Blood Ties

by Ralph McInerny

  “So you won’t be entirely surprised.”

  “His main point was that we look very much alike.”

  In fact, the taciturn George Lynch had come to the noon Mass the day before and into the sacristy afterward. He declined an invitation to join the pastor for lunch—“I have to get back to the lab”—so they talked in the sacristy.

  “Martha says you have already met Madeline Lorenzo,” Father Downing said.

  “You know her name.”

  “A priest is told so many things.”

  “My fear is that Martha will next want to know who her father was.”

  “That might be more difficult,” Father Dowling said carefully.

  George Lynch then turned to his ostensible reason for coming into the sacristy. “She tells me that she wants to be married here, Father. I’m glad. Sheila and I were married in this church, and her parents before us. As the father of the bride I want you to know that I will take care of everything, all expenses. I want it to be a memorable wedding. Like my own.”

  Father Dowling assured him that his expenses would not come from the parish but from florists, caterers, dressmakers, perhaps chauffeur-driven cars.

  “Henry and Vivian speak so warmly of the way the school is now being used. Do you ever hold receptions there?”

  “There’s no reason why not. You will want to speak to Edna Hospers and secure the date.”

  George went off immediately to speak to Edna about it, and Father Dowling went to his lunch.

  “I thought you were lost,” Marie greeted him.

  “Between the porch and the altar?”

  Marie had long since learned not to respond to allusions she did not catch. Father Dowling ate his solitary lunch and afterward prepared to go out. Marie’s eyebrows rose in a question. It was tempting not to tell her where he was going, but that would have been unwise. It was important that she know where to reach him. Edna might worry that the old people in the center could suffer an injury that would involve the parish insurance, but Father Dowling sensed that for the elderly one of the perhaps unconscious attractions of coming here each day was the proximity of a priest. At their age, the awful summons might come at any time, and they would want to leave this world fortified by the sacraments of the Church.

  “I’ll be at St. Joseph’s Medical Center, Marie.”

  “What’s wrong with calling it a hospital?”

  “I’ll ask.”

  Marie shook her head. Circumlocution was another sign of the times. As he drove across town, Father Dowling thought of the German word Krankenhaus. No ambiguity about that.

  Henry Dolan had spoken to Father Dowling about Maurice. “I’m afraid he might have drifted away, Father. Until recently, he has been a great disappointment to us. And to himself, I think. Perhaps this operation is a blessing in disguise.”

  Like many a concerned parent, Henry wanted a priest to bring his child back into the fold. Not an ignoble desire, certainly, but a commission usually difficult to fulfill. For all that, Father Dowling was anxious to meet the young man of whom he had heard so much—not all of it flattering, except when Martha had spoken of her uncle.

  “Moving to California was the wisest thing he ever did,” Martha said. “If he had done it long ago, everything would be better. Families can be very oppressive. Not on purpose, maybe, but my grandparents never let up on Maurice.”

  “He is settled down in California?”

  “And there is a woman who seems to have designs on him.”

  “Ah.”

  “I kidded him that we could have a double wedding.”

  Martha gave him a little sketch of Catherine Adams that concentrated on her haircut. “She’s just flaky enough to be right for him.” Martha spoke of her uncle as if he were a difficult boy, probably something she had learned at home.

  Before going upstairs, Father Dowling looked into the chaplain’s office. Lance Higgins, in corduroy trousers, a coat sweater, and sandals but wearing a Roman collar, greeted him warmly.

  “How’s the Krankenhaus?”

  Higgins laughed. He was in his thirties, one of the younger priests who were the hope of the future, always a joy to visit. “The house of cranks? Truer than you’d think. Do you have a parishioner here?”

  “I came to see Maurice Lynch.”

  Higgins’s smile grew broader. “What a guy. He seems to have spent his life on the golf course.”

  “Maybe he has a vocation.”

  Talking with Higgins could be corrupting. He laughed at every joke, particularly the bad ones.

  Higgins closed the door. “He just shook his head when I asked if he’d like me to bring him communion. You know how rare that is nowadays. Of course, I would have found out first if he was in shape.” Higgins was indeed of the new breed that so vexed Andy Greeley and the aging crowd of clerical rebels. “His mother seems concerned about him.”

  “Was it a serious operation?”

  “Wippel talks of it as routine, but if anything had gone wrong … Well, it didn’t. Maurice Lynch came through it beautifully.”

  There was a young woman with a crew cut sitting with Maurice Lynch. She rose from her chair at the sight of Father Dowling, showing the slight uneasiness a priest is used to.

  Father Dowling went to the bed and told Maurice who he was. “Martha has told me all about you,” he added.

  “Lies, lies. You will marry her?”

  “That’s right.”

  The locution startled the young woman. Maurice laughingly explained and then introduced her. “Catherine Adams.”

  “Ah, your fiancée.”

  “My what?”

  Catherine Adams lifted her brows and smiled prettily at Maurice. “You might have told me.”

  “It was Martha, wasn’t it, Father? What a matchmaker.”

  “I like Martha,” Catherine said emphatically.

  “Maybe it was Amos Cadbury.”

