schwartz brought him a paper mug of coffee. “That’s Colombian.”

  “How much?”

  “On the house.” Schwartz looked around, his mustache going up and down. “The house. Geez.”

  Cy took his coffee outside, where Liberati had been joined by another officer and was keeping the gawkers away from the body. Then Pippen, the assistant coroner, she of the bouncing ponytail, arrived. Thank God it wasn’t Lubins, her alleged boss. Cy took her to the body.

  Pippen was a pro, cool as a cucumber, and Cy was never sure he liked that. Women were supposed to be emotional. Like Lubins, who was a man. Of sorts. Cy took out the victim’s wallet.

  “Nathaniel Fleck.”

  “You’re kidding,” Pippen said.

  “You know him?”

  “The name. He’s kind of famous.”

  “For what?”

  “His fiction. He’s a novelist. Was.”

  “No kidding.”

  “‘The moving finger writes, and having written, moves on.’”

  “That’s his?”

  “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Okay, I’m kidding.”

  “You’re not.”

  “Have it your way. He’s a long way from home.”

  “California?”

  “You peeked.”

  “His books are all set there.”

  “You’ve read them.”

  “Some.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Look it up.”

  “I will.”

  Pippen pronounced Fleck dead; the crew she had summoned zipped him into a body bag and took him away. Pippen stood for a moment on the sidewalk, arms akimbo, looking up and down the street.

  “Nice street,” Cy said. “Once you clear away the bodies.”

  “It reminds me of Northwestern.” She looked at him. “The school.”

  “I know.”

  “You got a ride?”

  “No thanks.”

  “I’m asking.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I was shopping. Lubins got me on my pager.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Sitting beside him in the car, she seemed enveloped in perfume. Cy had a thing for Pippen, but that was between himself and God.

  “You going to do the autopsy?”

  “Yup.”

  “What a job.”

  “That’s what my husband thinks.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “Ob-gyn.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Cy, I love you.”

  “Try to fight it.”

  2

  Amos Cadbury asked Father Dowling to dinner at the University Club. Before they went to their table, Amos had a Manhattan in the library. Father Dowling asked for mineral water. No need to explain; he had told Amos everything. His work on the archdiocesan marriage court had undone him, and drink had seemed the solution. It became the problem. Sometimes he thought he had been looking for a way off the path he was on. His clerical future had seemed bright—everyone said so, he thought so himself—only the brightness dimmed. His problem intensified; he had gone to a place in Wisconsin that handled clerical drinkers, and when he emerged he had been given St. Hilary’s. Supposedly the bottom rung of the ecclesiastical ladder, it had turned out to be his salvation. His priestly life seemed to begin when he moved to Fox River. It was his background in canon law that had been the initial basis for his friendship with Amos.

  “Apart from the pleasure of your company, I had a reason for wanting to see you.”

  Father Dowling looked receptive.

  “After dinner.”

  Their table gave them a lovely view of the city, even a glimpse of the lake. The service was exquisite, the food wonderful. Amos ordered a bottle of wine. The conversation was light, but Father Dowling sensed that Amos was troubled. When they were finished, they returned to the library, where Amos ordered a brandy.

  “Dutch courage,” he said.

  “Living below sea level requires courage.”

  “I hope you’re in the mood for a long story.”

  Father Dowling got comfortable. “What is it?”

  “I needn’t say that this must be confidential.”

  “Of course.”

  “As it happens, we’ve already discussed this. In a way. It concerns a client. A woman.” Amos sipped his brandy and closed his eyes for a moment. “It was a case I was happy to take. It meant saving a baby.”

  “Ah.”

  “You know the statistics, Father. Literally millions of abortions, a slaughter of the innocents. It’s barbaric. This was a chance to save one of them. The young woman had the good sense not to abort her baby, but she decided not to keep it either. Arrangements were made to place the child in a good family. The girl went back to school. It seemed a happy ending.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  “That was years ago. The other day, the woman came to see me. She is married, has a family. I hadn’t seen her since I helped with the arrangements for her little girl.” Amos paused. “I don’t think she even knew the baby was a girl.”

