Prodigal Father

by Ralph McInerny

  “By Leo Corbett.”

  “Manipulated by Tuttle.”

  “Tuttle does seem to be the sand in the machinery, doesn’t he? I have undertaken to speak to Leo Corbett directly. I made some of the same comments about Tuttle that you have. I told him how very likely it would be that he would end up with nothing if he persisted in the course Tuttle had laid out.”

  “Did Mr. Anderson ask you to do this?”

  “I acted on my own.”

  “Is that the prerogative of an administrative assistant?” Why was he so fascinated by this young creature?

  “If administrative assistants had to be told what to do they would be useless to their employer.”

  “So you talked to Leo Corbett. What did he say?”

  “He came to adopt my point of view on the matter entirely.”

  “And Tuttle?”

  “Tuttle will no longer serve Leo as lawyer. I hope you will agree that there is now an entirely new setting in which matters can be discussed.”

  “I wish you had gotten to Leo Corbett before Tuttle did.”

  “I have tried to undo the damage.”

  Amos Cadbury spoke with supreme confidence that the law was on his side in this matter, but he knew how much the law was now influenced by what was called public opinion—the manipulation of the many by the few who controlled the media. Murderers were acquitted in the face of overwhelming and damning evidence because the mob was aroused. There were circus lawyers who argued not to the judge or jury but to the television cameras, who massaged newsmen outside the courtroom, campaigned with the public for pressure to be put on judge and jury to give the people what they demanded. And if a murderer was convicted, immediately a campaign was begun to prevent punishment being exacted. People kept vigil outside prisons, holding lighted candles like pilgrims to a shrine, members of a new cult against capital punishment. Of course, it was punishment itself that was the target, the notions of responsibility and guilt. Agents were separated from their deeds, deeds from their consequences, crime from punishment. There were days when Amos was certain he would not willingly be an hour younger than he was. God only knew what lay ahead for the law, and for society. Now the pope and bishops were seemingly aligned with this antinomian crusade, albeit for different reasons, but did they not see the company they were keeping?

  No court was untouched by such developments. Tuttle and that dreadful journalist understood this too well. Those articles had been aimed at whatever magistrate might have to decide if a case were brought against Maurice Corbett’s will, and Amos no longer believed there was anyone on the bench with the courage to stand against such an onslaught. And so it was that he gave Miss Priebe to understand, with much circumlocution and committing himself to nothing, that the old maxim about half a loaf might still be considered to be in effect. She rose, again she offered her hand. Only then did she give him the benefit of her radiant smile and the daring decolletage. These, he reflected after she had gone, were far older weapons in influencing the course of justice than the manufacture of public opinion. But with Miss Priebe, feminine charms had followed rather than preceded their conversation. A most impressive young woman.

  9

  Rise up, O judge of the earth; render punishment to the proud.

  —Psalm 94

  Tuttle had returned from the scene of the crime with his tweed hat on the back of his head and the chest of a pouter pigeon. Hazel rose from her desk like the angel of judgment.

  “Where have you been till this hour?” She put the wrist on which she wore her watch beneath her chin, but her eyes did not leave Tuttle.

  “Any calls?”

  “Do you have any idea what’s been going on all morning?”

  “Tell me about it.” He sauntered into his office, swept off his tweed hat, and sailed it toward the coat rack in the corner. It dropped on the pole, rotated several times, and was hung. Tuttle stared. He had never done that before. Clearly a new epoch had arrived. He dropped into his chair, pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk, and propped his shoes on it. Hands behind his head, he looked insolently at Hazel. Her expression changed. Something like doubt came into her eyes.

  “You know about the murder of the priest?”

  “Father Nathaniel? I’ve spent the morning there, as the guest of the police.”

  “You mean that Pianone?”

  “Officer Pianone and I were admitted at the barricaded entrance and then were briefed by police, coroner, and reporters. I came away satisfied that an already tight case had now become a walk in the park.”

  Hazel sat. Was that an admiring smile? Did this harridan who had acquired squatters’ rights in his office realize the caliber of the man to whom she had presumed to attach herself?

  “Tell me everything.”

  There are triumphant moments in every life, a time when everything has suddenly fallen into place in one’s favor, enemies vanquished, all hopes realized, legitimate enjoyment in victory permitted. Such moments were rare to the point of nonexistence in Tuttle’s life. All the more reason for him to wring from this one every ounce of satisfaction. He recounted his activities of the day in minute detail and he had in Hazel Barnes a listener transfixed by his narrative. Even without embellishment, it would have been an interesting story. Nor did Tuttle fail to underscore the role that his friendship with Peanuts had played.

  “You should take him to lunch,” she said.

  “Peanuts and I frequently have lunch together.”

  “You should ask him here, order something in.”

  “He wouldn’t come.”

  “I’ll ask him myself.”

  Oh, how sweet is the taste of victory. Tuttle might be slouched behind his desk, feet in a drawer, hands behind his head, but metaphorically he stood tall with his foot pressing on the neck of his humbled oppressor. She would call Peanuts! He could imagine her wheedling voice, the honeyed words, the begging.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Leo Corbett should hear this. Have you talked to him yet?” The question was asked with a trembling voice, as if she feared the extent of his declaration of independence.

