The Prudence of the Flesh Read online

  Gloria listened patiently while Maddie developed her theory: Her complaints about the library computers were finally getting some results. Gloria thought otherwise. Ned must have brought charges against Fred, and they were being acted on posthumously. How weird.

  Then that night on the news, she heard that Frederick Pasquali, head librarian of the Benjamin Harrison branch of the Fox River library, was taken in for questioning in the murder of Ned Bunting, a local writer.

  8

  When he was alone with Pasquali and had him seated at a table, Tuttle took off his hat, sat across from him, then put his hat on again. “Give me a dollar.”

  “What?”

  “As a retainer. Then you’re officially my client.”

  Pasquali got out his wallet and threw a dollar bill on the table.

  Tuttle scooped it up and transferred it to his hat with a practiced gesture. “Who recommended me?”

  “Gloria Daley mentioned your name. It just popped into my head when the police were grilling me.”

  “A fine woman. Now tell me what this is all about.”

  Tuttle was used to representing clients whose guilt was certain, but in the case of Pasquali he had assumed he had a respectable citizen requiring his services. Head librarian of the Benjamin Harrison branch. How much more respectable than that could you get? He began taking notes as Pasquali spoke, but had him start over because his ballpoint pen seemed to be writing in invisible ink. He shook it, made a few squiggles, and got it flowing. The first item was that Fred Pasquali had made the 911 call reporting the body of Ned Bunting in the river.

  “That’s no crime.”

  “Crime! It was the act of a dutiful citizen.”

  Tuttle liked that. “So you found the body.”

  “Yes. I got out and walked down by the river and there it was.”

  “You called and left the area.”

  “Is that a crime?”

  “Not that I know of. You were alone?”

  “No, I was with someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  Tuttle wiggled his nose and tapped it with his ballpoint. “That parking area is called lovers’ lane.”

  “I know that.”

  “And you were with someone.”

  “It was in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “Time?”

  “Three, a little after.”

  Tuttle made a note of it. “And this other person knows you made the call to 911?”

  “Of course.”

  “Better tell me his name.”

  “His name! It was a woman.”

  “Gloria Daley?”

  Pasquali lurched at the sound of the name. Tuttle felt that he had just pulled a Perry Mason. His elation was brief. He knew what Hamilton Burger would now spring on the jury. Tuttle had heard of Pasquali’s laying out of Ned Bunting. Gloria had not been shy about telling the story of the two men vying for her affections.

  “Jujitsu?” Tuttle had asked her, amused by the scene she described.

  “I don’t know what it’s called, but you know what a big man Ned is. He made a threatening move and Fred just took his hand, flipped him, and laid him on the lawn.”

  Fred Pasquali could not keep secret that it was Gloria Daley he had been with and that he had been seen decking his rival with a deft and practiced movement of the martial arts. Things were looking bad for Pasquali—and good for Tuttle. A client in this kind of doodoo would run up quite a bill before he was tried and convicted and sent off to Joliet.

  “How did you know it was Gloria?”

  Tuttle tapped his head with the ballpoint. He was beginning to look tattooed. “When we go back to Horvath, let me do the talking. Is there anything else I should know?”

  “Like what?”

  “Did you kill Ned Bunting?”

  “I never killed anyone in my life!”

  “You did rough him up, though, didn’t you?”

  Pasquali’s expression made it clear that he realized it was Gloria who had told the story. He waved his hand. “That doesn’t matter. Gloria was with me Wednesday afternoon. She knows what happened, or didn’t happen, then.”

  “She’ll make a good witness,” Tuttle said ambiguously.

  When they went at it in Cy Horvath’s office, it became clear that the police knew what Pasquali had done to Ned Bunting in front of Gloria Daley’s house. Agnes Lamb had called it in from the Benjamin Harrison branch, where she had heard it from Maddie.

  Then the plastic sheet was brought in. It seemed similar to those Agnes had seen at the library, those Gloria had wrapped her paintings in when she brought them for hanging. The plastic threatened to play a similar role here. A search warrant had been obtained and a police tow truck had been sent to bring in Pasquali’s automobile. Tuttle attempted to smile away the damning items that had been mentioned.

