Sham Rock (11 page)

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Authors: Ralph McInerny

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PHILIP KNIGHT WAS WAKENED FROM an afternoon nap by the doorbell.

It was Jay Williams. “Your brother introduced us.”

“He's in class.”

“I know. Can we talk?”

In his more active years, the criteria for a possible client were, first, money, and, second, something other than a routine task. Jay Williams was worried about his father. Phil doubted that the kid had money, and he was pretty vague about what worried him.

“You know my father is a financial adviser. I think he's taken a real hit.”

“Is he despondent?”

The young man thought for a moment before shaking his head. “I wouldn't say that. Ever since my mother died he's led a whirlwind life, work, work, work, doing very well, and now this.”

“How long ago did your mother die?”

“Three years.”

“He hasn't remarried?”

“No! He'd never do that.”

If he ever did, he clearly couldn't expect any understanding from his son. Phil had met Dave Williams right here in the apartment, when Father Carmody brought him. Midforties, maybe a little more.

“He is lonely,” Jay conceded.

“What do you suspect?”

“Suspect? I don't suspect anything. I'm worried about him, that's all.”

Phil let it go. There was no way in which he would take on such an assignment even though Jay mentioned that he had money of his own. Phil had always avoided divorce cases, and he wondered if the son's real worry wasn't that his still fairly young father might marry again. Say that was his plan; say Phil discovered this and reported to Jay. To what end? If Dave Williams decided on a second act for his life, his son would have to accept it. No doubt he would. Eventually.

“He keeps coming out here,” Jay said. “I don't think he'd been on campus since my freshman year. Suddenly, he's a big benefactor, the generous alumnus, and here quite often.”

When Phil's parents had died in an automobile accident, Roger was still a little kid, but Phil was older, and he always thought the loss hit him harder than it did Roger. The loss had propelled Phil into becoming his younger brother's guardian and provider. All along he had imagined himself filling in for their father. He graded himself by reference to what he imagined his father would have done, never in his own mind quite measuring up. Now that Roger was settled at Notre Dame, Phil had kept the agency but accepted almost no clients. If he had any hesitation about Jay Williams's confused request it was because he could imagine himself being that concerned about his own father.

“Will you do it?” Jay asked.

Phil looked away, moved by the expression on the young man's face. It was only the mention of Larry Briggs's visit that swayed him.
“Not officially. I don't want you as a client. I'll see if there is anything you need worry about.”

He took Amtrak to New York, sleeping all the way, and spent a couple of days in Manhattan. He found it almost exhilarating to be back at work. The woman's name was Mame Childers, a divorcÃ©e. She and Dave had graduated the same year, she from St. Mary's, he from Notre Dame. She was a client of Dave's, but that didn't begin to describe the relationship. Phil heard about the place in Connecticut, rented a car, and went up there to take a look. A man emerged from the front door when Phil turned into the driveway. Phil got out of the car and waited for the man to come to him.

“Is this the Childers place?”

“It's not for sale.” He was a big man, tall, massive chest, long arms, big feet. Very big feet. “I'm Wilfrid Childers.”

They shook hands, and Phil looked around in unfeigned admiration. “It's hard to believe New York is so close.”

“That's the point.”

Had Wilfrid got the Connecticut place in the divorce settlement? “You a New Yorker?” Childers asked.

“Not anymore.”

“My plan was to retire here.”

“Was?”

“My wife divorced me. We may remarry.”

“Then your retirement plan may be revived.”

Childers showed him around, the grounds, the woods with the little creek running through, the house and the little cottage. “I built this for my wife.”

Phil also called on Larry Briggs, telling him that he lived in South Bend.

“I attended Notre Dame.” Briggs looked as if Phil might deny this. He peered at him. “You on the faculty?”

“My brother is. Roger Knight.”

“I get out there from time to time.”

“Jay Williams mentioned that.”

Briggs became flustered. “I was looking for his father. He lost a fortune for me.”

“The son thinks you're stalking his father.”

“Let him worry. The father.”

Knowing more than he wanted to know about Dave Williams and the Childerses, and agreeing with Jay that Briggs was a nut, maybe even a dangerous nut, he returned to South Bend.