  “You told her?”

  “I told her the child’s name is Martha.”

  “Ah. And now she wants to see her child.”

  Amos shook his head. “I wish it were that simple. No, it’s the father who wanted to see his child after all these years.”

  “He came to you, too?”

  “He wrote me a letter.” Amos took an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to Father Dowling.

  Dear Mr. Cadbury,

  Many years ago you arranged for the child of a girl named Madeline to be adopted. I am the father of that child. I treated the mother abominably and for years drove from my mind what I had done. The mother is now well settled in life, and I have no desire, quite the opposite, to cause her any further harm. But I have become obsessed with the need to see my child, boy or girl, I know not. You will know. I do not contemplate a confrontation. I would never tell her who I am, but I must see her. Please tell me that I may come speak with you about this. Any advice you may have would be gratefully received.

  “The signature is quite a scrawl.”

  “It is ‘Nathaniel Fleck.’”

  “I would have to know that to read it.”

  “Does that name mean anything to you?”

  “Should it?”

  “It might for several reasons. I have learned that Fleck was a successful author.”

  “Was?”

  “He was run down by a car here in Fox River two days ago.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “He had contacted the mother. She came to me in great distress. You can imagine what she thinks of him—did I say that he abandoned her in her trouble? She was furious that he had looked her up.”

  “Then she didn’t tell him to see you?”

  “She would have done nothing to indulge him.”

  “Then how this?” Father Dowling lifted the letter.

  “Obviously, he was a very enterprising man. After all, he found the girl. Finding me would have been more difficult, but not impossible.”

  Amos sipped his brandy and fell silent. Father Dowling waited for him to speak again.

  “You can imagine what I am thinking.”

  “Say it.”

  “The way the woman spoke of him makes it credible that she would have done anything to stop him.”

  “Run him down?”

  “Anything. If he had continued to try to see her…”

  “Threatening the life she now has.”

  “Exactly. So, what must I do?”

  Giving advice is more difficult than receiving it, and few are able to do even that. Father Dowling was not eager to tell Amos what to do. The fact was it was not clear what that might be. The lawyer’s suspicion that a woman had run over
the man who had abandoned her years ago and now had returned to menace the family she had formed was only that, a suspicion. In any case, there was no need to act on it at once, if at all. Nothing would be lost by seeing what course events might take. He put this into words for Amos.

  The lawyer listened but did not himself say anything for a time. Then he sighed. “Just to have spoken with you about this has been a great relief, Father.”

  “I can easily imagine that.”

  “One more reason to be grateful for our friendship.”

  “It is a two-way street, Amos.”

  “Thank you.”

  So the evening ended. Driving home, it occurred to Father Dowling that Amos had not said whether or not he would follow his advice.

  3

  “Sometimes I think Phil Keegan ought to just move in here,” Marie Murkin said.

  “I could never condone such immorality, Marie.”

  Off she went in a huff, leaving Father Dowling remorseful for his teasing. Not that he thought Marie would brood about it. Besides, she liked the frequency of Phil’s visits as much as he did. Phil had been a class or two behind him at Quigley and had been a casualty of Latin, a must in the preconciliar Church. So Phil had left and been in the service and then became a policeman, rising to chief of detectives in the Fox River Police Department. If Father Dowling could scarcely confide professional secrets in Phil, Phil took satisfaction from keeping the pastor of St. Hilary’s au courant with the real world.

  “Captain Keegan,” Marie said frostily, when she led their frequent guest to the study.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Phil asked when she banged the door shut.

  “Unrequited love.”

  “What’s that, not quite love?”

  “More or less.”

  “Anyone I know.”

  “Do you know Martin Sisk?”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “So he says. How do you know him?”

  “He had a pharmacy down by the courthouse. A lovely wife, Deirdre. Gone to God, alas. He always quizzed me about Quigley.”

  “He wanted to be my altar boy.”

  “If you ever want a server, call on me.”

  “I don’t. But I would if I did.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “The senior center.”

  “Better warn the widows.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m kidding. We did get a few complaints, though. He wanted to play doctor to female customers.”