The Prudence of the Flesh (30 page)

Sometimes Roger Dowling thought that his study in the St. Hilary's rectory was a kind of clearinghouse, leaving him with more information than any of his informants. Marvin, it turned out, had agreed to the test. Maybe he wanted proof positive of who he wasn't. Who said it is difficult to prove a negative? Amos Cadbury.

“I just hope it is kept confidential,” Amos said. “I don't think either one would want it otherwise.”

“And Gregory Barrett will be definitively exonerated?” Roger Dowling nodded. Gregory's motive in agreeing to the DNA test with Marvin had become clear to him. Gregory didn't need the proof, but his wife and son did. What Thomas had done, as Gregory had said, indicated that Thomas thought him guilty. And Nancy had gone along with it.

From Phil he had heard of Tuttle's doings in the wake of his disillusionment with Thomas Barrett. “He wanted to tell him he should have asked how he had gotten hold of a toothbrush that was allegedly Marvin's. Do you know what he answered? ‘I would have lied.' ”

“Where did they meet?”

“The Great Wall. I don't know why Tuttle has an office; he does most of his business in that restaurant. Thomas came in fresh from a shower.”

“It was raining?”

“No, no. It was his regular jogging day, and he took a shower before going to the Great Wall.”

“What day was that?”

Phil thought. “Wednesday.”

“Still no leads on Bunting's death?”

Phil groaned. “We actually impounded Marvin's car and had the lab people look it over. Nothing.” Marvin had been a wild idea of Agnes Lamb's, but Phil did not criticize her. After the release of Pasquali, they had to try something.

“What next?”

“We thought about Gloria Daley. She came up with a theory about Pasquali killing Bunting, throwing him into the river, and then driving her up there to discover the body. So we thought maybe that's what she did.” Phil looked at Roger Dowling. “But she didn't. After we impounded Marvin's car, he borrowed Gloria's and came down to make a protest. He knew his car hadn't been taken away simply for parking in a handicapped space. That's when he demanded that we examine Gloria's car as we had his.”

“And you did?”

“Clean as a whistle.”

“Somebody killed Ned Bunting.”

“When you figure out who, let me know. I'll listen to the wildest theories.”

*   *   *

When the theory came, Roger called Cy Horvath. If the huge Hungarian lieutenant was surprised by his suggestion, he gave no sign of it—but then his face seldom revealed what he thought. “I'll look into it.”

It was the remark that Wednesday was Thomas Barrett's usual day to jog that set Father Dowling's mind going. Ned Bunting had been killed on a Wednesday. The following Wednesday, Cy was waiting when Thomas emerged from the Barrett house in shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt and a blue and gold headband. Before he went out of sight, Cy emerged from his car wearing a sweat suit and a pair of tennis shoes endorsed by Michael Jordan. He was not in the shape he had once been in, but he thought he could run as far as Thomas Barrett.

Thomas took the road that led across the bridge to the west bank of the Fox River, moving easily along, while Cy became aware of his heavy breathing, and of the fat that seemed to have gathered around his middle and bounced as he ran. Once he had been a star athlete who could run the hundred in record time all suited up for the game, but that had been a long time ago. Cy began to think longingly of the car he had left a block from the Barrett residence. As the distance from it increased, he was more and more conscious that it would be the same distance back.

The boy ahead seemed tireless as he ran along the path beside the river. If only he would take a rest, but that seemed out of the question. They were approaching the parking lot called lovers' lane, and suddenly this pursuit seemed to make sense. When Cy got to the parking lot, there was no sign of Thomas, and he headed for a bench and collapsed on it. He looked north up the river road but could not see young Barrett. He had
learned though, that the scenario Father Dowling had sketched was not impossible. Then someone sat beside him on the bench.

It was Thomas, and he seemed hardly to have worked up a sweat. “Are you following me?”

“Why would I be doing that?” Cy was panting, and sweat ran down his face.

Thomas handed him a towel. “You're out of shape.”

“I haven't done this for a long time.”

“Wednesday is my long run.”

“Is this your usual route?”

“Why else would you be following me?”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Not your name. But you're a cop, aren't you?”

“That's right.”

“This is where Ned Bunting's body was found.”

“On a Wednesday.”

They sat in silence for a while. Then Cy said, “Tell me about it.”

“Oh, I won't make it that easy for you.”

“All I ask is that we walk back to my car.”

“What for?”

“People are more willing to talk when taken downtown.”

“So let's talk.”

Cy told him what had been gathered at the crime scene. Footprints galore, those of Pasquali and Gloria Daley, of course.

“Even when we eliminated those of the examining crew, there were several unidentified sets.” He pointed at Tommy's feet. “What size are your running shoes?”

“Eleven.”

“That's about right. You shouldn't have left the bat.”

“What bat?”

“A Louisville Slugger. It looks like a collector's item.”

Tommy was staring at him. “Who told you about that?”

“It's yours, isn't it?”

“I have a bat like that at home. How did you know?”

“Why don't you show it to me?”

The way back was no longer than the way they had come; it only seemed longer. A silent Tommy Barrett walked beside Cy. There wasn't much to say. Either Cy's stab in the dark would be disproved or . . . But his legs were so heavy, thinking was a chore. He settled down to just getting back to the Barrett home.

