When he was finished, Kimberley lifted her face for his kiss.
“I told Feeney I’m coming back to work in the morgue.”
“I thought you were just an intern.”
“With a raise. I have to save money for medical school.”
“Medical school.”
“He’ll groom me as his successor. He intends to oppose Jankowski in the primary.”
“But that would take years.”
“What’s the alternative?”
He tightened his grip on her shoulders. “What Matthew Arnold wrote.”
“You’ll have to be more explicit.”
So he was, and she accepted. Thus was a potential pathologist lost to the St. Joseph County morgue.
* * *
Marjorie Waters refused to believe that a woman could have the strength to kill a man that way.
Jim Casper disagreed. “Listen, I have known women—”
“I am not interested in the women you have known.”
“Neither am I. Not anymore.”
“Besides, interest is a two-way street.”
“You want to give me driving lessons?”
Bernice exchanged a look with Ricardo, an old married couple watching the antics of the young.
“It’s getting late,” Bernice said.
“You’re right,” Jim Casper said. “I have to work tomorrow.”
“And I have to work on my novel.”
That brought Marjorie to her feet. For a moment she seemed to notice the difference in physical attractiveness between Jim and Ricardo, but then, as if accepting her fate, she put her arm through Jim’s. They headed for the door.
“I don’t know what he sees in her,” Ricardo said when their guests were gone.
“Or vice versa.”
* * *
A week later, Roger was in the archives with Greg Walsh examining the diary of Father Zahm.
“So the archives gets it after all,” Roger said.
“Until and unless the university decides to go ahead with the Zahm Center.”
“Perhaps the expense is in your favor.”
Greg frowned. “Father Carmody thinks he has already secured a major donor. David Nobile!”
“Perhaps Mrs. Nobile will veto it.”
“Who could persuade her to do that?”
Roger smiled. He had had a talk with Rebecca after class.
“I like him,” she had said, meaning Greg Walsh.
“It would break his heart if the Zahm holdings, particularly the diary, were removed from the archives.”
“My mother was livid when she heard how much Daddy spent for that Lope de Vega volume.”
“The Zahm Center would involve a good deal more money.”
“Well, I don’t think they will get it from my father.”
“What a relief that would be to Greg Walsh.”
Roger could not believe that he was dishonoring the memory of Father Zahm in this matter. Would the great scholar and writer wish to be commemorated on the campus he had left so ignominiously after his term as provincial? Perhaps not. It was more difficult to imagine the priest liking the solution of the murder of Xavier Kittock. The fact that Foster was now exploring the possibility of a plea of temporary insanity for his client suggested that the lawyer knew what the outcome of a trial would be. It was an odd notion that a declaration of mental illness could make the freedom it secured desirable, but Roger’s fundamental misgiving stemmed from the book in which Zahm had written movingly of the great women who had stood behind the great men of history. Of course, he must have guessed that a negative influence could be equally effective. Roger tried to develop this thought for Phil.
“Forgive me, Roger, but if I never hear the name Zahm again it will be too soon.”
“You’re certainly right to think that several have taken his name in vain.”
“Where did he stand on football?”
“Philip, what an interesting question. I’ll look into it.”
ALSO BY RALPH MCINERNY
MYSTERIES SET AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
On This Rockne
Lack of the Irish
Irish Tenure
Book of Kills
Emerald Aisle
Celt and Pepper
Green Thumb
FATHER DOWLING MYSTERY SERIES
Her Death of Cold
The Seventh Station
Bishop as Pawn
Lying Three
Second Vespers
Thicker Than Water
A Loss of Patients
The Grass Widow
Getting a Way with Murder
Rest in Pieces
The Basket Case
Abracadaver
Four on the Floor
Judas Priest
Desert Sinner
Seed of Doubt
A Cardinal Offense
The Tears of Things
Grave Undertakings
Triple Pursuit
Prodigal Father
Last Things
Requiem for a Realtor
ANDREW BROOM MYSTERY SERIES
Cause and Effect
Body and Soul
Savings and Loam
Mom and Dead
Law and Ardor
Heirs and Parents
IRISH GILT. Copyright © 2005 by Ralph McInerny. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McInerny, Ralph M.
Irish gilt / Ralph McInerny.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-33688-2
ISBN-10: 0-312-33688-8
1. Knight, Roger (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Knight, Philip (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Private investigators—Indiana—South Bend—Fiction. 4. Zahm, John Augustine, 1851–1921—Influence—Fiction. 5. University of Notre Dame—Fiction. 6. Gold mines and mining—Fiction. 7. South Bend (Ind.)—Fiction. 8. College teachers—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.A31166I644 2005
813'.54—dc22
2005047015
First Edition: October 2005
eISBN 9781466841956
First eBook edition: March 2013