Emerald Aisle (17 page)
PHIL FLEW IN FROM MINNEAPOLISâVIA Chicago, of courseâand that night Roger made goulash and a huge salad. Their guests were Father Carmody, Greg Whelan, and Waldo Hermes. While they ate, the television, muted, brought in the Notre Dame/Seton Hall game, but only Phil paid any attention to it. His sudden grunts and groans, cheers and curses, might have alarmed anyone who thought he was reacting to things said at the table. Roger had already debriefed his brother during the drive from the airport, Greg Whelan behind the wheel of the vehicle that had been specially adapted to the transporting of Roger Knight.
“The prosecutor is confident of a guilty verdict,” Phil said.
“When is the trial?”
“Next month.”
“What did Dudley say to you when you saw him?”
“That he was innocent of course.”
“I suppose this breaks his engagement.”
Philip did not understand.
“His engagement to the woman Larry Morton broke his engagement to.”
“Dolores Torre. That's right.”
“When did you last talk with her?”
Philip was not sure. He had not talked to her recently, that was clear. But these events must have completely upset her life. Roger doubted that she would continue to be engaged to Dudley Fyte,
guilty or innocent. His offenses against her were not in the criminal code. Would she be drawn back to Larry, proximity doing what proximity often does in such cases? An image of magnets and steel filings came to him and he winced. Avoid metaphor. The literal is poetic enough, poetry being both comic and tragic.
guilty or innocent. His offenses against her were not in the criminal code. Would she be drawn back to Larry, proximity doing what proximity often does in such cases? An image of magnets and steel filings came to him and he winced. Avoid metaphor. The literal is poetic enough, poetry being both comic and tragic.
“Phil, do you think that Fyte killed that woman?”
“Don't you?”
“You have been much closer to everything.”
“Finding the stolen items in a briefcase stashed in the trunk of Bianca's Jaguar pretty well seals it, Roger.”
“No doubt about it being Fyte's briefcase?”
“Fingerprints all over it.” Suddenly Phil grinned. “Did I tell you what I said to Fyte about fingerprints?”
He had spoken as if the discovery was already madeâFyte's fingerprints on the list Phil had retrieved from Bianca's wastebasket, Fyte's fingerprints in the library of the house on Lake of the Isles. A key to that house on Fyte's key ring.
“I was wrong only about the slip of paper. Well, not wrong. The results were inconclusive.”
“When will the police turn over the Newman materials?”
“They already have.” Phil nodded toward the luggage he had tossed into the back of the van. “When did you ever know me to carry a briefcase.”
“So your job is done.”
“Two birds with one stone.”
He meant the theft from Primero's collection and the death of Bianca Primero.
“If the verdict of murder sticks.”
“What do you mean?”
“A case can be made that it was the pills she swallowed rather than the strangling that killed her. Someone in the Coroner's Office
is making that case and threatens to go public. There could be a Solomonian decision, Roger.”
is making that case and threatens to go public. There could be a Solomonian decision, Roger.”
“Neither/nor?”
“Both/and. Or maybe it will be either/or/or.”
“Where does Solomon come in?”
“Asphyxiation, without specifying whether due to strangling or not.”
“Dudley Fyte must be going crazy wondering if there is a crime for him to be accused of.”
Now at table, if Phil was distracted by the fortunes of the televised game, Roger found himself mentally picking away at the account he had gotten from Philip. But Greg and Waldo were in no need of conversational catalyst. Cohabitation had made them friends as well as respected colleagues. Waldo might have been trying to get himself all talked out before he went off for his stay with the Trappists. The topic was the extent of Cardinal Newman's interest in Trollope, triggered by the letter from the Primero Collection.
“Did you ever read Newman's novel?” Father Carmody asked Roger.
“Didn't he write two?”
“Not unless you count the one I read as a novel. Dull as sin.”
Roger did not pursue the matter. Besides, Carmody was trying unsuccessfully to divide his attention between the table conversation and the basketball game. The priest, never having seen Waldo in his natural hairy condition, was seemingly less struck by the nakedness of his head and face.
“Odd that a man with eyebrows like that should be bald,” he had whispered to Roger earlier.
“He read too much Occam.” Unforgiveable, but Father Carmody either failed to hear it or ignored the terrible joke.
Notre Dame lost in the final seconds and for a time gloom settled
over half the table. Greg was going on about the poetry of Patrick Cavanaugh, when he became aware that he had everyone's attention. Immediately his stammer silenced him. But Waldo picked up the ball: Ireland, New Melleray, a reference to Joyce's
The Dead.
His own prospective withdrawal to the rural fastness of Iowa, where silence was as golden as the corn. Father Carmody spoke of members of the congregation who had felt drawn to the Trappists.
over half the table. Greg was going on about the poetry of Patrick Cavanaugh, when he became aware that he had everyone's attention. Immediately his stammer silenced him. But Waldo picked up the ball: Ireland, New Melleray, a reference to Joyce's
The Dead.
