The Widow's Mate (7 page)

Amos smiled receptively. Luke would get to the point of this visit in his own good time. Of course, the office must remind him of the long-ago time when he had drawn up the agreement with Wally after it was clear that his son had no intention of taking over the business Luke had built.

“Maybe if I had stood firm he'd be alive today, Amos.”

“You can't know that.”

“I know, I know.” He shook his crew-cut head. “The worst part of being old and having nothing to do is that you sit around thinking, remembering, reliving the past. You listen to others only so you can talk yourself. That's why I stayed away from the parish center.”

“At St. Hilary's.”

“I didn't want to be
that
old. Melissa likes the place. At her age!”

“Many do.”

Luke frowned. “I'm told that Gregory Packer is another habitué. More a son of a habitué as far as I'm concerned.”

Amos remembered the man who had wept at Wally's funeral. No need to commend him for that to Luke. The old man had convinced himself that Packer was a bad influence on his son.

“Why I'm here, Amos, is this. I told you I spend a lot of time brooding. There are many things I don't understand, but right up there near the top is where the hell Wally was all those years before his body was found in one of my trucks.”

Amos nodded. “That is a mystery.”

“I want to solve it.”

“To what purpose?”

“I just want to know. Where was he, what was he doing? Of course I thought he had run off with some woman. Maybe he had.”

“Luke, even if he did, nothing would be changed by finding out.”

“And then the way he died.” Luke squeezed his eyes shut and turned away. “Did you ever see the inside of a cement mixer?”

“No.”

A pause. “Did the client who sat here get married?”

“Not yet.”

“Maybe that is the solution.”

“What is the problem?”

“I told you. Loneliness.”

Amos did not have to be told of the loneliness that follows on the loss of a spouse. Every day since his beloved wife had died, he had said a rosary for her. Often, alone at home, he spoke aloud to her, and at night vivid dreams of her still came.

“Do you have anyone in mind?”

“Maybe. Do you know what stops me? The fact that Wally probably did run away with some woman other than his wife.”

“You don't know that.”

“One of my daughters heard rumors.”

It was unclear to Amos whether Luke was simply unburdening his soul or wanted legal assistance. Only someone who had been a client as long as Luke could have taken up his time like this. He decided to regard it simply as a visit from an old friend.

“How would I go about it, Amos?”

“Getting married?”

Luke's laugh was like a bark. “That I could handle. I meant finding out if Wally did take off with a woman.”

“Did your daughter mention a name?”

Luke seemed relieved by the question. He took a slip of paper from his shirt pocket, unfolded it, and laid it on the desk.

Amos turned it so he could read it. “Had you ever heard of her?”

Luke shook his head. “Never.”

“Nor have I.”

“Don't worry about expenses.”

It seemed a little late to tell Luke that Amos Cadbury was not the ideal person to hire for such a task. Then he thought of Phil Keegan. More to the point, he thought of Cy Horvath. There might be a way to get the information Luke wanted, although what he would do with it if he had it was difficult to say.

Luke got to his feet. “I'll let you know about the other thing.”

Amos looked blankly at him.

“Getting married. “Another barking laugh, and then he thrust his hand at Amos. They shook vigorously. After the door closed behind Luke, Amos picked up the slip of paper. Sandra Bochenski.

11

When Father Dowling invited Edna Hospers and her husband, Earl, to have dinner with him at the rectory, Marie Murkin was dumbfounded.

“Dinner? Here?”

“Would you rather that I entertain them at a restaurant?”

“No!”

“Well, then.”

Marie stood mute and stricken in the door of Father Dowling's study. None of the objections that doubtless surged in her breast could be voiced. Marie had always considered Edna a subordinate, doing at the parish center things for which Marie could not spare time from her rectory duties. This was not a view that Edna shared. She had been hired by Father Dowling; he had always expressed satisfaction with the way she had turned the empty school into a center where seniors in the parish could spend their days in company with one another. Marie's incursions into Edna's domain had often generated sparks, and once or twice Father Dowling had to negotiate the equivalent of the Treaty of Westphalia between them.

He felt that he owed the housekeeper some explanation. “It's a way to welcome Earl back.”

“He came back months ago.”

“So you blame me for the delay. I blame myself, Marie.”

“I'm not blaming you at all.”

“That's a relief. I know I can count on you to prepare something special.”

Marie left, and a low keening sound followed her down the hall to her kitchen. It grew louder as the door swung back and forth and then closed behind her.

The point of the invitation was to convey to Earl something of the concern he had felt ever since Phil Keegan had linked the name Pianone to the discovery of Wally Flanagan's body in a cement mixer. Earl, on parole at last, had landed a job driving one of the Flanagan trucks. From Edna, Father Dowling had heard how pleased he was, and she, with the job. The news from Phil that the Pianones were seeking to invest in the company Luke Flanagan had built had turned the Pianone connection from a predictable rumor when a body was found in the locality to something less speculative and more upsetting. It would not do to have a man on parole working for a company infiltrated by a family like the Pianones.

He had thought of mentioning his concerns to Edna in the conviction that she would pass them on to Earl, but there were two things wrong with that. He had no idea what he might say to Edna, and there was no way of telling how whatever message he came up with would be passed on to Earl. The Solomonian decision seemed to be to tell them both at once, but rather than diminishing the difficulty, it doubled it. As the evening when the Hospers would dine at the rectory approached, Father Dowling feared that the occasion might easily go by without any mention of the dangers the Pianones might pose for Earl. It did not help that Marie was giving him the silent treatment. Unable to express with anything approaching charitableness, or even civility, how she felt about seeing her rival ensconced at the rectory dining room table, she locked her lips and threw away the key. Conversations with her had been reduced to nods and shakes of the head supplemented by a makeshift sign language.

“Cat got your tongue, Marie?”