“Roger said you've been to New York,” Jay said.

“That's right. On business.”

“Mine?”

Phil had almost rehearsed what he would say to Jay Williams. “You have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

“Did you see Larry Briggs?”

“Who is Larry Briggs?” But he laughed when he said it.

Phil was glad to get away to Minneapolis with Roger.

FATHER CARMODY HAD PLEADED HIS erratic schedule, still active, likely to be called hither and yon at any time, to exempt himself from the community concelebrated Mass at Holy Cross House. Gerry Maday, in his early sixties, superior of the place, had agreed but in a way that indicated he understood. It was Gerry's job, among others, to police the community Mass and make sure that no irregularities crept in, but given the average age and debility of residents that was a delicate task. The only time Father Carmody had taken part, pulling an alb over his head and draping one of the colorful stoles around his shoulders, he had sat next to an old priest, Johnson, whose chin was on his chest and who made blubbering sounds throughout. At the consecration, he had lifted his hand at the right moment but was deftly prevented from advancing to the altar for communion. Gerry eased him back into his chair and, chin still on his chest, the old fellow seemed to doze off. Some of the others didn't look to be in much better shape than Johnson.

“Old age is a shipwreck,” Gerry said, nodding when Carmody went to him. So he understood Carmody's reason for asking to be held excused.

Of course, Gerry spoke as an observer. What a job he had. Did he see himself drifting from superior to inmate of the place? It was a somber thought that all of them, through all the years, no matter
the work they were engaged in, had been on a glide path toward Holy Cross House.

At the crack of dawn, as that was computed in the house, Carmody had the chapel to himself and said his private Mass. That was the main job of the priest, saying Mass, and the office, too, of course. Those twenty-two minutes each morning connected Carmody's life with that long-ago day when he had lain prostrate in the sanctuary of Sacred Heart and been ordained a priest according to the order of Melchisedech. He could still vividly recall the sense of spiritual exaltation he had felt when his bound hands had been clasped in the bishop's, when the ordaining hands had been clamped firmly on his head, making him a priest. The ordinands concelebrated that Mass with the bishop, but that had been a once in a lifetime thing in those days. From then on, it was each man for himself, alone at the altar, with or without a congregation. For years, as president, Ted Hesburgh had said his daily Mass in a little closet of a chapel off the nave of the lower church, often at midday since he was always such a night owl, in his office until all hours, when students were not discouraged from dropping by. Ted had been the heart and soul of the place. For all the traveling he had done, he always seemed to be on campus.

After the Council, private Masses were frowned upon. Carmody had never understood the theology of the disapproval, if there was any. Half the nonsense that went on in those days was just made up. Change, that was the thing. Don't do anything the way it had always been done. Father Carmody had been young then, but you don't have to be old to hate arbitrary changes.

There were always several old priests at breakfast when he went in for his, early birds wanting first shot at the papers, a television set bringing in one of those mindless morning shows, the disasters of
the day chirped merrily. My God, what a grump he had become. Even so, it was heaven to get back to his room, settle in his favorite chair, look out over the lake at the golden dome, and light his first cigarette of the day. His visitor was coming in on a morning flight, and he had arranged to have lunch with her at the Morris Inn. Lots of time. Mame Childers, nÃ©e Sayers, St. Mary's '89. He couldn't remember her, but why should he? He would see Emil Chadwick before that.

Chadwick's house in Holy Cross Village, across the road, always made Carmody envious. Chock-full of books, a wonderful cluttered study, great views in two directions, full of the aroma of pipe tobacco. Chadwick was wearing slippers, baggy trousers, and a baggier sweater when he opened the door to Father Carmody. Chadwick stayed in the open doorway after he had let Carmody in. He had a pistol in his hand.

“Goddam Canada geese,” he muttered. Half a dozen of these clumsy birds were progressing across Chadwick's lawn. He lifted his hand. Pfft. “Missed. Not that it matters. That is the most arrogant bird I have ever seen.”

Chadwick closed the door.

“They're all over campus, too. What kind of gun is that?”

