The Prudence of the Flesh (15 page)

“He just stopped to jump in the river?”

The medical examiner turned to look at Cy Horvath. “All this is just guesswork, of course.”

But Cy's phlegmatic remark brought the guessing game to a close.

It was the plea of Gloria Daley, self-described particular friend of the deceased, that had initiated the search for Bunting.

“How particular?” Cy had asked her.

“We had become quite intimate. We were drawn together by our art.”

Having turned the body over to Lubins, the coroner, and hoping that Lubins would wait and leave things in the capable hands of his assistant, Dr. Pippen, Cy had gone out to interview Ned Bunting's particular friend. They sat in a room every wall of which was covered with paintings.

“He painted, too?”

“He was a writer! He wrote that marvelous piece on Father Dowling, the pastor of St. Hilary's. It made quite a splash.”

The remark seemed to refer to Bunting's entry into the Fox River, and Gloria Daley, who had been blowsy and flirty to this point, now decided to weep for her departed particular friend. “I can't believe he's gone.”

Cy said, “Anything you can tell us will be helpful, Mrs. Daley.”

“Oh, call me Gloria. I was never Mrs. Daley anyway. I took my own name back after I lost my husband.” She rubbed her nose with a wadded Kleenex. “In Iraq.”

They observed a moment of silence.

“So what can you tell us?”

She had first seen Bunting as an usher at the ten o'clock Mass at St. Bavo's, tall, imperious, never meeting any of the eyes he seemed certain were fixed on him. “When the priest came out and the Mass began, it was like a second act.”

Cy had never seen an usher he hadn't wanted to kick in the rear, and the description of Bunting suggested he was the worst sort. “I'll check at St. Bavo's.”

“Oh, he stopped going there. Monsignor Sledz insulted him, and we began attending Mass at St. Hilary's. That was another thing that drew us together, our faith.”

“Insulted him?”

“Ned was a writer. Just before he settled on his new book project, he made an offer to Monsignor Sledz. He would do a short piece for the parish bulletin each week. Gratis. Sledz ridiculed the idea. He didn't just turn it down, he made fun of it. It is a tribute to Ned that such treatment did not shake his faith. Many people mistreated by the clergy never go to church again.”

“Why the story on Father Dowling?”

“I needn't tell you about the priest scandal.”

“Tell me everything, Gloria.”

“Well, we were talking, Ned and I, about a book he might write, and just like that, the idea came. The priest scandal. The media have been playing it for all it's worth, but hostilely, as if every priest in the world is some kind of monster. Nonsense. So Ned decided that he would write on it from a local perspective, the Chicago scene, the archdiocese, that is, including all the suburbs, to show how small a thing it really is. That's why he decided to begin with the story on Father Dowling.”

“It sounds as if he had a real goal there.”

“Lieutenant, he was a man on a mission.”

“So why would he commit suicide?”

“Suicide! Ned Bunting would no more commit suicide than I would.” She almost glared at him. “We are Catholics.”

No point in mentioning that from time to time a Catholic committed suicide. Not that it was certain that was how Ned Bunting had met his death.

“Well, if it isn't suicide, we are going to need an explanation. Like, who would want Ned Bunting dead.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Does the name Gregory Barrett mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“He's a regular on NPR.”

“What's that?”

“National Public Radio!” She settled down and inhaled. “I will say no more. But you asked what I thought. NPR and Gregory Barrett. I will say no more.”

Cy stood. “Did he like baseball?”

“Ned? Doesn't everyone?”

“Did he ever show you his bat?”

Her eyes glistened, but before she could say it he was out of the door. God, what a flake.

A Louisville Slugger had been found flung into the woods not far from where Ned Bunting's body was found.

“To think he sat at my kitchen table eating pineapple upside-down cake.” Marie Murkin was on the phone to her counterpart Barbara at St. Bavo's.

“Monsignor Sledz thinks he should be buried from here.”

“Well, he wasn't registered here, Barbara.”

“Gloria Daley told the pastor that after the way he had treated Ned Bunting, driving him from the parish, it did not seem right to have his final send-off at St. Bavo's.”

“Why should you care what she thinks?”

“Marie, there's no one else. No relatives, no close friends. No wonder he was susceptible.”

“Susceptible?”

“To Gloria Daley.”

“Ah.”

“You don't think . . .”

“Let us leave that to the police,” Marie said. “Anyway, could she have thrown him into the river?”

“Maybe he jumped.”

“Barbara!”

Phil Keegan came by that night to watch a Bulls game with Father Dowling. Once the Bulls had been a bright spot in area sports, but with the departure of Michael Jordan things would never be the same again.

“So what about Ned Bunting?” Marie asked, holding Captain Keegan's bottle of beer until he had unwrapped his cigar.

“Death by drowning.”

“I knew that much.”

“Did you? Usually bodies pitched into the Fox River are already dead.”

“He was pitched in?”

“Can't say. From what Cy has been learning, he was a troubled man. He thought he was a writer, but apparently no one else did.”

“He was an usher at St. Bavo's.”

“You think that was his motivation.” He took the beer. Father Dowling was following this while he filled his pipe. A steaming mug of coffee was on the desk before him.

