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“Think of it, man. Sadler is found poisoned and the same kind of poison is found in your water bottle.”

“But it wasn't my bottle.”

Father Carmody ignored this. “Your other roommates were not targeted. Of course that raises an interesting question. Do you by any chance remember Dennis Grantley?”

“The golf coach?”

“Exactly. Now, he said something to me when we were talking of what happened to Sadler. His candidate was Ben Barley.”

“Barley!”

“Why do you suppose he would think a thing like that?”

“Didn't you ask him?”

“At the time, I was trying to get rid of him. Now with this new development, and given the fact that Barley seems immune to threat, the remark returned. What do you think?”

“I think Grantley must be nuts.”

Father Carmody chuckled. “You could make a case for that. Frankly I was surprised that he even remembered Barley.”

Chris was very conscious of Maureen waiting in the car. Had he been dragged over here only to hear the speculations of an aged golf coach?

“Father, it's a preposterous idea. Of the three of us I would say that Barley was the closest to Mort Sadler. The two of them got together regularly. I know of absolutely no basis for the suggestion that Ben would harm Mort.”

“Or you?”

“Father, I see Ben maybe once a year. We're old friends…”

He tried to imagine Ben Barley poisoning Mort and trying to poison him. It would have been far less preposterous if it had been Crown. He had been creeping around last night, eavesdropping on the exchange between Chris and Mort. He immediately rejected the thought. He shook his head, violently.

“None of us would dream of harming the other.”

Father Carmody beamed. “Of course not. So it had to be someone else.”

“That's right.”

“Who?”

“I haven't the faintest idea.”

“Very well. But I want you to give the matter some thought. The sooner this is cleared up, the better for Notre Dame.”

He felt that he was escaping when he left the old priest's room and when he got into the car, Maureen noticed he was upset.

“That bad?”

On the way to Niles, he told her about the conversation and she listened in silence.

“Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

She hesitated. “I think it was Mortimer Sadler.”

That made more sense than thinking it was Ben Barley.

20

When Patricia Sadler got off the plane from Minneapolis with her daughter Vivian, Paul was there to meet them. Patricia took her nephew in her arms.

“I can't believe this has happened.”

Paul patted her back, then held her close, saying nothing. Vivian looked on, silent and solemn. While they waited for the baggage to appear, they stood side by side, aunt and nephew.

“Your father will come tomorrow, Paul.”

“Good.”

It was as if they were both acknowledging that Samuel Sadler was not only the oldest son but now the undisputed head of the family, a role he had hitherto relinquished to his brother. Mort was the practical one; he had taken over the family insurance agency and brought it to new heights of prosperity; he was the director of the Sadler Foundation and had proposed the gift to Notre Dame that resulted in a residence hall that bore the equivocal name The Mortimer Sadler Residence, named ostensibly after their father.

“Why not just Sadler Residence Hall?” Paul had asked his father.

“Your grandfather's name was Mortimer.”

“But that's my uncle's name as well.”

“There has always been a Mortimer in the family.”

Aunt Patricia now said, “The other girls are going to drive down in the van. Of course they had to arrange for babysitters.”

Three of Paul's older cousins were married and had children. Vivian was the youngest and, being his age, the one he knew best. His aunt told him that the husbands would, of course, come for the funeral.

“It doesn't have to be here.”

“Paul, it's what he would have wanted.”

A light began to flash and then the carousel started to move. When his aunt pointed out their bags, Paul retrieved them, and then they were on the way to his car. When they were under way, his aunt beside him, the still-silent Vivian in the back, she said in a controlled voice, “Now tell me all about it.”

As he talked, Paul managed to adopt his aunt's attitude toward her husband. This was a trick he had learned whenever her father came up when he and Vivian talked. Mortimer Sadler immediate family clearly had no idea what a shit he was, but then it was his treatment of his brother Sam that enraged Paul, and it was received opinion in the family that good old Sam enjoyed playing second fiddle to his younger brother. The sad thing was that this was true. By all rights, it should have been his father who annoyed Paul, not his Uncle Mort.