His own prospective withdrawal to the rural fastness of Iowa, where silence was as golden as the corn. Father Carmody spoke of members of the congregation who had felt drawn to the Trappists.
“Came back like a serve in tennis, most of them.” He held out his glass, and Phil poured it full of red wine. “Do you know the story of Father Hudson?”
They were going to hear it in any case; it was one of Father Carmody's set pieces. Hudson had been on a train bound for the Trappists and Father Sorin was on the same train. The founder of Notre Dame explained to the young man what was happening in northern Indiana and how his vocation might more fittingly be answered there. When Sorin got off the train at South Bend, so did young Hudson. Later, ordained, he ran
Ave Maria
magazine and published many good and bad nineteenth-century authors.
Ave Maria
magazine and published many good and bad nineteenth-century authors.
Phil was tired from his journey, Greg and Waldo could continue their conversation more fluently at Greg's apartment, and Father Carmody was openly yawning, as if his reminiscing had spelled the end of the evening.
“You should have invited Joseph Primero, Roger.”
“I did. He declined. He wants us for lunch at The Morris Inn tomorrow.”
“How is he holding up?”
“Fussing about the transfer of his collection keeps his mind off his loss.”
Roger seldom had sleepless nights, but that night was one of them. The pans were washed, the dishes were in the washer, everything
spick and span, so the thought of the morning's housekeeping did not explain his wakefulness.
spick and span, so the thought of the morning's housekeeping did not explain his wakefulness.
Waldo Hermes's intention to spend a prolonged stay in the Trappist guesthouse at New Melleray in Iowa might have suggested a troubled conscience, a guilty soul off to make expiation for some dreadful deed. The moral and legal orders are very different. Repentance and confession could suffice for a theft, with no further obligation if the deed did not do a great injustice to the bereaved. There was little that could have been done to compensate Joseph Primero for the loss of Bianca. The real loss had antedated her death by years. But remorse and penance would have continued after confession; and Waldo, if he were Bianca's murderer, would have been incapable of simply going on as before. So off to the monastery.
Roger's dismissive snort at his own thoughts was audible. A man as morally sensitive as this imagined Waldo could hardly have allowed Dudley Fyte to pay for his deed. And so, in the dead of night, he studied his wild cards. Larry first, who could remove the obstacle to his refound love for Dolores by setting him up for a murder charge. Or Dolores herself, irked by the condescension of Dudley's mistress in Dayton's Tea Room, visits her apartment and ⦠Sleep came at last, overwhelming such unlikely thoughts. He never even made it to Joseph Primero.
SORIN'S, THE RESTAURANT in The Morris Inn, was crowded, but Joseph Primero had wisely made a reservation when he'd dined there the previous night.
“It's why I couldn't join in your welcome home party,” he said to Philip.
“Is that what it was?”
They were at a table near the window, with the residence halls that had been built on the former golf course crowding the sky. Father Carmody's reminder that it had once been a pasture and had served other functions before becoming a golf course did not lessen the pain of alumni and senior faculty who had played the course in the dim, dark days beyond recall.
Joseph Primero was natty in a blue blazer with very golden buttons and pale gray slacks that added to the nautical effect. An ascot was stuffed into his unbuttoned shirt. He tasted fastidiously of his spinach salad.
“People speak of the special atmosphere of this university,” he said. “It's true. I attended Mass in the Basilica at eleven-thirty this morning. One of the officers of the university said the Mass and gave a homily that lasted maybe four or five minutes. Simple, lucid, edifying.”
The previous night, Primero had braved the icy walks of the campus and gone down below the Basilica to the Grotto, where the
blaze of devotional candles brought home to him the university's dedication to Our Lady.
blaze of devotional candles brought home to him the university's dedication to Our Lady.
“âNotre Dame' becomes like âLos Angeles.' People forget what it means.”
He had also walked down the road toward Saint Mary's College but had not gone far. He wanted to save that for the daytime.
“Where will the site of the new Archives building be?” Phil asked.
“That is not for me to decide of course. The Holy Cross Province Archives is back on Douglas Road, near the seminary. Perhaps not central enough for the University Archives.”
“Has there ever been any thought of Waldo Hermes coming here with the collection?”
This idea had of course crossed Primero's mind in the past, when the transfer of the collection had seemed something in the distant future. Now, when he had decided to do the deed, Waldo had disappeared. An uneasiness had grown up between them since the death of Bianca, Primero said. Waldo had never been a confiding fellow, but he became withdrawn, almost accusatory. Did he blame his employer for acquiescing in the wild and independent life of the woman who was still his wife? Joseph would never have attempted an explanation, not of Waldo, not of anyone. He scarcely understood himself.