“He was more or less fired. He had been coming to Mass here,” Marie said.

“And gathering material on the pastor,” Father Dowling said from a cloud of smoke.

“I said I was sorry.”

“How do you think I feel?”

“Did you ever meet the man, Roger?”

“Oh, Marie kept him all to herself.”

“You think maybe he was a victim of a broken heart?”

Marie left them alone, her only comment something of a snort.
In the kitchen she wondered if she should have told Phil Keegan of the woman who had accompanied Ned Bunting to Mass. She made tea for herself and had the last of the pineapple upside-down cake, but it was dry and had lost its savor. She might have been punishing the two men, but Father Dowling never snacked, and Phil Keegan would not want cake with his beer.

She took from a drawer the issue of the
Tribune
that contained the story on Father Dowling, and read it as if it were a message from beyond. Anyone but Father Dowling would have been glad to have such a story written about him. If he had even read it. He was bothered as much by the accompanying photographs as by the story itself.

Marie was Irish enough to enjoy conjuring up the figure of the author. She looked at the chair in which he had sat and tried to remember the pleasant talk they had had here. Such a nice man, not at all awkward because of his height, and how deferential he had been to her. He had confided in her his intention of writing about these terrible stories about bad priests that had caused such a sensation. It was to counterbalance that that he had wanted to write about Father Dowling. Maybe she wasn't as sorry as she pretended. She pored over the story, trying to find traces of what she had told Ned Bunting.

Then her mind dwelled on the scandal of those stories. Say they were all true—and of course she knew that the clergy, too, were beset by the effects of original sin. Even so, it had been a good idea to give an account of a priest like Father Dowling and a parish like St. Hilary's. Her thoughts went to the visit Gregory Barrett had paid the rectory.

It had been a shock to learn that he was a priest; she couldn't say “former priest.” Despite herself, she remembered her first impression of the man: highly favorable, no doubt about that. Then to learn that he was a classmate of Roger Dowling's who had gone off and married and had a child. She sipped her tea, and her eyes filled with tears at the thought of a man doing such a thing. He hadn't been the only one, far from it, but Marie's judgment of laicization was pretty much what it was of annulments. Still, it might be better to get permission to leave and marry and all the rest rather than remain in the priesthood and act the way some had. Wouldn't it have been better if all those bad apples had taken themselves out of the barrel? Not that that had spared Gregory Barrett from being accused of misbehavior.

“I don't believe it,” Marie had told Father Dowling.

“No more do I.”Amos Cadbury would not have become the man's lawyer if he had thought him guilty, Marie was sure of that. How lucky she had been when Father Dowling had been appointed pastor. Marie had served as housekeeper for several years when the Franciscans had the parish. Little as she had thought of the friars, she was certain none of them had ever done anything he shouldn't have, but they had been a disorganized bunch, difficult to work for, and of course they had treated her like a housekeeper. With Father Dowling, Marie felt part of things, always told what was going on, when that was appropriate. Her eyes fell again to the newspaper story. No, she really wasn't sorry she had talked with Ned Bunting and told him what she had so that he could write so nicely of the parish. His allusions
to Mrs. Murkin in the story gave some indication of how important she was to the smooth running of St. Hilary's. So she finished the cake and sipped her tea and mourned the loss of Ned Bunting.

Peanuts wasn't interested in the death of Ned Bunting, so Tuttle had gone downtown and hung around the pressroom to hear what he might hear.

Tetzel of the
Tribune
growled when the dead man was referred to as his colleague. “Quirk must have been drunk when he accepted that piece.”

“Jealousy does not become you,” Tuttle said.

“Jealousy!”

“He scooped you, Tetzel. And it was a great idea. Too bad you didn't think of it yourself.”

“A puff piece. What kind of news is that?”

“It was his opening salvo, I'm told. He was going to do a book on the local angle of these scandals.”

“A book!” Tetzel was alleged to have notes for a novel filed away on the hard drive of his computer.

“What was the public's reaction?”

“Check the letters to the editor. They loved it. Maybe we should run stories on people who haven't beaten their wives.”

The others professed to be delighted by the suggestion, and Tetzel went back to his computer.

Tuttle pushed the Styrofoam cup of coffee from him. It tasted like last week. “Ciao,” he said as he left the room.

“Peanuts teaching you Italian?” The words followed him out the door.

Upstairs he found Cy Horvath in his office talking with the black officer Agnes Lamb. He was used to the kind of look they gave him.

“I'm here to inquire about a client.”

“A client.”

“Mr. Ned Bunting.”

Agnes reacted. “Haven't you heard?”

“Fill me in.”

“How do I know he was your client?” Horvath reasonably asked.

“It was just a handshake, but with me that is sacred.”

“Well, you're short a client, Tuttle. He was fished out of the Fox River.”

Feigning surprise, Tuttle staggered to a chair, and Agnes sprang to her feet to help him get seated. She brought him a glass of water, which was welcome. It got the taste of the pressroom coffee out of his mouth.

“I suppose the reason for that handshake comes under privilege,” Horvath said.

“He's dead?”

“Dead.”

“Then all bets are off. He was writing a book on the clerical scandals. Local. You may have seen the marvelous feature he did on Roger Dowling.”