  “We have a witness, Horvath.”

  “His companion in lovers’ lane?”

  Pasquali began to say something, but Tuttle shut him off. “Her name is Gloria Daley. I suggest you talk with her and then let my client go.”

  Instead Cy had a discussion with the prosecutor, Jacuzzi. It was a slack period, and the prosecutor loved to be in court. Besides that, he thought they had sufficient reason for an arraignment.

  “Aren’t you going to talk to Gloria Daley first?” Tuttle asked.

  “We already have.”

  Pasquali groaned.

  So they went before a magistrate—Benny Jackson, deaf as a post—who officially decided to hold Frederick Pasquali under suspicion of having brought about the death of Ned Bunting.

  “Will you set bail, Your Honor?”

  “For a man accused of homicide?”

  “He’s not going anywhere. He wants to defend his good name. Mr. Pasquali is a librarian.”

  “He sounds like some sort of gymnast to me.”

  Still, bail was set, and Tuttle ushered his client out to his car. “Where do you want to go?”

  “I’d like to just disappear.”

  “That would be expensive.”

  Pasquali asked Tuttle to drive him to the library, but on the way he changed his mind. “I’d better go home.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Wait, I have a better idea. Take me to Gloria.”

  9

  For Phil Keegan, caught up now in the Ned Bunting murder, the results of the tests run on the materials that had been turned over to Dr. Pippen did not loom as large as they might have, but for Father Dowling this was extraordinary news indeed, and he arranged a meeting with Amos Cadbury to discuss the matter. Amos was as struck by the importance of those results as Father Dowling had been.

  “You mean the results establish that the son of Madeline Murphy is also Gregory Barrett’s son?”

  “So I’m told.”

  “Does Barrett know?”

  “I asked him to meet us here.”

  Amos winced. “I don’t relish the prospect of telling him this.”

  “But how could it come as a surprise to him?”

  Amos thought about that, then nodded slowly. “I see what you mean.”

  It was this that had assailed Roger Dowling ever since hearing from Phil Keegan that the DNA tests established a positive relationship between Gregory Barrett and Marvin Murphy. It was agreed that such testing put the question beyond doubt. Roger himself had made that point to Gregory Barrett, and now he found himself recalling that occasion, seeking in it any hint that Gregory had seen the testing as the definitive solution to the difficulty he had been put in by Madeline Murphy’s accusations. He could recall no suggestion in Barrett’s reaction that he feared such a test. Nor, for that matter, had he shown relief at the prospect of being vindicated by it. Had he known what the results would be? What would he say when confronted by them?

  Gregory Barrett had arrived at Amos’s office and been ushered in. There was anything but apprehension in his manner. “Have you heard?” he asked cheerfully.
>
  Amos looked at Father Dowling. “Heard?”

  “The woman has retracted her charges.” He smiled. “God is good. Roger, I want you to say a Mass of thanksgiving for me. I won’t pretend that this hasn’t been one of the greatest trials of my life.”

  “Retracted the charges!” Amos was not given to outbursts, but his was an angry voice. In the light of the results of those tests, Roger could understand the patrician lawyer’s reaction to Barrett’s insouciance.

  “I knew that my profession of innocence did not persuade you,” Barrett said almost sadly to Cadbury. “I suppose I don’t really blame you. It is the nature of such charges, particularly in the present atmosphere—”

  Roger Dowling interrupted him. “Gregory, DNA tests have been run. The results show that you are the boy’s father.”

  “That’s impossible.” He did not even raise his voice. He listened to Roger’s account of what he had heard from Phil Keegan, shaking his head. “But where would they have gotten the materials to run such a test? They never asked me for anything. I’m afraid they’ve been duped.”

  Whatever reaction Roger Dowling had expected, it had not been this.

  “Well?” Barrett asked. Now he was angry.

  “Amos,” Roger said, “may I use your phone?”