Marie purred in reply, but the expression in her eyes was not benevolent.

“You've only set three places.”

Marie made a face and stared at him.

“Of course you will join us.”

“I have my own table in the kitchen.”

“As you like.”

He almost wished now that Marie would join them. The prospect of the dinner no longer looked inviting.

As it happened, it was Earl who brought up the Pianones. Rumors had floated around the yard at Flanagan's and among the drivers. “If they come in, I'm out of there.”

“Oh, Earl,” Edna said.

“I'd rather go back to repairing television sets than have anything to do with that bunch.”

Mission accomplished without need for a word on his part. There seemed to be a lesson there. But then it was foolish to think that anyone could have more concern about himself than Earl. The sweet taste of freedom was still fresh for him, and he had no intention of jeopardizing it.

“Not that I think it will happen. The old man, Luke, really chewed out Frank Looney when he heard of it.”

Marie came and went throughout the meal, more frequently than seemed necessary, her eyes cast down, her manner that of a menial. It did not help when Edna praised the food. Marie gave her a wintry smile and disappeared through the swinging door into the kitchen.

Marie was vulnerable to Earl's praise, though, and then he got up to examine the hinges on the swinging door. “I never saw any like these. You got a screwdriver, Marie?”

Marie found the tool, and Earl proceeded to tighten up the hinges. She asked him to take a look at the back door, too. “It's not a swinging door, of course, but it seems a little tilted.”

They disappeared into the kitchen, and Edna looked at Father Dowling. “The house has never been as shipshape as it is since he got home.”

Marie did sit when she brought Earl back, and she insisted that he have another serving of her pineapple upside-down cake. She beamed at his appetite. “Greg Packer was the same.”

Earl stopped eating and stared at her. He put down his fork. “Why do you mention him?”

Too late, Marie seemed to recognize her mistake. Both Greg and Earl had spent time in Joliet. Edna, too, was quietly indignant. Marie retreated in confusion, and when she was gone, Edna told Earl, obviously for the first time, that Greg Packer spent time at the center. Whatever Earl's thoughts, he clearly had no intention of expressing them.

After the Hospers left, Marie again fell silent, but it was almost welcome now. It was as if she were giving herself the silent treatment.

12

They told Luke Flanagan that on the upper floors of the John Hancock you could feel the building sway. It must be like living on shipboard. His own apartment was on the top floor of the retirement community, and his windows faced the lake. It was better than television. He could sit there, looking out at the constantly altering surface of the lake, metallic gray, streaks of the brightest blue and all the shades in between, and the water just kept rolling in night and day. When he couldn't sleep, he would sit in the dark and enjoy the lights on the lake, reflections, some passing ship far out, sailboats bobbing in the marina, their masts doing what the Hancock Building was said to do. There was no sway in his building, but the lake offered constant proof of the influence of distant planets on the earth, the tides recording the pushes and pulls from outer space.

His apartment itself didn't interest him. There wasn't a stick of furniture from the house in Fox River, no photographs to invite grief or self-pity; he might have been living in a hotel. What else was the place? Temporary housing on the last leg of life's journey. There had been one photograph of Dora, but he put it in a drawer after he started fritzing around with Maud.

“Maud what?”

She had a square face and what had once been red hair. “You won't laugh?”

“Try me.”

“Lynn.” She waited.

“I don't get it.”

“Well, I won't explain it.”

Until he did get it, Maud seemed some riddle he had to unravel. He began to spend a lot of time with her in the common recreation room he had hitherto avoided. She seemed genuinely interested in the concrete business.

“I supplied the cement that fireproofed McCormick Place.”

“You did?”

“Remember the fire that nearly destroyed it?”

He liked her laughter. She liked beer. That got them out of their building and up the street to what Luke began to call their dive.

“Have you ever seen a Franciscan?” she asked.

“In here?”

“Our place is named after them.”

“That's because you might just as well take the vow of poverty when you settle there.”

“I don't think there are any Franciscans.”

“Maybe it's because the place is for the birds. We used to have Franciscans in our parish in Fox River.”

They never talked much about their families, but he had the sense that she was as disappointed in her offspring as he was in his. Just a long sigh and dismissive wave when she mentioned her three sons. One was in Alaska, another in Santiago, Chile; the third was a Trappist.

“A monk?

She nodded. “He went in right out of the army. If I see him once a year, I'm lucky.”

“Where is he?”

“In Kentucky.”

There wasn't much Luke could say to that. Parish priests were mysterious enough for him. He gave her the story of Wally in dribs and drabs. She was a good audience, but then her hearing wasn't much better than his. The slam and bang of cement mixers had deadened the nerves in both ears. He found hearing aids useless.

So had she. She stuck a finger in each ear and said, “Digital hearing aids.”

She was fun. From time to time, there was a wedding in their community, a twilight union between two lonely people.

“What's the point?” Luke asked.

“I'll buy you a book.”

“He's older than I am.”

You couldn't watch a golf match on television anymore without being assailed by commercials for Viagra. That must be the explanation.

“Some people don't learn from their mistakes,” she chirped. It seemed a rebuff.

“They'll save money, anyway. One apartment instead of two.”

“And he gets a cook and housemaid.”

“You cook?”

“Are you proposing?”

It began as a joke between them, but after a while Luke wasn't sure. Mentioning the possibility of remarriage to Amos Cadbury had been a preemptive strike. He wanted to hear a reaction to the possibility in the real world. Well, in Fox River. One day he drove Maud to Fox River and showed her Flanagan Concrete.

“You still own it?”

“My nephew Frank runs it.”

He parked, and they watched one of the trucks emerge from the gate, the great mixer mounted on it turning slowly. Luke explained to her the process. “I started paving sidewalks and pouring the floors of residential garages. It grew from that.”