  “Honestly,” she said. “In this town everybody knows everybody else.” She launched into the story of Amos and Henry Dolan coming to California to fetch Maurice. Amos had been such an old sweetie, she said. “Maybe I’ll marry him.”

  “I thought I was the older man in your life.”

  “No, the handicapped one.”

  “Every golfer is handicapped. Catherine has made a career deceiving two men into thinking she’s nuts about them. Well, now my rival is gone.”

  “Maurice!”

  He assumed a serious look. “Sorry. A bit of a tragedy, Father. And right here in River City. Our friend was run down on the street.”

  “Not Nathaniel Fleck?”

  Catherine cried, “Don’t tell me you knew him, too!”

  “Only the name.”

  “And such a name. He wouldn’t listen to me when I told him he should use a pen name. Reginald Hedge or something like that.”

  “It doesn’t seem to have prevented his success.”

  “I’m sorry I brought him up,” Maurice said.

  “And you ought to be.”

  There was an easy intimacy between the two, but it seemed to take place a level or two above real seriousness.

  When he said good-bye, Father Dowling entered into the banter. “I’ll be in my rectory if you need me.”

  Catherine was standing beside the bed. She took Maurice’s hand. “What’s wrong with here?”

  “Maurice will explain.”

  On that ambiguous note, he went off down the hall. Maurice seemed arrested at the prep school level, but Catherine Adams was more difficult to read. Obviously she had not welcomed talk of Maurice’s dead rival, if that was what Nathaniel Fleck had been. Ah, the modern world.

  15

  If every event were recorded, the world would soon be swamped by the accumulation. Of course, computers reduced everything to tininess, so the past did not submerge the present. In any case, it made police work easier. Cy Horvath was being assisted by a chubby young woman—Charlene, according to her name tag—who sat at the computer in the airli
ne office in the Loop.

  She said, “Give me that date again.”

  Cy began with the day before the memorial. Charlene clicked keys, and the monitor became a blur of activity, then steadied.

  “From LAX?”

  “Los Angeles, yes.”

  “There were four flights into O’Hare from there that day. Adams?”

  “Catherine Adams.”

  She leaned toward the monitor as she slowly scrolled. She shook her head once, then twice. Finally, four times. She looked up at Cy. “Zilch.”

  “Why don’t we just go back to the day before, and then the day before that, and—”

  She was already doing it. Her fingers flew; flights and passenger lists appeared; she scanned them and shook her head. She struck oil when she had gone back five days before the memorial at Northwestern.

  “Could you print that out for me?”

  “Let me see your ID again.”

  Cy opened and shut his wallet.

  “That was fast.”

  He opened it again. She looked from the photograph to him. “I hope the picture on your driver’s license is better.”

  She punched a button, and the printer began to whir. When it stopped, she tore a page free and handed it to him.

  “Thanks.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me?”

  “No.”

  She shrugged.

  He said, “It’s just routine.” He folded the printout and put it in his jacket pocket. Then a thought occurred to him. “Do you have a record of rental cars?”

  “Of course not.”

  He thanked her again and left. In his car, he sat behind the wheel and got out the passenger list Charlene had given him. Adams, Catherine. All it proved was that she hadn’t walked or driven from California. She had arrived in midafternoon. Where had she stayed and how had she gotten there? O’Hare was ringed with hotels, and courtesy vehicles took passengers back and forth to them. The thought of checking them all—and, if he drew a blank, all those in the Loop—was not inviting. Maybe she had stayed in Evanston. That wasn’t much help. To put off the evil day, he decided he would try the rental car agencies. They all had offices in the Loop, so that simplified it somewhat.

  He got out of his car and went back inside. Charlene looked up in surprise.

  “Let me use your phone book. The yellow pages.”

  “You look familiar.”

  “You’ve seen my photograph.”

  She pulled the directory out of a desk drawer and plunked it on the counter. “Adams is spelled with an A.”

  “So is Avis.”

  He found the appropriate page and began to jot down numbers. “Could I use your phone?”

  “This is getting to be like a citizen’s arrest.”

  “That isn’t what it means.”

  “Dial nine for an outside line.”

  He dialed nine several times, identifying himself and asking each agency if they had rental records there. The answer was always the same. “It’s all on the computer.”

  At the agency that tries harder, the second he went to, a girl who reminded him of his protégé Agnes Lamb did what Charlene had done at the airline, with the difference that he knew what date he wanted checked. The girl peered at the monitor and shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yup.”

  “Thanks.”

  That was the answer he had got at his first stop. He got the same answer at the other agencies. So he was back to the daunting number of hotels. The thought of Agnes suggested that he go back to Fox River and let someone else do the donkey work.

  Agnes Lamb just looked at him when he told her what he wanted.

  “You want all these hotels called?” He had helpfully opened the yellow pages for her. There were pages of hotel listings. “Even Peanuts could do this.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “So do I. Can I have help with this?”

  Cy rounded up three secretaries, including Phil Keegan’s. He thought of putting Zeller on it, too, but rejected the idea. He left the four surly women and went to see if Dr. Pippen was busy.

  “You’re back to the hit-and-run?” Pippen asked.

  “It’s a slow day.”

  “What about the body in the trunk?”

