The Prudence of the Flesh (20 page)

“He was a parishioner here, Roger. Registered. He was an usher for years. We had a little misunderstanding and he got into a huff. He didn't try to register there, did he?”

“No.”

“I should think that settles it, then.”

“What undertaker will you use?”

“McDivitt.”

“I suppose I could come and concelebrate.”

Sledz hesitated. He probably thought of concelebrated Masses what Roger Dowling did. “One thing you might do, Roger, is lead the rosary at the wake tonight. The fact is, this is my poker night.”

“McDivitt?”

“Seven thirty.”

“I'll do it.”

The death of Ned Bunting had made Tuttle reflective.

“It's almost like a death in the family,” Tuttle said to Hazel, standing beside her desk in the outer office. “He was more than a client, he was a friend.”

“I never met him.” Thus do reports of disasters in far parts of the world inform us that no Americans were killed. Hazel was incapable of abstract emotions: She had to know someone in the flesh and blood to like or hate the person. Even so, she could sympathize with Tuttle's stunned response to the death of Ned Bunting.

The news had reached him a day after the discovery of the body, and he did indeed at first feel it as a personal affront. He and Bunting had worked together on the Gregory Barrett case. Tuttle would never forget the unstinting admiration with which Bunting had listened to Tuttle's discovery of Barrett's role in the birth of Madeline's baby.

“You know what this means, Tuttle.” Tuttle preferred to be told. He smiled wisely. “He's the father, Tuttle! That's what it means.”

There was no point in quarreling with this interpretation. For
Tuttle, it was easier to believe that then-Father Barrett had been what help he could to a young woman in distress. Bunting, though, was aflame with certainty. “Let's tell Gloria.”

In the event, it was Bunting who had told Gloria, in the course of the narrative failing to mention that the great discovery had been made by Tuttle. No matter. There was something unsavory in Bunting's eagerness.

Gloria listened with concern. “What will Maddie say when she hears?”

“Let's find out.”

“No.” She laid a hand on Bunting's arm. “I'll talk with her first. Who knows what trauma this will cause?”

“We got him,” Bunting had said, hugging himself. “We've got the smug sonofabitch.”

Such triumphalism was unseemly, and Tuttle was happy to get away into the company of the phlegmatic Peanuts Pianone. Peanuts wanted Italian rather than Chinese for lunch.

“What is it, a holy day?”

“Every day is a holy day.”

Well, every day was a holiday for Peanuts. Lunching with Peanuts was no obstacle to thought, and Tuttle had reviewed where he was at that time, professionally.

Gregory Barrett was no longer his client, so there was no conflict of interest in gathering information harmful to him. Bunting was a client. How about Madeline? The trouble with that was that she was unlikely to be dunnable for any significant amount no matter what happened. He might as well be acting pro bono. Bunting's reaction had brought home to Tuttle that he had little taste for this crusade against the clergy. Of course, the targets were bad apples, but not everyone who
joined the pack was all that discriminating about the objects of pursuit.

Later, in the pressroom at the courthouse, Tetzel was holding forth on the scandals. “It all comes down to celibacy,” he pontificated. “These guys are lonely.”

“You ever been married, Tetzel?”

The reporter ignored the hostile question. “Take Tuttle, now. He's a celibate, sure, but that's his nature.”

Tuttle took umbrage at this; he wasn't sure why. He had never thought of himself as a celibate before.

“So let priests get married?” someone asked.

“Sure. Why should they be happy?”

Tuttle left. Hours of idleness might be the explanation of the resentment reporters felt for the rest of the world. They brooded too much. The scramble for news was demeaning. No wonder they hated the politicians they had to grovel before.

And when Ned Bunting's body was found on the western shore of the Fox River, in lovers' lane, Tetzel, of course, had a theory. “Look, he talks some Amazon into parking with him, he gets fresh and gets his neck broken.”

“A woman?”

Light suddenly gleamed in Tetzel's eyes. “You may be right. What do we know about Bunting's personal life?”

“He was an usher at St. Bavo's.”

“A perfect cover. We'll check out the altar boys for complaints against him. I say it was a question of rough trade. When I was in the navy—”

He was drowned out by the groans of his fellow members of the Fourth Estate.

Upstairs, Tuttle walked into Cy Horvath's office and said, “What do we know?”

“Quite a lot.”

Tuttle sat. “For instance.”

“Well, two and two are four. The sun is ninety-three million miles away, the average lifetime of the fruit fly is—”

“I mean about Ned Bunting.”

“I should be asking you, Tuttle. You were a friend of his.”

“I knew him, yeah.”

“Tell me about him.”

Cy was serious, putting Tuttle in an unusual position. His visits to the offices on the top floor of the courthouse were made to gather, not give, information—but this was a special case.

“He was a writer.”

“What had he written?”

“He had a story about Father Dowling in the
Tribune
.”

“What else?”

“He was engaged on a project. He wanted to write a book on the priest scandal.”

“Tuttle, people keep telling us the guy was a writer, but no one knows what he wrote except that thing on Dowling. Isn't a writer someone who writes?”

