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“Bah.”

Now Grantley sat on the bench, listening to Max grouse. Sometimes he thought there was a chorus of the disenchanted, oldsters whose time at Notre Dame had been a long decline. That was life, one might think, generation supplanted by generation, those about to go into the dark lamenting the lack of light, cursing the young who either ignored or disdained them. His own grievances were made sotto voce, spoken only to himself in the privacy of his room on the second floor of the Firehouse, a monkish cell in which he lived out the twilight of his life.

He had been in the bar of the Morris Inn when the irregulars of the class of 1977 arrived to register, alerted to their coming by Agnes, a waitress in the restaurant with designs on Grantley that he did not wholly discourage. The thought of marriage was as foreign to him as a vocation to the Carthusians, but it was pleasant to be the object of feminine attention. Agnes had been a divorcée, and was now a widow, a veteran of the dining room, carrying a few extra pounds that were pleasantly distributed. Her ample bosom was the promise of an almost maternal comforting, though Grantley had never availed himself of its promise. His conscience had been formed as a boy and sins of the flesh were the paradigm of wrongdoing, the subject of his first terrified adolescent whispering through the grille of the confessional. His relationship with Agnes was accordingly platonic but with the constant suggestion of a more that never got realized. He thought of her as his personal occasion of sin.

“Who's registered?”

“Who? There must be fifty or more.”

“Can you get me the roster?”

She could and did, a computer printout of reservations. The name of Mortimer Sadler lifted from the page, the sum of all his discontents. In the bar, he had watched them enter in twos and threes and more, huddle at the bar, take tables. Sadler was the noisiest, of course, and Grantley, brooding over his drink in an ill-lit corner, watched the man with malevolent eyes. If there was a symbol of his decline in status on campus it was Mortimer Sadler, as if he singlehandedly was responsible for the desecration of Burke. The man's voice was full of the pride of life, a voice without doubts, a menace. Grantley sat and thought confessable thoughts about the man.

11

Francie had been asked to the Knight apartment for dinner, meaning supper, with five-thirty given as the time of her arrival, and decided to ignore the vague plan to dine with her mother.

“That will give us a chance for some conversation before Phil gets here,” Roger had said.

Francie was thrilled by this sign of election. That she was able to take his class was in itself an enormous plus, but to be regarded as a favored student was bliss indeed. At five-thirty on the dot she rang the bell.

A minute passed before Roger Knight, his face aglow from his efforts in the kitchen, swathed in an enormous apron that reached from his chest to his ankles—enough material to make a tent, as he said—opened the door, greeted her, and bowed her into the room. Their greeting was a formal handshake. No hugging and backslapping from Roger Knight. But there was little doubt about the delight with which he greeted her.

“How is your summer going?”

Suddenly she felt ashamed of the indolence that had marked her time at home. Sleeping late, catching up with old friends, golfing. She had gone home with a list of the books she intended to read, but so far she had not even begun.

“Oh, fine. What have you been doing?”

And he was off and running, telling her what he was reading, the exchanges with his far-flung e-mail pals, comments on changes in the university, the latest squabbles at the highest levels, a veritable flow of interests—“trivia and quadrivia”—that made Francie's life seem impossibly monochrome. But for the moment it was enough to bask in the participated glow of Roger Knight's interests. Had she ever met anyone she would more like to be like than Roger Knight? Of course this seemed an odd ambition. She could not become a bachelor weighing nearly three hundred pounds who held an endowed chair at Notre Dame. But it was not the possibility of exact imitation that drew her to Roger Knight. He exuded the realization that there was a way to spend one's life that was infinitely exciting and totally unlike the lives most people led, including, so far as she could see, most other members of the faculty. In vain had she tried to convey her enthusiasm for Roger Knight to Paul.

“The fat guy?”

“Is that all you can say about him?”

“I couldn't get into his class. I tried.”

“Did you ask him?”

But she could not believe that Roger Knight could have even remotely seen in Paul the possibilities he had seen in her. Paul was perfectly content to while away his summer in campus sports camps. But even as she thought this lofty condemnation she remembered the way she had been spending her own summer. Who was she to cast the first stone? So she and Paul had talked about her golf game that morning, playing with her mother in the alumni tournament. She was with him when news of his uncle's death arrived. He looked blankly at Francie. She in turn looked blankly at him. For a terrible moment she wondered if he had understood the awful news. Neither of them had any experience with such an event. Nor, of course, had Francie even known the uncle who had been found dead on the old course.

“What was he doing there, Paul? He was due to play on Warren.”

“Don't ask me. This is my SOB uncle.”

As soon as he said it he seemed to regret it. Francie went with him to the Morris Inn, where the police were talking to old friends of Mortimer Sadler. It was then that they learned that his death was not considered to be accidental. Mortimer Sadler had died of poisoning.

“Food poisoning?”

Lieutenant Stewart looked at Paul and shook his head. When Paul introduced her to the detective, he perked up.

“O'Kelly? There is a Mrs. O'Kelly registered here.”

“So am I. She's my mother.”

“And you came with her to her class reunion?”

“Oh, this doesn't really count. She came in order to…” Francie fell silent. How to explain her mother's pique that Mortimer Sadler had the gall to arrange an all-male get-together and call it a class reunion? Francie felt none of her mother's competitive feminism. Going to St. Mary's rather than Notre Dame had been a way of avoiding the duplication of her mother's determination to rival any and every male achievement. Her mother's feminist zeal had led to an estrangement from Francie's father, the marriage forever teetering on the brink of collapse, until now there was a trial separation that Francie prayed would end in reunion. In the locker room of the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis, Mortimer had confronted Jack O'Kelly, drunkenly commenting on his unseemly conduct for a Notre Dame alumnus. And he had referred to Maureen as Superwoman. O'Kelly, normally the mildest of men, obliged with a blow that sent Sadler sprawling. Small wonder that Francie had not told her mother that she was seeing Paul Sadler. It would have seemed like an ideological statement rather than a real attraction.

