Tuttle was granted his evanescent hour in the glare of public notice and acclaim. Mendel's story in the
Tribune
was free of irony and full of details that owed more to his imagination than accounts of witnesses; unless his source was Tuttle. Prominent in the accompanying pictures, informal shots in the hero's offices, was Ms. Hazel Barnes. She was the principal acknowledged source of Mendel's account. “The man is a weapon when aroused. He should be registered.”
The benevolent smile the secretary cast at her employer, immortalized on film, suggested the city office in which she would love to register Tuttle.
Just when the publicity was fading, it flared up again. Tuttle had disappeared.
Mendel excitedly called for a national dragnet to rescue the little lawyer, certain that the forces of evil had been unleashed. But Peanuts Pianone had put in for leave and Father Dowling knew that the two old friends were in the wilds of Wisconsin, holed up in a cabin, far from the predatory designs of Hazel Barnes.
“Did he really bop Fremont?” Phil asked.
“He did. He acted with great courage.”
“Well, he has gotten more than enough credit,” Marie said. “What on earth made you suspect Albert Fremont?”
How often he had been asked that question since the arrest, arraignment, and indictment of Albert Fremont. The scorned lawyer
would answer for the murders of Linda Hopkins, Agatha, and Ruby. The death of Mrs. Wilson, the woman who had seen Fremont push Linda into traffic, was not named in the indictment, though Skinner had pressed for it.
“We'll keep her in reserve,” the coroner said. “Three's plenty.”
That Fremont should have been attracted by both the naively innocent Linda and the unabashed Aggie Rossner was a puzzle Father Dowling would leave to those who imagine there is logic in human affairs. Fremont had indeed pursued Linda and had not taken her rebuff easily.
“When I saw the animal she wanted to marry ⦔ Fremont's narrow lips assumed the disapproval of a disappointed eugenicist.
“No wonder she told him to buzz off,” Harry said, when he got a look at Albert Fremont. “I'd like to have five minutes alone with that wimp.” Harry had offered Tuttle two hundred dollars' reward for smashing the statue over Fremont's head.
“I just hope it doesn't bring bad luck,” Tuttle replied when he magnanimously refused to tap the bank account Harry had amassed in hopes of marrying Linda. “She said it was a statue of Saint Anne.”
“You superstitious?”
“Of course not.”
“So don't worry.”
Tuttle accepted Harry's comforting theology and went with a clear conscience into the wilds of Wisconsin. Harry decided to let the sum lie in the bank.
“In fifty years I'll be rich,” he said without enthusiasm. “I read about it somewhere. Compound interest.”
“If it weren't for that poor girl, it would all come back to Aggie,” Colleen said. She and Mario had come to the rectory for their initial marriage-preparation session, but the first half-hour was spent on the
harrowing events of recent days. “She teased him and led him on, and given her reputation he must have thought he was in luck. It was bad enough when she ignored him for Tim, but when she took after my father ⦔
“Aggie does bear a lot of responsibility,” Mario said. In a bid for favorable publicity to balance the bad, Mallard and Bill had pled with Mario to return to the firm. He was inclined to accept but it seemed well to hold off telling the partners for several weeks.
“She didn't just tease Fremont,” Cy said. “Maybe if they hadn't had their own little affair he would have dismissed her interest in Jack Gallagher.”
Fremont had watched the liaison with Jack spring up just when Tim Gallagher was fading from the scene. To lose his love to a septuagenarian was more than he could take. He had rented a car, parked it outside the gate of Western Sun Community, and taken up his vigil. When Aggie had emerged he was half frozen from waiting, and seething with rage. He had strangled her with her own scarf and left her in the snow. And he had left her purse there as well, after extracting her car keys.
“Why did you take her car?”
“For the hell of it.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I thought the same thing before I'd driven half a mile,” Fremont said. “I was going to abandon it but then I thought taking it to her garage would confuse the issue. How was I to know that Jack Gallagher would confess?”
“Why did you take the car from the garage?”
Fremont did not answer. Had he thought of abandoning it with Colleen's body in it? When this was mentioned, his reaction suggested that was the reason.
In June, Colleen and Mario were married at St. Hilary's and there was a general turnout of Gallaghers, colleagues, and old friends. Old people
from the Center filled many pews. Jack Gallagher gave away his daughter with great panache; Jane was matron of honor. Maud Rooney, previously Gorman, improbably filled the role of maid of honor with Austin as best man. This arrangement symbolized the reconciliation of Jack and Austin. Marie gave the happy couple a statue of Saint Anne to replace the one Tuttle had used as a weapon.
“I think I can use it,” George Hessian told Rawley.
“Go back to writing the parish history.”
Hessian shook his head. “Not until I finish this biographical memoir.”
“You're wasting your time.”
The wedding reception was held in the parish Senior Center, where Desmond O'Toole was induced to sing with the band that had been hired. To general delight, he and Jack Gallagher sang a duet, Desmond doing Satchmo and Jack, Bing Crosby. Amos Cadbury smiled wistfully as he stood with Father Dowling near the back of the converted gym.
“You should dance, Amos.”
“I don't think I will ever dance again, Father.” He did not have to explain that his decision was due to the fact that Maud was now Mrs. Austin Rooney.
“What do you think of Albert Fremont's plea of insanity?”
“A sign of the times, Father. A sign of the times. The evil men do is now taken to be the result of illness. Is Original Sin an illness?”
“Not in that sense, Amos.”
Marie Murkin joined them and the band began a waltz. “Marie,” Amos said. “Would you care to dance?”
In confused delight the housekeeper accepted and was swept away in the arms of the stately lawyer. Father Dowling smiled benevolently over the gathering and then slipped away to the rectory, his study, his pipe. An hour with Dante and a renewed perspective on the human comedy seemed called for.