“A BB gun.”

They went down the hall to Chadwick's sitting room. There were piles of books ten high on a round table in front of the couch. The plants seemed to be wilting. Pictures of Chadwick's wife and kids all over the place. One of the Trappist son.

“How is Brother Chrysologus?”

“He's a priest, you know, but they stick with Brother.”

“What do they do with the old ones there?”

“There are men in their nineties who are always in their place in choir. They go until they drop.”

Chadwick offered him coffee, but Carmody begged off. Chadwick's coffee was notoriously strong. There was a mug on one of the stacks of books, and Chadwick took it before settling into his chair.

“Roger wants to see Brother Joachim?”

Chadwick nodded. “I'm not sure why. The two of us may go to Gethsemani together. He asked me what I remembered of Timothy Quinn, the kid who disappeared.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That Quinn actually read
Moby-Dick
all the way through.”

There was no reason Chadwick shouldn't know about the packet that had arrived in the archives.

“Joachim claims Timothy Quinn was murdered.”

Chadwick laughed, then stopped. “Seriously?”

“He wrote a story. Do you remember the group he was part of?”

“Vaguely.”

“Mame Sayers?”

Chadwick thought for a minute. “A St. Mary's girl?”

“That's right.”

“I could look it up. I think she took a course of mine.”

“She was part of that group.”

“Was she?”

“That's what she tells me.”

“Roger Knight has asked me to take his seminar this afternoon.”

“Is he ill?”

“Off on a trip. To Minneapolis. He wants to meet Beth Hanrahan.”

On his way to the Morris Inn, driving by the nine holes of Burke Golf Course and the new residence whose name he could never remember, Father Carmody brooded. All this stirring up of the past boded no good.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF BETH HANRAHAN that Greg Walsh dug out of the archives were not the usual sort that featured a large smile for the camera. Her mouth dimpled at the corners as she looked with wide eyes into the lens. Serene was the word that came to mind. A femme fatale? Roger, a confirmed celibate, was no judge, and Greg was of little help in that regard. A story dating from several years after her graduation told of the homeless center she had founded.

“How far is Minneapolis, Phil?”

“Five hundred miles or so.”

“I'd like to go up there.”

They checked into a motel on the outskirts of Minneapolis, on I-494, separate units, and Roger told Phil to rest, he needn't come to Our Lady of the Road.

“How would you get there?” Phil asked him.

“Cab?”

“Ha.”

Well, he had wanted to give Phil the choice. “I'm going to take a little nap.”

“Good idea. Half an hour?”

“At most.”

Lying on his back on the king-sized bed, arms behind his head, Roger stared unseeingly at the ceiling and thought about recent events. First there had been the arrival at the archives of the strange package from Brother Joachim, stirring up memories of long-ago events when Timothy Quinn had mysteriously disappeared from campus. The assumption had been that he was dead, a suicide, which God forbid, but dead in any case. Then came Brother Joachim's story claiming that his classmate had been killed and buried, saying where the body could be found. However, what was found under the boulder he had indicated was a decaying wooden box containing a hatchet and human remains, perhaps of a baby. Odd enough, that, but then there was the bequest to David Williams, who over the years had received an annual card from Gethsemani, the common message of which was, however indirect, repent. This suggested that Joachim in his letter had been describing a deed of David Williams's, not his own, but no deed of the kind he had described had been done, as Joachim would have known. So what had been the point of it all?

The bequest of money to David Williams, like those annual cards, was like an accusation. That had been Williams's first reaction, apparently, when he vowed not to accept it.

Three boys, the trinity as they were irreverently called, and the girl they had all unsuccessfully pursued, Beth Hanrahan. What she had done with her life made her interesting enough to visit even if it didn't cast any light on those confusing past events.

Roger had not managed to fall asleep before the phone rang and Phil suggested that they get going.

Beth threw up her hands in disbelief when Roger waddled across the room. He was quite a contrast to the lean and hungry men who lounged around the center.

“Dave said you were big, but â¦” She lowered her hands as if to display Roger to her beneficiaries, but her smile was welcoming, not mocking.

