Irish Gilt (20 page)

“That isn't how it was,” Clare said. “We looked for the letters, but they weren't there.”

Roger looked pensive. “And yet when Jimmy Stewart and my brother visited the room after Kittock's body was found, the letters were there.”

“Then Eggs did take them?” Paul Lohman said.

“Or Boris left them there when he and Clare visited the room in the hours just after Kittock was murdered.”

Everyone turned to Clare in surprise. “The police know all this,” she said, unruffled. “But the letters were not in the room when we looked.”

“Point taken,” Roger said. “No doubt it is the time before the murder that really matters.”

“And the police found that Boris had been up and dressed until two o'clock.” Clare's voice was heavy with sadness as she said this.

“Waiting for you to arrive from Chicago?”

Clare nodded.

“You phoned to tell him you were on your way?”

“Yes.”

“What time was that, Clare?” Paul Lohman asked.

“I can't say exactly.”

“No need to rely on memory,” Roger said. “Your phone service keeps very accurate records.”

“I suppose they do. In any case, it was some hours before I met Boris in the lobby of the Morris Inn, and that was two o'clock.”

“I'm told that the record includes both time and the place whence the call was made.” Roger smiled around the table. “What an odd world we live in. There is a surfeit of pointless information and a dearth of knowledge. Now, for our celebration. You placed the call from Chicago, Clare?”

“As you say, it must be recorded.”

*   *   *

It was some fifteen minutes later that Clare excused herself. From his vantage point, Roger could see that Jimmy and Phil were waiting for her when she emerged from the restaurant. They said something to her, and she turned to go away, but Jimmy's hand closed on her arm. Then they went out of sight.

Later, Clare's absence was noted.

“I thought she was coming back,” Rebecca said.

“The poor woman,” Paul Lohman said. “You can't imagine how all this has affected her.”

“I think I can,” Roger said. “I think I can.”

11

The records of the calls made from Clare Healy's cell phone revealed that she had made the call to the Morris Inn from South Bend rather than from Chicago. Her plane from Kansas City had arrived at Midway at 8:00
P.M
. Far more interesting was the call she had made to the Jamison Inn at 11:02 of the fateful night, a call to Xavier Kittock, also placed from South Bend.

“A rendezvous must have been arranged. Kittock arrived. He took a seat on a bench while he waited, and then his assailant crept up behind him and brought the plastic bag over his head.”

“Clare?”

“Previously unidentified fingerprints on the bag turn out to be hers.”

“But why on earth would she kill Eggs Kittock?”

“Because he had Father Zahm's diary.”

“But the diary was found in Clare's suitcase.”

“I used the past tense,” Roger said. “It was to retrieve the diary and silence her ally that she killed Kittock.”

“Her ally?”

“She made a number of calls to Kittock from Kansas City before coming here. Doubtless the plan to steal the diary was formulated then.”

*   *   *

Boris Henry refused to believe the charges against his longtime assistant, even though they had effected his own release from jail. The services of Foster were transferred to Clare's defense. His calm assurance to the press that the case against Clare was no more solid than the risible one that had been advanced against Boris Henry was unpersuasive.

“But will it be unpersuasive to a jury?” Roger said.

“What jury will believe that a woman could have performed such a deed?” Boris said with disgust. His presence in the Knight apartment was equivocal, since he clearly regarded himself to be in the enemy camp.

“You mean physically?”

“Of course.”

Rebecca joined in. “Oh, it's possible. We tested it.” She smiled at Josh Daley. “Josh sat on a bench, and I crept up behind him and had the bag over his head just like that.”

“He would have overpowered you,” Boris said emphatically.

“That's what Josh thought. When he started to turn blue I removed the bag.”

“Bah!”

“Mr. Henry, I never believed you could have killed my uncle. Your old friend, your former roommate…”

“Of course I didn't kill Eggs. But neither did Clare.”

“Then who did?”

“They should never have released that maintenance man, Esperanza.”

Father Carmody approved of such loyalty on Boris Henry's part. It seemed worthy of a Notre Dame man, however misplaced in this instance.

“It is the oldest rule in the world,” he murmured. “
Cherchez la femme.
”

“Why, you old chauvinist,” Rebecca cried.

“My dear, you yourself have proved the point.”

