Irish Coffee (17 page)

A MONTH BEFORE THELMA
Maynooth's trial a bearded figure showed up at Roger's campus office.

“Professor Knight? My name is Greg Maieutic.”

Professor Maieutic, as it turned out, taught creative writing at IUSB.

“I'm having a crisis of conscience,” Maieutic said, taking the chair Roger had indicated.

Roger, uneasy, said nothing.

“I had Thelma Maynooth in class. A night class.”

“A writing class?”

Maieutic nodded. “I speak to you in confidence. She wrote a novel for the course. Just began it during the semester, but she would come to see me from time to time and by gosh she finished it.” He ran his fingers through his beard. “I suppose I don't have to tell you how rare that is. People think they want to write…” His voice trailed away, taking with it a thousand faded hopes of authorial success. He looked at Roger. “The novel might have been a scenario for what has happened. Of course it was autobiographical.”

“I'd like to see it.”

“Would you? I was hoping you would. That's why I came. You'd have to read the novel to understand my problem.”

Meanwhile Laura Reith and Tom McTear were seeing a lot of one another. Phil had gotten the news from Stewart.

“Hasn't he already had his quota of wives?”

“He's going to have them annulled.”

Roger wondered if a church wedding would soften McTear's attitude toward Notre Dame.

“Jimmy says Laura wants to get married in Sacred Heart.”

Roger did come into possession of
Drink To Me Only
, a mystery novel by Thelma Maynooth. Roger read it through in one sitting that night, fascinated, though not by any literary merits it had. Thelma's command of English was shaky, but then she was mimicking who-knew-what models in the mystery genre. Maieutic had called it autobiographical and that was certainly true. Despite the stilted prose, Roger recognized the office in which Thelma had worked. The heroine was a vulnerable young woman who succumbed to the advances of a married man. As Roger read, western music was playing on Phil's radio and a lyric captured the theme of the novel. A good-hearted woman in love with a two-timing man. But her good heart had been sorely tested when the heroine learned that her lover had a wife. The scene in which the two women met was one of the best in the book, and it provided the motivation for what happened. Rita, the heroine, decided to do herself and the wife a favor and send Howard the husband into the arms of St. Peter. Her weapon was Irish coffee.

Two days later Roger met with Maieutic again.

“Have you read it?”

“Yes.”

“Pretty bad?”

“But fascinating.”

“You can see my problem. Should I show it to the police? It would go against all my principles, academic principles, but I am a citizen as well as a professor.”

“I don't think there is any need to show it to the police,” Roger said. “They have a strong case without it. She has all but confessed, but even so the evidence is overwhelming.”

Maieutic let out a great sigh. “I can't tell you how relieved that makes me.”

“I suppose you could return it to Thelma.”

“I will. I will. That novel has been an albatross around my neck.”

And he did return
Drink To Me Only
to Thelma and, after her conviction, she contacted an agent who showed interest given Thelma's current address. She telephoned Roger to gloat. And in a way to express her gratitude.

“You may have found me out,” she said. “But you made me a writer.”

Not even God could do that, Roger thought. Of course he congratulated her and then spent half an hour pondering the depths to which publishing had fallen.

“At least she didn't call it
Irish Coffee
,” Greg Whelan said wryly.

“God forbid.”