  “It’ll keep.”

  “Ha ha.”

  She went over her report for him in great detail, and he followed carefully, hoping some inspiration would come. It didn’t.

  “What did you expect, a tire tread on the body?”

  All he had was that plastic bag with paint removed from the parking meter the vehicle had grazed after putting Fleck through the window of the coffee shop. But that was useless without a vehicle to match it with.

  Agnes Lamb looked in, all smiles. “The Hyatt Regency in the Loop.”

  “How long did she stay?”

  Agnes glanced at her notes. “Looks like a week.”

  “Not even Peanuts could have done better.”

  Agnes stuck out her tongue and left.

  “Isn’t she beautiful?” Pippen said.

  “All girls are beautiful.”

  “I’m a girl.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re the assistant coroner.”

  “Don’t rub it in.”

  “It’s better than being an Ojibwa.”

  “Who was staying at the Hyatt Regency?”

  “Another beautiful girl.”

  That night, he watched television with his wife. After they went to bed, when he was almost asleep, inspiration came. Well, a hunch. He got out of bed, took the printout from his jacket pocket, and went into the bathroom with it. Catherine Adams topped the list. He let his eye run down it and found what he hadn’t known he was looking for. Lynch, Maurice. If the list had reflected seating assignments, the names would have been side by side.

  “Cy,” his wife called drowsily. “Is anything the matter?”

  He went back to the bed, got in, and patted her thigh. Then he lay wondering what the significance of his discovery was. The elation he had felt in the bathroom drained away. It probably didn’t mean a thing.

  16

  “Five hundred,” Tuttle said when Hazel asked him what to bill Bernard Casey.

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Three hundred?”

  “A thousand! You can come down if he complains.”

  “Then charge Martin Sisk the same amount.”

  “With pleasure.”

  “Not during office hours.”

  “That creep hasn’t called me for days.”

  “Any more irate girlfriends?”

  She ignored him. The hope that Martin would take Hazel off his hands was fading. Maybe he could bargain.

  “Make out the bill for Sisk, and I’ll deliver it in person.”

  “I could do that.”

  A tempting alternative, but Tuttle rejected it. Indirection seemed more promising than unleashing Hazel on Martin. She made out the bill, put it in an envelope, and handed it to him. “Tell him it’s a letter bomb from me.”

  “Patience, Hazel, I told you, you’ve made a conquest.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Tuttle drove to St. Hilary’s and parked by the former school. What had once been the playground was filled with the elderly, moving slowly from one basketball net to the other. Tuttle pushed through the door and into a large room where a variety of games were being played. There was the click of billiard balls and the slap of cards, a rattling from the shuffleboard game. It seemed an argument against growing old. Martin was leaning over the billiard table, lining up a shot. The reaction to Tuttle’s entrance communicated itself to him. He looked up; his cue moved involuntarily, and he missed his shot. His opponent chortled, then noticed Tuttle, too. Good God, it was Henry Dolan.

  The doctor strode toward him.

  “What do you want now?” he asked with controlled anger.

  Suddenly Dolan’s wife was at his side. Tuttle felt like cast off gum they had stepped in. Tut
tle looked past them to Martin and beckoned to him. Martin shook his head frantically. A little silver-haired woman came and took his cue, and he darted away from her and headed for the door. Tuttle followed. Martin scampered across the parking lot. Tuttle caught him as he was trying to unlock the door of his car.

  Martin wheeled on him. “Are you crazy, coming here?”

  The Dolans, too, had come outside, with the little silver-haired woman. Tuttle went around Martin’s car and pulled open the passenger door. Martin was behind the wheel.

  “We better get out of here, Martin.”

  This advice was taken. They drove past the three witnesses at the door, and Tuttle tipped his hat. He was retrieving calling cards when Martin bumped out of the parking lot and drove up the street out of sight, then stopped.

  “What the hell is this, Tuttle?”

  “I bring a message from Hazel.”

  “I don’t want any message from Hazel!”

  “I can hardly tell her that. After what’s happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Gentlemen never tell, Martin. But ladies do.”

  “It’s a lie.”

  “Gallantry will get you nowhere.”

  “The Dolans told me you had been to their house. What I had to endure! But everything was back to normal, and now you show up.”

  “Who is the little lady with the silver hair?”

  “She is none of your business.”

  “I ask, of course, on behalf of Hazel.”

  Martin turned. “Tuttle, you have to call her off. Please.” There was desperation in Martin’s popping eyes.

  “She sent you this.”

  Martin looked at the envelope with dread. “I won’t accept it.”

  “Better read it before you decide.”

  Martin tore open the envelope and extracted its contents. He looked at Tuttle. “This is a bill.” He looked at it again and then became earnest. “If I pay this, will you call her off?”

  “That seems reasonable.”

  “I’ll send you a check.”

  Tuttle smiled and shook his head. “Hazel would never forgive me if I returned empty-handed.”

  “Damn it!” But he brought out his checkbook and opened it. “Do you have a pen?”

  Tuttle handed him a ballpoint. Martin balanced the book on the steering wheel and wrote as swiftly as this permitted. He signed his name with savage finality, then tore out the check.