Prodigal Father
Page 28
“Where is his grave, Leo?”
“Take a left at the next fork.”
“You know it pretty well.”
“I told you. I used to visit him and tell him what I thought of him.”
A charming scene, a resentful grandson muttering over the grave of a grandfather he had never known. “That’s it,” Leo said. “The houselike thing on that little hill.”
They got out of the car and walked side by side across the lawn between the graves. The mausoleum was an impressive structure with the word CORBETT displayed across the front. It had a greenish door with huge iron hinges. The names of the buried were etched in the door.
“Is that your father’s name?”
Leo nodded. “It was when he was buried that it first hit me.”
“What?”
“My grandfather built this pyramid to rot in and left me with nothing. I had just learned that what my father had been given ran out when he died.”
“Perhaps you’ll be buried here, too.”
“Come around to the other side, away from the road.”
“The car’s pretty obvious.”
Leo thought about that. “Give me your keys.”
Father Dowling gave him the keys. He was waiting for something; he wasn’t sure yet what is was. Leo wasn’t such a monster when you got to know him a bit. Leo started toward the car, then turned.
“You going to run?”
“Would you want me to?”
Leo tried to smile. “You’re a strange man. You didn’t have to get involved, you know. It’s not my fault it’s ending up like this.”
“No.”
“I’ll catch you if you run.”
“I’ll wait.”
Leo started off slowly, but then he began to hurry. When he got to the car, he didn’t get in. He went to the rear and unlocked the trunk. When he closed it, he had a lug wrench in his hand. He came swiftly back across the grass to Father Dowling.
“You should have run.”
“I’m not much of a runner.”
They stood facing one another, Leo with the wrench dangling from his hand, the priest facing him.
“I don’t want to do this.”
“Then don’t.”
Through the trees, Father Dowling saw cars on the road. Some of them parking. He spoke to Leo with new urgency.
“Leo, you’re at the end of the trail. Think of what you learned when you were a child. I can hear your confession.”
Leo laughed. “You want to hear my confession? Okay. I put an ax in that priest’s back, I drowned Charlotte. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I already knew that.”
Figures were moving toward them, from tree to tree, keeping out of sight, but getting closer. “Give me the wrench, Leo.”
“Sure. Where would you like it?” He lifted it menacingly, holding it aloft, glaring at Father Dowling, And then a shot was fired.
Leo spun in pained surprise, the wrench dropped, and his hand went to his shoulder. He looked accusingly at Father Dowling, but then the police converged on them. It was Phil Keegan who wrestled Leo to the ground.
“It’s all right, Phil. He’s harmless.”
“He is now.”
Coda
It was perhaps a sign of the times that public sympathy for Leo Corbett rose as the memory of his crimes faded. The brutal murder of Nathaniel and the drowning of Charlotte Priebe in her bath were eclipsed by a long interview with Leo in his cell by Monique Parle of the Tribune. Monique had hitherto written indignant essays on the various ways Fox River disappointed her, usually featured on the fourth page of the second section, but her interview with Leo catapulted her into the front ranks of journalists. At least onto page one of the Tribune.
“Was he always so fat?” Marie asked, frowning at the paper.
“I think he may have lost weight.”
On Monique’s telling, Leo was a victim of callous parents—an eccentric father, a mother guilty of substance abuse. As for the heartlessness of Maurice Corbett, words failed Monique.
Leo, spruced up for the occasion, looked soulfully at the camera. There were no pictures of the body of Nathaniel at the grotto or of Charlotte in her tub. Leo seemed to be confined to a cell for vague and nameless reasons while Monique told the litany of his grievances.
“They’ll find him guilty,” Phil Keegan said to allay Marie’s fears. “He could spend ten years in prison.”
“Ten years! They should lock him up and throw away the key.”
Marie’s thirst for justice was currently out of vogue and often confused with a desire for revenge. Of course, justice can be hungered for out of less-than-exalted motives, but it did seem basic that Leo Corbett should pay the price for the murders he had committed.
Charlotte’s successor at Anderson Ltd., a slim, bald, boyish man who moved with the grace of a ballet dancer, floated the suggestion that Leo had authored the message found on Charlotte’s computer in a libelous effort to divert suspicion from himself. More grist for Monique’s mill. The powerful and mighty could not leave Leo alone.
The trial was postponed for a second time in an effort to have it moved to another jurisdiction. Meanwhile, the wedding of Rita Martinez and Michael George was center stage at St. Hilary’s. An ecumenical compromise had been reached. There would be a nuptial Mass said by Father Dowling and at the reception Father Maximilian would bless the happy couple.