“Dave?”

“Williams. He called. After all these years. He thought I should be forewarned.”

How to describe Beth Hanrahan? How had Homer described Helen? Launching a thousand ships was hardly comparable to a coed's having won the affection of three rivals, but even now, in her forties, there was that in Beth that told even an old celibate like Roger that here was an extraordinary person. Her thick, curly hair was white rather than gray; her hazel eyes were large and her mouth wide, the whole face the mirror of her soul, and it was the soul that came through. The dress she wore was shapeless, what their aunt Lucerne would have called a wash dress. Roger introduced Philip.

“Ah, the private detective.”

Roger was looking around, fascinated. From the outside, it was simply a storefront with OUR LADY OF THE ROAD lettered on it, and beneath it WELCOME. In one corner of the large room was a rack on which old clothes hung, with beneath it a box of shoes. The furniture would have been used when she acquired it, and it had borne the weight of who knew how many wandering souls that had found their way here for a meal and some respite from their loneliness and defeat. On every face that stared at Roger he could read a different story of a life gone wrong, a will weakened to passivity.

Beth showed them around, glowingly proud of a center that for most would have seemed a desolate place, some level of ante-purgatory from which release was distant. The kitchen, with its massive stove on which a kettle simmered, giving off the aroma of stew, was in the charge of a tall, bearded fellow in a Cubs hat who kept backing away as if seeking invisibility.

Finally they settled in what she called her office, a box of a room with a dusty window, a table on which Roger noticed a little red book from which a golden ribbon peeked. There were chairs, but looking at them and then at Roger, Beth laughed. She went to the door. “Q, bring in one of the large chairs, would you?”

A minute later the man in the Cubs hat pushed in a more or less adequate chair, and Roger settled into it. The Cubs hat closed the door of the office when he left.

“So,” Beth said when they were all seated.

“You say David Williams called you?”

“Isn't that amazing? After nearly twenty years. To think he once professed to be undyingly in love with me.”

“I suppose he told you about the things Brother Joachim sent to the Notre Dame archives.”

“He said he would leave that to you. At least Pat, Brother Joachim, sends me a Christmas card each year.” She sighed. “Sometimes I'm tempted to escape to a convent.”

“Escape?”

“Elsewhere always seems easier, doesn't it?”

Phil picked up a magazine from the table, looked at it, put it back. Beth thought he must be wishing he had stayed at the motel. She said to him, “So what are you detecting?”

“Roger tells a better story than I do.”

Roger told her then of Joachim's donation to the archives. “It was
all about the disappearance of his classmate Timothy Quinn. He claimed to have killed him.”

“That's absurd.”

“Well, it's false. He wrote a story about it,” Phil said.

“That's why I brought it along.” Roger handed her the story, and she hunched in her chair as she read it. Then she read it again.

“Just a story,” she said, giving it back to Roger.

“He described where he had buried the body, but all that was found there was a hatchet and what looked like human bones.”

“Where did he say he buried the body?” Her manner had changed, and she leaned anxiously toward Roger as she asked.

“Do you remember the Log Chapel?”

“Oh my God.”

“I've told you all that was found. Joachim also left David Williams a considerable amount of money.”

“Where would a monk get money?”

“He had made the bequest before entering Gethsemani. He had inherited it from an uncle.”

“And he gave it to David Williams?”

“That surprises you?”

She thought for a moment. “I don't know why it should, but it does.”

“Perhaps because he was a rival.”

“Oh, he was never that.”

“No.”

“Sometimes I think that the only one of the three I really loved was David. Of course, that's hindsight. Water long since over the dam.”

“Where on earth do you think Quinn went when he disappeared?”

The chair she sat in was a swivel chair, relic of some long-ago
office. She turned in it slowly as if in search of true north. Then she rose. “Excuse me for a moment.”

When they were alone, Phil said, “Well, it was a nice drive anyway.”

“What do you think of her?”

“Is she a nun?”

“Not quite.”

The door opened and Beth came back, alone, a frown on her face. “He's gone.”

“Who?”

“Q. Timothy. Timothy Quinn.”