*   *   *

In a car parked overlooking the St. Joseph River, Larry Douglas sat with his arm around Kimberley's yielding shoulders, softly reciting the final stanza of “Dover Beach.” “Ah, love, let us be true to one another…”

When he was finished, Kimberley lifted her face for his kiss.

“I told Feeney I'm coming back to work in the morgue.”

“I thought you were just an intern.”

“With a raise. I have to save money for medical school.”

“Medical school.”

“He'll groom me as his successor. He intends to oppose Jankowski in the primary.”

“But that would take years.”

“What's the alternative?”

He tightened his grip on her shoulders. “What Matthew Arnold wrote.”

“You'll have to be more explicit.”

So he was, and she accepted. Thus was a potential pathologist lost to the St. Joseph County morgue.

*   *   *

Marjorie Waters refused to believe that a woman could have the strength to kill a man that way.

Jim Casper disagreed. “Listen, I have known women—”

“I am not interested in the women you have known.”

“Neither am I. Not anymore.”

“Besides, interest is a two-way street.”

“You want to give me driving lessons?”

Bernice exchanged a look with Ricardo, an old married couple watching the antics of the young.

“It's getting late,” Bernice said.

“You're right,” Jim Casper said. “I have to work tomorrow.”

“And I have to work on my novel.”

That brought Marjorie to her feet. For a moment she seemed to notice the difference in physical attractiveness between Jim and Ricardo, but then, as if accepting her fate, she put her arm through Jim's. They headed for the door.

“I don't know what he sees in her,” Ricardo said when their guests were gone.

“Or vice versa.”

*   *   *

A week later, Roger was in the archives with Greg Walsh examining the diary of Father Zahm.

“So the archives gets it after all,” Roger said.

“Until and unless the university decides to go ahead with the Zahm Center.”

“Perhaps the expense is in your favor.”

Greg frowned. “Father Carmody thinks he has already secured a major donor. David Nobile!”

“Perhaps Mrs. Nobile will veto it.”

“Who could persuade her to do that?”

Roger smiled. He had had a talk with Rebecca after class.

“I like him,” she had said, meaning Greg Walsh.

“It would break his heart if the Zahm holdings, particularly the diary, were removed from the archives.”

“My mother was livid when she heard how much Daddy spent for that Lope de Vega volume.”

“The Zahm Center would involve a good deal more money.”

“Well, I don't think they will get it from my father.”

“What a relief that would be to Greg Walsh.”

Roger could not believe that he was dishonoring the memory of Father Zahm in this matter. Would the great scholar and writer wish to be commemorated on the campus he had left so ignominiously after his term as provincial? Perhaps not. It was more difficult to imagine the priest liking the solution of the murder of Xavier Kittock. The fact that Foster was now exploring the possibility of a plea of temporary insanity for his client suggested that the lawyer knew what the outcome of a trial would be. It was an odd notion that a declaration of mental illness could make the freedom it secured desirable, but Roger's fundamental misgiving stemmed from the book in which Zahm had written movingly of the great women who had stood behind the great men of history. Of course, he must have guessed that a negative influence could be equally effective. Roger tried to develop this thought for Phil.

“Forgive me, Roger, but if I never hear the name Zahm again it will be too soon.”

“You're certainly right to think that several have taken his name in vain.”

“Where did he stand on football?”

“Philip, what an interesting question. I'll look into it.”

ALSO BY RALPH MCINERNY

MYSTERIES SET AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

On This Rockne

Lack of the Irish

Irish Tenure

Book of Kills

Emerald Aisle

Celt and Pepper

Irish Coffee

Green Thumb

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

Prodigal Father

Last Things

Requiem for a Realtor

ANDREW BROOM MYSTERY SERIES

Cause and Effect

Body and Soul

Savings and Loam

Mom and Dead

Law and Ardor

Heirs and Parents

IRISH GILT
. Copyright © 2005 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

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McInerny, Ralph M.

Irish gilt / Ralph McInerny.—1st U.S. ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-33688-2

ISBN-10: 0-312-33688-8

1. Knight, Roger (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Knight, Philip (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Private investigators—Indiana—South Bend—Fiction. 4. Zahm, John Augustine, 1851–1921—Influence—Fiction. 5. University of Notre Dame—Fiction. 6. Gold mines and mining—Fiction. 7. South Bend (Ind.)—Fiction. 8. College teachers—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3563.A31166I644 2005

813'.54—dc22

2005047015

First Edition: October 2005

eISBN 9781466841956

First eBook edition: March 2013