The house was empty. Tommy let them in and led the way to a rec room in the basement. He stopped halfway across the room, then turned. “It was my bat you found.”

“Is this a confession?”

“I thought people were more willing to talk when you take them downtown.”

Cy looked at the kid. “Your bat is missing?”

He nodded. Cy would have given anything if there had been another Louisville Slugger in the Barrett rec room.

“You want to change first?”

“What's the point?”

So they went out to Cy's car, and on the drive Tommy talked nonstop. Ned Bunting had to be stopped. He was destroying his father, destroying their home. Even his mother had begun to wonder about the charges against her husband.

“So you took care of the problem?”

“I'm willing to answer for what I did.”

The new twist in the events that had dominated so many minds for weeks brought gloom to everyone involved.

Tuttle tried to find something noble in what the boy had done. “He did it for his father.”

If so, he had sacrificed Ned Bunting as well as himself. Phil took no satisfaction in the solution of the crime, but there was no room for doubt. The bat was Tommy's, and his running shoes matched prints taken from the scene of the crime—and he was a willing witness against himself until Amos Cadbury assigned young Tim Fuller from his firm to represent the boy and he was made to keep silent.

“Fuller will make sure he has the best defense possible,” Amos said, but his tone seemed to rule out any possible verdict of innocence.

Marvin tried to see Tommy, but his request was refused, even when he suggested he was a relative. He wasn't; the second DNA test had proved a negative definitively: Marvin was not the son of Gregory Barrett. Tetzel wrote a skeptical piece on the dangerous
reliance on laboratory tests to establish guilt or innocence—sour grapes, of course.

It was Madeline Murphy's reaction that was surprising. She came to the rectory and wept when she told Father Dowling that she felt as she would have if Marvin had done such a thing in order to defend her good name. When Marie brought in tea for the caller and found her weeping, she took the woman in her arms and they cried a duet.

“Mr. Pasquali has resigned,” Madeline said, when she regained control of herself and sat sipping tea. “They are moving to New Mexico.”

“They?”

“He and Gloria Daley.”

“Gloria Daley!” Marie cried. “None of this would have happened but for her.”

“I don't blame her,” Madeline said. “I was a fool.”

“Now, now,” Marie said.

“I have turned in my resignation, too, Father. Marvin is taking me to Florida.”

“Marvin?”

“He seems to have the Midas touch with the stock market.”

If Madeline's visit had been emotional, it was far worse when Gregory and Nancy Barrett came. There was no weeping, no emotional outburst, simply the stunned reaction of two people who felt they had been smitten by the hand of God.

“Now, Greg, you know that isn't true.”

“If I hadn't left the priesthood, if I hadn't married—”

Nancy bristled at this. “Greg, for heaven's sake.”

Father Dowling told them of Madeline Murphy's analogy. Marvin might have done such a deed for her.

“That woman,” Nancy said. “I told you once I hated her. I'll say it again. I hate her.”

Father Dowling, remembering Cy Horvath's account of Tommy's confession, remembered the boy's motivation when he had concocted the phony DNA test. “He tried to protect you once before, Greg.”

“Dear God.”

“I can't believe they will find him guilty,” Nancy said. “Anyone could have thrown that bat there.”

“True. And anyone could have worn a pair of your son's running shoes and made the prints found there.”

Greg just looked at him. How could he take comfort in such a fantasy as that? Nancy looked away, an angry expression on her face.

Father Dowling said, “There is only one way to save him.”

“How?” Greg asked, his voice strangled.

“If the person who killed Ned Bunting confesses.”

The silence that followed this remark grew deeper.

“Nancy?”

“What?”

“Surely you don't intend to let your own son answer for what you did.”

Gregory leapt to his feet, his face distorted with anger. “Roger, I can't believe you said that.”

Nancy remained seated. Slowly she lifted her face to her husband's. “I never thought that they would trace that old bat to Tommy.”

“What are you saying?”

“If you think Tommy could have done this for you, don't you think I would have?”

“Nancy . . .”

But she was nodding. “I called that man and asked him to meet me there. I parked up the road when I saw he was seated on a bench. I crept up behind him with the bat.” She breathed deeply and closed her eyes. “It was horrible. I couldn't just leave him there. I tried to lift him and I couldn't. And then I saw that sheet of plastic lying in the woods—”

“For God's sake, Nancy, stop it. None of that happened.”

Her eyes were full of tears. “I would give anything if it hadn't. But Greg, Father Dowling is right. I can't let Tommy suffer any more. These past days, oh my God . . .”

It was half an hour later that Roger called first Amos Cadbury and then Phil Keegan. Meanwhile, he and Nancy had spent ten minutes alone in the front parlor. Mercy had been received. Now justice would make its demands.

In a sad bid to redeem his lost credibility, Tetzel spent several hours with Henry Drummond, listening to the accountant's charges against the archdiocese. If the two of them hadn't been drinking, it would have been time utterly wasted.

“This Barrett thing makes them look innocent as lambs,”
Drummond mourned. “They were down for the count, and look at them now. No one is interested in their real crimes.” Drummond meant the fact that he had been fired. The problem was that the accountant was the only one who charged himself with financial peculation. The archdiocese had smothered the whole episode in ambiguous prose. No mention at all of wrongdoing on Drummond's part. “Oh, the cunning, the clerical cunning of it all.”