“When I got the call I had the distinct feeling that they thought Mort had killed himself.”

“That's no longer the theory.” And he told her of the bottle of poisoned water that had been found in Chris Toolin's golf bag.

“Oh, thank God he didn't drink from it.”

At the Morris Inn, she and Vivian registered and his aunt thanked Paul for meeting her plane. He turned and Vivian came into his arms.

“Francie's here.”

“I know.”

“That will make it easier.”

“Yes. Mom and I will have things to do now, you know,” she said in a low voice.

“If I can be of any help…”

“Paul, you've been wonderful.” And his Aunt Patricia once more took him in her arms and began to cry. She was still crying when the elevator doors closed on her and Vivian.

Outside, Paul stood under the canopy and looked beyond the university club to the ugly silhouette of DeBartolo, a classroom building. He lit a cigarette and strolled to one of the benches across from the entrance to the Morris Inn, where he sat and tried to feel the peacefulness of the campus. There was a lull between sports camps now, and it was a relief not to have to face a hall full of squealing kids. He had taken the summer job at Notre Dame in order to be away from Minneapolis, but the arrival of his uncle had reminded him of all his grievances against him. He had skipped the last meeting of the family foundation, e-mailing his judgment of the applications, giving a thumbs-down to those he thought his uncle might favor. Sitting there on the bench outside the Morris Inn, finishing his cigarette, he wished he hadn't said to Francie what he had about his uncle. She had enough family troubles of her own.

His memories of his mother were achingly tender, and he loved his father for settling into the life of a widower. Francie's parents sounded like a couple of kids, always squabbling. Maureen O'Kelly was just too attractive for her own good, and she couldn't resist coming on to men. Some feminist. Did she lead men on in order to act indignant when they responded? Paul had felt her power himself the day she showed him around her flower garden. She seemed to want to be her daughter's rival. Now she was separated from Francie's father and despite Francie's confidence that the breach would be healed, Paul sensed her dread that her mother was going to try to be a girl again. Not that Dr. O'Kelly was much better. It was Maureen's suspicion about him and Laura Kennedy that had precipitated the breakup. Good God, the man must be sixty years old.

“Laura is the same age, Paul,” Francie had said.

Old people talked about the foolishness of the young but what of their own acting up? Paul, of course, thought the force that through the green fuse drives the flower must abate with age, to be followed by serenity and rectitude. He had begun to wonder if perhaps temptation continued to the grave.

21

Dennis Grantley's room on the second floor of the firehouse was as austere as a Carthusian's cell. Over the years, he had progressively discarded his possessions until now a few hangers in the closet were sufficient for his clothes, a single bookshelf held a small selection of golf instructional manuals and as-told-to lives of a dozen professional golfers. His television had gone on the blink, and he got rid of it and did not replace it. The pharmacopeia that had been his father's was the one reminder of his parents, a kind of family bible. His radio was tuned to WSND, the local FM channel that featured classical music and, on weekends, Brother Pedro playing golden oldies and commenting on them in his cracked confiding voice. An easy chair, collapsed and comfortable under a lamp, and a single bed over which hung a color photo of the Golden Dome, a dresser for shirts and shorts and socks. He looked around his room with a judicious eye. Could he pare his life even closer to the bone?

No miser ever derived more pleasure from the acquisitive impulse than Grantley did from liberating himself from the tyranny of possessions. His golf cart belonged to the university; his car was twenty-five years old. Members of the Congregation of Holy Cross took the vow of poverty, but Grantley warmed himself with the thought that he was poorer than any of them. The one thing he had not acquired was poverty of spirit. He was proud of the bareness of his room. Even as he drank Father Carmody's Irish whiskey he silently condemned the priest for having it.