“But what of the children?” Marie wanted to know.
“Sufficent for the day are the compromises thereof,” Father Dowling murmured.
“She’ll make a Catholic out of him,” Marie decided, her solution to the Great Schism.
The visit of Stanley Morgan to the rectory put Marie’s diplomatic skills to an ultimate test. Here was a man whose praises she had initially sung but whose subsequent behavior had placed him in her doghouse. Stanley showed up unannounced at the kitchen door putting Marie into a momentary fluster. His manner was deferential, his smile engaging. Marie asked him in.
“I’ll never forget the day you gave me tea here,” he said. “It seems a lifetime ago.”
“I’ll put some on now.”
“No. No. Thank you, Mrs. Murkin.”
“Marie,” she corrected.
“I just wanted to stop and say good-bye.”
“Good-bye?”
“I’m returning to California. At least for the time being.”
“Well, after what you’ve been through …”
“It was my own fault.”
“I never really thought you could have done such a thing,” Marie lied. Her memories of Stanley’s first visit to her kitchen returned, and with them her benevolent feeling for him.
She ignored his refusal, putting on tea. And there was peach pie as well. She sat across from him, watching him eat.
“Is Father Dowling here?”
“Not at the moment. Stanley, anything you want to say, you can say to me.”
“You’re very good.”
“Goodness has nothing to do with it. It’s my job.”
“Well.”
So he told her of his stay at Marygrove, and of his hope to confront Nathaniel. He spoke ruefully of his time in jail. And they were as one in lamenting the reaction of the Georges, father and son. But now Nathaniel was dead and Stanley free.
He stood then and with his hands on the back of the chair, gave Marie’s kitchen a valedictory look. Suddenly he leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
“Good-bye, Marie.”
And he was gone. From the doorway Marie watched with tear-blurred eyes as he went down the back steps. Hers was a tough and thankless job, by and large, but there came moments that made it all seem worthwhile. But where was he going?
Marie stepped out on the porch and could see Stanley hurrying along the sidewalk in the direction of the school. A frown came over her face. Was he going to say good-bye to Edna Hospers, too? Marie turned, went back inside and pulled the kitchen door shut with a bang.
&
nbsp; Father Dowling and Boniface were on the path that led to the grotto at Marygrove. How much had happened in the weeks since Father Dowling had made his retreat here. But somber as many of those events had been, Boniface was in an almost jolly mood. The cardinal had approved the battle plan for the resurgence of the Athanasian Order. The two priests were discussing publicity for clerical retreats to be offered at Marygrove, a project good in itself but also a means of reacquainting the local clergy with the Athanasians.
“And vocations?” Father Dowling asked.
“Just this morning I received a very serious inquiry.”
“Ah.”
“I put him off. A person needs time to ponder so serious a move.”
“Is it anyone I know?”
“Stanley Morgan.”
Well, Our Lord had recruited tax collectors and fishermen. There was nothing to prevent a financial advisor from being called to the altar.
“Was it his stay here that put the idea in his head?”
“That and his time in jail.”
Father Dowling looked at Boniface, but there was no irony in that serene countenance.
“I suppose there are precedents.”
“I have been trying to think of one. St. Paul won’t quite do.”
“No.”
“Morgan could start a trend.”
“Yes. Perhaps, in the fullness of time, Leo Corbett will knock on your door.”
Boniface threw up his hands. “May the Good Lord spare us that. Parce nobis, domine.”
They came to the grotto and knelt, Boniface having whispered that the prie-dieu on which Nathaniel’s body had been found had been relocated. Flames of vigil lights danced against the blackened wall of the grotto; the smell of burning wax was sweet in the nostrils. Father Dowling prayed for Nathaniel and for Charlotte Priebe and for all those who had been involved in recent events. It was a pleasant thought that Nathaniel’s old partner might take his place among the Athanasians.
Also by Ralph McInerny
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
Mysteries Set at the University of Notre Dame
On This Rockne
Lack of the Irish
Irish Tenure
The Book of Kills
Emerald Aisle
Andrew Broom Mystery Series
Cause and Effect
Body and Soul
Savings and Loam
Mom and Dead
Law and Ardor
Heirs and Parents
PRODIGAL FATHER. Copyright © 2002 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
eISBN 9781429977791
First eBook Edition : July 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McInerny, Ralph M.
Prodigal father: a Father Dowling mystery / Ralph McInerny.—1st ed. p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-29129-9
1. Dowling, Father (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Catholic Church—Clergy—Fiction. 3. Land tenure—Fiction. 4. Illinois—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.A31166 P76 2002
813’.54—dc21
2001058865
First Edition: July 2002