“Horvath, you have no soul. You don't understand artists, writers, painters.”

“Painters?”

“Gloria Daley was a friend of Bunting's. She paints. Some of her things are on display at the Benjamin Harrison branch of the public library.”

“A particular friend.”

“Kindred spirits. She is also the friend of Madeline Murphy, the woman who accused Gregory Barrett.”

“Hence the book idea?”

“You got it. What about those tests?”

“Pippen will let me know when she gets the result.”

“They're pretty important, you know.”

“Tuttle, why don't you find Peanuts and exchange great ideas?”

When the body was discovered, Nancy Barrett said to Gregory, “Have you heard? They found that fellow Ned Bunting in the river.”

“Dead?”

She nodded. What could he say? The thought of Ned Bunting just disappearing from the face of the earth had been an attractive one for weeks. They had discussed the threat posed by the record that had been found—he, Nancy, and Thomas.

“What kind of a creep would scrounge around looking for that kind of stuff?” Thomas asked.

“The role of Torquemada is always attractive.”

“Poetic justice,” Thomas said now.

Afterward, it occurred to Gregory Barrett that none of them had expressed regret at the death of Bunting. Understandable,
perhaps, but not very Christian. Then again, what kind of Christians were they, after all? He and Nancy had explained abandoning their vocations as the result of having been let down by the Church. It was as if what they had done were the principled, the noble thing. Well, it had been the right thing, he was sure of that. In the intervening years, the developments in the Church had seemed to justify what they had done. Of one thing he was certain: He could not have faced all those changes with equanimity. At Mass—and they went nearly every Sunday—he found himself dismayed by the liturgical changes. The priest, now called the presider, smiled out at the congregation, an emcee there to hold their interest and entertain them. Criticism came easily because it was a species of self-justification. He marveled at the way Roger Dowling had adjusted to all the turmoil. The day after Bunting was found, he went again to St. Hilary's, just dropping by.

“Father is saying the noon Mass.” The housekeeper could scarcely disguise her disapproval of him.

“I'll go over to the church.”

When he came in, an old fellow with a croaking voice was reading the scriptural passages of the day while Roger Dowling sat behind the altar. Of course, he read the gospel and followed it with a four-minute homily—Barrett timed it—a brief and pointed commentary on the story of the ten lepers. Roger suggested that the story could be read in two ways: only one of ten or at least one often. He exhorted them to be that tenth cleansed leper.

Roger said the Roman canon, which was the one they had grown up with. For a short time, Barrett could imagine that the old thing went on, that the changes were superficial. Roger's fidelity to his vocation seemed something to envy.

Barrett did not go forward at communion time. What was the condition of his soul? His soul had become a stranger to him, ceding its primacy to mind and his love of literature. In his next program, he would speak of Trollope and Lily Dale's reaction to being jilted by Crosbie. An impossibly, unbelievably good woman, worthy of Dickens. But he would contrast Lily with Mrs. Lupex and Amelia at John Eames's boardinghouse. Trollope could write truly about women, but he had a fatal weakness for females like Lily Dale. Even as he prepared the program, Barrett found himself congratulating himself on his perception. It all seemed trivial watching Roger Dowling say Mass.

Afterward, he went into the sacristy where Roger greeted him warmly. “Good. You must have lunch with me.”

“Oh, I couldn't do that.”

“And why not?”

“I don't think your housekeeper approves of me.”

“Would you want her approval?”

“You certainly have it.”

“You see? She has abysmally low standards.”

When they took their places in the rectory dining room, Marie Murkin was on her best behavior, and Barrett relaxed.

“Do you know, when I visited you a few weeks ago, it was the first time I had been in a rectory since I left. Now here I am in the dining room.”

“Where did you speak with Equivocal Casey?”

The meal was passed discussing Casey and other professors they had had. What fun it was. Afterward, they went to the study, where they could smoke.

“Have you heard about Ned Bunting?” Greg asked.

“Poor fellow. I commemorated him in today's Mass.”

“I didn't hear that.”

“No reason why you should have recognized it. I just referred to him as Edward.”

“That was good of you.”

“He had been coming to Mass here.”

“Do you know how he died? The news reports are vague, but they suggest drowning.”

“He died of a broken neck.”

“Good Lord.” Barrett drew on his cigarette. “You're sure?”

“I have friends in the police. Do you remember a fellow named Phil Keegan at Quigley? A class or two below us.”

“No.” He rubbed the tip of his nose with the back of his hand. “Not that my memory has been all that reliable.”

Roger ignored that. “He left and went into the service, served as an MP, and became a policeman when he got out. He is now captain of detectives. We've become great friends.”

“Do they have any idea who did it?”

“Not yet.”

“You know what I fear, Roger.”

“Tell me.”

“I will seem to have had a pretty good motive for wanting to get rid of him.”

“So would I, for that matter. Abstractly, I mean. My hagiographer. I can't tell you how I was teased about that ridiculous piece.”

“Watching you say Mass, I don't think it was all that ridiculous.”

“Well, I know where I was and what I was doing at the time he was apparently killed. You do the same, and we will both go unscathed.”

“When exactly did it happen?”