  Within five minutes, he had arranged for Cy Horvath and Dr. Pippen to come to Amos Cadbury’s office. As the three men waited, the atmosphere in Amos’s office was tense. No one broke the silence but Gregory Barrett, once, when he said, “Do you believe this, Roger?”

  “Greg, I am only reporting what I was told. When Lieutenant Horvath and Dr. Pippen arrive, you will confront the sources of that information.”

  The situation of Amos’s office made the wait as short as possible—barely fifteen minutes, but it was an extremely long and trying quarter of an hour. The three men rose when Amos’s secretary announced Dr. Pippen and Cy Horvath. The assistant coroner gave her hand to Amos, saying how delighted she was to meet him at last.

  On any other occasion, Amos might have basked in her graciousness. “You have been asked here for a very particular reason, my dear. You know Father Dowling, I believe. This gentleman is Gregory Barrett. He has been under accusation—”

  She nodded. “I know.” Her eyes skimmed over Gregory and rested on Father Dowling.

  “You know everyone, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes.”

  “Gregory Barrett has just learned of the results of the DNA tests that were run. I wonder if you would describe them for us.”

  “Oh, I sent the materials out to a lab,” Dr. Pippen said. Her head moved gracefully as she spoke, and her ponytail responded.

  “What materials?” Barrett demanded.

  “They were brought to me by Tuttle,” Cy said.

  “Tuttle! Good Lord. And where, pray, did he get them?”

  “He said from your son, Thomas.”

  Barrett had spoken like one outraged, but at Cy’s answer he lifted from his chair. “And you believed him?”

  Suddenly it was Cy Horvath who was in the dock. His expression had remained unchanged since he came into Amos’s office, and it did not alter under Barrett’s questioning, but it was clear to Roger that Cy was thinking.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “I believed him. I turned the materials over to Dr. Pippen—”

  “But this is preposterous. Why in the name of heaven would my son . . .” He turned to Roger. “Whatever this man Tuttle gave to Lieutenant Horvath, whatever Dr. Pippen sent out for testing, is what must be questioned here.”

  “You’re right,” Cy said.

  “Of course I’m right. Has this story been made known publicly?”

  “Only those of us in this room know the results,” Cy assured him.

  At the close of the meeting, Gregory Barrett had gained the respect of anyone who hitherto might have doubted him. Roger was particularly relieved—and could sense the discomfiture of Cy Horvath. The idea of simply accepting those materials on Tuttle’s say-so was indeed preposterous to anyone who knew Tuttle. Amos was clearly swayed when he found that Tuttle was at the bottom of this.

  “That man . . .” he began, but did not go on.

  Cy was eager to get onto the matter, but before he went, Barrett demanded, unnecessarily, that these alleged tests must be kept completely confidential. Cy accepted the criticism stoically. Before leaving, Dr. Pippen again took Amos’s hand. He was now in a better mood to clasp it in both of his and thank her for coming on what must seem a fool’s errand.

  “Tuttle.” The dean of the Fox River bar sighed, and shook his head.

  10

  Tuttle was not in the courthouse; he was not at the Great Wall; Peanuts was enjoying solitude and slumber in the pressroom. There was only one place left: Tuttle’s office.

  “I’ll come with you,” Agnes said.

  “No. This is my goof, and I will correct it.”

  “If it’s a goof.”

  Cy turned to her. “You think the son could have pulled some kind of trick?”

  “I don’t know him. He had to have something from the other kid, Marvin Murphy. How did he get it?”

  “It was a toothbrush.”

  “Why don’t I see what I can find out about that?”

  Cy turned the car over to Agnes, since Tuttle’s office was close enough to walk to. Besides, he needed to blow off steam. For a moment, Agnes had seemed to come up with a way out of this: Barrett’s son plays a trick. Neither he nor Agnes knew the Barrett boy, but Cy knew Tuttle. Right now, he felt like taking the brim of that tweed hat and pulling it down to Tuttle’s knees.

  “Lieutenant Horvath!” Hazel cried when he arrived at her office. She also punched her phone, thus giving Tuttle two warnings.

  Cy turned the knob of Tuttle’s office and pushed. Nothing. “Unlock the door, Tuttle.”