His room was, he realized, the counterpart of his life, of his soul. In the Gospel story, when the devil was driven out and the heart swept clean of his presence, a new danger loomed. The expelled devil returned with others worse than himself. Now, whenever he said the Lord's Prayer, Grantley felt under judgment.

He attended daily Mass, he said his rosary at the Grotto, he wandered from campus eatery to campus eatery, living well within his monthly social security check. He had never touched his retirement fund, his intention being to bequeath it to the university. It was his dream to endow a chair and live on as the donor of the Dennis Grantley professorship—in what? That was his problem. Maybe, as Father Carmody had suggested, he would consult Roger Knight. His choice must be carefully made because his generosity was motivated by spite: He would leave a significant sum of money to Notre Dame as a rebuke for the treatment he had received. Was he any better than Mortimer Sadler?

When he had told Bruno of the discovery of the water bottle in Chris Toolin's golf bag, he had been confident that Bruno would spread it far and wide.

“Come have lunch at the club, Grantley,” Bruno had said as they walked across the campus.

“I'm not a member.”

“Why not?”

“I can't afford it.”

Bruno had fallen silent and when they parted, Grantley had watched Bruno shuffle off to the entrance of the club, preening himself on the thought that he was not like the rest of men. He was content to taken his meals in the LaFortune Student Center, in one of the dining halls, or in one of the many eateries now scattered across the campus. His one indulgence was drink and he preferred the bar in the Morris Inn. Of late it had given him a vantage point on the investigation into the death of Mortimer Sadler.

Sadler had been a lousy golfer, whereas Toolin could have been good if he had put his mind to it. At Warren yesterday, Toolin had glanced at Grantley sipping his coffee but had not recognized him. Ben Barley had looked over twice and then come to his table.

“Weren't you a coach?”

Grantley nodded. He had given Barley instructions in golf years and years ago.

“Simpson?” Barley asked, then rejected the guess. “Moran!”

Grantley had merely smiled.

“I never forget a name,” Barley said.

Grantley watched him with a malevolent eye as the man rejoined the others. Barley did not call their attention to the man he had misidentified as Moran and Grantley took mordant pleasure in being ignored.

The three men were standing impatiently on the first tee when Grantley came out, their bags all in a row. They would be waiting for Sadler. So word had not reached them that they must play as a threesome in the tournament. Eventually, Grantley got behind the wheel of his golf cart and drove silently away toward Douglas Road.

That was yesterday. Now, as darkness gathered in his scarcely furnished room, he did not turn on the lamp beside his chair. From the radio came Bach's “Air for the G String.” He had his small revenge on Barley when he told Father Carmody that of the old roommates it was Barley who was most likely to have done Mortimer Sadler harm.

22

Francie met Vivian in the Lobby, taking her hands in hers and silently conveying what she could not find words to say.

“Let's go for a walk.”

They headed for the Main Building, the Golden Dome already lighted and shining in the gloaming, down to the Grotto, where Vivian knelt. She is praying for her father, Francie thought. Her father is dead and she is praying for the repose of his soul. Suddenly, the horror of what had happened came home to her. She knelt beside Vivian and for the first time prayed for Mortimer Sadler.

Afterward, they walked along the lake path and Francie told Vivian what she had been doing.

“Roger Knight is here and he has been so good. We must go see him.” Francie felt magnanimous in suggesting this. Sometimes she thought that she and Vivian were rivals for the role of Roger Knight's pet.

Vivian nodded. “I'd like that.” She turned to Francie. “I can't believe that someone killed my father.”

“The police will find who did it.”

“But what difference will that make?”

Francie was uneasy with the thought that the police seemed to think her mother could have had something to do with Mortimer Sadler's death. That was ridiculous. She would have preferred to think that Vivian's father had committed suicide, if the thought weren't so awful.

“Now I wish we had called Roger Knight.”

“I have my cell phone.”

“Should we call him? His brother is taking part in the investigation.”

“Oh, I don't want to talk about that. I've been trying not to think about it. Isn't that terrible?”