When he'd received the news that their child was dead, he had been unable to suppress the thought that Bianca was at fault. There was no evidence of this. She was scatterbrained, someone who seemed destined never fully to grow up, but that had been her attraction. Joseph had wanted to protect her, and when the child came he wanted to protect them both. But duty and honor have their claims and he was at sea when the news came. When he arrived
home, during the moment before he took Bianca in his arms, when he saw the expression on her face, waiting to be accused, his heart broke. The anguish he felt could not be any deeper than hers. So they embraced and were more bound by the loss of their child than they were by their wedding vows. Or so it had seemed to him.
home, during the moment before he took Bianca in his arms, when he saw the expression on her face, waiting to be accused, his heart broke. The anguish he felt could not be any deeper than hers. So they embraced and were more bound by the loss of their child than they were by their wedding vows. Or so it had seemed to him.
He surprised himself by the ease with which he disclosed the central fact of his life to Roger Knight. The massive professor acknowledged the confidence with a moment of silence before he spoke. “It wasn't very smart of Waldo to disappear,” Roger said.
“I never understood why his going was described so dramatically, as if he had run away. He left my employ; that's all it was.”
“Had you told him about transferring the collection immediately?”
“That isn't why he left.”
“So what was the reason?”
“You would have to know Waldo Hermes to understand.”
“He is here,” Roger said.
Primero congratulated himself that he did not show the surprise and alarm he felt.
“Here?” When Roger nodded, there were sympathetic tremors throughout his body.
“He felt under suspicion. So he âescaped.' The word is his. You wouldn't recognize him.”
“How so?”
Primero managed to smile at the account of the missing beard, the shaved head, the great frog face relieved only by luxuriant eyebrows.
“The best disguise is the simplest.”
“Like disappearing into a nudist colony,” Philip said.
“I wouldn't pursue that thought, Philip,” Roger chided. “I of course would simply blend into the ambience of flesh, but others might find it more difficult.”
“You've talked with Waldo then.”
“Oh yes. He was at dinner last night. If you had come, you could have been reunited with your former employeeâbefore he goes off to the Trappists.”
“The Trappists!”
“For a long visit, not to join.”
This was upsetting news. Several times, Joseph Primero had confided to Waldo his sometime desire to leave everything and put the world behind him. He would go to a monastery. Once he had made a retreat with the Dominicans, and he had never forgotten it.
“Have you every been to a Trappist abbey?” Waldo had asked then.
Waldo had been a storehouse of information on the Cistercians, but then he was the repository of endless amounts of arcane knowledge, picked up God knows where over a lifetime of scholarship. At the table in The Morris Inn, Roger's remark about Waldo's plans struck Joseph Primero as a mockery of his own dreams and somehow threatening.
“Waldo and I must get together. Does he know I'm here?”
“Yes.”
“How can I get in touch with him?”
Roger seemed to hesitate. “I can tell him you want to see him.”
“If I am not in my room, have him leave a message.”
He said good-bye to the Knights in the lobby. It was agreed that Philip had successfully completed the job he had been asked to do.
“Everything but catch the thief,” Philip said.
“With everything recovered, that is less important than it was.”
“It seems that your wife gave a key to the Lake of the Isles house to Dudley.”
Primero did not comment. He regretted now inviting all this professional curiosity to scrutinize his affairs. Of course the police, and
the Knights, would think it had been Waldo, and he realized that he had not done much to discourage this line of inquiry, but Waldo could not be in any real danger.
the Knights, would think it had been Waldo, and he realized that he had not done much to discourage this line of inquiry, but Waldo could not be in any real danger.
When they parted, he went upstairs to his room. He had found the lunch disquieting, threatening the euphoria he had felt since arriving on campus. What on earth was Waldo doing here? He had struck up an acquaintance with the assistant archivist Whelan. What else would have drawn him to Notre Dame? The collection was still in Minneapolis, under a twenty-four-hour security guard now. News of the theft had not been widespread, but wily thieves did not need headlines to find new places to strike.
His window gave him a view of one of the older residence halls. He looked it up on the campus map, Alumni Hall. Generations of students had lived in those rooms. Primero longed to have a closer connection with this university. That was the meaning of giving his collection to Notre Dame and speeding up the process was an indication of the urgency he felt to belong here, to belong somewhere. Where did he belong? The house on Lake of the Isles had been turned into a museum by Bianca's leaving. His penthouse at the condominium he seldom used. It would have been more practical to rent it, but being practical had long since ceased to be a motive.
“You sure?” Norma had asked, when he told her he wanted the security videos destroyed.
“What's the point of keeping them?”
“The police have asked about them.”
“Is there anything on them that would help their investigation?”
“That's for them to say.”
“Anything you couldn't tell them yourself?”
“It's mainly tape that looks like stills, then people entering.”
“I had forgotten we had that system installed.”
“You could keep the ones you're on.”
“Ha.”
“Your nickname was âSmilin'Jack.'”
“Why?”
“Scarf, crushed cap, leather jacket.”
“I don't have a leather jacket.”
“I imagine that part; I imagined the scarf too.”
Norma was a strange girl. “Your job must be very boring.”
“Between murders.” Her expression changed. “I'm sorry.”
“Let me have the videos.” Norma could tell the police about the penthouse, she could tell them about his comings and goings. Even so, he wanted the videos.
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