  “Get hold of him, would you? I’d like to see him.”

  But Hazel’s efforts to locate Leo were in vain. At his apartment, she got only the message on his answering machine, a droning, psychotic request that she say something after the beep. The voice descended into the depths at the end of the message. Nor was he at the country club.

  “Keep trying.”

  Hazel kept trying with similar results and gradually the atmosphere in the office altered. Leo’s mysterious absence was interpreted as points against the hitherto triumphant Tuttle.

  “You should have gone to get him and brought him here.”

  “But he isn’t at home.”

  “Not now. You should have had that Pianone pick him up before you went to the scene of the crime.”

  Sensing the turn of the tide, Tuttle scrambled to his feet. “I’m going to track him down.”

  “He’s not a fugitive, Tuttle.”

  He remembered the scene in the kitchen of the lodge, when he had seen a man who could only have been Stanley Morgan slip out of the house. Should he tell this now, to regain the ascendancy? But he feared that the results would be negative. He slapped on his tweed hat, circled Hazel, and took the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator and feel her malevolent eye on him.

  Hazel said Leo wasn’t a fugitive, but Tuttle was experiencing the all-too-familiar feeling that a client thought safely in the bag had made his escape. That the grandson’s prospects had been brightened by the murder of Father Nathaniel and the further lowering of public esteem for the Athanasians would have occurred to others and Leo’s susceptibility to professional advice made it all too plausible that some vulture had gotten to him. But what lawyer would welcome the thought of going mano a mano with Amos Cadbury in any Fox River courtroom? And then the darkest thought of all occurred. Cadbury had alienated his client from him! Oh, he could d
o this in the most ethical way, manage to have Leo banging on his door and demanding admission, all too willing to repudiate the lawyer who had stood by him when no one else would have given a plugged nickel for his chances. Tuttle jerked open the door of his car and Farniente, the private investigator, nearly fell onto the sidewalk, sputtering with indignation as he came awake.

  “For crying out loud, Tuttle, you trying to kill me?”

  “Just the man I want to see.”

  “What do you think I’m waiting here for?”

  “Waiting?”

  “I know something you want to know.”

  “Leo Corbett?”

  Farniente’s sly smile faded. “You know.”

  “Move over.”

  Farniente eased himself with considerable concern for his manhood over the shift which separated the two front seats. Tuttle got behind the wheel.

  “What about Leo Corbett?”

  “He’s thick as thieves with Lars Anderson’s Girl Friday.”

  “Leo? Don’t be nuts. He’s more likely to join the Athanasians.”

  “Tuttle, think about it. You want to lose your client?”

  “How am I going to do that?” Tuttle turned the key and listened to the engine emit a series of complaints before it finally turned over.

  “It suits you fine that Corbett is in bed with Anderson?”

  “I thought you said his administrative assistant.”

  “A figure of speech, a figure of speech. She is Anderson’s indentured servant, anything she does, she is doing for Anderson. When your client moves in with her, I smell a deal. Admit it, you didn’t know anything about it.”

  Tuttle felt desolated. An hour ago he had been on an emotional high, king of the mountain. Now he was shagged out his office by Hazel on a comeback and confronted by Farniente with the confirmation of his worst fears. Anderson, of course. The wily builder would want his hooks in Leo now that the young man might be the way of getting hold of that property.

  “How do you know this?”

  “I never reveal my sources.”

  “Neither does the Mississippi. Who told you?”

  Farniente was silent. Tuttle turned and saw that the private detective was jabbing himself in the chest. “Me. I saw her lead him into corporate headquarters like a lamb to the slaughter.”

  “When was this?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “And you rushed right over to tell me?”

  “Tuttle, it could have meant anything. You’re a busy man. Then, when that priest gets killed and the stock of those other priests is bound to plummet and your client looks to be in a much better position, I put two and two together.”

  “So why didn’t you come upstairs?”

  “Hazel would have wormed it out of me and then what good is my information?”

  “The question is, what do I do with it?”

  “You go see Leo.”

  “He doesn’t answer his phone.”

  “Does that mean he isn’t there?”

  The apartment house in which Leo lived had been built during the 1920s, the last word at the time, but many architectural words had been spoken since. He was on the third floor, back, and there wasn’t an elevator. In the entryway, unlocked, was a wall of mailboxes, arranged according to the floors of the building. There was no name in the box for Leo’s apartment.

  “You sure this is the building, Farn?”

  “You want to call Hazel and have her check the address he gave you?”

  “Let’s go up.”

  Three flights, and the huffing and puffing he heard was Farniente’s as well as his own. Tuttle felt like a process server. He beat on the door of 3D the way he would like to beat on Leo if he was pulling a rat on him. Farniente reached forward and turned the knob. The door opened. They walked into a minimally furnished apartment, a sofa and an easy chair, another chair with a padded seat, a lamp from whose shade dangled the kind of chain Tuttle hadn’t seen in years.

  “He rented it furnished,” Farniente concluded.

