“Marco didn’t kill Greg Packer,” Phil Keegan told his subordinates, but he shuffled papers on his desk when he said it.
In the unused confession, Frank had reconstructed the murder: climbing into the apartment over the Flanagan garage by the ladder he remembered from years ago, carrying the wrench in his gloved hand. A startled Greg Packer had made a bolt for the stairway and been felled before he reached the door. Frank tossed the wrench down the stairs and then spent twenty minutes putting the apartment into apple-pie order for reasons he couldn’t explain—he could not have left any prints of his own—and then exited as he had entered. Motive? He and Greg had loaded a vagrant who had been spending his nights sleeping in the yard of Flanagan Concrete into one of the mixing trucks after putting Wally Flanagan’s wedding ring on his hand. The mixer had done its work, and there had been little left to identify. The ring had sufficed. But the gruesome deed had not brought the job security Frank had wanted.
The wedding service for Luke Flanagan and Maud Lynn was a subdued affair, but it brought out the denizens of the senior center in force. Wally and Melissa were on the altar with the mature couple, and their complete reconciliation seemed in prospect. Luke was as interested in the fate of the company he had founded as in the new life he was embarking upon.
“Sell,” Wally suggested.
“To whom? The Pianones?”
“I doubt they’d want it now.”
Wally was right about that. Amos Carbury offered to work with a Realtor while Luke and Maud were on their honeymoon, but Luke said he had another idea.
“Maud and I will live in the house,” Luke announced. “I won’t mind being boss again.”
“Neither will I,” said Maud.
The younger couple seemed to have as little interest in the house as Wally had in Flanagan Concrete. Earl Hospers promised to be the solution to that. Luke would resume the reins temporarily while he trained Earl to take over. Edna was ecstatic.
Marie Murkin was restrained at this news. “I suppose Edna will want to quit,” she sighed.
“Oh, there’s no danger of that, Marie,” Father Dowling said. He turned to his visitor. “Would you like tea, Amos?”
“Is the pope German?”
“Marie.”
Off to the kitchen Marie went.
“Phil Keegan and his department think the Pianones have gotten away with murder again, Amos.”
“Perhaps with desecration of the body of that poor vagrant. The murderer of Greg Packer has been tried and convicted.”
“Poor fellow.”
“He seemed almost eager to be punished.”
Punishment is always the hoped-for complement of crime, however seldom the two are combined. Rarer still is the criminal who admits his guilt. Wally Flanagan had returned repentant and was being welcomed back into the bosom of his family, the prodigal son returned, the mate of the putative widow forgiven, yet much of what had happened was the result of his perfidy. Sylvia and Sandra had gone off to California, taking Boleslaw Bochenski with them, an odd trio for that land of broken dreams.
Marie called them to the dining room, where the ritual of tea could be more fittingly performed.
Later, alone in his study, Father Dowling lit a pipe and thought long thoughts. Recent events had brought a renewed sense of the mystery of life. After a time, he took Dante from the shelf and found consolation in those measured cantos. In la sua voluntade è nostra pace: In his will is our peace.
Father Dowling Mystery Series
The Prudence of the Flesh
Blood Ties
Requiem for a Realtor
Last Things
Prodigal Father
Triple Pursuit
Grave Undertakings
The Tears of Things
A Cardinal Offense
Seed of Doubt
Desert Sinner
Judas Priest
Four on the Floor
Abracadaver
The Basket Case
Rest in Pieces
Getting a Way with Murder
The Grass Widow
A Loss of Patients
Thicker Than Water
Lying Three
The Seventh Station
Her Death of Cold
Bishop as Pawn
Mysteries Set at the University of Notre Dame
The Letter Killeth
Irish Gilt
Green Thumb
Irish Coffee
Celt and Pepper
Emerald Aisle
Book of Kills
Irish Tenure
Lack of the Irish
On the Rockne
Andrew Broom Mystery Series
Heirs and Parents
Law and Ardor
Mom and Dead
Savings and Loam
Body and Soil
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE WIDOW’S MATE. Copyright © 2007 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.
The widow’s mate / Ralph McInerny.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36455-7
ISBN-10: 0-312-36455-5
1. Dowling, Father (Fictitious character)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.A31166W53 2007
813'.54—dc22
2007014287
First Edition: August 2007
eISBN 9781466838154
First eBook edition: January 2013