  Half a minute later, the door opened. Tuttle was studying its hinges when Cy went in. “Must have stuck. Probably never been oiled.”

  Cy looked around the office. It looked like a rat’s nest. There were a couple of bookshelves, but all the books were tipped at an angle or lay flat, some still open. Atop them was a replica of the Statue of Liberty, Styrofoam boxes from the Great Wall, a diploma attesting to Isaac Tuttle’s graduation from law school, and a series of framed photographs, mostly of a man who bore a resemblance to Tuttle.

  “The paternal parent,” Tuttle said over Cy’s shoulder.

  “I thought it was your father.” Cy removed newspapers and other debris from a chair and sat. “We got a positive result from the DNA test.”

  “That ought to change her mind.”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “Man that is born of woman . . .” Tuttle began, but let it go. He didn’t know the ending anyway.

  “You think Madeline Murphy will change her mind and accuse him again?”

  “If she takes a good lawyer’s advice.”

  “How many sides of the street are you working, Tuttle? Tell me about the envelopes you dumped on my desk.”

  Tuttle was in his chair now, one arm of which looked broken. He jiggled with it as he sat. “They were dumped on this very desk, Horvath. By young Barrett.”

  “He just dropped by and handed them over to you.”

  “His father had been here before him, you know. Several weeks ago. I suppose he heard me discussed at home.”

  “And he still came?”

  “Ho ho.”

  “Gregory Barrett questions the whole thing. We had a session at Amos Cadbury’s office. I was in the embarrassing position of having to admit that I had been trusting you in the matter. Why would his son bring you materials that turn out to incriminate his father?”

  “Because he thought they would have the opposite effect. He is a splendid young man, Cy. Devoted to his father.” Tuttle’s eye traveled to the photographs on the wall. “I understand he will be going to Notre Dame in the fall.”

  “Didn’t they used to have a football team?”

&
nbsp; “They’ll be back. They’ll be back.”

  “How did this splendid young man explain how he had got hold of those materials?”

  “What’s the problem? The house would be full of things he might have chosen.”

  “His father’s things?”

  “Yes. There was a Band-Aid, for example, rescued from a wastebasket in his parents’ bathroom. Gregory Barrett had cut his finger.”

  “And what did he have from Madeline’s son, Marvin?”

  “Just a toothbrush.”

  “Did he say how he got it?”

  Tuttle thought about it. He was beginning to see the problem. “No.”

  “What do you suppose he would have said if you asked him where he got it?”

  “Good question.”

  “I should have asked it before.”

  “As should I, Cy. Do you think we’ve been had?”

  “You know the kid, I don’t.”

  Tuttle adjusted his tweed hat. “I will find out.”

  “Don’t bother. Agnes Lamb is on it.”

  Tuttle left his hat at the angle it was. “Much better. How will this affect the case against my client, I wonder.”

  “Pasquali? You’re the lawyer. It says so on that diploma.”

  “I’ll get him off.”

  “Sure you will.”

  Hazel simpered at him when he emerged from the inner office. “Honestly, this place is getting as busy as Grand Central Station.”

  “I’ve never been there,” Cy said, and kept on going.

  He might have told Tuttle the results of the examination of Pasquali’s car. The plastic sheet that had been found at the scene had definite signs of having held the body of Ned Bunting, but there was nothing in Pasquali’s car to tie the plastic to it. His trunk was jammed full: golf clubs, two pairs of golf shoes, jogging shoes, and a very sweaty sweat suit. There wasn’t room there for the plastic, let alone a body. Nor was there anything inside the car to indicate that Pasquali and his girlfriend had hauled the dead body of Ned Bunting to the river and dumped it in.

  11

  Agnes Lamb was in an unmarked car. After parking, she sat for a while looking at the house in which the woman who had caused such a stir lived with her son. She would be at the library, no doubt. During their conversation on the day Pasquali was taken in for questioning, Agnes had been told about the son, Marvin. He sounded like someone only a mother could love, a drone who lazed about the house all day. Well, let’s find out.