  But Tuttle had gone down the hallway and pushed open the bedroom door. A queen-size mattress on a frame, no headboard, a chair in the corner, an empty closet.

  “He’s moved,” Farniente said.

  “I didn’t need a detective to tell me that.”

  Downstairs in the lobby, they opened the door to stairs leading down. The basement apartment was occupied by an old guy, sitting before a blaring television with a headset clamped over his ears, looking bug-eyed at the screen. Farniente removed the headset.

  “Hey, what the hell?”

  “Police,” he lied, then covered it with a truth. “I’m Detective Farniente. Where is 3D?”

  The old man studied the remote control he grasped as if 3D might be there. “This is a black-and-white.”

  “Leo Corbett,” Tuttle explained. “The young man who lived on the third floor back. He’s wanted for questioning.”

  The old man’s milky eyes lit up like Newton’s when he got hit with the apple.

  “He moved! He’s gone.” And then, in a semblance of indignation, “What do you mean, busting in like this? That’s the White Sox.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “How should I know? He was paid up and he waived his deposit. He can go wherever he wants.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “Let me see your identification.”

  “I was about to ask you for yours,” Farniente said. “How do we know you are who you say you are?”

  “But I didn’t say.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  Tuttle turned and dragged himself up the stairs. Farniente followed a few minutes later. They went back to Tuttle’s car and sat in silence for five minutes. Then Tuttle spoke.

  “You’re hired.”

  “You want me to find Leo Corbett.”

  “That’s right. Where can I drop you?”

  “My car is parked near your office.”

  “Take a cab. I’m not going back.”

  “It’ll be on your bill.”

  Tuttle nodded. Farniente opened the passenger door. “I’ll find him.” The door slammed. Tuttle adjusted his tweed hat. He took it off and looked at it. He remembered sailing it at the coatrack and making a ringer, the first in his life. When he looked up, he turned on the windshield wipers. It’s wasn’t raining. There were tears in Tuttle’s eyes.

  10

  The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

  —Psalm 145

  At the grotto, yellow plastic ribbons fluttered in the evening breeze, and a uniformed officer was on duty. Boniface had seen them at work and heard from others how they had gone over the scene, gathering evidence for what now seemed the obvious explanation. Stanley Morgan had been arrested and was being held under suspicion of murdering Father Nathaniel. Father Dowling had come with that news. The unspoken message was that Boniface no longer had to fear that someone in the community had done the awful deed. But he had thought no one capable of it other than himself. No need to say that again. Father Dowling seemed to think that he was dramatizing his role.

  “It’s quite by accident that it happened here. People will realize that eventually. Morgan might have taken his vengeance in California and we would never have heard of it.”

  “Does he admit it?”

  “Criminals almost never do. I quote Captain Keegan.”

  “What must the life of a policeman be like?”

  “Phil Keegan sees life in terms of justice, you and I in terms of mercy.”

  But the mercy Boniface craved was for himself. He had confessed his murderous thoughts, he had been absolved, but the stain remained on his soul. We are not so easily rid of what we think and do and even the certainty of having been forgiven does not undo the past. Throughout his long life as a religious, Boniface had regarded the violent deeds of men as the actions of almost another species. The sins and faults of the religious must look to worldly men as mere peccadilloes, but it was the work of a lifetime to
root them out—not to be annoyed by the foibles and weaknesses of others, but to be patient, to try to fill the heart with charity, forgiving others as one had been forgiven. Pride was a constant threat, particularly when one began to think he was making great progress in holiness, but the capital sins became almost unimaginable. And now, in his twilight years, he had had in his soul the hatred Cain had felt for Abel. Even now, when Nathaniel was dead, carried off in a bag to be transferred to the icy fastness of the coroner’s lair, to be opened and examined, all observations recorded, he could not forgive him for the trouble he had brought upon the Order. But he knew he must forgive him and pray for his soul.

  How different an ending to this life than Nathaniel would have imagined when he was a novice and a young priest. Long years doing the work to which he had dedicated himself, eventually wearing out and dying with all the consolations of the Church. His body would have been lying in state in the chapel now, and the rest of them would have kept vigil through the night.

  “He must be buried from here, Father Dowling.”

  The pastor of St. Hilary’s frowned. “I was going to suggest a quiet funeral at my parish.”

  “No. He had returned. He wanted reinstatement. It will be granted to him posthumously.”

  Yes. That was the way. They would wake him in the chapel and he would be buried in the community cemetery out beyond the orchards, the simple cross over his grave identical to all the others. His birth date, his profession, the date of his death. No need to mention the long gap when he had lived in the world.

  “I should never have permitted Stanley Morgan to stay here. From the beginning I distrusted him. When he told me who he really was and why he had come, I should have made him leave immediately.”

  “How were you to know?”

  But in retrospect, it seemed that he’d had an intimation, that letting Morgan remain had been an unconscious acquiescence in the solution of their difficulties. Wasn’t it a matter of pride to want to take such responsibility? He must rid himself of these self-indulgent thoughts. It seemed to him that he was wallowing in self-pity and, worse, enjoying it.