“She wanted a partner for golf.”

Stewart found that more interesting than it was and Paul told him Francie's handicap.

“Is that good?”

“It's half mine.”

Why did she think the detective already knew a low handicap when he heard one? It was the first intimation she had that the man thought her mother's long-standing quarrel with Mortimer Sadler might have some connection with Sadler's death.

“I'm told your mother is quite a gardener.”

“Who told you that?”

“Your mother.”

“She's bragging.”

But not much. The O'Kelly yard and flower beds had been featured in a recent garden walk in Minneapolis. Her mother's habit of drawing attention to her own accomplishments made it unsurprising that she had mentioned the garden walk and whose flowers had drawn such praise.

“A woman has a right to brag of her gardening.”

Oh, if her mother had heard that remark!

“She also mentioned her golf handicap.”

“She seems to have told you everything.”

“I hope so.”

“Has the family been notified?” Paul asked.

“His widow is on her way.”

“Widow. I better call some of my cousins.”

“Vivian,” Francie suggested.

“Of course.”

The task seemed a reason for Francie to not mention her invitation to dine with the Knight brothers. Paul got busy with his cell phone and Francie went to her room, where her mother came humming from the shower.

“I've been talking with the police,” Francie said.

“Detective Stewart?”

“Yes.”

“Dreadful man. Condescending. He asked if I played from the ladies' tee.”

“Well, you do.”

“It's the way he asked.”

Since high school, Francie had learned what it must be like for twins, everyone telling her how much like her mother she looked. She knew her mother was beautiful, but it was not the kind of beauty Francie preferred, perhaps because of the constant comparison.

“Have you showered?”

“That's why I'm here.”

“Where have you been?”

“I ran into someone I met in class.”

“The conditions at Warren are barbaric. It's little more than a shrine to the golf team. The men's team, of course.”

“Is there a women's team?”

Her mother thought about it. “There better be.”

“Isn't it awful about Mr. Sadler?”

Her mother had to think about that, too. “Yes, of course.”

When Francie came from the shower, her mother was lying on the bed, in her robe. “I think I'll take a little nap. Where would you like to eat?”

“Would you mind if I ate with some friends?”

“What friends?”

“Professor Knight asked me over.”

“Who is he?”

“Mother, I have told you all about him.”

“The fat man?”

“You sound like Paul.”

“Who's Paul?”

“The boy I ran into.”

“Is he going, too?”

“No.”

“I hope I'm not expected.”

“Mother, you wouldn't enjoy it at all.”

Her mother was already on the phone, saying she would call some old classmates who had settled in South Bend. Francie had slipped away to the Knight apartment without running into Paul.

When Roger's brother, Phil, arrived at the Knight apartment he had Detective Stewart with him. For an awful moment Francie feared that he would start quizzing her about her mother again, but Roger bustled them right into the meal, dishing spaghetti from a huge bowl into which he poured some hot water before mixing it up. The salad bowl was almost as large as the pasta bowl and there were heaps of garlic bread and a huge carafe of red wine, although Roger drank ice water with his meal. And talked. The other two men just listened and busied themselves with their food. As soon as they were done, they adjourned to the television for a ball game and Francie had Roger all to herself.

“I'll help with the dishes.”

“Wonderful. Phil is little help.”

It was not a complaint. Francie marveled at how well the brothers got along. During dinner, she had been told of the loss of their parents when Roger was in his early teens and the way Phil had assumed the role of father to prevent their being separated. Phil dismissed all that, preferring to talk about how Roger had been considered retarded through much of school until someone had finally recognized that he was a genius.

“Nonsense!” Roger said.

“Tell her your score.”

“I will not. Such tests are idiotic. They cause much more harm than anything else.”

“It certainly ruined your life.”

“I never said that.”

How had it been to be a prodigy at Princeton and a Ph.D. at an age when most boys were finishing high school? Unable to find academic employment, Roger had actually joined the navy.

“What did you do in the navy?”

“Well, I passed the swimming test.”

“By floating the length of the pool,” Phil said, but his laughter was affectionate. Francie had come to like him, too, but tonight she was glad he had taken Jimmy Stewart off to watch television. After they finished the dishes, Francie had another glass of wine at the kitchen table and Roger sat across from her and talked. It might have been one of his seminars.

“He questioned me about the death on the golf course,” Francie whispered.

“Jimmy Stewart? Whatever for?”

“I was with the nephew of the man who was killed.”

“One should speak well of the dead so I shall be silent.”

“Did you know him?”

“No. But I have heard more about him than I wished to know.”

“His nephew is nice.”

“Ah.”

She let it go. Let him think what he liked. It was oddly pleasant to imagine that he might be jealous, but that was so ridiculous Francie laughed.

12

Cal Swithins had been relieved when Jimmy Stewart did not turn in at the campus entrance but continued on to the Morris Inn. He had been practicing what he would say to the guard at the gate. Perhaps, “Press,” said casually while pretending to look around as he avoided the guard's eyes. But now there was no need to run the risk of the refusal this ruse might have earned. Anyone could park in the Morris Inn parking lot, the assumption being that they were guests or had come to dine in the restaurant. Thus it was that he had hung about in the lobby, unobserved, while Stewart and Knight spoke to a succession of the dead man's friends. But it was in the men's room downstairs that he heard the mention of poison. His pulse quickened. Now he was certain he was on to something while Raskow lolled about in the press room at police headquarters.

When he emerged into the lobby, he ran into Phil Knight.

“Get what you were looking for?”

“Where is the Alumni Center?”